"J. Badger."
"Ascott, July 27, 1813. (In haste.)
"Dear Brother,[14]—Since I have seen you I have preached in Compton, Ascott, Westbury, Oxford, Brompton, Ringsey, Shipton. I am in great haste on my return. I have been comfortable as to health, though much fatigued. I have felt the waters of salvation to flow sweetly through my soul. Give yourself no trouble if you hear I am taken up. You know the animosities that war engenders. The God who delivered Daniel, and who protected our fathers, has promised to shield me whilst in the way of my duty. Keep free from all strife, deny self, live in peace with all men. I still feel it my duty to employ all my abilities in holding up Christ to a dying world. My love to parents and brethren."
These extracts show the spirit with which his whole early life was imbued, and they accord well with the journal he wrote a few years later. One vital life pervades them all. Whilst the war was desolating the country, filling the minds of men with anger, jealousy, and irreverence to humanity, he, the heroic young soldier of the Cross, was successfully pouring into their hearts the great lessons of Reformation, Unity, and Peace. Such a ministry at such a time appears to the eye of history as a rainbow arching the black region of cloud and storm, or as life-clad rivers that flow along through the desert regions of the earth.
[CHAPTER VII.]
TOUR TO NEW ENGLAND, AND PUBLIC LABORS.
With good recommendations, and with the fruits of a not very ordinary experience for one so young, he starts for his native land. What sect does the young preacher hail from? From no sect. He hails from the church of experienced believers, whose test is religion, not theology. Love to God and peace with men are the cardinals of his platform, and such was the persuasion of his eye and presence, that his credentials are very seldom disputed. Nothing in the form of sectarianism hedges up his way or impedes his success. If difficulties at any time thicken in his path, he knows what to do with them.
Let us pause a moment to look at the theological latitudes and longitudes of the self-taught young man at this time, before he leaves to carry his message towards the regions of sunrise in the more intelligent east. In theology he has acknowledged no human master, has sat at the feet of no Edwards, Channing, or Wesley, nor read in musty dogmatical lore what he shall publish as the essential doctrine. The following views, however, may be gathered from the various utterance of his mind, expressed as occasion called, without the intention of making a system. 1. That man bears a living relation to God; that he may now as of old come to him confidingly, and seek effectually for wisdom and salvation. 2. That the being of God is One; that his influences are constantly felt in the moral world, promoting the joy and life of his people, and subjecting the sinful to the solemn conviction of their sin and danger. 3. That Regeneration is the want of all men; that all may, like the prodigal of Scripture memory, return to their Sovereign Father. 4. That the Scriptures are the great storehouse of sacred wisdom; that through them the will of God is infallibly revealed. 5. That Jesus is "the sinner's friend," the Son of God, the centre of Christianity, and that his Gospel is of celestial birth and mission; "the power of God unto salvation to all that believe." 6. That experience is the basis of religion; that the only authorized test of fellowship for the church is Christian character. 7. That no sect in Christendom, as such, is the church of God; that the church is everywhere composed of such only as have passed from death unto life. 8. That sectarian names do not fit the catholicity of the institution; that the names "disciples," "brethren," "friends," "Christians," are the better designations. 9. That human creeds, traditions, "doctrines and commandments of men," are abolished in the light and authority of the Gospel. 10. That sons of God are freemen, owing no allegiance to Pope, Bishop, Prelate, or Council. These views all fairly reside in the writings which unfold this early period of his life; and when we consider the exceeding scarcity of liberal thought in the religious world at so early a day, and the isolation of his position from the most active and enlightened minds on the continent, his stand in the church and the world becomes a wonder, only to be solved by the recognition of the original and superior intellect that gave him intuitive insight into the right and wrong of whatever problems may have won his earnest attention. The liberality of many is but a mere scepticism of thought. His liberality was a part of the most devoted labor and unabated zeal. It was one with prayer and tears. Now, in this last day, (1854,) with all that learning and comprehensive thinking have done for us, where and what are the heights of liberality occupied by the theological reformers whose names have gone abroad as being wider than their denominational platform? As we glance along the sparse population of these plateaux, we observe among others, the names of Bushnell and Beecher, the former with certain acute philosophical powers, the latter with a bold dramatic energy of speech, each exposing himself in a degree to the censure of that large class who dread all innovation made upon the time-honored landmarks of the Fathers, who are alarmed at new roads, even though they are more direct, convenient, and comely. But neither of these gentlemen has gone so far as did this youth in the wilderness of his adopted country. Neither has altogether practically forgotten the claims of sect and of creed; and the view that holiness of life and purpose is the indisputable claim to fraternity independent of dogma, which is their highest idea, was his constantly practised principle long before the world had heard of new and old school in the contentions of orthodox sects. Open now his first letters of commendation and you will see that the fraternities that authorized them ignored sectarian names, simply styling themselves "The Church of God in this place." In liberality, I do not see that the best part of the Christian world now are, either in theory or practice, at all in advance of his position in 1813. That his peace principles did not allow him to pray for bloody victories, or to strengthen the king's arms by his influence over the people, there is pretty good evidence. He and his brethren drank too deeply at the wells of religion to engage in the destruction of their fellows.
To return. The young man, now nearly twenty-two years of age, intent on the duties and trials of a missionary life, starts for his native New Hampshire, improving every opportunity on the way, where circumstances united with his own impressions in producing the conviction that good might be done. Without abating his own labor, he depends continually on divine assistance, believing that he enjoys the advantage of the real presence of the One who said, "Lo! I am with you alway;" and before undertaking any important cause, or plan of action, he seeks illumination in secret prayer, then follows the leading impressions of his mind. He diligently studies the Scriptures, observes nature, and discriminates the strong points and peculiarities of the different characters he meets, for which he seemed to possess an intuitive power that received no assistance from the later inductions of phrenology, or the didactic lessons of physiognomy. He could, without rules admitting of statement, readily discern the character of an audience, the kind of discourse fitted to their capacity and wants, and most easily did he arrive at this kind of knowledge by a brief social contact with individuals. No nature perhaps ever had a greater power of adaptability to the many-phased character of mankind and surrounding circumstances, than his. But for the present, indeed for the several years of his early ministry, the central element of his life, the one that ruled all others, was his earnest, hearty, prayerful devotion to the holy mission of saving human beings from sin, and of bringing them into living union with God and with Christ. Along the meanderings of this current let us therefore follow the course of his narrative, which at this time unfolds itself in a series of letters, hastily and unelaborately written to some friend whose name does not appear; perhaps to Z. Adams, or to some other young minister interested in his welfare.