Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger: Fourth EditionHolland, E. G. (Elihu Goodwin)
History
Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger: Fourth Edition
Holland, E. G. (Elihu Goodwin)
Badger, Joseph, 1792-1852
It is with entire calmness Mr. Badger surveys the clouded skies that
shut down upon his loneliness; a calmness that never ostensibly forsook
him whenever great grief was at the door. He had a heart of great
affections and of fine feelings. His strong nature was also extremely
sensitive. Few could suffer so much, and few would weep so little when a
great sorrow entered his dwelling. He is again alone in the world; his
little daughter, Lydia Elizabeth, was all that remained of his family,
the only tie that would seem to bind him to earth, and one indeed in
whom his affections strongly centered. Letters of sympathy from numerous
sources came in from different parts of the country. But sorrow, though
it might soften and enrich, could never subdue the energies of his manly
spirit; and in the ministry of the holy Cross he applied his force with
a renewed consecration of every ability.
Though a resident of one place, it was not his nature to be a local
man. His sympathies went abroad, his eye caught the signs of real and of
possible success over a large area, and the public, far and near,
responded with a feeling of interest equally general. At ordinations,
and consecrations of "temples made with hands," he was ever a favorite
with the people; and very frequently he journeyed large distances to
attend to calls of this nature. His family now being broken up, after
securing the pastoral labors of Rev. Oliver True, he resumes the work of
a missionary.
There are indeed two classes of successful ministers, though they
succeed in different ways. I refer to the class who have simply great
power in preaching, who can be instrumental in the conversion of great
numbers; who, when they have reached the moral depths of the sinful
heart, and filled it with the new and heavenly light, have ended their
mission. They leave no nucleus about which the new strength may organize
itself. If such ministers belong to a denomination well organized, and
if they labor in the spirit of such denomination, the results of their
efforts will very likely be absorbed in the body which already contains
the speakers. These can create material, but they have no constructive
power to permanently unite it. There is another class, who seem to be
natural husbandmen of the grounds they sow; they build, they gather,
they bring everything into order and system, they fence and harvest the
ripened fields. These last men are seldom if ever idealists; they see
the world as it is, are men of order and of accumulative tendency.
Perhaps George Whitfield and John Wesley may be taken as just examples
of these two kinds of ministers. Mr. Badger was certainly a
constructive, and also was he a gifted creator of material. He was, in
one, both these orders of ministerial power; perhaps we should say that
if either predominated it was that of conserving the wealth which his
creativeness and the creativeness of others might produce. Whitfield was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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