December 17, from Lima, he speaks of an important reformation, and of a prospering society of Christians in the town of Williamson, now Marion, Wayne County, New York, a town in which Mr. Badger at different times has labored with success, and where to this day the society of liberal Christians under the ministry of Rev. Amasa Staunton, is prosperous and strong. It was his primary intention to have journeyed to the land of his birth and early ministerial success in New England, when the sacred ties of his domestic life were broken; but a sudden misfortune, which deprived him of his intended method of conveyance, caused him to employ the time in visiting those places in eastern New York, spoken of in the latter pages of this chapter. On his return, whilst at Brutus, he received a message from Mr. Oliver True, then in Ontario county, that from Williamson an urgent request had arrived that he should come to baptize a large number of converts; and though no answer positively decides his compliance at that time, it is certain that he has frequently bestowed labor on that community, and was present and assisted in the organization of that church in 1820. CHAPTER XII. WRITINGS, MARRIAGE, TRAVELS. A discourse on the Atonement, written the early part of 1821, vindicates the paternity of God, in the equal generosity of his provisions for the salvation of all men who will obey the truth. It is indeed a strong vindication, one that sifts the premises of Calvinism most thoroughly; and though changes that have since been wrought in the public mind render the present value of such arguments and discussions far less than their worth at the period of their formation, they are still valuable as evidences of the former states of theological thinking and of the force and clearness of mind with which the author treated the subject. His discourse is entitled "The Way of Salvation, or, The Nature and Effects of Atonement." He shows in the expressive motto of the first leaf, that he centres all in Christ: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world;" the sermon is founded on Romans 5:18: "Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." In the treatment of this topic, Mr. Badger has but two simple divisions; the first is the offence and condemnation, the second treats of the free gift and its design. After alluding to Calvinism and to Universalism as having the same roots, and differing only in respect to _the number_ embraced in the arbitrarily elective plan, he announces the truth as being free from these extremes, and as leading the mind of the hearer along the healing stream of God's benevolence as it widening flows through all nations and climes.