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At the opening of my nineteenth year, my general life work and field of activity seemed to be definitely marked out and permanently settled. I had entered upon my chosen vocation and my temporal interests had been satisfactorily provided for. The needful preliminaries to the founding of a home of my own had received due attention. My religious status, in respect to belief, practice, and associative position, was supposed to be fixed in essential respects for all coming time. Little dreamed I of the changes awaiting me - even of those close at hand.

It was early in the season that the first and most important of them occurred - the one that perhaps above all others turned my thoughts into new channels and caused me to recast the whole program of my future career. I had retired alone to my chamber on a certain night, gone to bed, and fallen asleep. Not far from midnight I awoke to consciousness in a state of mind such as I had never before and have not since experienced. I was taking cognizance of myself and surroundings with feelings of inward exaltation as unimpassioned as they were sublime and strange, when I distinctly beheld a human form, clad in a white robe, standing just outside of a window in front of me opening to the south, some twelve feet distant. I gazed upon the unusual object with a sense of profound amazement, but without the least fear or trepidation. Scrutinizing the features of the apparent personage, a sublimated resemblance to my deceased brother Cyrus became perfectly distinct. As I continued looking, he (for the appearance had now assumed personality to me) slowly entered the window, which was closed, as if there were no obstruction and approached my bedside. His countenance was moderately luminous, but not dazzling. Every lineament was perfectly defined. His aspect was calm and benign, but impressively solemn. When almost near enough to touch me, he paused, fixed his eyes upon me for a moment, inclined slightly forward, pointed with his right hand directly at my forehead, and in the most significant manner, said: "Adin, God commands you to preach the Gospel of Christ to your fellow men; obey his voice or the blood of their souls will be required at your hands."

I was filled with unutterable awe; my hair seemed to stand on end; I remained mute and immovable, but felt thrilled through and through with spiritual emotion, yet with no distraction of timidity or fright. The moment the words were spoken, the appearance turned from me, moved slowly back through the window, and vanished from my sight.

Memorable and ineffaceable vision! How often since have I yearned for similar ones to confirm or direct me in the path of duty, but without being gratified! How many times have I wondered at this manifestation and puzzled my rational powers to account for it; to make myself sure whether it was real or illusory, objective or subjective, divinely ordained and sent, or mysteriously originated in the wilds of my own imagination!

But in whatever way the light of eternity may answer these inquiries, the vision was irresistibly effective and powerful on my own mind and subsequent life. When my first emotions had subsided a little, I tried to make myself sure whether or not I was "in the body" and in the full possession of my senses. I soon succeeded in this so far as everything material and normal was concerned. Time, place, circumstances, and my own consciousness were unmistakable. The vision itself alone was mysterious. Could it be a dream or anything of similar nature? If so, it was radically unlike anything of the kind I had ever had before. After revolving the matter deliberately in my mind, I could not resist the conviction that, somehow or other, it was a reality and was fraught with divine significance and authority.

Five years before, the spirit of my brother had left its earthly tabernacle, taking its departure from that very chamber. He had been profoundly impressed for some time that it was his duty to preach, but reluctantly shrank from doing so, and felt some compunction on account of such hesitancy. Had God sent or permitted him to incite me to the same mission?

All the day following my strange experience, I was quite unlike my ordinary self, and though I went about my customary labors, nothing seemed quite natural to me. I was in what is called a spiritualized or exalted condition. When this passed away, I was left to the most serious and trying reflections. What ought I to do? What could I do? What must I do? My cherished plans and expectations were threatened with annihilation in a moment and seemingly by a mandate from heaven. I shrank from communicating with any one and confined all my thoughts, reasonings, inquiries, and convictions entirely within my own breast. There it was that I must make the momentous decision forced upon me first of all for myself. So I pondered, prayed, and wept in secret for weeks.

