The tone of the home atmosphere, the lights and shadows of early life, the quality of the parental gov­ernment are all influences of such permanent effect on the after life, that familiarity with them in the contem­plation of a character is indispensable. Pre-eminently is this true when the early training produces such last­ing impressions as in the present instance, necessitating more than the simple statement that Henry Ward Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, June 24th, 1813, the eighth child of Lyman and Roxana Poote Beecher. The convergence of two long lines of sturdy

14

New England ancestry is represented by the union of these names, dating back on either side to the settle­ment of New Haven in 1638, when a widow, Hannah Beecher, and Andrew Ward, came over from England with Davenport. Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote, the descendants of these two pioneers, were married September 19th, 1799, and moved to East Hampton, L. I., and subsequently to Litchfield, Connecticut, where, as already stated, Henry Ward was born. His father at this time was ministering to a congregation at a salary of eight hundred dollars a year, out of which a family, soon increased to ten children, must be main­tained and educated. The importance which is attached to the training of children now, the rich provision for their care, education, and enjoyment, is a deviation from old methods of which the parents of fifty years ago could have had no conception. The child-world of Henry Ward was barren of all the beauty which graces that of modern youth. Mrs. Stowe says, in writing of the training of children at this period, "The commu­nity did not recognize them. There was no child's litera­ture; there were no children's books. The Sunday-school was yet an experiment, in a fluctuating, uncer­tain state of trial. There were no children's days of presents or fetes, no Christmas or New Year's festivals. The annual thanksgiving was only associated with one day's unlimited range of pies of every sort-too much for one day and too soon things of the past. The child­hood of Henry Ward was unmarked by the possession of a single child's toy as a gift from any older person, or a single fete. Very early, too, strict duties devolved upon him; a daily portion of the work of the estab-

15

lishment, the care of the domestic animals, the cutting and piling of wood, or tasks in the garden, strengthened his muscles and gave vigor and tone to his nerves. From his father and mother he inherited a perfectly solid, healthy organization of brain, muscle, and nerves; and the uncaressing, let-alone system under which he was brought up, gave him early habits of vigor and reliance." Even this cheerless and somewhat hard experience had its advantage, and the entire freedom of the boy's life and thoughts led him into congenial fields of inquiry that methodical training might have left unsearched. The lack of the ordinary equipments of childhood, the playthings, the story books, and holidays, led him to find amusement where he could, and thus brought him into frequent contact with Nature and her children, and from these sources he drew truer lessons than might perhaps be found in the whole range of child's literature. Of this period he himself says:

"I think I was about as well brought up as most children, because I was let alone. My father was so busy, and my mother had so many other children to look after, that, except here and there, I hardly came under the parental hand at all. I was brought up in a New England village, and I knew where the sweet-flag was, where the hickory trees were, where the chestnut trees were, where the sassafras trees were, where the squirrels were, where all those things were that boys enterprise after; therefore, I had a world of things to do; and so I did not come much in contact with family government."

In a city, such unrestricted freedom of action would have been impossible without impairing integrity and

16

purity of character, but the moral atmosphere of Litch-field was as untainted and invigorating as the air of its surrounding mountains, and was fraught with no contaminating influences.

He was merry, bright, and affectionate as a child, and it is interesting to read from the family letters of this period bits of domestic history that give strong impres­sions of the child's character. A letter from his mother, written after a journey, says: "I arrived at sunset, and found all well, and the boy (Henry Ward) in merry trim, glad at heart to be safe on terra firma after all his jolts and tossings." In another, this pleasant picture of home life is given: "I write sit­ting upon my feet, with my paper on the seat of a chair, while Henry is hanging round my neck and climbing on my back, and Harriet is begging me to please make her a baby." Miss Catherine Beecher, in writing of the children to an aunt, says: ''Henry is a very good boy, and we think him a remarkably in­teresting child, and he grows dearer to us every day. He is very affectionate and seems to love his father with all his heart. His constant prattle is a great amusement to us all. He often speaks of his sister Harriet, and wishes spring to come, so that she might come home and go to school with him."

Mrs. Beecher, the second wife, soon after arriving in Litchfield, in 1817, writes home of the family: "It seems the highest happiness of the children (the larger ones especially) to have a reading circle. They have all, I think, fine capacities, and good taste for learning. Edward probably will be a great scholar. Catherine is a fine-looking girl, and in her mind I find

19

all that I expected. Mary will make a fine woman, I think; will be rather handsome, than otherwise. The four youngest are very pretty. George comes next to Mary. Harriet and Henry come next, and they are always hand-in-hand. They are as lovely children as I ever saw, amiable, affectionate, and very bright." Two years later she writes again: "George and Har­riet go to school to Mr. Brace and Miss Pierce; Henry and Charles to Miss Osborne at the new school-house. Charles learns quite fast, and will overtake Henry, who has no great love for his books."

Dr. Beecher was actively engaged at this time in pastoral duties, and in religious work extending over a wide range of influence, while the high literary and intellectual character of Litchfield society, and pre­eminently of Dr. Beecher's intimate friends, opened up attractive and congenial fields of discussion and in­vestigation, which with the prosperous and happy con­dition of the home-circle, rendered these years the most joyous and least shadowed with care, of all his life. His lack of method and system was great, and this conduced to a freedom and sociality of life which knew no rules, and within certain prescribed moral limits, allowed the children to do about as they chose. Simple purity in daily life, parental conversation, and example were the guides by which the children were imbued with the moral qualities of conscience, of self-respect, and of truth. Of his father Mr. Beecher says in one of his sermons:

"I never saw my father do a thing that had du­plicity in it in my life. I recollect that, when a child, I mistook his appearance when talking with persons

20

that came to see him as inconsistent with his after state of feeling when they had gone away. I did not under­stand simple prudence; and it looked as though father was one thing before their face and another thing be­hind their back. It distressed me exceedingly. Ex­cept in that one instance, a cloud or a shadow never passed over my mind with regard to my father's in­tegrity. I believed it impossible for him to think an untruth, and still less possible for him to tell one. And my mother was the law of purity and the law of honor. Therefore, I did not need much teaching on these sub­jects."

Henry Ward's own mother died when he was but three years old. She was gentle, loving, and tender, with widest range of sympathy, and of a restful, pla­cid temperament, the peace and serenity of which re­mained undisturbed through all earthly trials. Her death deprived her husband of his strongest counsellor and support, and he is said to have declared that his first sensation was a sort of terror, like that of a child suddenly thrust out alone in the dark. Mrs. Stowe writes of her recollections of this time: "Then came the funeral. Henry was too little to go. I remember his golden curls and little black frock, as he frolicked like a kitten in the sun, in ignorant joy.'' And again: "They told us at one time, that she had been laid in the ground, at another that she had gone to heaven; whereupon Henry putting the two things together, resolved to dig through the ground and go to heaven to find her; for, being discovered under sister Cath­arine's window one morning, digging with great zeal and earnestness, she called to him to know what he

21

was doing, and, lifting his curly head with great sim­plicity, he answered, 'Why, I'm going to heaven to find ma.' "

The trust and imagination of childhood have grown with years into the man's strong devotion to her memory, and at times reveal themselves in such pas­sages in his sermons as the following:

"And, on the other hand, who can measure the wealth of blessing that there is in father and mother to children? Do you know why so often I speak what must seem to some of you rhapsody of woman? It is because I had a mother; and if I were to live a thou­sand years I could not express what seems to me to be the least that I owe to the fact that I had a mother. Three years old was I, when, singing, she left me, and sung on to heaven, where she sings evermore. I have only such a remembrance of her as you have of the clouds of ten years ago-faint, evanescent; and yet caught by imagination, and fed by that which I have heard of her, and by what my father's thought and feeling of her were, it has come to be so much to me that no devout Catholic ever saw so much in the Virgin Mary as I have seen in my mother, who has been a presence to me ever since I can remember. And I can never say enough for woman for my mother's sake, for my sisters' sake, for the sake of them that have gathered in the days of my infancy around about me, in return for what they have interpreted to me of the beauty of holiness, of the fulness of love, and of the heavenliness of those elements from which we are to interpret heaven itself. No child of Christian parents can ever measure the weight of the gratitude which he

22

owes to the father and the mother that not only took care of him, but taught him what he meant when he said, 'Our Father who art in heaven.' How power­ful should be this reflex-influence, then, of the truth symbolized, hidden, in this opening petition of the Lord'sprayer." Or again:

''Oh, that it could have been so in days past! My mother died when I was but a small child, and I do not remember to have ever seen her face. And as there was no pencil that could afford to limn her, I have never seen a likeness of her. Would to God that I could see some picture of my mother. No picture that hangs on prince's wall, or in gallery, would I not give, if I might choose, for a faithful portrait of my mother. Give me that above all other pictures under God's canopy."

At the end of a year, Dr. Beecher brought home a second wife to assume the duties of the household and the care of the children. She had been as a girl a brilliant belle of society, the possessor of great per­sonal beauty, a cultivated and intellectual mind, polished manners, and rich in all social acquirements. With her religious awakening and conversion came in­creased moral culture and force, which, from her natural propensity to rectitude and propriety, and from her unyielding conscience and undeviating pur­pose to do right herself, and have others do right also, assumed the character of a religion, solemn, inflexible, rigorous, and sombre. The freedom with which the children had been familiar had not instilled in them those graces and refinements which were to her natural

23

and habitual, while the shortcomings and imperfec­tions which arose naturally from a crude and vigorous childhood were to her sins of serious magnitude. It was a matter of consequence with her to point out and pray with them over their faults, and the religious influence thus brought to bear upon them was one that concealed the sincerity of her motive, and caused her to appear in the children's eyes like her religion -dread, calm, and exacting.

No words so well as Mr. Beecher's own describe the effect on him of his mother's religious life:

''My dear mother-not she that gave me birth, but she that brought me up; she that did the office-work of a mother, if ever a mother did; she that, according to her ability, performed to the uttermost her duties- was a woman of profound veneration, rather than of a warm and loving nature. Therefore, her prayer was invariably a prayer of deep, yearning reverence. I re­member well the impression which it made on me. There was a mystic influence about it. A sort of sym­pathetic hold it had upon me; but still, I always felt, when I went to prayer, as though I was going into a crypt, where the sun was not allowed to come; and I shrunk from it.

"The prayer of a poor man on my father's farm was of precisely the opposite character, and impressed me in precisely the opposite way. He used alternatively to pray and sing and laugh, pray and sing and laugh, pray and sing and laugh. He had a little room, in one corner of which I had a little cot; and I used to lie and see him attend to his devotions. They were a regular thing. Every night he would set his candle at the head

24

of his bed, and pray and sing and laugh. And I bear record that his praying made a profound impression upon my mind. I never thought whether it was right or wrong. I only thought, 'How that man does en­joy it! What enjoyment there must be in such prayer as his!' I gained from that man more of an idea of the desirableness of prayer, than I ever did from my father or mother. My father was never an ascetic: he had no sympathy with anything of a monkish ten­dency; and yet, this poor man, more than he, led me to see that there should be real overflowing gladness and thanksgiving in prayer. I learned to envy Charles Smith, although I was a hundred degrees higher than he in society. I learned to feel that I was the pau­per and he was the rich man. I would gladly have changed situations with him, if by so doing I could have obtained his grace and his hope of heaven. I believe he rejoices in heaven now."

Under the training of such a nature the boy grew up, at once inspired and repressed. Religious aspirations were aroused, but from lack of proper care, remained in a vague state or else disappeared. Mr. Beecher relates his personal experience at this time as follows:

"My mother-she who, in the providence of God, took me in to her heart when my own mother had gone to see her Father in heaven-she who came after, and was most faithful to the charge of the children in the household-she often took me, and prayed with me, and read me the Word of God, and expounded to me the way of duty, and did all that seemed to her possible, I know, to make it easy for me to become a religious child; and yet there have been times when I think it

25

would have been easier for me to lay my hand on a block, and have it struck off, than to open my thoughts to her, when I longed to open them to some one. How often have I started to go to her, and tell her my feelings, when fear has caused me to sheer off, and abandon my purpose. My mind would open like a rose-bud, but, alas, fear would hold back the blossom. How many of my early religious pointings fell, like an over-drugged rose-bud, without a blossom."

The family government was firm and decided and was administered wholly by the father, the mother's gentle nature not fitting her to enforce laws. The ne­cessity of discipline was not frequent, and consisted in impressing upon the children's minds the need of will­ing, cheerful and quick obedience. In instances requir­ing special emphasis, the lesson was conveyed by a se­vere discipline, always feared and never forgotten, so that a mere word was ever after that effectual in secur­ing prompt obedience, uncomplaining and unquestion­ing. The warmest love and tenderest sympathy, how­ever, accompanied this firm and resolute discipline, and Mr. Beecher gives an amusing account of his own ex­perience in this field:

"My father used to make me believe that the end of the rod that he held in his hand, was a great deal more painful to him than the end which I felt was to me. It was a strange mystery to me, but I did believe it; and it seemed a great deal worse to me to be whipped, on that account. I used to think that if he would not talk to me, but would whip me, I could stand it a great deal better. So I could have stood it better, and not been benefited. For a child is not whipped till

26

the sensation goes to the heart, and touches the feeling. But when my father made me cry by talking to me, and then whipped me, and then made me cry by talk­ing to me again, I thought it was too bad. And yet it was the right way."

Dr. Beecher would come from his study and books to his children, with whom he would frolic and play queer pranks to the delight of both, on one occasion swinging his little daughter Catherine out of the garret window by the hands to test her courage, and again playfully tipping her head into a wash-tub as she was running by, to see what she would do.

Occasions for disciplining Henry Ward were rare, and according to statements of his own in recollection of youthful depravity he was not always the respon­sible person.

"I think, however, as I look back and reflect upon the special acts which brought me into discipline, that, though perhaps I had better been punished, for nine out of ten of them I was not really to blame. I do not mean that there was not a certain element of wrong in them; but, considering how little a child knows, how weak and imperfect his reason is, what is the force of social sympathy upon him, and how liable he is to mistakes in judgment, I do not think much blame could have been attached to me.

"I recollect being banished from the gallery in my father's church, to sit in which was the height of my ambition. The pews were square. My father's was right under the pulpit. I did not, I believe, more than once or twice, see my father in the pulpit till I was of age, and had gone away from home, because we had

27

that minister's pew, in which I was always compelled to sit. The top of it was a foot higher than my head, and the sides were as straight as the plummet could make them. And, sitting there, I was expected to listen to the sermon, and hear every word, from a man I could not see! And when I put my hands up, some little rollers that were attached to the pew would make a noise. It was the only agreeable sound that I recol­lect in those days to have heard in the sanctuary.

"I remember perfectly well, when I was thus brought up in that inland village, and in that inland church, with a kind of mechanical government extending over me, all my sensations, all my little thoughts, all the little ranges of imagination through which my mind passed; and judging from them, from my own chil­dren, and from the children of my parish, I cannot but feel that of the faults that I committed the greatest number of them were such as were inevitable to my time of life, and to the development that had taken place in my moral constitution, and that they did not indicate obliquity or depravity at all in the worse sense of the term, but simply and merely inexperience. Yet I was sometimes punished for them.

"For instance, after having been imprisoned in that pew for a long time, I desired to sit with the singers. My mother, in a day of unexpected grace, gave me permission, with many and multiplied charges of proper conduct; and I went into the gallery with all the virtue of a dozen deacons, determined to behave well, and to earn the right of sitting there. Yes, men and angels should see that I conducted myself becom­ingly. But, as I sat there, a martyr of propriety, on a

28

hard seat, one of the roguish boys of the neighbor­hood gave me a shove, and pushed me off on the floor, and tore my coat. When I went home the hole in my coat was espied, and my mother said, 'Henry, how came that hole there?' I resolved in my mind what I should say. I wanted to tell her that it was not my fault; and I thought I used the words that would con­vey that idea, when I said, 'Oh, mother, it was done in fun.' I did not know what the meaning of fun was; but I found out! and I was not allowed for years afterward to go into that gallery where in fun I had torn my coat, though there was not a person in the church that put forth half the effort that I did to behave. And it was only my want of a knowledge of language that brought me into disgrace."

Another instance was the occasion of his first "swear,'' when his own terror at the deed was sufficient atone­ment.

"I remember being very mad once, when I was a boy. I went out to the south side of the house, and, unable to hold in any longer, I said 'damn it!' In a minute the sky looked to me like copper. I thought that my soul was gone forever. The idea that I had sworn produced a terrible impression of horror upon me. It was the first time I had ever done it. I was brought up to look upon profanity with utter abhor­rence, and I was frightened almost out of my wits. I really expected that the house would fall on me, or that the earth would open and let me down. In my terror I started to run, and I clipped it to the kitchen, quicker than I had ever done it before. The sweat stood out on me in great drops. I felt the shock all over."

29

His earliest school days were not such as to forecast a brilliant future, for he was deficient in memory, pain­fully sensitive, very diffident, and embarrassed by a thick, indistinct utterance; resulting partly from bash-fulness, and partly from throat troubles.

He began his education at a little school kept by a widow Kilbourn, where the idleness which generally prevailed was emphasized by the recital of the alphabet twice daily. From here he went to the district school, the dispensary of learning for the country children of the neighborhood, where the school-mistress wielded the switch and ferule, alternat­ing the use of these instruments with instruction in arithmetic and writing, "readings from the Bible and the Columbian Orator." In one of Mr. Beecher's ser­mons occurs a passage recalling the school-house of his youth, which is of interest not only as a picture, but also as a strong figure in illustrating a beautiful thought. It is this:

''I very well remember going back, after having arrived at years of manhood, to the school-house where I did not receive my early education. I measured the stones which, in my childhood, it seemed that a giant could not lift, and I could almost turn them over with my foot! I measured the trees which seemed to loom up to the sky, wondrously large, but they had shrunk, grown shorter, and outspread narrower. I looked into the old school-house, and how small the whittled benches and the dilapidated tables were, compared with my boyhood impression of them! I looked over the meadows across which my little tod­dling feet had passed. They had once seemed to me to

30

be broad fields, but now but narrow ribbons, lying between the house and the water. I marveled at the apparent change which had taken place in these things, and thought what a child I must have been when they seemed to me to be things of great importance. The school-ma'am-oh what a being I thought she was! and the school-master-how awestruck I was at his presence! So looking and wistfully remembering, I said to myself, 'Well, one bubble has broken.' But when you shall stand above, and look back with celes­tial and clarified vision, upon this world-this rickety old school-house earth-it will seem smaller to you than to me that old village school."

At the age of ten years a more earnest course of study was inaugurated by his removal to the private school of the Rev. Mr. Langdon, in the town of Beth­lehem, near by. A year was passed in this place, where the unrestrained freedom of the kind, indulgent household in which he lived, allowed him long sessions of intercourse with woods and fields, through which he roamed at will, gratifying that love for nature which was a strong characteristic. Little advancement was made in his studies by such a derogatory course, his writing was bad, his spelling worse, and the smooth­ness of his Latin recitation showed unmistakable "cribbing," the result of necessity, and an unwise ex­pedient. He was recalled home, and soon after placed under the care of his sister, who was then at the head of a young lady's school in Hartford, where Henry was the only boy among forty girls.

The history of this period shows a minimum of scholarly acquirement and a maximum of careless fun

31

and practical joking, although the impression pre­vailed that only the spur of necessity was needed to arouse a dormant ability, the existence of which no one doubted. He returned to Litchfield, and soon after, at the age of twelve, the whole atmosphere of his life was changed by the removal of the family to Boston. From the untrammeled freedom of his country life where the woods and fields were his play-grounds, the birds and forest-creatures his mates, to be suddenly com­pressed and limited to brick walls and narrow streets excited a depressing influence on his mind that increased the melancholy to which he had been prone from childhood. This was also augmented by his being en­tered at the Boston Latin School, where, repulsive and uncongenial as was the course of study, urged on by mingled feelings of honor, affection, fear of disgrace, appeals to his conscience, paternal entreaties, and a sense of obedience almost religious, he finally accom­plished the work assigned. The Latin Grammar had been won, but at dear cost, for with it had come gloom,, restlessness, irritability, and dissatisfaction with his present condition, that grew with secret strength, fos­tered by the reading of biographies and adventurous lives of Nelson and Captain Cook, with which his father strove to divert his thoughts, and by the temp­tation to similar experiences of which the docks and ship-yards were full. It finally assumed the form of a determination to seek a life of freedom and adventure., the sincerity of which was evident from his energetic preparations for a voyage, and from the testimony of his later years, for in one of his sermons he says: "I recollect three or four instances in which it seems to

32

me that if certain occurrences had not taken place just as they did I should have been overthrown. If I had not been taken out of Boston at one time, as I was, I do not see what would have prevented me from going to destruction."

Through the subterfuge of a letter, purposely placed for his father's inspection, Henry made known his in­tention. Dr. Beecher received it with apparent appro­bation, and shrewdly suggested that the boy first take a course in mathematics and navigation preparatory to his departure. The youth gladly acceded to the prop­osition, and was soon established at Mount Pleasant School in Amherst, Mass., where he was placed under the special care of a genial, manly young teacher, be­tween whom and the boy a firm friendship was com­pacted. Under the instruction of this Mr. Fitzgerald, he made good progress in mathematics, and the diffi­culties in his voice, its indistinctness and thickness, were removed in a great measure by a course of elocu­tion under Prof. J. E. Lovell.

The change in temperament and disposition wrought by this return to country life and the renewal of old and loved associations was great and immediate, and was a suitable preparation for the reception of those religious truths which came to him at the end of the first year during a season of revival. He united with his father's church in Boston, whereupon his dreams of naval ambition were merged into aspirations for the ministry, with a view to which two years of happiness followed at Mount Pleasant in preparation for col­lege. His preparation was thorough and warranted his entering the Sophomore year, an opportunity which

33

his father thought best to yield, for he entered the Freshman year, occupying the leisure time which his advanced standing allowed, in becoming familiar with the library and in preparing courses of reading and self-culture for independent study.

An extract from a letter of recollections which Dr. Thomas P. Field, of Amherst College, and a classmate of Mr. Beecher's, kindly provides us, gives, in condensed form, the general outline and coloring of his college course, which Mrs. Stowe in her "Men of Our Times" elaborates into a detailed and highly finished picture.

"amherst, September 13, 1881. "Students, you know, are not looking at their classmates much with reference to their future, and do not treasure up particular facts in expectation of their fame. We knew very well that Beecher was a man of superior mental powers, but I cannot say that we antici­pated that he would reach the position he has attained. I entered the class of '34 in the beginning of the Sophomore year. Beecher was then a member of it. I knew he was Dr. Lyman Beecher's son. That fact at once made him a marked man. For Dr. Beecher was the great preacher at that time of New England, and indeed the greatest pulpit orator in the country.

"I first felt Beecher's power in the class prayer-meeting. On the first meeting I attended Beecher was present, and made an exhorta­tion on the duty of laboring for a revival of religion in the Fall term. There had been, I think, a revival in the previous Spring term. He thought it wrong to suppose there could not be a revival again so soon. I was struck with the fluency of his speech, with the earnest Christian feeling, and with the power and impressiveness with which he spoke. His extemporaneous speech, even when he was a student, was always able and eloquent.

"I was not impressed with his recitations at all. Indeed I knew very well that he had no desire, and made no effort, to be a good rec­itative scholar. He always argued against the study of mathematics, maintaining that it afforded no good discipline for the mind, and

34

gave himself, as it was understood, more to general reading than to the prescribed course of study-because he thought that was the best way to cultivate the mind.

"In the rhetorical department, however, he always showed his power. We were required at that time to write many more essays than the students of the present day do. When we were Sophomores, we had to prepare an essay for the Professor of Rhetoric each fort­night. We came together one hour every week, to hear the essays read, or as many of them as there would be time to hear. I very well remember the first essay I heard Beecher read. It was on Pollok's 'Course of Time,' a poem which was then awakening much interest among orthodox scholars. Beecher instituted a comparison between Pollok and Milton, maintaining substantially, if I recollect right, that Pollok was the better poet. The essay was very interesting and well written. Mr. Beecher would be far, I doubt not, from entertaining any such opinion now, but the fact shows that he was not in the habit then of thinking in the beaten track. I think the essay was published afterward in one of our college periodicals.

"I remember that Beecher was greatly interested while in college in Phrenology, and I think that he gave lectures with Orson Fowler, one of our classmates (and who has since become distinguished as a phrenologist), in some of the country towns in the neighborhood. Mr. Beecher, I have the impression, did the lecturing and Fowler made the examination of heads.

"Beecher was interested, even in college, in matters of reform. I think he was then decidedly anti-slavery in his views, and 'totally abstinent' in opinion and practice, in respect to the use of ardent spirits. He had then, as he has always had since, a decided vein of humor, and love of fun. And you would often see on the chapel steps a large number of fellows around Beecher, when there would be sure to be continuous roars of laughter.

"But I do not remember any particular witty sayings, though there were doubtless many which might have been preserved if we had supposed they would have been wanted for a biographer in the future.

'' Truly yours,

"thos. P. field."

35

The study of Phrenology, which Dr. Field mentions, was begun in the form of a practical joke upon a fel­low-student who avowed himself a convert to the belief and was to give lectures on the subject in Mr. Beecher's room. The interest of Beecher, Fowler, and others was aroused, and they were led by it into such an earnest course of phrenological and physiological research of metaphysics and mental philosophy, that a society was formed for phrenological interests, a simi­lar one was organized at Bowdoin, through Charles Beecher, and Henry Ward delivered lectures on the subject before village audiences. From the first he took a firm stand as a Christian young man, partici­pating in class prayer-meetings and sharing in religious labors among the neighboring country towns.

His religious nature was very deep and it was pro­foundly moved by a revival in college during the Sophomore year, which led to a self-arraignment and an examination of the hopes and enlightenments which had induced him to join the Church, that left him in miserable anxiety and despair. His own ac­count of the subsequent revelation of the divine nature through Christ is better than any description that could be given.

''I was a child of teaching and prayer; I was reared in the household of faith; I knew the Catechism as it was taught; I was instructed in the Scriptures as they were expounded from the pulpit, and read by men; and yet, till after I was twenty-one years old, I groped without the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus. I know not what the tablets of eternity have written down, but I think that when I stand in Zion and be-

36

fore God, the brightest thing which I shall look back upon will be that blessed morning of May when it pleased God to reveal to my wandering soul the idea that it was His nature to love a man in his sins for the sake of helping him out of them; that He did not do it out of compliment to Christ, or to a law, or a plan of salvation, but from the fullness of His great heart; that He was a Being not made mad by sin, but sorry; that He was not furious with wrath toward the sinner, but pitied him-in short, that He felt toward me as my mother felt toward me, to whose eyes my wrong-doing brought tears, who never pressed me so close to her as when I had done wrong, and who would fain, with her yearning love, lift me out of trouble. And when I found that Jesus Christ had such a disposition, and that when His disciples did wrong, He drew them closer to Him than He did before-and when pride and jeal­ousy, and rivalry, and all vulgar and worldly feelings, rankled in their bosoms, He opened His heart to them as a medicine to heal these infirmities; when I found that it was Christ's nature to lift men out of weakness to strength, out of impurity to goodness, out of every­thing low and debasing to superiority, I felt that I had found a God. I shall never forget the feelings with which I walked forth that May morning. The golden pavements will never feel to my feet as then the grass felt to them; and the singing of the birds in the woods -for I roamed in the woods-was cacophonous to the sweet music of my thoughts; and there were no forms in the universe which seemed to me graceful enough to represent the Being, a conception of whose character had just dawned upon my mind. I felt, when I had,

37

with the Psalmist, called upon the heavens, the earth, the mountains, the streams, the floods, the birds, the beasts, and universal being, to praise God, that I had called upon nothing that could praise Him enough for the revelation of such a nature as that in the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Time went on, and next came the disclosure of a Christ ever present with me-a Christ that never was far from me, but was always near me, as a Companion and Friend, to uphold and sustain me. This was the last and the best revelation of God's Spirit to my soul. It is what I consider to be the culminating work of God's grace in a man; and no man is a Christian until he has experienced it. I do not mean that a man can­not be a good man till then; but he has not got to Je­rusalem till the gate has been opened to him, and he has seen the King sitting in His glory, with love to Him individually. It is only when the soul measures itself down deep, and says, 'I am all selfish, and proud and weak, and easy to be tempted to wrong. I have a glim­mering sense of the right, and today I promise God that I will follow it; but to-morrow I turn the promise into sin. To-day I lift myself up with resolutions, but to-morrow I sink down with discouragement. There is nothing in me that is good. From the crown of my head to the sole of my feet, I am full of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores'-it is only when the soul measures itself thus, and when it sees rising up against this conviction of its own unworthiness, the Divine declaration, 'I have loved thee; I am thy God; I have called thee by My name; thou art Mine, and I will be thy salvation'-it is only then that a

38

man has passed through death to life, from darkness to light, from sorrow to joy."

Upon graduating in 1834 he rejoined his father, who had two years previous removed to Cincinnati.

CHAPTER II.

BIOGRAPHICAL. II.

mr. beecher's first steps and studies in preaching may be considered to have really commenced during his college course. His strict attention at meetings of prayer and exhortation, both in college and in the neighborhood, combined with the intimacy of an upper classman, a zealous Christian worker, who exerted a strong influence on young Beecher, finally drew upon him the care of a meeting held regularly in a school-house near the village, and with unvarying earnestness he devoted himself to this charge, the beginning of his Christian Ministry.

One step had already been taken therefore, to which another was added when, upon his return to Cincinnati, after graduating, he entered upon the study of Theol­ogy at Lane Seminary. Here, after a short time, a strong attachment arose between himself and Prof. C. E. Stowe, a man of large attainments in ecclesias­tical and biblical knowledge, who, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe relates, inspired his young friend "with the idea of surveying the books of the Bible as divinely inspired compositions, yet truly and warmly human, and to be rendered and interpreted by the same rules of reason, and common sense which pertain to all human docu­ments,"

40

Dr. Lyman Beecher was at this time holding a principal professorship at Lane Seminary, and, as the head and exponent of the New England new-school theology and the doctrine of man's free agency, was equipped for and launched in a strong controversy with Dr. Wilson, the advocate of the old-school theology of "Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Calvinistic fatalism," and the doctrine of native depravity and unworthiness. The battle was a fierce one, with strong adherents on either side, the students of the Seminary, and notably his own sons, upholding and assisting Dr. Beecher; so that naturally their studies were from the standpoint of dialectic and theological attack and defence.

Although an earnest partisan of his father, Henry Ward had already formed a broader plan of belief for himself, differing in many respects from that of Dr. Beecher. Although maintaining the same view of the ministry, its aim and processes, with his father, Dr, Beecher's methods and his unwavering confidence in them were, in the case of his son, so qualified by new lines of study and thought, that employment of them, would have been not only inconsistent but inefficient. The salvation of humanity by Divine agency, through the salvation of individuals, was to him the great end to be obtained, but the means to this end was a problem, the complexity of which ren­dered him, as he neared the close of his theological course, the victim of deep depression and doubt.

This state of mind was enhanced by the retraction of a brother who had lately become an unbeliever, and withdrawn from the ministry, and the impulse to adopt some other course in life was often strong within him.

41

Several months of successful service as editor of the Cincinnati Journal, during which a pro-slavery riot gave opportunity for the ardent expression of his views of slavery and freedom, increased the tendency toward another profession, which, however, was for all time dispelled by a fortunate episode. He had assumed, during his final term at the Seminary, charge of a Bible class, and in the succeeding preparation and instruction there came in time a gradual clearing of all doubt as to his calling and its methods, followed by an increasing and definite apprehension of his mission, and of the manner of obtaining efficacious results.

Mrs. Stowe says: "To present Jesus Christ, per­sonally, as the Friend and Helper of humanity, Christ as God impersonate, eternally and by a necessity of His nature helpful and remedial and restorative; the Friend of each individual soul, and thus the Friend of all society; this was the one thing which his soul rested on as a worthy object in entering the ministry."

With the eager enthusiasm and conviction consequent upon this spiritual revelation, he accepted at once the first opportunity that was presented after leaving the Seminary. This proved to be a call to Lawrenceburg, a small settlement near Cincinnati, on the Ohio River; his experiences here he has himself related in his ser­mons in the following extracts:

''Where I first settled in the ministry the ground was low, and subject to overflow sometimes from the great Miami, sometimes from the Ohio, and sometimes from both. The houses that were built in the early days of poverty were low; and generally twice a year -in the autumn, and in the spring when the snow

42

melted on the mountains-the Ohio came booming down and overflowed; and men were obliged to emi­grate. They found themselves driven out of their houses. Their cellars were submerged, and frequently the lower stories of their dwellings would fill with water. And they betook themselves to the table-land a little back, in boats."

"I go back now to my own ministry. I have got to begin to talk about myself as an old man, before long. I have been, thus far, talking as though I were young; but I find that I am remembering back too far for that, when I go back to the time when I first became the pas­tor of a church. It was twenty years ago. I remember; that the flock which I first gathered in the wilderness consisted of twenty persons. Nineteen of them were women, and the other was nothing. I remember the days of our poverty, our straitness. I was sexton of my own church at that time. There were no lamps there, so I bought some; and I filled them and lit them. I swept the church, and lighted my own fire. I did not ring the bell, because there was none to ring. I opened the church before prayer-meetings and preaching, and locked it when they were over. I took care of every­thing connected with the building. And do I not remember every one of those faces? I think there were but two persons among them that did not earn their daily living by actual work; and these were not wealthy-they were only in moderate circumstances. We were all poor together. And to the day of my death, I never shall forget one of those faces or hear one of those names spoken without having excited in my mind the warmest remembrances. Some of

43

them I venerate, and the memory of some has been precious as well as fruitful of good to me down to this hour."

After a short period of this ministerial apprentice­ship, he received and accepted a call to Indianapolis, where with his wife, whom he had married before leav­ing Cincinnati, he lived a simple, wholesome life of in­tense activity, where chief recreations were an indul­gence in agricultural study and pastime, a natural out­growth of the free country life of his boyhood, and that revealed itself now in an enthusiasm for choice breeds of domestic animals and an eager interest in farm and garden culture.

Here he began the study of his fellow-men, the searching after the principles of humanity, the analysis of human nature's workings and processes, which, coup­led with the insight into methods and principles of sermon-writing gained by his close study of the Apos­tles' discourses, formed a style of preaching which was magnetic and popular.

The reputation thus gained was not, however, the realization of his highest aim. This was "the saving of souls"; to do which, a Divine power seemed confirmed in him that evinced itself in the remarkable revivals of religion which arose in Terre Haute, under his influence, and in his own pastorate in Indianapolis. Of this time and this charge he makes feeling reference in one of his sermons.

''I pass to my second parish; and how many beloved faces rise up before me there! for at that period, after having preached about four years, I began to know how to preach a little, and how to gather souls into the

44

kingdom. I began to know what a revival was, and how to conduct one. I remember scores and scores of persons that were then so small that I could put my hand on their head, and that now have large families, who, from the day they were baptized to this hour, have been to a great extent under my care or influence. "Well, I love those persons as I love my children, al­most. I have no time to think about them; but that is nothing. Pearls and diamonds do not waste because the owner locks them up. They always retain their brilliancy; and if he keeps them locked for a hundred years, and then takes them out, they will flash as brightly in the light as ever. And my memory of these persons will never grow dim. My heart goes out to them; and I guess they think of me. I think they requite all the love I bestow upon them. When dying, many and many of them have sent me messages. Many and many of them, as they parted from this shore, bore testimony that the sweetest hours of their life were those passed under my instructions, and sent back messages of encouragement to me. How many times I think of five or six rare, beautiful, sainted ones, who sent me messages from the other side-I think they were half way across at any rate-that my preaching of Christ was true; that they had gone so far that they felt it to be true! I felt as though they were messages from heaven itself. And shall I have under my own roof spirits that are more sacred to me than these?''

It was at the end of the eighth year of this faithful and happy ministry that Mr. Beecher received and accepted the call to his present pastorate, Plymouth Congrega­tional Church of Brooklyn, N. Y. He entered upon

45

his pastoral duties here on Sunday morning, October 10th, 1847, a charge which, in its history, and in the remarkable career of its pastor, in various public functions as orator, lecturer, political advocate, and minister, is too well known to require more than a brief review.

The church to which Mr. Beecher had been called owed its origin to two facts. In 1846 there were but thirty-nine churches in Brooklyn, a city then of nearly sixty thousand inhabitants, and of these churches but one was Congregational. The need of more societies of this denomination was obvious, and was met by prompt action on the part of several prominent Chris­tian gentlemen. The First Presbyterian Church, then on the point of removal to the new edifice in Henry Street, were occupying the present site of Plymouth Church, which property they offered for sale for $25,000. These gentlemen after consultation made the purchase for $20,000, then called a meeting for the purpose of forming a new Congregational church, at which they offered the property thus secured for the use of the new organization. In a resolution then passed it was decided to commence regular services on Sunday, May 16th, the first Sabbath after the house should be vacated.

Reports of the popularity and renown of Mr. Beecher of Indianapolis had already aroused Eastern interest in the man and his preaching, and through the influence of his friend and advocate Mr. William P. Cutter, of New York, Mr. Beecher, who was then in that city, was asked to preside at the opening of the new Congregational church in Brooklyn, May 16th,

46

1847. Mr. Beecher's discourses produced a strong im­pression upon his audience, and at a subsequent meet­ing in June, 1847, at which the name of Plymouth Church was adopted, he was elected unanimously by the society to the pastorate, and an immediate invita­tion was given him to assume the position.

Mr. Beecher had become strongly attached to his congregation in Indianapolis, and regarded with affec­tionate care their interests and welfare. Apart from this interest in the congregation as an object for which he had labored with love throughout a pastorate of eight years, the private intimacies and domestic asso­ciations which had grown with his life there plead strongly with him not to leave his home in the West, where the frankness, heartiness, and simplicity of the people, the hospitality, generosity, and artlessness of their customs and modes of life, found sympathetic response in his freedom-loving nature.

Two months passed before Mr. Beecher, influenced chiefly by the ill-health of his family, signified by let­ter his acceptance of the invitation; he preached his first sermon on Sunday morning, October 10th, 1847. On this occasion he declared his standpoint and views on questions of national debate, his position with re­gard to slavery, war, temperance, and other reforms, and defined the purposes of his preaching, of which the chief was, "that it should be a ministry of Christ." The public services of installation as pastor did not take place until a month later, November 11th, 1847.

Under the preaching of its new pastor, the Plymouth Church grew in numbers and influence, and received large accessions almost yearly, as the fruit of frequent

47

revivals, of which the most noted are those of 1852 and 1858, in the first instance ninety-one persons having united with the church, and in the second, three hundred and thirty-five persons being brought to make profession of their faith. Mr. Beecher's labors at this post have been zealous and unremitting, and through­out a pastorate of thirty-four years there have been, but four occasions when his congregation have missed him from his pulpit for a protracted length of time.

These absences, all of them involuntary, are given in Plymouth Church Manual. "In March, 1849, the pastor was taken with a severe illness, which confined him to the house for two months, and disabled him from preaching until September, nor did he recover his full strength until the winter. In June, 1850, the society, of its own accord, gave him leave of absence to visit Europe, and he did not return until September. In 1856, the society, at the request of a number of eminent clergymen and others, voted him leave of ab­sence to traverse the country in behalf of the cause of liberty, then felt to be in peril.

"In June, 1863, the society requested him to revisit Europe for his health, which he did, returning in November. With these exceptions, the pastor has labored steadily at his post since 1847, at all times other than the regular summer vacation, which lasts on the average six weeks."

The truest record of this ministry are the words of Mr. Beecher himself, who, in sermons of later years, makes frequent reference to the early days of its his­tory, and reviews different periods of his connection with his people and his church.

48

"You know I have been here twelve years. It makes me feel gray to think of it! When I came here the people in the houses in this street were not here. I am almost a patriarch of this part of Brooklyn! With the exception of brother Storrs, of our own de­nomination, Dr. Cutter, and the Kev. Mr. Lewis, there is not a pastor in Brooklyn, that I recollect, who is in the church that he was in then. All, besides these, have removed, or gone to the other world, in twelve years' time. And what a populous period these twelve years have been! How Time has had to run! What business he has had on Ms hands! What developments of God's grace have taken place, which, if they were to be unfolded and written, would fill so many books that the world could hardly contain them; because every individual case would fill a volume! And what a work has been accomplished in our own midst! It is literally true that thousands have been converted and added to this church, of such as should be saved. The very number has prevented me from having any specialty of acquaintance with them; and yet it only needed that there should be such cases as one and another that have come under my immediate notice, to produce in me such an affection for this church that I never feel so near heaven as when I am in these meetings."

"I am, in the providence of God, so circumstanced in reference to public speaking, which seems to be my specialty, that I put my whole strength into that, and give up everything else to it. Paul said that he could not administer ordinances, and that still less could he serve tables, because his call was to preach; and it

49

would seem as though my call was to confine myself to public speaking. Therefore I cannot follow out any detail of friendships and acquaintanceships with the different members of my congregation; but that does not prevent my feeling the strongest heart-yearnings toward them. My sense of this is so exquisite that sometimes, on Sabbath mornings, it seems to me as though I stand among the assemblies of the just. Oh, these Sunday mornings-how sweet they come upon the world! and they seem sweeter and sweeter to me as I get nearer to heaven. How rich are the consolations which we derive from sweet fellowship with one another! How glorious is our coming together in the assembly of the saints! How our songs roll out, and storm the very gates of heaven! How our coming together, our thinking together, our rejoicing together, our praying together, our weeping together, and our singing to­gether, have knit us together! How many pews have been knit to pews! How many families have been prepared to live better! How many men have made acquaintances of each other! How many have gone out in bands to work together! And how many there are in whom, though you scarcely know them, you take a warm interest-toward whom your heart is like the orient!"

Of Plymouth Church Mr. Beecher is still (1882) the pastor; and it is safe to say that he will remain its pas­tor till the end of his active life. Several attempts have been made to draw him away to other fields, without success. After thirty-five years of public ministry there is no sign of either diminished power or diminished popularity. The church is always crowded,

50

except for a few weeks in the latter part of the sum­mer, when the residents of Brooklyn have left their city homes for the country and Mr. Beecher has not yet left the pulpit for his usual summer vacation.

The spiritual results of his ministry are evidenced by constant conversions and accessions to his church, and by its practical ministry of good works and active Christian philanthropy. Whenever he speaks else­where than in his own church (and no speaker is in greater request for public gatherings) he is always sure of a crowded house and a warm reception; and it is certain that he is nowhere more a favorite with all classes than in his own home; and this in spite of the great effort to drive him from his pulpit and the city of his home.

I do not propose to enter in these pages upon any detailed recital of the already too familiar facts in re­spect to what is known as "the great scandal," a scan­dal through which it is certain no other man in America could have lived and retained his position and influence. In 1870 Mr. Beecher was the editor-in-chief and a principal owner of the Christian Union, which was then rapidly increasing in circu­lation and influence. He had formerly been editor of the Independent, a journal of similar character, but had resigned in favor of Mr. Tilton, who for some years was extremely successful and popular, but had by this time fallen somewhat under a cloud. Finding his own morality impeached, he adopted the peculiar defence of darkly insinuating that Mr. Beecher was open to grave suspicion in the same direction, and finally formed a determination to drive him from his

53

pulpit and from the city, by means of an accusation of some vaguely defined offence to Mr. Tilton's own family. This offence he soon stated to be one of im­proper advances, which Mrs. Tilton had repelled; and while he whispered this to his friends, he persuaded Mr. Beecher, through a famous "mutual friend," that Mrs. Tilton had so far misconstrued his friendship for her as to be the victim of a morbid passion herself, which had utterly wrecked her happiness and health. Believing that this would never have happened if he had been sufficiently discreet himself, Mr. Beecher, with the instinct of a true gentleman, overwhelmed himself with reproaches, both by word and by letter. Mr. Tilton professed to be entirely satisfied, and invited Mr. Beecher to resume friendly relations; but, at the same time, continued for years to whisper suggestions that there was some hidden fault, which would be dis­astrous to Mr. Beecher if exposed. At last, a direct charge against both Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton was made in some disreputable newspapers. But not until June, 1874, did Mr. Tilton himself assume any respon­sibility for a charge. So long as the charge was whis­pered privately or published only in a disreputable sheet, without a responsible accuser, neither Mr. Beecher nor the public paid any attention to it. As soon as it assumed a definite form with a responsible accuser, Mr. Beecher submitted the whole matter to the investigation of a committee, consisting of some of the most eminent and respected members of Ms church and society. They reported unanimously, after giving Mr. Tilton a full hearing, that the charge was entirely false; and this report was unanimously

54

adopted by the church and congregation. Mr. Tilton then brought an action at law upon the same charge. After a trial lasting six months, in which the only evidence against him consisted of the letters already referred to (which were ambiguous in meaning) and alleged verbal confessions, which he under oath ex­ plicitly denied, the jury were discharged without a verdict, standing nine for unconditional acquittal of Mr. Beecher, one for unconditional conviction, and two who voted on some ballots for conviction, on others for acquittal. This suit was never tried again. The ''mutual friend," however, brought another suit against Mr. Beecher, involving the same questions; but when it was pushed to trial by Mr. Beecher's counsel, the plaintiff became so well satisfied that he must fail, that he discontinued the suit, paying all costs.

The regularity of the church proceedings by which Mr. Beecher was acquitted having been questioned, a council of Congregational churches and ministers was called by Plymouth Church to advise with it respecting its proceedings. It was probably the largest council ever called by any church in the his­tory of Congregationalism, and it included repre-sentative men from all sections of the country, many of whom came to the council with strong prejudices against Mr. Beecher on theological grounds, and a considerable number entertaining serious suspicions, founded on previous public reports, respecting his moral integrity. While this council did not undertake a direct investigation of the charges, a task impossible of execution by such a body without power to compel

55

the attendance of witnesses or to administer an oath, it examined into the whole history of the proceedings of the church with respect to the case, subjecting Mr. Beecher to a searching cross-fire of questions from all members of the council in an open session lasting for several days. After nearly a week spent in a most thorough and scrutinizing inquiry, it extended to Mr. Beecher, without a dissenting voice, the Christian fellowship and sympathy of the churches, and expressed the confidence of the entire council in his integrity. It appointed a tribunal of distin­guished jurists, wholly outside of Plymouth Church, to investigate any charges which might be made; but no charges were ever brought before them. The New York and Brooklyn association of ministers, to which Mr. Beecher belonged, also appointed a committee of investigation, which publicly called for charges or evidence implicating him. To this public demand there was no response, and the association unanimously declared him entitled to Christian confidence and fellow­ship. The whole affair has been somewhat compli­cated in the public mind by Mr. Beecher's unwisdom in the selection of some confidential friends at this trying period of his life, prior to the first publication of the scandal, and by his evident endeavor to keep it from becoming public, an endeavor not only not strange but abundantly justified by the injurious effects of its publication. Perplexity and doubt have undoubtedly been left in the minds of some who have never had the opportunity to investigate with care the charges and the singularly inadequate evidence on which they were based; and suspicion

56

has been enhanced in some quarters, doubtless, by personal, political, and theological prejudices; but as the final result of the whole matter, Mr. Beecher retains his position as the most eminent preacher and one of the great thought leaders in America, while his principal accuser, who at one time occupied a foremost position in journalism and literature, has almost disap­peared from public recognition.

The home life of a public man is not public property, and I have no right to introduce others to Mr. Beecher's home. But those who have known him in the privacy of personal intercourse, and especially those who have seen him in his own home, surrounded by his grand­children, will always think that no one less privileged has truly known Mr. Beecher. His children are grown and married and have homes of their own. In winter he lives with his elder son, Henry Barton Beecher, in Brooklyn; in the summer he lives at his country resi­dence at Peekskill, where the same son lives with him. He personally supervised the erection and interior dec­orations of this house, desiring, as he says, to express himself in an idealized American home. The foundations of this home were laid when, somewhat over twenty years ago, Mr. Beecher bought a farm at Peekskill, two miles or more back from the river, and occupied the little, low cottage that stood on the place. Near by rose the hill with the commanding view, where the present residence stands, and from the first this hill was re­garded as the site of a possible house, an air-castle, to be made the perfect Christian home. Meanwhile, as opportunity and time allowed, nature was invited to prepare surroundings for the imaginary house and

57

eagerly accepted the invitation. The world was asked for trees and sent them, so that to-day the farm has one of the rarest and finest collection of trees and shrubs to be found in any private American demesne. England, Europe, China, Japan, the United States, all have been laid under tribute, and as a result there are two or three hundred varieties of trees and shrubs; over twenty different maples, as many varieties of pines, and great beds of azaleas, rhododendrons, and the choicest ornamental flowering growths. The house is architecturally pleasing, but neither obtrusive nor ostentatious; a basement of granite; a two-storied superstructure of brick, a many-gabled roof, and a broad veranda-these are the features. The interior is a study in the combined beauty, simplicity, and har­mony of the rooms, for while each room possesses an individuality of its own, each yet lives in art fellowship with its neighbor. There is no paint in the house from garret to cellar, except in the vestibule; the wood­work is all of natural woods-cherry on the first floor, ash on the second, pine in the attic. The mantels are of wood decorated with tiles, and walls and ceilings are papered, with patterns which Mr. Beecher him­self selected. While there are assuredly costlier houses imperiously and loudly demanding admiration, it is doubtful if there was ever one which by exquisite harmony of proportion and treatment more modestly invited it. Some one has characterized the great Eu­ropean cathedrals as "frozen music." Mr. Beecher's home is a pastoral symphony. Here he has a delight­ful retreat during the summer from the toils of his public work throughout the major portion of the year;

58

here when the toils of his life are over, may he enjoy a well-earned leisure in a prolonged old age, surrounded by his friends and by those who are the best and most enjoyed of all his friends-groups of merry little children.

