During these years the Universalists held meetings at Shirley Village,
quite eight miles away. My father attended occasionally, and not
infrequently I went with him. I had therefore the opportunity to hear
the great preachers of the denomination--Russell Streeter, Sebastian
Streeter, brothers; Thomas Whittemore, the editor of the _Trumpet_, the
organ of the sect, Hosea Ballou, Walter Balfour, and others whose names
I do not recall. Balfour was a Scotchman, preaching with an accent,
and rolling his scalp, from his eyes to the nape of his neck. The
sermons had two peculiarities. First the text was examined carefully
and so construed as to show that the author, whether Jesus, Peter, or
Paul, taught the doctrine of universal salvation. Then came a process
of reasoning designed to show that God could not punish his creatures
in a lake of fire and brimstone. First, he was all-powerful; next, he
was all-wise; then he was infinitely just, and finally his mercy was
without limit. Could a being endowed with these attributes consign his
children to unending misery? From the first I saw the defect in the
process of reasoning. The premises were not faulty, but given a being
with infinite faculties, could another being, with finite faculties
only, forecast the result of the exercise or operation of the infinite?
The little town was made notorious by the career of the physician, Dr.
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