Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler Part 24

The earnestness and appropriateness of his prayers were most noticeable on several funeral occasions, and numbers spoke of being affected by them, particularly at Bro. Locker's funeral.

He preached his last sermon at North Cedar, a week and a half before his accident. The following Sat.u.r.day, September 15, he attended Bro.

Locker's funeral. The next day he attended Bro. Parker's meeting at Pleasant Grove, where he presided at the Lord's table.

He had several appointments ahead at the time he was hurt. One of these was to preach the funeral of his old friend, Caleb May, who had died in Florida, August 27. His children in Florida had sent a request to his son, E. E. May, of Farmington, that father should preach a memorial sermon at Pardee.

Father had not done any heavy work for two years, but he still did much light work, and choring, although his health was gradually failing, milking eight or ten cows a day, and driving a young team from ten to twenty miles to his appointments, almost every Sunday, seldom stopping for bad weather.

It was reported that he was thrown from a colt at the time he was hurt. My brothers wish that report corrected. They think he never was thrown from a horse in his life. They had seen him break many colts, and had never seen him thrown. He had been using the most spirited colt on the place for his riding horse all summer; but that day, September 19, it was in a distant pasture, and finding my brother Charley's colt in the stable, he thought he would ride it to the post-office. It would not stand for him to mount, and he put the halter around a post, holding the end in his hand. As he mounted the saddle the colt jerked both halter and bridle from his hand and trotted off. Unable to reach the bridle he hastily dismounted. As he swung his right foot around to the ground the colt kicked it, crushing the ankle joint. He quietly called mother; and Brother May, who happened to be pa.s.sing, helped him into the house, and sent for a surgeon.

We feared no worse result at the first than a crippled ankle. He said to Bro. White, who visited him a _few_ days after he was hurt, "Oh, I will get up all right; a Butler never was conquered, you know. My only concern is that I shall not become a permanent cripple."

The first week he was hopeful, though suffering much pain. The second week he was delirious, with high fever. Then he was prostrated with a severe nervous chill--his already over-wrought nervous system was exhausted by pain. From that time he lay in an unconscious stupor the greater part of the time. He pa.s.sed quietly away at half-past three A.

M., October 19, 1888, at the age of seventy-two.

His funeral took place the following day in the church at Pardee. The services were conducted by Elders John Boggs, of Clyde, and J. B.

McCleery, of Fort Leavenworth. The house was full, notwithstanding it was a stormy day, raining continuously from morning until night. Word had been sent to all the churches in this and adjacent counties, and hundreds who were preparing to attend the funeral were disappointed by the inclement weather.

CHAPTER XL.

PRO-SLAVERY HINDRANCES.

BY ELDER JOHN BOGGS.

Although our dear departed brother, Elder Pardee Butler, was never cla.s.sed with the Garrisonian Abolitionists, he began his ministerial life when the demands of the South were being felt in all the North, both in church and State. If slavery could not be advocated by the Northern conscience it must at least be ignored by all candidates for popular favor. It had divided some of the most popular religious denominations; and was the most exciting subject of discussion known to the religious world at the middle of the present century. Among the Disciples of Christ the slavery question was peculiarly perplexing, as there was a large per cent, of the membership who were actual slaveholders, and the leaders among us, although publicly committed against "_slavery in the abstract_," were endeavoring to soften the hard features of slavery in the Southern States by arguing that the relation of master and slave was not sinful _per se_, as it was recognized and regulated both in the Jewish and Christian scriptures.

Bro. Butler was ordained as a minister of the gospel of Christ, among the. Disciples, at Sullivan, Ohio, some time in the year 1844, by A.

B. Green and J. H. Jones, at that time two of the most efficient evangelists in Northern Ohio He had a good conscience, which pa.s.sed judgment upon his actions in accordance with the great law of love inculcated by the Lord himself and his apostles, and he did not allow the application of any "hot iron" so as to sear it. Although he did not come in direct antagonism with the pro-slavery power while he labored in the gospel ministry east of the Missouri River, yet it is evident that the slavery question was a most important factor in making up his decision to leave his field of labor in the Military Tract in Illinois, where he gave up present usefulness and ministerial blessedness for a prospective missionary field and a humble home for his family. He had spent four years there in active ministerial labor; and in the second number of his "Personal Recollections" he calls them "the golden days of my life!"

