In the spring of 1860 father rented his farm, so that he could devote his whole time to preaching. He built a house in Pardee, that we might live near school and meeting until George should be old enough to do the work on the farm. There was plenty of open prairie to pasture the cows, and George and I tended them, while mother made cheese to help support the family.
Father traveled and preached almost constantly that summer, sometimes alone, sometimes in company with Bro. Hutchinson.
At many of the points at which he organized churches, the old members are now either dead or scattered. But Bro. John A. Campbell, of Big Springs, where he built up a strong church, writes as follows of his work there:
He told me that his first visit to Big Springs was in May, 1858. My first recollection of him was that he preached there on the 4th day of July, of that year, when he organized the church with twenty-eight members, my father (L. R. Campbell) and C. M. Mock being appointed elders. His subject on that occasion was the "Unity of all Christians," and he spoke with great power. He again preached there on the 29th day of August, 1858, and his subject was "Faith." On that day the first addition to the church was made by baptism. He continued to preach for the church about once each month through 1858-9, and a part of 1860. During that time very many were added, but I have no means of knowing the number. In the fall of 1859 he held a successful protracted meeting, and another in the winter with Bro. G. W. Hutchinson. In 1860, he was at the State meeting at Big Springs, at which the ground plan of our present co-operative plan of missionary work was laid. There was also raised at that meeting money to buy a large tent, with which Bro. Butler was to travel and preach as State evangelist. Again, in the year 1877 or 1878 he preached once per month at Big Springs and some adjacent points—once on the Waukarusa, oft the subject of the Seventh-day Sabbath, out of which grew a correspondence for a debate, but it was not; held, owing to a failure to get a suitable house.
In the forepart of December past our church held a memorial service for him, and many pleasant things about his relation to dear brethren and sisters were spoken of. The relation between him and myself was always very pleasant, and I delight to bear testimony to his great ability and grand life and character. I regarded him as my father in the gospel, and he was a source of great help and strength to me.
The tent of which Bro. Campbell speaks was made by the ladies in the Pardee school-house. In size it was forty by sixty feet, the roof being shaped like the roof of a house. The second State meeting, and many district meetings, were held in it; and father used it in his meetings for nearly ten years, when it was finally torn up by a storm.
In the fall of 1860 the Missionary Society wished him to visit Indiana again, to stir up an interest, and collect his salary. I find no report of his work that winter, except this item from one of his letters: "There have been seventeen additions at meetings which I have recently attended—six at Brownsburg, Hendricks county, and eleven at Springville, Lawrence county, Ind."
I have found the note-book which he kept from November, 1860, to November, 1861, in which I find this account: He received #368.50; traveling expenses, $72.55, leaving for his year's work, $295.95. That was the year of the "drouth," and he apprised the brethren where he preached of the destitution in Kansas. Dr. S. G. Moore and my uncle, Prof. N. Dunshee, of Pardee, had been appointed to receive contributions for destitute brethren; and they reported the receipt and distribution of $670.96, besides boxes of clothing.
After father's return, in March, 1861, he traveled almost constantly. I have found, in the note-book mentioned above, the time and place, and either the subject or text of each sermon he preached that year, one hundred and fifty-three in all. Here are some of the subjects named: "The Gospel;" "Christian Union;" "Kings of Israel;" "Noah and the Deluge;" "Types of the Law;" "For What Did Jesus Die?" "Baptism, its Authority and Design;" "From Whence Ami? and Whither Am I Going?" "The Material Results of Christianity;" and "The Kingdom of Heaven."
Father had spent all of the money that was due him from property sold in Iowa, except a thousand dollars, with which he intended to pay his debts, and finish paying for land in Kansas. While he was in Indiana that spring that amount was forwarded in a draft to mother. The war was just breaking out, and by the time she could write to father and receive his instructions as to its disposal, the bank broke, and he lost a large part of it. He had already been running in debt for necessary expenses, hoping each year that his support would be increased, and the loss in the bank threw him so much in debt that he felt it would be impossible for him to preach much longer.
