The Biographical Dictionary of America/Ballou, Hosea (1771–1852)

BALLOU, Hosea, clergyman, was born in Richmond, N. H., April 30, 1771, son of Maturin and Lydia (Harris) Ballou. He was the youngest of eleven children. His father, a Baptist preacher, had moved to New Hampshire from Rhode Island where his ancestors had dwelt since the days of Roger Williams In making the move into the almost unbroken wilderness of New Hampshire, the father was actuated by a desire to improve the worldly prospects of his large family by becoming a landholder. He received no salary for his pastoral services, depending for support on what his farm would yield, in return for his own hard labor in ploughing, sowing and reaping. So poor was he that he could not provide sufficient food or clothing for his children, nor could he offer them any further educational advantages than such desultory instruction as he—himself but slightly educated—could give in the few leisure moments which his toil-filled days afforded. Pen, ink, and paper were unknown luxuries in the household, and the only books in the family library were a Bible, a small English dictionary, an old almanac and a worn pamphlet containing the story of the tower of Babel. But Hosea's passion for knowledge was so irresistible that greater obstacles would not have hindered him. The Bible was his only textbook and his only guide to the fields of history. philosophy, poetry, and literature; over its pages he pored whenever released from his work on the farm, and he thus acquired a verbal familiarity with its contents which was invaluable to him in after years. During a revival in 1789 he joined the Baptist church, but was soon afterwards led by his study of "predestination," "election," "eternal reprobation," and "total depravity" to doubt the tenets of the Baptist belief. He now came out boldly and put the questions that had been so long revolving in his mind to the authorities of the Baptist church. No answers were forthcoming, and he was excommunicated as a dangerous heretic. At the age of nineteen he, for the first time, attended school. With the earnings he had accumulated in two or three summers of toil in neighboring villages he paid his tuition at a private school for a few weeks, and at Chesterfield (N. H.) academy for one term. He then began to preach universalist doctrines, supporting himself by teaching school during the week or by performing farm labor. At first he believed and taught, as all so-called Universalists of the time believed and taught, that salvation was for all, but only on the Calvinistic basis of atonement and imputed righteousness. By degrees, however, and after much careful study of the scriptures, he formulated the belief, now accepted by nine-tenths of the Universalist denomination, that "The Bible affords no evidence of punishment after death." He preached with rare power and eloquence and had a marvellous gift, not only for impressing the hearts of his hearers with the truths he uttered, but of stamping upon their memories the very words he used.

He labored in various parts of New England during the first twenty years of his ministry, and in 1817 he accepted a call to the School Street church of Boston, where he remained until his death. He ranked among the most gifted and able preachers of his time, being regarded in his own denomination as an oracle. To meet the growing demands of the infant denomination, he wrote and published numberless hymns, essays, tracts, pamphlets, and controversial papers, which he scattered liberally. In 1819 he founded the Universalist Magazine, acting as editor for several years. In connection with his grand-nephew, Hosea Ballou, 2d, he established, in 1831, the Universalist Expositor, which afterward became the Universalist Quarterly. After resigning the editorship of the Expositor, in 1833. he continued writing articles for it, and also for the Universalist Magazine. The amount of labor he accomplished was phenomenal. His published works, it is estimated, would fill one hundred duodecimo volumes, and he preached more than ten thousand sermons. His most noteworthy publications are: "Notes on the Parables" (1804); "A Treatise on the Atonement" (1806); and an "Examination of the Doctrine of a Future Retribution" (1846); See "Biography of Hosea Ballou" by his son Maturin M. Ballou (1852); and "Hosea Ballou; a Marvellous Life Story" by Oscar F. Safford, D. D. (1889). He died in Boston, June 7, 1852.