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
The young minister, not knowing in his ardor and youth, that this human
world is an old, a tough, a wise, and a most lasting fact, that bends
but temporarily to the new influence which seems for the time to mould
its form, penned the conviction that soon the Angel of the Apocalypse
would fly through the midst of heaven proclaiming that "the kingdoms of
this world are become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." Rapid
was the spread and victory of the word preached. Over one hundred were
converted in this town of Deerfield, and not unfrequently did he baptize
twelve and sixteen a day. One evening, as the moonlight shed its silver
upon the flowing stream, he baptized fourteen persons, who arose from
the pure element to walk in newness of life, in the purity of which the
graceful currents are evermore the eloquent symbol. He speaks of a
fashionable clergyman who honored them by his presence, and who, in
criticism, compared their appearance to a general training. "I
conjecture," says Mr. B., "we might have had too much fire for him;" and
finding an analogy in the fear which forest fires cause among certain of
its denizens, he proceeds in the same energetic narration, rejoicing
that there is a gentle and a searching fire by which sinners here may be
gloriously consumed. Jesus came to kindle such fire, whose vital heat is
love, whose aspiring flames are truths that both brighten the earth and
reflect upon the clouded canopy. He acknowledges the faithful
coöperation and labor of Rev. Peter Young, a resident of Deerfield. The
energy, decision and success, which belonged to the public life of Mr.
Badger, must, in the ordinary course of things, have called out much
opposition, particularly as he did not walk in time-hallowed routines,
but created, through the force of his character, and his peculiar
abilities, the popularity that attended him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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