Personal Recollections of Pardee ButlerButler, Pardee
Religion
Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler
Butler, Pardee
Kansas -- History -- 1854-1861
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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