[Frontispiece: Pardee Butler]
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
OF
PARDEE BUTLER
WITH REMINISCENCES, BY
HIS DAUGHTER,
MRS. ROSETTA B. HASTINGS
AND ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS
ELD. JOHN BOGGS AND ELD. J. B. MCCLEERY.
CINCINNATI
STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY
1889
PREFACE.
I have not attempted to write a complete biography of my father,
but merely to supplement his "Recollections" with a few of my own
reminiscences. He was a man who said little in his family about his
early years, or about any of the occurrences of his eventful life. Nor
did he ever keep any journal, or any account of his meetings, or of the
number that he baptized. He seldom reported his meetings to the
newspapers. I think it was only during the few years that he was
employed by missionary societies, that he ever made reports of what he
accomplished. He had even destroyed the most of his old letters. And so,
for nearly all information outside of my own recollections, I have been
indebted to the kindness of relatives and friends.
The later chapters have been written by men who knew my father
intimately, and men whose reputations are such as to give weight to
their testimony.
To all of these friends I now offer my thanks for their kind assistance.
And to the public I offer this book, not for its literary merit, but as
the tribute of a daughter to a loved father, whose earnest devotion to
duty was worthy of imitation.
MRS. ROSETTA B. HASTINGS.
_Farmington, Kansas, April 23,1889._
INTRODUCTION
In this country inherited fortunes, or ancestral honors, have little
effect on a man's reputation; but inherited disposition and early
surroundings have much effect on his character.
My father's ancestors were from New England. His father, Phineas Butler,
came from Saybrook, Connecticut, where the Congregational Churches
framed the Saybrook platform. His mother's people, the Pardees, came
from Norfork, Connecticut. The Pardees were said to have been
descendants of the French Huguenots. Ebenezer Pardee emigrated to
Marcellus, now known as Skaneateles, Onondaga Co., New York. There he
died in 1811, leaving his wife Ann Pardee, (known for many years as
grandmother Pardee) a widow, with nine sons and two daughters. The
eldest daughter, Sarah Pardee, was there married in 1813, to Phineas
Butler; and there my father, who was the second of seven children, was
born, March 9, 1816.
In the autumn of 1818, Phineas Butler, of whom I shall hereafter speak
as grandfather Butler, went to Wadsworth, Medina Co., Ohio. There a
settlement had been begun three years before in the heavy timber, and
there were only a few small clearings here and there in the woods.
My grandmother came on with her brother the following spring. She had
three small children, but they made the journey in a sled, in bad
weather, cutting their own roads, and camping in the woods at night.
Grandmother Pardee came on later. She was a woman of great energy, and
brought up her sons so well that they all became leading men in the
communities in which they lived. Grandmother Butler was also a capable,
fearless woman, and so calm and firm that it was said no vexation was
ever known to ruffle her temper.
Their cabins were built of logs, with hewed puncheon floors and doors;
and on the roof, in the place of nailed shingles, were split shakes,
fastened on with poles and wooden pins. But grandfather had brought a
few nails (made by a blacksmith) from New York, and used them in his
house. When a neighbor died they hewed out puncheons to make a coffin,
and finding only eighteen nails in the neighborhood, grandfather, by
torchlight, pulled fourteen more out of his house to finish the coffin.
Their lives were full of hardship and privation. Grandfather was a
famous hunter, and his well aimed rifle sometimes furnished game that
kept the neighborhood from starvation. He was dependent on bartering
furs at some distant trading post, for his supplies of salt, needles,
ammunition and other necessary articles that could not be made at home.
Often, after a hard day's work, he hunted half of the night to obtain
coonskins and other furs. Father said that one night grandfather and
Orin Loomis were out hunting coons with the dogs, having taken their
axes to chop down coon trees, but no guns, when they found a bear, on a
small island, in the middle of a swamp. But I find his bear story so
well told in the "_Wadsworth Memorial_" that I will quote from
that:
"In the fall of 1823, as Butler and Loomis were returning after midnight
from one of their hunts, and had arrived within a mile or two of home it
was noticed that the dogs were missing. Presently a noise was heard, far
back in the rear.
"'Hark! What was that?' said Loomis. They listened awhile, and agreed it
was dogs, sure.
"'Orr, let's go back,' said Butler.
"'No, it is too late,' answered Loomis.
"'But,' said Butler, 'I'll warrant the dogs are after a bear; don't
you hear old Beaver? It sounds to me like the bark of old Beaver when he
is after a bear.'
"Butler was bound to go back, and so they started. The scene of the
disturbance was finally reached, after traveling two or three miles. The
dogs had found a bear; but it was in the middle of Long Swamp, and the
alders were so thick that there was scarcely room for man, dog or bear
to get through. This did not deter Phin. Butler, however. They got near
enough to find that the bear was stationed on a spot a little drier than
the main swamp, surrounded by alder bushes, and that she was determined
not to leave it. The dogs would bay up close, when the old bear would
run out after them. They would retreat, and then she would run back to
her nest again.
"'We can't kill her to-night,' said Loomis, 'we will have to go home and
come down again in the morning.'
