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A Tribute from Rev. Hugh Fisher
In his book, “The Gun and the Gospel,” Rev. Hugh D. Fisher paid tribute to
those Methodist clergymen who came before him to Kansas Territory: The Methodist Episcopal Church, always a pioneer of evangelism, was first to enter the door of occupancy of the sacred territory of Kansas. Among the advance guards were such men as Abraham Still, W. H. Goode, J. S. Griffing, L. B. Dennis and B. F. Bowman. The Kansas and Nebraska Conference was organized in a tent in Lawrence, the historic city, by Bishop Osman C. Baker, on Thursday, October 23, A.D., 1856, the session closing on Saturday, the 25th, showing a ministerial force of twenty members and two probationers… These ministers and their wives were the advance guard of God’s chosen servants, who endured hardships as good soldiers of the cross, as seeing Him who is invisible and His victories. The history of the struggle of church building and organizing would make a volume, and in all this work the preachers and their families bore the heaviest part of the burden.[1] In April 1881, Rev. Fisher wrote his friend and fellow minister, James Griffing. The letter was written from his desk at the American Bible Society in Salt Lake City, Utah. It reads:
Rev. J. S. Griffing Dear Sir & Brother I am profoundly astonished in receiving Bishop Hurst’s article in the “Quarterly Review,” page 310, where he asks, “Where would Kansas be today but for its rescue from the grasp of the slaveholder by the Congregational sons of New England?” Ain’t that news to you, put in the forceful form of an assertion, by way of a question? I failed to discover much Congregational leaves in that tub of meal. And few Congregationalists in the rank and file of the men who snatched Kansas from the grasp of the slaveocracy. How is it with the oldest Methodist Settler = Yourself? I think the statement entirely unsupported. With great respect, I am yours, -- H. D. Fisher
[1] The Gun and the Gospel, by Rev. H. D. Fisher, p. 53 |
