From Pomfret he visited North East, in Pennsylvania; gave two sermons, and spent a day in Conference business; thence to Salem, Ohio, where they were joyfully received by Col. Fifield, with whom Mr. B. had been acquainted in Vermont, eleven years before. There they met Rev. Asa C. Morrison, then a vigorous and efficient preacher, now a citizen of the unknown spheres; there they enjoyed a large attendance, gave seven sermons, and Mr. Badger bestows uncommon praise on the discourse given by Mr. Hathaway, on "the subject of enthusiasm, fanaticism, false zeal and delusion." Leaving Salem on the morning of the 18th, where one of the young men of his company concluded to remain, (J. E. Church,) he proceeded on his journey through Painsville, at the mouth of Grand River, Cleaveland, Brunswick, Medina and Westfield to Canaan Centre, where he held a general meeting, in which several denominations united—Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and a denomination who styled themselves the United Brethren; at this time Mr. James Miles was ordained to the work of the ministry. "This to me," says Mr. Badger, "was an interesting case, as he was a young man whom I dearly loved, and one that I many years before baptized in the Province of Lower Canada; he is the seventh that I have baptized who have been ordained as ministers of the Gospel. We left Canaan on the 26th; had a pleasant journey through Wooster, and reached Mt. Vernon on the evening of the 27th, and were joyfully received by Elder James Smith and family. He is an able minister of the New Testament and a respectable citizen." At this place he met several ministers from the Southern States, some of hoary hairs, who were giving the remnant of their days to preaching the Gospel. Here Mr. Badger and Mr. Hathaway gave three sermons each, to a people who were anxious to hear and learn more of the truth which belongs to the great theme of human salvation through the Crucified One.
His next sketching dates at Cincinnati, Ohio, December 25, 1825:—
"The wise and prudent conquer difficulties
By daring to attempt them; sloth and folly
Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and danger,
And make the impossibility they fear."
"Sir,—On leaving our good friends at Mount Vernon, on the first day of November, the parting was affecting; we had been treated with great attention; we had here preached the word to the crowded assembly; had seen the sinner in tears trembling under the word; and the very place where we were assembled appeared like holy ground. We were conducted to Dublin, on the Sciota river, by our worthy friend, Elder Marvin, who has two sons who are preachers of the Gospel. At Sciota, met Elder Brittan and a large assembly; gave two sermons; Elder M. baptized one happy convert."
November 3d, he speaks of arriving at Derby Plains, where he preached five sermons, and saw the ruinous effects of the strange delusion into which a Mr. Douglas Farnum, formerly from New England, had involved himself and many others; a delusion that strove to ignore the common rules of social morality, and to find a direct revelation from Heaven in every impulse of the heart and mind. Though excluded from the people of his earlier association, he held a few deluded persons by his views, until self-destruction scattered them and left their names a reproach to virtue. Their leader, after running this singular career, died, confessing, however, many past errors and wrongs.
"When a people," says Mr. B., "deviate in their zeal from the rules of decency, when they lay aside the Scripture, substitute imagination as a foundation for their action, and call every impulse of the mind an immediate revelation from God, I expect they will sink their characters in disgrace, and come to a miserable end. I visited the vacated village where he and his followers had joined in the merry dance, and felt a kind of horror, like that which once seized the thinking soul of a Volney at the ruins of Palmyra.
"In Clark County, at the head waters of the Little Miami, we had good meetings, were kindly entertained by Charles Arther, and had agreeable intercourse with Elder Isaac N. Walters, a young man about twenty years of age, who bids fair to be useful. At Pleasant township, Madison County, we were kindly received by Fargis Graham, a man fifty-seven years of age, who had just returned from a preaching tour of six weeks in Indiana; he had a good journey, and felt encouraged. I surveyed with admiration his gray hairs, his smiles and tears, while he gave an account of his journey. He visited the poor cabins in the wilderness, lay on the ground in the great prairie, where the wolves were howling around him, and passed through hunger and fatigue, but found God to be with him. His spacious plantation at home, on which he has more than one hundred head of cattle, besides other stock in proportion, reminded me of the ancient possessions of Abraham, Lot, and Jacob. He does much for the cause, and has long been one of its ornaments and faithful ministers."
Messrs. Badger, Hathaway and Chapin, paused awhile at Williamsport, Pickaway County, where they gave seven sermons, and received the kind attentions of Rev. George Alkire, of whom he speaks in very respectful terms. Holding meetings in Platt and Highland Counties, he parted with Mr. H. on the 19th, who travelled to Cincinnati via Kentucky, and passed ten days with Rev. M. Gardner, in whose congregations he attended sixteen meetings and preached to large and respectable assemblies. At Ripley, Brown County, he formed the acquaintance of Hon. E. Campbell, who had many years been a member of the United States Senate; of him and his father-in-law, Mr. Dunlap, a native of Virginia, and among the first settlers of Kentucky, a man who had emancipated thirty slaves and applied his own hands to labor, he speaks in honoring terms. "His colored people," says Mr. B., "still flock around him as their benefactor, and love him as their best friend on earth."
"On the 29th of November, I reached this pleasant city. Here, and in the adjoining country, I have had glorious times, an account of which you may expect in my next number. I have succeeded in obtaining a history of the churches and conferences in the west and south beyond my expectations. The preachers appear friendly, and willing to lend every possible assistance. I shall be able, in a few weeks, to give your readers a general representation of the state of things west of the Alleghany mountains, in which vast extent of country are many thousands of happy Christians who renounce all party creeds and names, and, with their naked Bibles in hand, are rejoicing in the hope of immortality."
The next dates Ripley, 0., January 12, 1826. Our journalist says:—