Badger, Joseph (2)

a distinguished minister of the Christian Connection, was born at Gilmanton, N. H., Aug. 16, 1792. When ten years old. he removed with his father to Crompton, Lower Canada; was converted in 1811, and in the following year was immersed by a Baptist minister. About this time he began to exhort and preach with great success. It should be stated, however, that he refused to connect himself with any particular denomination. In 1814 he received ordination, probably from the Free-will Baptists. After laboring in Lower Canada for about two years, he visited New England, where his powerful preaching was followed by a great revival. In 1817 and subsequently he labored in the state of New York. Here he found earnest co-workers, and the numerous churches that sprang up and were organized under their care became associated as the "Christian Connection," that is, those who were determined to reject all sectarian names. In 1825 Mr. Badger travelled through the West, preaching in various places in Ohio and Kentucky; and there he found a denomination of Christians with views exactly corresponding to his own, having already formed conferences in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky, comprising three hundred preachers and fifteen thousand brethren, worshipping one God in one person, having no creed but the Bible, land calling no man master but the Lord Jesus Christ. He also preached a while in Boston, but eventually returned to the state of New York, where for several years he had editorial charge of the Palladiumu, then the organ of the Christian Connection, which he conducted with judgment and ability. He died May 12, 1852. Mr. Badger was a man of deep piety, untiring energy, great earnestness, commanding eloquence, and was rewarded with much success in the salvation of souls. See The Christian Examiner (Boston, 1854), lvii, 42; Holland, Memoir of Rev. Joseph Badger (N. Y. 1854).