LIFE AND WORK 
 
 OF 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 AN AUTHENTIC, IMPARTIAL AND COMPLETE HISTORY OF 
 HIS PUBLIC CAREER AND PRIVATE LIFE 
 
 from ttjc Crafcle to tfje 4Brafee. 
 
 REPLETE WITH 
 
 ANECDOTES, INCIDENTS, PERSONAL REMINISCENCES AND 
 CHARACTER SKETCHES. 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OF 
 
 THE MAN AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 BY THOMAS W. KNOX, 
 
 Author of " OVERLAND THROUGH ASIA," " THE ORIENTAL WORLD," " UNDERGROUND, 
 " BOY TRAVELERS IN THE FAR EAST," " LIFE OF ROBERT FULTON," ETC., ETC. 
 
 titb a &tFfc^fote portrait of H@tr. 'iSeecfoer, anb 
 Jftumerou? JFuIfcpage <Pn0fakrii>i|^ ftott ' 
 
 SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 )tti)li6l)inff Cotnpanp 
 
 HARTFORD, CONN 
 1887. 
 
\ 7 
 3t< 
 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, 
 
 By THE HARTFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IT has been said by an eminent historian that the 
 biography of no man can be properly written while he is 
 yet alive. To no one will this remark apply with greater 
 force than to him whose name has been foremost for 
 nearly half a century as the pastor of Plymouth Church, 
 who fearlessly preached freedom for the slave, and 
 whose words have electrified a continent and sent a thrill 
 to the heart of the whole English-speaking race. A 
 man who was so highly distinguished for originality of 
 thought, who has been called the Shakespeare of the 
 century, the advocate of universal liberty, the friend of 
 the oppressed everywhere, and who converted the Eng- 
 lish public to a right view of the civil struggle in America, 
 could only be fully and fairly appreciated when the grave 
 had closed over him, and the mighty voice with which he 
 spoke had been hushed forever. 
 
 On the first Sunday of his first visit to New York, 
 nearly thirty years ago, the author of this volume crossed 
 Fulton Ferry and went to Plymouth Church " to hear 
 Beecher." The words to which he listened on that occa- 
 
 M177185 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 sion are still ringing in his ears despite the lapse of time 
 and the many opportunities of later days to listen to this 
 remarkable teacher and orator. From that pleasant sum- 
 mer morning in 1858 may fairly date the origin of this 
 memorial tribute, which is now placed before the public 
 in the hope that it will meet the kindly reception which 
 has been accorded to other books that bear the writer's 
 name on their title-pages. 
 
 Much of the data and material from which the volume 
 was written was collected during Mr. Beecher's lifetime, 
 but, with the opening thougfit of this preface ever in 
 view, no effort was made to prepare it for publication in 
 book-form until the sad event which spread mourning 
 throughout the land. As now presented, the volume is 
 an account of the life and work of Henry Ward Beecher 
 from Litchfield to Greenwood from the cradle to the 
 grave. The estimates of the character and abilities of 
 this remarkable man are by those who survive him and 
 can fix his place in history as one who has ended his ca- 
 reer and gone from our midst forever. 
 
 The author's thanks are due to the many friends and 
 acquaintances of Mr. Beecher who have supplied anec- 
 dotes and personal recollections of this intellectual hero, 
 and thus given us an insight into his character and daily 
 life which would otherwise be wanting. Thanks are 
 also due to the author's assistants who have aided in the 
 collection and transcription of the events that make up 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 the personal and public life of the subject of the nar- 
 rative ; to the newspapers of New York and Brooklyn 
 that so fully recorded the incidents of Mr. Beecher's ill- 
 ness and death ; and finally, but by no means least, to 
 the publishers who have spared no energy in promptly 
 issuing the volume, so that it may be read by the many 
 admirers of the Plymouth pastor before time has 
 dimmed their remembrance of the man who was pre- 
 eminently typical of the age and the people and has 
 been aptly called " a milestone on the highway of 
 American progress to show how far we have progressed." 
 
 T. W. K. 
 
 NEW YORK, April, 1887. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Engraved from original designs drawn expressly for this work 
 by eminent artists. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 1. PORTRAIT OF REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER, . . Frontispiece. 
 
 Engraved on steel expressly for this work from a photograph 
 taken a short time previous to Mr. Beecher's death. 
 
 2. THE BEECHER HOMESTEAD AT LITCH FIELD, CONN., THE 
 
 BIRTH-PLACE AND EARLY HOME OF HENRY WARD BEECHER, 39 
 
 3. AN INCIDENT IN MR. BEECHER'S BOYHOOD. HE CONTEM- 
 
 PLATES RUNNING AWAY TO SEA, 61 
 
 4. A DRAMATIC SCENE. THROWING THE SLAVE CHAINS TO THE 
 
 FLOOR, 159 
 
 5. MR. BEECHER FACING AN ENGLISH MOB IN PHILHARMONIC 
 
 HALL, LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND, 195 
 
 6. THE "FREEDOM RING." MR. BEECHER PLEADING FOR MONEY 
 
 TO SET A SLAVE CHILD FREE, 301 
 
 7. PORTRAIT OF MRS. HENRY WARD BEECHER, .... 437 
 
 Engraved expressly for this work from a recent photograph. 
 
 8. MR. BEECHER'S RESIDENCE, BROOKLYN, N. Y., THE HOUSE 
 
 IN WHICH HE DIED, 509 
 
 9. MR. BEECHER'S CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N Y., CALLED PLYMOUTH 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 523 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BEECHER FAMILY. 
 
 The Genealogy. American Origin. Grandmother Hannah. Joseph 
 Beecher. Lynian Beecher. His First Marriage. His First Pastor- 
 ate. East Hampton, Litchfield, Boston, Cincinnati. An Active and 
 Useful Career. Three Times Married. Father of Thirteen Children. 
 A Conspicuous Progeny. Catherine Esther Beecher. Edward 
 Beecher, D.D. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Mrs. Isabella Beecher 
 Hooker 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 The Eighth Child. Not the First Baby, Usually a Novelty in the Family. 
 Mrs. Stowe' s Reminiscences. His Birthplace at Litchfield, Conn. 
 His Mother's Death. Scene at the Death-bed. Aunt Esther. The 
 Step-mother. Henry Never had a Toy. Doing Family Chores. 
 Primitive Life in New England. Does not want to wear an Overcoat. 
 A, B, C School. School-girls cut His Curls. The District School. 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 Not a Bright Pupil. Difficulty in Memorizing. No Elocutionary 
 Ability. Sent to School from Home. Rev. Mr. Langdon's School. 
 A Student of Nature. Boy's Debate on the Bible. Miss Catherine's 
 Young Ladies' School. His Brief Career There. His Practical 
 Jokes. The Umbrella Story. The Grammar Contests. Amusing 
 Anecdotes. Back Home 38 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 
 
 Litchfield Scenery. Atmosphere breathed by the Youth. His Father 
 removes to Boston. Ambitious to become a Sailor. Youthful 
 Dreams. Boston Latin School. Mount Pleasant College. Meets 
 MissBullard. His Methods of Study. Learning Elocution. Study- 
 ing Mathematics. Interested in Phrenology. Teaching in the Win- 
 ter Vacation. Decides to become a Minister. Graduates from Am- 
 herst. Lane Theological Seminary. Editorial Work. Graduates, 
 and resolves to Marry 56 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 
 
 He Marries and Moves West. Locates at Lawrenceburg, Ind. An Arca- 
 dian Life. Gardening. Missionary Work. Editorial Work. Ac- 
 tive in Revivals. Hardships of Western Life. The Pastorate at 
 Indianapolis. The West Country. Some Anecdotes. His Fame 
 Spreads. His First Address in New York. The Foreign Missionary 
 Society. Henry C. Bowen hears Him. He receives an Offer 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 from Plymouth Church. He accepts the Position at $1,500 per 
 Annum 73 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 
 
 The Originating Idea. Site Secured. Beecher invited to Preach. His Ser- 
 mon on the Occasion. Romans xiv. 12. He returns to Indianapolis. 
 Completion of the Organization. The Name Plymouth Adopted. 
 Beecher the Unanimous Vote. He receives a Call from Plymouth 
 Church. Hesitates, but Accepts. Inauguration of a Long Term of 
 Service. Destruction of the Church by Fire in 1849. It is Rebuilt. 
 A Health Trip to Europe 96 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 
 
 Back from His Health Trip to Europe. Plymouth Church and Beecher 
 become Synonymous. The Leading Abolitionist. Webster's Atti- 
 tude in Regard to the Fugitive Slave Bill. Mr. Beecher's Excoria- 
 tion. Black List of the Union Safety Committee. He Personally 
 beseeches Merchants to stand Firm by Their Principles. How he 
 helped Mr. Bowen. His Declaration of Principles. The Fremont 
 Campaign. Wendell Phillips sheltered by Plymouth Church. The 
 Kansas Excitement. Hostile Declarations from a Mob. John 
 Brown's Insurrection. Beecher's Address. John Brown's Chains 
 rattled in the Tabernacle. Few Reporters able to follow Beecher. 
 "Cross Fulton Ferry and follow the Crowd." Rose Ward. Rose 
 Terry's Contribution. Sarah is Redeemed. Continuing the Anti- 
 Slavery Crusade 140 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 
 
 Recruiting. First Long Island Regiment. The Brooklyn Fourteenth. 
 Pets of Plymouth Church. The Boys Attend Service. "The Na- 
 tional Flag." An Eloquent Patriotic Appeal. Applause in Church 
 Rebuked. Plymouth Church Barracks. The Maine Regiment. 
 Church Parlors Occupied as a Hospital. Visits to the Boys in Camp 
 A Welcome Visitor. Patriotic Editorials. Relations with Secre- 
 tary Stanton. The National Fast. Freedom of the People. An 
 Intellectual Disquisition. His Visit to England. His Invaluable 
 Services as a Defender of the Union. The Fort Sumter Celebration. 
 A Pleasant Reunion of Old-Time Friends. The Restored Union. 
 The Keynote to Beecher's Future Course in Regard to the South. 
 Startling News. Lincoln's Assassination. Beecher's Grief. The 
 Funeral Oration. The Martyr President 169 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 
 
 His Greatest Oratorical Effort Going Abroad for a Vacation. Three 
 Months on the Continent. Reluctantly consents to speak in Eng- 
 land. British Sympathy with the South. Speech at Manchester. 
 Facing a British Mob. Unsuccessful Attempts to silence Him. 
 How He Triumphed. Speaking Plain Truths. Shaking Hands with 
 an Umbrella. Speech at Glasgow. Opposition of the Blockade- 
 Runners. His Address at Liverpool. Inflammatory Placards on the 
 Streets. Scenes of Great Disorder. Making Himself Heard Ar- 
 rival in London. Famous in Clubs and Social Circles. Prostrated 
 with Exhaustion. Speech in Exeter Hall. A Friendly Audience. 
 Immense Enthusiasm. An Historical Narrative. Change of Public 
 Opinion. Effect of Mr. Beecher's Speeches 185 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 
 
 His Temperament leads to Political Affiliation. One of the Early 
 Abolitionists. Clay. Calhoun. Henry B. Stanton. The Pulpit 
 and Slavery. Seward. Greeley. Buchanan. The Drift of Senti- 
 ment Previous to the War. His Views at the Time. The Fremont 
 Campaign. The " Political Parson." He advocates Lincoln. Belief 
 that His Election would Precipitate War. Visit to England. His 
 Valuable Service as a Defender of the Union in England. Lincoln's 
 Re-election. After the War. Jefferson Davis. President Johnson. 
 General Grant. A Southern Tour. " The North and South." 
 General Fitahugh Lee. He becomes a "Mugwump." Supporting 
 Cleveland. Old Ties Sundered. Civil Service Reform. Beecher 
 and Curt ; .s interview the President. Democratic Resolutions 209 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HIS LITERARY LIFE. 
 
 Journalistic and Literary Experience. The New York Independent. 
 The Christian Union. Star Papers. List of His Books. Reluc- 
 tance at Literary Composition. His First Work, " Lectures to 
 Young Men." Success of the Book. Its Enormous Sale. First 
 Work of an Indiana Author reprinted in England. How He re- 
 garded It. Summary of the Lctures. Industry and Idleness. 
 Pointed Sentences and Telling Truths. A Forcible Style. Dishon- 
 esty and its Consequences. Evils of Riches as Such. "Our Portrait 
 Gallery." Gamblers and Gambling. " The Strange Woman." The 
 Theatre and Its Evils. Views modified in Later Life. Mr. Beecher 
 and Henry Irving , 240 
 
Xli CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 
 
 Sixteen Years a Contributor to the New York Ledger. How His Connec- 
 tion with the Paper Began. "A Cannon-ball in the Hat." Suggest- 
 ions for a Novel. How "Norwood" came to be Written. Mr. 
 Beecher's Dilatoriness. His Outline of the Story. Mr. Beecher's 
 Fondness for Horses. Riding behind Dexter. Introducing Mr. Bon- 
 ner to London Punch. Comments on Edward Everett's Death. 
 How He Misspelled. Answering Troublesome Questions. De- 
 nial of Current Rumors. Never played Cards. Visiting Bonner's 
 Stables 250 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 
 
 " Norwood ; or, Life North and South." Its Plot and Object. Norwood 
 and its Population. Abiah Cathcart and his Peculiarities. Rachel 
 Liscomb. A Love-making Scene. How the Momentous Question 
 was Asked. The Country Doctor. The Bachelor Uncle. What 
 constitutes a Gentleman. Mr. Beecher's Views regarding Will- 
 Power. Doctoring through the Imagination. Rose and Alice. 
 Negro Pete. Polly Marble on getting Religion. Tom Hey wood's 
 Letter. The Battle of Gettysburg. A Monument to Surgeons and 
 Hospital Nurses. Marriage Bells 268 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 
 
 The Greatest Orator of the Century. Characteristics of His Oratory. Ex- 
 temporizing a Sermon. A Reporter's Experience. Power with an 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 Audience. His Great Earnestness. Thoughts Rarely committed to 
 Paper. Doctrinal Addresses. Peculiarities of His Lectures. Never 
 the Same Successively. Weakness in Statistical Matters. His Mi- 
 metic Skill. His Last Public Address. Congregational Singing. 
 Eloquence of His Prayers. Always dealt with Questions of the Time. 
 Where Materials were Obtained. A Curious Autograph. His 
 Great Lecture Tour in the West. The New York Independent on 
 Beecher. 284 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 
 
 Examples of His Oratorical Power. Striking Passages culled from the 
 Abundance. How to speak of the Absent. Ideal Faith. The 
 True Plan of Life. " The Church has been so Fearful of Amuse- 
 ments that the Devil has had the Care of Them." Majesty in 
 Anger. Churches as Mutual Insurance Companies. A Babe is a 
 Mother's Anchor. Overplus of Everything but Punishments. Re- 
 ligion with some Men like a Church -bell, to be Rung only on Sacred 
 Occasions. The Bible and its Commentators. Truths of the Bible 
 Like Gold in the Soil. Character, Like Porcelain, must be painted 
 Before Glazing. A Lie Always needs a Truth for a Handle 305 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 
 
 Interesting Reminiscences and Anecdotes. Major Pond's Story. Beecher 
 "Democratic Through and Through." Remembrance of Old Parish- 
 ioners. The Old Lady from Indianapolis. His Profits from Lectur- 
 ing. Angry only Once. Refused to go to Private Houses. Fond- 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 ness for Children. Care for Two Children on a Railway Train. 
 Never wore a Silk Hat but Once. "Playing Horse." Beecher and 
 Sir Samuel Cunard. Preparing Lunch with His Own Hands. The 
 Drunken Man at the Lecture. Fast Riding on a Train. General 
 King's Recollections. Beecher as a Travelling Companion. Sleep- 
 ing under Table-cloths. " Mutton or Beef ? " 325 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 
 
 His Boyhood Gardening. Early Love for Plants and Animals. His Gar- 
 den at Lawrenceburg, Ind. His Encouragement of Societies. Love 
 for Domestic Animals. "Cackling," His Last Article. His Last 
 Request. The Floral Pall and Wreath. A Work on Flowers, Fruits, 
 and Farming. Some Interesting Extracts. Mistakes He had Made. 
 Winter Nights for Reading. Shiftless Tricks. Portrait of an 
 Anti-Book Farmer. Encouragement to Agricultural Writing. Ad- 
 vantages of Farm Education. Spring Work for Public-Spirited Men. 
 The Farm at Peekskill. A Costly Experiment. His Summer Re- 
 treat. An Active Farm-Hand 348 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Causes of Mr. Beecher's Success in the Pulpit. Originality of Thought 
 and Expression. His Great Power of Will. How the Yale Lectures 
 were Delivered. Advice to Young Preachers. Constant Study of 
 Nature and Men. Aims to ennoble Hearers. Opposed to Perfunc- 
 tory Preaching. External Forms Derided. " Has the Pulpit lost its 
 Power?" Why the Question has Arisen. Personal Emotion. 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 Earnestness, Faith, and Motive Power Essential to Good Preaching. 
 Criticism and Questions Invited. " Show Sermons the Tempta- 
 tion of the Devil." Preaching Should be adapted to the Audience. 
 Antipathy to Pulpits. Health very Important. Extemporaneous 
 Preaching. System Absolutely Necessary. Sunday-schools the 
 Young People's Church. Temptations of Praise. Sorrow an Excel- 
 lent Teacher 369 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Mr. Beecher's Reasons for writing It. The First Volume published in 
 1872. Its High Literary Character. Plans for the Work. Author- 
 ities Consulted. Spirit in which the Author Wrote. Meeting Objec- 
 tions. The Four Gospels. Their Critics. Accepting Their Truth. 
 Ministry of Angels. The Time Ripe for Christ's Appearance. The 
 Annunciation. Characters of Mary and Joseph. Deprecation of 
 Protestant Reaction from Mary. Herod's Hatred. The Flight into 
 Egypt. Childhood of Jesus. John and the Voice in the Wilderness. 
 Discussion of Forms of Baptism. Personal Description of Christ. 
 Miracles of the Four Gospels. Marriage at Cana. Judean Minis- 
 try. Lesson at Jacob's Well. Early Labors in Galilee. Discussion 
 of the Sermon on the Mount. End of the Volume. Publication 
 Suspended. New Contract of 1886 384 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE GREAT SCANDAL. 
 
 Tilton a Reporter in 1851. Attached to The Independent. His Domestic 
 Troubles. Interviews and Correspondence. The Tripartite Agree- 
 ment. "Our Mutual Friend." The Church Investigates. Beecher 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 Exonerated. Commencement of the Libel Suit. Complaint and An- 
 swer. How the Jury stood at the End. Eminent Counsel on Both 
 Sides. Official Report of the Trial. Tilton on the Stand. His 
 Remarkable Story for the Prosecution. Cross-Examination. His 
 Version of the Various Interviews with Beecher. Mrs. Victoria C. 
 WoodhulPs Connection with the Case. Frank Moulton and His 
 Testimony. Other Witnesses for the Plaintiff. The Prosecution 
 rests Its Case. Rulings of Judge Neilson 400 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE GREAT SCANDAL CONTINUED. 
 
 The Defence Opens. Mr. Tracy's Appeal. What He proposed to Prove. 
 The Alleged Confession. Damaging Evidence against Mr. Tilton. 
 His Alleged Improprieties at Various Places. Mrs. Woodhull Again. 
 Mr. Moul ton's Evidence Contradicted. Various Witnesses for the 
 Defence. Mr. Beecher on the Stand. Sensation in Court. His Oath 
 in the New England Form. His Acquaintance with the Plaintiff. 
 Denial of Improper Conduct. The Beecher-Moulton-Tilton Interview. 
 Mr. Beecher's Explanation of His Remorse. Cross-Examination. 
 Mr. Moulton Recalled. Letter from Mrs. Tilton to Judge Neilson. 
 The Plaintiff Recalled. The Summing Up by the Defence. Judge 
 Porter and Mr. Evarts. The Prosecution Follows. Failure of the 
 Jury to Agree. End of the Six Months' Trial 418 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 HOME-LIFE. 
 
 Mr. Beecher's Domestic Habits. Early to Bed, Early to Rise. An After- 
 noon Nap. Reluctant to leave Home. Plain Fare. No More 
 Nocturnal Suppers. His Work Hours Preparatory Work. A 
 
CONTENTS. xvii 
 
 Punctilious Correspondent. Answers all Letters with his Own Hand. 
 Persevering Industry. His Old Home on the Heights. Its Art 
 Treasures. Stuart's Reminiscence. Beecher's Temperance Princi- 
 ples. Financiering. Valuable Collection of Steel Engravings. De- 
 scription of His Library and Methods of Work. An Amateur Biblio- 
 phile 436 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 Rev. C. E. Babb. Early Days in the West. The "Pepper-Box" 
 Church. Comparative Obscurity until Thirty-five Years Old. 
 Judge Tourgee's Meeting in Boyhood. Sam Payne's Experiences. 
 Captain W. L. Watson. Mr. Beecher as Chaplain. "Our Boys." 
 Nelson Sizer. Mr. Beecher's Phrenological Development. His 
 Friendship for his Old School-mate. Dr. Spurzheim. Dr. E. E. 
 Marcy. College Days. Rev. S. Giffard Nelson. Plymouth Bethel. 
 General Horatio C. King. Mr. Beecher's Ideas about Church 
 Music. Theatre-going. Private Theatricals. Soldiers' Home at 
 Leavenworth, Kan. Professor R. W. Raymond. Mr. Beecher as a 
 Lapidary. Mr. Thomas G. Shearman. Mr. Beecher's Charity. His 
 Sympathetic and Sensitive Nature. Mrs. Sarah Cole. A Reminis- 
 cence of Mr. Beecher's First Sermon in Brooklyn. Allan Forman. 
 Mr. Beecher plays Marbles with the Boys 454 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 
 
 Fishing with Lampson at Litchfield. Result of Divine Mercy. An April 
 Fool. An Old Reporter's Reminiscences. A Friend to Newspaper 
 
xviii CONTENTS. 
 
 Men. Knowing One's Own Country. The Mood Necessary for 
 Work. The Leather Promissory Note. Weak Coffee. The Warm 
 Icicle. A Feast at Waterbury. Dr. Hall and Mr. Beecher. Mr. 
 Beecher's Humor. A Total Abstainer at Public Dinners. Mr. 
 Beecher's Visits to Washington. His Dinner Habits. A Bridal 
 Substitute. Hon. Willard Bartlett. Mr. Beecher's Fondness for 
 Dogs. The Prayer for Delivery from Sudden Death. A Little Boy's 
 Compliment. Last Appearance in Public in New York. Dr. Tal- 
 mage. Mr. Beecher a Good Swimmer. The Debating Society. 
 The "Beecher Calendar." Rev. Frank Russell. Rev. William M. 
 Taylor. Crossing the East River on the Ice. Eating Candy like a 
 School-boy. The Railway Lunch- Counter. Misunderstood in a Ser- 
 mon. Dead Letters. The Photographs. The Stomach the Boiler of 
 the System. The Giddy Gusher's Reminiscences. Mr. Beecher's 
 Friendship for Actors. His Present to Ellen Terry 485 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 
 
 Mr. Beecher's Visit to England in 1886. Declines to Interfere in Eng- 
 lish Politics. Preaching and Lecturing. Declines a Reception on 
 Returning Home. His Last Sermon in Plymouth Church. The 
 Fatal Stroke of Apoplexy. How the News was Received. Incidents 
 of His Illness. Sinking Steadily. His Death on Tuesday, March 
 nth. Sympathy for the Family. Private Service at the House. 
 A Public Funeral without Crape. Floral Decorations. Lying in 
 State. Services Simultaneously in Five Churches. Testimony of a 
 Hebrew. The Closing Ceremony. Laid at Rest 518 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 
 
 ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 Tributes from Many Christian Pulpits. All Denominations Honor Him. 
 Loss of Beecher Like the Removal of a Mountain. His Speeches 
 in England one Long Speech. His Fervid Eloquence. The Great 
 Leader in Pulpit and Republic. Who will Wear His Mantle? The 
 Shakespeare of the Christian Pulpit. A Marvellous Imagination 
 Wonderful Knowledge of Character. Great in the Life of the Re- 
 public. The Most Striking Figure of Our Time. The Incarnation 
 of Love. A Part of America's Life. Tributes from the Hebrews 
 of New York. A Great Star Below the Horizon. The Representa- 
 tive of Democracy in the Pulpit. The End 536 
 
THE LIFE AND WORK 
 
 OF 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BEECHER FAMILY. 
 
 The Genealogy. American Origin. Grandmother Hannah. Joseph 
 Beecher. Lyman Beecher. His First Marriage. His First Pastor- 
 ate. East Hampton, Litch field, Boston, Cincinnati. An Active and 
 Useful Career. Three Times Married. Father of Thirteen Children. 
 A Conspicuous Progeny. Catherine Esther Beechej. Edward 
 Beecher, D.D. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Mrs. Isabella Beecher 
 Hooker. 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER was born at Litchfield, Conn., 
 on the 24th day of June, 1813. He was the eighth 
 child of the Rev. Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Foote 
 Beecher, who had moved to Litchfield from East Hamp- 
 ton, L. L, some three years earlier. 
 
 The circumstances of the minister and his family were 
 humble. His salary of eight hundred dollars, not regu- 
 larly paid, was inadequate to the maintenance of so large 
 
26 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 a family, and additional income was obtained by taking 
 to board young ladies attending a neighboring school. 
 
 The Beecher family in America has a notable history. 
 The peculiar qualities that marked Henry Ward Beecher 
 were characteristic of his ancestry. Hannah Beecher, a 
 widow, who came over with John Davenport in 1637, 
 tvas a woman who possessed the endowments shown by 
 the Beechers ever since. Coming to Boston when the 
 theocracy was excited over the tenets attributed to Anne 
 Hutchinson, she sympathized with the Antinomian 
 movement that was exerting such a remarkable influence 
 in Massachusetts Bay. That dispute affected even the 
 distribution of town lots, and as Mrs. Beecher had been 
 induced to emigrate by a promise of her husband's share 
 in the town lot distribution in Boston town, it affected 
 her very seriously indeed. Giving up all idea of acquir- 
 ing a home in Massachusetts, she accompanied her pas- 
 tor to Quirmipiac, now New Haven, and there, under a 
 spreading oak-tree growing on Hannah Beecher's land, 
 John Davenport preached the first sermon heard in New 
 Haven, April 15, 1638. 
 
 Hannah Beecher, who in England followed the hum- 
 ble occupation of a midwife, brought with her to New 
 England her son, John Beecher. John Beecher's son 
 Joseph was noted for his wonderful strength, which he 
 proved to admiring friends by lifting a barrel of cider 
 and drinking from the bung-hole. Joseph Beecher's son 
 
THE BEECHER FAMILY. 27 
 
 Nathaniel, and his grandson David, were both able to 
 lift a barrel of cider, but history is silent as to whether 
 they were accustomed to drink out of the bung. Nathan- 
 iel and David Beecher were blacksmiths, Nathaniel's anvil 
 standing on the stump of the old tree under which John 
 Davenport preached his first sermon. David Beecher 
 was considered one of the best read men in New Eng- 
 land, being particularly well versed in astronomy, geog- 
 raphy, and history. He was five times married. His 
 third wife, Esther Lyman, was of Scotch descent, and was 
 noted for her joyous and hopeful temperament, as well 
 as for her strong mind and excellent character. She was 
 the mother of Lyman Beecher, Henry Ward Beecher's 
 father. 
 
 Lyman Beecher was born October 12, 1775, of Esther 
 Lyman, David Beecher's third wife, who contributed a 
 strain of Scotch blood to the Beecher stock, already of 
 English and Welsh extraction. Lyman Beecher was her 
 only child, and she died of consumption two days after 
 he was born. He was such a puny babe, having been 
 prematurely born, that the nurse, who was laboring to 
 save his mother's life, actually wrapped him up and laid 
 him aside, believing it useless to try to keep him alive : 
 " So you see," Lyman Beecher writes in his autobiog- 
 raphy, " it was but by a hair's-breadth that I got a foot- 
 hold in this world." He was raised by bottle under the 
 care of an aunt in North Guilford. As a boy his passion 
 
28 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 was for fishing. He couldn't leave off until the bull- 
 heads had quit biting. He developed much physical 
 strength among the Guilford hills. When he entered 
 Yale College its scientific apparatus comprised a great 
 rusty orrery as big as a mill-wheel, a rusty four-foot tel- 
 escope, an air-pump that would never have killed a 
 mouse, a dingy prism, and an elastic hoop to illustrate 
 centrifugal force. Slaves were then owned in New Eng- 
 land, and Lyman Beecher was made a fag to an upper 
 classman ; but he broke in the windows of his student 
 master at midnight with brickbats, and broke up the old 
 aristocratic college custom. 
 
 Lyman Beecher came twice to death's door. He tried 
 to skate over Long Island Sound, fell through the ice, 
 and saved himself with great difficulty. The same year 
 he almost died of scarlet fever. Yale College students 
 were then infected with scepticism. Students called 
 each other Voltaire, Rousseau, and D'Alembert. The 
 college church was almost extinct. The students idol- 
 ized Tom Paine. Intemperance, profanity, gambling, and 
 licentiousness were common. Lyman Beecher learned 
 to gamble, won at first, lost next, then got into debt, 
 and then took a week off, cured himself of the mania, 
 and never touched a card after that. Old Dr. Dwight 
 preached for six months on the subject of infidelity, and 
 changed the temper of the students. Lyman Beecher 
 was butler of the college. The butlery is now an ob- 
 
THE BEECHER FAMILY. 29 
 
 solete institution. An English parson bought for him a 
 hogshead of porter, which he retailed to the students, 
 with cider, metheglin, pipes and tobacco, and by the 
 profit thus obtained he helped to pay his own way 
 through college. 
 
 After his collegiate course at Yale, he became pastor 
 of a church at East Hampton, L. I., where he received a 
 salary of $300 and a dilapidated parsonage. He stirred 
 the country with a sermon that in 1804 ne preached 
 upon the death of Alexander Hamilton, whom Aaron 
 Burr shot in a duel. When in 1810 Lyman Beecher re- 
 moved to Litchfield Corners he assailed the vice of in- 
 temperance, then so common in the land of the Puritans 
 that formal meetings of the clergy were not infrequently 
 accompanied by gross excesses. His sermons were ex- 
 tempore in form, but were carefully thought out, gen- 
 erally while he was engaged in active physical exercise. 
 He had striking peculiarities, and was accustomed to 
 relieve the excitement occasioned by preaching by play- 
 ing " Auld Lang Syne '' on the fiddle or dancing the 
 double-shuffle in his parlor. He remained at Litchfield 
 sixteen years. From 1826 to 1832 Dr. Beecher was 
 pastor of the Hanover Street Church, Boston. Here 
 his influence was so powerful, his controversies with 
 Unitarianism and the Finney system of revivals so 
 trenchant and triumphant, that his fame went abroad in 
 all the land ; and he seemed to be the man of all others 
 
30 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 to help build up a Western school of theology. From 
 1832 to 1842 he was president of the Lane Theological 
 Seminary, near Cincinnati, O. Upon his retirement 
 from the Lane Seminary, Dr. Beecher returned to Bos- 
 ton, where he lived until 1856, when he removed to 
 Brooklyn, where his death occurred in 1863, in the 
 eighty-eighth year of his age. Dr. Beecher was one of 
 the twelve children of his father, David Beecher, and he 
 was himself the father of thirteen children, of whom 
 Henry Ward Beecher was the eighth. He was three 
 times married, first in 1799, then in 1817, and again in 
 1836. It is unnecessary here to recapitulate the labors 
 that gave him his fame as a theologian, orator, writer, 
 and leader in great moral movements, such as the tem- 
 perance and anti-slavery causes. 
 
 Of the children who attained distinction, there were 
 Catherine Esther Beecher, who wrote a number of 
 books upon education and domestic economy ; Edward 
 Beecher, D.D., a studious theologian ; Harriet Elizabeth 
 (Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe), author of " Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin ; " Charles Beecher, Thomas K. Beecher, and 
 Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker. 
 
 Catherine Esther Beecher was the eldest of Dr. Ly- 
 man Beecher's family. She was born at East Hampton, 
 L. I., September 6, 1800. She has been dead only a few 
 years. Catherine Beecher never married, her life being 
 
THE BEECHER FAMILY. 31 
 
 devoted to promoting education. She was for many 
 years principal of a school at Hartford. Her writings 
 were mostly on educational and domestic subjects, 
 including a work on the " Duties " and one on the 
 " Wrongs " of women. Her only work that is sought 
 for nowadays is " Truth Stranger Than Fiction," which 
 contains the story of the infelicitous love-affair of the 
 late Delia Bacon, the originator of the Bacon-Shake- 
 speare controversy with the Rev. Mr. McWhorter. This 
 book was never really published, but it is the only one of 
 Miss Beecher's books that will be remembered. Cath- 
 erine Beecher also wrote the memoirs of her brother, 
 George Beecher, a promising clergyman, who was killed 
 in 1843 by the accidental discharge of his own gun. 
 
 Edward Beecher, D.D., was born at East Hampton, 
 L. L, in 1804, and graduated from Yale College in 1822. 
 He studied theology at Andover and New Haven, his 
 first charge (1826 to 1831) being the Park Street Congre- 
 gational Church, Boston. From 1831 to 1844 he was 
 president of the Illinois College, at Jacksonville. In 
 1844 he became pastor of the Salem Street Church, 
 Boston, and in 1856 he removed to Galesburg, 111., 
 where he was for many years pastor of the Congrega- 
 tional Church. Dr. Beecher's most noteworthy books 
 are, " The Conflict of Ages," 1854, and " The Concord of 
 Ages," 1860. In these he argues that man's life upon 
 
32 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 earth is the outgrowth of a former existence as well as a 
 prelude to a future one. The conflict between good and 
 evil which has been going on for ages is to be ended with 
 this life, and then all the conflicts are to be harmonized 
 into an everlasting concord. 
 
 Harriet Elizabeth Beecher was born at Litchfield, 
 Conn., June 14, 1812. In her fifteenth year she became 
 a teacher in a school at Hartford conducted by her sister, 
 Catherine Beecher, where she remained until 1832, when 
 she went with her father's family to Cincinnati. There, 
 in 1836, she was married to Calvin E. Stowe, recently 
 deceased, who in 1833 had become professor of languages 
 and biblical literature in the seminary. During the ear- 
 lier years of her married life Mrs. Stowe gave little atten- 
 tion to literature. Her time was devoted to her house- 
 hold duties and the care of her children. Mrs. Stowe's 
 family now comprises only her two daughters Harriet 
 Beecher, called after her mother, and Eliza, so named in 
 honor of Professor Stowe's first wife. These sisters are 
 twins, and were the first born of Mrs. Stowe's children. 
 Another daughter is Mrs. Allen, an invalid, whose hus- 
 band is the rector of the Church of the Messiah, in Bos- 
 ton. Mrs. Stowe had only one son, Charles Stowe, a 
 young clergyman in Hartford. Mrs. Stowe's first book, 
 " Mayflower ; or, Sketches of the Descendants of the 
 Puritans," was not published until 1849, when she had 
 
THE BEECHER FAMILY. 33 
 
 already reached her thirty-seventh year. Although pub- 
 lished both in London and New York, this volume met 
 with no marked success until after the appearance of 
 " Uncle Tom's Cabin," in 1852. The popularity of the 
 latter work, as all the world knows, was phenomenal. It 
 was originally published in weekly parts, from June 5, 
 1851, to April i, 1852, in the New Era, an anti-slavery 
 paper in Washington, but it was not until its appearance 
 in book- form that it made a sensation. In eight weeks 
 after the appearance of the first Boston edition, in two 
 volumes, 100,000 copies were sold. The first London 
 edition was published in May, 1852, but it was not large, 
 the publishers doubting the popularity of pictures of 
 negro life in England. Before the close of the year it is 
 estimated that in England alone as many as a million 
 copies had been sold. In September, 1852, one London 
 house gave an order for 10,000 copies daily, which was 
 regularly filled for a month. The sale in the United 
 States reached 200,000 within a year, and 313,000 in four 
 years. No other work of fiction ever came near it in cir- 
 culation. Before the close of the year 1852 it had been 
 translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swed- 
 ish, Dutch, Flemish, German, Polish and Magyar, and 
 subsequently Portuguese, Welsh, Russian, Wendish, Wal- 
 lachian, Armenian, Arabic, and Romaic translations were 
 made. Indeed, it is said that there were even Chinese 
 and Japanese versions. Apart from the popularity of 
 
34 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 " Uncle Tom's Cabin " as a novel, it has had exceptional 
 success as a play. Almost as soon as the story was pub- 
 lished it was dramatized for the Fox family. Mrs. G. 
 C. Howard, who still plays Topsy, was the original Little 
 Eva, thirty-four years ago. Besides the Fox version 
 there have been many others, Mrs. Stowe preparing one 
 which was published in 1855, with the title of " The 
 Christian Slave." Probably no production in the whole 
 history of literature provoked the bitter animosities that 
 resulted from the publication of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
 It would be a hopeless task to repeat the story of the 
 long controversy. As the first powerful blow dealt to 
 American slavery, as it existed previous to 1861, the book 
 naturally became hateful to the South, and Mrs. Stowe 
 was for a time the most hated woman in the United 
 States. This book, however, gave her the widest reputa- 
 tion of any member of the Beecher family, and her fame 
 as the author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " will probably 
 prove the most lasting. 
 
 The younger members of the Beecher family who at- 
 tained to distinction as clergymen are Charles, born in 
 1815, and Thomas K., born in 1824. Charles Beecher 
 was successively pastor of a church at Newark, N. J., 
 and Georgetown, Mass. He edited the "Life" of his 
 father, Lyman Beecher, and was joint author, with his 
 sister, Mrs. Stowe, of " Sunny Memories of Foreign 
 
THE BEECHER FAMILY. 35 
 
 Lands." Thomas K. Beecher was for a time pastor of 
 the New England Congregational Church, Brooklyn, 
 E. D., but in 1857 he removed to Elmira, N. Y., where 
 he remained until a year or two ago. Another well- 
 known member of the Beecher family was Mrs. Isabella 
 Beecher Hooker, who was an active champion of the 
 claim of women to the ballot. Of the remaining chil- 
 dren of Lyman Beecher one died in infancy and three 
 were content to live the lives and perform the homely 
 duties of ordinary mortals. 
 
 The following anecdote is told of the parents of Henry 
 Ward Beecher : " Lyman Beecher was an utterly im- 
 practicable and erratic person out of the pulpit, while 
 his wife, who was refined and well balanced, had much 
 of her time occupied in undoing the mischief her husband 
 had done. For instance, Lyman Beecher once bought 
 and sent home a bale of cotton, simply because it was 
 cheap, without any idea or plan for its use. His wife, at 
 
 first discomfited, at once projected the unheard-of luxury 
 
 * 
 of a carpet, carded and spun the cotton, hired it woven, 
 
 cut and sewed it to fit the parlor, stretched and nailed it 
 to the garret floor, and brushed it over with thin paste. 
 Then she sent to her New York brother for oil-paints, 
 learned from an encyclopaedia how to prepare them, and 
 then adorned the carpet with groups of flowers, imitating 
 those in her small yard and garden. This illustrates at 
 
36 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 once the improvidence of the father and the useful and 
 aesthetic turn of mind of the mother, who seems to 
 have had high ideals and great perseverance in attain- 
 ing excellence under most unfavorable circumstances. 
 Lyman Beecher was passionately fond of children ; his 
 wife was not. Lyman Beecher was imaginative, impul- 
 sive, and averse to hard study. His wife was calm and 
 self-possessed, and solved mathematical problems not 
 only for practical purposes, but because she enjoyed that 
 kind of mental effort. Lyman Beecher was trained as a 
 dialectician and felt that he excelled in argumentation, 
 and yet his wife, without any such training, he remarked, 
 was the only person he had met that he felt was fully 
 his equal in an argument. He had that kind of love for 
 his children that moved him to caress and fondle them ; 
 she, on the contrary, did not care to nurse or tend them, 
 although she was eminently benevolent, and very tender 
 and sympathetic. In other words, as the late Catherine 
 Beecher once wrote, ' My father seemed by natural or- 
 ganization to have what one usually deemed the natural 
 traits of woman, while my mother had some of those 
 which often are claimed to be the distinctive attributes 
 of man/ " 
 
 On one occasion the members of his church had, by 
 dint of much effort, raised $100 to buy furniture for the 
 parsonage. The money, in bank bills, was given to Dr. 
 Beecher, who crowded it into his vest-pocket and forgot 
 
THE BEECHER FAMILY. 37 
 
 all about it. When sought for a few days later, it 
 could nowhere be found, and for some time all trace of 
 the money was lost. It was finally ascertained that the 
 absent-minded doctor had dropped the roll of bills into 
 the contribution-box one Sunday morning when it was 
 being circulated for the benefit of a line of stages that 
 was being run at a loss because of its owner's refusal to 
 break the Sabbath. 
 
 Once Dr. Beecher left his horse tied to a tree in the 
 woods, and the poor animal remained there two entire 
 days without food or water. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 f 
 
 HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 
 
 The Eighth Child. Not the First Baby, Usually a Novelty in the Family. 
 Mrs. Stowe's Reminiscences. His Birthplace at Litchfield, Conn. 
 His Mother's Death. Scene at the Death -bed. Aunt Esther. The 
 Step-mother. Henry Never had a Toy. Doing Family Chores. 
 Primitive Life in New England. Does not want to wear an Overcoat. 
 A, B, C School. School-girls cut His Curls. The District School. 
 Not a Bright Pupil. Difficulty in Memorizing. No Elocutionary 
 Ability. Sent to School from Home. Rev. Mr. Langdon's School. 
 A Student of Nature. Boy's Debate on the Bible. Miss Catherine's 
 Young Ladies' School. His Brief Career There. His Practical 
 Jokes. The Umbrella Story. The Grammar Contests. Amusing 
 Anecdotes. Back Home. 
 
 IN such a numerous family as that in which Henry Ward 
 arrived, a baby is not the novelty and attraction that the 
 first-born always is, and so throughout most of his life 
 he had to take care of himself. 
 
 As Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe says in a sketch of 
 her brother Henry Ward, in her volume "Self-Made 
 Men," " The first child of a family is generally an ob- 
 ject of high hopes and anxious and careful attention. 
 They are observed, watched, and if the parents are so 
 disposed, carefully educated, and often over-watched and 
 over-educated. But in large families, as time rolls on 
 
HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 41 
 
 and children multiply, especially to those in straitened 
 worldly circumstances, all the interest of novelty dies 
 out before the advent of younger children, and they are 
 apt to find their way in early life unwatched and un- 
 heralded. Dr. Beecher's low salary, and sometimes slow 
 payment, made the problem of feeding, clothing, and 
 educating a family of ten children a hard one. The 
 family was constantly enlarged by boarders young ladies 
 attending the female academy, and whose board helped 
 somewhat to the support of the domestic establishment, 
 but added greatly to the cares of the head -manager. The 
 younger members of the Beecher family therefore came 
 into existence in a great battling household of older peo- 
 ple, all going their separate ways, and having their own 
 grown-up interests to carry. The child growing up in 
 this busy, active circle had constantly impressed upon it a 
 sense of personal insignificance as a child, and the abso- 
 lute need of the virtue of passive obedience and non-re- 
 sistance as regards all grown-up people. To be statedly 
 washed and dressed and catechised, got to school at reg- 
 ular hours in the morning, and to bed inflexibly at the 
 earliest possible hour at night, comprised about all the 
 attention that children could receive in these days." 
 And so young Henry Ward did not receive the atten- 
 tion and deference as a younger child that would have 
 been bestowed on a first-born. 
 
 The house in Litchfield in which Henry Ward 
 
42 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Beecher was born, June 24, 1813, was a square structure 
 with an L and a hipped roof. It stood in a yard filled 
 with tamaracks, elms, maples, and other trees. The old- 
 fashioned two-leaved double door on the east looked 
 over toward Bantam River. Great apple-trees filled the 
 orchard in the rear. The dining-room contained a fa- 
 mous Russian stove, built so as to warm six rooms, includ- 
 ing the large parlor, where ministers met and talked and 
 smoked until they could not see across the room. A 
 fragrant honeysuckle shaded the dining-room window. 
 The love of flowers was inherited by Mr. Beecher from 
 his mother, who, just before he was born, spent much 
 time amid flowers about their homestead. She was con- 
 stantly exchanging flower-seeds and slips of shrubs. The 
 letters of his mother describe him as a merry, clinging 
 child. " I write," she wrote to her sister in November, 
 1814, " 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 (Mrs. Stowe) is beg- 
 ging me to please to make her a baby." Mr. Beecher's 
 mother was from a family that traced its genealogy back 
 to the man who aided King Charles to conceal himself in 
 the royal oak, which stood in a field of clover. As a re- 
 ward he was knighted, and the Foote coat-of-arms bears 
 an oak for its crest and a clover-leaf for its quarterings. 
 Mrs. Beecher possessed a fine presence, and there was 
 such dignity and sweetness in her manner that the pict- 
 
HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 43 
 
 ure of her impressed upon Henry Ward Beecher's mind 
 when he was three year's old remained the chief treasure 
 of his memory all through life. She died on September 
 23, 1816, when eight little children, among them her son 
 Henry Ward, were weeping about her bedside. Her 
 parting message to them was, " Trust in God, my chil- 
 dren. He can do more for you than I have done or 
 could do." Six members of her family had died in Sep- 
 tember, and it was always regarded as a fatal month, and 
 she had a presentiment that whatever was of ill omen 
 would happen to her in that month. It was her wish 
 that all of her sons should devote themselves to the 
 ministry, and they all did so. Lyman Beecher said that 
 after her death his first sensation was one of terror, like 
 that of a child suddenly shut out alone in the dark. In- 
 tellectually and morally, he regarded her as the better 
 and stronger half of himself. He had depended upon 
 her so much that once after her death, when in trouble, 
 he sat down and " poured out his soul " in a letter to her. 
 Henry Ward was too small to go to his mother's fu- 
 neral. Mrs. Stowe once wrote : " I remember his golden 
 curls and little black frock as he frolicked like a kitten in 
 the sun in ignorant joy." They told him that they had 
 laid his mother in the ground and that she had gone to 
 heaven. One morning he was discovered with great zeal 
 and earnestness digging under the window. His sister 
 Catherine asked him what he was doing. Lifting his 
 
44 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 curly head with great simplicity, he said, " Why, I'm 
 going to heaven to find ma." The passage in " Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin " where Augustine St. Clair describes his 
 mother's influence is a simple reproduction of the influ- 
 ence felt by Roxanna Beecher's children. 
 
 The mother's place in the household was assumed by a 
 sister of his father, Esther Beecher, " who measured out 
 the things of this life as conscientiously and accurately 
 as if they were the outer court service of the temple 
 in which her inner soul devoutly adored." The father, 
 who was a vigorous, earnest thinker and preacher, was 
 absorbed by his theological studies and pastoral duties, 
 and devoted little attention to the younger children. In 
 a year he took to himself a second wife (Miss Harriet 
 Porter), " a beautiful lady, very fair, with bright blue eyes 
 and soft auburn hair," of whom Mr. Beecher's Friday 
 night auditors have had many bright pictures. Henry is 
 described in the early letters of the family as a good boy, 
 a quick and apt student ; and if he was mischievous, his 
 pranks were cast into the shade by those of his brother 
 Charles, who was a typical small boy. 
 
 Speaking of the step-mother, " who took the station of 
 mother" to the infant, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, in 
 the work referred to, observes that she " was a lady of 
 great personal elegance and attractiveness, of high intel- 
 lectual and moral culture, who, from having been in early 
 life the much admired belle in general society, came at 
 
HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 45 
 
 last, from an impulse of moral heroism combined with 
 personal attachment, to undertake the austere labors 
 of a poor minister's family. She was a person to make 
 a deep impression on the minds of any children. There 
 was a moral force about her, a dignity of demeanor, an 
 air of elegance and superior breeding, which produced a 
 constant atmosphere of unconscious awe in the minds of 
 the little ones. Then her duties were onerous, her con- 
 science inflexible, and under the weight of these her 
 stock of health and animal spirits sunk, so that she was 
 for the most part pensive and depressed. Her nature 
 and habits were too refined and exacting for the bring- 
 ing up of children of great animal force and vigor under 
 the strain and pressure of straitened circumstances. 
 The absurdities and crudenesses incident to the early 
 days of such children appeared to her as serious faults, 
 and weighed heavily on her conscience. The most in- 
 tense positive religious and moral influence the three 
 little ones of the family received was on Sunday night, 
 when it was her custom to take them to her bedroom 
 and read and talk and pray with them." 
 
 The religious impressions thus early imbibed by Henry 
 Ward were profound and lasting. Children had not as 
 many ways of enjoying themselves as in these days of 
 cheap children's books and toys, and in the stern, prac- 
 tical life of New England, which only observed one feast 
 day Thanksgiving Day there was little to interest 
 
46 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 growing children. Mrs. Beecher Stowe states that " the 
 childhood of Henry Ward Beecher was unmarked by 
 the possession of a single child's toy as a gift from any 
 older person, or a single ftte" 
 
 He was early called upon to assume a portion of the 
 domestic routine : he had to care for the domestic ani- 
 mals, to cut and pile wood for the household use, to 
 work in the garden, and so formed the magnificent 
 physique and healthy as well as industrious habits which 
 distinguished him through life. He grew up a rugged, 
 healthy boy. The long and severe winters characteristic 
 of the mountainous region of Litchfield necessitated the 
 hardships usually associated with the primitive border 
 towns. 
 
 The severe winters occasioned the water-droughts so 
 frequent in New England towns. One of his duties, in 
 his ninth year, was to harness the horse to a sledge con- 
 taining a barrel and go to a spring three miles away, on 
 the town hill, to obtain water for household use. He 
 would fill the barrel by the slow process of dipping the 
 water from the spring. His robust vigor enabled him to 
 endure the cold without wearing an overcoat, and one of 
 his first trials in life was in being compelled by his step- 
 mother to wear one. He had determined not to wear an 
 overcoat the winter through, but he reluctantly obeyed 
 his step-mother. 
 
 He attended a primary school kept in the village by 
 
HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 47 
 
 the Widow Kilbourn, on West Street. Here he learned 
 the alphabet, saying his letters twice a day, and was kept 
 out of the mischief incidental to childhood and conse- 
 quent annoyance to those at home by the hours of at- 
 tendance. He wore his hair, then of a golden hue, in 
 long curls. One day some mischievous girls sawed off, 
 with tin shears formed from fragments obtained from a 
 shop near by, some of his golden curls, and on his step- 
 mother discovering the fact, she had his curls cut short, 
 greatly to his joy, as he thought they made him look like 
 a girl. 
 
 A district school was opened near the parsonage about 
 the time he had mastered the alphabet and rudimentary 
 spelling, and he was removed from the Widow Kilbourn 's 
 and sent there. Here a school-mistress who did not 
 hesitate to use the birch presided over a large attendance 
 of the children of the surrounding farming population, 
 and imparted elementary instruction in ciphering and 
 writing, with daily readings of the Bible and the " Co- 
 lumbian Orator," then a sort of classic in the schools. 
 Henry Ward was not a bright pupil. His verbal memory 
 was deficient, he was extremely diffident and sensitive, 
 and his utterance, so eloquent in later life, was thick and 
 indistinct, because of an enlargement of the tonsils of the 
 throat. Indeed, he never at this time articulated dis- 
 tinctly, and his aunt used to have to make him repeat a 
 message several times before she could comprehend him. 
 
48 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 He experienced great difficulty in committing the 
 catechism to memory, and every Sunday morning he 
 was in trouble in consequence. With his hearty health 
 and temperament these passing troubles sat lightly upon 
 him, and none of them bothered themselves much about 
 him, since he was never sick, and his father was engrossed 
 by his pastoral duties, and all his paternal hopes were 
 centred in the elder brother, who was now attending 
 college. 
 
 In his tenth year, having graduated from the district 
 school a poor writer and a miserable speller he was 
 sent by his father to a private school kept by the Rev. 
 Mr. Langdon at Bethlehem, a neighboring town, to 
 enter upon a more elaborate system of preparatory 
 studies. 
 
 An incident of his admission to the Rev. Mr. Langdon's 
 school may be narrated as the indication that even at 
 this early age he had the courage to defend his convic- 
 tions. One of the older boys in the school obtained pos- 
 session of a copy of Paine's " Age of Reason," and was 
 in the habit of quoting therefrom in arguments against 
 the Bible, which the others did not consider themselves 
 able to refute. Young Beecher found it necessary to 
 prepare for engaging in the controversy which he pro- 
 posed to himself to wage in defence of the Bible. He 
 had recourse to Watson's "Apology," which he studied 
 in private. When thoroughly ready he challenged the 
 
HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 49 
 
 champion of Paine to a debate before their respective fol- 
 lowers. He completely vanquished the elder boy. His 
 victory was acknowledged by all, and has never been 
 questioned. 
 
 He was not the student, however, that the incident 
 would indicate. He was more partial to gunning in the 
 surrounding woods than to his books. It is related that 
 in his studious observations of the trees and the leaves, 
 and the habits of their featheiy inhabitants, he seldom 
 shot anything with the gun he carried on his shoulder. 
 Generally unprepared in his studies, he adopted all the 
 usual school-boy ruses to escape punishment, by reading 
 answers surreptitiously from his hat, or accepting sly 
 assistance from his more studious comrades, always ready 
 and willing to help the good-natured and amusing lag- 
 gard. He remained a year with the Rev. Mr. Langdon 
 without making any recognizable progress in his book- 
 studies. 
 
 In 1823 Miss Catherine Beecherwent to Hartford and 
 established a select school for girls, with her sister Har- 
 riet, then twelve years old, as a pupil as well as as- 
 sistant. She commenced the Latin grammar only a 
 fortnight' before she began to teach it herself. Her 
 brother, Edward Beecher, was at this time at the head 
 of the Hartford Latin School, and boarded in the same 
 family with his sisters, and she studied with him while 
 she taught her pupils. Surrounded by young life, en- 
 
50 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 thusiastic in study and teaching, Miss Beecher recovered 
 that buoyant cheerfulness which always characterized 
 her. 
 
 She was at this time in her twenty-third year, and had 
 a ready sympathy with all the feelings of the young ; she 
 encouraged her scholars to talk freely with her of the 
 subjects they studied, and the recitation hours were 
 often enlivened by wit and pleasantry. She had under 
 her care some of the brightest and most receptive of 
 minds, and the results, as shown in the yearly exhibi- 
 tions, to which the parents and friends were invited, were 
 quite exciting. Latin and English compositions versi- 
 fied translations from Virgil's " Eclogues," and Ovid's 
 " Metamorphoses " astonished those who had not been 
 in the habit of expecting such things in a female school. 
 The school increased rapidly; pupils were drawn in from 
 abroad, and it became difficult to find a place to con- 
 tain the numbers to be taught. The father, in sending 
 his daughter Harriet, concluded to also place Henry 
 under the tutelage of his elder sister, probably wishing to 
 keep the family as united as possible and here, near by 
 to the nest, could be four of the brood. Between the two 
 youngsters, Miss Catherine and Mr. Edward must have 
 had considerable trouble. Rose Terry Cooke, in her in- 
 teresting account of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, says : 
 
 " To this sister's care and teaching Harriet, now twelve 
 years old, was confided. No more scrambles now over 
 
HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 5 1 
 
 hill and dale after huckleberries or honeysuckle apples ; 
 no more nutting frolics or fishing excursions to Bantam 
 Pond ; apple-cuttings, wood-spells, strawberry-hunts, and 
 expeditions after winter-green were all over; she must 
 ' buckle-down ' now to serious work without these alle- 
 viations ; and besides her own studies she taught Latin 
 and translated Virgil into English heroic verse, becoming 
 in due time an assistant pupil in the school then and still 
 known as the Hartford Female Seminary, and flourish- 
 ing for many years after Miss Beecher left it under the 
 rule of the same John P. Brace who was previously her 
 teacher." 
 
 Henry did not achieve any better record for scholar- 
 ship under his sister's tuition than he had at the Rev. 
 Mr. Langdon's schools. His sisters must have had a 
 troublesome time with him, as he was more given to prac- 
 tical joking than to study. It is related that one rainy 
 day he opened and placed the umbrellas belonging to the 
 girls in a row, one above the other, on the stairs leading 
 up to the school-room, in an upper story of the house, 
 so that when the door opened all were precipitated into 
 the street, to the dismay of the new arrival and the mer- 
 riment of the school. 
 
 There were two divisions in grammar, with leaders, 
 who would select their sides and engage in a competitive 
 review. Henry was so deficient in his knowledge of 
 grammar that he was always the last chosen Hobson's 
 
52 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 choice, in fact. Mrs. Stowe describes one of these occa- 
 sions : 
 
 " The fair leader on one of these divisions took the boy 
 aside to a private apartment, to put into him, with female 
 tact and insinuation, those definitions and distinctions on 
 which the honor of the class depended. 
 
 " ' Now, Henry, A is the definite article, you see, and 
 must be used only with a singular noun. You can say 
 a man but you can't say a men, can you ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, I can say Amen, too/ was the ready rejoinder. 
 ' Father says it always at the end of his prayers.' 
 
 " ' Come, Henry, now don't be joking ; now decline 
 He.' 
 
 " ' Nominative he, possessive his, objective him.' 
 
 " * You see, His is possessive. Now you can say His 
 book but you can't say Him book.' 
 
 " < Yes, I do say Hymn book too/ said the impracti- 
 cable scholar, with a quizzical twinkle. Each one of these 
 sallies made his young teacher laugh, which was the vic- 
 tory he wanted. 
 
 " * But now, Henry, seriously, just attend to the active 
 and passive voice. Now, " I strike " is active, you see, 
 because if you strike you do something. But " I am 
 struck " is passive, because if you are struck you don't do 
 anything, do you ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, I do I strike back again.' " 
 
 Mrs. Stowe also relates : 
 
HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 53 
 
 " Being of a somewhat frisky nature, his sister appoint- 
 ed his seat at her elbow when she heard her classes. A 
 class in Natural Philosophy, not very well prepared, was 
 stumbling through the theory of the tides. 
 
 " ' I can explain that,' said Henry. ' Well, you see 
 the sun, he catches hokl of the moon and pulls her, and 
 she catches hold of the sea and pulls that, and this 
 makes the spring tides. 5 
 
 " ' But what makes the neap tides ? ' 
 
 " ' Oh, that's when the sun stops to spit on his hands,' 
 was the brisk rejoinder." 
 
 Henry was sent back home after a six months' sojourn 
 with his sister, probably as a hopeless case. Miss 
 Beecher continued her school, and became a resident. 
 Miss Beecher had always enjoyed the friendship of the 
 leading ladies of Hartford, and when at the end of four 
 years she drew the plan of the Hartford Female Sem- 
 inary, it was by their influence that the first gentlemen 
 in Hartford subscribed money to purchase the land and 
 erect such a building as she desired, with a large hall for 
 study and general exercises, eight recitation-rooms, and 
 a room for chemical laboratory and lectures. A band 
 of eight teachers, each devoted to some particular de- 
 partment, carried on the course of study. 
 
 In a recent interview Rev. Edward Beecher told the 
 following incident about Henry's boyhood : 
 
 He was always of an impulsive, warm-hearted, imagi- 
 
54 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 native nature, and very ambitious. He would excel his 
 comrades if he could, and especially so in athletic sports. 
 
 He said that one day young Henry was playing " fol- 
 low the leader." As usual he was the leader. He ran 
 at breakneck speed toward the river, jumping posts and 
 turning somersaults, which every urchin in the line had 
 to imitate. When he reached the river he jumped from 
 the dock to a vessel that was moored a few feet off, but 
 all the boys followed him. He climbed the rigging and 
 slid down ropes, but his playmates still succeeded in 
 imitating him. He ran out on the bowsprit, but the 
 boys followed. 
 
 " Harry would not let them equal him," said his broth- 
 er, who is ten years his senior. " And what did that hot- 
 headed boy do but jump right into the water, where he 
 almost drowned. The other boys admitted that they 
 were beaten." 
 
 Mr. Edward Beecher said that his brother's athletic 
 tendencies were confined to healthy and manly out-door 
 sports. He was no hand for exercising in a gymnasium. 
 He had a strong constitution and was built like an 
 athlete. 
 
 " What was Mr. Beecher's position on the temperance 
 question ? " 
 
 " He believed that for a man to deny himself the use 
 of wines or spirits for the sake of a weaker friend was 
 praiseworthy and even admirable. But provided the 
 
HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 55 
 
 wine was genuine and good, he did not believe it wrong 
 for a man to drink a glass now and then." 
 
 Mr. Edward Beecher said that Henry Ward was the 
 one of his brothers with whom he was least acquainted. 
 William and Thomas K. were nearer his own age. 
 Charles, Henry's next youngest brother, he had fitted 
 for college. But as for Henry himself, he was of an in- 
 dependent turn, and studied only such courses as he fan- 
 cied, or thought would increase his power as an orator. 
 He saw his brother but little after he was seventeen 
 years old. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 
 
 Litchfield Scenery. Atmosphere breathed by the Youth. His Father 
 removes to Boston. Ambitious to become a Sailor. Youthful 
 Dreams. Boston Latin School. Mount Pleasant College. Meets 
 MissBullard. His Methods of Study. Learning Elocution. Study- 
 ing Mathematics. Interested in Phrenology. Teaching in the Win- 
 ter Vacation. Decides to become a Minister. Graduates from Am- 
 herst. Lane Theological Seminary. Editorial Work. Graduates, 
 and resolves to Marry. 
 
 THE scenery surrounding the Litchfield home made 
 nature a great school-teacher. The round, blue head of 
 Mount Tom marked the far-off horizon, and through a 
 sea of distant pine-groves the two sheets of water known 
 as the Great and Little Ponds gleamed out. It was the 
 village habit then to love and notice nature the influ- 
 ence of the. wonderful sunsets, that Mrs. Stowe says 
 " used to burn themselves out amid voluminous wreath- 
 ings or castellated turrets of clouds vaporous pageantry 
 proper to a mountainous region." With but few books 
 within reach, and only the church for mental diversion, 
 Henry Ward Beecher, as a boy, opened his mind to the 
 fullest extent to the beauties of nature. His eye was 
 educated in color by the changes of the verdure from the 
 
HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 57 
 
 tints of spring green that, after a long winter, spread over 
 the rich growth of forest trees on the uplands into the 
 deepening hues of summer, and then into a blaze of 
 glory in autumn. He gathered the pink-shell blossoms 
 of trailing arbutus in the woods, and picked violets that 
 were blue, and white, and yellow, and hunted for wild 
 anemone, crow's-foot, and blood-root. The memory of 
 those sylvan rambles, and his walks along the tangled 
 and rocky banks of the clear Bantam River, colored 
 many of his utterances in later years. He and his imag- 
 inative sister, Mrs. Stowe, used to speculate whether in 
 the distant northern groves there were altars to Apollo, 
 where white-robed shepherds played on ivory flutes, and 
 shepherdesses brought garlands to hang around the 
 shrines. Mr. Beecher gained an education in those pas- 
 toral scenes that never failed to be a resource to him. 
 
 The exuberance of spirit of Lyman Beecher kept the 
 family on the qui vive and influenced all the children. He 
 would teach his boys theology as they caught perch and 
 pickerel, literature as they gathered sweet-flag or winter- 
 green, mythology as they cut up apples before a blazing 
 fire to make the annual barrel of cider-apple sauce, and 
 as they piled up wood he related tales from Walter Scott. 
 There was hardly a bound to Lyman Beecher's mental 
 energy. He wanted to see Byron and give him his views 
 of religious thought, and help him out of his troubles. 
 He had intense admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte, and 
 
58 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 wanted him to succeed, and when Napoleon was at St. 
 Helena, Lyman Beecher was greatly exercised about the 
 condition of the emperor's soul. The descendants of 
 Lyman Beecher were strongly marked with this desire 
 for regulating the affairs of the universe, for whose proper 
 conduct they seemed to have a sense of responsibility. 
 
 Mr. Beecher learned music at home, for his sisters 
 played upon the piano, his father performed upon the 
 violin, and his brothers, Edward and William, played the 
 flute. It delighted the boys when Lyman Beecher tuned 
 his old violin for the contra-dance, " Go to the Devil 
 and Shake Yourself," and although he tried hard to mas- 
 ter "Money Musk," and " College Hornpipe," he invari- 
 ably broke away into " Bonnie Boon," and " Mary's 
 Dream," in playing which he was proficient. 
 
 Henry Ward did not remain long in the mountain 
 home of his birth, but was soon after his return from 
 Hartford taken to Boston by the removal of his father 
 to that city. 
 
 In 1826, Rev. Lyman Beecher, after a long and anx- 
 ious self-communing, made up his mind that he had no 
 right to live longer in debt for want of a sufficient salary. 
 It has always been the disgrace of New England that her 
 country ministers have had to starve or accept charity. 
 Many of them have been forced to eke out the pittance 
 allotted to them by farming on week-days instead of 
 studying, or by writing school-books or compiling histo- 
 
HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 59 
 
 ries, or in later days taking agencies for popular articles. 
 But none of these things were available to Mr. Beecher ; 
 he believed it his duty to devote all his time and strength, 
 just as far as it could be spared from the absolute needs 
 of rest or relaxation, to the work of the ministry ; and 
 the father of eleven children could not, in any case, have 
 provided that hearty and hungry flock with food and 
 clothing for $800 a year. 
 
 He took no counsel of man, but in the silence of his 
 study made up his mind to leave Litchfield as .soon as 
 he could find a more remunerative parish, and twelve 
 hours after a letter reached him, inviting him to the 
 Hanover Street Church, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Henry, in his twelfth year, did not enjoy the change 
 from the freedom of the country and the panorama of 
 nature to the closely built and populous city of Boston, 
 where his father took him as well as his youngest 
 brother ; he would have preferred the country to the 
 city, but he had no choice. 
 
 He was sent to the Boston Latin School, and for a 
 time applied himself diligently to his studies. Accord- 
 ing to Mrs. Stowe, " he grew gloomy and moody, rest- 
 less and irritable," and his father arranged for him a 
 course of biographical reading the voyages of Captain 
 Cook and the life of Nelson and the youthful student 
 became ambitious of an active life of enterprise and ad- 
 venture. He wanted to go to sea. 
 3* 
 
6O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe says : " He made up his little bundle, 
 walked to the wharf and talked with sailors and cap- 
 tains, hovered irresolute on the verge of voyages, 
 never quite able to grieve his father by a sudden depart- 
 ure. At last he wrote a letter announcing to a brother 
 that he could and would remain no longer at school- 
 that he had made up his mind for the sea ; that if not 
 permitted to go, he should go without permission. This 
 letter was designedly dropped where his father picked 
 it up. Dr. Beecher put it in his pocket and said nothing 
 for the moment, but the next day asked Henry to help 
 him saw wood. Now the wood-pile was the doctor's 
 private debating-ground, and Henry felt complimented 
 by the invitation, as implying manly companionship." 
 
 Mrs. Stowe continues the narrative of a very important 
 point in the subsequent career of her illustrious brother : 
 
 " Let us see," says the doctor ; " Henry, how old are 
 you ? 
 
 " Almost fourteen ! " 
 
 " Bless me ! how boys do grow ! Why, it's almost 
 time to be thinking what you are going to do. Have 
 you ever thought ? " 
 
 " Yes I want to go to sea." 
 
 " To sea ! Of all things. Well, well ! after all, why 
 not ? of course you don't want to be a common sailor ? 
 You want to get into the navy ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, that's what I want." 
 
HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 63 
 
 " But not merely as a common sailor, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I want to be a midshipman, and after that 
 commodore." 
 
 " I see," said the doctor, cheerfully. 
 
 " Well, Henry, in order for that, you know, you must 
 begin a course of mathematics, and study navigation and 
 all that." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I am ready." 
 
 " Well, then, I'll send you up to Amherst next week, 
 to Mount Pleasant, and there you'll begin your prepara- 
 tory studies, and if you are well prepared, I promise I can 
 make interest to get you an appointment." 
 
 And so he went to Mount Pleasant, in Amherst, Mass., 
 and Dr. Beecher said, shrewdly : " I shall have that boy 
 in the ministry yet." 
 
 At Amherst Henry Ward labored perseveringly, with 
 his face toward the navy, but at the close of the year he 
 became impressed at a religious revival, and his scheme 
 of sailing the blue ocean vanished. He entered into the 
 study of English classics with zeal, and he pondered the 
 works of the best English writers with never-ceasing de- 
 light, but he was not attracted by Greek or Latin classics 
 or mathematics. He then became a reformer, opposed 
 all of the habitual irregularities and dissipations of stu- 
 dents, and set his face against the use of tobacco and 
 liquors. His father's eccentricities began to crop out in his 
 student life. His lack of order was conspicuous, but he 
 
64 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 always claimed that there was as much method in his 
 disorder as in the regular habits of his more methodical 
 comrades. He tossed books, papers, memoranda, boots, 
 and articles of clothing in one corner of his room, and 
 when in search of anything he got down on his knees and 
 pawed over the mass. He had a circular table made, 
 with a hole large enough in the centre to admit his body. 
 He sat on a low stool with a turning top, with his head 
 and half of his body through the hole in the table, and 
 when he changed from one work to another he would 
 spin around on the stool and thus bring himself to an- 
 other part of the table. He was a poor student in 
 mathematics, and finished this part of his course with 
 difficulty. During two winter vacations he taught school 
 in Whitinsville, using the money thus obtained for the 
 purchase of a library. 
 
 He had pursued a course of elocution under Professor 
 John E. Lovell, who succeeded in developing his voice, 
 naturally thick and husky, and at the close of the first 
 year he was recognized as an attractive and fluent speaker. 
 
 In the Christian Union of July 14, 1880, Mr. Beecher 
 wrote : 
 
 " 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 
 
HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 65 
 
 better teacher for my purpose I cannot conceive. His 
 system consisted in drill, or the thorough practice of in- 
 flections by the voice, of gesture, posture, and articula- 
 
 
 
 tion. 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, com- 
 ing 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 sec- 
 ond nature. Now I never know what movement 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 thor- 
 oughly subdued, and trained to right expression." 
 
 There was a religious revival in the school, and Henry 
 took a prominent part, always being imbued with a 
 strong religious sentiment, the result of his early home 
 training. Going to Boston shortly afterward, at his 
 father's request, to attend a great communion season, 
 Henry avowed, to the joy of all, his intention of becom- 
 
66 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ing a minister of the Gospel. Returning to Amherst, 
 he continued his academical studies three years longer, 
 for the purpose of entering college. He was assisted 
 greatly in his mathematical studies by his teacher and 
 room-mate, a young man from West Point, named Fitz- 
 gerald, whom he ever pleasantly remembered. He was 
 prepared to enter as a sophomore, but his father decided he 
 should enter as a freshman. He now became a hard stu- 
 dent, devoting himself especially to the English classics, 
 and carefully developing his powers as an orator. In all 
 debates he always took the part of a reformer, and al- 
 ways espoused the side of law and order. He was active 
 in founding a society which should cultivate merriment 
 and fun, but which should condemn and discountenance 
 " scraping" in the lecture-rooms, hazing of students, every 
 form of secret vice, gambling and drinking, and encourage 
 temperance and purity of character. He became much 
 interested in phrenology and physiology, and Mr. Fowler, 
 since famous as the senior member of the firm of Fowler 
 & Wells, was a fellow-student. This led to his studying 
 Combe, Spurzheim, and the Scotch metaphysical school. 
 The subject of phrenology, which he never considered 
 a perfected science, always possessed an interest for him. 
 He obtained the money to purchase the books his studies 
 and inclinations led him to read by teaching rural schools 
 during the long winter vacations, like many others in 
 his class. Graduating from Amherst in 1834, he went 
 
HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 67 
 
 to Cincinnati to his father, who was then president of 
 Lane Theological Seminary, to complete his theological 
 training. The abolition excitement at Lane Seminary 
 resulted in the departure of a whole class of thirty stu- 
 dents, and there was a great theological conflict waging 
 in the institution of learning. Henry joined his father 
 in the battle, developing the originality and independence 
 of views that always characterized him. Cincinnati, re- 
 moved from slave territory only by the width of the 
 Ohio River, was convulsed with the contest between the 
 slave-holders and Abolitionists. Steamboats, the decks 
 of which were covered with chained gangs of slaves, 
 passed daily by the wharves, while the Ohio River, 
 where it passed between slave and free territory, was 
 lined with the headquarters of Abolitionist societies 
 bent on aiding slaves to escape. The air was electrical 
 with excitement, and the young man, thrilling at the 
 prospect of the coming fight, felt his ardor redoubled 
 before the obstacles and opposition that confronted all 
 Abolitionists. In 1836 he appeared first publicly as the 
 champion of the anti-slavery cause. The utterances of 
 The Philanthropist, an anti-slavery paper in Cincinnati, 
 edited by James G. Birney, a slave-holder who had 
 emancipated his slaves, became offensive to the strong 
 pro-slavery element. A riot broke out, and for a week 
 Cincinnati was overrun by a mob headed by Kentucky 
 slave-holders. Young Beecher asked to be sworn in as 
 
68 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 one of the special policemen, and armed with a pistol 
 patrolled the streets. At this time, in the absence of 
 Mr. Brainard, he was for a few months occupying the 
 editorial chair in the office of the Cincinnati Journal, the 
 organ of the New School Presbyterian Church, and his 
 indignation over the Birney riot found vent in some 
 pungent editorials which produced a marked effect. 
 
