Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical SketchesAdams, John G. (John Greenleaf)
Religion
Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical Sketches
Adams, John G. (John Greenleaf)
Universalism; Universalist Church -- Biography; Universalists -- Biography; Universalists -- United States -- History
In concluding the accounts of ministers here given, it seems
appropriate to add a brief reference to an event of recent occurrence,
to which the attention of the Universalist public had been specially
called. We refer to the meetings held under the direction of the
"Cheshire Association," on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the 18th,
19th, and 20th of August, 1882, in Richmond, N. H., the birthplace of
Rev. Hosea Ballou, and in honor of this distinguished and venerated
man. During these days, discourses were preached by Rev. Quincy
Whitney, Rev. S. S. Fletcher, Rev. Dr. S. H. McCollester, Rev. Dr.
A. A. Miner, and Rev. Dr. G. H. Emerson. Multitudes were in
attendance, and the occasion was deeply impressive, and is
significantly historical. Appended to a special account of the great
gathering, Dr. Emerson, editor of the "Christian Leader," presents the
following description of the birthplace of Mr. Ballou. We are glad to
give it a place in this volume:--
"Stratford-upon-Avon has its one interest for the great world in the
happy fortune of giving to every age the Bard who, in the faculty
for putting an almost inspired wisdom into verse that is not simply
matchless, but at a vast altitude above that of every other poet who
has spoken the Saxon tongue,--William Shakespeare. The little town
of Ayr would be nothing but a Scottish post-village but for the
circumstance that Robert Burns first breathed within its borders.
But first Stratford and then Ayr, for the English-speaking world,
rise to an importance simply unique, above every hamlet upon the
British Isles, London and Edinburgh hardly excepted.
"Those who with us fully believe that the future is to honor Hosea
Ballou with a niche in the temple of fame, as the peer of the elder
Edwards, and as hardly the second of Franklin, who find in the
'Treatise on the Atonement' the quarry where Bushnell has polished a
few boulders, will further agree with us that the gazetteer of the
coming century will put into conspicuous type, and honor with some
detail of description, the New Hampshire farming town where Hosea
Ballou was born. The compiler of Lippincott's did not know its claim
to distinction, when he summarily disposed of Richmond, N. H., as 'a
post-township in Cheshire Co., 53 miles S. W. of Concord.'
"In a recent attendance upon the grove meeting, not the least among
the inducements to make the journey was the opportunity to see the
homestead where Hosea Ballou first took the breath of life, and to
explore some of the vales and hills his boy feet must have trod more
than a century ago.... As we enter this little village, a church at
our right, half a century old, is the Universalist church,--the
members of which have nearly all left, to be good parishioners at
Winchester, Keene, and other more thriving and distant neighborhoods.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account