Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler | Page 9

disciples saw
Jesus walking on the water and cried out, 'It is a spirit,' did Jesus say to
them, 'This is an old wives' fable; there is no such thing as a spirit'? Did
he not rather say to them,--'It is I; be not afraid.' So, also, when he
appeared to them in a room, the doors being shut, and they cried out, 'It
is a spirit,' he said to them, 'Handle me and see; for a spirit hath not
flesh and bones, as ye see me have.' In all this Jesus encouraged the
disciples to hold the idea which was then popular among the Jews, that
the spirit may exist apart from the body, and after the body is dead."
I thus discoursed to them for one hour in development of the Bible

teachings concerning human spirits; and in my turn ridiculed the
persons that had ridiculed the ideas that had evidently been held by
Jesus and the apostles.
Mrs. Chapman had always invited objections; but she was sure to make
an endless talk over them. I said, "We will not have an endless
confabulation to-night; but I will quote one passage of Scripture, and
on that I will rest my case. Any other person may then quote one
passage of Scripture and on that rest the case. I have preached one
sermon; the other party has preached twenty. So far we will count
ourselves even, and it only remains that I should quote my Scripture,
and let the other party quote the one Scripture on the opposite side, and
then we will be dismissed." I gave the views of the Pharisees and of the
Sadducees as detailed by Josephus, and then quoted Luke in the Acts of
Apostles: "The Sadducees say there is no resurrection, neither angel nor
spirit; but the Pharisees confess both." And Paul says, "Men and
brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee." So I also say, I am a
Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, and hold to the existence of human and
angelic spirits.
When I announced that I should call for objections, I saw Mrs.
Chapman take up her Bible in a flutter and nervously turn over its
leaves. When I sat down all eyes were turned on her, and there was a
death-like stillness in the house. Then she rose up, and in a moment
was out of the house. She left the town the next morning and never
came back. Then it was "Old Bob Burton's" turn to speak. He said to
Billy Green, "Your chest is locked, and the key is lost in the bottom of
the sea."
The brethren were gratified that the power of this "soul-sleeping"
delusion was broken. Billy Green never recovered from his infatuation.
He afterwards built a house that, in the number of rooms it contained,
was wholly beyond his necessities. But he thought that when the Lord
should come, and he should own all the land that joined him, and
should have children to his heart's desire, then he would need all the
room.

CHAPTER II.
From Ripley I went to Mt. Sterling, the county-seat of Brown County.
This church had fallen into decay for want of the care of a competent
evangelist. Here I remained some weeks; and the church was very
much revived, and there was a large ingathering. This was originally
the home of Bro. Archie Glenn, now conspicuous in building up the
University at Wichita. From the first Bro. Glenn, though modest and
unobtrusive, was known as a solid and helpful member of the church.
He always had the confidence of the people of Brown County, and was
by them elected to various public offices, at last becoming
Lieutenant-Governor of the State. But his business not prospering to
suit him, he removed to Wichita, which was at that time a straggling
village of uncertain fortunes, situated on a river of doubtful reputation,
and located in a country concerning which the public were debating
whether it should be called "The Great American Desert," or a decent
place, where civilized men could live and thrive.
But Bro. Glenn did not lose faith in the Lord nor in his country. He
went to his new home to be a live man. Wichita has decided to be a city,
and not a straggling village of doubtful and cow-boy reputation; the
Arkansas River has agreed to behave itself and to co-operate with
human hands in giving fertility to its valley, and the geographers have
unanimously agreed to strike the "Great American Desert" from the
map of the United States. Sister Shields has grown up since these old
days to be a woman, then a widow, and now a true yoke-fellow with
her father in these great undertakings.
Bro. Lewis Brockman was pointed out