I pursued my weary way, on horseback, to Chicago, through swamps, over sand ridges, fighting mosquitoes, fleas, gnats and bedbugs. I used to think in those days that the region between Michigan City and Chicago was abandoned in disgust ere it was half finished. And the few inhabitants on the route were on a par with the country. They lived in a wretched manner, in log cabins on sand ridges, surrounded by swamps and stagnant pools. Since then, railroads have improved the country and the people. Spent three weeks in Chicago, and preached three Sabbaths in an old court-house to large congregations. Chicago then contained about five thousand inhabitants, and was rather a hard looking place. There were no bridges across the river, no paved streets, no railroads, and but little business was done, and its citizens did not dream of the splendid career that was awaiting their humble town. I found some zealous friends of our cause, but there was no organization, and they had never held regular meetings. While I was there, I visited most of the Universalist families, and was urged to settle in Chicago, but I told my friends that it was my mission “to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”
Leaving Chicago, I turned my horse towards Cincinnati, and passed through Logansport, Lafayette, and Indianapolis. I would ride all day and deliver a long discourse at night. Returned to Cincinnati the last of December, after an absence of six months; and during that time I had traveled twelve hundred miles—all on horseback—delivered one hundred and ten discourses, and received for compensation, one hundred and fifty dollars.
CHAPTER V.
Journey in Ohio—Intemperance—General Baldwin—In Columbus—Death Penalty—How to Deal with Offenders—Preach in Newark and Zanesville—Hell Discussed—Mrs. Frances Gage—Invited to Settle in Marietta—W. H. Jolly—In Chillicothe—Opposition in Richmond— —. Webber—In Kentucky—Dr. Chamberlin—Opposition in Lexington—Is Universalism Infidelity?—A Slanderous Story by a D.D.—In Paris—Excursion to Patriot—A Discussion—Daniel Parker—Cure the Ague—Good Health.
In a few days I commenced a journey through Ohio on my ever faithful horse. Lectured in Mason on temperance. I have seen the blasting effects of rum drinking, but neither my body or my soul was ever polluted by a glass of distilled liquor. Cannot distinguish the different kinds of spirits, and have no inclination to know more about them. Rum selling, and rum drinking, are abominations that make desolate the hearts and homes of multitudes; and it is amazing that sensible men will rush headlong to destruction with the bottle in their hands and their eyes wide open. The guilty parties in this wretched business are, 1st, The manufacturers; 2d, The sellers; 3d, The drinkers; 4th, The authorities that license the traffic; 5th, The communities who empower the authorities to license. Most of the people are guilty, and all suffer more or less, directly or indirectly. But let the friends of temperance labor in season and out of season, to reform the people, and banish the curse from the land. Their noble work will not be in vain; God will crown it with success. I also delivered several sermons near Edwardsville. General Baldwin resided near there—a reliable friend of liberal principles. He was an intelligent and influential man, and devoted to our cause. He was one of the first to make an effort to establish Universalism in Southern Ohio. Although a layman he often spoke in public in its defense. Subsequently he moved to Illinois; but he carried his religion and zeal with him. He died full of years, and went down to an honored grave.
Spoke in Columbus on religion, and delivered a discourse against the death penalty. Universalism repudiates the taking of life. It is wrong for an individual to kill a man; it is wrong for a state to kill a man. But taking of life may sometimes be justifiable. Is this a contradiction? A wretch enters my house at midnight, and attempts to murder my family. Either he must be disabled, or he will kill the whole household. In attempting to disable him I take his life. Am I not justified, although I have violated the command, “Thou shalt not kill?” An army marches through the land, and takes provisions for man and beast, without permission of the owners. Are they not justified, although they have violated the command, “Thou shalt not steal?” A vessel enters a port laden with food; the inhabitants are starving, but the owner refuses to sell or give to the starving citizens. Are they not justified in helping themselves, although in doing so they commit theft? They must either steal or die; and of the two evils they choose the least. It is wrong to steal, but it is a greater wrong to die if one can avoid it. So it is wrong to kill a man, but a greater wrong is committed when an assassin kills an innocent man. But when a murderer is in custody, the safety of no one requires that his life shall be taken. Put him in prison, and keep him there till he becomes a safe man in the community, and if he never reforms, keep him there for life.
