John Mather Austin

John Mather Austin (1805-1880) was an American Universalist minister and editor, born in Redfield, New York. He held pastorates in Montpelier, Vermont; Peabody, Massachusetts; and Auburn, New York, where he built one of the largest congregations in the village, and from 1851 to 1862 he edited the Christian Ambassador, the weekly paper of the New York State Universalists, using it to promote temperance and oppose slavery and capital punishment. He wrote popular conduct manuals such as A Voice to Youth (1841) along with doctrinal defenses of Universalism, and was a friend and correspondent of William H. Seward.

A manual of counsel for young men and women by the Universalist minister of Auburn, New York — the same John M. Austin who met the Methodists in formal debate (his 1848 contest with David Holmes is in this collection). Austin covers education, occupation, amusements, courtship, character, and religion, showing the denomination's pastors competing with orthodox advice literature on its own ground: morality grounded in a Father's love rather than the fear of hell.

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The parables in question-and-answer form for Universalist Sunday schools — Ballou's and Whittemore's parable exegesis (both in this collection) scaled down for children. A neat demonstration of how controversial theology was converted into catechesis.

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The a priori case for universal salvation: Austin argues from each attribute of God in turn — wisdom, power, justice, goodness — that the final holiness and happiness of all mankind follows of necessity. A compact statement of the rationalist wing of the Universalist argument, from the Auburn minister whose debate with Holmes and Voice to Youth are also in this collection.

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