Read Ebook: Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler by Butler Pardee Hastings Rosetta Butler Editor

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In June, 1835, at a meeting held in Mr. Clark's new barn, my father and his uncle, Aaron Pardee, confessed their Saviour, and were baptized by Elder Newcomb in a stream on Elder Newcomb's farm. A brother and sister of A. B. Green, and a sister of Holland Brown, were baptized at the same time. Holland Brown had been baptized the previous week. He walked down to the water with father, and remembers hearing him exclaim, on the way to the water, "Lord, I believe! Help thou mine unbelief." He also remembers hearing Elder Newcomb remark, "Now we can take everything; we have Bro. Butler and Bro. Pardee to fight the infidels, and the Browns to fight the Universalists." Holland Brown's brother, Leonard, and his wife--he had married my father's eldest sister, Ann Butler--had been baptized not far from that time.

Holland Brown relates the following incident, which occurred some time afterward:

"Bro. Butler was away from home, and driving a horse, which, though of fine appearance, was badly wind-broken. At times the horse appeared perfectly sound, and at one of those times Bro. Butler was offered a handsome sum for him.

"No," said Bro. Butler, "I can not take that sum for the horse, he is badly wind-broken."

"Why didn't you take it? the man was a jockey, anyhow;" asked some one in my hearing.

"'Because,' was the ringing answer, 'I think less of the price of a horse than of my own soul.'"

About that time father began teaching school in neighboring districts, which he followed for several years. But all of his spare time was spent in studying the Bible, church history, the writings of A. Campbell, and other religious books. It was at that time that he began committing the New Testament to memory.

Grandfather Butler and Samuel Green were the leaders of the new organization, as they had been of the Baptist Church, in Eld. Newcomb's absence--for he was away evangelizing much of the time. They called on the young people to take part in their social meetings on the Lord's day, at first only asking them to read a passage of Scripture, afterward to talk and pray, and, as they gained confidence in themselves, they were asked to lead the meetings. Thus there grew, in that church, one after the other, within a few years, eight preachers: A. B. Green, Wm. Moody, Holland Brown, Leonard Brown, Philander Green, B. F. Perky, Pardee Butler and L. L. Carpenter.

A. B. Green had been preaching a year or more before father was baptized, but I do not know which of the others began first, nor do I know the exact time when father began to preach, but it was about 1837 or 1838. He was not ordained at Wadsworth, for the church at that time doubted whether there was any Scriptural authority for ordination. He was ordained some six or seven years afterward, in 1844, at Sullivan.

In such times of religious excitement it was not necessary for a man to have a college education, to become an acceptable preacher. But father saw the advantages of a good education, and resolved to attend A. Campbell's school, then known as Buffalo Academy, but which was soon changed to Bethany College. But the means to acquire an education must be obtained by his own exertions.

About the year 1839 grandfather sold his place in Wadsworth, and moved to the Sandusky Plains, a level, marshy prairie, in northwestern Ohio. Part of the Plains belonged to the Wyandotte Indian Reservation, and was opened to settlement, a few years afterward, by the removal of the Indians to Wyandotte, Kansas.

Father and grandfather made sheep-raising their business while there. Father herded sheep in summer and taught school in winter. And, while herding sheep, he finished committing the New Testament to memory. He could repeat it from beginning to end, and even in his later years he remembered it so well that he could repeat whole chapters at once. I never saw the time that any one could repeat a verse in the New Testament to him, but that he could tell the book, and nearly always the chapter in which it was found.

He and his father's family put their membership into the church at Letimberville, some miles distant; and there he occasionally preached.

He sometimes went back to Wadsworth, and on the way back and forth stopped and preached for the little church at Sullivan, Ashland Co. There he made the acquaintance of Sibjl S. Carleton, the daughter of Joseph Carleton, one of the leading members of the church. They were married August 17, 1843; and he never had cause to regret his choice, for she proved to him a helpmeet indeed.

While living there, at the solicitation of his neighbors, he held a debate with a Universalist preacher, to the satisfaction of his friends and the discomfiture of his opponent.

Many parts of the Plains were covered with water, and were musical with frogs in the spring, but in hot weather they dried up, leaving here and there a stagnant pond. I have heard father tell how one of his neighbors tried to break a field by beginning on the outside, and plowing farther in as the land dried up. But the snakes and frogs grew thicker and thicker, as he neared the center. At length the grass seemed almost alive with snakes, and his big ox-team became wild with fright, and ran away, and he could not get them back there again.

