As for the amount of money pledged—­well, it would not have frightened even one of those little ones, that are scared out of their wits at the thought of an over-paid, over-fed, proud, luxurious and domineering priesthood.  As for the missionary chosen to go on this forlorn hope—­to explore this Africa of spiritual darkness, it was Hobson’s choice; it was this or none.  Except myself, there was no man to be thought of that would or could go on this errand, and so there was no contest over the choice of a missionary.

Conspicuous among these early churches were the churches that were formed in Doniphan county.  This is the most northeastern county in the State, and is in a great bend of the Missouri River, having the river on three sides of it.  It is a body of the best land in Kansas, and no county had at its first settlement as many Disciples.  Their first beginning was unfortunate.  A man named Winters, calling himself a preacher, came among them and made a great stir.  But he brought with him a woman that was not his wife.  With a character unblemished this man would have won an honorable fame; but when questioned he equivocated, but was finally compelled to confess the shameful truth, and in their grief and shame the newly-organized church seemed broken up.  Jacob I. Scott was a man of spotless life and dauntless purpose, and feeling that it would be an unspeakable humiliation to allow everything to go to wreck because of the frailty of one unfortunate man, and learning that I had taken the field in the counties further south, he besought me to come over and help them.  In no counties in this State have there been more churches than in Doniphan county, but in no county in the State have the churches been more evanescent and unstable, and yet it is not because these brethren have apostatized, but it is that the men that have settled in Doniphan county are men that keep on the borders of civilization, and the opening of a great empire for settlement to the west of them tempted them to move onward.  Indeed, this has been the case in all the churches in Eastern Kansas.  Just as soon as we would gather up a strong church it would straightway melt out of our hands, and its members would be scattered from Montana to Florida, and from the Missouri River to Oregon.

Some twenty-five miles to the northwest of my place of residence, in what is now Jackson county, on the waters of the Cedar Creek, was a settlement mainly from Platte county, Mo.  The best known of these was Bro.  John Gardiner, whose heart now for thirty years has held one single thought, the interest and prosperity of the Christian Church.  He has sacrificed much, has labored much, and has done a great deal of preaching without fee or reward.  Bro.  J. W. Williams, from Southeastern Ohio, a man of saintly character and indefatigable purpose, was also of this settlement.  There also we organized a church.