My case was a peculiar one. There was not a single motive or inducement of a temporal nature in favor of my becoming a religious teacher - a preacher of the gospel. Moreover, I had no attraction or inclination to that profession whatever, but on the contrary, a strong repulsion from it. When I looked at the subject in a moral and spiritual light, the office of a true minister of Christ appeared to be so pure, sacred, unselfish, and renunciative of all worldly ambition - so replete with humility, service, and earthly emptiness, that I felt myself utterly unfit for it and unworthy to assume it. When I looked at the ministry as it was, I saw that a large proportion of its functionaries, as I had known them, were deficient in mental power or marked by moral delinquencies, or compelled to frequent change of residence, alike annoying and vexatious, through ever recurring dissatisfaction and inharmonies. They were a pitiable class, I thought, in almost every temporal respect. Even the popular and petted few afforded me no encouragement to the step proposed to me. The good were so far above all the probable attainments I could ever make in the conditions of success that it was useless for me to try for them; the bad were so un-Christlike in essential characteristics that their presence in the pulpit was an abomination to me.

Besides, I had no clerical education and no prospect of any. There was no theological school or professor of divinity within my reach. If I became a preacher at all, it must be in the most unpopular denomination extant or in the world at large, without name or prestige - where I must work my way against wind and tide under adverse circumstances and on very humble fare. At the same time I was young, inexperienced, diffident, and certainly far too unspiritual to delight in those heavenly contemplations and anticipations which all true ministers of Christ feast on amid their labors for the souls redeemed through their instrumentality. Moreover, I had contracted marriage without the most distant thought on the part of either myself or my betrothed that she was to become the wife of a poor preacher, and to make her such without her cordial approval would be alike presumptuous and dishonorable.

All these things taken into consideration made it impossible for me to decide upon the work of the ministry without an intense mental struggle. I could have been easily won to the profession of law, or perhaps to medicine; but preaching the gospel was utterly distasteful and fearful to me. There was nothing that could bring me to it except a most unwelcome sense of duty and the woe of disobedience to a call from heaven - considerations I could in no wise ignore or escape. That vivid and awfully impressive vision hung perpetually in my memory and the solemn echoes of the closing words of my celestial visitant, "Or the blood of their souls will be required at your hands," would not cease to reverberate in my mental ears. It was this that finally conquered me and determined my subsequent career. In regard to the result of my decision, I can truly say in the language of another, "Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is me if I preach not the gospel. For if I do this thing willingly, I have my reward; but if against my will, a dispensation is committed unto me."

I have known of persons animated by a fervent aspiration to become preachers who qualified themselves for the profession with pleasing alacrity, and who were filled with delight when able to enter upon its appropriate duties. Alas! It was not my lot to know anything of such joys. On the contrary, I shrank from my call to begin with, and often in my long life I have risen to preach with such reluctance, with such a sense of spiritual poverty and tremor (perhaps unsuspected by my hearers), that I would fain have vanished out of sight. Yet, when forgetting myself in my subject or borne along on some favoring breeze of inspiration, I have experienced unqualified enjoyment in prosecuting my mission. And now, after all I have passed through as a minister and as a man, I am so far from regretting my mysterious, imperative call to the work that I feel profoundly thankful that the dispensation was forced upon me. For it has laid me under a wholesome discipline and wrought in me a spiritual regeneration and growth of character of inestimable value. I can but hope it has done some, though I fear too little, good to those around me and to the world of mankind; to me it has been of unspeakable and, I trust, eternal benefit. God knew how to use and bless me against my own will and to him be praise, worship, and glory forevermore.

Having yielded to my inexorable convictions of duty, I communicated the conclusion I had reached to my intended wife. She was naturally astonished, but manifested no opposition or revulsion, and calmly acquiesced in the new phase of our probable future. I also opened my mind to my father, who was evidently pleased with the new aspect of things and saw nothing in my determination which need interfere with the plan previously arranged between us; his idea being that I might fulfill all stipulated obligations to him, reside on the old homestead, be pastor of our own little church, and make occasional preaching excursions abroad. How different was all this from what actually transpired with me during the long years that were then before me!

