Charles Hudson

Charles Hudson (1795-1881), born in Marlborough, Massachusetts, combined careers as a minister, politician, and local historian. As Universalist pastor at Westminster, Massachusetts, he rejected Hosea Ballou's view that all punishment is limited to this life, defending future retribution in A Series of Letters Addressed to Rev. Hosea Ballou (1827), and he became a leading figure among the Restorationists who separated from the main Universalist body. He served in both houses of the Massachusetts legislature and as a Whig congressman from 1841 to 1849, and in later life wrote histories of Westminster, Marlborough, and Lexington; the town of Hudson, Massachusetts, is named for him.

The opening barrage of Universalism's great internal war. Hudson — a Restorationist minister, later a congressman — publicly challenged Ballou's teaching that all punishment ends at death, arguing for a limited future retribution. The exchange that followed split the denomination for a generation; with Paul Dean's lectures and Ballou's Examination (all in this collection), the Restorationist controversy can now be read from both sides.

(Note: this summary was automatically generated and may be inaccurate.)

A question-book for the higher classes of Sunday schools by Charles Hudson — Restorationist minister, later congressman — leading students passage by passage through the disputed texts. Sunday school pedagogy from the era when the Universalist and Restorationist wings were still one quarrelsome family.

(Note: this summary was automatically generated and may be inaccurate.)