Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler

by Pardee Butler

CHAPTER V.

Immediately on obtaining my claim, brethren had sought me out and made my acquaintance, and soon it appeared that there were enough Disciples in the settlement to constitute a church. But the times were stormy, and we delayed making any movement in that direction. It had now come to be the month of June. There had been refreshing showers. The singing birds had come, and the bright sunshine. The prairie had put on its royal robes, the forest its richest garments, and the people had become impatient with their long isolation from religious meetings. The Lord's day was almost ceasing to be the Lord's day to them, and they demanded a sermon. We, therefore, came together in the timbered bottoms of Caleb May's claim, on the banks of the Stranger Creek. The gathering was primitive and peculiar, like the gathering at a Western camp-meeting—footmen, and men and women on horseback, and whole families in two-horse lumber wagons. Some were dressed in Kentucky-jeans, and some in broadcloth; there were smooth-shaven men and bearded men; there were hats and bonnets of every form and fashion; all were dressed in such ways as best suited their convenience or necessities. In this crowd were those that, as the years should go by, were destined to grow in wealth, in understanding, in popularity and high position, and they should be known as the first in the land.

The singing was not in the highest style of the musical art, but it was hearty and sincere.

Looking up at the thick branches of the spreading elms above our heads I said:

MY FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS:—I have never seen trees clothed with leaves of so rich a green as the trees above our heads, I have never seen prairies robed in richer verdure than the prairies around us.

Since the year of 1832, it has been known that what is called the "Platte Purchase," in Missouri, is the garden spot of the West; and now it is apparent that we have here on the west side of the Missouri River what is the exact counterpart of the Platte Purchase on the east side. It is the same in genial suns, refreshing rains, and unequalled fertility of soil. It is, moreover, true that, owing to the peculiar circumstances under which this Territory will be settled we shall have a population inferior to no population on the face of the earth.

After the deluge was past, God promised enlargement to the sons of Japheth. "God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem;" and more than 3,000 years the sons of Japheth have been fulfilling their destiny. They came originally from the mountain regions around Mount Ararat, and moving westward, they have filled all Europe; and these tribes coming from the east have created the modern European nations. The last and westernmost settlement was made on the island of Great Britain, and here they were stopped from further progress by the Atlantic Ocean; and here, after many generations of war, they coalesced and mingled their blood together, and thus became the British nation; and thus out of the commingling of the blood of the most enterprising races that came out of the loins of Japheth has grown that nation, that in all lands has vindicated its right to be known as the foremost nation of the world.

Christopher Columbus discovered America, and now new causes began to operate that called for the planting of new colonies here in America. Martin Luther asserted the right of a man to stand immediately in the presence of the Lord, to be answerable directly to the Lord, and to confess his sins to the Lord alone, and from the Lord to receive pardon, without the intervention of any pope, priest, or ghostly mediator. This was counted by the Catholic Church a horrible blasphemy, and the Diet of Worms was called, and Luther was commanded to appear before it and recant. Presiding over this Diet was Charles V., Emperor of Germany; here were Electors, Princes and crowned heads, popish priests, bishops and cardinals, together with the principal nobility of Catholic Europe—these all came together to compel the recantation of Friar Martin Luther. But Luther said; "Unless I be convinced by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare retract anything for my conscience is a captive to God's Word, and it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience," and a great multitude of men in Germany, France, Switzerland, and Great Britain stood beside Luther and protested that they were amenable to the Lord alone, and that they could do nothing against conscience. But these Protestant governments stopped midway between popery and Protestantism; for each of these nations, while renouncing the Pope of Rome, assumed that it was the business of the king to instruct the people what to believe; and so instead of having one pope they had many popes, consequently many Protestant sects; and these took the place of that one apostolic church originally established by the apostles. Notwithstanding, there were some, in all lands that remained steadfast to the principle enunciated by Martin Luther: "Unless I be convinced by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare retract"; and so it came to pass that there were Protestant persecutions as well as Catholic persecutions; and so also it came to pass that men became wearied with this intolerance, and determined to seek beyond the Atlantic Ocean a place where they could worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, with none to molest them or make them afraid. It was for such cause that the Puritans settled in New England, the Quakers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the Scotch and Irish Presbyterians in North Carolina; and it was for this cause that the French Huguenots, driven out of France by the French king, came to South Carolina. The most notable cause that induced the planting of the thirteen original colonies here in North America was religious persecution in the Old World. And as the oak grows out of the acorn, so out of these colonies has grown this nation of which we are so proud.

Great Britain became more Lutheran than Germany, the native land of Luther, and God lifted the British nation up to become the chiefest nation of the world; the United States of North America became more Lutheran than Great Britain, and the eyes of the world are fixed on us in admiration and astonishment. God blessed the house of Obededom, and all that he had, because the ark of God was in it.

But there are spots on the sun, and there are exceeding blemishes in our Protestantism, notwithstanding the fact that the glory of the American people has grown out of it. The image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream had feet and toes, part of iron and part of potter's clay, partly strong and partly broken. So it is with our Protestant sectarianism, and because of it we are partly strong and partly broken. Compare the Protestant United States with Catholic Mexico, or compare Protestant Great Britain with Catholic Spain, and compared with these nations we have the strength of iron, but judged by our sectarianism we have the weakness of miry clay.