CHAPTER III.

MR. BEECHER AS A PREACHER.

mr. beecher's career as a preacher has been with­out a parallel in the history of the Church in America. For thirty-five years he has preached in the metropolis of the country; in the same pulpit; with no consider­able rest; with very rare exchanges; in the same com­munity; and to a congregation in which there are not a few who have been regular attendants for a large part of this third of a century. During all this time the church has been always crowded; every sitting taken; the aisles full; frequently all standing-room occupied. To accommodate the demand for seats the pew-holders have generally consented to vacate their seats in the evening, so that every Sunday Mr. Beecher preaches to two congregations; and it is no exaggera­tion to say that he has employed as much influence to induce his own people to stay away Sunday night as most ministers do to get them out to church. During a larger part of this time his sermons have been re­ported in full in one or two newspapers, at times in three or four, and partially in several others; so that to repeat a sermon was practically impossible. He has seen the whole aspect of both public questions and theological problems change in this third of a century; but the tide has not stranded him, and he is still

60

looked up to by a large body of progressive ministers in the orthodox churches as their leader; while his always bold and fearless and sometimes erratic utter­ances have not separated him from the evangelical con­nections and affiliations in which his spiritual sympa­thies as well as his birth and education hold him. Out of his ministry and in connection with, it have grown up three Sunday-schools in Brooklyn, which were models when they were organized, and are still studied as patterns of what Sunday-schools may be and do. All three are liberally supported by the church. The name of Plymouth Church has been given to numer­ous Congregational churches all over the land, and the essential spirit and doctrine of its pulpit is taught in innumerable pulpits of both that and other denomina­tions. The spiritual work of the church has kept pace with its organic growth; and while sporadic revivals, so-called, are less common in its history than for­merly, it is no uncommon thing at the Spring commun­ion to see a hundred converts sitting down for the first time at the Lord's table. The power of this preacher has been deep, wide-spread, and permanent; and these three elements are all that are needed to demonstrate the reality of pulpit power. However men may differ as to its value, its extent cannot be questioned. The study of such a polpit phenomenon is as valuable as it is interesting, even though there may be elements in the genius of the preacher which defy analysis.

1. The Sources of His Power.-Pre-eminent among the sources of Mr. Beecher's power stands his vital faith. In this respect he ranks with Paul, Luther, Wesley, Channing, with all men who have produced

61

great moral and spiritual results and whose moral and spiritual powers have been founded on unwavering vital faith. Mr. Beecher is one who walks with God, who carries with him continually a conscious presence of God as of a friend, whose thoughts turn instinctive­ly and naturally to God, and who draws his life from God. The means of attaining this Divine companion­ship are, with different men, through different faculties; they look out upon God through different soul-win­dows; they approach by different avenues of thought and spiritual emotion. Mr. Beecher finds the fullest realization of companionship through ideality and love, and its result is shown in his preaching. The spirit of Christ imbues every sermon, and allegiance to Christ underlies them all. His texts are mostly from the New Testament; in the New Testament largely from the Gospels. He owed his conversion, or at least his coming out into the clear light of day, to a reading of the life of Christ in one of the Gospels at a single sitting, and ever since that event he has been studying that life and unfolding his theology and his ethics from it. It is not merely the illumination of incidents of Gospel narrative, nor his inspiring faith in the Divine origin of the Gospel and Him whose life it records, that is the power of his preaching, but above all things else it is a certain indescribable but invaluable living sympathy with Christ, the result of years of study, of prayer, and of Christian experience.

A secondary element of his power is his intellect­ual insight, or, as Dr. R. S. Storrs has called it, "men­tal sensibility, emotional responsiveness.'' His mind is quick in action, far-seeing, arriving at truths, not by

62

logical processes, but by intuitions, and in this respect resembles the penetration of mind of a clear-headed woman, or still more the prophetic powers of the ancient Hebrew seers. This is at once a source of de­fect and excellency in his preaching. His keen insight will discover a distant glowing point of truth to which he at once attains, o'erleaping all the intermediate by­ways of logic and sequence, over which less brilliant minds must travel at slower pace to reach an under­standing of the final principle. He will present a truth which at the moment he perceives, with little or no effort to show its relation to other truths, and there­fore exception will be taken to the logic and consis­tency of his preaching. These exceptions will rarely be valid however, for as all truth is really consistent, the inconsistencies of Mr. Beecher are those of expres­sion and form of statement, not of the fundamental and essential principles of truth.

While this intellectual activity has its defects it is of inestimable value in producing a vigor of mind which, says Dr. R. S. Storrs, ''has made him apt and ready for every occasion; that responsiveness which is called for in every minister, but which has been called upon in him more than in any other man, perhaps, in the whole American pulpit, during the last twenty-five years. He has never been found wanting in readiness for the occasion, no matter what the subject may have been, or what the scene. His mind has been full of vigor, and has kindled spontaneously, by collision with persons, or with themes, or with circumstances, when­ever the occasion has been presented."

Akin to this intellectual insight, although not the

63

same, is the wide extent and the keenness of his imag­inative faculties. He has the power of imaging, of presenting in concrete and, so to speak, visible forms, the moral meanings of beauty and deformity. It is the unique faculty of not only perceiving "ser­mons in stones, books in the running brooks, and good in everything," but the still rarer power of presenting these truths to other men, and educating a duller mind to perceive them for itself.

This element of his productions meets with most im­mediate recognition and fullest treatment at the hands of writers on Mr. Beecher's preaching, and it will therefore be pardoned if rather long extracts are intro­duced here from those who have said the best things in the best way about his imagination.

Prof. Noah Porter writes: ''Mr. Beecher is emi­nently imaginative. His power of drawing ideal pict­ures of the mind's eye, and of gilding them with the sunlight of his own warm heart, is marvellous, if it be judged from the images of a single discourse. But when estimated by the streams of sermons, speeches, and lectures which seem to flow unceasingly from his fertile fancy in inexhaustible variety, it astonishes us by its productive power, as well as by the copious and felicitous dictation which this creative power has ever at command."

Prof. Hoppin discourses at greater length upon the imaginative quality of Mr. Beecher's mind in the fol­lowing extract:*

* Henry Ward Beecher. Prof. James M. Hoppin. New Englander, Vol. 29, 1870.

64

"We see in him as in the old preachers and prophets the high moral uses of the imagination. He has the poet's quick eye to see the spiritual sense in the home­liest things, in the most common facts and events. These are not always, it is true, of a highly religious character. Every one who has been a boy is delighted by the humorous description of a school-boy on a Sat­urday afternoon as he roams the fields and woods with an old rusty gun whose trigger is hopelessly out of order, and who makes heroic efforts of achievements under immense difficulties. Such an illustration forces a smile, perhaps broadening into a laugh, on the most solemn face, but it is by no means sure that wholesome humor in the pulpit, when it conies naturally, when sudden arid irresistible, and when it is made subser­vient to more earnest objects, is always out of place. The medieval preachers, Latimer, Luther, and most of the old reformers, did not think so. At least this is Mr. Beecher' s effective way often of getting a hearing, of making Ms speech vivid, of rousing attention, of giving truth an incisive force, darting it into the open and unguarded place. Like Shakespeare, he first makes the people laugh and then weep; as he says in his characteristic illustration (not this we believe a pulpit one) of a milk-pan filled with milk, that to tip it on one side is of a certainty to insure a correspond­ing rise on the other. This is very hazardous in such serious work as preaching, and few can imitate Mr. Beecher in this, and doubtless many are justly offended even in him. But who is there that cannot feel the beauty and force of such a natural and simple illustra­tion as the following from the sermon on 'The Prob-

65

lem of Joy and Suffering in Life'? 'When the rude ox or fierce wind has broken off the shrub, and laid it down on the ground lacerated and torn, it lies there but a few hours before the force of nature in the stem and in the root begins to root; and some new buds shoot out; and before the summer shall have gone round, the restorative effort of nature will bring out on that shrub other branches. And shall the heart of man be crushed, and God send sweet influences of comfort from above to inspirit it, and that heart not be able to rise above its desolateness'? Mr. Beecher is a poet, and it takes something of a poet to preach Christ's gospel. Who cannot understand the rough vigor of words like these: 'If you choose to take a pole and stir up men from the bottom, you will find plenty of mud;' or of the graphic and shrewd figure of digging up a tree and cutting oil its long anchoring and hold tap-root, in the sermon entitled 'The Victo­rious Power of Faith?' Illustrations so fresh, apt, timely, natural, forcible, form an element of style that may be called its vital expression, and which is, after all, nothing more than stating truth itself in such liv­ing forms that it comes home to the common mind, and, while it pleases, fastens as with a nail."

Keen and comprehensive as are these analyses of Prof. Porter and Prof. Hoppin, that of the Rev. Wil­liam M. Taylor is even more graphic and apposite.*

"Another peculiarity that distinguishes Mr. Beecher, and one which largely contributes to that originality

* Henry Ward Beecher. Rev. Wm. Taylor. Scottish Review, October, 1859.

66

of which we have spoken, is to be found in the power­ful grasp and wide range of his imagination. In this respect, we believe him to be, if not the first, at least in the first line of the preachers of his day. He is a true poet, albeit, so far as we are aware, he is entirely innocent of verse. Many of these sparkling fragments have as much of the creative element in them as would make the fortune of a score of poet laureates. To use one of his own comparisons, they are like beautiful spring flowers, full of fragrant perfume, and worth more by far than acres of 'the dried hay' which is stacked up in the pages of our would-be poets. He appears to be equally at home in the beautiful, the sublime, and the terrible; but he is most in love with beauty. When he chooses, he can array himself in the rough garment of an ancient prophet, and bring before his hearers a vision of awful grandeur and ap­palling power; and there are many passages in his ad­mirable Lectures to Young Men which are almost unequalled for the vividness with which they bring dark life-pictures before the mind, and the weird spell with which they bind the reader, until, at the close, a cold shudder runs through the frame, and the very hair is made to stand on end. The description of the progress and fate of the gambler, with its four scenes and tragic end, is of the most graphic and dramatic character, and we know of few things in pulpit elo­quence which may be compared with the peroration of the lecture in which it is given. It reminds us of our great dramatist more than of any preacher; and when uttered from the pulpit, it must have fallen like a thunderbolt upon the audience. But, though thus

67

able, like Prospero, to conjure up the tempest when he pleases, he delights rather to charm with the beau­tiful. He may occasionally visit Sinai with its crash­ing thunder, but his dwelling-place is on Mount Zion the 'beautiful;' besides the 'waters of Shiloli that flow softly;' and his articles and discourses abound in the liveliest conceptions and combinations of beauty. There is in the 'Summer of the Soul,' 'a rhapsody of the pen upon the tongue,' in the concluding paragraph of which, we have a series of the most delightful imagin­ings, in which one follows another, like shower after shower of variated beauty, in the best species of fire­works. The possession of such a glorious imagination, too, has enabled him to understand and appreciate the creative works of others. No man has a truer sympa­thy with poetry than he, though he seldom quotes a line of it. The sight of a fine painting will transport him into rapture, or melt him into tears; and the strains of music, like those of Handel or Beethoven, or Mendelssohn, make his heart vibrate with responsive chords. He is qualified, from his own imagination, for being an exquisite critic of the line arts; and some­times, in his discourses and essays, he has given us specimens of his ability in this respect, which manifest the most refined taste, coupled with a most discrimi­nating judgment. There is in the first series of the 'Life Thoughts' a comparison of the 71st Psalm to one of Beethoven's symphonies, which, for its own inherent beauty, as well as for its truthful description of that which is at all times most difficult to describe, must be admitted to be in the highest style of criti­cism; and when he ventures to speak of the 'bards of

68

the Bible,' it is in such a way as to mark at once his strong sympathy with their impassioned utterances, and his nice appreciation of the differences which dis­tinguish them.

"But this is not all. The faculty of imaginative in­sight, which he possesses in such a high degree, enables him to see most wonderfully into those analogies be­tween the external and the internal, which it is ever the property of genius to bring to light. Hence his discourses are like strings of pearls. They are full of the finest illustrations, drawn from every source, and rising from the speaker's heart like water from a foun­tain. This is indeed their distinctive peculiarity-they are thoroughly spontaneous; they are not laid aside, and hoarded up, as we have known some men to do, until an opportunity occurs for using them; neither are they the result of the soul-travail of laborious effort, but they spring up out of the subject like way­side flowers, which are plucked as he passes, and given in all their freshness and fragrance to the companions of his journey. Nor does their naturalness strike us more than their abundance. There seems to be no limit to the exuberance of his fancy, or the wealth of his imagination.

" 'For rhetoric, he cannot open His mouth, but out there flies a trope.' "

Supplemental to his faith, his intellectuality, and his imagination, is his humanity. It is the value which he places upon man, the solicitude for material comfort and spiritual welfare, the enthusiasm of his devotion to freedom, that have characterized him as a

69

man of great emotion and broad sympathies. What­ever interests men, interests him; whatever stirs men's hearts, stirs his heart deeply. This emotive power, this quick responsiveness to appeal, this susceptibility to human experiences, is at once the generating and propelling power in Mr. Beecher. It is the steam and force of his activity, it gives fire and passion to all that he utters, and brings him into close relations with all classes of men. In brief, he is an intensely human preacher.

Dr. R. S. Storrs, in his estimate of Mr. Beecher's sources of power, says of this characteristic: "I should put next, I think, his quick and deep sympathy with men; his wonderful intuitive perception of moods of mind, which make these stand out before him, like a procession passing in the street. You say, 'This is genius.' Of course it is; but it is the genius you ob­serve, not of the dramatist or the poet; it is the genius of the great preacher, who catches his suggestions, his inspiration even from the eyes or the faces, shining or tearful, of the people before him. In a lower sense, in a sense how infinitely lower and yet in a true sense, we may say that a man who has that power is like the Master who knew what was in men; who discerned it intuitively; who made every precept, every promise, every instruction, every invitation, drive at that precise state of mind which he saw palpable, and present, and personal before him."

This human sympathy can only come from a nature which includes in its breadth and generosity all classes of men, the poor and the rich alike, with whom he joys in their gladness and weeps in their sorrow. "No

70

preacher," says Dr. Haweis,* "ever impressed us more with the feeling of living with the life of his people. He wishes to be one with them, not under­rating their difficulties, not imposing imaginary and disheartening standards of life and conduct, but with each new standard supplying a motive power, that so none may put their hand to the plough and turn back. Although he would always rather rejoice with them than suffer with them, he is content to bear their sor­rows, hear their confessions, and be depressed by their doubts and troubles. There is something almost Pauline in the way he seems at times to lift the bur­den of each one individually, to hold on to the souls of his people as one who cannot bear to let them go, whilst feeling that they must go, and are going 'from the great deep to the great deep.' "

Professor Hoppin says to like effect: "The elements of common-sense, of reason, of nature, of a large hu­manity, are in such preaching. When he says of a child that as soon as he knows how to love father and mother, and to say 'Dear father,' and 'Dear mother,' then he knows how to love and worship God-people say 'That is true,' and they think they have thought like this themselves before Mr. Beecher thought it, notwith­standing that they have acquired a new idea. He thus makes the people a part with himself; he takes them into his confidence; he strikes into the real current of their thinking; he speaks as if speaking out of their thought. There is a strong propulsion

* Henry Ward Beecher. H. R. Haweis. Contemporary Review, Vol. 19, 1872.

71

given to his words by the combined unconscious con­sent of many minds who, as it were, listen approving­ly as if to their own ideas. He has indeed found the great secret of popular power, such as John the Bap­tist had, such as St. Bernard had, such as Luther had. He is a 'king of men' in moral and spiritual things. He takes hold of all classes. . . . He is encour­aging to those in doubt. He is a hope-bringer. He believes in man. He helps men. He is sympathetic to every kind of mind. He does not croak or scold. He is not solemn and stately, though lie is in earnest, and sometimes terribly so."

This human sympathy, and the value which he places upon the human soul and its greatest interests, is the quality of Mr. Beecher's life and preaching which has, above all other characteristics, gained for him his renown as a preacher for and to the people. It has been a subject for the most expanded and most detailed treatment in all analyses of Mr. Beecher's preaching, and the extracts quoted here are but a small part of the great store of writings on this topic.

A fifth element of Mr. Beecher's power is his large fund of common-sense. Faith, intellectual insight, imagination, humanity, all would be less prompt agents in his work as a preacher of the people, were it not for the sustaining power of his common-sense, which maintains an even balance between practical illustration and poetical imagery.

It is the fine adjustment of his faculties, and the power of a neutralizing judgment, that keeps him with­in the sphere of his hearer's understanding, and that recalls him by an instinctive impulse when he is con-

72

scious of too great a flight of fancy or imagination. Many who lack this quality of level-headedness, whose efficiency is impaired by a preponderance of idealism, are termed visionary, and exert but a small degree of popular influence, but he who possesses this mental equipoise has that power of dispensing comfort and contentment which warrants brilliancies of thought and speech that weary us, "no more," as says Dr. R. S. Storrs, "than do the red banners of the cardinal-flower by the mossy brook-side, or the gorgeous flame of the golden-rod amid the ferns and brake." "The late Mr. F. W. Robertson," says an English re­viewer, estimating this characteristic of Mr. Beech-er's preaching, "managed to draw the teeth of many an offensive dogma, by attaching a highly spiritual meaning to the doctrinal letter. This is not always Mr. Beecher's method, but the most- exasperating shib­boleths become harmless in his hands, owing to his singular faculty of seeing a common-sense side to every question: in short, his gospel is emphatically the gos­pel of common-sense. In his highest flights of thought, in his deepest expressions of religious feeling, he never loses a certain solid sobriety. To combine this with an impetuous temperament and a burning enthusiasm, such as he undoubtedly possesses, is a rare if not an original gift. How well Mr. Beecher employs thought and passion, common-sense, and a quiet, mystical re­ligious fervor, perhaps they "only can quite estimate who, to use a slang expression, 'sit under him.' "

The employment of humor as an element in preach­ing has often been excepted to. Humor is not, how­ever, a characteristic of Mr. Beecher alone, for other

73

great preachers are open to the same accusation. The wit and humor of Mr. Beecher, although keenly sar­castic on occasions, is invariably tempered by genial good-feeling, a quality that is often lacking in the sar­casm of his contemporaries. The true apprehension of this point, however, is given by Dr. Taylor in the ar­ticle previously quoted from.

"But we must pass on to speak of Mr. Beecher's humor, without some mention of which any sketch of him would be signally incomplete. This power is pos­sessed by him in large measure, and, like everything else about him, it is perfectly natural. He never goes out of his way to say a funny thing, nor does he ever say it merely for fun's sake, for it is with him a power more telling than the artillery of logic. We grant, indeed, that ridicule is not always a right test of truth, and we are disposed to admit that, in ordinary circum­stances, the pulpit is not the place for the display of humor; yet there are some arguments which can only be met by a reductio ad absurdwn, and it does strike us as somewhat strange that preachers who, like Rowland Hill, Berridge, Spurgeon, and many others, have given loose rein to their bit have been among the most eminently successful in their ministry. Whether this may be in consequence of their wit or, in spite of it, we are not prepared to say, we simply in­dicate the fact; but we fearlessly express our convic­tion that a witty something, even in the pulpit, is by no means so sinful as a witless nothing, however solemn it may sound. Mr. Beecher's humor is always ex­pressive, but it sometimes borders on the coarse, and in this, perhaps, more than in anything else, one feels

74

disposed to question the fineness of his taste; but, then, much allowance must be made for a man of his natural temperament and rollicking disposition. He says many of these things, we believe, before he is aware that anything out of place has escaped him, and in justice to his reputation it must be mentioned that many of his most grotesque and humorous expressions have occurred in connection with the public intimations he makes, and not at all in the body of his sermons. It is his custom to make such announcements before he gives out his text, and sometimes he will talk for half an hour on topics which come thus incidentally before him, in a strain of bold and caustic criticism, which must often try severely the gravity of his audi­ence. The great redeeming feature of his wit is the sturdy common-sense that constantly pervades it; yet it must be confessed, that the very sharpness of his 'hits' tends, however paradoxically it may seem, to blunt the effect which they produce, and may not un-frequently take away from the power of appeals which otherwise would be absolutely irresistible. When, however, his humor is under the restraint of his pen, it is everything that can be desired, and the fine taste which, in the heat of extempore utterance, is for the time dethroned assumes its wonted sway."

His common-sense, his balance of faculties, in spite of the vehemence of his emotions, the clearness of his in­sight, and the brilliance of his imagination, hold him in close relations with the actualities of life. He is wings to the song, but he does not fly so far away from earth that he cannot be seen and heard. His common-sense, in spite of his ideality, makes him a practical teacher.

CHAPTER IV.

METHODS OF STUDY.

there is a very general impression, that Mr. Beecher is a brilliant man with a vivid imagination, a paint­er's power of description, a genial humor, a large heart full of fervid feeling, and that he is in conse­quence a brilliant off-hand extempore speaker; but that he is no student, is the common remark of innu­merable critics, who would have us believe that this ever-flowing spring is never filled, yet never gets dry; that he is a sort of widow's cruse, that supplies un­ceasingly, but is never supplied. Young men, am­bitious to emulate his genius, imagine they will do it best by learning to talk brilliantly, and never guess that it is equally essential to success to have something to say. In fact, however, Mr. Beecher is no mean stu­dent. That he is a peculiar and somewhat irregular one, that he studies by moods and not by the hour, is true; but it is also true that, as a rule, he never speaks on any subject which he has not made his own by previous study; and that there are few minis­ters in the New York pulpit who are more familiar with the course of modern thought than he, though there are many who keep a better account of what is in the books, and where to find it. And although it is fair to assume that he is now drawing largely

76

from accumulated resources, as most men do who have passed the line of sixty years, he is still a very con­siderable student, both of men and of books.

He is, in the first place, and has been from the begin­ning, a hard student of ministerial helps. In his early ministry, perhaps before, he made a careful study of English Literature, and of the celebrated English cler­gymen. "I was," says Mr. Beecher, speaking of his early experience at Lawrenceburgh, "a great reader of the old sermonizers. I read old Robert South through and through. I saturated myself with South; I formed much of my style and of my handling of texts on his methods. I obtained a vast amount of instruction and assistance from others of these old sermonizers, who were as familiar to me as my own name. I read Barrow, Howe, Sherlock, Butler, and Edwards partic­ularly." The best analysis we ever heard of the great preachers of England, we heard once in a private con­versation from him, in which he pointed out which, preacher to study for the use of adjectives, which for the purest Anglo-Saxon, and which for other proper­ties of style. He also gave the best discrimination be­tween Dante and Milton we have ever heard or seen.

Not only has he been a student of the Greek and Latin, classic authors and of English Literature, but the whole range of Literature comes within his hori­zon. A friend once met him in a bookstore poring over a medical book. "Going to turn doctor, Mr. Beecher?" said he inquiringly. "No, sir," said Mr. Beecher promptly; "but I study everything-except theology." The latest works on mental science are on his shelves, and their leaves are cut, and their edges

77

show signs of use. His seeming contempt for theology is not for the science of religion, but for that form, of it which is borrowed from the scholastic period, and which abounds in modern theological treatises; his contempt is not for abstruse study, nor for abstruse science, but for what, whether rightly or wrongly, he regards as science falsely so called.

Coupled with study of all sorts of literature, is a rare aptitude for study. His genius for acquiring is as great as his genius for imparting. It is reported that Mrs. Beecher has said that he can go into a book­store and come out again, and give a good account of the information the books contain, from having read their titles as they stand on the shelves, a divination as startling as the power attributed to De Quincey, of translating his morning newspaper into Greek, for the sake of recreation. His power of rapid absorption is illustrated by an incident in my own personal ex­perience with Mr. Beecher. I once had occasion to submit to him the proof-sheets of a new work of over two hundred pages on certain aspects of phrenology. We were at dinner; while the rest of us were finishing the second course he took a seat by the window, turned over the pages, passed on their contents, stop­ping here and there to read with more care a page or paragraph, and to criticise or commend, and at the close gave us an analysis of the book, which most men would have acquired only in a morning's study.

We believe he read Froude's History of England be­tween the dinner courses. Such reading is an unsocial habit which we do not recommend, but it is one which certainly never would be fallen into by a man who was

78

"no student.'' We do not think Mr. Beecher pretends to be a Hebrew scholar; in fact we have a strong recol­lection of his somewhere disavowing Hebrew scholar­ship. But he is no mean proficient in the Greek of the New Testament. We do not suppose he would contest the palm for supremacy with the Greek professor who, on his death-bed, said he had given his life to the eluci­dation of the first declension, but he had made a mis­take, he should have confined himself to the dative case. But his chief reliance among commentators is Alford's Greek Testament, which is comprehensible only to one who has at least a respectable familiarity with the Greek; and that he is so familiar is evident alike by occasional sermons, and by his "Life of Christ." He has also a habit of relying upon special­ists in different departments for information on special points, and by their aid verifies his own impressions or less thorough information. The gold which they have dug out of the mine he mints and puts into cir­culation. The best evidence of his accuracy is the fact, that speaking and writing on so large a variety of topics, and as a combatant in controversies so many and so hot, it is very rare that critics have been able to prove him at fault in any important fact, whether stated as an argument or used as an illustration.

Turning from Mr. Beecher's general methods as a student to his more special methods of pulpit prepa­ration, he exhibits three characteristics which have in­tensified his power as a preacher.

By far the greater portion of his time is spent in gen­eral study and a much less proportion of time in special preparation for particular sermons than most

79

ministers. He is always studying, whereas his habit, at least in later years, has been to prepare his Sunday morning sermon on Sunday morning, and his Sunday evening sermon in the afternoon, selecting his text, analyzing his subject, making his skeleton and notes, and writing, whatever he does write, on Sunday.

The Rev. S. B. Halliday, of Brooklyn, L. I., gives the following account from a long and intimate association with Mr. Beecher: ''To many, indeed, Mr. Beecher's preparations for the pulpit will seem as remarkable as almost anything else that may be written or said of him. The manuscript taken to his pulpit is a mere brief, emphatically a skeleton. These notes could be written usually on a single note page. Earlier in his ministry, many of his sermons, if not all, were delivered from quite full manuscripts; now only on very special occasions, perhaps half a dozen times in the last fifteen years, as when he has been severely criticised or cen­sured by the papers or pulpit, has he written out and read a reply to what had been said. Not infrequently his utterances on important points have been so grossly distorted as to be only caricatures, and these discourses were for the purpose of correcting misstatements, and were always carefully prepared. But such sermons are exceptional. He is a speaker rather than a writer; and when he writes it is always at a heat, as it were, extemporaneously. I doubt if Mr. Beecher could be asked to do anything that would be more objection­able to him than to sit down to the table to write sev­eral hours a day through the week. I know several strong dislikes of his, but none other seems so invet­erate to me; and if exigencies potent enough com-

80

bined to secure a promise to write regularly, I would not be willing to guarantee the pledge. This dislike may have something to do with the uniform brevity of his skeletons.

"I have never asked Mr. Beecher, but I have never seen anything that would lead me to suppose that he was at all guilty of studying after the manner of min­isters in general, and yet, in his way, I suppose him to be always studying, reading much, seeing much, hearing more, always and in all things a digger for facts, truths, illustrations, which are stored away, and so registered as to be ever available. No memory is more miserable than his in many directions, so that ordinary arrangements or appointments are quite unreliable un­less written down and some one made responsible as prompter. In other directions it would seem as if the things he needed were produced as if to order on all occasions. In speaking he is never hesitant, except when the appearance is as if the provision was too abundant for the speaker's easy selection. Often it is quite apparent that when about to illustrate a point so many illustrations clamor for use as to be a perplexity.

''Idleness is as much a stranger in Mr. Beecher's brain as perhaps in that of any man's living. As much in recreation as at any time accumulation is going on. Many of the best sermons doubtless that Mr. Beecher has ever preached have been woven warp and woof from material gathered from the subsoiled furrow, the broadcasted seed, the growing and ripened grain, the fruits and flowers, forest and meadow, mountain and stream, trees and birds, flocks and herds, highways and hedges. The special or mechanical preparation

81

for the pulpit is made only immediately preceding the appointed time for service. This is true not only of sermons at home but of special discourses. On one occasion when he was to preach a dedication sermon he arrived rather late at the minister's house; after supper, and but a brief time before the service, he prepared his notes on the margin of a newspaper in fifteen or twenty minutes, preaching from them, as was represented to me, a sermon that held the almost breathless attention of the congregation from the be­ginning to the close, occupying more than an hour in delivery.

''I am sometimes asked if Mr. Beecher never preaches any, poor sermons. My answer is I have four classifi­cations for his sermons. First: poor; for him very poor, but the opportunity seldom occurs to accuse him of preaching one of this variety. Second: he preaches a few that could be called for him no more than good ones. Third: much the larger part of his sermons are truly excellent and satisfying, and though absorb­ing from an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes, or even more, people are not often discovered looking at the clock. Fourth: not infrequently a sermon is preached that is marvellous in power and eloquence, in which preacher and people are carried up heavenward together. Such was the character of a sermon which he preached one Sunday evening some eight or nine years since, on a passage in the 8th chapter of Romans. It seemed to me and to others as well as if Mr. Beecher had been given a new dispensation, that addi­tional visions of the glory and goodness of God in Jesus Christ were vouchsafed to him; so that to say

82

the congregation were electrified seems very tame. For my own part, I found no time to attempt to de­termine whether I was in the body or out of it. When the service closed I had the desire to have the opportunity to lay hands on some calm, self-possessed, thoroughly good judge of preaching, that I might de­termine how much my judgment was affected by ex­citement and partiality. Looking over the house I saw Professor Stowe standing in the pastor's pew. Has­tening to him I said: 'Professor, what about that ser­mon?' Very deliberately he answered, 'The first half of it was the most wonderful thing I ever listened to; but the thing that is most wonderful to me is how he prepared it. After dinner this noon, I was walking in the library, and when he came up I said, "Henry, I would like to have you preach from those words some time," to which he immediately responded, "May as well preach from them to-night as any time." ' He went to his afternoon sleep, came down toward six o'clock, took a cup of tea, went into his study, and made the preparation from which he preached this sermon. This sermon I of course place in the fourth class, and would as soon think of attempting to describe Niagara as to describe it, or its effects upon myself or others. I was very glad to have Professor Stowe speak as emphatically as he did. I think that in the fifteen years that I have heard Mr. Beecher preach I have never heard a sermon from him that in any respect ex­celled this one, prepared in less than two hours.

"Mr. Beecher places no value upon a manuscript, and after being used it may be obtained for the ask­ing. His sermons are never repeated. I do not be-

83

lieve Mr. Beecher could preach a sermon the second time so that those who heard it first would recognize it. He has a sort of contempt or disgust for what he has written or used. When it was first proposed to issue his sermons in volumes the understanding was that he should revise those that should be selected and prepared by the gentleman who was to edit them. I heard him say that when the first was sent to him at the farm, reading a little while he was so disgusted with it that he went to the window, gave it a kick, sat down and wrote the editor if he had not preached anything better worth publishing than that, not to send him any more, and added, 'I am never so re­minded of the dog returning to its vomit, and the sow to her wallowing in the mire, as when I undertake to look at what I have written or preached.' Ordinarily in preaching very little attention is given to the notes or memoranda. Many times I have known them not to be looked at once from beginning to end. Some­times he appears to be reading for several minutes, and it is always with deliberation, and the statement of some particularly important point, and his eyes are not raised until the statement is completed. But all this time he is not reading, as I have ascertained again and again from his manuscripts, there being nothing written that would occupy a half minute in reading.

"The readiness of his facility of preparation is just as manifest in addresses on special occasions as in his own pulpit. He was requested to make an address at the anniversary of the American Missionary Association in the autumn of 1873. The services were held in the Congregational Church, Newark, of which Dr. Wm. B.

84

Brown was the pastor. Sitting in the pew Mr. Beecher listened perhaps twenty minutes to the proceedings, then covering his eyes with his hand for some two minutes, he took up one of the programmes and wrote on a blank leaf in pencil the following memoranda:

" 'I. Missionary work-highest of all or disinterested work.

" 'II. Of all great work going on now-this seems least-and for its lack of interest-the high­est power. 1 Cor. over again. " '

" 'III. These men must be educated.

1. For their sake.

2. Liberty without education a curse.

3. For our own.

" 'IV. America. God's test of Christianity.'

"The above is an exact copy of what he took into the pulpit, and which lie threw in my lap when he came down, saying, 'There's my sermon.' In the account of the proceedings published in the Society's magazine for December is this allusion to the address:

" 'The speech of Mr. Beecher, in which many of his Mends thought he surpassed himself, was so far ex­tempore that the notes for it were written after he entered the church, on the blank leaf of an "Order of Exercises," which he found in the seat. We exceed­ingly regret that no full report was taken of it, for it deserved a larger audience than that which listened to it-large as that was.' "

II. But rapid and brief as is Mr. Beecher's for­mal preparation, he rarely, if ever, speaks on any subject unless he has made thorough study of it, a

87

study often extending over months and years. It is a mistake to suppose, as many do, that he speaks with­out preparation, because there are occasions when his oratory is the product of a sudden inspiration.

Mr. Beecher is conscientious above most men, not to speak on any subject unless he is familiar with it, nor unless he has a clear conception in mind of what he is going to say, and why he is going to say it. The preparation thus made, Mr. Beecher broods his sermon. He rarely or never preaches a sermon that is not ripe. He rarely or never breaks the shell before the bird is ready to come out. His sermons are never addled eggs. On his study-table there lies, or used to, a little note-book with flexible covers about the size of a sheet of commercial note-paper. It is full of sketches of sermons, hints, subjects, themes, with occa­sionally a fully drawn out skeleton. His pocket is generally half full of letters, and on the back of from, one to half a dozen of these, thoughts for sermons are jotted down as they strike him in the cars, the hotel, the steamboat. And there they wait till, revolved over and over in his fertile brain at all odd moments, they have drawn to themselves juice from much thinking and are ripe and mellow, and ready to be plucked and pre­sented.

Several years ago he was to preach an ordination sermon in New England. I was then carrying Harper's edition of Mr. Beecher's sermons through the press, and meeting Mr. Beecher on the street, he said, "I think I shall preach a sermon at --'s ordi­nation which you had better look at, on pulpit dynam­ics-that is, on the origin of pulpit power, and the

88

methods of pulpit ministration." When the sermon came out it proved to be a description of the advantages and happinesses incidental to the ministry as a pro­fession. The next time I met him I asked for an ex­planation. "Where is that sermon on pulpit dynam­ics?" said I. "Oh, it wasn't ripe," he replied; "I shall get something out of it yet, however." And he has; has got out of it what seems to us one of the best pieces of work of his life, the ''Yale Lectures on Preaching." Thus he rarely goes into the pulpit or on the platform with crude or unformed thoughts. During the week, two or three topics lie in his mind as those from which he will, most probably, select his next Sabbath's discourses. His thoughts turn to them; his eyes gather illustration for them; his pencil some­times, though not often, jots them down. The sermon, however, is rarely definitely outlined in his mind until the Sabbath comes. Then after breakfast he goes into his study, feels his various themes, takes one that seems ripest, skeletons the outline, selects his text, and makes his notes. But while he does not speak on any subject until he has thoroughly familiarized him­self with it, he then speaks with perfect abandon. All his caution is exercised in the decision of the question whether he will speak at all; none in the actual speaking.

III. Mr. Beecher studies men as he would liter­ature, and indeed even more. If he desires information on any subject he seeks men who are eminent in the different departments of life, obtains their knowledge, assimilates it, and reproduces it with the stamp of his own mind and personality. This familiarity with men

89

in all walks of life is a chief element of his success, and thus one of the first conditions of his work in the pulpit or on the platform is a knowledge of his audience.

When he first visited England during the Civil War, he was besought to speak, but he persistently declined; waited, during his travels, first in England, then on the continent; studied the English temper; studied the needs and sentiments of each separate locality; and then prepared for his campaign. Another man would have spent the time in writing one oration; he spent it in unconsciously studying his audiences, so that when he came to his work, he made no two speeches alike, and adapted each one with marvellous skill to the particular locality where it was uttered. It is thus that the study of human nature is not only an integral part but an essential part of his preparation for the pulpit. As a sharp-shooter studies his mark, Mr. Beecher studies his man. Some one in prayer-meeting alluding to one of his sermons and its effect, referred to the arrow shot at a venture. "I never shoot at a venture," said Mr. Beecher; "I always aim, though I often miss my mark and bring down unexpected game." When Mr. Beecher was about to deliver his famous course of lectures to young men in Indianapolis, which was then a great gambling centre, he succeeded in getting one of the gambling fraternity, and a leader among them, to visit his study. They spent the morning together, and the result was a sermon on gambling, the character of which is indicated by the following incident. A few evenings after its delivery, Mr. Beecher met a young man at

90

an evening party, who thought to crack a joke at the expense of the preacher. "How could you describe a gambling-saloon so accurately," said the young man, "if you have never been there?" "How do you know it is accurate, if you have never been there?" re­plied Mr. Beecher. Rev. Wm. M. Taylor says: ''Those who know him best say that he studies his sermons in the shops and stores, in the streets, and in the ferry­boats; and we believe it, for they are like the produc­tions of a man who has gone through the city with his eyes open. They seem to have been struck out of him, if we may use such an expression, by the sights he sees and the sounds he hears in the midst of that whirling tide of human life that bubbles and and hisses and roars around him, and his purpose by them is to descend into its depths and bring up thence the souls of straggling men, to him more precious far than the silver cup or glittering pearl in the diver's eye."

CHAPTER V.

MR. BEECHER'S THEOLOGY.

in speaking of Mr. Beecher's theology, it might seem to be sufficient to print simply some one of the several sermons which he has preached and published, in the course of his lifetime, defining his theological position. But it is always possible for the critic to assert that these sermons do not really embody the spirit and drift of his teaching; that, intentionally or unintentionally, they are more conservative than the general course of his instructions. It is indeed not uncommon for public men to retreat, or at least to provide a way of retreat, from positions taken in a moment of impulsive frank­ness, and which they find too far in advance for permanent occupancy. This is very common among political orators and it is not unknown in the pulpit. Instead, therefore, of referring the reader to any of these general and comprehensive statements prepared and published by Mr. Beecher himself, I undertake the more difficult task of indicating Mr. Beecher's general theological position as exhibited in the whole course of his public ministry. In doing this I confine myself to no one epoch; the quotations from various utterances, ranging through a third of a century, show what is certainly the case, that with changes of opinion respecting particular formulas, there has been a steady

92

increase of spiritual faith, and an undiminished hold upon the great central truths of the Gospel as held by the great body of Evangelical teachers. That this is his own belief respecting himself is very certain from a comparatively recent sermon on Religious Doubt.*

"There have been things which I supposed were true, but which year by year, as I learned what they were, and understood their measure and their worth, I have dropped one after another; and yet the change has been, not in the direction of loss, but in the direction of gain. I differ from most of my brethren in the ministry who suspect my orthodoxy, not in that I have abandoned so much, but in that I have taken on so much."

Not only Mr. Beecher's methods of expression are peculiar to himself, but his system of philosophy is also his own. And while isolated paragraphs taken from their connection might naturally enough seem to put him in antagonism to the Evangelical churches on-some important points, any candid and comprehensive survey of his published sermons abundantly justifies his own declaration, that "for twenty-five years, in newspapers, in printed volumes, as well as from the pulpit, I have preached and printed, in every conceiv­able form, the truth of the inspiration of the sacred Scripture, the existence and government of God, the doctrine of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ as very God, the universal sinfulness of man, the atonement of Christ, the doctrine of a change of heart, the effi­cacious influence of the Holy Spirit in regeneration,

* Sermon preached in Plymouth Church, Dec. 19th, 1880; published in Christian Union, Jan. 4th, 1881.

93

and the doctrine of retribution, both here and here­after."*

Nor is it true, as often asserted, that Mr, Beecher is indifferent respecting belief, or hostile to creeds. His preaching has always been essentially doctrinal, em­phatically so during the last ten or fifteen years. He has again and again presented his own theological views in systematic form, the latest of these statements being a sermon entitled "A Statement of Belief," preached July 11th, 1880, published in the Christian Union for July 14th, 1880, and afterward reprinted in tract form.+ He has repeatedly emphasized in sermons the importance of clear and careful thinking and of definite and positive belief. This is accompanied, how­ever, with a very emphatic and positive declaration that Christian faith is more than orthodox belief; that men may be either better or worse than their creed; that life, not opinion, is the test of Christian experi­ence; that if a man lives like a Christian he is to be recognized as a Christian without regard to the church or the creed to which he belongs; that a great many of the questions about which theologians have quar-

* From a letter by Mr. Beecher to Rev. Mr. Morrison, editor of the Presbyterian Weekly, written in reply to one asking for information re­specting his theological views. The letter bears date January 8th, 1878.

+ Since this chapter was put in type Mr. Beecher, in withdrawing from the New York and Brooklyn Association of Congregational Ministers, has made a statement of his theological opinions which is reprinted in the closing pages of this book. This chapter remains unaltered, and thus the reader can judge for himself how far this general summary and Mr. Beecher's special statement of his views agree.

94

relled are questions about which they are wholly igno­rant, while concerning others belief is relatively unim­portant, because it produces no appreciable influence on character or conduct. But with these qualifications or limitations, if such they be, he lays great emphasis upon correctness of belief. A single quotation will suffice to represent his position on this subject.

"It makes all the difference in the world what you believe in respect to those truths that are connected with godliness, with purity of thought, purity of mo­tive, purity of disposition. You must believe right about them. About those truths that are related to the ordi­nances of the Church; to the framework of the Church; to the question as to whether the ministry are suc­cessors of the apostles, or whether each one receives his commission direct from the Spirit of Clod in his heart- about those truths you may believe either way. You may believe that the Episcopal, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Congregational, or the Presbyterian Church is the true Church; you may believe that the Sabbath should be observed in this or in that way-you may believe any of these things, and be a good man. But with reference to the truths that are related to the character of man as a sinner having need of a spiritual change; with reference to the truths that stand related, to man's responsibility to God, and to the government of God; with reference to the truths that relate to your immortality-with reference to all these great, vital, experimental truths of the Bible, if you believe at all, you must believe right, or woe be upon you! There is a right way and a wrong way of believing in respect to them. The wrong way leads to disaster, and

95

the right way to benefit. Although with regard to ordinances, and creed-forms, and usages, it does not matter much how a man believes, yet with regard to those truths that relate to his immortal well-being it is very important how he believes.'' *

This view underlies all of Mr. Beecher's methods of presentation of theological truths. He believes that right belief is important, and that it should be accurate, careful, and well defined, but he believes also that it should be practical, that religion should be not a theoretical but an applied science. From many itera­tions of this view I select one only, uttered twelve years later than the one quoted above: "Now I tell, you that in religious matters it is in the ratio of right-know­ing that a man is likely to be a right-minded man. The knowledge does not need to be of an abstract form; practical knowing may take the place of philosophical knowing; but to think, to think rightly, to think sharply and definitely, and to link thoughts with each other, is indispensable. Right-thinking, sedulously carried forward to mark out the path, of life and character, is important. And he who teaches the young that they must scorn the idea of precise beliefs, and that the better way is to come up generally, is a traitor to the young. Every school, every academy, every college, every university, and every department in them, is a protest against this notion of mere loose, vague, indifferent thinking. Object to this system if you please; object to that system if you please; object to

* Sermon preached in Plymouth Church. Sabbath morning, Oct. 6th, 1861. Harper's edition, vol. ii., p. 297.

96

abstract forms if you please; make as many criticisms about proportions as you please; but the great fact that men need to believe accurately, and that their beliefs are the foundations on which they build, is of transcendent importance." *

A broad gulf separates the Rationalistic and the Evangelical schools of thought. Evangelical faith re­gards man as not merely an imperfectly developed being, but also as sinful and guilty before God, and needing divine forgiveness and a new and divine impulse in order to enter upon a true and godly life. It believes that this divine forgiveness is disclosed and assured to man through the Bible and in the person of Jesus Christ. It believes that in Jesus Christ there has been, made a manifestation to man, not merely of the character and attributes, but of the very person and being of God Himself, so that man need no longer grope like an orphan after an unknown Father. It believes that this God perpetually vouchsafes His presence and His power to His children, inspiring and guiding them in their endeavor after a divine life, and it teaches their accountability to Him, not merely for their moral con­duct in daily life one toward another, but for their ac­ceptance or rejection of that aid which He proffers them and that life to which He invites them. To one who thus holds the helplessness of man left to him­self and the helpfulness of God vouchsafed to him, it is very easy to believe that this helpfulness has been disclosed in a written or spoken revelation, in an in-

* Preached in Plymouth Church, June, 1873; printed in Plymouth Pulpit, tenth series, page 304.

97

carnate manifestation, in a divine providence, in a spiritual experience given in answer to prayer, and in miracles afforded as the seal, or witness, or evidence authenticating the revelation and manifestation. In other words, the doctrines of Atonement, Incarnation, Regeneration, Inspiration, and Prayer all centre around and grow naturally out of the fundamental belief that man is helpless in his sin, and that God is a helpful and a saving God. Now while it is true that Mr. Beecher differs from most of his Evangelical brethren in his philosophical interpretation of some of these doc­trines, notably the doctrines of Inspiration, Atonement and Incarnation, it is certain that he is emphatically and distinctively Evangelical in the general structure of his mind and his teaching, that he lays more emphasis even than most ministers on the actual and active help­fulness of God toward men, and the helplessness of men without God.

1. He maintains and emphasizes the distinction between inspiration and revelation. Revelation he re­gards as exceptional and episodical. The Bible is a book which contains matter revealed by the Spirit of God to men selected to receive and communicate the revelation. Inspiration, on the other hand, he holds to be not an exceptional or episodical phenomenon.

"I believe," he says,* "that God in every age and in all nations has moved upon the hearts of men by His Holy Spirit, inspiring them to whatever is true, pure and noble. I believe that the Scriptures, the Old

* Sermon preached in Plymouth Church, Sunday morning, July11th, 1880. Christian Union, July 14th, 1880.

98

Testament and the New, contain the fruit of that in­spiration as it was developed in the Hebrew nation, and I fully and heartily accept the Bible according to the apostolic and only declaration of divine inspiration: All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for in­struction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." He holds that there are different degrees of inspiration in different books of the Bible; "that the teachings of Jesus Christ are of larger scope and of more value than the teachings of Moses; the narratives of the Gospels are more valuable than the history of Ruth and Esther, beautiful as these are." He does not believe that the Scripture is a guide to scientific knowledge, and he re­jects and repudiates with great vigor the notion of ver­bal inspiration, and even of plenary inspiration in the full and proper sense of that term. He regards the Book as inspired for moral and spiritual purposes and to be measured only by its moral and spiritual uses. He says:

"The Bible is a practical book, set up for the guidance of life. If you have seen old charts you have noticed strange forms, all sorts of animals, represented in them; you have seen grotesque ornaments around about them; and yet in the middle there was the ocean; and there were, I had almost said, some of the great landmarks of the sea by which the sailors steered; and the charts were good in spite of all the curious and vain imaginings that had been described around their borders, or stuck here and there into them. Now in this chart of life, the word of God, the current is clear

99

and the channel is obvious. There never was a man in the world that wanted to live right, and to be a better man, who could not find out from the Bible how to do it. It is a guide to right living. That is all that it professes to be. It does not undertake to open the whole of divinity; it simply undertakes to give a glimpse of it. It does not undertake to unpack, and develop, and analyze, and lay out before us all the mighty volume of the unsearchable God-it would be preposterous folly to claim that it could do such a thing; it undertakes to teach men in this immoral and tempting world how to live better and better, to rise higher and higher, until by and by they are prepared by the earthly life to unite themselves with God." *

2. He disowns the doctrine of original sin, and denies any moral connection between Adam's fall and individ­ual sinfulness. Indeed he denies the doctrine of the fall altogether, regarding the story of the Garden of Eden as an allegory or parabolic poem, valuable for its spirit­ual lessons, but not for its ethnology or its history. He holds that the human race began in a low-down con­dition, or, at all events, that as far back as we can histori­cally trace the race, it is found to be more imperfect in moral and spiritual as well as intellectual elements; that as out of the babe the man is developed, so out of the race in its infantile condition the race in its manhood is to be developed. Scientifically, he accepts in the main the hypothesis of Darwin concerning the origin of the human race-that is, that it was developed from lower

* Preached in Plymouth Church, Dec. 19th, 1880. Published in Christian Union of Jan. 5th, 1881.

