Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger Part 23

But the scene gradually changed as he advanced in his labors, as his design began to be revealed, and his subject was applied. The sigh and tear were oft exchanged for songs, and the playful smile for prayer and tears. He always closed well.

"As a writer 'he is known and read of all men.' His style is his own, plain, clear, ungarnished and straight-forward.

For this difficult station of editor he had rare accomplishments; and the denomination have cause for lasting grat.i.tude for the aid and encouragement rendered to inexperienced writers, and for the impetus he gave to this mode of teaching. A glimpse at those volumes of the Palladium, issued under his supervision, and then at the condition of the correspondents and contributors, or the original copy from which it was made, at once reveals the singular ability of the man. How a cla.s.s of young writers cl.u.s.tered around him! A thousand blessings rest upon him here!

"He had quick perception, great decision, and concentration. He habitually _thought_ at early dawn; and when his purposes were laid, every energy was concentrated upon that single point. In this he was a Washington, a Napoleon, a Wellington. As a man of tact I have not known his equal. To this quality we may ascribe much of his success in conducting the Palladium. Many who could have written a labored article as well, or better, could not have succeeded in conducting the paper at all. Many with resources would have produced a mole-hill when he formed a mountain. But we will not, we dare not, say that his positions and his means of sustaining them were always right. He was a man; and in this utterance we plainly say he was erring. The most we can say, the highest character we would give our brother is, we hope, we trust, we believe he was a CHRISTIAN."

CHAPTER XXIII.

REFLECTIONS.

As the value of men historically stands in close connection with the ideas they represent, and with the movements in which they take part, it is relevant to the present subject that we glance at the character of the reformation in which Mr. Badger was the leading actor, and in whose principles he lived and preached more than a third of a century. We read the worth of a man in the value of the cause he aids. Mankind evidently are saved, not by magic, but by principles. The moral benefactor, therefore, is to be prized by the service he renders in making these perfect in the knowledge, and effective in the practice of his fellows.

What, then, are the historical worth and characteristics of the Christian Reformation, in whose ministry Mr. Badger was a star of primary magnitude and brightness?

Its historical worth can now be stated but partially, as the half century which has elapsed since the first declaration of principles is too small a s.p.a.ce of time for their determination in results. If, in all reformatory movements, the conception, utterance, agitation, and adoption of ideas, are the natural steps of progress by which new truths become externized in permanent effects, we might well appropriate the period of time here spoken of mostly to the preparatory stages of the work, and look forward to the future for the final verdict which shall declare its entire importance. This question cannot now be answered, except by the ability which reads, in moral causes, the distant triumphs they contain. As a future forest resides in present acorns, so great future changes reside in present truths.

The religious sentiment has its eras in the world, its triumphs and discouragements, as really as art and science have theirs; and between its present state and final victories lie many great and earnest revolutions. Three things may be safely premised on this subject: 1. The religious sentiment is mighty and eternal in man, and therefore will forever appear with prominence in human history. 2. There now exist all the TRUTHS and all the PRINCIPLES that can ever possibly appear. 3. The increasing _knowledge_ of truth, the _development_ of principles, the revolutions that are needed for their establishment in the world--these must continue. To truth no iota can ever be added, it being already infinite; but its development in human history must, like human nature, be progressive.

In looking over the world's religious phenomena, we notice, among the defects, a mixture of truth with superst.i.tion, an ignorance of everlasting law, which flows through all departments of being, and into which all facts are resolved. In marking the particular line of religion which forms the boundary of Christendom, we perceive, in the inclosure, the abundance of sectarism, of intolerance and persecution, all growing out of the immense importance which each sect attaches to its dogmas of belief, to its name and organization. Prior to Protestantism, the church, which has always boasted of its unity, imprisoned and burned the heretic. The belligerent att.i.tude of clergymen now conclusively proves that theology, or divine science, is not understood; for it is impossible that honest men should quarrel on any subject of which they have a full comprehension. War, therefore, is the proof of ignorance, and ignorance is the mother of intolerance and persecution. As these are the most prominent evils the history of the church presents, we are obliged to highly honor the principles which melt these asperities into charity, as they shine from the effulgent heaven of a wider love. Under the stern authority of creeds, a manly freedom will scarcely grow. The Christian reformation, which began with the ma.s.ses, and not with a caste, in the first years of the nineteenth century, contained principles which liberate the spirit from narrow and oppressive bonds, which open comparatively a whole broad horizon over the man of faith, and form a larger brotherhood than mere uniformity of belief can ever create. In naming distinctly four elements of that reformation, the view here offered will be clearly verified.