The world’s mode of dealing with offenders is radically wrong; there is too much of the leaven of revenge in it. They should be treated as morally insane, rather than as criminals. Our penitentiaries should be converted into moral reform schools, and transgressors should be put there, and retained there, till well qualified persons, who scrutinize their conduct every day, pronounce them regenerated. And he, who may be sent there for stealing one dollar, should remain there till he is no longer a thief, and if he resists all efforts to reform him, keep him there as long as he lives. It is better for him, and for society, that he should be thus excluded from the world. Man has no right to punish his brother man; God has established laws, and if they are violated punishment is sure to follow; and it is our duty to reform the erring. This mode of treatment accords with the gospel, and the spirit of Christ, but the penitentiary, the gallows, and the guillotine, correspond with the spirit of Orthodoxy.
When a great crime is committed our blood boils, and we cry aloud for vengeance; but a little correct reflection on such occasions will do us no harm. The criminal inherited a bad moral organization, and was, perhaps, surrounded by evil associates from the cradle to manhood. All this should be considered in dealing with the fallen; but the law of man sees it not, considers it not. He is deemed equally as blamable as his associate in crime, who was brought up under the most favorable circumstances. But there is a great difference between the criminality of the two. The latter sins against much more light than the former, and is a greater criminal in the sight of God. Most of offenders come into this world “half made up,” and are educated in crime from infancy upward. Let the state take them under its special care and keeping; protect society from their depredations, and strive to make better men and women of such unfortunates.
Preached in Newark and Zanesville. In the former place a preacher deemed it his duty to oppose me, but he did it in a very gentlemanly manner. The subject of my discourse was hell, and the following was the gist of it: 1st. The Bible no where asserts that hell is beyond the grave, and in the immortal world. On the contrary, it teaches that it is on the earth. The lawgiver, Moses, locates it here. “For a fire is kindled in my wrath, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischief upon them; I will spend my arrows upon them. They shall be burned with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction; I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men. To me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.” Moses here tells his countrymen what would be the consequences if they should be unfaithful to the trust committed to them. The Lord would “hide his face from them,” “vengeance would overtake them,” “the day of their calamity would be at hand,” “they would be scattered into all parts of the earth,” “the sword without and terror within would destroy them,” they would be “burnt with hunger.” All these calamities are expressed by the words, “lowest hell;” and the history of that remarkable nation shows that the prophecy has been fulfilled. That nation has been cast down to the lowest hell. David testifies that the results of sin are not far off. “The pains of hell got hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow.” Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers! how can ye escape the damnation of hell.” Matt. xxiii. 33. And then he adds, “All these things shall come upon this generation.” 2d. Hell is no where in the Bible said to be endless; and who has a right to assume that it is endless in duration? Popes, bishops and councils have threatened the world with endless torment, if it did not bow to their yoke, but thank God our destiny is not in their hands. 3d. We have no information of the creation of such a place as Orthodoxy proclaims. We read of God creating the heavens and the earth, and all therein, but not a word about his building a vast prison in which to torment countless millions of his creatures world without end. It is blasphemy to charge the God of love with such work. God is good, and all his works are good. When creation was finished all things were pronounced good. An eternal hell then is no part of God’s work. Let this be remembered. 4th. The New Testament never speaks of any one being saved from hell. It was the mission of Jesus to save us from sin, from darkness, from a lost condition, from slavery, from the present evil world, but there is not an intimation in the New Testament that God sent his Son to save us from a hell of his own creating. 