Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger / Fourth Edition

by E. G. Holland

When I approach this subject, I am at once struck by the originality and marked distinctions of what I am to examine; and, though the naturalness and simplicity which ever shone in his language and manner might seem to promise an easy task, a longer study dissipates the hope, and leaves the lasting impression that a mind and character like his were never truthfully and fully expressed in a few words, and certainly they were never known by mere passing acquaintance or superficial observation. He was a man of manifold nature, was strong in many directions. He had depths unseen by ordinary acquaintance or by ordinary observation; and to fully interpret one whose inward life was so much of it veiled from the world's gaze, whose power of character was in itself so complex and diverse, requires analytical patience and faithful study. I would not intimate by this that it is invested in dark and impenetrable clouds of mystery; for not a few of his traits are, under almost any circumstances, plainly discernible, those, indeed, which served to render the hours of sociality agreeable and entertaining to all. His quick and clear perception, his calm balance of power, who would not at once discover? But it is the quality of greatness that the manifold qualities involved do not admit of a thorough comprehension except at the cost of time and care. That Joseph Badger was by nature a great man, that, in the sphere of his action, he was so by effects produced, it is presumed that none will be at all likely to deny. Persons who could read God's handwriting of ability in the forms and features of men, or in the discourse and action by which superiority is indicated, were never disposed to place him in the rank of ordinary gifts and powers. A few may have said that no book can add to their knowledge of him; that, for years, they have listened to his sermons; have mingled in his society at their firesides; that they know him entirely. This conclusion we do not unqualifiedly accept. It is our impression that few persons on the earth, in the profoundest sense, knew Joseph Badger. Beyond what they had observed lay much more in unseen repose.

The free and more airy moods of mind with which he usually met his friends and mingled in society, though combined with real dignity of manner, were calculated, in some degree, to give the impression of entire acquaintance to those who could penetrate but a small distance beneath the apparent. But there were sober depths underlying the vivacity and social joy of his presence. In company, it is true, he commonly avoided the introduction and discussion of weighty themes, those requiring continuity of thought, choosing rather to converse on matters of immediate care and interest. He spoke truthfully when he once said to a friend, "I have three moods of mind; one that may be light and airy, one of common seriousness, and one of very deep seriousness." They who judge him only from the first do not, cannot know him; yet is it not more common for people to judge from the surface than from the deeper soul of one's life? The former is easily seen; the latter requires attention. Luther and Franklin were humorous men; but those who would know them must look to the depths over which their humor played.

As the physical man is, by usual consent, the basis of that higher self, in which character, as to its greater meanings, resides, it may be worthy of recollection that the bodily constitution and temperament of Mr. Badger were well adapted to power and excellence of intellect. His constitution, though of fine quality, was naturally very strong and vigorous; the different temperaments commingled in it, the sanguine or arterial taking the lead. With this, there was a full degree of the nervous or intellectual temperament, which imparted much mental activity; with these, there was a measure of the bilious and lymphatic, which, according to the usual explanations of modern science, give endurance, calmness and ease, supplying the wasting activities with support. In early life, Mr. Badger was tall and spare in figure; about middle age, and after, he was more portly; and, at all times, his personal appearance was noble, commanding, and prepossessing. His likeness, facing the title-page of this volume which represents him at the age of forty-two, gives a very good idea of his intellectual expression, with the exception that his brain was of a larger cast, and, in after life, his features and form were more full than they appear in this representation.

The intellect of Mr. Badger was great, especially so in the use of practical perception. His perceptive ability was indeed immense. In seeing through character, motives, and events; in looking at a new movement in the moral world, or at any practical enterprise, he had great, sudden perceptions of the reality before him, on which he formed his conclusions and acted. His mind was quick; his opinions were not usually formed in slow processes, but were very comprehensive, very exact, and when the final results came round, no man's former words sounded so much like certain prophecy in the quotation as his. His mind was richly intuitive in these respects. He readily and closely saw the strong points of every case.

