Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler | Page 8

the Pagan notion of the immortality of the soul, and to affirm that the
Bible says nothing of the immortality of the soul. A Bro. McPherson
undertook to contest the matter with her, but, not finding the scripture
he was looking for, she exclaimed with bitter and vixenish speech, "Ah!
You can't find it! You can't find it! It isn't there! I told you so!" And
thus this couple were fast demoralizing the church, Billy Greenwell, the
richest man in the church, being wholly carried away with this
fanaticism. John Brown lived half way between Ripley and Rushville,
but was a member of the church at Rushville. Bro. Brown was a man of
good sense, excellent character, and had been a member of the
Legislature. He attended our meeting at Rushville, and, in the intervals
of the meeting, was full of questions concerning this heresy that had
been sprung on them at Ripley.
Our meeting at Rushville came to a close. It had been a good meeting;
the church had been revived, and there had been important additions. I
took dinner with Bro. Brown, and in the afternoon we rode toward
Ripley. On crossing the ferry at Crooked Creek, "Old Rob Burton," the

ferryman, a tall, stalwart Kentuckian, looking down on me, asked, "Are
you the man that's goin' to preach at Ripley to-night?"
"Yes."
"Wall, don't you know thar's a woman thar that's goin' to skin you?"
"Well, I don't know. We shall see how it will be?"
At Rushville I had done my best, and now, being withdrawn from the
excitement of the meeting, felt exhausted; and determined not to touch
any debatable question that night. The house was crowded with eager
and expectant listeners. My fame had gone before me, and the "woman
preacher" was present, ready for a fight. But, alas! My sermon was a
bucket of cold water poured on the heads of my brethren. At any other
time it would have been accepted as a good and edifying exhortation;
but now, how untimely! The meeting was dismissed and the buzzing
was as if a hive of bees had just been ready to swarm. The woman's
disciples were jubilant; and, above the din and hurly-burly, I heard a
thin, squeaking voice say, "Give that woman a Bible, and she would
say more in five minutes than that man has said in his whole
dis-c-o-u-rse." This was Billy Greenwell.
Brother Brown said nothing that night; but the next morning he said to
me:
"Bro. B., the people were disappointed with you last night."
"Why, Bro. B., was it not a good sermon?"
"Yes; but it was not what the people expected."
"Bro. B., did the people expect me, uninvited, to pitch into a quarrel
with which I have nothing whatever to do?"
"Oh, is that it? Well, wait a little and you shall have an invitation."
Bro. Brown went out, and soon returned with a request that I should
discuss the question that Mr. Chapman and his wife had been debating.

I sat down and wrote out a statement of the subjects on which I
proposed to speak in all the evenings of the coming week. The first
commanded universal attention: "Does the spirit die when the body
dies?" They had never thought of that. They had been thunderstruck
when this woman told them that the Bible says nothing about the
immortality of the soul, but beyond this they had never gone. There
was probably more Bible reading that day in Ripley than any day
before or since.
At night the house was jammed, and "the woman" was there, Bible in
hand. I began: "The Bible speaks of a man as composed of body, soul
and spirit. The body is that material tabernacle in which a man dwells,
and which Paul hoped to put off that he might be clothed with a house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. The soul is that animal life
we have in common with all living and material things. Thus Jesus is
said to have poured out his soul unto death. But what of the spirit? God
is spirit, and God can not die. The angels are spirits, and the angels can
not die; Jesus says so. Man has a spirit, and can man's spirit die? But
spirit sometimes means breath. Yes, and heaven sometimes means the
firmament above our heads, where the birds fly. But does it never mean
more than this? Paradise sometimes means the happy garden where
Adam and Eve dwelt; but does it never mean more than that? So,
granting that spirit sometimes means breath, may it not also mean more
than that?
"When Jesus said, 'Into thy hands I commend my spirit,' did he mean,
'Into thy hands I commend my breath'? So, when the