Connected with this church was Numeris Humber.  Bro.  Humber and his wife were among the excellent of the earth.  Sister Humber was a matronly woman, comely in person, greatly beloved, and a queen of song.  When D. S. Burnett afterwards held a protracted meeting at this place, it was the songs of Sister Humber and Stephen Sales, as much as the preaching of D. S. Burnett, that made the meeting a wonderful success, and one long to be remembered.  Bro.  Humber and Bro.  Young were slave-holders.  Bro.  Humber was also an emancipationist in his views of slave-holding, and often said that if a position could be secured suitable for emancipated slaves he would gladly set his slaves free.  When at last they were made free by the results of the war, and went to Leavenworth to live, it was always a burden on Bro.  Humber’s heart to watch over them, and try and save them from the temptations that were laid for their feet in that wicked city.

It will be readily seen that no scandal would be created in Atchison by organizing a church at Mt.  Pleasant with such men to take the lead in it.

CHAPTER VII.

It was now the middle of August.  My cabin was completed, and I was ready to go back and bring Mrs. Butler and the children to Kansas.  Bro.  Elliott accompanied me to Atchison, where I intended to take a steamboat to St. Louis, thence going up the Illinois River to Fulton county, Illinois, where Mrs. Butler had been stopping with her sister.

The things that had been happening in the Territory had been so strange and unheard of, and the threats of the Squatter Sovereign had been so savage and barbarous, that I wanted to carry back to my friends in Illinois some evidence of what was going on.  I went, therefore, with Bro.  Elliott to the Squatter Sovereign printing office to purchase extra copies of that paper.  I was waited on by Robert S. Kelley.  After paying for my papers I said to him:  “I should have become a subscriber to your paper some time ago only there is one thing I do not like about it.”  Mr. Kelley did not know me, and asked:  “What is it?”

I replied:  “I do not like the spirit of violence that characterizes it.”

He said:  “I consider all Free-soilers rogues, and they are to be treated as such.”

I looked him for a moment steadily in the face, and then said to him:  “Well, sir, I am a Free-soiler; and I intend to vote for Kansas to be a free State.”

He fiercely replied:  “You will not be allowed to vote.”

When Bro.  Elliott and myself had left the house, and were in the open air, he clutched me nervously by the arm and said:  “Bro.  Butler!  Bro.  Butler!  You must not do such things; they will kill you!”

I replied:  “If they do I can not help it.”

Bro.  E. was now to go home.  But before going he besought me with earnest entreaty not to bring down on my own head the vengeance of these men.  I thanked him for his regard for me, and we bade each other good-by.