Of course, such a country was unhealthful, and father's family was much troubled with sickness. His parents both died; my mother was nearly worn out with the ague; and he not only suffered from poor general health, but from a sore throat, and had to quit preaching. He moved to Sullivan, but without any permanent benefit to his health. He did not at that time attribute his sore throat entirely to the climate, but thought it a chronic derangement that would utterly unfit him for a preacher. Many years afterward he wrote of that disappointment as follows: "For five years I saw myself sitting idly by the wayside, hopeless and discouraged. I felt somewhat like a traveler, parched with thirst, on a wide and weary desert, who sees the mirage of green trees and springs of cool water that has mocked his vision, slowly fade away out of his sight. So seemed to perish my castles in the air. At that time making proclamation of the ancient gospel was too vigorous a work, and too full of hardship and exposure to be undertaken by any except those possessing stalwart good health. If I had been predestinated to the life I have actually lived, and if it were necessary that I should be chastened to bear with patience all its disabilities, then, I suppose, this discipline I actually got might be considered good and useful. If I have been able to bear provocation with patience, and to labor cheerfully without wages, and at every personal sacrifice, this lesson was learned when I saw all my hope dashed in pieces."

In the spring of 1850 father sold his property and decided to go to Iowa. Shortly before the time of starting, my little sister and baby brother took the scarlet fever and, ere long, they were both laid in the old graveyard. Heart-broken as my parents were, they did not give up the long, lonely journey. Father bought a farm in Iowa, and built a log house on it, intending to become a farmer. He and mother united with the nearest church, at Long Grove, sixteen miles distant. Father did not tell them at first that he had been a preacher, but they questioned him and learned the facts. As his health improved he occasionally preached for them.

Eld. N. A. McConnell gives the following account of his preaching in Iowa:

"I first met him at his temporary home in Posten's Grove, in the fall of 1850. During that winter he taught a school in Dewitt, Clinton Co., and preached occasionally at Long Grove. The next spring he attended a co-operation meeting at Walnut Grove, Jones Co., at which he was employed to labor with me in what was called District No. 2. His district included the counties of Scott, Clinton, Jackson, Jones, Cedar, Johnson, a part of Muscatine, Linn and Benton, and west to the Missouri river. He preached at LeClaire, Long Grove, Allen's Grove, Simpson's, Big Rock, Green's School-house, Walnut Grove, Marion, Dry Creek, Pleasant Grove, Burlison's, Maquoketa and Posten's Grove, as well as at numerous school-houses scattered over a large district of the country. He did excellent work in preaching the word. He was not a revivalist, nor was his co-laborer, yet there were a goodly number added to the Lord during the year. I think not less than one hundred. The next year, 1852, the annual meeting of the co-operation was held at Dewitt, Clinton Co. At that meeting the district was divided into East and West No. 2. Your father was assigned to the eastern division and I took the western. His field included Davenport, Long Grove and Allen's Grove, in Scott Co.; Maquoketa and Burlison's in Jackson Co., and Dewitt in Clinton Co. He labored also in Cedar Co., and did a grand work, not so much in the numbers added as in the sowing the good seed of the Kingdom, and recommending our plea to the more intelligent and better informed of the various communities where he labored. You will remember that he held in mind nearly the entire New Testament, so that he could quote it most accurately. I think he had also the clearest and most minute details of the Old Testament history, of any man I ever knew. Nor was his reading and recollection limited to Bible details; for he was very familiar With other history, both sacred and profane.

"I call to mind two sermons that he delivered. One was based on the language of Christ addressed to the Woman of Samaria, at Jacob's well--John iv.: 'Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews.' In this sermon he detailed the history of Israel to the revolt under Jereboam, the history of Jereboam and his successors until the overthrow of the ten tribes, and the formation of the mongrel nation called Samaritans. In this he showed that God's promise--Ex. xx., 'In all places where I record my name, I will meet with you and bless you,' was fully realized by the people of God, and that a disregard of the law in harmony with this promise was followed by most disastrous results. And that the same is true under the Gospel--where his name is recorded, and only there, he now meets and blesses his people.

