It might be said of Mr. Ballou's sermons as Thomas Fuller said of Perkins in his eulogy: "His sermons were not so plain but that the piously learned did admire them, nor so learned but that the plain did understand them. Unshelling theological controversies of their school terms, he made of them plain and wholesome meat for the people." "Children can understand him," was the constant remark of the ministering brethren, in relation to Mr. Ballou's sermons; and he has said often, "If I can make children understand me, then I am satisfied; for surely it must then be that older minds will comprehend my words." In this connection we are forcibly reminded of the true incident of the minister and the child. Forcible, simple as it is! "Mother," said a little girl, seven years old, "I could not understand our minister to-day, he said so many hard words. I wish he would preach so that little girls could understand him; won't he, mother?" "Yes, I think so, if we ask him." It was not long after that the little girl's father saw her going over to the minister's, and calling her back to him, he asked:-- "Where are you going, Emma?" "I am going over to Mr. ----'s, father," was her innocent reply, "to ask him to preach small!" 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."