That the hand of G.o.d directed the footsteps of Pardee Butler to Kansas just at the time he went there, and to the place where he took a homestead and improved it, and lived on it with his family for a third of a century, no one who believes in an overruling providence can for a moment doubt. At the risk of his life, and at the cost of great privation in his own person, and that of his wife and children, he unfurled the blood-stained banner of the cross, and never allowed it to trail beneath his feet through the long years of "border ruffianism," and the dark days of detraction and misrepresentation. He was the man for the hour; while on the one hand he was not forgetful of the obligations resting upon him to his family--he laid the foundation for a happy home--on the other hand, he was always ready, both in season and out of season, at home and abroad, to preach the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. To him more than to any other human instrumentality is the brotherhood of Christ's disciples indebted for the early introduction of Christianity in the now grand State of Kansas; and his name will be honorably and lovingly remembered by all the good and the true, who shall learn of his unselfish life and his untiring devotion to the cause of the Master.

In the summer of 1858, after he had been in the new Territory over three years, Bro. Butler, in the _Luminary_, writes as follows: "To teach, discipline, and perfect the churches we have already organized; to gather into churches the lost sheep of the house of Israel, scattered over this great wilderness of sin; to watch over those who are still purposing to tempt its dangers, and to lay broad and deep the foundations of a future operation and co-operation, that shall ultimate in spreading the gospel from pole to pole, and across the great sea to the farthest domicile of man--this is the purpose which we set before us." This brief quotation shows the broadness and completeness of the work, as contemplated by him, and which is now going forward to its accomplishment as never before; and to his almost alone labors at first the work in Kansas can be legitimately traced.

During this year a Territorial Board was formed, and Bro. Butler was appointed as their evangelist; and a correspondence was had between him and the corresponding secretary of the General Missionary Society in reference to affording aid to the Kansas Board to help sustain him in his evangelical labors. It was conducted in the most friendly manner and in a true Christian spirit, until the slavery question came to the front and prevented the accomplishment of what was hoped for on the one hand, and contemplated on the other. The following extract from Bro. Butler's third letter will present the issue in the briefest manner possible:

DEAR SIR:--You say in letter before me, "It must, therefore, be distinctly understood that if we embark in a missionary enterprise in Kansas, this question of slavery and anti-slavery must be ignored." I respond: This reformation is pledged before heaven and earth, and under covenants the most solemn and binding into which men can enter, to guarantee freedom of thought and speech to our brotherhood-i--not indeed on subjects purely abstract, speculative and inoperative, but on Bible questions--questions which involve the well-being of humanity. This matter of slavery is a Bible question--a question of justice between man and man--of mercy and humanity. It is what Jesus would call one of the weightier matters of the law, and demands, therefore, a large place in our investigations.

The brethren here in Kansas have made no such stipulations with me They have left me to my own discretion in preaching the gospel to sinners, and teaching the saints according to the Bible. They have shown themselves too magnanimous to impose on my conscience a restriction which their own manhood would forbid, under similar circ.u.mstances, that they should suffer to be imposed on themselves.

For myself, I will be no party, now or hereafter, to such an arrangement as that contemplated in your letter now before me. I would not make this "Reformation of the nineteenth century" a withered and blasted trunk, scattered by the lightnings of heaven, because it took part with the rich and powerful against the poor and oppressed, and because we have been recreant to those maxims of free discussion which we have so ostentatiously heralded to the world as our cherished principles.