In September, 1861, he attended the State meeting in Prairie City. On Thursday the meeting was held in an empty store-room, for the poles had not yet been cut to raise the tent. After some preliminary business father made a short speech, telling them that he must soon quit preaching for them. He told them how necessary it was that churches should be planted at once in this new State, and how he had tried in vain to arouse the brethren at the East to their responsibility in the matter, but that he was at last obliged to give up and go to work, like an honest man, and pay his debts. He told them how he had loved the work, and how willingly he had toiled and suffered hardships, and begged them to hold out faithfully and do what they could; and when his debts were paid, he would return again to the work. When he closed his hearers were nearly all in tears.
Many went long distances to that meeting, the brethren and sisters from Emporia going in a covered wagon, and camping out on the road.
Father continued to preach, however, much of the time that winter. That part of his farm that was improved was rented for five years, and he had no money to improve the rest. The renter proved an indifferent farmer, and the rent scarcely sufficed to pay the taxes and winter the cattle. So father entered the only paying business, that of freighting, as he relates in Chap XXXI. Perhaps some may think from reading that chapter that he only took one trip, but he crossed the plains five times. He first went in the spring of 1862, in Bro. Butcher's train, taking George, who was only ten years old, along to drive one of his teams, because he could not afford to hire a driver. It was a hard, monotonous life, driving all day and camping at night through all weather; but the hardest part of it was that men and boys all had to take their turn standing guard over their cattle at night. After Bro. Butcher was taken sick on that first trip, father acted as his boss, and on all his later trips he went as wagon-boss of some large train owned by Atchison freighters, also taking along two teams of his own.
The wagon-bosses were frequently rough, overbearing men, who not only went armed, but who often treated their drivers tyrannically. They not only cowed the boys with abusive language, but with frequent threats of whipping, or shooting, which they sometimes fulfilled.
Father never carried arms about his person in any of his trips across the plains. But there was something in his quiet, determined manner that enabled him to rule even the most headstrong of the wild young fellows who usually drove the freighting teams. He was once traveling along, for a short time, in company with a train much larger than his own, whose wagon-boss was a big, burly, swaggering fellow, who was drunk much of the time. Each train was driving along behind it such oxen as were unfit for work, and some of the other cattle became accidentally mixed with father's drove. The boss, who was already partially drunk, had ridden on to a ranch to get more whisky. Father called on his own boys, and the boys of the other train—on the plains the drivers were often called boys, even though they were middle aged men—to help separate them. But those of the other train refused to help. They tried in vain to separate them, until they were tired out. As they neared the ranch father walked up to the well to get a drink, and there sat the drunken boss on his horse. When he saw father, he exclaimed, with a great oath, "—— —— ——, what you driving my cattle off for?"
"I asked your boys to help separate them," replied father, "but they refused, and I and my boys have worried ourselves out at it. If you will order your boys to help we will try again."
"—— —— you, go back and get them cattle out, or I'll send you to —— !"
Father looked him steadily in the face, and said quietly, "I would like to see the irons you would do it with."
"—— —— go back and get them cattle out, or I'll shoot you as sure as —— !" shouted the fellow, jerking out a revolver with a great flourish.
The frightened boys stood back, expecting to see him shoot, but father, without moving, coolly replied, "If you want your cattle out, you will get them out yourself; I will do nothing more about it."
The fellow, cowed by father's cool, determined gaze, put his revolver back in his belt, rode off, called his men, and they drove the cattle out themselves.
In October, 1862, father decided to make a winter trip, because he could earn more money than in the summer. The owners of the train intended wintering their cattle on the buffalo grass in the Colorado valleys, which they found cheaper than wintering them on corn in Kansas. The drivers were mostly Ohio boys, who drove teams because they wanted to reach the Pike's Peak gold mines. The oxen were a lot of wild Texas steers, and it took about half a day to get them yoked up the first time, so that they only traveled about eight miles out from Atchison the first day. George did not go that trip, but father took him to town to help them start—because he said that if George was only ten, he knew more about handling wild oxen than all those green Ohio boys—and sent him home the second day out. It had been a very pleasant fall; but I never saw it turn cold so suddenly as it did that day. I remember that I spent several hours gathering in squashes and covering up potatoes; and when I returned to the house at 3 p. M. every leaf on the trees and every flower in the garden was frozen stiff, pointing straight out to the southeast. It was the only time I ever saw a frozen flower garden in full bloom. It sleeted nearly all night, and the Texas cattle, frightened and chilled by wind and sleet, were so wild that father and all the boys had to herd them all night to keep them from stampeding. Their clothes were wet and frozen, for they were not very warmly dressed, and George said he never suffered so much with the cold in his life as he did that night.