 While at Cincinnati he formed an intimacy with Pro- 
 fessor C. E. Stowe, who afterward married his sister Har- 
 riet, who had left Hartford and now resided with her fa- 
 ther. Upon finishing his studies in 1 836, he started to New 
 England to marry Miss Eunice Bullard. When his father 
 remonstrated with him for marrying so young, he said : 
 
 " I will marry her if we have only the north side of a 
 corn-cob to live on." 
 
 Miss Bullard was the sister of Asa Bullard, of West 
 Sutton, Mass., who was a fellow-student of Mr. Beecher's 
 at Amherst College, and it was during his collegiate 
 career that the future pastor of Plymouth first met the 
 lady during a vacation which he spent at her father's 
 residence. Dr. Bullard had a large family of grown-up 
 children. He was a man of some wealth, and the most 
 prominent member of the most prominent church in the 
 place the Congregationalist. All his children had taken 
 an active part in church work, and three of his. sons were 
 studying for the ministry, while another was the super- 
 intendent of the Sunday-school. 
 
HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 69 
 
 The child that attracted the young guest most, how- 
 ever, was Eunice White Bullard, w!io was of a shy, re- 
 tiring disposition, but a girl of quick intellect and rogu- 
 ish eyes. He was eighteen years of age, one year older 
 than the girl. She was a teacher in the day-schools, in 
 the Sunday-schools, and had a class at the mission. It 
 was a case of love at first sight, but it was not until 
 seven years had passed that the two were made one. 
 
 Mrs. Beecher has always been a thorough help to her 
 husband in church work, and to her, perhaps, he owes 
 more than is generally conceded. She made warm 
 friends, especially among the ladies of the church. She 
 has been, since January, 1885, the president of the 
 Woman's Sewing Society of Plymouth Church. 
 
 Like her husband, she was fond of literary pursuits. 
 Among her works may be mentioned " Motherly Talks 
 with Young House-keepers," " Plymouth Church Fair 
 Cook Book," and " From Dawn to Daylight." This last 
 is biographical in character, and describes her own and 
 Mr. Beecher's courtship and wedding. During the re- 
 cent tour of Mr. and Mrs. Beecher abroad, she contrib- 
 uted a number of highly interesting letters to the Broqk- 
 lyn Magazine. 
 
 Amherst never lost its hold on Mr. Beecher. He was, 
 in the best qualities pertaining to the character, a thor- 
 ough " college man." When the Alpha Delta Phi Society, 
 at its convention held at Brown University, some years 
 
7O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ago, elected him an honorary member, he was greatly 
 pleased, and afterward was prominent at its social re- 
 unions. He was immensely popular with the under- 
 graduate element, and his presence was a sure guarantee 
 of a delightful occasion. One of the best impromptu 
 speeches of his life was made at a fraternity dinner in 
 New York. His theme was true culture and its mission. 
 His audience was small, reporters were rigidly excluded, 
 but he spoke from his heart, and showed plainly that 
 with all his work, he had time to master and find sig- 
 nificance and usefulness in matters apparently so small 
 as the mysteries and formula of a college secret society. 
 
 Eleven of his classmates still survive, among them Dr. 
 Erastus E. Marcy, of this city, and the Rev. Samuel H. 
 Emery, of Taunton, Mass. Amherst College conferred 
 on Mr. Beecher many years ago the honorary degree of 
 Doctor of Divinity, but he never used it. On the day 
 after his death, Amherst College alumni living in and 
 about New York met at No. 95 Nassau Street, in the 
 offices of Elliot Sandford, to take action on the death of 
 Mr. Beecher. Mr. Sandford presided. About twenty- 
 five members of the Alumni Association were present. 
 Brief speeches were made by the Rev. Dr. Cushman, of 
 The Churchman, Colonel A. B. Crane, and H. L. Bridg- 
 man. Dr. Cushman said that he went to college two 
 years after Mr. Beecher left it. He thought Mr. Beecher 
 the foremost man in America in point of pulpit and fo- 
 
HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. /I 
 
 rensic ability. He was certainly Amherst's most distin- 
 guished alumnus. The college may not always have fol- 
 lowed him in his theology ; it was proud to lay some claim 
 to his patriotism, his eloquence, and his philanthropy. Mr. 
 Bridgman and Colonel Crane also spoke in praise of Mr. 
 Beecher's character and work. A committee of four was 
 appointed to draw up resolutions on Mr. Beecher's death, 
 and a committee of ten to represent the Alumni Associa- 
 tion at the funeral. On the first committee were the 
 Rev. Dr. Cushman, Class of '40; Colonel Samuel J. 
 Storrs, '60; Jefferson Clark, '67, and Elliot Sandford, '61. 
 On the funeral committee were ex-Congressman Waldo 
 Hutchins, '42 ; the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Storrs, '45 ; Dr. 
 Erastus E. Marcy, '34 (a classmate of Mr. Beecher) ; 
 the Rev. Dr. Roswell D. Hitchcock, '36 ; the Rev. Dr. 
 Charles H. Parkhurst, '66 ; Francis F. Marbury, '32 ; 
 John S. Washburn, President of the Home Life Insur- 
 ance Company, '39; the Rev. Dr. Cushman, W. W. 
 Goodrich, '52, and Elliot Sandford. President Seelye, 
 of Amherst, sent word that he would come down to rep- 
 resent the college at the funeral. Steps have been taken 
 by several wealthy alumni toward endowing a professor- 
 ship in Amherst to be named in honor of Mr. Beecher. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher preached his first sermon, if we 
 may believe the traditions of the place, at Batavia, O., in 
 1835. His brother George was pastor of the church at 
 Batavia, at the time, and Henry Ward, who was not yet 
 
72 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ordained, passed a part of a vacation there. The young 
 pastor was indisposed one Sunday and invited his brother 
 to fill the pulpit. The request was complied with, and 
 the congregation was very much pleased with the ser- 
 mon that was preached. Henry Ward Beecher was but 
 twenty-two years of age then, and there are old residents 
 of Batavia who still remember the young man's bright, 
 boyish face, his sweet, resonant voice, and the earnest- 
 ness and enthusiasm of his manner. The old church has 
 for many years now been a livery stable, and perhaps 
 it has been torn down by this time. 
 
 George Beecher's career was closed while still a young 
 man. He was passionately fond of shooting, and one day, 
 when out on an expedition of this sort, he blew into his 
 loaded gun, which was discharged, and he was instantly 
 killed. 
 
 It was held by many who knew both brothers that 
 George Beecher, had he lived, would have developed 
 greater power as a preacher than Henry Ward. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 
 
 He Marries and Moves West. Locates at Lawrenceburg, Ind. An Arca- 
 dian Life. Gardening. Missionary Work. Editorial Work. Ac- 
 tive in Revivals. Hardships of Western Life. The Pastorate at 
 Indianapolis. The West Country. Some Anecdotes. His Fame 
 Spreads. His First Address in New York. The Foreign Missionary 
 Society. Henry C. Bowen hears Him. He receives an Offer 
 from Plymouth Church. He accepts the Position at $1,500 per 
 Annum. 
 
 MR. BEECHER, as related in the previous chapter, first 
 saw the lady he married some seven years previously, 
 when he entered Amherst College. The lovers were en- 
 gaged seven years, not being married until 1837. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Beecher had ten children, of whom only four 
 are living, one daughter and three sons. The daughter, 
 who is the eldest of the four, is the wife of the Rev. 
 Samuel Scoville, of Stamford, Conn. Mr. Beecher's eld- 
 est son, Colonel Henry Barton Beecher, is a well-known 
 insurance man in Brooklyn. Major William C. Beecher 
 is a lawyer, and the youngest, Herbert Beecher, was 
 appointed Collector of Customs at Portland, Ore., by 
 President Cleveland in 1885, but a year later the Senate 
 rejected his nomination, after which he was given another 
 
74 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 office in the Northwest. His home is at Seattle, Wash. 
 Territory. 
 
 In 1837, after his marriage, he became pastor of a Pres- 
 byterian Church at Lawrenceburg, Ind., and in 1839 he 
 went to Indianapolis. He loved his Western work, and 
 in all the enthusiasm of youth he labored for his peo- 
 ple. He did much manual labor about his house, 
 chopped wood, raised flowers, pruned trees, hoed his own 
 garden, swept his own church, drove nails and put in 
 glass, built fires, and rang the bell for the services. His 
 first converts were two domestics, who remained after 
 one of his prayer meetings. He afterward said that there 
 was a strong " dish-watery" odor about them, and he was 
 tempted to dismiss them with his blessing; but he con- 
 cluded it would not do to be fastidious, and he got upon 
 his knees along-side of them. Speaking of this period of 
 his life, his sister says : 
 
 " His life was of an arcadian simplicity. He inhabited 
 a cottage on the outskirts of the town, where he cultivat- 
 ed a garden, and gathered around him horse, cow, and 
 pig all the wholesome suite of domestic animals which 
 he had been accustomed to care for in early life. He 
 was an enthusiast on all these matters, fastidious about 
 breeds and bloods, and each domestic animal was a pet, 
 and received his own personal attentions. In the note- 
 books of this period, amid hints for sermons, come mem- 
 oranda respecting his favorite Berkshire pig or Durham 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 75 
 
 cow. He read on gardening, farming, and stock-raising, 
 all that he could lay hands on ; he imported from Eastern 
 cultivators all sorts of roses and all sorts of pear-trees 
 and grape-vines, and edited an horticultural paper, which 
 had quite a circulation. ... In his theological stud- 
 ies he had but two volumes the Bible and human nat- 
 ure which he held to be indispensable to the under- 
 standing each of the other." 
 
 Three months of each year he devoted to missionary 
 work through the State, travelling from place to place on 
 horseback, and preaching every day. He did not, how- 
 ever, receive any popular recognition until about the third 
 year of his ministry, when there was a great revival of re- 
 ligion at Terre Haute, which was followed by a series 
 of revivals throughout the State, in which he became ac- 
 tively engaged. He preached not only religion from the 
 Bible, but inveighed against intemperance, and became a 
 recognized power and leader. His style was bold and 
 original, and at once attracted attention and occasional 
 comment, though the reporter was not about in those 
 days to scatter a man's speeches and fame over the land. 
 His revival work created a sensation in the Western 
 country, and especially in Indianapolis, where he was 
 located from 1839 to 1845. While pastor of the Second 
 Presbyterian Church he created a sensation by declar- 
 ing, in three distinct and powerful sermons, slavery to be 
 an institution in defiance of the laws of God, and an 
 
/6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 outrage upon the rights of man, showing thus early in 
 his career his inclination to find his themes in contem- 
 poraneous events and affairs rather than in the history of 
 the past. 
 
 Alluding to his experiences in Indianapolis, a history 
 of the church by a member says : 
 
 " In the early spring of 1 842 a revival began, more no- 
 ticeable, perhaps, than any that this church or this com- 
 munity has seen. The whole town was pervaded by the 
 influences oi religion. For many weeks the work con- 
 tinued with unabated power, and at three commun- 
 ion seasons, held successively in February, March, and 
 April, 1842, nearly one hundred persons were added to 
 the church on profession of their faith. This was God's 
 work. It is not improper, however, to speak of the pas- 
 tor in that revival, as he is remembered by some of his 
 congregation, plunging through the wet streets, his trou- 
 sers stuffed in his muddy boot-legs, earnest, untiring, 
 swift, with a merry heart, a glowing face, and a help- 
 ful word for everyone ; the whole day preaching Christ 
 to the people where he could find them, and at night 
 still preaching where the people could easily find him. 
 It is true that in this revival some wood and hay and 
 stubble were gathered with the gold and silver and pre- 
 cious stones. As in all new communities, there was spe- 
 cial danger of unhealthy excitement. But in general the 
 results were most happy for the church and for the town. 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 77 
 
 Some of those who have been pillars since, found the 
 Saviour in that memorable time. Nor was the awaken- 
 ing succeeded by an immediate relapse. 
 
 " Early in the following year, at the March and April 
 communions, the church had large accessions, and it had 
 also in 1845. There was, indeed, a wholesome and nearly 
 continuous growth, up to the time when the first pastor 
 resigned, to accept a call to the Plymouth Congregational 
 Church, in Brooklyn, N. Y. This occurred August 24, 
 1847, and on the nineteenth of the following month Mr. 
 Beecher's labors for the congregation ceased. 
 
 " The pastorate thus terminated had extended through 
 more than eight years. During this time much had been 
 accomplished. The society had built a pleasant house of 
 worship. The membership had advanced from thirty-two 
 to two hundred and seventy-five. What was considered 
 a doubtful enterprise, inaugurated as it had been amid 
 many prophecies of failure, had risen to an enviable posi- 
 tion, not only in the capital, but in the State. The at- 
 tachment between the pastor and the people had become 
 peculiarly strong. Mutual toils and sufferings and suc- 
 cesses had bound them fast together. Only the demands 
 of a wider field making duty plain divided them, and a re- 
 cent letter proves that the pastor's early charge still keeps 
 its hold upon his heart. It is not to be wondered at that 
 the few of his flock who yet remain among us always speak 
 of ' Henry ' with beaming eyes and mellowed voices." 
 
78 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Another writer says upon this subject : 
 
 " In the two years of his Lawrenceburg pastorate Mr. 
 Beecher made his mark. As a preacher he was eloquent ; 
 as an orthodox teacher he was not over-zealous ; as a 
 sympathizing pastor he was of average merit only. His 
 meetings were well attended, and he made himself felt. 
 His personal magnetism was great, the flush of vigorous 
 health was in his veins, and he stirred up the dry bones 
 of his neighborhood to such a degree that the attention 
 of a wider circle was attracted, and he was called to take 
 charge of a similar church in Indianapolis, the capital of 
 the State. Here he narrowly escaped being switched off 
 on another and very different track. A new railroad was 
 projected, and a superintendent was to be chosen. A 
 bank president who was one of the chief directors had 
 been greatly affected by the go-ahead manner and zeal 
 of the young parson, and concluding that he was pos- 
 sessed of the qualities that would make him a first-rate 
 railroad official, proposed his name. The contest was 
 close ; Beecher lost by one vote and thus the railroad 
 interest of the West was spared the disgrace of pulling 
 from the American platform the man who has done the 
 most to make that platform famous. 
 
 " In Indianapolis young Beecher made friends in several 
 new circles. His church was small, and his ministrations 
 at first were held in a room in the second story of the 
 town academy. As the son of Lyman Beecher he was 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 79 
 
 accorded a courteous welcome, but it was not long ere 
 he was esteemed and appreciated for his individual merit. 
 Here, too, in a sense, he began to live. Hitherto he had 
 been little better than a home missionary, and, indeed, he 
 was for some time a beneficiary on the books of the 
 Home Missionary Society. His entire income was less 
 than three hundred dollars nominally, and part of that 
 was paid in corn, potatoes, and other products of the soil. 
 When he needed a house to live in, he hauled the logs 
 himself. His neighbors aided him to put it up. The 
 whitewash and paint he attended to himself. The rapid- 
 ity with which his children followed one another, and the 
 malarial condition of the section in which he lived, broke 
 down the strong constitution of his faithful wife, and as 
 they were unable to pay a servant, threw on him the do- 
 mestic drudgery. He chopped the wood, drew the water, 
 peeled the potatoes, cooked the food, served it, washed the 
 dishes, and cleaned up the house. When sickness neces- 
 sitated frequent washings of soiled clothes it was he who 
 did the work. Part of the time he did double duty, and 
 rode twenty miles through the woods and across the 
 prairies to the log school-house in which service was held, 
 preached, rode back again, cooked the dinner, preached 
 in his own church, returned to nurse his sick wife and at- 
 tend to the children, got the supper, and spent the even- 
 ing in the prayer-meeting. At times he was so poor that 
 an unpaid letter, on which eighteen or twenty cents were 
 
80 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 due, remained in the post-office, with news from the 
 East, uncalled for, because he did not have the money 
 with which to pay the postage. 
 
 " Added to the poverty of his pocket, the incessant 
 drain of his sympathy at home, the continuous necessity 
 of physical toil in the house, the garden, and the wood- 
 shed, and the preparation of his sermons, was a doubt, 
 an uncertainty in his beliefs. The little cloud, small as 
 a man's hand, that frightened him when a boy, made 
 him gloomy when in college, and shadowed him in his 
 first charge, now assumed vast proportions. He was all 
 afloat. All that kept him from sinking humanly speak- 
 ing was his own honest expression of doubt. Had he 
 kept it to himself and brooded over it in secret he might 
 have been carried over the falls of infidelity, or gone to 
 the fool's refuge suicide. But Beecher was then, as al- 
 ways, open-mouthed. What he felt, thought, or knew he 
 told. Secretiveness was never fairly developed in his 
 nature. He never could keep a secret. He made friends 
 easily, and the last person with him invariably knew his 
 mind. He was easily deceived, for, although he had 
 constant experience in human strengths and human 
 weaknesses, he was by nature confiding and trustful. 
 Truthful himself, it was next to impossible to persuade 
 him that anyone would be false in speech or inference 
 to him. He knew all about wickedness in general, but 
 special cases bothered him. When doubts assailed him, 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 8 1 
 
 instead of taking them to his study he used them as il- 
 lustrations in the pulpit. If he questioned the possibil- 
 ity of forgiveness of sin, he became the example. It was 
 his breast that he beat, his doubt he asserted, his fears 
 he expressed. In picturing the estate of a lost soul the 
 imagery lost nothing of its power by a personal applica- 
 tion. Enthusiastic in everything, from the culture of a 
 flower to the worship of his Saviour, Mr. Beecher car- 
 ried his zealous search for remedies in this state of doubt 
 to the extremity of his passionate nature. Crowds at- 
 tended his preaching. Waves of religious feeling carried 
 all classes of people before them. The State of Indiana 
 was in an uproar. The Presbyterian churches looked on 
 amazed. Dr. Lyman Beecher thanked God that He had 
 given him such a son, and in the same breath beseeched 
 Him to guide him, lest he should fall. The Legisla- 
 ture sat in Indianapolis, and in its train followed the 
 evils that generally accompany the camp followers. 
 Intemperance, gambling, and kindred vices were ram- 
 pant in the place. Everybody knew it. The sores 
 affected the entire body politic. The members of the 
 Legislature knew it as well as the rest, and winked 
 at it like the rest. This seemed to Beecher a fair 
 target. He announced a series of lectures to young 
 men, and delivered them in his church. The feeling 
 engendered by them was intense. Those who were 
 hit were indignant. All classes went to hear them, 
 
82 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 and before they were concluded a revival arose that 
 swept the city. 
 
 " Meantime the uncertainty of young Beecher increased, 
 and with it grew his power. He was maturing mentally 
 and physically. His head expanded as he read the 
 books of nature and of humanity all about him. He 
 felt the necessity of supplementing his sparse education 
 by such means as were at his disposal. Books were rare 
 and costly. Newspapers were in their infancy. He 
 read all that he could borrow or obtain from the public 
 libraries, and felt inexpressible gratitude when the choice 
 volumes of a wealthy friend were placed at his service. 
 The West, and especially that section of it, was full of 
 quick-witted men and growing women. Both sought 
 comfort in the preaching of this man of the people. In- 
 stead of scoffing at their doubts, he boldly proclaimed his 
 own. This made him the friend and spokesman of the 
 wavering. He pictured in vivid colors the unhappiness 
 of his thoughts, the terror of his fear, and produced in 
 their minds the impression that Beecher and they were 
 one and the same. When he found relief they partici- 
 pated in his joy. When he sung the song of salvation 
 they joined in the chorus. He became immensely pop- 
 ular in his parish and in the State. He was not the ideal 
 parson. He wore no distinctive garb. His face was 
 round and jolly. His eye was full of laughter. His 
 manner was hearty and his interest sincere. 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 83 
 
 " It was often said that Beecher could have attained any 
 desired distinction at the bar or in politics. He was im- 
 portuned to stand as a candidate for legislative honors, 
 but invariably refused even to think of it. At this time, 
 when he regarded himself spiritually weak, he was elo- 
 quently strong. He preached without notes, and talked as 
 if inspired. His prayers were poems. His illustrations 
 were constant and always changing. He kept his people 
 wide awake, and made them feel his earnestness. His act- 
 ing power was marvellous. Those who knew him well will 
 remember that when talking he could with difficulty sit 
 still. He almost invariably rose, and in the excitement 
 of description or argument acted the entire subject as it 
 struck him. Oftentimes in his most solemn moments an 
 illustration or an odd expression would escape him that 
 sent a laugh from pew to pew. Waking suddenly to the 
 incongruity of the scene and the subject, it almost seemed 
 as if the rebuking spirit of his dead mother stood before 
 him, for with a manner that carried the sympathy of the 
 audience he would drift into a channel tender and deep 
 and full of tears, along which the feelings of his people 
 were irresistibly borne. Then as later the chief topics 
 of his repertory were the love of God and the dignity of 
 man. He rarely preached from the Old Testament. 
 The thunders of Sinai and the flames of hell had no 
 power over him. It would puzzle an expert to find in 
 all his published sermons and for more than a genera- 
 
84 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 tion every word he spoke was reported as he spoke it a 
 sentence of which threats or fears were the dominant 
 spirit. He preached the love of God and the sympathy 
 of Christ first, last, and all the time. He knew the poli- 
 ticians of the West thoroughly, and the gamblers, who 
 were a powerful fraternity, made up their minds that it 
 was folly to interfere with the robust preacher, who was 
 not afraid to push their bully aside when he stood in front 
 of the ballot-box, and who met them eye to eye on the 
 street as well as in the pulpit. 
 
 " While in the height of his popularity in the West he 
 was hampered as few men would care to be. He was 
 hungry for books and papers, but could not afford them. 
 He had a royal physique, and every vein throbbed with 
 superabundant health, but his home was a hospital. His 
 ambition was great, but he was tied to a stake in a con- 
 tracted field. He strove to live outside of himself, made 
 many pastoral calls, talked with men about their business 
 trials, and sympathized with women in their domestic 
 woes. At his own home his hands were full. His wife 
 was broken in health and discomforted in spirit. She did 
 not like the West and the West was unkind to her con- 
 stitution. It was a serious question whether she could 
 much longer endure the strain on her physique, and this 
 wore on the sympathetic nature of her husband. He was 
 entirely unselfish, but the attrition of years of complaint 
 worried him. He did the best, all, in fact, he could, but 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 85 
 
 to no use. Finding himself depressed, Mr. Beecher reso- 
 lutely set to work to drive his fits of despondency away. 
 He became interested in trees and flowers. Aided by 
 friends, he started an agricultural paper, and posted him- 
 self from books on floriculture, and read the fat and prosy 
 volumes of Loudon. His fresh and novel mode of treat- 
 ing these subjects won him fame, but not fortune. His 
 own garden gave evidence of his skill, and the fairs were 
 not niggardly in premiums to the amateur gardener. 
 Eight years swiftly wore away, and in the often-recurring 
 excitements of revivals, public meetings, home trials, and 
 personal bewilderments, the young man passed from the 
 first period of his career to the second. 
 
 " In 1 847 he was thirty-four years old. Mentally, he had 
 become broader, and looked over wider fields than when 
 he began to labor. Morally, he was as sincere, as truth- 
 ful, and as ingenuous as when he opened his big blue eyes 
 with astonishment at the Bible stories he heard at ' Aunt 
 Esther's ' knee. Physically he was a picture of vigorous 
 health. He stood about five feet eight inches high. His 
 large, well-formed, well-developed head sat defiantly on a 
 short, red neck, that grew from a sturdy frame, rampant 
 and lusty in nerve and fibre and blood and muscle. 
 He had no money, owned no real estate. His capital 
 was in his brains, and they needed the culture procurable 
 in the metropolis alone, where libraries and book stores, 
 art galleries and men of thought, were to be met at every 
 4* 
 
86 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 turn. A career in the East was far from Beecher's 
 thoughts, and yet his sick wife seemed to need a medic- 
 ament not to be found in the West." 
 
 Mrs. Stowe writes of his later Western experiences as 
 follows : 
 
 " Mr. Beecher always looked back with peculiar tender- 
 ness to his Western life, in the glow of his youthful days, 
 and in that glorious, rich, abundant, unworn Western 
 country. The West, with its wide, rich, exuberant 
 spaces of land, its rolling prairies, garlanded with rain- 
 bows of ever-springing flowers, teeming with abundance 
 of food for man, and opening in every direction avenues 
 for youthful enterprise and hope, was to him a morning 
 land. To carry Christ's spotless banner in high triumph 
 through such- a land was a thing worth living for, and as 
 he rode on horseback alone, from day to day, along the 
 rolling prairie lands, sometimes up to his horse's head in 
 grass and waving flowers, he felt himself kindled with a 
 sort of ecstasy. The prairies rolled and blossomed in his 
 sermons, and his style at this time had a tangled luxuri- 
 ance of poetic imagery, a rush and abundance of words, 
 a sort of rich and heavy involution that resembled the 
 growth of a tropical forest. 
 
 " ' What sort of a style am I forming ? ' he said to a 
 critical friend who had come to hear him preach. 
 
 " ' Well, I should call it tropical style,' was the reply. 
 
 "There was a store in Indianapolis where the minis- 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 87 
 
 ters of all denominations often dropped in to hear the 
 news, and where the free Western nature made it always 
 a rule to try each other's metal with a joke. No matter 
 how sharp the joke, it was considered to be all fair and 
 friendly. 
 
 " On one occasion Mr. Beecher, riding to one of the 
 stations of his mission, was thrown over his horse's head 
 in crossing the Miami, pitched into the water, and crept 
 out thoroughly immersed. The incident, of course, fur- 
 nished occasion for talk in the circle the next day, and his 
 good friend the Baptist minister proceeded o attack 
 him the moment he made his appearance. 
 
 " ' Oh, ho, Beecher, glad to see you ! I thought you'd 
 have to come into our ways at last ! You have been im- 
 mersed at last ; you are as good as any of us now.' A 
 general laugh followed this sally. 
 
 " ' Poh, poh ! ' was the ready response, ' my immersion 
 was a different thing from that of your converts. You 
 see, I was immersed by a horse, not by an ass/ 
 
 "A chorus of laughter proclaimed that Mr. Beecher 
 had got the better of the joke for this time. 
 
 " A Methodist brother once said to him, * Well, now, 
 really, Brother Beecher, what have you against Method- 
 ist doctrines ? ' 
 
 " ' Nothing, only that your converts will practise 
 them.' 
 
 "'Practise them?' 
 
88 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 " * Yes, you preach falling from grace, and your con- 
 verts practise it with a vengeance.' 
 
 " One morning, as he was sitting at table, word was 
 brought in that his friend the Episcopal minister was at 
 the gate, wanting to borrow his horse. 
 
 " ' Stop, stop,' said he, with a face of great gravity ; 
 ' there's something to be attended to first ; ' and rising 
 from table, he ran out to him, and took his arm with the 
 air of a man who is about to make a serious proposition. 
 
 " ' Now, Brother G , you want my horse for a day ? 
 
 Well, you see, it lies on my mind greatly that you don't 
 admit of my ordination. I don't think it's fair. Now if 
 you'll admit that I'm a genuinely ordained minister you 
 shall have my horse, but if not, I don't know about it.' 
 
 " Mr. Beecher was so devoted to the West, and so 
 identified with it, that he would never have left what he 
 was wont to call his bishopric in Indiana for the older 
 and more set and conventional circles of New York had 
 not the health of his family made a removal indispensa- 
 ble." 
 
 The discoverer of Henry Ward Beecher in the Western 
 country was James Cooke, formerly the business partner 
 of William T. Cutler, one of the founders of Plymouth 
 Church. Mr. Cooke praised young Beecher so highly 
 that Mr. Cutler, who was once Lyman Beecher's parish- 
 ioner, and had known Henry Ward as a boy ten or 
 twelve years old, became interested, and told the pro- 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 89 
 
 jectors of Plymouth Church about the Western orator, 
 and he was asked to go out and see him. He heard 
 Mr. Beecher with satisfaction, and arranged to have his 
 expenses paid on to New York to address the Foreign 
 Missionary Society at its meeting on May 14, 1847, at 
 the Tabernacle, with Hon. Thomas Frelinghuysen in the 
 chair. His speech on that occasion was generally con- 
 sidered the best delivered during the week's session. In 
 the course of it he said : 
 
 " What was the condition of the world when Christ 
 came into it ? The human family had been for four 
 thousand years upon its bosom. In so long a growth 
 they had advanced from the lowest and rudest forms of 
 life to something better. Little by little they had been 
 developed, and at the time of Christ they stood where 
 the progress of four thousand years had brought them. 
 Savage habits had been laid aside ; from a feeble creature 
 man gained strength ; unarmed before, he had now armed 
 himself with the implements of industry ; from destitu- 
 tion he had created the means of physical comfort, and of 
 an outward life which might be called human all this 
 had been done in four thousand years, and men were 
 ready for the Redeemer. Suppose the Gospel had been 
 sent out into the world at any earlier period of its his- 
 tory, do you think it could have been received and taken 
 root ? What nation of men was prepared for it ? 
 
 " And now, what is the attitude of Christianity in our 
 
90 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 day ? Which way do the times face ? To me they seem 
 as though they were going up to Jerusalem. I believe 
 that they are in their degree doing Heaven's work on 
 earth. But what have we done ? Why, sir, we have 
 raised every question which can be raised in civilized so- 
 ciety. Nothing that relates to the rights of man, to lib- 
 erty, to social forms and duties, but has been called up 
 for discussion. Many of these are perplexing questions, 
 doubtless, but it is necessary that they should be settled 
 before the Gospel can get full swing at man. There must 
 be a downfall to all that is opposed to the Gospel, no 
 matter what it is. Governments, communities, customs, 
 must come up to that standard ; God requires this. Es- 
 tablished errors must be removed, and by-and-by the 
 mind will begin to see truth in all its lustre, without lens 
 or distracting medium. 
 
 " The Gospel is getting ready to accomplish its work. I 
 hope your faith is strong. You might as well stand on the 
 banks of the Mississippi and be afraid it was going to run 
 up-stream as to suppose that the current of Christendom 
 can run more than one way. What would you think of 
 a man who should stand moon-struck over an eddy and 
 because that didn't go right forward declare that the 
 whole flood had got out of its course ? So in the stream 
 of time. The things that appear in our day all have 
 bearing on the coming triumphs of the Gospel and the 
 reign of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth." 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 91 
 
 Henry C. Bowen heard him, and offered to defray all 
 "expenses toward getting him East. Mr. Beecher was 
 averse to leaving the West. " My heart," he said, " is 
 there, and I am going back to stay if I can." Mrs. 
 Beecher's health was becoming poor through the influ- 
 ences of the Western climate, and soon after his return 
 she became so ill that he wrote back to Brooklyn that if 
 his wife survived he would start her and the children 
 East as soon as her health would permit, and would fol- 
 low as early afterward as he could. " And now," he 
 wrote, " when you get me to the East you think you can 
 do just what you have a mind to do with me, but you 
 will see." 
 
 The formal offer to Mr. Beecher was a salary of $1,500 
 a year. His letter of acceptance, which was received by 
 Mr. Bowen, was sealed with one of those little picture- 
 seals in vogue in those days. The picture was of a gate 
 thrown from its fastenings, and the motto beneath it 
 was : " I'm all unhinged." 
 
 During his residence at Indianapolis the first conspic- 
 uous effort of Mr. Beecher above the level of his ordi- 
 nary pastoral duties was a revival begun in February, 
 1842. At that time a controversy was going on raging 
 would hardly be too strong a description between the 
 Christian denomination (called then " Disciples " and 
 " Campbellites ") and other sectaries, on the mode of 
 baptism, the former holding immersion to be the only 
 
92 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 proper or efficacious mode, Methodists and Presbyterians 
 dissenting. Public debates were frequent and sometimes 
 acrimonious, an adherent of the comparatively new sect 
 of Disciples being invariably one of the contestants. 
 Rev. John O'Kane, a noted controversialist of that de- 
 nomination, once in a good-humored and rather jocular 
 tone challenged Mr. Beecher to a public debate, but the 
 challenge was declined as pleasantly as it was offered. 
 In this state of feeling among the denominations all over 
 the West Mr. Beecher carried on his first revival, and an 
 incident of it made him the subject of the first very 
 harsh censure he had probably ever encountered. His 
 congregation and many spectators had gathered on the 
 canal bank, near Kentucky Avenue Bridge, to witness the 
 baptism, by immersion in the canal, of one of the revival 
 converts, a son of Solon W. Norris, a prominent citizen, 
 who believed in that mode of administration of the rite. 
 Before proceeding with it, Mr. Beecher made a brief 
 speech to the crowd, in which he said that he held any 
 mode of baptism effectual, but would always use that 
 which the subject of it preferred. This was little less 
 then than an avowal of agnosticism now, to the " immer- 
 sionists," and they made Mr. Beecher the text of a good 
 deal of unpleasant animadversion. 
 
 In 1843 he delivered a series of twelve " Lectures to 
 Young Men," primarily aiming to warn his revival con- 
 verts and their associates of the temptations, perils, and 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 93 
 
 struggles that lie in the paths of young men, and the 
 methods of avoidance or resistance. They were a well 
 done piece of work, in a literary point of view, better 
 done as a shrewd and sound estimate of the condition 
 and necessities of young men, especially in city life. 
 They were always largely attended, and almost always 
 cordially approved. The only exception was that on the 
 " Strange Woman," and that, as he humorously says in 
 his preface, received harsher censure before it was read 
 than after. A considerable edition was sold in the West, 
 and a second issued, which was republished in England, 
 the first work of an Indiana author thus honored. 
 
 Some two or three years before he left his church in 
 Indianapolis for the " Plymouth," in Brooklyn, he de- 
 livered several sermons on the subject of temperance. 
 His father was one of the first men, if not the very first 
 man, of eminence in this country to make a specialty of 
 sermons or addresses on temperance. Henry had kept 
 even step with the venerable missionary of sobriety and 
 decency, and, it is not at all improbable, surpassed him 
 in the vigor of his reprobation of intemperance. He 
 extended his condemnation beyond the bar and the 
 " grocery," as the saloon was then always called when it 
 wasn't called " doggery," and took in the distiller and the 
 wholesale dealer as equally culpable. There was no beer 
 drunk in those days, or not enough to make it worth 
 associating with the whiskey that the corn was turned 
 
94 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 into, except, as the old woman said, "what little is 
 wasted in bread." The distiller, therefore, got not only 
 the " hot end," but the whole poker, and regarding him- 
 self, and being generally regarded, as a conspicuously 
 respectable member of society, he did not fancy being 
 associated with the doggery-keeper who made his trade 
 profitable. A Mr. Comegys, who had at one time been 
 engaged in the mercantile business in Indianapolis, but 
 at that time was concerned in a distillery at Lawrence- 
 burg, probably took huge offence at the " unrespective " 
 preacher, and attacked his temperance teachings with 
 more violence than force in the Journal. Mr. Beecher 
 replied, and was met by a rejoinder which was also an- 
 swered, the controversy running through two or three 
 letters on each side. In the last of the distiller's publi- 
 cations he made an indiscreet allusion to a method of 
 refutation that suggested a threat of personal chastise- 
 ment. To this came the characteristic retort that if 
 there was to be a fight the preacher would take " a 
 woman and a Quaker as his seconds." This ended the 
 only newspaper controversy that the famous preacher 
 ever had in Indianapolis, and he probably never had a 
 more exciting one in his later life. 
 
 G. W. Sloan, of Indianapolis, says : " I recall an anec- 
 dote illustrating, as I think, Mr. Beecher's love of humor 
 and drollery. He was naturally cut out for a great 
 actor. Once he was returning from Terre Haute to India- 
 
HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 95 
 
 napolis in a stage-coach. Mr. Graydon, a prominent 
 member of his congregation, got into the coach at Green- 
 castle. It was dark, and after jogging along a little way 
 in silence Mr. Beecher disguised his voice and began 
 making inquiries of Mr. Graydon as to where he lived. 
 When he learned that it was in Indianapolis, he began to 
 ply his fellow-traveller with all manner of questions ; in- 
 quired about Beecher's church and congregation, and 
 finally about Beecher himself. Mr. Graydon was loyal, 
 and eulogized Beecher greatly. The hoax was discov- 
 ered at the next stopping-place." 
 
 When Mr. Beecher came to break up house-keeping at 
 Indianapolis, he divided his flowers and plants among 
 half a dozen or more persons. He was the first person 
 to bring rare plants and flowers to that city and give a 
 taste for floriculture. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 
 
 The Originating Idea. Site Secured. Beecher invited to Preach. His Ser- 
 mon on the Occasion. Romans xiv. 12. He returns to Indianapolis. 
 Completion of the Organization. The Name Plymouth Adopted. 
 Beecher the Unanimous Vote. He receives a Call from Plymouth 
 Church. Hesitates, but Accepts. Inauguration of a Long Term of 
 Service. Destruction of the Church by Fire in 1849. ^ is Rebuilt. 
 A Health Trip to Europe. 
 
 THE idea controlling the organization of Plymouth 
 Church, which seems to have originated with David 
 Hale, one of the proprietors of the Journal of Commerce, 
 was " to combine the descendants of the Pilgrims in a 
 new and more general movement to introduce democratic 
 and Puritan principles and policy in ecclesiastical affairs." 
 Mr. Hale contended that Christians should unite in such 
 a way as to make their influence felt, New England 
 fashion, in managing church affairs. 
 
 The property then known as the First Presbyterian 
 Church was purchased. " The History of Plymouth 
 Church," by Noyes L. Thompson, says : 
 
 " The land, eighty-eight feet by two hundred feet, com- 
 prising seven lots, and extending from Orange Street to 
 Cranberry Street, now occupied by the Plymouth Church 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 97 
 
 buildings, formerly belonged to the Hicks estate. The 
 Presbyterian Society purchased it of John and Jacob M. 
 Hicks, in 1823, and erected thereon an edifice fifty-six 
 feet by seventy-two feet, with a front on Cranberry Street, 
 for the use of the First Presbyterian Church. At that 
 time the population of Brooklyn was less than ten thou- 
 sand, and many thought the erection of a church " out in 
 the fields" an imprudent step. The new church, con- 
 trary to the predictions of the would-be prophets, pros- 
 pered, and to such an extent that an addition of eighteen 
 feet to the building was soon necessary. In 1831 a Lec- 
 ture Room (including Sunday-school rooms and a study) 
 thirty-six feet by seventy-two feet was attached. 
 
 " Rev. Joseph Sanford was the first pastor, officiating 
 in that capacity from 1823 to 1829, when he was succeeded 
 by the Rev. Daniel L. Carrol, D.D., who was followed 
 by Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D.D., in 1837, and the Rev. 
 Dr. Cox continued their pastor after the removal to their 
 new house of worship in Henry Street, in 1847. 
 
 " Brooklyn's population in 1846 was about sixty thou- 
 sand, and though now called the City of Churches, pos- 
 sessed then only thirty-nine houses of worship ; of these 
 but one was of Congregational denomination. The want 
 of another Congregational Church soon became apparent, 
 and several public-spirited Christian gentlemen John T. 
 Howard, Henry C. Bowen, Seth B. Hunt, and David 
 Hale determined to supply that want. The new First 
 
98 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Presbyterian Church in Henry Street was almost com- 
 pleted, and the Cranberry Street property had been of- 
 fered for sale for $25,000. A consultation was held by 
 these gentlemen, and Mr. Howard was authorized to ef- 
 fect a purchase, if possible ; $20,000 ($9,500 payable in 
 cash, and the residue, $10,500, to remain on mortgage) 
 was offered, and in June, 1846, accepted." 
 
 A meeting was convened at the residence of Mr. Henry 
 C. Bowen, since prominent as the proprietor of The In- 
 dependent^ for the purpose of establishing a new Congre- 
 gational Church in Brooklyn, in accordance with their 
 mutual views. Messrs. Charles Rowland, David Hale 
 (prominent as the editor of the Journal of Commerce)^ 
 Jira Payne, David Griffin, H. C. Bowen, and John 
 T. Howard attended this meeting. The " Plymouth 
 Church Manual " records : 
 
 " The meeting was opened by prayer ; after which 
 David Hale made some statements in relation to the 
 property now held by ' the Plymouth Church,' and then, 
 in behalf of himself and the other owners, offered the 
 use of said property for purpose of religious worship, as 
 soon as the premises should be vacated by ' The First 
 Presbyterian Church.' Whereupon it was 
 
 " Resolved, That religious services shall be commenced, 
 by Divine permission, on Sunday, the i6th day of May 
 that being the first Sabbath after the house was to be 
 vacated." 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 99 
 
 Mr. Beecher, who had on the I4th delivered his ad- 
 dress before the Foreign Missionary Society in New 
 York, was invited to deliver the opening sermon at the 
 New Congregational Meeting House. Mr. William T. 
 Cutler had heard Mr. Beecher, whom he knew as a boy, 
 preach in Indianapolis, and secured him the invitation to 
 address the Foreign Missionary Society, and here Mr. 
 Bowen had listened to him ; and both of them were en- 
 thusiastic in their belief that he would be a good selec- 
 tion for their pastor. The Brooklyn Eagle> May I5th, 
 published the following notice : 
 
 " New Congregational Church. The Congregational 
 Church in Cranberry Street (late Dr. Cox's) will be 
 opened for religious worship to-morrow afternoon and 
 evening. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, from Indianapolis, 
 Ind., is expected to preach in the morning and evening, 
 and Rev. N. H. Eggleston, from Ellington, Conn., in the 
 afternoon. The friends of the new enterprise, also all 
 who are willing to aid in the establishment of a new 
 church in that section of the city, are respectfully in- 
 vited to attend." It is a little singular that no refer- 
 ence is made in this notice to the address delivered the 
 day before by Mr. Beecher before the Foreign Mission- 
 ary Society, as it was considered " a great surprise and 
 masterly effort, the reverend gentleman being a natural 
 born orator." 
 
 There was a good attendance at the morning service, 
 
100 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 and a crowd in the evening. The sermon in the evening 
 was on " Man's Accountability to God," the text being 
 from Romans xiv. 12 : " So, then, every one of us shall 
 give account of himself to God." In reporting the ser- 
 mon the Tribune reporter remarks : 
 
 "The speaker's manner was forcible and impressive, 
 and the discourse, delivered in such a style, could not 
 fail of producing a profound effect, as was visible at its 
 close. We fear that in some instances we have not done 
 justice to the reverend author of the sermon. We were 
 obliged to omit several passages which we did not dis- 
 tinctly hear, and in one or two cases we were completely 
 distanced by the rapidity with which the speaker uttered 
 his words." 
 
 Mr. Beecher's sermon was as follows : 
 
 " There is no doctrine which takes hold of men's fears 
 with a firmer grasp than this ; and when it is understood 
 to include the whole life the interior and the exterior 
 life and that it is to sum up every thought and feeling, 
 that they are to pass a critical and rigid review, and that 
 man's final destiny is to be determined by his deeds done 
 in the body ; when the doctrine is so presented and felt 
 by men, it sometimes works their reformation and re- 
 pentance, and oftentimes it works mischief to them, and 
 they strive if possible to avert the doctrine, to evade its 
 requirements ; and almost all the popular errors which 
 have sprung up in Theology are errors whose effect has 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. IOI 
 
 been to lighten the pressure, either directly or indirectly, 
 of this great fundamental doctrine of God's government ; 
 so you may grade these errors in respect to their bane- 
 fulness, according to the degrees in which they omit to 
 teach and enforce the doctrine of man's accountability 
 to God. But yet what avails it if it be a true doctrine 
 if we should leave it out of all our theories ? It is a 
 practical and personal question, and one pertinent to 
 every individual in this congregation. If it be a hideous 
 dream, we should be awakened from it. If it be a sol- 
 emn annunciation from the God of Heaven and earth, 
 we should attend to it, and make a practical matter of 
 it. To those who are satisfied with the simple declara- 
 tion of the Bible, that there is such a scene as a final 
 judgment to take place, I need adduce no argument to 
 prove that men will give account of themselves to God. 
 They believe it because it is declared in simple strains 
 throughout the New Testament. But there are many 
 who have been so accustomed to read these declarations 
 as mere unmeaning assertions possessing no Divine 
 power or truth ; there are many who have so handled 
 them that they have no longer any significance as proof 
 of this doctrine ; and merely to quote texts to such, is 
 to make declarations which will be altogether without 
 force. 
 
 " I purpose, therefore, instead of first entering into the 
 Bible to seek for evidence to support this doctrine, to 
 5 
 
102 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 take another course of argument, and ascertain whether 
 this is or not a fundamental principle that runs through 
 God's government, and whether it is or not inherent in 
 the nature of man. I do not hesitate to declare that 
 there is abundant evidence outside of the Bible of the 
 truth of this great declaration, that we are to be held 
 to a rigid accountability to God for all our actions and 
 thoughts in this world. 
 
 " Let us start, then, from the beginning, and take man 
 and follow him up from the cradle to the grave, through 
 all his relations of life his relations to his family, his 
 neighbors, his country and see if this doctrine is not 
 practically acknowledged by him throughout his entire 
 career. 
 
 " And first : When the child is born into the world 
 and becomes a member of a family, he is as helpless as 
 helplessness itself, and entirely dependent upon those 
 whose duty under God it is to watch over, and protect, 
 and nourish him ; but just as the child begins to develop 
 its understanding just as it begins to be able to act for 
 itself from the very moment that it begins to manifest 
 its preference for one thing over another, that very mo- 
 ment it is met on the threshold of life by parental re- 
 straint and supervision which are necessary to its exist- 
 ence. The anxious mother is ever on the watch lest it 
 should come to harm. It may not take poisonous food 
 the mother's care restrains it; it may not fall from 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 103 
 
 precipitous places the mother rescues it ; it may not 
 come to injury or harm the mother ever shields it. 
 And not alone in respect to these things is it restrained, 
 but the governing hand of the parents is felt in all its 
 relations, its actions, and desires, and the child is taught 
 that it is to occupy a subordinate position in the family, 
 and be subject to the wishes of its superiors. It is taught 
 that there must be certain limits to its wishes and ac- 
 tions that the parents are the governors of the family, 
 that there are others to participate in its privileges, and 
 that his liberty must be reduced within those limits ; 
 and in every well-regulated family a child is taught to 
 conform itself to the wishes of its superiors ; and just in 
 proportion as it is not so taught, the family is badly gov- 
 erned. So that the very first experience which we have 
 when we come into life is, that we cannot do as we please. 
 At every step we meet with restraint and coercion ; our 
 wishes are opposed, our expectations thwarted, by our 
 guardians continually. 
 
 " But the child grows older, and passes out for a time 
 from the immediate supervision of its parents, and enters 
 into the school, where it is surrounded with new rela- 
 tions. Does it drop the principle here ? or is its bind- 
 ing force augmented ? Why, the child at school, the 
 same as the child at home, is under the control and gov- 
 ernment of its parents ; and in aspiring into another 
 sphere it has brought itself under an additional responsi- 
 
104 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 bility. The child now is not alone held responsible to 
 its parents, but to its teacher also. It finds that in all its 
 relations in the school, it is under the influence of this 
 principle of accountability. It cannot carry out its own 
 wishes in the school-room. The teacher is there. His 
 authority presses upon the child, and reward for obedi- 
 ence and penalty for disobedience cause it to come down 
 to its proper place, and he feels that so far from ridding 
 himself of the influence of this principle of accountabil- 
 ity by entering school, he has greatly added to it that 
 where he previously had one governor he now has two. 
 
 " But there is an interval between school and home 
 duties ; there is a time which they call play-spell, when 
 they are no longer under the control of the parent or of 
 the teacher ; a time when they are left entirely to them- 
 selves, with no one to command them or thwart their 
 humors ; and now, surely, they will have a breathing- 
 time ; now they can cast off for a time this onerous yoke 
 of accountability and revel unrestrained in the Utopia 
 of freedom. But no, they will not ; for there are laws 
 among the young by which they are governed as with a 
 rod of iron. Is there not a law of honor among all 
 young men, to which they must yield implicit obedience ? 
 Can they go against the ordinary customs and usages of 
 the circles in which they move ? To be sure, they do 
 not take into their hands the same authority and assume 
 the same control as their parents and teachers do ; but 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 10$ 
 
 they have laws of their own which must be obeyed, and 
 if any of their number will not do as they ought to do, 
 they are cast out of the circle, shunned by their former 
 associates, and made to feel that they cannot infringe 
 with impunity upon the conventionalities of the so- 
 ciety in which they move. So, then, even when they 
 are without the influence of the family and the school, 
 they are compelled instantly to put on the harness of 
 accountability, as if they could not live without it. 
 
 " Next, the youth having made some attainments in 
 learning, and coming to the years which are proper, goes 
 forth to learn his profession or trade, and in this new re- 
 lation of life does he lose sight of this principle, or does 
 it lose sight of him ? Can he go into the shop of the 
 mechanic as an apprentice and perform such service as 
 he will ? No. As a student in the office can he study 
 when and what he will ? No. In whatever vocation 
 he may put himself, he finds that he is responsible to 
 him to whom he is bound ; he is obliged to obey him, 
 and if he does not, he loses the object he is seeking by 
 his connection with his master. 
 
 " But at last the young man is established. He has 
 now attained to years of discretion, and the law pro- 
 nounces him free from his parents. He has gained the 
 means of livelihood, and establishes himself in business. 
 And is he not now released from this law ? Is he not 
 set free at last ? No ; by no means. As a citizen, he 
 
106 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 comes under the law of the land ; as a member of his 
 neighborhood, he is under a responsibility to his neigh- 
 bors. And more than this, there is no calling in life 
 that is independent of other men. Let a man be a me- 
 chanic, a lawyer, a physician, a merchant, or what he 
 will, he will find that he must conform himself, in a 
 measure, to the wishes and opinions of those by whom 
 he is surrounded. Let a physician assume the prepos- 
 terous position of absolute independence, and say, ' I am 
 of age, and will have my opinions, and will do what I 
 please, and will not be governed or influenced by my 
 neighbors or professional brethren ; ' and they will say, 
 ' We are of age, and we will have our opinions, and one 
 among the rest is, that you are not fit to be trusted with 
 the life of a fellow-being ; and you may get your living 
 as you can we will have nothing to do with you.' Let 
 a lawyer do the same, and his clients will have a very 
 quiet way of shutting his mouth, and will give him 
 abundant leisure for reflection in regard to his philoso- 
 phy of independence as applied to business. And so it is 
 in every vocation of life. You are all under obligations 
 to regard the opinions of those who stand around you, 
 who are to help you, and whom you are to help. In the 
 great Brotherhood of Man no one can say, * I am alone ; 
 I need not the aid of others ; I will not regard this law 
 of accountability ; I will not respect the conventionali- 
 ties of society ; I am independent of all.' You are not 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. IO/ 
 
 independent you are responsible to those around you 
 for help. This web of mutual responsibility is wove 
 around the human family, and if you will not regard it, 
 if you seek to break through it, a heavy penalty will be 
 inflicted upon you, and it is just that you should receive 
 it. 
 
 " This leads me to speak of Civil Government. There 
 is not a tribe, a state, or a people on the globe known 
 to exist without a form of government, ruder or more 
 perfect. I apprehend that I do not mistake when I say 
 that there never did exist a tribe or people without 
 some form of government. If it be said that this is the 
 result of man's ignorance, I am prepared to show that 
 the very contrary is the fact ; that just in proportion as 
 men grow wiser, the more government they have. And 
 there are no communities that are so completely bound 
 and wound round, and round, and round with the meshes 
 of civil government as those which are at this time con- 
 sidered the most learned and enlightened on the globe. 
 This is the experience of six thousand years, that man 
 cannot live wisely and well without some system of gov- 
 ernment, and that for their full development and for 
 their rising up in the scale of progress it is necessary that 
 they should be under a just and healthy accountability. 
 Nay, I go further ; after the law has gone as far as it is 
 possible for it to go, it cannot go as far as men feel there 
 is a need of going, and, therefore, whenever, under the 
 
ioS LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 civil and social laws of the community, men confederate for 
 purposes of any kind whatever, new compacts are formed. 
 They always build these upon some constitution : rules 
 or regulations having their expressed or implied penal- 
 ties. You cannot find that company of men independ- 
 ent of all these obligations which society is under and 
 which every individual in society is under to all around 
 him. 
 
 " We are not yet done unravelling this web which is 
 woven around men until we see where this principle is 
 carried in society. Men are accountable for their feelings 
 and their opinions as well as their conduct. 
 
 " It may seem strange to say that men are held account- 
 able for their opinions ; but they are, and will be forever 
 and that, too, in the freest land, and under the most 
 liberal government. For instance, let any prominent 
 man in either of the great political parties of this country 
 stand up and affirm his repugnance to any one of the 
 great principles of his party. Let it be understood that 
 he is advocating and disseminating principles and opin- 
 ions which are abhorrent to that party, and what will be 
 the result ? They cannot imprison him ; they cannot 
 lay hold on him and load him with chains, and thrust 
 him into the dark dungeon of the criminal but they can 
 ostracise him ; and now let him, regardless of his own 
 private interests, and anxious only to serve his country 
 by representing his fellow-citizens in her legislative 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. IOQ 
 
 halls, attempt to run for any office, and there will be 
 those letters called votes, which will silently but surely 
 spell out his condemnation, and he will be allowed the 
 privilege of remaining at home, freed from the cares 
 and toils of office. 
 
 " Men are not only held accountable for their opinions 
 and feelings by the Church, but by the popular sentiment 
 also. To be sure, there are many feelings and sentiments 
 condemned by the Church that the general community 
 does not reprobate ; but the general community requires 
 from its members a respect for all the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of honesty and justice, and he who is guilty of any 
 transgression of them is instantly girdled by the scorn 
 of the community in which he resides. 
 
 " Let a man dwell in your household let it be known 
 to you that he revolves base and dishonorable purposes 
 in his mind that will never take the form of outward de- 
 velopment and actions, and you will immediately take 
 measures to remove him from your family, that they may 
 not be exposed to the possibility of contamination by 
 coming in contact with his baleful mind. And so in the 
 general community. Suppose the case of a young man 
 in indigent circumstances, who comes to your city to 
 build up his fortune to gain a profession. His father 
 and his mother make every sacrifice to assist him ; they 
 toil in poverty that they may secure his success that 
 they may give him an education and it is said that he 
 
IIO LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 has literally consumed them to profit himself, and at 
 last, with joy in their hearts and tears in their eyes, they 
 hear of his triumph in this metropolis ; with fond antici- 
 pations of the grateful reception which they will receive 
 at his hands, they come to visit him in his splendid man- 
 sion. But, when he hears of their coming, instead of 
 rushing to meet them with open arms and a heart over- 
 flowing with filial love and gratitude, and escorting them 
 to his own home and introducing them to his family and 
 friends as the author of his being, and those to whom, 
 under God, he is indebted for the position and prosperity 
 he now enjoys, he goes out alone to meet them, and 
 conducts them to some secret place where his fash- 
 ionable friends will not see them, and where he visits 
 them furtively; for he is ashamed of his father and 
 mother not on account of their minds, but on account 
 of their rude dress and manners. Now let this fact 
 be known in the circles in which he moves let him 
 visit at your house ; with what face will you receive 
 him ? You will manifest an irrepressible indignation at 
 such base and inhuman conduct and why? He has 
 not broken any law ? No ; but you say that you have 
 detected in him feelings unworthy of a man, and he very 
 soon perceives that his want of feeling is reprobated, and 
 in future he is careful to guard against any public exhibi- 
 tion of his unnatural disposition, although at heart he is 
 the same inhuman monster as before. The consequence 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. Ill 
 
 of all this is, that men veil their corrupt inclinations 
 under the garb of seeming virtue ; and thus all bad men 
 are compelled, by the force of popular opinion, to be- 
 come hypocrites. Men are very fond of talking about 
 the hypocrisy of the Church. God knows there is 
 enough of it there ; but when compared with the hypoc- 
 risy out of the Church, it sinks into nothingness. 
 
 " The last step we shall take is in respect to that class 
 of men in our nation which have gone steadily down 
 from one step to another, till they can be no longer tol- 
 erated in the community. They have gone down regu- 
 larly from point to point ; their specific gravity has sunk 
 them down and down into the abyss of crime,-until they 
 are appropriately called OUTLAWS. Now at last we have 
 got at a class of men who will have nothing to do with this 
 accountability. It was because they hated restraint that 
 they went down. They loved progression, and they went 
 down and down and down till they could get at a wider 
 circle, where they might act out the innate depravity of 
 their natures without any restraint from their fellow-men, 
 and indeed it would seem that now they have got be- 
 yond the last bond of society they will be freed from 
 this principle of accountability. But, ah ! how mistaken. 
 There are laws among thieves, and in the vilest bandit's 
 den that ever darkened the mountain-side, and on the 
 bloodiest deck of the pirate's ship there are masters and 
 a rule more iron than the peaceful denizens of a Chris- 
 
112 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 tian community can conceive of. So that when men by 
 reason of their hatred of restraint have thrown them- 
 selves wholly out of society, they have found that they 
 could not get rid of their own nature so easily as they 
 could of human laws. They must be governed by these 
 or by themselves. 
 
 " I have attempted simply to prove, by reference to 
 facts such as would be allowed in any scientific argument, 
 that the law of accountability to God is carried out in 
 all the relations of life. We have seen that it is carried 
 into every sphere of human action, and hence it is unne- 
 cessary that we should declare, as we do declare, that the 
 law of accountability to God is the universal law of the 
 universe, and that it is just as universal as breath is. 
 
 " We now come back to the Bible, and ask ourselves, 
 What does that teach ? It professes to be the exposition 
 of man's character, and the revelator of God's principles 
 of government, as they relate to man. And now it is not 
 necessary to take text after text and chip and chip them 
 to make them fit one another ; it is not necessary to put 
 one text after another to torture in order to prove that 
 man is accountable to God. We find that if there never 
 had been a word spoken in the Bible in relation to this 
 subject we could draw up this doctrine just as plainly 
 from the facts as we now can. The Bible simply declares 
 of that which existed before ; it was not the promulgation 
 of an arbitrary law, it was simply the declaration of the 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 13 
 
 existence of that which God made when He made all 
 things. And indeed it may be said that if the Bible, pro- 
 posing to be a revelation of the laws of God to man, had 
 omitted this doctrine, it would have cast a doubt, a shade, 
 upon the sacred Word itself. What would you think of 
 a Bible that forgot to say that there is a God ? and what 
 would be said of a Bible that should attempt to teach 
 the relations of God, and of man to God, and should leave 
 out the doctrine of man's accountability to God. 
 
 " I am now prepared, in the light of this subject, to 
 discuss one or two points that are relevant. The first is 
 the objection that is made by a certain class of reasoners. 
 It is said if there be established such a law throughout 
 society, it goes against your position men will be pun- 
 ished here and not hereafter. We say, Thank you. If 
 men are punished here, it does not follow that they will 
 not be punished in the life to come. This is a question 
 of fact. I admit that there are punishments in every de- 
 partment of the world. God has fixed natural and con- 
 stitutional punishment as guards against the infraction 
 of natural and constitutional laws. They are not aveng- 
 ing punishments, however, but precautionary. If there 
 is a precipice over which men will be likely to fall, the 
 authorities place a bridge over it, not to punish, but to 
 prevent, accident. If a man draws near to a poisonous sub- 
 stance, an odor will meet him offensive to his sense, but 
 it is that he may avoid the threatened danger. All these 
 
114 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 evils are precautionary. And so throughout Nature ; but 
 it is not necessary indeed, it will not be possible here to 
 specify all these precautions and warnings which God has 
 planted so thickly throughout all his creation. 
 
 " Now if men are punished in this world for their sins, 
 it can be shown that their punishment is graduated in 
 proportion to the magnitude of their crimes. The fact, 
 however, is not so, but contrariwise ; it is established 
 that men never suffer so much as when they are the 
 youngest and the newest in sin. When a man first be- 
 gins to steal, he has more fear and more shame than 
 when he has become an inveterate offender. I remember 
 the time when I swore the first oath. It seemed as 
 though every leaf on the trees and every blade of grass 
 were vocal in their condemnation of my sin. The very 
 sky seemed to lower upon me, and all Nature raised the 
 note of reproof. But in after-days, under the demoraliz- 
 ing influence of bad company, I became able to use pro- 
 fane language without a blush without the least remorse 
 of conscience ; and finally, without being conscious of the 
 language I employed. 
 
 " How is it, when a man in an affray first draws the 
 blood of his fellow-creature, his hand draws back, as if it 
 were scalding hot, and dreams terrify him, and he is 
 haunted for months by the bleeding victim of his rage. 
 But let him go from fray to fray, and by-and-by butchery 
 will become a mere excitement. In the lower parts of 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 115 
 
 our own country, so much is this the case, that a fray is 
 sought as a cup is sought merely as a pleasant excite- 
 ment wherewith to while away the time. It needs no 
 argument to prove that in proportion as men go down in 
 this world, just in that proportion they lose their sensi- 
 bility till at last it becomes seared as with a red-hot 
 iron ; and this being the case, what becomes of the doc- 
 trine of punishment in this life ? Just in proportion as 
 their crimes increase, their punishment decreases; the 
 further they get from rectitude the lighter are their suf- 
 ferings. According to this doctrine, a man should go the 
 whole figure and commit crimes wholesale. They that 
 nibble at transgression are the greater fools, and they 
 that go deep into crime are the wise. This is a dreadful 
 but still a true doctrine. This subject also affords some 
 light to that popular and mischievous maxim that it 
 makes no difference what a man believes if he is only 
 sincere. Where can we find any such law as that except 
 in the code of the reasoners ? Does it make no difference 
 in the laws of Nature ? Suppose a man jumps from the 
 top of a high building upon the pavement, and says, I 
 believe those flag-stones as soft as downy pillows, does 
 Nature any the less dash him in pieces ? Suppose a man 
 should attempt to produce pleasure in himself by taking 
 poisonous substances, or suppose he should breathe as 
 well under water as in the air of heaven, and should 
 plunge beneath the waves of the deep, what would Nat- 
 
Il6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ure care for his sincerity ? Try this principle under the 
 civil law. Is it no matter what a man believes under 
 the civil laws ? Will he be excused the commission 
 of crime, if he only says he is sincere ? Can you find a 
 judge who will charge a jury thus, or a lawyer who will 
 urge such a plea in defence of a client, when it has been 
 a maxim from time immemorial that ignorance of the 
 law excuses no man ? Try the same principle in mercan- 
 tile life. Let a man under your employment be sent to 
 a distant point to transact some important business. He 
 makes a blunder and loses hundreds of dollars, and his 
 excuse for it is his sincerity; the blunder is repeated, and 
 he loses thousands ; and when you reprove him for his 
 carelessness, his only excuse is, ' I was sincere in believ- 
 ing that I was acting in a manner which would best pro- 
 mote your interests.' You would reply, * Your sincerity 
 is none the less ruinous, and I must discharge you.' 
 
 " Try the same principle in respect to your own feel- 
 ings. Suppose a man should say you are a knave, and 
 upon your asking for an explanation he should say, ' I 
 admit that I said so, but I now acknowledge that I did 
 wrong ; I was in a passion at the time, and said it in 
 haste. I am sorry for what I have done, and I ask your 
 forgiveness.' This would be a balm for your wounded 
 feelings, and you would freely forgive him. But sup- 
 pose that, instead of this, he should say, ' I did call you 
 a knave, and I believed it, and I believe it now/ This 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. II? 
 
 would be the most venomous part- of it. You would 
 say, ' It is not enough that you be sincere ; you must 
 substantiate your belief by proof. I will have recourse 
 to the law.' And if you hold to the principle of saying 
 what you think is true, regardless of the feelings and 
 character of others, you shall bear the penalty of it. 
 
 " Now here is a principle that is false in every depart- 
 ment of life, till you come into morals and that prin- 
 ciple which business would not for a moment support 
 is applied and insisted upon in arguing moral and re- 
 ligious questions. It does make a difference what we 
 believe. God will hold us accountable for our belief 
 just as true as He will hold us accountable for our ac- 
 tions. 
 
 " The only inference I will attend to is this : that God 
 will hold men accountable for their opinions under the 
 Gospel and for what they know. Then it may be said 
 it will be best for them not to know too much. But He 
 will hold them accountable for what they do not know 
 that they should know. 
 
 " For example : a miserly and selfish guardian of a de- 
 fenceless orphan appropriates to himself the whole estate 
 of his ward, and upon the fact being known, a suit is 
 brought by the friends of the orphan to recover the 
 property. It is found to be a clear case of fraud, and the 
 estate can be easily regained. The whole community is 
 aroused, and all their sympathies are with the aggrieved 
 
Il8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 orphan. At length the trial comes on the jury is im- 
 panelled and the case opened. And while the evidence 
 is going on one juryman is reading a newspaper, another 
 is talking to a friend, and several are asleep, as if they 
 were in church. When they go out, they remember 
 nothing about the merits of the case. They put one 
 thing and another together, and come out and give a 
 verdict, not in favor of the injured plaintiff, but in favor 
 of the defendant. 
 
 " Now what will the people say to these jurymen ? 
 One of them some time after this occurrence is a humble 
 seeker to serve the people by going to Congress. He is 
 remembered, and it will be said, This is one of the men 
 that served that infamous course on that jury. And he 
 says, in extenuation of his conduct, ' It was my desire to 
 render a verdict in accordance with the evidence, but / 
 did not know what it was ! ' ' Did not know what it 
 was ! ' some sturdy old farmer would say to him ; * what 
 were you put there for, if it was not for the express 
 purpose of hearing the evidence and rendering a just 
 verdict ? Your excuse only stamps you with a deeper 
 disgrace than your false verdict had already done, and is 
 proof positive of your unfitness to fill any station requir- 
 ing common watchfulness and honesty.' 
 
 " Now God has given the light of Jesus Christ. God 
 has stopped the career of His whole government and in- 
 terposed a new system. God has rent the heavens in 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 119 
 
 twain that He might bring the truth to light and life and 
 immortality. Star after star in bright constellations have 
 beamed out and Jesus Christ has brought truth to light. 
 Truth preached, truth sent through the Bible, and 
 through a living ministry to the whole people. And 
 now, if anyone seeks to evade it and avoid it, God will 
 hold every such guilty man accountable for his ignorance. 
 The truth is here, and it is your greatest interest to know 
 it, and you are ignorant of it at your peril. 
 
 " Finally, if this doctrine is true, what will be the 
 account that we have to give to God ? 
 
 " I remark that you will have to give an account be- 
 fore God in respect to your relations to yourself, to one 
 another, and to God. 
 
 " Let us see how many points there are under each of 
 these heads : 
 
 " First, the duties which refer more particularly to 
 ourselves. 
 
 " Each of you will have to give an account to God for 
 your time for every hour, for every moment. You 
 will have to give an account to God for every power of 
 mind for the use of every one, for the culture of every 
 one ; for every power of thought and imagination ; for 
 all your religious and social faculties. He will call you 
 to account for all your passions and motives for all 
 your conduct. My friend, you may well feel some ter- 
 rors when you reflect that all that conduct of which you 
 
I2O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 were so ashamed will be revealed by the Almighty in 
 the dread Day of Judgment, and you will be compelled 
 to look on it, and your neighbor will look on it, and all 
 the assembled hosts of heaven and hell shall look upon 
 it, and upon you as the author of it. And to those who 
 do not now feel any terrors, I would say that there is a 
 day of terror coming when God will call you to account 
 for all the Divine efforts made in your behalf for all the 
 special Providences that have been sent to your door 
 for all the personal influences that have ever been brought 
 to bear upon you in the sanctuary or out of the sanctu- 
 ary. 
 
 " Secondly : God will call you to account for all the 
 duties which you owe to others for the discharge of 
 your public duties as citizens. 
 
 " Are you an officer ? God will hold you to a strict 
 account for the manner in which the duties of that office 
 are discharged. I am afraid, my friends, from the signs 
 of the times, that this doctrine is not much preached or 
 understood ; namely, that God will hold those in place 
 to a higher account than those beneath them. God will 
 call you to account for the manner in which in this life 
 you discharge your duties to your family, your neighbor- 
 hood, your town, your State, and your whole land. An 
 inert citizen, an unpatriotic man, will have something to 
 answer for at the bar of God. Every time you have 
 voted those lots which were right and just God has 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 121 
 
 noted them down, though men have not. And you will 
 be called to account for all the opportunities to do good 
 that you have neglected to improve. If there is a young 
 man in this world that might have been held back from 
 intemperance by you, and you did not do it, God will 
 hold you accountable for it. It is not a safe thing for a 
 man to neglect to do good in this world. 
 
 " For all of the influences you have exerted intention- 
 ally or unintentionally, God will call you to account. 
 There are many men who study to exert a malign influ- 
 ence upon their fellows. Well, let them do it. They 
 wag their empty heads, and swing themselves down 
 through the streets independent and free to do what they 
 choose. ' The world owes me a living,' say they, ' and I 
 will have it. I care for no man. I care for no law, for 
 no public opinion.' God has His eye upon them. No 
 archer ever drew a surer bow upon his devoted game 
 than God has done upon these men, and His avenging 
 bolt will fall with tenfold terror on their heads when they 
 shall find the grave yawning to receive them, and fearful 
 will be their fate when the black billows of death shall 
 sweep them resistless to their inexorable doom. 
 
 " In a less degree it is no less true that a man's unin- 
 tentional offences will have to be accounted for. Is there 
 a man in this congregation who has children that he 
 loves ? Have they ever heard the voice of prayer raised 
 in grateful acknowledgment from before the family altar 
 
122 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 to the Dispenser of all good ? That dear and beloved 
 daughter, that son growing up now into man's estate, 
 has not the whole of your conduct been such as to prac- 
 tically teach them that there is no God ? You may have 
 told them of God in a casual manner, the same as you 
 have of Alexander ; and you may have, in a formal, life- 
 less manner, informed them that it is their duty to 
 obey God, and to love and serve Him. But your life 
 your whole warm, spontaneous life has ever preached a 
 doctrine exactly the reverse ; and which do you suppose 
 a child will believe first, a father's talk or a father's life ? 
 Most unquestionably the latter ; and if that has told 
 your children that all that God requires from His children 
 is lip-service, and they grow up without ever coming to a 
 knowledge of God's saving mercy, and their souls are 
 finally lost, God will hold them accountable in their meas- 
 ure, but you will be held accountable also, as accessary to 
 their guilt, and fearful will be the dread account which 
 you will have to meet. 
 
 " Lastly : for all our duties toward God we shall be 
 brought to a strict account. 
 
 " For the way in which we have treated the overtures 
 of mercy made us through the Lord Jesus Christ, for the 
 hardening of our hearts against the persuasive influences 
 and efforts of our blessed Redeemer for our salvation, 
 God will call us to account. Is there a man in this con- 
 gregation who will say, I say I do not believe God will 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 12$ 
 
 punish me for all through eternity for my little sins ? 
 Give me your hand on that. You have so many great 
 sins that God will have enough to do to punish you for 
 them alone, without taking into the account what you 
 are pleased to style your little sins. For defiling your 
 whole nature, for the prostitution of your powers, for 
 turning yourselves who were the sons of God into base 
 materials of the flesh for this destruction of yourselves 
 God will call you to a strict account. And can you meet 
 that account ? Dare any man say I am ready to make 
 the venture ? 
 
 " There are some men who will not go to heaven, be- 
 cause they are so very moral ; they wish to go with the 
 understanding that they are entitled to the favor or else 
 not at all. They do not feel willing to accept heaven as 
 a boon granted by the infinite love of a merciful God, but 
 they desire to merit it through their own good works. 
 They will not go up to heaven's gate and plead the aton- 
 ing blood of the blessed Lamb of God as their passport 
 into the Heavenly Land the home of the redeemed but 
 they offer in exchange for the delights and pleasures of 
 eternity the meagre catalogue of their own actions here 
 on earth. Is it strange their offer is not accepted ? As 
 for myself, I know what I will do when God calls my 
 soul to judgment. I know when I shall look back upon 
 my life it will be folly to attempt to justify anything that 
 I have ever done. I will turn to Christ and say, Thou 
 
124 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 hast promised to save me if I would trust in Thee, and I 
 have trusted in Thee, and now I claim the fulfilment of 
 Thy promise, O Lord ! Here I am, and my only hope 
 is in Thee. And then Christ will throw around about 
 me the shield of His righteousness, not because I am not 
 a sinner, but because I am a sinner, loved and shielded 
 of Christ. But you refuse to take this Christ at His 
 word, you reject His promise, and therefore He will re- 
 ject you. 
 
