Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler

by Pardee Butler

I sometimes said, "Get up a Sunday-school." But the old heads would get together and begin to debate where Cain got his wife, or who was the father of Melchisedec, or what was the thorn in the flesh that afflicted Paul; or they would dispute over the mode of baptism, or the operation of the Holy Spirit, and the boys, verifying the old adage that the devil always finds work for idle hands to do, and not appreciating this sort of thing, would shoot paper balls at each other and at the old folks, and the girls would do naughty things and grieve their mothers, and the whole thing would go up in smoke.

Nothing seemed to be left to these brethren, only the protracted meeting and monthly preaching. To many of them "pastorating" was one of the sorceries which, with the mother of Babylon, had bewitched the world. These brethren seemed to have forgotten that Paul gives highest praise to that elder that not only rules well, but so addicts himself to the ministry of the Word and teaching as to require that he shall be sustained by the freewill offerings of the brethren. And when we sought an arrangement by which all should give—each man, according to his ability—we were alarmed with fearful prognostications of evil: "Beware! beware!" These brethren said, "You are making a veritable Popish bull, and he will gore you to death. Beware of missionary societies!" And when we turned to these men and besought them, "Tell us, dear brethren, how we shall obtain, without offense, the means to send help to those perishing churches?" they were silent. This was not their function. Their vocation was to warn the people against Popish bulls and human missionary societies, for which there can not be found a thus saith the Lord, in express terms or by an approved precedent.

Meantime the churches in the older States had contributed one hundred thousand Disciples—this has sometimes been the estimated number—as emigrants to the great West, and these were scattered over its wide extended Territories, and it was to be shown how far this contribution, more precious than gold or silver or costliest gems, should be as water spilled on the ground, or as treasure cast into the bottom of the sea, or how far it should be as precious seed bearing fruit, some thirty fold, some sixty, and some one hundred fold.

When our first churches were organized in Kansas, Alexander Campbell had become old and well-stricken in years. I have already written of the missionary society that was created in 1864, and of the great convention held in Leavenworth City in 1865, in which we sought to perfect the workings of that society. Within the following year Mr. Campbell died, and the always welcome Millennial Harbinger ceased its monthly visits. The voice of Mr. C. had been a bugle blast calling men to heroic deeds, and his overshadowing influence had restrained from that tendency to division, for opinion's sake, which is our inheritance from our common Protestantism. But now a great emigration had come into Kansas from every part of the United States, and among these were many who looked with no favor on any innovation on the traditions of the fathers.

Mr. C. had said in his notable debate with the Rev. N. L. Rice, at Lexington, Ky.: "Men formerly of all persuasions, and of all denominations and prejudices, have been baptized on this good confession, and have united in one community. Among them are found those who had been Romanists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Restorationists, Quakers, Arians, Unitarians, etc., etc. We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, but various opinions. All these persons, of so many and contradictory opinions, weekly meet around our Lord's table in hundreds of churches all over the land. Our bond of union is faith in the slain Messiah, in his death for our sins and his resurrection for our justification."

It is perfectly apparent that to harmonize these elements—often opposite and conflicting—thus brought together in one body was no easy task, but we had more than this to do; we were also to harmonize the fierce antagonisms growing out of our early contests, and then to make those brethren who had been heretofore averse to any combination whatever for religious work other than that of the single congregation—to make them feel the absolute necessity of united action and cooperation. This was indeed a task most difficult. And if the final good results have only slowly become apparent we are entitled to the judgment of charity.

It is admitted that every liberty that God has given to men may be abused, and has been abused. Marriage, religion, civil government, the rights of property, eating and drinking—in short, all liberty, of whatever kind, may be and has been abused. Still we must use our liberty, our very existence depends upon it. I have said it already, and I say again, if sixty millions of the American people can unite together to promote the public tranquillity, and all citizens enjoy more of personal liberty than they could enjoy if every county were an independent principality, then our whole brotherhood, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, may be trusted to meet together, by their messengers or in person, to promote necessary Christian work without endangering our Christian liberties. If all the churches of Macedonia could unite together to send relief to the poor saints at Jerusalem, then, surely, the brethren everywhere may combine together to send relief to people perishing for want of the word of life.

And so with much weariness and painfulness, and often with gratuitous and unrequited labor, with long rides by day and by night, and much exposure to heat and cold, to floods and storms, and to rough treatment by wicked men—in short, with that relentless and persistent toil which makes a man old before his time, and in which one man has carried on the work of two men year after year, I have labored on, never doubting, but always hoping for that good time coming, when churches will be just, and give honest pay to honest men who do honest work. My hope has been that if I can not live to profit by that better order of things, it will at least be better for the men that come after me.

The wife of a traveling evangelist will always be the proper object of pity and sympathy, if pity and sympathy are to be given. She is not cheered by the smiles of admiring crowds, nor does she feel the intoxication of flattering tongues. She dwells at home in the desolation and loneliness of a practical widowhood, and often ekes out a meager support from a stingy and starveling salary.

But somebody has to do this frontier and pioneer work; and might it not as well be me and my wife as any other man and his wife?