Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler | Page 8

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At Rushville I had done my best, and now, being withdrawn from the excitement of the meeting, felt exhausted; and determined not to touch any debatable question that night.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 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