Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler Part 19

After a while the friends of this young man buried him. The doctors gave his sickness a respectable name, and reported that he had died of such a disease as decent people may die of, but his friends, with heart-breaking sorrow, knew they were burying a man who had died of a drunken debauch.

I have spoken freely of the evils wrought by our border troubles; but now we had to realize that, taking all the men murdered in our early feuds, and comparing them with the men murdered by strong drink in the city of Atchison, counting man for man, there have been more men murdered by strong drink than by all our border troubles. There have been more women that have had their hearts broken, more children turned into the streets, more fortunes squandered, in the single city of Atchison than in all the Kansas war. But there is another point of comparison. The men who wrestled with each other in that early conflict verily thought they were right. They may have been mistaken, but they thought they were in the right; they therefore maintained their own self-respect. But those who have died in this battle of the bottles and the beer gla.s.ses have lost everything--self-respect, reputation, honor, everything; and they went to the dogs and their souls went to perdition.

I have been a somewhat voluminous writer on many subjects now for forty years, but all this would scarce exceed in amount what I have written in Kansas newspapers, during a series of years, on the single subject of temperance. Besides, I spent much time in lecturing, for the welfare of the church and of the nation was at stake; and yet, what was done by myself was only a drop in the bucket compared with what went to make up, year after year, a great agitation. At length the people became so aroused that the lawmakers at Topeka came to understand that something must be done in the way of temperance legislation; and they gave us a local option law. But crafty politicians obtained that cities of the first and second cla.s.s should be exempted. This was nothing but mockery.

The cities were the very places where the law was most needed, for men from the country went into the city and there they encountered their old enemy, the saloon. And so we kept up the agitation, and demanded that the saloon should be prohibited throughout the State. At length the pressure became so great that the politicians understood a second time that something must be yielded to the popular demand, and they tried another dodge. They said: "We will give you the privilege to vote an amendment to the const.i.tution incorporating prohibition into the const.i.tution of the State." This would at least put off the evil day for two years, for it would take two years before such an amendment could go into operation. But here again was seen the usual treachery. The amendment to be voted on read as follows: "The manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors shall be forever prohibited in this State, except for medical, scientific and mechanical purposes." This was a stumbling-block laid in the way of feeble-minded Christians, for was not this an attack on their Christian liberty to use intoxicating wine at the Lord's table, and would not this be awful? Moreover, it forbade a farmer to manufacture _hard_ cider from his own orchard, and would not this be a _hard_ and tyrannical law? This was vexatious, for we were fighting the saloon, and were not seeking to palter with such frivolous and intermeddling legislation. Nevertheless, in spite of these crafty attempts to excite popular odium against the amendment, it was adopted by a majority of more than eight thousand, and it became the duty of the next Legislature to enact a law enforcing the amendment. Then some of us waited on these "conscript fathers" at Topeka, and entreated them, and supplicated them, and almost got down on our knees to them, beseeching- them to use a little courage and common sense. The House of Representatives was largely made up of farmers and men from the country, and was overwhelmingly in favor of an honest temperance law; but the Senate was largely made up of lawyers and men from the city, and was full of treachery and open and secret enmity. And so the Senate took the lead in making the law, and got up a bill that they purposely made as full of imperfections as a sieve is full of holes, and sent it down to the lower house. It was manifestly the duty of the House of Representatives to amend the bill, but now a great scare was got up. The cry was raised: "There is treachery! treachery! You must adopt this Senate bill without amending it, to the extent of changing the dot of an _i_ or the crossing of a _t_; for if it goes back to the Senate it will certainly be killed." _And yet the Senate had adopted it by an almost four-fifths majority!_

The fact was, that these Senators, with all their bl.u.s.ter and bravado, were trembling in their boots, and dared not face their const.i.tuents at home while voting against any temperance law, however stringent, and this gave the friends of the law good warrant to make just such a law as was needed. And so the bill became a law; and then there followed such a farce in the courts as might make us lose faith in our Christian civilization and in our civilized jurisprudence. And it came to be understood that a coach-and-four could be driven through the loopholes that had been left in the law, and saloonkeepers began to remark, "Prohibition don't prohibit." But from this evil we had what must be regarded a providential deliverance. A judge was found who made up in his own integrity and courage whatever was imperfect in the provisions of the law, and his good example was followed throughout the State.