To others I was entirely reticent concerning the change that had come to me until compelled to reveal it on the Sabbath before I first occupied a pulpit. That occurrence was another notable feature of this eventful year - another crisis, and a most trying one, in my earthly career. How it came to pass is worthy of mention.

Our church had no pastor during the summer of 1821, and there was very little regular preaching in the Ballou Meetinghouse, but we held in lieu thereof a conference or deacon's meeting there from Sunday to Sunday. My father usually presided on these occasions and led off in the exercises, while the lay members followed in due form with prayer, singing, or exhortation, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit or a sense of personal obligation. I had refrained almost entirely from taking any active part in the proceedings, suffering as I did intensely from diffidence and dread of responsibility. On a certain Sunday, however, about the first of July, I was inwardly impelled to rise at the close of the exercises and announce that with divine assistance I should preach in that house on the Sunday following, naming the hour.

No language can describe the oppressive and almost suffocating sensations which at the moment agitated me. My knees smote together, my voice and even my whole frame trembled, and I sank back into my seat seemingly paralyzed, as soon as the words were out of my mouth. To the little congregation of men and women gathered there, my notification was like a sharp electrical clap from a cloudless sky - utterly unexpected and astonishing. They went their way in different directions and trumpeted the strange tidings far and wide on every hand. No alarm of war could have been more eagerly heralded abroad through all the surrounding region. The die was now cast; the announcement was made and could not be recalled. I must stand up when the time came and at least attempt to preach. And I must speak from inspiration, as thoughts and words should be given me at the moment. A written discourse, or even an abstract on paper, was almost sacrilegious in my estimation. My education and all my conceptions of a truly God-called preacher prejudiced me against everything of the kind. I must speak right out of the heart and soul, even if I broke down in the effort. Happily, my text and subject were given me in a dream, which seemed to be in accord with my former mysterious experience. The text was 1 Corinthians 9:16: "Necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is me if I preach not the gospel." The subject was easily deducible from that passage.

The momentous day arrived. The weather was fine and when the hour of worship drew near the ancient sanctuary was packed with expectant people - ministers, deacons, church members, my young friends and acquaintances more or less interested in me and in the things of the religious life, with a mixed throng of outsiders drawn to the place by curiosity. I occupied the old-fashioned pulpit alone, wrought up to the highest pitch of conscientious purpose, anxiety, and self-consecration. I almost agonized in silent prayer when I saw the multitudes surging in. But confidence and assurances of help from above seemed to possess my soul as I rose to begin the service. I opened with prayer and proceeded in the usual order to the sermon, which was, of course, the chief matter of interest and concern. I talked for three quarters of an hour, receiving the most respectful and profound attention. My youth, sincerity, and zeal no doubt atoned in good part for my lack of sound matter and coherency, so that those present departed with good impressions and an increased personal respect for me. Probably most of them were disappointed for the better by this my first effort at preaching. My discourse, little of which I now recall, must have been more hortatory than dialectical, and quite inspirational in some of its appeals. But whatever it was in substance and form, it discharged a solemn duty, as I then believed, and introduced me to a long ministry of religious teaching. I crossed the threshold of a public career whose varied experiences, often trying and repellent, have always seemed, like the first, providentially inevitable.

