In 1862 our yearly meeting was held at Emporia, and in 1863 at
Ottumwa. These meetings were little better than failures. Yearly
district meetings were kept up in Northeastern Kansas, in which more
vigor was manifested.
And now the writer began to feel the pressure of hard necessities. For
five years I had kept myself in the field on a salary utterly
inadequate to my needs, and had been gradually running into debt, and
these debts had to be paid. In anticipation of the future wants of my
children, I had invested my available means in land; but as this land
was not improved, it yielded me no return. In the distress that came
on the people in those days, one means of making money presented
itself, and many availed themselves of it. Gold had been discovered at
Pike's Peak, and thitherward had flocked a great multitude of people.
There were no railroads, and all supplies had to be carried across the
plains in freighting wagons. This business was carried on by the
roughest class of a rough and frontier population; still, it was an
honest business, and honest men might lawfully engage in it, provided
they had the hardihood to face the dangers and exposures of such a
life.
During the years 1862, 1863 and 1864, I went into this business with a
small freighting outfit. This certainly was not just the thing for a
preacher to do, but necessity knows no law. In the spring of 1862,
Bro. James Butcher was going to Denver with a freighting train, and he
with myself agreed to go in the same train for mutual convenience.
The President, Abraham Lincoln, had ordered a draft, and many young
men in Missouri had found themselves in a sore strait. In the South
were their kindred, and they felt that they could not and would not
fight against their own flesh and blood; and to avoid this they
determined to flee to the gold mines in the mountains, where every man
did what was right in his own eyes--and so they came to Atchison or
Leavenworth and engaged to drive these freighting teams to Denver.
Many of them were sons of rich fathers, well educated, and had never
engaged in manual labor, much less in such menial work as this, and
when these proud and high-spirited fellows felt what an ignoble life
they had been reduced to, the reader may well believe they did not
feel good-natured over it. And now, when these young gentlemen came to
understand that they were to be associated with a man that was
reported to be the representative of the hated Yankees, who had made
war on the people of the South, and set free their slaves, they
bitterly attacked me in wordy warfare. Of course I defended myself.
And so day after day, in the intervals while our cattle were grazing,
we debated every question relative to slavery that has been debated
within the last fifty years. Their hearts were bitter; they were
passionately excited, and would often end the talk, which they
themselves had begun, With noisy profanity. They seemed to think they
had this advantage of me, that they could swear and I could not.
We were now traveling up the valley of the Platte River. It was the
month of June. The weather had become rainy and there were frequent
showers. One night we had corralled our train on an almost dead level
bottom, and I was sure, from the appearance of the heavens, that we
should have a storm. Bro. Butcher had been taken sick and had returned
home, and, except myself, there were none to think or care what was
coming; and yet it was plain to be seen that the air was thick and
sultry, and the heavens overcast with clouds, and that everything
betokened a tempest. Our canvas-covered wagons had been so crowded
with merchandise that we could not get into them, and we had slept on
blankets on the ground; but here on this dead level bottom, in case of
a heavy rain, we would be drowned out by the flooding of the ground. I
dragged under my wagon a number of ox-yokes, and with these and some
strips of boards I made a platform, and on this I laid a narrow
pallet, and crept under the wagon, where I would be sheltered from the
rain by the wagon-bed above me. During the night there fell frequent
showers, and the boys were soon drowned out from their pallets on the
ground. They were tired and sleepy; they were homesick and in bad
temper at their mean and unaccustomed surroundings, and were inclined
to hold the Yankees responsible for it all, and they began to curse
and swear in rough and bitter speech. Then there came on the most
awful thunder storm I ever witnessed. Vivid flashes of lightning kept
the whole heavens illuminated with a blaze of light, while a thousand
electric lights would not so have turned night into day around our
corral of train-wagons. Crashing peals of thunder were in the air, and
the bolts seemed to descend to the earth around us. Then there came
down a flood of rain that was as if a water spout had burst above our
heads. I looked out from my narrow bed, and could see the boys
gathered in groups, standing leaning against their wagons, soaked to
the skin, and their faces white with ghastly paleness; but not a word
was spoken. They had forgotten to swear. Then there was a lull in the
storm, which subsided into a drizzling cold rain, and I went to sleep.
When morning came we were a sorry looking lot. The boys were soaked,
and chilled, and _blue_, and dreadfully homesick. Words would not tell
what these poor fellows would have given if they could have been where
they could have been coddled and petted by their mothers and sisters.
I saw that a warm cup of coffee and a substantial breakfast would do
them good, and I hastened to have it provided. They came with alacrity
at the call for breakfast, for they were hungry. When a good square
meal had somewhat thawed them out, I said, "Boys, what made you quit
swearing last night?" The one who was usually their spokesman, and
who knew how to be a gentleman if he had a mind to be, said
reverently, "We were afraid." From this time forward our debates over
slavery and the Southern Confederacy were at an end, or if we had them
it was in a friendly way. Given a fair chance, these boys were not so
bad as they seemed.
In the summer of 1864 we had reached the "Cutoff," and were within
eighty miles of Denver. It was late on Saturday afternoon when we got
to the Bijou Ranch. We were tired and our teams were tired, and we
debated for some time whether we should drive ten miles further, where
we would find better feed for our oxen. We did so, though it took us
till midnight; and there we rested on Sunday. This was providential;
for it was on this Sunday that the Cheyenne Indians made their
memorable raid and plundered the trains, burned the ranches and stole
the horses for three hundred miles along the Platte River. They
attacked the Bijou Station that we had left on Saturday, but they did
not venture any nearer Denver; consequently we were safe. On our
return we saw how the people had been murdered, the trains plundered
and the ranches burned along our route; and it presented a terrible
spectacle. A man named Butler was killed and scalped on the Little
Blue River, and the people in Kansas got the word that it was myself.