100

100

animal forms. Theologically, he may be described as a Christian evolutionist. This has been his view for many years, though declared, perhaps, in later years with increasing clearness.* As far back as 1861 he said:

"There has been, from the beginning of the world, a steady evolution from the seminal point in individuals and races. Childhood has developed into manhood. There has been going on, since the world began, a con-tiuous education in physical skill, in intellectual en­dowments, in energy, and in ethical qualities. And revelation teaches us that this fourfold, complicated education is going on, not only for time, but for eter­nity."+

This education he believes is being carried on under the direction of "One who sits in Heaven and controls the elements of our being, and holds in his hands the threads of our destiny for time and for eternity." Nor has he in the least modified his faith that this process of development is carried on under the direct and im­mediate contact of the Spirit of God. If his interpre­tation of experience and history as an evolution is clearer, so also is his recognition of God as the inspir­ing and controlling Master of the great current of human life. He thus defines this belief in 1881:

* Since this chapter was in type he has declared his general belief in evolution, and his rejection of the doctrine of the fall in an article in the North American Review, which created no little stir by the boldness of its indictment of the Westminster Catechism as embodying false and degrading conceptions of the Divine character.

+ Sermon preached in Plymouth Church, Fall of 1861. Harper's edition, vol. ii., p. 123.

101

"I confess that while in regard to the under king­dom of the world, the vegetable kingdom, I stand where I suppose every intelligent and well-read man of to-day stands; yet when I consider the theory of devel­opment, and the substantial nature of the moral or religious feeling in man, I do not see any way in which that could have been unfolded without the direct inter­position and guiding influence of the Spirit of God Himself. That God established that as the point to­ward which humanity should steer, and then left the winds and the currents to waft men in that direction- the reason of men, the ingenuity of men, and the very passions of men, restraining their wrath, and causing the remainder thereof to praise Him-that this has been the Divine method I think cannot be contradicted; and that is a great deal." *

But education even under a Divine teacher is not the only need of the human race. Repudiating the theo­logical philosophy which denies that there is any good in the "natural virtues," holding up habitually for commendation every good and praiseworthy act, deny­ing in toto the old theological assumption, that every act of an unregenerate man is necessarily sinful, stig­matizing the phrase "total depravity" as one of the most unfortunate and misleading terms that ever afflict­ed theology, and as untrue as it is unscriptural, "amis­chievous phrase," "an unscriptural, monstrous and unredeemable lie," his whole preaching is neverthe­less founded upon his profound sense of human sinful-

* Preached in Plymouth Church, Dec. 26th, 1880. Published in Christian Union of Jan. 12th, 1881.

102

ness. One confession of his faith in this regard may serve as a type of many.

"We believe, with continual sorrow of heart and daily overflowing evidence, in the deep sinfulness of Universal man. And we believe in the exceeding sin-fulness of sin. We do not believe that any man is born who is sinless, or who becomes perfectly sinless until death. We believe that there is not one faculty of the human soul that does not work evil, and so re­peatedly that the whole human character is sinful before God. We believe man's sinfulness to be such that every man that ever lived needed God's forbear­ance and forgiveness. We believe that no man lives who does not need to repent of sin, to turn from it; and we believe that turning from sin is a work so deep and touches so closely the very springs of being, that no man will ever change except by the help of God. And we believe that such help is the direct and per­sonal out-reaching of God's Spirit upon the human soul; and when, by such Divine help, men begin to live a spiritual life, we believe the change to have been so great that it is fitly called a beginning of life over again, a new creation, a new birth. If there is one thing that we believe above all others, upon proof from consciousness and proof from observation and experi­ence, it is the sinfulness of man. Nor do we believe that any man ever doubted our belief who sat for two months under our preaching. Nothing strikes us as so peculiarly absurd as a charge or fear that we do not adequately believe in men's sinfulness. The steady bearing of our preaching on this subject is such as to plow up the soil and subsoil, and to con-

103

vict and convince men of their need of Christ's re­demption." *

Any fair examination of Mr. Beecher's published sermons will abundantly justify the closing declaration in the above paragraph. He has his own peculiar way of preaching the doctrine of human sinfulness. He may even be said not to preach it as a doctrine, but to bear witness against men by indicting them in the court of their own conscience, not only of sinfulness in general, but of every phase and form of sin, from the minute social delinquencies on which the pulpit rarely touches, to that forsaking of God which is the secret source and cause of all sin.

3. Holding to this general doctrine of human sinful-ness, he holds to man's need of ''Divine interposition for correction and for forgiveness." He holds accord­ingly to the reality of that momentous change which is usually called conversion or regeneration. ''This change does not require violence to be done to the mental organization. A man has the same faculties, intellectual, moral, social and animal, before conversion as after. Neither are the constitutional functions changed, nor the laws of mind under which all mental life exists. The change is analogous to that which happens to the thoroughly and chronically diseased body when it becomes decidedly convalescent." The whole object and purpose of his preaching is and has been twofold, to bring about this change in men, and to develop, enrich and educate them in the Divine life after once they have been persuaded to enter upon it.

* Views and Experiences of Religious Subjects, p. 184.

104

The formation of Christian dispositions in men, the de­velopment of Christian character, the beginning and the nurture of a Divine life, the making men godly, Christ-like, the building up, not of doctrines nor of a church, but of a Divine manhood-this has been Mr. Beecher's aim from first to last; and in the prosecu­tion of this aim his preaching has been accompanied with frequent revivals and many conversions. Empha­sizing always human instrumentality in this work, be­lieving always that God would do His share whenever men were willing to do theirs, he has nevertheless dis­tinctly and emphatically taught that the work is one which cannot be done by man alone, that the produc­tion of the Divine character can be accomplished only by Divine influence. He says:

"When it is declared, that unless a man is born again he shall not see this new kingdom, it is simply the declaration that a man, in his animal being, or in his lower, passional nature, never will come into the experience which belongs to the purity of these higher feelings; that he will never know what is the joy, the strength, the sympathy, the beauty, the power of this higher life; that he will never know what is in him­self, nor what he can do. God has amplitude in him; but man does not know what that amplitude is until by the Holy Ghost the nobler elements of his being are developed and brought into supremacy. Until we are born of the Spirit, until that part of us which is in sympathy with God is touched by the Divine Heart, and we are brought into communion with God, we shall not see nor know the substance of that kingdom in which God and man dwell together.

105

"This I understand to be the general enunciation of the doctrine of Christ, specially and personally. It is true in respect to every one, as it is true in respect to races and generations of men, that he cannot, except by the Divine contact, rise into this higher sphere of life. No man can come to himself except the Father draw him. No man can come to God except God lead him. No man can come to his own highest nature ex­cept under the influence of the Divine Spirit." *

Thus while Mr. Beecher rarely uses the word regen­eration, perhaps scarcely more frequently than it is used in the New Testament, he has not laid less stress upon it than did Paul himself.

4. The same may be said respecting the doctrine of the Atonement. The Apostles' Creed contains a decla­ration of belief in the "forgiveness of sins;" but no statement respecting the Atonement, that is, the method provided for securing and assuring this Divine forgive­ness. The spirit of Mr. Beecher's preaching has been somewhat that of the Apostles' Creed. He has abun­dantly proclaimed the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ; this and the correlative truth, the Divinity of Christ, have been indeed the central truths of his teaching. This fact is so universally recognized that we need not cite any illustrations. Perhaps for no one thing has Mr. Beecher been so much criticised as for the emphasis which he has put upon the tenderness, the compassion, the forgiving kindness of God, which his critics have thought he preached out of due pro-

* Sermon preached in Plymouth Church, Jan. 29th, 1871. Reported in Plymouth Pulpit, Sixth Series, p. 447-8.

106

portion, to the ignoring of the Divine justice and the punitive element in the Divine government. He has not, however, contented himself with merely pro­claiming the pity and mercy of God. This pity and mercy which he believes are inherent in the Divine nature, not produced, nor evoked, nor even made effica­cious and, so to speak, workable by the death of Christ, he nevertheless teaches have both been mani­fested and set in operation upon the human race through Christ's death. The theory that it was neces­sary that Christ should suffer in order to fulfil, by a literal equivalent, the threatenings of the law, or that those sufferings and that death were necessary to vin­dicate the justice of God and make pardon safe, he does not accept. His general teaching on this subject may be stated in two propositions: first, that they were "a means of disclosing the atoning nature of God;" that they "manifested the mind of God in such a way as to cause it to appear sweet and blessed and attractive forevermore;" and second, that the suffer­ings and death of Christ were necessary for reasons known to the Divine Being, but not made known to us.

"The sufferings and death of Christ were not inci­dental. They were divinely ordained. There was not only a use in them, but a necessity for them. Not alone is this declared, but it is the great undertone of the New Testament. The fact that man's salvation is through faith in Christ, and that the power of Christ to save men is connected with, or dependent on, His suffering for them, cannot be taken away from the New Testa­ment without abstracting its very life. It would be

107

like an organ without diapasons. It would have no basis." *

5. Indissolubly connected with Mr. Beecher' s preach­ing in connection with the forgiveness of sins is his view of Christ as the manifestation of God. It may be emphatically said that Mr. Beecher has been a preacher of Christ; not of theories about Him, but of Christ Himself as a personal, living Saviour. How the view of Christ as the manifestation and disclosure of God early received by Mr. Beecher permeated his whole experience and transformed his whole character has been narrated in a previous chapter. His whole theological teaching has been founded on and grown out of this experience. On this as on other subjects Mr. Beecher has not expressed himself very frequently in philosophical or theological forms. He has, how­ever, very distinctly repudiated the common view of Christ's nature as a composite, in which the perfect God and perfect man are inexplicably united. "The Bible," he says, "teaches just this, that the Divine mind was pleased to take upon itself a human body. We have no warrant in Scripture for attributing to Christ any other part of human nature than simply a body." And again:

"Let me, in order to prevent all misapprehension, say that in every sense that man can understand, I believe in the Divinity of Christ. It is fundamental to

* From Sermon preached in Plymouth Church, Fall of 1861. Harper's edition, vol. ii., p. 120. See his statement of belief in the closing part of this volume, for a careful statement of his views respecting the Atone­ment.

108

my system of thought, to my conception of power, and to the whole of my ministry, and has been, with­out variableness or shadow of turning, from the day, many, many years ago, when I learned to preach with any success. I believe that Jesus holds to mankind the same relations that God does; that He is perfect by His very nature; that He has all power; that He has supreme authority; that all that human reason can conceive of Divinity resides in Him; that He is the ob­ject of the highest love in heaven, and should be on earth; that the most absolute obedience is due Him; and that now and forever 'every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.' " *

The same view of Christ as the Divine Spirit, "mani­fested and expressed under the limitations of material laws and in a human body," he has more fully ex­pressed in his Life of Christ.+

"The Divine Spirit came into the world, in the per­son of Jesus, not bearing the attributes of Deity in their full disclosure and power. He came into the world to subject His spirit to that whole discipline and experience through which every man must pass. He veiled His royalty; He folded back, as it were, within Himself those ineffable powers which belonged to Him as a free spirit in heaven. He went into captivity to Himself, wrapping in weakness and forgetfulness His divine energies while He was a babe. 'Being found

*Preached in Plymouth Church, Feb. 6th, 1881. Published in Chris­tian Union of Feb. 16th, 1881.

+ Life of Jesus the Christ, chap. iii. "The Doctrinal Basis."

109

in fashion as a man,' He was subject to that gradual unfolding of His buried powers which belongs to in­fancy and childhood. 'And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit.' He was subject to the restric­tions which hold and hinder common men. He was to come back to Himself little by little. Who shall say; that God cannot put Himself into finite conditions? Though as a free spirit God cannot grow, yet as fet­tered in the flesh He may. Breaking out at times with amazing power, in single directions, yet at other times feeling the rnist of humanity resting upon His eyes, He declares, 'Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.' This is just the experience which we should expect in a being whose problem of life was, not the disclosure of the full power and glory of God's natural attributes, but the manifestation of the love of God, and of the extremities of self-renun­ciation to which the Divine heart would submit, in the rearing up from animalism and passion His family of children. The incessant looking for the signs of Divine power and of infinite attributes, in the earthly life of Jesus, whose mission it was to bring the Divine Spirit within the conditions of feeble humanity, is as if one should search a dethroned king in exile, for his crown and his sceptre. We are not to look for a glorified, an enthroned Jesus, but for God manifest in the flesh; and in this view the very limitations and seeming dis­crepancies in a Divine life become congruous parts of the whole sublime problem."

This philosophy of Christ's character is not, however, that which Mr. Beecher has made prominent in his

110

preaching. The prominence has been given to his per­sonal experience of love for, reverence toward, and trust in Jesus Christ as a personal God and Saviour. It is in this personal faith that he recognizes his own irre­concilable opposition to the rationalistic school of thought.

"Could Theodore Parker worship my God? - Christ Jesus is His name. All that there is of God to me is bound up in that name. A dim and shadowy effluence rises from Christ, and that I am taught to call the Father. A yet more tenuous and invisible film of thought arises, and that is the Holy Spirit. But neither are to me aught tangible, restful, accessible. They are to be revealed to my knowledge hereafter, but now only to my faith. But Christ stands my manifest God. All that I know is of Him and in Him. I put my soul into His arms, as, when I was born, my father put me into my mother's arms. I draw all my life from Him. I bear Him in my thoughts hourly, as I humbly believe that He also bears me. For I do truly believe that we love each other-I, a speck, a particle, a nothing, only a mere beginning of something that is gloriously yet to be, when the warmth of God's bosom shall have been a summer for my growth; and He, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Ever­lasting Father, the Prince of Peace!" *

To Mr. Beecher the divinity of Christ is not a dogma to be defended by scholastic methods; it is an expe­rience to be confessed, a food to be eaten and lived upon, and his whole heart goes out in worship to

* Views and Experiences of Religious Subjects, p. 197.

111

Christ as the one altogether lovely, to whom every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall make confes­sion.

"And shall I follow Christ through all my life; be­hold His beauty; twine about Him every affection; lean upon Him for strength; behold Him as my leader, my teacher; feed upon Him as my bread, my wine, my water of life; see all things in this world in that light which He declares Himself to be; in His strength van­quish sin, draw from Him my hope and inspiration, wear His name and love His work, and throughout my whole life at His command twine about Him every affection, die in His arms, and waive with eager upris­ing to find Him whom my soul loveth, only to be put away with the announcement that He is not the recipi­ent of worship! Well might I cry out in the anguish of Mary in the garden, 'They have taken away the Lord, and we know not where they have laid him.' " *

6. Holding to the inspiration of the Bible, the divine influence of the Holy Spirit in the regeneration of man, the atoning work and the divine character of Christ, it is almost a matter of course that Mr. Beecher be­lieves in'the authenticity of the New Testament, and in the reality of the miracles. Nowhere in either preach­ing or writing is there a sign of that feeble rationalism which attempts to reduce the supernatural to a mini­mum without rejecting the Bible altogether by finding naturalistic explanations of the miraculous events re­corded in the Scripture.

* Sermon preached in Plymouth Church, May 6th, 1360, Harper's edition, vol. i., p. 85.

112

''We scarcely need to say that we shall take our stand with those who accept the New Testament as a collection of veritable historical documents, with the record of the miracles, and with the train of spiritual phenomena, as of absolute and literal truth. The mi­raculous element constitutes the very nerve-system of the Gospel. To withdraw it from credence is to leave the Gospel histories a mere shapeless mass of pulp." *

Mr. Beecher has always occupied this stand in the pulpit, on the platform, and in all his published writ­ings.

7. It remains only to speak of his views respecting future retribution; views which have been sometimes misquoted and even honestly misapprehended.

It is not uncommon for ministers to give their con­gregations so much of their views as they think can be given without subjecting them to charges of heresy, and Mr. Beecher's published views on the subject of retribution have frequently led to the imputation to him of views which he does not hold, and which he has distinctly repudiated. His general teaching in its prac­tical aspects on this subject may be characterized as undogmatic. He holds to a future retribution, but confesses his ignorance respecting its nature, character, and duration. A paragraph from a sermon preached twenty-two years ago illustrates the spirit with which he treats this theme in his practical ministry.

"For all those who have been clearly taught, who have been moved by their wicked passions deliberately to set aside Him of whom the prophets spoke, whom the

* Life of Jesus the Christ. Introduction.

113

apostles more clearly taught, whom the Holy Spirit, by the divine power, now makes known to the world through the Gospel-for them, if they reject their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, there remaineth no more sac­rifice for sin. If they deliberately neglect, set aside, or reject their Saviour, He will deliberately, in the end, reject them. Sometimes, in dark caves, men have gone to the edge of unspeaking precipices, and, wondering what was the depth, have cast down fragments of rock, and listened for the report of their fall, that they might judge how deep the blackness was; and listening-still listening-no sound returns; no sullen plash, no clinking stroke as of rock against rock-nothing but silence, utter silence! And so I stand upon the preci­pice of life! I sound the depths of the other world with curious inquiries. But from it comes no echo and no answer to my questions. No analogies can grapple and bring up from the depths of the darkness of the lost world the probable truths. No philosophy has line and plummet long enough to sound the depths. There remains for us only the few authoritative and solemn words of God. These declare that the bliss of the righteous is everlasting; and with equal directness and simplicity they declare that the doom of the wick­ed is everlasting." *

There is no doubt, however, that Mr. Beecher's views have been modified since this sermon was preached. He has never himself formulated them fully in any public utterance. It is doubtful whether he has yet

* Sermon preached in Plymouth Church, Oct. 9th, 1859. Harper's edi­tion, vol. i., p. 109.

114

clearly formulated them in his own mind; "but the results which he has reached he has declared with his accustomed boldness. They include the following points:

1. That there is a retribution, an after-death punish­ment; and that Christ taught this truth* "when He declared with solemnity and earnestness that the pen­alty of wickedness in the world to come was such as to warn every transgressor, and should be a motive to every good man to turn back his fellows from evil."

2. That there is a provision of mercy in another life for those for whom no adequate provision has been made in this; that there is no authority in Scripture for the commonly received notion that all probation ends with this life; that it is equally impossible to be­lieve that the great mass of the human race up to this time have gone from death into heaven without any further preparation, or that they have been doomed to eternal death without any further opportunity for re­pentance, or larger moral influence to bring them to repentance. This view he has stated with characteris­tic power and eloquence in his famous discourse on "The Background of Mystery." +

"If, now, you tell me that this great mass of men, because they had not the knowledge of God, went to heaven, I say that the inroad of such a vast amount of mud swept into heaven would be destructive of its purity; and I cannot accept that view. If on the other

* Sermon preached in Plymouth Church, July 11th, 1880; published in Christian Union, July 14th, 1880.

+ See sermon published in Christian Union, December 26th, 1877.

115

hand you say they went to hell, then you make an infi­del of me; for I do swear, by the Lord Jesus Christ, by His groans, by His tears, and by the wounds in His hands and in His side, that I will never let go of the truth that the nature of God is to suffer for others rather than to make them suffer. If I lose everything else, I will stand on the sovereign idea that God so loved the world that He gave His own Son to die for it rather than it should die. To tell me that there is a God who for unnumbered centuries has gone on creating men and sweeping them like dead flies-nay, like living ones-into hell, is to ask me to worship a, being as much worse than the conception of any me­dieval devil as can be imagined; but I will not wor­ship the devil, though he should come dressed in royal robes, and sit on the throne of Jehovah. I will not wor­ship cruelty. I will worship love, that sacrifices itself for the good of those that err, and that is patient with them as a mother is with a sick child. With every power of my being I will worship such a being as that."

3. That any one of God's creatures will exist in eternal suffering he does not believe. The alternatives are of course either that the impenitent will be re­claimed in another life or that their life will finally be­come extinct. Mr. Beecher does not accept, or at least he does not teach either of these alternatives. The one would make him a Universalist, the other an Annihilationist. He is neither. His position is that, if not of-ignorance, at least of one who holds his mind in abeyance waiting for further light. He neither ac­cepts the dogma of Universalism, that all men will be restored, nor that of Annihilationism, that some men

116

will be destroyed. He contents himself with preaching simply that persistent sin in this life involves a terri­ble doom in the life to come, respecting the nature and outcome of which the Scriptures leave us in uncertain­ty. The following declaration on this subject is recent and explicit: *

"Whatever I believe beyond the simple statement of our Lord that the consequences in this life go over and are terrible in the life to come, whatever is beyond this, the explicit Scripture, is a belief founded upon analogy, philosophy, etc., and is an opinion, and not a definite knowledge. This is the point which dis­criminates between my position and that of Univer-salists, Restorationists, Annihilationists, and Retribu-tionists. They hold their respective views as dogmas; that is, as facts based on the authority of Scripture. I hold simple retribution as Scriptural, but its duration, its nature, and its results I hold simply by conjecture, and not by dogmatic assumption. They are my opin­ions; they are very positive, but they do not pretend to be founded upon express Scriptural warrant. I be­lieve that what Scripture teaches is that evil done here does not cease with death, but goes over, with pains and penalties beyond."

What are the opinions held in conjecture, here hinted at, he has nowhere publicly disclosed; but we believe that it is safe to say that they involve a combi­nation of Restorationism and Annihilationism; a belief in a future probation the result of which will be the restoration of some and the final extinction of others.

* Sermon published in Christian Union, July 14th, 1880.

117

We have now gone over Mr. Beecher's general theo­logical views, summarizing them, as the limit of our space compels us to do, with brevity. It would be easy to multiply quotations to enforce and illustrate every position. We have shown that Mr. Beecher, in his fundamental faith in the helplessness of man, and the helpfulness of God, belongs with the Evangelical as opposed to the Rationalistic school; in his view of the divinity of Christ and the necessity for an atone­ment, with the Orthodox as opposed to the Unitarian school. But in the Orthodox School he occupies a po­sition as a theologian peculiarly his own: in his view of the Bible, regarding it rather as a peculiar product of inspiration than as the product of a peculiar inspira­tion; in his view of human nature, regarding sin as an individual fact in experience, and history as a course of evolution under divine guidance; in his view of redemp­tion, regarding regeneration as a restoration of the soul to its normal condition by divine influences, and atone­ment as a provision for pardon and reconciliation af­forded by God through Christ, the reasons and nature of which are inexplicable; in his view of Christ as the Divine Spirit manifested in a human body and under the limitations of a human life; in his view of miracles as the real and natural attestations of divine revelation, working through nature, not in violation of it; and in his view of future retribution as a terrible fact, the nature and end of which are unrevealed.

CHAPTER VI.

MR. BEECHER AS A JOURNALIST.

mr. beecher's first venture as an editor was in Cincinnati, a short time before entering upon his ministerial work. "He was," says Mrs. Stowe, "for four or five months editor of the Cincinnati Journal, the organ of the N. S. Presbyterian Church, during the absence of Mr. Brainerd. While he was holding this post, the pro-slavery riot which destroyed Birney's press occurred, and the editorials of the young editor at this time were copied with high approval by Charles Hammond, of the Cincinnati Gazette, undoubtedly the ablest editor of the West, and the only editor who dared to utter a word condemnatory of the action of the rioters. Mr. Beecher entered on the defence of the persecuted negroes with all the enthusiasm of his nature. He had always a latent martial enthusiasm, and though his whole life had been a peaceful one, yet a facility in the use of carnal weapons seemed a second nature, and at this time, he, with a number of other young men, went to the Mayor and were sworn in as a special body of police, who patroled the streets, well armed. Mr. Beecher bore his pistol, and was de­termined, should occasion arise, to use it. But as usual in such cases, a resolute front once shown dis­solved the mob entirely."

But journalism as a real avocation he first took up in

121

Indianapolis, as-Heaven save the mark-a recreation! He was settled at the time at Indianapolis, the capital of Indiana. There were nothing but political papers in the State-no religious, or educational, or agricul­tural, or family papers. The Indiana Journal proposed to add an agricultural department, to be reprinted monthly, under the title of Western Farmer and Gardener, and Mr. Beecher undertook to edit it. His editorship was solely a labor of love; his preparation for it was his rest. He shall tell the story in his own words; no one could better the telling.

"It may be of some service to the young, as show­ing how valuable the fragments of time may become, if mention is made of the way in which we became prepared to edit this journal. The continued taxation of daily preaching, extending through months, and once through eighteen consecutive months, without the exception of a single day, began to wear upon the nerves, and made it necessary for us to seek some re­laxation. Accordingly we used, after each week-night's preaching, to drive the sermon out of our head by some alterative reading. In the State Library were Loudon's works-his Encyclopedias of Horticulture, of Agriculture, and of Architecture. We fell upon them and for years almost monopolized them. In our little one-story cottage, after the day's work was done, we pored over these monuments of an almost incredible industry, and read, we suppose, not only every line, but much of it many times over; until at length we had a topographical knowledge of many of the fine English estates quite as intimate, we dare say, as was possessed by many of their truant owners.

122

"There was something exceedingly pleasant, and is yet, in the studying over mere catalogues of flowers, trees, fruits, etc. A seedsman's list, a nurseryman's catalogue, are more fascinating to us than any story. In this way, through several years, we gradually accu­mulated materials and became familiar with facts and principles, which paved the way for our editorial la­bors. Lindley's Horticulture and Gray's Structural Botany came in as constant companions. And when at length, through a friend's liberality, we became the recipients of the London Gardener's Chronicle, edited by Professor Lindley, our treasures were inestimable. Many hundred times have we lain awake for hours unable to throw off the excitement of preaching, and beguiling the time with imaginary visits to the Chiswick Garden or to the more than Oriental magnificence of the Duke of Devonshire's grounds at Chatsworth. We have had long discussions, in that little bedroom at Indianapolis, with Van Mons about pears, with Vi-bert about roses, with Thompson and Knight about fruits and theories of vegetable life, and with Loudon about everything under the heavens in the horti­cultural world. This employment of waste hours not only answered a purpose of soothing excited nerves then, but brought us into such relations to the mate­rial world, that, we speak with entire moderation when we say that all the estates of the richest duke in England could not have given us half the pleasure which we have derived from pastures, waysides, and unoccupied prairies.''

The habit of learning from men as well as books was characteristic of the young and enthusiastic editor,

123

then as ever since. There is a story, for the details of which we will not vouch, that he was accustomed to at­tend a club meeting of farmers, paper and pencil in hand, always modestly refusing to join in the discus­sions, but always keeping careful note of them; and that his subsequent embodiment, not however usually in form of reports, of the sifted results of the discus­sions, was one of the features which gave the Western Farmer and Gardener its early and national reputa­tion. It was one of the first, if not the very first, suc­cesses in agricultural journalism in this country. Another story, for the substantial truth of which I can vouch, shows what good use he made of other people's knowledge, gathered wheresoever he could find it. He wrote a description of some remarkable flower, which was caught up and copied far and wide as a rare portrait of a rare plant. He had never seen it, however, having gathered the materials for his pict­ure from the books and vitalized them by his own pic­torial imagination. Several years afterward he was visiting an Eastern hothouse, and was introduced to the gardener as the editor of the Western Farmer and Gardener. The host, proud of his possession of an un­usually fine specimen of the flower which Mr. Beecher had so graphically described, took him straight to see it. Mr. Beecher examined, admired, and asked its name. The astonished gardener gave its scientific title. "Yes! yes!" said Mr. Beecher; " but its common name. What do folks call it?" Whereat the indignant gardener, thinking his learned guest was chaffing, told him to his astonishment that he was looking on the original of his own description, and

124

could hardly believe Mr. Beecher's solemn assertion that he had never set eyes upon the flower till that moment.

When in 1847 Mr. Beecher came to Brooklyn the anti-slavery struggle was beginning to assume portent­ous dimensions. Into it he threw himself heart and soul, from the outset being a leader among leaders in his intense radicalism. The religious press was almost wholly either pro-slavery or silent. The attitude of the great body of the churches was fairly represented by that of the American Tract Society and the Ameri­can Board. The one would publish nothing about slavery because all evangelical Christians were not agreed concerning it; the other would bear no witness against slavery in its missions among the North American Indians, because to speak was to ensure exile from the missionary fields. The Tract Societies of Boston and Cincinnati were formed in protest against the silence of the one; the American Missionary Asso­ciation in protest against the silence of the other. In this epoch, and out of the same intense feeling, the New York Independent was born. It was the child of the battle-field; its god-fathers and god-mothers were warriors. Its financial support was furnished by three or four Congregationalists who were also abolitionists. Its editors were a trio of Congregationalists, then in their prime and full of the fire of youth in the most fiery epoch of their country's history-Drs. Storrs, Bacon, and Thompson. The latter was stroke oars­man. He had a genius for organizing, and for patient and steady work. The young and eccentric preacher was engaged as a regular contributor. He was too

125

impetuous and too independent to work in a team; his associates preferred that lie should alone be respon­sible for his own utterances; he preferred to be free to utter what he would, untrammeled by any sense of divided responsibility. Mr. Beecher, like General Grant, has never held a council of war. He listens to advice, but rarely asks it; takes counsel, and is often, influenced, but never governed by it. Though not one of its editors, he did perhaps as much as either one of them to give the paper its tone, and to make its voice heard throughout the United States. During Cal-houn's last illness one of Mr. Beecher's contributions to the then infant Independent was read to the dying statesman. Paper and writer were then alike compar­atively unknown. The title of the article, "Shall we Compromise?" indicates its theme; its character can­not be easily imagined except by one who puts himself back in a time when "compromise" was the theme of Clay and Webster in the Senate, of Stiles and Adams and Blagden in the pulpit, of the N. Y. Observer and the Boston Recorder in the press, indeed of almost every politician, pulpit, and newspaper of note in the land. "Read that again," said the dying Calhoun to his secretary. It was read again. "Who writes that?" he asked. The name of the unknown writer was given to him. "That fellow understands his subject," was Calhoun's final comment. "He will be heard from again. He has gone to the bottom." It is not without good ground that the author of the "History of Jour­nalism in America" counts Henry Ward Beecher one of the two great editors of the United States, one of the two journalists par excellence of America.

126

His method of preparation, then and during the short subsequent term in which, after the resignation of Drs. Storrs, Bacon, and Thompson, he acted as editor-in-chief of the paper, was peculiar. The con­trast between the methods of Dr. Thompson and Mr. Beecher was characteristic.

Dr. Thompson had his regular day at the office. He rarely missed it; was never early, never late, always exactly punctual. He calculated to an inch the amount of matter required, and never gave too little or too much. He never outstayed his time, and never hurried away before it had expired. He was never idle and never in a hurry; he was never greatly excited and never absolutely at rest. As an editor he was the delight of compositors and publishers. Mr. Beecher came in somewhere about the time his manu­script was expected; sometimes boiling over with ex­citement; sometimes bubbling over with humor. He sat and talked of anything and everything but the business before him till the printer's devil made his final and imperative demand for copy. Then he caught up his pen, turned to the nearest desk, shut himself up in his shell as impenetrably as if he were a turtle, and drove his pen across the paper as if it were a House printing machine and he were an electric bat­tery. He threw off the pages as he wrote them, left the boy to pick them up and carry them off to the compositors' room, and, the work done, was off, leav­ing some one else to read proof, correct errors, and sup­ply omissions. But what he wrote in a heat and at a sitting went like a ball from a minie rifle, from one end of the land to the other. Wise men shook their

127

heads over his "uncautious utterances," but they kindled thousands of hearts into a blaze. The leaders which characterized the Independent during his short editorial charge of the paper have never had their equal in kindling force in American journalism. It was on the eve of the civil war. It required the man, the time and the audience to produce them. Never before were such man, such time, and such audience combined.

The onlooker might imagine from this picture that Mr. Beecher is a careless workman, throwing off crude impressions, half-formed and ill-digested, and trusting to genius to take the place of conscientious study. The onlooker would be greatly mistaken. Mr. Beech­er's mind works like lightning in production because it has worked thoroughly in preparation. As a partial preparation for his anti-slavery editorials he made himself thorough master of Story on the Constitu­tion, Kent's Commentaries, and Lieber's Civil Liberty and Self-government, and other kindred authorities. For details he always went to well-informed specialists. His memory of principles is as tenacious as his memory of names and dates is slippery and evasive. Whatever he has once learned always comes at command; he is like a many-barrelled revolver; the ammunition is all stowed away in the right place, and in the time of bat­tle always responds to the click of the trigger. He is always sure of his ground; hence he walks with a free and firm tread. When three years ago he published his caustic criticism on the Bible Society for suppress­ing a revised edition, and publishing one condemned by its own committee as full of errors, he had so thor-

128

oughly grounded himself in every detail that no an­swer could be made, and none was attempted by the Society.

The ideal editor fulfils a threefold function: he is creator, administrator, and writer. He forms his own conception what the journal is to be, what place it is to fill, what work it is to do, what circle of readers it is to address; he organizes it to do that work, se­cures the writers, examines their contributions, meas­ures them by their relation to his conception and their adaptation to its execution; and he moulds all writers by his own strong, clear, vigorous writing, leads by his pen, and others follow. Now it is very rare that any editor fulfils all three functions. Mr. Delane, of the London Times, it is said, never wrote a word for his own journal; he was creator and administrator. His genius was that of organizer; selector of men to write better than he could what he wished written. One of the ablest editors in American history was Fletcher Harper. He never wrote a line for publication; rarely if ever read a manuscript. But he created Harper' s Magazine, Harper' s Weekly and Harper's Bazar; selected the editors; pervaded as well as inspired their administration; gave each periodical its distinc­tive character and made it what he willed. Horace Greeley was both creator and writer, the Tribune was a new birth; but he was not an administrator, he has often been surpassed in the art of organization. On the other hand, Henry J. Raymond followed ex­amples set before him in shaping the Times; other writers have surpassed him in both force of thought and compactness of expression; but he was absolutely

129

without a rival in the art of managing a great news­paper. Henry Ward Beecher is not an administrative editor; he has never attempted for any length of time to manage a newspaper; but he has created a new school of journalism, and he has given it impulse and inspiration by his own pen.

Immediately after his withdrawal from the Inde­pendent, capital was offered him to start a new paper. The idea of the capitalists was to make it a new Con­gregational journal, but that was not Mr. Beecher's idea. He had engaged to write "Norwood," and the newspaper enterprise was laid aside for the time. A little later J. B. Ford & Co. purchased the feeble Church Union, living with a scanty subscription list on the verge of bankruptcy, and announced Mr. Beecher as its future editor. The scheme of the Church Union had been to unite all Protestant sects in one organic church. This chimerical project had no support from Mr. Beecher''s practical mind; he or­dered a change of its name to Christian Union, and the new name was unfurled upon its banner before the new commander had assumed the responsibility of command. Its title indicated its essential character. Mr. Beecher determined to have a paper as broad as Christianity, as free from sectarian bias as the Sermon on the Mount. He determined to invite to its columns men of every name, united by no common creed nor in any common organization, but only in a common spirit of love for men and faith in Christ as their Lord and Saviour. We have often heard him say, ''It is pos­sible to have a church in which, men of all traditional faiths and systems shall unite in work and worship

130

for Christ. We have it in Plymouth Church, where Quaker and Episcopalian, Calvinist and Arminian, Unitarian and Trinitarian, sit side by side at the same communion-table and work side by side in the same Sunday-school. I believe it is possible to have a journal which shall embody the same principle." That was his thought when a year or two before he had been asked to start a new Congregational paper. That was his thought for the Christian Union from the day of its christening with its new name. From that funda­mental thought he never wavered or turned aside. It was a radical thought then. Fifteen years ago unde­nominational religious journalism was absolutely un­known if not unthought of. It was supposed to be necessary to have a church constituency behind each church organ. In England each great Review repre­sented a religious school; such monthly symposia as the Nineteenth Century and the Contemporary, in which atheist and Roman Catholic churchman sit down at the same table, were not dreamed of. In this country the Christian at Work, the Golden Rule and the Alliance were not born; the N.Y. Observer was the organ of the Old School Presbyterians; the Inde­pendent, started, as its name indicates, as a Congrega­tional journal, on money furnished by Congregational capitalists, to promote Congregational ideas, and edited by three leading Congregational divines, was still so far recognized as a Congregational organ that a junta of Congregational clergymen in the West did not hesi­tate to call it to account for its loose theology and take "bonds of its owner for better behavior in the future. It was at this epoch that Mr. Beecher launched the

131

Christian Union as a simply Christian newspaper. He appealed from the hierarchy to the people. He had always done this in his pulpit; he now made a wider appeal in the newspaper.

Along with this fundamental idea was another, equally fundamental. Dr. William M. Taylor, now pas­tor of the Broadway Tabernacle, in an article published in 1859, in the Scotch Review, refers to Mr. Beecher's "assertion and reiteration of the great truth that religion is a life and a power for all places and circumstances." To assert and to reiterate this was from the first the mission to which he ordained the Christian Union. He determined to make a paper primarily for the com­mon people, and therefore a paper primarily helpful to them, and therefore a paper of "life thoughts." To make life the text-book; to find the themes in daily events, public and private; to expound Providence rather than the Bible, and the Bible rather than dogmatic theology; to teach religion as an art rather than as a science, as a practical art rather than as a species of aesthetics:-this was the purpose with which he imbued the paper from its birth. Organ of party sect or person he would not have it; not even an organ to defend its own editor when every other religious journal was closed against his friends. And so it was by his imperative orders that it kept silence when policy would have dictated vigorous speech; and its managing editors could avoid the possible suspicion of lack of fealty to their slandered associate, only by seizing the occasion of his absence from the city to put in their own protests, over their own names, against their misconstrued silence. It was a part of

132

this same determination that the paper should teach a practical godliness, which made him resolute that it should practise what it preached. He would have no word of editorial or quasi editorial utterance paid for by advertiser. Of Insurance Department, with its paid puffs or its paid silence, and Financial De­partment, with its apparently guileless commenda­tions of certain stocks at so much a line, the Christian Union was always absolutely clear in all administra­tions.

The history of the paper, of which he was the father, like that of all journals, has been one of varying fortunes. It sprang into a marvellous success at its birth, reaching, in an incredibly short time after its birth, a circulation of upward of a hundred and thirty thousand. Then came adversity: financial difficulties in the business management, odium theologicum ex­cited against it on account of the religious views of some of its subordinate editors, the "great scandal," and, more influential of all, "hard times," compelling great reduction of receipts both from subscribers and advertisers. But the paper has long since passed through all that experience, retaining, in minor changes of scope and administration, its name and essential character. And when, in the fall of 1881, Mr. Beecher sold his interest in it to personal friends, and left its direction in other hands, it was because its character and future were established beyond peradventure, and because the treble duties of preacher, lecturer, and editor had grown too arduous to be longer continued. His editorial work is probably ended, but his editorial influence will never cease to be felt in the larger

133

charity, the broader views of life, and the greater in­dependence of thought which he, as much perhaps as any living man, has helped to impart to American journalism

CHAPTER VII.

MR. BEECHER AS A LECTURER AND ORATOR.

in "Men of Our Times'" Mrs. Stowe writes of her brother as a boy of ten years: "Henry Ward was not marked out by the prophecies of partial friends for any brilliant future. He had precisely the organization which often passes for dullness in early boyhood. He had great deficiency in verbal memory, a deficiency marked in him through life; he was excessively sensi­tive to praise and blame, extremely diffident, and with a power of yearning, undeveloped emotion which he neither understood nor could express. His utterance was thick and indistinct, partly from bashfullness and partly from an enlargement of the tonsils of the throat, so that in speaking or reading he was with difficulty understood. In forecasting his horoscope, had any one taken the trouble then to do it, the last success that ever would have been predicted for him would have been that of an orator. 'When Henry is sent to me with a message,' said a good aunt, 'I always have to make him say it three times. The first time I have no manner of an idea more than if he spoke Choctaw; the second, I catch now and then a word; by the third time I begin to understand.' "

That a youth so eminently unfitted by nature to be an orator should have become subsequently one of the

135

greatest of modern orators, argues an application to the study of oratory, and a determination to overcome its difficulties, not less arduous than were shown by De­mosthenes, who, to correct a stammering tongue, prac­tised speaking with pebbles in his mouth, and to strengthen a weak voice proclaimed poems in the diffi­culty of breath which was caused by running up a hill.

Mr. Beecher's study and training, although of a dif­ferent nature, were no less thorough and efficacious than the methods of the old Athenian, and he has lately given an account of his elocutionary education. He says: "I had from childhood a thickness of speech arising from a large palate, so that when a boy I used to be laughed at for talking as if I had pudding in my mouth. When I went to Amherst, I was fortunate in passing into the hands of John Lovell, a teacher of elocution; and a better teacher for my purpose I cannot conceive. His system consisted in drill, or the thorough practice of inflexions by the voice, of gesture, posture and articulation. Sometimes I was a whole hour prac­tising my voice on a, word, like justice.

"I would have to take a posture, frequently at a mark chalked on the floor. Then we would go through all the gestures; exercising each movement of the arm, and the throwing open the hand. All gestures except those of precision go in curves, the arm rising from the side, coming to the front, turning to the left or right. I was drilled as to how far the arm should come for­ward, where it should start from, how far go back, and under what circumstances these movements should be made. It was drill, drill, drill, until the motions almost became a second nature. Now I never know what move-

136

ment I shall make. My gestures are natural because this drill made them natural to me. The only method of acquiring an effective education is by practice of not less than an hour a day, until the student has his voice and himself thoroughly subdued and trained to right expression.'' *

As a preparation for the work of his life, which was to be largely occupied in public speaking, such a thorough course in elocution even, to one unembarrassed with defects of voice, was of great value; for an intel­lect, however powerful and rich, without the adequate means of expression and emphasis, would be crippled in its power of benefiting mankind in no small, degree. Mr. Beecher's study of oratory at Amherst has un­doubtedly been one of the most efficient means in the acquirement of his success, and has been an attainment the value of which he could not at that time have fore­seen. The familiarity with the ways and means of pro­ducing elocutionary effects, the management of his voice, the carriage of his figure, and the use of hands and arms in gesture, were thus acquired before he entered college, and he did not cease his study and practice after entering, for we learn from Mrs. Stowe: "Oratory and rhetoric he regarded as his appointed weapons, and he began to prepare himself in the department of how to say--meanwhile contemplating with uncertain the great future problem of what to say." For the formation of style he began a course of Eng­lish classical study; Milton's prose works, Bacon, Shakespeare, and the writers of the Elizabethan period

* Christian Union, July 14th, 1880.

137

were his classics, read and re-read, and deeply pon­dered."

The resources thus acquired were then, as now, fre­quently drawn upon, not only in college exercises, but in occasional appearances before the village audience where, it will be remembered, he delivered three lectures on Phrenology.

These are, however, of interest only as historical facts, and as the first steps in the field of platform-speaking. The series of "Lectures to Young Men," delivered during Mr. Beecher's pastorate in Indianap­olis, are the first that stand out conspicuously with the seal of the man's maturity and earnestness of purpose. They were preached first as sermons, and were called forth by the depravity and vice and immorality which at that time characterised much of Western civilization. Mr. Beecher relates of them: "The lectures were writ­ten each one during the week preceding the day of its delivery. I well remember the enjoyment which I had in their preparation. They were children of early en­thusiasm."

Although addressed to young men, they are full of important lessons for all ages from youth to old age. The topics reveal the character of the lectures. Indus­try and Idleness, Dishonesty, Gamblers and Gambling, The Strange Woman, Popular Amusements, Practical Hints, Profane Swearing, Vulgarity, Happiness-under these titles Mr. Beecher presents impressive warnings, draws vivid pictures of vice and its results, expresses important truths, and appeals to the highest manhood of every youth. The illustrations are fresh and happy, frequently humorous, and throughout the lectures there

138

is such genuine interest in and sympathy with the lives of young people, that they at once feel the writer's ear­nestness and integrity of purpose and recognize the truth of his teachings. The style is vigorous, forcible, earnest, abounding in life-like pictures that convey a fuller meaning and a stronger moral than any amount of abstract treatise on immorality.

The forcible and realistic scenes that he describes in the lecture on Gambling, for instance, carry such a weight of meaning in their words, and are so full of signifi­cance, that they need no extended explanation to bring home to his hearer's hearts the sad moral they convey. In a series of word-pictures he portrays the career of a young man, "a whole-souled fellow, who is afraid to seem ashamed of any fashionable gayety." Scene first introduces the reluctant and conscience-stricken youth at a quiet little card and wine-party in a genteel coffee­house. Scene second is a silent room in the early morning. Candles burn, dimly on a table, round which are seated four men, motionless, haggard and watchful, intent on their cards and each other's faces. At length they rise and withdraw; some with their gains, others sullen over their losses. The young man is the most sullen and the fiercest of them all. Scenes third and fourth we quote entire:

"Scene the third. Years have passed on. He has seen youth ruined, at first with expostulation, then with only silent regret, then con­senting to take part of the spoils; and, finally, he has himself de-coyed, duped, and stripped them without mercy. Go with me into that dilapidated house, not far from the landing, at New Orleans. Look into that dirty room. Around a broken table, sitting upon boxes, kegs, or rickety chairs, see a filthy crew dealing cards

139

smouched with tobacco, grease, and liquor. One has a pirate-face burnished and burnt with brandy; a shock of grizzly matted hair, half covering his villain eyes, which glare out like a wild beast's from a thicket. Close by him wheezes a white-faced dropsical wretch, vermin-covered, and stenchful. A scoundrel Spaniard and a burly negro (the jolliest of the four) complete the group. They have spectators-drunken sailors, and ogling, thieving, drinking women, who should have died long ago when all that was womanly died. Here hour draws on hour, sometimes with brutal laughter, sometimes with threat and oath and uproar. The last few stolen dollars lost, and temper too, each charges each with cheating, and high words ensue, and blows; and the whole gang burst out the door, beating, biting, scratching and rolling over and over in the dirt and dust. The worst, the fiercest the drunkenest, of the four is our friend who began by making up the game.

"Scene the fourth. Upon this bright day stand with me, if you would be sick of humanity, and look over that multitude of men kindly gathered to see a murderer hanged. At last a guarded cart drags on a thrice-guarded wretch. At the gallows' ladder his courage fails. His coward feet refuse to ascend; dragged up, he is supported by bustling officials; his brain reels, his eye swims, while the meek minister utters a final prayer by his leaden ear. The prayer is said, the noose is fixed, the signal is given; a shudder runs through the crowd as he swings free. After a moment his con­vulsed limbs stretch down and hang heavily and still; and he who began to gamble to make up a game, and ended with stabbing an enraged victim whom he had fleeced, has here played his last game, himself the stake."

Such pictures as these, considered artistically, possess a power, an accuracy of detail, an artistic sense of coloring and composition, an arrangement of light and shade, that mark the author as an artist; con­sidered morally, they possess a depth of significance, a directness of application, a sincerity of purpose, and a power of instruction that show a great teacher.

140

They bear a strong resemblance to the works of Hogarth, and the word pictures of Mr. Beecher might have been the interpretation, if one were needed, of the works of the great English artist. But neither the word-pictures nor the painted pictures require interpretation. Both speak for themselves. With equal power, the British artist with his brush and the American preacher with his sermons have pre­sented the lessons to be drawn from the follies of their respective times; and while, on the one hand, the scenes of Hogarth possess a power of satire that is lack­ing in those of Mr. Beecher, there is, on the other hand, an earnestness of moral purpose in the scenes of Mr. Beecher that is wholly wanting in the paintings of the English master. The paragraphs here quoted are but solitary examples of pictures that abound throughout these lectures, which, dealing with moral subjects, are thoroughly practical, and calculated to awaken the dormant perceptions of young men to the dangers that surround them.

These lectures were first collected and published in 1845; a second edition was brought out in 1846, and of these two editions more than sixty thousand copies were sold. A third edition was published in 1873 by J. B. Ford & Co. of New York, who included it in their "Uniform Edition" of Mr. Beecher's works. In the preface to the third edition Mr. Beecher gives this humorous account of the lectures and the narrow­ness of their escape from oblivion: "Dr. Isaac Bar­rows' sermons had long been favorites of mine. I was fascinated by the exhaustive thoroughness of his treat­ment of subjects, by a certain calm and homely dignity,

141

and by his marvellous procession of adjectives. Ordi­narily adjectives are the parasites of substantives- courtiers that hide or cover the king with blandish­ments-but in Barrow's hands they became a useful and indeed quite respectable element of composition. Considering my early partiality for Barrow, I have always regarded it as a wonder that I escaped so largely from the snares and temptations of that rhetorical demon, the Adjective. Barrow has four sermons on 'Industry.' I began reading them. Before half fin­ishing the first one, I had found that he had said every­thing I had thought of and a good deal more. In utter disgust I threw my manuscript across the room, and saw it slide under the bookcase, and there it would have remained had not my wife pulled it forth. After many weeks, however, I crept back to it, led by this curious encouragement. A young mechanic in my parish was reading with enthusiasm a volume of lec­tures to young men, then just published. Every time I met him he was eloquent with their praise. At length, by his persuasion, I consented to read them, and soon opened my eyes with amazement. After going through one or two of them, I said, 'If these lectures can do good, I am sure mine may take their chance!' I resumed their preparation, but I kept Barrow shut up on the shelf."

Mr. Beecher has appeared as a lecturer and an orator for many seasons and on many occasions.

"In 1856 the society," says the Plymouth Church Manual," at the request of a number of eminent clergy­men and others, voted him leave of absence to traverse the country on behalf of the cause of liberty, then felt

142

to be in peril." At the time of the "fugitive slave law" bill, when there was instituted a Union Saving Committee at Castle Garden, New York, for the pur­pose of making out black lists of those merchants who were to be ruined financially unless they consented to change their principles, Mr. Beecher labored manfully in maintaining the proscribed merchants, and urging them to resistance. He also lectured upon this subject throughout New England and New York, and wrote a series of articles for the Independent.* He has de­livered single lectures, and lectures in courses, in many of the principal cities of New England, the Middle States, the South and West, and it is stated on good authority that his beautiful country home at Peekskill on the Hudson was built from the proceeds of two years' lectures.