It is true that my subsequent change of theological faith from Destructionism to Restorationism naturally relaxed somewhat the intensity of my early concern about the ruin of souls, and the strain of my anxiety lest my unfaithfulness should occasion that ruin. But reflection has always impressed me deeply with the assurance that the wiles and dangers of sin are sufficiently dreadful to demand my most earnest efforts to avert them, however certain it may be that they are to be overruled, conquered, and finally terminated by the operations of omnipotent divine wisdom and love. Moreover, the ultimate triumph of good over evil cannot be rationally hoped for on the assumption that sin is not inherently malignant or hateful, or that its natural tendency is not poisonous and deadly, or that it works its own cure and must of necessity eventually extinguish or destroy itself. On the contrary, the only well-grounded expectation of its final extinction and of the deliverance of all sentient, moral beings from its miserable bondage, is the persistent, all-conquering will, wisdom, and grace of God, operating not only directly but through various intermediate instrumentalities and means, among which the faithful preaching of those great truths and duties embodied in the gospel of Christ is undoubtedly one, and a most important one. So if I am called to this work, I cannot be excused, but "woe" is unto me still if I refuse to do it. My better hopes of the ultimate universal reign of holiness and happiness in the universe of the great Creator, supplanting those of only a partial victory of the right, good, and true over the wrong, evil, and false - a victory darkly palled with despair of anything better than annihilation for countless incurable sinners, rationalizes my faith without changing my duty or excusing my neglect of it. Nay, rather am I encouraged and strengthened to greater fidelity by assurances of final success. My grand concern, therefore, is to stand fast in my lot and be faithful to my trust; otherwise just condemnation and punishment await me.

It was not long after my first attempt at preaching that I began to be called upon to speak at home and abroad, both on Sundays and week days, in public houses of worship and in private dwellings. I also was soon employed to conduct funeral services - a department of ministerial work which has commanded much of my attention and energy through my entire life.

To enlarge my acquaintance with the denomination to which I was attached and its leading representatives, and to open the way to greater usefulness, I attended a meeting of what was called the Connecticut Christian Conference, which included the churches of the Christian Connexion in Rhode Island and Connecticut, held at Hampton in the latter State in the autumn of the same year. There I was received into the fellowship of the entire body of believers known by the general name of "Christians," as attested by a certificate of which the following is a copy:

To all whom it may concern: I hereby certify that Adin Ballou of Cumberland, R.I., is a member in good standing and fellowship of the Connecticut Christian Conference.
Reuben Potter, Jr., Standing Scribe
Cumberland, R. I., Sept. 1, 1821.

A few weeks later, the general conference of the denomination, including all subordinate local conferences, churches, and ministers, met at New Bedford, Massachusetts. This, also, I attended, having for a traveling companion Elder Ebenezer Robinson, an enthusiastic young minister from Greenwich, Massachusetts. On the way we visited Elder Daniel Hix, a venerable farmer-preacher of our order in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, with whom we spent the night, holding an evening service at his request in his meetinghouse, with a goodly audience in attendance. At the conference there was a large representation of the talent and wisdom of the denomination - its greater and lesser lights shining with varied luster from pulpit and council room, much to my edification and encouragement and to the general satisfaction.

Thence Brother Robinson and I walked to Boston - fifty-six miles - where we spent a few days and where we separated, not to meet again for many years; both of us meantime having changed our doctrinal views and ecclesiastical relations. This was my first visit to the Athens of America, then wonderful to me, but hardly to be compared in magnitude, wealth, and magnificence with what it is today.

About this time my ambition and zeal betrayed me into the folly of appearing in print as a polemic author against modern Universalism. Several of my neighbors were of this persuasion and a few of them great debaters in its support. They plied me with their publications to read and with their arguments to answer. Willing to investigate and hear all sides, I perused their books and tracts, and, confident of my ability to maintain my own cause and defend my convictions, I did not shrink from the controversy to which I was invited. I felt, too, that I was in the way of my duty and that I could do something to put down what I deemed a dangerous and rampant error. Having met and refuted to my own satisfaction my Universalist assailants at home, I deemed myself qualified to enter the lists against more notable champions of false doctrines abroad, should occasion and loyalty to truth seem to require it, as was not long after the case.

Rev. Hosea Ballou of Boston, a distant kinsman of mine, was at that time the master spirit of Universalism in what was known as its "ultra" phase. He had been delivering in his church fortnightly lectures expository of his peculiar views, which had been promptly published and disseminated far and wide throughout the country. These were pressed on my attention by my Universalist friends and I had sharply combated some of the positions taken by this author, in conversational discussion.