It was a hard and stormy winter, and the Ohio boys, unused to such a life, suffered badly, many of them freezing their hands and feet. When they reached Denver the cattle were taken to the valleys, and father traded his own cattle for mules. Loading his two wagons with hides, so as to make money both ways, he and the two boys who had driven his teams started for home. I have heard him say that he never saw weather so cold, but that he could keep from freezing by walking. So by dint of much walking he succeeded in reaching home without being frozen. Their wagons were so full of hides that they had to sleep on the ground, and he said that on waking in the morning he often found himself buried in snow. Wood was scarce, and they sometimes had to haul it quite a distance to build their camp fires at night, and it was sometimes so stormy that they could scarcely cook.
During the journey one wagon-load after another of returning Pike's Peak adventurers had fallen in with them, and kept together for the sake of company and protection against the Indians, until they made quite a train. By common consent—accordin' to the human nature of the thing, as they say on the plains—father came to be considered the boss of the train. There was a ranch near the road, kept by a Frenchman, who had an Indian wife. He had grown rich selling whisky and provisions, and wood and hay. When the half-frozen men, with their hungry teams, came by, he charged them extravagant prices; if they objected he blustered and threatened until he usually scared them into paying what he asked. Father and his train camped there one cold night, and some of the men went up to buy wood and hay; but he asked such high prices for them that they went back and asked father to go up. He was busy, and knowing the Frenchman's reputation, told them to go back and tell him that the boss said he could not pay such exorbitant prices, but to let them have the wood and hay, and he would come after awhile and pay a good round price for them. The men returned, and told what he said, but the Frenchman ordered them to clear out, and threatened to shoot them if they came back again without the money he demanded. He would not even allow them to draw water from the well. Again they begged father to go up, but he said he was too busy, and told them to go right back and take the wood, hay and water, and if the Frenchman said anything, to tell him that Pardee Butler told them to do it, and he would settle the bill. They went back, the one drawing water, the others getting wood and hay. Out ran the Frenchman, very wrathy, leveling his gun at them. "The boss told us to take them, and he'd settle," they said.
"Who's your boss?" he asked in surprise.
"Pardee Butler."
"Pardee Butler! Oh! Oh! Pardee Butler? Take 'em! Take 'em!" he exclaimed, dropping his gun and throwing up his hands. "Oh! Pardee Butler! Take 'em! Take 'em!" he continued, fairly dancing around, white with fright, and gesticulating as only a Frenchman can.
"Why, what's the matter? He wont hurt you," said one of the boys.
"Oh! Pardee Butler! He bad man. Oh! Oh!" he answered, still dancing and gesticulating.
"Oh, no; he is not a bad man; he never hurt anybody in his life."
"Oh, yees, Pardee Butler one veree bad man! He must be one bad man, 'cause they put heem down the river on one raft, down in Kansas. Pardee Butler must be one veree bad man!"
Father made no more winter trips, but spent his winters at lumbering. When he first came to Kansas he had bought eighty acres of timber land in the river bottoms, in Missouri, two miles below Atchison. Mills had been erected along the river, and lumber was at last in good demand. So he found profitable use for his teams, and large freighting wagons, in working that timber into lumber.
He crossed the plains twice more in the springs of 1863 and 1864.
The Indians often visited their camps, begging for bread, or for sugar or tobacco. Father said that on his winter trip it made his heart ache to see the pitiable condition of the women and children, chilling around in the loose wigwams during the winter storms. He often saw the women out in the snow gathering up and carrying great loads of wood on their shoulders. But he said the most pitiable sight he ever saw was little half-starved, half-naked children, too small to walk, creeping around under his mule's heels, eagerly eating the grains of corn that they had dropped.