 " My friends, I am speaking to some of you for the last 
 time. You and I will meet again on the Judgment Day, 
 and I am now telling you how much you stand in need 
 of a Saviour, of that Saviour whom my soul has felt, and 
 whom my soul loves. I offer Him to you, and I will do 
 it with all that sincerity, and all that earnestness, with 
 which I shall wish I had when I meet you at the bar of 
 God. Oh, my friends, will you not begin now to be wise, 
 before the saving influences of God's Holy Spirit are with- 
 drawn from your hearts, and these things are hidden from 
 your sight forever ? Death is coming, and after that the 
 judgment, and after that eternity. My fathers, you who 
 have experienced the benefits of God's mercy for many 
 years, where will you be on that day ? Were God to call 
 you hence this night, what would be your chances for 
 heaven ? My dear friends, what would be your chances 
 of heaven were you called hence to-night ? Jesus Christ 
 is ready to take all who desire salvation, and I preach 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 125 
 
 Him once for all Christ, the sinner's friend and your 
 friend." 
 
 Mr. Beecher created such a favorable impression by 
 his two discourses that the opinion previously entertained 
 of him by Messrs. Bowen and Cutler was generally in- 
 dorsed, and the little congregation determined, if possible, 
 to secure the pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church 
 of Indianapolis, when the organization should have been 
 completed. 
 
 It was announced that morning that there would be a 
 continued series of weekly prayer-meetings, commencing 
 on the succeeding Friday evening, in the lecture-room. 
 About thirty persons attended the meeting on the ensu- 
 ing Friday, nearly all of whom expressed a wish to join 
 the church at its organization. At the close of the ser- 
 vices, which were conducted by Jira Payne, a business 
 meeting was convened, and, to quote from the " Plymouth 
 Manual," " On motion of David Hale, from New York, 
 John T. Howard, Henry C. Bowen, Richard Hale, 
 Charles Rowland, and Jira Payne were appointed a 
 committee to make arrangements for the formation of 
 a church ; to prepare and report Articles of Faith and a 
 Covenant, a form of admission, ecclesiastical principles 
 and rules, manual for business, etc. Also to give notice, 
 the following Sabbath, to all persons who desired to be 
 connected with the church at its organization to be pres- 
 ent at the next Friday evening prayer-meeting. 
 
126 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 " At the two subsequent prayer meetings," continues 
 the " Manual," " twenty-one persons handed in their 
 names to be organized into a church. On Friday even- 
 ing, June i ith, the committee appointed to prepare Arti- 
 cles of Faith, etc., made their report, which, after some 
 amendments, was adopted, and notice given that the 
 church would be organized on the following Sabbath 
 evening. 
 
 " A council of ministers and delegates from other 
 churches convened at the house of John T. Howard, on 
 Saturday evening, June I2th, by invitation of the com- 
 mittee, who presented to said council the Articles of 
 Faith and Covenant adopted, also the credentials of 
 those persons who expected to be organized into a 
 church." 
 
 The council consisted of 
 
 REV. RICHARD S. STORRS, JR., Pastor. 
 CHANDLER STARR, Delegate. 
 
 From the Church of the Pilgrims. 
 REV. I. N. SPRAGUE, Pastor. 
 A* B. DAVENPORT, Delegate. 
 
 From the Second Congregational Church. 
 REV. J. P. THOMPSON, Pastor. 
 DAVID HALE, Delegate. 
 
 From the Broadway Tabernacle Church, 
 New York. 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 12J 
 
 REV. D. C. LANSING, D.D., Pastor. 
 SEYMOUR WHITING, Delegate. 
 
 From the Chrystie Street Congregational 
 Church, New York. 
 
 The council approved the actions of the committee, 
 and accepted an invitation to participate in the public 
 services of the organization, on the following evening 
 (Sunday, June 1 3th), when the church was duly organized, 
 and the opening sermon delivered by the Rev. R. S. 
 Storrs, Jr. Several names for the new society had been 
 suggested The Cranberry Street Church, the Wyckliffe 
 Church, and the Plymouth Church. 
 
 A religious society, in conformity with New York State 
 Laws, was formed on Monday evening, June 14, 1847, 
 with a membership of twenty-one ; Henry C. Bowen, 
 John T. Howard, and Daniel Burgess were elected 
 Trustees, to serve, each in the order written, for the 
 term of one, two, and three years ; and the corporate 
 name of 
 
 THE PLYMOUTH CHURCH 
 
 was adopted by the society. The Certificate of Incor- 
 poration was recorded in the Clerk's Office of King's 
 County, September 27, 1847. 
 
 The names of the original members were : 
 
 1. Howard, John T. 3. Bowen, Lucy Maria. 
 
 2. Bowen, Henry C. 4. Payne, Jira. 
 
128 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 5. Payne, Eliza. 13. Rowland, Charles. 
 
 6. Knight, Rachel. 14. Rowland, Maria. 
 
 7. Hale, Richard. 15. Webb, John. 
 
 8. Hale. Julia. 16. Webb, Martha. 
 
 9. Turner, Alpheus R. 17. Blake, Eli C. 
 
 10. Turner, Louisa. 18. Morse, John F. 
 
 11. Burgess, Benjamin. 19. Morse, Rebecca. 
 
 12. Burgess, Mary. 20. Cannon, Mary. 
 
 21. Griffin, David. 
 
 On the evening of the formal organization of the so- 
 ciety a unanimous vote had been cast electing Rev. 
 Henry Ward Beecher to the vacant pastorate, and a 
 committee had been appointed to present him with the 
 invitation to that office. After two months' deliberation 
 during which time the pulpit had been occupied by 
 various ministers, generally from New England Mr. 
 Beecher, partly influenced by the entreaties of William 
 T. Cutler, and partly by the continued ill-health of his 
 family while resident in the West, almost reluctantly 
 for, as he had said, " his heart was with the West " ac- 
 cepted the call by letter. 
 
 "INDIANAPOLIS, August 19, 1847. 
 
 " DEAR BROTHERS : I desire to convey through you 
 to the Plymouth Church and congregation my accept- 
 ance of the call to the pastoral office tendered by them 
 to me. 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 
 
 " I cannot regard the responsibilities of this important 
 field without the most serious diffidence, and I wholly 
 put my trust in that Saviour whom I am to preach in 
 your midst. I can heartily adopt the language of Paul, 
 ' Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may 
 have free course and be glorified.' 
 
 " It will be necessary for me to remain yet for some 
 time in this place ; but I hope to arrive in Brooklyn in 
 the middle of October, or at the furthest, by the first of 
 
 November. 
 
 " I am, in Christian love, 
 
 " Most Truly Yours, 
 
 " H. W. BEECHER. 
 
 " To JOHN T. HOWARD, HENRY C. BOWEN, CHARLES 
 ROWLAND, and others." 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher entered upon pastoral duties in 
 Plymouth Church on Sunday morning, October 10, 
 1847. 
 
 Mr. Thompson records that "the evening services 
 were fully attended, and to the astonishment of all, and 
 dissatisfaction of some, he laid aside the doctrinal the- 
 ologies of the morning in favor of the living issues of 
 the times, and boldly and clearly defined the position he 
 had taken and intended to hold in reference to slavery, 
 temperance, war, and general reform." 
 
 Alluding to his first sermon in Plymouth Church, 
 
I3O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 after accepting the call, Mr. Beecher, who, as previously 
 stated, had delivered several anti-slavery sermons in In- 
 dianapolis, observed to a friend : 
 
 " In the first sermon that I preached on the Sun- 
 day night in the new church, when I had accepted the 
 call and came there in the fall, I made a proclamation of 
 my sentiments on the slavery matter, on temperance 
 matters, on war and peace, on all those great themes in 
 which I have had zeal in all my public life, in the most 
 explicit manner. I declared to them that if they con- 
 tinued to attend, or any of them wished to attend, my 
 church on the supposition that I was going to be silent, 
 or prudentially dumb, I wished to remove that impres- 
 sion at once, for I intended to be positive, active, and en- 
 ergetic on all those subjects. In 1 847-48-49 I had become 
 well known. My anti-slavery sentiments began to be 
 well known in New York. Upon the establishment of 
 The Independent I was invited by Mr. Bowen to furnish 
 * Star Papers ' for the paper, and in those I avowed such 
 anti-slavery sentiments as made it a little uncertain 
 whether the three adjunct editors of the paper Dr. 
 Leonard Bacon, Dr. Richard S. Storrs, and Dr. Joseph 
 Thompson, of the Broadway Tabernacle could sustain 
 me. It was a time of very great caution and prudence, 
 but I stuck right at it." 
 
 He continued : 
 
 " In 1 850, when the controversy came up about Clay's 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 131 
 
 Omnibus Bill, including the Fugitive Slave Laws, I was 
 thoroughly roused, and in the pulpit and with my pen I 
 attacked with the utmost earnestness the infamous Fugi- 
 tive Slave Bill. It was then that I wrote that article, 
 ' Shall we Compromise ? ' If anyone will compare that 
 article with Mr. Seward's subsequent speech he will find 
 that it was reducing to a mere minimum the article on 
 * Shall we Compromise ? ' This article was read to John 
 C. Calhoun on his sick-bed by his clerk, and he raised 
 himself up and said : ' Read that article again.' The 
 article was read. ' The man who says that is right. 
 Slavery has got to go to the wall. There is no alterna- 
 tive. It is liberty or slavery/ And then, when Webster 
 made his fatal apostasy on March 7, 1850, I joined with 
 all Northern men of any freedom-loving spirit in de- 
 nouncing it and in denouncing him. Forthwith, after a 
 paralysis of a few weeks, his friends determined to save 
 him by getting all the old clergymen such men as Dr. 
 Spring, Dr. Lord, of Dartmouth, and the Andover Pro- 
 fessors. The effort was to get every great and influen- 
 tial man in the North to stand up for Webster, and then 
 it was that I flamed. They failed utterly. Professor 
 Woolsey, of New Haven, Dr. Bacon, President of the 
 Williamstown College in Massachusetts, and various 
 other most influential men absolutely refused to sustain 
 Webster." 
 
 Public installation services occurred 'on Thursday 
 
132 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 evening, November 11, 1847, whieh were conducted as 
 follows : 
 
 kk Irivocatiori and Reading of the Scriptures," by Rev. 
 Dr. Heman Humphrey, of Pittsfield, Mass. 
 
 " Sermon," by Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher, of Boston, 
 Mass. 
 
 " Installing Prayer," by the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Hewit, 
 of Bridgeport, Conn. 
 
 " Charge to the Pastor," by Rev. D. C. Lansing, of 
 New York. 
 
 " The Fellowship of the Churches," by Rev. Richard 
 S. Storrs, Jr., of Brooklyn. 
 
 " Address to the People," by Rev. Joseph P. Thomp- 
 son, of New York. 
 
 " Concluding Prayer," by Rev. Dr. Horace Bushnell, 
 of Hartford, Conn. 
 
 "Thus was Plymouth Church founded," says Mr. 
 Thompson, " and thus began a ministry which, by ear- 
 nest and continued inculcation of sound common-sense 
 doctrine, promulgation of tolerant principles, and advance- 
 ment of liberal views, was eventually destined to partially 
 liberalize the tenets of the entire Christian world." 
 
 On the first day of June, 1848, the success of the new 
 enterprise being insured, and its organization being com- 
 plete, the property was duly conveyed by the owners to 
 the society of Plymouth Church for its actual cost, with 
 accrued interest to date. 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 133 
 
 In the fall of this year, Mr. Beecher scored " one of 
 his most memorable evenings " (to quote his own words). 
 It was at a meeting at the Broadway Tabernacle, in New 
 York City, convened for the purpose of raising by sub- 
 scription $2,000 for the redemption of two slave-girls, 
 the Edmondston sisters. After several addresses only 
 $600 was raised, and Mr. Beecher again took the plat- 
 form, and by his inspiring eloquence and personal appeals 
 to his friends in the vast assemblage, he succeeded in 
 eliciting subscriptions in sums varying from $25 to $100, 
 until the desired amount had been obtained. 
 
 Alluding to the Edmondston case, Mr. Beecher ob- 
 served to a friend : 
 
 " Going home one day, I saw an old negro sitting on 
 my outside stone steps. I asked him what he wanted. 
 He said he wanted to see Mr. Beecher. I asked him 
 into the house, and then he told me that his two daugh- 
 ters had been sold to the slave-pen to be carried to New 
 Orleans. They were very beautiful girls, and their destiny 
 was very apparent. He had gone all around among the 
 Methodists, I think, to whom he belonged, and he got 
 sympathy, but no succor ; so he called to see if I could 
 not do something for him. A meeting was called in the 
 Broadway Tabernacle. I agreed to be there and make a 
 speech. I think that of all the meetings that I have at- 
 tended in my life, for a panic of sympathy, I never saw 
 
 one that surpassed that. I have seen a great many in my 
 6* 
 
134 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 day. An amount of money was subscribed, and they 
 were bought and set free. The mother was a very old 
 woman. She had been the nurse of a great Richmond 
 lawyer whose name has died out of my memory. He 
 owed his conversion to her. He was famous in the days 
 of Webster." 
 
 Mr. Beecher's ministrations proved as attractive as ex- 
 pected, and Plymouth Church rapidly increased its mem- 
 bership and following, slowly at first, it is true, but surely. 
 A blessing in disguise was the destruction by fire of the 
 original church buildings in January, 1849, as it enabled 
 the society to rebuild on a larger scale, and with a front 
 on Orange Street instead of Cranberry Street. Mr. 
 Thompson states, in his interesting little volume, " a com- 
 mittee was appointed to devise the necessary plans, and 
 Mr. Sherman Day, chairman of the committee, drew up 
 a rough design which received the approbation of the 
 pastor. The projected building was to be 105 feet in 
 length, 80 feet in width, and 43 feet in height (floor to 
 ceiling) ; with a rear addition, two stories in height and 
 50 feet by 80 feet ; the entire structure to be divided 
 into eleven rooms, namely : an auditorium with seats for 
 2,050 persons (exclusive of aisle or wall chairs), 76 feet 
 by 92 feet ; a lecture-room 48 feet by 5 1 feet ; a Sab- 
 bath-school room 24 feet by 64 feet ; four rooms for 
 Bible and infant classes, each 10 feet by 16 feet ; two 
 social circle parlors, each 24 feet by 32 feet ; a recep- 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 135 
 
 tion parlor and a pastor's study, each 14 feet by 32 
 feet. 
 
 Mr. J. C. Wells, an English church architect, reduced 
 Mr. Day's plan to exact proportions, the society adopted 
 it, and May 29, 1849, was the day appointed for laying 
 the corner-stone. 
 
 In description of this interesting ceremony, quotations 
 from the Brooklyn Daily Advertiser of May 30, 1849, 
 are cited : 
 
 " The day was dark, gloomy, wet anything but pro- 
 pitious causing a serious disappointment to many who 
 had anticipated uniting in the exercises of the occasion. 
 Notwithstanding that the rain came down in copious quan- 
 tities, there were several hundred persons assembled, and 
 the services were performed in a highly interesting and 
 devout manner. The services were commenced with the 
 reading of a hymn by Rev. J. M. Sprague, and singing 
 by the choir of the church and the congregation assem- 
 bled. Rev. Dr. Cheever followed by reading a very 
 beautiful and appropriate selection from the Scriptures. 
 Prayer, by Rev. J. P. Thompson, of Broadway Taber- 
 nacle. A very eloquent, brief, and impressive address 
 was made by Rev. Mr. Storrs, of Pilgrim Church. His 
 allusion to the origin of the church, the struggles of the 
 Pilgrim fathers, the doctrines and principles which they 
 inculcated, the sacredness and nobleness of the object 
 which had called them together, the influence which this 
 
136 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 church must exert in all departments of life, the great 
 civil and religious blessings we enjoy, both as individuals 
 and as a nation, were themes which the reverend gentle- 
 man blended into a highly religious, dignified, and inter- 
 esting address. 
 
 " The Rev. J. L. Hodge enumerated a list of the vari- 
 ous religious and secular papers enclosed in the box in- 
 tended to be placed beneath the initial pillar of the foun- 
 dation. 
 
 " The Rev. Dr. Lansing then stated that he had been 
 intrusted by the committee to lay the corner-stone of the 
 church. The reverend doctor remarked that everyone 
 knew the excitability of his temperament, and how gen- 
 erally he was disposed to enlarge and amplify on occa- 
 sions like the present. He said he had therefore reduced 
 his address to writing. He then read the address, which 
 was listened to with great attention. 
 
 " Rev. Mr. Thompson followed with a few remarks, 
 alluding to the much-regretted absence of the Rev. Dr. 
 Cox, now in Boston, who was expected to have been 
 present on the occasion. 
 
 " The services were concluded with singing the doxol- 
 ogy, ' Praise God,' etc., by the audience, in the tune of 
 Old Hundred ; and a benediction by Rev. Mr. Sprague." 
 
 The builders of the church were Solomon Conklin, 
 mason ; Tappan Reeve, carpenter ; J. C. Wells, architect. 
 The sum of $31,489 was subscribed in amounts varying 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 137 
 
 from $2 to $2,500 (total number of subscribers, 324) tow- 
 ard the cost of the new edifice, and $31,127 was collected 
 upon seven per cent, scrip, bearing interest payable in pew- 
 rents, only, the principal payable from the surplus reve- 
 nue of the church. The lecture-room and Sabbath-school 
 room were provided for by donations to the amount of 
 $10,800, and were furnished partly by the proceeds 
 realized by Sunday-school festivals and partly by the 
 pew-rent income of the Society. Their cost was about 
 $13,000, and that of the church about $36,000. 
 
 While the buildings were in course of erection, the 
 Society were cordially invited by many of the neighbor- 
 ing Societies to use their respective edifices for worship, 
 and for about two months these invitations were thank- 
 fully accepted. Their evening services were regularly 
 held in the Church of the Pilgrims. In March, 1849, 
 Mr. Beecher experienced a serious attack of illness, 
 which confined him to his house for two months, and 
 incapacitated him from preaching until the ensuing Sep- 
 tember. 
 
 In the meantime a Tabernacle, 100 feet in length and 
 80 feet in width, had been erected at an expense of 
 $2,800, on land (munificently tendered free of rent by 
 Lewis Tappan) on Pierrepont Street, and the churchless 
 congregation occupied this temporary building until the 
 first Sabbath in January, 1850, when they removed to 
 their completed church on Orange Street. The Taber- 
 
138 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 nacle was sold to Mr. A. G. Benson for $1,300, which 
 amount, together with Sabbath collections and pew- 
 rents, fully covered its cost and all attendant expenses. 
 On completion of the church buildings, the entire prop- 
 erty was mortgaged for $16,000, partly to pay off the 
 original mortgage ($10,500), and partly to liquidate the 
 floating debt. 
 
 The opening services occurred on the first Sunday in 
 January, 1850. 
 
 The system of renting pews annually to the highest 
 bidder was then adopted, and thus all members and reg- 
 ular attendants were enabled to secure seats according to 
 their respective means. The pastor's salary was, by 
 common consent, increased to $3,500 per annum. He 
 had originally been engaged on a salary of $1,500 (an 
 increase of $700 over his stipend when in Indianapolis) 
 for the first year, $1,750 for the second year, and $2,000 
 for the third year and succeeding years ; and David Hale 
 and Henry C. Bowen had voluntarily guaranteed per- 
 sonally the payment of his salary for the first three 
 years. In two years and six months the Congregational 
 Church, with only twenty-one original members, which 
 many had prophesied would come to naught, had in- 
 creased notwithstanding its trial by fire, its subsequent 
 migratory life, and the long-continued ill-health of its 
 pastor to a membership of three hundred and forty- 
 three, sixteen of which number, however, had been lost 
 
HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 139 
 
 by death and removals, thereby leaving a real existing 
 membership of three hundred and twenty-seven. 
 
 Mr. Beecher was still suffering from the effects of his 
 late illness, and a leave of absence from June to Septem- 
 ber (1850) was cheerfully granted to enable him to rest 
 from his labors, visit Europe, and, if possible, recuperate 
 his delicate health. 
 
 At the time of Mr. Beecher's death, Plymouth Church 
 had very nearly two thousand five hundred members, 
 more than one hundred times the number that formed 
 the original society. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 
 
 Back from His Health Trip to Europe. Plymouth Church and Beecher 
 become Synonymous. The Leading Abolitionist. Webster's Atti- 
 tude in Regard to the Fugitive Slave Bill. Mr. Beecher' s Excoria- 
 tion. Black List of the Union Safety Committee. He Personally 
 beseeches Merchants to stand Firm by Their Principles. How he 
 helped Mr. Bowen. His Declaration cf Principles. The Fremont 
 Campaign. Wendell Phillips sheltered by Plymouth Church. The 
 Kansas Excitement. Hostile Declarations from a Mob. John 
 Brown's Insurrection. Beecher's Address. John Brown's Chains 
 rattled in the Tabernacle. Few Reporters able to follow Beecher. 
 "Cross Fulton Ferry and follow the Crowd." Rose Ward. Rose 
 Terry's Contribution. Sarah is Redeemed. Continuing the Anti- 
 Slavery Crusade. 
 
 MR. BEECHER returned from his brief trip to Europe 
 much improved in health, and entered upon his ministra- 
 tions in the new edifice on its completion, and thence- 
 forth his name and that of the edifice became household 
 and synonymous terms. 
 
 Mr. Beecher led all the Abolitionists in his opposition 
 to the Fugitive Slave Law, and he became one of the 
 most prominent of the directors of the Underground 
 Railroad Company. His congregation were nearly all 
 stockholders of the line, and the church has been called 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. i4l 
 
 its Grand Central,Depot. The deviation from the estab- 
 lished rules of Gospel preaching, and the opening of the 
 pulpit to political discussions, caused much excited de- 
 nunciation in orthodox circles. The pluck of the Ply- 
 mouth pastor in those times of excitement was unques- 
 tioned. After Daniel Webster had delivered his famous 
 speech in favor of Mason's Fugitive Slave Bill, and signi- 
 fied his intention to vote for it, Mr. Beecher, in his pul- 
 pit in Plymouth Church, declared that the " Law of God 
 was higher than all other laws, Government or State, 
 constitutional or unconstitutional, and must first be 
 obeyed." He said from his pulpit : 
 
 " The worst spectacle which this country now presents 
 is not, I think, the governmental or political corruptions, 
 though these are enormous ; but it is that of a religious 
 body, like the one in New York, utterly refusing to open 
 its mouth against the blackest iniquity of the age. 
 
 " And for what, in the name of Heaven ? What reason 
 do they give for this strange silence ? Why, because, if 
 it does speak against sin, it will not be allowed to preach 
 the Gospel. If every sin were as powerful as is this sin 
 of slavery, what would these preachers of the Gospel do ? 
 Keep silence in regard to them all, of course ; for, accord- 
 ing to their views, only the smaller and least powerful 
 sins can be safely hit. That ponderous body can bom- 
 bard men bravely for using tobacco, but it can't say one 
 word against selling men and women to raise it. It can 
 
142 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 spend itself and exert its tremendous machinery against 
 the awful sin of the dancing of young men and maidens, 
 but can't utter a word when maidens are sold to prosti- 
 tution, and young men are driven off, in chain-gangs, to 
 the rice swamps of Georgia. 
 
 " The use I make of such men, is to point the young 
 men to them and say : ' These are men whom you 
 must shun to resemble.' The worst stamp of Pharisee- 
 ism was not in our Saviour's day. It has, after years of 
 monstrous growth, exhibited itself in the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 " Our citizens have been lynched for the suspicion of 
 holding free sentiments ; letters and papers have been re- 
 fused a channel in the national mail ; it has been freely 
 said, and it was no vain threat, that a lamp-post or tree 
 should be that man's rostrum who dared to own abolition- 
 ism in Southern territory ; free colored citizens have been 
 kidnapped, carried into hopeless slavery from our midst ; 
 our ships and boats could not carry colored cooks, stew- 
 ards, or sailors, without having their service withheld 
 from them ; our whole free colored population are denied 
 the right of travel and residence in slave States, which 
 the Constitution guarantees to all citizens ; they are ar- 
 rested if found, and sold, if proved free, to pay jail fees. 
 
 " Man cannot plant parchments as deep as God plants 
 principles. The Senate of the United States is august ; 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 143 
 
 and such men as lead her counsels are men of might. 
 But no man, and no senate of men, when once the eyes 
 of a community are open to a question of humanity, can 
 reason or enact them back again to a state of indifference, 
 and still less can they enlist them along with the remorse- 
 less hunters of human flesh. 
 
 " We solemnly appeal to Christians of every name, to 
 all sober and humane men, unwrenched by party feelings, 
 to all that love man, to behold and ponder this iniquity 
 which is done among us ! Shall an army of wretched 
 victims, without a crime, unconvicted of wrong, pursuing 
 honest occupations, be sent back to a loathed and detest- 
 able slavery ? Here is no abstract question. We ask 
 you, shall men now free, shall members of the church, 
 shall children from the school, shall even ministers of the 
 Gospel, be seized, ironed, and in two hours be on the 
 road to a servitude to them worse than death ? 
 
 " For our own selves, we do not hesitate to say, what 
 every man who has a spark of manhood in him will say 
 with us, that no force should bring us into such horrible 
 bondage. Before we would yield ourselves to go away 
 to linger and long for death through burning years of in- 
 justice, we would die a thousand deaths. Every house 
 should be our fortress ; and when fortress and refuge 
 failed us, then our pursuers should release our souls to 
 the hands of God who gave them, before they should 
 
144 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 degrade them by a living slavery ! Who shall deny these 
 feelings and such refuge to a black man ? 
 
 " With such solemn convictions, no law, impious, infi- 
 del to God and humanity, shall have respect or observ- 
 ance at our hands. We desire no collision with it. We 
 shall not rashly dash upon it. We shall not attempt a 
 rescue, nor interrupt officers, if they do not interrupt us. 
 We prefer to labor peaceably for its early repeal, mean- 
 while saving from its merciless jaws as many victims as 
 we can. But in those provisions which respect aid to 
 fugitives, may God do so to us, yea, and more also, if we 
 do not spurn it as we would any other mandate of Satan. 
 
 " I will both shelter them, conceal them, or speed their 
 flight ; and while under my shelter, or under my convoy, 
 they shall be to me as my own flesh and blood ; and 
 whatever defence I would put forth for my own children, 
 that shall these poor, despised, and persecuted creatures 
 havejn my house or upon the road. The man who shall 
 betray a fellow-creature to bondage, who shall obey this 
 law to the peril of his soul, and to the loss of his manhood, 
 were he brother, son, or father, shall never pollute my 
 hand with the grasp of hideous friendship ; or cast his 
 swarthy shadow across my threshold ! For such service 
 to those whose helplessness and poverty make them pe- 
 culiarly God's children, I shall cheerfully take the pains 
 and penalties of this bill. Bonds and fines shall be hon- 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 145 
 
 ors ; imprisonment and suffering will be passports to fame 
 not long to linger ! " 
 
 It was about the time Mr. Beecher first began to de- 
 liver set lectures out of town for $50 and his expenses 
 that Charles Sumner was struck down in the Senate 
 Chamber by Brooks, of South Carolina. The entire 
 North was fired with indignation, and the solid mer- 
 chants of New York thought that was going too far. A 
 mass meeting of protest was called in the Tabernacle, and 
 in order to make it significant no one was invited to speak 
 who had ever countenanced the anti-slavery movement. 
 It was entirely in the hands of conservatives. The chief 
 speakers, resolution-readers, and fuglemen were Daniel D. 
 Lord, John Van Buren, and William M. Evarts. The 
 Tabernacle, which was so frequently in those days his 
 rostrum, was packed with an earnest, enthusiastic audi- 
 ence, which, in point of numbers and respectability, cult- 
 ure and influence, has rarely been surpassed. For some 
 reason Mr. Beecher, who had been advertised to lecture 
 in Philadelphia that evening, was in the city. He had 
 dined with his friend Mr. John T. Howard, and together 
 they went to the Tabernacle to hear the speaking. As 
 the meeting was about to be closed someone in the audi- 
 ence called out " Beecher." The people took up the cry, 
 and " Beecher, Beecher ! " resounded through the church. 
 Mr. Evarts, evidently annoyed, advanced to the front of 
 the platform and said : " The programme of the even- 
 
146 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ing is concluded, and the meeting will adjourn. [A voice 
 " Beecher ! "] Mr. Beecher, I am told, is lecturing in 
 Philadelphia this evening." " No, he isn't," called out one 
 of the reporters ; " there he is behind the pillar." The 
 greater part of the audience had risen and prepared to 
 leave. Beecher was recognized and half led, half forced, 
 to the platform, from which Mr. Evarts and his friends 
 precipitately retired. John Van Buren, with the instinct 
 of a gentleman, advanced, took Mr. Beecher by the hand, 
 and led him to the speaker's place. The audience re- 
 seated themselves, but for fully five minutes the house 
 was in an uproar of enthusiastic greeting. With a wave 
 of his hand Mr. Beecher secured silence and attention. 
 For an hour he delivered the speech of his life. Every 
 eye glistened. Such applause was never given before. 
 The occasion was an inspiration. The opportunity was 
 one he had never had before. But it is doubtful that he 
 thought of either one or the other. He had the scene in 
 the Senate Chamber in his eye. It was the culminating 
 outrage in a series of horrors. He felt it. He foresaw 
 its end. He made that audience feel what he felt and see 
 what he saw, and when he closed he glowed like a fur- 
 nace, while the people cheered with their throats full of 
 tears. Such scenes occur once in a lifetime. The next 
 day's papers reported Beecher verbatim, and gave the 
 others what they could find space for. 
 
 Mr. Beecher was aroused to a state of great indignation 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 147 
 
 by the threat at a meeting of the so-called Union Safety 
 Committee, held at Castle Garden, in 1856, that the 
 merchants of New York would be financially ruined by 
 those who refused to sell their principles with their wares. 
 He addressed the merchants from his pulpit and urged 
 them to maintain their principles and the honor of the 
 country ; and he personally called on the more promi- 
 nent and discussed the subject with them. 
 
 Speaking to a friend of his course in regard to the 
 " black list," Mr. Beecher said : 
 
 " It was about this time that the black list was made 
 in that Castle Garden Union Safety Committee, and 
 connected with that was a black list that was gotten up 
 of all the merchants that were anti-slavery. It was 
 to be sent all over the South to destroy their custom. 
 Mr. Bowen was, of course, included in that black list, and 
 threatened with the loss of all his Southern custom. He 
 came to me and asked me if I would not write a card for 
 him, and I undertook to do it, but my head not running 
 very clear, the only thing I got at after making three or 
 four different attempts was, ' My goods are for sale, but 
 not my principles,' but I could not lick it into shape, and 
 I gave the paper to him and said, 'You must fix it to 
 suit yourself.' He took it to Hiram Barney, and he 
 drew up the card in the shape in which it appeared, in- 
 cluding that sentence, which was the snap of the whole 
 thing." 
 
148 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Mr. Beecher always made it a practice now to discuss 
 national affairs in his Sunday evening discourses, and 
 in announcing the annual sale of pews he was in the 
 habit " of clearly and unmistakably expressing his views 
 upon slavery and other practical reforms of the day, for 
 the especial purpose of forewarning all those who con- 
 templated renting sittings for the ensuing year of the 
 general tenor of his preaching, and the application he 
 should make of it to the great issues of the time, so that 
 none could have reasonable grounds for complaint or dis- 
 satisfaction with his course." 
 
 He said on one of these occasions : 
 
 " The infidelity of the last twenty-five years has been 
 that which has sought to emasculate religion by separat- 
 ing it from practical life and lifting it so far above every- 
 body's daily and familiar use that they might as well be 
 without it. The pretence is, that religion is too sacred 
 to be rendered useful in common matters. Over church 
 doors men write : * Religion is religion ; ' and over store 
 doors : ' Business is business.' And the Church says to 
 business : * Don't you come in here ; J and the store says 
 to religion : * Don't you come in here / ' 
 
 " Man rejects the interference of the higher law in his 
 business as impertinence. But when Sunday comes, he 
 says, * We've had enough of business all the week ; now 
 let us have the blessed Gospel.' 
 
 " And the minister confines himself to * Christ and Him 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 149 
 
 crucified.' He mustn't mention love to God and man 
 shown in business transactions, for he must preach the 
 Gospel ; he mustn't exhort to temperance, for he must 
 preach the Gospel ; he mustn't preach of justice, purity, 
 and humanity, for he must preach the Gospel. 
 
 " Why, if men catch ' the higher law ' on 'change, or 
 in the street, they hoot at it, they cha"se it, they hit it, 
 and drive it from among them, crying out : ' Here is the 
 higher law escaped out of church, and out of Sunday.' " 
 
 Speaking of this exciting period, Mr. Beecher remarked 
 to a friend : 
 
 "This takes down to 1853. Then came the bolt of 
 the elder Van Buren and the Buffalo meeting and plat- 
 form, which was anti-slavery, and that was really the 
 originating cause of the Republican Party. The mate- 
 rials were beginning to coalesce which constituted the 
 Republican movement, and in 1856 Fremont was nom- 
 inated as against Buchanan. Well, of course we felt all 
 aflame. My church voted me all the time that I thought 
 to be required to go out into the community and speak 
 and canvass the State of New York. I went into that 
 canvass, spoke twice and three times, sometimes, a week, 
 having the whole day to myself ; that is, making all the 
 speeches that were made. I was sent principally to what 
 we called the Silver Gray districts or counties the old- 
 time Whigs that were attempting to run a candidate be- 
 tween Fremont and Buchanan. I generally made a three 
 
150 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 hours' speech a day in the open air to audiences of from 
 eight thousand to ten thousand people. I felt at that 
 time that it was very likely that I should sacrifice my 
 life, or my voice, at any rate, but I was willing to lay 
 down either or both of them for that cause." 
 
 " During the succeeding years of agitation," says Mr. 
 Thompson, " Plymouth Church was one of the few tem- 
 ples of free thought, opinion, and speech in this land of 
 boasted liberty. So bitter was the hate for Abolitionists, 
 that at one time it was impossible to obtain a hall in 
 New York or Brooklyn wherein Wendell Phillips might 
 speak. Mr. Beecher, becoming cognizant of the fact, 
 immediately visited the trustees of Plymouth Church in 
 person, and procured permission for Mr. Phillips to speak 
 in the church not because he was a believer in all the 
 doctrine advanced by the great agitator, but because he 
 was a believer in Free Speech. As disturbances were not 
 only anticipated but threatened, the trustees, in accord- 
 ance with a request of the pastor, attended the meeting 
 armed with heavy canes, and the city authorities, in com- 
 pliance with a demand, furnished a police force. Hap- 
 pily, however, there was no trouble. 
 
 " Throughout the Kansas settlement struggle the right 
 of every 'Free State' settler to defend himself and his 
 rights, with arms if necessary, from the incursions and 
 aggressions of the ' Border Ruffians,' was vindicated from 
 Plymouth pulpit. The pastor himself subscribed a suf- 
 
IN THE ANTI SLAVERY CRUSADE. I$I 
 
 ficient amount for the purchase of a Sharp's rifle and a 
 Bible, and the congregation expressed its hearty concur- 
 rence by a liberal subscription to aid in supplying all set- 
 tlers with those commodities. 
 
 " The hate of the lower and more ignorant classes of 
 New York City for Plymouth Church and its pastor was 
 intense; and one Sunday morning (June 8th) in 1856 
 the New York journals announced that a gang of roughs 
 from Washington Market intended visiting Brooklyn 
 that evening, for the especial purpose of ' cleaning out 
 the d d Abolition nest at Plymouth Church,' and for- 
 ever dispensing with the services of 'Beecher.' This 
 startling intelligence naturally caused considerable excite- 
 ment among the Plymouthites, and they determined to 
 prepare for emergencies. The mayor and the chief of 
 police were immediately notified of the threatened raid, 
 and a large police force was ordered to report, in citizen's 
 attire, at the church that evening. In addition to this, 
 some fifty gentlemen, regular attendants, among whom 
 were some of the trustees, also armed themselves with 
 revolvers before going to evening services. Shortly be- 
 fore the church doors were thrown open that night crowds 
 of roughs congregated on the neighboring corners, but 
 offered no remark or violence to anyone, and when the 
 church was opened many of them entered and quietly 
 seated themselves. Either there had been no intention 
 to create any disturbance, or they had in some way 
 
152 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 learned of the reception awaiting them and wisely con- 
 cluded to give up or postpone their intended demonstra- 
 tion ; for they soon passed into the street again, and, 
 after muttering curses upon all ' Abolitionists and nigger- 
 worshippers,' formed in procession and returned to New 
 York. During the services, while each one of the im- 
 mense crowd was nervously watching and waiting for a 
 something they knew not what, and at a moment when 
 the entire audience were held in breathless silence by the 
 eloquence of the pastor, some object hurled from without 
 struck a pane of glass in the rear window, on the east 
 side of the pulpit, and broke it ; a bullet dropped upon 
 the window-sill, probably by some mischievous boy, and 
 for a moment there was a commotion among the people 
 near the window, then all was again quiet. The services 
 were not otherwise disturbed, and no more invasions were 
 thereafter threatened." 
 
 In 1859 occurred the unlawful invasion of a Slave 
 State for the avowed purpose of liberating its slaves, by 
 John Brown and his associates an attempt, though 
 really insignificant from a numerical point of view, which 
 aroused and imbittered the entire South against the 
 North, for pro-slavery men thereupon naturally con- 
 cluded that Brown was secretly encouraged and abetted 
 by the Abolitionists of the North. The erroneousnessof 
 this conclusion was clearly demonstrated in a sermon en- 
 titled " The Nation's Duty to Slavery," in which Brown's 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 1 53 
 
 entire career was reviewed, and from which some extracts 
 are here presented : 
 
 " An old man, kind at heart, industrious, peaceful, 
 went forth, with a large family of children, to seek a new 
 home in Kansas. That infant colony held thousands of 
 souls as noble as ever liberty inspired or religion enriched. 
 A great scowling Slave State, its nearest neighbor, sought 
 to tread down the liberty-loving colony, and to dragoon 
 slavery into it by force of arms. The armed citizens of 
 a hostile State crossed the State lines, destroyed the 
 freedom of the ballot-box, prevented a fair expression of 
 public sentiment, corruptly usurped law-making power, 
 and ordained by fraud laws as infamous as the sun ever 
 saw ; assaulted its infant settlements with armed hordes, 
 ravaged the fields, destroyed harvests and herds, and 
 carried death to a multitude of cabins. The United 
 States Government had no marines for this occasion ! 
 No Federal troops posted by the cars by night and day 
 for the poor, the weak, the grossly wronged men of Kan- 
 sas. There was an army there that unfurled the ban- 
 ner of the Union, but it was on the side of the wrong- 
 doers, not on the side of the injured. 
 
 " It was in this field that Brown received his impulses. 
 A tender father, whose life was in his son's life, he saw 
 his first-born seized like a felon, chained, driven across 
 the country, crazed by suffering and heat, beaten like a 
 dog by the officer in charge, and long lying at death's 
 
154 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 door ! Another noble boy, without warning, without of- 
 fence, unarmed, in open day, in the midst of the city, was 
 shot dead ! No justice sought out the murderers ; no 
 United States attorney was despatched in hot haste ; no 
 marines or soldiers aided the wronged or weak ! 
 
 " The shot that struck the child's heart crazed the fa- 
 ther's brain. Revolving his wrongs, and nursing his hatred 
 to that deadly system that breeds such contempt of justice 
 and humanity, at length his phantoms assume a slender 
 reality, and organize such an enterprise as one might ex- 
 pect from a man whom grief had bereft of judgment. 
 He goes to the heart of a Slave State. One man and 
 with sixteen followers, he seizes two thousand brave 
 Virginians, and holds them in duress ! 
 
 " When a great State attacked a handful of weak colo- 
 nists, the Government and nation were torpid, but when 
 seventeen men attack a sovereign State, then Maryland 
 arms, and Virginia arms, and the United States Govern- 
 ment arms, and they three rush against seventeen men. 
 
 " Travellers tell us that the Geysers of Iceland those 
 irregular boiling springs of the north may be trans- 
 ported with fury by plucking up a handful of grass or 
 turf and throwing it into the springs. The hot springs 
 of Virginia are of the same kind ! A handful of men 
 was thrown into them, and what a boiling there has 
 been! 
 
 " But, meanwhile, no one can fail to see that this poor, 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 155 
 
 child-bereft old man is the manliest of them all. Bold, 
 unflinching, honest, without deceit or evasion, refusing 
 to take technical advantages of any sort, but openly 
 avowing his principles and motives, glorying in them in 
 danger and death, as much as when in security that 
 wounded old father is the most remarkable figure in 
 the whole drama. The Governor, the officers of the 
 State, and all the attorneys are pygmies compared with 
 him. 
 
 " I deplore his misfortunes. I sympathize with his 
 sorrows. I mourn the hiding or obscuration of his rea- 
 son. I disapprove of his mad and feeble schemes. I 
 shrink from the folly of the bloody foray, and I shrink 
 likewise from all anticipation of that judicial bloodshed 
 which doubtless erelong will follow ; for when was cow- 
 ardice ever magnanimous ? 
 
 " If they kill the man, it will not be so much for trea- 
 son as for the disclosure of their cowardice ! 
 
 " Let no man pray that Brown be spared. Let Vir- 
 ginia make him a martyr. Now, he has only blundered. 
 His soul was noble, his work miserable. But a cord and 
 a gibbet would redeem all that, and round up Brown's 
 failure with heroic success. 
 
 " Because it [slavery] is a great sin, because it is a 
 national curse, it does not follow that we have a right to 
 say anything or do anything about it that may happen 
 
I $6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 to please us. We certainly have no right to attack it in 
 any manner that may gratify men's fancies or passions. 
 It is computed that there are four million colored slaves 
 in our nation. These dwell in fifteen different South- 
 ern States, with a population of ten million whites. 
 These sovereign States are united to us not merely by 
 federal ligaments, but by vital interests, by a common 
 national life. And the question of duty is not simply 
 what is duty toward the blacks, not what is duty toward 
 the whites, but what is duty to each and to both united. 
 I am bound by the great law of love to consider my 
 duties toward the slave, and I am bound by the great 
 law of love also to consider my duties toward the white 
 man, who is his master ! Both are to be treated with 
 Christian wisdom and forbearance. . . . We must 
 keep in mind the interest of every part. . . . It is 
 harder to define what would be just in certain emergen- 
 cies than to establish the duty, claims, and authority of 
 justice. . . . We have no right to treat the citizens 
 of the South with acrimony or bitterness, because they 
 are involved in a system of wrong-doing. Wrong is to 
 be exposed. But the spirit of rebuke may be as wicked 
 before God as the spirit of the evil rebuked. ... If 
 we hope to ameliorate the condition of the slave, the 
 first step must not be taken by setting the master against 
 him. . . . 
 
 " The breeding of discontent among the bondmen of 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 157 
 
 our land is not the way to help them. Whatever gloomy 
 thoughts the slave's own mind may brood, we are not to 
 carry disquiet to him from without. . . . The evil 
 is not partial. It cannot be cured by partial remedies. 
 Our plans must include a universal change in policy, 
 feeling, purpose, theory, and practice in the whole na- 
 tion. 
 
 " No relief will be afforded to the slaves of the South, 
 as a body, by any individual ; or by any organized plan 
 to carry them off, or to incite them to abscond. . . . 
 
 " We have no right to carry into the midst of slavery 
 exterior discontent. . . . It is short-sighted human- 
 ity, at best, and poor policy for both blacks and whites. 
 
 " Still less would we tolerate anything like insurrec- 
 tion and servile war. It would be the most cruel, hope- 
 less, and desperate of all conceivable follies to seek eman- 
 cipation by the sword and by blood." . 
 
 Mr. Beecher created a great sensation by an address 
 he delivered at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York 
 City. The chains that had bound John Brown in his 
 captivity were placed on the desk before him, and in- 
 spired him to one of his most eloquent and thrilling ap- 
 peals in behalf of human liberty. In the frenzy of his 
 eloquence he seized the clanking irons and hurled them 
 to the floor, and stamped upon them, and awakened a 
 sentiment in his vast audience that filled the place in 
 
158 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 every part, that was lasting, and which took flight across 
 the whole anti-slavery section of the country. 
 
 Fragmentary reports of Mr. Beecher's sermons ap- 
 peared in the daily papers, but in his flights of eloquence 
 the average reporter could not follow him, and often he 
 was misrepresented or garbled to an exasperating degree. 
 Mr. T. J. Ellinwood, a stenographer who was found to 
 be able to follow him, was accommodated with a desk, 
 and thenceforth until his death always reported him. 
 
 The popularity of the church was now so well estab- 
 lished throughout the land that crowds crossed the ferry 
 from New York to attend. The usual answer given to 
 strangers in New York, inquiring the way to Beecher's 
 church on Sunday morning, was : " Cross Fulton Ferry 
 and follow the crowd." Standing room was always at a 
 premium, and scarcely a Sabbath passed when hundreds 
 were not turned away for want of even standing room. 
 
 Rev. Bishop Faulkner invoked Mr. Beecher's aid in 
 raising the sum of $900 to purchase an intelligent-look- 
 ing mulatto girl, about ten years of age, whom he brought 
 from Washington, D. C., with him, with the owner's per- 
 mission to make the sale. On Sunday, February 5, 
 1860, she accompanied Mr. Beecher to church, and was 
 placed by his side in the pulpit. Mr. Beecher presented 
 her to the congregation, stated the facts of the case, and 
 asked for a contribution sufficient to effect her purchase. 
 Among the audience was a lady named Rose Terry, who, 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. l6l 
 
 when the contribution-box was passed to her, drew a 
 ring from her finger and dropped it in ; the pastor placed 
 this ring upon one of the slave-girl's fingers, and, telling 
 her it was her freedom ring, named her Rose Ward, after 
 the donor of the ring and himself. The amount contrib- 
 uted that morning, together with a collection taken up 
 in Sunday-school that afternoon, was $1,000. 
 
 A similar instance of the sympathy and generosity of 
 the Plymouth congregation occurred on Sunday, June I, 
 1 86 1. A young slave woman, twenty years of age, 
 named Sarah, having been informed by her owner that 
 if she could raise $800 among her abolition friends he 
 would accept of it and free her, had made the fact 
 known to several anti-slavery men in Washington. They 
 pledged her owner either her safe return or the required 
 sum, and he allowed them to take her to the North. A 
 few days after her arrival in New York she was taken to 
 Mr. Beecher, and on the following Sabbath morning was 
 escorted to his pulpit in Brooklyn. She was a woman 
 of commanding presence, rounded features, and winning 
 face and long, jet-black hair, and of course, under the cir- 
 cumstances, attracted most eager attention and interest 
 from the large and wealthy congregation assembled. 
 She was requested to unloosen her hair, and as she did 
 so it fell in glistening waves over her shoulders and be- 
 low her waist. Robed in spotless white, her face crim- 
 soned and form heaving under the excitement of the oc- 
 
I6"2 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 casion, she stood in that august presence a very Venus 
 in form and feature. For a moment Mr. Beecher re- 
 mained by her side without uttering a word, until the 
 audience was wrought up to a high pitch of curiosity 
 and excitement. And then in his impressive way he re- 
 lated her story and her mission. Before he concluded 
 his pathetic recital the vast audience was a sea of com- 
 motion. Tears ran down cheeks unused to the melting 
 mood, eager curiosity aud excitement pervaded the whole 
 congregation, and as the pastor announced that he 
 wanted $2,000 for the girl before him to redeem her 
 promise to pay for her freedom, costly jewellery and trin- 
 kets and notes and specie piled in in such rapid succession 
 that in less time than it takes to write this down enough 
 and much more was contributed than was necessary to 
 meet the call that had been made. 
 
 Since Mr. Beecher's death the sequel of the story has 
 been ascertained. Mrs. Angelina Harris says that she 
 has known the girl long and intimately. 
 
 " I was in Plymouth Church," said Mrs. Harris, " the 
 night Sarah was brought upon the platform and stood 
 beside Mr. Beecher. The church was packed full of peo- 
 ple. Sarah was then not more than twenty-two or twenty- 
 three years of age. She was tall and finely moulded, 
 and as white as any lady. Yes, before Mr. Beecher had 
 said a word the money began coming out of folks' pockets. 
 
 " After she was free, the ladies of the church wrote a 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 163 
 
 little book, in which a full account of her life was given. 
 With the money that was obtained from the sale of this 
 they bought a little place for her at Peekskill, where she 
 raised fowls and sold eggs and butter for a living. She 
 is living there still, I think, although I have not seen her 
 for many years, but is now an old woman. She is about 
 fifty years of age. Sarah was known as both Sarah 
 Scheffer and Sarah Churchman. I have heard her called 
 by both names. She never married. She was never tired 
 of talking about how good Mr. Beecher and his family 
 had been to her." 
 
 Mrs. Harris said that she had worked for some time with 
 Mrs. Scoville, Mr. Beecher's daughter, at Stamford, Conn. 
 
 When the booming of rebel cannon in Charleston Har- 
 bor resounded throughout the country, proving that the 
 threats of armed disunion had not been as was supposed 
 those of mere braggadocio, and that all predictions of 
 peaceful settlement of existing difficulties were but hope- 
 less dreams ; when many of the greatest minds of the 
 North almost staggered by the unexpected blow were 
 wavering in opinion whether to maintain the Union at 
 all hazards, or " let the wayward sisters go in peace " 
 then was the voice of Plymouth Church raised, Sunday, 
 April 14, 1861, fearlessly denouncing the actions of the 
 secessionists, and urging energetic and decisive measures 
 on the part of the Administration, crying : 
 
 " We must not stop to measure costs especially the 
 
1 64 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 costs of going forward on any basis so mean and 
 narrow as that of pecuniary prosperity. . . . There 
 are many reasons which make a good and thorough 
 battle necessary. The Southern men are infatuated. 
 They will not have peace. They are in arms. They 
 have fired upon the American flag. That glorious 
 banner has been borne through every climate, all 
 over the globe, and for fifty years not a land or people 
 has been found to scorn it or dishonor it. At home, 
 among the degenerate people of our own land, among 
 Southern citizens, for the first time, has this glorious 
 national flag been abused, and trampled to the ground. 
 It is for our sons reverently to lift it, and to bear 
 it full high again, to victory and national suprem- 
 acy! Our arms, in this peculiar exigency, can lay the 
 foundation of future union in mutual respect. The 
 South firmly believes that cowardice is the universal at- 
 tribute of Northern men ! Until they are most thor- 
 oughly convinced to the contrary, they will never cease 
 arrogancy and aggression. . . . Good soldiers, brave 
 men, hard fighting, will do more toward quiet than all 
 the compromises and empty, wagging tongues in the 
 world. Our reluctance to break peace, our unwilling- 
 ness to shed blood, our patience, have all been misin- 
 terpreted. The more we have been generous and for- 
 bearing, the more thoroughly were they sure that it was 
 because we dared not fight ! . . . 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 165 
 
 " We have no braggart courage ; we have no courage 
 that rushes into an affray for the love of righting. We have 
 that courage which comes from calm intelligence. We have 
 that courage which comes from broad moral sentiment. 
 
 " We have no anger, but we have indignation. We 
 have no irritable passion, but we have fixed will. . . . 
 
 "We must aim at a peace built on foundations so 
 solid, of God's immutable truth, that nothing can reach 
 to unsettle it. Let this conflict between liberty and slav- 
 ery never come up again. Better have it thoroughly 
 settled, though ft take a score of years to settle it, than 
 to have an intermittent fever for the next century, break- 
 ing out every five or ten years. . . . 
 
 " Let not our feelings be vengeful or savage. We can 
 go into this conflict with a spirit just as truly Christian 
 as any that ever inspired us in the performance of a 
 Christian duty. . . . 
 
 " Let no man, then, in this time of peril, fail to asso- 
 ciate himself with that cause, which is to be so entirely 
 glorious. . . . Let every man that lives and owns 
 himself an American take the side of true American 
 principles liberty for one, and liberty for all ; liberty 
 now, and liberty forever ; liberty as the foundation of 
 government,~and liberty as the basis of union ; liberty as 
 against revolution, liberty against anarchy, and liberty 
 against slavery ; liberty here, and liberty everywhere, the 
 world through ! " . . . 
 
166 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Mr. Beecher never failed to deliver a stirring address 
 or sermon on the terrible crime of human slavery when- 
 ever the occasion offered, until the initiation of the re- 
 bellion by the attack on Fort Sumter enlisted his sym- 
 pathies in behalf of the war for the Union, when he 
 devoted himself as enthusiastically to firing the Northern 
 heart and sending regiments to the front as he had to 
 the cause of the negro slave, whose cause he never forgot 
 to urge in claiming that the war was waged by the South 
 for the purpose of maintaining their " peculiar and vile 
 institution." 
 
 " Beecher developed from a local into a national char- 
 acter," says Thomas G. Shearman, " in the year 1850. 
 The slavery question was causing great excitement, and 
 Clay had proposed his compromise, while Calhoun, on 
 the part of the South, was strongly opposing all compro- 
 mise. So also was the Northern anti-slavery party, and 
 it was just at this time that Mr. Beecher became decid- 
 edly famous. The Journal of Commerce had published 
 an article threatening that the clergymen who meddled 
 with slavery would have their coats rolled in the dirt. 
 That aroused all the spirit that was in Beecher. He 
 challenged the editor of that paper to a debate in the 
 newspapers, which was carried on for some time, 
 Beecher writing in The Independent, which was at that 
 time edited by Dr. Storrs and Dr. Leonard Bacon. His 
 articles were so felicitous and effective that they attracted 
 
IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 167 
 
 universal attention, and John C. Calhoun had them read 
 to him while on his death-bed, and pronounced them 
 the ablest articles on the subject ever written, saying 
 repeatedly, * That man understands the subject. He has 
 the true idea.' Of course, he did not mean to approve 
 Beecher's views on slavery, but that he heartily approved 
 of his argument that it was impossible to compromise the 
 question. This occurrence was published soon afterward 
 in a very graphic manner by Calhoun's private secretary, 
 and it gave Beecher a really national reputation, making 
 him known as well in the South as he had been in the 
 North. 
 
 " When Mrs. Stowe's ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' was pub- 
 lished in 1852, Henry Ward Beecher had become so well 
 known that thousands of people in the country were 
 foolish enough to believe that he had written the book 
 for her. On the other hand, Mrs. Stowe's name became 
 so famous in England, that for many years, when the 
 English papers spoke of Mr. Beecher, they were accus- 
 tomed to mention him as Mr. Beecher Stowe. 
 
 "It was in 1856, when the slavery excitement was 
 more intense than ever, that the famous Sharp's rifle 
 scene took place. The people of Kansas had been left 
 to fight out the question of slavery among themselves. 
 The Missourians were naturally the first on the ground, 
 and brought their slaves with them, but a number of 
 colonies were organized in New England, Ohio, and the 
 
168 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 West, who, of course, were strongly opposed to slavery. 
 The Missouri emigrants regarded the Northern ones as 
 intruders, and, being accustomed to the use of arms, pro- 
 ceeded to drive them out. The Northern men there- 
 upon appealed to their friends to send them arms for 
 self-defence. A colony was being organized in Connecti- 
 cut, and a great meeting was held at New Haven to 
 raise subscriptions with the avowed purpose of providing 
 the colonists with rifles. Mr. Beecher was there, and 
 made a very stirring speech, insisting on the right of 
 Northern men to stand up in self defence. A subscrip- 
 tion being called for, the Senior Class of Yale College 
 announced that they would subscribe $50 to buy one 
 rifle. Henry Killam, a carriage manufacturer, gave his 
 name as a subscriber for another rifle. It was then that 
 Mr. Beecher said, ' Killam ! That's a significant name,' 
 a remark which brought out great laughter and applause, 
 and which was the origin of many fierce attacks upon 
 him for years afterward." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 
 
 Recruiting. First Long Island Regiment. The Brooklyn Fourteenth. 
 Pets of Plymouth Church. The Boys Attend Service. "The Na- 
 tional Flag." An Eloquent Patriotic Appeal. Applause in Church 
 Rebuked. Plymouth Church Barracks. The Maine Regiment. 
 Church Parlors Occupied as a Hospital. Visits to the Boys in Camp. 
 A Welcome Visitor. Patriotic Editorials. Relations with Secre- 
 tary Stanton. The National Fast. Freedom of the People. An 
 Intellectual Disquisition. His Visit to England. His Invaluable 
 Services as a Defender of the Union. The Fort Sumter Celebration. 
 A Pleasant Reunion of Old-Time Friends. The Restored Union. 
 The Key-note to Beecher's Future Course in Regard to the South. 
 Startling News. Lincoln's Assassination. Beecher's Grief. The 
 Funeral Oration. The Martyr President. 
 
 MR. BEECHER not only spoke on every occasion in de- 
 fence of the Union, but also actively engaged in organ- 
 izing and equipping the First Long Island (Infantry) 
 Regiment, known as the " Brooklyn Phalanx," which 
 was largely recruited from the members of Plymouth 
 Church. His son Henry was an officer of one of the 
 companies. Two companies of the famous crack regi- 
 ment of Brooklyn, the brave Colonel Wood's Fourteenth, 
 were also recruited from Plymouth Church. These two 
 companies attended service, and after an eloquent ad- 
 
I/O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 dress on " The National Flag" by Mr. Beecher, $3,000 was 
 raised by subscription to aid in completing the equip- 
 ment of the regiment. 
 
 This address is probably one of Mr. Beecher's most 
 eloquent appeals, and was as follows : 
 
 " A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees 
 not the flag, but the nation itself. And whatever may 
 be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag 
 the government, the principles, the truths, the history 
 that belong to the nation that sets it forth. . . . 
 
 " This nation has a banner, too ; and until recently, 
 wherever it streamed abroad, men saw daybreak bursting 
 on their eyes. For until lately the American flag has 
 been a symbol of Liberty, and men rejoiced in it. Not 
 another flag on the globe had such an errand, or went 
 forth upon the sea, carrying everywhere, the world around, 
 such hope to the captive, and such glorious tidings. The 
 stars upon it were to the pining nations like the bright 
 morning stars of God, and the stripes upon it were beams 
 of morning light. As at early dawn the stars shine forth 
 even while it grows light, and then as the sun advances 
 that light breaks into banks and streaming lines of color, 
 the glowing red and intense white striving together, and 
 ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent, so, on the Ameri- 
 can flag, stars and beams of many-colored light shine out 
 together. . . , It is the banner of Dawn. It means 
 Liberty. . . . Beginning with the Colonies, and com- 
 
IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. I/I 
 
 ing down to our time, in its sacred heraldry, in its glori- 
 ous insignia, it has gathered and stored chiefly this su- 
 preme idea : Divine right of liberty in man. 
 
 " And displayed it shall be. Advanced full against 
 the morning light, and borne with the growing and glow- 
 ing day, it shall take the last ruddy beams of the night, 
 and from the Atlantic wave, clear across with eagle flight 
 to the Pacific, that banner shall float, meaning all the 
 liberty which it has ever meant ! From the North, where 
 snows and mountain-ice stand solitary, clear to the glow- 
 ing tropics and the Gulf, that banner that has hitherto 
 waved shall wave and wave forever every star, every 
 band, every thread and fold significant of Liberty! 
 [Great applause.] I do not doubt your patriotism. I 
 know it is hard for men that are full of feeling not to give 
 expression to it ; yet excuse me if I request you to re- 
 frain from demonstrations of applause while I am speak- 
 ing. It is not because I think Sunday too good a day, 
 nor the church too holy a place for patriotic Christian 
 men to express their feelings at such a time as this, and 
 in behalf of such sentiments, but because by too frequent 
 repetition applause becomes stale and common, that I 
 make this request. Besides, outward expression is not 
 our way. We are rather of a silent stock. We let our 
 feelings work inwardly, so that they may have deeper 
 channels and fuller floods. 
 
1/2 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 " How glorious, then, has been its origin ! How glori- 
 ous has been its history ! How divine its meaning ! 
 . . . made by liberty, made for liberty, nourished in 
 its spirit, carried in its service, and never, not once in all 
 the earth, made to stoop to despotism ! 
 
 " And now this banner has been put on trial ! It has 
 been condemned. For what ? Has it failed of duty ? 
 Has liberty lost color by it ? Have moths of oppression 
 eaten its folds ? Has it refused to shine on freemen and 
 given its light to despots ? No. It has been true, 
 brave, loyal. It has become too much a banner of lib- 
 erty for men who mean and plot despotism. Remember, 
 citizen ! remember, Christian soldier ! the American flag 
 has been fired upon by Americans, and trodden down 
 because it stood in the way of slavery ! 
 
 " And now God speaks by the voice of His providence, 
 saying, ' Lift again that banner ! Advance it full and 
 high ! ' To your hand, and to yours, God and your 
 country commit that imperishable trust. You go forth, 
 self-called, or rather called by the trust of your country- 
 men, and by the Spirit of your God, to take that trailing 
 banner out of the dust and out of the mire, and lift it 
 again where God's rains can cleanse it, and where God's 
 free air can cause it to unfold and stream as it has always 
 
IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 173 
 
 floated before the wind. God bless the men that go forth 
 to save from disgrace the American flag ! 
 
 "Nor is it enough that that banner shall stand and 
 merely reassert its authority. It is time now that that 
 banner shall do as much for each man in our own country 
 as it will in every other land on the globe. . . . 
 
 " You go to serve your country in the cause of liberty ; 
 and if God brings you into conflict erelong with those 
 misguided men of the South, when you see their miser- 
 able, new-vamped banner, remember what that flag 
 means Treason, Slavery, Despotism ; then look up 
 and see the bright stars and the glorious stripes over your 
 own head, and read in them Liberty, Liberty, LIBERTY ! 
 
 " And if you fall in that struggle, may some kind hand 
 wrap around about you the flag of your country, and may 
 you die with its sacred touch upon you ! It shall be 
 sweet to go to rest lying in the folds of your country's 
 banner, meaning, as it shall mean, * Liberty and Union, 
 now and forever/ . . ." 
 
 In the autumn of 1862 a Maine regiment arrived in 
 Brooklyn en route to the front, and all the barracks in 
 this vicinity being occupied, Mr. Beecher offered them the 
 shelter of Plymouth Church. The steady increase of the 
 Sunday-school, which kept pace with that in the church, 
 had necessitated frequent additions, and in 1862 a new 
 building was erected by a subscription of $10,800 on the 
 
i/4 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 property of the organization on Cranberry Street, giving a 
 large parlor for the social meetings as well as larger school 
 accommodations. The regiment was quartered here two 
 days, sleeping on the cushioned seats in the church and 
 occupying the parlors by day. 
 
 The march of the regiment had been in a chilly rain, 
 and many were sick from the effects of colds contracted, 
 and they were quartered in the parlors for four weeks, at- 
 tended by the surgeons. A sewing society was organized 
 by the ladies of the church, to supply the army hospitals 
 with various necessary articles, as well as for the desti- 
 tute freedmen from the South, who were always remem- 
 bered by Mr. Beecher in his prayers and sermons. This 
 sewing society, it may be observed, has always been con- 
 tinued in aid of the poor of the church, and a branch in- 
 structs the children of the poor in sewing, both by hand 
 and by machine. 
 
 Mr. Beecher preached in Plymouth Church, May I, 
 1863, on the occasion of " The National Fast," a sermon 
 on " The Freedom of the Common People." The text 
 was as follows : 
 
 " Go through, go through the gates ; prepare ye the 
 way of the people ; cast up the highway ; gather out the 
 stones ; lift up a standard for the people." He said that 
 it seemed strange to hear sounding back, so far back, 
 this declaration of the Christian doctrine of Democracy, 
 " lift up a standard for the people? 
 
IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. J/5 
 
 This nation, above all others, was raised up to expound 
 and exhibit the prosperity of a free, intelligent common 
 people. The ancient attempts at free government were 
 based more on the liberty of the State than upon the 
 elevation, by freedom, of individual citizens. There were 
 almost insuperable reasons why, at a former period in 
 other lands, this experiment could not be tried. Our 
 ante- Revolutionary period might be considered the trial 
 trip of Republicanism. Had European statesmen, with 
 malign foresight, seen development of the spirit of liberty 
 here, they would have saddled upon us institutions which 
 would have crippled, if they had not ended, our experi- 
 ment of free government ; but luckily they looked upon 
 this country as a good safety-valve to Europe. When they 
 saw the probable power developing on this continent, it 
 was too late for them to interfere. Now, in the division 
 of this empire against itself, they believed that to them 
 was opened a new opportunity. Though they had stricken 
 hands in substantial sympathy with the internal enemies 
 of our country, it was a part of a scheme too long de- 
 layed for success to estop the development of our great 
 people. 
 
 Should the experiment succeed, God had graciously 
 given room enough for its expansion on a grand scale. It 
 was fortunate that the populations of Europe did not at 
 first swarm over here indiscriminately ; but now that our 
 
 institutions were established, our industries organized, 
 8 
 
1/6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 they could come they were mainly the young and en- 
 terprising and fall into this people as drops of water fall 
 into the ocean, and in a moment are salt. We moulded 
 them, not they us. The influence of this nation by ex- 
 ample upon human rights was greater than all other agen- 
 cies ; it was the silent voice of prosperity, that pleaded and 
 had no respondent. One of our reasons of confession and 
 repentance was that the people had ceased to regard this 
 Government as a gift of God for the good of mankind, 
 and had come to view it almost wholly from selfishness, 
 and in its relations to their own immediate good. This 
 was not patriotism, but was full of inevitable corruption. 
 In fifty years this nation had plunged into gainful enter- 
 prises with a power and success which had almost ma- 
 terialized it. 
 
 In some respects it had been beneficial ; for indirectly 
 it had by industry, order, and prosperity promoted moral- 
 ity. But it had tended to substitute the love of gain 
 and wealth for right, for justice, for magnanimity. An 
 incipient plutocracy was springing up, tending to augment 
 the power of a class at the expense of the public good. 
 One of the most alarming dangers to-day was the power 
 and facility of bribery the vote hung in the shambles. 
 It corrupted national, state, and municipal legislation. 
 The doctrine of liberty for the common people an en- 
 thusiasm, a fanaticism, almost, in our early history had 
 gradually decayed. The doctrine of liberty for the com- 
 
IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 177 
 
 mon people had brought more threats to its champions 
 than ever did all the tyranny of Europe. He claimed 
 the right, in the name of his Lord and Master, to call the 
 slave his brother. Talk about the abuse of slavery it 
 was not in the power of fiendish ingenuity to abuse it. 
 Slavery never could be worked up to the pressure it was 
 gauged for in the law. It says you may put so many 
 pounds to the inch, but there was not an engineer in the 
 South who would dare to run the system up to what the 
 law allows. 
 
 Four millions of human beings were by American law 
 denuded of manhood. Children through the South as 
 sweet as theirs, and as white, were brought up expressly 
 for concubinage. There was but one class toward whom 
 he could not feel pity they were hoary and reverend 
 presidents of colleges, who spent their years trying to 
 make their pupils believe it was right to hold men in 
 slavery when they took Calvary for their infernal pur- 
 pose, and the drops of blood then, said Mr. Beecher, " I 
 have no mercy, I am adamant, I curse them in the name 
 of my God. [Applause.] What an awful terror must 
 rest on their conscience, that they have taken the blood 
 of atonement that they might sanctify and seal man over 
 to the devil therewith." [Sensation.] God had opened 
 the prison doors, and we had come to the times that 
 would try men's souls. But if the people were true to 
 the faith of their fathers, there would come emancipation, 
 
1/8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 and liberty would be .fixed forever. The signs of the 
 times were growing brighter. The sun of liberty had 
 not risen, but it was daylight in the heavens. 
 
 The services, which occupied about two hours, con- 
 cluded with singing and benediction. The church was 
 crowded to its utmost. 
 
 Mr. Beecher visited the regiments he had been so active 
 in equipping at their headquarters in the Army of the Po- 
 tomac. His presence, it is almost needless to say, always 
 excited great enthusiasm, and inspired the boys with pa- 
 triotic ardor. He never missed an occasion to deliver a 
 patriotic address, and often spoke at the out-of-door 
 " war meetings," to the injury of his voice. He became 
 the editor of The Independent ', to which he had long been 
 a regular contributor. Mrs. Stowe says : " He wished 
 this chance to speak from time to time his views and opin- 
 ions to the whole country. He was in constant com- 
 munication with the Secretary of War, in whose patriot- 
 ism, sagacity, and wonderful efficiency he had the greatest 
 reliance." The severe strain of his exertions in and out 
 of his pulpit, and "the burden of the war upon his 
 spirit," impaired his health, robust and vigorous as he 
 had been since his Atlantic trip in 1850, and the loss of 
 his voice was threatened unless he permitted himself 
 recreation. He was urged by his congregation to take a 
 summer trip to Europe, and was absent from June, 1863, 
 till the ensuing October. 
 
IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 179 
 
 It is not too much to say that when Mr. Beecher re- 
 turned from England he could have claimed any reward 
 in the gift of the Government. But he had his reward in 
 the gratitude of the nation and the affectionate demon- 
 strations of his fellow-citizens. He simply resumed his 
 work in its several lines, and continued the successes of 
 his life. 
 
 The fourth anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sum- 
 ter, Charleston Harbor, by Major Robert Anderson, was 
 commemorated April 12, 1865, by raising the identical 
 flag that had been hauled down on that occasion. There 
 was a large gathering on the ramparts of the battered old 
 fort, many of the old-time Abolitionists being present, in- 
 cluding, of course, many members of Plymouth Church. 
 Mr. Beecher was invited to deliver the address. He 
 made one of his most stirring addresses of congratulation 
 on the proper and successful termination of the war, clos- 
 ing with an eloquent appeal for the establishment of a re- 
 stored union between the North and the South, which 
 since the abolition of slavery by Lincoln's proclamation 
 could not fail to come together again as brothers and per- 
 petuate a great and prosperous country. For the im- 
 poverished South he had only kind words. 
 
 Returning home, when the steamer touched at Fort- 
 ress Monroe the party, none more than Mr. Beecher, were 
 horrified and shocked to be told of the assassination of 
 President Lincoln. On the following Sabbath, April 23, 
 
l8o LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 1865, Plymouth Church was crowded as it had never 
 been crowded before, and Mr. Beecher preached an elo- 
 quent sermon on the sad event. 
 
 He took as his text the first five verses of the last 
 chapter of Deuteronomy, and commenced his discourse 
 by drawing a parallel between the history of Moses, 
 after leading his people many weary years through the 
 wilderness, obtaining only a vision and not a realization 
 of the promised land and dying, and that of President 
 Lincoln passing through toil, sorrow, and war, to come 
 near to the promised land of peace, into which he might 
 not pass over. The speaker went on to say that two such 
 orbs of joy and sorrow never before came together as we 
 had witnessed in one week. " The joy of the nation 
 came upon us suddenly, with such a surge as no words 
 could describe. Men laughed, embraced one another, sung 
 and prayed, and many could only weep gladness. In one 
 hour joy had no pulse. The sorrow was so terrible that 
 it stunned sensibility. The first feeling was the least, 
 and men wanted to get strength to feel. Other griefs 
 belong always to some one in chief, but this belonged to 
 all. Men walked for days as though a corpse lay in their 
 houses. The city forgot to roar. Never did so many 
 hearts in so brief a time touch two such boundless feel- 
 ings. It was the uttermost of joy and the uttermost of 
 sorrow noon and midnight without a space between. 
 We should not mourn, however, because the departure 
 
IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. l8l 
 
 of the President was so sudden. When one is prepared 
 to die, the suddenness of death is a blessing. They that 
 are taken awake and watching, as the bridegroom dressed 
 for the wedding, and not those that die in pain and 
 stupor, are blessed. Neither should we mourn the man- 
 ner of his death. The soldier prays that he may die by 
 the shot of the enemy in the hour of victory, and it was 
 meet that he should be joined in a common experience in 
 death with the brave men to whom he had been joined 
 in all his sympathy and life. 
 
 " This blow was but the expiring rebellion. Epito- 
 mized in this foul act we find the whole nature and dis- 
 position of slavery. It is fit that its expiring blow should 
 be such as to take away from men the last forbearance, the 
 last pity, and fire the soul with invincible determination 
 that the breeding system of such mischiefs and monsters 
 shall be forever and utterly destroyed. We needed not 
 that he should put on paper that he believed in slavery, 
 *vho with treason, with murder, with cruelty infernal, hov- 
 ered around that majestic man to destroy his life. He was 
 himself the long-life sting with which Slavery struck at 
 Liberty, and he carried the poison that belonged to slav- 
 ery ; and as long as this nation lasts it will never be for- 
 gotten that we have had one martyr-President never, 
 never while time lasts, while heaven lasts, while hell 
 rocks and groans, will it be forgotten that slavery by its 
 minions slew him, and in slaying him made manifest its 
 
182 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 whole nature and tendency. This blow was aimed at the 
 life of the Government. Some murders there have been 
 that admitted shades of palliation, but not such a one 
 as this without provocation, without reason, without 
 temptation, sprung from the fury of a heart cankered to 
 all that is pure and just by slavery. 
 
