REMINISCENCES--CONTINUED.
Father again preached in Illinois from October, 1857, until New
Year. He preached in Pardee the rest of the winter; but in the spring
he began traveling and preaching in various parts of the Territory. It
was the wettest summer I ever knew, and he was continually swimming
streams. Mother often told him that a man who could not swim ought not
to swim a horse. But he continued to do so until the streams were
bridged, many years later. The last time he did so was in the spring
of 1871. He was riding a little Indian pony, and carried some bundles.
The Stranger Creek was full, and very cold, and when his heavy
overcoat became water-soaked, he saw that the pony was about to be
swept down the current. Sliding off from its back, he kept his arm
about its neck, thinking the water would hold part of his weight. But
he soon saw that he was pulling it down stream, so that it was likely
to be tangled in some willows, and he reached back and caught hold of
its tail, and it pulled him safely to shore. He reached home very wet,
but with bundles and overcoat all safe.
He then determined to have a bridge on the road along his boundary line.
But every man, up and down the creek, wanted a bridge on his own line,
and so there was much opposition. But he at length succeeded in
obtaining a bridge. This was the only one of father's many contests in
which he contended for a personal benefit: his other contests were all
for the good of the public.
From this deviation I will now return to the year 1858. Father was so
busy preaching in other places, that he only preached occasionally in
Pardee.
He has sometimes been accused of preaching politics. A good brother
who formerly lived in Missouri, said, not long before father's death:
"They used to tell me before I came to Kansas that Pardee Butler
preached politics, and I said that if ever I heard him begin to preach
politics, I was going to get right up in meeting, and ask him to show
his Scripture for preaching politics. Now I've been hearing him
preach, off and on, for twenty years, and I've never got up in
meeting yet, for I've never heard him preach any politics."
The only sermon that I can remember as containing any allusion to
politics, was one that he preached at Pardee that summer of 1858. It
was from the text, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the
weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought
ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." After speaking in
a general manner of Christian duties that are left undone by those who
are precise about certain theological points, he spoke plainly of the
injustice and unmercifulness of slavery, and besought Christians to be
careful how they upheld it in any manner, lest they be condemned by the
words of the text.
Another sermon that he preached at Pardee, August 1, 1858, was from I.
Kings xviii. 21: "If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then
follow him." After delineating very graphically the terrible drouth,
and the long contest of Elijah with Ahab and Jezebel, he told of the
final triumph of religion, and the merited defeat and punishment of
wickedness. He finished with an eloquent appeal from the text, "If the
Lord be God, then serve him." At the close two boys confessed their
Savior. One of them was an orphan boy, then making his home at my
father's house, and since known as Judge J. J. Locker, of Atchison,
who died last September.
But winter came, and the co-operation that had engaged father that
summer felt that they had paid all they could raise. It had not been
enough to pay a hired man, and meet our frugal expenses. Yet that was
the first money he had made for three and a half years, except by his
two trips to Illinois. He had appealed to the General Missionary
Society, and they had declined to support him, unless he would promise
not to say a word about slavery. But the people were calling to him
from every direction to come and organize churches. He decided to
appeal personally to the churches in the older States. From December,
1858, until May, 1859, he preached constantly in Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan and Ohio, collecting what money he could. He reported $365 as
the amount received, expenses $110, leaving a balance of $255. He
received enough more during the summer to make his salary #297.42.
The next summer he preached in Kansas; but was not gone all the time,
as when in other States. When preaching in distant counties he was
sometimes gone four or five weeks, but he was sometimes at home a part
of every week. When at home he worked very hard on the farm, to
accomplish what he saw must be done, that he might go back to his
preaching as soon as possible. Mother looked after the work in his
absence, and was a good manager, but there was much to which she could
not attend. Father was nervously energetic, always working and walking
rapidly. Even after he was sixty years old, although he was a slender
man, only five feet nine inches in height, with his right arm
trembling with palsy, I have known robust young men to complain that
they did not like to work for Pardee Butler, because he would work
with them, and they were ashamed to have such an old man do more than
they did, and he worked so hard that he wore them out. He scarcely
spent an idle moment. Other men could be content to pass their time in
careless conversation, but he never could. Unless he had some subject
that he thought especially worthy of conversation, he said little. He
seldom spoke of what he had done, and scarcely ever related any of the
many experiences of his trips away from home. In his backwoods boyhood
experiences he had learned to make or mend almost every article used
by a farmer. He was full of projects, always improving something on
the place. Every spare moment was used, either in fixing something
about the farm, or in reading or writing. He sometimes complained that
the days were not half long enough to suit him. He once told his
sister that the Border Ruffians never knew what a service they did him
when they rafted him, for he had leisure to think while he was going
down the river. My brother Charley once said that father was so greedy
of time he was afraid he might lose a minute. Often in the evening we
had to make room by the cooking stove for his shaving-horse, or his
leather and harness tools, while he worked until ten or eleven o'clock
making or mending some implement or harness. And often, after laboring
all day, he read or wrote until eleven or twelve o'clock at night. He
read a great variety of books and newspapers, but was particularly
fond of church history and religious books of a doctrinal nature.