In explanation of the first letter received by Bro. Butler from the corresponding secretary, a second one was sent, from which it is necessary to make the following extracts:

I reply, that nothing has been said against teaching a master his duties according to the Bible, nor (what is just as important) against teaching servants their duties to their masters, according to the Bible--according to the instructions given to evangelists--I. Tim. vi. 1-4. My remarks, as the whole letter will show, had reference to the question of slavery _in Kansas_. The forms it takes on there are very different from the duties masters owe their servants according to the Bible. It is whether a slaveholder is necessarily a sinner, unfit for membership in the Christian Church--a blood-thirsty oppressor, whose money is the "price of blood," and would "pollute" the treasury of the Lord, etc. etc. And, on the other hand, whether American slavery is a divine inst.i.tution, the perfection of society for the African race, and essential to their happiness--while all Abolitionists are fit only for the madhouse or the penitentiary. These and such like are the _forms_ the question of slavery a.s.sumes in Kansas, as well as in many of the free States, where there are no "masters and servants" in that sense to be taught their duties, in reference to which it was said the question must be entirely ignored. And we can not consent that on one side or the other such pleas shall be made under the sanction of the American Christian Missionary Society.

I did not then, nor do I now, suppose that if you were employed by the A. C. M. S. to preach the gospel in Kansas, it would fall to your lot to furnish instructions to many masters and servants. If in any churches you may raise up in Kansas--evidently destined to be free--you find masters and slaves, of course it will be your duty to instruct them both "according to the Bible." But to furnish such instruction, and to go through Kansas lecturing on anti-slavery, or mixing up any pro-slavery or any anti-slavery theories and dogmas with the gospel, or to plant churches with the express understanding that no "master" shall be allowed to have membership in it, are very different things. And I had this very matter in view when I wrote to you, for I had some-how heard that the church of which you were a member was about to take just such a stand, and I wanted to have it distinctly understood that so far as action under the direction of the A. C. M. S. was concerned, all such ultraisms must be ignored. . . . You felt anxious to have help to preach the gospel in Kansas. I felt anxious to a.s.sist you. I saw danger in the way, growing out of the fact that I represent a society whose membership is in the South as well as in the North, and that some factious ultraists are constantly on the watch to sow the seeds of discord. I knew the state of things in Kansas as bearing on the slavery question. I knew something, too, of your treatment there, and of your feelings. I saw that if you were employed to preach there, an effort would be made to herald it, as in Bro. Beardslee's Case, as an anti-slavery triumph. This would be unjust to us. And as the practical question of master and slave does not exist there to any extent, I spoke of ignoring the question altogether. If you still insist on the right to urge that question, and take part in the controversy raging in Kansas, _under the patronage of the A. C. M. S_., I have only to say it is outside the objects contemplated in our const.i.tution. But if you wish simply to preach the gospel and instruct converts in a knowledge of Christian duties, "according to the Scriptures," there was certainly no occasion for your second letter to be written.

To the foregoing a rejoinder was written by Bro. Butler, which closed the correspondence with the A. C. M. S., and from which the following extracts are taken, that the readers may understand his position correctly:

I reply, 1. In your former letter I find no reference to the _forms _ the agitation of this question a.s.sumes in Kansas. I presume you had not a copy of that letter before you when you wrote this one. But you do allude to "forms"

the agitation of this question had a.s.sumed in Cincinnati, and in reference to Bro. Beardslee and the Jamaica mission. I was also instructed that "our missionaries"

must not be ensnared into such utterances as the _Luminary_ can publish to the world, to add fuel to the flame. The utterances against which I was guarded _seemed_ to be in Cincinnati rather than in Kansas. I had already published a piece indicative of my views in the _Northwestern Christian Magazine_, and that appeared to be the obnoxious "utterance." 2. You are misinformed relative to the "forms" the agitation of this question a.s.sumes in Kansas. The question, Shall slaveholders be received as church members? has hardly been debated at all. 3. Neither myself nor any person a.s.sociated with me has at time proposed to organize a church to exclude slaveholders. 4.

Slaveholders have been members of our churches from the first day until now. How, then, could I understand you as referring to anything else than to my own published Cincinnati utterances?

