RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Butler Buttlai
of the common virtues, benevolence, compassion, and the like. He desires to take human nature as an existing fact, and to analyze its constituents just so far as is necessary to bring to light the obligations to right living." His Six Sermons are likewise practical: The first is a defense of foreign missions; the second is an appeal for the London hospitals; the third is on the true way to safeguard liberty; the fourth is a plea for charity schools; the fifth is upon the uses to which the union of Church and State should be put, and the sixth upon the proper management of infirmaries. Of like practicality is his more famous Analogy. He took the Deists on their own ground and strove to cut the ground from under their feet in order that he might bring them to the Christian foundation. To quote Bernard again: " We find in Butler's works no attempt to construct a philosophy of religion nor . an analysis of the religious consciousness. Religion is treated altogether
from the historical point of view. Its main doctrines are facts and are susceptible of proof, just like any other facts. It is an argumentum ad
hominem all through, and is not intended to present an absolute and consecutive statement of the grounds of faith. His point was, not that the
difficulties of revelation repeat the difficulties of .nature, but rather the difficulties of revelation, admitted to be embarrassing in themselves, cannot be counted destructive of religious belief, inasmuch as difficulties of a similar nature beset the recognition of nature as a coherent and systematic whole."
The first part of the Analogy, consisting of seven chapters, is the Analogy of Natural Religion to the constitution and course of Nature; and is generally considered more successful than the second part, in eight chapters, on the Analogy of Revealed Religion to the constitution and course of Nature (or a kind of evidences of Christianity). But both parts are very hard reading, because, though perfectly clear, the argument is very profound. It has been a college and university text-book for nigh 175 years and the quarry of innumerable works.
There are many editions of Butler. Two of remarkable excellence are that by the late W. E. Gladstone (two vols., Oxford, 1896, with a volume of Gladstone's Studies subsidiary to Butler's works) and that by J.H.Bernard (2 vols., London, 1900).
Bibliography: The earliest Life appeared in the Biographia Britannica, in the Supplement, London, 1753, and the Life by Kippis, which appeared in his ed. of the Biographia, London, 1778-93, is often prefixed to the Works or to the Analogy. Consult further: T. Bartlett, Memoirs of Joseph Butler, London, 1839; John Hunt, Religious Thought in England, vols, ii., hi., ib. 1871-73; C. J. Abbey and J. H. Overton, English Church in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols., ib. 1878; T. R. Tynehon, Bishop Butler, a Sketch of his Life with an Examination of the Analogy, New York, 1889; Bishop Butler, An Appreciation, with the best passages of his Writings, London, 1903; DNB, vfii. 67-72.
BUTLER, WILLIAM: Methodist; b. in Dublin, Ireland, Jan. 31, 1818; d. at Old Orchard, Me., Aug. 18, 1899. He was graduated at Didsbury College, near Manchester, Eng., 1844, and the same year became a member of the Irish Wesleyan Conference. In 1850 he came to America and joined II.— 21
the New England Conference. In 1856 he was sent to India to be superintendent of a mission to be founded in that country. He located it in Oudh, Northwest India, but had scarcely begun work before the Sepoy rebellion broke out and he was for a time in extreme peril. Quiet being restored, he conducted the mission very successfully, making his headquarters at Bareilly. In 1865 he returned to America because, the mission being organized into a conference, no superintendent was needed. He resumed his pastoral labors till in 1869 he became secretary of the American and Foreign Christian Union, in New York. In 1873 he was for the second time selected by his Church to found a mission, this time in Mexico, and was its superintendent till 1879. He revisited India in 1883 and 1884, and saw the great success which had attended the mission he had founded. His last days were passed at Newton Centre, Mass. He wrote: Compendium of Missions (Boston, 1852); The Land of the Veda (New York, 1872); From Boston to Bareilly and Back (1885); Mexico in Transition (1892).
Bibliography: Clementina Butler, William Butler, the Founder of Two Missions of the M. E. Church, New York, 1902.
BUTLER, WILLIAM ARCHER: Church of Ireland; b. at Annerville (2 m. e. of Clonmel), County Tipperary, 1814; d. at Raymoghy (5 m. n. of Raphoe), County Donegal, July 5, 1848. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and was professor of moral philosophy there from 1837 to his death. From 1837 to 1842 he was minister at Clondehorka, diocese of Raphoe, County Donegal, and then rector of Raymoghy in the same diocese. He was a brilliant and profound thinker, but his works are all posthumous and prepared for the press by others. They are Letters on the Development of Christian Doctrine in Reply to Mr Newman's Essay (ed. Thomas Woodward, Dublin, 1850); Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy (ed. William Hepworth Thompson, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1856, 5th ed., 1 vol., London, 1874); Sermons Doctrinal and Practical (1st series, ed. with memoir by Thomas Woodward, Dublin, 1849, 3d ed., Cambridge, 1855; 2d series, ed. James Amiraux Jeremie, Cambridge, 1856), each series having twenty-six sermons; the two series with his lectures were reprinted in New York, 1879.