John Martin, a lawyer, resident in Topeka, is a solid, sensible and honest man. His brethren of the Democratic persuasion wanted to make him a candidate for Governor, but because they would not insert in their platform a plank affirming that the law--because it was the law--ought to be enforced, he declined to accept the nomination, and Geo. W. Glick was nominated and elected. Then Mr. Glick, to reciprocate this courtesy, appointed Martin to a vacant judgeship in the Topeka judicial district; and a whisky case came before Judge Martin. The princ.i.p.al witness undertook to play the usual dodge of perjury and equivocation, but Judge Martin stopped the witness and said: "Sir, you are to tell whether the liquor you bought was whisky."

The witness again began to repeat his story of equivocation: "Well, I called for _cold tea_, and I suppose I got what I called for."

"Stop!" said the Judge in a voice of thunder. "This witness is lying!

Sheriff, take the witness and lock him up in jail."

The Sheriff had got as far as the door when the witness called out: "Judge, are you going to lock me up?"

"Yes, and I will keep you there till you rot unless you tell the truth."

"Well, I will tell."

The witness was placed again in the witness box. "Now," said the Judge, "was it whisky you bought of this saloonkeeper?"

"_Yes, it was whisky_."

The example of Judge Martin was imitated by all the courts, and incredible sums of money have been collected as fines from the saloonkeepers, who, with the brewers, fought the battle to the bitter end, and appealed their cases to the Supreme Court of the United States. But it has ended in their absolute defeat, and even these gentlemen do now admit that prohibition does prohibit--in Kansas.

Since that time the law has been greatly amended, and the saloons have been driven out of the State.

One evil yet remains. Just across the Missouri River from Atchison is East Atchison, and here whisky and beer are as free as water. Of course, this is a great calamity to us, but we wait in expectation and hope that prohibition will yet be achieved in Missouri.

John A. Brooks lives in Missouri; we live in Kansas. This man was once a rebel; we were loyal men. Yet we pray the Father of Mercies to spare the life of this man, to prosper him and keep him, until he shall achieve this great good, not only to Missouri, but to ourselves.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

This reformation in the rapidity of its growth is without parallel in the history of Protestant parties. Those acquainted with its history need not be told that a large number of its members were at first drawn from the Baptists. It is indeed a matter of wonder that a Presbyterian minister, but a short time identified with the Baptists, should exert such an influence over them as to induce a great mult.i.tude _of_ churches and church members to resolve that when he was driven out of the Baptist Church they also would share his fortune, and accept loss of reputation and exclusion from their former brotherhood for the sake of the principles they had learned from him.

Now, when we reflect that this embraced not only young men, but old men--men already arrived at that period of life at which it is most difficult to change our habits of thinking and acting, it becomes a question of profoundest interest; were these men able to make a change so radical as to plant themselves completely on reformation principles, and to abandon everything in their old Baptist order incompatible therewith?

When we remember that this movement embraced gray-haired Baptist ministers, who all their lifetime had been accustomed to lead and not to follow, we curiously inquire, Did they do this, or did they locate themselves on a sort of half-way ground which was a compromise between reformation principles and old Baptistism?

Let us briefly notice wherein they changed, and wherein they did not change.

1. They laid aside the name Baptist and took the name Christian.

2. They built upon the Bible alone, instead of the Philadelphia Confession of faith.

3. They taught that the church began at Pentecost, rather than with the preaching of John the Baptist.

4. They baptized men into a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus, that he is the Messiah, rather than into a Christian experience, made up of voices in the air, marvelous and strange sights, trances and rapturous feelings.

5. They taught that in conversion and sanctification, the Holy Spirit operates through the truth.

Thus far the change was radical, but here a large minority paused and brought with them into the reformation their old Baptist Church usages. The Baptists in the Great West and South are known as "Missionary Baptists," and "Old Baptists," or "Hardsh.e.l.l Baptists."

Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice, who had been sent to Burmah by a Congregational Missionary Society, made known to the Baptists that they themselves had become Baptists, and had been repudiated by their own society, and asked for help. The Missionary Baptists are by far the most enterprising in all that pertains to the spread of Christianity. They are the most numerous, most wealthy, best educated, and most liberal. In translating the Bible into all languages, in carrying it into all lands, and in sending the gospel to all nations, they have made some amends for that unrelenting bitterness which they have shown toward our brethren from the first day till now. We shall glance at what has. .h.i.therto been their order by making certain extracts from the _Central Baptist_, published in the year 1870. The reader must bear in mind that we are writing of those old days:

In Arkansas there are but four Missionary Baptist Churches that sustain a regular pastor, or sustain preaching more than once a month. In North Alabama, two; in the whole of Alabama, twelve; in Missouri, twenty-seven. Missouri has six hundred white churches, with a membership of fifty thousand, which have preaching once a month. Once a month preaching by secularized ministry! Is it any wonder that the cause does not go forward faster? Not more than two dozen out of seven hundred churches in Missouri have service every Sunday.

Let us pause a moment over this picture of Southern and Western Baptist Churches, drawn by themselves. In Arkansas but four churches had at this time preaching every Lord's day; in Alabama, twelve, and in Missouri twenty-four out of seven hundred! Well may the writer ask, "Is it any wonder that the cause does not go forward faster?"

But if this was the order of the Missionary Baptists in the year 1870, what must have been the order of the Old Baptists seventy years before, when "Racc.o.o.n" John Smith was groping his way out of darkness into the light of the gospel, all unconscious of his utter blindness, that the reading of the Scriptures would conduce, either directly or indirectly, to his regeneration or sanctification.

The people known as "Hardsh.e.l.l" Baptists do not wish to be called by that name. They wish to be known as Old Baptists, or United Baptists, for they allege that they are the lineal descendants of the United Baptists, and that the Missionary Baptists have apostatized, and gone away after strange G.o.ds. The Old Baptists had long been declaiming against college-bred preachers and a hireling ministry. They had certain pet theories concerning man's inability and G.o.d's sovereignty concerning a certain special, supernatural, immediate and efficacious work of grace on the heart of the sinners. They said, "If G.o.d wants a missionary, he can send him, and maintain him, too. He needs no human help in the conversion of sinners, whether at home or abroad. We can find no Scripture for Sunday-schools, Bible cla.s.ses, prayer-meetings, weekly meetings, hireling preachers, missionaries or missionary societies." So they kept to their monthly meetings and monthly preaching.

They have no schools of learning, few educated men, no well-educated men, no missionaries, no contributions for missionary purposes, no weekly meetings, no weekly preaching, no weekly breaking of the loaf, no Sunday-schools, no Bible cla.s.ses, no prayer-meetings. But they have monthly preaching, by a man who is reputed a pastor over four churches, and who, in the nature of things, can not reside in three of the four churches over which he professes to preside. He obtains but meager pecuniary reward for his preaching. He therefore provides for his own sustenance and that of his family by the labor of his own hands. For this reason he must needs go to his appointments on Sat.u.r.day, and return on Monday morning, and is therefore comparatively a stranger to the greater part of his four several flocks. He can not know their daily life. A few preachers among the old Baptists preeminently G.o.dly, self-sacrificing, and devoted to the Lord's cause, have left their families to suffer poverty and want, and have spent their lives in looking after the stray lambs of the flock; but this is not the general rule. This Baptist bishop has no authority whatever in any matter of discipline, his function being that of a moderator in a Sat.u.r.day business monthly meeting. The sitting in judgment on the alleged acts of disorderly members belongs to the whole church, men and women, boys and girls.

We are now prepared to take the measure of the means of spiritual culture enjoyed by this people. It is just one sermon a month; or, if they are peculiarly favored, it is three sermons a month. The children are left at home. They run wild like so many young apes, and wander along the streams or through the forests; or, if they are brought by their parents to the meeting, there is nothing especially for them.

It will be well for us to ponder well the inevitable consumption and slow decay that is surely wearing out these Old Baptist churches. Like the house of Saul, they are growing weaker and weaker. What a contrast between their condition now and seventy years ago. Then the United Baptists were the most powerful religious body in the great West. Then Jacob Creath and Jeremiah Vardeman could, if they had been so disposed, have elected the Governor of Kentucky. Then the Baptists were strong in the affections of the people, and strong in the memory of those men who had, through incredible toil, obloquy, poverty and loss of goods, planted the Baptist cause in the American wilderness.

Alexander Campbell, with his eminent gifts of eloquence and learning, was welcomed among the Baptists almost as an angel from heaven. But his well-meant efforts to work a reformation in the Baptist churches were despised, and he was thrust out as a heathen man and publican.