Mr. Beecher came to the East in the midst of the intensity of the anti-slavery conflict, threw himself into it, in the metropolis, with all the ardor of his passion­ate nature, and at once occupied a front rank on a platform which abounded with orators, and in an epoch which evoked oratory such as has at no other time in American history been heard in America. From 1847 to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 the nation was steadily rising from a red heat to white heat, till it became molten in war. The volcano underneath was heaving; the eruption was preparing to take place. Slavery was becoming more and more lordly and arrogant, and was steadily extending its aggres­sions. It had long since purchased Louisiana. It

* Mrs. Stowe's "Men of Our Times."

143

had swooped down upon Mexico, to make of Texas a slave empire of enormous proportions. It followed this act of spoliation by trampling under foot its own covenant, destroying the Compromise line, and open­ing all the farther West to slavery. The Douglas device of "Squatter Sovereignty"-the absurd no-principle that the first handful of immigrants in a Ter­ritory should be permitted to determine its perma­nent character and destiny-was next invented. Kansas was thus flung open to the border ruffians, with pistol and bowie-knife, who wanted no better sport than the guerilla campaign to which this invited them. The North proved herself equal to the emergency: emi­gration societies were organized; the emigrants were equipped with Sharpe's rifles; and at public meetings held in churches at the North collections were taken up to aid them. It was at one such collection that Mr. Beecher, in one of those epigrammatic utterances which are sometimes the best fruit of genuine oratory, declared that a Sharpe's rifle was better than a Bible to convert a border ruffian-an epigram that ran through all the country, and earned for the rifle the name of "Beecher's Bible." Popular Sovereignty failed, and Kansas was made free by her own vote. Then the next step was taken: slavery was declared not local but national; and the right of the master to hold his slave in every State of the Union was gravely argued on constitutional grounds by lawyers, and even seri­ously defended on moral grounds by Doctors of Di­vinity. Mr. Toombs made his famous boast that he would call the roll of his slaves under the shadow of Bunker Hill; and it did not seem then the presump-

144

tuous boast that it seems now. The demoralization of the public conscience was frightful. The church-bells all over the country called men together to save not fellow-men from chains and slavery, but the Union by perpetuating slavery and fastening the chains upon the slave. The doctrine of a "higher law" than the law of the land was not only jeered at by politicians but denounced by ministers. The Fugitive Slave law made it a crime to aid a man escaping from bondage; to feed him, clothe him, guide him, shelter him. Ministers from the pulpits preached the duty of obedi­ence to this infamous law, on the text, ''The powers that be are ordained of God." The crime against humanity was ignored; the condemnation uttered by Christ against those who do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the imprisoned, was practically erased from the New Testament. I well remember the impression produced upon the audience by Mr. Beecher one Sunday morning by a single sen­tence, solemnly uttered with upraised hand: "If I had a son who was a slave, and he did not seek for liberty at every hazard and at every cost, I would write across his name the word 'Disowned.' " The sentence seems simple enough now, but it thrilled the audience then like a flash of electricity from a powerful battery.

Such an epoch was prolific in orators and oratory. The audience, the time, the theme, the men, were all there. Among the men it is certain there was no one who was more execrated and admired, more feared and loved, than the young preacher from the West. His practical sense and his catholic spirit, no less than his passionate earnestness and his dramatic genius,

145

made him a power among men of power. He believed with the Abolitionists that slavery was a crime against humanity and against God, but he never joined them in personal execration of the slaveholder. He be­lieved with them that it was the sacred and solemn duty of the North to rid itself of all responsibility for slavery, but he repudiated the Garrisonian charac­terization of the Constitution as a "compact with hell," and regarded it with respect, as an instrument possessed with the spirit of liberty, but not with a superstitious reverence, as a divinely inspired oracle which common hands could not improve. In the pul­pit, on the platform, in lectures and addresses, all over the North he labored to arouse the public conscience, to stir the public feeling, to shake off the public lethargy. One of the most dramatic acts of his life belongs to this epoch. It was in the old Broadway Tabernacle, which was packed from floor to ceiling. The chains with which John Brown had been bound had been brought into the meeting, and lay upon the table on the platform. The orator kindled as he spoke; the chains before him became a symbol of the chains that bound the wrists of three million slaves, and in an out­burst of passion he seized upon them, cast them upon the floor, and ground them beneath his heel as though he would then and there grind the whole power of slavery to dust beneath his feet. The effect was inde­scribable. The whole audience cheered till the roof rang, and all hearts took a new vow to march on till every chain should be broken and every slave set free. A book might be filled with illustrative incidents of the oratory of that period; and of all its orators-

146

Seward, Chase, Sumner, Phillips, Garrison, Parker, Thompson, Bacon-none in immediate power over an audience equalled Mr. Beecher. One such instance must serve here. It occurred a little over a year after Mr. Beecher had occupied the pulpit of Plymouth Church. He was called to a meeting held at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City, October 23d, 1848. The people were assembled to raise a ran­som for two suffering slave-girls, and the occasion was one that called for an orator's most earnest efforts and the most hearty co-operation of individuals. Mr. Beecher has said of late, looking back to that time, that "he considered it one of the most memorable evenings of his life." A private letter of that date from one who was present gives the following simple but graphic picture of the scene. For it we are indebted to a friend. It has not, we believe, before been published:

October 24, 1848.

Last evening we went over to a great meeting held in the Broad­way Tabernacle for the purpose of raising two thousand dollars for the redemption of the Edmistons, two poor slave-girls, in whose case Mr. Beecher was much interested. The speakers announced were Mr. H. W. Beecher, Dr. Dowling, and Alvan Stewart, Esq. As Stewart did not make his appearance, the two reverends had it all to themselves. The immense house was crowded. The building, you know, is an amphitheatre, with the speaker's platform on the floor, or but slightly raised. We sat in the singers' seats, directly behind the speakers and facing the great congregation. Such a sight is in itself alone very impressive, and full of solemnity. It has a judg­ment-day effect upon the imagination.

I need not tell you, I am sure, that Mr. Beecher spoke well, and with great power, and that as he poured forth the breath­ing thoughts and burning words of indignation, scorn, contempt,

147

and pity, his audience seemed completely in his hands, and the breathless silence, the flowing tear, or the thunder of applause gave unmistakable evidence that he made himself understood and felt. He seemed to enjoy the hurrahs!

"I thank you for that noise!" said he, after a tremendous burst; "it cheers me, and makes me feel that I am among men-men and brethren." As you may suppose, he got it again. In speaking of the old man, the father of these girls, he stopped short. "The father!" he exclaimed. "Do goods and chattels have fathers?" Do slaves have daughters? The father! would to God Will Shakespeare was living! He might make a drama out of that sentence more touching than any he ever wrote!" After Dr. Bowling's address, which was very good, and in some respects better than Mr. Beecher's, a collec­tion was taken up, and reported as $600. This was not satisfactory to ministers or people. A voice from the crowd, "Take up an­other!" Another collection was made, but still several hundreds were lacking. Mr. S. B. Chittenden gave his name for another $50; his brother, Henry Chittenden, another $50; H. C. Bowen, $100; Chittenden, another $25; and so the ball rolled on, the ministers on the platform making short and appropriate remarks, the audience calling out, "How much is wanting now?"

Mr. Beecher seemed to be on his feet and talking all the time, popping about like a box of fireworks accidentally ignited, and going off in all shapes and directions-a rocket here with falling stars, a fiery wheel there, and before you could think, a nest of ser­pents right in your teeth.

During one of the pauses Mr. Beecher sprang up, exclaiming, "Where is Captain Knight, of the New World? I thought I saw him!" "Here!" cried a manly voice from the gallery; "he has contributed twice, and if you will come on board the ship in the morning he will contribute again." A hearty burst of applause fol­lowed." We want him on the platform," said Mr. Beecher. He came in a few moments, amid the cheering of the audience. Mr. B. urged him to speak, to which he seemed to demur, turning slightly from the people.

"The Captain does not feel quite so bold here as on the deck of

148

his ship, but he'll give us a good speech," said Mr. Beecher, patting him on the shoulder, and gently turning him toward the audience.

As the Captain is a fine, handsome-looking fellow, well whiskered, and a head and shoulders taller than Mr. Beecher, the effect was irresistibly comic, and brought another round from the crowd. Captain Knight made a short speech, and without mentioning what he had given before, gave another fifty. "When the whole sum was raised but fifty dollars, "Now," said Mr. Beecher, "I never did hurrah in a public meeting, but when this account is closed up, I •will join in three of the loudest cheers that ever rang through this old "building." "I'll take the balance," called out Mr. Studwell of Plymouth Church. And then there was a mighty shout! Hats were swung, handkerchiefs waved, mouths were on the very broad­est grin, and more ministers than Mr. Beecher joined in the row, Three cheers were given for Captain Knight, three more for Mr. Beecher, and then the people quieted down under the influence of one of those rapid transformations of his by which he instantly becomes the model Presbyterian minister. He made a few remarks upon the gratitude we owed to God, and proposed the singing of the Dox-ology as our universal expression.

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow" was sung-not with unbounded applause, but with tender and tremendous effect. After a benediction, implored by Dr. Edward Beecher, the great multi­tude quietly dispersed, and the Edmiston sisters were no longer slaves, but free women.

Since the war Mr. Beecher's oratory has been called forth chiefly in his own pulpit and on the lecture plat­form. He has lectured extensively all over the North, and has made at least two expeditions into the South. It is stated on good authority that his beautiful home in Peekskill was built out of the proceeds of two years' lectures. He has generally met a warm welcome wherever he has gone, and there has rarely been any­thing to evoke that peculiar kind of oratorical power

149

which only a great occasion and intense opposition can evoke. But he has spoken everywhere to great audi-ences, easily filling the largest houses, and often leav­ing many outside unable to get in. He has discoursed on every uppermost topic in the public mind: Recon­struction of the South; Education; the Financial Question; Free Trade; the Chinese Question; Tem­perance; as well as upon all sorts of moral, social, and theological subjects. In these lecture tours he has travelled from St. John's to the Golden Grate, and from Montreal to Memphis. I believe he has never visited the Gulf States. He lectures at night and travels by day; but often his engagements are such that he drives directly from the lecture platform to the sta­tion, where he may have to wait for an hour or two before his train arrives and he gets his sleeping-car. He sleeps, however, by day as easily as by night. Never an epicurean or self-indulgent eater, he is philosopher enough to eat what is set before him, asking-no questions-a lesson which he learned probably in his itinerant ministries in his early experiences in the West; at all events, he takes whatever accommoda­tions are provided for him, never grumbling. He rarely, however, consents to receive hospitality, though it is often extended to him. As with most successful speakers, the drain of social intercourse un­fits for the duties of the platform, upon which the lect­urer must go with mind undisturbed and undiverted by previous conversations. He always carries a bag full of books and papers; always gets the morning papers as early as he can, but rarely spends a great deal of time over them. His mornings on the cars are

150

spent with his itinerant library. "He generally has some dry old work on theology," says his lecture agent. "I have sometimes asked him, 'What are you reading that for?' To which he has replied, 'Well, I never can tell when any one may be going to pitch into me; and then these old fellows come in very handy. I read it and lay it away in the garret where I can use it when I want it.' " He always carries his Bible with him; is a continuous student of it; often takes it out of his pocket to read a passage which he desires to quote in a friendly discussion, and he rarely fails to turn to the desired passage with facility. He never delivers the same lecture twice in the same form; rarely if ever uses notes. His introductions are often, his general divisions sometimes, and his illus­trations always more or less varied. Incidents that have occurred during the day, suggestions from the day's conversation, suggestions from the day's reading, are woven in, or are added to the train of thought, or even give it a new form and color. He never speaks to entertain, though he never speaks without enter­taining; but I doubt whether he could make a speech without a definite and earnest moral purpose. I have sometimes heard him try-in speeches of reply to com­plimentary allusions on public occasions, or after-dinner gatherings, and never yet heard a success. He is not a good after-dinner speaker unless he takes a theme and aims at a result; then sometimes his suc­cess is brilliant. Such was the case at the dinner to Herbert Spencer in New York in 1882. He was the last speaker of the evening. It was late; the audience were already weary; and the speeches up to that time

151

had been purely and coldly scientific, unrelieved by any elements of emotion, and, except in the casual remarks of the chairman and the single speech of Carl Schurz, unillumined by any wit or humor. Be­ginning with a play of humor as irresistible as it was spontaneous, Mr. Beecher secured the sympathy of his audience in the first few sentences. Irradiating his address throughout with it in the most unexpected places, he kept alive and alert the interest and atten­tion. Gradually, insensibly to them, perhaps insensi­bly to himself, he lifted his auditors above the cold, dry, intellectual light in which the meeting had been kept, into the warm and sunny atmosphere of spiritual and emotional life. When, as he drew toward the close, he appealed to the personal consciousness of his hearers to confirm Paul's testimony to the strife for­ever going on in all awakened souls between the lower animal and the higher spiritual nature, the responses of "That's so," like Amen in a Methodist meeting, came from different quarters of the room; when, with a voice tremulous with emotion, he expressed his own personal sense of obligation to Mr. Spencer for intel­lectual and spiritual light and strength, conferred in the new vantage-ground given to theologic thought, the audience showed its sympathy by its breathless and almost solemn silence; and when he had closed, with good wishes for their guest, phrased in the form of a prayer to "Him who holds the stars in his hands," the whole assembly rose to its feet, and with cheers and waving of handkerchiefs greeted both the orator and the guest.

This is perhaps a digression; yet it serves to empha-

152

size the fact that an earnest and definite purpose is always necessary to evoke Mr. Beecher' s power; and he is never so powerful as when opposition makes that purpose most definite and most earnest. Of this his lect­ure course on the Pacific Coast affords another example. His views on the Chinese Question were pronounced and had been widely circulated. He had preached and lectured on it in the East, and his utterances had of course preceded him. The Pacific papers were all opposed to him. But though, it is needless to say, he neither modified his views nor toned down his utter­ances, he lectured to immense audiences. Engaged to deliver a course of four lectures in San Francisco, he delivered nine, the proceeds of the last one being $4200. His lectures were published verbatim, and it was afterward declared that he had done more than any one had ever done to check and modify the public sentiment against the Chinese, which race prejudice and political interest had done so much to inflame, and religion had unfortunately done so little to allay.

The most striking illustration, however, of this effect of opposition to rouse into full play all Mr. Beecher's powers, is afforded by his experiences in Richmond, Virginia, where he went to lecture in Jan­uary, 1877. Mr. Pond, his lecture agent, was with him, and thus tells the story of his experience and his victory:

In all the five hundred lectures which I have heard from Mr. Beecher-and I have travelled with him over 200,000 miles-there was no one so remarkable as that delivered in Richmond. I had sold his lecture for $500 to a man by the name of Powell, who owned

155

the theatre. We went to Washington January 23rd, 1877, and I was telegraphed by him that we must not come, as Mr. Beecher would not be allowed to speak in Richmond. I said nothing to Mr. Beecher about it, but telegraphed Powell that we should be there. As we arrived at Richmond in the morning, he came aboard the train and said to me, "It won't do for Mr. Beecher to speak here," and he showed me a four-page circular issued by a State official, the heading of which ran something like this:

"Shall Beecher be allowed to speak in Richmond? The Brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin!' Henry Ward Beecher, who sent the Sharps Rifles to Kansas! Henry Ward Beecher, who is famous for drawing the Bead, and Probably is as Liable to Draw a Bead on one of His Auditors as Any! Henry Ward Beecher, who Helped to Dig the Graves of Mill­ions of our Best Sons of the South! Henry Ward Beecher, who has been False to his Country, False to his Religion, and False to his God! Shall this man be allowed to speak in Richmond ? ? ?"

When we got into town the newsboys were selling anti-Beecher poetry and songs on the streets. We reached the hotel; Mr. Beecher registered and left the room in the midst of general tittering and sneering. When he went into the dining-room, even the waiters tittered and sneered, and it was hard to get waited on. We were simply insulted in every way, but Mr. Beecher said nothing. I remember as we walked out of the dining-room he caught up a little golden-haired baby, when a lady rushed up, and snatching the child away ran off with it. Mr. Beecher went up to his room, while I went up to the theatre to see Powell.

Affairs went quietly enough that day, and at night, when the lecture was to come off, we went up together to the theatre. The Board of Trade, the Tobacco Board, and the Legislature then in ses­sion had all by resolution agreed that none of their members would go. But when it came time to open the doors, as every man knew his fellow was not going, he went, and as a consequence the Gov­ernor was there, and all the legislators, and they were having quite a laugh at each other's expense. The house was filled with men, and they were a noisy lot; but Mr. Powell had secured a detail of thirty

156

policemen to insure quiet. After I entered the stage-door-there were five or six policemen to keep the crowd back-I heard them making a great noise in front, and Powell came to me and said, "Don't you introduce him. You'll be egged as sure as you go out there." Mr. Beecher knew that it was to be a wild meeting, but at last said to me, "Well, I'm ready," and together we went out and took seats on the stage.

As we sat down, the vast crowd of men and the few ladies in the gallery commenced to applaud, and some turbulent characters gave a regular rebel yell. I rose at last and introduced Mr. Beecher, merely saying that there was no act of my life that gave me such pleasure as introducing so great and good a man as Henry Ward Beecher. I sat down, and they went at it again. We speak of a man's rising to an emergency. He stood up there, in his old way, and let them yell until they got tired. He was to lecture on Hard Times, and his first words were that there was a law of God, a com­mon and natural law, that brains and money controlled the universe. He said, "This law cannot be changed even by the big Virginia Legislature, which opens with prayer and closes with a benedic­tion." As the legislators were all there in a body, the laugh went around. It was not five minutes before the house was clapping. Mr. Beecher talked two hours and a half to them, and of all the speeches that I ever heard that was the best one. He said, first, he would eulogize Virginia and the bravery of the men of the South, and then he would tell them just what they did that was wrong. In his peroration he eulogized Virginia as a commonwealth; she who had bred her sons for Presidents; how great she was, etc., etc.; and got them all perfectly wrought up, and then he continued: "But what a change when she came to breeding her sons for the market!" Then he would draw that terrible picture of slavery and its effects, and they had to sit quietly and take it all. After the lecture we left the theatre quickly, got into a carriage and went down to the hotel. Then, once in his room, Mr. Beecher sat back in his chair and laughed, as much as to say, "We have captured Richmond, haven't we?" Then came a knock at the door, and as it opened, there in the hall stood a crowd of these gentlemen; they walked

157

right in, and the spokesman said, "We want to thank you for this lecture, Mr. Beecher. This is the Hon.--, and this is the Hon.---, and Lieutenant-Governor--," and so on, introducing everybody; and "We want you to lecture here to-morrow night for us. Why, this is good enough for our wives to hear." Mr. Beecher stood up, and said, "Gentlemen, I am a piece of artillery here that Mr. Pond pulls around and touches off when he wants to." At this they showed hundred-dollar bills, and offered anything if he would only lecture again, but as he was booked for Washington the next night it was out of the question, and he had to refuse. They came in crowds the next morning at seven o'clock to see him off.

Mr. Beecher's lecture-tours are generally so arranged as to enable him to get to his home in time for his Sabbath services; indeed he is rarely absent from his Friday evening meeting, often travelling night and day to reach it. But when he is absent he is always ready to preach on the Sabbath, and no consideration of the possible effect of such a course in cheapening the tickets to his lecture on Monday night has the slight­est influence on him. It is rare, however, that he preaches when away from home more than one sermon on the Sabbath. He is a believer in the one-sermon theory, holding that it is enough for the hearer and quite enough for the preacher. It is hardly necessary to add that he always has more invitations than he can accept, and more auditors than he can address. One of the most notable of these preaching occasions was that at Mr. Moody's church in Chicago, in the winter, I think it was, of 1878-79. A friend who was with him says: "I rose early to go to the church, and as we started out from the hotel noticed people hurrying up from every quarter, though it was nearly or quite a mile to the church. As to reaching the church itself,

158

that was an impossibility; one could not get within a block of it. Street preachers were scattered about ad­dressing the crowd, which was estimated to number not less than fifty thousand. The sermon itself is de­scribed by some who heard it as worthy of such an occasion."

An analysis of some of Mr. Beecher's elements of power as a preacher has already been given in a pre­ceding chapter. The same characteristics of thought, of imagination, of common-sense, of sympathy, of hu-mor, mark him as a lecturer and an orator; though the public platform allows a somewhat greater freedom of action, an unlimited range of topic, and a greater opportunity for a display of eloquence or wit than is ordinarily afforded in the pulpit. An analysis of one is in most respects an analysis of the other. The same instruments of power are wielded in both in-stances, though with a somewhat different spirit, and for different ends. The spontaneity of thought, the soundness of judgment, the common-sense, the deep sympathy, the responsiveness of feeling, which char­acterize his preaching also mark his oratory. To these traits Dr. Storrs adds, in his address at the silver wedding:

"His wonderful animal vigor; his fulness of bodily power; his voice, which can thunder and whisper alike; his sympathy with nature, which is so intimate and confidential that she tells him all her secrets, and supplies him with continual images; and, above all, put as the crown upon the whole, that enthusiasm for Christ to which he has himself referred this evening, and which has certainly been the animating power in

159

his ministry-the impression upon his soul that he, having seen the glory of the Son of God, has been set hero to reflect that glory upon others; to inspire their minds with, it; to touch their hearts with it; to kindle their souls with it, and so to prepare them for the heavenly realm-put all these together, and you have some of the elements of power in this great Preacher -not all of them, but some, snatched hurriedly from the great treasure-house. There you have a few, at any rate, of the traits and forces of him whose power has chained you, and quickened and blessed you, dur-ing all these years."

* * * * * "Then, when you unite with these other things of which I have spoken, as elements of his power, a some­what vehement and combative nature, that always gets quickened and fired by opposition, as you have found, and that never is so self-possessed, so serene, and so victorious, as when the clamor is loudest around him and the light is fiercest-and if you add very fixed and positive ideas on all the great ethical, social, and public questions of the time-there you have the champion Reform-fighter of the last twenty-five years. I never saw a man that it was more dangerous, on the whole, to arouse by opposing him-a thing which, therefore, I never do."

* * * * * "Well, when Mr. Beecher was in England, they made volcanoes around him, on no small scale, at Liverpool, at Manchester, and the other places. But that fluent thought within, and that fluent eloquence on his lips, put out the volcanoes; or, if they did not

160

put them out, they made the fire shoot the other way, till the ground became too hot for the English Govern-ment to stand on, if it would permit its evident sym­pathy for the Southern Confederacy to be formulated into law."

It is thus that a brother preacher, himself an orator, has characterized Mr. Beecher's oratory, although he confesses himself no more able to do so than is a man to describe Niagara having never seen it.

These traits are but a few that have conspired in making him one of the greatest of modern orators. "His power," to close the chapter with another extract from the same address, "comes from many sources. It is like a rushing royal river which has its birthplace in a thousand springs. It is like a magnificent oak, which has its grand uplift of trunk and stem, and its vast sweep of branches, by reason of the multitudinous roots which strike down deep, and spread through the soil in every direction. These supply the mighty timbers for the battle ships and the building!"

CHAPTER VIII.

MR. BEECHER IN ENGLAND DURING THE CIVIL WAR.

it is not easy to get "reminiscences" out of Mr. Beecher. He rarely talks of himself, even to his intimate friends; and he is far more interested in pres­ent and future questions than in the problems of the past already solved. But he had at various times promised good-naturedly to different personal friends, that he would give them an account of his English experiences. One evening he yielded to their com­bined pertinacity, and to a group of twenty or so in his parlors he gave the long-promised narrative. One of his auditors contrived to have a short-hand reporter present for the benefit of a wider circle. This report he has put into my hands, and with some slight revis­ion it is printed here, without, however, any revision from Mr. Beecher.

In 1863 I found myself pretty well worn out. I had been lecturing for the three years before the war came on. I was particularly busy in the year 1860, but grew more so after the election of Lincoln before his inau­guration, which was really one of the most critical periods in the history of the war, when there was a demand made all through the North by the Democratic party that we should throw up the election, and when there were a great many men that were very uncertain

162

whether we had better not do it, so that I preached Sunday night after Sunday night and went all over the North lecturing to sustain the courage of the people and to hold things up, as it were. Then came on the war, and you all remember that, and the intense excitement of the times, and how the first three years were largely years of defeat. In the spring of 1863 I concluded that two or three months in Europe would give me more power to serve the public than if I stayed at home; so with Dr. John Raymond and the Rev. Dr. Holme, now a Baptist clergyman in New York City, I embarked and went to England.

It has been often asked whether I was sent by the government. The government took no stock in me at that time. Seward was in the ascendancy. I had been pounding Lincoln in the early years of the war, and I don't believe there was a man down there, unless it was Mr. Chase, who would have trusted me with anything. At any rate, I went on my own responsibility, and with no one behind me except my church. They told me they would pay my expenses and sent me off. When I reached England and saw what was the condi­tion of public feeling there, I refused to make any speech and declined all invitations. I would not go under the roof of any man who was not a friend of the North in this struggle, and throughout the whole of my stay in England I refused to let any man pay one penny for me. I never would let any one pay my expenses on the road nor my hotel bills, nor would I go as guest to the house of any man, unless he had been forward to promote our cause. Everywhere my answer was, "My church pays my expenses, and I can-

163

not afford to take any hospitality or money from the enemies of the North, and I won't take it." Well, as I lay on my back on board the ship going over-I can scarcely get out of my berth at sea, and am only in tolerable comfort when I am lying on my back-I turned the matter over in my mind and said to myself: "I have no doubt whatever of the final success of this cause, and I am perfectly certain that slavery is going with it. I have been for at least twenty-five or thirty years studying the Constitution of the United States, the history of the debates, and laying up all manner of material for discussion on the subject of slavery, and now we have got so far along that this question, I suppose, is settled, and all this material must go to profit and loss. I never shall want to use it again; so let it go." Whereas, in point of fact, all these accu­mulations and investigations were brought about by direct providence in an unforeseen way, as it were, to enable me to go through, the campaign that I after­ward entered into in England.

I reached England, at the Mersey, in a storm. A little tug-boat came off with Mr. Charles Duncan on board, and a committee from Manchester with a request to have me lecture there. I was of the color, I sup­pose, of a collier just out of the mine. I had been lying under the smoke-stack, and my old hat, that was white when I started, was now of a doubtful color. I was so thoroughly indignant at the state of England-at the course that had been pursued there-that I had made up my mind that I would neither preach, lecture, speak, nor do anything else of a public charac­ter. I had seen Dr. Campbell, who was a personal

164

friend of mine and always had been an ardent one, and who, in anticipation of my coming, had said, "Mr. Beecher thinks he can twist this English public around his finger as easy as he does the Americans, but he will find he has a different set of men to deal with;" he also put in here a very ungenerous paragraph that "Mr. Beecher is a man who at a time when his coun­try is in the greatest distress finds it convenient to take a vacation and conies to Europe to enjoy himself." This remark and others of the same kind were soon abroad. I went right to Charlie Duncan's house in Liverpool, and afterward made with my companions a little tour in England, violating twice my determina­tion not to speak in England. This was at Glasgow and at London, and was before I went on the Conti­nent. I attended a temperance breakfast in Glasgow-I think it was possibly Edinburgh-under the pledge that nothing should be reported, and that what was said there should be considered simply as social inter-changes and should not go into the newspapers. But the next morning my speech was out in all the papers, was published all abroad, and was sent back to this country.

The other exception I made was in London. The Congregational clergymen of London and vicinity were very urgent that I should meet them at a breakfast, and I at last consented. We had there, I should think, a hundred and fifty persons, and after the eating was over and some speeches had been made, I was called up and made a statement expressing my indignation at the position of the Congregational clergymen of England in view of this war. The key-note of it was

165

that they were the men who were seeking to know the signs of the times, and to have the interpretation of the feeling of the age, and that they, as a whole body, had gone wrong and had thrown their sympathy on the side virtually of slavery and against liberty.* I said to myself, "They will say, of course, that I am an enthusiast, and that this speech is to be taken with a good deal of allowance; so that if I can clinch the point with a speech from a calm-minded man it will help the cause." Therefore, I said to the chairman that Dr. John Raymond, President of Vassar College, was with me and would add some views of his own. Dr. John Raymond was a man not easily excited, but when he did get kindled up! I sat and looked at him in per­fect amazement. He went at them like a hundred earthquakes, with a whirlwind or two thrown in. It was a magnificent speech, of such towering indignation as I never heard before or since.

Soon after I was visited by the Anti-Slavery Union -I think that is the name. There were in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and almost all the principal cities, an elect few who understood the conflict, and who took the side of the North and organized to attempt to change the public sentiment of England. They endeavored to persuade me to make some speeches, but I refused.

I started from England, refusing to make any engagements or say anything publicly. I was in a towering indignation. Almost every man in England

* Rev. Henry Allon, of London, who heard this speech, afterward said that it was the best speech that Mr. Beecher made in England.

166

who rode in a first-class car was our enemy. The great majority of professional men were our enemies. Almost all the Quakers were against us. All the Con­gregational ministers in England-not in Wales-were either indifferent or lukewarm, directly opposed. The government was our enemy. It was only the common people and mostly the people who had no vote that were on our side. Everywhere the atmosphere was adverse. In Manchester our American merchants and men sent out to buy were afraid, and knuckled down to the public feeling. The storm in the air was so por­tentous that they did not dare to undertake to resist it. No man ever knows what his country is to him until he has gone abroad and heard it everywhere de­nounced and sneered at. I had ten men's wrath in me, and my own share is tolerably large, at the attitude assumed all around me against my country.

We went on the continent, and I sunk everything out of sight, determined that I would forget the whole thing, and for two or three months I wandered through France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, and came around to Paris again. This was before the ocean cable was laid. While at the Grand Hotel at Paris, word came of the victory of Grant at Vicksburg. I got the news on Sunday morning. I went to church, but I walked in the air. I took a seat in our minister's pew-Mr. Dayton's. His daughter, a young woman of twenty-two or twenty-three, and a young friend of about the same age were seated together, and after the preliminary services were over and the minister was giving some notices for the week, I turned to her and said, "Grant has taken Vicksburg!" She started up

167

and then she whispered to her friend, and says to me again, "Is it true?" "Yes," said I, "it is certain." Then we rose up when the hymn had been given out. She stood by my side and began to sing, and as she finished one line she broke into a flood of tears and down she sat, and down sat the other, and they just shook, they were so overwhelmed with feeling. I thought that was very good for Sunday morning; but about noon George Jones, of the New York Times, came over from America, bringing the news of the other great victory at the same time-Gettysburg.

Now Jones told me about it, and I was so elated that I called a cab and rode around to Dayton's house. He had gone to his room to take a siesta, and I got him up and told him of the second instalment of good news, and the whole family were clustered together to hear it. I made a short stay, and going downstairs, who should I meet but Jones himself, coming up to tell the news. I was very sorry to think I had fore­stalled him-was mortified, in fact, because it was his privilege to have given the news first, as I had received it from him myself; but he had not been quick enough. In the Grand Hotel there was a great glass-covered court, and as I would stand at the landing and look down there would always be a group of Southerners in the left-hand corner. It had come to be a resort of theirs, and there were ever so many there. Up to this time when I had walked through I would be insulted in every way-by whistles and sneering re­marks, etc.-and they would tell the servants to carry messages to me, which I learned afterward the pro­prietor would not allow to be sent. As I went in this

168

day of the double victory there they sat, a dozen or fifteen of them. I had never taken any notice of them hitherto-not the least-but after I got this news I walked in and strode right down in front of them with­out saying a word, but carrying my head high, I can tell you, and went upstairs to my room. I never saw one of them there afterward, and I was there myself several days.

I came over to England again and was met in Lon­don by the same gentlemen who had urged me to make addresses. I said, "No; I am going home in Septem­ber. I don't want to have anything to do with Eng­land." But their statement made my resolution give way and changed my programme entirely. It was this:' "Mr. Beecher, we have been counted as the off-scouring, because we have taken up the part of the North. We have sacrificed ourselves in your behalf, and now if you go home and show us no favor or help, they will overwhelm us. They will say, 'Even your friends in America despise you,' and we shall be nowhere, and we think it is rather a hard return. Be-sides," said they, "there is a movement on foot that is going to be very disastrous, if it is not headed off." To my amazement I found that the unvoting English possessed great power in England; a great deal more power, in fact, than if they had had a vote. The aris­tocracy and the government felt:

"These men feel that they have no political privileges, and we must admin­ister with the strictest regard to their feelings or there will be a revolution." And they were all the time under the influence of that feeling. Parliament would at any time for three years have voted for the South

169

against the North, if it had not been for the fear of these common people who did not vote. A plan, therefore, was laid to hold great public meetings dur­ing all that autumn and early winter among the labor­ing masses, to change their feeling, and if that atmos­pheric change could be brought about, Parliament would very soon have done what it was afraid to do, but wanted to do all the time-declare for the Southern Confederacy. The committee said, "If you can lecture for us you will head off this whole movement."

Those considerations were such that I finally yielded. I consented at first to speak at Manchester; and very soon it was arranged that I was to speak at Liverpool also, and out of that grew an arrangement for Glasgow and Edinburgh, and then for London. There was a plan for Birmingham that failed.

Dr. John Raymond could not stay and went home, and I was left alone; I think I never was so lonesome and never suffered so much as I did for the week that I was in London before my tour began. I had been making the tour of Scotland, and came down to Man­chester just one or two days in advance of the appoint­ment. The two men that met me were John Escort and young Watts. His father was Sir Something Watts, and had the largest business house in Central England. He was a young man just recently married, and Escort was the very beau ideal of a sturdy Eng­lishman, with very few words, but plucky enough for a backer against the whole world. They met me at the station, and I saw that there was something on their minds. Before I had walked with them twenty steps, Watts, I think it was, said, "Of course you see there is

170

a great deal of excitement here." The streets were all placarded in blood-red letters, and my friends were very silent and seemed to be looking at me to see if I would flinch. I always feel happy when I hear of a storm, and I looked at them and said, "Well, are you going to back down?" "No," said they, "we didn't know how you would feel.'' "Well," said I, "you'll find out how I am going to feel. I'm going to be heard, and if not now I'm going to be by-and-by. I won't leave England until I have been heard!" You never saw two fellows' faces clear off so. They looked happy.

I went to my hotel, and when the day came on which I was to make my first speech, I struck out the notes of my speech in the morning; and then came up a kind of horror-I don't know whether I can do any­thing with an English audience-I have never had any experience with an English audience. My American ways, which are all well enough with Americans, may utterly fail here, and a failure in the cause of my country now and here is horrible beyond conception to me! I think I never went through such a struggle of darkness and suffering in all my life as I did that afternoon. It was about the going down of the sun that God brought me to that state in which I said, "Thy will be done. I am willing to be annihilated, I am willing to fail if the Lord wants me to." I gave it all up into the hands of God, and rose up in a state of peace and of serenity simply unspeakable, and when the coach came to take me down to Manchester Hall I felt no disturbance nor dreamed of anything but success.

171

We reached the hall. The crowd was already begin­ning to be tumultuous, and I recollect thinking to myself as I stood there looking at them, "I will control you! I came here for victory and I will have it, by the help of God!" Well, I was introduced, and I must confess that the things that I had done and suffered in my own country, according to what the chairman who introduced me said, amazed me. The speaker was very English on the subject, and I learned that I be­longed to an heroic band, and all that sort of thing, with abolitionism mixed in, and so on. By the way, I think it was there that I was introduced as the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher Stowe. But as soon as I began to speak the great audience began to show its teeth, and I had not gone on fifteen minutes before an un­paralleled scene of confusion and interruption occurred. No American that has not seen an English mob can form any conception of one. I have seen all sorts of camp-meetings and experienced all kinds of public, speaking on the stump; I have seen the most disturbed meetings in New York City, and they were all of them as twilight to midnight compared with an Eng­lish hostile audience. For in England the meeting does not belong to the parties that call it, but to who­ever chooses to go, and if they can take it out of your hands it is considered fair play. This meeting had a very large multitude of men in it who came there for the purpose of destroying the meeting and carrying it the other way when it came to the vote.

I took the measure of the audience and said to my­self," About one fourth of this audience are opposed to me, and about one fourth will be rather in sympa-

172

thy, and my business now is not to appeal to that por­tion that is opposed to me nor to those that are already on my side, but to bring over the middle section." How to do this was a problem. The question was, who could hold out longest. There were five or six storm centres, boiling and whirling at the same time; here some one pounding on a group with his umbrella and shouting, ''Sit down there;'' over yonder a row between two or three combatants; somewhere else a group all yelling together at the top of their voice. It was like talking to a storm at sea. But there were the news­paper reporters just in front, and I said to them, "Now, gentlemen, be kind enough to take down what I say. It will be in sections, but I will have it connect­ed by-and-by." I threw my notes away, and entered on a discussion of the value of freedom as opposed to slavery in the manufacturing interest, arguing that freedom everywhere increases a man's necessities, and what he needs he buys, and that it was, therefore, to the interest of the manufacturing community to stand by the side of labor through the country. I never was more self-possessed and never in more perfect good temper, and I never was more determined that my hearers should feel the curb before I got through with them. The uproar would come in on this side and on that, and they would put insulting questions and make all sorts of calls to me, and I would wait until the noise had subsided, and then get in about five minutes of talk. The reporters would get that down and then up would come another noise. Occasionally I would see things that amused me and would laugh outright, and the crowd would stop to see what I was laughing at.

173

Then I would sail in again with a sentence or two. A good many times the crowd threw up questions which I caught at and answered back. I may as well put in here one thing that amused me hugely. There were baize doors that opened both ways into side-alleys, and there was a huge, burly Englishman standing right in front of one of those doors and roaring like a bull of Bashan; one of the policemen swung his elbow around, and hit him in the belly and knocked him through the doorway, so that the last part of the bawl was outside in the alley-way; it struck me so ludicrously to think how the fellow must have looked when he found him­self "hollering "outside that I could not refrain from laughing outright. The audience immediately stopped its uproars, wondering what I was laughing at, and that gave me another chance and I caught it. So we kept on for about an hour and a half before they got so far calmed down that I could go on peaceably with my speech. They liked the pluck. Englishmen like a man that can stand on his feet and give and take; and so for the last hour I had pretty clear sailing. The next morning every great paper in England had the whole speech down. I think it was the design of the men there to break me down on that first speech, by fair means or foul, feeling that if they could do that it would be trumpeted all over the land. I said to them then and there, "Gentlemen, you may break me down now, but I have registered a vow that I will never return home until I have been heard in every county and principal town in the Kingdom of Great Britain. I am not going to be broken down nor put down. I am going to be heard, and my country shall

174

be vindicated." Nobody knows better than I did what it is to feel that every interest that touches the heart of a Christian man and a patriotic man and a lover of liberty is being assailed wantonly, to stand between one nation and your own and to feel that you are in a situation in which your country rises or falls with you. And God was behind it all; I felt it and I knew it, and when I got through and the vote was called off you would have thought it was a tropical thunder­storm that swept through that hall as the ayes were thundered, while the noes were an insignificant and contemptible minority. It had all gone on our side, and such enthusiasm I never saw. I think it was there that when I started to go down into the rooms below to get an exit, that a big, burly Englishman in the gallery wanted to shake hands with me, and I could not reach him, and he called out, ''Shake my umbrella!" and he reached it over; I shook it, and as I did so he shouted, "By Jock! Nobody shall touch that umbrella again !"

I went next to Glasgow. Glasgow was the headquar­ters of a shipping, building interest that was running our blockade. I gave liberty for questions everywhere, promising to answer any question that should be writ­ten and sent up, provided it was a proper one. They were to go into the hands of the presiding officer of the meeting, who would hand them to me and I would answer them. In Glasgow I discussed the question of the relation of slavery to workingmen the world over, carrying along with it the history of slavery in this country. The interruption at that meeting was very bad, but not at all equal to the tumult in Manchester;

175

but after they were once stilled you would have thought we were in a revival. I demonstrated the unity of labor the world over, and discussed the rela­tions of the laboring man to government and to the aristocratic classes, showing the power of wealth, and how slavery had made labor disreputable, and how it was their bounden duty to make labor honorable every­where, and how it was a disgrace to them to be build­ing ships to put down the laborers of America, and to cast shame and contempt on themselves and on every man on earth that earned his living by the sweat of his brow. I told them they were driving nails into their own coffins. My interruptions lasted about an hour there, and the rest of the time was fair weather and smooth sailing. The questions that were put to me there were the shrewdest of any I encountered in England. They included constitutional questions as well as others. There was one question that was very significant and revealed the difficulties that honest men felt there.

Q. "You say this war is a war in the interest of liberty?" A. "Yes." Q. "How, then, is it that your President, in writing to Mr. Greeley, says that if slavery permitted will maintain the Union, slavery will continue, and if the destruction of slavery is necessary to the maintenance of the Union, then it shall be de­stroyed. The Union is what we want." It threw me upon the necessity of proving the honor of the North, and showing its ethical difficulty in maintaining its obligations under the Constitution to all the States of the Union, not trespassing upon their guaranteed rights and prerogatives, and our moral relation to free­dom and to the workingmen of all the world.

176

From there I went to Edinburgh, where I discussed the effect upon literature and learning and institutions of learning and general intelligence of the presence of slavery, on the basis again of the history of slavery in America, and the existing state of things. I thought I had seen a crowd before I went there, but when I went through the lower hall and tried to get into the assembly-room the people were wedged in there so tight that you might just as well try to find a passage through the wall, and I was finally hoisted over their heads and passed on by friendly hands and up to the gallery, and down over the front of the gallery on to the platform, in order to get to the position where I was to speak. There I had less commotion than any­where else. There was a different audience there; there was an educated and moral element in it.

I went from there to Liverpool. If I supposed I had had a stormy time I found out my mistake when I got there. Liverpool was worse than all the rest put to­gether. My life was threatened, and I had had com­munications to the effect that I had better not venture there. The streets were placarded with the most scur­rilous and abusive cards, and I brought home some of them and they are in the Brooklyn Historical Society now.* It so happened, I believe, that the Congrega­tional Association of England and Wales was in session there, and pretty much all of the members were present on the platform. I suppose there were five hundred people on the platform behind me. There were men in the galleries and boxes who came armed,

* See Appendix.

177

and some bold men on our side went up into those boxes and drew their bowie-knives and pistols and said to these young bloods, "The first man that fires here will rue it." I heard a good many narratives of that kind afterward, but knew nothing of it at the time. But of all confusions and turmoils and whirls I never saw the like. I got control of the meeting in about an hour and a half, and then I had a clear road the rest of the way. We carried the meeting, but it required a three hours' use of my voice at its utmost strength. I sometimes felt like a shipmaster attempt­ing to preach on board of a ship through a speaking-trumpet with a tornado on the sea and a mutiny among the men.* By this time my voice was pretty much all used up, and I had yet got to go to Exeter Hall in London.

I went down to London, and by this time all London and all the clubs had seen my speeches, four of which had been fully reported. It is said that a man who has made the conversation of a club over night and had a report of one speech in the London Times is famous. I had had four speeches, occupying three or five columns each, reported, and had been incessantly talked about in the clubs. So I was famous. When I first went to London I stopped at the "Golden Cross," and they put me in a little back room right under the rafters. When I came back from the Continent there had been

* Dr. Campbell, who was present, is reported to have said that he had never heard anything like it since the days of Daniel O'Connell; that he had heard some of his best things, and he thought, on the whole, that not one of them equalled Mr. Beecher's effort at that time.

178

considerable said, and they received me much more politely at the "Golden Cross," and put me in a third-story front room. On the third visit I was received by the landlord and his servants in white aprons, and was bowed in and put in the second story, and had a front parlor and bedroom and everything beautiful. As the cards came in and gentlemen of distinction called I grew in the eyes of the servants every moment. "But Naman was a leper, though he stood the highest in his master's favor." I had had a successful career under difficulties, but had talked and strained my voice so much, that when I went to bed the night before the day I was to speak, I could not be heard aloud, and here I had come to London to close my course by speaking on the moral aspect of the question, and ap­pealing to the religious feeling of the English people. It was the climax-and my voice was gone! I said, "Lord, Thou knowest this. Let it be as Thou wilt." The next morning I woke up in bed, and as soon as I came to myself fairly, and thought about my voice, I didn't dare to speak for fear I should find I could not; but by-and-by I sort of spoke, and then I would not say another word for fear I should lose it. Other­wise I was well and strong; but the huskiness of my voice was such that when I did speak there was no elasticity. There seemed to be one little rift that I spoke through, and if I went above or below it I broke. Then came to me Dr. Waddington and Brother Tompkins, most excellent and devout men they were, and very faithful to our cause. They called on me, and seeing that I was in bonds they cheered me and said, "No matter, you have done your work. What

179

you have already done is sufficient, so it is no matter, if you only make your appearance and bow." They prayed with me and it lifted me right out of my de­spondency.

So I plucked up courage and went to the hall that evening, and the streets of London were crowded. I could not get near the hall except by the aid of a policeman. And when I got around to the back door, I felt a woman throw her arms around me-I saw they were the arms of a woman, and that she had me in her arms-and when I went through the door she got through, too, and on turning around I found it was one of the members of my church. She had married and gone to London, and she was determined to hear that speech, and so took this way to accomplish an ap­parently impossible task. She grasped and held me until I had got her in. I suppose that is the way a great many sinners get into heaven finally. Well, I had less trouble and less tumult in London than any­where else.* The battle had been fought, and my

* A correspondent who was present gave an account of this Exeter Hall meeting, from which I condense some extracts, as presenting a picture of one of these famous meetings from a spectator's point of view.

"When Mr. Beecher arose, there were five minutes of the most tre­mendous cheering I have ever witnessed, in the midst of which stood Mr. Beecher, calm as a rock in the midst of the surges. His voice was scarcely as sonorous and clear as it usually is. 'I expect to be hoarse,' he said; 'and I am willing to be hoarse, if I can in any way assist to bring the mother and daughter heart to heart and band together.' This senti­ment was received with great applause; and Mr. Beecher's hoarseness was thus impressed to the service of his cause. But he so economized his voice, that every word was distinctly heard by the vast assembly.

180

address there was a good deal more of a religious ad­dress than anywhere else, though I discussed in all these places very thoroughly the whole subject of slavery. But the way was broken and the storm had passed away, and the cause was triumphant. That which I had had in mind was effected. The idea of now raising lecturers, under Spence & Co., to go through England and turn the common people away from the North and toward the South was now aban-doned. The enthusiasm of the whole country ran strongly in the other direction. And here, let me say that everywhere the weavers, the laborers, that were by the famine of cotton thrown out of employment and into the greatest distress, were stanch and true to

------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . At one time when there was an interval of a few moments, arising form the effort of the hisses to triumph over the cheers, Mr. Beecher, with a quiet smile, said, 'Friends, I thank you for this inter- ruption. It gives me a chance to rest. The hisses thereupon died away, and had no resurrection during the evening. . . . Again did Mr. Beecher level his lance; it was at those who were making capital out of what they call 'American sympathy with the oppressor of Poland.' Nothing could exceed the drollery with which, almost blush- ing, he presented the loving and jealous maiden who, when her suitor is not attentive, gets up a flirtation with some other man. 'America flits with Russia, but has her eye on England.' The presence of war ships form Russia at New York has been the leading card of the Con- federates here in their game to win popular sympathy for the South. Consequently, when Mr. Beecher said, 'But it is said it is very un- worthy that America should be flirting with the oppressor of Poland,' there were violent shouts, 'Yes, yes.' Mr. Beecher waited until the cries had entirely subsided; then leaning a little forward, he put on an indescribably simple expression, and said mildly, 'I think so too. And now you know exactly how we felt when you flirted with Mason at the Lord Mayor's banquet.' I cannot attempt to describe the effect of these (continued at bottom of next page)

181

the right instincts of the laboring man. They never flinched, and our cause was successful in England by reason of the fidelity of the great, working, common people of England.

Then came a series of breakfasts. They were all given by friendly men, and by men who were really in earnest to know all about the facts of the case. I had to discuss the questions of taxation, the issue of such an enormous quantity of greenbacks, and the ability and the willingness of our people to pay; and I had to go into finance a good deal, and what little knowledge I had came wonderfully handy. When you stand up at a breakfast-table and are questioned by shrewd men who do understand these things, the intellectual

----------------------------------------------------------------- words on the throng. The people arose with a shout that began to be applause, but became a shout of laughter. . . . In the heart of Mr. Beecher's oration was given a denunciation of slavery more power­ful than I have ever heard from his lips. He scourged and scourged it until it seemed to stand before us a hideous monster, bloated with human blood and writhing under his goads. He told, apropos of those who said, 'Why not let the South go?' the story of Fowell Buxton's seizing the mad dog by the neck and holding him at the risk of his life until help could come; then asked what they would say if the man who, witnessing this, should have cried, 'Let him go. Let him go.' 'Shall we let this monster go?' he cried. 'No! No! No!' surged up from the crowd. At this moment a colored man, lately come here from the South, stood up in his seat, which was exactly in the centre of the building, and waved his hat. Other colored persons rose and waved hats and handkerchiefs, the audience cheering until the city outside seemed to be waked up, for we heard a storm of shouting voices outside. The crowd also caught sight of an old lady (white) in the gallery, who had a huge umbrella, which, having expanded to its utmost dimensions, she waved to and fro like a mighty balloon, which had a very comical effect indeed."