Among the lectures was one delivered in January, l820, upon "The New Birth," from the text in John 3:3: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," and this was handed me and commended as a masterpiece - conclusive and unanswerable. In that lecture the author gave some sharp thrusts at the prevailing theological notions of regeneration, and claimed that Christ in the passage under notice treated of a work "effected in the rational powers and faculties of man, by means of information which operates to change the sentiments and remove the errors of the mind, and, of course, the affections of the heart." And in illustration of that view the lecturer said: "The gospel as Jesus proclaimed it a system of impartial salvation to the world, is now performing the miracle of regeneration and thousands are born again from the partial systems and creeds of the church to the acknowledgment of the universal mercy and grace of Zion's King."

Virtually and practically, this made the Christian new birth to be a turning from the old faith in endless punishment to a belief in Universalism. This was too much for me to swallow or patiently endure. So I must needs face Goliath in polemic battle array. I therefore wrote and published a review of the "Lecture Sermon," in which, after endeavoring to refute the author’s reasoning, I gave my own exposition of the subject under consideration.

On general principles, this youthful exploit of mine was unwise, crude, presumptuous, and of little consequence. I was too unskilled in rhetoric to write for the press, too inexperienced in theological criticism to set up as a public reviewer, too immature in mental discipline to expound the great doctrine of regeneration, and too obscure and uninfluential an opponent to command the notice of my adversary or the community at large. And yet I am constrained to declare that, judged from my present standpoint, my pamphlet contained more truth and less error on the main question at issue than the sermon whose theory and reasoning it condemned. It is true that I was then a Destructionist theologically, and changed not long afterward to a Restorationist, but my views of spiritual regeneration were essentially the same after the change as before. I became a believer with Hosea Ballou in the grand idea of universal salvation, but never a convert to his peculiar ideas of regeneration, or to his favorite doctrine of no future punishment. The assumption that conversion from Partialistic dogmas to the Universalist faith is the new birth taught by Jesus Christ no more commends itself to my acceptance now than when I foolishly published my review of the "Lecture Sermon."

When the winter of 1821-22 approached, I engaged to teach the school in my native district and did so, beginning at the usual date early in December. During the term my marriage was solemnized, to wit, on January 17, l822. Among all the pleasant and joyous experiences connected with my teaching and wedding were some exceedingly disagreeable and trying ones, one of which was of sufficient importance to justify a brief notice in this connection. The school opened under favorable auspices and went on for a time harmoniously and prosperously. With one or two exceptions, the pupils were docile, teachable, obedient, and kind. There was the best feeling between them and their teacher; all were happy together and excellent progress was made in the studies pursued. But unfortunately an evil star after a while cast its baleful glare across my horizon. It was as unexpected as it was disagreeable and humiliating.

A lad some twelve years old, of apparently defective organization and subject to half-insane fits of sullenness and ill-temper, of which I was ignorant at the time, who had given me no trouble, became suddenly refractory, stubborn, insubordinate, and difficult of control, requiring all the tact, ingenuity, and wisdom I could command, together with some more distinctively disciplinary and punitive measures, to bring him to a state of submissiveness - the whole ending by my sending him home full of rebellious anger and vengeful spite. To his parents he had a terrible tale of woe to tell, making them think he had been unjustly dealt with - outrageously abused indeed. His father, an ignorant, intemperate man, took up the matter with a firm determination to be revenged for my supposed ill-treatment of his boy. He made clamorous appeals in all directions for sympathy and for help to bring me to justice, but to little purpose. Even the greatly exaggerated and baseless stories of my alleged cruelty, savagery almost, failed to arouse any interest in his case except among people of his own stamp, and those "lewd fellows of the baser sort" to be found in every community, who are rife for mischief, and who delight in some sort of quarrel or tumult, the occasion of which matters little with them.