"'No,' replied Butler, 'I am afraid she will get away. We can kill her
to-night, I guess. You can go and hiss on the dogs on one side, and I
will come up on the other; and when she runs out after them, I'll cut
her back-bone off with the ax.'
"They concluded to try this plan, and came very near succeeding. As the
old bear rushed past, Butler put the whole bit of the ax into her back,
but failed to cut the back-bone by an inch or two. Enraged and
desperate, she sprang upon the dogs, who, emboldened by the presence of
their masters, came too close. With one of her enormous paws she came
down on old Beaver, making a large wound in his side, which nearly
killed him. He was hardly able to crawl out of the swamp.
"The fight was then abandoned until morning, as without Beaver to lead
the dogs it was useless to proceed. It was difficult to get the old dog
home, but he finally got well. Early in the morning the hunters were on
the ground. This time they had their guns with them, but found the old
bear was gone. On examining her nest of the night before, her unusual
ferocity was explained. She had a litter of cubs, which, however, she
had succeeded in removing, and must have carried them off in her mouth.
In a short time the dogs had tracked her out. She was found a half mile
lower down the swamp, where she had a new nest. Butler's rifle soon
dispatched her; but her cubs, four in number, and not more than three or
four weeks old, were taken alive, and kept for pets."
Father said that he could remember when they brought the bears home,
growling, snarling--the crossest little things he ever saw.
Strange as it may seem, my father did not inherit grandfather's love for
hunting. I never saw him shoot a gun, and he has never owned one within
my recollection.
Orin Loomis was often heard to say that Phin. Butler was the most
courageous man he ever knew. He was quick-tempered, but warm-hearted,
and full of fun, and as honest and sincere as he was bold and fearless.
One time he was traveling, and stopped at a tavern. The strangers
present were discussing the statement that every man has his price, and
each man was telling what was the least price for which he would tell a
lie. Finally one man said that he would tell a lie for five dollars.
Grandfather's impetuous nature could stand it no longer, and he burst
out scornfully: "Tell a lie! Tell a lie for five dollars! Sell your
manhood! Sell your soul for five dollars! You must rate yourself very
cheap!" And then, they said, he fairly preached them a sermon on the
nobility of perfect truthfulness, and the littleness and meanness of
lying and deceitfulness.
My grandmother was also very conscientious, which was illustrated by the
fact that on her death-bed, after giving some good advice to her
daughters, she charged them to carry home a cup of coffee that she had
borrowed.
An old Wadsworth friend, writing to us since father's death, says of
him: "From a boy Pardee was remarkable for his uprightness, and bold and
strict honesty, and it was a maxim among the boys to say, 'As honest as
Pard, Butler.' He and his father before him were specimens of
puritanical honesty and courage, and had they lived in the days of
Cromwell and in England, would doubtless have been in Cromwell's army."
Scarcely was the settlement begun when a school was taught in one room
of a log dwelling-house. When but three years old, father was a pupil in
the first school that was taught in the new school-house, by Miss Lodema
Sackett, and continued to attend school a part of every year. Books were
scarce, but he was fond of reading, and read, over and over, all that he
could obtain.
The Western Reserve was settled mainly by New Englanders, who were
intelligent and God-fearing men; and religious meetings were held from
the first; printed sermons being read aloud when there was no preacher.
A Sunday-school was organized in Wadsworth in 1820.
The most influential man in the neighborhood was Judge Brown, an uncle
of "John Brown of Ossawatomie." He was noted for the purity of his
life, the dignity of his demeanor, and the firmness with which he
defended his views. He was a bitter opponent of slavery, and, what was
strange in those days, a strong temperance man. Before leaving
Connecticut he had heard Lyman Beecher deliver his famous temperance
sermons, and he came to Wadsworth with his soul ablaze with temperance
zeal. The community was strongly influenced by him, and father said that
he was much indebted to Judge Brown for his temperance and anti-slavery
principles.
Even in those early days Wadsworth contained a public library, a lyceum
where the young men discussed the questions of the day, and an academy.
Father took part in the lyceum debates, though he was said to be slow of
speech; and attended the Wadsworth Academy from its beginning, in 1830.
One of its most successful teachers was a shrewd Scotchman named John
McGregor. Father and several young men from a distance, who boarded at
grandfather's and attended this school, spent their evenings studying
their lessons, or reading and discussing some good book. Dick's
scientific works were among the books thus read.
There were many Lutherans, Dutch Reformers, and Mennonites near
Wadsworth, and there was a perfect ferment of religious discussion.
During father's boyhood, Alexander Campbell and Walter Scott had been
preaching the union of Christians on the Bible alone, and there was
great enthusiasm.
Eld. Newcomb, an honored Baptist preacher, together with my grandfather,
and Samuel Green--the father of Almon B. Green and Philander Green--had
been reading the writings of A. Campbell for several years. Almon B.
Green had been made skeptical by the unintelligible orthodox preaching.
But one day, after reading the first four books of the New Testament, he
exclaimed, "No uninspired man ever wrote that book." He read on until he
came to Acts ii. 38, which he took to Eld. Newcomb, asking him its
meaning. "It means what it says," was his reply. In a few days Almon was
baptized by Eld. Newcomb, simply on his confession of faith in Christ,
without telling any experience, as usually required by the Baptists.