But the Indians were every year growing more restless, and often attacked the trains, to obtain provisions, and cattle and mules. Father often saw them peering around the bluffs, or along the river banks, watching his movements. But he was very careful, never allowing the boys or stock to wander off alone, and keeping guards out at night. Knowing that the Indians were growing dangerous, Bro. Butcher had insisted on lending him a rifle for his later trips. One day they were traveling along the Platte River bottoms, the river half a mile to one side, the bluffs a mile or two back on the other. It seemed impossible for anything to hide in the low grass around them; but father knew that here and there in the grass were wet-weather gullies, deep enough for an Indian to lie in; and his watchful eye detected the grass moving occasionally, here and there. He halted, telling the men there were Indians in the grass. At first they made light of it, saying they knew no Indian could hide in that low grass. But he told them that he had been watching for some time, and thought the Indians were creeping up on them from the river. He took Bro. Butcher's rifle out of the wagon, saying, "I am going down there to see; who will go with me?" But none of them offered to go, except a boy of sixteen, who, seeing the rest would not go, shouldered another gun, saying, "For shame! I wont see the old man go alone!" The two went down through the grass, and when they reached the river, they saw a number of Indians running away under shelter of the bank. The Indians seldom attack determined men, who are on their guard—unless they are on the war-path with a large force—and they saw that father was such a man, and gave him no more trouble. It was on his last trip, in 1864, that the Indian raid occurred, which he mentioned in Chapter XXXI. On their return they found that armed bands of Indians were still riding about the country. One afternoon, when they were within a little over a day's drive of Fort Kearney, they saw a band of Indians prowling about, first in one direction, then in another. The boys were badly frightened, and wanted to run their teams all night, in order to reach the fort. The weather was hot, and the oxen already tired, and father feared that such a forced drive would kill them. So he ordered the boys to camp for the night. They kept out a strong guard, and were not 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."
In the spring of 1865 he moved back to the farm, and spent much of the summer in preaching. For the next four years his winters were spent in lumbering, and his summers in preaching, and improving his farm. Even while lumbering he preached somewhere nearly every Sunday; sometimes at home, sometimes in the schoolhouse near his timber, and sometimes he landed a raft at Port William on Saturday, and went across and preached for the church at Pleasant Ridge, Leavenworth county. And other Sundays he preached at various points easy to reach on Saturday evening, and return to his work on Monday morning.
He rafted many of his logs to Port William or Leavenworth, and usually helped to take them down; and there was much joking about where he learned the rafting business. It was dangerous, however, for rafts sometimes struck snags, or became unmanageable in the swift current, and went to pieces.
When the Central Branch Railroad was built, the company took corn of settlers in payment for lands, cribbing it by the road. Instead of shipping off the corn, they shipped Texas cattle to the cribs, to eat it up. They soon came to father in great perplexity. Their cattle broke every fence they could build, and they did not know what to do with them. So he told them how to build a fence the cattle could not break, and he had a quantity of extra strong lumber sawed for that purpose. When he called at the railroad office to receive pay for his lumber, the clerk paid him in rolls of bills sealed up in paper, with the value marked on the outside. After leaving the office he counted his money, and found that one of the rolls that was marked $100, really contained $1,000. Returning, he told the clerk he had made a mistake. "We correct no mistakes," was the gruff reply. "Young man, you are not doing business for yourself, but for the railroad company; come here and help me count the money." The label had been misplaced.
The greater part of father's lumber was sawed at Winthrop, now called East Atchison, and he did much hauling across the river on the ice. His teams were usually the first to cross when the river froze up, and the last to quit crossing in the spring; but as he was a good judge of the condition of the ice, he never lost a team. I have heard my brother George say that four or five times, when father or himself had, by careful driving, crossed in safety with large double teams and heavy loads, others, trying to cross behind them with light wagons, had broken through, and either lost their teams or been saved with difficulty. One spring the ice was thawing rapidly, and had become quite rotten; but father wanted to take one more heavy load across, and he drove it himself. It was drawn by several yoke of oxen, and their weight sunk the ice so that the water spouted through the air-holes and frightened them. He knew that the beaten track, where the teams had trodden the ice solid, and the accumulated mud had shaded it, had not thawed as fast as the surrounding ice, and that to allow his wagon to swerve a foot, one way or the other, was to risk breaking in. He ran along by the lead yoke, watching them so closely that he did not notice where he was walking, and several times he stepped off, knee-deep in little air-holes; but he took his load safely over. As he went up the bank some half-drunken Germans in a sleigh dashed down on the ice and broke through, but were so near the shore that they easily got out. But one of father's wagons ever broke through, and it was driven by a careless hired man. Father was ahead with another team. He called back to the man to unhitch quickly and hitch on to the end of the tongue, for fear the team would break through, too, and running back, he put lumber under the wheels, and they pulled the wagon out.