182

ordeal is much severer than the physical exhaustion in the night speeches. There were five of these break­fasts in all; by the time I was through I was very glad of it. It was now coming on toward November. They wanted to publish the speeches I had made, and I went down to Liverpool to Charlie Duncan's house, and the proof-sheets were sent to me there, and I worked on them, to get them ready until about the middle of November, I think, and then I took ship for home.

Now, as there was no telegraph under the sea, and there had been no time for me to hear anything about my speeches, and as I never had been treated with very great luxury in the debates of the slavery ques­tion and the war, but had been set upon in the public press, I hadn' t the slightest idea what the result of my labors in England would be. I had the consciousness that I had not reserved one single faculty nor one single particle of strength there. I had worked for my country, God himself being witness, with the con­centrated essence of my very being. I expected to die. I did not believe I should get through it. I thought at times I should certainly break a blood-ves­sel or have apoplexy. I did not care. I was as willing to die as ever I was, when hungry or thirsty, to take refreshment, if I might die for my country. Nobody knows what his country is until he is an exile from it and sees it in peril and obloquy. I was sick all the way home. My passage was seventeen days from Liverpool to New York. It was fifteen days to Halifax, and during that time I was never off my back after leaving Queenstown until we entered the Halifax Bay. It

183

was then nine or ten o' clock at night, and I was up on deck as soon as we got into smooth water, and was walking the deck when a man met me and said, "Is this Mr. Beecher?" I started and said, "Yes." Said he, "I have a telegram from your wife." It seemed like a vision-that I had got where a telegram would reach me. I had touched American shores. You can­not imagine the ecstasy of the feeling. The telegram of my wife simply announced that she would come to meet me at New York. The ship in which I came over was the Asia. She was loaded down to her gun­wales with warlike stores and contraband goods that were to go to Bermuda, and was full of the bitterest of Southern men and partisans. It made no difference to me, because I was on my back in the cabin and cared nothing about it.

From there to Boston was a pleasant trip-the only two days I was ever on the sea when I was not sea­sick. We were off Boston Harbor about seven in the evening, but the tide was not right, and we did not get in till about twelve o'clock. We reached our landing, but could not get into our slip until the next morning. I was on deck. I could not sleep. I saw the lights all over Boston, and there came again at midnight a man who turned out to be a Custom House officer. After watching me he said, "Is this Mr. Beecher?" "Yes." "Well, we are very glad to see you home safely. Some of your friends in Boston wrote down to us tell­ing us what we were to do, as if we didn't know how to treat a gentleman decently. It is a pity she has come in Saturday night. To-morrow is Sunday." "Why?" said I. "Because, if you had come in on a

184

week day we were ready to give you a reception that would make things hum." That was the first I had heard-I did not know whether the papers were down on me or not. I felt ashamed to ask him further; but I said I had not heard anything from home, and was not aware how the news of my labors abroad had been received by my countrymen. "Well," said he, "you'll find out." So, with that assurance he chalked my baggage and got me on shore. I got into a hack and drove to the Parker House about four o'clock Sunday morning. I asked the clerk if I could have a room. "No," said he, "we are full." "I suppose I can have a bed in one of the parlors, can't I?" said I. "No," said he, "all the parlors are full." "Can't I bunk on the floor anywhere?" "No," again, "all full." He asked my name, and when I told him he said, "Why, there's a room here for you." Said I, "I think not, I just came from England," "There is," said he. "All right," said I, "let me have a lamp. I won't dispute you. If any one gets in after I once get in I shall think he is a smart fellow." I found out that the passengers' names were telegraphed from Halifax to Boston to Mr. Parker, who is a friend of mine, and he had said, "Mr. Beecher will be around in about so many days and will want a room," and he had set it apart for me. About eight o'clock in the morning bang! came on my door. I said, "What do you want?" It was a committee who had come to see if I would lecture before a social club. I got rid of them, and arrived home at last safe and sound.

The speeches in England which Mr. Beecher has thus

185

simply but graphically described may fairly be char­acterized as the greatest oratorical work of his life. It may well be doubted whether, if oratory is to be measured by its actual results, there is in the history of eloquence recorded any greater oratorical triumph than that achieved in this brief campaign. The only parallel in public effect is that produced by Demos­thenes' orations against Philip. The orators of the American Eevolution spoke to sympathizing audi­ences; those of the anti-slavery campaign in this country produced far less immediate effect; the ora­tions of the great orators in the British House of Commons-Chatham and Burke-rarely changed the vote of the House; and though Lord Erskine won his victories over his juries in spite of the threats of the judges and the influence of the Government, the issues which engaged his attention were not so grand, nor the circumstances so trying, nor the immediate results so far-reaching. It is not too much to say that Mr. Beecher, by giving a voice to the before silenced moral sentiment of the democracy of Great Britain, and by clarifying the question at issue from misunderstand­ings which were well-nigh universal and misrepresen­tations which were common, changed the public senti­ment, and so the political course of the nation, and secured and cemented an alliance between the mother country and our own land, which needs no treaties to give it expression, which has been gaining strength ever since, and which no demagogism on this side of the water and no ignorance and prejudice on that have been able to impair.

CHAPTER IX.

PERSONAL TRAITS AND INCIDENTS.

in person-but Mr. Beecher's appearance is so well known to most American readers that a new full-length portrait would be superfluous here. Instead, I will borrow one from the Rev. William M. Taylor, D. D., now pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle.*

"The forehead is high rather broad; his cheeks bare; his mouth compressed and firm, with humor lurking and almost laughing in the corners; his collar turned over a la Byron, more perhaps for the comfort of his ears (as he is exceedingly short-necked) than for any love for that peculiar fashion. His voice is full of music, in which by the way, he is a great proficient. His body is well developed, and his great maxim is to keep it in first-rate working order, for he considers health to be a Christian duty, and rightly deems it impossible for any man to do justice to his mental faculties without at the same time attending to his physical. His motions are quick and elastic, and his manners frank, cordial, and kind, such as to attract rather than repel the advances of others. With children he is an especial favorite; they love to run up to him and offer him little bundles of flowers, of which

-------------------------------------------------------------- *Scottish Review October, 1859.

189

they know him to be passionately fond, and they deem themselves more than rewarded by the hearty 'Thank you,' and the tender look of loving interest that accompanies his acceptance of their gift. Add to this that his benevolence is limited only by his means, and our readers will have a pretty good idea of his general character and personal appearance."

Though twenty-two years have passed since this portrait was painted, there is little cause to change it; the voice is as musical, and the body as well developed, and the presence as forceful, and the whole person at times as full of fire at sixty-nine as at forty-six. The only signs of age are the thin gray hair and the less quick and elastic motions, and even these, in the full current of impassioned oratory, are scarcely less quick and elastic. The mental alertness is no less. The humor still lurks and laughs in the corners of the mouth as of yore; the eyes beam in kindliness or flash with fire; the children find him as ready for a romp; and though experience of half a century has taught him to be wary of the beggars that constantly beset his path, and that fill his mail with applications for aid which would exhaust the resources of a Vanderbilt, his sympathy for real distress is as deep as ever.

Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of Mr. Beecher is his many-sidedness. There is no branch of knowledge which interests humanity which does not interest him. He is good authority on roses, trees- both for shade and fruit-precious stones, soaps, coffee, wall-papers, engravings, various schools of music, of which he is passionately fond, the best classic English authors, the applications of constitutional law to moral

190

reform questions, physiology and hygiene, and I know not what else. In all my communication with him, in five years of the encyclopedic work of an editor, I have never touched a subject of current interest of which he appeared to be ignorant. When, he was unacquainted with the subject, he could suggest a direction-a book or a living authority-to go to for information. This largeness of his nature, coupled with its quickness, its mobility, makes his serious moods seem an affectation or assumption to narrow or sluggish natures. He will pass instantly, by a transition inexplicable to men of slow mental movement, from hilarity to reverence and from reverence back to hilarity again; in a conversation about diamonds, he will flash on you a magnificent picture of the apocalyptic revelation of the jewelled walls of the New Jerusalem, and before his auditor has fully recovered his breath from the sudden flight, he is back upon the earth again, telling some experience with a salesman at Tiffany's or Howard's. He is catholic, broad, of universal sympathies, of mercurial temperament, of instantaneous and lightning-like rapidity of mental action. Some of these traits of his personal character are illustrated in the incidents furnished by a number of personal friends, some hitherto untold, which will be found in the following chapters.

One Sunday not long ago, when Mr. Beecher rose to give the notices, before the sermon, he turned over the papers in his hand, saying, "I was to have had a notice of: a temperance meeting, but I can't find it here," turning inquiringly toward Mr. Halliday, his

191

pastoral helper, who said he thought it was there somewhere, "Well, it does not seem to be anywhere that I have looked,'' replied Mr. Beecher, turning over the papers again, "but I can give the notice all the same." And he proceeded to give a somewhat lengthy and entertaining announcement of a lecture by Miss Frances E. Willard to be given on Monday evening in Plymouth Church, and commending her highly as a speaker. Once, by mistake, he spoke of the lecture as "to-night," when Mr. Halliday reminded him that it was Monday night. "To-night, did I say?" Mr. Beecher said in a surprised tone. "No, you won't hear a woman speak to-night, you'll hear me." Having finished this notice, he began to give the others, when suddenly turning toward Mr. Halliday, and holding out a sheet of paper in his hand, he said, in a tone half deprecatory, half apologetic, "There! I have had that notice in my hand all this time!"

Miss Willard's lecture was given as announced, and after she had finished, having been interrupted by fre­quent applause, he slowly ascended the platform, looking at her with evident approval, and moving his head with significant emphasis, he said, "And yet she can't vote!" When the burst of applause which fol­lowed had subsided, he added, turning toward the audience," And are you not ashamed of it?

The following incident is considered very character­istic by the Brooklyn Clerical Union, who know him well. One Saturday evening in the Union they were discussing the future condition of the wicked, on which Mr. Beecher expressed his latest opinion. "But,"

192

said Dr. Edward Beecher, "you took an almost oppo­site view in a sermon six weeks ago." "Well," said Mr. Beecher, "if I said it I believed it then. I never say anything that I don't believe at the time."

A gentleman relates one or two characteristic re­ marks of Mr. Beecher's. "On one occasion," says he, "I tried to excuse myself to Mr. Beecher from some work in the Bethel, on the ground that I had all I could do. He replied, 'That is just the kind of men he wanted, as such men could and always would do a little more.' " The same gentleman, who is a lawyer, continues: "At another time I went to take Mr. Beecher's affidavit on some matter I do not now recall. It was an oppressive day in summer, and it had been intensely hot through the week, and I therefore under­ stood Mr. Beecher when, after he had sworn to the affidavit, he remarked, 'I've felt up at Peekskill frequently this week that it would be a relief to have a notary present.' I recall another incident con- nected with his speaking at Albion in 1856, in the Fremont campaign. He pictured an arena with Bu- chanan on his charger, the black knight of slavery, and Fremont, the white knight of freedom, all readyfor the battle; then suddenly stopping, said, 'But look, who is this little insignificant person creeping under the fence. It's Millard Filmore.' An Episcopal clergyman on the platform was so excited and the picture was so real that he jumped up, and looking over where Mr. Beecher pointed to the supposed man creeping under the fence, cried out, 'Where is he? where is he?' "

193

A parishioner of Mr. Beecher's, a lady, relates the following incidents:

I once said to Mr. Beecher, "Do try to carry some comfort to Mrs.--, she is unhappy, and says she is in a dreadful twilight." He replied, "I will soon, but give her my love, and tell her not to mind about the twilight, if 'tis only morning twilight.''

He came in one day, and caught up my baby, re­marking, "The Bible does not say, 'A man shall not covet his neighbor's children.' "

We were visiting among the sick poor, and upon entering a low basement he stepped back, saying to me, "You pass on; let the poor sufferer see a woman's face first."

At the close of the pew-renting in Plymouth Church, a friend said to him, "Mr. Beecher, I've been trying all the evening to get a seat, and haven't succeeded." To which Mr. Beecher replied, "Well, then, you must fulfil the apostolic injunction, having done all to stand."

My husband one evening in the prayer-meeting spoke upon the benefit he had derived from early in­struction in the Assembly's Catechism, and repeated several portions of it. As he closed, Mr. Beecher said, "That's very well; you may go up head."

Mr. Beecher once described an old-fashioned sewing society. "You know," said he, "that a company of ladies get together, and they sew up their collars and

194

they sew up their neighbors [accompanying the words by an illustration with his hand, as if sewing]-in fact it is a sort of a sew-cial cannibalism."

There is one scene which occured in his pulpit dur-­ ing the war that will never be forgotten by me, as it was the first time I had ever heard Mr. Beecher preach, and my young heart was filled as I listened to him. He had given out the closing hymn, when the little sliding door behind him was pushed aside and a paper handed to him. He read it, to the choir-the organ had already commenced hymn-and said, "Stop! turn to 'America' while I read this despatch." He then read with a voice full of emotion the despatch, which was from Secretary Stanton, proclaiming a great victory for the Union army under Sheridan. A thrill went through the audience, and 'America' was sung that.day with the spirit and the understanding also.

In 1864 the "Central Union Club of Brooklyn" en­gaged Miss Anna Dickinson to speak upon national affairs in the Brooklyn Academy of Music. After the Academy had been engaged, the directors sent word that they could not consent to have the building opened for Miss Dickinson to speak in. The facts were brought to the notice of Mr. Beecher, which so aroused his indignation that the following Sunday morning he called the attention of the people to the action of the managers of the Academy of Music in such language that it was but a short time before the Academy was opened to Miss Dickinson, and many other buildings throughout the country which pre-

195

viously had been considered too sacred for a woman to speak in.

A gentleman called at Mr. Beecher's house, very early in the morning, before the servant had swept the parlors. Mrs. Beecher came in first, and casually stopped to pick up a bit of thread from the carpet. Instantly, Mr, Beecher, who was following her, went all around the room, stooping here and there to pick up imaginary bits, and laughingly exclaimed, "Why don't we always pick up things lying around loose? No telling how much we might accumulate."

A friend sends the following incidents. The first re­ lates to an effort of one of his early teachers to impress upon his mind the distinction in the use of the definite and indefinite article. Said the teacher, "You can say a man, but yon cannot say a men." "Oh, yes, I can," was Henry's quick response, "I say it very often, my father says it at the end of all his prayers."

The second occured at the close of one of his famous lectures, delivered in the Lyman Beecher course, before the students of the Theological Class of Yale College in the winter of 1874. These lectures were greatly ad­ mired by professors, clergymen, and students. At the close of one of these which was of marked interest to all present, Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon came up to him, and laying his hand upon his shoulder, said, "Brother Beecher, I fear the devil whispered in your ear just now that this was a fine lecture." "Oh, no," quickly replied Mr. Beecher, "he left that for you to do."

196

A fellow-traveller with Mr. Beecher on the Hudson River Railroad between New York and Peekskill, remarks always how he goes through a crowd: He is the first off the train, first at the top of the Elevated Railroad stairs, first on thronged platform, ferry, etc. At his age, in the heat of midsummer, with his basket of green stuff on his arm (from "the farm"), he is al­ways for the first place. A young man must hurry to keep up with his bulky, red-faced companion. It is not once, it is always, and hence characteristic. It shows the man. He complains of the heat, but de­spises it. He "wishes there was a thermometer about." "But it makes you hotter to consult it." "No. I want a rational excuse for being so uncom­fortable." His travelling dress you know: the old duster blowing in the wind, carelessness as to his soil of travel, etc.

In a trying day for a younger preacher, set upon by an unreasonable faction in his church, he said, "My boy, I am watching you. If you are of the true met­tle, a real man, this will only prove you." Grasping the young man's hand with a never-to-be-forgotten warmth, he continued, "Yes, this will be the making of you." He came through crowded rooms of a dis­tinguished assembly to say this, voluntarily.

Once, meeting the same younger preacher, he asked, "How long have you been at it?" (preaching). "About ten years," was the reply. "A fair start; just a fair start, ten years." And he straightened him­self up, half wearily, half exultingly, as if the thoughts of his thrice ten years and their battles came over him like a flood.

197

A member of Plymouth Church thus relates in­ stances showing Mr. Beecher's rhetorical power: I remember one Sunday morning, during those troublous times when a certain enemy was threatening severest injury, Mr. Beecher read the account of Paul's shipwreck, and his being cast upon the island of Melita.

He read the whole account in a thrilling manner, until he came to the story of the viper which fastened itself upon the hand of Paul, then, in reading the words, "He shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm," he made one single gesture with his hand, as if he too would thus shake off the viper that was ready to sting him.

Word or comment was not necessary. It was as if an electric thrill passed through the great congregation, and every one understood the unspoken comment. A well-known elocutionist was heard to say at the close of the service, that it was one of the finest things he ever listened to. "It was absolutely perfect," he said.

I recall another occasion, when Mr. Beecher read at opening service the 23rd chapter of Matthew. I never shall forget, though it is impossible to describe the effect he produced as he read that long list of woes Christ pronounced against the Pharises. I seem now to hear his tone and emphasis of intense scorn as he read again and again the words, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" In his voice and manner he seemed the personification of righteous wrath denunciation. I shivered and grew nervous as I listened, and the whole congregation

198

sat as if spellbound. I do not think he made a single comment until he had finished the 36th verse, then he said something like this: "These are the words of divine indignation against those who had trodden down and oppressed the weak and the poor, in the name of religion; now listen to the words of divine love and compassion that pitied while it rebuked." And then his whole manner, expression of countenance, tone of voice, everything changed, as he read the remaining verses: "O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!" etc. "When he concluded, the tears were running down his own cheeks, and in all the house I think there were but very few dry eyes.

Mr. Beecher's love of the beautiful is, in a general way, known and read of all men. The methods of its manifestation are not so generally understood. A few of his mercantile friends have glimpses of it, and very cheerfully contribute to its gratification. It need not be said that his enjoyment of the beautiful is unselfish-that it is increased by the sharing with others. A jeweller friend occasionally makes up a package of rare and precious stones, of exquisite colors and forms. These Mr. Beecher will carry to his own home or to the home of another. The family gather around the fable-suitably covered for the purpose-and partake of a costless intellectual feast, the foundation for which is laid in values of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At another time a huge roll is landed at the door, and in due time the parlor and parlor furniture are covered with rugs, literally of all nations, the result of a forag-

199

ing expedition among dealers in such articles. Mr. Beecher has enjoyed the study and selection of these in the great warehouse, but now only the best of the great stock is brought where he can fairly revel in their beauty. No child could manifest more unaffected pleasure. He sits upon his knees; lies upon the floor; assumes all attitudes, known or unknown, whereby the light or shade can be varied or the contrasts of color made apparent. For hours the charm remains, and is finally broken only to be again renewed with beautiful objects of another kind.

Upon the same subject another gentleman says: My personal intercourse with him has been confined prin­cipally to one subject with its kindred topics, namely, "precious stones." We have had a good many talks about them. It is my business, and I have various kinds for sale, and I really feel that he has often in­spired me with a deeper love for them and a stronger desire to know more about them, especially when he says in his rather cutting way, "Of all the business men I come in contact with, it seems to me that jewellers know less about their business than any others." Com­pared with him, perhaps, they do; few have as strong a love for precious stones as he, and few have the time to devote to the study of them. Whenever I receive anything out of the ordinary line, my thoughts invari­ably turn to him, and I read up about it, and then show it to him, and often I find he knows all about it, and has some story to tell about one he has seen some­where. It is his habit to go into jewelry stores and lapidaries' shops, in his lecture trips, through the coun-

200

try, seeking curiosities and desirous of finding some-thing better than he has already, for he always carries in his pocket some precious stones. I have met him on the ferryboats, when he would beckon to me to come and see a fine specimen of some stone he had just secured, regardless of the gaze of the cabinful of people, and ap­parently entirely unconscious of the "scene" in which he was the central figure, eager only to show some­thing that would force me to admit was a little better than any I'd ever seen before, as well as to give me the pleasure of seeing the stone itself. He has often given utterance to beautiful thoughts as he has feasted his eyes on some stones that would, of course, sound strange coming from any one else, but if a salesman could in­dulge in similar flights of fancy and imagination, and make his customer see all as he does in the stones, he could make a fortune. His description of the stone called "cat's-eye" I often quote to personal and mu­tual friends. He said he felt "as if there were a soul back of it looking out through the rays of light flashing over it, and in every way he looked at it, it seemed like a thing of life." I remember once showing him a magnificent garnet, and we discussed various ways of mounting it, and I said it was handsome enough to be surrounded with diamonds, and he said (in substance), "Oh, no! it would never do to put diamonds with it, they would spoil it, they are too showy. A diamond seems to say, 'Here, look at me; don't mind those other stones,' and fairly draws the eyes toward it in spite of yourself. That garnet should have pearls around it; the stone is of a positive color and can stand alone, and the setting should be of a contrasting

201

beauty. Pearls are just the thing for they have a peculiar beauty of their own, at the same time harmonize with the garnet. Why, it's like a well- matched husband and wife. The garnet is larger, stronger, and of a positive character, and regal in color, and should have pearls as helpmeet. They are equally beautiful in their milder, softer way, and are in perfect harmony, both choice, yet neither predomi- nating, and make a perfect whole."

A member of Mr. Beecher's church and a teacher in Plymouth Sabbath-school for many years, and one who is always on hand on Plymouth occasions, relates: Out of all the numerous reminiscences of Mr. Beecher in various lights, as man or minister, as lec­ turer, thinker, personal friend or citizen, let me choose simply a few things that show his peculiarities as pastor, the very aspect in which he has not, in general, been generally well understood either outside in the Christian world nor even inside in our microcosm of Brooklyn itself.

1. He aims to avoid rather than to allay, to prevent rather than to cure. An instance of this happened when i was clerk of the Examining Committee. The examination of applicants for membership by him varies endlessly according to the age, the temperament, the replies, and whole personality of the individual candidates. He examines mainly on the vital points of personal relations of obedience, reverance, and love to the Lord Jesus as Saviour and guide of life. A candidate who was a man in the middle life had given answers so very laconic, yes or no, that when Mr.

202

Beecher, as usual, gave it to the committee to ask any other questions, and all else were silent, I asked, rather to cover the whole ground at once than any single point, "Have you ever been troubled, sir, by serious doubts concerning any of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel?" "None, sir,'' he answered, and his ex­amination then terminated.

Mr. Beecher turned toward me, as I sat very near, and said, in clear but very low voice, inaudible except to me alone, "Brother H--, you may suspect an apple-tree is full of owls, but it is not worth while to throw a stone or club up into it to find out."

2. As pastor, he aims to make good Christians more than to train up theologians. At an annual pew-let­ting, I heard a member say, "Mr. Beecher, we hope you will preach a very sound gospel next year, be­cause some things you have lately said did not sound very orthodox to us New Englanders.'' With leisurely and tranquil composure, he replied, "Well, as for you, brother, you are very sure to hear quite as much gospel as you will live up to." His an­swer was geometrically perfect.

3. He measures the value of men by their actual pow­er and fruitfulness. When Rev. J. E. Roy, D. D., first introduced me to him, when Roy and I were students in the Union Theological Seminary, Mr. Beecher asked, "Who is your Professor of Pastoral Theology?" and when told "Rev. Thomas H. Skinner, D.D.," added: "That is the most important chair in a seminary, and the test whether the professor is a suitable man is whether he turns out good pastors. It is very much like fishing. A gentleman may read up on ichthy-

203

ology and angling, and equip himself with the finest rod and hooks and flies, but not catch a half dozen trout all day, whereas a boy may come down to the brook barefoot, when the sun is only an hour high, with a plain hook, string, and pole from an alder-bush, and catch a basketful by dark. The boy is the real fisherman." He turned to others in the crowd that thronged around him in the old "Social Parlors," but his illustration had hooked us. See what Brother Roy has become.

A volume might be written of the incidents in those "Parlors," one of the best features of his earlier pas­torate.

4. As a pastor, Mr. Beecher is predominantly the ruling head and powerful heart of his church and con­gregation, as instinctively by his own nature he must be, and as, according to Congregational polity, he is delegated and appointed to lead. He sees all symptoms at a glance. He foresees swiftly the upshot of any movement, the motives of active men, the drift of an argument toward conduct. He is very adroit in pre­venting difficulties by foresight, and, perhaps, even more so in dispersing or dissolving them when actually risen as thunder clouds in his sky. By warmth of love, by glowing sympathy of numbers, he rallies the majority to the right side, and trims the steamer to the storm. When the Congregational Council met in his church, to investigate the question of his innocence, he said to a group of us, and his face beamed with the triumphant certainty of the result which his intimate friends foresaw, "Yes, the best place for the dele­gates will be in the homes of our people. They will

204

come resolved and determined not to be influenced, but the spirit of our people will melt them down, just as a hard winter apple resolves to defy the blazing fire when it has been put down to roast. Bless you! the old fellow loses all his firmness, cooks clear through, and in a little while is roasted and sputtering and singing with joy."

In a short talk after prayer-meeting, to a handful of old members, he rather soliloquized than other­wise, in regard to himself, and the chief bent of his mind in contrast with Dr.--.

"He reasons with the greatest power and most nat­urally from the past to the present: I reason forward. He points out very clearly the duties of the present day: I naturally look ahead to see and anticipate what topics of thought will fill men's minds in the future. It is natural and it is hereditary for each of us to think and work in his own way. He revels in historical studies, whereas I foresee from current events what way the tides are setting, and try to form opinions for myself and my people in advance, to be ready in time of need."

About ten years ago, as the Sabbath approached in which Plymouth Church was to take up a collection in behalf of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and I had spent some time in ob­taining pledges from prominent members as to the amount they would contribute to the cause, I called upon Mr. Beecher. It was late on Saturday evening. He had just arrived home from a weekly lecturing tour. I laid before him my errand. It was to ask him to give

205

us a sermon on the cause of missions the next morning. He answered, "Perhaps I will, and perhaps I will not. I have just reached home, have been absent all the week, lecturing every night. I am quite tired out. If I get rested and feel bright I will give you the sermon." The next morning he appeared in the pulpit as fresh and vigorous as ever. The opening reading of the Scriptures clearly indicated the subject on which his mind was engaged. He announced his text Acts 17:26: "And hath made of one Mood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.'' It was one of his happiest efforts, and the contribution was one of the largest ever made by Plymouth Church in behalf of that cause.

A gentleman relates an incident that occurred in the year of 1866 or '67, a year or so previous to the build­ing of the "Bethel" in Hicks street, Brooklyn, "The Bethel Mission of Plymouth Church."

"I was present one Sabbath when Mr. Beecher was making an urgent appeal to his congregation to contrib­ute openly to the fund for building; after urging it upon all his people, in his own good way, which he knows so well how to do, he said, 'Now, I want you to go down into your pockets, and go down deep; I want you to put up a building which will be for mechanics, workingmen, and women, and the poorer classes of this ward (First Ward), where they can all worship together' (this beside the Sunday-school). It struck a chord in my heart then, that I firmly believe vibrates still, and caused me to believe that one more at least "cared for my soul."

206

In any account of Mr. Beecher's life mention ought surely to be made of the stand he took for freedom of speech in 1850, during the excitement attending the passage of the compromise measures of that period. The tide of opposition to the anti-slavery movement at that time was higher and more tempestuous than at any other period since the mobs of 1835. There was a deliberate determination on the part of men eminent in, public station, and representing both the great political parties, to put that movement down, to overawe its champions, and consign its leaders to public infamy. Webster, in his seventh of March speech, had lent the weight of his influence to promote this design, and Professors Stuart and Woods at Andover, with a large following of other eminent clergymen, were struggling to reconcile the conscience of the North to the infamies of the Fugitive Slave law then pending before Con­gress, and to persuade the people to stamp out the anti-slavery agitation as a fanatical and scarcely less than treasonable war upon the very life of the nation. Many who had taken part in that agitation were affrighted, and some had even gone over to the pro-slavery side. Timid men on every side trembled lest the heavens should fall and the country be left to destruction, un­less the people would consent to stop the discussion of slavery and obey the demands of the slave power.

In this state of affairs the American Anti-Slavery Society held its anniversary at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York, in May, 1850. This society had openly repudiated "the compromises of the Constitution," and the Constitution itself on their account, and was therefore the object of special hostility and oppro-

207

brium. Its meetings were invaded by a mob, led by a notorious political "rough," and turned into a scene of excitement dangerous to property and life. Public sentiment in New York winked at the mob as excusa­ble, if not patriotic, and it was a serious question whether the liberty of speech could be preserved. Mr. Beecher, though hostile to slavery, did not agree with Garrison and his associates in their attitude toward the Constitution and the Union, but thought them very unwise. He might, as others did, have made of this difference an excuse for coolly consenting to see their meetings broken up by violence. But he was sagacious enough to perceive that if freedom of speech were to be preserved, it must be preserved for all, and if it were to be lost for any it would be lost for all. He de­termined, therefore, to make a conspicuous protest against the New York mob. He was by no means sure that his own church and society, if consulted be­forehand, would support him. He took counsel of a few personal friends, whom he could inspire with his own enthusiasm for liberty, and by a sort of moral coup d'etat forced open the doors of Plymouth Church for a speech by Wendell Phillips before those who would have prevented the measure, if possible, had time to rally. By judicious effort the city officials were in­duced to lend their support to an effort to set Brook­lyn, in contrast with New York, as the home of free speech for all men on the slavery question. The meet­ing was held, and the lecture of Mr. Phillips delivered in peace, though a mob gathered in the street and howled around the doors.

It would hardly be possible to exaggerate the value

208

of this testimonial to the priceless right of free discus­sion at that solemn crisis. The pro-slavery party gnashed its teeth with rage, but the friends of freedom took fresh courage and hope. The action of Mr. Beecher gathers additional lustre when contrasted with that of another clergyman who took pains to persuade the proprietors of the Broadway Tabernacle to shut its doors thereafter against the American Anti-Slavery Society, thus compelling it to hold its anniversary for two successive years in the interior of the State. Mr. Beecher, however, had the privilege of welcoming the society to New York again in 1853.

Speaking of sounds, Mr. Beecher said, "It is curi­ous to note the elective power of the ear, how it will search out and choose the sound it wants to hear amid a multitude of others. The other day I was in that Babel, the Gold Room. I sat by the secretary; and amid all the clamorous shouting and hallooing of the frantic brokers, when I could distinguish nothing but a general din, he quietly noted and set down the bids, the offers, the sales, as they occurred.

"In a room full of chatting women, if one of them has a child upstairs and it whimpers, how quick she will catch the sound, separate and know it from all the clatter about her, and go to the child!

"And just so it is in all hearing; we are continually training our ears to select and take note of special things. How you know the creak of every door and the peculiar snap of every lock in the house! Every friend's footstep is characteristic to us of his coming and of his person. We insensibly train ourselves to

209

hear, and just as truly we train ourselves not to hear. I am so used to my little French, clock at my bedside, that strikes the hours and quarters, that I never notice it. And sometimes when I have wanted to know what time it was and waited patiently for the next quarter, I have known myself to lie, listening at first, but pretty soon getting into a train of thought and. hearing noth­ing of my busy little clock for a whole hour with its four quarter-strikings.

"For the matter of that, though, I have sometimes been so lulled to thoughtfulness by the sound of my own voice that I forget that I am reading. Last Sun­day, for instance, I had been reading away, nearly a whole chapter of the Bible, in church, and suddenly started into consciousness of it, having been at the same time led off into an intense study of my sermon that was to come. I was scared. I asked myself, 'Why-what-have I really been reading, and going on all right?' I looked at the congregation, but they were serene enough, and my machine had evidently been going on straight all the while; so, with a gulp of relief, I finished my chapter.

"Sounds have a distinct physical effect upon me. Music always affects me very strongly. At first I list­en to it; but soon it lulls my outward senses, and I begin to have all manner of imaginations and fancies teeming in my brain. I forget the music and only recognize the effect it has had upon me after it has stopped."

When Mr. Beecher was about to begin the first of his three years of Yale Lectures on Preaching (on the

210

Sage foundation for the "Lyman Beecher Lecture­ship," in the Yale Theological School), it had been arranged to have Mr. Ellinwood report them for The Christian Union and for book publication. They were generally expected to be important and interesting, but many wondered how he would acquit himself in so unaccustomed a position, as they were to be given, not only before the whole body of theological students, but before the theological faculty as well (and, as it turned out, not only these but the collegiate faculty also was largely represented, and the clergy of all the region round about).

The day before he was to go up to New Haven to open the course I asked him, "Have you got your plan pretty well laid out?"

"H'm-well-yes-no; well, I know where the woods are that I'm going to hunt my game in, and that's about all I can expect yet awhile."

He had a bad night, as it happened, not feeling well; took the 10 o'clock train next morning to New Haven; went to his hotel, got his dinner, lay down and had a nap. About 2 o'clock he got up and began to shave, without having been able to get at any plan of the lecture to be delivered within an hour. Just as he had his face lathered and was beginning to strop his razor, the whole thing came out of the clouds and dawned on him. He dropped his razor, seized his pencil, and dashed off the memoranda for it, and afterward cut himself badly, he said, thinking it out.

That was the lecture on "What is Preaching?" of which the venerable Dr. Leonard Bacon said, "If I

211

had heard such talk as that before I began to preach it would have made a different preacher of me."

The first series on "The Personal Elements which Bear an Important Relation to Preaching," and the second on "The Social and Religious Machinery of the Church," were upon themes familiar and easy to him; but the third, in which he had committed himself to treat of "Methods of Using Christian Doctrines," he rather dreaded-or rather, under all the circumstances, he felt it a somewhat difficult and critical task, and therefore he might have been expected to prepare it somewhat more formally and completely than he had done the others.

The day before he was to begin I asked him as be­fore, "Do you know pretty nearly the line of treat­ment you are to take?"

"Yes, in a way. I know what I am going to aim at, but of course I don't get down to anything specific. I brood it, and ponder it, and dream over it, and pick up information about one point and another; but if ever I think I see the plan opening up to me I don't dare to look at it or to put it down on paper. If I once write a thing out, it is almost impossible for me to kindle up to it again. I never dare, nowadays, to write a sermon during the week; that always kills it; I have to think around and about it, get it generally ready, and then fuse it when the time comes."

It was at the close of this third series that the entire theological faculty of Yale united in a letter to Mr. Beecher (March 19th, 1874), in the course of which they said: "Seldom, indeed, is the opportunity offered of listening to discourses or topics connected

212

with the Christian ministry, which are at once so ear­nest, inspiring, and instructive;" and expressed a con­viction that "they must prove eminently quickening and permanently useful."

It is worth while, perhaps, to have felt how utterly impossible it is to preserve in types or even afterward to define the impression which is given to most men merely by being in his presence. It is an ineffable personal influence, and must be felt to be entirely known. I had heard of Henry Ward Beecher from afar all my life, but thought of him as a fixed star afar off. My first impression of him was disappointing. I had expected to be awed with a kind of solemn fright in the presence of so great a man. But here was the most ordinary of mortals sitting in his arm-chair talk­ing as freely and simply as a child. I said to myself, "Is this my great man?" He joked at me about the wear and tear of light-haired nervous people, a text to suggest several characteristic remarks upon the relations of temperament to religion. I should have gone away in some wonder at such a man's reputation, if he had not been led out into a general talk about religious re­vivals. In this conversation the great imagination of the man began to excite my interest. It was during the winter of the revival at Plymouth Church, 1881-82. Mr. Beecher referred to the revival method in a very discriminating figure, or rather flood of images if I may say, that seemed to spring out like scintillations of aurora lights. Comparing the work that was going on in his own church to that which he had witnessed in his boyhood and with other work which was progress-

213

ing at another Brooklyn church, he said: "We try to win everybody. If they do not come now they will be better prepared to come next year. It is like feeding humming-birds. You get a few of them to eat out of your hand, but the others will keep growing tamer every year if you don't frighten them. We don't fire many guns, perhaps, though we might shoot a little more game for the time, but in the end we get all who would be likely to come at all, and don't frighten away the others, and the shy ones come, and they are the best ones."

Speaking of the crude revival statements which he had often heard in his younger days, such as "that God is here now, and may not come this way again," he made this among other figures: Man is open to in­fluences on both sides of his nature. He opens up and he opens down. If he makes himself susceptible to the Divine Spirit the Spirit comes; if he is susceptible through his lower life to the other influences they come. If you put out on your garden-plot red clover and honeysuckle and sweetbrier, the bees and honey birds flock there, but if you cover it with filth and carrion it will attract the crows and buzzards and jackals. The Holy Spirit doesn't come and go except as man himself changes, etc.

These figures and images were as spontaneous as the flow of waters, and seemed to crowd out of themselves. They lead me to think that Mr. Beecher is Shakespea­rian and Oriental in his imagination. I know of no one, except John in the Apocalypse, Paul in his Epistles, and Shakespeare in Hamlet and the Tempest, who ex­hibits such habits of picture-thinking as Mr. Beecher.

214

I saw him once at his best. It was not a burst of oratory nor any moment of triumphant power. It was a quiet moment; it was as if the very air was weighted with the moisture of Divine tenderness. He was giv­ing the charge to a young man who was about to go to the far West as a missionary. There were not a hun­dred people present, unless the heavenly host was there. But the great preacher was stirred by the oc­casion to memories of his own early struggles in the West. His voice was low and at times broken, and the tears in his voice broke the fountains loose in all our eyes. I wish I could remember what he said. It was in substance a charge to love men and to love Christ, to look for sources of power only in heaven. I felt that it would have been happiness to go anywhere, to any work, followed by such words, rather by such a presence, for it was after all only such words perhaps as any man might have said.

A phrase which I once heard him coin has stayed by me ever since. He was expressing the office of the ministry. He said of Christ that he went about set­ting men right, making them whole. "That is our mission," he said, "we are men-menders."

He is very tender to the foolishnesses of young men. At our club on one occasion the question arose whether a lie was always wrong. "Christ is the stand­ard," said Mr. Beecher. "You can decide by asking if Christ would tell a lie."

I had the temerity to say that if it were not in­herently wrong he might be conceived of doing it. It was a thoughtless and shocking remark as I made it. I was ashamed of it, and at the conclusion of the

215

meeting I asked Mr. Beecher if it were irreverent to speak so.

"Oh, no!" he said, "you were serious and candid. It was well enough as you said it," and more to the same effect. In fact, he never has any small moods in which he holds any contempt, even for the weakest of men. It seems to me that he has such an instinct at understanding a good motive that he never fails to know whether one is to be understood as erring or vicious.

His greatness is even more apparent in conversations perhaps than in the pulpit. It has frequently occur­red that in the most natural manner possible a dozen men, all of them men far above ordinary calibre, would find themselves suspending the eating, the whole length of the table, as it were unconsciously, to listen to him. At our last meeting this occurred. Mr. Beecher was explaining his position upon the question of reason as an authority in religious matters concurrently with the Bible. I think the superiority of the man appeared here in the large reach of his views. "I hold," he said, "the catholic idea of inspiration in the church, not in the organism as they say, but whatever men-all good men-most enlightened by Christian and human education and by divine influences think to be true, at last and on the whole, that is true whether the Bible directly reveals it or not. It is a revelation, and God so is constantly revealing himself." Mr. Beecher went on thus at some length, and it was not until he stop­ped that any one happened to notice that the entire company had suspended conversation to listen. It was not respect for a great man's words, for he is as

216

familiar and common in a company as the smallest man there; it was a natural attraction.

Mr. Beecher is quick at a joke or in repartee, and says the most crushing things without offence. Bro­ther N. relating his vacation experience, said that he had been kindly allowed a double-length vacation this year.

"Was it on your account or their own?" quickly asked Mr. Beecher. You cannot describe the drollness of it, but it was sufficient to convulse the company.

Dr. P., a noted temperance advocate, had just re­turned from the Continent. He was relating his ex­periences. It came to a point where he would natu­rally have alluded to the drinking habits of the Euro­peans. Dr. P. seemed to shy the topic, and Mr. Beecher, who saw a look of anxiety on the faces of the company, with an inexpressibly simple sort of manner asked cunningly:

"How did you like the water on the Continent, Doc­tor?" It was a long time before we recovered from the shock, which so upset Dr. P. that he did not rally for the evening.

He seems to know everything. An old and well-known pedagogue in Brooklyn was relating at the club-table reminiscences of the early movements for the ed­ucation of women. Mr. Beecher was busily conversing nearly at the other end of the table. The pedagogue named Mrs. L. as the first leader in the movement, and related an incident or two. Mr. Beecher, who seemed as if he had not heard at all, finished his own conversation, and then turned down the table and said, "You are wrong about Mrs. L., Brother. W. She

217

was four years later than Miss A. The movement began-" and from that point he went on with a history, giving names, dates, incidents, and general facts, as if that had been his study for life.

In all the many attempts to delineate the character and characteristics of Mr. Beecher, none have ever ad­equately touched upon his remarkable power of com­forting those who are bereaved. The tenderness and exquisite pathos of his words in the house of mourn­ing have drawn the hearts of hundreds toward him during the many years of his ministry. A wonderful insight has been given him into the very recesses of the sorrowing soul, and an equal gift of expression for those themselves dumb with anguish. His words of comfort and cheer (I cannot call them addresses) at funerals alone would fill a volume. I attended, thirty-three years since, the funeral of a babe eighteen months of age, whose mother had died in giving it birth, and left it to the care of a maiden aunt. Under the cir­cumstances it would not have been strange had the services been merely perfunctory. Instead of this, Mr. Beecher, to my surprise and grateful admiration, entered as by intuition into the feelings of this "friend who had borne the dear child in her heart, and cradled it in her bosom." His prayer for her was most tender. One expression I have never forgotten- that she might be strengthened "when sharp remem­brances shoot forth from unexpected places." Was there ever a more incisive touch? It is like piercing between the joints and the marrow. Who that has been bereaved by death but understands it? Who has

218

ever before put the experience into words? And the months and years that have passed since that first strong impression was made upon me have added innu­merable expressions of similar strength and beauty. So delicate and tenuous are they, and so struck through with "the light that never was on sea or land," but that cometh down from heaven, and are fall of spiritual effluence, that I despair of giving even you my own impressions. At the funeral of one of his own grand­children about six years of age-while two other chil­dren were lying very ill, and the house seemed dark with sorrow-his first words were: "We are met to­gether to-day to rejoice that this dear child has ful­filled her mission, has delivered her message of glad­ness and happiness in this household, and is so soon permitted to return to her Father's house in heaven." What followed I know not. The one bright comfort­ing thought of the little angel messenger, sent with sunshine on her brow, and in her winning ways bring­ing love and joy to earth, took possession of me, and the words "permitted to return" has never left me.

Speaking of the death of a young man in whom he was much interested, Mr. Beecher said, "I cannot feel, I do not feel that he has left us. I stand expectant as one sometimes in summer stands waiting for a bird to begin its song again, and does not know that it has flown out of the tree. I was always patiently waiting for-. He had never shown himself. Much as there was very striking about him, I always felt that we had only seen the edge of color in an unopened bud. There are many who are never so fair again as in youth. But his was a great nature that I felt would

219

never get its full swing and power except in the broad movements of human life. He was made to be a man among men. But I am conscious that I have trans­ferred that dear and bright soul to heaven, not merely to heaven in the technical sense, but to everything toward which my thoughts move. Nature to me takes hue and color from every one who is gone, and the spirit seems to have mingled in such a sense with the universe, that it presents itself from every element. For God took him. He is with God, and where is God not?"

CHAPTER X.

REMINISCENCES BY REV. S. B. HALLIDAY, PASTORAL HELPER OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH.

MR. BEECHER IN BROOKLYN.

As already mentioned, Mr. Beecher came to Brook­lyn from Indiana in the autumn of 1847. This city had then sixty thousand inhabitants, now it has more than half a million. Churches had then commenced rapidly to increase, so that Mr. Beecher had old and popular churches and ministers with whom to compete from the beginning.

Dr. Richard S. Storrs, learned, eloquent, and popu­lar, of the same denomination, was already thoroughly established within a few minutes' walk of the site chosen for the Plymouth Church edifice. Other de­nominations had preachers in their pulpit whose fame had even spread to other lands. All these ministerial brethren gave a cordial welcome to Mr. Beecher, and he soon found a place in many of their hearts. One, how­ever, of the brethren does not seem to have had much confidence in the permanence of Mr. Beecher's popu­larity, which was, he said, like wildfire and would soon go out. He would give him "just six months to get through." Yet for thirty-five years the Plymouth pastor has been among this people, preaching the Gospel, advocating on many a platform all kinds of local,

223

national, and foreign needs, has always stood in the front rank of orators, and has enjoyed to this day as much of the sympathy and approval of the masses as any man has ever had in similar circumstances. By his own people he has always been regarded with, al­most idolatrous affection and confidence, and all who know him, with perhaps here and there an exception, would doubtless join good old Dr. Hodge in saying as he did, after hearing his lecture to the students of Princeton Seminary, "Whatever there may be wrong about Mr. Beecher's head, his heart is right."

As an instance of the affectionate regard in which the Plymouth pastor is held by the multitude, the fol­lowing may suffice. Some time since when a sad ca­lamity had befallen our city, a meeting of clergy and influential citizens was called by the authorities to consider and devise some plan to raise means for the re­lief of many sufferers. During the discussion the pas­tor of one of the most influential churches arose and said, "Obtain the Academy of Music, secure the ser­vices of Henry Ward Beecher, and you will get all the money you want." That single utterance voices to­day the thought of Brooklyn as to his influence and power to move the people.

The following half dozen meetings were held at the Academy of Music. This is the largest public hall in the city and holds perhaps 4000 people. In the Au­tumn of 1879, the Republican party called a ratifica­tion meeting in the Academy of Music, to be addressed by Senator Conkling and others. Mr. Beecher, who had not been invited to speak, went to hear Mr. Conk-ling, and arrived some time before the senator. On

224

Mr. Beecher's appearance at the rear of the platform, the vast audience, composed of all classes, rich and poor, laboring, mercantile, and professional, rose en masse and cheered most enthusiastically until the arrival of Mr. Conkling, while cry after cry, "Mr. Beecher," "Mr. Beecher," came from every part of the thronged building. Again, at the close of Mr. Conkling's speech, a similar course was pursued by the great audience, until the chairman was constrained to ask Mr. Beecher to speak.

The Parnell Reception Meeting occurred soon after, when Mr. Beecher was chosen by the representatives of Ireland, to give their welcome to the man whom they considered was serving their race most earnestly and successfully. The generosity of Mr. Beecher's relig­ious views and his tolerance of those of others give him a just claim upon the appreciation which the Irish manifested to him on this occasion, and which they never lose opportunity fully to accord. The admira­tion manifested for Mr. Beecher was unbounded.

Few weeks only had elapsed when Mr. Beecher was again invited to address "The Women's Temperance Union'' presided over by Rev. Dr. Cuyler. While his views on this question, as to measures, are not so rad­ical as those of others, and while he earnestly and un­hesitatingly declares total abstinence to be the only safe ground, yet he cordially extends his hand to those who entertain different views and advocate interme­diate measures.

Again, but a brief period elapsed, when a great char­ity meeting afforded another occasion for the citizens of Brooklyn to call to their aid their much-esteemed

225

townsman. A brave officer in arresting a man was so beaten by "roughs" that he died, leaving a dependent family. The case excited the warmest sympathy of the Police Department-a committee appointed to de­vise measures for relief-this committee decided to ask Mr. Beecher to deliver a lecture on behalf of the fam­ily; he consented, fifteen thousand tickets were sold, the Academy of Music could not contain the many thousands who flocked to hear him, and the wildest enthusiasm prevailed in the meeting.

The great Channing Memorial Service, held in April, 1880, has seldom been equalled by any meeting either in New York or Brooklyn.

The Academy of Music was literally packed. The clergy, irrespective of denomination, were there in large numbers. Addresses were made by representative men of all sects, and half past ten o' clock had arrived be­fore Mr. Beecher was introduced. It was no easy task to take a wearied audience at that hour and hold them for forty-five minutes, but he did it, scarcely a person leaving the hall during the address. The welcome accorded him at the beginning of his address was most enthusiastic, and the cheers and waving of handker­chiefs which greeted his paragraphs were continued till the close.

The Garfield Ratification Meeting closely followed, when Mr. Beecher was among the chief speakers, and when the old enthusiasm on seeing him and hearing his eloquent utterances showed that the pastor of Plym­outh Church still lived in the hearts of the citizens, and that not one jot or tittle of their regard for him had abated.

226

Thus in the City of Brooklyn, in the same audience-room, within a period of six months, were there six great meetings at which Mr. Beecher spoke, and on each occasion an ovation was given to the man to whom they had been listening for the third of a century.

CENTENNIAL YEAR.

