Personal Recollections of Pardee ButlerButler, Pardee
Religion
Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler
Butler, Pardee
Kansas -- History -- 1854-1861
But all temporal and earthly considerations disappear, as
fade the stars at the approach of day, when we consider
that measureless ruin, that gulf of everlasting despair,
that voiceless woe, into which the emigrant may sink
himself and family by locating in a profligate, dissipated
or irreligious neighborhood, or in a community wholly
swallowed up in the love of money, or absorbed in the
questions, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or
wherewithal shall we be clothed? What home on the
beautiful prairies, what treasures of fine water and good
timber, what corner lots, what property in town or
country, can equal in value the guardianship of our Lord,
the indwelling of God's good Spirit, the approval of a
good conscience, the smiles of angels and the inheritance
of a home in heaven? Let no man, therefore, fall into the
folly--the unspeakable folly--of subordinating his
spiritual and eternal interests to his temporal welfare.
"Seek ye God and his righteousness, and all these things
shall be added."
To teach, to discipline and perfect the churches we have
already organized; to gather into churches the lost sheep
of the house of our Israel, scattered over this great
wilderness of sin; to try and help those who are still
purposing to tempt its dangers; and to lay broad and deep
the foundations of a future operation and co-operation
that shall ultimate in spreading the gospel from pole to
pole, and across the great sea to the farthest domicile of
man--this is the purpose which we set before us, and which
should be pursued with the zeal and enthusiasm displayed
by the followers of the false prophet of Mecca; and with
the patience of the coral workers, who build for ages and
cycles of ages their marble battlements in the waters of
the Pacific Ocean.
CHAPTER XXIX.
In 1859 I only spent part of the year preaching in Kansas. At the
earnest solicitation of Ovid Butler, the founder and munificent patron
of Butler University, I spent six months preaching in the State of
Indiana. A missionary society had been organized in Indianapolis, in
which Ovid Butler was the leading spirit, and such men as Joseph
Bryant, and Matthew McKeever, brothers-in-law to Alexander Campbell,
together with Jonas Hartzell, Cyrus McNeely, of Hopedale, Ohio, and
Eld. John Boggs, of Cincinnati, and many others, were associated with
him in the movement. By these brethren I was for some time partially
sustained as a missionary in Kansas. The formation of this society had
grown out of a difference existing between these brethren and the
General Missionary Society, touching what had become the over-topping
and absorbing question, both to the churches and the people of the
United States. As this question has ceased to be of any practical
interest to the American people, I shall spend no time in its
discussion, only to narrate, briefly, what happened to us in Kansas,
growing out of the existence of these two societies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account