Father gave away a great deal of wood over there. In those days coal was scarce and high, and, consequently, wood was high also. Many families were so glad to receive the wood as a gift, that they were willing to haul it twelve or fourteen miles. And, winter after winter, he also kept two or three poor families supplied with wood from his timber at home, allowing them to come and help themselves.
Father and mother were always very generous, giving freely of money, wood, fruits, vegetables, milk, or whatever they had to spare, to those more needy than themselves. I can not remember of ever seeing them charge any one for a night's lodging, or turn any one away.
When father had anything to sell, he often refused to accept its market value, because he thought it was not really worth the price. A friend once noticed him selling seed potatoes much below the market price, and told him that his generous habit of selling to his neighbors so cheaply would keep him poor. He replied that the market price was extortionate, and that his conscience would not allow him to accept it.
In his later years he gave freely to help build various churches; and to State and General Missionary Societies, and to the many calls for money.
He could never stand by and order men around, but always took hold and did the hardest of the work himself; and the excessively heavy work of logging injured his health. He had several severe spells of nervous rheumatism, and from that time his right arm was troubled with the trembling palsy, which grew worse until his death. He had not been able to write with a pen for several years, and his "Recollections" were all written by holding a pencil in his right hand, and steadying that with the left hand.
Once, while he was lumbering, mother remonstrated with him for wearing himself out so fast. He replied that he saw so much needing to be done, and done at once, he felt compelled to push his work off his hands as fast as possible. If it shortened his life, he said it made no difference to him, provided he could accomplish more than in a long life of easy work. I heard him say once that we ought to make our life-work of so much importance, that neither cold, nor storm, nor any other hindrance should be allowed to interfere with the performance of duty. And I seldom knew him to stop for bad weather of any kind.
In December, 1865, I had concluded to go to school a term at Manhattan, and asked father to take me there, for it was a hundred miles, and there was not a railroad in the State. He sent an appointment to hold a meeting there at that time. The morning that we were to start the thermometer was eighteen degrees below zero, and the wind blowing keenly from the northwest. But if we postponed our journey he would miss an appointment, and so we started. There was no snow, the roads were rough, and we had to travel in a lumber wagon, and were three days on the way. I was well wrapped in blankets, and did not suffer severely, but father, on account of driving, could not wrap up so much, and had to walk nearly half of the time to keep from freezing. His nose and cheeks were slightly frozen the second day, for it did not begin to moderate until the third day.
He held a good meeting of eight or ten days. There were about a dozen baptisms, the ice being cut in the river for that purpose.
In May, 1867, my two-year-old brother, Ernest, was accidentally scalded. He lingered a week, then death claimed the youngest of the flock.
When the Central Branch Railroad was built the little town of Farmington was laid out, a mile to the northwest of father's house—Pardee being two miles to the southeast. Many of the original members of the Pardee Church had helped to organize the Pleasant Grove Church, six miles west. Father thought it would be wise to break up at Pardee., and move church and village to the railroad town, but some objected. Thinking that the rest would soon follow, he left Pardee, and organized a church of twenty-three members at Farmington, October 6, 1867. Bro. McCleery held a successful meeting here the next December, and preached once a month during the following year.
For several years much of father's time was given (gratuitously), in caring for this church and Sunday-school, and the church soon numbered a hundred members.
