Rather difficult, was it not, to get this young man into a net? He stands yet erect upon his mission, prays, weeps, preaches by night and by day; and old men and young, mothers and maidens, acknowledge his right to lead them in the "new and the living way" by falling into his line of march, and finding words of life in his speech. This refusal to pledge himself to creed and sect, grew out of nothing unsocial, for his whole being was social and brotherly. Interest could not so have dictated. An innate greatness of mind it was that gave him this high position for a young man as early as 1814, aided no doubt by the free and generous impulses of the religion of Jesus, which, in his experience and in his Testament, alike declared the oneness of the body of Christ, and of whatever is essential and saving. This position seems not to have hindered him; the faithful still rally under the banner he bears. Mr. Badger was a man of great facility for carrying his points, having a persuasive eye, will, and speech; nor is it at all surprising that among his early commendatory letters, there should be some from clergymen of different denominations; one I remember signed by three class leaders, in the Province of Canada, and others from those who had obeyed his call to the new life, and to whom he became as an apostle and father.
At Gilmanton, Barnstead, Stratham, Portsmouth, Rye, Northampton, he held forth in the name of the victorious Christ; and though there is no record of dogmatic speculation and "disputations of science," the fires of reformation were kindled, the young convert and the steadfast believer rejoiced together, bringing forward their golden treasures, not from the cold chambers of the intellect, but from the mines of the soul, as wrought by experience and refined by the agencies of the Holy Spirit. One more touching paragraph from this letter, we cannot withhold. Those who recollect the calmness and the pensive music of the pine-grove, its unison with the deeper feelings, will vividly realize the passage which refers to the lonely and dependent spirit which there sought relief in prayerful utterance.
"How many trials I have passed through during these four months! I well remember the sad feelings of my heart as I was riding from Rye to Portsmouth, across a pine plain, whilst I meditated on my mission and present lot in the world. Leaving my horse, I retired into this still grove, where none but the heavenly powers could hear the expression of my burdened soul. As I considered my situation, a feeble youth, hundreds of miles from home, among entire strangers, and bound by solemn duty to the world of dying sinners, I was constrained to weep before my God in this wilderness. Here I sought his aid. How oft, on that journey, did I weep for miles, as I rode the streets. Angels! ye are witnesses to the sleepless nights that passed away as I thought of the unreconciled state of mankind, and of my duty to them. Here, my loving friend, you have a brief account of what I have seen the last four months. I have reason to praise my Redeemer. Like Mr. Dow, I can say, 'What I have seen I know, what is to come I know not.' O my friend, strive to make a good improvement of these memories, and if we never meet again in time, may the Lord prepare us to meet in His kingdom of glory. Yours in the Truth, as it is in God's dear Son,
"Jan., 1815.
Joseph Badger."
Rightly did the poet say,—
"Who never ate his bread in sorrow,
Who never spent the darksome hours,
Weeping and watching for the morrow;
He knows ye not, ye heavenly Powers."
The prophet, in all ages, to whom God gives the tongue of flame, must at some time have known the holy baptism of inward sorrow.