1. It cast aside sectarian names. To witness the power of names, whether political or religious, to learn their efficiency in perpetuating a division, one has only to look at the different parties into which men are separated. Often, it is the name mostly that holds a party together, and that forms the limit of sympathy and fraternization. But it was no philosophical reasons that led the people to throw off all sectarian names. It was reverence to the New Testament, and to the holy sympathies of Christian fellowship, which perpetually pa.s.s beyond the artificial boundaries of sect. In reverence to the New Testament, they a.s.sumed the Catholic name--Christian, and conceded it to all of every cla.s.s who walked in purity of life.

2. They exalted the Bible to the exclusion and rejection of human creeds. Creeds cannot be wiser than to men who made them; as these are weak, fallible creatures, it is in vain to seek the Rock of Ages among their products. It may be said that no one can attend to every branch of business; that if one man makes ploughs he should be excused from making coffins, and be supplied from his neighbor's shop; that the unthinking ma.s.ses, whose toil absorbs their energy, cannot form their own belief; that each, out of the storehouse of creeds already made, should find what fits his own dimensions. This may not be the worst advice to one who, mentally, is ready to die, and needs wherewith to be entombed; but to him who is resolved to live, it is the veriest mockery. If the Bible is, according to the general concession, the firmament of suns and stars, that bends morally and religiously over mankind, why should the torch and taper lights of theological invention be subst.i.tuted in its place? In the daytime is not the radiance of the sun sufficient? The cause which induced these reformers to reject the man-made creeds, was simply reverence to the Book of books, and to the individual right of every man to learn truth for himself, undictated by the authority of men.

3. They claimed for each person a perfect, individual freedom. Romanism denies this right; and, though Protestanism has usually admitted it in theory, it has always Romanized in practice. Who is authorized to be the master of my thought? Who is commissioned from on high to tell me what I am to believe? Who or what is ent.i.tled to an arbitrary throne in this free realm? To the fish G.o.d gave an element in which they are free; to the birds and trees he was equally kind. Nothing grows proportionately, truly, except freedom. To man the High One has given the boundless element of TRUTH, a sh.o.r.eless and fathomless ocean to swim in; and who shall here compel his path? There was manliness in the words of Henry, "Give me liberty or give me death."

4. EXPERIENCE they made the basis of religion. Their bond of fellowship, therefore, did not say, What, sir, is your opinion? It asked the deeper questions, Where is your heart? How do you live? Of the Holy Spirit are you born? It is true that the doctrine of one G.o.d in one person, of Jesus as his son, became with them a general belief, probably from the fact that a full surrender of their minds to the Scriptures as exclusive authority necessitated these convictions; but no notions of Trinity or Unity were ever thought of as bonds of fellowship. The spirit and doctrine of that movement cried to men and women of all sects and of no sect, "If you walk by faith in the Son of G.o.d, if you love the Lord Jesus, if you try to live the holy life, come to our embrace, come to the symbolical supper of our Lord." The full history of these sentiments in the world, the future must write. They are already introduced; and from the democratic turn which thought and education are everywhere taking, from the liberal spirit which every new, valuable work in literature breathes, from the generally increasing aversion to dogmatic theology, we opine that they are destined, through many agencies, to triumph sublimely in the Christian world. These fathers, like those of the Mayflower, wrought from reverence and duty, and no more than they, foresaw the distant results of the principles they espoused. But time is logical, and reproduces the proper fruit of every seed. The movement was self-relying, but more especially was it G.o.d-relying. Human nature in its view is not self-illumined even in its dutiful action, as the earth by no majestic revolving can cause the day. This proceeds from the sun; and from the Eternal Sun are all spirits lighted.

In the cause of education, Mr. Badger's interest and care survived his ability to speak or write on general questions. On the new educational movement, which has since resulted in the establishment of Antioch College, at Yellow Springs, Ohio, under circ.u.mstances of much promise, he looked with anxious and hopeful solicitude, always inquiring of the success of the enterprise; and it may be justly said that his last years were full of the conviction that more education is the strongly available instrument of power. He lived to see the denomination with whom his lot was cast, become enthusiastically awake in behalf of culture. He saw it and rejoiced. Though his people, from the warm, intense faith through which they had early looked to the region of the spiritual and the supernatural for their resources of conquest, had allowed human accomplishment to be in a degree eclipsed, they never cherished substantially the least irreverence to science; for the reverence of truth, native in all spirits, extends to science, which is nothing more than truth made known. Against this precious light, which comes out of nature to instruct us of her hidden property and law, no antagonism ever appeared. Not culture, not science, but the objectionable narrowness of the usual theological training; this was the main centre of their established prejudice. The Seminary at Starkey, the Graham Inst.i.tute of North Carolina, and the College in Ohio, are earnest monuments of their deep regard for the culture which belongs to literature and to science; the last named success being, all things considered, the largest movement under the guiding impulse of liberal faith, that has ever occurred on the continent. The genius of the nineteenth century is _to educate_. Even the elements are disciplined to do for man, to prepare his timbers, to print his thoughts, to carry him on his journey, to bring him tidings; and in no department of human interest and enterprise are raw forces ranked in value with educated power. From the ignorance in which life universally begins, and from the infinity of unconquered truth that ever remains to be learned, it follows, as by unyielding necessity, that the highway that leads from man as a savage to man as the ripened glory of the universe, is none other than education.