After the war many colored people came to Kansas, and a number of them settled in the neighborhood. They had heard of father, as a friend to the colored people, and some of them wanted to work for him. He frequently employed them, and usually found them faithful and efficient. They liked to work for him because he treated them as he treated white men. As there were not enough of them in the country places to form churches of their own, they attended our Sunday-schools and meetings. We were much surprised to find that some of our brethren objected to colored children being in the classes. One good old colored man, who had been a member of the church in Missouri, was much respected by the community. A white brother requested our deacon, W. J. May, a son of Caleb May, to ask this colored brother to take a back seat, and to pass the bread and wine to him last. Bro. May replied: "I shall do no such thing; as long as I am deacon in this church there shall be no respect of persons."
A colored man, who had been a servant in the family of one of the governors of Virginia, presented himself for membership. He was a neat, good-looking man, with pleasant manners, and had been a member of Col. Shaw's colored regiment, when they so valiantly stormed Fort Wagner. A white sister borrowed a pair of gloves, when she went up to give him the hand of fellowship, so that she "wouldn't have to touch a nigger's hand."
Father wanted to teach them, without giving undue offense, their Christian duty to the colored people. He preached a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan, telling how the Jews and Samaritans hated each other, and how Jesus taught in that parable that even the most despised of earth's races are our neighbors. He also told the story of Peter's vision at the house of Simon, and how God taught him not to call any man or nation of men common or unclean, but to carry the gospel to all nations. The nearest that he came to modern times, in that sermon, was the remark that the Jews despised the Samaritans as much as the Americans despised the Africans. He left them to make their own applications of the Bible teachings.
What an excitement it raised! Many said the colored people had to be turned out of the Sunday-school, or they would leave; and some did leave. In nearly all our churches father had to meet this prejudice, but he remained firm in his position, that in church and Sunday-school there should be neither white nor black, but all should have equal rights.
In the spring of 1869 father sold his timber land in Missouri, and paid the last of his debts. He had some money left, and the first thing he did was to go into a book store, and spend forty dollars for "Barnes' Notes," and "Motley's United Netherlands," and "History of the Dutch Republic." He remarked as he did so, "I have felt the need of these books for years, and this is the first money I could spare for them."
Men who had seen father working with tireless energy on his farm, or the plains, or "logging" in the timber, sometimes said: "He is craving to get rich."
He has often been misunderstood, but in no point more than this. I never knew a man who cared less for wealth than he. The one all-absorbing object of his life was to preach the gospel. But he had also resolved to have the means to pay his debts, and to have a home for his family.
About that time he spoke to me, in substance, as follows: The one great anxiety of my life has been to preach. I had intended to go to Bethany, and devote my life entirely to preaching. My sore throat caused me to give that up, but going to Iowa improved my health, and I began to preach again. When I took my claim in Kansas it was with the intention of holding on to the land, while I preached in Illinois, until Kansas should be thickly enough settled to furnish me preaching here. But you know how necessity has driven me, and how preaching for a meager salary, and neglecting my farm, ran me in debt; and what a hard necessity has been laid on me to pay those debts, and to improve my farm, so that you and your mother and the boys can make a living from it. You have no idea what a sore and bitter trial it has been to me the last six or eight years to see the old churches going to pieces before my eyes, and so many opportunities for planting new churches being lost to us. There is only one thing more I must do, and then I am determined to give myself wholly to preaching. As for myself, I would live in a log house all my days before I would take from my preaching the time necessary to earn and build a better house. But Sybil has been a good and faithful wife, and has borne with commendable patience all the trials of the hard life through which I have led her; and it worries her to entertain so much company as we have in her log house. With the lumber and saleable stock I have on hand, I can build it without incurring any further debt. And then I will be ready to preach without being dependent on any man.
The house was built; but before it was finished a series of misfortunes befell him, that threw him in debt nearly as badly as before. From snake-bites, disease, and accidents, he lost four or five horses, and several head of cattle, and the cholera killed nearly a thousand dollars' worth of his hogs.
He went to work again, but somewhat discouraged, for he saw that his long-deferred hope of devoting his entire time to study and preaching, could never be realized. He was nearly sixty, and had broken his constitution by hard work, and could not much longer have endured the incessant riding and preaching of a traveling evangelist, even could he have been supported. The boys were then old enough to do much of the farm work, and from that time he preached more constantly, but spent more or less time at hard labor.
