"He is a great man who is impelled to bear the new truth abroad, that, like its Great Source, he may be 'found of those who asked not after him;' to make the hill-side and the grove, the river shore, the barn, the humble farmer's room, or the shadow of a great tree, his church, and there proclaim the gospel in its wholeness, with a readiness that shows the heart is full of the matter, and with a willingness to answer any queries, and respond to any voice that speaks a word against the completeness of the redemption proposed in Christ. By his keen insight into human nature, his rare powers of logic, his unique use of words, his intelligibility to the humblest capacity in treating of the greatest subjects, and his profound wisdom in choosing means to reach directly the ends desired, Hosea Ballou was a great man. In an instant he stripped away all the show and tinsel of learned ignorance, or drove the dart between the joints of the harness of barbarian bigotry, and laid low the pretender. By his unshaken and majestic faith and trust; by the steadiness with which he kept the honor of God, in the supremacy and efficiency of the Scriptures, ever before him; and by the willingness and capacity to receive any new application of the great principles of the gospel, he was a great man. All this was crowned and glorified by his personal character, by the purity of his walk and conversation, his rare temperance amid the most solicitous temptations, and the harmony he breathed into all his children and the rule he swayed over them; he was a great man, abiding the last, best test of greatness, 'being such an one as Paul the aged.'" As will be surmised by previous remarks in this work, Mr. Ballou, in the matter of politics, had of course his preferences of principles and of men, and he always voted for them, besides keeping himself well read in the most important political matters of the day, pro and con, and weighing well in his own mind their bearing upon the true principles of political economy; but here his interest ceased. He took no active part, even in conversation, upon the subject, though at times he would show by his remarks that the great principles of either party were familiar to him. Still he always avoided, as a topic of conversation, a subject which is so often the theme of bitter contention between those who in all other respects are excellent friends. He never changed his political sentiments, which, however, for very good reasons, were scarcely known, or, at least, not intimately so, out of the family circle.