His reasoning intellect was strong and clear, and when awakened was full of power. But thought, in its most abstract form, was not his forte. He could appreciate it, and estimate its value accurately in others, could use it himself; but it was truth, having a direct bearing upon, and demonstrations in, the world of practice, that roused his energies and delightfully employed his powers. He was American. The form of his mind was not, perhaps, exactly philosophical, was not largely given to seek out the laws which pervade the facts of nature and of life, to treasure up universal principles; but he could rapidly work his way into the reality of any cause that it might interest him to know. He readily saw important principles. His mind was creative. He could originate and execute with great skill and dexterity; the former of these functions, however, was, in our opinion, his most favorite work. He often liked to produce and direct the plan for others to carry into effect. His acquaintance with human nature, as it appears in the thousand-fold diversities of the world, was his profoundest knowledge. His great sagacity always seemed as intuition, as a native inspiration. It was next to impossible to deceive him.

There is that in the human mind which takes the name of no one faculty, but which, in the manifestation, is entitled good sense, and "strong sense." There are men in the world, who wield no scholastic terminology, who have no tendency to much speculative theorization, but nevertheless have that in them, which, on the presentation of the most carefully elaborated theories, can at once judge upon their worth and fallacy. This strong searching force which despises the artificial operations of logicians, and the visionary theorization of idealists, makes of them solid pillars amidst the general fluctuation, enables them to say of all the "nine days' wonders," as they arrive, that they are but nine days' wonders. In them it says, "The theory is learned and rendered plausible; but substantially there is nothing in it. It is of no actual use. It hails from cloud-land, and in cloud-land it will ere long dissolve." Mr. Badger was no ideologist; he was an actualist, a realist, who never alienated himself from the circle of the sympathy of mankind, but wrought upon themes and enterprises for which the people themselves had feeling and care. He could easily weigh the humbugs as they arose; and there was no art of proselytism by which they could be glued to him or he to them. Scores of wild theories sprung up in his day. He patiently heard the arguments therefor, mildly responded, gave his own opinion, and with it possibly a cheerful laugh, which was itself no insignificant argument, and probably announced what he believed the result would be when time should have ripened and tested the fruit. The friends of Fourier built an institution within two miles of his door, and kindly invited him to join; some of his old acquaintances with infatuated joy rushed into the new millennium. He told them there was truth in the idea of more fraternity than the selfish world is disposed to enjoy, but that the conception of society they had adopted was visionary, and that all would repent who had thus invested their means. "Be assured, friend G., that in two or three years this whole matter will fail, and your funds will be lost." And so it was. Millerism, also, came along, showing large maps of the world's chronology, Bible symbol, and all that; some of his old ministerial friends rushed into the excitement, and cried aloud for the speedy coming of the personal Christ. He was calm. He told them it was idle theory, that it was theological egotism; and it mattered not how strongly and flippantly they quoted from Daniel and John, or what the array of texts and historical passages might be; he had a large, clear, manly brain, and knew that the main fabric was woven of cobweb. He opposed against it strong arguments, and when knowing vanity and egotism on the opposite side became intolerable, he mingled with his argumentation the withering force of satire, which, with him, was little else than long pieces of strong sense, made very sharp at the points.

This statement should be made for his mind and speech, that whenever he spoke it was to the point. It told plainly on the case in hand. His force was never lost by diffuseness or redundancy. He could say very much in few words. In coming to truth, he preferred the shortest way, and cherished, I judge, a cheerful contempt for artistic modes of reasoning, in which many strive to display so much science of method. The dry logician and the disputer of words he could endure, though he never would waste much time with them. If some one in the company was anxious to controvert, he usually turned to some other person and gave over his part of the question to him; then, in calmly witnessing their play of words, he derived great satisfaction from whatever was weighty, sharp, or well directed on either side, using the occasion chiefly as a scene of entertainment. In him one might see not a little of the ironical advice of Mephistopheles to the student, who in recommending the study of logic as a means of saving time, tells him that "in this study the mind is well broken in—is laced up as in Spanish boots,[61] so that it creeps circumspectly along the path of thought," minding the immense importance of one, two, three, four, which shall now cost him hours to accomplish what he before hit off at a blow. If, as Mephistopheles said, the actual operations of the human mind are as a weaver's loom, where one treadle commands a thousand threads, which are invisible in the rapidity of their movements, Mr. B. was more an actual weaver of the real garment than the philosopher who steps in to prove that these processes must have been so; that the first was so, and therefore the second came; and that since the first and second were, the third was inevitable.[62] In arriving at truth, be it remembered, he preferred the plainest, directest roads. He was emphatically a thinking man; and the end of his thought, mostly, was practical result.

