[Illustration: H. Ballou 2d. From a Dag. H. W. Smith Sc. J. H. Daniels Pr.]
Of all the worthies in this company of church leaders of which we are speaking, not one of them is entitled to a higher place than HOSEA BALLOU, D. D., or "2d," as he was called before the doctorate was conferred upon him. A rare man was he, a clear-headed and closely logical thinker, an untiring student, one of the soundest of preachers, and humblest and noblest of men. We have no fear of using language too strong in our statement of his character, its pre-eminence and worth. An editor of a volume of his discourses has given it, on the title-page, from Laman Blanchard:--
"His thoughts were as a pyramid up-piled, On whose far top an angel sat and smiled, Yet in his heart was he a simple child."
He was of Guilford, Vt., born there in 1796. His parents were Baptists, but the thoughtful and studious boy, before the age of nineteen, had embraced Universalism. He began early the study of Latin and Greek, and gave much attention in later days to ecclesiastical history. He was pastor in Stafford, Conn., and in Roxbury and Medford, Mass. He was for some years one of the editors of the "Universalist Magazine," and afterwards of the "Quarterly," a publication which under his supervision was a most creditable addition to the literature of the Christian Church. His most valuable contribution to this literature is his "Ancient History of Universalism," the result of long and patient research in a new field of inquiry, and which proved to be a work of acknowledged merit. It settled at once and for all time the loose statement that Universalism was a new doctrine, not known to any extent in olden times. Some of the brightest lights in the Christian Church are recognized as its early advocates. Harvard University, of which he was for some years a trustee, conferred upon him its honorary degree of D. D.; and Tufts College, for which he had anxiously pleaded and diligently labored, elected him her first president. "His scholarship," writes another, "was not only general and varied, but exact in details, and frequently astonishing by its minute acquaintance with things and events out of the ordinary channels of information; and his knowledge was so unostentatiously held, and kindly and modestly imparted, that it required special inquiry to elicit it, and seemed but natural to him. His gentle manners and readiness to impart information, and his mild and loving spirit, won for him the esteem of all who became acquainted with him, so that their admiration of the scholar and teacher were often lost in their affection for the friend."