BALLOU, HOSEA (1771-1852), American Universalist clergyman, was born in Richmond, N.H., April 3o, 1771. Self educated, he early devoted himself to the ministry, and after preaching at various places, became pastor of the Second Uni versalist Church in Boston from December 1817 until his death there, June 7, 1852. He founded and edited The Universalist Magazine (1819; later called The Trumpet) and The Universalist Expositor (1831; later The Universalist Quarterly Review) ; and wrote many sermons, hymns, and polemic theological works. He is best known for Notes on the Parables (1804), A Treatise on Atonement (18o5), and Examination of the Doctrine of a Future Retribution (1834) ; in these, especially the second, he showed himself the principal American expositor of Universalism. From the theology of John Murray, who like Ballou has been called "the father of American Universalism," he differed in that he divested Universalism of every trace of Calvinism and opposed legalism and trinitarian views.
His grand-nephew, HOSEA BALLOU born in Guil ford, Vt., Oct. 18, 1796, after long service in the ministry, was in 18S3 elected first president of Tufts College at Medford, serv ing in that office until the time of his death at Somerville, Mass., May 27, 186r. He was associated with the elder Hosea Ballou in editing The Universalist Quarterly Review and wrote the Ancient History of Universalism (1829 ) .
For the first Hosea Ballou consult the biography by Thomas Whitte more (4 vol., 1854-55) and that by 0. F. Safford (1889) ; and J. C. Adams, Hosea Ballou and the Gospel Renaissance (1904).