 " The blow has failed of its object. The Government 
 stands more solid to-day than any pyramid of Egypt. 
 Men love liberty and hate slavery to-day more than 
 ever before. How naturally, how easily, the Govern- 
 ment passed into the hands of the new President, and 
 I avow my belief, that he will be found a man true to 
 every instinct of liberty, true to the whole trust that 
 is imposed in him, vigilant of the Constitution, careful 
 of the laws, wise for liberty, in that he himself, for his 
 life long, has known what it is to suffer from the stings of 
 slavery, and to prize liberty from the bitter experiences 
 of his own life. Even he that sleeps has by this event 
 been clothed with new influence. His simple and weighty 
 words will be gathered like those of Washington, and 
 quoted by those who, were he alive, would refuse to 
 listen. Men will receive a new access to patriotism. I 
 swear you on the altar of his memory to be more faithful 
 to that country for which he has perished. They will, as 
 they follow his hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery 
 against which he warred, and which in vanquishing him 
 has made him a martyr and conqueror. I swear you by 
 
IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 183 
 
 the memory of this martyr to hate slavery with an un- 
 abatable hatred, and to pursue it. They will admire the 
 firmness of this man in justice, his inflexible conscience for 
 the right, his gentleness and moderation of spirit, which 
 not all the hate of party could turn to bitterness. And 
 I swear you to his justice, and to his moderation, and to 
 his mercy. How can I speak to that twilight million 
 to whom his name was as the name of an angel of God, 
 and whom God sent before them to lead them out of the 
 house of bondage. O, thou Shepherd of Israel, thou that 
 didst comfort Thy people of old, to Thy care we commit 
 these helpless and long wronged and grieved. 
 
 " And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march 
 mightier than one alive. The nation rises up at every 
 stage of his coming ; cities and States are his pall-bearers, 
 and the cannon beats the hours in solemn progression ; 
 dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh. Is Washington dead ? 
 Is Hampden dead ? Is David ? Disenthralled from the 
 flesh and risen to the unobstructed sphere where passion 
 never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life 
 now is grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful as 
 no earthly life can be. Pass on. Four years ago, O 
 Illinois, we took from your midst an untried man from 
 among the people. Behold, we return him to you a 
 mighty conqueror, not thine any more, but the nation's 
 not ours, but the world's. Give him place, O ye prai- 
 ries ! in the midst of this great continent his dust shall 
 
1 84 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 rest a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to 
 that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye 
 winds that move over the mighty spaces of the West, 
 chant his requiem ! Ye people, behold the martyr whose 
 blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for 
 law, for liberty ! " 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 
 
 His Greatest Oratorical Effort. Going Abroad for a Vacation. Three 
 Months on the Continent. Reluctantly consents to speak in Eng- 
 land. British Sympathy with the South. Speech at Manchester. 
 Facing a British Mob. Unsuccessful Attempts to silence Him. 
 How He Triumphed. Speaking Plain Truths. Shaking Hands with 
 an Umbrella. Speech at Glasgow. Opposition of the Blockade- 
 Runners. His Address at Liverpool. Inflammatory Placards on the 
 Streets. Scenes of Great Disorder. Making Himself Heard. Ar- 
 rival in London. Famous in Clubs and Social Circles. Prostrated 
 with Exhaustion. Speech in Exeter Hall. A Friendly Audience. 
 Immense Enthusiasm. An Historical Narrative. Change of Public 
 Opinion. Effect of Mr. Beecher's Speeches. 
 
 IN the spring of 1863 Mr. Beecher was beginning to 
 feel the effect of the arduous duties he had imposed on 
 himself, and fearing that he might break down under the 
 severe strain on both his mental and physical powers, he 
 made up his mind to tear himself away from the scenes 
 of so much excitement and try the effect of a sea voyage 
 and a short sojourn in Europe as a means of recuperation. 
 Many people supposed at the time, and many still con- 
 tinue to labor under the same false impression, that Mr. 
 Beecher went over to England at the instance of the 
 
1 86 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 United States Government. This is an erroneous idea. 
 The trip at the outset had no significance beyond the 
 immediate benefit he anticipated deriving from the 
 change of air and scene, and possessed no interest out- 
 side the circle of his personal friends and the members of 
 ms congregation, who were the pressing instigators of 
 their pastor leaving his flock, and who cheerfully bore 
 the expenses he had to incur. 
 
 Mr. Beecher was never a good sailor, and most of the 
 time of a long and tedious voyage was passed by him on 
 his back in his cabin. 
 
 When he landed in England he was met by many re- 
 quests to lecture, but to all he turned a deaf ear, having 
 made up his mind that he would neither preach nor lect- 
 ure during his stay in the country. At this time the feel- 
 ing of the upper and middle classes in England was in 
 favor of the South. These classes constituted the voting 
 and ruling power of the land. The lower or unvoting 
 class was strongly disposed toward the North. Mr. 
 Beecher did not feel particularly friendly toward England 
 for the attitude she had assumed on the war question, and 
 after leaving Liverpool, where he had landed, he had only 
 paid short visits to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, and 
 London before he left for a three months' tour on the Con- 
 tinent. He had steadily refused to open his mouth in 
 public on British soil, but at a Temperance breakfast given 
 to him in Scotland he had made a speech on the under- 
 
HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 1 87 
 
 standing that nothing was to be reported. In London, 
 likewise, he had been induced to break through his re- 
 solve. The Congregational clergymen of that city had 
 invited him to meet them at breakfast, and he took the 
 opportunity afforded by expressing strongly his indigna- 
 tion that they as a body of clergymen should have thrown 
 their sympathy on the side of slavery. 
 
 The Anti-Slavery Union after this endeavored to per- 
 suade him to make some speeches, but their efforts were 
 unavailing. 
 
 On the Continent he wandered through France, Ger- 
 many, Switzerland, and Italy, and finally returned to Paris. 
 It was here that the news came to him of Grant's great 
 victory at Vicksburg, and also the triumph at Gettysburg. 
 At the same hotel where he was stopping in Paris there 
 were a number of Southerners who had made a point of 
 indirectly insulting him in various ways, but after the ar- 
 rival of the news of these two great victories he saw them 
 no more. They had crowed in the hour of triumph, but 
 could not hold up their heads in adversity. 
 
 On his return to England he was again met by the same 
 pressing importunities to make some addresses. For a 
 time he continued to decline, but he veered round with a 
 strong determination to fight when he learned that a move- 
 ment was on foot to turn the lower classes from their ad- 
 herence to the cause of liberty. He finally consented to 
 speak at Manchester, and soon afterward it was arranged 
 
1 88 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 that he should speak at Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, 
 and London. 
 
 When he proceeded to Manchester to make what might 
 really be called his first public speech in behalf of his 
 cause, he expected to find very hostile demonstrations 
 against him. Influential opinion throughout the country 
 was strongly in favor of the South, and based on very 
 flimsy and unreliable information as regarded facts, so 
 that he met but very few who understood the conflict, 
 and who took the side of the North. The few people of 
 this mind that he had met, when they related their ex- 
 periences in the endeavors they had made to change the 
 popular sentiment of England, might have intimidated a 
 weaker man. But fear had no part in Henry Ward 
 Beecher's creed. He had been first surprised at the ig- 
 norance generally displayed on the subject of the Civil 
 War, then indignant at the manner in which .the subject 
 was treated, and had been somewhat inclined to treat with 
 silent contempt a nation who could howl down any at- 
 tempt to expound truth unto them. From this mood, 
 however, he had been roused, and now that he had deter- 
 mined to speak, any sign of opposition only made his de- 
 termination stronger, and he was fully resolved not only 
 to speak, but to be heard. 
 
 But, prepared as he was for hostile demonstrations, he 
 could hardly have believed the excitement woujd have 
 been so great. Blood-red placards were all over the 
 
HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 189 
 
 place denouncing Mr. Beecher and his principles, and his 
 friends were down-hearted at the gloomy outlook. Se- 
 renely and calmly he told them he was going to be heard 
 all the same, and infused into them a little of the power- 
 ful fighting incentive he had in himself to overcome diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 The Manchester address was delivered at the Free 
 Trade Hall. The excitement had been naturally great, 
 but it had been fostered and played with and intensified, 
 and now it was at its highest pitch. As soon as Mr. 
 Beecher appeared the scene baffled description ; the 
 cheering, hissing, stamping, clapping, shouting, and groan- 
 ing shook the hall almost to its foundations. He rose, 
 a carefully prepared manuscript in his hand, and had got 
 as far as " Mr. Chairman," when the cries of approval and 
 disapproval burst forth anew. Ever quick at noting the 
 temper of his audience, he quickly responded to the 
 groans and hisses of his opponents by tossing his manu- 
 script aside, and then set himself down to a regular fight. 
 
 For two hours was he on his feet, making, not a speech 
 that would be too mild a term but a triumphant prog- 
 ress, interrupted by difficulties and obstacles, surmounted 
 as fast as presented, dealing with facts, statistics, and 
 arguments, without once having to refer to a note or 
 being at a loss for a word. At the outset he had noticed 
 that his earnest sympathizers and opponents were 
 about evenly matched in point of numbers j he decided, 
 
190 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 therefore, not to address himself directly to either of 
 these, but to endeavor to impart instruction and bring 
 conviction to the large number who did not possess 
 strong feelings either way. He discussed the value of 
 freedom and the evils of slavery, and exhorted the man- 
 ufacturing community in their own interest to stand by 
 the cause of liberty. 
 
 If his opponents had been able to accomplish what 
 they endeavored to do that day to break him down on 
 his first speech it would have been a great triumph for 
 them ; but they did not know the man. With quick re- 
 tort and ready repartee, he gazed on his audience calmly 
 and determinedly, replying to questions hurled at him, 
 smiling and laughing outright at ludicrous interruptions, 
 patiently waiting the subsidence of tumult, but all the 
 same, as opportunity offered, quietly and distinctly pro- 
 gressing in his subject until the end came and the vote 
 that was called off proved to each man in the audience 
 and to the world at large the power of the advocate and 
 the greatness of his cause. 
 
 It was a great triumph, more especially when it is con- 
 sidered that this was Mr. Beecher's first experience with 
 an English mixed audience. He had dreaded it, and for 
 a short time had felt a horrible feeling of timidity come 
 over him, fearing that he might fail ; but he had cast it 
 off, leaving the matter, as he himself said, " in the hands 
 of God," and from that moment he had known no recur- 
 
HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. IQI 
 
 rence of the feeling. As he was leaving the hall he was 
 congratulated on all sides. One big burly Englishman 
 some distance away wanted to shake hands with him, but 
 could not get near him on account of the crowd. Reach- 
 ing over the heads of the people, he held out his um- 
 brella and called out, " Shake my umbrella ! " Mr. 
 Beecher did so, and the man shouted, " By Jock ! no- 
 body shall touch that umbrella again ! " 
 
 After the Manchester address came the speech at Glas- 
 gow. Here he found his audience at the City Hall, in 
 almost as great a state of tumult as that at Manchester, 
 but he was now confident of his power, and had no fear 
 of the result. A great favorite on the Glasgow plat- 
 form, the Rev. Dr. William Anderson, had been ap- 
 pointed to introduce Mr. Beecher, but he could not 
 make himself heard. Mr. Beecher walked to the front 
 and quietly descanted on the beauty of the Scottish scen- 
 ery, the bravery and heroism of Scotland's warriors, the 
 renown of its bards and poets, with so much eloquence 
 that the enthusiasm of his audience was enkindled, and he 
 was greeted with a spontaneous burst of applause. He 
 then endeavored to bring in the all-burning question, but 
 the marks of disapprobation were of so expressive a nat- 
 ure that he said " he would sit down and rest until they 
 got the hissing over." 
 
 After a while he got a hearing and repeated his pro- 
 gressive triumph at Manchester. The audience was as- 
 
IQ2 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 tonished at his quickness of retort and his fluency of 
 speech, and they admired his pluck and good temper. 
 Anecdote followed anecdote in quick succession in his 
 endeavor to keep his audience in good humor, but calmly 
 and firmly he insisted on informing them that the South 
 would be brought back to their allegiance, and that the 
 war should not cease so long as there was a slave in 
 America on whom the sun of heaven could shine. To 
 one man who cried, " We don't sympathize with slavery, 
 but we go for the South because they are the weaker 
 party," he replied, " Go, then, and sympathize with the 
 devil he was the weaker 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 ques- 
 tions, it is a shame for a man of your age to talk that 
 way." His questioners were at length silenced, and dur- 
 ing the latter part of his address he had it all his own 
 way, and he demonstrated the unity of labor the world 
 over, and discussed the relations of the laboring man to 
 government, and to the aristocratic classes, and how 
 slavery made labor disreputable. He also insisted that 
 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. 
 
HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 193 
 
 Mr. Beecher had more than made his mark in two im- 
 portant cities, and the British people were now beginning 
 to see the case more clearly ; the press, which had been 
 generally vilifying and attacking him and his cause in 
 slashing editorials, began now to modify and soften their 
 remarks ; and a particularly significant act of the govern- 
 ment stopped the blockade-runners that had been build- 
 ing on the Mersey. There can be no doubt now that 
 Mr. Beecher's presence in England two years earlier 
 would have prevented, to a large extent, British sympa- 
 thy for the South. 
 
 In Edinburgh he found a more educated audience, and 
 discussed the effect of the presence of slavery on litera- 
 ture and learning. The audience was a very large one, 
 but there was less commotion than he had experienced 
 at either Manchester or Glasgow. 
 
 Glasgow and Liverpool were the last possible places 
 Mr. Beecher could have looked to for sympathy in his 
 cause, from the fact of the Clyde and the Mersey fur- 
 nishing blockade-runners, and also other mercantile inter- 
 ests that were involved. Consequently, in going to 
 Liverpool he did not anticipate smooth sailing. Man- 
 chester had been bad enough, but it was as peace to war 
 in comparison to the popular feeling that now awaited 
 him. The most scurrilous and abusive cards were plac- 
 arded on the streets and in every available space, calling 
 on the people to give the man that was coming " the 
 
194 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 welcome he deserved." Some idea of this ink attack 
 may be gathered from the following specimen of a poster, 
 the original size being 25x38 inches : 
 
 WHO IS HENRY WARD BEECHER? 
 
 He is the man who said the best blood of England 
 must be shed to atone for the Trent affair. 
 
 He is the man who advocates a war of extermination 
 with the South says it is incapable of "regeneration," 
 but proposes to re-people it from the North by " genera- 
 tion." See Times. 
 
 He is the friend of that inhuman monster,. General 
 Butler. He is the friend of that so-called Gospel 
 Preacher, Cheever, who said in one of his sermons : 
 " Fight against the South till Hell freezes, and then con- 
 tinue the battle on the ice." 
 
 He is the friend and supporter of a most debased Fe- 
 male, who uttered at a public meeting in America the 
 most indecent and cruel language that ever polluted fe- 
 male lips. See Times. 
 
 Men of Liverpool Englishmen ! 
 
 What reception can you give this wretch save unmiti- 
 gated disgust and contempt ? His impudence in coming 
 here is only equalled by his cruelty and impiety. Should 
 he, however, venture to appear, it behooves all right- 
 
HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 197 
 
 minded men to render as futile as the first this second 
 attempt to get lip a public demonstration in favor of the 
 North, which is now waging war against the South with 
 a vindictive and revengeful cruelty unparalleled in the 
 history of any Christian land. 
 
 These placards and the agitation against the North 
 that had been carefully fostered had the effect that had 
 been desired. The highest state of excitement prevailed ; 
 but this had no deterrent effect on the man against whom 
 they were aimed. So great was the excitement that it 
 is said that a number of men attended the meeting with 
 weapons, which they were only deterred from using by 
 an equal show of weapons on the part of certain of Mr. 
 Beecher's supporters. For a time all was confusion and 
 turmoil, and it was over an hour and a half before he 
 could obtain control of the audience. After that he had 
 it all his own way ; but he had been compelled to stretch 
 his voice to its utmost strength, and it was some time 
 before he recovered the perfect use of it. Into this meet- 
 ing he threw all his force, and one gentleman who was 
 present said he had never heard anything like it since 
 the days of Daniel O'Connell, and that he thought not 
 one of O'Connell's best things equalled Mr. Beecher's 
 effort on that occasion. 
 
 When Mr. Beecher returned to London he found him- 
 self famous. He had been attacked and fully reported 
 
198 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 in the papers, and had been the talk of the clubs. He 
 had become the fashion. He used to tell an amusing 
 story of his hotel experiences in London. He put up at 
 the " Golden Cross " hotel when he first went there, and 
 they gave him a little back room at the top of the house. 
 On his return from the Continent he was received with 
 a little more politeness, and was favored with a front 
 room on the third story. On the third visit after his tri- 
 umphant conquests in Manchester, Glasgow, and Liver- 
 pool he was received with all deference by the landlord 
 and his assistants, and was given the best suite of rooms 
 in the house. Here trouble awaited him. He had had 
 a most successful career in spite of tremendous difficul- 
 ties, but the strain on his voice had been too great, and 
 on his arrival he had to take to his bed. He had yet his 
 most important work to perform to address the meeting 
 at Exeter Hall and his voice had failed him. He com- 
 mitted himself in this difficulty to the hands of God, on 
 whom he had so often depended. He said, " Lord, thou 
 knowest this. Let it be as thou wilt." 
 
 Next morning when he awoke he was almost afraid to 
 speak. He felt well and strong, but his voice, though 
 improved, was still husky. However, he gathered him- 
 self together for a last mighty effort, and before the day 
 was over all London had felt the presence of the mighty 
 man that was in their midst. Exeter Hall was packed 
 inside and outside, and even the adjoining streets were 
 
HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 199 
 
 thronged with a surging mass of humanity endeavoring, 
 even if they could not enter the hall, to approach as close 
 to the building as they possibly could. In order to get 
 into the hall himself Mr. Beecher had to accept the aid 
 of the police. 
 
 When he rose to speak he was greeted with the most 
 vociferous cheering. He began by asking forbearance on 
 account of his hoarseness. " 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 hand to hand together." This was the signal for a 
 renewed outburst of cheering. He then proceeded to 
 review in brief his course in Great Britain. He said that 
 at Manchester he had attempted to give a history of the 
 external political movement for fifty years before, so far 
 as it was necessary to illustrate the fact that the Ameri- 
 can Civil War was only an overt and warlike form of a 
 contest between liberty and slavery that had been going 
 on politically for half a century. At Glasgow he had 
 undertaken to show the condition of work or labor ne- 
 cessitated by any profitable system of slavery, demon- 
 strating that it brought labor into contempt, affixing to 
 it the badge of degradation, and that a struggle to extend 
 servile labor across the American continent interested 
 every free working-man on the globe. 
 
 His sincere belief was that the Southern cause was the 
 natural enemy of free labor and the laborer all the world 
 
200 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 over. In Edinburgh he had endeavored to sketch how, 
 out of separate colonies and States intensely jealous of 
 their individual sovereignty there had grown up and had 
 been finally established a nation, and how in the nation 
 of the United States two distinct and antagonistic systems 
 had been developed, and struggled for the guidance of 
 the national policy, which struggle had at length passed 
 and the North gained the control. Thereupon the South 
 had abandoned the Union simply and solely because the 
 Government was in future to be administered by men 
 who would give their whole influence to freedom. In 
 Liverpool he had labored under difficulties to show that 
 slavery in the long-run was as hostile to commerce and 
 to manufacturers all the world over as it was to free in- 
 terests in human society ; that a slave nation must be a 
 poor customer, buying the poorest and fewest goods, and 
 the least profitable to the producers ; that it was the in- 
 terest of every manufacturing country to promote free- 
 dom, intelligence, and wealth among all nations ; that the 
 attempt to cover the fairest portion of the earth with a 
 slave population that bought next to nothing ought to 
 array against it every true political economist and every 
 thoughtful and far-seeing manufacturer, as tending to 
 strike at the vital want of commerce which was not 
 cotton, but rich customers. 
 
 He had endeavored to enlist against this flagitious 
 wickedness and the great civil war which it had kindled 
 
HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 2OI 
 
 the judgment, conscience, and interests of the British 
 people, and he would do his best to leave no vestige of 
 doubt that slavery had been the cause the only cause 
 the whole cause of the war. He had already tried to 
 show that sympathy for the South, however covered by 
 excuses or softened by sophistry, was simply sympathy 
 with an audacious attempt to build up a slave empire 
 pure and simple. He had tried to show that the North 
 were contending for the preservation of their Govern- 
 ment and their own territory, and those popular institu- 
 tions on which the well-being of the nation depended. 
 
 He had so far, he said, spoken to the English from an 
 English point of view, but he was now going to ask them 
 to look at the struggle from an American point of view, 
 and in its moral aspects. There had been some disagree- 
 ment of feeling between America and Great Britain. He 
 did not want to argue the question which was right and 
 which was wrong, but if some kind neighbor would per- 
 suade two people that were at disagreement to consider 
 each other's position and circumstances, it might not lead 
 either to adopting the other's judgment, but it might lead 
 them to say of each other, " I think he is honest and 
 means well, even if he be mistaken." This was greeted 
 with loud cheering. 
 
 " You may not," he went on, " thus get a settlement of 
 the difficulty ', but you will get a settlement of the quarrel. 
 I merely ask you to put yourselves in our track for one 
 9 
 
202 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 hour, and look at the objects as we look at them after 
 that, form your judgment as you please." 
 
 His audience had been kindly disposed from the first, 
 and his opening words, clearly and distinctly enunciated, 
 notwithstanding his hoarseness, threw everyone into the 
 proper frame of mind to give him a fair and dispassionate 
 hearing. He then went on to narrate the history of the 
 conflict from its earliest stages. He said the first issue 
 between the North and South was on purely moral 
 grounds. It was a conflict simply of opinion and of 
 truths by argument, and by appeal to the moral sense it 
 was sought to persuade the slaveholder to adopt some 
 plan of emancipation. The South seemed to apologize 
 for slavery rather than defend it against argument. It 
 was said : " The evil is upon us ; we cannot help it. We 
 are sullied, but it is a misfortune rather than a fault. It 
 is not right for the North to meddle with that which is 
 made worse by being meddled with, even by argument or 
 appeal." That was the earlier portion of the conflict. 
 
 The next stage was purely political. The South was 
 attempting to extend their slave system into the terri- 
 tories, and to prevent free States from covering the conti- 
 nent by bringing into the Union a slave State for every 
 free State. It was also the design and endeavor of the 
 South not simply to hold. and employ the enormous power 
 and influence of the Central Executive^ but also to ingraft 
 into the whole .Federal Government a slave State policy. 
 
HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 203 
 
 They meant to fill all offices at home and abroad with men 
 loyal to slavery to shut up the road to political prefer- 
 ment against men who had aspirations for freedom, and 
 to corrupt the young and ambitious by obliging them to 
 swear fealty to slavery as the condition of success. 
 
 The South had pursued a uniform system of bribing 
 and corrupting ambitious men of Northern consciences. 
 A far more dangerous part of its policy was to change the 
 Constitution, not overtly, not by external aggression 
 worse, to fill the courts with Southern judges until, first 
 by laws of Congress passed through Southern influence, 
 secondly by the construction and adjudication of the 
 courts, the Constitution having become more and more 
 tied up to Southern principles, the North would have to 
 submit to slavery, or else to oppose it by violating the 
 law and Constitution as construed by servile judges. 
 They were, in short, little by little, injecting the laws, 
 Constitution, and policy of the country with the poison 
 and blood of slavery. Until the Civil War the North, 
 although it had rid itself of slavery, was unable to touch 
 slavery directly. 
 
 The North could only contend against slave policy 
 not directly against slavery, and for this reason : slavery 
 was not the creature of national law, and therefore not 
 subject to national jurisprudence, but of State law, and 
 subject only to State jurisdiction. A direct act on the 
 part of the North to abolish slavery would have been 
 
2O4 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 revolutionary. It would have been a violation of the 
 fundamental principle of State independence. Each 
 State, in respect to those rights and institutions that were 
 local and peculiar to it, had undivided -sovereignty over 
 its own affairs ; but all powers, such as taxes, wars, 
 treaties of peace, which belonged to one State and were 
 common to all States, went into the General Government. 
 The General Government never had the power the 
 power was never delegated to it to meddle with the in- 
 terior and domestic economy of the States, and it never 
 could be done. 
 
 It was only that part of slavery which escaped from the 
 State jurisdiction, and which entered into the national 
 sphere, which formed the subject of controversy. The 
 Constitution of the States could not justly be touched, 
 but only the policy of the National Government that 
 came out beyond the State and appeared in Congress and 
 in the territories. The great conflict between the South 
 and the North until the war began was, which should con- 
 trol the Federal or Central Government and the territories. 
 It was not " Emancipation " or " No Emancipation ; " 
 Government had no business with that question. Before 
 the war, the only thing on which politically the free 
 people of the North and South took their respective sides 
 was, " Shall the National policy be free or slave ? " Dur- 
 ing a period of eighty years the North had held to her 
 word, and with scrupulous honor had respected legal 
 
HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 205 
 
 rights, even when they were merely civil and not moral 
 rights. 
 
 The fidelity of the North to the great doctrine of 
 State rights, which was born of her her forbearance un- 
 der wrong, insult, and provocation her conscientious 
 and honorable refusal to meddle with the evil which she 
 hated, and which she saw to be aiming at the life of 
 Government, and at her own life her determination to 
 hold fast pact and Constitution, and to gain her victories 
 by giving the people a new National policy will yet be 
 deemed worthy of something better than a contemptuous 
 sneer or the allegation of an " enormous national vanity." 
 
 How, then, did the North pass from a conflict with the 
 South and a slave policy to a direct attack upon the in- 
 stitutions of slavery ? Because they beleaguered the 
 National Government and the national life with the in- 
 stitution of slavery obliged a sworn President who was 
 put under oath not to invade that institution to take 
 his choice between the safety and life of the Government 
 itself and the slavery by which it was beleaguered. As 
 the fundamental right of individual self-defence could 
 not be withdrawn without immorality, so the first ele- 
 ment of national life was to defend life, and when a na- 
 tion was assaulted it was a right and duty, in the exer- 
 cise of self-defence, to destroy the enemy by which 
 otherwise it would be destroyed. When the South 
 threw down the gauntlet of war and said that by it slav- 
 
206 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ery was to be adjudicated, the North could do nothing 
 else than take up the challenge. 
 
 In this manner did Mr. Beecher continue, carefully ex- 
 plaining and throwing light as he went along, making 
 point after point in his favor with telling effect, to which 
 the continued cheering which greeted almost his every 
 sentence bore unmistakable evidence. He had oppor- 
 tunity in the course of his speech to retaliate on the 
 press, particularly the Times and the Daily Telegraph, 
 for some of the attacks they had made on him after his 
 Manchester and Glasgow speeches, and when he said he 
 would have a different story to tell when he got back to 
 America of the feeling of England to that which his 
 countrymen had been able to gather from the English 
 newspapers, the assembly rose en masse and hats and 
 handkerchiefs were waved enthusiastically amid loud 
 cheering. After speaking for over two hours, he had to 
 ask his audience to permit him to stop, pleading exhaust- 
 ion. 
 
 Professor Newman then rose and moved the following 
 resolution : 
 
 " Resolved, That this meeting presents its most cor- 
 dial thanks to the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher for the 
 admirable address which he has delivered this even- 
 ing, and expresses its hearty sympathy with his rep- 
 robation of the slaveholders' rebellion, his vindication 
 of the rights of a free government, and his aspirations 
 
HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 2O? 
 
 for peace and friendship between the English people and 
 their American brethren ; and as this meeting recognized 
 in Mr. Beecher one of the early pioneers of negro emanci- 
 pation, as well as one of the most eloquent and success- 
 ful of the champions of that great cause, it rejoices in this 
 opportunity of congratulating him on the triumphs with 
 which the labors of himself and his associates have been 
 crowned in the anti-slavery policy of President Lincoln 
 and his cabinet." 
 
 Loud cheers greeted the reading of this motion, which 
 was unanimously carried. 
 
 That he won his oratorical battles in every place where 
 he spoke, even his enemies declared. Every word he 
 uttered was reported and printed. He displayed himself 
 in all his best array. He made the people listen to his 
 sober arguments, laugh at his wit, and weep when he 
 mourned. The man who had hitherto been known as 
 " Ward Beecher, a brother of Mrs. Beecher Stowe," now 
 had his own firm foundation. Social attentions were 
 showered on him, and he became the rage ; but the same 
 self-respect that had sustained him when he was literally 
 ignored before now kept him from the abasement of 
 recognizing aught that did not benefit the cause he 
 served. 
 
 The effect of Mr. Beecher's speeches was to entirely 
 change the moral sentiment of Great Britain toward the 
 North, and, both in themselves and in their results, it is 
 
208 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 doubtful whether any greater oratorical triumph has evei 
 been recorded. Not long after his London address, 
 about the middle of November, he took passage from 
 Liverpool, and after a tedious passage of fifteen days 
 arrived in his native land, where the news of his good 
 work had long preceded him. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 
 
 His Temperament leads to Political Affiliation. One of the Early 
 Abolitionists. Clay. Calhoun. Henry B. Stanton. The Pulpit 
 and Slavery. Seward. Greeley. Buchanan. The Drift of Senti- 
 ment Previous to the War. His Views at the Time. The Fremont 
 Campaign. The '* Political Parson." He advocates Lincoln. Belief 
 that His Election would Precipitate War. Visit to England. His 
 Valuable Service as a Defender of the Union in England. Lincoln's 
 Re-election. After the War. Jefferson Davis. President Johnson. 
 General Grant. A Southern Tour. " The North and South." 
 General P'itzhugh Lee. He becomes a "Mugwump." Supporting 
 Cleveland. Old Ties Sundered. Civil Service Reform. Beecher 
 and Curtis interview the President. Democratic Resolutions. 
 
 MR. BEECHER'S sympathetic temperament naturally 
 made him a partisan, and led him into political discus- 
 sion. His three anti-slavery sermons in the Second 
 Presbyterian Church, in Indianapolis, Ind., at a time 
 when the pulpit never referred to the questions of the 
 day, caused him to be ranked among the leading Aboli- 
 tionists. The subject was then unpopular excepting 
 with affiliating coteries or organizations, and was re- 
 garded as a political question rather than a humane proj- 
 ect. Mr. Beecher took the bold ground that slavery was 
 
2IO LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 in defiance of the laws of God, and consequently a 
 proper theme for the pulpit. Speaking of this period of 
 life, he gave to a friend an interesting review of the con- 
 temporaneous public men as follows : 
 
 " When I was in Cincinnati Charles Hammond was the 
 editor of the Cincinnati Gazette, one of the ablest men in 
 the West, and the Cincinnati Gazette was by all odds 
 head and shoulder the leading Whig newspaper. Henry 
 Clay used, before any important movement, to consult 
 with Charles Hammond." 
 
 " Did you ever meet Henry Clay and hear him 
 speak ? " 
 
 " Yes. I thought he was the dullest old fellow I ever 
 heard. It was at a barbecue in Indianapolis. He was 
 jaded and tired. He was not wound up, and had nobody 
 to stick a pin in him." 
 
 " Do you think he was an eloquent man ? " 
 
 " Yes ; if you take in his personal magnetism and the 
 adaptation of himself to the currents of thoughts and feel- 
 ings that were existing. Henry Clay was not a man 
 that out of his own day was or ever will be so great as 
 he was in his own age." 
 
 "He was not as great a man as Webster ? " 
 
 " No, nor as Calhoun, but a man that made passionate 
 friends, and a natural born leader of men." 
 
 " Magnetic?" 
 
 " To the last degree, and he had all the intuitions and 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 211 
 
 that union of affectionate blandishment and indignation 
 and threat to him. He could strike or he could caress, 
 and with either blows or caresses was very powerful." 
 
 " You adhered to your anti-slavery sentiment in the 
 West ? " 
 
 " Yes, although I saw that to do so was exceedingly un- 
 popular in Cincinnati that it would alienate everybody 
 that I knew there and that, among other reasons, con- 
 firmed me in my tendencies, because I have always had 
 a kind of irresistible impulse to defend the weak, espe- 
 cially when I saw they were trodden down by men of in- 
 fluence and power ; to throw myself into the rescue of the 
 wronged was as strong in me as life itself. So, when the 
 mob rose in Cincinnati and destroyed Dr. Bailey's news- 
 paper Bailey was afterward editor of the New Era in 
 Washington, in which Mrs. Stowe's ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' 
 appeared when the mob rose and broke in and scattered 
 his type, dragged his press down the main street and 
 threw it into the Ohio River, and once again the riotous 
 spirit foamed over and they threatened to shoot down 
 the colored people in Cincinnati, and had got to that 
 point that the mayor called for special policemen to pro- 
 tect the city and the negro quarters, I was sworn in 
 as a special policeman, and patrolled the streets for two 
 nights armed to the teeth to defend the negroes. In the 
 absence of its editor, who had gone to the General As- 
 sembly in Philadelphia, I had taken the Cincinnati 
 
212 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Journal, the Presbyterian religious new school paper, and 
 was editing it. In this paper I attacked this mob spirit, 
 and with such a vehemence that Charles Hammond put 
 the whole article into the Cincinnati Gazette. That was 
 all along the same line of anti-slavery impulse. I then 
 went to Lawrenceburg, twenty miles below Cincinnati. 
 There was a Presbyterian Church there that would seat 
 one hundred and fifty people. There were twenty mem- 
 bers, one man and the rest women. With the exception 
 of two, everyone was dependent for her livelihood on her 
 industry." 
 
 " What was your salary there ? " 
 
 " Four hundred dollars. Two hundred and fifty dol- 
 lars was paid by the American Home Missionary Society, 
 and the balance was raised by people in my church." 
 
 " That was the custom for this society to aid all feeble 
 churches in the West ? " 
 
 " All feeble churches would receive a portion of their 
 salary in that way. The society was organized for that 
 purpose. I do not believe there were in my Synod ten 
 ministers that were not more or less assisted by that so- 
 ciety, and now all through the West it is the same thing 
 to-day, away to the Pacific Ocean." 
 
 " The knot of recognized Abolitionists in those days was 
 so very small Mr. Tappan, Mr. Garrison, and Mr. Wen- 
 dell Phillips that I suppose all of necessity were known 
 to you ? " 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 213 
 
 "They were East, and I went back into Indiana as 
 a missionary, and was working among the common 
 people." 
 
 " And you were on the field where the fight had to 
 come sooner or later ? " 
 
 " I was, and it may interest you to know that among 
 the lecturers was Henry B. Stanton, who had studied 
 theology under my father. After staying for two years 
 and a little over at Lawrenceburg I was called to Indian- 
 apolis. This was at the time when the division took 
 place. The Presbyterian Church split on the rock of 
 slavery. Theology was the mere occasion and pretence, 
 but the root of the matter was slavery. The South was 
 largely new-school, but the new school of the North was 
 leavened with the anti-slavery tendency to a very great 
 extent, and the understanding was, as I heard my father 
 state it, that the new-school ministers of the South said 
 to the Princeton men : ' We will sustain you as against 
 the new school of the North if you will see to it that the 
 Presbyterian Church at large does not meddle with the 
 question of slavery in the South.' It was a league : it was 
 an understood thing. It was carried out. The Southern 
 Presbyterians, all for the sake of slavery, consented to up- 
 hold the hands of the old-school Princeton, and the new 
 school of the North was split of! from them and organized 
 by themselves, and they were, especially in the West, very 
 generally anti-slavery. I don't know one man in the 
 
214 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Synod of Indiana who was not an open and avowed anti- 
 slavery man." 
 
 " This was about when ? " 
 
 "About 1840-41. I went to Indianapolis, preaching 
 in the upper hall or room of a little brick academy, which 
 would not hold much over a hundred people, while the 
 church was building. It is now owned by Governor Eng- 
 lish." 
 
 "Well, what then?" 
 
 " After a year we were directed by the Synod to preach 
 once a year on the duties of the Church to the en- 
 slaved." 
 
 "Did you do it?" 
 
 "Yes. I waited until the. United States Federal 
 Court came there, with Judge McLean as the presiding 
 judge ; and when all of our State Courts, Supreme Court, 
 and Circuit, were in session and the Legislature was con- 
 vened so that all lawyers and public officers, men of 
 every kind, thronged the city to announce that I should 
 preach on slavery. In the morning I discussed the nature 
 of Hebrew slavery and the way in which it ceased. In 
 the afternoon I preached on American slavery and the 
 duty of the American church on that subject. Well, 
 you may depend it was a bomb thrown, and they went 
 streaming back to the hotel, and when they sat down to 
 dinner someone said : ' Judge McLean, what do you think 
 of that ? ' ' Well,' said he, ' I think if every minister in 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 215 
 
 the United States would be as faithful it would be a 
 great advance in settling this question.' Well, that set- 
 tled it. It gave the cue, and the lawyers, they, on the 
 whole, sympathized too, and the members of the Legis- 
 lature, and the consequence was that I had preached two 
 flaming sermons with no reaction by a judicious adapta- 
 tion to time and circumstance. I suppose that was the 
 first anti-slavery sermon that was ever preached in the 
 capital of the State of Indiana." 
 
 " To that circumstance you probably owe the reputa- 
 tion which preceded you to New York ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Mr. Beecher continued his anti-slavery crusade in 
 Plymouth Church more vigorously than ever, but did 
 not take any prominent part in politics until the Fre- 
 mont presidential campaign in 1856, when he boldly 
 espoused the cause of the Pathfinder. Says an account : 
 
 " Finally, after years of agitation, from the labors of 
 the little coterie was born the Republican Party. Mr. 
 Beecher was one of its few fathers, and tended it carefully 
 from its birth. When John C. Fremont was nominated 
 as presidential candidate he took great interest in the 
 campaign and addressed great audiences in Massachu- 
 setts, New York, and Pennsylvania. He was then forty- 
 three years old, and in perfect health. With the excep- 
 tion of several months in 1849, when he was so seriously 
 ill as to prevent his preaching from March until Septem- 
 
216 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 her, and three months in 1850, when he made a convales- 
 cing trip to Europe, he had not been absent a Sunday 
 from his pulpit. The national peril in 1856 seemed so 
 great that he was induced by his political friends to 
 accept a leave of absence from his church and travel 
 through the Middle and Western States on a kind of 
 oratorical pilgrimage. Wherever he went his fame pre- 
 ceded him, and in that memorable fight he added laurels 
 of imperishable renown to those already won. 
 
 " The defeat of Fremont, by Mr. Beecher and many 
 others, believed to be the work of Pennsylvania tricksters, 
 consolidated the Republican Party, intensified the grow- 
 ing hatred of the sections, and afforded the extremists 
 on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line a never-ending 
 theme of discussion. Plymouth pulpit had become a 
 national institution. The streets of Brooklyn leading 
 from the ferries were busy with processions of men from 
 New York looking for ' Beecher.' The policemen never 
 waited for a stranger to conclude his question, but invari- 
 ably interrupted him and said : ' Follow the crowd.' 
 That hundreds heard Mr. Beecher preach from Sunday 
 to Sunday who hated him and his doctrines is undoubt- 
 edly the fact. Some of the ' best people ' in the city 
 refused to speak to him, and all over the land he was 
 vilified and abused. All this made no impression on him. 
 Some of his people left his ministry, but where one went 
 twenty new ones came. He demanded a free platform 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 21 7 
 
 for himself, and accorded it to others. His people did 
 not servilely believe anything because he said it, for they 
 often maintained opinions different from his to the end." 
 
 Indulging in political reminiscences one day with a 
 friend, Mr. Beecher, in answer to a question as to whom he 
 regarded as the most influential leaders of public senti- 
 ment, leading the Abolitionists on the one hand and the 
 better grade of Whigs on the other, the point of focus as 
 Republicans, said : 
 
 " Well, I think Seward on the whole. Greeley was 
 off and on. Horace Greeley was one of the ablest ad- 
 vocates in public affairs. When wise counsel had laid 
 down a good line, a good platform, and Mr. Greeley 
 mounted it in defence, there was no man so able as he, 
 but when the work was not the defence of an agreed-upon 
 platform, but the formation of it, he was a very unwise 
 and uncertain counsellor. I do not know whether it is 
 worth my while to tell the history of one thing that oc- 
 curred about the time of the war. There was an assem- 
 bly in an hotel in New York. There were fifty Southern 
 officers in our army convened in an hotel in New York 
 after secession was in full swing, to discuss what their 
 duties as officers should be, and the point was this : If 
 the South is to be organized into another government 
 it is perfectly honorable for us to change our allegiance 
 from the Government of the North to the Government 
 of the South, but if that is not to be accepted or toler- 
 
2l8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ated, then we are bound by our oath of allegiance to this 
 Government, which has educated us, not to go over to 
 the Southern army. On this morning appeared in the 
 Trtfatne' that wonderful declaration, ' Let the South go,' 
 by Greeley ! These gentlemen said : ' All the South are 
 agreed that there is to be this new government. The 
 Democratic party of the North, we know, assents to it, 
 and the only question remaining is, What are the anti- 
 slavery men going to do ? ' And on that morning came 
 out that declaration of Greeley, who was regarded wrong- 
 fully as being the leader of the great anti-slavery move- 
 ment, and they said, * That settles it,' and in less than 
 twenty-four hours every mother's son of them but one 
 had left the North and gone pell-mell down South and 
 offered his sword to the Confederates, because the 
 Southern management would give these officers their 
 rank in the order of their application, and it was impor- 
 tant that they should get in first and not get near the tail. 
 The last support, therefore, was kicked from under the 
 vessel by a careless foot." 
 
 " Do you share the belief that was quite general at the 
 time that Fremont carried Pennsylvania?" 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " Do you believe that he was elected President ?" 
 
 I do." 
 
 " Do you believe that his inauguration as President 
 would have averted a civil war ? " 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 219 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Did you know President Buchanan ? " 
 
 "No, nothing more than just by sight." 
 
 " Do you believe him to have been a square man ?" 
 
 " I believe him to have been a man of honest inten- 
 tions, but utterly unfit for the times which found him. 
 He had neither courage nor any commanding discre- 
 tion." 
 
 " How do you regard Douglas ? " 
 
 " I regard Douglas as a very able man indeed, but a 
 dangerous man, because I do not think that he acted on 
 great lines, but rather on the inner lines of political ex- 
 pediency." 
 
 " Do you think he was a thoroughly loyal man ? " 
 
 " I think he was a thoroughly loyal man." 
 
 " Do you think the election of President Lincoln pre- 
 cipitated the rebellion ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do you think that his death and its manner, and at 
 the time, was a great thing for him in history ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ; I think that his coffin was more than the 
 Presidential chair. It certainly gave to the whole of his 
 career the influence of a kind of political saintship." 
 
 " Do you believe that he would have carried out a 
 different policy from that of Johnson ? " 
 
 " I know that at the time that things were drawing to 
 a consummation he had in an inchoate form the very 
 
220 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 policy that Johnson undertook to carry out under a 
 change of circumstances. I know it, because the Cleve- 
 land letter that I wrote was the result of conferences 
 with Governor Andrew and President Lincoln, just pre- 
 ceding Lincoln's death, as to what were to be the next 
 coming steps after the breaking down of the rebellion, 
 and at that time, under the circumstances, it seems to me 
 that they had, on the whole, very wise views. It may 
 be said almost in a sentence what their policy was. It 
 was to say to the leading public men of the South : 
 * Gentlemen, you took your section out of the Union ; 
 you must bring it back. We hold you responsible. 
 We will give you all the power necessary to do it. 
 Slavery is gone, and as you went out with those men 
 who have been defeated, now you must come back and 
 we will trust you.' " 
 
 " Whom did you regard as the significant men in our 
 war the political so-called generals ; that is, men like 
 Butler, whose administrative qualities were called into 
 use, or men like Grant, Sheridan, etc. ? " 
 
 " The West Point men were the ablest men and the 
 most efficient men by all odds. With one or two ex- 
 ceptions only were men who became generals from civil 
 life of any great noticeable success. Terry was and has 
 remained so, a very able department commander, re- 
 spected by all the army. Butler was not a military man. 
 Every military element in him failed." 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 221 
 
 " What do you think of him as an administrator ?" 
 " Under the circumstances, as an administrator he 
 was surpassing. You could not have got a better man 
 for New Orleans. He was in his very element, in the 
 place where his conscience worked in the direction of 
 patriotism with remarkable shrewdness and success." 
 " Did you work for Grant ? " 
 " First, middle, and last." 
 
 " You regarded him as a favorite with the people ? " 
 " I am not in a situation to determine that. I only 
 know that when his name was mentioned in any large 
 audience where I was present he always carried the day 
 with great enthusiasm." 
 
 " How do you account for his non-renomination ? " 
 " There were too many candidates with too strong a 
 backing, and all combined they defeated him. What the 
 enthusiasm of the public is and what the enthusiasm of 
 the political managers is are two different things." 
 " You knew Lincoln ? " 
 " Very well." 
 
 " In a sentence, what do you think of him ? " 
 " I think that Lincoln was to a remarkable degree 
 both a statesman and a politician ; that he based his 
 views of expediency on great principles, but that in exe- 
 cuting expedient objects he was as shrewd and keen a 
 politician as ever was in Washington. He had a broad 
 sympathy for human nature, and he understood it very 
 
222 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 well. He was as devoid of personal ambition and selfish- 
 ness as any man of whom we have a record in our his- 
 tory. He was a man who wanted to do that which was 
 right and best for this whole nation, South and North, 
 and was willing to go as near to the edge of doubtful ex- 
 pediency as a man could go and not go over the preci- 
 pice ; but he saved himself." 
 
 It is almost needless to state that he was a champion 
 of Lincoln when he received the nomination in 1860. 
 He believed that the election of Lincoln would precipi- 
 tate a war between the North and South ; of course it 
 was to be deplored, but he thought that the " impend- 
 ing conflict " had better come then than to a future gen- 
 eration. He took a very active part in the campaign, 
 that resulted as he had predicted, both in and out of the 
 pulpit. The democratic papers, notably the New York 
 Day-book, the favorite organ of the South in New York 
 City, styled him the " political parson," a title afterward 
 freely bestowed on the redoubtable " Parson Brownlow " 
 during his lecture tour. 
 
 As the war wore on and the question of Presidential 
 candidates came up, he was outspoken in advocacy of 
 Mr. Lincoln's re-election, and in the following campaign 
 did much to secure that end. When finally the war was 
 happily ended and peace declared he was the first to 
 stretch the hand of reconciliation across the bloody 
 chasm, and in an ever-memorable discourse preached the 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 223 
 
 doctrine of brotherly love. The reoccupation of Fort 
 Sumter and the raising of the old flag was made an occa- 
 sion of national rejoicing, and Mr. Beecher was chosen 
 as the orator of the day. But grave and gay as were the 
 festivities of that hour, they paled into insignificance be- 
 fore the return of the patriotic party from their mission 
 of re-establishment in the presence of a bereavement that 
 sent the nations of the earth in mourning to our national 
 capital. The death of Lincoln stirred the deepest depths 
 of Beecher's nature, and wrung from him a tribute of love 
 and esteem and thoughtful appreciation that will be for- 
 ever embalmed in the literature of the age. Apprehen- 
 sive of discord at Washington, Mr. Beecher was one of 
 the first to declare in favor of universal amnesty and im- 
 partial suffrage. Friends fell from him in consequence. 
 There were many who could not forgive and forget. 
 They were willing to say " I forgive," but they had suf- 
 fered too much to pretend to forget. These frowned on 
 Mr. Beecher and accused him of being a time-server. At 
 this he laughed as heartily as when the same people 
 charged him with being foolhardy in his anti-slavery 
 campaign. He said he could afford to wait, and he did. 
 It is not necessary to allude in this connection to his 
 political services during the war, if, indeed, his patriotic 
 course can be considered political. In his address at Fort 
 Sumter, in 1865, he spoke of a restored union of the 
 North and South, and predicted resultant prosperity, 
 
224 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 and this was the theme of his speeches for several years. 
 A friend says : 
 
 After the war Mr. Beecher instantly appealed to the 
 people of the North to deal generously and magnani- 
 mously with the South. Immediately after the surrender 
 of Richmond he expressed in strong terms his desire for 
 a complete reunion of the people North and South, and 
 his opposition to any schemes of punishment or imposi- 
 tion of penalties other than the mere abolition of slavery. 
 The majority of his people, however, had become so ex- 
 cited by the events of the war as to receive this advice 
 with disfavor, and on the assassination of Lincoln, which 
 happened while Mr. Beecher was at Fort Sumter, and 
 therefore could know nothing about it, this feeling on the 
 part of most of his friends became quite intense, and es- 
 pecially strong among those who had not been known as 
 Abolitionists before the war. Many of them informed 
 him on his return that they would not consent to his ad- 
 vocating general amnesty, as he had intimated his inten- 
 tion of doing. It was the first time in which any of Mr. 
 Beecher's friends had thought him too conservative, and 
 the opposition to his views was the most vigorous that 
 he had ever met with in his own circle. It made, how- 
 ever, little difference with him. He persisted in oppos- 
 ing the execution of Jefferson Davis, the confiscation of 
 rebel property, and every form of punishment. The ab- 
 olition of slavery he never regarded as a punishment at 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 225 
 
 all, but rather as a benefit alike to the master and the 
 slave. For more than a year this difference of opinion 
 between him and the majority of his church continued, 
 producing the only instance of what might be called alien- 
 ation between them ever known in the history of the 
 church. It was a singular fact, however, that in these 
 views he was sustained by nearly every original Abolition- 
 ist among his church members, and that the most strenu- 
 ous opponents of his policy of conciliation were gentle- 
 men who had been considered in former years as leaning 
 somewhat toward the South. 
 
 Says another account : 
 
 His anti-slavery position was that of the Republi- 
 can party freedom national and slavery sectional. But 
 while denying the right of the nation to interfere with 
 slavery in the States, he insisted on the right of moral 
 interference, and exercised it freely upon every fit occa- 
 sion. In the trying times of 1866 he took sides with 
 President Johnson in his controversy with the Repub- 
 lican party, and rhetorically assigned to him a fame in 
 history equal to that of Washington. His impetuous 
 emotion betrayed him into many similar exaggerations. 
 But his position at that time was an expression of his 
 abiding faith that a policy of the largest clemency was 
 the best policy of reconstruction. He had great compan- 
 ions in this faith Lincoln, and John A. Andrew, and 
 General Grant. 
 
 10 
 
226 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 In view of their friendship and political affiliations, it 
 was generally expected that Beecher would support Hor- 
 ace Greeley in the presidential campaign of 1872 ; but his 
 gratitude to General Grant for many favors which he 
 had enjoyed, as well as his high opinion of his abilities, 
 led him to advocate his election. 
 
 Mr. Beecher's friendly attitude toward the recon- 
 structed South, and his wish to visit that section of the 
 country, led to a lecture tour in 1882, when he delivered 
 his lecture on "The North and the South" in Rich- 
 mond, Va. According to the newspapers, Mayor Car- 
 rington, of Richmond, gives the following account of Mr. 
 Beecher's visit to that city : 
 
 " One of the most dramatic events in the oratorical ca- 
 reer of Henry Ward Beecher occurred in Richmond, in 
 1882, during his lecturing tour through the South. The 
 announcement that he was to lecture at Mozart Hall on 
 ' The North and the South ' filled the old building. It 
 was his first appearance in Richmond since the war, and 
 he was rather doubtful about the kind of reception he 
 would get. When he walked out on the stage he saw 
 before him a distinguished audience of Southerners, in- 
 cluding several of the leading generals on the losing side. 
 In the fourth row of the orchestra sat General Fitzhugh 
 Lee, and just behind him, General Rosser, while near by 
 were ex-Governor ' Extra Billy' Smith and Governor 
 Cameron. No applause greeted the great preacher as he 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 227 
 
 stepped before the foot-lights. The ladies levelled their 
 opera-glasses at him with cold curiosity, and the men 
 looked coolly expectant. Some hisses from a few row- 
 dies in the gallery did not tend to dispel the chilliness of 
 the reception. 
 
 " Mr. Beecher surveyed the audience calmly for a mo- 
 ment, and then stepping directly in front of General Lee, 
 he said : ' I have seen pictures of General Fitzhugh Lee, 
 and I judge that you are the man ; am I right ? ' 
 
 " The general, slightly taken aback by this direct ad- 
 dress, nodded stiffly, while the audience bent forward 
 breathless with curiosity as to what was going to follow. 
 
 " ' Then,' said Mr. Beecher, his face lighting up, ' I 
 want to offer you this right hand which, in its own way, 
 fought against you and yours twenty-five years ago, but 
 which I would now willingly sacrifice to make the Sunny 
 South prosperous and happy. Will you take it, gen- 
 eral ? ' 
 
 " There was a moment's hesitation, a moment of death- 
 like stillness in the hall, and then Fitzhugh Lee was on 
 his feet, his hand was extended across the foot-lights, and 
 was quickly met by the warm grasp of the preacher's. 
 
 " At first there was a murmur, half of surprise and half of 
 doubtfulness, from the audience ; then there was a hesitat- 
 ing clapping of hands, and before Beecher had unloosed the 
 hand of Robert E. Lee's nephew now Governor of Vir- 
 ginia there were cheers such as were never before heard 
 
228 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 in old Mozart, though it had been the scene of many a 
 war and political meeting. 
 
 " But that was only the beginning of the enthusiasm. 
 
 " When the noise subsided Mr. Beecher said : * When 
 I go back home, I shall proudly tell that I have grasped 
 the hand of the nephew of the great Southern chieftain ; 
 I shall tell my people that I went to the Confederate 
 capital with a heart full of love for the people whom my 
 principles once obliged me to oppose, and that I was met 
 half-way by the brave Southerners, who can forgive as 
 well as they can fight.' 
 
 " Five minutes of applause followed, and then Mr. 
 Beecher, having gained the hearts of his audience, began 
 his lecture and was applauded to the echo. That night 
 he entered his carriage and drove to his hotel amid shouts 
 such as had never greeted a Northern man in Richmond 
 since the war." 
 
 Although Mr. Beecher had been associated all his life 
 with the Republican Party, and had achieved his greatest 
 successes as a political speaker in connection with that 
 party, and his weightiest influence had been acquired 
 with the members of that party, when Mr. Cleveland 
 was nominated for the Presidency in 1884 he openly ex- 
 pressed his preference for the Democratic candidate, and 
 before the close of the campaign cut loose entirely from 
 his old party affiliations and made a number of telling 
 speeches in favor of the opposing candidate. Beginning 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS 22Q 
 
 with a ringing speech at a great meeting in the Brooklyn 
 Academy of Music, he followed it up with equally telling 
 efforts at a business men's open-air meeting down-town, 
 and at other gatherings in this city. This breaking loose 
 from old ties brought down on him, of course, the resent- 
 ment of many of his old party associates, and subjected 
 him to much bitter animadversion ; but in this case, as in 
 the opposition he aroused by his policy of conciliation at 
 the close ojf the war, he listened to abuse with indiffer- 
 ence, and smiled serenely at the impotent wrath of his 
 traducers. 
 
 Parishioners who had never wavered in their allegiance 
 in the darkest days now angrily deserted him. Said an 
 excellent lady : " I would not have believed him guilty if 
 he had declared himself so in the pulpit, but I believe it 
 now." Such was the quality of partisan feeling. But, 
 however unwise some of his public utterances, Mr. 
 Beecher's support of Mr. Cleveland was one of the most 
 deliberate, one of the least impulsive, actions of his life. 
 In 1876 he was resolved, and openly declared, that if 
 Blaine were, nominated he would not support him. He 
 never changed his mind. His course in 1884 proved his 
 courage to the uttermost. But in this virtue he was 
 never lacking. He was a consistent supporter of Presi- 
 dent Cleveland's administration. In becoming a " Mug- 
 wump," as has been shown, Mr. Beecher encountered 
 opposition from his warmest friends in and out of his 
 
23O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 church. He had made Mr. Cleveland's acquaintance at 
 Albany while he was governor, and it was mainly through 
 him that General Horatio C. King's appointment on 
 the governor's staff was secured. Governor Cleveland's 
 famous letter to Mr. Beecher exonerating himself from 
 certain grave and infamous charges convinced Mr. 
 Beecher that he was maligned, and that the opposition 
 were resorting to unfair weapons in employing scandal to 
 encompass his defeat. He considered, besides, the most 
 important issue in the campaign to be that of the Civil 
 Service Reform advocated by Cleveland. Among the 
 " Mugwumps " he found several old-time allies, including 
 George William Curtis. 
 
 It is to be related now, for the first time, that when 
 there was a clamor on the part of the Democrats for a 
 partisan appointment of the New York Postmaster, Mr. 
 Beecher and Mr. Curtis saw President Cleveland on be- 
 half of the incumbent, Mr. Pearson. President Cleve- 
 land was on the horn of a dilemma between the Mug- 
 wumps, advocating Civil Service Reform as expounded by 
 himself i.e., the retention in office of proper, faithful, 
 and competent men, without regard to party affiliations 
 and his party, demanding removals of republican officials 
 and their places for partisans. President Cleveland re- 
 quested Messrs. Beecher and Curtis to name some Demo- 
 crat who would be acceptable to them. But they de- 
 clined, saying that they sought the retention of Mr. 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 231 
 
 Pearson in the office purely on the grounds of Civil Ser- 
 vice Reform, not partisan or personal ; that he had proved 
 himself an efficient and faithful official, whose removal 
 under the circumstances was not justifiable for any other 
 than partisan reasons, and to give his place to a Demo- 
 crat. President Cleveland hearkened to their wishes and 
 counsel, and reappointed Mr. Pearson. 
 
 While Mr. Beecher's course in regard to the election 
 of Cleveland alienated many of his followers in the Re- 
 publican Party, which he had been instrumental in creat- 
 ing, he gained many admirers in the ranks of the De- 
 mocracy in the South as well as in the North, and many 
 resolutions of regret at his death were adopted by po- 
 litical bodies which years ago bitterly denounced him. 
 The sentiment of the Democratic Party in regard to him 
 was voiced by the resolutions and speeches of the Young 
 Men's Democratic Club of Brooklyn. At a meeting on 
 the evening after his death, Mr. David A. Boody, chair- 
 man of the Executive Committee, first took the floor, 
 and offered the following resolution : 
 
 " We meet to-night under the shadow of a national sor- 
 row. All over the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
 from Alaska to the Gulf, that shadow has spread. It 
 has entered every hamlet with the announcement that 
 " a prince and a great man has fallen." No matter what 
 may be men's political affiliations, no matter what their 
 religious creed, all feel to-day that they have been 
 
232 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 touched by a personal sorrow. Henry Ward Beecher's 
 great heart seemed to have grown too large for any party, 
 for any creed. It beat for humanity. Wherever men 
 have struggled for better government or better morals, 
 or wherever they have taught a higher manhood, they 
 have been encouraged and inspired by him whom we 
 now mourn. Wherever human limbs have worn the 
 shackles of oppression, or the human mind has been un- 
 der the bondage of ignorance and superstition, there may 
 be found the records of this great life. While Henry 
 Ward Beecher lived for the world, and the world is to-day 
 doing homage to his memory, it is peculiarly fitting that 
 we, his townsmen, we who have seen him so frequently 
 in the life, who have witnessed his cheerful bearing, who 
 have known his patient endurance when the clouds of 
 sorrow and defamation rolled over his head we who 
 have been swayed and thrilled by an eloquence and an 
 imagery all his own, should place upon our records some 
 token indicating our sense of bereavement; therefore, 
 
 " Resolved, That the death of Henry Ward Beecher 
 brings to us a personal grief, to our country a national 
 affliction, and to the world an irreparable loss." 
 Another member, Mr. E. M. Shepard, said : 
 " As we are a political club and a Democratic body 
 there was one element in Mr. Beecher's character that I 
 should like to touch upon. He was not a politician, but 
 a clergyman ; but he differed from all other ministers in 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 233 
 
 one quality. He had an extraordinary prescience. Mr. 
 Beecher always read the signs of the time in regard to 
 future political movements. He always knew what was 
 coming. Looking backward, we have to admit that his 
 judgment in advance in regard to political questions 
 proved to be sound. For instance, take the slavery ques- 
 tion. On that question he was right. The Democratic 
 party now sees it. The moral question involved was 
 overwhelming and sure to prevail in the end. *Mr. Cal- 
 houn said, after he had read one of Mr. Beecher's earlier 
 speeches on the subject : ' Mr. Beecher has the kernel of 
 the subject. Slavery is morally wrong.' Then the War 
 of the Rebellion came. I used as a boy. to look with 
 hostility upon political sermons. I would go to Mr. 
 Beecher's church and burn with indignation while he 
 preached upon political subjects ; but he was right. Then 
 came the days of reconstruction, when we Democrats 
 saw what we considered dastardly and tyrannical at- 
 tempts to give suffrage to ignorant slaves. I still think 
 it was wrong, but it had to be done in order to blot out 
 sectional differences. He was again right. Then, again, 
 when he stood upon the battlements of Sumter he struck 
 the key-note when he said that the main thing to be done 
 was to insist that the rights of white, as well as of the 
 black, men should be regarded. He was in a very small 
 minority, and this action caused intense bitterness against 
 him ; but he was right. Then on the money question we 
 
 10* 
 
234 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 were far astray. Beecher was right then. It is not out 
 of place to say that when Mr. Beecher died he was a 
 Democrat. To be sure, at different times he was forced 
 by his convictions to go against the Democratic Party, 
 but its fundamental principles he always advocated. Mr. 
 Beecher was sound on the question of tariff reform and 
 Civil Service. He recognized as few men did that when 
 the sentimental questions evolved by the war were set- 
 tled but two questions remained for the consideration 
 of the people, namely, the administrative question and 
 that of taxation. There has never been a man outside 
 of politics of so sound a political foresight. I say more : 
 there have been few men in practical politics who were 
 so intelligent, so patriotic, so beneficent as he." 
 
 The resolution was unanimously adopted. 
 
 " His own party " has also adopted appropriate reso- 
 lutions regretting his death, as shown by the action of 
 the New York Republican Club in the following reso- 
 lution : 
 
 " This club has received with profound regret the in- 
 telligence of the death of Henry Ward Beecher. He 
 was throughout the anti-slavery struggle that resulted in 
 the formation of the Republican Party one of the fore- 
 most champions of liberty and equal rights. The early 
 years of this party were largely supported by his great 
 powers, and to few, aside from the chief generals in the 
 field, did the cause of the Union owe more during the 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 235 
 
 dark days of the Rebellion. Possessed of extraordinary 
 powers as an orator and thinker, he was ever ready to 
 use them, not only in the cause of religion, his chosen 
 field, but in behalf of every movement that tended to the 
 extension of the rights or the amelioration of the con- 
 dition of humanity. This club, recognizing his great ser- 
 vices to the party and to the country, desires to place on 
 record this expression of its sense of the loss his death 
 has occasioned to the entire civilized world." 
 
 The following report from the New York Tribune, 
 October 23, 1884, of a speech at a meeting in Brooklyn, 
 in which Mr. Beecher explained his course in regard to 
 Cleveland and his conversion to Mugwumpism, is inter- 
 esting in this connection : 
 
 At the Brooklyn Rink, last evening, Henry Ward Beecher told 
 a crowded audience his reasons for supporting Cleveland in prefer- 
 ence to Blaine. The meeting was held under the auspices of the 
 Brooklyn Independents. Mr. Beecher began by expressing his 
 regrets that he found himself compelled to oppose the Republican 
 nominee. " My appearance here to antagonize the organized action 
 of the Republican Party," said he, " is a fact of very significant 
 character. Before many of you were born I rocked the cradle of 
 the Republican Party." He then briefly but eloquently sketched 
 his work for the Republican Party, eliciting frequent outbursts of 
 applause, Then he gave his reasons for opposing it. "I don't 
 mean to be a pall-bearer to carry the coffin of the Republican 
 Party to the grave. It is going down to destruction unless you 
 switch it off on to a side-track." He next expressed the solemnity 
 
236 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 of his feelings on finding himself opposed to the party he had so 
 long fought for. " My whole spirit and whole soul is as solemn as 
 on any day that I remember of my whole life. I am in dead ear- 
 nest." Then followed a reference to the achievements of the Re- 
 publican Party and a glance into the future. ' ' There are two great 
 dangers," he said, " that threaten our Government. One is the 
 growing influence of wealth ; the other is the danger that comes 
 from the corruption of power too long in the same hands." A ref- 
 erence to the growing greed for wealth followed. " We are a 
 money-making people," he said, " to an incredible extent. Protec- 
 tion is a vast scheme of taxation. It rolls into the reservoirs at 
 Washington four hundred millions of dollars every year, and one 
 hundred millions of dollars lie pulseless and useless there to-day." 
 Next was portrayed the extent of corruption votes bought, judge- 
 ships bought, and so on. " To-day," he said, " it is sought to buy 
 a candidate into the Presidential chair with money. I have been 
 credibly informed that between one and two millions of dollars 
 have been rolled West to gild the State of Ohio, and another like 
 stream is pouring into Indiana. The day is coming when we shall 
 be honey-combed by corruption." He asked which candidate 
 would be more likely to resist this canker of corruption, and fol- 
 lowed with a series of sneering questions which, without directly 
 stating, implied that Mr. Elaine was a very corrupt and unfit man. 
 Mr. Beecher next gave an account of many of the good things 
 and some of the bad things the Republican Party had done in the 
 past. He dilated on the dangers of official corruption, and said many 
 hard things of Mr. Elaine, and implied more, but gave him credit 
 for possessing many personal and social attractions. " If you vote 
 for Elaine," said he, " you vote for corruption ; if you vote for St. 
 John, you vote into the air ; if you vote for Butler, you vote into 
 the mud ; if you vote for Cleveland you vote for an honest man." 
 
HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 237 
 
 Mr. Beecher next touched upon Cleveland's moral character, and 
 instantly people-were on the tiptoe of expectation. 
 
 "The air is murky," he said, "with shameless stories of Mr. 
 Cleveland's private life. To our sorrow and shame we find cocka- 
 trice-eggs hatched by rash and credulous clergymen. They could 
 not go to Mr. Cleveland with honest inquiry ; so they open their 
 ears to the harlot and drunkard. They have sought by irrespon- 
 sible slander to poison the faith of holy men and innocent women. 
 Do these ministers ever reflect that the guilt of a vice or a crime 
 measures the guilt of him who charges it falsely ? My honored 
 and beloved wife, quite unbeknown to me, cut many clippings 
 from the newspapers, all of which reflected on the life of Mr. 
 Cleveland at Albany, and sent them to him with a letter that will 
 not be published, but that would be a gem in English literature if 
 it were published. As quick as the mail could return she received 
 from Governor Cleveland a letter which I have had between two 
 and three weeks, and which he meant to be private and marked 
 ' private ; ' but such complexion has the canvass taken that I tele- 
 graphed to him two nights ago to ask if he would allow me to use 
 my discretion in regard to that letter. His reply was, ' Certainly, 
 if it is your judgment.' Now I will read Governor Cleveland's 
 letter." Mr. Beecher then read the famous letter, which is too 
 well known to need repetition here. As he read the portion 
 wherein Mr. Cleveland emphatically denied that he had been guilty 
 of improper conduct during his residence in Albany, the audience 
 indulged in vociferous and prolonged cheering. 
 
 There was loud applause when Mr. Beecher finished reading 
 the letter. When it had died away he continued, with much 
 visible emotion : " When in the gloomy night of my own suffer- 
 ings, in years gone by, I sounded every depth of sorrow, I 
 vowed that if God would bring the day star of hope to me, I would 
 
238 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 never suffer brother, friend, or neighbor to go unfriended, should 
 a like serpent seek to crush him. [Applause.] That oath I will 
 regard now, because I know the bitterness of venomous lies. I will 
 stand against infamous lies that seek to sting to death a man, a 
 magistrate worthy of a better fate. Men counsel me to ponder 
 lest I stir again my own griefs. No, I will not be frightened. If 
 I refuse to interpose a shield of well-placed confidence between 
 Governor Cleveland and the swarm of liars that wallow in the mud 
 of slander, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth and 
 may my right hand forget its cunning ! I will imitate the noble 
 example set me by Plymouth Church in the day of my calamity. 
 They were not ashamed of my burden. They stood by me with 
 God-inspired loyalty. It was an heroic deed. They have set my 
 duty before me. I will imitate their example, and as long as I 
 have breath I will not see a man attacked by serpents or venomous 
 stinging insects, and not, if I believe him to be honest, stand with 
 him and for him against all comers." [Loud applause.] 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 HIS LITERARY LIFE. 
 
 Journalistic and Literary Experience. The New York Independent.-* 
 The Christian Union. Star Papers. List of His Books. Reluc- 
 tance at Literary Composition. His First Work, " Lectures to 
 Young Men." Success of the Book. Its Enormous Sale. First 
 Work of an Indiana Author reprinted in England. How He re- 
 garded It. Summary of the Lectures. Industry and Idleness. 
 Pointed Sentences and Telling Truths. A Forcible Style. Dishon- 
 esty and its Consequences. Evils of Riches as Such. "The Portrait 
 Gallery." Gamblers and Gambling. " The Strange Woman." The 
 Theatre and Its Evils. Views modified in Later Life. Mr. Beecher 
 and Henry Irving. 
 
 MR. BEECHER'S journalistic and literary work is in it- 
 self a magnificent monument to his memory. As stated 
 elsewhere, his first journalistic experience was as editor of 
 the Cincinnati Journal, and he subsequently conducted, 
 at Indianapolis, the Western Farmer and Gardener, as a 
 matter of recreation. When the New York Independent 
 was started he became a regular contributor to its col- 
 umns, and from 1861 to 1864 he was its editor-in-chief. 
 Finding his editorial duties somewhat onerous, he then 
 resigned his- position, and was succeeded by Theodore 
 Tilton ; but he continued for several years to contribute 
 at least one article weekly to the columns of the paper. 
 
24O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 These articles were signed with an asterisk, and thus be- 
 came known as " Star Papers." The most striking of 
 them were afterward published in book form with the 
 above title, and had a very wide sale. 
 
 In 1870 he became editor of The Christian Union, a 
 position which he held for three or four years ; after his 
 retirement he contributed to the columns of the paper as 
 he had contributed to The Independent after resigning its 
 editorial chair. By his work on these papers he exerted 
 wide influence on the public thought of his time. Those 
 journals under his charge were in fact foremost among 
 the leading vital forces in American journalism. 
 
 Few persons know what an immense amount of liter- 
 ary work Mr. Beecher accomplished. The following is 
 a list of the published works : 
 
 Sermons, ten volumes of 475 pages each. 
 
 Sermons, four volumes of 600 pages each. 
 
 " A Summer Parish," 240 pages. 
 
 " Yale Lectures on Preaching," first, second, and third 
 series. 
 
 " Lectures to Young Men," 506 pages. 
 
 " Star Papers," 600 pages. 
 
 " Pleasant Talk about Fruits, Flowers, and Farming," 
 498 pages. 
 
 " Lecture Room Talks," 384 pages. 
 
 " Norwood ; or, Village Life in New England," 549 
 pages. 
 
HIS LITERARY LIFE. 241 
 
 " The Overture of Angels." 
 
 " Eyes and Ears ; or, Thoughts as They Occur." 
 
 " Freedom and War." 
 
 " Royal Truths." 
 
 " Views and Experiences of Religious Subjects." 
 
 " Life of Jesus the Christ." 
 
 This is in addition to his writings on agricultural, po- 
 litical, and general subjects, his routine work, and special 
 trips for lecturing or speaking. He was always greatly 
 interested in church music, more especially in the form 
 of congregational singing, and one of the first things 
 done by the new pastor from the West, when he took 
 charge of Plymouth Church, was to compile a book of 
 hymns and tunes for the use of his own and sister 
 churches. 
 
 A curious circumstance in connection with his literary 
 work was that he disliked the effort of writing, and it 
 was often hard work for publishers to get "copy ".from 
 him at a stated time. The writing of his novel " Nor- 
 wood " was a particularly painful task, and he was sorry, 
 during the continuance of the work, that he had ever be- 
 gun it. His first volume was " Lectures to Young 
 Men," published in 1845, with a second edition in 1846, 
 and of these two editions more than sixty thousand 
 copies were sold. The " Lectures" in 1873 were added 
 to a uniform edition of Mr. Beecher's works. Indiana 
 people are specially proud of this book, as it was the first 
 
242 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 book by an author residing in that State which was hon- 
 ored with republication in England. Mr. Beecher says 
 that the lectures were carefully written, and they cer- 
 tainly bear internal evidence of his fidelity to his work 
 in the early years of his life. A short time before his 
 death he told a friend that he once contemplated revis- 
 ing them for a new edition, but after a careful examina- 
 tion he did not think he could materially improve them, 
 and had consequently abandoned the idea. 
 
 A summary of these lectures deserves a place in this 
 memorial. The entire series may be read with pleasure 
 and profit, not only by young men, to whom they were 
 particularly addressed, but by everybody. They are re- 
 markable for their freshness and originality, are clear as 
 the day, and forcibly expressed. 
 
