Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou

by Maturin M. Ballou

No man had a more thorough appreciation of all that was grand and noble in nature, no one a keener eye for her myriads of charms that gladden our daily lives and illumine the pathway of life.

"We heard him, for the first time," says the editor of the American Phrenological Journal, "at a Universalist general convention, Akron, Ohio, in September, 1843, where he preached to a very large gathering, with the ablest men in the denomination preceding and following him. Many of them delivered more elaborate and carefully studied discourses, but there was no other who made the brown faces of the old farmers so fairly shine with admiration and delight as 'Father Ballou.' Many of them had heard him in New England thirty or forty years previous, and now, hearing that he was to attend the convention, had come thirty or forty miles to listen to him once again, and for the last time on earth. Though then past man's allotted period of 'threescore years and ten,' his distinctness of utterance, clearness of statement, aptness of illustration, and force of argument, might well have been taken as a model by a young preacher; and, though he spoke more than an hour, a very general regret was evident that he closed so soon. In person Mr. Ballou was tall and slight, with a bearing of unaffected meekness and humility."

In the summer of the succeeding year he made another visit to New York and Philadelphia, in accordance with the promise made some years before, to come as often and for as long a period as was convenient to him, and also in compliance with the earnest solicitations of the societies in both these cities at that time. As we have before remarked, he had formed many personal friends in both these cities, and it was, as we have heard him often declare, refreshing to his heart to meet them and enjoy their liberal and kind hospitality. He felt, too, an earnest solicitude for the spiritual welfare of those societies, before whom he had so often spoken with such satisfaction to himself and profit to them. During this journey southward, by the solicitations of the societies in Baltimore, Mr. Ballou extended his visit to that city, where he stopped for a short period, which time he improved by the delivery of sermons day and evening. On his return to Boston, he preached a sermon, we well remember, relative to the condition of the cause of Universalism, and was made glad at heart by the state in which he found it in these cities, and at being able to make such goodly report at home. It was like the husbandman going abroad in his master's vineyard, and counting the harvest of his lord, which he had himself planted.

The kind and hospitable treatment which Mr. Ballou always received, in the cities particularly of New York and Philadelphia, seems to have made a most indelible impression upon his heart. Often has he spoken of it in his family circle, until we have felt almost as though we had individually shared the delightful reunions which he described. True, it was thus wherever he visited, as it regarded making warm and lasting friends, but he has left memorandums that signify his remembrance more particularly of the societies of these cities. He says:—"In New York and Philadelphia, I have ever been made by the brethren to feel that I was at home; kind hearts and hands have ever greeted me in either place, and some of the happiest and most profitable moments of my life I think have been passed in ministering to the beloved societies in these places. Had my Heavenly Father seen fit to render my services less happy and fortunate in their result in Boston, I should have found a happy home in either New York or Philadelphia. As it is, my frequent visits to both have afforded me undiminished satisfaction, and much social enjoyment. My sincere prayers are constantly offered for their happiness, well-being, and spiritual good." The great and moving cause of his exerting such an influence by his words and manners over the minds of people in his religious teachings, as well as his private intercourse, was the spirit of sincerity that imbued every motion, while the beauty and purity of his moral character seemed to sanctify every word and action, which emanated from him. With not the slightest stain upon his character from boyhood, he was such a being as people could afford to reverence, respect, and love.

Through the whole of his long and active career, Mr. Ballou never once turned aside from the one great object and purpose of his heart, that of promulgating God's fatherly and impartial love to all mankind, as evinced in the holy Scriptures and the dispensations of Providence.

In a poem, ending with the two following verses, he has himself expressed his devoted zeal better than we can do.

"Not all thy foes on earth can say
Can turn my heart from thee away;
And yet my heart is free;
These wounds and scars, that men despise,
Are jewels precious in thine eyes,
And this is all to me.

"Had I ten thousand years to live,
Had I ten thousand lives to give,
All these should be thine own;
And that foul scorn thy foes bestow
Still prove a laurel to my brow,
And their contempt a throne."

In this service he never wrote or uttered a single sentence that was not peculiar to himself for its plainness of purpose, yet depth of thought, and for strong logical reasoning to this grand end. He possessed for his purpose a large share of ready, manly eloquence, not nervous and startling, but cool and convincing; and this, coupled with a natural quickness in discovering the strength or weakness of an argument, ever insured him victory in religious controversy. No sarcasm, no reflection, no imputation could throw him off his guard for one moment. He was ever unruffled, yet forcible, evincing the spirit of the doctrine which he advocated at all times. It was perfectly impossible to so excite him in controversy as to lead him to say the least ungentlemanly, or even abrupt thing. He stood for years as a target for the poisoned arrows of malice, bigotry and envy, and bore all with a serene dignity of spirit, which a firm reliance in Heaven could alone have given.

In his public teachings he never indulged in abstractions, never ran away from his theme, upon abstruse and visionary ideas. He was in this respect, as in all others, eminently natural, eminently practical, eminently original. We do not find nature teaching us by adducing vague notions of facts, but rather by a display of the facts themselves. Abstractions and transcendentalisms are but thick fogs to cloud the mental vision, while plain matter-of-fact is the clear, bright view of truth, with the soft, rich perspective of wisdom. It is exceedingly questionable, when we hear a minister dilating upon the arts and sciences, or leading his hearers off in a vein of visionary philosophy, whether that man has a religion worth preaching, or that is congenial to his own heart.