He wrote much for various papers, and was a painstaking writer. He
usually wrote his articles two or three times, and the account of his
second mob that was written for the _Herald of Freedom_ he re-wrote
seven times. He could write best in the morning, and frequently read
and wrote half of the forenoon; and then worked and chored until nine
or ten at night, to make up lost time.
Few ever knew the strong desire that he constantly felt for a life
devoted wholly to study and preaching. Living, as we did in those
days, in a log house with only one room, he had no private place for
study, but read or wrote in the midst of the family. Yet neither
crying babies nor the noisy play of older children distracted him.
Often he sat, with a look of abstraction, in the midst of our
conversation; and we frequently had to speak to him several times
before we could attract his attention.
We have several hundred of his newspaper articles saved in
scrap-books. He preached altogether without notes, and never seemed to
make any especial preparation for preaching a sermon. I once asked him
how long it took him to prepare a sermon, and he replied, "Sometimes
longer, sometimes shorter, generally two or three years. Of course I
do not think of it all that time, but I seldom preach on a subject
when it first enters my mind, but let it mature. I always have several
subjects on hand at once, and when I am reading I retain whatever
strikes me as pertaining to anyone of my subjects." "When do you do
most of your thinking?" I asked. "Whenever I can; mostly on
horseback."
His education was never finished; he was a student to the day of his
death. Even during his last sickness he asked me to return a volume of
Macaulay's "History of England" that I had borrowed, so that some
one could read to him from it.
In July, 1859, he was sick for some time; but in September reports
thus: "Since I recovered from my sickness I have held a series of
meetings,--one near Atchison, which resulted in eight additions; one
at Big Springs, at which four were added by baptism; and one at
Pardee, where there was one baptized."
November 1, 1859, the Northwestern Christian Missionary Society was
organized at Indianapolis. Father attended it, and remained preaching
and collecting money until February. He collected about the same
amount as the previous year.
In March, 1860, father and Bro. Hutchinson held the meeting at Pardee,
of which he speaks in Chapter XXIX., at which there were forty-five
additions. Father preached on Sunday night. The school-house was
closely seated with planks, and crowded almost to suffocation, while a
crowd stood outside at doors and windows. Father preached on the life
of Paul, although he did not mention Paul's name until near the close
of the sermon. He spoke of him as a talented young nobleman, brought
up in ease and luxury in a great city, to whom were open the highest
positions in his nation. There were but few Christians in the land,
and they were poor and despised. But at length he felt the power of
God, and learned to love the Savior. He told how he gave up wealth and
position, and became poor and despised, and went everywhere preaching
Christ and his mighty power to save. He told of his wonderful zeal and
energy, as he traveled from country to country, preaching Christ to
eager thousands. He vividly depicted the courage with which he endured
trials, hardships, and persecutions. Then he told of his last days--a
feeble, gray-haired old man, ending his days in a prison, his few
faithful friends far away, enemies on every hand, and a painful,
violent death in store for him. Did he see the folly of his course?
And then he quoted Paul's triumphant words: "I count all things but
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord, for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things.... For I am now ready to
be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a
good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
henceforth' there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which
the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to
me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." After
speaking of the powerful effect of Paul's life and teachings, in
helping to transform the world, he eloquently appealed to the young
men and women to turn their ambition to life's highest object, to
follow the example of that grand old hero, and live a life of true
heroism in this world, and win honor and immortality in the world to
come.
The house rang with that rousing old hymn, "Come, you sinners, poor
and needy," and eleven young men and women rose to their feet and
confessed their Savior.
No sermon to which I have ever listened has impressed itself so deeply
on my memory as that sermon twenty-nine years ago.