"I am sorry that I can not give more of the details of his grand work in Iowa."

The winter of 1851-2 was very cold, but father did not stop for bad weather. I remember that when he started to his appointment one cold morning mother cried for fear he would freeze to death. The mail-carrier did freeze to death that day, but father kept from freezing by walking. The next summer was very rainy, and mother was always anxious when there were high waters, for there were no bridges, and father always swam his horse across streams, although he could not swim a stroke.

Then he preached for several years in Illinois, and was gone for months at a time.

In July, 1854, my little sister--for by that time I had another brother and sister--after a brief illness, closed her eyes in death. Fortunately father was at home, to mingle his tears with mother's, over the little coffin.

The next spring father sold his Iowa farm.

Before leaving there an incident occurred that I distinctly remember. The Iowa Legislature had passed some kind of temperance law, and the people were to vote on it at the spring election. Our country lyceum formed itself into a mock court, and tried King Alcohol for various crimes and misdemeanors. Father was appointed prosecuting attorney, and he went at it in earnest, as he always did at anything he undertook. He sent for every man in the vicinity who ever drank, or who had good opportunities to observe the effect of drink on others, to appear as a witness against King Alcohol. The trial lasted three evenings, with Increasing crowds. Father's adroitness in drawing facts from witnesses--often against their will--kept the Audience laughing and applauding. I remember hearing people say that he had mistaken his calling; that he ought to have been a lawyer. On the last evening, When he addressed the jury, he became eloquent. He pictured the terrible effects of intemperance, the ruined homes, the weeping wives, the ragged children. He denounced King Alcohol as guilty of every known crime--of stealing the bread from the mouths of children, of robbing helpless women of everything they valued most, of brutally shedding the blood of thousands, and of filling the whole earth with violence, until the cries of widows and orphans reached to high heaven. When he finished, the house rang with applause. The attorney for the defense tried to reply, but the boys said Mr. Butler had spoiled his speech. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty. The election came off soon afterwards, and people said that it was strongly influenced, in that township, by father's speech.

The next May, mother, my little brother, and I, went to my uncle Gorham's, near Canton, Illinois; while father went to Kansas to buy land, intending, however, to live several years at Mt. Sterling, Illinois, before moving to Kansas.

MRS. ROSETTA B. HASTINGS.

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

I came to Kansas in the spring of 1855, having been preaching in that part of Illinois known as the Military Tract, during the three preceding years; but my residence was in Cedar County, Iowa, one hundred and fifty miles from my field of labor, and twenty-six miles to the northwest of the city of Davenport. I had been employed for one year in Iowa as a co-laborer with Bro. N. A. McConnell; but the church at Davenport, which was the strongest and richest church in the Cooperation, determined to sustain a settled pastor, and this left the churches too poor to support two preachers, and I was left to find another field of labor.

When I first came to Cedar County I came simply as a farmer; and there were but nine families in the township in which we settled. But when the country came to be settled up the result was not favorable to the expectation that we should have prosperous churches in that region. Those who have watched the progress of the temperance reform in Iowa have noticed that, while the prohibitory law is enforced almost throughout the State, there are yet exceptions in the cities of Davenport and Muscatine and the adjacent counties. Here the law is set at defiance. This is owing to the presence of a German, lager-beer-drinking, law-defying population, Godless and Christless, and that turn the Lord's day into a holiday. This tendency had begun to be apparent before I left Iowa.

When it became manifest that I could not any longer find a field of labor in Southeastern Iowa, I was recommended to the churches in the counties of Schuyler and Brown, in the Military Tract, Illinois.

Our meeting at Rushville came to a close. It had been a good meeting; the church had been revived, and there had been important additions. I took dinner with Bro. Brown, and in the afternoon we rode toward Ripley. On crossing the ferry at Crooked Creek, "Old Rob Burton," the ferryman, a tall, stalwart Kentuckian, looking down on me, asked, "Are you the man that's goin' to preach at Ripley to-night?"

"Yes."

"Wall, don't you know thar's a woman thar that's goin' to skin you?"

"Well, I don't know. We shall see how it will be?"