The powers of his mind were not rigid but flexible, as, under any variety of scenes, he was capable of being composed and genial. He did not stickle on small points of theology or practice; points he desired to carry he could gracefully introduce; those which he found it necessary or expedient to abandon, he could give up with easy indifference. He was a man of order; and, perhaps what can be said of but few clergymen, he was a man of skilful business talent, a great tactician, a good economist and financier. "Not one in ten of mankind," said he, "know how to do business."

It has been common for persons to speak much about his shrewdness, tact, sagacity and cunning. As some of these traits often unite in unpowerful and secretive natures, I would say that in him they stood connected with much decision of character, independence and boldness. These stronger traits were manifest in every stage of his history. He stood erect and strong in youth, when answering the tyrannical British magistrate. He put the savages to the extremity of violence rather than acquiesce in a dishonorable mode of conveyance to the seat of justice at the Three Rivers. When about twenty-two, he met a clergyman in New England who confessed to him that he had preached for twelve years in an unconverted state, and whose prayers and sermons were then as spiritless as fallen leaves. Mr. Badger invited him courteously to share in the services of the Sabbath, but on parting he faithfully warned him to seek the life-giving influences of the Holy Spirit. These qualities of tact, shrewdness, cunning, lay under the shadow of stronger and bolder powers. They greatly facilitated his success, so far as this depends on adaptation and proper management; and probably we cannot account for a certain elegant aptness and fitness to the occasion and purpose, which gave peculiar charm to his public discourses, without implying the presence of these intellectual attributes.

It is conceded that it required the extraordinary demand of great occasions, or great opposition, as in the case of controversy, to bring out his greatest intellectual force, though he was happily adapted to ordinary occasions. When obliged to use his power, it came in strong and impressive forms of utterance; all saw his meaning, felt the force of his illustrations and the victorious power of will, which, in minds like his, is strongly determined on the achieving of its aims. In controversy, Joseph Badger was indeed a difficult opponent. We have never heard of any who have claimed a victory against him. The event may possibly have occurred, but the echo thereof has never come to our ears. We doubt that it ever happened. He did not challenge nor seek controversy, nor did he shrink from it when truth and the honor of his cause demanded that formidable opponents should be met. The position of a theological reformer is liable, in the early stages of his work, to receive a great variety of assault; and under such circumstances the peaceful quietness and repose which reside in the established state of the public mind are not his legacy. In a degree, he is to be a moral hero and warrior, and if he wars for truth successfully and handsomely, we should hasten to render him the wreath of honor and praise. We believe that Joseph Badger never stood for the advocacy of views which he did not himself heartily believe; and this conceded, we believe also that he never entered a controversial field without the determination of victory, the end being, in all reason, not so much to persuade the wrangling antagonist as to convince the people. The calmness of his intellect and the composure of his feelings were always conspicuous at such times. Though he had high spirit and temper constitutionally, though his passional nature was uncommonly strong, he was, on all occasions where the passions of others were likely to be inflamed, astonishingly cool. It was the coolness of a pilot amidst the storm. At all times of which we have any knowledge, Mr. Badger was distinguished for this self-command, by which he could rise above surrounding excitement or present calamity. This trait gave him great advantage in discussion; for, from his own cool state, he was sure to learn the weaknesses of temper and of argument on the opposite side, which soon became advantageous capital to his cause. But we do not here design to trace him through his controversial history. The glance we have taken in this direction is simply to exhibit certain qualities that distinguish his mind.