During the entire period of the Centennial Exhibi­tion in Philadelphia, Plymouth Church and Mr. Beecher's residence were daily sought by great num­bers of people, some on foot, many in carriages, stop­ping in front of the plain building that is such a resort for strangers on the Sabbath, taking the opportunity to enter and inspect the place where the man preaches that everybody wants to hear. Mr. Beecher was away on his vacation during part of July and the whole of the months of August and September, and yet it was evident in the audience during these Sabbaths that many visitors to the Centennial were present. There are six hundred free sittings in Plymouth Church, and if the pew-holders are not in their seats ten minutes before the time for commencing the services, the ushers are directed to fill their seats with strangers. On Mr. Beecher's return so great was the throng of strangers, and so eager were they to hear him, that his own peo­ple, always so anxious to hear their pastor after his vacation, abandoned their seats during the whole month of October for the accommodation and gratification of these Centennial visitors. It was a goodly sight to see at least three thousand of these people every Sabbath, hanging with breathless silence upon the lips they had

227

longed to hear. Probably every State and Territory in the Union had its representatives in each of the con­gregations during that month. Possibly twenty thou­sand strangers enjoyed the hospitalities of Plymouth Church during that season, and in various ways man­ifested their appreciation of the kindness thus ex­tended. The scene which the church presented at these services was very remarkable, and such as are rarely witnessed. The old and the young, the rich and the poor, persons arrayed in the extremes of fash­ion, could be seen sitting side by side in the same pew; and the whole house thus filled! The old farm­er's motherly wife from the prairies arrayed in the quaintest possible garb, her bronzed and sturdy com­panion by her side; an eminent jurist and his refined, handsome, and fashionable daughters occupying the balance of the pew. It was an occasion that might well stir the heart of Mr. Beecher, and it did, for the eight sermons which he preached during that month were all that could be expected-even from him.

At the close of each of these services great multi­tudes availed themselves of the opportunity to shake hands with Mr. Beecher, and to mention to him their names. Their feelings appeared to be profoundly stir­red, and their manner of expressing them was often very touching. A large matronly woman stayed till all had left the house at one of the morning services, seeming loath to leave the place. She was evidently an intelligent, warm-hearted, spiritually-minded Chris­tian woman, and walking from the church toward the pastor's house, she said, "Well, I have heard that some of the people in Brooklyn talk against Mr.

228

Beecher. I live in Ohio, and if you have got tired of him here, we would like to have him out there."

MAGNANIMITY.

Mr. Beecher's career has been distinguished for generosity and magnanimity. He shuts no one out from sympathy because of his religious views. Other things being equal, he would as soon help a Mohamme­dan or a pagan as a Christian. All men, with him, are brethren, having only one God, one Saviour, one Sanctifier and Comforter. In Catholic, Protestant, and sceptic are seen men for whom Christ died, and whom he would brood into love to himself and mankind.

Mr. Beecher has probably been too generous, and his sympathy and love too indiscriminate. But his yearn­ing toward the bad has been like His who ate with publicans and sinners. He maintains that a good man, though an infidel, is better and less harmful than a bad Christian. He has even maintained that the Pope is his brother, in face of the fact that the Pope will not respond to his fraternal declarations. He has eulo­gized the conduct of some men whom the Church has advertised and shunned as very dangerous. I think he would be quite willing to have any of the Catholic bishops or priests occupy his pulpit, and should Mr. Iri-gersoll, in any way, be permitted to tell Plymouth peo­ple how to be saved, the pastor would see that they should not be harmed by his statements.

Mr. Beecher is not made of butter and oil. He can become quickly and readily indignant, even awfully angry; but he does not seem to need, as much as most

229

men, the admonition, "Let not the sun go down on your wrath." His wrath is as quickly aroused by in­juries inflicted upon others as upon himself, but it soon subsides. He may be also quick to take offence, but he has the happy faculty of concealing it from others, although there are times when he does not care to con­ceal it. I have never dared to quarrel with him. The nearest approach to it was in arranging an engagement he had made to dedicate the new Congregational Church at Middletown, N.Y., a few years since. After the time appointed for the dedication, the good pastor from Middletown called upon me, looking as if his last friend but one had abandoned him, and in a most despondent mood said, "Yesterday was the time ap­pointed to dedicate our church; notice had been wide­ly circulated that Mr. Beecher was to preach the ser­mon, and before the time for commencing the services had arrived, the house was crowded. But Mr. Beecher was not there. The people waited and waited, but he did not come, and after waiting more than an hour, the dedication was postponed and the people dispersed." The minister was greatly dejected, as the officers were depending on the collections and subscriptions they hoped to obtain on the occasion, to aid them in meet­ing some pressing claims. To relieve the good man, I said, "Now you may go right home and I will see that Mr. Beecher makes an appointment and that he does not overlook it." In the afternoon I called upon the pastor and inquired if he had a good time at the dedication yesterday. With a most forlorn expression on his face he declared he "had forgotten all about it." "Yes," I said, " the poor minister called on me

230

this forenoon sad and sorry enough. I told him you would come up still and fulfil the appointment.'' He immediately said with earnestness, "I will, when shall I go?" "Oh," I replied, "you must decide that; when can you go? Get your docket and see what your en­gagements are." He and Mrs. Beecher looked over for vacancies, and finally fixed upon a date, and asked if that would do. I said, "You can make the time when you please, and they will conform to it," and ac­cordingly he telegraphed at once the time to Middle-town. Galling upon Mr. Beecher, two or three days after, the moment I entered he exclaimed with em­phasis, "You have got me into another scrape. I had an engagement already on that date you selected, and I have telegraphed to Middletown I cannot come." I answered, "If you are in any scrape, you are to blame, I am not, nor did I make any mistake, and you must telegraph immediately that you will go to Mid­dletown at the time appointed." "You did make a mistake, I had an engagement, and I won't telegraph again," was uttered with more emphasis than the first accusation, and a rejoinder equally emphatic was ten­dered, with a request for a reproduction of the docket for examination. Turning to a particular date, when there was an engagement, "There, didn't I tell you I had an engagement then?" "Who said you had not? I did not." Looking on a little farther, and discover­ing that I was right and he was wrong, "Well, I always did need a guardian," was his admission, and I added, "I wonder your father did not appoint one for you be­fore he died." "Oh, he needed one himself," was his answer, and as he will always have the last word, I re-

231

tired from the field. All I wanted was that he should go and dedicate the church, which he did to the great comfort and satisfaction of the formerly disappointed minister and people.

I never knew any attempt on Mr. Beecher's part to revenge an injury. So ready is he to overlook and for­get, and almost to bless a man for abusing him, that his magnanimity appears sometimes a weakness.

Just subsequent to the war, a minister came into the prayer-meeting who had been absent from the country for several months. Throughout the war he had seemed to delight in speaking and writing all the mean and ugly things possible of Mr. Beecher, and as nearly false and libellous as they could be. He was equally abusive also of other upholders of the government. On the evening alluded to, Mr. Beecher, calling him by name, said, "You have just returned from Europe; I am sure you can speak of something that you have seen and heard that will interest us, and we would be glad to hear them." For some minutes this man spoke of various religious matters in London connected with missions among the poor, ragged schools, lodging-houses, etc., so as to interest those who were present. Calling at Mr. Beecher's house after the meeting, I found him reclining in his library. I said, rather abruptly, "The only thing I get mad with you about is the way in which you treat those men who go round misrepresenting and abusing you and the church. And an angel might come into the lecture-room and he would not get half the attention you bestowed on that man to-night." To which he answered, "I believe in a fel­low practising once in a while what he preaches."

232

This ended the interview. In this manner he generally disposes of those whose treatment of him has been un­kind. Another incident will illustrate this.

Mr. Beecher, in calling at my house one morning, met with a, gentleman of the press who said he had just come from the house of-mentioning the name of a legal gentleman-and he declared he had never met a man who would say anything favorable of him. The newspaper man added, "Nor can I," and a gentleman standing by added, "Nor can I, though I have been in Brooklyn and New York nearly a lifetime." Mr. Beecher interposed and said, "I can tell you of a good many things that are creditable to him that I have known personally, and much that I have learned of others. I know his life in his family has been beau­tiful, the training of his children has been everything that could be expected from a sincere and intelligent Christian gentleman, and his family, in order, in har­mony, in affection, have shown the effects of his train­ing. Then I know the treatment of the large number of employés, both men and women, in his service has been testified to by them as that of real courtesy, kindness, and sympathy."

Yet this man was considered to have been one of Mr. Beecher's bitterest enemies, and was at this time supposed to be utterly inimical. So emphatic was this testimony given of his supposed enemy that if he had appeared at that moment asking almost any favor he could afford, Mr. Beecher would have conferred it in­stantly. Nor is there a man living to whom I think Mr. Beecher would not be delighted to be reconciled, no matter what wrong he may have perpetrated, or what

233

help he may have withheld, when help was most need­ed. It would be "a joy day" beyond all that he has ever experienced, if the best and the worst of all those whom he thought had even enmity toward him would simply say, "Let bygones be bygones." As David said in haste, "All men are liars," so under stress of the moment, in haste, Mr. Beecher has said some sharp things. This he would admit, but he would not ask, nor suffer others to make admissions to him.

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE ME TO DO?

At a Friday evening meeting Mr. Beecher had been dwelling on the subject of kindness and gentleness on the part of Christians in their intercourse with men, and how essential it was to cherish this spirit toward men who were angry and abusive. In the course of his remarks he alluded to some cases coming under his own observation where very violent and bad men had been won from hatred and opposition to the warmest friendship and devotion, by the gentle self-possession and kindness of those against whom they had been angered. Every one at all familiar with Plymouth Church knows that Mr. Beecher, in his own social meetings, permits criticisms and questions on the sub­jects presented. On the evening alluded to, one of the brethren of the church, who has a mind of his own and freely expresses it, arose when Mr. Beecher con­cluded and asked, "What would you do in such a case as this? There is a poor widow living in Brook­lyn who has a boy she cannot control; he won't go to school, is constantly playing truant, living on the

234

streets, and associating with others as bad or worse than himself. I met the boy in the street the other day, and took hold of him to take him to his mother, who is greatly troubled about him, and wanted him placed in the Truant Home. The little vagabond raised a great cry and gathered a crowd around. A loafer interposed to release the boy, wanting to know what I was going to do with him. As he attempted to take the boy from me, I told him, if he laid hands on either of us I would smite him between his two eyes. I ask again, what are you going to do in such a case?"

The pastor responded, "What do you want me to do? Shall I do as a minister did who was preaching at a camp-meeting in the West? During his sermon a fellow in the audience disturbed the meeting and re­fused to desist, paying no attention to the efforts made to quiet him; the minister stopped preaching, went down to the disturber, gave him a good sound thrash­ing, went back to the stand and finished his sermon."

THE DYING CALIFORNIAN.

A year or two after entering the service of Plymouth Church, at the close of a Sabbath morning service in May, a tall, fleshy gentleman spoke to Mr. Beecher, who called me to him, and handed me the man's ad­dress, saying that his wife was ill and he wanted some one to visit her. I told him I would call and see her. Owing to a pressure from other engagements, and as nothing had been said about the lady being particu­larly sick, I did not call till Tuesday at two o'clock.

When calling, I sent up my name, and the nurse

235

came down and said that the lady was so feeble she could see visitors only in the morning. Accordingly I called about 9 1/2 o'clock the following morning. I was shown into the sick-chamber, where I found a woman sitting up supported by pillows, in her bed, with a Plymouth hymn-book in her hand. She was a mere shadow, as nearly a skeleton as any person I had ever seen. Her voice was so weak that she could only speak in a low whisper. As her throat was completely ulcerated, speaking was very painful, and swallowing almost impossible. She expressed great gladness at my coming, and with intense animation made the fol­lowing narration. I use her own language as nearly as I can remember it.

"I am a member of the Mount Yernon Church, Bos­ton. Seven or eight years ago we were living in Brooklyn, and we went to hear Henry Ward Beecher preach. My husband was taken ill; his physicians said he had consumption, and told us that if we wished to save his life we must go to California. We made our preparations and went, and you see the result: he weighs two hundred pounds, is well and vigorous, and I am a skeleton. He improved at once on reaching California, but after a few years I began to run down, and this continued until my physician came in one evening and said, 'You will not live till morning.' I answered him, 'You could not have brought me better news.' But I did live until morning, and after several days I told my husband I would not die in California, I must go back to Brooklyn and hear Henry Ward Beecher again before I died. My husband settled up his business and we came back, and here I am."

236

It would be difficult for me to describe the effect of this story upon me. Here was a woman who would not die in California, would hear the Plymouth pastor before she died, had come all the long, long way in the fulfilment of her desire, and here was I thrust in to fill the place of the only one on earth she cared to hear. I had to say something, and it was, "I am sorry you have so poor an apology for the one you came so far to see, but Mr. Beecher does no pastoral work, and I have come in his stead." Quickly she replied, "It makes no difference; I am ever so glad to see you, just as glad as if Mr. Beecher had come." I felt that she saw that I was embarrassed by the position in which I was placed, and her sympathy for me led her to speak words that were quite as strong as her real feeling would permit.

I would have gladly left, but could not get away. Her animation and warmth were to me surprising. For nearly two hours I was held by her questions, the re­lation of her experiences, of the great kindness of the Lord to her in all her life, and that now He came so near to comfort and cheer her as she was passing through the valley and the shadow of death. She was ready and waiting, yea, longing to have permission to cross the river to the promised land. She was antici­pating the hour with a perfect enthusiasm of delight. Her vision was from the standpoint of the immortal Watts:

"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood

Stand dressed in living green."

We sang, "My Faith looks up to Thee," "Rock of Ages," and other hymns. I say we sang, for in her

237

whispered tones she joined, and now and then a full round note would sound out clear and distinct as that of a bird. After reading the twenty-third Psalm and the last talk of Jesus with his disciples, and prayer, I rose to leave, and asked her if she would like to have the Lord's Supper administered to her, that I fre­quently did that service for the sick. She was greatly delighted at the suggestion; I went at once and told Mr. Beecher her story, and that I wanted him to go himself and administer the communion to her. He readily consented to go on the following Saturday morning at nine o'clock. When we went in that morning to the house of the sick woman, we were escorted to an upper room, where we found her sitting in an invalid's chair, with her husband and three or four friends about her. I was struck, on entering the room, with Mr. Beecher's appearance. He was not at all at ease or at home, spoke in a mere whisper, and through the whole service it was quite apparent that he was entirely dissatisfied with himself or the way in which he was doing his work. Had it been some men, I might have said, they are afraid they will make some mistake, or that they had not done this thing before, and they did not know how to perform the service smoothly. As it was, Mr. Beecher came downstairs with a dissatisfied and dejected manner, and as he stepped on the sidewalk, with a sudden jerk of the arms downward, he exclaimed, "There, if I do pastoral work it spoils me for preaching, and if I preach it spoils me for pastoral work; but if I should give up preaching altogether, and do nothing but pas­toral work, I could cut a big swathe, don't you think

238

I could ?" I only smiled and said, "I should like to see you try it."

LAST PRAYER-MEETING OF THE YEAR.

The last Friday evening of the year 1866, the meet­ing, at the suggestion of the pastor, was quite different in character from the usual prayer-meeting service. Almost invariably when conducted by the pastor the first exercise is singing, followed by a prayer, singing again, another prayer, followed by singing, and then the pastor's address, varying in length from fifteen to thirty minutes. Ordinarily these services absorb most of the hour which is the time allotted for the meeting. When Mr. Beecher has closed his remarks, he general­ly asks if any one wishes to put to him any question. Many times the invitation is accepted, but often no one improves the opportunity, and the meeting is closed by singing and the benediction. This is the only prayer-meeting of the church.

At the meeting alluded to, after the customary open­ing, the pastor said, "As it is the last meeting of the year, it seems an appropriate thing to look back upon the year and to speak to each other of its experi­ences." There was a great deal of freedom among the brethren, and a large number gave testimonies, very varied in kind, and comprehending the whole space between great prosperity and sore adversity. Great afflictions accompanied with much suffering had been the lot of some, while others had passed through the year unscathed. In spiritual things some had been walking in high places, others in the valleys. There

239

were many more apparently desiring to speak than there was time to hear, and shortly before the usual time for closing the meeting the pastor said, "I'm speaking of my own experience; it seems proper that I should speak of what has come out of my own rela­tions and connections as your pastor. Some say to me, 'I should think it would make you proud to have such throngs come to hear you year after year.' I don't need that to make me proud.

"Others say, 'I should think you would feel it a ter­rible responsibility to have such great congregations to preach to, when you remember what consequences are involved.' I don't feel any responsibility. I go into the pulpit and look round upon that great congre­gation, and my heart is filled with unutterable yearn­ings for them; often I lose all desire to preach, and if I should consult my own feelings would devote the whole service to prayer. But as to responsibility, as I have already said, I feel none. God knows I do the very best I can; I put the best I know in my sermons, and leave the results with the Lord, and am not troubled in regard to that." On a similar occasion, when several had spoken of the year as one of growth both in temporal and spiritual things, the pastor in­terposed and said, "This will do for one side; now let us have the other. Let some one who has had a hard time with others and especially with himself-some of you that have been proud, arrogant, self-willed, speak." One of the brethren answered playfully, "Suppose you speak to that."

Brethren often take such liberties with Mr. Beecher, and sometimes criticise what he may say or do. He

240

may warmly advocate a course which the church may condemn, and when he has been defeated, those who have been victorious cannot be more pleased than the pastor himself. But his judgment and good sense are so admirable that he rarely advocates a measure that does not gain the approval of the church.

There are no wranglings, no factions, and no divis­ions. Opinions may vary, but the result is harmony. I know from personal observation that more difficulties and divisions have occurred in some little church in a single year than have taken place in Plymouth Church since its formation.

I have seen Mr. Beecher greatly enjoy a discussion upon some debated question in his church, and become almost hilarious, saying, "Well, that is the fruit of my teaching. I have ever enjoined you to be independent and think for yourselves, and not allow me or any one else to lead you against your own intel­ligent convictions." To have his church, therefore, act independently, is a source of pride and gratification to him, rather than one of irritability and dissatisfac­tion. But harmony and unanimity of action have always characterized the great body of communicants.

During the great trouble through which the church was called to pass a few years since, its great member­ship of more than two thousand persons, with the ex­ception of a comparatively very small number, were banded together with a oneness and sympathetic affec­tion that was probably never excelled if equalled.

Such manifestations of loyal attachment to a pastor, evincing themselves in so many conceivable ways and in such trying circumstances, are certainly without

241

a parallel in the history of churches, and have elicited eulogy and praise even from those who were most in-imical to Mr. Beecher and the church.

Dreadful as was the ordeal through which Mr. Beecher was dragged, and fearful as his sufferings must have been at times, the sufferings of his people were little less than agony. Strong men with falter­ing voice and falling tears attested the sympathy and intense love of this people for their pastor and how completely they made his trouble their own. His support, serenity and cheerfulness, his ability to preach as he did every Sabbath during those dark, dark months, showing almost no appearance of wear or suffering, was, and is still, an unsolved wonder to those who did not see the position occupied by his church. Its members suffered almost more than the pastor. Their prayers and sympathies buoyed him up, rendering him almost unconscious of the malignant billows that were dashing against him. During those dreadful days no one ever intruded upon Mr. Beecher; the love and sympathy of his people were not kept alive by personal intercourse with him, and not one in a hundred of his people had a moment's conversation with him then or since about these fear­ful troubles.

There was a beautiful consideration, in this regard, shown to Mr. Beecher which neither he nor others can ever forget. Nothing I have ever experienced, seen, or read has afforded me such a view of devotion and affectionate attachment, of noble, unselfish love, and of the advantages derived from the instructions of a re­ligious teacher. No bondage like spiritual bondage.

242

No suffering like that of the soul longing and seeking for light, and all the time falling into deeper dark­ness, hearing the cry, "Lo here and lo there;" until, weary of following, it lies down in despair. Mr. Beecher has been favored so to minister to vast multi­tudes, that they have found rest and peace, and in the soil of their hearts strong and undying affection have sprung up, and so matured toward their spiritual teacher that they have yielded the beautiful and pre­cious fruits we have just detailed.

BORDER RUFFIAN.

Immediately after the morning service in the sum­mer of 1877, almost before the benediction was con­cluded, a tall, gaunt man started from the centre of the church in great haste for the platform. He was ap­parently seventy years old, dressed in coarse, shaggy garments, and was just ready to rush up to Mr. Beecher when I said, "My friend, wait a moment, Mr. Beecher will be down directly, and then you can speak to him." He answered, "I am a Methodist preacher from Texas; I was a border ruffian, and I'll bet a nickel if Mr. Beecher had been there he'd a been one too. I have shuck hands with Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Tom Benton, Dan Webster, John C. Calhoun, and now I want to shuck hands with Henry Ward Beecher."

When Mr. Beecher came down, the Texan grasped his hand, shook it with great heartiness, said he was a border ruffian from Texas, offered to bet a nickel Mr. Beecher would have been one too if he had lived

243

there, and repeated the names of the celebrities with whom he had shook hands; all this in a voice so loud he could have been heard all over the house had the congregation been seated. As soon, however, as he had told his story he started off almost on a run, and this was the last seen of the old Texan fighter.

A SENSIBLE WOMAN.

Years since a most estimable Christian woman, a member of Plymouth Church, was a dreadful sufferer from inflammatory rheumatism, and for twelve years had been almost entirely helpless. In all her suffer­ings there had been the most quiet patience, fortitude, and self-possession. It was beautiful to see her hearty acceptance of all her trials as the ministration of unerring love. She was exceedingly quiet and re­tiring, but manifestly peaceful and happy. There was always an apparent restfulness. She never seemed tossed about, but waiting for permission to enter the house of many mansions. She had been helped greatly through her long years of suffering by the teachings of Mr. Beecher, and often spoke of his sermons as affording her unspeakable comfort. One day entering her room I found her with a volume of Plymouth Pulpit lying open on the table beside which she was sitting. I said, "Since you cannot enjoy the visit of the original, I am glad you have so good a substitute." "Do you know," she replied, "I think the substitute is worth more than the original; I don't think it would be easy for me to converse with him, but I ain't afraid of his sermons, and can enjoy them very

244

much when I am here alone, as I am so much of the time." I spoke of this good woman at the weekly meeting, not mentioning her name, and told what she had said respecting the pastor, and her preference for his sermons to his visits. He interrupted me, saying quickly and emphatically, "Sensible woman, sensible woman."

WOMEN SPEAKING IN MEETING.

Mr. Beecher has encouraged, or at least has never prevented females from speaking in the meetings in Plymouth Church. He may not have urged it upon them as a duty or privilege, but he has repeatedly urged those who have gifts, that would render them ac­ceptable, to speak. It is generally understood that all persons who have anything to say, as Mr. Beecher phrases it, are free to say it, whether they belong to the congregation or not. In this respect the women are placed on an equal footing with the men. The liberty of speech has not been harmful, and never annoying, except in the following instance.

Some years since a lady, a stranger to the church, who seemed to consider herself competent to edify others, began to speak frequently, at the weekly prayer-meetings, and her speech was so indistinct as to render it difficult for more than half the audience to hear her. Her efforts continued with much fre­quency through several months. Finally she con­cluded to devote herself to the lecture platform, and advertised herself as "the eloquent lady speaker at the prayer-meeting of Plymouth Church." Before she had entered upon her labors she arose one evening

245

in the lecture-room after the usual time to close the service and the pastor requested her to be brief. Her address was so characteristic and prolonged that the people became restless, and when she closed Mr. Beecher said with well-understood accent and empha­sis, "nevertheless I am in favor of women's speaking in meeting." The whereabouts of our long­time friend has been unknown to us since that evening. From time to time other women have spoken in our meetings, some of them returned missionaries and some Quakeresses, all of whom have generally inter­ested and edified the people.

THE METHODIST SISTER.

One day in conversation with Mr. Beecher about the change that had taken place in the views and feelings of close communionists, in regard to permitting others to sit with them at the Lord's table, I related the fol­lowing incident in the life of Washington, told me by my mother.

The winter his army was encamped at Morristown, New Jersey, General Washington was a regular attend­ant on the Sabbath service of the Presbyterian Church, the only church then in the town; during the week pre­ceding the communion Sabbath, General Washington called at the parsonage and inquired of the minister, "Doctor, do you permit Episcopalians to come to your communion table?" The good man replied, "General Washington, it is the Lord's table and all his children are welcome to it."

Mr. Beecher remarked that the most rigid were far

246

less so than formerly, and he did not believe that there were many tables so close now that General Washington or any other good man would be in dan­ger of being driven from them. As illustration of his opinion he told the following:

In a town a very interesting revival occurred in the Baptist Church, while there was little or no interest in the Methodist Church in the same place. In this church there was a very devout, warm-hearted old lady, who was attracted to the special services in the Baptist Church, where her son also attended, and be­came a convert, to the great joy of the old saint, who was accorded full liberty in expressing her enthusi­asm in the Baptist meetings. Communion season was approaching, and the old woman's boy felt he ought to be immersed and become a member of that church where he had found the Saviour. To this the old lady did not object, but when communion Sabbath came she was on hand with her son, and one of the deacons seeing her among the communicants, went to the min­ister and said to him, "That old Methodist is sitting down there and means to commune with us." "Does she?" he inquired with great seriousness of manner. "What shall I do?" inquired the deacon. "There is my hickory stick down yonder, get it and kill her." The old woman was not killed, but partook of the sup­per with the Baptists unmolested.

APPLICANTS FOR HELP.

Mr. Beecher has acquired such notoriety for liber­ality and sympathy, that he has been overrun for

247

years with all sorts of requests for every kind of as­sistance. In his house, in the street, at the close of services in the church, he has been beset with, those charity-seekers. When called to my present field of labor, one thing only did Mr. Beecher request, "that I should be as a kind of lightning-rod to relieve him from the care of those applicants." He knew he had often been imposed upon, and as I had had some experi­ence in the distribution of charity he desired to have all cases referred to me, as he could not say "No," even to a "dead beat."

At the close of a Sunday evening service, just after the war, I saw a man with an army coat on, buttoned up to the throat, waiting to speak to Mr. Beecher, who immediately referred him to me. I asked him what he desired of the pastor. "I want a clean shirt." "Why do you come to Mr. Beecher for a clean shirt?" "I have read his articles and other things that have been written about him, and I thought he was a kind man and would grant me such a favor." "Where do you belong and what have you done for a support?" "I belong to Alexandria in the District of Columbia, and have been a fisherman on the Potomac." "Yes, I have a family and had misunderstandings; I did not think I was treated properly and came away." "Well, my advice to you is, to go back quicker than you came away." "No, sir, I want to let them know that I can take care of myself. I saw they wanted men to work in the brickyard up at Flushing, and I thought if Mr. Beecher would give me a clean shirt, I would walk up there and go in the bay and take a bath, put on the clean shirt, and go to the brickyard and apply

248

for work." Lodging, breakfast, and a clean shirt were provided for him, and he went on his way.

Directly in front of the platform in one of the free seats on a pleasant spring morning sat an old gentle­man of perhaps sixty, whose tears fell frequently dur­ing the sermon, and an occasional "Amen" empha­sized the old man's approval of the sermon. The moment the benediction was pronounced he stepped to the platform and handed a book to the pastor, who, as he came down, handed it to me, wishing me to tell him what to do. Opening the book I found it con­tained contributions for the owner's benefit. I asked him what he was obtaining these subscriptions for. "For myself.'' "Where do you belong?" "Fredericksburg, Virginia." "Why should you be here begging in this way?" "Because I am needy." "You are not sick, why don't you go to work and earn a support for yourself, or if you are going to beg for a living, why do you not stay at home and ask help of them, that know you, instead of coming here among strangers?" To all of which I could obtain no other statement than that he had obtained from those who knew him all they were willing to give. His book had been in use a long time, and the aggregate contri­butions, were very considerable, and though beginning at Fredericksburg, they had been added to at various places all the way from there to Brooklyn. I advised the pastor to give him fifty cents. "Oh, give him five dollars," was the answer. When the old man got his five dollars, he said, "Now. I want to see Brother Beecher and have a good talk with him," but he was told that that was out of the question.

249

During the "Centennial," a woman from Boston, apparently thirty to thirty-five years of age, called upon me to inquire where Mr. Beecher resided, saying she was an orphan from Boston, that she had been to Philadelphia and wanted to remain over Sunday to hear Mr. Beecher preach, and thought, as she was an orphan, she could be entertained at his house. Of course she was educated, but not very modern in her general appearance, especially in regard to her dress.

Many come to entreat a collection in the church or lecture-room for their benefit. Prom Pennsylvania and Western States some urgent appeals have come by letter, and some women have journeyed more than a thousand miles to secure collections to save home­steads from being lost under foreclosure of mortgages.

In a single week on one occasion, two mothers came, and were seemingly disappointed that their re­quests did not meet with a favorable answer. One, the daughter of a clergyman, was evidently educated and refined. Her husband had been unfortunate, and though once in very comfortable, if not affluent cir­cumstances, they were now in absolute want, and threatened to be turned from their rooms upon the street because they could not pay their rent. They had two daughters who had been delicately brought up and could not resort to ordinary service for a sup­port. This was the story of this wife and mother, and in it all it was quite apparent that a foolish pride had kept them from economies and industries that would have kept them back from the extreme condition to which they were now reduced, but she had none, and the family had none of that decent pride which would

250

prevent them going to entire strangers entreating a public collection. She seemed hurt and disappointed when I told her that the church would not take such collections, and that if such were attempted there would be no end of applications from persons as needy and deserving as herself.

A widow with a little girl twelve years old called for help, saying by way of precedent that "Mr. Beecher had taken a collection for the widow of a policeman who was murdered," and she too was in need of help. I told her that Mr. Beecher did not take a collection, but that he had given a lecture in the Academy of Music for a case which was very different from hers. The man was murdered while in the discharge of his duty as an officer, and his widow was left with several young children.

As she was in good health, I advised her to go to work in some family with her child or else get a place for her child in some family that would take good care of her, and go to work herself, earn what she could, placing in bank what she could spare, and thus accumulate something against the day of sickness and want. The advice was not much relished.

As I entered the pastor's library one morning, a man perhaps sixty passed out, while the pastor was hold­ing a pen in his mouth and was just putting his check-book in his safe. I said, "I wish I had the key of that safe." "What would you do if you had?" "I would keep you from drawing checks for those shysters that are constantly sponging upon you." "Oh," he replied, "I only gave him twenty-five dol­lars. It's Captain B--, he is an old English shipmas-

251

ter, has lost his ship, and is going to Charleston to get a new ship." I was amiably rebuked for being sus­picious of such a man. Possibly six months after this, I was told a gentleman was waiting to see me, and entering the room I at once recognized the wrecked English sea captain. He arose and intro­duced himself as Captain B--, had been sick and was on his way to Philadelphia to his ship, out of funds, and wanted to get sufficient to pay his way to Philadelphia. "I called round to see my friend, Ward Beecher; he helped me once, but is not at home, and I was referred to you." I told him I knew that he had received help from Mr. Beecher, and that he ought not to have gone to him. I could not help him, but if he could show that it was important for him to get to Philadelphia, if he would go to Mr. George Kellogg, who was the superintendent of the out-door poor in New York, he would give him a pass to Philadelphia. Six years have gone since these applications, and Cap­tain B-- has not appeared to reproduce his need of means to obtain a "new ship," or a "pass" to any city.

UNIVERSAL ADAPTATION.

A striking feature of Mr. Beecher's sermons, his lecture-room talks, and especially his prayers, is their adaptation to so many and such a variety of human ex­perience and want. This is not only true of his ser­vices as a whole, but in each particular service the needs and yearnings of every variety of temperament and of every condition in life find relief, comfort, light,

252

and strength. Nothing is more common in visitations among the people than to discover this peculiarity in the results of the teachings of Plymouth pulpit. Though familiar with the influence of many pastors- good, true, and successful men of God-I have never known any ministry so eminent in this particular as that of Mr. Beecher. While scarcely any pastoral work is performed by him, yet his sermons manifest the most intimate personal knowledge of his people's spiritual condition; very frequently persons have said to me, Mr. Beecher must have been informed of my circumstances, troubles and sorrows, doubts and fears. He could not speak so exactly to my wants if some one had not been talking to him about me. The testi­mony of Mr. Beecher's intimate knowledge of the inner consciousness of his hearers, does not come alone or chiefly from his own people, but from men and women of all Christian sects over the whole land, and also from other lands by those who have heard Mr. Beecher or read his utterances in the printed page. From the knowledge I have acquired by pastoral visits, by in­terviews at my own house, and by letters, I am confi­dent that the teachings of Plymouth pulpit have been wonderfully used by God to comfort and bless a far greater number of persons and churches than any one has ever attempted to estimate. Many years since I was permitted on one occasion to read a brief note directed to Mr. Beecher and dated at a European me­tropolis. I will attempt to recall its contents as nearly as possible:

"Rev. Henry Ward Beecher-Dear Sir: You will be surprised to receive from me a letter dated from

253

this distant city. My family had preceded me, having come to Europe for the benefit of my wife's health, who had been ill a long time. Among other reading matter a large number of your sermons was brought over by my family, and they have been the constant companions of Mrs. A. during the day as she lies upon her couch; they lie upon her pillow while she sleeps, and the reading of them is renewed when she awakes. My wife charges me to express to you her thanks for the great comfort and help she has de­rived from reading them. The other members of the family unite in this expression. Permit me, as I know something about sermon-making, to express my won­derful admiration at the exuberance of your mind in preparing sermons."

The writer of the letter, since deceased, was not of the same denomination as the pastor of Plymouth Church, but was one of the most conservative, best known, and widely popular ministers in the land; Mr. Beecher's senior both in years and in the ministry, but never intimate with him, occupying until his death a most conspicuous and honorable position at the head of one of the chief seminaries of learning in our land, and previously pastor for many years of one of the lar­gest and most influential churches in the country. If it were consistent, I would gladly give his name, as the letter was most creditable to him and admirably illus­trated what I have endeavored to show of the wide helpfulness of Mr. Beecher's instructions.

So much is put into the sermons at Plymouth Church that any one sincerely and simply desiring to know the truth for the purpose of accepting and obeying it may

254

find all that is necessary to a clear and intelligent con­ception of what is required.

But Mr. Beecher's prayers, even more than his ser­mons, have excited my wonder and admiration as well as the astonishment of others. The wonder is not at their great literary excellence, not at the remarkable illustrative genius always manifest, nor at the great eloquence and force with which the grandest themes are brought, in form so clear and simple, to the door of each individual soul, for it to appropriate and be made to feel "It is for me."

The prayers are marvellous in their inclusiveness and individuality. This is the wonderful feature in Mr. Beecher's prayers. It would seem while Mr. Beecher is praying that each one in the church was taken in his arms and borne into the presence of that God "who is waiting to be gracious.'' A conscious nearness to the Saviour is very apparent and prevalent. Many have said that after the prayer they did not seem to need the sermon. Their weary, yearning, dissatisfied spirit had obtained rest, satisfaction, and peace.

What, it may be asked, are the elements of Mr. Beecher's ministerial success? I think we must go outside of his rare and wonderful endowments to learn what is the root and ground of his success as a Chris­tian minister.

I believe God, in his wondrous plan and purposes, having seen that the work Mr. Beecher has been doing was greatly needed, that the heavenly Father raised him up, inspired and fitted him for it. "His sufficiency is of God." It has been given him of the Holy Spirit to find the hearts of men, weary and hungry

257

and sore, and then to lead them to the Great Phy­sician for refreshment, rest, and healing. No man un­taught of the Divine Spirit could preach to men and so commune with God as the preacher of Plymouth Church does. I cannot dispossess myself of the idea, after all I have seen of Mr. Beecher, that he has been taken into such wonderful intimacy and communion with Christ, as to learn things that are not lawful to be told, that he has been drawn into earthly walks to some Emmaus where his heart has burned within him, as the Christ of the disciples opened his eyes to behold wonderful things which should make him a workman of whom the Master would not be ashamed.

THE WOMAN WHO LOST HER BABY.

In the early part of my labors for Plymouth Church, I called upon a family, of which the wife and mother was a member of Mr. Beecher's church. During the conversation, this mother frequently alluded to the great helpfulness of the pastor's sermons to her. To illustrate this fact, she told me how she was led to go to Plymouth Church. "Eight years ago," said she, "I lost my baby, and it was such a loss, I was utterly disconsolate, I could only think of my dead baby. It was a simple, unmitigated grief from which I found no relief or alleviation. I could not weep, not a tear could I shed, and though I sought counsel from those I thought good and wise, no one afforded me any com­fort. I was educated as a Friend, and I sought help from them, but I obtained no relief, and was in such despair that my friends feared I would become de-

258

ranged. I did become rebellious and reckless, and said one day to my mother: 'The Lord has killed my baby, and I don't love him.' 'Why,' said mother, 'what does this mean?' and I repeated, 'The Lord has killed my baby, and I do not love him.' It occurred to me one day that I might be helped by Henry Ward Beecher, and resolved at once to go and see him. Reflecting upon it, I thought it will be of no use to make the attempt; so many are running to him he will take no notice of me, so I gave up the thought of seeing him, and continued in my way of despair and sorrow, until it occurred to me I can write to him and tell him my story and ask him to help me out of my darkness. I was so encouraged with this plan that I immediately wrote the letter, sealed and directed it; then the fear arose that it would be useless to send it, as he was re­ceiving hundreds of letters; he would not pay any at­tention to mine further than to open it and throw it in the waste basket; and with this feeling oppressing me I decided not to send the letter and sank down to my old despairing mood. After a time, it again occurred to me that I might derive help from Mr. Beecher, and I determined that I would go and hear him preach the next Sunday morning, and through the next week made all my arrangements with this view. When the Sabbath came I started at an early hour for the church, and on the way, putting my hand into the pocket of my dress, it came in contact with the letter which I had written to him, and of which I had not thought for some time. With the letter in my hand I entered the church, walked up to the pulpit, laid the letter on the book-ta­ble, went down and took a seat among the congregation.

259

When Mr. Beecher entered I was greatly excited. When he took up my letter I was expecting he would simply glance at it, tear it up, and throw it upon the floor. But he read it deliberately, then placed it in one of the books, and laid the book open on the reading-desk. I was in a tremor of excitement through the opening services, and during the main prayer up to that part in which he was presenting the personal needs of the con­gregation, when he said, 'O God, we pray for the poor woman who has lost her baby,' and then offered a tender and pitiful petition that I might have divine help. I was deeply touched the moment he alluded to my case, and for the first time in the long months that had passed since my baby died, I was able to cry. In­deed I could not restrain my feelings; tears ran down my face during the entire remaining service. I cannot describe the instant relief I experienced, I was lifted from the very depths of despondency not only to great peace, but alsolute ecstasy. Everything the Lord had done was right. I had no further controversy with him, and if he had told me I might have my baby, I should have told him to keep it. My mouth was filled with singing, and the change in my appearance was so great since the morning, my family felt that now I was surely deranged. My joy and peace continued through the day. In the evening I went to church again, tears of peace and gladness flowing continually. Mr. Beecher in his prayer said: 'O Lord, we must pray once more for that poor woman who has lost her baby,' and as I could not have done, he carried my case to the blessed Comforter, who had already so graciously comforted me. In the subsequent days I retained the same tran-

260

quillity and the most cheerful acquiescence in the Providence that took my baby from my arms. And this is the way I came to unite with Plymouth Church. Oh, how I wish Mr. Beecher knew what he has done for me, and how much he has helped me." I asked, "Did you never tell him the story you have told me?" No, she had never mentioned it. "Well, I will see that he does know it." At the next prayer-meeting I related the incidents very much as I have written them here. Many eyes showed that hearts were touched. Mr. Beecher made no other response than was indicated by his face, but that showed in every lineament satisfaction, sympathy, and joy.

CHAPTER XI.

PLYMOUTH CHURCH.

plymouth church is Mr. Beecher's best monu­ment. Its life began thirty-five years ago (June, 1847), with twenty-one members. It now numbers (1882) two thousand four hundred and ninety-one. During these thirty-five years its gross membership has been nearly forty-six hundred, of whom therefore about twenty-one hundred have left it by death, dismission, or expulsion. Many of these are, however, still in affectionate, personal relations with the church of their first love. They have gone out from it carrying to other churches the breadth of view, the tolerance of other people's opinions, the indifference to forms and externals, and the personal love for a personal Saviour which they have learned here. They have been active as founders of new churches, not only in New York, Brooklyn, and vicinity, but all over the land. Not a few such have taken the name, still more have im­bibed something of the spirit of the mother church. The graduates of Plymouth Church are all proud of their alma mater, all look back with loving remem­brance to their associations with her, and when they visit Brooklyn return to their mother church with love in their hearts and tears in their eyes, as children who return to their home after long separations. Such greetings in the morning services or at Friday evening

262

prayer-meetings are common. During all these years this community has never known a quarrel. Differ­ences of opinions have been developed, warm discus­sions have taken place, but no quarrel has ever broken that love which is "the bond of perfectness." The social unity which characterized the church in its earlier days it is impossible to maintain in one of twenty-four hundred members, scattered over two cities. But cliques and caste in an offensive sense are unknown, and party differences and divisions are ab­ solutely unheard of. In all the excitements through which the church has passed, in all the battles in which Mr. Beecher has been engaged, his church has never faltered in its love and loyalty for him. Jealous of its independence, recognizing in its pastor no ecclesi­ astical rights which do not inhere in the humblest member, not infrequently refusing to follow his lead, and always subjecting his recommendations on all matters of church business to the freest possible criti­ cism, it has yet stood about him personally with a sympathy which no slanders could chill, and with a fidelity which no assaults could weaken, loyal in its love for him through good report and evil report, in times of popularity and in times of abuse, undivided and unshaken.

"Mr. Beecher's life," well writes to me one of the older members of his church, "can never be fully given to posterity without some adequate understand­ing of Plymouth Church, as an illustration of his knowledge of human nature, and his peculiar and wonderful skill in swaying great bodies of men. It is something different from the power of the orator, who

263

influences for the occasion only. It is a wisdom of administration that for thirty-five years has held together a body of two thousand people of the most varying opinions, drawn from all the sects in Christen­dom, who have worked together in every form of benevolence, in the church and in the community, without dissension or disagreement, and as far as can be said of anything earthly, without variance or shadow of turning."

To the casual visitor, Plymouth Church is simply a great gathering-place on the Sabbath of three thousand people, drawn together by the magnetism of a great orator. Even as such it is a remarkable phenomenon. For thirty-five years the same orator, standing on the same platform and under the same roof, has drawn these audiences, and the throng is as great to-day as when his face was strange, and his voice new, and he possessed all the attractions with which the enthusi­asm of youth in a period of strong public excitement invests a new contributor to public discussions.

"How shall I get to Plymouth Church?" asked a stranger in New York of a Plymouth Church mem­ber. "Cross Pulton Perry and follow the crowd," was the reply. He who obeys this direction on any Sabbath morning between the first of October and the first of July, will find himself at ten o'clock in the morning in an irregular, informal, but consider­able procession going up Hicks Street, and turning the corner of Orange Street he will reach the front of a plain brick edifice without tower, steeple, or ornament of any kind. Entering, he will find the "meeting-house" as plain within as without; a nearly

284

square audience-room, with large galleries running round three sides, and a second gallery or loft at the rear; plain white walls, plain white wood-work-in short, an audience-room as unchurchlike as can be imagined, for it neither resembles an ancient cathe­dral nor a modern theatre. At the farther end is a platform, on which there is always a bouquet of flowers, and on the platform three chairs and a small reading-desk. The only bit of conventionalism about the church is the huge pulpit Bible, which is still al­lowed to lie on this desk, why I do not know, as Mr. Beecher always reads from a small Bible which he holds in his hand, and always lays his notes loosely on the desk, never cunningly concealed, after the pro­fessional manner, in the pages of the big Bible. Di­rectly in the rear of the platform, a little above it, is a small choir gallery and a big organ, which is too large for its space, and obtrudes itself somewhat osten­tatiously upon the congregation, as much as to say, "If you doubt whether you are in a church, look at me!" If our visitor is a church-goer his doubt whether he is in a church will be somewhat increased by the general atmosphere of the place; this is not spiritual, but pre-eminently social. It is now ten min­utes past ten, and the congregation are beginning to as­semble. Instead of kneeling with bowed head upon the hassock, or sitting in meditative silence, they are chatting with each other, reaching across aisles and pews to shake hands, introducing new friends, or wel­coming old ones. There is no loud and boisterous talking, but people do not think it needful to speak in whispers; there is no hilarious laughter, but genial

265

humor and a quiet laugh are not so rare as to attract any attention. Now and then a man without a com­panion to talk to takes a daily paper out of his pocket and reads the news. To some reverent-minded people, accustomed to come to the sanctuary to worship God, this seems irreverent and almost shocking. But when I see how many churches there are with pillared naves and dim religious light, half filled or hardly that, and how many groups of men and boys there are upon the streets of a Sabbath morning to whom dim religious light has no attractions, I am myself inclined to think that there are churches enough for those who want to worship God, and that there is room for some new churches for people of a less spiritual and more social turn of mind, who might be drawn to church by social attractions and inspired to worship after they got there. Such at all events is Plymouth Church. Its invitation and its welcome are social; its food is intellectual and spiritual. As the minute hand draws near to half past ten the congregation gather more rapidly; at twenty minutes past ten the seats not already occupied by the pew-holders are, by the terms of the renting, free, and the ushers begin to fill them up; at twenty-five minutes past, the aisle seats, of which one is attached to every pew and by a curious contrivance folded up against it, are opened with a sharp clicking noise, all over the house, and occupied; at twenty-eight minutes past ten Mr. Beecher has entered through a little door in the rear of the pulpit, his notes in hand, and takes bis seat; and at half past ten, exactly, the organ begins its vol­untary, every seat in the church is filled, and he who arrives after that must stand, or sit on the pulpit stairs,

266

if he is fortunate enough to get within the doors at all. It is no uncommon thing for hundreds to go away.

The choir is a large chorus, which, has broken over the bounds of the choir gallery, into the end seats of the other galleries. It renders the opening anthem effectively, but rather with force and vigor than with delicacy and refinement. Its chief function is to lead the congregational singing, and this it does perfectly. Hymn and tune books are scattered throughout the congregation; and every one sings. It is worth while to go to Plymouth Church were it only to hear three thousand people join in singing, "How Firm a Foun­dation," to the Portuguese hymn, or "Lore Divine, all Love Excelling" to the tune of Beecher. Such sing­ing is to be heard nowhere else. In Dr. Allon's church in London the congregation sing with better musical taste and render music far more difficult; but even in Dr. Allon's the abandon, the enthusiasm, the "making a joyful noise unto the Lord," does not equal that of Plymouth Church congregation. The one is an Eng­lish, the other is an American singing.

Up to the close of the anthem the atmosphere has been social. The choir is too prominent, the me­chanics of the music too evident, the quality of per­formance too manifest to allow the opening piece to produce much atmospheric effect. Mr. Beecher rises, and by his two minutes of invocation changes the entire atmosphere. We are no longer in a lecture-room, we are in a church; no testimony to the power of simple character could be, I think, more striking than the change which is wrought by this opening prayer. For the prayer itself is perfectly simple. It

267

is rather a meditation than a prayer. It is less a sup­plication than a simple opening of the heart to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The voice is low and ten­der; it is at first heard with difficulty at the farther end of the church. But the bustling congregation is absolutely hushed and still. There are no late comers to disturb and convert the invocation into a cold for­mality; no creaking boots down the aisle, for the aisles are full; no seating of strangers, for the seats are all occupied; no opening and closing of doors, for the line of latest comers fills the doorway. The bustle which so often obtrudes itself upon a congregation until almost the time for the sermon to begin, is over in Plymouth Church before the anthem is ended. And the opening prayer is a true prayer, a doorway opened through which, as it were, God enters last of all, to reach his people. The rest of the service is in form like that in most New England churches. The modi­fied liturgy which some of our non-liturgical churches have adopted Plymouth Church has never attempted. The hymns are announced, but rarely read; when one is read the reading is all the more effective for the fact that it is rare. The Scripture reading is very seldom accompanied with any other comment than that of a peculiar emphasis, giving to the text a pecul­iar power, and sometimes an absolutely new meaning.

If you come in the evening you will find another congregation as large as that which assembled in the morning, but almost wholly different. The pew-hold­ers are absent; strangers have taken their places. The services and the sermon are modified accordingly. The morning prayers are largely meditative, the evening

268

prayers are supplicating; the morning prayers are in the spirit of the 17th of John, the evening prayers in the spirit of the Lord's prayer. There is the same difference between the sermons. The morning sermons are preached to the church, the evening sermons to the world; the morning sermons are doctrinal and spirit­ual, the evening sermons are practical and persuasive; in the morning Mr. Beecher fulfils the second half of Christ's commission, instructing Christ's disciples to do all things whatsoever Christ has commanded them; in the evening the first part of that commission, herald­ing to all classes the gospel. The purely theological sermons are always given in the morning; the purely ethical and political sermons are generally given in the evening.

The Plymouth Church lot extends from Orange Street through to Cranberry Street. In the rear of the church, fronting on Cranberry Street, but entered from either end, is a two-story edifice which serves a triple purpose. The first floor is a large audience-room which will easily seat eight or nine hundred people; this is the lecture-room. Along its side, on a floor elevated a little above it, and separated from the lecture-room by sliding doors, are the social parlors. In case of necessity-and in times of special religious interest this necessity often exists-these doors can be thrown open and the parlors made a part of the lecture-room, add­ing to it a further seating capacity of three or four hundred. Connected with the parlors is a kitchen; adjoining them a small room for meetings of commit-tees, trustees, and the like. In the second story is the Sunday-school room, which is equipped with both

269

organ and piano, with special rooms that can be sep­arated from or connected with the main room by slid­ing doors or windows, which are used for infant and Bible classes. There is but one weekly meeting of the church. This is the Friday evening meeting. It is a meeting for instruction, rather than for prayer, though always opened by several prayers from different mem­bers of the church, interspersed with singing. It is a meeting for instruction by the pastor rather than for conference, experience, or mutual exhortation, although there is always an opportunity for others than the pas­tor, and it is often taken advantage of with a consider­able degree of freedom. A meeting in this lecture-room Mr. Parton has described in his "Famous Americans." Mr. Parton is not himself famous for his spirituality; and the reader will be interested in his description, as showing how this meeting strikes an average man of the world, of intellectual quickness and acumen, but without spiritual warmth.

