Personal Recollections of Pardee ButlerButler, Pardee
Religion
Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler
Butler, Pardee
Kansas -- History -- 1854-1861
attacked; but reached the fort in safety the next day.
The District Missionary Society of Northeastern Kansas had held two
yearly meetings in the tent at Pardee, in August, 1862, and August,
1863, just after father's return each year from his summer trips across
the plains. In August, 1864, soon after his return from his last trip,
another district meeting was held at Wolf Creek, Doniphan county, which
was the home of Bro. Beeler, and of Brethren Jonathan and Nathan
Springer. Father had held a number of good meetings there, and built up
quite a church. But when the railroads went through there the town of
Severance was built up on one side; and Highland, seven or eight miles
on the other side, which was already a Presbyterian stronghold, received
a new impetus. So the church at Wolf Creek was broken up, and one was
organized at Severance, and one has since been built up at Highland, of
which Bro. Beeler is the leading member.
Bro. Jonathan Springer--who has moved to Goffs, where he still
maintains his old-time zeal--relates an incident which occurred a year
or two before that district meeting. Father was holding a protracted
meeting, when there came into the neighborhood a young preaching
brother from one of the Southern States, running away from the Union
soldiers. Upon learning who he was, father invited him to preach, and
they continued preaching together for a week, holding an excellent
meeting, and father said not a word to him about the questions
dividing North and South. Bro. Springer said, "I always thought that
Bro. Butler was a peculiar, a wonderful, and a powerful preacher."
Speaking of his ability to attract and hold the attention of an
audience, Bro. Springer said, "I once heard him begin a sermon with
the question, 'Are we dogs, or are we men?'" At the district meeting
his sermon was on his favorite theme, "Christian Union;" and it was
two hours in length, yet he held the close attention of the audience
to the end. Although he often preached on that subject, he always had
something fresh to say. He could not crowd all that he had to say
about it into one sermon. He was constantly reading of the change of
sentiment on Christian union among other denominations, and referring
to it in his sermons.
A few years ago he preached a series of discourses on that subject at
Pardee, closing as follows: "The Protestant denominations will all
become one yet, not by other churches coming to any one church, but
their differences will almost imperceptibly disappear, and they will
all melt into one, and no one will be able to tell how it was done."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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