 In the first lecture, " Industry and Idleness " are dealt 
 with. The lecturer's aversion to the bustling do-nothings 
 who can accomplish least with the loudest noise is very ap- 
 parent. " The supine sluggard is no more indolent than 
 the bustling do-nothing. Men may walk much, and read 
 much, and talk much, and pass the day without an un- 
 occupied moment, and yet be substantially idle ; because 
 Industry requires at least the intention of usefulness." 
 The lecture is divided into sections, the first dealing with 
 the lazy man, whose failing, he says, is described by 
 Solomon : " How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard ? 
 when wilt thou awake out of sleep ? . He is val- 
 
HIS LITERARY LIFE. 243 
 
 iant at sleeping and at the trencher; but for other courage, 
 the slothful man saith. There is a lion without ; I shall be 
 slain in the street. . . . His lands run to waste, his 
 fences are dilapidated, his crops chiefly of weeds and 
 brambles ; a shattered house " completing the picture. 
 " This is the very castle of Indolence." 
 
 The second idler is as useless as the first, for, if active, 
 it is in other people's business than his own. The third 
 idler follows no vocation. " He defrauds his laundress, 
 his tailor, and his landlord. He gambles, and swears, and 
 fights when he is too drunk to be afraid." 
 
 The fourth in the list excites pity. Beginning life 
 thriftily, he has become involved in other men's affairs, 
 and has gone down in their ruin. He begins again, and is 
 once more ruined. He then sinks into despondency, out 
 of which nothing can arouse him, and he lives and dies 
 a discouraged man. 
 
 The fashionable idler comes next, with " a fine form 
 and manly beauty, and his chief end in life is to display 
 them. . . . Gay and frivolous, rich and useless, polished 
 till the enamel is worn off, his whole life serves only to 
 make him an animated puppet of pleasure." 
 
 The last picture is of the business man who wishes to 
 subsist by his occupation while he attends to pleasure. 
 After a few years he fails, and sinks to a lower grade of 
 idleness and to ruin. 
 
 Turning to Industry, the lecturer says a hearty Indus- 
 
244 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 try, with the aid of health, good appetite, and good di- 
 gestion, promotes happiness. " The slave is often hap- 
 pier than the master, who is nearer undone by license 
 than his vassal by toil." . " Industry is the parent 
 
 of Thrift, and is a substitute for Genius." 
 
 Reference is made to scheming speculations which pro- 
 duce among the young an aversion to the slow accumu- 
 lations of ordinary industry. " But if the butterfly de- 
 rides the bee in summer, he was never known to do it in 
 the lowering days of autumn." 
 
 Luck is disposed of in very few words. " I never knew 
 an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his 
 earnings, and strictly honest, who complained of bad luck 
 . . . the worst of all luck is to be a sluggard, a knave, 
 or a tippler." 
 
 " Indolence is a great spendthrift, and as surely runs to 
 dishonesty as lying." 
 
 Temptations to indolence are stated as the results of 
 wretched training, youthful indulgences, and example. 
 
 " The example of political men, office-seekers, and pub- 
 lic officers, is not always conducive to Industry. . . . 
 Had I a son able to gain a livelihood by toil, I had rather 
 bury him than witness his beggarly supplications for office ; 
 sneaking along the path of men's passions to gain his 
 advantage ; holding in the breath of his honest opinions ; 
 and breathing feigned words of flattery to hungry ears, 
 popular or official ; and crawling, viler than a snake, 
 
HIS LITERARY LIFE. 245 
 
 through all the unmanly courses by which ignoble wretches 
 purloin the votes of the dishonest, the drunken, and the 
 vile." 
 
 . Lecture II. is devoted to " Dishonesty." Temporary 
 prosperity in speculation and the sudden reverse of for- 
 tune is given as the cause of the prevalence of dishonesty 
 through the country in these days. " These times will 
 pass away ; but like ones will come again. As physicians 
 study the causes and record the phenomena of plagues and 
 pestilences, to draw from them an antidote against their 
 recurrence, so should we leave to another generation a 
 history of moral plagues as the best antidote to their re- 
 curring malignity." 
 
 " Some men find in their bosom from the first a vehe- 
 ment inclination to dishonest ways. Knavish propensities 
 are inherent ; born with the child and transmissible from 
 parent to son. ... A child naturally fair-minded may 
 become dishonest by parental example. . . . Dishon- 
 esty is learned from one's employers. . . . Extrav- 
 agance is a prolific source of Dishonesty . . . and 
 Debt is an inexhaustible fountain of Dishonesty." There 
 are moral dishonesties, allowed by law, and political dis- 
 honesties, which "breed dishonesties of every kind." "A 
 corrupt public sentiment produces Dishonesty . . . and 
 frequent executive clemency has been a temptation " 
 thereto. We are advised to hope for a more cheerful 
 future, and young men are implored to be worthy of them- 
 
246 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER, 
 
 selves and of their ancestry. " May you settle down, as 
 did Israel of old, a people of God in a promised and pro- 
 tected land true to yourselves, true to your country, and 
 true to your God." 
 
 In Lecture III. we are warned against thinking that 
 riches necessarily confer happiness, and poverty unhappi- 
 ness ; against making haste to be rich ; against covetous- 
 ness, which is both unprofitable and breeds misery ; 
 against selfishness, seeking wealth by covert dishonesty, 
 or by violent extortion, or any flagrant villany. 
 
 " Riches got by deceit cheat no man so much as the 
 getter. Riches bought with guile, God will pay for with 
 vengeance. Riches got by fraud are dug out of one's 
 heart, and destroy the mine. Unjust riches curse the 
 owner in getting, in keeping, in transmitting. They 
 curse his children in their father's memory, in their own 
 wasteful habits, in drawing around them all bad men to 
 be their companions.- . . . For the love of money is 
 the root of all evil, which, while some have coveted after, 
 they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves 
 through with many sorrows" 
 
 " The Portrait Gallery," Lecture IV., is a series of vivid 
 pictures of dangerous men, who, owing to the instinct of 
 imitation, are often the cause of deadly injury even to 
 strangers to them. In these are included the Wit, per- 
 verted ; the Coarse Humorist ; the Cynic, " who never sees 
 a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one," 
 
HIS LITERARY LIFE. 247 
 
 and who is termed a " human owl ; " the Libertine, who is 
 " proud to be viler than other men ; " the artful, cunning, 
 and pretending Politician, including the Demagogue, 
 " who seeks to gratify an invariable selfishness by pre- 
 tending to seek the public good ; " also, the Party Man, 
 who, while preferring that " his own side should be vic- 
 torious by the best means and under the best men, rather 
 than lose the victory will consent to any means, and fol- 
 low any man." 
 
 " Evil men of every degree will use you, flatter you, 
 lead you on until you are useless ; then, if the virtuous 
 do not pity you, or God compassionate, you are without 
 a friend in the universe." 
 
 In " Gamblers and Gambling," Lecture V., we have a 
 strong and earnest warning to young men against the 
 vice of gambling, the " Rake's Progress " being graphically 
 described from the first pack of cards and small stakes to 
 the luxurious gambling hell, and later destitution, and 
 ruin. " The wise manforeseeth the evil ; fools pass on and 
 are punished'' 
 
 " The Strange Woman " is the title of Lecture VI. It 
 is an open warning against licentiousness, and a con- 
 demnation of the criminal fastidiousness which would 
 avoid the subject. Referring to the general subject, and 
 to obscene books, he says : " Men who, at home, allow 
 Don Juan to lie within reach of every reader, will not 
 allow a minister of the Gospel to expose the evil of such 
 
248 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 a literature." The injunction of God to the young upon 
 the ensnaring danger of beauty, and her wiles of love and 
 dress, is set before the auditor in strong colors. But " it 
 is too late ! He has gone in who shall never return. He 
 goetk after her straightway as an ox goeth to the slaugh- 
 ter ; or as a fool to the correction of the stocks . . . 
 and knoweth not that it is for his life." And then we are 
 introduced to the five wards of Pleasure, Satiety, Dis- 
 covery, Disease, and Death, and there is a final warning 
 against indulging in morbid imaginations, evil compan- 
 ions, evil books and pictures. 
 
 The final lecture is a reprehension of unworthy pleas- 
 ures, in which the circus, the theatre, gambling, cock- 
 fighting, bear-baiting, pugilistic contests, and racing are 
 dealt with in an original and characteristic manner, 
 and discountenanced for their waste of time and money, 
 and as being incompatible with the pursuits of every-day 
 life. He says " Those who defend Theatres would scorn 
 to admit actors into their society," and contends that the 
 general fact is not altered by notable and honorable ex- 
 ceptions. 
 
 " In the bosom of that everlasting storm which rains 
 perpetual misery in hell, shalt thou, Corrupter of Youth / 
 be forever hidden from our view, and may God wipe out 
 the very thoughts of thee from our memory." 
 
 In the later years of his life Mr. Beecher's views of the 
 drama were somewhat modified, as he occasionally went 
 
HIS LITERARY LIFE. 
 
 249 
 
 to the theatre when the performance was of the best class, 
 thereby securing the enmity of some of his Christian 
 brethren. He admired Edwin Booth, John McCullough, 
 Charlotte Cushman, and a few others of similar promi- 
 nence and standing, but was outspoken as ever in his de- 
 nunciation of sensational or indecent plays or perform- 
 ances. When Mr. Beecher was in London in 1886 Rev. 
 Dr. Parker gave a dinner, and the menu card is an inter- 
 esting souvenir. It bears Dr. Parker's name, that of his 
 wife, and those of Mr. Beecher, Mrs. Beecher, Henry 
 Irving, and Ellen Terry. Mr. Beecher admired Mr. Irving 
 as a great artist, and Mr. Irving admired him as a great 
 orator. The two could meet on common ground and be 
 entirely congenial. Miss Terry was a no less enthusiastic 
 admirer of Mr. Beecher than Mr. Irving. 
 
 ii 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 
 
 Sixteen Years a Contributor to the New York Ledger. How His Connec- 
 tion with the Paper Began. " A Cannon-ball in the Hat." Suggest- 
 ions for a Novel. How "Norwood" came to be Written. Mr. 
 Beecher's Dilatoriness. His Outline of the Story. Mr. Beecher's 
 Fondness for Horses. Riding behind Dexter. Introducing Mr. Bon- 
 ner to London Punch. Comments on Edward Everett's Death. 
 How He Misspelled. Answering Troublesome Questions. De- 
 nial of Current Rumors. Never played Cards. Visiting Bonner's 
 Stables. 
 
 OF the hundreds of men in all walks of life whom 
 Mr. Beecher called his friends, there were probably few 
 in whom he placed greater trust or to whom he imparted 
 more of his confidence, than Robert Bonner. For nearly 
 twenty years the two were intimate. Week after week, 
 for sixteen years, Mr. Beecher's contributions were leading 
 features of the Ledger. 
 
 " In all my intercourse with men," said Mr. Bonner, 
 " I never met a man like Henry Ward Beecher, and 
 never expect to again. He was sui generis, and a genius, 
 if ever there was one. In losing him the world loses a 
 man whose individuality and personal influence have 
 scarcely ever been equalled. As a friend he was gener 
 
HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 251 
 
 ous, noble- hearted, and self-sacrificing, and he was always 
 doing or saying something to make him the more ad- 
 mired and beloved by his friends." 
 
 The acquaintance of Mr. Bonner and Mr. Beecher, 
 which afterward ripened into warm friendship, was 
 brought about through a letter sent in November, 1858, 
 by the preacher to Mr. Bonner, calling his attention to a 
 story in manuscript written by a young lady, and re- 
 questing the publisher to read it, and, if he deemed it 
 good enough, to print it in the Ledger. Mr. Bonner 
 replied that he did not care for the young lady's efforts, 
 but that he would like to number Mr. Beecher among 
 his contributors, and enclosed a good-sized check as an 
 earnest of his disposition to pay liberally for anything 
 from the preacher's pen. Out of this grew an arrange- 
 ment by which Mr. Beecher became a regular weekly 
 contributor to the Ledger s columns, beginning in Janu- 
 ary, 1859, and continuing with few interruptions until 
 1874. The first article contributed by the already fa- 
 mous preacher was one of a series which he called 
 " Thoughts as They Occur, by One who keeps his Eyes 
 and Ears Open," and was entitled " A Cannon-ball in the 
 Hat," and is pointed to by Mr. Bonner as an excellent 
 example of his free, off-hand, simple, and yet attractive 
 style. 
 
 It was in 1865 that Mr. Bonner suggested to the Ply- 
 mouth pastor that he write a novel. It required little 
 
252 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 urging to get him to consent to this, but it was quite 
 another thing to get the manuscript or any evidence that 
 Mr. Beecher intended to carry out his agreement. He 
 was naturally dilatory, and would only write when driven 
 to it by his wife or publisher. After waiting for nearly 
 two years, the first instalment of " Norwood," which was 
 the only novel ever written by Mr. Beecher, was placed 
 in Mr. Bonner's hands, and was printed in 1867. For this 
 story Mr. Beecher received $30,000, transferring all his 
 right, title, and interest in it to Mr. Bonner for that sum. 
 The latter, after running it serially in the Ledger, pub- 
 lished it in book form, and realized a clear profit of $10,000 
 from its sale. There was a large demand for it in the 
 Southern States. 
 
 On January 3, 1866, in response to numerous inquiries 
 from Mr. Bonner as to the progress he was making with 
 the novel, Mr. Beecher sent him this sketch : 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. BONNER : I know that you have a 
 good right to know something of the story of which you 
 kindly inquire, and will give you some insight into mat- 
 ters. 
 
 " I could have written a sketchy and superficial story 
 with perhaps a few weeks' effort. But the more I re- 
 flected the less I liked to do so. The very liberal terms 
 which you proposed to me seemed to me to merit, not 
 merely a story -, but, if I could, one that would be as good 
 
HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 253 
 
 twenty years hence as on the day it appeared. To do 
 this it was not enough that I should have leisure -, but that 
 I should get my mind out of the run of public questions 
 in which I have been so deeply concerned, and trained 'to 
 a very different line of thought. 
 
 " I propose to make a story which shall turn, not so 
 much on outward action (though I hope to have enough 
 to carry the story handsomely) as on certain mental or in- 
 ward questions. I propose to delineate a high and noble 
 man, trained to New England theology, but brought to 
 excessive distress by speculations and new views. This 
 I feel quite competent to manage. 
 
 " The heroine is to be large of soul, a child of nature, 
 and, although a Christian, yet in childlike sympathy with 
 the truths of God in the autumn world, instead of books. 
 
 " These two, the man of philosophy and theology and 
 the woman of nature and simple truth, are to act upon 
 each other, and she is to triumph. 
 
 " I propose introducing a full company of various New 
 England characters, to give a real view of the inside of a 
 New England town its brewing thought, its inventive- 
 ness, its industry and enterprise, its education and shrewd- 
 ness and tact. I purpose to introduce a Southerner of a 
 rather noble type, and show him off, faults and virtues, on 
 this background of New England, and I may transfer the 
 story in its close to the seat of war and introduce one of 
 its campaigns. But it may so grow on my hands that I 
 
254 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 shall leave that for a separate effort. I am convinced that 
 I have been wise in waiting, and that I shall be far more 
 likely to succeed than I should have done if I had 
 plunged at once into the matter, without study and medi- 
 tation. 
 
 " As to time, I do not see that I can promise with any 
 confidence to give you MSS. before May next. But by 
 that time I hope to be so well assured of my work as to 
 be willing to have the story begun, and also to have it so 
 far advanced that you can be able to judge of its merits 
 before beginning to print. 
 
 " I am not neglecting you because I seem quiet, I as- 
 sure you, and I hope to make haste much faster by and 
 by for waiting hitherto. 
 
 " I am like a painter commissioned to execute a large 
 picture, whose room is full of studies and sketches, and 
 his big canvas is sketched out and ready all done but 
 the painting." 
 
 r 
 
 " I have seldom met a man," said Mr. Bonner, " so 
 passionately fond of animals, and especially of horses, as 
 was Mr. Beecher. He was thoroughly in sympathy with 
 nature. One of his chief delights was to be among 
 horses, and to ride behind a swift stepper for an hour or 
 two seemed to intoxicate him. He was almost as fond 
 of Dexter as of one of his own children, and never missed 
 an opportunity to take a ride with me behind that noble 
 
HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 255 
 
 animal. Sometimes his glee was childish. I remember 
 one afternoon we were driving through a street in Brook- 
 lyn when he espied the Rev. Dr. Storrs soberly pacing 
 the sidewalk. He could not resist the temptation to 
 stop and tell him the name of the horse that was draw- 
 ing us, point out his merits, and describe the manner in 
 which he moved on a good road. The good Doctor 
 seemed rather bored, but in his exuberance Mr. Beecher 
 did not stop to consider whether Dr. Storrs was inter- 
 ested in horses or not. 
 
 " In nearly every letter he ever wrote to me and I 
 sometimes received three or four a week he made some 
 reference to my horses. Shortly after I had made his 
 acquaintance he addressed to me what I regard as one of 
 the best pieces of word-painting on a similar subject in 
 the English language, and which I published at the time. 
 It was written early in the spring, and soon after he had 
 had a discussion with someone as to the humanity of 
 fast driving. Listen ! " And Mr. Bonner read this, en- 
 thusiastically drawing attention to the parts which most 
 caught his fancy : 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. BONNER : You once promised me a 
 ride with your never-to-be-excelled horses, and to-day is 
 the very day for it. The sky is clear. It is a long while 
 since we have had high, bright, clear days. They have 
 been sad and cloudy. Sometimes snow, sometimes rain, 
 
256 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 sometimes a miserable compromise between both. But 
 to-day is of one mind, and that a good mind. Nature 
 is in her sweet and grand mood. It is the first day on 
 which she cared to have it known that her mind was 
 made up to have spring weather. The secret is out now. 
 Snow is melting. I saw grass with fresh growth of green 
 this very morning. No birds yet. But the grass said 
 birds as plainly as if it had spoken English. They cannot 
 be far off. 
 
 " Is not this a day for a ride ? No mud yet. The road 
 is hard and moist. Just the kind for a spin. For I do 
 not want any of your lazy, jogging gaits. I am entirely 
 of your mind that, if a horse has had swiftness put in 
 him, it is fair to give him a chance to develop his gifts. 
 Of course there is a bound. Reason in all things. Even 
 in trotting it is easier for some horses to go twelve miles 
 an hour than for others to go three. They were made so. 
 Does it hurt a swallow to go swifter than an ox ? Why 
 not ? Because he was made so. It is easy to do the 
 thing we were made to do easily. And a good horse 
 was made on purpose to go fast. He does it when wild 
 of his own accord. He does not lose the relish of speed 
 even when domesticated. 
 
 " Take a fine-bred horse, who in harness looks as if he 
 were a pattern of moderation, a very deacon of sobriety, 
 and turn him loose in pasture. Whew, what a change ! 
 He takes one or two steps slowly, just to be sure you 
 
HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 
 
 have let go of him, and then with a squeal he lets fly his 
 heels high in the air, till the sun flashes from his polished 
 shoes, and then off he goes, faster and fiercer, clear across 
 the lot, till the fence brings him up. And then, with his 
 eye flashing, his mane lifted and swelling, his tail up 
 like a king's sceptre, he snorts a defiance at you from afar, 
 and, with a series of rearings, running sideways, pawings 
 and plungings, friskings and whirls, he starts again, with 
 immense enjoyment, into another round of running. Do 
 you not see that it is more than fun ? It is ecstasy. It 
 is horse rapture ! 
 
 " I never see such a spectacle that I am not painfully 
 impressed with the inhumanity of not letting horses run. 
 Fastness is a virtue. Our mistaken moderation is de- 
 priving him of it. I drive fast on principle. I do it for 
 the sake of being at one with nature. To drive slow, 
 only and always, is to treat a horse as if he were an ox. 
 You may be slow if you think proper. But your horse 
 should be kept up to nature. He would have had but 
 two legs if it was meant that he should go only on a 
 1 go-to-meeting ' pace. He has four legs. Of course 
 he ought to do a great deal with them. 
 
 " Now, why do I say these things to you ? Not to 
 convince you of your duty. But I feared lest, taking me 
 out to ride, you would be disposed to think that / had 
 scruples, and would jog along moderately, as if doing me 
 a favor. Not at all. The wind does not go fast enough 
 
258 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 to suit me. If I were an engineer of a sixty-mile-an- 
 hour express train, I should cover twenty miles an hour 
 more. 
 
 " Let the horses be well groomed well harnessed. 
 Let the wagon be thoroughly looked to no screw loose, 
 no flaw just ready to betray us. Mount. I am by your 
 side. The whip is not needed. Yet let it stand in its 
 place, the graceful hint of authority in reserve, which is 
 always wholesome to men and horses. 
 
 " Now get out of town cautiously. No speed here. 
 This is a place for sobriety, moderation, and propriety in 
 driving. But once having shaken off the crowd, I give 
 you a look, and disappear instantly in a wild excitement, 
 as if all the trees were crazy, and had started off in a 
 race, as if the fences were chalk-lines, as if the earth and 
 skies were commingled, and everything were wildly 
 mixed in a supernatural excitement, neither of earth nor 
 of the skies ! 
 
 " The wind has risen since we started ! It did not 
 blow at this rate, surely ! These tears are not of sorrow. 
 But really this going like a rocket is new to every sense. 
 Do not laugh if I clutch the seat more firmly. I am not 
 afraid. It is only excitement. You may be used to this 
 .bird's business of flying. But don't draw the rein. I 
 am getting calm. See that play of muscle! Splendid 
 machinery was put into these horses. Twenty-horse- 
 power at least in each ! And how they enjoy it ! No 
 
HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 259 
 
 forcing here. They do it to please themselves, and thank 
 you for a chance ! Look at that head ! Those ears 
 speak like a tongue ! The eyes flash with eagerness and 
 will ! Is it three miles ? Impossible ! It is not more 
 than a mile and a half ! 
 
 " Well, draw up. Let me get off now and see these 
 brave creatures. What ! not enough yet ? No painful 
 puffing, no throbbing of the flanks. They step nervously 
 and champ the bit, and lean to your caresses, as if they 
 said, ' All this we have done to please you : now just let 
 us go on to please ourselves ! ' ' 
 
 " Mr. Beecher was a * man of infinite jest,' " continued 
 Mr. Bonner. " He was full of funny stories and quaint 
 and original witticisms, and in story, lecture, or sermon 
 he seldom missed spinning a good yarn to point a moral. 
 His letters were almost invariably in a jocular strain, and 
 he never missed an opportunity to turn a point against 
 the man who sent it. I remember on one occasion of 
 sending him a proof-sheet of one of his articles and of 
 making some comments on it which I suggested to him 
 were funny enough to entitle me to a position on the 
 London Punch. The messenger who took the proof 
 brought a letter back which ran like this : 
 
 " ' To THE EDITOR OF LONDON Punch : Robert Bon- 
 ner desires an engagement on your paper. It gives me 
 
260 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 pleasure to testify to his good character. No other one 
 man has made me laugh so much. Just to look at him 
 would make one feel good-natured, and I would suggest 
 that his picture be published. He has but one fault. 
 Should he begin by contributing to the Punch he would 
 in less than two years own and edit it ; but otherwise he 
 may be trusted. H. W. BEECHER.' 
 
 "On December 19, 1873, he wrote to tell me of an 
 accident that had befallen him in one of Brooklyn's 
 streets in this somewhat terse style : 
 
 " ' Got tumbled out of wagon last week. Didn't hurt. 
 Horses ran away. Didn't hurt 'em. Wagon broke. 
 Did hurt. Got to pay for it. My boys laugh at me. 
 Say I'm getting old. Must take them along to drive for 
 me. Wait!' 
 
 " It was shortly after he had agreed to write ' Nor- 
 wood ' for me that this rather significant paragraph ap- 
 peared in one of his letters to me : 
 
 " ' I cannot remember a year for fifteen years in which 
 I have not been told that I had reached the end of my 
 influence. I surely must at length reach it, and it may 
 be of use to the ends of humility to keep the fact daily 
 before me, that I may not be purled up.' 
 
 "A letter bearing the date April 23, 1870, sent by him 
 
HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 261 
 
 to explain his reasons for sending his weekly manuscript 
 earlier than usual, is characteristic and a fair sample of 
 hundreds that I have filed away. He writes : 
 
 " ' I go to New Haven for my lecture before the Di- 
 vinity School, and don't get back till Friday morning or 
 noon too late so I send copy. Oh, that I could always 
 take time by the forelock and work beforehand ! But, 
 like Dexter, I can't trot in the stable. I must be brought 
 out and put on the road, and have something behind me 
 as well as a good road before me. There never was a 
 horse so good as not to be better for a good driver.' 
 
 "A note dated January 18, 1865, just after Edward 
 Everett's death, contained this expression : 
 
 " c I really feel Everett's death more than I could have 
 believed. Till within five years I have not been in sym- 
 pathy with him. But since the Rebellion he has done 
 so nobly that I remember only that, and feel that the 
 country has lost a true patriot. You have also lost a 
 faithful friend, true, honorable, and thanks largely to 
 the Ledger a friend to the common people. It is not 
 often that a whole land and its government are so 
 heartily disposed to honor a departed statesman.' 
 
 " One of the most peculiar things about Mr. Beecher's 
 correspondence was its utter lack of sameness or formality. 
 He addressed me in a half-dozen different styles, such as, 
 1 My dear Mr. Bonner,' ' My dear Robert,' ' My dear 
 Bonner,' and sometimes, when he wished to simulate 
 
262 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 anger at some fancied slight, simply c Robert Bonner.' 
 He invariably jumped into the subject that was upper- 
 most in his mind, and after disposing of that would deal 
 in timely gossip. Sometimes his changes from subject 
 to subject were rather startling. At the end of a common- 
 place letter on business topics, dated September 12, 1866, 
 he writes : l Was ever a man so killed dead by his own 
 folly as Johnson ? A Vice-President seems of necessity 
 to be struck with insanity on the death of his principle.' 
 
 " You will observe that he has misspelled the word 
 principal in this instance. That cannot be taken as a 
 criterion, for he was usually very accurate in his spelling, 
 but somewhat weak in his grammar. His copy for the 
 printers was written closely in a small, almost effeminate 
 hand, but was legible, and seldom required much editing. 
 Occasionally one would run across a word that could not 
 be deciphered, but it could generally be easily supplied 
 from the context. One of the greatest difficulties we 
 had to contend with in his literary work was his habit of 
 procrastination. His love of out-door recreation was in- 
 nate. He was always contented when he could be in the 
 open air, but to sit at a desk and write was irksome, 
 laborious, and not congenial to his nature. It was only 
 through the constant teasing of his wife and the frequent 
 demands from me that he could be induced to furnish 
 his quota to the Ledger s columns, and sometimes we 
 failed in keeping him at work. He seemed to have no 
 
HE WRITES P^OR THE LEDGER. 263 
 
 realization of the value of money, seldom hesitating to 
 purchase any object which suited his fancy whether he 
 could afford it or not. His wife took charge of the 
 family finances and kept his accounts, or otherwise he 
 would have been obliged, as he once said in one of his 
 letters, to ' have gone into bankruptcy and pay five cents 
 on the dollar,' several times in his career." 
 
 Following is a characteristic letter which Mr. Beecher 
 once wrote to Mr. Bonner in answer to some questions 
 from the Ledger s readers : 
 
 "DEAR MR. BONNER: You put into my hands a 
 batch of questions, with a hint that I need not answer 
 them unless I please. I do please. Of course I do not 
 expect to put an end to such stories certainly not to 
 these particular ones. The first story, in the following 
 letter, I have contradicted, in public and private, scores 
 of times ; and the only effect, as far as I can see, is that 
 it moves on more vigorously than ever. But here is the 
 letter : 
 
 " ' DEAR LEDGER : Will you please inform me, through 
 your answers to correspondents, if some of the stories I 
 hear about Henry Ward Beecher are so or not ? I have 
 heard that he preached the sermon about being so 
 damned hot. I have heard, also, that when asked by 
 another minister what the difference was in their re- 
 
264 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ligions, that Mr. Beecher answered that there was a hell- 
 fired sight of difference, meaning that the other preached 
 that doctrine while he did not. Also, that he is a 
 great card-player, and that the slang phrase of " How is 
 that for high ? " was started by him while playing a game 
 of old sledge or seven-up. I don't know as you will 
 like to answer these questions, but they will do a great 
 deal of good to confirm his good character out here. I 
 don't believe one word of it.' 
 
 " No. 1 never began a sermon by saying " it is 
 
 d d hot," nor with any variation of the phrase, nor 
 
 in any manner remotely like it. Now, I appeal to a 
 generous community whether it is fair to keep that story 
 on me any longer, when there are others waiting for their 
 turn for somebody will have to carry it. There is 
 Brother Talmage, he ought to carry it a while. Why 
 not try it upon Hepworth ? Of course, such a saddle 
 would hardly fit the broad back of the good Dr. John 
 Hall ; but why should he not have something else as good 
 made up for him ? 
 
 " The second story is made up out of the whole cloth 
 so far as I am concerned. I suspect that it was Dr. 
 Chapin said it. Try it on him ! 
 
 " As to cards, I have never played a game of cards 
 in my life. My education in that direction was entirely 
 neglected. Indeed, if card-playing is necessary to lib- 
 
HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 265 
 
 eral culture, I am in a deplorable state; for I do not 
 know one card from another. I am afraid that many 
 men ' on the plains,' or in the mountains out West, will 
 not think so well of me now ; but the truth must be 
 told. History is inexorable. Our young friend (for the 
 letter was sent hither by a Kansas boy) is at liberty to 
 read on the house-tops my renunciation and denial of 
 these fiery stories ; and, if he ever hears anything else 
 bad about me, deny it, and stick to it, and ninety-nine 
 times in a hundred, five times over, he will be right ! 
 Now for the next : 
 
 " ' In your answer to correspondents please inform me 
 whether Rev. H. W. Beecher ever prepares and delivers 
 a sermon or prayer. I claim he does, and that the last 
 sermon he preached last July, before his vacation, was a 
 written one. Am I right ? ' 
 
 " All wrong. Wrong every time. He does not write 
 out his sermons, or, as it is said, ' deliver it on paper ; ' 
 and the sermon of last July was not a written one. 
 Mere outlines are made. Very brief briefs, as a lawyer 
 would say. 
 
 " I do not promise to answer all questions, or any 
 more; but being in the mood I have let fly at these 
 croaking birds, as one returning from a hunt would fire 
 at a crow to clean out his gun-barrels. 
 
 " HENRY WARD BEECHER." 
 
266 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Previous to purchasing his farm at Peekskill, where he 
 spent many happy days, Mr. Beecher counselled with Mr. 
 Bonner and Mr. Derby. After the three gentlemen had 
 walked up and down the hills, Mr. Bonner caused the 
 divine to laugh heartily by remarking that there was but 
 one objection to the farm, and that was absence of level 
 ground for a mile track. Mr. Beecher admired the high- 
 bred horse, and one day he said to the owner of Dexter : 
 " Robert Bonner, you are a very mean man." " Why ? " 
 " How can you ask why, when you have never invited 
 me up to your Tarrytown farm to see those fine horses 
 you own." " But I have never asked my own pastor, 
 Dr. John Hall, to go up."" What of that ? What does 
 Dr. Hall know of the horse except what he has read in 
 Revelations about the red horse and the white horse ? " 
 
 A few years ago Mr. Beecher delivered the annual ad- 
 dress before the graduating class of the American Veter- 
 inary College. Chickering Hall was crowded with ladies 
 and gentlemen, and the committee were on needles for a 
 little while. The exercises were to commence at eight 
 o'clock, and it was 8.30 when the orator walked in, with 
 bent shoulders and a weary expression on his face. He 
 had written out his address in full, and as he had been 
 late in getting down to the task he was behind time. 
 When he got before his audience his face brightened and 
 the carefully prepared sentences were spoken with ani- 
 mation. " Rank," he said, " is determined by the man 
 
f HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 267 
 
 who practises, not by the thing he practises on. The 
 aurist, the oculist, rank with neurologists. A man need 
 not be an ass because he cares for horses." He argued 
 that there was a great future before the veterinarian in 
 this country. " If ever an animal deserved itself the title 
 of faithful and true, it is the horse. Loving liberty, how 
 kindly he submits to bondage. With ten times his 
 strength, how docile is he to his driver. How willing to 
 learn, how anxious to please, how utterly he gives up 
 his own life to serve the wants of others. In speed like 
 an eagle ; in strength, a lion ; in gentleness, a lamb." 
 Mr. Beecher delighted in nature, and had he not entered 
 the pulpit he probably would have become a closer stu- 
 dent of the breeding problem. As it was, he had a better 
 knowledge of the qualities of the road-horse than any 
 other man of his cloth. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 
 
 " Norwood ; or, Life North and South." Its Plot and Object. Norwood 
 and its Population. Abiah Cathcart and his Peculiarities. Rachel 
 Liscomb. A Love-making Scene. How the Momentous Question 
 was Asked. The Country Doctor. The Bachelor Uncle. What 
 constitutes a Gentleman. Mr. Beecher's Views regarding Will- 
 Power. Doctoring through the Imagination. Rose and Alice. 
 Negro Pete. Polly Marble on getting Religion. Tom Heywood's 
 Letter. The Battle of Gettysburg. A Monument to Surgeons and 
 Hospital Nurses. Marriage Bells. 
 
 IN the preceding chapter we have' learned the circum- 
 stances under which " Norwood "was written. We will 
 now take a brief survey of that famous novel. 
 
 In the preface, Mr. Beecher informs his readers that it 
 was written for the New York Ledger at the request of 
 its editor. He had been but a moderate reader of fiction, 
 and the work of writing a story seems at first to have been 
 dreaded by him ; but he reflected that any real human ex- 
 perience was intrinsically interesting, and that the life of 
 a humble family even for a single day could hardly fail 
 to win some interest. As the author says, " The habit of 
 looking upon men, or the children of God and heirs of 
 immortality, can hardly fail to clothe the simplest and 
 most common elements of daily life with importance, and 
 
HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 269 
 
 even with dignity. Nothing is trivial in the education 
 of the King's Son ! " Here spoke the whole-souled, gener- 
 ous heart of the man who could find nobility in all things 
 created. This feeling permeates his story of Village Life 
 in New England. 
 
 Beginning with a brief description of the picturesque 
 beauty of the villages of New England in general, and' in 
 particular of Norwood, a town of five thousand inhabi- 
 tants, which had, " in a general and indistinct way, an 
 upper, middle, and lower class, with a wholesome jealousy 
 of their rights, and a suspicion among the poor that 
 wealth and strength always breed danger to the weak, 
 making the upper class politically weaker than any other," 
 we are introduced to Abiah Cathcart and Rachel Liscomb. 
 Abiah Cathcart is a finely drawn specimen of a New Eng- 
 land farmer, who had to begin life with a healthy body 
 and mind and a common-school education. With the aid 
 of these, by diligent perseverance and hard work the sturdy 
 New Englander carved out his own fortune ; and " who 
 shall blame his honest pride afterward, when he was 
 wealthy, that he had created his own fortune ? Wealth 
 created without spot or blemish is an honest man's peer- 
 age ; and to be proud of it is his right. It is not the 
 empty pride of money, but pride of skill, of patience, of 
 labor, of perseverance, and of honor, which wrought and 
 secured the wealth." 
 
 Rachel Liscomb, the daughter of a farmer and a dea- 
 
270 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 con, was " one of the few women without gifts of speech 
 whose bearing and looks are a full equivalent for speech," 
 and from her early training was peculiarly adapted to be 
 the companion and helpmate of Abiah in his journey 
 through life. A silent understanding has existed between 
 them that they are intended for each other, but it is not 
 till awakened and encouraged by the text of a sermon 
 that Abiah finds the courage to make the understanding 
 more complete. " How strangely his voice sounded to 
 him as, at length, all his emotions could only say, * Rachel, 
 how did you like the sermon ? ' Quietly, she answered, 
 * I liked the text.' ' A new commandment I write unto 
 you, that ye love one another. Rachel, will you help me 
 keep it ?' At first she looked down and lost a little color ; 
 then raising her face, she turned upon him her large eyes, 
 with a look both clear and tender. It was as if some 
 painful restraint had given way, and her eyes blossomed 
 into full beauty. Not another word was spoken. They 
 walked home hand-in-hand. He neither smiled nor ex- 
 ulted. He saw neither the trees nor the long level rays 
 of sunlight that were slanting across the fields. His soul 
 was overshadowed with a cloud as if God were drawing 
 near. He had never felt so solemn. This woman's life 
 had been intrusted to him ! Long years the whole 
 length of life the eternal years beyond, seemed in an in- 
 distinct way to rise up in his imagination. All that he 
 could say as he left her was : 
 
HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 2? I 
 
 " Rachel, this is forever forever ! " 
 
 No effusion and protestations of undying affection, no 
 fervent words of love. Their hearts speak for them, and 
 both are satisfied. " Outwardly, and in consonance with 
 the customs of the neighborhood, he was gay and jovial 
 at the wedding ; but down deep in his soul he was as 
 solemn before Rachel as if God spoke and he listened." 
 And then the author continues : 
 
 " How wondrous are the early days of wedlock, in 
 young and noble souls ! How strange are the ways of 
 two pure souls wholly finding each other out ; between 
 whom for days and months is going on that silent and 
 unconscious intersphering of thought, feeling, taste, and 
 will by which two natures are clasping and twining and 
 growing into each other ! Happy are they who know, and 
 well Cathcart knew, how to bring such wisdom with lov- 
 ing, that selfishness, a poisonous weed, shall die out ; and 
 love clothed with reverence shall grow and thrive with 
 power and beauty all one's life ! For, if there be one root 
 in which resides the secret of producing immortal flowers, 
 it is Love." 
 
 From such a marriage only happiness could result, and 
 as years rolled on Cathcart grew to prosperity and into 
 universal respect, and erelong we are introduced to two 
 of his children, Barton and Alice, who come more prom- 
 inently forward as they advance to young manhood and 
 womanhood. 
 
2/2 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Dr. Reuben Wentworth is the next prominent charac- 
 ter in " Norwood." By the favor of his uncle, in his youth 
 he had passed through Harvard University, and then 
 had come the trouble of deciding with his uncle the call- 
 ing he should adopt. Uncle Ebenezer was an old bach- 
 elor, spry, lean, and " chipper," but at heart a stern moral- 
 ist, and loyal to the last degree in his conduct to honor 
 and truth. 
 
 " Well, Reuben," he said to his nephew, " you are 
 pretty well stuffed with trash. It will take several years 
 to forget what you ought not to have learned, and to get 
 rid of the evil effects of foolish instruction. But that 
 will come pretty much of itself. College learning is very 
 much like snow, and the more a man has of it the less 
 can the soil produce. It's not till practical life melts it 
 that the ground yields anything. Men get over it quicker 
 in some kinds of business than in others. The college 
 sticks longest on ministers and school-masters ; next, to 
 lawyers, not much to doctors, and none at all to mer- 
 chants and gentlemen. You can't afford to be a gentle- 
 man, and so you must choose among other callings." 
 
 " Can't a man, Uncle Eb, be a gentleman in any re- 
 spectable calling ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear, no. My gentleman must take all his time 
 to it, spend his life at it, be jealous of everything else. 
 He is a kind of perfect man, a sort of chronometer for 
 other men to keep time by. One is enough for a whole 
 
HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 2/3 
 
 town. One is enough two would be a superfluity, and 
 a class of them simply a nuisance. A gentleman should 
 have feeling but should hide it. People of much senti- 
 ment are like fountains, whose overflow keeps a disagree- 
 able puddle about them. He should have knowledge, 
 but not like your educated men of our day, whose knowl- 
 edge sings, and crows, and cackles with every achieve- 
 ment. His knowledge should be like apples in autumn, 
 hanging silently on the boughs rich, ripe, and still. A 
 gentleman should be business-like by instinct. Affairs in 
 his hands come to pass silently and without ado, as 
 Nature compasses her results the vastest range and 
 round of spring work making less noise than one store 
 or shop. I tell you, Reuben, a gentleman is a rare speci- 
 men. He requires so much in the making that few are 
 made. . . . He must be so fine that he accomplishes 
 more while doing nothing than others do with all their 
 bustle. He must be better than other men at the start, 
 or he will grow rough in trying to mend matters, and so 
 be like the best of common men, who only succeed in 
 getting ready to live when it is time for them to die." 
 
 There was a world of practical common-sense in old 
 Uncle Eb, in spite of his crotchety ways and love of ar- 
 gument. What a pity it is that he died a bachelor, and 
 that he has left unrecorded his appreciation of the term 
 so provocative of argument and disagreement a lady. 
 
 The outcome of Reuben's consultation with his uncle 
 
 12 
 
274 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 was that he became a doctor ; and at Uncle Eb's death 
 he inherited a comfortable income and settled down at 
 Norwood, and soon found his professional services in 
 great demand. 
 
 " His skill consisted in persuading men to get well. 
 Sickness is very largely the want of will. Everything is 
 brain. There is thought and feeling, not only, but will ; 
 and will includes in it far more than mental philosophers 
 think. It acts universally, now as upon mind, and 
 then just as much upon the body. It is another name 
 for life-force. Men in whom this life or will-power is 
 great resist disease and combat it when attacked. To 
 array a man's mind and will against his sickness is the 
 supreme art of medicine. Inspire in men courage and 
 purpose, and the mind-power will cast out disease. He 
 was himself the best medicine, and often cured by his 
 presence those whom drugs would have scarcely helped. 
 These cures through the spirit of the patient he regarded 
 as far the most skilful and philosophical. . . . ' Only 
 the imagination ? ' he said to a nurse. { That is enough. 
 Better suffer in bone and muscle than in the imagina- 
 tion. If the body is sick, the mind can cure it ; but if 
 the mind itself is sick, what shall cure that ? ' ' 
 
 The doctor prospered. Had he been a poor man his 
 character would in time have brought him employment ; 
 as he was independent of his profession, his services were 
 sought by all, and " he furnished another instance of the 
 
HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 275 
 
 willingness of men to aid those not in need, while those 
 who are likely to starve if not at once befriended are put 
 on a long probation." 
 
 * For a house-keeper the doctor possessed a model in 
 Agate Bissell, remarkable for her energy and conscien- 
 tious fidelity, a very despot in her treatment of dirt and 
 disorder, and, notwithstanding her hard manner and in- 
 flexible precision, possessed of a depth of affection ready 
 to be bestowed on all worthy objects. 
 
 The village is interested in Dr. Wentworth's bachelor- 
 dom, becomes excited over his marriage, and criticises his 
 wife, before she is received and loved as the doctor him- 
 self. Then little Rose Wentworth is born, and the event 
 gives an opportunity to Uncle Tommy Taft, the village 
 cooper, philanthropist, and character, whose wife is re- 
 garded as second only in importance to the doctor on 
 these occasions, to make himself known to the reader, 
 and mildly exasperating to Parson Buell and Agate Bis- 
 sell, the latter, in spite of the doctor's marriage, still 
 reigning supreme in the household. 
 
 While Barton and Alice Cathcart and Rose Went- 
 worth are growing up, the latter being carefully guarded 
 during many a mad open-air frolic by an honest, burly 
 negro named Pete, many of the prominent villagers pass 
 before our notice ; and we are regaled with many natural 
 delights in flower-garden and forest, sunshine and shower. 
 
 There is big Deacon Jerry Marble, full of fun and ner- 
 
LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 vous risibility, whether in church or out of it, brimful of 
 good-nature and light-heartedness. As an antidote, he 
 has his wife, Polly all nerve, bone, and skin "so thin 
 that smiles slipped off her head easily and left the same 
 anxious, earnest face." Good hearts both, though of 
 opposite temperaments. 
 
 Then appears good-natured, jovial, heavy-weighted 
 Deacon Trowbridge, between whom and Deacon Marble 
 Hiram Beers, the practical joker and wit of the village, 
 gets up a climbing contest at a nutting party, to the 
 great amusement of everybody but Polly Marble, whose 
 horror at her spouse's undignified position in the tree-top 
 was not to be silenced. 
 
 A night fishing scene, in which 'Biah Cathcart, Barton, 
 Alice, Rose, and Pete take part is enthusiastically de- 
 scribed, the description being in no way dampened, or 
 the sport spoiled, either by Hiram Beers' banter or the 
 thunder-storm which winds up the night's frolic. All 
 are children of Nature, and remain unharmed, although 
 Rachel Cathcart 's fears are excited on seeing the drenched 
 condition of the fishing party on their return home. 
 
 " ' Oh, father ! ' said Rachel, ' it is wild of you to have 
 these children out on such a night ! Come in, my dar- 
 lings ! ' But Rose and Alice were evidently too much 
 excited and happy to need pity. 
 
 " ' Why, Rachel, do you suppose people catch cold when 
 they are excited like these children ? ' 
 
HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 277 
 
 " ' But what would Dr. Wentworth say ? ' 
 " ' Say ? Why, he would say that such an experience 
 was better than a dozen volumes of books that it would 
 give life to the imagination, that it would give the children 
 impressions which would enlarge their whole after-life 
 that's what he would say ! and if he had been along him- 
 self, he would have enjoyed it better than any of us. ... 
 I hope never to get over being young. I look back on 
 this night as if I had been walking in a cave full of 
 crystals. I shall never forget it, and I'll warrant the chil- 
 dren never will. Such things clean off the drudgery and 
 sameness of life, and reach toward a deeper meaning.' " 
 Speaking of Rose and Alice, the author says : 
 Is there in life a fairer sight than two maidens, just 
 emerging from childhood, twined together in love, gentle, 
 strong, sincere, and full of fancies ? who see real things as 
 if they were visions and imaginary things as if they were 
 real ? whose days and nights flow musical as a meadow- 
 brook, between green banks, and over a bottom rough, 
 just enough to give flash and ripple to the surface ? All 
 the simplicity of childhood is yet theirs, while dawning 
 duties and social proprieties begin to jut out like the 
 buds in early spring ! How beautiful the contrast be- 
 tween Alice, sensitive, reserved, and full of innate dignity 
 whose cheek changed color to her feelings, shifting al- 
 most as the colors flash from a humming-bird's back as 
 he quivers among flowers and Rose, fair-skinned, of a 
 
2/8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 brown hair that might be called suppressed auburn free, 
 frank, strong, and loving who seemed conscious of the 
 life and meaning of every living thing except herself. 
 She had that perfect health which produces unconscious- 
 ness of self. Alice accepted mirth, but never created it. 
 Rose sparkled with it. Her thoughts moved in a brill- 
 iant atmosphere. In certain of her moods, events, peo- 
 ple, and even soulless objects, sparkled with gayety and 
 humor. The two girls might be called, in the language 
 of art, Light and Shadow. 
 
 Dr. Wentworth delighted to narrate to the children 
 fables of Nature " fictions that under every form what- 
 soever still tended in their imagination to bring Nature 
 home to them as God's wonderful revelation, vital with 
 sentiment and divine truth." 
 
 Rose's love of Nature seemed at times to be a great 
 cause of anxiety to her mother and Agate Bissell. 
 " There are many people who seem to regard anxiety as 
 a religious duty. They seem to think that no state of 
 mind is substantial which is not ballasted with cares." 
 In conversation with Mrs. Polly Marble, Agate asked if 
 the Lord in his Sovereignty might not deal gently with 
 young people. Was not that the meaning of the Scrip- 
 ture, " He will carry the young in His arms ? " 
 
 "Agate," said Polly, "I always say that it's best to be 
 on the sure side. It never does harm to find fault with 
 your evidences, 'cause if they are real you won't hurt 'em, 
 
HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 2/9 
 
 and if they are deceivin' you, you will be apt to find it 
 out. People nowadays git religion too easy. I was un- 
 der conviction nigh about two months. I was awfully 
 striven with afore I give up. Young people now seem to 
 git along too easy, I say. They don't bear any yoke, nor 
 carry much of a cross. I have seen folks have measles 
 light, and scarlet fever so easy they didn't hardly know 
 it. But I shall never be made to believe that anybody 
 took religion so easy that they didn't know they had it." 
 
 " Don't you sometimes doubt the promises," said Agate, 
 " when you see how children turn out that's well brought 
 up ? ... . I don't know it's a mystery to me ! " 
 
 " A mystery ! " said Aunt Polly Marble, . . . 
 " there is no mystery about it. It's all election. That 
 does it ! " And that was Mrs. Marble's solution of many 
 a difficulty. 
 
 Barton Cathcart, meanwhile, is growing apace, men- 
 tally and physically, and after the exercise of a great 
 deal of self-help in the acquirement of elementary knowl- 
 edge, he at length, with the consent of his father, enters 
 Amherst College. Before this, however, it has become 
 apparent to both Rose and himself that something 
 stronger than their childhood's affection for each other 
 is coming to the surface. The author treats his readers 
 to a chapter on Mental Philosophy dealing with the 
 transitions of feelings from boyhood and girlhood to 
 manhood and womanhood ; and after three years we are 
 
280 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 introduced to visitors at Norwood. There is Frank 
 Esel, a young artist with plenty of money and a rare 
 facility for spending, who had made a reputation for 
 himself in Norwood by stopping Rose Wentworth's run- 
 away horse and saving her life, and soon afterward makes 
 the discovery that he is a fourth cousin to the Went- 
 worths, and falls in love with Rose. Also Tom Hey- 
 wood, from Virginia, comes before our notice, and it is 
 not long before Barton Cathcart's heart begins to be 
 troubled and to throb with uneasiness in view of the feel- 
 ings which it is evident this gentleman entertains toward 
 Rose. Barton has graduated from Amherst with suc- 
 cess, and he is now in charge of the Norwood Academy. 
 
 An extract from one of Tom Heywood's letters to his 
 brother Hal is interesting as a Southerner's comparison 
 between North and South, based on his own experiences. 
 
 "I am studying," he writes, "this Yankee people with 
 the utmost zest. Of course, many of them are like our 
 own folks. Cultivated people are always more or less 
 alike, the world over. On that very account one studies 
 the middle and lower classes for distinctive characters, as 
 there, if anywhere, is apt to be found originality and ec- 
 centricity. I had an impression that the rigor of Puritan 
 morals, and a coercive public sentiment, held everything 
 here down to set patterns, and that I should find a 
 dreary sameness of a kind not very interesting. But the 
 under people here are rich in peculiarities. They open 
 
HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 28 1 
 
 up well already. In the South there is more liberty of 
 action, and in the North of thought. Law is not so 
 strong among us. A population thinly scattered through 
 wide territory are obliged to take their affairs into their 
 own hands, and are less likely to wait for redress or op- 
 portunity for the slow process of law. Men here live in 
 attrition, yet universally respect the law. Among the 
 lower classes Law is put instead of Religion. Yesterday 
 a man had been aggrieved by a neighbor. I heard him 
 say, in a great passion, ( I'll have the law of him if there's 
 any justice in the land.' Had it been in Virginia, the 
 man would have thrashed the offender on the spot, and 
 settled his grievance without judge or jury." 
 
 Rose saves Esel the pain of a refusal by desiring him 
 to continue a friend, but Heywood probably had to in- 
 cur the pain which had been spared to Esel. Then from 
 the peaceful village scenes we are carried into the war. 
 "The leading thoughtful political men of South Caro- 
 lina . . . were fully determined at all hazards to 
 separate from the North." Heywood, though deploring 
 the contest, hurries off to take his place on the Southern 
 side. The assault and 'evacuation of Fort Sumter takes 
 place, and war is definitely declared. Norwood re- 
 sponds nobly, and Barton Cathcart leads his company 
 to add to the ranks of the North. Agate Bissell, with 
 Rose and Alice, later take the field as nurses, the young 
 girls being interested in both sides of the fight. Alice, 
 
282 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 while praying for the safety of her brother, is obliged 
 also to include Heywood, on whom she has secretly be- 
 stowed all her young affections, while Rose is equally 
 anxious for Barton, though by a misunderstanding he 
 has not yet openly declared himself. 
 
 An interesting description of the fight at Gettysburg 
 follows, in which fight poor Tom Heywood, who had 
 hated the war, but was forced into it, is killed. His 
 body is discovered by Alice, and interred. Then, in spite 
 of the grief at her heart and the hope that is gone, to re- 
 turn no more, she goes back to her hospital duties and 
 tender care of the sick and wounded. 
 
 " It seems fit that among the testimonies of a nation's 
 gratitude some recognition should be given to this rear- 
 guard of humanity. At least it would be a wise and 
 comely act for the Government of this Nation, in the 
 Capital, to rear a monument and inscribe it 
 
 TO 
 THE HEROIC SURGEONS AND THE NOBLE WOMEN 
 
 WHO 
 Laid down their lives for the Nation. 
 
 Barton, who is now General Cathcart, is taken pris- 
 oner, and is rescued by Pete, the negro, and conveyed to 
 the house of a Quaker farmer, and carefully tended, and 
 where Rose and her father are erelong in attendance on 
 
HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 283 
 
 him. On his return to consciousness Barton and Rose 
 are soon of one accord on the important question be- 
 tween them, and the long weeks of his recovery are 
 shortened by the joys of love. 
 
 After two years. The war is over, and we are back in 
 Norwood to witness the ceremony that is to unite for 
 evermore these two young loving hearts. And then the 
 sudden decease of Agate Bissell astounds the neighbors. 
 For scarcely are Rose and Barton united than Agate 
 bravely takes her stand and becomes Mrs. Parson Buell. 
 " Only Alice's presence was wanting to make the day 
 perfectly happy." 
 
 " Alice," said her mother, " is very heart-sore. Life 
 goes wearily with her. But she has determined to give 
 her life to the instruction of the poor black children. 
 She has gone to Lynchburg, where his parents lived, you 
 know, and I hope she is happier now/' 
 
 " But the people are dispersing. The sun is just set- 
 ting. Some linger, and seem reluctant to leave. If you, 
 too, reader, linger and feel reluctant to leave "Norwood," 
 I shall be rejoiced and repaid for the long way over which 
 I have led you." 
 
 The wish of the author has been attained. When one 
 has read " Norwood," he wishes to return to it, and the 
 oftener he returns the more charms he will find in the 
 peaceful scenes and communings with Nature so beauti- 
 fully delineated. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 
 
 The Greatest Orator of the Century. Characteristics of His Oratory. Ex- 
 temporizing a Sermon. A Reporter's Experience. Power with an 
 Audience. His Great Earnestness. Thoughts Rarely committed to 
 Paper. Doctrinal Addresses. Peculiarities of His Lectures. Never 
 the Same Successively. Weakness in Statistical Matters. His Mi- 
 metic Skill. His Last Public Address. Congregational Singing. 
 Eloquence of His Prayers. Always dealt with Questions of the Time. 
 Where Materials were Obtained. A Curious Autograph. His 
 Great Lecture Tour in the West. The New York Independent on 
 Beecher. 
 
 IT is not too much to say that Mr. Beecher was the 
 greatest orator that the century has produced. Others 
 may have equalled him in fluency of speech, in earnest- 
 ness of manner, or in other requisites of eloquence, but 
 no man has equalled him in great range of thought, in the 
 variety of topics considered, and above all in the ability 
 to speak with swiftly flowing eloquence upon a subject 
 which had been presented but a few moments before he 
 rose to his feet. The following anecdote is an illustra- 
 tion of his wonderful power in this direction. 
 
 One of the reporters of the Brooklyn Eagle was sent 
 one Sunday evening a few years ago to report Mr. 
 
HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 285 
 
 Beecher's sermon. The discourse was one of singular 
 power, freshness, and force, and the reporter was more than 
 charmed and interested. When the service was over he 
 encountered Mr. Beecher at the foot of the pulpit stairs, 
 and knowing the small store he set upon his manuscript 
 notes, asked him if he would be good enough to give 
 them to him, as he desired to preserve them as an auto- 
 graphical prize and as a memento of the sermon. " Well," 
 said the Plymouth Church pastor, as he fluttered over the 
 half-dozen sheets of note-paper, "you can have them, but 
 this is not the sermon I preached. I prepared this sermon 
 intending to use it ; but when I got in the pulpit I got 
 to thinking of another subject and preached upon that." 
 He gave the reporter the notes, however, very willingly, 
 seeming to care nothing for them, so the young man has 
 the notes of one of Mr. Beecher's unpreached sermons. 
 
 The following is a careful analysis of Mr. Beecher's art 
 as an orator by one who had studied him carefully : 
 
 For more than half a century he spoke in public. His 
 addresses were on diverse subjects political, religious, 
 educational, agricultural, charitable, and other. He was 
 gifted with a massive frame, a fine presence, a powerful 
 and well-modulated voice, and an impressive demeanor. 
 Whatever he said bore the mark of earnestness. He threw 
 himself into a subject impulsively. His diction was some- 
 thing marvellous. Although he never spoke from manu- 
 script, and in his most polished addresses relied only on 
 
286 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 the briefest of captions, he was never at a loss for a word, 
 never failed to get the most apt expression. 
 
 He had above most orators the power to sway an audi- 
 ence as he saw fit. He could touch and arouse, could 
 move to tears and inspire to enthusiasm. In his lighter 
 and more genial mood he would bring out smiles and 
 bursts of most hearty laughter. His quaint concejts 
 would often appear in his pulpit utterances, and on such 
 occasions his enemies accused him of buffoonery solely 
 because of some garbled extracts which found their way 
 into print. Read, however, with the context as they 
 were uttered, their true meaning and purpose were at once 
 perceived. He dealt less in imagery or word-painting 
 than in illustration and analogy, and rarely indulged in 
 quotations. His appeals were to human feeling no less 
 than to human reason. 
 
 Ordinarily he spoke slowly and with deliberation, but 
 he would now and again indulge in passionate outbursts 
 in which the words came like a torrent. Stenographers 
 and other reporters of his addresses never felt quite sure 
 of him. He would proceed for some minutes at the rate 
 of about one hundred and twenty words a minute, and 
 then would suddenly rise to double that speed. The re- 
 porters, however, had one compensation Mr. Beecher 
 never found fault with their reports. 
 
 Nearly all of his addresses were extemporary, in the 
 sense that he had little or no notes to guide him. In his 
 
HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 287 
 
 ordinary addresses, where he was one of several speakers 
 at a meeting or assemblage, he would listen to those who 
 preceded him, and taking as a text some one utterance, 
 would construct an address upon that. He had, to a 
 very marked degree, the ability to " think upon his feet," 
 and as a consequence was not ruffled by interruptions. 
 In fact, he often did better after being interrupted than 
 before. An outside remark would spur him on, and he 
 would often use it to the discomfiture of the person utter- 
 ing it. Most effective instances of this were had from 
 time to time in Plymouth Church itself. 
 
 He prided himself on having made the pulpit of his 
 church a free platform. From it spoke the heroes of the 
 old anti-slavery fight, with Wendell Phillips in the van. 
 There it was that they raised money to buy the liberty 
 of slaves. It re-echoed with a welcome to Kossuth, and 
 with appeals for the oppressed abroad and at home. 
 From it came urgent calls for charity, for education, for 
 freedom, and for humanity. No good cause ever found 
 Mr. Beecher remiss. His heart^ his purse, and his voice 
 responded in no uncertain or half-hearted way. 
 
 His doctrinal addresses, including his famous Yale lect- 
 ures, were gems in their way. The thought was couched 
 in vigorous language, the illustrations were most varied, 
 and the logical sequence was perfect. He could dress an 
 idea in most intelligible as well as striking garb, and his 
 comparisons were fitting as well as admirable. 
 
288 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 He was in great demand as a lecturer all over the 
 country, and was always sure of a large and attentive au- 
 dience. People would go to hear him deliver the same 
 lecture again and again. But it was never the same lect- 
 ure. The topic was the same, but the language, the 
 illustrations, and the method of reasoning were different. 
 He never committed a lecture to memory, but relied on 
 the inspiration of the moment to guide him in his man- 
 ner of viewing or discussing his subject. The lecture 
 would not be the same on two successive evenings. He 
 kept abreast of the times, took a lively interest in current 
 topics, and would weave in his discourse illustrations or 
 incidents suggested by the occurrences of the day. 
 
 It was on festive occasions that his geniality in dis- 
 course found full vent. At public dinners, notably those 
 of the New England Society in New York for many years, 
 he was looked upon as the especial guest. He would at 
 one moment set the tables in a roar, and next moment 
 would thrill them to the quick by an appeal to their sym- 
 pathy. It was a tribute to his ability that the dinner com- 
 mittee generally managed so that Mr. Beecher was the 
 last speaker. Everyone waited to the end in order to hear 
 him speak. Presidents, governors, and political magnates 
 would precede him, but his advent would be anxiously 
 waited for. He had no set speech for such occasions. At 
 one time the burden of his talk would be good-natured 
 raillery; at another it would be some earnest plea for 
 
HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 289 
 
 progress or for charity. Whatever it was, it was well said 
 and well received. 
 
 In his political addresses, Mr. Beecher rarely ventured 
 on the domain of statistics, although when he did so he 
 showed great art in his handling of figures. His appeals 
 were usually to the feelings and the consciences of his 
 auditors. He spoke in every Presidential campaign, and 
 in many of the minor contests, among them that for muni- 
 cipal reform in his own city. In recent years his most 
 noted addresses of the kind were the memorable one in 
 the Garfield campaign, in which he fairly flayed by his 
 sarcasm the brood of calumniators whose argument con- 
 sisted in chalking the figures 329 on pavements and cellar 
 doors; that in the Cooper Union, wherein he urged the 
 renomination of President Arthur, and his Brooklyn 
 Rink speech in favor of Cleveland. 
 
 Mr. Beecher had no fixed formula for beginning an 
 address. He would sometimes open up his subject with 
 his conclusion, and gradually show the train of reasoning 
 leading to it. At other times he would begin by an- 
 nouncing certain undisputed facts, and lead by easy 
 stages to the result. He bound himself by no set rules, 
 and he followed none. He used few gestures. 
 
 His play of feature and his mimetic skill were so re- 
 markable that it was often said of him that he would 
 have been a wonderful actor had he chosen that calling. 
 He felt too strongly what he said, however, to have sim- 
 
290 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ulated a passion. When he pleaded for a cause he did so 
 with his wjiole being. His voice would grow husky, his 
 frame would tremble, and tears would follow one another 
 down his cheeks. His audiences, listening with rapt at- 
 tention, would feel as he did, and be drawn the closer 
 toward him. His spell was magnetic. 
 
 Another writer says : 
 
 His last public address was delivered, within the week 
 in which he was stricken, in favor of the high license bill. 
 He was " a temperance man ; " he had been generally " a 
 total abstinent ; " but he saw with the general intelligent 
 opinion of the community that the cause of temperance 
 here and now could be best served by high license. This 
 was a striking illustration of his good-sense and of that 
 ready sympathy which was generally in accord with the 
 best opinion around him. Indeed, the average good-sense, 
 the humane impulse, the moral sentiment of the country, 
 found its voice in him. His national pride was stirred 
 
 
 
 by the consciousness that the American republic was " the 
 reign of the common people." The people heard him 
 gladly, because he was a sturdy, strong, inspiring preacher, 
 not of theological doctrines, but of righteousness of life. 
 
 When he took charge of Plymouth Church, the first 
 thing he insisted on was congregational singing. The 
 organ was not a very fine instrument, but it did its duty, 
 and a large volunteer choir led the singing at first, but 
 after a while the congregation was the choir and the organ 
 
HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 291 
 
 the leader. Mr. Beecher had the pulpit cut away, and 
 on the platform placed a reading-desk. In this way he 
 was plainly visible from crown to toe, and whether preach- 
 ing orsitting, every motion was in full view of the crowded 
 assemblage. Instead of resting a pale forehead on a pallid 
 hand and closing his eyes as if in silent prayer while his 
 people sung, Mr. Beecher held his book in his red fist 
 and sung with all his might. Although not a finished 
 singer, he had a melodious bass voice, and he sung with 
 understanding. As he did so his eyes would take in the 
 scene before him, and it needed no wizard's skill to de- 
 tect its power over him. Ever impressible and as full of 
 intuition as a woman, he felt the presence of men and 
 women. Time and again the tenor of his discourse was 
 altered at the sight of a face. Incidents of the moment 
 often shaped the discourse of the hour. He laid great 
 stress on the influence of congregational singing. It 
 brought the audience to a common feeling. It made 
 them appreciate that they were not only in the house of 
 worship, but that they were there as worshippers, part of 
 their duty being to sing praises to the Most High. 
 
 His prayers, too, attracted great attention. The keen- 
 est eye, the most sensitive ear, never detected an approach 
 to irreverence in Mr. Beecher's manner in prayer. He 
 prayed, it is true, as a respectful son would petition a 
 loving and indulgent father. It was noticed that he 
 addressed his prayers very largely to the Saviour. In 
 
292 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 his sermons it was the love of Christ on which he dwelt. 
 It seemed as if he delighted to put away all thought of 
 the Judge, and to keep always present the tenderness of 
 the Father and the affection of the Elder Brother. The 
 little church was always overcrowded. Hundreds ap- 
 plied in vain for seats. It became the fashion to " go to 
 hear Beecher." Thousands went to criticise and ridicule. 
 Thousands went in simple curiosity. It was soon the 
 affectation to look down upon him. He was called boor- 
 ish, illiterate, ungrammatical, uncultivated, fit for the 
 common people only, and a temporary rush-light. Dr. 
 Cox, an old friend of Lyman Beecher, to whom the 
 new-comer expected to turn for advice as to a father, 
 said : " I will give that young man six months in which 
 to run out." When the church was burned the trustees 
 put up an immense temporary structure on Pierrepont 
 Street, near Fulton, which they called the Tabernacle. 
 There every Sunday immense crowds of strangers and 
 visitors from other parishes assembled to listen to Mr. 
 Beecher. 
 
 Already the newspapers had discovered the pith of the 
 preacher and made him noted in the land. His utter- 
 ances were never commonplace, his manner was always 
 fresh, his illustrations ever new. He never avoided is- 
 sues. Indeed, it was charged that he was sensational be- 
 cause he talked and taught about the topic of the hour. 
 He rarely preached a doctrinal sermon, and when he did 
 
HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 293 
 
 there was a kind of explanatory protest with it, as much 
 as to say : " I don't really believe I know anything about 
 this, but it can't do any harm." At first he dealt largely 
 in practical lessons to the young men who formed a large 
 part of his congregations. It was often remarked that 
 while the proportion in other churches was five women 
 to one man, in the Tabernacle, and later in the Plymouth 
 Church, the proportion was reversed. This is accounted 
 for by two facts young men, clerks, students, and those 
 who lived in boarding-houses, felt at home in that church, 
 and the hotels of New York sent over hundreds every 
 Sunday, who considered hearing " Beecher preach " one 
 of the essentials of their business in New York. At all 
 events, there they were, and Mr. Beecher made it a rule 
 of his life-work to address himself to them. He never 
 bombarded the Jews, he left the heathen to their normal 
 guardians, he avoided a decision of questions raised in the 
 Garden of Eden, and left the sheep and the goats of an- 
 cient history to follow the call of their shepherd. His 
 flock was before him. His duty was to care for the men 
 and women who sat in the pews of his church and thronged 
 its aisles and packed its galleries. He was human, and 
 avowed his love for man. Their weaknesses were his, and 
 he called on them to seek a common physician. 
 
 The average person who came to New York for the 
 first time, no matter what might be his religion (if he had 
 any), would no more think of returning home without 
 
294 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 hearing Mr. Beecher than he would neglect seeing Cen- 
 tral Park or the Statue of Liberty. Men who had not 
 been to church since their boyhood went to hear the 
 great preacher. 
 
 " I have known visitors to spend Saturday night in 
 gambling hells and other wicked places," said an hotel 
 clerk in New York, while speaking of this matter, " and 
 then sit up for hours, so as to be sure to be in time to hear 
 Mr. Beecher. At first it used to strike me as very odd 
 to hear a man whom I knew to be a sport, and who held 
 religion in contempt, talking about going to church. And 
 they seemed to take such interest in it, too, and were so 
 particular about being called in time. When they re- 
 turned they talked about the sermon in such a way that 
 I could see that Mr. Beecher had touched a tender spot 
 in these hard hearts. I remember that this was the case 
 a few years ago with Mike McDonald, the famous Chicago 
 gambler. He had been out all night, and got in a little 
 
 before daylight. He remarked that he had a great desire 
 
 
 
 to hear Mr. Beecher, and he had made up his mind to do 
 so that day ; but he knew that if he should go to bed it 
 would be hard work getting up. For that reason he sat 
 up and opened several bottles of champagne as a means 
 of killing time. I have no doubt but in this way Mr. 
 Beecher reached a number of such sinners, many of whom 
 he brought to a realization of their moral condition. I 
 knew another instance where a man, while seeing New 
 
HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 295 
 
 York one Saturday night by gas-light, got very much in- 
 toxicated. He remembered that he had made up his 
 mind to hear Mr. Beecher. He stopped drinking about 
 midnight, so that he might sober up and attend Plymouth 
 Church next morning. Had it not been for this, there's 
 no telling to what excesses the man might have gone." 
 
 General Horatio C. King of Brooklyn has in his col- 
 lection of autographs an interesting scrap from Mr. 
 Beecher's pen illustrating his manner of work. To it is 
 attached a ticket to the platform of the Academy of 
 Music, Brooklyn, on the occasion of the address of Mr. 
 Beecher on " The Issues of the Canvass," Friday evening, 
 October 9, 1868. The scrap of writing contains the head- 
 ings made by Mr. Beecher for his address. They are 
 written in a bold hand, apparently with a quill pen, and 
 many of the words are underscored. The headings are 
 as follows : I. Origin of party historic logic of our 
 history and principles. II. What has it done to de- 
 serve well of the people ? III. What charges are brought 
 against it ? (i) Not restoring the Union delaying for 
 party reasons. (2) Oppressive taxes. (3) It is refresh- 
 ing to hear Mayor Hoffman express his conscience on ex- 
 travagance in public moneys. IV. By whom are they 
 accused ? Who is it that proposes to take their place and 
 finish the work of Liberty ? (i) Their relation to every 
 event and step gained by war. (2) Their proposed 
 remedy. Overturn all that Congress has done. Reverse 
 
296 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 legislation. Throw down State enactments. Send back 
 Senators and Representatives. Remand Southern States 
 to turmoil and confusion. 
 
 Upon the platform Mr. Beecher, with these few notes, 
 under the inspiration of the moment, delivered a splendid 
 address, talking two hours or more. 
 
 His greatest lecture tour was through the West in the 
 winter and spring of 1877. He was absent about two 
 months, speaking in many of the leading cities of that 
 section of the country. His trip was a tremendous ova- 
 tion. The size of the audiences was measured by the ca- 
 pacity of the halls in which he spoke. Instances were 
 frequent of people travelling hundreds of miles to hear 
 him lecture. During the trip he spoke at least once a day, 
 and often three times. While in the city where he lect- 
 ured, he would visit some public institution, and would 
 be called upon for a short speech. In spite of the tre- 
 mendous strain of constant journeying and speaking he 
 preserved his health and strength, and returned home ap- 
 parently as fresh as the day he went away. It was with- 
 out exception the most wonderful lecture tour ever wit- 
 nessed in this country. 
 
 An editorial in the New York Independent pays the 
 following tribute to his oratory : 
 
 In the death of Henry Ward Beecher the American pulpit loses 
 one of the greatest men that ever stood in it, and perhaps the 
 greatest genius that America has yet produced. 
 
HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 297 
 
 There lies before us the picture of the young, dark-haired man 
 who came to Brooklyn from Indianapolis more than forty years 
 ago. We recall the fervor and brilliancy of his oratory. He shot 
 suddenly into the sky, brilliant as a meteor, but with a light fixed 
 and steady as the sun. Plymouth Church became immediately 
 famous, the Mecca of every pilgrim. That young man had intro- 
 duced a new style of preaching, had put a fresh genuineness into 
 the Gospel, had discovered a manliness in religion ; and he uttered 
 an appeal which went to every heart. For decade after decade 
 there was no decay of his power. It is difficult to tell in what his 
 power did or, rather, did not consist. It was in his whole nature. 
 He was in every direction a genius. 
 
 In the first place, he was a man of infinite common-sense. He 
 looked all round things, and then he went to the centre of them. 
 He said the plain, simple thing that everybody could understand. 
 He was not deceived by the cant and conventionalities that sur- 
 round a thought, an idea, a duty, or a religious service ; but he 
 put his touch on the very core of things. He did not ask other 
 men what was truth, but he looked for himself, and what he saw 
 he told. It was always fresh, it was sometimes strange. Thus he 
 had originality. He borrowed no judgments or opinions. He did 
 not mind if he contradicted the world. He had that superb con- 
 fidence that knew that his judgment might be worth more than the 
 judgment of a million men. Because his head was higher than 
 some other men's, his vision apparently was farther and truer than 
 that of all the rest. So he spoke with authority that commanded 
 assent. Not that every conclusion was true that is not given to 
 man ; but his conclusions carried almost more than mortal weight. 
 
 Then there was his mighty enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the chief 
 qualification of a leader. It is not scholarship alone or sound 
 
 judgment that makes progress or drives a captive world before it, 
 13 
 
298 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 but enthusiasm. No other endowment is so important for a leader. 
 Here is the magnetism we talk about. Mr. Beecher was overflow- 
 ing with enthusiasm. What he knew or believed, he felt, and was 
 determined that other people should feel it also. Here comes a 
 good part of the courage which a leader has. Mr. Beecher had a 
 leonine bravery. He was not afraid of man or the Devil. With what 
 superb self-forgetfulness and might did he attack current notions 
 which dishonored the character of God, or denounce the proud 
 and apparently invincible monster of slavery ! How heroic was 
 his defence of America before the mad mobs of England in the 
 darkest hours of our civil war ! Not another man living did or 
 could have done his service. And he did it all with such uncon- 
 scious ease, with no apparent effort of logic, rhetoric, or oratory. 
 What he said became evident when he said it, with no compulsion 
 of argument and no illusion of eloquence. 
 
