"He had quick perception, great decision, and concentration. He habitually thought at early dawn; and when his purposes were laid, every energy was concentrated upon that single point. In this he was a Washington, a Napoleon, a Wellington. As a man of tact I have not known his equal. To this quality we may ascribe much of his success in conducting the Palladium. Many who could have written a labored article as well, or better, could not have succeeded in conducting the paper at all. Many with resources would have produced a mole-hill when he formed a mountain. But we will not, we dare not, say that his positions and his means of sustaining them were always right. He was a man; and in this utterance we plainly say he was erring. The most we can say, the highest character we would give our brother is, we hope, we trust, we believe he was a CHRISTIAN."
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
REFLECTIONS.
As the value of men historically stands in close connection with the ideas they represent, and with the movements in which they take part, it is relevant to the present subject that we glance at the character of the reformation in which Mr. Badger was the leading actor, and in whose principles he lived and preached more than a third of a century. We read the worth of a man in the value of the cause he aids. Mankind evidently are saved, not by magic, but by principles. The moral benefactor, therefore, is to be prized by the service he renders in making these perfect in the knowledge, and effective in the practice of his fellows. What, then, are the historical worth and characteristics of the Christian Reformation, in whose ministry Mr. Badger was a star of primary magnitude and brightness?
Its historical worth can now be stated but partially, as the half century which has elapsed since the first declaration of principles is too small a space of time for their determination in results. If, in all reformatory movements, the conception, utterance, agitation, and adoption of ideas, are the natural steps of progress by which new truths become externized in permanent effects, we might well appropriate the period of time here spoken of mostly to the preparatory stages of the work, and look forward to the future for the final verdict which shall declare its entire importance. This question cannot now be answered, except by the ability which reads, in moral causes, the distant triumphs they contain. As a future forest resides in present acorns, so great future changes reside in present truths.
The religious sentiment has its eras in the world, its triumphs and discouragements, as really as art and science have theirs; and between its present state and final victories lie many great and earnest revolutions. Three things may be safely premised on this subject: 1. The religious sentiment is mighty and eternal in man, and therefore will forever appear with prominence in human history. 2. There now exist all the truths and all the principles that can ever possibly appear. 3. The increasing knowledge of truth, the development of principles, the revolutions that are needed for their establishment in the world—these must continue. To truth no iota can ever be added, it being already infinite; but its development in human history must, like human nature, be progressive.
In looking over the world's religious phenomena, we notice, among the defects, a mixture of truth with superstition, an ignorance of everlasting law, which flows through all departments of being, and into which all facts are resolved. In marking the particular line of religion which forms the boundary of Christendom, we perceive, in the inclosure, the abundance of sectarism, of intolerance and persecution, all growing out of the immense importance which each sect attaches to its dogmas of belief, to its name and organization. Prior to Protestantism, the church, which has always boasted of its unity, imprisoned and burned the heretic. The belligerent attitude of clergymen now conclusively proves that theology, or divine science, is not understood; for it is impossible that honest men should quarrel on any subject of which they have a full comprehension. War, therefore, is the proof of ignorance, and ignorance is the mother of intolerance and persecution. As these are the most prominent evils the history of the church presents, we are obliged to highly honor the principles which melt these asperities into charity, as they shine from the effulgent heaven of a wider love. Under the stern authority of creeds, a manly freedom will scarcely grow. The Christian reformation, which began with the masses, and not with a caste, in the first years of the nineteenth century, contained principles which liberate the spirit from narrow and oppressive bonds, which open comparatively a whole broad horizon over the man of faith, and form a larger brotherhood than mere uniformity of belief can ever create. In naming distinctly four elements of that reformation, the view here offered will be clearly verified.