"The friends who were leaders in the English reform, persevered over thirty years firm and faithful, without slander, war or bloodshed. They had the utmost confidence in the justice and righteousness of their cause; they were patient under persecutions, were meek and humble in every defeat, and the light at length shone and they triumphed. Here is a beautiful model for American reformers. Light and truth should be the only weapons used in accomplishing great moral, benevolent and religious objects. Christians in all laudable enterprises should be meek and humble, should possess much of the spirit of their holy Master, render good for evil, and conquer all opposition with love."
"Ordinances.—Herein we see the benefit of institutions and images by which past events are preserved by us and transmitted to posterity. National events, Jewish, Roman, Pagan, and Christian ordinances, are speaking things, which, as soon as they are abandoned, the events on which they are founded, the impressions and ideas associated with them, are lost."
At the present time, there are a few indications that the active theological minds of the country may at some distant day fall under two general classifications, which, for the want of a better expression at hand, we may call the centralizers and universalizers. The latter resolve religion wholly into abstract ideas and principles which freely range through the whole empire of spirit, as gravitation, electricity and light operate through all space. Such rally about no personal centre. The former seek the abstract principles of religion only, or chiefly in their personal investments, and look for their effective radiance in a mediator. This class, for reasons needless to be discussed at this time, are from necessity the great mass, the organized activity of the religious sentiment; and though Mr. Badger had much catholicity in his faith and practice, nothing is plainer than that he centralized all in Christ, who, to him, was the untiring sun in the solar system of God's impartial favor. Thus speaks the following letter:—
"Honeoye Falls, August, 1845.
"Br. Ross,—I am now better in health, and am trying to go ahead with what little ability I have, in the one, single, simple work of preaching the blessed Gospel. Am I right, or should I be a political minister, and conform to the practice of this corrupt age, and present to my hearers a chowder compound? I follow St. Paul's old, obsolete theology of knowing nothing among the people save Jesus Christ and him crucified."
[CHAPTER XIX.]
MINISTRY, PUBLISHED WRITINGS AND IMPORTANT EVENTS, FROM MAY, 1839, TO MARCH, 1848.
On leaving the Palladium office, in 1839, Mr. Badger repaired to his residence at Honeoye Falls, Monroe County, New York, where his friends built for themselves a new and commodious chapel, the best in the town; it was dedicated by Mr. Badger in 1840. He was unanimously chosen pastor of this society. He was now in the centre of his former field of labors, a field he had occupied nearly twenty years. His congregations were large, equal at that time, it was stated, to the other four congregations combined. The pastoral relation furnished him a good field for success, as his wise management, social spirit, attractive preaching, and compromising, conciliating turn of mind, gave him strong ability for establishing and enlarging the prosperity of a new congregation. He held this relation till the autumn of 1842.
But the death of his second son, Joseph Badger, Jr., who died May 27, 1839, in the sixteenth year of his age, was indeed an affliction that deeply shaded his spirit. He was a noble and an ingenious youth. He had fine abilities, was truthful and genial; and in the execution of business plans, so far certainly as they related to publishing, he was his father's main reliance. Great were the parental affections that centred in him; and when he departed, the gigantic spirit of his father, which had ever dealt easily with great adversity, now was deeply stirred, like the patriarch's of ancient time. Though he shed no tear over the death of his son, though he opposed a serene temper and countenance to the great bereavement, no event had ever bowed him so deeply, or struck so centrally into his inward composure and peace. Often, as night came on, refusing his accustomed slumber, he walked the garden in lonely meditations, and blended with the serious light of moon and stars the more sober workings of his own mind. Never before had calamity the power to bring out the evidences of a deeply disturbed and broken spirit; and these were now so well controlled by him, that the world neither saw nor dreamed of their existence. At times, he arose from his nightly rest to walk the grounds of his pleasant mansion, and for hours seemed to invite the holy and beautiful sympathy of nature to soften his grief. Deep, exceedingly deep was this sorrow over his worthy son.