What treasures untold reside in the Lord's house, the Lord's day, the Lord's book, and the ordinances of the Lord? It is the glory of Christianity. Now let the members of a Christian Church fail to meet at the Lord's house for Christian worship on the Lord's day, and to what snares and temptations do they not subject themselves and their children? What temptations to idleness and to wasting the Lord's day in visiting and gossiping, or in drowsy lethargy!

The sanctification of the Lord's day by meeting in honor of the resurrection of the Saviour, and especially with a reference to the celebration of the Lord's supper, is essential to the edification, spirituality, holiness, usefulness and happiness of the Christian community. It is not designed to throw into the shade any other duties of the Christian Church while contending for those above stated; but because no society save the Disciples of Christ so regard, observe and celebrate the Lord's day. We endeavor to arrest the attention of our fellow professors to the great design of it and of the coming together of the members of Christ's family on that day. When a.s.sembled for this chief purpose, the reading of the Scriptures, teaching, exhortation, prayer, praise, contributions for the poor, and discipline when called for, are all in order and necessary to the growth of the Christian Church in all the graces of the Spirit, and in all the fruits of holiness.--ALEX. CAMPBELL, in _Millennial Harbinger,_ Vol. I., p. 534, New Series.

And what an audacious wrong and unutterable blunder would it be for G.o.d's chosen people to adopt an order that should defraud themselves, their children, their neighbors and their neighbor's children of such a glorious privilege.

If we could imagine two communities, one of which should, with their children and their children's children, diligently devote the Lord's day to purposes of moral, religious and intellectual improvement, while the other community should waste the day in idle and frivolous dissipation, what unmeasured progress would ultimately be made by one beyond that made by the other. And to which of these two cla.s.ses will that favored people belong to whom will be awarded the high privilege of introducing among jarring sects and parties the true millennial church?

And do not these considerations go far to explain the contrast that is everywhere seen to exist between Protestant and Catholic countries?

Among Protestants the day is a day to be sanctified to purposes of religious worship, among Catholics it is a holiday.

The peculiarity of our position creates an invincible necessity that we shall make the largest possible provision for the moral, intellectual and religious training and development of our people.

This provision is largely found in keeping the ordinances of the Lord's house and the Lord's day. We have made a vow, and that vow is recorded in heaven, that we will meet together every first day of the week to break bread. To do otherwise--to show a good-natured imbecility of purpose--to drift helplessly along in the usages of the Old Baptists, conscious in our own hearts that this is not the ancient order of things, and having sternly demanded conformity to the apostolic order, at whatever sacrifice of peace, now to suffer our own brethren to travel on in the old ruts, rather than hazard the pain and trouble that will be the price of reform, would be a folly so inexcusable, a shame so unutterable, that the very stones might well cry out against us.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

Professor William H. Whitsitt, of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, at Louisville, Ky., has written a book that has for its leading feature to make it appear that the Disciples are an "offshoot from the Sandemanians."

The Sandemanians, like the Baptists, had both faults and virtues. They were one of the earliest sects of the Scotch Presbyterians to protest against a union of Church and State; they practiced a weekly breaking of the loaf; held to a plurality of elders in every church, and were exceptionally helpful to the poor; and surely, even Dr. Whitsitt will not call these d.a.m.nable heresies. But they were also rigid separatists. They were Calvinists of the straitest sect, and made all their opinions a bond of union. In this they were like the Baptists, but essentially dissimilar to the Disciples. They exalted feet washing and the holy kiss into church ordinances, and excluded all who did not agree with them in these opinions, just as the Baptists exclude from the Lord's table all who are not of "our faith and order," though they admit that those persons thus excluded are regenerated, accepted of the Lord, and enjoy the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Differing from the Sandemanians in the most essential element of our plea, we hold a very remote relationship to them--that of fortieth cousin, perhaps.

The Disciples are just as evidently an offshoot from the Baptists, as children are an offshoot from the parental stock.

Twenty years after the writer had begun his work in Kansas, he was able to count among fifty churches which had been organized within his knowledge, twenty-five that were dead; and there were six meeting-houses that were left unoccupied or sold for debt. And the church members would say to me: "We can neither preach, nor pray, nor read the Scriptures, nor break the loaf to edification, and we are too poor to hire a preacher. What shall we do?" They had no training, save that training they had obtained in the old Baptist churches, or one similar in our own, and now that they were scattered over the great West, and were poor in this world's goods, they were indeed in a pitiably helpless condition.