"Oh Lord, give me a backbone as big as a sawlog, ribs like the sleepers under the church floor, put iron shoes on me and galvanized breeches, give me a rhinoceros hide for a skin, and hang a wagonload of determination up in the gable-end of my soul, and help me to sign the contract to fight the devil as long as I've got a fist and bite him as long as I have a tooth, then gum him till I die. All this I ask for Christ's sake. Amen."

Never was he the pastor of a church. He was uneducated and had many queer ways. But for exactly those quaint ways people loved him. They called him Uncle Bud. He was just himself, totally unaffected, always sweet-tempered. In his simple way he criticized evil and wrong. Still, he was a friend to everybody.

Probably the most remarkable characteristic about him was his humor. He put things into figures of speech that nobody else would think of. He was a beloved figure; anytime you announced him for a service or a meeting you could be sure you'd get a crowd of people. His native wit and his lisp gave him wide renown.

He became a worldwide evangelist, humorist and writer. During his life he wrote about 14 or 15 books, and would write what was called "Good Samaritan chats by Uncle Bud" for the Herald of Holiness. "A heathen is any member of the Church of the Nazarene that doesn't subscribe to the Herald of Holiness," he loved to say. Thousands of people found the Lord under his ministry.

Uncle Bud Robinson

The next day he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church and was baptized. About three months later he attended his first Sunday school, which he was about to refuse, as he could not read. But the Sunday school lady convinced him that she would do all the reading, and so he came along. After that, he slowly started to learn how to read.

Bud received a preaching license and started in his evangelistic work, which he would carry on till the end of his life. Most people tried to discourage him from preaching because of his stutter. But in spite of them Bud followed His call. In the first year he had 300 conversions. He would go out in his Sunday shirt and straw hat, with his pony, a Bible and songbook in hand. In the first four years he received a total of $16 for his ministry.


y 1891 he began to make plans to enter school at Southwestern University in Georgetown, which he entered shortly later. He kept studying there for four years. During that time he also joined the Salvation Army and stayed there until 1893. All over the United States he held campmeetings, travelling to and fro. He watched much of the development of the early Church of the Nazarene, and was a member of the board of trustees of Texas Holiness University at Peniel.

His entire life was devoted to preaching the good news of Christ's death and resurrection to the people of his country. He travelled extensively all over the United States and preached in many churches. People loved him and came to listen to him wherever they heard he was coming. Thousands were converted, and many more encouraged through his ministry. They called him Uncle Bud, and he influenced many of the great leaders of the Church of the Nazarene.


ne time when he was in California, he started across a street and a car hit him so bad that he literally flew through the air. Quite a few broken bones were the result and he spent weeks and weeks in hospital. But he recovered, and once more took up his responsibility, and followed the call.


ncle Bud was never an intellectual. Still, he became one of the most popular evangelists in the Church of the Nazarene and changed the lives of many.

In 1942 he died of old age. After his death, a newspaper ad read:

"An evangelist who claimed to have preached 32,176 sermons and won 200,000 converts, Rev. Reuben "Uncle Buddy" Robinson, is dead today.
The thirteenth child of a poor mountain family of White county, Tennessee, he had an impediment of speech and could not write a word or spell his own name when he was converted at 20.
But he overcame these handicaps to preach an average of 500 sermons a year to 72 denominations in his 61 years on the sawdust trail, and to write 10 books of which 500,000 copies were sold.
He died last night in his Pasadena home. He was 82 years old."