Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou

by Maturin M. Ballou

"When lovely Spring, with flowery wreaths,
Comes on young Zephyr's wing,
And every bird soft music breathes,
'Tis love that makes them sing.

Love blossoms on the forest trees,
And paints each garden flower,
Gives honey to the laboring bees
In every sylvan bower.

Love breathes in every wind that blows,
And fragrance fills the air;
Meanders in each stream that flows,
Inviting pleasures there.

Love brings the golden harvest in,
And fills her stores with food;
It moves ten thousand tongues to sing
Of universal good."

"If we believe that God so loved us that he sent his Son to die for us, we ought to love one another," he says. "Shall I not love those objects whom my God loves? Shall I not love all those for whose sins he sent his Son to be a propitiation? Most assuredly. This is a consequence naturally to be expected from our belief. I do not say that all who profess the doctrine do love one another as they ought; but I have the confidence to say that no one who possesses the real sentiment, the real principle, in his heart, can do otherwise than love all mankind. And here you will easily perceive that all the commandments of the gospel are to be obeyed. For when we love one another and love God, what duty is there that will be neglected? If this will not lead us to our duty, what will? Will terror make us do our duty? No; for, referring once more to the similitude, what drove your children away? It was believing the story they were told of your character. What brought them back? Knowing you were good. And know you not that it is the goodness of God that leadeth to repentance? Why, then, should not his goodness be preached to sinners? Why should we be told such awful stories with regard to eternity? Why should we be told that there is an everlasting state of burning, in order to induce us to love our Father in heaven? O! incongruous doctrine! Let it be banished from the world, and let the angel of the covenant proclaim the love of God to mankind; and may the world be converted. Man will then love his fellow-man; we shall all see that we are the children of God, that we are all the objects of God's love, and all the objects of our Saviour's grace. Believe this truth, treasure it up in your hearts, let your affections move with assent, love God and love one another, and the God of love and peace shall be with you."

All his writings and all of his conversation, both public and private, were thoroughly imbued with this belief and principle of universal love; it ran like a golden stratum through all his life and conduct, imbuing every sentiment and every thought. His doctrine was such that a realizing sense of its character must invariably thus affect the firm and relying believer. He never held forth dark threats, nor adopted, like many preachers about him, the doleful tones of grief when he talked about religion. "If good people," says Archbishop Usher, "would make their goodness agreeable, and smile instead of frowning in their virtue, how many would they win to the good cause!" Mr. Ballou was affected, in his cheerful and happy belief of universal salvation, like Haydn, who, in answer to a query of the poet Carpani, how it happened that his church music was ever of an animating and cheerful character, answered,—"I cannot make it otherwise. I write according to the thoughts which I feel;—when I think upon God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap as it were from my pen."

How many there are among us who, the moment the subject of religion is mentioned, put on long faces, and talk as if they were mourning their own lot and that of all creation, "in hopes to merit heaven by making earth a hell!" Such people, by their example and bearing, would lead us to believe that churches are institutions reared for the purpose of encouraging long faces and dyspepsia, instead of pure altars from whence may ascend the glad incense of grateful hearts. How strongly it is impressed upon us that "God loves the cheerful giver!" and did not Christ reproach the Pharisees for disfiguring their faces with a sad countenance? To use the forcible language of another, they make of themselves "Hypocrites, who, to persuade men that angels lodge in their hearts, hang out a devil for a sign in their countenances." "It is quite deplorable," says Lady Morgan, "to see how many rational creatures, or at least who are thought so, mistake suffering for sanctity, and think a sad face and a gloomy habit of mind propitious offerings to that Deity whose works are all light and lustre, and harmony and loveliness."

Such was the philosophy of the subject of these memoirs, such his religion, such the doctrine which he taught. He found no cause for sorrow in his belief, but a never-failing fountain of joy ever welled up in his breast, pure and sparkling.

Mr. Ballou's religious belief, the faith which he promulgated with such zeal and wonderful effect, can be summed up in a few words. He held that God judges the human family in the earth; that every man must receive according to the sin he hath done, and that there is no respect of persons. That the "righteous shall be recompensed in the earth, much more the wicked and the sinner." That the future state of existence will be one of unalloyed happiness for the whole human family. That God is a being who governs the world with a parent's regard, and not with the wrath of a tyrant; that the world could be led to love him, but never driven to do it through fear. That love, not wrath, should be preached to the people. That all punishment is designed by the Divine Spirit for the reformation of the sinner, and consequently must take place where the sin is committed. That the reward of good deeds is to encourage well doing, and must come when and where the worthy acts are done. He believed in no more dreadful hell than is produced by the consequences of sin about us, with the still, bitter gnawings of conscience; and in no sweeter or more desirable reward than an approving conscience, and the natural consequences of doing good. He taught that man must be saved from his sins, not from the punishment of them,—that is impossible,—and that to be happy we must "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God."

He believed that, in order to prove that misery will exist in the future or eternal state, it must first be made to appear that sin will exist in that state. But this he did not believe could be proved from any scriptural testimony; on the contrary, he was fully convinced that the Bible taught that "He that is dead is freed from sin." To quote his own words on this point: "We have shown, in order for justice to require the endless misery of any moral being, it must, of necessity, require the endless continuance of sin, than which nothing can be more absurd." Again he says: "We have sufficiently argued that man cannot be miserable in consequence of moral condemnation, any longer than he is, in a moral sense, a sinner." And we have often heard him make the remark, in regard to limited future punishment, that if any one would produce but only one passage of scripture which proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that sin or the sinner will exist, as such, in the eternal, immortal state, then I give up my doctrine of no future punishment; but until this is done, I shall hold to the doctrine that the Scriptures do not teach the principle even of a limited future punishment. Mr. Ballou would not allow analogy to take the place of scriptural proof on so important a subject as the destiny of man in the immortal state. He had nothing to do with mere assertions, which had not a "thus saith the Lord" for their support, on any doctrinal point.