"The room is large, very lofty, "brilliantly lighted by reflectors affixed to the ceiling, and, except the scarlet cushions on the settees, void of upholstery. It was filled full with a cheerful company, not one of whom seemed to have on more or richer clothes than she had the moral strength to wear. Content and pleasant expectation sat on every countenance, as when people have come to a festival, and await the summons to the banquet. No pulpit, or anything like a pulpit, casts a shadow over the scene; but in its stead there was rather a large platform, raised two steps, covered with dark green canvas, and having upon it a very small table and one chair. The red-cushioned settees were so arranged as to inclose the green platform all about, except on one side; so that he who should sit upon it would appear to be

270

in the midst of the people, raised above them that all might see him, yet still among them and one of them. At one side of the platform, but on the floor of the room, among the settees, there was a piano open. Mr. Beecher sat near by, reading what appeared to be a letter of three or four sheets. The whole scene was so little like what we commonly understand by the word 'meeting' the people there were so little in a 'meeting' state of mind, and the subsequent proceedings were so informal, unstudied, and social, that in attempting to give this account of them, we almost feel as if we were reporting for print the con­versation of a private evening party. Anything more unlike an old-fashioned prayer-meeting it is not possible to conceive.

"Mr. Beecher took his seat upon the platform, and, after a short pause, began the exercises by saying, in a low tone, these words, 'Six twenty-two.'

"A rustling of the leaves of hymn-books interpreted the meaning of this mystical utterance, which otherwise might have been taken as announcing a discourse upon the prophetic num­bers. The piano confirmed the interpretation: and then the company burst into one of those joyous and unanimous singings which are so enchanting a feature of the services of this church. Loud rose the beautiful harmony of voices, constraining every one to join in the song, even those most unused to sing. When it was ended, the pastor, in the same low tone, pronounced a name; upon which one of the brethren rose to his feet, and the rest of the assembly slightly inclined their heads. It would not, as we have remarked, be becoming in us to say anything upon this portion of the proceedings, except to note that the prayers were all brief, perfectly quiet and simple, and free from the routine or regulation expressions. There were bat two or three of them, alternating with singing; and when that part of the exercises was concluded, Mr. Beecher had scarcely spoken. The meeting ran along, in the most spontaneous and pleasant manner; and with all his heartiness and simplicity, there was a certain refined

271

decorum pervading all that was done and said. There was a pause after the last hymn died away, and then Mr. Beecher, still seated, began, in the tone of conversation, to speak, somewhat after this manner.

" 'When,' said he,' I first began to walk as a Christian, in my youthful zeal I made many resolutions that were well meant, but indiscreet. Among others, I remember, I resolved to pray, at least in some way, every hour that I was awake. I tried faith­fully to keep this resolution, but never having succeeded a single day, I suffered the pangs of self-reproach until reflection satisfied me that the only possible wisdom with regard to such a resolve was to break it. I remember, too, that I made a resolution to speak upon religion to every person with whom I conversed, on steamboats, in the streets, anywhere. In this, also, I failed, as I ought; and I soon learned that, in the sowing of such seed, as in other sowings, times and seasons and methods must be considered and selected, or a man may defeat his own object, and make relig­ion loathsome.'

"In language like this he introduced the topic of the evening's conversation, which was, How far, and on what occasions, and in what manner, one person may invade, so to speak, the personality of another, and speak to him upon his moral condition. The pastor expressed his own opinion, always in the conversational tone, in a talk of ten minutes' duration; in the course of which he applauded, not censured, the delicacy which causes most people to shrink from doing it. He said that a man's personality was not a macadamized road for every vehicle to drive upon at will; but rather a sacred inclosure, to be entered, if at all, with the consent of the owner, and with deference to his feelings and tastes. He maintained, however, that there were times and modes in which this might properly be done, and that every one had a duty to perform of this nature.

"When he had finished his observations, he said the subject was open to the remarks of others.''

272

We will not follow Mr. Parton in his report of what followed. It would be valuable here only as illustrat­ing what is a characteristic feature of these meetings, the utter disregard of conventionalism and even of whatmany would regard the proprieties of a religious meet­ing. Mr. Beecher always keeps his seat. He not un- frequently interrupts others with a question, they sometimes interrupt him. A good-humored play of feeling or fancy is not uncommon; and rippling laughter is not regarded as any infringement of the decorum of the place. Sometimes this proves a seri­ous embarrassment to a stranger. I remember on one revival occasion a pious but rather solemn brother from Philadelphia was giving an account of the revival meetings in that city. He went, he told us, to an early morning prayer-meeting, a noon business man's prayer-meeting, an afternoon union prayer-meeting at three o'clock, a lecture or prayer-meeting in the evening, and an inquiry-meeting after that. "You may ask," he said, "how I was able to attend so many meetings, and also to attend to my business. But it so happened, in the providence of God, that I hadn't any business to attend to." He said it with a solemn naivet? which was irresistible; a smile broke over Mr. Beecher's face, and a genuine ripple of quiet laughter ran round the room. The poor man was hor­ror-struck at a prayer-meeting in laughter, and sat down as though he had been shot, while Mr. Beecher turned off his embarrassment with a pleasant word and caught up the broken thread of the meeting with that peculiar tact which is not the of his many and diverse gifts.

273

Mr. Parton has given one picture of these meetings; it would take a large picture gallery to represent their varied aspects. For these walls have witnessed many scenes of most profound spiritual emotion, and if they could speak what they have seen and heard could tell the story of many a conversion wrought and many more recorded through the influence which Plymouth Church prayer-meetings have exerted. Probably the most sacred season in the history of this room was the season of 1857 and 1858. I well remember the stormy, snowy Monday morning in February when a few of us, twenty-eight in number, I think, met for a first morn­ing prayer-meeting. Religious interest had been deep­ening throughout the country, it had been deepening in Plymouth Church; but to all requests to appoint a protracted meeting, Mr. Beecher had but one reply. He disavowed his belief in "got up" revivals, saying that if the spirit of revival was in the church the re­vival itself would follow. For two weeks this morn­ing meeting was continued, without Mr. Beecher's presence; to some he even seemed to discourage the work by refusing to participate in it, but his purpose was to put the responsibility upon his people, and he achieved his object. Reluctantly but gradually they took it, the meetings steadily increased in size and in­terest; and at last, at the close of a Sabbath evening inquiry meeting, he announced his purpose to be pres­ent at the next morning prayer-meeting. This was March 11th, and from that day till July 3rd those morning meetings were kept up, I believe without a break, and almost without a single absence of the pas­tor. They who attended these meetings will never

274

forget them; their freedom of intercourse, their social warmth, their spiritual tenderness. Their commingling of humor and pathos, of the intellectual and the emo­tional, of the practical and the spiritual, in a word their life, genuine, free, untrammeled, varied life, gave them a character wholly indescribable. What­ever the spirit of the meeting had been, at the close Mr. Beecher invariably rose and invited any present who wished so to do to offer their requests for prayers, for others or themselves, and then, catching instantly and repeating to the meeting the request, often fal­tered out by wife or sister or mother, almost under breath, finally gathered them up and grouped them to­gether in a supplication which forgot not one; and the whole meeting always caught the spirit of his spiritual tenderness and sympathy, and ended in a communion with God, the more delightful that it had been pre­ceded by an hour of communion with one another so entirely spontaneous and free.*

The regular Friday evening meetings, it should be added, furnish Mr. Beecher his pastoral opportunity. Mr. Beecher never does any house to house visitation; and now he rarely conducts even a funeral or calls on those in sorrow. But he nevertheless does a consider­able amount of pastoral work. At the close of his Friday evening meeting he holds what I may call a re­ligious reception. For sometimes half an hour after the regular service is closed, he sits on the platform

* A little memorial of the revival in Plymouth Church was published (Clark, Austin & Smith, 1859), containing an account of these meetings, but there is no space here to quote incidents from it. The book is now out of print and rare.

275

to receive, hear, suggest, counsel, direct. He shakes hands with any one who offers him a hand. No name escapes him. A friend returned after a long absence is instantly recognized and greeted with the warm cordiality of a love that is without dissimulation. If one of his parishioners wants to see him privately he sits down with him in a pew, hears his experience, divines it before it is half told, enters into it with a heart full of sympathy, and meets it with a sentence which goes right to the heart of the matter, sometimes hurting at the time, but serving perhaps all the better for that very reason afterward. "What shall I do, Mr. Beecher?" asked a lady parishioner in domestic trou­ble. "Where can I go for help?" "Is it possible," answered Mr. Beecher, "that I have been preaching to you all these years, and you do not know where to go for help?" "It hurt me at the time," said this lady, afterward speaking to me; "but I never forgot it; and when his troubles came I knew where his help came from." Generosity of sympathy and quickness of insight are a part of Mr. Beecher's genius; his sympathy opens your heart to him, his insight quick­ly discerns its wants; and thus he is often able to ac­complish in an hour an amount of pastoral work which a man less magnetic, less sympathetic, less quick in mental and spiritual action would require days to ac­complish.

But if Mr. Beecher rarely performs what are known as pastoral services, Plymouth Church is not pastor-less. She has in the Rev. Samuel B. Halliday a Pas­toral Helper who is admirably qualified for the per­sonal work of the pastoral office; his warm heart, his

276

spiritual earnestness, his intensely practical common-sense, and his tender sympathies, make him a valued friend and a wise counsellor. The whole work of pas­toral administration is largely in his hands, he visits the sick, converses with inquirers, oversees the mission work in its various departments, keeps account of the church charities, attends the funerals, and even cele­brates the weddings. He is honored and loved by the entire church, and by none more than by Mr. Beecher himself, whose spirit he has caught and with whose views and methods he is not the less in perfect sympa­thy, that he is a man of singular and almost idiosyn­cratic independence. The division of labor between pastors and teachers dates from the apostolic age, Plymouth. Church in having one man for its teacher and another for its pastor has ventured on an experi­ment which many have declared can never succeed. It seems, however, to have succeeded perfectly in this instance; and it is at least a fair question whether churches might not well adopt the same principle in whole or in part, by relieving their teacher of the de­tail of pastoral labor, and by putting them upon an assistant or even upon office-bearers who in too many American churches bear nothing but the name of their offices.

Up to about 1860 these services, those of the Sab­bath and of Friday evening, practically constituted Plymouth Church. There were social gatherings, and a sewing circle, and various like attempts at organiza­tion; and there was a Sabbath-school connected with the church, of course. But the Sabbath-school was in no way worthy of the church, and the missionary and

277

social organizations were for the most part fitful and transient. In 1858 the church had not a single mission it could call its own. And still its young men were not idle. I was teaching a Bible class of young men that year in connection with the church. I wanted to change it from a morning to an afternoon session, but every member of my class was engaged in some sort of missionary work, though not in work organically con­nected with Plymouth Church. Under George A. Bell the Sunday-school was reorganized in 1862, and pro­vided with its present admirable accommodations. Five years later, under the same skillful organizer, the Bethel Mission, formerly a union missionary work, ex­cellent in spirit but poor in equipment, feeble in re­sources and small in results, was adopted by Plym­outh Church and put in possession of an admirably equipped building. Four years after that the church adopted the Mayflower Mission, which had maintained a checkered existence under great discouragement and disadvantage for nearly thirty years before that time; a church building was purchased and remodelled for its use; and this, its present home, is one of the best adapted and most attractive missions in the city. The property of both missions is entirely free from debt. Plymouth Church is no longer a mere congregation; it is a working body, well organized, with three Sunday-schools, two of them missions, each with its own inde­pendent social and religious life. Both the missions have well-equipped free reading-rooms, open in the evenings, well supplied with daily and weekly news­papers and the best magazines, and always well filled with readers. Both have libraries which are well fur-

278

nished, not with the average Sunday-school books, but with the best English classics-Scott, Dickens, Thack­eray, Hawthorne, Cooper, Howells, being among the story writers represented in its shelves. The library of the Bethel numbers two thousand books. There are Bible classes for adults sufficient in size to constitute a very respectable congregation, with a teacher who is, in fact, though not in name, a lay preacher. There are social parlors where there are gatherings, some­times religious, sometimes social, sometimes an inter­mixture of the two. Sabbath evening services are held, at which there are either lay addresses or a more formal sermon by a minister. A monthly paper de­voted to the interest of Plymouth Church and its two-missions, keeps the great body of the church ac­quainted with the progress and prospects of this gospel work. The warm feeling of personal loyalty which the workers in these missions feel for them is one of the strongest indications of the permanent quality both of their work and of the organizations which have grown up out of it.

The organization of Plymouth Church is congrega­tional, and however it may be accused of having de­parted from the theology, it certainly has not departed from the ecclesiastical simplicity of the Puritans. All business is transacted in open meetings. All members of the church vote. Nothing is relegated to a stand­ing committee or board. Even the Examining Com­mittee hold their sessions at the close of the prayer-meeting, and all members of the church are at liberty to remain and listen to the examination if they will. The church is in theory and practice a little communi-

279

ty of Christian believers, all of whom from the pastor to the poorest and humblest member stand upon an equality. No person has any greater authority than his personal influence gives to him. The church has a creed or articles of faith; they were adopted in 1848. These are strictly evangelical and include an explicit statement of the doctrine of the fall and of everlasting punishment. But since 1870 persons joining the church are not required to assent to these articles of faith. They simply assent to the following covenant and en­ter into covenant with the church:

"Do you now avouch the Lord Jehovah to be your God, Jesus Christ to be your Saviour, the Holy Spirit to be your Sanctifier? Renouncing the dominion of this world over you. do you conse­crate your whole soul and body to the service of God? Do you receive his word as the rule of your life, and by his grace assisting you, will you persevere in this consecration unto the end?"

In the prayer-meetings in 1858, of which I have given some account above, Mr. Beecher said: "Some men say, 'I would become a Christian, if I only first un­derstood all the doctrines of Christianity. Tell me what is this doctrine of the Trinity, of the atonement, of justification, of adoption?' My reply to all such persons is, 'You need no such instruction as this; you know already much on all these subjects and are no better for it. What you need is to put on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour; after that you can ex­amine all these doctrines as much as you please.' " There is nothing extraordinary in this; many a minis­ter has made substantially the same reply to inquirers. What is peculiar is that Plymouth Church believes this

280

doctrine and embodies it in its church life. It pre­scribes no other condition of membership in its school of Christ than the humble, lowly, and docile spirit of a disciple.

Such is Plymouth Church: a great audience gath­ered on the Sabbath for worship and instruction, but rather for instruction than for worship; a smaller con­gregation, but still a large one, gathered weekly on Fri­day evenings for worship, for Christian intercourse and for instruction, but rather for instruction than for in­tercourse, and rather for intercourse than for worship; but it is also a vital working force of Christian disciples, bound to their church by many a sacred association in connection with it, and bound to their work by warm human sympathy, real philanthropic enthusiasm, and a loyalty of love for a personal Saviour. When the teacher dies Plymouth Church must undergo some great changes; but it would be a great mistake to think that the church will die. The Sabbath audiences may and probably will fall off to the dimensions of an average Sabbath congregation; the Friday evening meeting may suffer a still more serious diminution, and become an ordinary prayer and conference meeting; but the working body which forms to-day the heart of Plymouth Church will not lose its head, nor abate its sympathies, nor slacken in its enthusiasm, nor prove unfaithful in the loyalty of its love to its Saviour. For whatever may have been true in the past, to-day the true, the inner, the working Plymouth Church is held together not merely by a personal love for Mr. Beecher, but yet more by a pardonable pride in the church, a common sympathy in Christian word and work, and

281

above all by a genuine Christian enthusiasm in its Christian work. Such an enthusiasm is immortal. It never dies in the death of the man by whom it has been inspired.*

* For a statistical statement as to Plymouth Church and its work, see Appendix.

PART II.

WORDS FROM MANY WITNESSES.

The letters which follow, from a number of emi­nent clergymen and laymen, have been written by request, and furnish accounts, some of them of incidents in Mr. Beecher's life, others of special aspects of his character as viewed by the respective writers. They are in all cases published in full and without alteration. They might have been easily indefinitely multiplied but for want of space.

The reprints from periodicals, following the letters, are published with the consent of the authors, with one or two exceptions where com­munication with the writer was not practicable.

PART II.

ANALYSES OF HIS POWER, AND REMINIS­CENCES BY CONTEMPORARIES.

I.

by THOMAS ARMITAGE, D.D.,

Pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, New York.

No one honors Henry Ward Beecher more, or can speak freely of him with less misgiving, than I. It seems desirable, after the frightful afflictions through which he has passed, and the obloquy to which he has risen superior, that in his lifetime he should have the pleasure of knowing that some of his brethren appreciate him at his real worth. All his attributes of greatness and goodness will, I am persuaded, be readily discovered when he is dead; for justice must be done some time, and will be pro­claimed without restraint by many who do not even suspect their existence now. But those who have already made that discovery need scarcely wait for his "sepulchre" as the fittest time for its avowal. They have not "stoned" him on his way thither; hence they may gracefully leave to those who have the rightful inheritance of "garnishing" his tomb when he is comfortably dead, and can draw no solace from posthumous devotion.

Mr. Beecher became the pastor of Plymouth Church two months before my own pastorate began in New York, and as his life has

286

been an open book, I have known him for above three-and-thirty years, not in the most familiar intimacy, but better than one pas­tor commonly knows another, and with an intelligent friendship which has never flagged for a day. We have seen many public objects and interests in a common light, and pursued them in close sympathy; while in others we have avowed those honest differences which hold true men firmly in each other's esteem. Who can forget his ardent and far-sighted patriotism in the en­mities, strifes, and hatreds of our civil war? For his country has passed through no trial without enlisting all his powers for its vindication, honor, and rescue. As the narrow bitterness of those times pass away, men begin to see that his life bas been full of charity, of tenderness, justice, and truth. Spots and blem­ishes might be found, even in a life so true and inspiring, but these must be left as gleanings for the gratification of that pug­nacity which has dogged his acts and virtues relentlessly at every step, do what he would. His prominence and influence in politi­cal controversy pushed him to the front of the strife, and because his powers were mighty, his pen and tongue were sharp, incisive, and overwhelming, making his opponents wince, and at times galling them unpardonably. But to his immortal honor it must be said that a fascinating humor and the sunshine of good nature have softened his sharpest contentions, rendering it impossible for him to vulgarly hound down any man on a blind outcry. His name will be interwoven with the fortunes of his country, as one of its foremost men. His healthful patriotic positions will live in influence when he is dead, for his memory is no small gain to humanity, so that he can afford to endure scorn and hate while he lives, if true Americans shall see in him the noble citizen and real brother when party mists have cleared away forever. His marvellous humanity, his great-souled pleas for his country, and his universal charity can never be forgotten while there are Ameri­can tongues to speak and pens to write.

287

Many hallowed memories are awakened within me as I re­member that out of about four hundred pastors who were in this city and Brooklyn when Mr. Beecher came here, there are not more than half a dozen who are still active in the same pastorates. And the great secular minds who then controlled the thought and action of the city and the nation have also given place to their successors. Through all these changes he has been spared; and, excepting that he is more gigantic in his attainments, influence, and effectiveness, he is the same grand, genial, manly man that he ever has been, both in the pulpit and out, and is still bent upon accomplishing the great work of his life, knit by every delicate tie which binds him to his own devout people stronger than ever.

The chief difficulty of saying what one wishes to say concerning Mr. Beecher within reasonable limits arises out of his many-sided character and powers, forming a most symmetrical unit both in heart and head. Last summer I entered the neat cottage of an intelligent mechanic in the heart of Yorkshire, and found him quite enthusiastic over one of Mr. Beecher's weekly sermons. Seizing the opportunity to draw out a disinterested opinion in such a place, and from such a man, I asked him bruskly why he spent his precious time in reading "that fellow's sermons," instead of Liddon's and Stanley's and Spurgeon's, which were published in the same periodical? He replied like a philosopher: "Ah, sir, I read those too; but it seems to me that the great object of Mr. Beecher's life is the upbuilding of man, and I always read his the first, for I think him the greatest preacher living." I felt that the honest and devout mechanic had gone to the very core of his ministry and life at a bound. As a representative leader in human progress the American divine gave up his whole being from the first to the aim of making man more pure, more beautiful, and more happy. No man can aim higher, and for this purpose God has wonderfully endowed him with all the requisite qualities found

288

in a vigorous, keen, versatile intellect, and a glorious heart. By these he has honestly battled for the rights of man; being ever ready to defend the weak, and to claim that freedom for others which he enjoyed himself, despite all the bitterness of fierce, cruel, and slanderous speech. Pre-eminently a man of progressive thought and action, he has resisted all temptation to turn aside or to tone down his demands, much less to silence; bending his whole force toward the improvement of mankind, seeking that perfection by progress in the future which men have not found in the past. Life has had for him a deep seriousness, which he has expressed in close contact with the great events and men of his times; so that in turn he has inspired and been inspired by reformers, heroes, statesmen, scholars, artists, poets, sages, handicraftsmen, slaves and saints, in the general contribution to human advancement. Yet his name is not the echo of any man's voice, but is a great, distinct, and fruitful nature.

But wide as his work has been in the spheres of patriotism and philanthropy, his distinguishing glory is seen in his greatness as a preacher. Power in the pulpit is felt so differently upon different minds, that no two would award the same position relatively to the same man. But taking all things into the account, I have no reluctance whatever in according to Mr. Beecher the first place among the preachers of the world to-day. What little I know of preaching and preachers compels this avowal in all honesty, as I am convinced that his ministry has sent forth a moulding voice and influence which have given new tones of health, ardor, and life to thousands in the pulpit. Having consecrated his high powers to the elucidation and enforcement of the grandest themes of prac­tical and experimental import for a full generation, and done this in a way that was never properly attempted before, it is no won­der that humdrum prosiness, dignified tediousness, and profitless, speculation should have given place among us to the spirited, forceful, and profitable pulpit address of to-day. It is said of the

291

late Dean of Westminster that he was the enthusiastic and brilliant scholar of his noble tutor Arnold, and that he established the school that his master created. But Mr. Beecher is his own orig­inal, he is a copy of no model in modern times. His sermons exhibit a larger reading of human nature, a broader use of philo­sophical inquiry, a fresher application of gospel truths, a clearer induction of common-sense, and a more independent rectitude, than has fallen to the lot of any modern preacher, enstamping his sermons with a vehement individuality which amounts to a new creation in that line. His subjects sweep the whole sphere of truth, being endless in their variety, and become, year by year, fuller, broader, and richer, as if the supply were inexhaustible. Equally at home on all subjects which he chooses, he is ever lucid in his treatment, and bracing to the tired and flagging sons of men. He leaves nothing of consequence to the perfection of a discourse undone, but draws upon boundless stores of thought, language, and illustration, and utters them with the ardor of an old prophet, now in withering indignation at wrong, and then with an affectionate kindliness and beauty which always kindles at the right. Never unprepared, he commands all the members of his subject at will, working up to his own standard as an accomplished master of his work, which gives freshness and vigor to all that he says. These abilities, with his fine voice, commanding presence, and burn­ing love of man, make his word powerful indeed. As years roll on, his sermons become more and more high-toned in spirit, fresher in tenderness, and more elevating in effect. They evince a broader culture, a deeper reverence for God, a simpler faith in Christ, a purer spirituality of feeling, and a softer earnestness than ever. As is natural, these elements overbear every approach to parade, either of learning or profundity, and to a large degree repress the critical faculty in favor of the appeal.

That knowledge of anatomy, character, and color which a great painter like Da Vinci evinces in drawing the human face, Mr.

292

Beecher applies after his order in depicting the inner life of man. Da Vinci's high cultivation and triumphant reign in art have enriched its whole realm, as few have enhanced its wealth. The richest gifts of Heaven were bestowed upon him. They made him the miracle of his age, forming the chemist, the musician, the thinker, the poet, and the painter, rendering him the founder of the Lombard school, and controlling the art world to the close of the sixteenth century. That school blended the opposites of minuteness in detail with the grandest sublimity. In the land­scapes of this master every leaf is taken from nature, and in his heads all is perfect. The hue of the skin, the throb of the arteries, the light of the eyes, and every accessory tint is there, as well as the poise of the body and the grace of the limb. And, as his great powers make his name the first among the painters of the fifteenth century, so, I think, will Mr. Beecher's rank him among the preachers of the nineteenth. His persecution has been one of the most wicked and infamous pieces of abuse since the crusade against Wesley and Whitefield; as near as may be, a crucifixion. Its virulence has been terrible-truth seems at times to have fallen in the streets and reproach made her robes foul; but worse than all, the attempt was made to justify the outrage in the pare and loving name of Christ. From the opening of his ministry, the sword was drawn upon him and the scabbard cast away, not need­lessly, for his foes discovered in him the metal which would de­mand their attention till he died. But his sufferings have quick­ened and inspired his intellect, his acute distress has vitalized his courage, and his very wounds have thrown him back upon his moral perceptions and hope. Great preachers, like other great men, are of but little service to their race until they have suffered much with and for their Lord.

Many who never foully aspersed Mr. Beecher nor cast reproach upon his fame, have still felt sad misgivings concerning him on the grounds of alleged unsoundness in his views of theological

293

truth. On a number of points in theology I differ with Mr. Beecher widely. But as a theologian I cannot measure him by any given scholastic standard, because he regards all such tests as the formulas of imperfect minds, and rightly too. As a rule these standards were largely the culmination and outcome of controversies which had been long rife, concerning which the newly-announced creed settled nothing. I should suppose that he claimed the right, with the authors of the various creeds them-selves, to draw much of his theology out of his own inner life, as he believes it to be nourished by his own religious thought and feeling. At any rate, no observing man can listen to his teach­ings, but especially to his prayers, without the persuasion that his heart offerings rise from a golden censer having much frankincense from God and myrrh from man. His theology is drawn largely out of the recesses of his own soul, but chiefly out of the facts of our Lord's life, as found in the sacred narratives; so that he relies more on living sympathy for soul-solace than on any or all the formulated Christian dogmas. He seems to sum up his theology in the thought that Jesus Christ is man's friend in all his needs and under all circumstances, both in this world and that which is to come. This is world-truth and not class-truth, the soul of divinity without the body, rather than the body without the soul. His principal difference from most of us is found in that freedom which interprets Christ differently from us. And who of us is willing to be bound down hand and foot by the old, uninspired standards, in all things, great and small? We yearn after a gen­erous gospel lovableness-a broad, fearless, and bright humanity, which touches and sanctifies all healthful social interests and call­ings, all aims and efforts of humanity; enlightening its fears, exciting its hopes, and warming its love. Nothing which con­cerns the real welfare of man is foreign to the gospel; therefore, everything that is beautiful, pure, and true belongs to Christ, and so Christ's life bears upon all human benediction, whether men

294

have covered it by avowed dogma or not. Possibly Mr. Beecher does not wish to be accounted a theologian, as some men use that term. Baldwin Brown recently said: "The most inhuman of the sciences in all ages has been theology; some of the most inhuman men that have ever lived have been divines and rulers of the church." All that order of notoriety Mr. Beecher would surely deprecate, but would covet theology as a divine science and life; a living reality indeed, without its narrow words and defini­tions, as they bristle with technicalities which the Scriptures and simple-hearted people know nothing about, and which mate it a mere mummy to enwrap and entomb the truth, instead of a living temple where it may be enshrined. For this arrogant, intolerant, and unlovable theology, Mr. Beecher cherishes but contempt, and by no means stands alone. But for that which glows with love for God and light for man, his heart has always extended a warm welcome. In promoting that wisdom which is pure, peaceable, full of mercy and good fruits, his theology has been positive enough, while in the pedantic and cynical it has been decidedly negative. In other words, behind his theology has always stood the firm, true, brave man; cool, self-poised, and self-possessed, yet as sensitive as a child. At times the sanctimonious in the­ology has evoked in him a keen, quiet sarcasm, never bitter but always pungent, and as much the overflow of affection as his tears, while its real sanctity has intensified and mellowed his courage and life.

Both Mr. Beecher's preaching and general religious views have provoked much criticism, because of their highly emotional char­acter. This criticism would carry the greater weight if he evinced a relative forgetfulness of deep and abiding principle in his teaching. A fair mind must take in all sides of his ministry, in order to a right and comprehensive judgment here. Certainly he perpetually insists upon honesty, justice, truth, integrity and equality, not as matters of feeling, but on principle. Most

295

earnestly he treats of God and, man, of human weakness and divine energy, of God's law and man's obedience, all of which must lead to right thinking and action, promoting good will to men with love to God. He regards it possible to reach thorough Christian, character only after long and patient toil; transient and impas­sioned effort cannot attain thereto. He teaches that the permanent and radical cure of man's moral nature is effected slowly and not suddenly, much as a confirmed invalid is restored. The only efficient remedy is seen in a steady abstinence from all wrong-doing, God-ward and man-ward, coupled with constant obedience to the law of God; these are his proofs that a man is truly healed. Still, coexistent with this teaching, he refuses to be blind to the fact that God has endowed man with those potent emotions and passions which, in the nature of things, link themselves to all his other religious attributes. Not long since a New York daily, in reporting one of Mr. Beecher's sermons, on "The Love of God," remarked that: "He is nothing when he does not treat of love." Well, what would Jesus his Master be but for his love? Doubtless it is true that where the will and moral faculties are weak and the animal nature controls them, great peril impends, for there, supposed seraphic feelings may lead their victim to iniquity, and the purest affection will become debauched. Hence we have cases where the refined, loving, and sincere fall into gross sin from a superabounding emotion in religion. Not only are proper guards against this tendency found in the exacting ethics of Mr. Beecher's preaching, but a second preventive centres in the whole tone and animus of his ministry, which draws upon the whole sphere of pure and healthful nature for its staple and life. He ever finds elevating companionships in flowers, fruits, birds, trees, music, poetry, and exalted mental sentiment. Music in nature floats through and refreshes his soul like breezes from the everlasting hills. An elevated lyric is as welcome to him as the pulsations of new life. And. the poetry of a noble action lights

296

up in him a deep of Christian experience and truth. All these shape and feed his utterances in argument, picture, parable, and incentive, till his productions abound with the signs and influences of an intense life in himself, and that of a wholesome and natural order. And, of course, all who prize such life-the child, the youth, and the man of maturity-become impressed with his own nobility and take up his convictions and impulses into their own nature, to cheer and enliven them by making a Christian life a reality, to be roundly lived in real men and women. Religious emotion so excited cannot be unhealthy, but must be stable, open-hearted, quickening, and winsome. It may contain something of a woman's softness, but it must be firm and intellectual, because it recognizes vitalizing life in everything and finds it everywhere.

In a great and grand sense it may be said that Mr. Beecher "has served his generation by the will of God." He has not merely "filled his place." There is all conceivable difference between a man filling his place and "serving his generation." To-fill his place requires a body, but to serve his generation by the will of God demands a soul-a soul measured by the imperious mandates of time and the outreaching behests of influence. To a man who has no convictions, no fidelities, no fixed aims, the grave is but the cell of a condemned wrong-doer, but on the time-filling and influence-creating man its ashes will shed new beauty. Mr. Beecher will be better understood in coming generations than in this, for now, to a certain extent, the universality of his work hides his universal success. Many admire him to-day, but all will be poorer when he finishes his work. Often men make a pretence of admiration over one who dares to think for himself and to say what he thinks, even if they cannot grapple with his conclusions or comprehend his methods of reaching them. But during his lifetime they never forgive him for his boldness and originality. He may be as free from rancor as Nathanael was free of guile; the very soul of a noble life, without meanness, never having

297

injured any man. But all that does not shield him from blows which agonize a bleeding heart. If he blesses his race and pays the stipulated price for the privilege-if he is free, merciful, and catholic, hosts will rise up against him, as the great Brooklyn divine knows by all his bitterness of grief. Yet may he soothe his last years, as Garfield soothed his last days, with the thought which is ever sweet to man, that his name, his influence, and his work will pass into history and unborn generations will call him blessed.

II.

by JOSEPH PARKER, D.D.,

Pastor of the City Temple, London, England.

I FEEL some difficulty in speaking about a man who has laid so deep a hold on my affections, because terms which are mere com­monplaces in the atmosphere of my love must seem to be exagger­ations of the most daring kind to persons who suppose themselves to be unprejudiced simply because they are uninformed. The first object that strikes me, in my dining-room, is Mr. Beecher; the first object that strikes me in my drawing-room is Mr. Beecher; the man who occupies the largest space in my albums is Mr. Beecher; the man whose letters we reread to ourselves and to our friends is Mr. Beecher; it is just possible, therefore, that per-sons who know nothing at all about him may accuse me of approaching my work with more or less of partiality.

I first met Mr. Beecher during his visit to Manchester at the time of the American Civil War. An immense meeting flooded the Free Trade Hall. The greatest expectation had long been raised, so great, indeed, as to become a practical injustice to any public man, and now it was at its supreme point. When Mr.

298

Beecher appeared the scene baffled description; the cheering, stamping, clapping, shouting, and partial groaning, made the hall shake again. Mr. Beecher rose to speak, but the audience must needs cheer; once more he got to "Mr. Chairman," and once more the cheers rang out in wild and all but unanimous harmony. Mr. Beecher quickly caught the groans and hisses of a clique at the far end of the hall, and intuitively seizing the temper of his audience he laid aside his elaborate manuscript and went right at his work. For something like two hours he went on, making his triumphant but far from uninterrupted way through facts, statistics, policies, and arguments, without so much as referring to a memo­randum. As an effort of memory, as an effort of the voice, and as a miracle of wisdom and good-nature, I never heard the equal of that massive and overwhelming oration. From that moment we knew the greatness of the cause, and we felt that its advocacy was in the strongest possible hands. There was life in every tone, so much so indeed that the whole effort seemed to be part of the very battle which it described. Truly, it was no amateur elo­quence; it was no attempt at scene-painting; it was a fight, a heroic onslaught, and, from my point of view, a victorious assault at arms. I afterward met Mr. Beecher at a public breakfast and heard his reply to a congratulatory resolution, which was much like seeing Niagara two miles below the Falls. The next time I heard Mr. Beecher was at the Evangelical Alliance at New York. His subject was The Pulpit and the Age. Dr. Kidder and myself spoke on the same occasion, and on the same topic. Mr. Beecher had nothing before him but the briefest notes, yet for the greater part of an hour he poured forth a most copious stream of eloquence with an ease which could only be realized by life-long experience and use. The address summed up the lessons of a lifetime. I have often described Mr. Beecher's face as being on that occasion the very type of an April day, for the smiles shone through the tears, and a subtle humor edged the most solemn thinking as a

299

ring of light often engirdles the most sombre of clouds. The whole genius of Mr. Beecher's own preaching was happily illus­trated by that many-phased address; there was a line of deep clear thinking from end to end, again and again there was a figure which shone like a planet, in a moment there was a touch of humor not at all irreligious, and a broad human sympathy was expressed in tenderness which needed and secured the assistance of tears. The address was not something about preaching, it was itself preaching of the very highest order.

Personally I have no doubt that Mr. Beecher's power is not a little enhanced by his almost unique gift of language. He could fill two octavo pages with the description of a cobweb, and yet there would be much more than mere words in the description. There is a subtle color in his words, so that they mass up into very striking impressiveness, however poor or contracted the sub­ject itself may be. Mr. Beecher would be as unquotable a speaker as Mr. Gladstone but for the innumerable figures which crowd to his help. Mr. Gladstone has no rhetorical imagination; he expounds-unravels-and anatomizes his subjects with a precision and fulness truly amazing, and with an eloquence as pellucid as it is massive and forceful, but there are no flowers, no figures, no hints of an infinite background. Mr. Beecher is just as copious in mere language, but then how tropical is the luxuriance of his imagination! When he concludes it is rather out of deference to custom or convenience than because the subject is exhausted. My sober impression is that Mr. Beecher could preach every Sunday in the year from the first verse in Genesis, without giving any sign of intellectual exhaustion, or any failure of imaginative fire. It is in religious imagination-in the wonderful apocalypse of the heart -that he beats us all and leaves us panting in weakness and fear. Other men are great logicians (if it is possible for a logician to be great), but they are caged and bounded by wires, whereas Mr. Beecher is as a bird flying in the open firmament. Is he not,

300

therefore, logical? The more so, unquestionably; the more so because the greater includes the less, and parable is larger and truer than fact. Facts may have all the effect of lies. Mr. Beecher uses the fact as a starting-point, or as the ground on which he rests the ladder whose head reaches high as heaven. The text is as a handful of corn on the top of the mountains, the sermon is as the fruit thereof shaking like Lebanon. I have seen something like a hundred of Mr. Beecher's notes of sermons to be used by him in the pulpit, and I have sometimes wished that some of them could be lithographed and published along with the fully-reported sermon; what a contrast would then be reveal­ed! For a few lines the notes and sermon go together with toler­able evenness, but suddenly the sermon bounds away from the notes, and probably never returns! In the notes you may meet an occasional etc., and it is curious to turn to the sermon to see how much was wrapped up in that hieroglyphic; a whole idyl, mayhap; or a thunderstorm; or a burial service broken up by the resurrection. In such instances we see what I may call the riotous power of Mr. Beecher's imagination, a power that revels in strength, and that grows in wealth by giving its wealth away. All this I say, as a mere reader of Mr. Beecher's sermons; I never heard Mr. Beecher preach; but having heard him on the plat­form, I can imagine in some degree what he must be in his in­spired moments in the pulpit, when he sees heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!

Every now and then we hear that Mr. Beecher has changed his theological position, or that he has modified his faith, or that he has been struck down on the road to Damascus and seen a new glory which must be typified in new words. Let no man be mis­led by such gossip. Mr. Beecher can never be other than ortho­dox. A heart like his does not know how to be heretical. Like all persons whom it is not in the power of time to make old, he is always seeing a new specimen of butterflies, a new instance in

301

botany, a new tone of color in the morning or evening sky; he is always coming home with a new incident, a fresh idea, or a bold proposition; but knowing that he sees everything through his imagination, or passes everything through the zone of his affections, and that in his nature there is neither suspicion nor resentment, we may be perfectly sure that at the last as at the first, Mr. Beecher will be found at the Cross, saying, as few others can say, that there is no name given under heaven among men, but Christ's own, whereby men can be saved. Mr. Beecher can never accept a four-cornered theology, and personally I thank God that he cannot. A four-cornered theology is the greatest hindrance I know of to the spread of tho kingdom of heaven. There are people who know where theology begins, where it ends, through what lines it passes, what particulars it includes, and how neatly it gathers into itself themselves and their particular families. They think that to allow a simicolon in the Bible is to imperil tho doc­trine of inspiration, and to see any good in another Christian communion is to hobnob with the enemy of souls and to enter upon a course of dangerous compromise. Mr. Beecher accepts no such detestable opinion, and bis revolt from it is often expressed in terms which to literal minds must sound like blasphemy.

To the same literal minds-Heaven pity them-Mr. Beecher sometimes figures as "an imprudent man." We often hear this in certain English circles. From my point of view there is nothing that is not of a vicious kind to be much more deplored than a narrow prudence. Imprudence is sometimes the highest wisdom, as it certainly is often the noblest unselfishness. Such is the supposed imprudence of Mr. Beecher. If he had been more selfish, he would have been more prudent; being wholly un­selfish, he has been apparently imprudent. I know many six-inch-long souls who are living in comfortable obscurity because they calculate the possible effect of every action, and are afraid that if they did anything unusual they would disturb the universe.

302

To such persons what a miracle of imprudence Mr. Beecher must appear! But to such persons we must not appeal for just judg­ment. They do not know the larger truth, and, therefore, they have not entered into the larger freedom. Mr. Beecher must be judged by other minds, and especially must be judged by another generation; in half a century after his death the children of his persecutors will build and deck his tomb. I feel how inadequate are these few sentences, yet in writing them rather than allowing the opportunity to lapse, I feel that I am accepting an honor at the hands of my friends the editor and publishers of this memorial volume. As to Mr. Beecher's place in the estima­tion of British Christians I believe it is as high as ever. Here and there, as I have said, are prudent persons to whom the earth owes nothing, who may be uncertain about him, but as they are uncertain about everything else it really does not matter what they think about Mr. Beecher. If Mr. Beecher will visit England he will have accorded to him a reception which will show that America has produced one of the greatest preachers that ever adorned the Christian pulpit.

III.

by CHARLES E. ROBINSON, D.D.,

Of Rochester, New York.

here are some reminiscences of Mr. Beecher, "pro or con." The subject is so kaleidoscopic, so many-sided, that it is diffi­cult to make the reflections permanent. If you could fix him as the photographer arranges one for a picture, fasten his head in the tongs and keep him in one position, it would be easier. But when you secure one reflection, the expression is changed, and you are ready to throw away your first impression.

303

No one person could write Dr. Lyman Beecher's biography; hence the unique book which his children have given us, where we catch different views of him, as artists complete their ideas of form and proportion. It will be harder still to obtain any satisfactory picture of his son, Henry Ward. The time to write his life has not yet come. A. dispassionate judgment of him can be secured only in a succeeding generation. We are too near to get the proper proportions. We are now too much affected by our strong prejudices or preferences. So that your portfolio is perhaps the only way in which the present impressions can be noted. The kind of letter you wish from me leads one entirely into personal recollections. I suppose that that is just what you desire to know; in what way Mr. Beecher has touched my life.

His brother, George, was my pastor in my childhood, and I can just recall a "red-letter day" in the parish when Dr. Lyman Beecher, Dr. Charles Beecher, and Henry Ward all preached in the morning, afternoon, and evening. But the first distinct impression which Henry Ward made upon me was in the Fremont campaign, that inauguration of the great political move­ment which made anti-slavery principles popular, and rallied to its standard the generous enthusiasm of youth. There were feat­ures of that campaign which one loves to recall. My home was in a Western city. I was to decide the all-important question, to which candidate should I give my first presidential vote? Mr. Beecher's speeches and extracts from his sermons which reached me I can hardly recall here; but they exerted a controlling influ­ence over that decision, appealing to my intellect, heart, and conscience.

I was particularly attracted by the generosity, manliness, and humanity of his political principles. About that time came the great revival which spread through the whole country. Two noble souls, bound to me by ties of kindred and strong affection, were then members of Plymouth Church, and the deepening of

304

their religious life under the preaching of their pastor made a strong impression upon me.

"Plymouth Collection" had just then appeared, the first, and among the best of its kind. The hymns we sang from that book, the echoes from those daily morning prayer-meetings in the lect­ure-room, which reached me, through correspondence with these friends, the snatches of "Lecture-room talks," sent me, in the same way, long before they were regularly reported for the papers, awakening and confirming my own Christian hopes, and giving a freshness to praise and prayer which were new to me, will explain the peculiar affection which grew up in my heart for Mr. Beecher, although at that time I had never met him. This affec­tion, with all my decided dissent, since then, from his philosophy and interpretation of the Scriptures, has never wavered, and grew the stronger for the fiery trial through which he was called to pass.

Then, during my seminary life, when preachers and methods of preaching were the frequent theme of review or discussion, Mr. Beecher's sermons began to reach us in the Independent. At that time his-what shall I call it-Neo-Platonic philosophy? if adopted by him, had not affected his doctrine, so that Presby­terian theologues were not so much struck with his divergence from the generally received teachings of the Evangelical school as with the lightning-like flashes of thought and the steady glow of warm feeling with which the old truths were illuminated. The richness of his vocabulary was, I remember, a ceaseless marvel to us boys. He has contributed to the wealth of our language, not only by showing its unlimited capacities for varied expression, but by the coining of new words. But those Independent sermons made other impressions upon us. There were not a few who felt that they were led by them into closer fellowship and friendship with Jesus. Our blessed Lord was a real presence to him, a Friend to confide in, and a Lover to adore. I own freely that he has added in this way greatly to the wealth of my personal

305

experience of the reality of things unseen. This is the secret or one of the secrets of his power over men, and the remarkable warmth and vitality of his preaching. I am glad to have this opportunity of paying a grateful tribute to him for the way he led me, in my early ministry, to a "closer walk with God;" a better comprehension of the inspiring, sympathizing friendship, which it is the privilege of every Christian to cherish for his Master. In the disappointments and the successes of the minis­try, in the trials and the superabundant joys, this has been to me more than I can tell.

The garrulity of personal reminiscence carries me on to my first pastorate in one of the most beautiful valleys of Litchfield county, Connecticut. Ruskin's "Modern Painters" was my vade-mecum just then. I remember hearing Mr. Beecher tell how much that book had disclosed nature to him. It was certainly a benefit which he transmitted; for the exquisite rural beauty of that country parish was as much revealed to me by his summer letters from Lenox as by Mr. Ruskin. Those were the days when "Aurora Leigh," "Sonnets from the Portuguese," and Brown­ing's "Men and Women," were almost new.

The walks under the grand old elms of Woodbury or the hours on the banks of the trout streams or the solitudes on Orenang rocks were all associated with friendly communings with these authors. And I remember with peculiar pleasure that those letters of Mr. Beecher's from Lenox were woven in with the other influences which lifted me into a greater enjoyment and apprecia­tion of the country life about me.

The drone of the bee, the buzz of the fly in the lazy summer air, the far-off thud of the threshing flail, the soughing of the wind in the pines of Orenang, Woodbury's Pineta, the emerald dome of the elms, the voiceful silences of nature, the glory of the morning, the fervors of noon, the splendors of sunset, and the silvery tenderness of the moonlight in that valley, are all in

306

some pleasant way, which I can hardly explain, associated with him.

Not even the peculiar beauty of his present residence at Peek-skill, with the fine view of the Hudson, and the suggestion of Switzerland on the farther bank of the river, and the exquisite varieties of trees on his own grounds, has drawn from him such letters as he used to write from Lenox. Is there not as much of nature in Peekskill as in Berkshire? Or is it October now instead of June?

At that time the country was plunged into the excitement and turmoil of the civil war. The ring of the martial music, as the boys gathered from the hills and went off to the army, alternated with the deeper quiet of the long waiting in the dreamy valley for news from the front. The aggravating "quiet along the Potomac "reached up into New England, and we fretted against the barriers of the hills. The North was not sure of its friends. The dominant party of England stung us with their lack of sym­pathy. Never shall I forget the exhilaration with which we read there in the hill country of Connecticut, Mr. Beecher's famous addresses in England, and particularly his speech at Liverpool. This country owes more to him for the great aid which he rendered our cause in the Mother-country than the generation now coming on the stage of action realizes.

When the war was over, many who remembered the power and passion of his advocacy of the nation's cause did not understand his generous words and friendly attitude toward the South, and accused him of changing his principles. But others saw that he was true to himself. With slavery gone and its adherents beaten, it was a knight's chilvalrous feeling for a valiant foe which asserted itself and gave direction to his sympathies. Looking back upon it now after sixteen years, one must appreciate and honor it more than ever.

It would be impossible to close this letter without a reference

307

to the time when scandal endeavored to blacken his good name. On returning from a six months' absence from the country in the fall of 1872, the air was thick with the slanderous charges which, to my unutterable indignation, that burns yet when I think of it, were made against Mr. Beecher. Other pens than mine can best describe the Christian spirit which he exemplified through all those days and years of trial that followed. In the summer of 1873 there began a series of vacation supplies with Plymouth Church, which made me more familiar with Mr. Beecher's courage and his people's confidence in him than I could have been otherwise. Those who knew anything about it were greatly impressed with the way he controlled his people in their great anger and excite­ment, with his calm, forgiving spirit. But there was one night when the excitement could not be repressed; Plymouth Church was packed with a loving and enthusiastic people to hear the report of the Investigating Committee. I sat with Mrs. Beecher where I could best see the great audience. The air was electric. Both smiles and tears could be easily summoned.

I remember how we laughed when Mr. Halliday, wishing the sexton to turn on the gas, asked that we might "have a little more light from above," and how quickly the smiles were turned to hot, indignant tears at the thought of Mr, Beecher and his suffering family.

It was a thing to see and never forget, when, at the close of the report, expressing an entire belief in the integrity of their pastor, the people rose at once, whitening the air with their waving handkerchiefs, while the noise of the weeping was almost equal to the sound of the rejoicing, though both tears and smiles expressed the same feeling. It was the instinctive outbreathing of years of affection for their pastor, it was a splendid testimony to the fidelity of the people through all that protracted trial of their faith and love.

I could write on all night, but your portfolio will demand room

308

for other and worthier articles than my letter. While frankly dissenting from some of Mr. Beecher's theological positions, I am glad to pay this slight tribute to him, and to express my grateful remembrance of what he has been to me, and my admiration of his gifts and his nature.

IV.

by HON. AMOS C. BARSTOW,

Of Providence, R, I.

mr. beecher's "Lectures to Young Men," written in his young life, while a pastor in Indiana, first introduced him to me. I have not read them since their first publication, and could not now give from memory even a synopsis of the topics discussed; but I have a distinct remembrance of the strong impression which they made on my mind. Though born in neighboring States and at about the same time, and though we spent our youth in two principal New England cities not far apart, we had never met. He went West, and entering the ministry, had become the active and influential pastor of a large church. I, on my native heath, was engaged in manufactures and trade; but at the same time had become the superintendent of a large Sabbath-school, and was so much interested in this work and in the young that I read with avidity everything which promised me any aid in it.