 With this was joined the most exquisite poetic nature that ora- 
 tor ever possessed. Every phase of nature was beautiful to him. 
 Every trait in man was familiar to him. All this store of insight 
 was part of the material of his thought. It was natural to him to 
 speak in pictures. He never overlaid an argument with ornament. 
 The ornament was in the argument. The two were fused together. 
 The glory was in the gold. The spirit was in the wheels. 
 
 It was worth crossing the ocean to hear him in his prime. Such 
 a voice as he had ! It was sweet, mellow, most delicate and rich 
 in its intonations, now moving steadily along a low level of tone, 
 sinking into a tender pathos, bubbling over in some quick sally of 
 mirth or humor, and then swelling out in a mighty volume of force 
 that seemed to crash against the roof. Every sympathy and noble 
 passion was appealed to reason, laughter, tears answered him in 
 turn, with an infinite variety of sentiment and feeling. It is not con- 
 ceivable that he could ever have wearied a hearer. Every moment 
 
HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 2QQ 
 
 was fresher than the last. There was an utter absence of formality, 
 not the least suspicion of art, the utter naturalness which naturally 
 said noble things, beautiful things, even comical things not to be 
 comical, but to lighten the thought, and make the good seem more 
 true. When he was speaking no one thought of the man, but only 
 of the thing he said, and everyone went home to wonder at the 
 power that could do such marvels with such infinite ease. As we 
 look back upon him, it is that infinite ease with which he worked 
 that carries the evidence of his genius simply, he did what other 
 men could not, because he was gifted with the power. 
 
 His impress is on the country, in religious thought, in method of 
 preaching, in all the social and political progress we have made. 
 The country can never forget Henry Ward Beecher. It has not 
 yet recorded a greater name. The generation is fortunate that has 
 seen the method of such genius. We follow him to the grave with 
 infinite admiration and unspeakable sorrow. Much has he said of 
 the love and the mercy of God. To the mercy and love of God he 
 has committed his soul, and our prayer follows his bier. 
 
 Allusion has been made in a previous chapter to the 
 successful effort of Mr. Beecher to raise money necessary 
 to secure the freedom of a slave child. The occurrence 
 was a fine illustration of the power of his oratory, and is 
 admirably told by a biographer of Rose Terry Cooke. 
 The writer says : 
 
 " Miss Terry happened to attend Plymouth Church one 
 morning when the pastor brought upon the platform a 
 little colored child who was to be returned to slavery un- 
 less a certain sum of money could be paid for her at once 
 Mr. Beecher undertaking to raise that money in his 
 
300 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 church and set the child free. As he told the story of 
 her little life and wrongs, in his inimitable manner, every 
 heart was harrowed, none more so than that of Rose, who 
 was half wild with excitement, wrought to a fever of pity 
 and horror ; and every purse flew open, and Rose had no 
 purse about her. But on her hand a white and tiny 
 hand was a ring she valued, a ring with a single fine opal 
 in its setting if it had been the Orloff diamond it would 
 have made no difference, it was all she had when the box 
 came round, and she took it off and dropped it in. It 
 chanced that the ring exactly fitted one of the fingers of 
 the little brown hand, and Mr. Beecher gave it to the 
 child in token of her freedom and her friends, as the 
 money raised was amply sufficient to purchase her safety ; 
 and presently advertising for information concerning the 
 giver of the ring, he christened the child into the new life 
 with the name of Rose. If the reader should ever see a 
 painting by Eastman Johnson, called the ' Freedom 
 Ring,' where a child sits on a tiger-skin and looks curi- 
 ously and gladly at a jewel on her hand, it is this incident 
 which it commemorates." 
 
 One who knew him intimately writes as follows con- 
 cerning him : 
 
 He was the most remarkable preacher of his time, the 
 most popular, the most influential. His spoken and his 
 printed words have been heard and read by many mill- 
 ions of his fellow-men. It is clear that he did not 
 
HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 303 
 
 achieve his great success without much deliberate calcu- 
 lation. He studied other preachers, but he studied still 
 more carefully himself. Health seeming to him the prime 
 condition of good preaching, he sought to realize the 
 most perfect health imaginable in his own body, and his 
 success was very great. He was particularly careful of 
 the condition of his body on his preaching days. His 
 Sundays were ascetic. He allowed himself only so much 
 food as would prevent faintness. Those who met him 
 Saturdays in the print-shops and picture-galleries often 
 imagined that his Sunday sermon was already written, or 
 that he would trust to luck for it. They were wrong in 
 either case. It was not written. But Mr. Beecher was 
 loafing upon principle. Saturday was always his most 
 careless day. It was so that he prepared himself for the 
 morrow's work. His Sunday morning sermon was not 
 sketched (it was very seldom written) till Sunday morn- 
 ing, nor his evening sermon till the afternoon. His 
 system was to keep himself full by reading and by ob- 
 servation, and then, the subject once chosen, it became 
 magnetic to the multitude of observations and ideas with 
 which his mind was stored. In looking over the vol- 
 umes of "Plymouth Pulpit" the first impression we receive 
 is of the astonishing variety of subjects treated ; the next 
 is of the variety of treatment the preacher's prodigality 
 of perception and imagination. The sermons have little 
 logical connection or organic unity. Their strength is in 
 
304 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 the parts rather than in the wholes. They abound in 
 illustrations, and there are bursts of stormy eloquence. 
 These give the hearers their impression. Mr. Beecher 
 was always given to illustrations, but he used fifty in his 
 maturity where he used one in his youth. He was always 
 seeking for analogies in his walks about town and in his 
 rambles in the country, and they returned to him when 
 needed, and became the spontaneous method of his 
 thought. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 
 
 Examples of His Oratorical Power. Striking Passages culled from the 
 Abundance. How to speak of the Absent. Ideal Faith. The 
 True Plan of Life. " The Church has been so Fearful of Amuse- 
 ments that the Devil has had the Care of Them." Majesty in 
 Anger. Churches as Mutual Insurance Companies. A Babe is a 
 Mother's Anchor. Overplus of Everything but Punishments. 
 Religion with some Men like a Church-bell, to be Rung only on 
 Sacred Occasions. The Bible and its Commentators. Truths of 
 the Bible Like Gold in the Soil. Character, Like Porcelain, must be 
 painted Before Glazing. A Lie Always needs a Truth fora Handle. 
 
 MR. BEECHER'S first sermon to the congregation of 
 Plymouth Church has been given in a previous chapter, 
 and the last sermon he preached will be referred to in a 
 later one. In the forty years intervening between these 
 two productions his sermons and lectures abounded in 
 thoughts and expressions such as have fallen from the 
 lips of no man since the days of Shakespeare. To show 
 the matchless character of his oratory, nothing could be 
 better than a selection from these utterances. 
 
 About the year 1856 a member of Plymouth Church 
 conceived the happy idea of making notes of some of the 
 most striking passages in Mr. Beecher's sermons. The 
 
306 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 notes became so numerous that they were published in a 
 volume under the title of " Life Thoughts." The book 
 had an extensive sale and a wide popularity, and a second 
 volume was issued a few years after the first. From these 
 and other volumes a few of the most striking sentences 
 have been selected. Unfortunately, there is so much of 
 the best, so great a wealth of expression, so much of practi- 
 cal value, that it is a difficult matter to endeavor to select 
 any of the fruits when there are so many luscious and 
 ripe hanging before our eyes. We must shake the tree 
 and gather up those that fall. 
 
 When the absent are spoken of, some will speak gold 
 of them, some silver, some iron, some lead, and some 
 always speak dirt, for they have a natural attraction tow- 
 ard what is evil, and think it shows penetration in 
 them. As a cat watching for mice does not look up 
 though an elephant goes by, so they are so busy mousing 
 for defects that they let great excellences pass them un- 
 noticed. I will not say it is not Christian to make beads 
 of others' faults, and tell them over every day ; I say it 
 is infernal. If you want to know how the devil feels, 
 you do know if you are such an one. 
 
 Our best actions are often those of which we are un- 
 conscious, but this can never be unless we are always 
 yearning to do good. 
 
GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 307 
 
 There are many people who are so refined in their 
 tastes and by their refinement I mean the passage of a 
 thing from a gross form to its evanishing point in the im- 
 material that they live in the ideal rather than in the 
 actual. Such have an aesthetical faith. They have so cul- 
 tivated their eye for colors that they can almost see the 
 gleaming of the precious stones in the wall of heaven ; and 
 they have taught their ear so to appreciate harmonious 
 sounds that they can almost hear the celestial bells ring- 
 ing sweet invitation to them ; and they have so strength- 
 ened and purified their social natures that the fiery edges 
 of heavenly affection almost touch theirs, as cloud light- 
 ning touches cloud lightning. How wretched will such 
 be, when through death they really enter the realm of 
 the invisible, to find that they have failed of the highest 
 faith, the faith of the moral nature, which alone will ad- 
 mit them to the companionship of God ! 
 
 You know how the heart is subject to freshets ; you 
 know how the mother, who, always loving her child, yet, 
 seeing in it some new wile of affection will catch it up 
 and cover it with kisses, and break forth in a rapture of 
 loving. Such a kind of heart-glow fell from the Saviour 
 upon that young man who said to Him, " Good Master, 
 what good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal 
 life?" It is said, "Then Jesus, beholding him, loved 
 
 him." 
 
 13* 
 
3O8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 In plan, include the whole ; in execution, take life day 
 by day. Men do not know how to reconcile the oppug- 
 nant directions that we should live for the future, and 
 yet should find our life in fidelities to the present ; but 
 the last is only the method of the past. True aiming in 
 life, is like true aiming in marksmanship. We always 
 look at the fore-sight of a rifle through the hind-sight. 
 
 A noble man compares and estimates himself by an 
 idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man by 
 one which is lower than himself. The one produces as- 
 piration ; the other, ambition. Ambition is the way in 
 which a vulgar man aspires. 
 
 An ambition which has conscience in it will always be 
 a laborious and faithful engineer, and will build the road 
 and bridge the chasms between itself and eminent success 
 by the most faithful and minute performances of duty. 
 
 All true ambition and aspiration are without compari- 
 son. 
 
 We are bound to be the almoners of God's bounty not 
 tax-gatherers, to take away what little others have. As 
 a father stands in the midst of his household, and says, 
 " What is best for my children ? " so we are to stand in 
 the world, and say, " What is best for my brotherhood ? " 
 
GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 309 
 
 Our people, nomadic as the Arabs, impetuous as the 
 Goths and Huns, pour themselves along our Western 
 border, carrying with them all their wealth and all their 
 institutions. They drive schools along with them as 
 shepherds drive sheep, and troops of colleges go lowing 
 over the Western plains, like Jacob's kine. 
 
 The Church has been so fearful of amusements that 
 the devil has had the care of them. The chaplet of 
 flowers has been snatched from the brow of Christ and 
 given to Mammon. 
 
 There is an anger that is damnable ; it is the anger of 
 selfishness. There is an anger that is majestic as the 
 frown of Jehovah's brow ; it is the anger of truth and 
 love. If a man meets with injustice, it is not required 
 that he shall not be roused to meet it ; but if he is angry 
 after he has had time to think upon it, that is sinful. 
 The flame is not wrong, but the coals are. 
 
 Never forget what a man has said to you when he was 
 angry. If he has charged you with anything, you had 
 better look it up. Anger is a bow that will shoot some- 
 times where another feeling will not. 
 
 If the architect of a house had one plan, and the con- 
 tractor another, what conflicts would there be! How 
 
310 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 many walls would have to come down, how many doors 
 and windows would need to be altered, before the two 
 could harmonize ! Of the building of life, God is the 
 architect, and man is the contractor. God has one plan 
 and man has another. Is it strange that there are clash- 
 ings and collisions ? 
 
 There are hundreds of churches which are nothing but 
 mutual insurance companies, seeking to take care of 
 themselves and of one another, and to see that religion is 
 protected. Religion protected ! It was given us for 
 our protection, and we are not to carry it unused and 
 shielded from blows, but to put it on like armor, and to 
 go down with it to the battle. When Paul said, " Quit 
 ye like men," he was not thinking of those Christians 
 who are rocked in the cradle of a conservative church, 
 by the slippered foot of a soft-speaking minister, to all 
 delicate ditties ; but of a stalwart soldier, with his face as 
 bronzed as his helmet, and ready for the fray. 
 
 It is not a man's part merely to keep his armor bright ; 
 to hang around the edge of the fight, and, whenever he 
 sees it bulging out toward him, to retreat to a hill, and, 
 if any dust has fallen upon his armor, to set to work at 
 once to brush it off. It is a man's business to go down to 
 the battle, and to use his sword when he gets there. 
 Man was not meant to be an armor-keeper ; but there are 
 
GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 311 
 
 men who go all their lives scrubbing up their armor 
 keeping their hope bright and their faith bright, but never 
 using them. Miserable, scouring Christians ! 
 
 There is much contention among men whether thought 
 or feeling is the better ; but feeling is the bow, and thought 
 the arrow, and every good archer must have both. Alone, 
 one is as helpless as the other. The head gives artillery ; 
 the heart, powder. The one aims and the other fires. 
 
 The aster has not wasted spring and summer because 
 it has not blossomed. It has been all the time preparing 
 for what is to follow, and in autumn it is the glory of the 
 field, and only the frost lays it low. So there are many 
 people who must live forty or fifty years, and have the 
 crude sap of their natural dispositions changed and sweet- 
 ened before the blossoming time can come ; but their life 
 has not been wasted. 
 
 A babe is a mother's anchor. She cannot swing far 
 from her moorings. And yet a true mother never lives 
 so little in the present as when by the side of the cradle. 
 Her thoughts follow the imagined future of her child. 
 That babe is the boldest of pilots, and guides her fearless 
 thoughts down through scenes of coming years. The old 
 ark never made such a voyage as the cradle daily makes. 
 
312 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 At first babes feed on the mother's bosom, but always 
 on her heart. 
 
 God is a being who gives everything but punishment 
 in over-measure. The whole divine character and ad- 
 ministration, the whole conception of God as set forth 
 in the Bible and in nature, is of a being of munificence, 
 of abundance, and superabundance. Enough is a meas- 
 uring word a sufficiency and no more; economy, not 
 profusion. God never deals in this way. With Him 
 there is always a magnificent overplus. The remotest 
 corner of the globe is full of wonder and beauty. The 
 laziest bank in the world, away from towns, where no 
 artists do congregate, upon which no farm laps, where 
 no vines hang their cooling clusters, nor flowers spring, 
 nor grass invites the browsing herd, is yet spotted and 
 patched with moss of such exquisite beauty, that the 
 painter who in all his life should produce one such thing 
 would be a master in art and immortal in fame, and it 
 has the hair of ten thousand reeds combed over its brow, 
 and its shining sand and insect tribes might win the 
 student's lifetime. God's least thought is more prolific 
 than man's greatest abundance. 
 
 Looked at without educated associations, there is no 
 difference between a man in bed and a man in a coffin. 
 And yet, such is the power of the heart to redeem the 
 
GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 313 
 
 animal life, that there is nothing more exquisitely refined, 
 and pure, and beautiful, than the chamber of the house. 
 The couch ! From the day that the bride sanctifies it to 
 the day when the aged mother is borne from it, it stands 
 clothed with loveliness and dignity. Cursed be the 
 tongue that dares speak evil of the household bed ! By 
 its side oscillates the cradle ! Not far from it is the crib. 
 In this sacred precinct, the mother's chamber, lies the 
 heart of the family. Here the child learns its prayer. 
 Hither, night by night, angels troop. It is the Holy of 
 Holies. 
 
 If a bell were hung high in heaven which the angels 
 swung whenever a man was lost, how incessantly would 
 it toll in days of prosperity for men gone down, for honor 
 lost, for integrity lost, and for manhood lost, beyond con- 
 trol ! But in times of disaster the sounds would inter- 
 mit, and the angels, looking down, would say, " He that 
 findeth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for 
 my sake shall find it." 
 
 Some men think that religion is a mere ecstatic ex- 
 perience, like a tune rarely played upon some faculty ; 
 living only while it is being performed, and then dying 
 in silence. And, indeed, many men carry their religion 
 as a church carries its bell high up in a belfry, to ring 
 out on sacred days, to strike for funerals, or to chime for 
 
314 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 weddings. All the rest of the time it hangs high above 
 reach voiceless, silent, dead. But religion is not the 
 specialty of any one feeling, but the mood and harmony 
 of the whole of them. It is the whole soul marching 
 heavenward to the music of joy and love, with well-ranked 
 faculties, every one of them beating time and keeping 
 time. 
 
 To be praised, and to have the reputation of liberality, 
 is the way many people have of taking interest on what 
 they lend to the Lord. 
 
 The Bible is the most betrashed book in the world. 
 Coming to it through commentaries is much like looking 
 at a landscape through garret windows, over which gene- 
 rations of unmolested spiders have spun their webs. 
 
 Our real commentators are our strongest traits of char- 
 acter ; and we usually come out of the Bible with all those 
 texts sticking to us which our idiosyncrasies attract. 
 
 How sad is that field from which battle has just de- 
 parted ! By as much as the valley was exquisite in its 
 loveliness, is it now sublimely sad in its desolation. Such 
 to me is the Bible, when a fighting theologian has gone 
 through it. 
 
GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 315 
 
 What a pin is when the diamond has dropped from its 
 setting, that is the Bible when its emotive truths have 
 been taken away. What a babe's clothes are when the 
 babe has slipped out of them into death, and the mother's 
 arms clasp only raiment, would be the Bible, if the Babe 
 of Bethlehem, and the truths of deep-heartedness that 
 clothed his life, should slip out of it. 
 
 Sink the Bible to the bottom of the ocean, and man's 
 obligations to God would be unchanged. He would have 
 the same path to tread, only his lamp and his guide would 
 be gone ; he would have the same voyage to make, only 
 his compass and chart would be overboard. 
 
 Many people regard the Bible as an old ruin. They 
 think there may be some chambers in it which might be 
 made habitable, if it were worth the while ; but they take 
 it as a young heir takes his estate, who says, " I shall 
 build me a modern house to live in, but I'll keep the old 
 castle as a ruin ; " and so they have some scientific or 
 literary house to live in, and look upon the Bible only as 
 a romantic relic of the past. 
 
 The truths of the Bible are like gold in the soil. Whole 
 generations walk over it, and know not what treasures are 
 hidden beneath. So centuries of men pass over the 
 Scriptures, and know not what riches lie under the feet 
 
316 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 of their interpretation. Sometimes, when they discover 
 them, they call them new truths. One might as well call 
 gold, newly dug, new gold. 
 
 The Bible, without a spiritual life to interpret it, is 
 like a trellis on which no vine grows bare, angular, and 
 in the way. The Bible, with a spiritual life, is like a 
 trellis covered with a luxuriant vine beautiful, odorous, 
 and heavy with purple clusters shining through the 
 leaves. 
 
 Dust, by its own nature, can rise only so far above the 
 road ; and birds which fly higher never have it upon 
 their wings. So the heart that knows how to fly high 
 enough escapes those little cares and vexations which 
 brood upon the earth, but cannot rise above it into that 
 purer air. 
 
 As birds in the hour of transmigration feel the impulse 
 of southern lands, and gladly spread their wings for the 
 realm of light and bloom, so may we, in the death-hour, 
 feel the sweet solicitations of the life beyond, and joyfully 
 soar from the chill and shadow of earth to fold our wings 
 and sing in the summer of an eternal heaven ! 
 
 Every man in a Christian church ought to feel that he 
 uses the power of the whole, yet never so as to take away 
 
GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 317 
 
 from him the need of individual exertion. If we have 
 experience, any brother has a right to come to us and 
 say, " Put your experience, as a bridge, over that stream 
 which I must cross. I want timber there to walk on." 
 
 How hateful is that religion which says, " Business is 
 business, and politics are politics, and religion is religion ! " 
 Religion is using everything for God ; but many men 
 dedicate business to the devil, and politics to the devil, 
 and shove religion into the cracks and crevices of time, 
 and make it the hypocritical outcrawling of their leisure 
 and laziness. 
 
 The whole earth is like a caldron, boiling and seething 
 with human passions. Man is at war with man, and 
 everywhere are rage and animosity. When, from God's 
 fatherhood, shall come the truth of our brotherhood? 
 Lord Jesus, what hast thou done since thou wentest away ? 
 Hast thou forgotten thine errand hither ? Art thou not 
 weary of this globe, which swings about thy throne on its 
 bitter path with anthems of pain and woe ? Hasten the 
 time when the whole world, enchoired by love, shall go 
 its golden way singing thy praise and its joy ! 
 
 A man in a state of hot-brain nervousness is burning 
 up. He is like a candle in a hot candlestick, which burns 
 off at one end and melts down at the other. 
 
318 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 People say, " How fortunate it is that things have 
 turned out just as they have that I was prepared for 
 this ! " As if God did not arrange the whole ! One 
 might as well say, " How fortunate it is that I have a 
 neck beneath my head, and shoulders under my neck ! " 
 
 Character, like porcelain ware, must be painted before 
 it is glazed. There can be no change after it is burned 
 in. 
 
 When our cup runs over, we let others drink the drops 
 that fall, but not a drop from within the rim, and call it 
 charity ; when the crumbs are swept from our table, we 
 think it generous to let the dogs eat them ; as if that 
 were chanty which permits others to have what we can- 
 not keep ; which says to Ruth, " Glean after the young 
 men," but forgets to say to the young men, " Let fall also 
 some of the handfuls of purpose for her." 
 
 Our children that die young are like those spring bulbs 
 which have their flowers prepared beforehand, and have 
 nothing to do but to break ground, and blossom, and 
 pass away. Thank God for spring flowers among men, 
 as well as among the grasses of the field. 
 
 In the earlier ages of New England, the State was noth- 
 ing but Congregationalism in civil affairs, and the Church 
 
GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 319 
 
 was nothing but republicanism carried into religious af- 
 fairs. They reflected each other. New Englandism is 
 but another word for Puritanism in the Independent 
 sense, and that is but another word for New Testament- 
 ism. 
 
 Conceited men often seem a harmless kind of men, who, 
 by an overweening self-respect, relieve others from the 
 duty of respecting them at all. 
 
 A man will confess sins in general ; but those sins which 
 he would not have his neighbor know for his right hand, 
 which bow him down with shame like a wind-stricken 
 bulrush, those he passes over in his prayer. Men are 
 willing to be thought sinful in disposition ; but in special 
 acts they are disposed to praise themselves. They there- 
 fore confess their depravity and defend their conduct. 
 They are wrong in general, but right in particular. 
 
 Defeat is a school in which Truth always grows strong. 
 
 The elect are whosoever will, and the non-elect whoso- 
 ever won't. 
 
 Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made 
 and forgot to put a soul into. 
 
320 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 All things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none 
 of them speak of Him but in broken and imperfect words. 
 High above all He sits, sublimer than mountains, grander 
 than storms, sweeter than blossoms and tender fruits, 
 nobler than lords, truer than parents, more loving than 
 lovers. His feet tread the lowest places of the earth ; but 
 His head is above all glory, and everywhere He is su- 
 preme. 
 
 What cares the child, when the mother rocks it, though 
 all storms beat without ? So we, if God doth shield and 
 tend us, shall be heedless of the tempests and blasts of 
 life, blow they never so rudely. 
 
 A man living at an hotel is like a grape-vine in a flower- 
 pot movable, carried around from place to place, docked 
 at the root and short at the top. Nowhere can a man 
 get real root-room, and spread out his branches till they 
 touch the morning and the evening, but in his own house. 
 
 No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning 
 to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. 
 He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according 
 to what he has. 
 
 The abetters of slavery are weaving the thread in the 
 loom, but God is adjusting the pattern. They are asses 
 
GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 321 
 
 harnessed to the chariot of Liberty, and whether they will 
 or no, must draw it on. 
 
 A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it, else the 
 hand would cut itself which sought to drive it home upon 
 another. The worst lies, therefore, are those whose blade 
 is false, but whose handle is true. 
 
 In this world, it is not what we take up, but what we 
 give up, that makes us rich. 
 
 The most dangerous infidelity of the day is the infidel- 
 ity of rich and orthodox churches. 
 
 Any feeling that takes a man away from his home is 
 a traitor to the household. 
 
 There is always the need for a man to go higher, if he 
 has the capacity to go. 
 
 Liberty is the soul's right to breathe, and when it can- 
 not take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight. With- 
 out liberty man is in a syncope. 
 
 There is always somebody to believe in anyone who is 
 uppermost. 
 
322 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Death is the dropping of the flower that the fruit may 
 swell. 
 
 Of all earthly music, that which reaches the farthest 
 into heaven is the beating of a loving heart. 
 
 Reason can tell how love affects us, but cannot tell 
 what love is. 
 
 There is no harder shield for the devil to pierce with 
 temptation than singing with prayer. 
 
 Many of our troubles are God dragging us, and they 
 would end if we could - stand upon our feet and go 
 whither he would have us. 
 
 A man might frame and let loose a star to roll in its 
 orbit, and yet not have done so memorable a thing before 
 God as he who lets go a golden-orbed thought to roll 
 through the generations of time. 
 
 Mr. Beecher began, in May, 1885, a series of sermons 
 on evolution, which drew unusually large audiences to 
 Plymouth Church. They were afterward bound to- 
 gether in book-form. The series was continued until 
 the summer vacation of that year. The object of the 
 sermons was to show the moral evolution of man rather 
 
GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 323 
 
 than to give a scientific discussion of the theory. Mr. 
 Beecher's idea was that man began on a very low basis, 
 and that there was a long period when he was develop- 
 ing so as to understand the existence and nature of God 
 a period of incubation, he described it. In closing his first 
 sermon on the subject, clasping his hands, he said : "There 
 shall come a day when life and all its troubles have passed 
 away. There shall come a day when I shall know even 
 as I am known, and as God the all-knowing looks through 
 and through me and knows me altogether, I shall behold 
 Him as He is, and shadows, figments, and partialities will 
 have passed away forever and I shall know Him as I am 
 known." Mr. Beecher touched lightly on the Darwinian 
 theory, but went so far as to say : " I am inclined to be- 
 lieve that man is, in the order of nature, in an analogy 
 with the rest of God's work, and that there was a time 
 when he stepped ahead of his fellow-animals." In the 
 series Mr. Beecher spoke of evolution in connection with 
 inspiration of the Bible, inherited sin, regeneration of 
 man, design and evolution in the Church. 
 
 While he was engaged in delivering these sermons he 
 described his religious faith fully and concisely in the fol- 
 lowing letter to the Rev. George Morrison, of Balti- 
 more : 
 
 " BROOKLYN, June 13, 1885. 
 
 " DEAR SIR : I thank you for your friendly solicitude, 
 I am sure that in the end you will not be disappointed, 
 14 
 
324 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 though on some points you may not agree with me. 
 The foundation doctrines, as I hold them, are a per- 
 sonal God, Creator, and ruler over all things ; the hu- 
 man family universally sinful ; the need and possibility 
 and facts of conversion ; the Divine agency in such a 
 work ; Jesus Christ the manifestation of God in human 
 condition ; his office in redemption supreme. I do not 
 believe in the Calvinistic form of stating the atonement. 
 I do not believe in the fall of the human race in Adam, 
 and of course I do not hold that Christ's work was to 
 satisfy the law broken by Adam for all his posterity. 
 The race was not lost, but has been ascending steadily 
 from creation. I am in hearty accord with revivals and 
 revival preaching, with the educating forces of the Church, 
 and in sympathy with all ministers who in their several 
 ways seek to build up men into the image of Jesus Christ, 
 by whose faithfulness, generosity, and love I hope to be 
 saved and brought home to heaven. With cordial re- 
 gards, I am truly yours, 
 
 " HENRY WARD BEECHER." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 
 
 Interesting Reminiscences and Anecdotes. Major Pond's Story. Beecher 
 " Democratic Through and Through." Remembrance of Old Parish- 
 ioners. The Old Lady from Indianapolis. His Profits from Lectur- 
 ing. Angry only Once. Refused to go to Private Houses. Fond- 
 ness for Children. Care for Two Children on a Railway Train. 
 Never wore a Silk Hat but Once. "Playing Horse." Beecher and 
 Sir Samuel Cunard. Preparing Lunch with His Own Hands. The 
 Drunken Man at the Lecture. Fast Riding on a Train. General 
 King's Recollections. Beecher as a Travelling Companion. Sleep- 
 ing under Table-cloths." Mutton or Beef ? " 
 
 MAJOR J. B. POND travelled with Mr. Beecher for ten 
 years, Mr. Beecher doing the lecturing and Major Pond 
 managing their mutual venture. This lecture experience 
 brought the two men into close contact under the trying 
 ordeals of travel by steam, by car and boat, in wind and 
 rain, and hail and snow, and likewise in sunshine and 
 balmy air. Mr. Beecher found a genial, whole-souled 
 companion in Major Pond, and certainly Major Pond 
 had such opportunities to see the heart and mind of Mr. 
 Beecher in a way that few others than the immediate 
 members of Mr. Beecher's family have had the chance 
 to enjoy. Major Pond in all these years saw Mr. 
 
326 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Beecher angry but once at least, Mr. Beecher said he 
 was, but there was doubt of the depth of his wrath. 
 The preacher was always even-tempered and democratic, 
 and only once did he wear a silk hat. In an interview 
 during Mr. Beecher's illness, Major Pond ran over his 
 experience with the great orator, and recalled much that 
 throws a vivid light on his character and habits of life. 
 About his room were many portraits of the pastor of 
 Plymouth Church, while several packages of his letters 
 lay in convenient drawers, besides many sermons, includ- 
 ing that of Mr. Beecher's last Thanksgiving address. 
 These consisted of notes only, for Mr. Beecher did not 
 write out his sermons. 
 
 When the interviewer called, Major Pond was just 
 writing letters to two of Mr. Beecher's old friends, in- 
 forming them of his fatal illness. To one, Mrs. Drury, 
 of Canandaigua, who was introduced to Mr. Beecher by 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Major Pond wrote that on the 
 previous Tuesday Mr. Beecher was in cheerful mood and 
 talked animatedly of his " Life of Christ." Another friend 
 was an old lady living in Lawrenceburg, Ind., who was 
 one of the pioneer members of Mr. Beecher's church 
 there, and who came on to Peekskill occasionally in the 
 summer to visit her old pastor's home. Major Pond was 
 performing this duty because he knew it would be in ac- 
 cord with Mr. Beecher's wishes. 
 
 " Mr. Beecher," said Major Pond, after scanning one 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 327 
 
 of the letters, " was democratic through and through. 
 No matter what one's position, it was the man he looked 
 at. There was never a more marked exhibition of this 
 trait of his than at the dinner he gave at Indianapolis last 
 year to his old friends and parishioners. The old lady 
 friend of whom I have spoken, in poor circumstances 
 though she was, sat next to Mr. Beecher in the seat of 
 honor. Rich and poor were intermingled down the table. 
 His poor parishioners and their children and grandchil- 
 dren were there, and Mr. Beecher's face beamed with hap- 
 piness. I was just writing to the old lady that on Tues- 
 day last Mr. Beecher was in high spirits and told me that 
 before he plunged into his work on the ' Life of Christ ' 
 he felt like first ' going on a spree.' Do you know what 
 ' going on a spree ' meant with him ? Why, going around 
 town to look at some bric-a-brac, stare in shop-windows, 
 look at pictures, and things of that sort. 
 
 "I first came in contact with Mr. Beecher in 1872, 
 when the Redpath Bureau, in which I was a partner, en- 
 gaged him to deliver seventeen consecutive lectures for 
 $12,000, $6,000 being in advance, he to have expenses 
 paid and a special car. That was $700 a lecture. The 
 bureau cleared $5,000. He went out as far as Chicago. 
 In 1876 I took him personally. For the season 1876-77 
 he netted for himself $41,530; for 1877-78, $27,200; for 
 1878-79, $21,200; for 1879-80, when he did but little 
 lecturing, $8,500, and he has averaged about the same 
 
328 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 since, making a total of about $240,000 for the ten years 
 for which I have his receipts. He delivered in that 
 time over 1,200 lectures, and travelled 400,000 miles. 
 He was a great hand to travel nights ; he was never fa- 
 tigued if he could sleep after noon, and his afternoon nap 
 he always took, if possible, whether travelling or not. 
 
 " I have seen Mr. Beecher under all circumstances, and 
 I never saw him angry but once. The circumstances 
 were most trying. In all his travelling, Mr. Beecher had 
 one rule from which he refused to deviate ; he would 
 never go to a private house, unless it might be that of 
 some old friend. He was travelling in Iowa, and a friend 
 of his, an ex- Congressman and then president of a rail- 
 road, invited him to stop over in his place and preach on 
 Sunday. Mr. Beecher consented, provided a special car 
 should be sent to the place where he lectured on Satur- 
 day evening so that he would not have to travel on Sun- 
 day, and he should not be obliged to go to a private 
 house. I wrote accordingly. The president came in his 
 own private car and took Mr. and Mrs. Beecher and my- 
 self to his town. On our arrival, at 2 A.M., he marched 
 us to his own house. Mr. Beecher declined to go in. 
 ' I assured you,' he said to his would-be host, ' that I 
 would not go to a private house.' I went back and tried 
 to find an hotel. I could get into none, and so reported 
 to Mr. Beecher, and told him that the best he could do 
 was to remain at the house. He then turned to the rail- 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 
 
 road president and said : c I am very angry, sir! ' Yet he 
 had to stay there, and the next morning he was all right. 
 He was splendidly entertained. 
 
 " Mr. Beecher was the best traveller I ever knew after 
 he got started. I had great difficulty in getting him to 
 undertake long journeys, notably to California and to 
 England the second time. I had to urge the desire of the 
 people and his friends to see him, and work all possible 
 motives for two or three years before he made up his mind 
 to the California trip. When he was travelling he never 
 complained ; he always found diversion. He would eat 
 with the crowd at the poorest tavern, and took what was 
 set before him ; he never had a meal in his room. He 
 made himself at home in the cars, and it would be only a 
 few minutes after he had stepped into a car full of people 
 before he would be a general favorite and everybody felt 
 the better for his being there. 
 
 " Mr. Beecher was wonderfully fond of children, and he 
 always carried oranges and candies in his pockets to help 
 entertain them on the cars. If he saw a poor mother with 
 a baby crying in her arms he would go and comfort it and 
 make it stop its crying where others failed. In coming 
 up from Washington one time a characteristic incident 
 occurred. There were two little children, boy and girl, 
 eight or nine years old, in the car, and they huddled close 
 up together and appeared to be very fond of each other. 
 We had breakfast at Wilmington, but the children did 
 
330 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 not get off the car, and they had evidently travelled all 
 night without anything to eat. When Mr. Beecher came 
 back from breakfast his arms were laden with good things 
 for the children. Then he talked to them. He found 
 that they were from the South, that their parents had died, 
 and that they were on their way to this city to find an 
 uncle whom they expected to meet them. The train was 
 late what if the uncle should fail to meet them ? When 
 the train arrived in Jersey City Mr. Beecher got out of 
 the car with the children, walked slowly along, looking 
 around to see if he could discover anyone looking for 
 them, and got out between the two ferries and stood 
 there waiting until both boats had gone. Soon a man 
 came hurrying along in great distress and saw the two 
 children, but as he expected to find them unaccompanied, 
 he stopped in doubt. Mr. Beecher suspected that he 
 might be the uncle, and asked him what he was looking 
 for. 
 
 " ' Two children.' 
 
 " ' Well,' said Mr. Beecher, < I guess they're here. 
 These look like two children, don't they ?' 
 
 " It was the uncle, and he was indeed grateful. Thank- 
 ing Mr. Beecher, he said : 
 
 " ' Will you kindly give me your name ?' 
 
 " ' My name is Beecher.' 
 
 " ' Where do you live ? ' 
 
 " ' In Brooklyn.' 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 331 
 
 " < What ! Can you be the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher ? ' 
 
 " * I am inclined to think I am.' 
 
 " Tears came into the man's eyes, and he explained to 
 the little ones who it was who had befriended them. The 
 two children soon after were seen in Plymouth Church, 
 and they have since then listened to Mr. Beecher's ser- 
 mons frequently. 
 
 " In all his lecture tours Mr. Beecher gave only six dis- 
 appointments, and two of them were at Lebanon, Penn., 
 once because * Mackey's Guide ' got Lebanon, N. J., and 
 Lebanon, Penn., mixed, and once because of a snow-storm, 
 two years ago. Mr. Beecher might have got there one 
 hour and a half late, but he would never endanger his 
 health or the interests of his church, and he would have 
 been in no condition to speak. The Lebanon Lecture 
 Bureau recently began suit against Mr. Beecher for dam- 
 ages for this. Once he disappointed the Young Men's 
 Christian Association at Utica, and, being Christians, I 
 suppose they will never forgive him. He disappointed 
 the Boston people last fall, as the steamer from England 
 arrived only two days before the time set for the lecture, 
 and he had been sick. 
 
 " Mr. Beecher has drawn larger audiences with higher 
 prices than any other man in this country. John B. 
 Gough was the next. Gough was a professional, but he 
 could not get the price Mr. Beecher did. Mr. Beecher 
 
 went twice to California, and passed all over the Pacific 
 14* 
 
332 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 railroads. He has lectured in every State and Territory 
 of the Union except Idaho, Arizona, and Mississippi, and 
 never was man received with more cordiality than he. 
 Every year he has lectured in Boston, Philadelphia, Balti- 
 more, Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago. 
 He never had a set lecture. He did have a subject which 
 he adapted to the times, and that was : * The Reign of 
 the Common People,' and to this he tacked every theme ; 
 it was a sort of advance-guard. Money was no tempta- 
 tion to him. It was all I could do to induce him to go to 
 England again, though he was anxious to see Dr. and 
 Mrs. Parker. He needed a great deal of money, and he 
 spent a great deal. Despite his dislike of long journeys, 
 I took him the last time on a circuit of the country from 
 the Northwest by the Northern Pacific to the Pacific 
 slope, thence down and back by the Southern Pacific. 
 We started from Brantford, Ont., on July Qth ; he trav- 
 elled and lectured six times a week and preached on 
 Sundays until October gth, when we reached Charleston, 
 S. C., and we never saw a drop of rain till we got back 
 to New York, and not one hot day till we reached San 
 Antonio, Tex. 
 
 " I had cancelled Mr. Beecher's lecture engagements 
 for two years, so that he could give his time to his ' Life 
 of Christ ' and his autobiography, which C. L. Webster 
 & Co. were to publish. I think he was revising the 
 ' Life of Christ,' and that this work was very nearly done, 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 333 
 
 so that it will soon appear. Nothing had been done on 
 the autobiography. I shall publish his tour in England 
 in a few days, with the title, ' A Summer in England with 
 Henry Ward Beecher.'" 
 
 Major Pond's attention was called to the statement 
 which has been published, and which has been received 
 with general credence, that Mr. Beecher never wore a 
 silk hat. The major smiled, and then quickly exclaimed : 
 " Only once. I must tell you about that. I was at Mr. 
 Beecher's house one afternoon, and we were to leave the 
 house at four o'clock in order to catch a train. Mr. 
 Beecher, according to his custom of an afternoon, had 
 lain down for a nap. I was in the library, when, as the 
 hour approached, Mrs. Beecher called my attention to 
 the fact and asked where Mr. Beecher was. I went up 
 to call him, but he was not in his room. I went down- 
 stairs and thought I would get my hat, which was a silk 
 one. I could not find it where I had left it, in the hall- 
 way. Just then Mrs. Beecher called my attention to the 
 front of the house. Mr. Beecher had a cardigan jacket 
 which he used to wear around the house at times, and you 
 can imagine that it was not particularly becoming to his 
 form. I went to where Mrs. Beecher stood and looked 
 out. There in the middle of the street, with a lot of 
 children around him, was Mr. Beecher in his cardigan, 
 my silk hat on his head, and a stick in his mouth with 
 strings attached, as children make bits, and he was pranc- 
 
334 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ing up and down and back and forth and playing horse 
 with the youngsters. You would have died a-laughing 
 seeing that sight. ' Henry,' exclaimed Mrs. Beecher, 
 ' what on earth are you doing ? Do you know what a 
 sight you are ? You will lose the train.' 
 
 " Mr. Beecher stopped, drew out his watch he always 
 carried a first-class time-keeper and replying, as he put 
 it back, * No, I won't, I've got two minutes yet,' off he 
 galloped with the children at his heels in high glee. He 
 used up the two minutes, and we just caught the ferry- 
 boat in time. Many a time have we barely caught the 
 last boat ; but Mr. Beecher's watch was as true as steel, 
 and he always calculated apparently to the second. 
 When he got on the ferryboat he never stopped until he 
 landed in the pilot-house. He had the key to them, and 
 every pilot knew him, and there he would go and stay 
 until the boat had got to her landing." 
 
 A few years ago Major Pond visited Brattleboro', Vt., 
 in company with Mr. Beecher, and the latter said that 
 fifty years before that date he was engaged to deliver a 
 Fourth of July oration in Brattleboro'. He lived ten 
 miles away, and the committee offered him the choice 
 between his expenses or ten dollars in cash. He took 
 the cash and walked to and from Brattleboro'. 
 
 One of his closest friends in Boston, to whom in the 
 course of a long intimacy Mr. Beecher probably wrote 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 335 
 
 more letters than to any other one person, says that it 
 was no uncommon thing for Beecher to appear in his 
 counting-room a little after five o'clock in the afternoon 
 when he was to lecture in Tremont Temple or Music 
 Hall in the evening, and announce that he had just come 
 from the New York train, and wanted a nap before he 
 went to his hotel to get ready for the lecture. Here he 
 felt sure of absolute privacy ; no one could get to him 
 with a card or a request. He would throw himself down 
 on the floor of the private office with his head on his 
 valise and his travelling shawl pulled over him, sleep 
 soundly for a half-hour or an hour, then start up, go to 
 his hotel, and write his lecture. 
 
 " I remember finding him once," says his friend, " with 
 the pages of his manuscript sown all over his table and 
 the floor about him in his room at Parker's at 7. 1 5 P.M., 
 when he was to speak at 7.30 P.M. I began picking up 
 the paper, hurrying him up and putting the pages to- 
 gether for him. ' Oh ! there's time enough, time enough 
 plenty of time,' was all the answer he made to my re- 
 monstrances. He was on his platform at the moment 
 advertised, primed full of his subject. It would have' 
 made no difference, I really believe, if he hadn't written 
 a word of it down, though he took his hastily prepared 
 manuscript with him." 
 
 When Beecher was returning from his first trip to Eu- 
 rope, he was asked to preach on board the Cunarder on 
 
LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 which he was returning. He refused. Sir Samuel Cu- 
 nard and a number of clergymen of the English Church 
 were coming over, and Beecher said -that he was having 
 a vacation and did not care to come before these people. 
 An over-zealous American friend tried to induce Sir 
 Samuel to press Mr. Beecher into the service. Then the 
 steamship man made his famous six-word speech con- 
 demning all Americans and the Collins line together. Out 
 of this incident grew an absurd story which gained a good 
 deal of newspaper currency at the time, that Beecher 
 wished to preach on board ship and was not allowed a 
 chance. 
 
 " He had refused up and down to speak, and his inde- 
 pendence made old Sir Samuel a little grouty," says the 
 friend who made this ocean journey with him. " I 
 shouldn't have brought up the old story, but it reminds 
 me of a most Beecher-like speech that he made as a 
 number of us sat on deck together. Dr. Chapin had 
 been over as a delegate to the peace convention at Brus- 
 sels, and someone asked Beecher why he had not gone 
 too. ' Not I,' he replied ; ' not I. Never but once did I 
 try to preach on peace, and then my pump sucked. ' ' 
 
 Once he wrote to invite a Boston man and his wife, 
 whom he knew very well, and who were spending a few 
 days in a New York hotel, to come over and take tea at 
 his house in Brooklyn. Not content with sending the 
 note, he came for his friends, and escorted them to 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 
 
 Brooklyn. Not until they were in his house did he tell 
 them that Mrs. Beecher was away in the country, " up 
 in Peekskill looking after the poultry," and that there 
 was not a soul in the house but himself, not even a ser- 
 vant. He gave his visitors some new pictures and books 
 to look at, and presently they heard the street door 
 close. After a short time he returned with a loaf of 
 bread and invited them down to a picturesque repast. 
 He had set the table himself, and had decorated it with 
 vases and bric-a-brac in a most fantastic manner. After 
 a lunch of olives and cheese and such other edibles as a 
 house whose mistress was absent might furnish to guests, 
 they were taken up-stairs, and presently people began to 
 arrive. Mr. Beecher had invited a number of his parish- 
 ioners to meet his Boston friends. He would not allow 
 them to go back to New York after these people had 
 gone. " But," says the lady who tells the story, " Mr. 
 Beecher was not equal to the task of getting breakfast 
 for us, and he went out and got us invited with him to 
 the home of the Howards, not far away." 
 
 " He was always the youngest member of his family," 
 says another of his friends " always the most sympa- 
 thetic friend of his boys and his daughter. Nothing in 
 which they were interested was too small to interest 
 him, all through their babyhood and childhood. His 
 farm, which he always tried to take seriously, but never 
 quite succeeded in doing, was a great source of pleasure 
 
338 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 to him. He was particularly fond of arboriculture, and 
 was always making experiments with seeds and plants, 
 expecting presently to produce something surprising. 
 He was always buoyant, boyish, and happy, when re- 
 lieved in the slightest from pressing cares. 
 
 " Once in Saratoga," says a former president of the 
 American Institute of Instruction, " Mr. Beecher was 
 advertised to lecture before our body on the new edu- 
 cation. A pretty preface, intended as a compliment to 
 him, had been arranged. As he entered the church 
 where the lecture was to be given, a dozen young girls 
 were to sing a song for which they had been drilled in 
 Boston, and which they had come to Saratoga to sing at 
 the closing meeting of our convention. I went over to 
 Mr. Beecher's hotel, and we started to walk to the church 
 together. I spoke to him of the little plan about the 
 singing. He stopped short on the pavement. ' Can't 
 have any singing before I speak,' he said. Here was a 
 dilemma. I urged it ; I explained ; I entreated ; all in 
 vain. ' Can't have anyone sing before I begin. Let 
 them sing afterward.' There was nothing to do but 
 to leave him there and go on ahead and stop the per- 
 formance of this part of the programme. Then I went 
 back to the street. Beecher was nowhere to be found. 
 I wandered up and down, back and forth, for several 
 minutes. At last I found him in a quiet side-street, 
 leaning over an orchard fence, evidently absorbed in 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 339 
 
 thought. He had forgotten about me and my errand 
 completely. .1 stepped up and tapped him on the arm. 
 ' Mr. Beecher,' said I, ' your audience is waiting for you. 
 There will be no singing.' He rushed across the street 
 and into the church, up the aisle, and into the finest lect- 
 ure I ever heard him give. After it was over he was 
 affable and cordial as ever. The danger of having his 
 mind diverted by a bevy of singers once past, he was a 
 good deal more at his best than if he had not had his 
 combativeness aroused." 
 
 Whenever he went to Boston, Mr. Beecher visited the 
 Old Corner Bookstore, where he was wont to order 
 charged every new book that took his fancy. He liked 
 to stand about chatting with the frequenters of the place, 
 sometimes joking about the slow sales of his own books of 
 late years, and commenting upon other people's work in 
 his own peculiar way. One day his attention was called 
 by Mr. Cupples to a set of books put down in the front 
 of the store ; every life of Christ by every author was put 
 on sale. There were twenty or thirty different volumes, 
 including the ones by Strauss and Renan, as well as Mr. 
 Beecher's own. The first volumes of this much discussed 
 work was there, the bulkiest one of all, " and the poorest 
 one in the whole collection," said Mr. Beecher, modestly ; 
 " Farrar's ' Life ' is worth more than all the rest put to- 
 gether." 
 
 Mr. Beecher was speaking on " Communism " once in 
 
340 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Chicago when a rather dramatic and very characteristic 
 thing happened. His lecture was half finished. He was 
 standing before an audience of ten thousand people in the 
 old Tabernacle building, a temporary structure on Frank- 
 lin Street, put up to accommodate the vast audiences 
 which thronged in those days to hear Moody and Sankey, 
 then in the heyday of their early work and enthusiasm. 
 The great room was packed. Beecher rolled out sentence 
 after sentence in his most telling manner. Word after 
 word fell forcibly upon the vast crowd, which grew more 
 and more silent as he went on. A reporter at the table 
 down in front of the platform dropped a lead-pencil, and 
 one could almost feel the noise it made, so breathlessly 
 were all in that audience listening to the orator's voice. 
 He was telling the story of the rise of the power of the peo- 
 ple. Presently he ended a ringing period with these words, 
 pronounced in a voice so deep and fervid and full of con- 
 viction that they seemed to have been uttered then for the 
 first time : " The voice of the people is the voice of God." 
 
 Into the absolute and intense silence of the instant that 
 followed fell the voice of a half-drunken man in the gal- 
 lery : " The voice of the people is the voice of a fool." 
 
 Everybody fairly shivered. But Beecher was equal to 
 the moment. He drew himself up, looked toward the 
 place from which the disturbing voice came, and "I said 
 the voice of the people, not the voice of one man," he 
 replied, with perfect simplicity and dignity. 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 341 
 
 It would be impossible to describe the responsive ex- 
 pression of the audience. It was not a laugh, it was not 
 a cheer. It was a movement, a sound like one great sigh 
 of relief and delight. The lecture went on ; the air was 
 full of electric sympathy tingling toward an explosion of 
 some sort. Beecher knew it, and seemed waiting for a 
 chance to put his finger on the key of the pent-up per- 
 sonal enthusiasm which moved his audience. The 
 drunken fellow suddenly gave him a chance. He stag- 
 gered to his feet, feeling that the odds were against him, 
 and mumbled out some unintelligible words. Beecher 
 paused a second time in his lecture. Then he said, with 
 that smile of his, at once winning and condemning, which 
 so many people know : " Will some kind person take our 
 friend out and give him some cold water plenty of it 
 within and without ? " Two policemen had hold of the 
 disturber by this time, and the audience had liberty to 
 cheer and such a cheer as it was ! The Tabernacle 
 shook with it, and it is probable that at least nine-tenths 
 of the people who clapped their hands supposed that they 
 were cheering Beecher's wit, instead of that tremendous 
 personal power which no one need try to analyze. 
 
 While Mr. Beecher was lecturing before a large audi- 
 ence in Canandaigua one June evening in 1877, a locomo- 
 tive stood steaming before a handsome car at the depot, 
 waiting specially to take the speaker and Major Pond, his 
 
342 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 manager, to Rochester at the conclusion of the lecture. 
 Rochester is twenty-nine miles west of Canandaigua, and 
 it is the nearest point where a through sleeping car for 
 New York can be reached. John Houghtaling, the 
 oldest conductor on the New York Central Railroad, 
 walked impatiently up and down the platform. The 
 usual running time to Rochester is an hour and ten min- 
 utes, the train to be caught was due in Rochester at 
 11.08 P.M., and it was already something more than a 
 quarter past ten o'clock. Going up to where Mr. Beecher 
 was seated talking with some friends, the lecture being 
 over, the old railroad man said : 
 
 "We have very little time left, Mr. Beecher." 
 
 " Plenty of time plenty of time, my friend," said Mr. 
 Beecher. " And if we had only half as much, such an 
 old hand at the business as yourself would bring us 
 through all right." 
 
 " We will have to run very fast to catch the train now," 
 said the conductor. 
 
 " None too fast to suit me," said Mr. Beecher, very 
 coolly. 
 
 " But then there are such things as coal trains and 
 freight trains, and what not, in the way," urged the con- 
 ductor. 
 
 " And there are such things as telegraphs to get them 
 out of the way," replied Mr. Beecher. 
 
 "Well," said the veteran conductor, in despair, " if you 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 343 
 
 like to ride fast, you shall go from Canandaigua to 
 Rochester quicker than ever a man went before, and I 
 will see that the track is cleared." 
 
 A timely despatch to headquarters sent two coal trains 
 off on side switches, and left the twenty-nine miles of 
 track clear for the flying special. It was 10.30 P.M. ex- 
 actly when the wheels began to move, and the gray- 
 haired railroader stood his lantern in the aisle and seated 
 himself with a thud, as if he would have said : " When 
 you want to go fast I'm your man." 
 
 In less than a minute the car was going like the wind. 
 It rocked and swayed and jumped, and waiting pas- 
 sengers rushed to the depot doors as it dashed through 
 villages and towns, leaving their sight almost before they 
 could set eyes on it. 
 
 " We have just passed Pittsford," said Conductor 
 Houghtaling, watch in hand, in a few minutes, " seven- 
 teen miles ; time, nineteen minutes." It seemed almost 
 the next moment when he added, proudly : " We've 
 crossed the Rochester line, twenty-six miles from Canan- 
 daigua, in just twenty-six minutes. I've run on this road 
 since the first train went over it, and I never came from 
 Canandaigua to Rochester as quick as that before." 
 
 The engineer slackened up a little in going the next 
 three miles, through the suburbs of the city, and the car 
 stopped in Rochester depot at eleven o'clock precisely, 
 or just thirty minutes after leaving Canandaigua. 
 
344 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 General Horatio C. King says as follows : " As a trav- 
 elling companion I never knew Mr. Beecher's equal. It 
 was my good-fortune to travel with him for two weeks 
 in that famous lecture tour of his, several years ago, 
 throughout the West, when for over six weeks he lect- 
 ured almost every week-day evening and preached on 
 Sundays. He always spoke of this as the time when he 
 built his house at Peekskill out of wind, for it was the 
 receipts from this tour which enabled him to erect the 
 beautiful house at Peekskill to which he looked forward 
 as his haven of rest when he had retired from the pulpit. 
 
 " About one thing he was especially pertinacious, and 
 we speedily learned not to offer to carry, his extra over- 
 coat, a very heavy one with which he always travelled, 
 or any of his paraphernalia. This would have been an 
 evidence of weakness which he scorned to manifest. 
 Simple in his tastes, and easily satisfied, he was no trouble 
 to anyone, and indeed he was the equal of the youngest 
 of us in agility, activity, and ability to bear fatigue. It 
 was on this trip that, after his lecture at Dayton, he ac- 
 cepted an invitation to visit the Soldiers' Home, nearby. 
 After going through all the buildings, including the hos- 
 pitals, where he had a kind and encouraging word for 
 all the invalid veterans, all who were able congre- 
 gated around the music-stand on the green, and there for 
 about twenty minutes he thrilled the hearts of these 
 wards of the nation with an eloquence which I have never 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 345 
 
 seen equalled. They were held spellbound, and before 
 he closed there was not a dry eye in that assembly of at 
 least a thousand men, varying in age from forty to sixty 
 years. And when he attempted to pass through the 
 crowd they rushed to grasp his hand and poured forth 
 their thanks until Mr. Beecher, himself almost overcome 
 with emotion, was compelled to break away. 
 
 " His reception everywhere was an ovation, and en- 
 thusiastic crowds greeted every lecture, even in Louis- 
 ville, where the people had not then outgrown their old- 
 time prejudice. On our way home I accidentally picked 
 up his felt hat, the style he almost invariably wore, and 
 put it on my head. Quick as a flash he seized mine, 
 which was of the same pattern, pulled it on his head with 
 some difficulty, and declared that it was an even ex- 
 change. I was glad to accept the situation, and although 
 it took several thicknesses of paper under the band to 
 make it a respectable fit, I wore it home, and have it yet 
 as a memento of that memorable trip." 
 
 Another story of travelling experience comes from Mr. 
 Beecher's own lips. " In 1877," said he, " I came through 
 Loudonville, O., and was forcibly reminded of my stay 
 there when on my first trip out West. We stopped late 
 at night, and spent Sunday there. There were two coach 
 loads of us, and the little two-story brick tavern was 
 nearly full when we arrived. The best they could do for 
 my brother Charles and myself was to give us a couple 
 
346 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 of ' shakedowns ' in the dining-room. We slept late 
 Sunday morning, but finally waking up, commenced to 
 talk. I said, ' Charles, I'll bet you I can tell what they 
 -had at this hotel for dinner yesterday.' ' What was it ?' 
 he asked. ' Roast beef,' I replied, basing my judgment 
 on a stale sort of odor that pervaded the room. ' No, 
 you're mistaken,' said he, shaking his head and sniffing at 
 the covering of his bed ; * it was mutton.' We both 
 stoutly maintained our respective propositions, and falling 
 to a vigorous smelling of our bedclothes, found the land- 
 lord had given us a couple of table-cloths for bedspreads, 
 and Charles had got the mutton cloth and I the beef." 
 
 United States Judge Hugh L. Bond relates that the 
 first time " Mr. Beecher lectured in the South was on the 
 evening of January 31, 1865, at the Maryland Institute. 
 There was considerable objection to it among the timid. 
 Chief Justice Chase, Mr. Stanton, and others sat upon 
 the stand with him. A telegram was received while he 
 was speaking announcing the passage of the Constitu- 
 tional amendment abolishing slavery. This created 
 what is known among men of the world as a ' high old 
 time.' Mr. Beecher refused to allow us to pay any part 
 of his expenses or to remunerate him in any respect, but, 
 on the -contrary, said he would come to our aid in such a 
 cause as often as we called on him. This we did at a 
 subsequent time, when he addressed the people at Front 
 Street Theatre." 
 
INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 347 
 
 " When did you last see Mr. Beecher ?" 
 
 " At Lynchburg, Va., in 1886. He was to lecture there, 
 and came to the hotel where I was stopping. He seemed 
 to have some difficulty with the committee which had 
 invited him. He was to lecture on ' Evolution and 
 Revolution,' but as I understood him the committee said 
 the people of Lynchburg were so orthodox that they 
 would listen to nothing respecting evolution or Darwin- 
 ism. He changed the title to ' The Reign of the Com- 
 mon People,' but it was the same lecture." 
 
 "Did you hear it?" 
 
 " Yes, I offered to introduce him to the audience. He 
 asked if I was popular in Lynchburg. I told him I was 
 quite as popular there as he was before he voted for 
 Cleveland. So he thought, he said, but I had not con- 
 sidered his topic. I suggested I could explain the physi- 
 cal evolution theory to a country audience by the tadpole 
 turning to a frog, but that when I came to mental evolu- 
 tion, I should take his case and show what terrible throes 
 of nature were required to make so good a Republican 
 into the imperfect Mugwump. He was fond of humor, 
 declined my proffered services, but asked me to sit on 
 the platform." 
 15 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 
 
 His Boyhood Gardening. Early Love for Plants and Animals. His Gar- 
 den at Lawrenceburg, Ind. His Encouragement of Societies. Love 
 for Domestic Animals. " Cackling," His Last Article. His Last 
 Request. The Floral Pall and Wreath. A Work on Flowers, Fruits, 
 and Farming. Some Interesting Extracts. Mistakes He had Made. 
 Winter Nights for Reading. Shiftless Tricks. Portrait of an 
 Anti-Book Farmer. Encouragement to Agricultural Writing. Ad- 
 vantages of Farm Education. Spring Work for Public-Spirited Men. 
 The Farm at Peekskill. A Costly Experiment. His Summer Re- 
 treat. An Active Farm- Hand. 
 
 MR. BEECHER acquired a love for gardening when he 
 was a boy, and worked in his father's garden at his birth- 
 place at Litchfield, Conn. He was a student of 'the for- 
 est rather than of book-lore when at Rev. Mr. Langdon's 
 school. When he established his home at Lawrenceburg, 
 Ind., his pride was his garden attached to the humble 
 house he hired on the outskirts of the flourishing little 
 town. He tilled the garden himself. He secured the 
 choicest seeds, and sent East for cuttings of rare flowers 
 and fruit-trees. His love for flowers amounted to a pas- 
 sion. His pulpit was always adorned with flowers. He 
 had floral treasures displayed in his church on every oc- 
 
HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 349 
 
 casion. In accordance with his frequently expressed 
 wishes, a floral pall was thrown over his coffin instead of 
 the customary black cloth ; his bier was smothered in 
 roses and greens ; a floral wreath was hung on the door- 
 bell instead of the streamer of crape ;" the church was 
 profusely decorated with flowers contributed by loving 
 hands. 
 
 He never missed an horticultural or agricultural exhibi- 
 tion in his neighborhood, and in his busiest days always 
 found time to join in the meetings of the societies. His 
 knowledge of horticulture, floriculture, and agriculture was 
 extensive, and he was regarded as an authority on the sub- 
 ject. In 1859 he published a volume, " Plain and Pleas- 
 ant Talk about Fruits, Flowers, and Farming," which is 
 regarded as a text-book, and in which he displayed va- 
 ried and comprehensive practical knowledge. He availed 
 himself of every opportunity to write on these themes, 
 especially in the later years of his life. His sermons are 
 replete with allusions to his favorite study and pastime, 
 and many of his most brilliant figures of speech are of bo- 
 tanical reference. He loved all domestic animals, and 
 learned their care in childhood. He always claimed that 
 he was thoroughly en rapport v/ith all domestic animals, 
 and evidently was a student of them and their ways. At 
 agricultural shows he would pat the cows and fondle the 
 chickens like a boy. He rarely passed a dog on the 
 street without a kind word and perhaps a friendly pat 
 
350 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 on the head. He was very fond of eggs and interested 
 in the propagation of chickens. The last article he pub- 
 lished was a humorous dissentation on the subject of a 
 hen's cackle after laying an egg. This appeared in the 
 Brooklyn Eagle, while his life was slowly ebbing away, 
 and was as follows : 
 
 " CACKLING." 
 
 Some words in the English language are susceptible of 
 many shades of meaning, but cackling is a word confined 
 to one animal and to one functional condition. The 
 barn-yard fowl has, so far as we are informed, the sole 
 prerogative of sounding out over all the neighborhood the 
 arrival of a new egg ! She is no braggart, boasting of 
 what she is going to do. Indeed, her performances are 
 meditated in profound secrecy. Let no one notice me, 
 she seems to say, while stealing noiselessly under the cur- 
 rant bushes or along a shaded thicket. Is she searching 
 for a choice morsel ? It would seem so. A feather fall- 
 ing through the air makes no more noise than she, hover- 
 ing darkly about sheltered spots, stealing toward the mow 
 with artful pretence of looking for a worm. Her nest ? 
 It is curious to see what a selection of places she makes. 
 It sometimes is behind a pile of wood, or beneath the edge 
 of a hay-stack, or in some abandoned old wagon, or among 
 the trumpery of a wood-house chamber, or under a barn, 
 
HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 351 
 
 not far into darkness even, or in a hole, but just where 
 light melts into twilight. 
 
 Although laying an egg is a daily operation, it is none 
 the less a serious and meditative fact. On the nest she 
 ponders ! The very secret of living organization is be- 
 neath her. Science has proclaimed ab ovo omnia. She 
 does not know this, but she feels it. Nature is working 
 mightily within her. 
 
 But no sooner is the nest richer by an egg than a new 
 act in the drama of life is set. No more secrecy. No 
 more silence or reserve. All the world must know the 
 good deed done ! If the nest is on high the hen flies 
 down with a queer outcry, between a scream and a cackle, 
 but as her foot touches ground the proclamation begins 
 in regular form : " I have done it." " I have done it." 
 " Laid an egg ! " " Laid an egg ! " Far off the tidings 
 roll. The distant barn-yards sympathize and send back 
 congratulations. But at home! Who can tell the joy 
 which fills every feathered bosom ? The stately rooster 
 expands his throat, cackle answers cackle, now the 
 rooster, now the hen, and it is difficult to understand 
 which of the two laid the egg. After a while the silence 
 is restored until another hen comes out crying " I, too, 
 I, too," and the unwearied rooster sings bass to her so- 
 prano. Thus it goes on through the morning. Few birds 
 lay their eggs except in the early part of the day. 
 
 These barn-yard cries remain in our memories, associ- 
 
352 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ated with the coming on of spring, with bright days, after 
 the snow has gone away. The crowing of a cock is asso- 
 ciated with the idea of morning the cackling of hens 
 with mid-forenoon. 
 
 It is noticeable that birds do not announce their 
 achievements. They go off from their nests as silently 
 as they go on. Do ducks, monkeys, quails, or pheasants, 
 grouse of every name, publish their achievements ? 
 
 Nor do we know of any animal that makes known the 
 birth of its offspring. A calf or colt is born and no word 
 said about it. The fox, the wolf, regard the fact as 
 enough. The lion, perhaps, reflects that the birth of its 
 whelp will be known soon enough. Man alone cackles 
 not at the birth of his offspring, but at his deeds and 
 attainments, with often this difference : that a hen cackles 
 when an egg is laid, while men often cackle most when 
 least has been performed. 
 
 When one has said a smart thing nothing will do but 
 he must tell of it ; when one has performed a feat of run- 
 ning, skating, batting, his household must speedily know 
 it. The mother must sweetly cackle all the wonderful 
 things that daily are developed in the baby. When two 
 or three mothers get together the whole air resounds with 
 the wonderful deeds of wonderful babies. Men cackle 
 over their festivities, candidates cackle before their con- 
 stituents, ministers cackle of their churches, and churches 
 cackle of their ministers ; merchants cackle in advertise- 
 
HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 353 
 
 ments ; newspapers cackle ad nauseam of their sub- 
 scribers, of their enterprise, of their various superiorities 
 over all other newspapers. Indeed, by the natural opera- 
 tion of the law of evolution, cackling has developed into 
 a profession, and reporters are trained to await at the 
 nests of events and publish to all the world what eggs the 
 fecund world has laid every twenty-four hours ! 
 
 Our cackle is ended, and we fly off from the nest with 
 modest consciousness of the value of one egg. 
 
 In the volume referred to, " Plain and Pleasant Talk," 
 the breezy style shows that it was a work of love, and 
 many of the articles will bear reproduction in this con- 
 nection. We quote the following at random : 
 
 NINE MISTAKES. 
 
 In so far as instruction is concerned, I esteem my mistakes to 
 be more valuable than my successful efforts. They excite to at- 
 tention and investigation with great emphasis. I will record a 
 few. 
 
 1. One mistake, which I record once for all, as it will probably 
 occur every year, has been the attempting of more than I could 
 do well. The ardor of spring, in spite of experience, lays out a 
 larger garden than can be well tended all summer. 
 
 2. In selecting the largest lima beans for seed, I obtained most 
 luxuriant vines, but fewer pods. If the season were longer these 
 vines would ultimately be most profitable ; but their vigor gives a 
 growth too rampant for our latitude. If planted for a screen, 
 however, the rankest growers are the best. 
 
 3. Of three successive plantings of corn, for table use, the first 
 
354 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 was the best, then the second, and the third very poor. I hoed 
 and thinned the first planting myself, and thoroughly ; the second 
 I left to a Dutchman, directing him how to do it ; the third, I 
 left to him without directions. 
 
 4. I bought a stock of roses in the fall of 'the year. All the loss 
 of wintering came on me. If purchased in the spring, the nur- 
 serymen loses, if there is loss. 
 
 5. I planted the silver-leaved abele (Populus alba) in a rich 
 sandy loam, in which it made more wood than it could ripen. 
 The tree was top-heavy, and required constant staking. A poorer 
 soil should have been selected. 
 
 6. I planted abundantly of flower-seeds just before a drought. 
 I neither covered the earth wkh mats nor watered it supposing 
 that the seeds would come up after the first rain. But, in a cheer- 
 less and barren garden, I have learned that heat will kill planted 
 seeds, and that he who will be sure of flowers should not depend 
 upon only one planting. 
 
 7. In the fall of 1843, I took up the bulbs of tuberoses, and win- 
 tered them safely upon the tops of bookcases in a warm study. 
 Having a better and larger stock in 1844, I would fain be yet more 
 careful, and packed them in dry sand, and put them in a closet 
 beyond the reach of frost. On opening them in the spring all 
 were rotted save about half a dozen. Hereafter, I shall try the 
 bookcase. 
 
 8. We are told that glazed or painted flower-pots are not desir- 
 able, because, refusing a passage to superfluous moisture, they 
 leave the roots to become sodden. In small stove-heated parlors, 
 the evaporation is so great that glazed or painted flower-pots are 
 best, because the danger is of dryness rather than dampness in all 
 plants gr oiv ing in sandy loams or composts. 
 
 9. I have resolved every summer for three years to cut pea- 
 
HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 355 
 
 brush during the winter and stack it in the shed ; and every sum- 
 mer following, not having kept the vow, I have lacked pea-brush; 
 being too busy to get it when it was needed, I have allowed the 
 crop to suffer. 
 
 WINTER NIGHTS FOR READING. 
 
 As the winter is a season of comparative leisure, it is the time 
 for farmers to study. It is a good time for them to make them- 
 selves acquainted with the nature of soils, of manures, of vege- 
 table organization or structural botany. Farmers are liable to 
 rely wholly upon their own experience and to despise science. 
 Book men are apt to rely on scientific theories, and nothing upon 
 practice. If these two tendencies would only court and marry 
 each other, what a hopeful family would they rear ! How nice it 
 would look to see in the papers : 
 
 MARRIED. By Philosophical Wisdom, Esq., Mr. Practical 
 Experience, to Miss Sober Science. [We will stand godfather to 
 all the children.] 
 
 SHIFTLESS TRICKS. 
 
 To let the cattle fodder themselves at the stack ; they pull out 
 and trample more than they eat. They eat till the edge of appe- 
 tite is gone, and then daintily pick the choice parts ; the residue, 
 being coarse and refuse, they will not afterward touch. 
 
 To sell half a stack of hay and leave the lower half open to rain 
 and snow. In feeding out, a hay knife should be used on the 
 stack ; in selling, either dispose of the whole, or remove that 
 which is left to a shed or barn. 
 
 It is a shiftless trick to lie about stores and groceries, arguing 
 with men that you have no time, in a new country, for nice farm- 
 15* 
 
356 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ing for making good fences ; for smooth meadows without a 
 stump ; for draining wet patches which disfigure fine fields. 
 
 To raise your own frogs in your own yard ; to permit, year after 
 year, a dirty, stinking, mantled puddle to stand before your fence 
 in the street. 
 
 To plant orchards, and allow your cattle to eat the trees up. 
 When gnawed down, to save your money, by trying to nurse the 
 stubs into good trees, instead of getting fresh ones from the 
 nursery. 
 
 To allow an orchard to have blank spaces, where trees have 
 died, and when the living trees begin to bear, to wake up and put 
 young whips in the vacant spots. 
 
 It is very shiftless to build your barn-yard so that every rain shall 
 drain it ; to build your privy and dig your well close together ; to 
 build a privy of more than seven feet square some shiftless folks 
 have it of the size of the whole yard ; to set it in the most exposed 
 spot on the premises ; to set it at the very far end of the garden, 
 for the pleasure of traversing mud-puddles and labyrinths of wet 
 weeds in rainy days. 
 
 A lady of our acquaintance, at a boarding-house, excited some 
 fears among her friends, by foaming at the mouth, of madness. 
 In eating a hash (made, doubtless, of every scrap from the table, 
 not consumed the day before), she found herself blessed with a 
 mouthful of hard soap, which only lathered the more, the more 
 she washed at it. It is a filthy thing to comb one's hair in a small 
 kitchen in the intervals of cooking the breakfast ; to use the 
 bread -trough for a cradle a thing which we have undoubtedly 
 seen ; to put trunks, boxes, baskets, with sundry other utensils, 
 under the bed where you keep the cake for company ; we have 
 seen a dexterous housewife whip the bed-spread aside and bring 
 forth a loaf-cake. 
 
HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 357 
 
 It is a dirty trick to wash children's eyes in the pudding dish ; 
 not that the sore eyes, but subsequent puddings, will not be bene- 
 fited ; to wipe dishes and spoons on a hand-towel ; to wrap warm 
 bread in a dirty table-cloth ; to make and mould bread on a table 
 innocent of washing for weeks ; to use dirty table-cloths for sheets, 
 a practice of which we have had experimental knowledge once at 
 least in our lives. 
 
 The standing plea of all slatterns and slovens is, that "every- 
 body must eat a peck of dirt before they die." A peck ? that 
 would be a mercy, a mere mouthful, in comparison of cooked cart- 
 loads of dirt which is to be eaten in steamboats, canal-boats, tav- 
 erns, mansions, huts, and hovels. 
 
 It is a shiftless trick to snuff a candle with your fingers, or your 
 wife's best scissors, to throw the snuff on the carpet, or on the 
 polished floor, and then to extinguish it by treading on it ! 
 
 To borrow a choice book ; to read it with unwashed hands, that 
 have been used in the charcoal bin, and finally to return it daubed 
 on every leaf with nose-blood spots, tobacco-spatter, and dirty 
 finger-marks this is a vile trick ! 
 
 It is not altogether cleanly to use one's knife to scrape boots, to 
 cut harness, to skin cats, to cut tobacco, and then to cut apples 
 which other people are to eat. 
 