For several years he was employed, for a small salary, at monthly preaching, by churches at Big Springs, Valley Falls, Round Prairie, and other points.
In the fall of 1875 he concluded to visit once more the churches for which he had preached before coming to Kansas, and bid farewell to his old friends. He accordingly spent the following winter in a preaching tour throughout Iowa and Illinois.
The State Meeting at Emporia, in 1877, in his absence, elected him President of the Society. Unable to find a State evangelist who would undertake the difficult task of reviving the old churches that had perished—which he thought was the work most needed at that time—he took the field himself. At the State meeting held at Yates Center the next year, he made the following report: "Time spent, five months; sermons preached, one hundred and fifty; churches organized, two; compensation received, $186.36." He also revived many scattered churches and Sunday-schools, and obtained regular preaching for some of them. He was greatly worried over the churches of this part of the State. They had been much weakened, and some of them nearly broken up by the tide of emigration that set into the southern and western counties. Attempts at co-operative State and district work were impeded by conservative papers, which prejudiced the brethren against missionary societies, and hireling pastors. He spent much time, both with tongue and pen, in answering these sophistries, and teaching the churches their duties. Many of the churches were really too poor to support regular preaching, and many that were able, thought themselves unable to do so. Yet someone must care for them, or they would perish. He resolved for the rest of his life to preach, without remuneration, where such preaching was most needed. And so the last eight or nine years of his life were spent in preaching on Saturdays and Sundays for weak churches, and the remainder of the time in working and writing. If a church was building a meeting house, and felt unable to support a preacher while doing so, he preached for it until it was built. If a church had already built, and felt oppressed with debt, he preached for it until the debt was paid. If, from any cause, a church was weak or disorderly, he preached for it until it was again in good order. Then he said to the brethren: "I have helped you on your feet, now raise the money and hire some one else to preach for you, and let me go and help some other needy church."
Mr. Hastings and I were married in 1870, and had settled at Farmington. From that time Mr. Hastings had taken much of the care of the Farmington church. The church at Pardee had revived, and had been doing well under the care of Prof. N. Dunshee; and, later on, by the assistance of Prof. J. M. Reid, and of Mr. Hastings. But, about six years ago, being left without a leader, they begged father to take charge of them, although they were unable to offer him much remuneration. He told them that it would cost them nothing, so far as he was concerned; but that, if he took charge of them, they must promise to support the Sunday-school liberally, and to build a church. He, and his family, therefore, changed their membership from Farmington back to Pardee, where he was elected elder—for he believed that every pastor of a church should be one of its elders—and he preached for them five years. He not only gave largely of his means to build the church, but spent the whole summer in collecting the money, and overseeing the building of the house. He looked after the buying of the materials, and sent his teams to do much of the hauling, and never stopped until the building was furnished, the insurance paid, and his own hands had put the stoves in place.
About a year before his death, however, owing to disagreements about the manner of conducting the Sunday-school, father resigned his eldership, and preached at other points until his death.
But his work for others was not confined to preaching, or church work. He had never tried to make a large town of either Farmington or Pardee. He knew too well the perils of the city. When he helped to lay out Pardee he made it a part of the charter that if liquor should ever be sold on any lot of the town the deed to that lot should be forfeited. His idea was to have a small village, with a good church and school, as the center of a moral and intelligent farming community. He took great interest in schools, Sunday-schools, literary societies, and temperance work; in everything, in fact, which tended to the moral and intellectual improvement of the young, or to the well-being of society in general.
He spent much time in writing and lecturing on temperance, both before and after the passage of the Prohibitory Amendment. His articles in the papers denouncing the violation of the prohibitory law as rebellion against the Constitution, and all the sympathizers with the law-breakers, as rebels, stirred up such an excitement that when he went to Atchison he could scarcely walk the streets on account of the people, both friends and opponents, who stopped him on every turn, to talk of prohibition. The Germans all wanted to discuss the matter with him; but one of the leading Germans said to him one day, "You must not expect us old Germans, who have brought our habits from the old country, to change; but go ahead, Mr. Butler! Go ahead! The young men are with you."