This book put me in sympathy with a young, fresh, vigorous mind, whose thought was uplifting, whose style was pictorial and captivating, and whose spirit was morally and spiritually magnetic. So I watched his course, and looked for other and fresh utterances from his lips or pen. In 1847 he came to Brooklyn to become the pastor of Plymouth Church, where, on a larger theatre, his eloquence and faithfulness as a preacher, his

309

love of liberty, and his generous sympathy with suffering human­ity everywhere, soon attracted the attention and commanded the admiration of good men throughout the land. Being actively engaged in the great Christian works and moral reforms, which he advocated with such eloquence and zeal, I soon made his personal acquaintance. I met him in our great religious convocations-in temperance and anti-slavery conventions; and later on in those political gatherings during the Fremont campaign of 1856, which developed and crystallized in so large a degree the moral opposition of the people to the system of American slavery. All know how distinguished a part he bore in the great struggles for the deliverance of the land from drunkenness and slavery. When the proud and imperious spirit of slavery touched the lips of so many merchants and the tongues of so many Northern editors, college professors, and Gospel ministers with a kind of moral paralysis, Plymouth pulpit was never dumb, and the columns of the Independent, of which he was editor, or the Lyceum platform which he often filled and graced, were never silent, nor did either utter an uncertain sound. His heroic courage, when to my personal knowledge it cost something to be brave, and his manly sympathy for the poor, even of a despised race, no less than his eloquent utterances, commanded my homage, and are still remem­bered with affectionate gratitude.

You ask me for facts and incidents of interest in Mr. Beecher's public life.

The advice which he was said to have given to a mercantile firm, members of his congregation, who were threatened with the loss of their large Southern trade, because of their adherance to anti-slavery principles-"Tell them that your goods are for sale and not your principles"-marks the spirit of the man during; those troublous times, when so many Northern merchants waited to know of their Southern masters what they should think or speak, and when and how!

310

Sitting near him at a great temperance banquet given to John B. Gough, in New York, twenty-five or more years since, I saw a lady pass to him a large plate of jelly, which was quivering in all its length, with the query, "Mr, Beecher, will you have some jelly?" His ready response was, "I don't know about that. It looks as though it had delirium tremens!"

To show the fertility of his resources, the celerity of his mental movements, and the peculiarity of his methods, let me give a few facts which have fallen under my own observation. Those who have heard him often and observed him closely, know how little he confines himself to his notes, even when they are full; and that some of his most brilliant utterances are interjected into and sometimes supplant portions of his written discourse.

On one occasion, when lecturing before a Lyceum, he was seen to turn over three or four leaves of his manuscript without read­ing. At the close of the lecture he was asked what was on those leaves. He answered, "I don't know. This is a new lecture, and I have hardly got the hang of it. The next time I give it, perhaps I will read those leaves.''

On another occasion, about twenty-five years since, when announced to preach before the Society of Missionary Inquiry in Brown University, on the evening before Commencement, a friend called at the hotel to accompany him to church, and found him in his room, with the table from which he had just risen covered with manuscript. Mr. Beecher explained. He had found no time to write a sermon, and had proposed to extemporize, but reaching the city in the early morning, and feeling a little afraid to trust himself, had spent the entire day in writing, the result of which was the twenty sheets before him, the ink on the last not then entirely dry.

On another occasion, when here to lecture, I sent my card to his room half an hour before the time, when he asked to be

311

excused for a few moments as he was reading his manuscript. When he came down he apologized for the delay, and added that he left his room before he had completed the reading. Knowing from him a week before that he had not then selected his theme, I remarked that as he had written the lecture so recently, I supposed he would remember it all. He surprised me by saying, "I did not write it!" I remarked, you do not wish me to understand that you will read another man's lecture. "No!" he said, "but I had not time to do the manual labor, so I took a short-hand writer into my room, and while I extemporized the lecture, he took it in short-hand, and has since written it out in a plain, clear hand. There it is, and I have not yet read it all." This lecture, with such a history, was regarded by those who heard it as a remarkably fine one.

When speaking to a friend in Brooklyn, a few years since, of these peculiarities in Mr. Beecher's mental methods, this friend took from his table a brief of Mr. Beecher's last sermon, written on several pages of letter sheet, and handing it to me said, take it home with you. I said no; Mr. Beecher would hardly excuse such an act. Yes, he would, said the friend. He will never use it again. He always makes fresh preparation for his sermons. He left it here purposely.

This reminds me of an incident which occurred about twenty-five years since. I was in the White Mountains for the second or third time with some of my family, and going up Mount Wash­ington from the Crawford House with a party of ten or fifteen on horseback-a ride of four hours-we met Mr. Beecher and his brother Thomas with other mutual friends on the summit. This was his first visit to the mountains. He had come up the carriage road from the Glen, but was to go down with our party to the Crawford. Learning that the ride down was a grand one-more than half of it being down the steep, bare side of Washington, and over the bare ridges of two other mountains-Mr. Beecher

312

desired to ride down alone, being willing, without guide, to trust the instincts of his horse to keep the trail.

Selecting a fast-walking horse, and starting a little in advance of the large party, he was soon out of sight. While we were descending the steep slope from the bare summit of Mount Wash­ington in Indian file, by zigzag path, a single horseman was seen following far in the rear, who it was known did not belong to our party. The guide called a halt, and leaving his horse clambered by shorter path up the rough mountainside, until he could hail the stranger, who answered the hail by the query, "Is Rev. Henry Ward Beecher of your party?" Being told that he had gone ahead and was then out of sight, the stranger expressed his regret; but having come up to our party, and concluded to go on, we made room for him to pass us in the narrow trail. On reaching the Crawford House at the close of the day, we found the stranger, who proved to be a deacon of one of the churches in Littleton-a village at the foot of the mountains, eighteen miles distant. Being introduced to Mr. Beecher, he invited and urged him to preach at Littleton the next Sabbath. Mr. Beecher courteously declined, saying that he was away from home, seek­ing rest, and without preparation to preach. The good deacon replied, "You preached at Lancaster last Sabbath!" Mr. Beecher assented, saying that was his first Sabbath in this mountain region, and as he was visiting friends at Lancaster who desired him to-preach, he could not well refuse; but the preparation cost him an entire day, of the very few days allotted to this journey, and he could not afford to spare another. The good deacon still urged his suit, saying that the news of Mr. Beecher's preaching at Lancaster reached him Monday morning-that he mounted his horse at once and rode to Lancaster, twenty-five miles-then to the Glen, an equal distance-then up the mountain, a four hours' ride-that he had thus been two days in hot pursuit-being just too late at every point where he had sought him-and begged him not now

313

to disappoint his hopes. But Mr. Beecher still courteously de­clined. The next day when it was announced that he had changed his mind, and would preach in Littleton the next Sabbath, his brother Thomas said, "Henry talks a great deal about backbone, but lie has no more of it than an eel."

A few years after, when conversing with Mr. Beecher, I alluded to this event, and asked him to explain to me the reason for chang­ing his mind; when, bursting into a hearty laugh, he asked how he could avoid it. Said he: 'In the early dawn of that next, long summer day, I was aroused from my sleep by a loud knocking at my chamber door. Reaching from my bed I unfastened and opened the door, when there stood the good old deacon, his face still sad with the disappointment of the previous night. Said he, 'Excuse me, Mr. Beecher, for disturbing you at this early hour. I arose early to go home, and my horse is at the door, but I found myself unable to mount without making one more effort to induce you to go to Littleton. If you cannot go on Sunday, then name some other day. We will have a good congregation on any day of the week, with a few hours' notice. If you can't preach, then lecture, speak, or exhort; or if you can't do either, then come and let us see you and shake hands with you. Our people know a good deal about you, and they want to see you anyhow, if they can't hear you. I like to please them, and have taken much pains to find you-say, can't you go?'

"The deacon was agitated and his eyes were a little moist while he made this appeal. He seemed far more anxious than hopeful. To cheer him, and send him home happy, I said, 'Yes, I will go! I will go anywhere, and at any time to please you; so name your day.' "

But I came near forgetting the object I had in view in giving this incident, which, was to illustrate further Mr. Beecher's methods of mental preparation for his great efforts. Hon. E. D. Holton, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, whose guest Mr. Beecher

314

was, on the Sabbath above named, at his ancestral home at Lan­caster, N. H., told me at the time, that on that Saturday which Mr, Beecher took to prepare a sermon for the next day, he was in the road, the woods, the garden, or pacing the floor. He was anywhere but in his study, and seemingly doing anything but preparing a sermon. He was evidently filling the hopper. At daylight the next morning he commenced writing, and wrote on, without dinner, until the hour for afternoon service, and then gave a sermon one and a half hours in length-one of the most masterly exhibitions of truth to which he ever listened.

V.

by HENRY HIGHLAND GARNETT, D.D.,

Pastor of the Shiloh Colored Presbyterian Church, New York City.

it is no small thing for a man to hold a place in the hearts of the people in any section of this country for a period of thirty-five or forty years. To stand as a representative man, holding the most advanced ideas of humanity, religion, and the rights of man, in or near the great metropolis of this great republic, is indeed extraordinary. The life-work of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher has gained for him such a reputation in the minds of the intelligent and thoughtful people of the present generation, entirely unequalled.

I have watched his course as a public man and an advocate of the various interests of humanity, from his introduction into the chosen field of his labors, and have found that everywhere and at all times he has stood manfully for truth, liberty, and justice. In wielding his sword, he has always summoned the strength of a strong arm, causing its keen edge and shining blade to be felt and seen in the thickest of the battle. It is true, that sometimes

315

his weapon has failed to reach the intended mark, and some­times it has wounded a companion in arms, but never was his sword drawn in defence of wrong, or sheathed in dishonor in the hour of conflict.

During the last forty years the question which has most interested the American people and caused the eyes of Christian-dom to be fixed upon our country, was the blight and curse of chattel slavery. Henry Ward Beecher began early to take a part in the struggle, and remained in the field until the nefarious system perished. Nor has he ceased his labors in the great work which remains to be done in order to make emancipation and political enfranchisement complete. The freedom of the ballot, free schools for all the people of the South, and education and free­dom to worship God for every American citizen, are the themes which to-day arouse his burning eloquence.

I know not which most to admire in the character of Mr. Beecher, his courage and broad philanthropy, or his varied intellect­ual gifts. He seems to be equal to every emergency and occa­sion. Both at home and abroad his wonderful resources have always been available.

A short time after Mr. Beecher came to Brooklyn, and in the most trying period of the anti-slavery struggle, he appeared at a great meeting in the Broadway Tabernacle, at which the vener­able Samuel Hanson Cox was one of the speakers. It was not an infrequent thing for some of the strong men to hesitate and falter, even after they had chosen the right side. Dr. Cox had suffered great persecution at the hands of mobs, and from the severe criticisms and harsh judgments of professed friends, and his faith and courage sometimes failing him, he occasionally swayed from one side of the slavery controversy to the other.

At the time to which I refer the Doctor stood firmly with the advocates of immediate and unconditional emancipation, and had delivered an address of great eloquence and power. Mr.

316

Beecher followed and prefaced his remarks by saying that there was no one in the assembly or in the whole country who understood the anti-slavery question better than Dr. Cox did, for he had been on all sides of it. Of course, the remark was received with abundant applause and good humor.

Near the beginning of the slaveholders' rebellion there were many people in the North who sympathized with those who were bent upon destroying the Union of the States, and mob law and riots and murder prevailed, and filled the hearts of loyal citizens with intense alarm; Mr. Beecher went over to Elizabeth City, N. J., to speak in favor of the Union and Abraham Lincoln's admin­istration. The Copperheads of the city declared that he should not speak, and threatened to kill him if he made the attempt. The mayor of the city who was a liberal Democrat told the excited crowd who had gathered around the place of meeting, that Mr. Beecher should speak at all hazards. Surrounded by a number of law-abiding citizens, Mr. Beecher entered the hall, and from the platform, amid an indescribable uproar, he began his speech by saying, "Gentlemen, I have been informed that if I attempt to speak here to-night I am to be killed. Well, I am going to speak, and therefore I must die. But before you kill me, there is one request I have to make. All you who are going to stain your hands in my blood just come up here and shake hands with me before you commit the crime, for when I die I shall go to heaven, and therefore I shall never see any of you again." A burst of applause followed this sally, and for two hours Mr. Beecher swayed the minds of the audience as the winds move the seas.

But the greatest triumph of his life was achieved in Liverpool, England, in 1863, after Commodore Wilkes had overhauled the British vessel Trent on the high seas and taken off the arch rebels Mason and Slidell, who were on their way to England. The act was without doubt a gross violation of international law, and

317

acknowledged to be so by Mr. Seward, then our Secretary of State, who hastened to deliver up the prisoners when demanded by the English Government, rendering a satisfactory apology. I was in Liverpool on the day on which the news of the transaction reached that city. Such excitement I never saw among any people. A whirlwind of public indignation and wrath swept over the land. The sword of every British soldier and the army and navy were ready to spring to the defence and honor of the nation. British pride had been deeply wounded, and right of asylum had been violated. On the Sunday morning following the reception of the news, soldiers in great numbers were seen hurrying through the streets of Liverpool, and the cry was "To arms! to arms!" There were many of the English people who were in sympathy with the rebels of the South from the beginning of our civil war, and now they found a popular pretext for throwing the heavy sword of Eng­land in the balance against us. The friends of the American Union could say but little in our favor, as the act was a palpable violation of the law of nations, and as slavery had not yet been abolished by the Federal government, they did not see much that was calculated to enlist their sympathies with us, and they did not much care which way victory turned. The cotton fields were in the South- and "Cotton was king," and he fed the cotton mills of England, kept the spindles in motion, and they had a decided leaning tow­ard the South.

It was at such a time as this, when public sentiment was bitterly averse to the interests of our Union, and unfriendly to our success in the great struggle to maintain its integrity, that Mr. Beecher appeared in defence of his country, in the most pro-slavery and pro-rebel town in Great Britain.

The defence of his country, which he made amid a turbulent and an indescribable uproar that baffles description, was one of the boldest ever urged in words, the most eloquent and triumphant that ever fell from the lips of any man. That speech furnishes

318

intensely interesting pages in the history of those times, which in the years to come will be eagerly read by the people of both countries, and will send Mr. Beecher's name down to future generations as one of the truest patriots of his times.

I was myself in England during the excitement, before Mr, Beecher, and I attempted to speak in the Town Hall in the city of Birmingham. Lord Colthorp occupied the chair, and Joseph Sturge, the distinguished Quaker philanthropist, made an introduc­tory speech, and notwithstanding the readiness of the English people to hear a black man when he presents the claims of his oppressed race, such was the state of public feeling toward Americans that the vast audience refused to hear me. It was in vain that the noble chairman and the universally beloved friend of man besought the people to hear. After standing before the vast, hissing, and hooting audience for a long time, by effectually appealing to their world-wide reputation for their love of fair play, I got out all that was in me, for home, country, liberty, and faith in God, for a successful termination of our civil war.

VI.

by SAMUEL H. VIRGIN, D.D.,

Pastor of the Congregational Church, Harlem, New York.

I cannot tell when Mr. Beecher emerged from an indefinable influence and a name to a reality in my life. Breathing an atmos­phere charged with the teachings of those who were hostile to slavery, his name with others was familiar to my earliest child­hood. It was a name that stood for strength to resist and to attack. It soon stood for a personality brave and true to all that elevated humanity, and as I understood the work of Jesus Christ, it added the elements of loyalty to Him. Not till the time of

319

manhood was it my privilege to come into personal associations with, him, and know by actual contact the power and greatness of his spirit. His thoughts had been familiar to me for many years, and yet when I read them I did not hear his voice uttering them, nor feel his unique personality back of them. His books I circu­lated among the young men under my care for instruction, but they did not contain that element that is incommunicable in Mr. Beecher's personality. It will be an inestimable loss when that is removed from us altogether (may the Lord long delay the day!), for in it resides an unspeakable power. It is not in the body of flesh and blood, though that has been built up with assiduous care, it is not in the peculiarity of the brain's action, it is not in the elocution, nor in the nervous force with which thought is sent to its impact, but it is in the wholeness of body and soul and spirit together.

Some men can be easily described, their influence can be elimi­nated, then examined and measured, their contribution to thought and life can be gathered and weighed. Mr. Beecher's work and influence cannot yet be expressed with any degree of definiteness.

Some men do their work upon the past, completing and bring­ing to the present the failures and incompleteness of others, and their work is valuable. Other men live solely in the present, moulding and shaping its thought, controlling its practicalities, and helping to the measure of their abilities in the struggles of their day. Other men live in the future. Their work stretches far on beyond the border of their lives. They are prophets. They touch the present but to prepare its surface and scatter seed; they awaken expectation and stimulate toils that fruit hereafter. They are not visionary, but the most practical of useful men. Their touch is health. They help to broaden and enrich all with which they come in contact; they carefully guard germs of life lest they be destroyed, and they plant and nourish that which is to give life to generations yet to come. There is nothing narrow in their

320

thought; they batter against the barriers of the past and the pres­ent because they see springing life beyond the bounded space; they are misunderstood because the time to judge them has not come; they rise above petty criticisms because they have a broad outlook and have faith in the future greatness of God's world and people; they cannot be sectarian; they are not watchful of their own personal interests; they help men because they live largely and toward God; they are not free from mistakes and faults and are liable to be ensnared by designing men.

Such an one is Henry Ward Beecher in my thought. As true a Christian as lives, as pure a soul as thinks, as simple and trustful a spirit as God has in the world. Learned in the things of spirit­ual life, impulsive with the breath of the Divine Spirit, hat ing-shams and all that is false and oppressive, loving the brotherhood and blessing those that curse and praying for those who despite-fully use him, such is the man as he shows himself to one who differs from him often theologically and often on questions of polity, but who has never lost confidence in the sweetness and beauty of his inner life, and whose witness of his tenderness and forbearance as shown through the years of trouble in the ministe­rial body of which he is a member, has often brought to mind the example of the aged John, saying, "Little children, love one an­other."

All estimate of his life will be faulty that is made within a quar­ter of a century after he is taken to the skies, for his seed-thought and influence will not mature speedily, for it affects principles and truths that are to be the life and joy of ages to come.

His prayers are the transparent glass through which the whole working of his spirit may be seen, and those who knelt with him at morning devotions in the Catskills, on a summer excursion, will ever recall with a thrill of emotion the marvellous glory that crowned that mercy-seat.

321

VII.

by EDWARD P. INGERSOLL, D.D.,

Of Brooklyn, New York.

thirty years ago, a college literary society, of which I was a member, debated the question: "Which is father of the most brains, old Mr, Burleiyh or old Dr. Beecher?" Lyman Beecher carried the day, both as to the quantity and quality of offspring. The logic of events has proved our boyish wisdom. Historia testis temporum. In the midst of this Eschol cluster is Henry Ward Beecher, the most prominent and in many regards the most gifted of them all. It sometimes seems to me as if Mr. Beecher had lived forever. In my early boyhood I used to read about him. In my early manhood I occasionally heard him preach and lecture, and was wont to look upon him as a mighty Jehu-a fast but a safe driver; higher still, as a fiery John the Baptist, preaching repentance to a nation. And now, though I am in middle life, he is still one of the foremost men of the land; strong, clear, aggress­ive, his sympathies untouched by age. "His eye is not dimmed nor his natural force abated." His nature is wonderful in its com­binations. Such a marvellous harmony of body, mind, and soul! So full of warm blood! So kindly and genial! So observant of the little things of nature and the little things of life that are transpiring! How can such a man be a student? And yet upon a more intimate acquaintance you find his intellect is finely poised. Every wheel and every cog is ready for work. He is like one of those old-time New England schoolmasters, who had eyes in the back of his head. He is an Argus, and every picture caught upon the retina is transferred by the quick chemistry of his mind with unfading colors, and hung in the gallery of his memory. What many wise men toil for he seizes without the tardy processes of syllogisms. There is, too, an "over-soul" in him which makes

322

him kindred to everybody and to everything. A few years ago I was making my Monday trip to New York by the way of Fulton Ferry. It was a bleak winter day, and as is my wont, when a storm is raging, I hurried through the cabins to the front, and there, standing well forward alone in the storm, was Mr. Beecher. I stood for a moment near him, hesitating to speak, but presently seeing through the driving snow a seagull piercing its way against the wind, I touched him and said, pointing up­ward, "See that." "Yes," he said, solemnly, "he is mine." "Yours?" I said, inquiringly. "Yes, I'm joint heir," and the color deepened upon his face and his eyes moistened as he fol­lowed the bird in its brave flight.

God often raises up a man for a specific work who is by no means perfect. Of Cyrus he said: "I girded thee, though thou hast not known me." Of others, such as Jacob and Elijah and Peter, there are characteristics which we cannot commend, and yet which we would be slower to condemn if our souls were fired as were theirs. With all his wonderful power and poise of nature, Mr. Beecher seems to me sometimes like the hunter of the wild chamois, who follows so swiftly and so far that he cannot get back without bruises. He is apt to forget, while aglow with a great truth and expounding it for the blessing of men, that any­thing else is true. He seems for the time to ignore its relation­ship to other truths, and even to disallow the same truth in other relations, thereby giving only half truths. His mind is analogical rather than logical. To him everything beautiful is a picture of divine realities, and he sweeps in too much of earthly resemblances as he burns with eagerness to persuade and comfort men. His methods of startling speech, his iconoclastic way of breaking old forms which to him have no life, seem sometimes ruthless; they are so, especially when he swings so long and strong a staff as to bruise the good men who stand about the time-honored institu­tions of the Church. Nor can I agree with some of his views of

325

divine truth; but I have reason to believe that the printed rep­resentations of his belief have often been gross misrepresenta­tions, and this especially because his statements have been broken from their moorings; have been severed from the connections with which they must stand to be fairly understood.

After he is gone, he will be measured as a philanthropist, as an orator, as a friend, as a preacher, as a man, by the great void he makes, and then he will be acknowledged to have been one of the rarest, truest, and most princely of men. He lives now misunder­stood by cold, phlegmatic natures, justly criticised, I think, by those who sweep the whole horizon of revealed truth, but, on the whole, he lives a great beating heart from which suffering men and the Christian world receive fresh, strong throbs of life. We love him because we believe he loves the truth with an unfeigned love. We grasp his hand, believing him loyal to the Master, with a holy ardor, saying that and only that which for the time he believes to be true, everlastingly true; and hating shams as only they can hate them who are filled with a sense of enduring realities. It may be said of him, for the most part, "He has touched nothing he did not adorn." Hail to this pioneer! All honor to this patriot! Love and reverence for this "great heart."

Serus in coelum redeat.

VIII.

By J. O. PECK, D.D.,

Pastor of Hanson Place Methodist Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, New York.

men have differed in their estimate of the ability, excellence, and usefulness of Paul, Moses, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and most fiercely of all, in their opinions concerning Jesus Christ. Henry Ward Beecher could not, and probably would not desire to escape

326

this diversity of human judgment. Any man who shakes the world, and, like the apostles, turns it upside down, will be loved and hated, glorified and denounced. This is one of the sequences of wielding large power. In Africa, the hunters sometimes chance upon a spot where the wild rice is all trampled down, the undergrowth is tangled and torn, and a huge trail looks as if the army of Hannibal had just marched past on a conquering cam­paign. They know by the signs that they are in the vicinity of a herd of elephants which have lately passed that way! When I look at the life-work of Henry Ward Beecher for about forty years, preaching, lecturing, storming the American Bastile of Slavery, thrilling us at home, and cowering unfriendly audiences abroad, with his trumpet-blasts of patriotism for the preservation of the Union, the broken boughs and trampled wild rice and huge trail he has made in American history compel me to exclaim, "A giant has passed this way!" I realize how utterly impossible it is for me to portray Mr. Beecher. He is so many-sided in genius, so kaleidoscopic in the play of his great powers, that only another Beecher could make a just portraiture of a Beecher. Who can give a complete word picture of Niagara? It must be seen and felt! It must take its awful leap before our eyes, thunder in our ears, and spring its rainbows above our heads! It brings the drops of dew to my forehead to attempt to think around this magnificent man! I shall only try to represent how he impresses me, not assuming to characterize him dogmati­cally. And first permit me to say that while I admire and love Henry Ward Beecher, I do not esteem him a perfect man, or a model theologian. He often perplexes, and sometimes vexes me! I don't believe all he says and teaches. But then other people don't believe all I say and teach! I pity them in their obtuseness of course! There is only one infallible theologian in the world, the Pope! Yet Luther voiced a great fact when he declared that every man at the bottom is a little Pope. Every man is so sure

327

that he is right. "Orthodoxy is my doxy: heterodoxy is other people's doxy." This assumption of infallibility in theological dogma, with its accompanying uncharity, pains rne. For no man knows that his or his denomination's interpretation of the Bible expresses absolutely the mind of God in the Word, so that his creed includes all truth and excludes all error. We are all heretics at the best! While I heartily accept the creed and believe the doctrines of my own denomination as the best expression of the truths of Holy Writ, I dare not say that I know that we are altogether right, and others wrong wherein they differ from us. I believe they are, but only God knows! Now because I dare not assume infallibility, I dare not pronounce Mr. Beecher a heretic wherein he does not agree with my creed. At all events I will not stone him until I get to heaven, and no longer see through a glass darkly! Theology, the science of God, must ever remain an incomplete science, since no finite mind will ever comprehend the Infinite. Mysteries will ever hang around our profoundest con­ceptions of God and His government, as clouds skirt the horizon. The oracle declared Socrates to be the wisest man in Athens because he knew that he did not know all things. Nescience is often wisdom. Therefore I shall not attempt to prove Mr. Beecher theologically unsound. My conviction is that he is more nearly orthodox in his theology than the impressions of his peculiar methods of putting things indicates. Merely recording that I do not agree with my understanding of some of his theolog­ical views, I leave out any discussion of them.

I. Mr. Beecher as a man.

1. The foundation of all he is, and all he has done is his phys­ical system. Without that he never could have been what he is, or have done his work. The basis of many of the finest qualities of mind and heart is in the physical organization. The effective wielding of these higher forces is almost wholly in proportion to the effectiveness of the body. The calibre of the gun largely

328

determines the effectiveness of the ammunition. Hercules in a rotten boat would make a poor race! Mr. Beecher has one of the best animal organizations in this generation. He has those quali­ties of fineness, elasticity, susceptibility, vigor, nerve, and endur­ance-I beg pardon, but in one word-thoroughbred. This is partly inherited and partly cultivated in him. He has done immense service to this and coming generations by teaching them how to develop and maintain the highest physical conditions, and thus to be fitted for the best work. I conceive that his undiminished popularity and power and freshness are due as much, aye more, to his unimpaired physical forces than to anything else. He is thus a perpetual admonition to the younger clergy, who read his Yale lectures and sermons, not to waste their physical resources, nor by neglecting the laws of hygiene to force prema­ture superannuation. The buoyancy and elasticity of his tempera­ment have their roots deep in his physical organization. In short, that is the rich soil out of which has grown and blossomed the thousand beautiful creations of his brain.

2. But this superb stalk is crowned with a more magnificent flower. His brain is not only massive but luminous-an intellect­ual kohinoor, "a mountain of light." There may be a large brain- large and coarse as a sunflower. The massiveness of his brain, how­ever, is not more remarkable than the exquisite fineness of its quality. He has all the insight, imagination, and emotion of a poet. He is a prose-poet of great brilliance. But one quality of his mind has increasingly impressed me the longer I have known and read Mr. Beecher-his subtle metaphysics. He is not a metaphysician so much by intention as by necessity. It is in the texture of his mind. He is not forever parading his metaphysics to invite your admiration of the polished tools with which he builds his masterpieces. He is more anxious to have you enraptured with the finished temple of manhood, echoing with praise of God, than to have you captivated with the scaffolding.

329

But his masterly sermons could never be erected without that metaphysical scaffolding. While the capacity of his intellect, from which he has poured for forty years one incessant stream of golden thought, fills one with amazement at the vastness of his resources in himself, while the fertility and diversity of his genius are a perpetual marvel, the undimmed brilliancy, the unfading beauty of his eloquence are no less a source of grateful wonder­ment. His sermons are richer and more chastely beautiful now than in any preceding decade. He has poured forth more strong and beautiful thought during his public life in all the range of his pulpit, platform, lecture-room utterances and published writings, than any other man of the century, and yet the gems hang im-pearled on every utterance to-day as richly and beautifully as in any period of the past. Perhaps the one quality of his mind that makes him peerless and almost unapproachable is his power of illustration. In this he is unique. His strong individuality is not more marked in any quality of his mind than in the one just mentioned. Let one read promiscuously fifty illustrations from a half-score of the most brilliant preachers of to-day, on both continents, and a reader of Mr. Beecher will detect his as readily as a diamond connoisseur will discover "old mine" stones. Not that his illustrations are more beautiful and finished-they are often homely and rough as granite-but that their force and apt­ness, their clearness and strikingness bear the unmistakable stamp of his mint. We say not that his illustrations, many of them, are lacking in beauty. On the other hand, multitudes of them are unsurpassed in exquisite beauty. But their appositeness is even more marked than their elegance. The range and inexhaustible freshness of his illustrations are remarkable. Perhaps I should not be transcending propriety, nor challenging dissent, in saying that in illustration of truth he is more like Christ than any other preacher on either side of the Atlantic.

3. Socially Mr. Beecher is charming. He is the farthest

330

remove from being aristocratic or self-assertive among his fel­low-clergy of all denominations. Who that has mingled with him at ministerial clubs or associations, will not recall his gen­erous cordiality to all? Perhaps popinjays, and peacocks, and patronizing bores have felt that he was not very sociable! These he lets alone, unless they force from him a Parthian arrow! Then they let him alone! His sparkling wit and humor, com­bined with an overflowing good-nature, and chastened by a gen­uine kindness, make him king of the feast in social hours. There men love him as elsewhere they admire him.

4. As a Christian, he perplexes many who know him only by reputation. The current conviction in some quarters, that he is theologically oblique; the overplay of wit and pleasantry in the pulpit occasionally; the apparent lack of seriousness and reverence for the traditional solemnity of the preacher's function which shocks some people; the applause and laughter which sometimes greet his bursts of eloquent indignation or appeal, have created somewhat of an impression that he is not a spiritual man. My personal association with him in the later years of his minis­try compel me to testify to the conviction of his deep spirituality. His ordinary prayers before sermon are the most extraordinary evidences of real intimate communion with God. He seems talk­ing with God face to face, not as a pleading mendicant, but as a conscious and acknowledged son. And I know (how, I need not say) that his public prayers are but the reflection of his sincere abiding communion with God in private life. Never will the members of the Brooklyn Clerical Union forget a "conversa­tion" he gave us, by request, in May, 1880, on the relation of private to public prayer in a minister's life. As he spoke of his personal experience and of how he cultivated and fed his spiritual life, we all felt that the speaker was one who dwelt in the Holy of Holies in rich, blessed communion with God. When asked if those remarkable public prayers were prepared or studied before-

331

hand, he replied, "No! I never know a word I shall utter. All true prayer is an inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I have a consciousness of great sympathy with men in their burdens, sorrows, and straggles. Then, I shall be likely to be led to pray in that direction. At other times, I am full of thoughts of the dear ones who have left us, and then I shall probably pray about heaven. That is the only hint I have of what my prayers may be. Real prayer, I repeat, is an inspiration." I may here sum up by saying that my conviction, as the result of personal intercourse and thoughtful study of his writings, is, that Mr. Beecher is a man of real deep spirituality. Perfect in life he is not; for he has his share of faults, and has made his share of mistakes, and has sinned his share of transgressions, but that he has sought to live sincerely to the glory of God and labor earnestly for the good of man, I fully believe. An honest Christian, but not fault­less, I believe he is, and has always striven to be. A man dear to God, and to whom God is inexpressibly and savingly precious, is my conviction of Henry Ward Beecher as a Christian man.

II. As a Preacher, I hesitate not to say that, in my opinion, Henry Ward Beecher is the greatest preacher in the world to-day, and is one of the score of greatest preachers in all history. Other men have excelled him in single points of strength. As a theological preacher I should not rank him high. In the severely logical line of preaching he is not pre-eminent. He does not aim at that kind of sermonizing. In evangelistic preaching he is not to be compared with George Whitefield. However, White-field's printed sermons are not to be compared with Mr. Beecher's discourses. The former are not remarkable, while the latter are sparkling and fresh as a May morning, at the same time that they are vigorous as mountain breezes. Mr. Beecher is a great teacher, more than simply a great orator, in the pulpit. He is a natural orator, but oratory is subordinated to teaching. He aims to build up Christian manhood. Men must be educated by religious

332

truth, and this demands an inspiring teacher. His thought is not crude, but refined. What he reads he assimilates, so that every­thing he utters seems as original as if no one else had ever discov­ered the same thought. He has borrowed little from books, and his sermons are evolved from his own fertile brain. He reads much, but digests all. His sermons are pre-eminently practical. His object being to build men up in a large, broad, rnany-sided manhood, all his sermons and lecture-room talks are for use in daily life. His sermons are meant for service, and not for exhibi­tion. Metaphysical in subtle unfolding of truth, lightning-like in vividness of portrayal, picturesque and grand in illustration, pathetic or thrilling in application, eloquent and swaying in the power of utterance, he is the greatest preacher that America has ever produced. His influence has been large, outside of Plymouth Church, on the ministry and educated minds of the generation. All will not appreciate that influence at the same value. It has stimulated intellect to think independently ; it has worked to produce a larger catholicity; it has glorified the father­hood of God and exalted the brotherhood of man. For greatness, brilliancy, and resources of pulpit power he is unequalled.

III. As a Lecturer, discussing political, social, and educational questions before the large constituency of the platform, to be repeated by the press, he has wielded a vast and salutary influence in moulding the thought of his age. His popularity and power on the platform have been very great, but have never equalled, much less eclipsed, his popularity and power in the pulpit. He has been a moral force in our civilization.

IV. As a Patriot, he has engraven himself for immortality in American history. He has plead for the poor, the oppressed, and the despised, with more eloquence than he would have plead for his own life at the stake. He began his ministry with espous­ing the cause of the slave, when to be an abolitionist was to be execrated. He continued that devotion through storm and obloquy till the last fetter was broken, and the last chattel was an enfran-

333

chised citizen of the Republic. In the galaxy of illustrious philanthropists his name shines conspicuously. The wrongs of the African, the Indian, and the Mongolian, injustice to woman and the laboring classes, national intelligence, equal rights for all men, and the great cause of temperance, have always evoked his eloquent voice and pen. The service of humanity and his country with him has been the service of God. The distin­guished ability and grand effectiveness with which he served the cause of the Union during the Rebellion, by his impassioned loyalty at home, and with which he even more gloriously defended the undivided Republic before scowling and howling disunion sympathizers in Great Britain, entitle him to the ever­lasting gratitude of America. Not till the last African face has disappeared from American society-not till the memory of our struggle for an undivided Republic fades out of history-not till the ingratitude of an effete and decaying nation consigns the loyalty and heroism of her noblest patriots to oblivion-will the sturdy and chivalric patriotism of Mr. Beecher be forgotten! As an inspiring force in the history of the Republic his fame is assured. When we review his great qualities of manhood, eloquent on the platform, peerless in the pulpit, Christ-like in philanthropy, Roman in his patriotism, we are forced to exclaim, "One of the few immortal names, that were not born to die." He is loved almost to idolatry, and eulogized almost to apotheosis by hosts of ardent friends. Of course he has not escaped the poisoned shafts of foes; but, like the now revered and sainted Dr. Payson and Archbishop Fenelon, whom the hounds bayed at while living, but whose sweet fame by Divine providence is a sacred depositum of humanity and history, when his foes are forgotten, the name of Henry Ward Beecher will shine as the stars for ever and ever!

"Nothing need cover his high fame but heaven;

No pyramids set off his memories;

But the eternal substance of his greatness,

TO WHICH I LEAVE HIM."

334

IX.

By PETER MACLEOD,

Of Glasgow,Scotland.

it was, I think, in the Autumn of 1863 that Mr. Beecher called on me in Glasgow. He had visited the Continent, spent some time in London, and wished to see a little of Scotland before his departure for home. He had fixed his passage from Liver­pool, and only a few days were left for Scotland. But, as Burns says,

"The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley."

Little did Mr. Beecher know the ordeal through which he was to pass, or the results on the public mind which he was to leave behind him before he sailed from our shores.

He appeared to me much downcast, very moody, grieved, and home-sick. The Southern Confederates at that time were at the best, steadily advancing North toward Pennsylvania. The Northern generals appeared unequal to Lee and Jackson; and on the whole the prospect looked dark and ominous. Mr. Beecher never for a moment lost faith in the ultimate issue; but the sad news of the slaughter of his countrymen vexed him sore. He could not speak on the subject or look across the Atlantic without his eyes filling. This, coupled with the general apathy, indifference, or opposition which he had met on his travels from press and people in the cause nearest to his heart, filled him with chagrin, if not disgust. He was very taciturn. He had just listened to Brougham's scathing speech against the North, in Edinburgh.

He arrived in Glasgow on Friday evening, and on Saturday he was urged to preach on Sunday, but refused on the ground that it was only to satisfy "the animal heat and pressure of curiosity," he had been asked. On being plied further, he said, "Rather

335

than appear obstinate, he would address a prayer-meeting quietly," but on being told that the evening papers were all now published, and that no notice of the sermon could be given, so that there would only be the regular congregation, he at length somewhat reluctantly consented to preach in the morning. It was remarked that the time was short for preparation, but that likely he had brought some sermons with him; whereupon he replied, "I never look after a bullet when once it is fired." The news had somehow got wing on Sunday morning, so much so that even the pulpit stairs were crowded to such an extent that it was with difficulty he could wend his way up to the pulpit. He preached for upward of an hour; and the sermon was one of the noblest ever delivered in that church. Not long before Thomas Binney, of London, had preached three sermons in the same pulpit, but at the close of Beecher's discourse a distinguished minister present whispered into my ear, "That's worth Binney's three!" The senior deacon of the church, who was a little chary about Beecher preaching in that pulpit, in consequence of the warlike qualities in which the papers had represented him, said at the close, "He is the Prince of Preachers." I may add that I have heard Beecher often preach, but never with such power before or since as that day. His text was from Philippians 2:4-11, "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus, who being in, etc., etc." A number of Christian people gathered round Mr. Beecher, and on Monday morning a public breakfast was got up to his honor by the Scottish Temperance League, in the large rooms of the Cobden Hotel. This too was crowded. After breakfast the chairman gave an address, referring to what his father, Dr. Lyman Beecher, had done for Temperance, what his sister, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, had done against slavery, and what he himself had done and was doing as the advocate of liberty and human rights. Mr. Beecher in a long speech replied seria-

336

tim to each of the points; but when he came to the question of slavery and the war and to the defence of the North, it was like the irruption of a long pent up volcano. Such an avalanche of burning oratory had seldom, if ever, been heard by any of the persons present. When several of the ministers in the company made speeches after him, one gentleman remarked, "That they all appeared like children beside him." Mr. Beecher invited questions to be asked for any further information they wished on the subject. After a good many questions were asked and satis­factorily answered, one decent, quiet-looking gentleman asked in a calm, confidential tone, "Now, Mr. Beecher, do you really think that tariffs had not a good deal to do with the disruption of the South?" "If any man asked that question in the United States, he would be put in a strait-jacket right off," replied Beecher. Mr. Beecher's speech was telegraphed to London; and next morning the Times was down upon him and his cause with a slashing editorial. This only seemed to rouse Beecher, and when he was urged by many friends of the North who had gathered around him to give somewhat similar addresses before he left to enlighten the British people on the whole question in dispute between the North and the South, he at last consented to give five lectures-one in Glasgow and one also in Liverpool, Manchester, and London, leaving a day for travelling between each of the cities. All he had intended to see of Scotland was now given up. Persons high in rank and in authority were telegraphed to that he would not be able to fulfil his promise to visit them. As he said himself, "Now for the work, and off with the coat, and may God help me.'' Meetings to be held in each of the cities were speed­ily arranged by the local friends of the North, and advertised for their respective days. The die was now cast and the campaign fairly opened.

Liverpool and Glasgow were the worst places he had to encounter, because the Clyde and the Mersey furnished blockade-

337

runners, and other mercantile interests were also involved. On the day of his Glasgow lecture the city was emblazoned with large posters of what Beecher had said and what he had never said against Great Britain. A general excitement prevailed, and arrangements were made to secure the peace in case of a row. Beecher was spoken to in reference to the law that regulates public meetings. He listened quietly to what was said, and then giving an emphatic slap on his thigh, "If I can't keep them in order I am not fit for the place."

Long before the hour the City Hall was crammed, and thousands could not gain admission. It was with great diffi­culty that Beecher himself made his way through the dense mass of people to the Hall. Baillie Govan, who was appoint­ed Chairman, amid a storm of interruptions attempted to open the meeting. The Rev. Dr. William Anderson, a great fa­vorite on the Glasgow platform, had been appointed to in­troduce Mr. Beecher; but, after a few preliminary sentences, was obliged to sit down, so uproarious was the audience. It was problematical at this stage whether the lecture would be allowed to go on. After a short lull in the tempest, Mr. Beecher sprang to the front of the platform, and with a good-natured, kindly countenance, depicted the sublime beauty of our Scottish scenery through which he had passed, the heroism of our Scottish warriors, the world-wide fame of our bards and poets with such glowing eloquence, that a spontaneous burst of applause followed. This looked well; but it was only temporary, for as Mr. Beecher proceeded to the main question-viz., a vindication of the government and the North against the rebellion of the South-this was by no means so palatable. For the first twenty or thirty minutes, indeed, it brought forth repeated storms of disapprobation, so much so that once he said, "that he would sit down and rest until they got the hissing over." During the last hour, however, he had it all his own way. As a gentleman

338

remarked," he appeared like a driver having complete command of his four-in-hand team." The exceeding readiness with which he retorted upon the persons who hurled their questions at him, turn­ing the laugh in every instance against the questioner, was a mar­vel of dialectic skill, and astonished everybody.

Some one cried out exultantly, "that the South was beating the North." "Yes," replied Mr. Beecher, "and when we bring them back to allegiance, we shall think more than ever of them for the pluck they are showing." The cry of the majority then, arose, "You shall never bring them back." "But we shall bring them back," reiterated Mr. Beecher. "Never! never!" was the almost unanimous cry. Beecher saw it was useless to continue this lung warfare, and he naively told them a story which this contest between him and his audience reminded him of, and which, put them all into good humor and made them laugh. Beecher took his advantage and calmly but firmly said, "We shall bring them back," and went on with his lecture before they got time to reiterate their "never." As Mr. Beecher was proceed­ing he said something that looked like a touch of boasting, when an angry gentleman cries out, "Oh, you are great boasters in America." "Yes,'' replied Mr. Beecher, "we can do a trifle at that too; at least we do as much as to show what nation we sprung from." At this time cotton was scarce and the demand great; so a gentleman cries out, "Tell us when the war shall be over." "That depends," replied Beecher, "partly on how long you continue to give your sympathy to the south; but as for us," he continued with deepening emphasis, "the war shall not cease so long as there is a slave in America on whom the sun of heaven can shine." Then another cried, "You need not waste your time telling us about slavery, we hate slavery as much as you." "So everybody tells me whenever I meet them, that they hate slavery; but for all your professions, strange to say, you are all caught in very suspicious company with your arms

339

round the slaveholders' necks." Another interposed with, "I have been in the South and seen with my own eyes that the slaves are well treated. They get plenty to eat, are well clothed, and are allowed to sing and dance at night as much as they please." To this Mr. Beecher quaintly replied, "I have a pig at home; she gets as much as she can eat, and as much litter as she can use, and I allow her to grunt as much as she pleases; but still she is my pig." "Why not let the South go? The country is large enough for you both," cries another. "All very well for you to speak, who live in an island that America could put in her skirt pocket; but if you knew how our mountains go and how our rivers run, you would not talk so. Besides, if we were divided, Slavery on the one side and Liberty on the other, we would require a stand­ing army to watch each other. No, no! we don't want the European system of standing armies to eat up a tenth of the produce of the land. Besides, standing armies are dangerous things; when a boy gets a knife, he's aye whittling with it." "But what will you do with your army when the war is over?" "When our work is done in the field, they will return to their counter, their college, and their plough from whence they came, just as snow melts away at the bidding of spring." Another cried, "We don't sympathize with slavery, but we go for the South because they are the weaker party." "Go then and sympathize with the devil, he was the weakest party also when he rebelled and was turned out of heaven. Yours is a good enough argument for school boys ten years of age. Hold a string between them and see who is the strongest; but when the princi­ples of Liberty and Slavery are the questions, it is a shame for a man of your age to talk that way."

Such were a few of the interruptions and questionings which the lecturer had to encounter during the first half hour; the rest of the time, as I have said, he had it all his own way ; the ques­tioners were dumb. At last the voice ceased, and the people

340

dispersed-some convinced, others staggered or disarmed, most to take fresh stock of their convictions. Mr. Beecher left next morn­ing for Edinburgh to deliver his next lecture; from thence he proceeded to Liverpool, Manchester, and London. In each of the cities he defended the principles and policy of the American government against the secessionists with marvellous power and tact. The British people began to see the case more clearly; the press became more subdued as it prepared to wheel round; and the Alabamas and blockade-runners building on the Mersey and the Clyde were suddenly stopped by the government by orders from Whitehall.

Mr. Beecher's days in Britain were now numbered; but the time was well employed. Christian people of all denominations clustered closely around him; nothing but public breakfasts and evening meetings in London, Manchester, and Liverpool, all the way down to the day of embarkation; even the morning he sailed a public breakfast was given him, where only a few days before he had encountered such a harassing opposition. Punch had a well-defined cartoon of Beecher in his oratorical attitude adminis­tering syrup to soothe the British Lion. Had Beecher only come two years sooner, there would have been little sympathy in Britain for the slaveholding South.

X.

By REV. CHARLES HALL EVEREST, D.D.,

Of Chicago, Ill.

No more notable event has transpired in the Christian world during the last fifty years than the advent of this peculiarly gifted and brilliant ambassador for Christ. Sprung from a stock strong in mind and facile in expression, the very best traits seem to have

341

culminated in this "favorite son," and as Abraham Lincoln once said of him, that "he possessed the most productive mind of ancient or modern times," so we may add that he possesses a genius for moral ideas that has not been surpassed.

In vindication of this eulogy we have but to point to the mani­fest effects of his yet unfinished life. The American pulpit has been emancipated from the scholastic hampers that were compel­ling it to keep pace with medieval rather than modern thought and method, and while many may be reluctant to credit this liberty to the influence of any one living man, the fact is still patent, that the putting off "Saul's armor," and the going forth with the simple but effective slings furnished by nature and common-sense, was not characteristic of the American ministry before his day. If, therefore, the presentation of the simple truth in the simple language of the day, and yet with the eloquent force that inheres in the vernacular, and if this pressing of the claims of Christ in the tongue in which men were born has produced Pentecostal results, we affirm that under God, our gratitude should be to him who more than thirty years ago struck the key-note in Plymouth pulpit.

Any innovation like this referred to-though in fact it was but copying the Master himself-introduced by a man less strong in brain and less devoted in heart, might have caused confusion and a consequent weakening of ministerial influence, but the experi­ment of playing upon all the strings of the human soul boldly, and summoning the whole man daily to its best activity for Christ's sake as the highest expression of godliness, was in his own hands so large and permanent a success, that it swept the land, and scores of young men who had been trained to fit and polish creeds forgot the lessons of the schools, and gave them­selves to the more glorious work of forming characters and inspir­ing lives.

Mr. Beecher's popularity has been so remarkable, that many

342

have assumed that much of his zeal was for the sake of the incense that was offered to his genius, and that the natural love of power impelled him to seek the greatest possible eminence. But a personal acquaintance of more than twenty years has given me a far different estimate of his motives and ambitions. In giving private counsel, such as he would naturally impart to me as a member of his church, as one who had been ordained to the ministry in that church, and under his own auspices, and also allied to him by blood, the impression always abiding with me was, that the Lord Jesus Christ was "the chiefest of ten thou­sand" to him; that he was more solicitous for his glory than any other, and that in an eminent degree the love of Christ constrained him in all his life work.

This view of the depth of his devotion to the Master, and his conscious reliance upon him, was most forcibly conveyed to me soon after the memorable "trial" through which he passed. I was journeying to New York on the Hudson River Road, when at Peekskill Mr. Beecher entered the car, and taking a seat by me was my companion to the city. In the course of the conver­sation, that almost immediately drifted to the malignant trial referred to, I was expressing the deep satisfaction that all Chris­tian men felt, that the attempts to stain his name and impair his influence for good had been futile, when he turned suddenly and faced me, and with a most impressive manner said, "Everest, my deliverance is no mystery to me; the whole case to my mind is summed up in those words of Jesus to Peter, 'Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee,' and the same Master prayed for me."

The influence of such a fervid, richly endowed, and yet consecrated man cannot be measured in its relation to the country as well as the church. The services rendered to the cause of humanity in the great anti-slavery struggle, and to patriotism both in this land and across the sea, during the fiery days of war,

343

have their record in the hearts of the people, and need no enumer­ation here. No good word or work during the last half century has failed to receive his earnest and eloquent endorsement.

No sketch, however brief, of Mr. Beecher, can afford to omit a reference to that wealth of good nature and sociability that render his words as fascinating in private circles