Soon afterwards four families, the New-combs, Greens, Butlers and
Bonnels, all Baptists, united to form a church on the apostolic pattern.
Then William Hayden came with his fiery eloquence and wondrous songs;
the people were stirred up, opposition aroused, the various creeds were
discussed with renewed energy, and the church grew and multiplied.
But father and his uncle Aaron, who was eight years older than himself,
had been made skeptical by orthodox mysticism and the disputes of so
many wrangling churches.
In September, 1833, A. Campbell came to Wadsworth to attend a great
yearly meeting held in William Eyle's barn. The following account of
an incident that occurred at that time, I quote from "History of the
Disciples on the Western Reserve."
"An incident occurred at this time which displays Mr Campbell's
character for discernment and candor. Aaron Pardee, a gentleman residing
in the vicinity, an unbeliever in the gospel, attracted by Campbell's
abilities as a reasoner, and won by his fairness in argument, resolved
to obtain an interview and propose freely his difficulties. Mr. Campbell
received him with such frankness that he opened his case at once,
saying, 'I discover, Mr. Campbell, you are well prepared in the
argument and defenses of the Christian religion. I confess to you
frankly there are some difficulties in my mind which prevent my
believing the Bible, particularly the Old Testament.'
"Mr. Campbell replied, 'I acknowledge freely, Mr. Pardee, there are
difficulties in the Bible--difficulties not easy to explain, and some,
perhaps, which in our present state of information can not be cleared
up. But, my dear sir, when I consider the overwhelming testimony in its
favor, so ample, complete and satisfactory, I can not resist the
conviction of its divine origin. The field of prophetic inspiration is
so varied and full, and the internal evidence so conclusive, that, with
all the difficulties, the preponderance of evidence is overwhelming in
its favor.' This reply, so fair and manly, and so different from the
pulpit denunciations of 'skeptics,' 'infidels,' etc., to which he had
been accustomed, quite disarmed him, and led him to hear the truth and
its evidence in a much more rational state of mind. Within a year he
became fully satisfied of the truthfulness of the Holy Scriptures, and
apprehending clearly their testimony to the claims of Jesus of Nazareth
as the anointed Son of God, he was prepared to yield to him the
obedience of his life."
My father was present with his uncle Aaron at that interview with Mr.
Campbell, and he too was led by it to listen favorably to Mr. Campbell's
clear and powerful presentation of divine truth. He followed Mr.
Campbell to other meetings, and listened, read, and investigated until
he, too, became convinced of the truth of the Bible.
His uncle Aaron, who is still living, said in a recent letter: "I
remember going to meeting with Pardee sometime about a year before I was
immersed, when he put some questions to me on the subject of religion,
which were very difficult to answer."
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.
"The second sermon was on the subject of Justification by faith.' This
was doubtless one of the very best efforts of his life. I will not
trouble you with the details of this grand effort, since it was
published in full in the _Evangelist_ in 1852. The sermon was
published, not by his request, but by the unanimous voice of the State
Meeting held in Davenport that year.
"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
CHAPTER I.
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.
My first introduction among them was dramatic, if, indeed, we could give
to an incident almost frivolous and laughable, the dignity of a dramatic
incident; and yet the matter had a serious side to it. I had been
commended by Bro. Bates, editor of the _Iowa Christian Evangelist_, to
the church at Rushville, where I held a meeting of days. The meetings
grew in interest, there were some important additions, and the church
was greatly revived. Twelve miles from Rushville was the town of Ripley,
a small village, where the people were engaged in the business of
manufacturing pottery ware. Here two Second Adventist preachers, a Mr.
Chapman and his wife, were holding forth. This Mr. Chapman was a devout,
pious, and earnest man, and a good exhorter, and had an unfaltering
faith that the Lord was immediately to appear. But his wife was the
smartest one in the family. She was fluent and voluble. She had an
unabashed forehead and a bitter and defiant tongue. It was her hobby to
declaim against the popular idea of the existence of the human spirit
apart from the body. With her this was equivalent to a witch riding on a
broomstick or going to heaven on a moonbeam. Spirit is breath--so she
dogmatically affirmed--and when a man breathes out his last breath his
spirit leaves his body. But it was her especial delight to declaim
against the Pagan notion of the immortality of the soul, and to affirm
that the Bible says nothing of the immortality of the soul. A Bro.
McPherson undertook to contest the matter with her, but, not finding the
scripture he was looking for, she exclaimed with bitter and vixenish
speech, "Ah! You can't find it! You can't find it! It isn't there! I
told you so!" And thus this couple were fast demoralizing the church,
Billy Greenwell, the richest man in the church, being wholly carried
away with this fanaticism. John Brown lived half way between Ripley and
Rushville, but was a member of the church at Rushville. Bro. Brown was a
man of good sense, excellent character, and had been a member of the
Legislature. He attended our meeting at Rushville, and, in the intervals
of the meeting, was full of questions concerning this heresy that had
been sprung on them at Ripley.
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.