 It is an unthrifty trick to bring in eggs from the barn in one's 
 coat-pocket, and then to sit down on them. 
 
 It is a filthy trick to borrow of or lend for others' use, a tooth- 
 brush, or a toothpick ; to pick one's teeth at table with a fork, or 
 a jack-knife ; to put your hat upon the dinner-table among the 
 dishes ; to spit generously into the fire, or at it, while the hearth 
 is covered with food set to warm ; for sometimes a man hits what 
 he don't aim at. 
 
 It is an unmannerly trick to neglect the scraper outside the 
 
358 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 door, but to be scrupulous in cleaning your feet after you get in- 
 side, on the carpet, rug, or andirons ; to bring your drenched um- 
 brella into the entry, where a black puddle may leave to the house- 
 wife melancholy evidence that you have been there. 
 
 It is soul-trying for a neat dairy-woman to see her " man " water- 
 ing the horse out of her milk-bucket ; or filtering horse -medicine 
 through her milk-strainer ; or feeding his hogs with her water- 
 pail ; or, after barn-work, to set the well-bucket outside the curb 
 and wash his hands out of it. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF AN ANTI-BOOK FARMER. 
 
 WHENEVER our anti-book farmers can show us better crops at 
 a less expense, better flocks, and better farms, and better owners 
 on them, than book farmers can, we shall become converts to 
 their doctrines. But, as yet, we cannot see how intelligence in a 
 farmer should injure his crops. Nor what difference it makes 
 whether a farmer gets his ideas from a sheet of paper, or from a 
 neighbor's mouth, or from his own experience, so that he only 
 gets good, practical, sound ideas. A farmer never objects to re- 
 ceive political information from newspapers ; he is quite willing to 
 learn the state of markets from newspapers, and as willing to gain 
 religious notions from reading, and historical knowledge, and all 
 sorts of information except that which relates to his business. He 
 will go over and hear a neighbor tell how he prepares his wheat- 
 lands, how he selects and puts in his seed, how he deals with his 
 grounds in spring, in harvest, and after harvest-time ; but if that 
 neighbor should write it all down carefully and put it into paper, 
 it's all poison ! it's book farming / 
 
 "Strange such a difference there should be 
 'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee." 
 
HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 359 
 
 If I raise a head of lettuce surpassing all that has been seen 
 hereabouts, every good farmer that loves a salad would send for a 
 little seed, and ask, as he took it, " How do you contrive to raise 
 such monstrous heads? you must have some secret about it." 
 But if my way were written down and printed, he would not touch 
 it. " Poh, it's bookish ! " 
 
 Now let us inquire in what States land is the best managed, 
 yields the most with the least cost, where are the best sheep, the 
 best cattle, the best hogs, the best wheat ? It will be found to be 
 in those States having the most agricultural societies and the most 
 widely disseminated agricultural papers. 
 
 What is there in agriculture that requires a man to be ignorant 
 if he will be skilful ? Or why may every other class of men learn 
 by reading except the farmer? Mechanics have their journals ; 
 commercial men have their papers ; religious men, theirs ; poli- 
 ticians, theirs ; there are magazines and journals for the arts, for 
 science, for education, and why not for that grand pursuit on 
 which all these stand? We really could never understand why 
 farmers should not wish to have their vocation on a level with 
 others ; why they should feel proud to have no paper, while every 
 other pursuit is fond of having one. 
 
 Those who are prejudiced against book farming are either good 
 farmers, misinformed of the design of agricultural papers, or poor 
 farmers who only treat this subject as they do all others, with blun- 
 dering ignorance. First, the good farmers ; there are in every 
 country many industrious, hard-working men, who know that they 
 cannot afford to risk anything upon wild experiments. They have 
 a growing family to support, taxes to pay, lands perhaps on which 
 purchase money is due, or they are straining every nerve to make 
 their crops build a barn, that the barn may hold their crops. They 
 suppose an agricultural paper to be stuffed full of wild fancies, 
 
360 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 expensive experiments, big stories made up by men who know of 
 no farming except parlor farming. They would, doubtless, be 
 surprised to learn that ninety-nine parts in a hundred of the con- 
 tents of agricultural papers are written by hard-working practical 
 farmers ! that the editor's business is not to foist absurd stories 
 upon credulous readers, but to sift stories, to scrutinize accounts, 
 to obtain whatever has been abundantly proved to be fact, and to 
 reject all that is suspected to be mere fanciful theory. Such papers 
 are designed to prevent imposition ; to kill off pretenders by ex- 
 posing them ; to search out from practical men whatever they have 
 found out, and to publish it for the benefit of their brethren all 
 over the Union ; to spread before the laboring classes such sound, 
 well-approved scientific knowledge as shall throw light upon every 
 operation of the farm, the orchard, and the garden. 
 
 The other class who rail at book farming ought to be excused, 
 for they do not treat book farming any worse than they do their 
 own farming ; indeed, not half so bad. They rate the paper with 
 their tongue ; but cruelly abuse their ground, for twelve months 
 in the year, with both hands. I will draw the portrait of a genuine 
 anti-book farmer of this last sort. 
 
 He ploughs three inches deep lest he should turn up the poison 
 that, in his estimation, lies below ; his wheat-land is ploughed so as 
 to keep as much water on it as possible ; he sows two bushels to 
 the acre and reaps ten, so that it takes a fifth of his crop to seed 
 his ground ; his corn-land has never any help from him, but beats 
 just what it pleases, which is from thirty to thirty-five bushels by 
 measurement, though he brags that it is fifty or sixty. His hogs, 
 if not remarkable for fattening qualities, would beat old Eclipse 
 at a quarter-race ; and were the man not prejudiced against deep 
 ploughing, his hogs would work his grounds better with their prodig- 
 ious snouts than he does with his jack-knife plough. His meadow- 
 
HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. $6l 
 
 lands yield him from three-quarters of a ton to a whole ton of hay, 
 which is regularly spoiled in curing, regularly left out for a month, 
 very irregularly stacked up, and left for the cattle to pull out at 
 their pleasure, and half eat and half trample underfoot. His horses 
 would excite the avarice of an anatomist in search of osteological 
 specimens, and returning from their range of pasture they are 
 walking herbariums, bearing specimens in their mane and tail of 
 every weed that bears a bur or cockle. But oh, the cows ! If 
 held up in a bright day to the sun, don't you think they would be 
 semi-transparent? But he tells us that good milkers are always 
 poor ! His cows get what Providence sends them, and very little 
 besides, except in winter then they have a half-peck of corn on ears 
 a foot long thrown to them, and they afford lively spectacles of 
 animated corn and cob crushers ; never mind, they yield, on an 
 average, three quarts of milk a day ! and that milk yields varieties 
 of butter quite astonishing. 
 
 His farm never grows any better, in many respects it gets annu- 
 ally worse. After ten years' work on a good soil, while his neigh- 
 bors have grown rich, he is just where he started, only his house 
 is dirtier, his fences more tottering, his soil poorer, his pride and 
 his ignorance greater. And when, at last, he sells out to a Penn- 
 sylvanian that reads the Farmers' Cabinet, or to some New Yorker 
 with his Cultivator packed up carefully as if it were gold, or to a 
 Yankee with his New England Farmer, he goes off to Missouri, 
 thanking Heaven that he's not a book farmer! 
 
 Unquestionably, there are two sides to this question, and both 
 of them extremes, and therefore both of them deficient in science 
 and in common-sense. If men were made according to our no- 
 tions, there should not be a silly one alive ; but it is otherwise 
 ordered, and there is no department of human life in which we do 
 not find weak and foolish men. This is true of farming as much 
 
362 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 as of any other calling. But no one dreams of setting down the 
 vocation of agriculture because, like every other, it" has its propor- 
 tion of stupid men. 
 
 Why, then, should agricultural writers, as a class, be summarily 
 rejected because some of them are visionary ? Are we not to be 
 allowed our share of fools as well as every other department of 
 life ? We insist on our rights. 
 
 A book or a paper never proposes to take the place of a farmer's 
 judgment. Not to read at all is bad enough ; but to read, and 
 swallow everything without reflection, or discrimination, this is 
 even worse. Such a one is not a book-headed but a block-headed 
 farmer. Papers are designed to assist. Those who read them must 
 select, modify, and act according to their own native judgment. 
 So used, papers answer a double purpose ; they convey a great 
 amount of valuable practical information, and then they stir up 
 the reader to habits of thought ; they make him more inquisitive, 
 more observing, more reasoning, and, therefore, more reasonable. 
 
 SPRING WORK FOR PUBLIC-SPIRITED MEN. 
 
 SHADE TREES. One of the first things that will require your 
 action is the planting of shade trees. Get your neighbors to join 
 with you. Agree to do four times as much as your share, and you 
 will perhaps then obtain some help. Try to get some more to 
 do the same in each street of your village or town. 
 
 Locusts, of course, you will set for immediate shade. They will 
 in three years afford you a delightful verdant umbrella as long as 
 the street. But maples form a charming row, and the autumnal 
 tints of their leaves and the spring flowers add to their beauty. 
 They grow quite rapidly, and in six years, if the soil is good and 
 the trees properly set, they will begin to cast a decided shadow. 
 
HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 363 
 
 Elms are by far the noblest tree that can be set, but they will 
 have their own time to grow. It is best then to set them in a row 
 of other trees, at about fifty or a hundred feet apart, the interven- 
 ing space to be occupied with quicker-growing varieties. 
 
 The beech, buckeye, horse-chestnut, sycamore, chestnut, and 
 many others may be employed with advantage. Now, do not let 
 your court-house square look any longer so barren. 
 
 Avenues may be lined with rows of trees, but squares and open 
 spaces should have them grouped or scattered in small knots and 
 parcels in a more natural manner. 
 
 MAY-WEED. There was never a better time to exterminate this 
 villanous, stinking weed than summer-time will be. Just as soon 
 as the first blossoms show, " up and at it." Club together in your 
 streets and agree to spend one day a-mowing. Keep it down thor- 
 oughly for one season and it will no longer bedrabble your wife's 
 and daughter's dresses, nor fill the air with its pungent stench, nor 
 weary the eye with its everlasting white and yellow. 
 
 SIDEWALKS. What if your neighbors are lazy ? what if they do 
 not care ? Someone ought to see that there are good gravel-walks 
 in each village. You can have them in this way : Take your horse 
 and cart and make them before your own grounds, and then go on, 
 no matter who owns, and when your neighbors see that you have 
 public spirit, they will, by-and-by, be ready to help you. But the 
 grand way to do nothing is not to lift a finger yourself, and then 
 to rail at your fellow-citizens as selfish and devoid of all public 
 spirit. 
 
 PROTECT PUBLIC PROPERTY. What if it does concern every- 
 body else as much as it does you ? Someone ought to see that the 
 fences about every square are kept in repair. Someone ought to 
 save the trees from cattle ; someone ought to have things in such 
 trim as that the inhabitants can be proud of their own town. Pride 
 
364 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 is not decent when there is nothing to be proud of ; but when things 
 are worthy of it, no man can be decent who is devoid of a proper 
 pride. The church, the school-house, fences, trees, bridges, roads, 
 public squares, sidewalks these are things which tell tales about 
 people. A stranger, seeking a location, can hardly think well of a 
 place in which the distinction between the house and sty are not 
 obvious ; in which everyone is lazy when greediness does not ex- 
 cite him, and where general indolence leaves no time to think of 
 the public good. 
 
 When politicians are on the point of dissolving in the very fer- 
 vent heat of their love for the public, it would recall the fainting 
 soul quicker than hartshorn or vinegar to ask them Did you ever 
 set out a shade-tree in the street ? Did you ever take an hour's 
 pains about your own village ? Have you secured it a lyceum ? 
 Have you watched over its schools ? Have you aided in any ar- 
 rangements for the relief of the poor ? Have you shown any prac- 
 tical zeal for good roads, good bridges, good sidewalks, good school- 
 houses, good churches ? Have the young men in your place a 
 public library ? 
 
 If the question were put to many distinguished village patriots, 
 What have you done for the public good ? the answer would be : 
 " Why, I've talked till I'm hoarse, and an ungrateful public refuses 
 me any office by which I may show my love of public affairs in a 
 more practical manner." 
 
 It was not, however, until Mr. Beecher, some fourteen 
 years ago, located his famous summer retreat at Peeks- 
 kill on the Hudson that he was able to fully indulge 
 his tastes for horticulture and agriculture. Here he had 
 a model farm ; all the choicest and rarest varieties of fruits 
 
HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 365 
 
 and flowers, all the latest improvements in stables, hen- 
 houses, implements, and systems an experiment and a 
 pastime that cost him an outlay of over $300,000. He 
 always passed his summers here, finding relief in the sa- 
 lubrious atmosphere from the hay fever which he was 
 annually afflicted with after his indisposition in 1850. It 
 is hardly necessary to add that the scientific farming he 
 pursued made the crops he grew, and the animals he bred, 
 cost him more than he could have purchased them for in 
 the neighboring markets. No school-boy ever passed a 
 more congenial vacation than his summer sojourn here, 
 as he always took an active interest in the farm-work. 
 
 He paid the architect, superintended the erection of 
 the finest residence of its type on the North River, fur- 
 nished it richly with every known convenience and all at- 
 tainable luxuries, and paid for every bit of it with money 
 made since that time by lecturing from Maine to Califor- 
 nia. The house stands on the crest of a lofty hill in 
 Peekskill, and is reached by a long and winding drive 
 through magnificent trees, which line it on either hand. 
 From the broad piazzas can be seen the range of distant 
 mountains and the silver thread of the Hudson not far 
 off. Peace reigns in all the region round about, and in 
 that deliciously restful atmosphere a visitor found the 
 venerable pastor on his seventieth birthday, pen in hand, 
 preparing data for his lecture duty near at hand. He 
 was the picture of health, as with characteristic cor- 
 
366 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 diality he rose and welcomed his guests to heart and 
 home. His workshop and library are the beau-ideal of 
 comfort and temptation to duty. Tables, books, electric 
 lights, deep Turkish rugs, ample chairs, and all the para- 
 phernalia of workmanship abound. He was a most hos- 
 pitable host here, and since the annual encampment of 
 the State militia in the vicinage, his residence was 
 always a Mecca to the members of the Brooklyn regi- 
 ments. He always visited the encampment, especially 
 of the Brooklyn regiments, and always preached on 
 Sundays to his own regiment (the Thirteenth). 
 
 Speaking of the summer home at Peekskill, a visitor, 
 writing to the Boston Transcript, alludes to his botanical 
 knowledge and love for birds in the following narrative : 
 
 " Mr. Beecher's summer home at Peekskill was a source 
 of great delight to him. Here he had a very large and 
 choice collection of fruit-trees, flowers, and shrubbery, 
 and in walking about the place with friends he would 
 tell, without hesitation, the scientific names of each one 
 of the numerous varieties, and his technical descriptions 
 of them, given in an easy conversational way, were ex- 
 ceedingly interesting. Indeed, many of his sermons were 
 suggested by what he found in his * breathing place,' as 
 he called his Peekskill home. As an illustration of his 
 generous nature may be cited an incident which occurred 
 when he first moved to the place. Near the house were 
 two or three cherry-trees, from which the fruit was freely 
 
HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 367 
 
 stolen by birds. When his attention was called to this, 
 he said : ' I will tell you how we will fix these birds. 
 We will go right to work and plant fifteen or twenty 
 trees, and then we shall have enough cherries for the 
 birds and ourselves, too.' " 
 
 " There is one curious place," said an old friend, " at 
 Mr. Beecher's country home in Peekskill which I think 
 very few people know anything about. I discovered it 
 accidentally one summer, while making a journey on foot 
 through the upper part of the State. It was late one 
 afternoon that I found myself on a hill overlooking a 
 country residence which I afterward discovered was the 
 great preacher's. On a level piece of ground between 
 me and the house was a high mound of small stones 
 which had evidently been carefully placed there, and in 
 a few minutes I discovered by whom. A short, fat man, 
 clad in a long duster and a sun hat, came out of the 
 house and walked over to the pyramid. Then he looked 
 around on the ground and presently started off on a brisk 
 walk for a distance of fifty yards, when he stooped down, 
 and picking up a stone, carried it back to the mound. 
 Then he started off after another one and kept that ex- 
 ercise up for fifteen minutes, when his journeys brought 
 him up to the tree behind which I had placed myself, and 
 I saw that it was Mr. Beecher. He recognized me at the 
 same time, and started the laugh, in which, of course, I 
 joined. Then he took me to his * monument,' as he 
 
368 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 called it, and explained that he did all this work for ex- 
 ercise. There were numbers of stones in the ground near 
 him, but he wouldn't touch those, preferring to get his 
 exercise and his ' monument ' at the same time. He 
 made it a rule never to carry back more than one stone at 
 a time, and when he showed me other similar mounds on 
 various portions of his property I saw that he had col- 
 lected enough of the small rocks to build a fence around 
 his grounds." 
 
 Another friend alludes to a visit to Mr. Beecher at 
 Peekskill as follows : " He put on a broad-brimmed felt 
 hat and we walked through the lanes on the domain 
 where the afternoon sun came golden through the gaps. 
 He knew every tree and bird and flower; the very weeds 
 and stones wore a new air of companionship on account 
 of him. I think the birds came nearer to me during that 
 walk than ever before. I could not escape the conscious- 
 ness of closely fluttering wings. 
 
 " For Nature, too, has her loves and her hates. Her 
 timid songsters are closer to some than to others. Her 
 little germs swell and grow with alacrity under certain 
 eyes, and the mute beauties of the field do wave their tas- 
 selled caps and blow their odorous kisses only to their 
 friends." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Causes of Mr. Beecher's Success in the Pulpit. Originality of Thought 
 and Expression. His Great Power of Will. How the Yale Lectures 
 were Delivered. Advice to Young Preachers. Constant Study of 
 Nature and Men. Aims to ennoble Hearers. Opposed to Perfunc- 
 tory Preaching. External Forms Derided. " Has the Pulpit lost its 
 Power ? " Why the Question has Arisen. Personal Emotion. 
 Earnestness, Faith, and Motive Power Essential to Good Preaching. 
 Criticism and Questions Invited. " Show Sermons the Tempta- 
 tion of the Devil." Preaching Should he adapted to the Audience. 
 Antipathy to Pulpits. Health very Important. Extemporaneous 
 Preaching. System Absolutely Necessary. Sunday-schools the 
 Young People's Church. Temptations of Praise. Sorrow an Excel- 
 lent Teacher. 
 
 MR. BEECHER'S success as a preacher undoubtedly arose 
 from his marked originality of thought and expression, 
 which he was able to exercise on all occasions and fre- 
 quently in a most unexpected manner. Another charac- 
 teristic of Mr. Beecher was his will-power : having made 
 up his mind to succeed, he set himself to finding out by 
 what means he could best attain his object. Taking 
 Jesus Christ, and afterward St. Paul and the Apostles, as 
 his guides, he studied the methods they had taken to 
 achieve success, and the conclusion he arrived at was 
 
37O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 this : " They were in the habit of looking for a common 
 ground on which they and the people could meet ; they 
 could get together a number of facts, information essen- 
 tial for the people to know, and then bring to bear all 
 their earnestness and ability in the presentation of their 
 subjects." They knew what they were talking about, and 
 they were sincere in their preaching sincere to the utr 
 most fearlessness. 
 
 With these guides before him, and recognizing also the 
 advantages of presentation by parable as shown in the 
 Bible, Mr. Beecher set himself the task of imitating their 
 methods. His life was a continual study of nature and 
 of men, and he acquired, in time, the use of analogy to 
 such an extent that he was never at a loss for a picture 
 to illustrate any subject on which he might be discours- 
 ing. He studied originality, and keeping this object be- 
 fore him, he was enabled to store up in his mighty brain 
 an inexhaustible fund of information on every topic of 
 human interest, to be drawn on as required for the bene- 
 fit of his fellow-creatures. 
 
 Through all his writings and sayings this originality 
 and minute observation and thought permeates. We 
 find it in " Norwood," in his public lectures, wherever he 
 opens his mouth or takes up his pen. Numerous records 
 have been left that the young minister can take up with 
 profit to aid him in his onward course, but perhaps the 
 most telling utterances in this respect will be found in 
 
YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 3/1 
 
 Mr. Beecher's course of lectures on " Preaching," deliv- 
 ered at Yale College at the request of the founder of the 
 Lyman Beecher Lectureship on Preaching in 1871. For 
 the purposes of this work, it will suffice to take a rapid 
 glance at Mr. Beecher's general views on preaching and 
 the qualifications of a preacher. 
 
 . He starts out with the principle that the real aim of 
 a preacher should be the ennobling of his hearers. He 
 has no sympathy to extend to perfunctory preachers, or 
 those who only took up the duty for the sake of the sal- 
 ary they were enabled to earn in the work. But there 
 is plenty of encouragement and consolation in his per- 
 sonal experiences for such sincere men who are earnest in 
 their work and have the well-being of their fellow-creat- 
 ures truly at heart. In regard to pomp and ceremony as 
 aids to preaching, Mr. Beecher did not consider they were 
 conducive to good preaching. He thought that where 
 the Church looked for power in external forms preach- 
 ing had a tendency to decay. There is as much differ- 
 ence, in his estimation, between the man who administers 
 ordinances and the man who preaches the Gospel as 
 there is between the man who prints a chromo and the 
 man who paints the picture which the chromo reproduces. 
 Referring to the popular cry of the decay of power in 
 the pulpit, Mr. Beecher says : "Has the pulpit lost its 
 power ? Is it going to lose it ? Are there agencies of 
 
 instruction in religion dispossessing it of the public ear ? 
 16 
 
3/2 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Was its power the fact that it rose in an ignorant age 
 and that it has, therefore, by the very law of develop- 
 ment, dug its own funeral and put itself out of power ? 
 What is the power of the pulpit primarily ? It is the 
 power of preaching; for though, there is something else 
 in the minister's life besides the preaching, this is its 
 central and characteristic element, and the question may 
 therefore be changed not 'Is the pulpit losing its 
 power?' but ' Is preaching losing its power?' Now, I 
 hold that preaching is simply the extension of that which 
 has existed from the beginning, and in all forms in soci- 
 ety, all conditions and institutions, it is the application 
 of personal emotion and thought to living people. It is 
 not teaching alone, though it may be teaching and should 
 be teaching, but it is the power of one living man to lay 
 himself, with his thought and his emotion, on the heart 
 and intelligence of another living man. The man that 
 means men, first and last and all the while the man 
 with strong, emotive, vitalizing life is the one who will 
 succeed. Earnestness, faith, emotive power, are all essen- 
 tial attributes to good preaching. 
 
 " I hold that emotion with intellect, emotion as the 
 bow and the intellect as the arrow that is preaching, that 
 is the philosophy of it in a figure. A man must have faith, 
 or everything falls dead or becomes a mere lectureship. 
 There are many things on which a man speaking cannot 
 
YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 373 
 
 be a preacher. I could not gush if I were discussing the 
 question of crystallography ; I could not have any great 
 emotion to send home if I were dealing with the higher 
 mathematics. So, in regard to many kinds of truth, 
 there cannot, in the nature of things, be anything that 
 goes higher than lecturing. Lecturing is intellectual ex- 
 position, legitimate, indispensable in its own place, and 
 in regard to its own subjects ; but preaching is something 
 higher than that : it is that that is in common between, 
 the preacher and the hearer; it is that that belongs jointly 
 to the sphere of thought and of feeling, and it has in it a 
 definite purpose or end in view, which it is seeking by 
 thought and by emotion to create in the minds of all 
 that are listening to it. It has in it, therefore, the ele- 
 ment of thought and the element of emotion, and the 
 element of persuasion, and the element of acquiescence in 
 the audience, for they act back and fore, the preacher on 
 the audience and the audience on the preacher. Now, 
 with regard to this, I do not hesitate to say that it is the 
 one power that cannot have a parallel, and that, beginning 
 in the lowest conditions of social life, the family and the 
 friendship and the school, it has its noble development 
 in the church of Christ Jesus." 
 
 Whenever and wherever the topic of preaching was 
 taken up, Mr. Beecher never failed to impress on his au- 
 ditors the expediency and advantage of originality the 
 art of dishing up old matter in new forms and with 
 
374 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 fresh, vivid illustrations. Characteristic of his sermons 
 and lectures were the criticisms and questions which he 
 invited his audiences to address to him at the close of his 
 addresses, and which he met fearlessly and unflinchingly, 
 and with the utmost good-nature. On one occasion, after 
 a long series of questions had been hurled at him, he re- 
 plied : " Well, I just begin to wake up now. I am not 
 afraid of the whole of you. I cannot answer one-half 
 the questions you could put. All I have got to say is, I 
 would like to see you come and stand here and let me 
 put questions to you." 
 
 Show sermons he characterized as the temptation of 
 the devil, for " they do not lie in the plane of common, 
 true, Christian ministerial work." Not only is a knowl- 
 edge of theology essential to the good preacher, but it is 
 incumbent on him to bring himself up to the ideal of the 
 New Testament. His knowledge must be varied and 
 practical, in order to enable him to put himself in sym- 
 pathy with his audience, so that the needs and require- 
 ments of all can be met. Again Mr. Beecher says : " I 
 think that a man going into the midst of an intelligent 
 audience does not need to preach in the same way that 
 he would if he were going out into the street in the 
 midst of a dragonnade^ or among poor and ignorant men. 
 The lower down you go in humanity, the more need 
 there is of emotion in preaching ; but as you go up, you 
 come to a line of people who are not injured by suitable 
 
YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 375 
 
 emotion ; but it must be of a more refined kind. They 
 demand something more than emotion. There is no 
 reason why you should not feed them. And there be 
 many that go up still higher. They are not only emo- 
 tive and intelligent, but refined. There is a development 
 of the element of beauty in their life and thought and 
 feeling. The minister ought to preach the Gospel in the 
 language in which these folks are born. There is no 
 reason why a man should not preach to the philosophical 
 in one way, preach to the lawyers in the temple as if 
 they understood higher themes. I don't mean by that 
 that there is one Gospel for the bottom, and another 
 for the middle, and another for the top, but that the 
 methods by which you bring to the minds of men, the 
 doors through which you can enter to their moral con- 
 science, are different. The unchangeable elements, love 
 to God and love to man, require no speculative, emotive 
 outpouring, but adaptation comes in." 
 
 He had a strong antipathy to pulpits, as having a 
 tendency to destroy the personal elements which he 
 considered were so essential in preaching. To young 
 preachers he advised rhetorical drill and a good general 
 training to prepare them for their labors. He also laid 
 great stress on the general question of health, in con- 
 nection with which he recommended the exercise of 
 great care in the selection of diet. A healthy-appearing 
 preacher, he argued, must necessarily be more acceptable 
 
3/6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 to, and have greater influence over, his audiences than a 
 weak, sickly-looking man. 
 
 On the subject of extemporaneous preaching, he said, 
 the only part that could be called extemporaneous was 
 the external form ; the matter must be the result of pre- 
 vious research and study. Prayer he considered a great 
 adjunct to preaching, and, indeed, its secret of strength. 
 The prayer-meeting was a great aid to the pastor, and 
 besides helping to bring the people together, and devel- 
 oping power in the congregation, it helped the pastor to 
 a knowledge of his people. 
 
 On the question of system, he says : 
 
 " Every man ought to have a system. He ought to 
 have the high Calvinistic view, although it is measured 
 the other way, I think. He ought to have the High 
 Church view in all the different denominations, and the 
 Low Church view, or any of them. Pick out any of 
 them, but see to it that you get the heart right, for the 
 heart is that element that, when it exists in reality and 
 power, corrects all theology practically. It certainly is 
 the case that it is the man and his life and his disposition 
 that are God's theology in the ministry. And if to this 
 you have added corrected intellectual ideas, frameworks, 
 and systems, as every thinking man will and must for 
 himself, why, all the better, but I tell you that hetero- 
 doxy with a right heart under it is better than orthodoxy 
 with a malign heart under it. Take the apostolic sieve. 
 
YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 2)77 
 
 Paul did not object to eloquence, nor to learning, nor to 
 wisdom in any form, but he sifted them all out and kept 
 saying to one and another and another, ' Though I have 
 the tongues of men and angels and have not love, I am 
 nothing.' Sift out that and sift out that. You might 
 sift out two-thirds of all the glory among men, and if love 
 is left behind you are rich ; and you might have all these 
 things, and if love is left out they are no profit to you 
 whatever. I am not, therefore, for undenominationalizing 
 men. I believe in sects. I believe that the Baptists 
 ought to be Baptists simply because they think so, and 
 as a man thinketh so is he. I think that the Calvinist 
 that is genuinely misled into that ought to stand by his 
 guns ; I think the Presbyterian Church ought to be a 
 Presbyterian, and the Methodist Church ought to be a 
 Methodist, and the Episcopal Church ought to be Epis- 
 copal, and the Congregationalist ought to be Congrega- 
 tional ; they, of all men in the world, have reason to be 
 proud of their Congregationalism and to stand by it. 
 But let not Ephraim vex Judah, let not one mash against 
 the other ; love men in that respect. There is one thing 
 that belongs to them altogether love with a pure heart 
 fervently and I will trust any misleading doctrine or any 
 ordinance or any worship if it stands with the burning 
 bush of love showing that the Lord God Almighty is 
 present within." 
 
 Sunday-schools he considered the young people's 
 
3/8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 church, and religion should be made joyful to children. 
 " There is no danger in religious excitement brought 
 about by revivals, any more than there is in political ex- 
 citements and business excitements, and the result ob- 
 tained is frequently great, and they have a tendency to 
 raise the tone of church piety, which is apt to become 
 stagnant for want of stirring up." 
 
 Young preachers are warned against the temptation of 
 praise. " We all love praise, but praise should follow us 
 and never precede us. If you have done right and men 
 like it, then it comes under the category of things that 
 are of l good report,' which we are commanded to pon- 
 der and to think upon ; but see to it that your aspira- 
 tions are not for praise, but for the welfare of man and 
 the glory of God, and then if praise comes, well and 
 good ; but remember you are going into the midst of fire 
 with imflammable garments on you, and there is nothing 
 that weakens a man so quickly and is so dangerous to 
 him as measuring everything by its relation to its popu- 
 larity and to his success in life. It ts dangerous even to 
 damnableness ! And then he, the man, has his own 
 church to try to spoil him. Of course, God raises up 
 deacons by whom men are held in sometimes. Often- 
 times in this world a thorn in the flesh is one thorn for 
 a man's crown by-and-by ; but where there is one dea- 
 con that is a vexatious intruder on your individual liberty 
 there are a hundred old women or young women that are 
 
YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 379 
 
 praising you and flattering you, saying kind things to you 
 and seeking to soften you. I believe in softness in the 
 heart ; but I do not believe in having a man's head soft. 
 That is one of the things you must watch against." 
 
 He comforts those in suffering, sorrow, and disappoint- 
 ment, and says : 
 
 " There are many men that are not fit to be preachers 
 until they have gone through the path of suffering and 
 sorrow. Your mortification and ill-success, instead of 
 dissuading you from the Gospel ministry, should lead 
 you to say to yourself, " I am being baptized with the 
 baptism wherewith He was baptized," and hold on. 
 The day is short ; do not be troubled. But oh, my 
 young brethren, my heart yearns for you when I look 
 out and see into what varied experience you are going 
 and what the work has been in this world. I have a 
 father's feeling for his sons toward you, and I commit 
 you to the care of Him who cared for me, Him who 
 loves you and me ; and I say to you, whatever checkered 
 way your life may have in it, there is one day that will 
 not delay and that will surely come, when you shall go 
 into the presence of your Father and my Father and 
 there shall come from the multitudes of Heaven greeting 
 voices saying to you, " But for you I had not known 
 Christ, " glory and immortality shining from their faces 
 and reckoning you their high priest under the great High 
 
 Priest. Oh, one hour in heaven will be worth a whole 
 16* 
 
380 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 century upon earth, and the commendation of God will 
 be to you music that will never end, that will roll on for- 
 ever and ever. You have entered or will soon enter the 
 most glorious career, if you are fit for it, that can be open 
 to men. Do not be tempted by any collateral business ; 
 do not be tempted by any praise ; do not be tempted by 
 any pride; do not be tempted by any discouragement: 
 hold on and work to the end, and then shall come the 
 great and glorious outpouring, and one hour in heaven 
 will be worth ten thousand years of suffering upon earth. 
 " I labored under great disadvantages in coming into the 
 Christian ministry. My father was a very eminent the- 
 ologian and preacher, and that is enough to beat the head 
 in of any son of his that comes after him ; because we are 
 all measured by the reputation of the father. I went off 
 out of the city. I went out into the country. I really 
 expected to live and die in Indiana, and it is in my heart 
 to do it yet I love the State. I went into the woods, 
 and on the prairies and everywhere. I had very little to 
 say. I had gone through the whole circle of debate and 
 theology and so on. I had had a revelation of the nature 
 of Christ, and at first it was no more than a start to me. 
 It grew, however, more and more, but it was not until I 
 had been preaching about four or five years that I had a 
 horizon that extended around the whole circle. I 
 preached in disquietude and in almost discouragement 
 during that time, but at last I came to that feeling " I 
 
YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 381 
 
 do believe that I shall now be a preacher." I began to 
 see how I could do the thing by preaching that I set out 
 to do, and it was a blessed finding out, too. I think it 
 was Correggio who, when he made his first and only visit 
 to Rome, having been a painter in his own province and 
 comparatively unknown, went to see the works of Michael 
 Angelo, Titian, and Raphael. All that he said as he 
 looked round on them was, " I, too, am a painter." He 
 did not say he was equal to them, but he saw in looking 
 at their works that he had got hold of the element, and 
 that he was a painter. 
 
 " I remember the day when I said I was a preacher. I 
 had with tears and sorrow labored to do something that 
 would startle men. I sat down and took the Book of 
 Acts and analyzed it to see what it was that enabled the 
 apostles to produce such effects. I got an idea it was a 
 very imperfect one, it has been corrected since but I got 
 an idea about it, and said : " Now, I will construct on 
 these lines not a repetition of this sermon, but I will make 
 a sermon that shall be adapted to the state, the want and 
 feeling of such communities as there are here." I knocked 
 over thirteen men with that sermon. I never had had a 
 fish bite before, and the moment that I came home I 
 said : " Oh, I have got it ! I have got it ! I know now how 
 it is going to be done." Well, I tried it again the next 
 time, and I failed totally, and I had more tumbles down 
 than I had standings up, but through poor sermons and 
 
382 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 good sermons I pressed forward until I got to the degree 
 of fluency that I have attained. And I want you to un- 
 derstand one thing I do not consider myself a good 
 preacher. As God is my judge, my sermons are continu- 
 ally condemning me, not in the mere matter of scope and 
 thought, but in the soul qualities. I ought to live better 
 and be better to enable me to make sermons that shall be 
 worthy of my Master, Jesus Christ. Do not be discour- 
 aged because you make poor work of preaching at first. 
 Go on and try again." 
 
 Mr. Beecher always preferred preaching contrition to 
 attrition, and presents the following in support of his 
 view : 
 
 " If a man believes in the conscious torment of men, 
 eternal, conscious torment in hell, if he ever smiles, if he 
 ever gets married, if he ever goes into convivial company 
 with jest and joke, he is a monster ! So far as my own 
 personal belief is concerned, I work by hope and love, and 
 inspire, as far as I can, these as the working forces in my 
 people, and not fear except in those words of fear that 
 springs from love filial fear, and so on ; but, as regards 
 the future, I believe that Christ taught simply this : That 
 moral character went on from this life into the other, 
 bearing the same general tendencies with which men live 
 here. In regard to the doctrine of hell as taught by the 
 barbaric theologies of the Middle Ages, and as taught by 
 the very many barbaric denominations, yet I say that it is 
 
YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 383 
 
 not according to the mind nor the will of the New Testa- 
 ment. But I do believe our Lord taught us that living 
 selfishly and corruptly here would bear such fruits in the 
 life to come as to make it the interest of every man to live 
 righteously and rightly. The doctrine preached by sin- 
 cere, gentle-minded men wins my respect for them ; it is 
 for the rancorous, red-mouthed men that are preaching 
 hell fire and damnation, and going home to drink their 
 wine and eat their bread and meat it is for them that I 
 have no allowance because this doctrine is everything 
 it is everything if it be true, and the world ought to be 
 in tears, and pleasures ought to be unknown, under such 
 circumstances." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Mr. Beecher's Reasons for writing It. The First Volume published in 
 1872. Its High Literary Character. Plans for the Work. Author- 
 -ities Consulted. Spirit in which the Author Wrote. Meeting Objec- 
 tions. The Four Gospels. Their Critics. Accepting Their Truth. 
 Ministry of Angels. The Time Ripe for Christ's Appearance. The 
 Annunciation. Characters of Mary and Joseph. Deprecation of 
 Protestant Reaction from Mary. Herod's Hatred. The Flight into 
 Egypt. Childhood of Jesus. John and the Voice in the Wilderness. 
 Discussion of Forms of Baptism. Personal Description of Christ. 
 Miracles of the Four Gospels. Marriage at Cana. Judean Minis- 
 try. Lesson at Jacob's Well. Early Labors in Galilee. Discussion 
 of the Sermon on the Mount. End of the Volume. Publication 
 Suspended. New Contract of 1886. 
 
 PUBLIC attention has been drawn toward Mr. Beecher's 
 " Life of Jesus the Christ " more than to any other of his 
 published volumes. During many years he had loved, 
 believed in, and taught his people concerning Jesus 
 Christ, in whom all the vitality of his faith appeared to 
 centre. To him Christ was everything, and he cared to 
 know no more. His brother clergymen and his own 
 people often asked him to explain his views of Christ. 
 He resolved to put himself on record and to write a book 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 385 
 
 that "would inspire a deeper interest in the life and sym- 
 pathies of his Master. Writing himself about it, Mr. 
 Beecher said : 
 
 " I have undertaken to write a life of Jesus the Christ 
 in the hope of inspiring a deeper interest in the noble 
 Personage of whom those matchless histories, the Gos- 
 pels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are the chief 
 authentic memorials. I have endeavored to present 
 scenes that occurred two thousand years ago as they 
 would appear to modern eyes if the events had taken 
 place in our day. . . . Writing in full sympathy 
 with the Gospels, as authentic historical documents, and 
 with the nature and teachings of the great Personage 
 whom they describe, ... I have not invented a 
 life of Jesus to suit the critical philosophy of the nine- 
 teenth century. The Jesus of the four Evangelists for 
 wellnigh two thousand years has exerted a powerful in- 
 fluence upon the heart, the understanding, and the im- 
 agination of mankind. It is that Jesus, and not a modern 
 substitute, whom I have sought to depict, in his life, 
 his social relations, his disposition, his deeds and doc- 
 trines." . . . 
 
 In the latter part of 1872 Ford & Co. issued the first 
 volume first paying Mr. Beecher $10,000 cash for the 
 completed work, yet to be written and it was at once 
 hailed with enthusiasm by eminent men the world around. 
 Dr. Storrs, of the Church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn, 
 
386 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 pronounced it to be the " book which the masses of the 
 Christian world have been waiting for." The religious 
 press, without exception, accorded it a respectful wel- 
 come, and scholars and the clergy vied with each other 
 in its praise. A well-known English critic said that 
 Beecher's " Life of Christ " would be welcome to Chris- 
 tians, inquirers, sceptics, infidels, teachers, Bible classes, 
 home circles, and intelligent readers of every name. 
 That Mr. Beecher had put his best work in the first 
 volume of the work, was evident to any critical reader, 
 and the publishers gave it a frame worthy of the picture. 
 Agents sold the book faster than it could be furnished, 
 and that Mr. Beecher would make a fortune as well as 
 fame was a moral certainty. 
 
 The author informs us in his preface that he has fol- 
 lowed, subject to slight variation, the " Gospel History 
 Consolidated," published by Bagster, London, England ; 
 Ellicott's " Historical Lectures on the Life of Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ ; " and Andrews' " Life of Our Lord upon 
 Earth." 
 
 Disclaiming a polemic spirit, and being anxious only to 
 produce conviction without controversy, and writing in 
 full sympathy with the Gospels as authentic historical 
 documents, he has not attempted to show the world what 
 the Evangelists ought to have heard and seen, but did 
 not, nor what things they did not see or hear, but in their 
 simplicity believed that they did. The object of the 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 387 
 
 work is to present scenes in the life of Jesus from the 
 chief authentic memorials of the four Evangelists, 
 adapted to modern inspection, in the hope of awakening 
 a deeper interest in the noble Personage whom all men, 
 while differing on every topic connected with the Christ, 
 agree in estimating as a good man. 
 
 While the aim of the work prevents any formal dis- 
 cussion of the history of the text, the authenticity of the 
 several narratives, and the many philosophical questions 
 that naturally arise, the author has attentively considered 
 whatever has been said, on every side, in the works of 
 critical objectors, and has endeavored as far as possible 
 so to state the facts as to take away the grounds from 
 which the objections were aimed. While the primary 
 records remain the same, the habits and requirements of 
 plain people render it essential and necessary for the 
 life of Christ to be rewritten for each and every age; 
 for the Gospels, while peculiarly expressed in a mode 
 fitted for universal circulation, are still, owing to the fact 
 of their having been written by Jews, and with primary 
 reference to certain wants of the age in which the writers 
 lived, full of allusions, customs, and beliefs which have 
 passed away or become modified. While Truth remains 
 always the same, every age has its own style of thought 
 and expression, its own needs and necessities, and it is 
 for the purpose of meeting these changes of ideas in dif- 
 ferent ages that men are ordained to study the Gospel, 
 
388 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 and preach and interpret its meaning, and thus readapt 
 the truth, from age to age, to men's ever-renewing wants. 
 All critics of the Gospels are reduced to two classes: 
 
 1. Those who believe that the writings of the Evangel- 
 ists are authentic historical documents, that they were 
 divinely inspired, and that the supernatural elements 
 contained in them are real, and to be credited as much 
 as any other parts of the history. 
 
 2. Those who deny the inspiration of the Gospels, re- 
 garding them as unassisted human productions, filled 
 with mistakes and inaccuracies ; especially, as filled with 
 superstitions and pretended miracles. " These latter 
 critics," says the author, " set aside all traces of the 
 supernatural. They feel at liberty to reject all miracles, 
 either summarily, with philosophic contempt, or by ex- 
 planations as wonderful as the miracles are marvellous. 
 In effect, they act as if there could be no evidence except 
 that which addresses itself to the material senses. Such 
 reasoning chains philosophy to matter, to which state- 
 ment many already do not object, but boldly claim that, 
 in our present condition, no truth can be known to men 
 except that which conforms itself to physical laws. 
 There is a step further, and one which must soon be 
 taken, if these reasons are logically consistent ; namely, 
 to hold that there is no evidence of a God, unless Nat- 
 ure be that God. And this is Pantheism, which, being 
 interpreted, is Atheism. 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 389 
 
 " We scarcely need to say that we shall take our stand 
 with those who accept the New Testament as a collec- 
 tion of veritable historical documents, with the record of 
 miracles, and with the train of spiritual phenomena, as of 
 absolute and literal truth. The miraculous element con- 
 stitutes the very nerve-system of the Gospel. To with- 
 draw it from credence is to leave the Gospel histories a 
 mere shapeless mass of pulp. 
 
 " The ministry of the angels, the mystery of the Divine 
 incarnation, and the miracles of our Lord taken away, 
 nothing remains to save Jesus, who is acknowledged by 
 all men to have been a good man, from the character of 
 a gigantic impostor. And even Infidelity would feel 
 bereaved in the destruction of Christ's moral character." 
 
 Proceeding on these bases, the author goes on to say 
 that the moral fervor and intense spiritual yearnings 
 among the best men in Judea had wrought men up to 
 such a pitch of spiritual enthusiasm as to prepare them 
 in some sort for the need of a new religious education, 
 which, while they believed in its advent, was not appar- 
 ent to them as regarded its nature and the time and place 
 of its coming. 
 
 " The day had come when a new manifestation of God 
 was to be made. A God of holiness, a God of power, 
 and a God of mercy had been clearly revealed. The 
 Divine Spirit was now to be clothed with flesh, subjected 
 to the ordinary laws of matter, placed in those conditions 
 
390 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 in which men live, become the subject of care, weariness, 
 sorrow, and of death itself." 
 
 But while there was movement and holy ecstasy 
 among the heavenly spirits in the anticipation of this 
 glorious day, the earth and its dull inhabitants, with the 
 exception of the few gifted to discern, could not conceive 
 the wonderful dawn that was about to be heralded. In 
 turn to Zacharias, to the mother of Jesus, to the shep- 
 herds watching their flocks, did the angels announce the 
 glad tidings, and the new era opened at Jerusalem. 
 
 " The scene of the Annunciation will always be admir- 
 able in literature, even to those who are not disposed to 
 accord it any historic value. To announce to an espoused 
 virgin that she was to be the mother of a child, out of 
 wedlock, by the unconscious working in her of the 
 Divine power, would, beforehand, seem inconsistent with 
 delicacy. But no person of poetic sensibility can read 
 the scene as it is narrated by Luke without admiring its 
 sublime purity and serenity. It is not a transaction of 
 the lower world of passion. Things most difficult to a 
 lower sphere are both easy and beautiful in that atmos- 
 phere which, as it were, the angel brought down with 
 him." 
 
 In order to appreciate the beauty and truthfulness to 
 nature of such a scene, the reader is invited to carry him- 
 self back in sympathy to the period of that Jewish 
 maiden's life. " The education of a Hebrew woman was 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 391 
 
 far freer than that of women of other Oriental nations. 
 She had more personal liberty, a wider scope of intelli- 
 gence, than obtained among the Greeks, or even among 
 the Romans. But above all, she received a moral edu- 
 cation which placed her high above her sisters in other 
 lands." To Mary all phenomena of nature were direct 
 manifestations of the Lord's will, for at that period the 
 path glowed with divine manifestations, and miracles 
 blossomed out of every natural law. While to us God 
 acts through instruments, to the Hebrew he acted im- 
 mediately by his will. No surprise, therefore, was ex- 
 perienced by Mary at the coming of the angels ; her only 
 surprise being that she should be chosen for a renewal of 
 those Divine interpositions in behalf of her people of 
 which their history was so full. 
 
 The author, while testifying to the beauty, the rever- 
 ence, the affection, and esteem in which the name of 
 Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been held for over a 
 thousand years, experiences difficulty in speaking of her, 
 " both because so little is known of her, and because so 
 much has been imagined," and while " the doctors of 
 theology have long hesitated to deify the Virgin, art has 
 unconsciously raised her to the highest place. 
 A sweet and trusting faith in God, childlike simplicity, 
 and profound love seem to have formed the nature of 
 Mary. She may be accepted as the type of Christian 
 motherhood. In this view, and excluding the dogma of 
 
392 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 her immaculate conception, and still more emphatically 
 that of any other participation in divinity than that 
 which is common to all, we may receive with pleasure 
 the stores of exquisite pictures with which Christian art 
 has filled its realm. . . . The Protestant reaction 
 from Mary has gone far enough, and on our own grounds 
 we may well have our share also in the memory of this 
 sweet and noble woman." Speaking of Joseph, the au- 
 thor says he is called a just man, and he is known to 
 have been humane. " For when he discovered the con- 
 dition of his betrothed wife, instead of pressing to its 
 full rigor the Jewish law against her, he meant quietly 
 and without harm to set her aside. When in a vision he 
 learned the truth, he took Mary as his wife." 
 
 With the advent into Jerusalem of the pilgrims of the 
 East, " Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." 
 In connection with the guiding star, which was no plane- 
 tary conjunction, but a miracle of divine ordination, at- 
 tention is directed to " the superiority of spiritual power 
 over sensuous, which is the illuminating truth of the 
 New Testament." " Miracles," continues the author, 
 " are to be accepted boldly or not at all. They are 
 jewels, and sparkle with divine light, or they are noth- 
 ing." Herod's hatred had to be avoided, and, stirred by 
 a divine impulse, Joseph removed his family into Egypt, 
 where uncertain tradition has placed their sojourn at 
 Mataria, near Leontopolis. 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 393 
 
 The Ministration of Angels is dwelt on by the author 
 as a faith that is "peculiarly grateful to the human 
 heart." He says : " It is scarcely possible to follow the 
 line of development in the animal kingdom, and to wit- 
 ness the gradations on the ascending scale, unfolding 
 steadily, rank above rank, until man is reached, without 
 having the presumption awakened that there are intelli- 
 gences above man creatures which rise as much above 
 him as he above the inferior animals. When the Word 
 of God announces the ministration of angels, records their 
 early visits to this planet, represents them as bending 
 over the race in benevolent sympathy, bearing warnings, 
 consolations, and messages of wisdom, the heart receives 
 the doctrine even against the caution of a sceptical rea- 
 son. . . . We could not imagine the advent stripped 
 of its angelic lore. The dawn without a twilight, the 
 sun without clouds of silver and gold, the morning on the 
 fields without dew-diamonds but not the Saviour with- 
 out his angels." 
 
 With the doctrinal theory of the divine and human 
 nature of Jesus, the author is at variance, arguing that 
 the beauty and preciousness of Christ's earthly life con- 
 sisted in its being a true divine life, " a presentation to us, 
 in forms that we can comprehend, of the very thoughts, 
 feelings, and actions of Crod when placed in our condition 
 in this mortal life. To insert two natures is to dissolve 
 the charm." 
 
394 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 In treating of the childhood of Jesus, the author avoids 
 discussion of the suppositions relating to his brothers and 
 sisters beyond stating that they may have been the chil- 
 dren of Joseph by a former marriage ; or they may have 
 been adopted ; or they may have been his cousins ; or 
 they may have been the children of Joseph and Mary. 
 
 It is sufficient that the child Jesus grew up and waxed 
 strong in the company of other children, and then at the 
 age of twelve his parents find him " in the temple, sit- 
 ting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and 
 asking them questions." From the reply to his mother, 
 " Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's busi- 
 ness ? " it is plain that " he was conscious of the nature 
 that was in him, and that strong impulses urged him to 
 disclose his power. It is therefore very significant, and 
 not the least of the signs of divinity, that he ruled his 
 spirit, and dwelt at home in unmurmuring expectation." 
 
 The beauty of Nazareth and its environs affords ample 
 opportunity for the exercise of the author's ingenious pen 
 in picturesque description. 
 
 In the treatment of John and his Voice in the Wilder- 
 ness, no significance is attached to his baptism with water, 
 beyond the fact that it was a symbolic act, signifying 
 that one had risen to a higher moral condition. John's 
 own explanation was clear and explicit : " I baptize you 
 with water unto repentance." John's mission was criti- 
 cised by the Sanhedrim priestly questioners, and the ef- 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 395 
 
 feet of his reply was without doubt an appeal from Ritual 
 to conscience. " He came home to men with direct and 
 personal appeal, and refused the old forms and sacred 
 channels of instruction ; and when asked by the proper 
 authorities for his credentials, he gave his name, A Voice 
 in the Wilderness, as if he owed no obligation to Jerusa- 
 lem, but only to nature and to God." 
 
 The long silence is ended, and Jesus, walking in the 
 footsteps of his people, " that in all things he might be 
 like unto his brethren," is baptized by John in the Jor- 
 dan ; and instantly a Voice spake from out of heaven, 
 " This is my beloved Son, in "whom I am well pleased " 
 (Matt. iii. 17). At every step the disclosure of the life 
 of Jesus was a su'rprise, and " the mystery of that Divine 
 Spirit which possessed the Saviour, the mystery of forty 
 day's conflict in such a soul, the mystery of the nature 
 and power of Satan, the mystery of the three final forms 
 into which the Temptation resolved itself these are be- 
 yond our reach. They compass and shroud the scene 
 with a kind of supernatural gloom. The best solution 
 we give to the difficulties will cast but a twilight upon 
 the scene." 
 
 In following out the life of Jesus, we are not to take 
 with us the conception of a formidable being, terrible in 
 holiness, but we must clothe him in imagination with 
 traits that made little children run to him. 
 
 A chapter is devoted to the personal appearance of the 
 17 
 
396 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Christ, and another to the outlook at the time of the 
 commencement of his mission, with references to the 
 Pharisees and the Sadducees, and their respective 
 schools. 
 
 " If Jesus came to found a church, never were actions 
 so at variance with purposes. There are no recorded in- 
 structions to this end. He remained in the full com- 
 munion of the Jewish Church to the last. Nor did his 
 disciples or apostles dream of leaving the church of their 
 fathers. . . . The captivity is drawing to a close. 
 The Jerusalem of the Spirit is descending, adorned as a 
 bride for the bridegroom. The new life in God is 
 gathering disciples. They are finding one another. Not 
 disdaining outward helps, they are learning that the 
 Spirit alone is essential. All creeds, churches, institu- 
 tions, customs, ordinances, are but steps upon which the 
 Christian plants his foot, that they may help him to 
 ascend to the perfect liberty in Christ Jesus." 
 
 The first step of Jesus, in his ministry, was a return 
 home to his mother, and from this we are led to the 
 marriage at Cana, with a minute description of the scene 
 of the feast, and the miracle of the changing of the water 
 into wine ; in connection with which, the author argues 
 " that the wine created by our Lord answered to the fer- 
 mented wine of the country would never have been 
 doubted, if the exigencies of a modern and most benefi- 
 cent reformation had not created a strong but unwise dis- 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 397 
 
 position to do away with the undoubted example of our 
 Lord." Although the motive of the doubt was good, it has 
 failed to satisfy the best scholars. The reply of Jesus to 
 his mother, interpreted according to the language of to- 
 day, might imply a rebuke as well as a refusal ; but inter- 
 preted through the impression produced on his mother, it 
 was neither refusal nor rebuke, " for she acted as one who 
 had asked and obtained a favor." 
 
 The few disciples who had accompanied Jesus were 
 drawn to him by the miracle at Cana with renewed ad- 
 miration, and soon afterward he went down to Caper- 
 naum with his disciples, and at this time Simon Peter 
 and his brother Andrew were called ; and then we have 
 recorded other miracles, such as the healing of the demo- 
 niac, the paralytic, etc. 
 
 In the First Judean Ministry, Baptism, and the dis- 
 putes thereon among the disciples, are again discussed, and 
 the author remarks that on this question " there came 
 near being two sects. And Jesus seeing the danger, not 
 only left the neighborhood, but ceased baptizing." 
 
 We have then the Lesson at Jacob's Well and the ap- 
 peal of Jesus to the Samaritan woman, expressive of his 
 sympathy for mankind, and the tenderest compassion for 
 those who have sinned and stumbled. 
 
 In the Early Labors in Galilee, we are attracted chiefly 
 by Jesus expounding the lessons of the Law and the 
 Prophets in the synagogue, and the tumult thereafter, 
 
398 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 when " Passing through the midst of them, he went his 
 way ; " and the healing of the sick man on the Sabbath- 
 day, and the collision with the Pharisees on account of 
 his work on that day, whereon the principle is laid down, 
 " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the 
 Sabbath." 
 
 A year and a half after the baptism of Jesus, we have 
 a Time of Joy, when he returned into Galilee, and " he 
 taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all" 
 
 From The Sermon on the Mount and The Beatitudes, 
 we arrive at The Beginning of the Conflict, His steps 
 being followed by an enthusiastic multitude, the Temple 
 party lurking around, determined to resist the reforma- 
 tion and destroy the reformer, but restrained for a time 
 by His wonderful miracles and the power of His teaching. 
 Around the Sea of Galilee the discourses of Jesus grow 
 deeper and richer, and although he had preached the 
 Kingdom of Heaven fro'm the first, that theme now seems 
 to become his special subject of discourse, indicative of 
 which we have eight parables. Political influences were 
 now at work to destroy him, but " Every political party 
 has one or two sensitive tests. If a man is sound or 
 harmless in respect to them, he is regarded as safe." 
 
 With the doctrine of immortality, as expounded by 
 Jesus, and his numerous parables on the Kingdom of 
 Heaven, the first volume is brought to a close. 
 
 "The Voice ceased. The crowd disappeared. The 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 399 
 
 light that had sparkled along the waters and fired the 
 distant hills went out. . . . With the darkness came 
 forget fulness, leaving but a faint memory of the Voice or 
 its teachings, as of a wind whispering among the fickle 
 reeds." 
 
 The Beecher-Tilton scandal which culminated in the 
 great trial stopped the sale of the first volume in the 
 expressive language of Samuel Wilkinson, " The Life of 
 Christ was knocked higher than a kite." Litigation 
 followed, and the second volume remained unwritten un- 
 til 1886, when Mr. Beechermade a contract with Charles 
 L. Webster & Co. to complete the work, and also to 
 write his autobiography. Nothing had been done upon 
 the latter, but the Life of Christ was so nearly complete 
 at the time of Mr. Beecher's death that it can easily be 
 finished by another's hand. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE GREAT SCANDAL. 
 
 Tilton a Reporter in 1851. Attached to The Independent. His Domestic 
 Troubles. Interviews and Correspondence. The Tripartite Agree- 
 ment. "Our Mutual Friend." The Church Investigates. Beecher 
 Exonerated. Commencement of the Libel Suit. Complaint and An- 
 swer. How the Jury stood at the End. Eminent Counsel on Both 
 Sides. Official Report of the Trial. Tilton on the Stand. His 
 Remarkable Story for the Prosecution. Cross-Examination. His 
 Version of the Various Interviews with Beecher. Mrs. Victoria C. 
 Woodhull's Connection with the Case. Frank Moulton and His 
 Testimony. Other Witnesses for the Plaintiff. The Prosecution 
 rests Its Case. Rulings of Judge Neilson. 
 
 IN 1851, a bright young stenographer, only sixteen years 
 of age, Theodore Tilton by name, came into Plymouth 
 Church to take down Mr. Beecher's sermons for publica- 
 tion, a practice which was then a novelty. He was en- 
 gaged by Henry C. Bowen, one of the founders of the 
 church, upon The Independent, of which journal Mr. Bowen 
 was a proprietor, and in 1861 he succeeded Mr. Beecher 
 as editor-in-chief of the paper. He developed consider- 
 able power as a writer and speaker, especially in the anti- 
 slavery contest, and gained the warm friendship of Mr. 
 Beecher, who regarded him as " one of my boys." Tow- 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 4OI 
 
 ards 1870 some difference arose between Mr. Bowen, then 
 sole proprietor of The Independent, and Mr. Beecher. 
 Meanwhile Mr. Tilton's domestic life was not a happy 
 one. In December, 1870, Mrs. Tilton left her husband's 
 house and sought her mother's protection. Mr. Beecher 
 was consulted, and finally counselled a separation, and the 
 rupture between Tilton and Mr. Beecher was complete. 
 Mr. Tilton obtained possession of his infant child in its 
 mother's absence, and then the mother returned to him. 
 At this time Mr. Tilton had retired from the editorship 
 of The Independent, to which, however, he still continued 
 to contribute, and was editor-in-chief of the Brooklyn 
 Union, of which Mr. Bowen was one of the proprietors. 
 To Mr. Bowen came stories prejudicial to Tilton's moral 
 character, and he meditated dismissing him. 
 
 An interview was held on December 26, 1870, in the 
 course of which the conversation passed from the im- 
 mediate topic to the necessity of frequent notices of Ply- 
 mouth Church and its pastor in the Brooklyn Union. 
 Tilton objected, and charged Mr. Beecher with " dishon- 
 orable conduct toward his wife." Bringing pen and paper, 
 Mr. Bowen invited Tilton to write a letter demanding 
 that Mr. Beecher resign from Plymouth Church and leave 
 The Christian Union. Tilton did so. Mr. Bowen took 
 the letter to Mr. Beecher, who read it and said : " This is 
 sheer insanity ; this man is crazy." Soon afterward Til- 
 ton was dismissed from both the positions which he held. 
 
402 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 It was now necessary for him to submit evidence against 
 Mr. Beecher or to confess himself a slanderer. He sought 
 this from his wife. As to what the precise confession then 
 obtained from her was the testimony conflicted.- The 
 letter was two years afterward destroyed. The progress 
 of events was not rapid. Mrs. Tilton retracted in Mr. 
 Beecher's presence every accusation made against him ; 
 Francis D. Moulton appeared as the " mutual friend ; " 
 Mr. Beecher made a tumultuous expression of grief and 
 shame, of which Mr. Moulton took down a statement ; 
 Mr. Tilton and Mr. Beecher met, and a reconciliation was 
 effected. A new paper called The Golden Age was 
 started, with Tilton at its head, for which purpose Mr. 
 Beecher and friends of Mr. Moulton contributed sums of 
 money. 
 
 On April 2, 1872, the " tripartite covenant " between 
 Beecher, Bowen, and Tilton was signed, promising silence 
 as to the past and good-will for the future. But ugly 
 rumors began to be heard. Tilton aided their distribution, 
 Mr. Beecher's friends became uneasy, and in 1873 he 
 broke silence with a card of denial. Tilton was charged 
 in the church with being a slanderer of his pastor, and his 
 name was stricken from the rolls. But more was de- 
 manded. An ecclesiastical council was called, nominally 
 in regard to the irregularity of this proceeding, really to 
 make some attempt at an investigation. Its work 
 amounted to nothing, except to deepen the uneasy feeling 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 4-O3 
 
 that some great scandal was about to be brought to light. 
 Then Tilton, to clear himself, published the Bacon letter, 
 the first of the statements preceding the trial, in which he 
 quoted from Mr. Beecher's alleged confession of January 
 i, 1871. Mr. Beecher at once took action and demanded 
 an investigation, which six well-known members of Ply- 
 mouth Church were appointed to conduct. Another ef- 
 fort to compromise the matter was made in vain, and at 
 last, in August, 1874, four years and more after the wrong 
 was charged to have been committed, Tilton brought his 
 suit, placing his damages at $100,000. The charge of 
 adultery was first publicly preferred in July, 1874, and the 
 complaint served in August, when issue was immediately 
 joined. The trial was begun in January, 1875. Subjects 
 were dealt with extending over five or six years. About 
 two hundred and fifty documents were introduced and 
 analyzed. More than one hundred different interviews 
 were examined into, and in respect to many of them the 
 sworn testimony of witnesses was in irreconcilable dis- 
 agreement. Printed in small type, the testimony that 
 was published filled three thousand foolscap pages, and the 
 report of the proceedings would fill four or five large legal 
 volumes. Over one hundred and fifty distinct rulings on 
 points of law were made by the judge, which were noted 
 by the defendant's counsel, and nearly as many questions 
 were raised and decided during the defendant's presenta- 
 tion of his case. 
 17* 
 
404 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Judge Neilson sat upon the bench. The most eminent 
 counsel were employed on either side. For Tilton ap- 
 peared Mr. Pryor, a man of wide learning and active 
 mind, Mr. Fullerton, a master of the art of cross-ques- 
 tioning, and Mr. Beach, a sharp, pithy, and forcible 
 speaker. 
 
 Mr. Beecher was represented by Mr. Evarts, who 
 gained new laurels as an advocate before a jury ; Austin 
 Abbott, distinguished for his legal learning and the pub- 
 lications bearing his name, whose foresight and system 
 were apparent in the presentation of the defendant's case ; 
 Mr. Porter, quick to see and decide upon knotty points ; 
 and Mr. Tracy, an effective orator. The positions of the 
 persons interested, the differing characteristics of the 
 multitudinous witnesses, the crowds of prominent men 
 from all parts of the country who packed the court-room 
 daily, and the wholesale publicity given by the press, all 
 conspired to make this trial a striking and unprecedented 
 event. From January until June the lawyers struggled, 
 and a curious public gloated over the daily details of the 
 great scandal. Then came the summing up on each side 
 and the judge's charge. The deliberations of the jury 
 continued for eight days. Fifty-two ballots were taken, 
 the first and last being nine for Mr. Beecher and three 
 for Tilton. On one ballot the jury stood eleven to one, 
 and on another seven to five, in favor of Mr. Beecher. 
 
 After the close of this trial the matter was taken up 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 405 
 
 by the Grand Jury, which called Mr. Beecher as a wit- 
 ness and found an indictment against Francis D. Moul- 
 ton for libel. The District Attorney, however, never 
 brought the case to trial, and after he had officially indi- 
 cated this decision by entering a nolle prosequi, Moulton 
 brought a suit against Mr. Beecher for malicious prose- 
 cution. Mr. Beecher's counsel defended him vigorously, 
 and Moulton abandoned his suit. Questions then arose 
 respecting the regularity of the proceedings in Plymouth 
 Church by which Mr. Beecher had been acquitted, and 
 a council of Congregational churches and ministers, said 
 to be the largest that ever assembled, was called to ad- 
 vise with Plymouth Church respecting its proceedings. 
 This council did not undertake a direct examination of 
 the charges. It simply examined into the history of the 
 action of Plymouth Church, and in this inquiry spent 
 nearly a week. The result was that Christian fellowship 
 was extended to Mr. Beecher, the confidence of the 
 council in his integrity was affirmed, and a tribunal of 
 eminent jurists was appointed to investigate any charges 
 that might be laid before them, though none were ever 
 laid. 
 
 To many who hated Mr. Beecher for political or theo- 
 logical reasons, " the great scandal " was an opportunity 
 to despise him for which they were not ungrateful. But 
 many who loved him and honored him were obliged to 
 feel that the evidence of his own hand convicted him of 
 
406 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 a shameful fault. Guilty or innocent, his was a fearful 
 trial, and nothing in his life became him like his bearing 
 of it. It was terrible to meet him then upon the street, 
 he seemed so bowed and broken ; his once cheerful face 
 was so worn and weary with the sorrow of his heart. It 
 is a patent fact that never after that did he have the 
 weight, the influence, the authority in political or relig- 
 ious matters that he had before. It is equally patent 
 that the after-thought of many whose judgment was at 
 first adverse to him grew less and less so as the years 
 went on. And it is certain that few who are not willing 
 to think evil of him for the basest reasons would now 
 hesitate to say that whatever may have been his fault, it 
 is still true that in the general sweep and tenor of his life 
 he was a man devoted to all excellent and useful ideas. 
 It is equally certain that there are many others, and a 
 much greater number, who have not and who never had 
 a doubt of his complete and perfect innocence. And 
 furthermore, a very great majority of those who per- 
 sonally knew him believed in his innocence, while com- 
 paratively few of those who supported the accusation 
 were acquainted with Mr. Beecher or had ever exchanged 
 a word with him. 
 
 [The following account of the trial has been carefully 
 and impartially abridged from the official report.] 
 
 The answer to Mr. Tilton's complaint was a general 
 and unqualified denial, and was made August 29, 1874. 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 407 
 
 On the I /th of the following October Judge Neilson, 
 Chief Justice of the City Court of Brooklyn, granted an 
 order requiring the plaintiff to deliver to the defendant's 
 attorneys a statement in writing of the particular times 
 and places at which he expected or intended to prove 
 that any acts of adultery or criminal intercourse had taken 
 place between the defendant and the wife of the plain- 
 tiff, and of the particular times and places at which he 
 expected or intended to prove that the defendant con- 
 fessed any such act of adultery, or show cause why such 
 bill of particulars should not be delivered, and why the 
 plaintiff should not be precluded from giving evidence 
 on the trial of any such acts or confessions not specified 
 in such bill of particulars. In the affidavit accompany- 
 ing the order attention was called to an alleged confes- 
 sion of Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, and it was emphat- 
 ically denied that any such confession had ever been made. 
 The motion for a bill of particulars was argued at a 
 special term of the City Court of Brooklyn, October 30, 
 1874, before Chief Justice Neilson, and was denied with- 
 out costs. The defendant's attorneys appealed from the 
 order of Judge Neilson to the General Term of the City 
 Court, and the appeal was heard by Judges Reynolds and 
 McCue. The order denying the bill of particulars was 
 affirmed, without costs, Judge Reynolds writing the 
 opinion. A dissenting opinion was written by Judge 
 McCue. 
 
4IO LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 January I3th, and two witnesses were called to the stand 
 Augustus Maverick and Francis D. Moulton. The 
 former gave unimportant testimony in relation to Mr. 
 Tilton's marriage. Mr. Moulton's testimony related to 
 the first meeting between Mr. Tilton and Mr. Beecher at 
 his house, the circumstances under which the apology 
 was written, and the subsequent interview between him- 
 self and Mr. Beecher on the subject of Mrs. Tilton's re- 
 traction. He identified the various documents, letters, 
 etc., that had become part and parcel of the case, includ- 
 ing Mr. Tilton's demand that Mr. Beecher should leave 
 the ministry, Mrs. Morse's letter to Mr. Beecher and his 
 reply, sundry letters from Mr. Beecher to Mr. Moulton, 
 Mrs. Tilton, and what were termed the clandestine letters ; 
 also Mr. Beecher's letter to Mr. Moulton, in which Mr. 
 Tilton's character was analyzed. At one point in his tes- 
 timony the witness stated that Mr. Tilton threatened to 
 shoot Mr. Beecher if the resignation of the pastorate 
 should be published, because it would disgrace the Liv- 
 ingston Street household. The letter of Mrs. Victoria C. 
 Woodhull to the World, May 22, 1871, was put in as evi- 
 dence, and Mr. Beecher's cards challenging Mrs. Wood- 
 hull or anyone else who had letters of his to publish them ; 
 also the West specifications against Mr. Tilton, and the 
 tripartite agreement between Mr. Beecher, Mr. Tilton, 
 and Henry C. Bowen. The scenes in the Plymouth con- 
 troversy were reviewed, and the effect of the publication 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 411 
 
 of the Bacon letter. It was the object of the plaintiff's 
 counsel to present the witness to the jury in the light of Mr. 
 Beecher's friend; whereas, the defence, in the cross-exami- 
 nation, introduced him as the school-mate and life-long 
 friend of Mr. Tilton. His cross-examination related to his 
 acquaintance with Mrs. Woodhull, his accounts with Mr. 
 Beecher, his stock in The Golden Age, and other matters. 
 
 Mrs. Martha A. Bradshaw, William F. West, and 
 Franklin Woodruff gave evidence, and then Mr. Tilton 
 was called. The defence at once objected, on the ground 
 that a husband was incompetent to prove his wife's dis- 
 honor. The senior counsel, Mr. Evarts, made the ap- 
 peal, citing authorities and examples in proof of the 
 claim set up. General Roger A. Pryor, of counsel for the 
 plaintiff, answered the argument of Mr. Evarts, and was 
 followed by Mr. Beach, Mr. Tilton's senior counsel, in 
 further proof of the competency of his client to testify. 
 Mr. Evarts replied, and Judge Neilson decided that the 
 plaintiff was a competent witness, but that he could not 
 testify to confidential communications. 
 
 Thereupon, on the morning of the sixteenth day of the 
 proceedings, Mr. Tilton was sworn, and proceeded to give 
 his evidence. 
 
 He told the story of his early career, and related the 
 story of the memorable interviews between himself and 
 Mr. Beecher on December 30, 1870, and subsequently. 
 The contents of the letter of confession offered from 
 
412 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 memory by the witness were ruled out. He swore that 
 instead of being a bankrupt in I 7 1 he owned property 
 valued at $30,000. He said that on the evening in De- 
 cember, 1 870, when Mr. Moulton had brought Mr. Beecher 
 to his house, he and Mr. Beecher had a private interview. 
 He had then told Mr. Beecher that he might consider 
 the letter he had written demanding the former's retire- 
 ment from the pulpit as unwritten, and that the inter- 
 view was held in the confidence of his wife and in her 
 behalf. Mr. Beecher had said that Mr. Moulton had 
 shown him no statement, but that he understood in gen- 
 eral terms the object of the interview, and he expressed 
 his thanks for the withdrawal of the letter. He had 
 then informed Mr. Beecher that Mr. Bowen had made a 
 statement that "You have been guilty of adulteries with 
 numerous members of your congregation ever since your 
 Indianapolis pastorate, all down through these twenty- 
 five years ; that you are not a safe man to dwell in a 
 Christian community; that he knows numerous cases 
 where you have shipwrecked the happiness of Christian 
 homes ; that he is determined you shall no longer edit 
 The Christian Union ; that you shall no longer speak in 
 Plymouth Church ; and he says distinctly that you are a 
 wolf in the fold and that you should be extirpated." 
 
 Mr. Beecher was amazed that Mr. Bowen should have 
 so spoken, as he had appeared to be friendly. Witness in- 
 formed Mr. Beecher that after his interview with Mr. 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 413 
 
 Bowen he had narrated the substance of the interview to 
 his wife, who was ill, and the intelligence had filled her 
 with profound distress, and she had instantly said that he 
 was violating the promise he had made her that he would 
 never do Mr. Beecher any harm or ever assist in any ex- 
 posure of his secret to the public. She had said that if 
 Mr. Bowen made war upon Mr. Beecher, and if he (wit- 
 ness) joined in it, everybody sooner or later would know 
 the reason, and that would be to her shame and the 
 children's, and she could not endure it. Mr. Beecher 
 had asked him what he meant by speaking of his wife in 
 that way, and he had then read him a copy of Mrs. Til- 
 ton's confession, the original of which was in Mr. Moul- 
 ton's possession. That confession had been destroyed 
 after the tripartite agreement had been signed. 
 
