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[Illustration: R. Badger]




MEMOIR OF REV. JOSEPH BADGER.


BY E. G. HOLLAND.

FOURTH EDITION.

NEW YORK:

C. S. FRANCIS AND CO., 252 BROADWAY.

BOSTON: BENJAMIN H. GREENE, 124 WASHINGTON ST.

1854.


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
MRS. ELIZA M. BADGER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Western District of New York.

DAMRELL & MOORE,
PRINTERS,
16 Devonshire Street, Boston.




PREFACE


The present volume is the Memoir of a man and a minister whose character
was strikingly individual, whose services to Religion in its more
liberal and unsectarian form were large and successful; and in the
denomination to which he belonged, no man was more generally known, and
none, we believe, ever acted a more prominent and effective part. The
writer of this has endeavored to set forth the life and sentiments of
Mr. Badger, to a large extent in his own language. Much of his journal
must be new even to old acquaintance, as it was written many years ago,
and no part of it has ever been published. To those who would be pleased
to read the outlines of the greatest theological reformation among the
masses which the nineteenth century may justly claim, we trust this
volume will be welcome; likewise to all those who may be liberal and
evangelical Christians. Aged men, contemporaries with him, will rejoice
in the revival of past scenes, and the young will be taught, encouraged,
and warned by the paternal voices of the departed.

Two classes of great men figure effectively on the stage of the world.
One class are strongest in writing. Their written words embody the
entire elegance and power of their minds. Such were Webster and
Channing. The other class are strongest in speech. Their personal
presence, their spontaneous eloquence in oral discourse, alone express
their mind and heart. Such were Clay, Henry, and Whitfield. To the
latter classification Mr. Badger unquestionably belongs. Though the
marks of superiority are variously apparent in his papers, it was in the
more natural medium of oral speech that his genius shone. Having now
completed the task demanded by my duty to the family of Mr. Badger, I
would, in the name of the self-sacrificing, trusting faith of which he
was no common example, send forth this volume to the world, hoping that
in an ease-loving age, the presentation of a Lutheran force in the
example of a son of New Hampshire may serve to awaken in others a
kindred energy.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND ANCESTRY.

II. CHILDHOOD.

III. YOUTH AND EDUCATION.

IV. CONVERSION.

V. CALL TO AND ENTRANCE UPON THE MINISTRY.

VI. PUBLIC LABORS IN THE PROVINCE.

VII. TOUR TO NEW ENGLAND, AND PUBLIC LABORS.

VIII. ORDINATION AND PUBLIC LABORS.

IX. PUBLIC LABORS--MARRIAGE--TRAVELS.

X. LABORS AND SETTLEMENT IN WESTERN NEW YORK.

XI. THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS OF 1819 AND 1820.

XII. WRITINGS--MARRIAGE--