Mr. Badger, in his time and way, was indeed an educator (_e-duco_, to _call out_), and his whole action tended to impart discipline to the means and forces about him. His position on this subject was one he never changed; and it is remarkable that through his long life there are no contradictions between his avowed opinions at different times. In the thorough retrospect, from the close to the beginning of his public career, one is impressed with the idea of matureness, of an extraordinary consistency. Each part agrees with the rest. So strikingly manifest is this trait, that we are not surprised at the words of Mr.

Wellons, of Virginia, who said, "I have read his writings from my boyhood, and I must say he was the most consistent man I ever knew."

Though science is ent.i.tled to reverence from its sacredness, and to regard from its ministry of uses and its utility in breaking up the dark empire of superst.i.tion, it was religion in its great and catholic elements, that won the central worship of his heart. The one G.o.d, the one Christ, the one Spirit, the one Gospel, the one brotherhood, the one salvation, freedom, and fellowship of saints; these were his themes. He loved these principles with a firm and steadfast affection. As long as he could walk, even with a.s.sistance, he urged his way to the sanctuary of their proclamation. These pioneers were indeed strong, invincible spirits, who prove that the men who make a people are greater than those whom the people make.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mrs. Peaslee Badger died 1834, at Compton, Lower Canada. Major Peaslee Badger died at Gilmanton, N. H. M. P. Cogswell, in transmitting the news of his death, says--"I now have the painful duty to perform of giving you information of the decease of your honored father, who died at Gilmanton, October 13, 1846, at 12 o'clock at night, and was buried on this day, the 15th, in the old family burial ground, by the side of his father and mother. The Rev. Daniel Lancaster preached a good discourse at our old Smith Meeting House, from Ecc. 12: 7; he spoke well and feelingly of the Major; of his high order of talents, of his remarkably retentive memory of the Scriptures, and so forth. Thus has our honored father gone down to the grave, as said Mr. Lancaster, like a shock of corn fully ripe in its season, at the age of 92 years and six months, lacking ninedays. The day was beautiful for the season; Gov.

Badger and family, as likewise all the relatives in Gilmanton and vicinity were present, and the whole scene was solemnly impressive."

[2] The History of Gilmanton, from the first settlement to the present time, 1845. By Daniel Lancaster, p. 256. Also, Memoir of Hon. Joseph Badger, p. 1.

[3] See American Quarterly Register, vol. xiii, No. 3, p. 317.

[4] 3,450 ft. high.

[5] 3,320 ft.

[6] 4,636 ft.

[7] 1000 ft.

[8] 6,314 ft.

[9] This t.i.tle was then very commonly given to all Baptist ministers.

For some years, however, it has been gradually growing obsolete.

[10] This and its accompanying stanza.

[11] At Ionia, Onondaga Co., N. Y., 1835.

[12] Rom. 1: 16.

[13] This part of the journal was written in 1816.

[14] His brother, Peaslee Badger.

[15] The one that coerced him to pray when a child.

[16] This letter, and another signed by two deacons in Newhampton, are before me. They witness to the great power and success of his ministry; also to his Christian life.

[17] Proverbs, 27: 7.

[18] The same mentioned on page 21.

[19] Zech. 14: 7.

[20] In a sense that to you needs no explanation.

[21] Ps. 7: 16.

[22] Ps. 9: 15.

[23] Ecc. 10: 8.

[24] Acts 20: 31.

[25] John 17: 3; John 1: 18; Matt. 11: 27.

[26] Then Ontario County.

[27] In 1818, this town was const.i.tuted out of the town of Pittsford.

[28] It is stated that the first regularly organized Conference in the United States, occurred at Hartwick, Otsego County, N. Y., 1818. See Pall., vol. ii., p. 169.