SECTION X.- HIS EARLY TRAVELS AS A CLERGYMAN.

In the course of a year after Mr. Ballou commenced to preach, he left Richmond, his native town, and went down to the southern section of Massachusetts, and also to the northern parts of Rhode Island, the native place of his ancestors. He spent his time while here in preaching the gospel wherever a door was opened, and providing for his maintenance by teaching in the common schools, and sometimes in private schools. He was engaged in this employment in Bellingham, Massachusetts, and in Foster and Gloucester, in Rhode Island. During the summer months he travelled much. Passing from Richmond into Rhode Island, he would be led through a course of towns in the county of Worcester, Massachusetts, as Royalston, Petersham, Hardwick, Brookfield, Sturbridge, Oxford, Charlton; and in almost all these towns there were a few persons who had been converted to Universalism by diligent reading of the Scriptures, and by listening to those heralds of universal salvation who had been Mr. Ballou's predecessors in the ministry. He not unfrequently called at the homes of these persons; and, as occasion required, preached to them, and to their neighbors, gathered together in private houses, the doctrine which he had learned from the word of God. Among the places he visited was a section of Hardwick afterwards incorporated by the name of Dana, where he gained a few strong friends; and the sympathy which grew up between them and the young preacher was the cause, a few years afterwards, of his removing to that

town and becoming a settled pastor, an event which shall be described in its proper place.

SECTION XI. HIS DOUBTS ON THE TRINITY INCREASE.

But it must not be forgotten that in the midst of these labors, privations and travels, the young preacher was intently engaged in reflecting upon those points in the popular theology, which he had been led to doubt soon. after he had embraced the doctrine of universal salvation. He could not see anything reasonable in the doctrine of the Trinity. He always read in the Scriptures that the plan of salvation did not originate with Jesus, but with the Father. Jesus was the servant of God, his messenger whom he created, nurtured, instructed, qualified, empowered and sent into the world, to do his will. Was it not strange (asked Mr. Ballou) that the sacred writers should hold such language on this subject as they employed, if they believed that the Father and his Son Jesus were one God? He had never read a book, or even seen one, in which the doctrine of the unity of God was maintained, if we except the Bible, and this he studied very carefully.

He bowed to the authority of that blessed book. He did not believe that there was any doctrine taught therein which, if properly understood, is opposed to enlightened reason; for, if there were any such doctrine, it would not be a revelation. There may be facts in the Bible which are beyond the scope of human knowledge, and which men never would have known had not God seen fit to reveal them; but they are not in opposition to human

It is

reason, and we find it so when they are made known. The eye, without the assistance of the telescope, is not able to discover many objects which that instrument brings to view; still, when the eye is enabled to discern them, there is nothing in them which is in opposition to its powers. Revelation is to the mind what the telescope is to the eye. This was the view Mr. Ballou took of the matter. He did not believe that any doctrine which was absolutely contradictory to reason could be considered a revelation; and hence he very early began to suspect that the dogmas of the Trinity, the atonement (in the popular sense), vicarious suffering, and imputed righteousness, had no real foundation in the word of God. true, he knew there were passages therein which had been adduced by very grave and learned men in proof of those dogmas; but he had learned that the Scriptures were sometimes strained to support theories which were solely the inventions of men. This he knew was the case in regard to that soul-revolting doctrine of endless torture, than which no doctrine could be more opposed to the true nature of God. Mr. Ballou suspected, therefore, that a careful and unbiased study of the Bible might bring out the fact, that none of these dogmas were matters of divine revelation; and that the passages of scripture which had been relied on as teaching them, like those which had been supposed to teach the doctrine of endless torture, had been grossly misunderstood. He was too prudent a man, however, to commit himself by any declaration of his opinions, until he obtained full satisfaction.

SECTION XII.

CHARACTER OF HIS EARLY SERMONS.

In this way he went on for the first three or four years of his ministry. He had no Hebrew Bible, no Septuagint, or Greek Testament; and, had he possessed them, they would have been of little use to him; he could not have read them fully. He studied the oracles of God in the common version. He read the sacred books again and again. He compared one part with another. His mind became of itself a concordance. In his habits of extempore speaking, his knowledge of the divine oracles was of vast advantage to him. He remembered the exhortation of the apostle Peter, "If any speak, let him speak as the oracles of God;" and most faithfully did he seek to obey that command. After two or three years' experience as a preacher, he became more bold in the proclamation of his opinions; and he felt it his duty to expose with all his power the falsehood, the absurdities, the contradictions, and the evil influences, of certain points in Calvinism. No man ever had a greater power to see and bring forward the contradictory points of any creed in close connection with each other. He could not endure a system whose parts opposed one another. He knew in that case it could not be true. Contradiction, he used to say, was Satan's cloven foot. Mr. Ballou early contracted the habit of bringing certain points in Calvinism into disrepute, by arraying one part of it against another. In cases like this he would have the full attention of his auditors; and with his bold, severe, but just criticisms, and sometimes with his pungent sallies of wit, he would electrify them all.

SECTION XIII. HIS DOUBTS FURTHER. INCREASE.

He soon came to regard the God, and not as God himself.

Redeemer as the Son of

The fact stated by the

revelator, that Jesus was a created being, made a great impression upon his mind.* If a created being, he was dependent on the Father; and his whole life proved that he felt himself to be so. He prayed frequently to his Father, which was a proof of his dependence. He acknowledged God to be his superior. "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do."

-John 5: 19. He acknowledged a superior in wisdom; for he said, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."- Matt. 24: 36. But not only did he come to suspect that the doctrine of the Trinity was not true; he became also seriously doubtful whether the doctrine of the atonement, as usually taught, was any part of divine revelation. Of one fact he had become fully convinced, namely, that God is essentially good; that he is, and ever was, and ever will be the same, for he is without variableness or even the shadow of turning. God never had any less benevolence towards mankind than he has now. "God is love;" He must then be love to every individual to whom he is God. He is "good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." Here was a truth worthy to be regarded as a corner-stone, on which the superstructure of Christian truth should be built up. God being then essentially benevolent, and benevolent, too, to all mankind, the