As respects slavery, the whole power of the master and the obligation of the servant is found in the proper meaning of the words of such precepts as these "Masters, render unto your servants that which is just and equal;"

"servants, obey your masters," etc. All within such limits is the doctrine which is according to G.o.dliness--all beyond, whether on the part of the master or the slave, and which is attempted to be foisted into the church as a part of the apostolic doctrine, is schismatical, and essentially fills up the picture drawn by Paul: "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to G.o.dliness; he is proud, knowing nothing'--from such withdraw thyself." In these precepts no right is given to the masters to buy and sell, to traffic in slaves; no right to enslave the children, and the children's children of his servants; no right to hold them in a relentless bondage which knows no limit but the grave, and in which the heritage transmitted by the slave to his children, is a heritage of bondage to all generations.

On the 26th of August, 1858, the same season that the foregoing correspondence took place, Bro. Butler wrote to the editor of the _Christian Luminary_ the following letter, which is given entire, as showing the exact position which he occupied ministerially at that time:

OCENA, ATCHISON CO., KAN., Aug. 26, 1858.

DEAR SIR:--Three churches--one meeting at Leavenworth City, another at Mount Pleasant, Atchison county, and a third at Pardee, same county--have formed an organization for the purpose of propagating the gospel in Kansas. For four months I have been in the employ of these churches.

My first business was to travel over the Territory and ascertain where we have brethren in sufficient numbers to make it expedient to organize churches. To that end I have traveled over that portion of the Territory north of the Kansas River, and embraced in the counties of Leavenworth, Atchison, Doniphan, Jefferson, and Calhoun; also, to some extent south of the Kansas River.

I will not say that this has been the pleasantest labor of my life. A long and wearisome ride across wide prairies, under a burning sun, has often been followed by a fruitless effort to excite interest enough to justify established preaching. I would not convey the idea that this region is not full of promise to the missionary, notwithstanding I am fully persuaded that we are not to expect such _immediate_ results as have followed my own labors elsewhere. We must first sow, and then, in due time, we shall reap, if we faint not.

The M. E. Church reports 120 preachers in Kansas and Nebraska; the U. B. Church, 9, sustained in part by contributions from abroad. The Missionary Baptists make good their right to the name they have chosen, by sustaining four missionaries. I confess it is a matter of profound humiliation to me that the demonstration that ours is primitive apostolic Christianity, is found in the fact that we can afford but one missionary in Kansas, and that to his support not one dime has been contributed from abroad. The brethren in the Territory, under an unexampled pecuniary pressure, and out of their deep poverty, have done all that has been done. Two new churches have been organized--one at Big Springs, Douglas county, numbering twenty-eight members; the other at Cedar Creek, Jefferson county, of eleven members. We have also the nucleus of a congregation at Atchison, and another at Elk City, Calhoun county. Thus we have in this part of Kansas the foundation laid for eight churches, all of which are steadily increasing in numbers; and the brethren composing them, in all the elements of future growth, and in moral and in religious excellence, are at par value with the brotherhood in any of our States or Territories.

If the older churches, blessed with such abundant means, would aid us in this hour of our need, it is my opinion they would be no poorer on earth and much richer in heaven. But whether they aid us or not, I trust we shall hold our own, and ultimately prove that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through G.o.d to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of G.o.d. We have a number of young preachers, who are giving promise of future usefulness. Very truly, your brother,

PARDEE BUTLER.

P. S.--Five persons in this congregation, and one at Big Springs have been recently added by baptism; also two from other denominations.

On the 1st day of July, 1859, Bro. Butler made a very interesting report of his labors, and especially of his tour in several of the free States--mostly where he had labored in the gospel before his removal to Kansas. As the doc.u.ment is too long for publication entire in this volume, only the more important extracts can be given. The first two paragraphs being only a fuller statement of what is already written, the first extract will show the voluntary indors.e.m.e.nt of Bro.

Butler by the churches for which he had been laboring, as follows:

WHEREAS, Bro. Butler has faithfully and diligently performed the labor a.s.signed him as our evangelist; therefore,

_Resolved_, I. That we do most heartily approve of his labors and general course of conduct during his term of service. 2. That the officers of this Board be directed to procure the services of Bro. Butler, or some other suitable person, to solicit aid in the States for this society.

