Personal Recollections of Pardee ButlerButler, Pardee
Religion
Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler
Butler, Pardee
Kansas -- History -- 1854-1861
Father was always ready to help the poor, the oppressed, or
unfortunate. It was that spirit of sympathy for the weaker party that
led him to side with Horace Greely in 1872, because he thought the
Republicans were too hard on the conquered Southerners. But when he
heard of the widespread Ku-Klux outrages, he concluded that he had
been mistaken, and returned heartily to the Republican party.
I heard a neighbor say a few years ago: "If any one needs help,
just go to Bro. Butler. I never heard of him refusing to help anybody
that was in trouble, no matter how much time or trouble it cost him."
Another neighbor had his house burned. He was old and feeble, and
unable to rebuild. Other neighbors thought they had done their part
when they raised a subscription to build him a new house. But cold
weather was coming on, necessitating haste. Father, not content with
giving money, looked after buying materials, and putting up the
building; sent his teams to do the hauling; and, because the ground
was freezing up, worked until late at night, digging out sand to
plaster it. And this was but one of the many instances of his
practical kind-heartedness.
He attended the State Meeting at Hutchinson about a year before his
death, where he had been invited to deliver a historical address,
sketching his own life and work, and the history of our churches in
Kansas. He was urgently requested to publish it, and from that
circumstance came the publication, in the _Christian Standard_,
of his "Recollections."
Bro. F. M. Rains said of that address, "That was the grandest speech
ever delivered on Kansas soil."
The Hutchinson _Daily News_ spoke of it as follows:
"The address was a happy blending of church history, and
personal reminiscence, full of fact, humor and pathos,
and, most of all, devotion to freedom, morality,
temperance, and godliness. Few people of today are able to
appreciate the privations, and sacrifices, and dangers,
with which the pioneer was beset, and these dangers came
with special nearness to the man whose mission, courage
and conscience made him the open and avowed foe of all
sorts of wickedness. The house was packed with intense
listeners, and from beginning to end he held the great
audience in close attention, and when he finished, the
hope that grand old Pardee Butler might live a hundred
years was the unexpressed wish of all."
Father was always fluent in prayer, and his petitions earnest and
timely; but in the last year or two of his life his prayers seemed to
grow more fervent and impressive. Mrs. Hendryx, of Wichita, writing to
me since his death, speaks thus of a prayer offered by him at the
Hutchinson Convention: "Never, while consciousness shall last, will I
forget the ring of your father's voice in prayer, at Hutchinson. I
asked, 'Who is that aged veteran? he seems almost inspired.' And they
told me it was Pardee Butler."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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