Of course I was to be prosecuted and made to suffer to the full extent of the law. An astute, unscrupulous Justice of the Peace was found to issue a warrant against me, the execution of which was entrusted to a constable of kindred spirit and character. And to crown all, the conspirators planned to have the warrant served on me on the day of my approaching wedding and while the nuptial festivities were going on; all of which was kept a profound secret from the parties immediately concerned.

The program thus arranged was punctiliously carried out. The memorable seventeenth of January arrived. The betrothed couple with a large company of their relatives and friends were at the residence of the bride’ parents in Smithfield, Rhode Island, where ample provision had been made for the occasion. The marriage vows were acknowledged, the marriage pledges were given and received, and the marriage union was declared to be legally consummated and recognized by Rev. Reuben Potter, Jr., who officiated at the nuptial altar. Everything proceeded joyously. Congratulations were extended to the bridal pair and the wedding feast was going on, when, lo! the ministers of the law appeared without previous announcement and demanded, "in the name of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations," that I should accompany them as their prisoner to Cumberland Hill, three miles distant, to answer before Mr. Jillson, Justice of the Peace, for certain misdemeanors, specified in the legal document they carried, of which it was claimed I was guilty, and await his squireship’s pleasure.

At first I was inclined to comply with the requisition without any delay. But upon taking counsel of some of our older and wiser guests who were amply competent to give it, I declined leaving the house. Whereupon the chief officer of the invading party grew pertinacious and intimated that he had the aid necessary to enforce his orders if they were not peaceably obeyed. I appealed to Hon. Thomas Mann, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, one of those present, who gave the person clothed with a little brief authority to understand that he was exceeding his powers and had no grounds for compelling me to go with him, if I could only give bonds to appear before the justice named at a designated time, which I was entirely willing and ready to do. "You had better accept such guarantees," said the judge to the constable, "and go home." The latter, finding himself confronted by one greater in authority than he was, became at once supple and compliant, accepted the pledge, and with his fellow conspirators left; but not, however, till they had partaken of an undeserved portion of the wedding feast.

The issue of this tragico-comical affair was as complimentary to me as it was humiliating and condemnatory to my accuser and his abettors. I went, as agreed upon, before Justice Jillson, the constable and witnesses being present, but it was found that the charge against me was so groundless, so unsupported by requisite evidence, and so certain to be met by triumphant counter-evidence, that even he, the hitherto supple tool of the conspirators, refused to have the case come to trial, declaring that he would dismiss the complaint and consider the warrant annulled. The prevailing sentiment of the better citizens in the community was manifestly in my favor, deeming the proceedings against me malicious and shameful, and all parties to them worthy of abhorrence and contempt. This episode over, I took up again the duties of my position as teacher and carried the term of school through to a happy and successful conclusion.

So well pleased were my friends and the general public with the results of my labors in the schoolroom that I was immediately approached with a proposition to open a private school in the same place and continue it for a few of the following months. As circumstances seemed to render it expedient that I should abandon the plan of settling down upon the old homestead with my parents and succeed to my father’s estate and occupation, that plan was now given up and the contemplated private school was started, specific charges being made per week for tuition.

It was also deemed best that my wife and I should set up housekeeping on our own account, and we accordingly did so in a small dwelling owned by my father near the ancestral residence; my nineteenth birthday finding us happily installed in our new home. Our means were very limited, as my income was small, but our wants were comparatively few and our expectations in no wise extravagant, so that we probably enjoyed quite as much in our newly-begun domestic life as most of those at this day who start out under more auspicious worldly circumstances in general, and with abundant or perhaps princely resources at their command. I preached often here and there, but received little pecuniary compensation therefor; and teaching, my most productive source of supply, afforded me but a small revenue. Moreover, my hat speculation before mentioned, had imposed a heavy financial burden on me, which was increased by the publication of my Review. I was getting ahead in dear-bought experience certainly (perhaps in useful knowledge), but not in the means of maintaining a family. We were comfortable so far as present necessities were concerned and hopeful for the future. Nor were our hopes wholly profitless and vain. Even our annoyances and trials were not without profit to us.

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them as we will.