Bro. Humber, as president of the Board, did not call it together to complete the arrangement contemplated. On my own part, I felt unwilling to importune him. I went on my tour, therefore, simply under the indors.e.m.e.nt and approval of my own congregation. I left home December 16, 1858, and returned May 12, 1859. I visited the Military Tract of Illinois, Northeast Iowa, Southwest Michigan, Central and Eastern Indiana, and Northern Ohio. The amount of money realized was $365; expenses, $110, leaving a balance on hand of $255, as the first installment of the fund of our begun mission.

Of all the churches in which I sought a hearing only one, the church at Bedford, Ohio, gave me the cold shoulder. In response to my request for the privilege of delivering a lecture before them, in development of our wants and condition in Kansas, they responded that they considered it "political," and they had resolved that their house should not be used for political lectures!.... In all the localities visited by me, I found the ma.s.ses of the people with such convictions as will constrain them to treat slavery in the United States as a moral evil, and to patronize only such societies as a.s.sume toward it a similar position. It is asked: What have we to do with slavery? I reply: We, as Christians, should have nothing to do with it. But we in Kansas are placed under compulsion to have something to do with it. We have slaveholders in our churches; and if the time should come when there will be no slaves in Kansas, still we have something to do with it, for within one day's ride of us in Platte county, Mo., is the largest body of slaveholders in that State. Discipline is special to each congregation, but that sense of justice which always stands as the basis of discipline, is common to all the churches of one communion. This public opinion is created by a mutual interchange of sentiment--the books we read and the preachers we hear. For years past slaveholders have ceased to hear those suspected of abolitionism or to read their writings. I will bear very long with error where mutual discussion and free interchange of sentiment promise ultimately to bring all to be of the same mind. Am I told that the safety of slave property requires that Abolitionists should not be heard in the slave States? I reply: The more shame to those who perpetuate an inst.i.tution that demands for its security the tyranny of such proscription; and that the human soul of the black man should be so cruelly dwarfed and robbed of his manhood. . . . Such are the not very flattering impressions made on my mind during a five months' tour in Northern Ohio, after an absence of nine years. There must and will be a reform; it has become a public necessity.

Temporizers are proverbially short-sighted. G.o.d gives only to the pure-hearted the divine privilege of foreseeing the coming of those beneficent revolutions, which exalt and dignify humanity. Ambitious and selfish men are left to go blindly on and fall into their own pit. At present there will be chaos I The people will not follow those who have been accustomed to lead, notwithstanding those leaders will have power greatly to embarra.s.s the action of those who do not follow them. We have three pressing wants: 1. A _sustained_ paper that will not bow the knee to the image of this modern Baal. Such a paper we have, but it should not be concealed, that it must pa.s.s through a fiery ordeal, and can only be sustained by the timely efforts of its friends. 2. We need a convention made up of men who regard slavery as a moral evil, and are disposed to make their own consciences the rule of their action. 3. We need a missionary fund, which shall be placed in such hands that it shall not be prost.i.tuted to the vile purpose of bribing men into silence on the subject of slavery.

I am not commissioned specially to speak for the _Luminary_, nor to prophesy concerning any convention which may hereafter a.s.semble. I only speak for myself. Let it then be candidly admitted that the fund which I have been able to collect is a rather unpromising beginning, and that it does not augur that this mission will be well sustained. I remark, then, I never was adequately sustained. I have been a frontier and a pioneer preacher, and have shared the fortunes of such men. To keep myself in the field I have labored very hard, I have toiled by day, and have subjected my family to the necessity of such labor, privation, and close economy as, perhaps, calls for rebuke instead of praise. The churches at Davenport, Long Grove, De Witt, Marion, and Highland Grove, in Iowa; and Camp Point, Mt. Sterling, and Rushville, in Illinois, can be addressed as to my former manner of life. I would speak modestly of myself; and have not obtruded these matters before the brethren until rudely a.s.sailed as though I never made any sacrifices. I do not complain, and what I have said is offered, as evidence, in some sort, that money appropriated to this mission will not be squandered.