Father was sometimes accused of "dabbling in politics." If that means that he was an office-seeker, the charge is false. Though often urged by his friends to run for office, he invariably refused, telling them that he considered the office of a Christian preacher the highest office on earth. But he did think it his duty to attend elections and primary meetings, and work against the whisky ring. He often spent much time, in the fall, speaking and writing to secure the election of temperance men for county officers. The final effort by which he succeeded in arousing a public sentiment strong enough to compel the county officers to close the saloons, was a stirring speech he made at a temperance meeting in Atchison, in the spring of 1885,
Some have thought that father was hard-hearted. Plain-spoken he certainly was, and sometimes harsh in dealing with those whom he thought to be doing wrong. He was so thoroughly in earnest that when he thought a certain way right or wrong, it was hard for him to understand that some other way might be equally right or wrong.
Naturally high-tempered, with a very excitable, nervous organization, it was often a matter of wonder to me to see how much self-control he exercised, under irritating circumstances. He sometimes lost his self-control, and said things that would better have been left unsaid; but when he saw that he had done so he was ready to beg pardon for the offense. But he was kind-hearted and forgiving, and ready to forget injuries done to him.
No matter how harshly he might speak of an opponent, or wrong-doer, he would often turn right around and do him a kindness.
One of the men who helped to raft him wrote to him three or four years ago, saying that he was writing an account of the Kansas troubles, and asking him for some information on points that he had forgotten. Father readily complied with his request, telling him that he freely forgave him, and all the rest of his old-time enemies.
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 theChristian Standard, of his "Recollections."
Bro. F. M. Rains said of that address, "That was the grandest speech ever delivered on Kansas soil."
The HutchinsonDaily Newsspoke 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."
The earnestness and appropriateness of his prayers were most noticeable on several funeral occasions, and numbers spoke of being affected by them, particularly at Bro. Locker's funeral.
He preached his last sermon at North Cedar, a week and a half before his accident. The following Saturday, September 15, he attended Bro. Locker's funeral. The next day he attended Bro. Parker's meeting at Pleasant Grove, where he presided at the Lord's table.
He had several appointments ahead at the time he was hurt. One of these was to preach the funeral of his old friend, Caleb May, who had died in Florida, August 27. His children in Florida had sent a request to his son, E. E. May, of Farmington, that father should preach a memorial sermon at Pardee.
Father had not done any heavy work for two years, but he still did much light work, and choring, although his health was gradually failing, milking eight or ten cows a day, and driving a young team from ten to twenty miles to his appointments, almost every Sunday, seldom stopping for bad weather.
It was reported that he was thrown from a colt at the time he was hurt. My brothers wish that report corrected. They think he never was thrown from a horse in his life. They had seen him break many colts, and had never seen him thrown. He had been using the most spirited colt on the place for his riding horse all summer; but that day, September 19, it was in a distant pasture, and finding my brother Charley's colt in the stable, he thought he would ride it to the post-office. It would not stand for him to mount, and he put the halter around a post, holding the end in his hand. As he mounted the saddle the colt jerked both halter and bridle from his hand and trotted off. Unable to reach the bridle he hastily dismounted. As he swung his right foot around to the ground the colt kicked it, crushing the ankle joint. He quietly called mother; and Brother May, who happened to be passing, helped him into the house, and sent for a surgeon.
We feared no worse result at the first than a crippled ankle. He said to Bro. White, who visited him afewdays after he was hurt, "Oh, I will get up all right; a Butler never was conquered, you know. My only concern is that I shall not become a permanent cripple."
The first week he was hopeful, though suffering much pain. The second week he was delirious, with high fever. Then he was prostrated with a severe nervous chill—his already over-wrought nervous system was exhausted by pain. From that time he lay in an unconscious stupor the greater part of the time. He passed quietly away at half-past three A. M., October 19, 1888, at the age of seventy-two.
His funeral took place the following day in the church at Pardee. The services were conducted by Elders John Boggs, of Clyde, and J. B. McCleery, of Fort Leavenworth. The house was full, notwithstanding it was a stormy day, raining continuously from morning until night. Word had been sent to all the churches in this and adjacent counties, and hundreds who were preparing to attend the funeral were disappointed by the inclement weather.