Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou

by Maturin M. Ballou

A hint this that many might improve by.

To the place of his birth Mr. Ballou was fondly attached, and often visited it during the latter years of his life, in company with his children. He seemed thrice happy among those well-remembered hills and dales, where "the dreams of youth came back again." Aside from the fact of its being the home of his childhood, which in itself will strew with roses the bleakest spot in Christendom, the valley of his nativity had many picturesque and glowing natural beauties, of a character to impress the lover of nature with admiration. Here he had set his snares at the skirts of yonder wood, and here made his morning ablutions in the clear running brook. Adown the crevices of this huge old rock, when a little boy, surfeited with the abundance of wild strawberries, he had pressed out their juice, and adown the green crevices in the mossy stone the red liquid had made its way. These old stumps, now decayed, and like himself passing away, once bore the orchard fruit that he had watched with anxious eye to its ripening. And this mass of rocks, this ruined cellar, is the only remnant left of the cot where he was born. Not a stone nor a tree was forgotten,—not one but brought back its peculiar legend to his quickened heart. And here was the old burial-ground, on the hill-side, where the dust of his father and kindred reposed. With what awe had he ever looked upon that place when a boy! How many times strolled thoughtfully among the rank grass and moss-grown slabs, whose gray old forms, now bending hither and thither with age, gave faint and feeble token of names long, long since passed away,—

"With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked."

While on a visit to this spot, accompanied by his second son, Rev. Massena B. Ballou, in 1843, he lingered long and thoughtfully among the tomb-stones, and at last said:—"I believe I could sleep sweeter here, among the hills of Cheshire, by the side of my early home and kindred, than in the grounds of Mount Auburn." And this was in truth characteristic of him and of his feelings, as the reader will have gathered ere this. A retiring spirit governed him at all times, unmoved by one single prompting of ambition or a desire for fame, and only zealous in the service of his Lord and Master. His works he desired to leave behind him as perfect as might be, because he hoped that, even after he had himself ceased to live, they might be productive of good to his fellow-men; but it was the only memento he wished to leave behind. "I can hardly conceive of language," he says, "to express the flood of tender emotions that overflow my heart, when I look upon that valley and those well-remembered hills. I seem as if touched by some potent wand, and to be changed from age to youth again. It becomes impossible to realize the crowd of incidents and experiences that have thronged my pathway for more than half a century. I am once more in that frugal, happy home, where contentment ever smiled upon us, and the kind words of my brothers and the affection of my sisters, more than compensated for what by some would have been considered not an enviable lot. Though that cottage is now levelled by Time's ruthless hands, yet how prominent it stands before my mind's eye! That aged and beloved parent now rests on yonder hill-side. Those brothers and sisters,—how various the fortune of each! All, all have now passed that portal to which my own footsteps are steadily wending." He was often inspired to pour out his feelings in song, after visiting Richmond and the haunts of his youth, for his heart was full of the memories of those days that had endeared the spot to him. The following lines upon this subject were composed for his children to sing with instrumental accompaniment, and are written in the metre of one of his favorite songs, the air of "Dumbarton's Bonny Belle."

BALLOU'S DELL.

"There are no hills in Hampshire New,
No valleys half so fair,
As those which spread before the view
In merry Richmond, where
I first my mortal race began,
And passed my youthful days,—
Where first I saw the golden sun,
And felt his warming rays.

There is no spot in Richmond where
Fond memory loves to dwell,
As on the glebe outspreading there
In Ballou's blithesome dell.
There are no birds that sing so sweet
As those upon the spray,
Where, from the brow of 'Grassy Hill,'
Comes forth the morning ray.

Unnumbered flowers, the pride of spring,
Are born to flourish there,
And round them mellow odors fling
Through all the ambient air.

There purling springs have charms for me
That vulgar brooks ne'er give,
And winds breathe sweeter down the lea
Than where magnolias live!"

This is but one of a large number of pieces composed by Mr. Ballou while inspired by the same theme. It will serve to show the reader the hallowed and inspiring feelings that lived in the writer's heart, as his memory went back in freshness to the days and associations of his boyhood, as in retrospection he shook away the snow of time from the evergreen of memory.