At Rushville I had done my best, and now, being withdrawn from the excitement of the meeting, felt exhausted; and determined not to touch any debatable question that night. The house was crowded with eager and expectant listeners. My fame had gone before me, and the "woman preacher" was present, ready for a fight. But, alas! My sermon was a bucket of cold water poured on the heads of my brethren. At any other time it would have been accepted as a good and edifying exhortation; but now, how untimely! The meeting was dismissed and the buzzing was as if a hive of bees had just been ready to swarm. The woman's disciples were jubilant; and, above the din and hurly-burly, I heard a thin, squeaking voice say, "Give that woman a Bible, and she would say more in five minutes than that man has said in his whole dis-c-o-u-rse." This was Billy Greenwell.

Brother Brown said nothing that night; but the next morning he said to me:

"Bro. B., the people were disappointed with you last night."

"Why, Bro. B., was it not a good sermon?"

"Yes; but it was not what the people expected."

"Bro. B., did the people expect me, uninvited, to pitch into a quarrel with which I have nothing whatever to do?"

"Oh, is that it? Well, wait a little and you shall have an invitation."

Bro. Brown went out, and soon returned with a request that I should discuss the question that Mr. Chapman and his wife had been debating. I sat down and wrote out a statement of the subjects on which I proposed to speak in all the evenings of the coming week. The first commanded universal attention: "Does the spirit die when the body dies?" They had never thought of that. They had been thunderstruck when this woman told them that the Bible says nothing about the immortality of the soul, but beyond this they had never gone. There was probably more Bible reading that day in Ripley than any day before or since.

At night the house was jammed, and "the woman" was there, Bible in hand. I began: "The Bible speaks of a man as composed of body, soul and spirit. The body is that material tabernacle in which a man dwells, and which Paul hoped to put off that he might be clothed with a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. The soul is that animal life we have in common with all living and material things. Thus Jesus is said to have poured out his soul unto death. But what of the spirit? God is spirit, and God can not die. The angels are spirits, and the angels can not die; Jesus says so. Man has a spirit, and can man's spirit die? But spirit sometimes means breath. Yes, and heaven sometimes means the firmament above our heads, where the birds fly. But does it never mean more than this? Paradise sometimes means the happy garden where Adam and Eve dwelt; but does it never mean more than that? So, granting that spirit sometimes means breath, may it not also mean more than that?

"When Jesus said, 'Into thy hands I commend my spirit,' did he mean, 'Into thy hands I commend my breath'? So, when the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water and cried out, 'It is a spirit,' did Jesus say to them, 'This is an old wives' fable; there is no such thing as a spirit'? Did he not rather say to them,--'It is I; be not afraid.' So, also, when he appeared to them in a room, the doors being shut, and they cried out, 'It is a spirit,' he said to them, 'Handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.' In all this Jesus encouraged the disciples to hold the idea which was then popular among the Jews, that the spirit may exist apart from the body, and after the body is dead."

I thus discoursed to them for one hour in development of the Bible teachings concerning human spirits; and in my turn ridiculed the persons that had ridiculed the ideas that had evidently been held by Jesus and the apostles.

Mrs. Chapman had always invited objections; but she was sure to make an endless talk over them. I said, "We will not have an endless confabulation to-night; but I will quote one passage of Scripture, and on that I will rest my case. Any other person may then quote one passage of Scripture and on that rest the case. I have preached one sermon; the other party has preached twenty. So far we will count ourselves even, and it only remains that I should quote my Scripture, and let the other party quote the one Scripture on the opposite side, and then we will be dismissed." I gave the views of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees as detailed by Josephus, and then quoted Luke in the Acts of Apostles: "The Sadducees say there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both." And Paul says, "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee." So I also say, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, and hold to the existence of human and angelic spirits.

When I announced that I should call for objections, I saw Mrs. Chapman take up her Bible in a flutter and nervously turn over its leaves. When I sat down all eyes were turned on her, and there was a death-like stillness in the house. Then she rose up, and in a moment was out of the house. She left the town the next morning and never came back. Then it was "Old Bob Burton's" turn to speak. He said to Billy Green, "Your chest is locked, and the key is lost in the bottom of the sea."

The brethren were gratified that the power of this "soul-sleeping" delusion was broken. Billy Green never recovered from his infatuation. He afterwards built a house that, in the number of rooms it contained, was wholly beyond his necessities. But he thought that when the Lord should come, and he should own all the land that joined him, and should have children to his heart's desire, then he would need all the room.

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