Personal Recollections of Pardee ButlerButler, Pardee
Religion
Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler
Butler, Pardee
Kansas -- History -- 1854-1861
1. Among the preachers that prominently appear in the first seven
years of our work, there are none remaining, save the writer of these
Recollections, Some are fallen out by the way. Elders S. G. Brown, Wm.
Gans, N. B. White, S. A. Marshal and Allen Crocker have died in the
faith and hope of the gospel. The name of J. H. Bauserman does,
indeed, appear, but he had only just begun his work; but having put
the armor on, he has never laid it off. The name of J. B. McCleery
does not yet appear on the minutes of our yearly meetings, still he
was already an evangelist. He had been in Ohio the friend and
companion of James A. Garfield, and soon came to be known as one of
the first pulpit orators of the State. The government, like death,
"loves a shining mark," and claimed Bro. McCleery for its service, and
he is now an army chaplain. The churches will never cease to regret
his choice, and yet he had a right to make it.
2. The facts do not bear out the remark of Bro. S. T. Dodd, that
"from 1856 to 1865 anything like church work was as good as thrown
away." With seventy-nine churches organized, and with upwards of three
thousand church members in the State, work could scarcely be said to
be "as good as thrown away."
3. Notwithstanding, the facts bear witness that there were grave
imperfections in our work. After a heroic battle, fought under
insuperable difficulties, and when there was every promise of still
more brilliant triumphs, the cause went into an eclipse, from which it
emerged only after many years of disaster.
From and after the year 1875, the churches spread themselves over a
territory of two hundred miles in width and four hundred miles in
length, and a great number of men became responsible for the good or
the evil that should come on the cause of primitive and apostolic
Christianity. It is probable that since the period of which we are
speaking, 100,000 Disciples have located somewhere in these Western
Territories. If the church should now undertake to make inquisition
for these church members, and make inquiry into their present
condition, temporal and spiritual, the story of their wants and woes
would be full of pathetic eloquence.
Since the days of the apostles an enthusiasm never has been known
greater than that which was felt by the men who, under God, are
responsible for this Reformation. In the beginning of the present
century the missionary spirit among Christians was dead, and their
zeal was wasted in disgraceful squabbles over inoperative and
metaphysical opinions, or over modes of church government of which the
Bible knows nothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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