5th. The word hell in the Bible does not signify, according to good authority, a place of ceaseless woe. Dr. Adam Clarke, the well known commentator, says: “The word hell, used in the common translation, conveys now an improper meaning of the original word; because hell is only used to signify the place of the damned. But as the word hell comes from the Anglo-Saxon helan, to cover, to hide, hence the tyling or slating of a house is called, in some parts of England, (particularly Cornwall,) heling, to this day; and the covers of books, (in Lancashire,) by the same name.” This admission is fatal to the common received views of hell. 6th. The word hell in the Old Testament, is taken from the Hebrew term sheol, and learned men of all schools admit, that it signifies the state of the dead in general, without regard to their condition. Dr. George Campbell remarks as follows: “Sheol in itself considered, has no connection with future punishment.” Dr. Whitby, a profound English scholar tells us, that “Sheol throughout the Old Testament signifies not a place of punishment, or of the souls of bad men only, but the grave only, or the place of the dead.” Other critics admit the same. 7th. In the New Testament, the word hell is translated from the Greek term hades, and as that is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew sheol, its meaning is the same as its corresponding word. Hence Dr. Campbell says, “Hades occurs eleven times in the New Testament, and is rendered grave once, and hell ten times. In my judgment, it ought never in Scripture to be rendered hell, at least in the sense wherein that word is universally understood by Christians. In the Old Testament the corresponding word is sheol, which signifies the state of the dead in general, without regard to the goodness or badness of the persons, their happiness or misery. It is very plain that neither in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, nor in the New, does the word hades convey the meaning which the present English word hell, in the Christian usage, always conveys to our minds. The attempt to illustrate this would be unnecessary, as it is hardly now pretended by any critic that this is the acception of the term in the Old Testament.” 8th. The word hell in the New Testament in twelve instances, is taken from the Greek term gehenna, and Orthodox scholars thus define that word: “Gehenna is a Hebrew word denoting a place near Jerusalem, in which the Israelites, giving themselves up to idolatry, sacrificed children to a heated image of Moloch, which represented the form of an ox. This place, the valley of Hinnom, the Jews afterwards so detested, that they were accustomed to cast into it the unburied carcasses of those whom they desired to punish with unusual severity. It is called a gehenna of fire, because Josiah, in order to render the valley of Hinnom more odious, commanded that filth and dead carcasses should be cast into it; for the burning of which there was kept a perpetual fire.” 2 Kings xxiii. 10, et seq. This is the testimony of Dr. Rosenmuller, and it is the testimony of all the learned, belong to what denomination they may. This is the literal meaning of the word, twelve times rendered hell in the New Testament. Figuratively, it refers to the temporal desolation that was soon to befall the Jewish nation. The damnation of gehenna overwhelmed Jerusalem, the whole land, and the people. Jesus told his countrymen that they had filled up the measure of their iniquity, that the vials of wrath and fiery indignation were about to be poured upon them, that on them would come all the righteous blood their nation had spilt. When these things shall come to pass, said Jesus, “there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time.” He told them over and over, that all these things would come on that generation. Theologians now locate all that in yonder world. They might as well assert, that the Ohio valley is the name of a place beyond the grave, and the destruction that befell the Indians therein is immortal woe in a post mortem hell.
The gentleman said I was partly right and partly wrong. I met him several years after, and he was then preaching the annihilation of the wicked. He had made some progress, for it is certainly better to burn men to ashes than to burn them forever. I lectured in McConnersville, and became acquainted with Mrs. Frances Gage, who since then has been before the public as a writer and lecturer on temperance and woman’s rights. Notwithstanding her limited education, she writes good poetry and prose, and is a superior lecturer. She is a noble woman, and devotes her life to noble purposes. Spent several days in Marietta, a beautiful town on the Ohio river. I was urged to remain there, and the society offered me five hundred dollars per year, a liberal salary for the times, but I declined. I was fearful that I could not sustain myself in preaching at one place all the time. The friends there had no idea but I could, but I fancied that I knew myself better than they did. Preached in Belpre. Stopped with General Putnam, a descendent of the revolutionary hero of that name—a splendid man, and a devoted believer in the restitution of all things. Here I also met with W. H. Jolly, an early pioneer preacher. He traveled most of the time through the wilderness of Ohio, preaching in private houses, school-houses, barns, and wherever he could have a hearing. He received but a small compensation, his whole soul was in the work, and he was dearly beloved by his fellow believers. He died soon after I saw him, but he is still remembered as a devoted and good man. He had a daughter, a young lady, who wrote well for our periodicals. She afterwards married, and I do not know what has become of her.