Immediately on my return home I rode up to the church at Wolf Creek,
in Doniphan county, where we had a district meeting appointed. It was
to them as if I had come from the dead. I went home for dinner with my
old friend, Bro. John Beeler. I noticed his little boy peering
attentively at me; he climbed upon a bedstead close behind me, then,
jumping down, he ran to his mother, and, pulling Sister Beeler by the
apron, said, "Ma! Ma! The Indians did scalp Bro. Butler; I can see it
on the top of his head." The reader must know that, like "Old Uncle
Ned," I have no hair on the top of my head.
But, in spite of disasters and hardships, and dark and stormy days,
our churches continued to grow and prosper, and we kept up a vigorous
and aggressive church organization. On Sept. 27, 1864, the churches of
the State came together at their fifth annual State meeting at
Tecumseh, Shawnee county. Here the brethren organized a missionary
society, fashioned after the plan of our General Missionary Society,
and in which life directorships, life memberships and annual
memberships were obtained by the payment of a sum of money.
The writer of these Recollections will explain that the formation of
this Society was not his work. He doubted whether the brethren were
prepared for it. Nevertheless, he was willing to be governed by the
majority. By resolution of the State meeting, the writer was requested
to prepare for publication with the minutes of the meeting an address,
of which the following is a copy:
ADDRESS TO THE CHRISTIAN BRETHREN OF THE STATE OF KANSAS.
_Beloved Brethren_: We present to you in these pages the
details of the organization of the Christian Missionary
Society of the State of Kansas. We hope for your approval
and ask for your contributions.
The warrior may fight for his country on the battle field;
the statesman may seek to develop its resources and
improve its laws; the husbandman may make its fields heavy
with their weight of golden grain; and those who love
domestic life may seek to create in that place they call
home a second paradise; but broader, deeper, more
comprehensive and sweeter far, is the work of
Christianity. It underlies all good, and is the only sure
basis of progress.
For two thousand years China and Japan have been without
the Bible, and what they were then, that they are now. For
two thousand years the millions of India have been left
without God and without hope in the world, and they have
only progressed into infinite degradations. The aboriginal
inhabitants of America, left without the Bible, have only
gone down deeper and deeper into a night as black as that
which brooded over old chaos.
No Herschel counts the stars, numbers the planets,
measures the length of their years and computes the number
of their days, unless his observatory is illuminated by
the rays of the Sun of Righteousness. No Luther thunders
against priestcraft, shakes the thrones of tyrants, and
wakes the nations to a new life and a new progress, save
that Luther that finds a Bible in his cell. No Franklin
calls down electricity from the clouds to carry messages
across a continent swift as the lightning flashes through
the sky, save that Franklin whose fathers brought the
Bible with them from their native land, and prized it more
than all the gold of Ophir. No mother country has had such
reason to be proud of any colony that was ever planted on
the face of this green earth, as Great Britain has had
reason to be proud of her colonies in North America, and
no colonies ever so loved the Bible. Judson, Howard,
Wilberforce, and Florence Nightingale drew the inspiration
of their benevolence from a dying Saviour's cross, and
learned of him who, "though he was rich, yet for our sakes
become poor, that we through his poverty might be rich."
Christianity, as it was given by Jesus to the apostles,
and by the apostles to mankind, was as perfect as the God
who gave it. Our whole duty then is this, that we should
restore primitive and apostolic Christianity again to the
world. Many reformers have sought to do this; but they
have only reformed in part. Though they fled from Babylon
they stopped short of Jerusalem.
We can not pause in this work which we have begun. We can
not allow ourselves to grow cold and our churches to die.
We must go forward in that path in which the rays of our
glorious sun--the Sun of Righteousness--grow brighter and
brighter unto the perfect day.
God does not make Christians as he created Adam out of the
dust of the earth. He works by _means_: "How shall they
believe in him of whom they have not heard?" God works
through the voice of the Bible scattered over the world.
If any doubt this, let them reflect that among all the
millions of men that inhabit the whole earth not one
becomes a Christian save him who either hears or reads of
a crucified Saviour.
Money is the sinews of this war. True, there is peril in
money. It is not safe to be rich; and it is admitted that
by wealth preachers may be corrupted. But this is not the
present danger. The present peril is, that haggard want,
stalking in at the preacher's door, will paralyze his
tongue, make his knees feeble and his hands heavy, and
turn away his heart from his proper work to the question,
What shall I eat? and what shall I drink? and wherewithal
shall I be clothed? The preacher is told to put his trust
in the Lord. But when, after long waiting, no ravens come
to feed him, he sometimes loses his heart, and says, "I go
a fishing." Surely the brethren will not have a
controversy with the Lord. They will not deny that he has
appointed that "they that preach the gospel shall live of
the gospel."
It is by no weak, sickly, faint-hearted, lukewarm,
languid, and spasmodic efforts that the cause is to be
kept alive. God will have all or nothing. This is an age
in which, if never before, both good men and bad men are
truly in earnest. The devil is fearfully and terribly in
earnest "Therefore rejoice you heavens, and you that dwell
in them Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the
sea! for the devil is come down to you, having great
wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a short time."
_We must give till we feel it. The widow's mite was most
precious in the eyes of Jesus, because it was her all_.
The objects we aim at are unquestionably scriptural. "Go disciple
all nations." This was the Saviour's last command. To sustain our
missionaries by the free-will offering of our brethren--this is
also scriptural.