This was the only one of father's many contests in
which he contended for a personal benefit: his other contests were all
for the good of the public.
From this deviation I will now return to the year 1858. Father was so
busy preaching in other places, that he only preached occasionally in
Pardee.
He has sometimes been accused of preaching politics. A good brother
who formerly lived in Missouri, said, not long before father's death:
"They used to tell me before I came to Kansas that Pardee Butler
preached politics, and I said that if ever I heard him begin to preach
politics, I was going to get right up in meeting, and ask him to show
his Scripture for preaching politics. Now I've been hearing him
preach, off and on, for twenty years, and I've never got up in
meeting yet, for I've never heard him preach any politics."
The only sermon that I can remember as containing any allusion to
politics, was one that he preached at Pardee that summer of 1858. It
was from the text, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the
weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought
ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
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