 The next interview he had had with Mr. Beecher was 
 about January 3, 1871, at Mr. Moulton's house. He had 
 not then wished to speak to Mr. Beecher, who had ruined 
 his wife and broken up his home, but at Mr. Moulton's 
 request he said " Good-morning " to him. Mr. Beecher 
 said that he did not marvel that witness did not feel like 
 speaking to him, but that he felt more dread in being 
 spoken to than he could possibly feel repugnance in 
 speaking, and that he hoped witness had found it in his 
 heart to accept the communication which he had made 
 through Mr. Moulton that he had dictated it out of 
 heart-break and anguish. 
 
412 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 memory by the witness were ruled out. He swore that 
 instead of being a bankrupt in 1871 he owned property 
 valued at $30,000. He said that on the evening in De- 
 cember, 1 870, when Mr. Moulton had brought Mr. Beecher 
 to his house, he and Mr. Beecher had a private interview. 
 He had then told Mr. Beecher that he might consider 
 the letter he had written demanding the former's retire- 
 ment from the pulpit as unwritten, and that the inter- 
 view was held in the confidence of his wife and in her 
 behalf. Mr. Beecher had said that Mr. Moulton had 
 shown him no statement, but that he understood in gen- 
 eral terms the object of the interview, and he expressed 
 his thanks for the withdrawal of the letter. He had 
 then informed Mr. Beecher that Mr. Bowen had made a 
 statement that "You have been guilty of adulteries with 
 numerous members of your congregation ever since your 
 Indianapolis pastorate, all down through these twenty- 
 five years ; that you are not a safe man to dwell in a 
 Christian community; that he knows numerous cases 
 where you have shipwrecked the happiness of Christian 
 homes ; that he is determined you shall no longer edit 
 The Christian Union ; that you shall no longer speak in 
 Plymouth Church ; and he says distinctly that you are a 
 wolf in the fold and that you should be extirpated." 
 
 Mr. Beecher was amazed that Mr. Bowen should have 
 so spoken, as he had appeared to be friendly. Witness in- 
 formed Mr. Beecher that after his interview with Mr. 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 413 
 
 Bowen he had narrated the substance of the interview to 
 his wife, who was ill, and the intelligence had filled her 
 with profound distress, and she had instantly said that he 
 was violating the promise he had made her that he would 
 never do Mr. Beecher any harm or ever assist in any ex- 
 posure of his secret to the public. She had said that if 
 Mr. Bowen made war upon Mr. Beecher, and if he (wit- 
 ness) joined in it, everybody sooner or later would know 
 the reason, and that would be to her shame and the 
 children's, and she could not endure it. Mr. Beecher 
 had asked him what he meant by speaking of his wife in 
 that way, and he had then read him a copy of Mrs. Til- 
 ton's confession, the original of which was in Mr. Moul- 
 ton's possession. That confession had been destroyed 
 after the tripartite agreement had been signed. 
 
 The next interview he had had with Mr. Beecher was 
 about January 3, 1871, at Mr. Moulton's house. He had 
 not then wished to speak to Mr. Beecher, who had ruined 
 his wife and broken up his home, but at Mr. Moulton's 
 request he said " Good-morning " to him. Mr. Beecher 
 said that he did not marvel that witness did not feel like 
 speaking to him, but that he felt more dread in being 
 spoken to than he could possibly feel repugnance in 
 speaking, and that he hoped witness had found it in his 
 heart to accept the communication which he had made 
 through Mr. Moulton that he had dictated it out of 
 heart-break and anguish. 
 
4H LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 The next interview with Mr. Beecher was in Febru- 
 ary, 1872, when Mr. Beecher had called at his house, 
 and, in reply to his query, had positively assured him 
 that there was no dishonor attaching to the birth of 
 the boy Ralph. Mrs. Tilton had come into the room 
 at that time, and bursting into tears, had corroborated 
 Mr. Beecher. 
 
 The witness described at length his relations with Mrs. 
 Woodhull, and stated that Mrs. Woodhull's biography 
 had been written by her husband, and that she had brought 
 it to him arid asked him to rewrite it. He had done so, 
 leaving out many extravagant statements, and she had 
 been dissatisfied. In June, 1873, there was a stormy in- 
 terview between himself and Mr. Moulton, after he had 
 learned that Mr. Beecher had expressed an intention to 
 resign from Plymouth Church. Witness was very angry, 
 and told Mr. Moulton that if Mr. Beecher resigned at 
 that time, thus reflecting on the children of witness, he 
 would shoot him. The charges of Mr. West against Mr. 
 Tilton, as a member of Plymouth Church, for slandering 
 the pastor, were very fully reviewed, and in connection 
 therewith, a letter written by witness to Samuel E. 
 Belcher, as member of the Examining Committee, just 
 before the meeting of the Church was held at which Mr. 
 Tilton's name was dropped from the rolls, was introduced 
 and read. In that letter, witness wrote that he had not 
 accused Mr. Beecher falsely. In relation to the Bacon 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 415 
 
 letter, he had met and told Mr. Beecher that Dr. Bacon 
 had called him (Mr. Tilton) a knave, and a liar, and a 
 creature of Mr. Beecher's magnanimity, and had added 
 that Mr. Beecher must deny Dr. Bacon's statements or 
 he (witness) would. Mr. Beecher had walked away 
 without replying, and they had not met since. In regard 
 to any improper conduct on his part with the young girl 
 Bessie Turner, or Lizzie McDermott, the witness stated 
 emphatically that there was " not a word of truth in it, 
 nor a fact for its foundation." 
 
 Mr. Evarts took up the cross-examination of the wit- 
 ness, and questioned him closely on the subject of his 
 religious views, and whether his change in belief had 
 caused his wife much sorrow, and whether there was also 
 a great difference in the religious views of witness and 
 Mr. Beecher. The political controversies between the 
 two men were next taken up, and the events following 
 the Cleveland Convention, when witness had severely 
 attacked Mr. Beecher, were reviewed. An entire day was 
 occupied in reading the correspondence of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Tilton. The relations between Mr. Bowen and Mr. 
 Tilton were thoroughly sifted, and a searching inquiry 
 was made into the so-called confession of Mrs. Tilton, 
 and the copy of it made by Mr.Tilton, both of which, the 
 witness said, were destroyed the first by his wife, the 
 copy by himself. The witness was also minutely cross- 
 examined as to the subject-matter of the " True Story " 
 
4l6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 written by him in the latter part of 1872, subsequent to 
 the publication of Mrs. Woodhull's story. 
 
 On his redirect examination, Mr. Tilton was examined 
 as to his religious views his early belief, the cause, time, 
 and nature of the change in them ; and finally on the 
 question as to how he reconciled the statement that his 
 wife loved everything good and hated everything bad 
 with the fact that she was charged with adultery, he re- 
 plied that he had known his wife since she was ten years 
 old, had married her at twenty, and during fifteen years 
 of married life he had held her in reverence almost to the 
 point of making her an idol ; when she fell, it was the 
 necessity of his own heart to find some excuse for her, 
 and that excuse he had found in the fact that she had 
 been wrapped up in her religious teacher and guide, and 
 had surrendered her convictions to him ; she followed his 
 lead trustingly, and would go after him like one blinded. 
 He thought she had sinned as one in a trance, and she was 
 not a free agent, and she would have done her teacher's 
 bidding if, like the heathen priest in the Hindoo land, he 
 had bade her fling her child into the Ganges or cast her- 
 self under the Juggernaut. That was his excuse for his 
 wife. The examination of Mr. Tilton ended with the 
 twenty-eighth day of the proceedings. 
 
 Mrs. Catherine Carey, who had been nurse in Mr. 
 Tilton's family in 1869, was called, and gave evidence 
 relative to the conduct of Mr. Beecher with Mrs. Tilton. 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 417 
 
 Mr. George A. Bell, a member of Plymouth Church, 
 gave evidence regarding the interview between himself, 
 Mr. Halliday, and Mr. Tilton. 
 
 Mr. Evarts made an eloquent appeal for the admittance 
 of testimony showing that Mr. Beecher had been called 
 to advise in the troubles between Mr. and Mrs. Tilton, 
 but he was ruled out. 
 
 Mr. Joseph H. Richards (Mrs. Tilton's brother), Mr. 
 Jeremiah P. Robinson, Mr. William M. Marston, and 
 Mrs. Francis D. Moulton gave evidence, and on the 
 thirty-first day of the proceedings the plaintiff's counsel 
 rested their case. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE GREAT SCANDAL CONTINUED. 
 
 The Defence Opens. Mr. Tracy's Appeal. What He proposed to Prove. 
 The Alleged Confession. Damaging Evidence against Mr.Tilton. 
 His Alleged Improprieties at Various Places. Mrs. Woodhull Again. 
 Mr. Moulton's Evidence Contradicted. Various Witnesses for the 
 Defence. Mr. Beecher on the Stand. Sensation in Court. His Oath 
 in the New England Form. His Acquaintance with the Plaintiff. 
 Denial of Improper Conduct. The Beecher-Moulton-Tilton Interview. 
 Mr. Beecher' s Explanation of His Remorse. Cross-Examination . 
 Mr. Moulton Recalled. Letter from Mrs. Tilton to Judge Neilson. 
 The Plaintiff Recalled. The Summing Up by the Defence. Judge 
 Porter and Mr. Evarts. The Prosecution Follows. Failure of the 
 Jury to Agree. End of the Six Months' Trial. 
 
 ON Wednesday, February 24, 1875, Mr. Tracy made the 
 opening address for the defence. He began by tracing 
 Mr. Beecher's life and labors from the pastorate in the 
 West to the culmination of his popularity in Brooklyn. 
 Then he took up the career of Theodore Tilton, speaking 
 of him as one who had fallen from an eminence seldom 
 attained by men of his age to the very bottom of an 
 abyss. With stinging emphasis he referred to the plain- 
 tiff as one who, " if he could realize the sad truth that he 
 was morally dead, would still rejoice in this post-mortem 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 419 
 
 investigation of his character. But we propose," he 
 added, " to dissect him first in the interest of truth and 
 bury him afterward in the interest of decency." 
 
 The evidence of the plaintiff was minutely reviewed, 
 and referring to Mrs. Tilton, who, he said, was the true 
 defendant in the case, the speaker drew a touching pict- 
 ure of her affection for her husband, " giving her whole 
 life to him without murmur as to her own self-sacrifice." 
 Mr. Tilton's views on marriage and divorce were com- 
 mented on, and it was argued that while the plaintiff was 
 the editor of a religious newspaper he was an advocate 
 of free lust. The alleged trouble in Mr. Tilton's family, 
 on account of which Mr. Beecher was said to have ad- 
 vised separation, was discussed ; the plaintiff and Mr. 
 Moulton were accused of conspiracy and perjury; Cath- 
 erine Carey-Smith was said to be a woman of bad char- 
 acter; and Joseph H. Richards' testimony was criticised. 
 
 Referring to the so-called letter of confession of Mrs. 
 Tilton, Mr. Tracy remarked on its non-production, and 
 stated that the defence would produce an unimpeachable 
 witness to prove that Mr. Tilton, after the Woodhull 
 publication, had read to the witness what he said was a 
 copy of the alleged confession of Mrs. Tilton, and that 
 that copy did not contain a charge of adultery ; also that 
 Mr. Tilton told the witness that the original confession 
 was in the hands of Francis D. Moulton, and this not- 
 withstanding Mr. Tilton and Mr. Moulton had sworn 
 18 
 
420 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 that the confession had been destroyed at the time of the 
 signing of the tripartite agreement some months before. 
 Mr. Tilton was stigmatized as a blackmailer, and Mr. 
 Tracy concluded his address on the thirty-fifth day of 
 the proceedings with a long and affecting tribute to the 
 Plymouth pastor, and a promise to the jury of evidence 
 that would prove him guiltless. 
 
 Edward J. Ovington, the first witness for the defence, 
 testified that the plaintiff had told him that his wife 
 would say anything for her husband. Rufus E. Holmes 
 testified to improprieties of the plaintiff at Winsted, 
 Conn. Mrs. Ovington related conversations she had 
 had with the Tiltons, and stated that Mrs. Tilton had 
 denied to her that Mr. Beecher had offered her any im- 
 propriety. Mrs. Sarah C. D. Putnam gave evidence of 
 the devotion of Mrs. Tilton to her husband, and Mr. 
 Tilton's strictures on the church, and his waning faith in 
 Mr. Beecher's powers. Samuel E. Belcher and Mr. 
 McKelway testified to the statements made by Mr. Til- 
 ton concerning the charge against Mr. Beecher. Then 
 followed testimony concerning the plaintiff's relations 
 with Mrs. Woodhull, one witness testifying that the 
 Woodhull scandal had been discussed in Mr. Tilton's 
 presence before its publication. 
 
 The tripartite covenant was explained by Samuel 
 Wilkinson ; Mr. Moulton's evidence was contradicted in 
 many instances by Mr. Archibald Baxter, who stated 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 421 
 
 that in various conversations between them Mr. 
 Moulton had declared Mr. Beecher to be innocent. 
 Reuben W. Ropes, Abner H. Davis, Edward A. Biden, 
 William B. Barber, and Charles H. Caldwell swore to 
 Mr. Moulton's denial of the Woodhull story about Mr. 
 Beecher and Mrs. Tilton. Several witnesses testified to 
 Mr. Tilton's opinions on marriage and divorce, and Mr. 
 Halliday stated that in 1873 Mr. Tilton had said to 
 him, " My case against Mr. Beecher is wholly irrespec- 
 tive of my wife." Witnesses were examined in the Ply- 
 mouth Church Records, and then Miss Bessie Turner 
 was called, and testified to Mr. Tilton's eccentricities and 
 " moods," his unkindness to his wife, and his attempts on 
 herself. Three colored servants of Mrs. Woodhull gave 
 evidence of Mr. Tilton's personal relations with that lady 
 in support of Mr. Tracy's declaration, in the opening ad- 
 dress, that the defence would show conspiracy between 
 them to publish the scandal. Evidence was given of Mr. 
 Tilton's determination to " smash " his wife and Mr. 
 Beecher; also further evidence in reference to the tri- 
 partite agreement, including the evidence of Charles 
 Storrs and James Freeland. Several witnesses testified 
 generally on the case ; Mr. and Mrs. Robert T. Moore 
 impeached Mrs. Carey ; and James Redpath related the 
 manner in which he had obtained the " True Story." 
 
 On the fifty-sixth day of the proceedings, April I, 
 1875, Henry Ward Beecher was called and took the oath 
 
422 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 in the New England form " I swear by the ever-living 
 God." He gave an abridged history of his early life and 
 struggles, his subsequent religious and political services, 
 his domestic relations, and his intimacy with Mr. Bowen, 
 Mr. Tilton, and Mr. Moulton, taking in the period from 
 the time of his birth down to December, 1870, when, ac- 
 cording to the theory of the defence, the conspiracy 
 began. The growth of Plymouth Church from embyro 
 to its then magnitude, with between twenty-five hundred 
 and three thousand communicants; the building up of 
 The Independent and The Christian Union (the latter 
 from a circulation of six hundred to thirty thousand 
 copies in a single year) ; the rapid production of thirty- 
 five volumes all these labors were merely mentioned as 
 ordinary events. The great help which his wife had 
 given him during all the years of their married life was, 
 however, more fully dwelt on and emphasized. 
 
 An account of his first acquaintance with Mrs. Tilton 
 was given. He had known of her when she was a girl, 
 but had had no personal acquaintance with her until her 
 marriage to Mr. Tilton, when he had called on her, at her 
 husband's request. He stated that in December, 1870, he 
 had advised Mrs. Tilton to separate from her husband on 
 account of the great unhappiness in the family and her 
 treatment by her husband. He denied in the most posi- 
 tive and emphatic terms the commission by him of any 
 offence against Mr. Tilton or of any crime against his wife. 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 423 
 
 Briefly and emphatically he denied the statements of the 
 nurse, Mrs. Carey ; he did not remember ever having seen 
 Mr. Richards while on a visit to Mr. Tilton's house ; and 
 he denied the truth of Mr. Tilton's allegations concern- 
 ing his acts on October 10 and 17, 1868. During his en- 
 tire acquaintance with Mrs. Tilton, there had never been 
 any undue personal familiarity between that lady and 
 himself, nor had he at any time, directly or indirectly, 
 solicited improper favors from her. 
 
 The scene with Mr. Bowen on December 26, 1870, was 
 rehearsed, and the witness stated that Mr. Bowen, in de- 
 livering Mr. Tilton's letter requiring Mr. Beecher's resig- 
 nation, had taken pains to represent that he was a volun- 
 tary messenger and ignorant of the contents of the letter. 
 On reading that letter, Mr. Bowen had been as indig- 
 nant as he was himself, and a conversation had followed, 
 in which it was revealed that both gentlemen had heard 
 of many matters discreditable to Mr. Tilton, and witness 
 had emphatically declared to Mr. Bowen that the reten- 
 tion of Mr. Tilton on The Independent and Union could 
 not but be injurious to both journals. This, witness 
 stated, was the first and only offence committed against 
 Mr. Tilton, and the injury to him professionally which 
 followed in his discharge by Mr. Bowen a few days later 
 was the only injury the plaintiff had received, although 
 witness was led at the time of the signing the apology to 
 imagine that there were other grounds of complaint. 
 
424 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 On the night of December 30, 1870, accompanied by 
 Mr. Moulton, witness had called on Mr. Tilton, who had 
 then withdrawn the letters he had written, and recited to 
 witness his troubles with Mr. Bowen ; he had then 
 charged witness with abetting in his removal by Mr. 
 Bowen, with having superseded him in his family, with 
 alienating the affections of his wife, with corrupting his 
 wife and teaching her deceitfulness, and finally, with hav- 
 ing solicited her to immoral relations. After an objec- 
 tion by the plaintiff, the whole conversation with Mrs. 
 Tilton was admitted, and the witness described with great 
 minuteness how Mrs. Tilton, after hearing Mr. Beecher's 
 story of what her husband had told him, had declared 
 that " she could not help it ; " that she " had been wor- 
 ried out with his importunities ; " and that the charge was 
 " not true." 
 
 At his suggestion, but not at his dictation, she had 
 then taken a pen and written the letter of retraction, 
 and had of her own volition added the postscript, which 
 specifically denied the charge of "-improper solicitation." 
 On December 3ist, in an interview at witness* house, 
 Mr. Moulton reproached him with having taken an unfair 
 advantage in getting a retraction from Mrs. Tilton, and 
 he read a letter from her asking that both her confession 
 to her husband and her letter of retraction should be re- 
 turned, in order that she might destroy them. Mr. 
 Moulton assured witness that there would be no further 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 425 
 
 trouble, and on his representations the letter was given 
 up. 
 
 In narrating the story of the interview between him- 
 self and Mr. Moulton on January ist, Mr. Beecher de- 
 scribed the grief which had overwhelmed him at that time 
 as coming from three sources : his sorrow at having spoken 
 evil of Mr. Tilton, his remorse at having believed the 
 scandalous stories against his friend, and his self-reproach 
 when Mr. Moulton had assured him that they were false ; 
 and lastly, his mortification and sorrow on coming to the 
 conclusion, to which Mr. Moulton's declarations urged 
 him, that through his want of foresight and prudence he 
 had won the affection of Mrs. Tilton and come between 
 her and her husband. Mr. Moulton had suggested that 
 if Mr. Tilton could hear him talking in the strain he had 
 been talking that evening there would be peace once 
 more between them, and he asked permission of witness 
 to make a memorandum of what he had said, so that he 
 might read it to Mr. Tilton. 
 
 Mr. Moulton had then written some sentences on sepa- 
 rate slips of paper, and asked witness to sign what he had 
 written, but he refused. Mr. Moulton had then urged 
 him to put his name, so as to let Mr. Tilton know that 
 it really came from him, and without reading or knowing 
 what was on the paper, he had written near the bottom 
 of the sheet, " I have intrusted this to Frank Moulton 
 in confidence," and had written his name to that separate 
 
426 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 note. He denied emphatically that anything in the so- 
 called letter of contrition was his, beyond that foot-note, 
 and that anything he had said resembled or warranted 
 the expressions therein contained. Contradictions were 
 given to the evidence of Mr. Tilton and Mr. Moulton on 
 important particulars, and it was indignantly and em- 
 phatically denied that reference had ever been made by 
 Mr. Tilton to the offence then charged. In reference to 
 the plaintiff's testimony relating to the interview about 
 the child Ralph, the witness said that it was a monstrous 
 and absolute falsehood that there had been any such con- 
 versation, or anything out of which such a conversation 
 could be made or imagined. 
 
 The witness then proceeded with an explanation of 
 sundry letters and interviews, Mr. Moulton's first sug- 
 gestions about money to help out Mr. Tilton, witness' ac- 
 quaintance with Mrs. Woodhull, and her attempt to 
 blackmail him previous to the publication of the Wood- 
 hull scandal. He further stated that until July, 1874, 
 he had been ignorant that adultery had been ever re- 
 ferred to or charged, and reference was made to at- 
 tempts on the part of Mr. Moulton and General But- 
 ler to control the Investigating Committee. In his 
 cross-examination, when asked whether he anticipated 
 sudden death in 1873, the witness said that his fears 
 of death were consequent upon periods of depression. 
 Counsel for the plaintiff put in an application for a 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 427 
 
 policy of insurance on the life of Mr. Beecher in March, 
 1874. 
 
 The re-direct examination followed, and on the sixty- 
 ninth day of the proceedings, April 21, 1875, Mr. 
 Beecher's testimony was concluded. 
 
 Henry M. Cleveland stated that his business connec- 
 tion with The Christian Union and Mr. Beecher had 
 ceased after January I, 1874, and he swore that on June 
 2, 1873, between eleven and twelve o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, he had had an interview with Mr. Beecher at The 
 Christian Union office in New York, and Mr. Beecher 
 had then directed him to address letters to him in care 
 of Bigelow & Kennard in Boston. He did not see Mr. 
 Beecher again until the Friday evening of the fol- 
 lowing week. The Rev. W. H. H. Murray, of Boston, 
 preached in Plymouth Church on the Sunday following 
 June 2d, and Mr. Beecher was not present. The ten- 
 dency of this evidence was to directly contradict the 
 alleged interview between Mrs. Moulton and Mr. Beecher 
 on June 2, 1873. 
 
 Mr. Moulton was recalled by the defence fcr cross- 
 examination, and was succeeded by Mr. Partridge, the 
 former cashier of Woodruff & Robinson, who contra- 
 dicted the evidence of the previous witness. General 
 Tracy, of counsel for the defence, testified in contradic- 
 tion of statements of Mr. Tilton and Mr. Moulton. 
 
 On the seventy-seventh day of the proceedings, a stir 
 18* 
 
428 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 was created by Mrs. Tilton standing up in court and de- 
 siring that a communication from her should be read. 
 She handed the following letter to Judge Neilson : 
 
 "MAY 3, 1875. 
 
 " JUDGE NEILSON : I ask the privilege from you for a 
 few words in my own behalf. I feel very deeply the in- 
 justice of my position in the law and before the court 
 now sitting; and while I have understood and respected 
 from the beginning Mr. Evarts' principle in the matter, 
 yet since your last session I have been so sensible of the 
 power of my enemies, that my soul cries out before you, 
 and the gentlemen of the jury, that they beware how, 
 by a divided verdict, they consign to my children a false 
 and irrevocable stain upon their mother ! For five years 
 past I have been the victim of circumstances most cruel 
 and unfortunate; struggling from time to time only for 
 a place to live honorably and truthfully. Released for 
 some months from the will by whose power uncon- 
 sciously I criminated myself again and again, I declare 
 solemnly before you, without fear of man and by faith in 
 God, that I am innocent of the crimes charged against 
 me. I would like to tell my whole sad story truthfully 
 to acknowledge the frequent falsehoods wrung from 
 me by compulsion though at the same time unwilling 
 to reveal the secrets of my married life, which only the 
 vital importance of my position makes necessary. T as- 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 429 
 
 sume the entire responsibility of this request, unknown 
 to friend or counsel of either side, and await your Honor's 
 honorable decision. With great respect, 
 
 " ELIZABETH R. TILTON." 
 
 Judge Neilson considered the letter, and sent the lady 
 a written reply in which he pointed out the impossibility 
 of her request being granted. Mr. Henry C. Bowen was 
 called, and gave evidence in rebuttal of Mr. Beecher's 
 testimony. The plaintiff was recalled, and gave evidence 
 in rebuttal generally of the testimony on the side of the 
 defence, and the eighty-fifth day of the proceedings saw 
 the termination of the taking of the testimony. 
 
 On May 19, 1875, Judge Porter began the summing 
 up for the defence. With emphatic denunciations of 
 Mr. Tilton, the learned counsel condemned in strong 
 language Mr. Moulton and other witnesses, and cleverly 
 contrasted the life and character of the plaintiff and de- 
 fendant. Miss Turner's character was extolled, the 
 scenes between herself and plaintiff were reviewed, and 
 her testimony favorably compared with the statements 
 of Mr. Tilton's witnesses. The correspondence between 
 Mr. and Mrs. Tilton was carefully gone over, and Henry 
 C. Bowen's evidence was analyzed in view of showing 
 points of agreement between that evidence and Mr. 
 Beecher's. Referring again to Mr. Tilton and Mr. Moul- 
 ton, Mr. Tilton was declared to be the master and Mr. 
 
430 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Moulton the minion. The letter of contrition was ana- 
 lyzed, and modes of expression therein declared to be un- 
 like those of Mr. Beecher, and several famous phrases were 
 ascribed to the pen of Mr. Tilton. Mrs. Moulton was 
 declared to have sworn falsely on account of her husband. 
 
 Six days were occupied in the summing up, the evi- 
 dence of every witness being carefully dissected and com- 
 mented on, the learned counsel concluding with a tribute 
 to Judge Neilson, and the belief expressed to the jury 
 that the verdict would be one which would gladden the 
 hearts of many, and which would illuminate Brooklyn 
 Heights ; a verdict which would send an electric thrill of 
 joy through Christendom. 
 
 Mr. Evarts likewise summed up for the defence. His 
 argument commenced on the ninety-second day of the 
 proceedings, and ended with the close of the ninety- 
 ninth day. 
 
 Mr. Beach commenced his argument for the plaintiff 
 on Wednesday, June 9, 1875. He eloquently described 
 the feelings of a husband whose wife's honor had been 
 stolen away, and referred to the influence that had been 
 brought to bear in support of the defendant during the 
 trial. " I have seen," said the learned counsel, " the 
 zealots and the parasites gathering around Henry Ward 
 Beecher in this trial, and shedding their influence both 
 in and out of this court in his favor." The foreman of 
 the jury was addressed in reference to personal appeals 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 431 
 
 that had been made to him by the counsel for the de- 
 fendant, and an earnest appeal was made to the jury to 
 decide the case strictly according to their oaths. 
 
 The argument proper was mostly confined to answer- 
 ing Judge Porter's summing up for Mr. Beecher. Mr. 
 Tilton was eulogized, but the counsel said he would not 
 indulge in denunciations of Mr. Beecher. The publica- 
 tion of Mrs. Tilton's letters was explained in a way fa- 
 vorable to the plaintiff, and various points that had been 
 touched upon by Judge Porter were gone over in detail. 
 Mr. Beecher was asserted to have been a party to the 
 policy of silence. The anticipations of triumph indulged 
 in by the defendant's counsel were treated with severe 
 denunciation, and in referring to the power possessed by 
 the party of the defendant, the orator said that Mr. 
 Evarts " had more than the hundred eyes of Argus, more 
 than the hundred arms of Briareus, and also the gold of 
 Midas, which had been placed where it would have the 
 best effect." 
 
 There was an excited colloquy between Judge Porter 
 and Mr. Beach concerning the treatment of the charge of 
 improper proposals, and then Mr. Beach applied himself 
 with renewed energy to the sifting of the evidence and a 
 review of Mr. Bowen's relations to the case. Mr. Moul- 
 ton's conduct was vigorously defended, and the interview 
 of December 3Oth and the alleged confession of Mrs. 
 Tilton which had been destroyed were brought under 
 
432 LIFE AND WORK .OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 consideration, and the doctrines and sentiments attrib- 
 uted to Mr. Beecher in the corruption of Mrs. Tilton were 
 minutely set forth. 
 
 The learned counsel agreed with Mr. Evarts unreserv- 
 edly in his reverential estimate of the motive, the ability, 
 and the success of Mr. Beecher's grand performance in 
 England on behalf of the great question of servitude and 
 freedom, but with Mr. Evarts' deductions therefrom in re- 
 gard to the present issue he was compelled to differ en- 
 tirely. Was it possible that they had become so low in 
 the administration of justice that they could not pro- 
 nounce judgment against great and noble men for fear of 
 the scoffs of the aristocracy of England. In that case, 
 he begged God to help justice and American institu- 
 tions. 
 
 The Woodhull publication was taken up and discussed, 
 and it was asserted that Mr. Tilton had no part in that 
 publication, nor had the information therein contained 
 come from him concerning Mr. Tilton's connection with 
 Mrs. Woodhull. Mr. Beach further said that he knew of 
 no evidence in the case which tended to show that Mrs. 
 Woodhull's character was so bad as to make all associa- 
 tion with her disreputable. A tribute of respect was 
 paid to Mrs. Beecher's character for her undeviating faith 
 in her husband and her actions as a ministering angel to 
 him in his hour of suffering and sorrow, and then the 
 affirmative portion of the argument was taken up. 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 433 
 
 Mr. Beach censured the attendance in court of Mrs. 
 Tilton and Mrs. Beecher, and the alleged theatric exhi- 
 bitions and displays on the part of Plymouth Church, as 
 all designed to influence in an indirect and insidious 
 mode the conclusions of the court. If Mr. Beecher were 
 innocent, he would have needed no such trappings or 
 aid, but he could have bravely met the accusations with- 
 out any of those policies or stratagems. The letters of 
 Mrs. Tilton to her husband were considered, their ex- 
 pressions analyzed, and their bearings on the relations of 
 the parties to the suit shown. That Christianity was in 
 any way at stake in the trial was altogether scouted by 
 the counsel, and there need be no fear, he said, of the 
 consequences of Henry Ward Beecher's fall upon the 
 progress of Christian civilization or Christian influence. 
 
 The West charges were gone into, and the alleged evi- 
 dence of Mr. Beecher's efforts to suppress the scandal ; 
 and in relation to the theory of blackmail, the counsel 
 argued that all the evidence and probabilities were against 
 such an hypothesis. Mr. Beecher's denial of guilt was un- 
 supported, and they had the confronting testimony of 
 three witnesses, and of circumstantial evidence. The issue 
 of the case was an action by a husband alleging himself 
 to have been wronged in his dearest relations against 
 the alleged wrong-doer. They did not ask for damages, 
 as " Theodore Tilton disdains the idea of touching the 
 gold of Henry Ward Beecher." 
 
434 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 The letters of Retraction and Contrition were analyzed, 
 and counsel argued that both were dictated by Mr. 
 Beecher, and that similar phrases in both documents 
 were identical with expressions in the defendant's early 
 works. It was Mr. Beecher's duty to have confessed his 
 sin and asked forgiveness of Plymouth Church and the 
 Christian world. Bessie Turner's evidence was referred 
 to as intrinsically incredible, and as being immaterial so 
 far as the vital point of the case was concerned. In the 
 closing point of his argument, Mr. Beach called the good 
 faith of the jury into question, and declared that he had 
 evidence that jurymen had been improperly approached. 
 This was met by indignant denials both from the jury 
 and the counsel of defendant. 
 
 Continuing, counsel charged Mr. Beecher with perjury, 
 and criticised the want of orthodoxy in his sermons ; and 
 in concluding he declared that the duty he had had to 
 perform had been most unwelcome and painful, and he 
 would leave the case in the hands of the jury, filled with 
 unaffected admiration and veneration for the magnificent 
 genius of the defendant. But rich as the defendant was 
 in mental endowments, and prodigal as his labors had 
 been, they could shelter no offence against the law. 
 " Genius as lofty, learning more rare and profound, could 
 not save Bacon. He sinned and fell, and upon his mem- 
 ory history has written the epitaph, ' The greatest and the 
 meanest of mankind.' " With a final appeal to the jury, 
 
THE GREAT SCANDAL. 435 
 
 the learned counsel closed his argument on the one hun- 
 dred and ninth day of the proceedings. 
 
 On Thursday, June 24, 1875, Judge Neilson delivered 
 his charge, which was devoted to the nature and rules of 
 evidence, the character and credibility of the witnesses, 
 and rules for the guidance of the jury. 
 
 The jury retired, and on the one hundred and twelfth 
 day of the proceedings, July 2, 1875, they returned into 
 court, and stated their inability to agree on a verdict ; 
 whereupon, after receiving the thanks of the court for the 
 careful attention they had shown throughout the trial, 
 they were discharged. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 HOME-LIFE. 
 
 Mr. Beecher's Domestic Habits. Early to Bed, Early to Rise. An After- 
 noon Nap. Reluctant to leave Home. Plain Fare. No More 
 Nocturnal Suppers. His Work Hours Preparatory Work. A 
 Punctilious Correspondent. Answers all Letters with his Own Hand. 
 Persevering Industry. His Old Home on the Heights. Its Art 
 Treasures. Stuart's Reminiscence. Beecher's Temperance Principles. 
 Financiering. Valuable Collection of Steel Engravings. Descrip- 
 tion of His Library and Methods of Work. An Amateur Bibliophile. 
 
 MR. BEECHER'S early training and nature made him a 
 very domestic man. He was an early riser, and when not 
 prevented by his professional engagements, always retired 
 at 10 o'clock. When prevented by his duties from re- 
 tiring early, he always took a nap on the sofa in his study 
 in the afternoon. He was a great believer in " tired Nat- 
 ture's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." When travelling he 
 always greatly missed his home surroundings. It was 
 his characteristic to never utter complaints, but always 
 to adapt himself cheerfully to circumstances. Fre- 
 quently called away from home, especially in his early 
 days in Brooklyn, he left cheerfully yet reluctantly, par- 
 ticularly if not accompanied by his wife, because he knew 
 
MRS. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
HOME-LIFE. 439 
 
 he should not be contented until he returned to the 
 comforts of his household. 
 
 He preferred plain cooking, and did not have a hearty 
 appetite. Until he became corpulent he used to take a 
 cold meat supper after preaching or lecturing, but in later 
 years he gave this up. He usually passed his mornings 
 in his study, engaged on his editorial work or miscella- 
 neous writing. He generally answered all his letters 
 with his own hands. He was punctilious in his habit 
 of answering all letters addressed to him. Sometimes 
 he postponed answering those that were not pressing ; the 
 pile would accumulate until in a mood of desperation 
 he would devote an entire morning to his correspondence. 
 He usually wrote out in full his lectures, but he only 
 made memoranda for his sermons, generally on Friday 
 mornings, but often not until Sunday morning. 
 
 His Sunday morning sermon was generally of a relig- 
 ious character, while in the evening he frequently spoke 
 upon affairs of contemporaneous import. Often his 
 labors would be continued through the afternoon, as he 
 was always desirous of getting as much work out of him- 
 self as he could. In consequence of his numerous literary 
 engagements, he relegated the pastoral work of visiting 
 his numerous congregation and the details of the church 
 to his assistant. He found little leisure, too, for social 
 calling ; though he was always pleased to have his social 
 friends visit him in his home. A picture of domesticity 
 
440 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 always greeted them ; for, the labors of the day over, he 
 passed the evening with his family. He always ad- 
 dressed Mrs. Beecher as " Mother," and she always 
 called him " Father." Playing backgammon was his fa- 
 vorite pastime in the family circle. 
 
 His later years were passed in the home of his son on 
 Hicks Street, after he gave up his house on Columbia 
 Street. All of his children had married and left the pa- 
 rental roof, and he wanted to be in his son's family, where 
 there were children growing up to recall his own ado- 
 lescent days. Another reason assigned for his giving up 
 his establishment on Columbia Street was a wish to 
 economize in his expenditures. His farm at Peekskill 
 was a great expense to him, and there in the summer he 
 passed his happiest days of do Ice far niente ; his unos- 
 tentatious charities drew largely from his income, and 
 several years ago he decided to abandon the house on the 
 Heights. He never entertained much in the way of 
 dinner-giving, though there was always the spare plate at 
 his table for the stranger, and generally some guest to 
 take it. It was his custom to have friends to breakfast 
 with him Sunday morning whom he had invited to his 
 pew. A long list of celebrities could be given of those 
 who were thus honored. He continued this custom in 
 his son's house. While he never took wine himself, or 
 smoked, he did not object to others so indulging. 
 
 The late William Stuart used to tell a good story " on 
 
HOME-LIFE. 441 
 
 himself " of a visit to Mr. Beecher to invite him to at- 
 tend a breakfast he was giving to the late Lord Hough- 
 ton at Delmonico's, corner of Fourteenth Street and 
 Fifth Avenue. The accomplished ex-manager and lit- 
 terateur was received by Mr. Beecher in his study on 
 the top floor, with a bay-window commanding an ex- 
 tensive view of the lower part of New York City, the 
 Bay, and the distant Jersey shores. He found Mr. 
 Beecher sitting in his shirt-sleeves at a long table, hard 
 at work on an editorial for the Independent. Mr. 
 Beecher begged a few moments' indulgence until he had 
 completed the article, and Mr. Stuart engaged himself in 
 viewing the books and pictures in the " workshop " and 
 the animated panorama afforded by the window. Mr. 
 Beecher cheerfully accepted the invitation, remarking 
 that he was familiar with the poems and literary work of 
 Richard Moncton Milnes before he became Lord Hough- 
 ton the statesman. 
 
 When Mr. Stuart was leaving, Mr. Beecher observed, 
 " I do not take any wine and liquor myself, but do not 
 object to others imbibing, if they wish to do so." He 
 crossed the room to an old-fashioned bureau on the side, 
 and opened a drawer, from which bulged forth several 
 disused collars and cuffs, newspapers preserved for ref- 
 erence, manuscripts, and such-like, and thrusting his arm 
 down a corner, drew forth a bottle of what the other 
 instantly recognized as vin ordinaire claret. 
 
442 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 " Now the ascent here is fatiguing," said Mr. Beecher ; 
 " perhaps you will take a glass of this." 
 
 " Thanks thanks," replied Mr. Stuart, adding, by way 
 of emphasizing his declination, " I never touch liquor 
 myself." 
 
 Mr. Beecher, in his surprise, restored the bottle to its 
 place, and familiarly sitting on the side of the table, ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " You astonish me. How has a man of the world like 
 you escaped ? Why, I did not think it possible for a 
 man like you to be a temperance man ! I can under- 
 stand now how you have preserved your health and 
 physique, notwithstanding the late hours you have been 
 compelled to keep.". 
 
 Mr. Stuart bore the felicitation meekly, merely stating 
 that his favorite beverage was buttermilk, whereupon 
 Mr. Beecher regretted he had none to give him, stating 
 that he also was very fond of it. 
 
 At the breakfast, a few days later, the jovial raconteur 
 forgot his temperance declaration, and indulged freely 
 in champagne which he had served him in a goblet. 
 Mr. Beecher sat by his side, and Stuart observed that 
 there were at times pauses in the other's remarks 
 which were astonishing in so fluent a speaker. While 
 draining a goblet of the "liquid sunshine" he chanced 
 to glance at Mr. Beecher, who had paused in the mid- 
 dle of a sentence in reply to a query from Lord Hough- 
 
HOME-LIFE. 443 
 
 ton, and was observing Stuart intently, not to say curi- 
 ously. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Mr. Beecher, as Mr. 
 Stuart placed his goblet on the table " I beg your par- 
 don, but I must have misunderstood you the other day, 
 when you said you did not drink anything but butter- 
 milk ? " 
 
 " Except at meals," quickly responded Mr. Stuart, re- 
 membering for the first time the circumstance. 
 
 In his home on Columbia Street, Mr. Beecher accumu- 
 lated a very valuable collection of steel engravings, said 
 to be second only to that of the late Charles Sumner. 
 These engravings were so numerous that they lined the 
 walls along the stairways, and were to be found in all 
 parts of the house. The collection was for years his 
 hobby. He had a few good oil paintings. He was an 
 enthusiastic advocate of the arts of "the beautiful" in 
 everything. Of course, flowers were always a prominent 
 decoration of his home. He left all the management of 
 his household to his wife, always satisfied with whatever 
 arrangements she made ; but in his study and library he 
 was left supreme, to let books and clippings accumulate 
 in piles or lie about in disorder, and in his study or 
 library he was always to be found during " work hours." 
 When the Columbia Street house was vacated many of 
 the treasures were taken to Peekskill. 
 
 Before Mr. Beecher's illness and death, the Rev. Dr. 
 
444 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Almon Gunnison, pastor of All Souls' Universalist 
 Church, Brooklyn, gives the following interesting ac- 
 count of the Plymouth pastor's library and methods of 
 work : 
 
 " Mr. Beecher early in his career confronted the ques- 
 tion whether he should cultivate a mere literary fastidi- 
 ousness, surrender himself to the delights of a literary 
 career, and so leave behind works that should stand the 
 wear and tear of time, or should secure present influence 
 at the risk, perhaps, of an ultimate decadence of his 
 literary fame. Born as he was, in an age when great re- 
 forms clamored for advocates, it could not be possible 
 that a man of his intense sympathy for humanity could 
 be content with a mere intellectual dilettanteism ; the 
 work of to-day was enough, and he cared little for post- 
 humous fame. Still, the homage of an intensely active 
 intellect has never ceased to crave food, and the books 
 have chased one another into his house, until in the old 
 home from which he only recently went out they over- 
 flowed room after room, taking possession of dining-room 
 and bedroom, attic and closet. 
 
 " I had the pleasure, not long before the breaking up of 
 Mr. Beecher's old home, of examining under the genial 
 guidance of its owner the library of the famous preacher, 
 and of gathering from his own lips many facts concerning 
 his literary habits. His library comprises perhaps six 
 thousand volumes. It is miscellaneous in character, and 
 
HOME-LIFE. 445 
 
 without special precision of arrangement. It lacks the 
 completeness of a collection, but covers with reasonable 
 fulness almost every department of thought. The relig- 
 ious department, of course, predominates, the varied 
 phases of modern religious thought being especially full. 
 Physiological books are numerous, while law, science, 
 philosophy, history, and political economy are represented 
 largely upon the shelves. The intellectual hospitality of 
 Mr. Beecher's mind is seen in the fact that on contro- 
 verted topics both sides are almost equally well repre- 
 sented. One looks in vain to find in the telltale books 
 the evidence of partisanship on the part of their owner. 
 English literature is largely represented, each period of 
 literary development having its masterpieces, while the 
 curiosities of literature, old ballads, myths, legends, folk- 
 lore, poetry, the old moralists, humorists, quaint writers 
 all are here in this cosmopolitan collection. 
 
 The intense love of Mr. Beecher for living things ani- 
 mals, plants, fishes, and especially birds would be noticed 
 by the casual visitor, even if he were without previous 
 knowledge of his tastes in these directions. " Everything 
 that has life," he quaintly remarked, " is related to me. 
 I am its Dutch uncle." The books on fishes and birds 
 were everywhere ; crowded in among the mustiest folios 
 of the Fathers were books curiously illuminated, describ- 
 ing the habits of the birds, while the flowers and ferns, 
 
 trees and fruit, kept company with the dreariest quartos 
 19 
 
446 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 and the moth-eaten relics of mediaeval days. It is well 
 known that in the earlier years of Mr. Beecher's ministry 
 he was an enthusiast in botanical studies, doing some of 
 his earliest writing on the subject of floral culture. His 
 love of flowers is proverbial, and it will be interesting to 
 know, from the evidence given by his books, that the love 
 of his youth had not passed away, for side by side with 
 the old floral books of his earlier life are the recent pub- 
 lications of the press telling the story of the flowers. 
 
 The library is especially rich in the literature of art, 
 and the number of illustrated books is very large. Choice 
 editions of Hogarth's works ; the very rare " Holy Land," 
 by Roberts, the plates of which, by special contract, were 
 destroyed after the limited edition had been printed ; 
 " Musee Francaise;" Foster's " British Gallery; " a large 
 folio copy of Lodge's " Portraits ; " very many sumptuous 
 works on uncut India paper, with artists' proofs; superb 
 works on foreign cathedrals, and " Galerie de Florence ; " 
 the " Beauties of the Court of Charles II. ; " Mrs. Jame- 
 son's larger works ; Ruskin's works, bought as they were 
 issued, and since become very valuable; Britton's " Cathe- 
 dral Antiquities ;" the "National Portrait Gallery;" Dug- 
 dale's " Monasticon," whose possession Mr. Beecher said 
 made him feel so proud that he couldn't speak to an old 
 acquaintance for a week ; Alderman Boydell's great book 
 on the character of Shakespeare, published in 1795, illus- 
 trated by Kirk, William Hamilton, Smirke, and other 
 
HOME-LIFE. 447 
 
 great artists. These are samples of the very large num- 
 ber of works of a similar class. 
 
 All the great standard histories of the life of Christ are 
 in the collection French, German, and English ; mono- 
 graphs in every tongue ; periods, phases of his life, any- 
 thing and everything that could help solve the mystery 
 of the Lord's life had an honored place. The favorite 
 divines of the great preacher, South, Berkeley, Barrow, 
 Butler, and others, are in silent fellowship with the poets 
 most esteemed. The great preacher called our attention 
 to a well-worn compilation of the early English poets, 
 Drummond, Giles, Fletcher, and Daniell, which seemed 
 to have been his life-companion. Turning to Daniell's 
 poem, " To Lady Margaret," he read it aloud with in- 
 comparable elocutionary skill, bringing out, with delicate 
 modulation, its finer poetic and literary grace. 
 
 In looking over the library of Mr. Beecher, one could 
 easily imagine that he had determined, like Bacon, to 
 "take all knowledge for his province." A young lawyer 
 could from his shelves select a law library of reasonable 
 completeness ; the young medical graduate would feel 
 rich with the professional outfit he might obtain, and the 
 student in science, philosophy, natural history, botany, 
 fishes, buds, and insects would revel here. The key to 
 the vast fund of illustration, possessed by Mr. Beecher is 
 found by even a cursory glance at this strangely diversi- 
 fied collection. His intense sympathy with every form 
 
448 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 of life, his quick, almost poetic, appreciation of the 
 beauty of the outward world, his intuitive sense of 
 humor, have found nutriment in these books, with which 
 he has been in life-long communion. He candidly con- 
 fesses his indebtedness to Crabbe for his anatomical, and 
 to Ruskin for his poetic, observation of nature. Mr. 
 Beecher has never been in any sense a collector. 
 
 Though a man of hobbies, he has rarely had any of the 
 bibliographical crazes that have unsettled so many men 
 of literary promise. Perhaps the nearest he has ever come 
 to the dangerous amusement of collecting has been in the 
 direction of art. The old house was heavily freighted 
 with the fruit of his art saunterings. Walls, drawers, 
 cases, portfolios, were loaded with copies of the great 
 works of European galleries original paintings, engrav- 
 ings, etchings of rare skill and beauty, though not in 
 many cases of great cost. The veteran preacher is a con- 
 noisseur of no mean skill. His crude taste in the earlier 
 years of his ministry in Brooklyn was trained greatly by 
 the influence of one Emile Seitz, a dealer in New York, 
 whose friendly offices as instructor he gratefully remem- 
 bers. It was his custom to visit the store of this man, 
 where he always received cordial welcome, his growing 
 taste being aided much by the genial merchant's suggest- 
 ive criticism. 
 
 Like all great workers, Mr. Beecher has found recrea- 
 tion in studies outside his regular and perhaps legitimate 
 
HOME-LIFE. ^ 449 
 
 field. At the beginning of his ministry in Indiana, as 
 already intimated, his passion was horticulture, and he 
 found rest and refreshment in his studies of flowers and 
 fruit, his earliest work as an editor being done for the 
 columns of an agricultural paper. Another singular fact 
 which has been but seldom noticed by the press is his 
 peculiar love of gems. He delights in finely polished 
 stones, finding rest, when weary, in looking at these 
 things. During his memorable war addresses in Eng- 
 land, when beset on every side, with every faculty strained 
 to its utmost tension, he found peculiar usefulness in two 
 rich opals which had been loaned him for the purpose of 
 making a selection, by a Glasgow jeweller. In the days 
 of his more active ministry he used to have a little box 
 filled with unmounted brilliants of every kind, and when 
 at his work he felt the need of some calming influence, 
 he was wont to spread his treasures before him, and in 
 their eternal fires find calm and rest. He used laugh- 
 ingly to deride this strange love as a peculiar and sense- 
 less whim, but it is not difficult to trace its origin to his 
 peculiarly sensitive love of beauty, which finds satisfac- 
 tion in that which of all things beautiful has most of 
 beauty. 
 
 Among other singular hobbies is a love of rugs. The 
 old house used to be filled with them. Of every nation- 
 ality, hue, and fabric, covering rooms and halls, matching 
 ill or well the other colors as chance might be, but giv- 
 
450 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 ing an air of most leisurely abandon and cosey comfort. 
 Few people suspect that the great preacher is an expert 
 in soaps, but such is the case, and the scent of the soap- 
 boiler's kettle is as the odors of Araby to him. Toilet 
 articles, the mysteries of the perfumer's distillations, all to 
 him are as an open book, and the literature of the toilet, 
 ancient and modern, is as familiar, and probably quite as 
 interesting, to him as the decisions of the Council of 
 Trent or the somnolent platitudes of the gnostic heresies. 
 One of his last hobbies was for pottery, though he did 
 not go very deeply into it, owing to the great pressure 
 upon his time. Unlike most men, Mr. Beecher rarely 
 outgrew his old loves. The new hobby is added to the 
 others, but it does not displace them ; as he quaintly puts 
 it, " his recreations are like an irrigating stream, to be cut 
 off in one direction, for a time, that it may be turned on 
 in another." 
 
 The consideration of Mr. Beecher's literary workshop 
 makes appropriate a word or two as to the methods of 
 the worker. In a large sense he is a law unto himself, 
 and his method is strangely methodless. " It would," 
 he says, " ruin any other man, and if what the news- 
 papers say is true, it has ruined me." When engaged in 
 more careful editorial work, or the task of authorship, he 
 reads exhaustively, yet makes but few notes, filling him- 
 self full, and then when the mood comes writing with 
 tremendous speed. His creative energy works pictori- 
 
HOME-LIFE. 45 1 
 
 ally. Even an argument lies in his mind as a picture. 
 As illustrative, he instanced the Sea of Galilee in his 
 " Life of Christ." He wishes at some time in the prog- 
 ress of his work to describe it. Slowly and carefully he 
 studies its topography, and all the elements which enter 
 into an accurate representation, works his way along its 
 shores and over the adjacent hills, goes down the val- 
 ley of the Jordan and studies the topography of the 
 Dead Sea, and then begins to make the picture in his 
 mind, adding here a color, changing there a line, until 
 slowly the whole scene, in all its varied colors, paints it- 
 self in the vividness of life upon his mind. Thus, when 
 in the progress of his work he comes to this, he has but 
 to throw the picture upon the page, as the exhibitor 
 takes the picture he desires from the box, puts it before 
 his lantern, and throws its every line upon the screen. 
 
 One of the most famous of American literary men, a 
 friend and associate of Mr. Beecher, once told the writer 
 that the great preacher was excelled in the richness of his 
 vocabulary by no writer since the days of Shakespeare, 
 and that a careful criticism of his writings would con- 
 firm that fact. This illustration of his intellectual fecun- 
 dity was also narrated : In the " Life of Christ," the 
 printers allowed first corrections without charge, but 
 subsequent changes were taxable. The publishers paid 
 $1,500 for such improvements, the fertile mind of the 
 author constantly suggesting new settings to his thought. 
 
452 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 The sermon-making process is somewhat in defiance of 
 accepted methods. In his vest-pocket he carries con- 
 stantly a tiny book in which thoughts, impressions, and 
 sermon-germs find place. It is a kind of literary scrap- 
 bag, in which hints for sermons and editorials lie in sweet 
 contiguity with anecdotes, addresses of friends, financial 
 and other memoranda. These things are plant-germs, 
 points of crystallization, and from every side they begin 
 to draw material. The picture forms rapidly within his 
 mind, the outlines of it are crudely indicated in his notes, 
 and the inspiration of the moment, when with his audi- 
 ence before him his speech is set free, supplies the rest. 
 
 As an author, Mr. Beecher may by the number of his 
 works published justly rank among the most prolific 
 writers. He is the literary father of thirty-five volumes, 
 and if the writings published without his sanction should 
 be added to the list, the number would increase to over 
 fifty. The stress of his times, his intense sympathy with 
 the living questions of the hour, have been, perhaps, an 
 inevitable hinderance to literary finish and completeness. 
 His work has been largely fragmentary, yet he cherishes 
 the hope, not without reason, that some of his sermons 
 which have touched the unchanging spiritual needs of 
 men may have a permanence beyond his own personal 
 life and fame. He feels that he has taught the young 
 clergy to find God not alone in the Record, but in the 
 contemporaneous history of to-day, and that somewhat 
 
HOME-LIFE. 453 
 
 through his work the imminent presence of the living 
 God may be seen and felt. The variety of his writings, 
 his mental vigor and originality, his unquestioned spirit- 
 ual vision, together with his complete command of all the 
 resources of the English language, cannot fail to give him 
 a lasting place among the foremost literary workers of 
 this period of American history. 
 
 Of his literary tastes Mr. Beecher has himself given an 
 idea : 
 
 " I read for three things ; first to know what the world 
 has done in the last twenty-four hours, and is about to 
 do to-day; second, for the knowledge which I especially 
 want to use in my work ; and thirdly, for what will bring 
 my mind into a proper mood. Among the authors 
 which I frequently read are De Tocqueville, Matthew 
 Arnold, Madame Guyon, and Thomas a Kempis. I 
 gather my knowledge of current thought from books and 
 periodicals and from conversation with men, from whom 
 I get much that cannot be learned in any other way. I 
 am a very slow reader. I never read for style. I should 
 urge reading history. My study of Milton has given me 
 a conception of power and vigor which I otherwise 
 should not have had. I got fluency out of Burke very 
 largely, and I obtained the sense of abjectives out of 
 
 Barrow, besides the sense of exhaustiveness." 
 19* 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 Rev. C. E. Babb. Early Days in the West The "Pepper-Box" 
 Church. Comparative Obscurity until Thirty-five Years Old. 
 Judge Tourgee's Meeting in Boyhood. Sam Payne's Experiences. 
 Captain W. L. Watson. Mr. Beecher as Chaplain. "Our Boys." 
 Nelson Sizer. Mr. Beecher's Phrenological Development. His 
 Friendship for his Old School-mate. Dr. Spurzheim. Dr. E. E. 
 Marcy. College Days. Rev. S. Giffard Nelson. Plymouth Bethel. 
 General Horatio C. King. Mr. Beecher's Ideas about Church 
 Music. Theatre-going. Private Theatricals. Soldiers' Home at 
 Leaven worth, Kan. Professor R. W. Raymond. Mr. Beecher as a 
 Lapidary. Mr. Thomas G. Shearman. Mr. Beecher's Charity. His 
 Sympathetic and Sensitive Nature. Mrs. Sarah Cole. A Reminis- 
 cence of Mr. Beecher's First Sermon in Brooklyn. Allan Forman. 
 Mr. Beecher plays Marbles with the Boys. 
 
 REV. C. E. BABB, who succeeded to the pastorate of 
 the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis when 
 Mr. Beecher was called to the Plymouth Church pulpit, 
 furnishes some interesting personal reminiscences. He 
 relates that at Lawrenceburg Mr. Beecher preached in a 
 church of about fifty members, in a building the seating 
 capacity of which was not over one hundred and fifty, 
 and he and his young wife lived part of the time, at 
 least, in rooms over a store. In September, 1839, fifteen 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 455 
 
 persons seceded from the First Presbyterian Church in 
 Indianapolis, on account of their new-school proclivities, 
 and formed the Second Presbyterian Church. There 
 were no public halls in the young city then, so this little 
 band met in an upper room of the county seminary a 
 room into which a hundred people could not have been 
 crowded. Here Mr. Beecher preached for a year, during 
 which time his congregation built a wooden church that 
 would hold almost four hundred people. It had such a 
 curious little cupola that it was popularly known as 
 " The Pepper-box Church." In this church Mr. Beecher 
 preached until September, 1847, when he went to Brook- 
 lyn. All this time his salary never exceeded $800 per 
 year. During the last two years, four wealthy parish- 
 ioners added $50 each as a private donation, and thought 
 they were dealing very liberally with their preacher. 
 Indianapolis at that time was an inland town with less 
 than five thousand inhabitants. It was distant two days 
 by " mud wagon " from Cincinnati, and its only attrac- 
 tion was that it was the capital of Hoosierdom. It is a 
 noteworthy coincidence that the first railroad in 1 Indi- 
 ana the Madison & Indianapolis was opened on the 
 very day that Mr. Beecher left for his new home in 
 Brooklyn. As he stood on the depot platform and saw 
 the crowds gathering to the celebration, he said : " I had 
 no idea that I was so popular. Why, the whole country 
 is here to see me off." 
 
456 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 During Mr. Beecher's eight years' pastorate in Indian- 
 apolis he took quite as much interest in horticulture as 
 in theology. He had a large garden of several acres in 
 the suburbs, and cultivated it with his own hands. He 
 spent a great deal more time in it than in his study. 
 He was very proud of his skill in raising vegetables, and 
 would load a wheelbarrow with pie-plant, which was one 
 of his specialties, and trundle it down to the market and 
 sell it himself, cracking jokes with his customers that 
 drew a large crowd around him. He was always indif- 
 ferent to appearances. 
 
 Small as Mr. Beecher's church was, it was never 
 crowded, except when he roused himself and announced 
 some special subject or course of lectures. This he 
 would generally do when the Legislature was in session. 
 But ordinarily he would read a sermon to a congregation 
 of from two hundred and fifty to three hundred, and 
 very few of his regular hearers dreamed that they were 
 listening to the foremost pulpit orator of the age. One 
 Sunday, in Brooklyn, a lawyer who had been one of his 
 elders while he was in Indianapolis went to hear him. 
 As he came out, the lawyer said : " I heard that very 
 sermon in our church at home four years ago. We all 
 thought it a good sermon, but had no idea that it was a 
 great one. Such is the difference between preaching to 
 three hundred people and to three thousand." 
 
 When Mr. Beecher left Indianapolis his church of 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 457 
 
 fifteen members had increased to two hundred and fifty. 
 This was the result of the growth of the city and of sev- 
 eral old-fashioned revivals. Mr. Beecher's father was a 
 noted revivalist, and impressed upon him that this was the 
 normal way of building up the church. " To illustrate 
 the personal magnetism of the man," said Mr. Babb, " I 
 went one day, six months after he left, with an elder of 
 the church, to hunt up the stray sheep of the flock. We 
 found a woman at the wash-tub in the suburbs. The 
 
 elder said to her : * Mrs. M , I believe you are a 
 
 member of our church, but I don't see you there very 
 often.' The Hoosier dame replied : 'Well, I'll tell you 
 just how it is. I heard they had a big meetin' down to 
 Beecher's. The neighbors was going ; I went with them. 
 I liked Beecher and I j'ined Beecher. But now he's gone 
 away, and I don't know who I belong to.'" 
 
 Mr. Beecher was never very ministerial in his deport- 
 ment. He did a great many things that severely tried 
 the patience and charity of the most pious people in his 
 church. And yet he was so frank and genial, and at 
 times so spiritual in his preaching, that they could not 
 help loving him. There was one venerable mother in 
 Israel who used to tell a great deal about him, but she 
 would always wind up in some such words as these : 
 " Henry did a great many things that troubled me, but, 
 after all, I cannot help believing that Henry was a good 
 man." 
 
458 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 When Mr. Beecher went to New York, in May, 1847, 
 on the invitation of the American Tract Society to speak 
 at its anniversary, he was hardly known in the East. A 
 few people had seen the little volume of sermons to 
 young men, which was the first book he ever published, 
 and knew that he had a certain kind of power ; but he 
 had no reputation as an orator. In the old Broadway 
 Tabernacle that day, while all the ministers had white 
 cravats, he wore a black bombazine stock, and that stock 
 had got twisted around so that the buckle was under one 
 ear and in plain sight, while his clothes were rusty and 
 ill-fitting. Many thought that some farmer from the 
 country had got by mistake upon the platform. When 
 the chairman announced, " The next speaker is Rev. 
 Henry Ward Beecher, of Indianapolis," he stepped to the 
 front and said : " I am going to tell you something about 
 the devil's colporteurs. I have been watching them for 
 years on the Western steamboats. I can go among them 
 as you, brethren, could not ; for you see that nobody 
 would ever suspect me of being a preacher; " and the vast 
 audience looked at that rusty suit and at that bombazine 
 stock, and laughed and laughed again. That opening 
 sentence established his reputation, and he held his au- 
 diences spellbound from that time on. The Taberna- 
 cle would be crowded whenever he was announced to 
 speak. 
 
 There is a striking contrast between Mr. Beecher's 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 459 
 
 earlier and his later ministry. Being the son of so emi- 
 nent a preacher, and himself so highly gifted, his com- 
 parative obscurity until he was thirty-five years old is 
 remarkable. But no doubt in that garden at Indian- 
 apolis he secured the vigorous health which made him 
 such a marvel of physical energy and endurance in his 
 later years. 
 
 Judge Tourgee relates the following story about Henry 
 Ward Beecher and a clever amateur newspaper reporter : 
 " Mr. Beecher and I were stopping at the Kennard House, 
 in Cleveland. The Plymouth pastor was to preach in the 
 city that night. He chanced to have a room right across 
 the hall from me. Sam Payne was a reporter on the 
 Cleveland Press. He was a green-looking country boy 
 who hadn't been on the paper long, and about as rough 
 and uncouth a citizen as you could well find. Sam went 
 up to interview Beecher. My door was partly open, and 
 I saw him go up to Beecher's door and knock. When 
 the reverend gentleman opened the door Payne presented 
 his card. Henry Ward glanced at it, and said, queru- 
 lously : ' No, I can't be interviewed. I am tired and 
 busy, and can't be annoyed with any interviewing.' The 
 reporter looked at him a moment and replied with dig- 
 nity : ' Well, Mr. Beecher, I didn't want to interview 
 you. I heard that you were in town, and knew that you 
 would feel hurt if a gentleman of my prominence didn't 
 call as a matter of courtesy.' Then, with an elaborate 
 
460 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 bow, he walked away. Beecher didn't say a word, but 
 stood and watched him until he went out of sight." 
 
 Judge Tourgee also narrates how he met Mr. Beecher 
 when he was a boy in the Berkshire Hills, when he had 
 lost his way. The only way out of his predicament was 
 to go to some of the houses in sight in the valley, inquire 
 his way home, and sneak back ignobly and shamefacedly 
 along the highway. 
 
 As he was about to take this course he heard someone 
 clambering along the rough pathway at the foot of the 
 ledge, nigh a hundred feet below him. Screened by the 
 thick laurels, he watched the new-comer's advance, him- 
 self undiscovered. He knew Mr. Beecher by sight, and 
 knew where the country house which was then his haven 
 of rest was situated. He recognized at a glance the 
 flushed face and stalwart figure, then in the prime of 
 manly strength. His brow was covered with perspira- 
 tion, for, besides the rough walk he had taken, he was 
 burdened with an armful of trophies he had gathered on 
 the way. Just at the point of the cliff a clear spring bub- 
 bled out from under a gray, mossy rock. He threw his 
 variegated armful down, tossed off his soft hat, and lying 
 prone upon the ground, quenched his thirst. Then he 
 stood up, threw back his long hair, wiped his brow, gazed 
 at the prospect that lay outspread at his feet, sat down 
 upon a spur of the rock, and picked up one by one the 
 leaves and flowers he had gathered. Then he sat for a 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 461 
 
 long time, silent and unmoving, looking down into the 
 quiet valley and off at the hazy hills beyond. The boy 
 had overcome his shyness, and was about to descend and 
 inquire his way homeward, when he heard the soft full 
 tones which stole with such insensible power into every 
 ear. Looking down, he saw his companion in the lumi- 
 nous solitude kneeling in the midst of the painted leaves 
 he had scattered on the dun rock, the bright autumn 
 sunshine lighting up the warm brown hair and touching 
 with unwanted radiance the soft lines of his placid face 
 as he prayed alone upon the mountain, with no 
 thought that anyone but God could hear. 
 
 The boy listened in amazement. He had been accus- 
 tomed to prayer. The family altar was an almost uni- 
 versal institution then. Prayer as an act of duty; prayer 
 as a religious rite ; prayer as a religious service all these 
 were familiar things to his consciousness. He even had 
 his own ideas about prayer, and when he felt that he had 
 been exceptionally bad or had a desire to be exceptionally 
 good he had sometimes tried praying on his own ac- 
 count, over and above his share in the evening and 
 morning devotions. Fie regarded it as a pretty serious 
 business, however, a thing that needed to be done and 
 ought by no means to be neglected, and which, if per- 
 severed in, brought at length a sort of fervid rapture which 
 carried the worshipper into a mystic realm of supernatural 
 bliss. But such a prayer as this he had never heard be- 
 
462 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD B.EECHER. 
 
 fore indeed, he has never heard such another since. A 
 calm, tender, quivering rhapsody of thankfulness that 
 God had made the earth so beautiful. A burst of grati- 
 tude for mountain and valley, river and spring, rock and 
 brake, .sunshine and shadow, tinted leaf and whirring 
 pheasant everything that had gladdened the eye or 
 charmed the sense during the autumnal stroll. 
 
 " I have no idea how long he prayed," says the judge. 
 " For the first time I thought a prayer too short. I wished 
 that he might keep on forever. I had some curious 
 fancies during its continuance. Perhaps, as I looked at 
 his glowing face and saw his dewy, luminous eyes as it 
 concluded, I may be pardoned if I thought of the Mount 
 of Transfiguration. I trust there was no sacrilege in it. 
 After a while I stole down and timidly asked my way 
 home. I felt ashamed of having been an eavesdropper on 
 his devotions. He evidently noted it, and to put me at 
 my ease asked me if I did not think it was " a pretty 
 cradle God had made for his children." He walked 
 nearly a mile with me away from his house, which must 
 have been three or four miles from our starting-point, to 
 make sure that I did not lose my way. 1 do not remem- 
 ber anything he said, but I walked all the way home in a 
 sort of delicious dream, full of strange, vague aspirations 
 and sweet, tender recollections. Somehow I came to see 
 more in nature afterward than I had ever done before, 
 and I have never ceased to be grateful that 1 heard this 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 463 
 
 prayer in the mountain oratory. My relations with him 
 were not close enough to justify recalling the incident to 
 his memory, and I suppose he died quite unconscious of 
 the identity of the uncouth lad whom he that day initi- 
 ated, not so much into nature's mysteries, for I was no 
 mean woodman even then, but into their mystical rela- 
 tion to God the giver and man the happy recipient. It 
 is probable he had long since forgotten the trivial inci- 
 dent, but for the sweet lesson, in common with many 
 thousands, I still remain his grateful debtor." 
 
 Captain W. L. Watson, Company E, Thirteenth Regi- 
 ment, N. G. S. N. Y. (of which since February, 1878, 
 Mr. Beecher was chaplain, that company being principally 
 organized through his efforts), relates some pleasant remi- 
 niscences of Mr. Beecher in connection with the regi- 
 ment. 
 
 " The furnishing of the company's room, which is the 
 finest in Brooklyn," said the captain, " was defrayed en- 
 tirely by contributions from prominent members of Ply- 
 mouth Church, and from the receipts of a fair held under 
 Mrs. Beecher's auspices. Mr. Beecher never failed, on 
 any anniversary dinner of the company, to send a com- 
 munication to us of good cheer and fellowship. On his 
 seventieth birthday the company presented him with a 
 chair, and he addressed a very quaint letter to me ac- 
 knowledging the gift. He said that he could not enjoy 
 the luxury of the chair at present, but some day he 
 
464 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 would, when old enough, do so with pleasant recollec- 
 tions of the source from whence it came. Whenever he 
 or Mrs. Beecher sent us an invitation, it was always ad- 
 dressed to ' Our Boys,' meaning the company. The last 
 time the company met Mr. Beecher was at a fair held 
 the latter part of February just a week before he was 
 taken ill at Plymouth Church. After he had greeted 
 us and announced the fact that there was plenty of ice- 
 cream, he came up to the table carrying a number of 
 packages in his arms, and asked whether there was any 
 young man present who would take the packages home 
 for him. Immediately several of the men sprung for- 
 ward, but Mr. Beecher, with a merry twinkle in his eye, 
 motioned them back, clutched the packages more tightly 
 in his arms, and said : ' No, you won't ; I meant my home. 
 Good-night ! ' " 
 
 Nelson Sizer, Professor of Mental Science in the 
 American Institute of Phrenology, in an interesting 
 critical estimate of Mr. Beecher's mental qualities from a 
 phrenological point of view, said : 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher was a genius. His faculties 
 were extraordinarily well balanced, and his physical and 
 mental powers were prodigious. His father was brave, 
 hardy, and earnest ; his mother was a natural poet and 
 artist, and he took his fine imagination from her, and his 
 thunder and courage from his father. His head was 
 twenty-three inches, his body weighed over two hundred 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 465 
 
 and twenty pounds, and fed his brain abundantly, and 
 gave him his masterly talent for much and easy work. 
 He had the finest quality of brain of any man in the 
 United States, and knew how to take care of his body 
 and his brain. 
 
 When Dr. Spurzheim came over from Europe to teach 
 the new science of phrenology there was much opposition 
 to him, and after his death phrenology was fiercely dis- 
 cussed and ridiculed all over the country. In Amherst 
 College it was sought to demolish the science by getting 
 Henry Ward Beecher to take the negative side of the 
 debate on the question, " Is Phrenology entitled to the 
 name of science ? " But even then, a young student, Mr. 
 Beecher was not a superficial man, and he resolved to 
 study up the subject. So he sent to Boston by stage for 
 the works of Spurzheim and Combe, intending to post 
 himself from the opposition stand-point, but he found so 
 much in the books that he asked for more time, and 
 finally got the debate postponed two weeks. Then he 
 delivered a speech in favor of phrenology that astonished 
 the college and the town. 
 
 After the debate, young Beecher asked a class-mate 
 named Fowler if he would not like to read his books on 
 phrenology. The young man said he would, and from 
 that time the name Fowler and Phrenology became 
 wedded. Thus it was that Henry Ward Beecher gave 
 to science in America one of its most ardent adherents. 
 
466 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Mr. Beecher's chief ability lay in the discussion of 
 talent, character, and disposition. In that field his knowl- 
 edge of phrenology was the key to his power over men, 
 for then he talked directly to faculty, and as he went 
 " from grave to gay, from lively to severe," men felt 
 touched in their strongest and weakest points, and imag- 
 gined that he knew them through and through. 
 
 Mr. Beecher once said to the late Samuel R. Wells : 
 " If I were the owner of an island, and had all the books, 
 apparatuses, and appliances, tools to cultivate the soil, 
 manufacture, cook, and carry on life's affairs in comfort 
 and refinement, and on some dark night pirates should 
 come and burn my books, musical instruments, works of 
 art, furniture, tools and machinery, and leave me the 
 land, and the empty barns and house, I should be, in 
 respect to the successful carrying on of my affairs, in very 
 much the same plight that I should be as a preacher if 
 phrenology, and all that it has taught me of man, his 
 character, his wants and his improvement, were blotted 
 from my mind." 
 
 On another occasion he said : " All my life long I have 
 been in the habit of using phrenology as that which 
 solves the practical phenomena of life. I regard it as far 
 more useful, practical, and sensible than any other system 
 of mental philosophy which has yet been evolved. Cer- 
 tainly, phrenology has introduced mental philosophy to 
 the common people." 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 467 
 
 Dr. Erastus E. Marcy, a class-mate of Mr. Beecher at 
 Amherst, and one of the Amherst Alumni committee to 
 attend the funeral, says : 
 
 " I knew Mr. Beecher intimately at college. He im- 
 pressed me even at college as a man of great ability and 
 remarkable character. He was some years my senior, 
 and older than most of his class-mates, perhaps. From 
 the first he showed a strong head, and a wonderful abil- 
 ity in debating and arguing with and persuading over 
 the rest of us to his views. He took a lead, too, in 
 athletic sports, and was a live, active fellow in every- 
 thing he tried. He had a warm heart, great generosity 
 and impulsiveness, humor and wit. He always im- 
 pressed me as a noble, large-brained man, with strong 
 emotions and quick feelings, though incapable of doing 
 a meanness or a wrong. I think even in college we 
 looked on him as marked out for a brilliant career. I 
 cannot recall now one of a hundred incidents in which he 
 showed his generosity and force and eloquence, but there 
 were hundreds of them. We admired and loved him. 
 In no bad sense, he was the l popular ' man of the class." 
 
 Rev. S. Giffard Nelson, the pastor of Trinity Baptist 
 Church, Brooklyn, a former preacher at Plymouth 
 Bethel, says : 
 
 " My relations with Mr. Beecher while preaching at 
 Plymouth Bethel were of an incidental kind. Yet there 
 was inspiration even in meeting him now and then. He 
 
468 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 was uniformly kind, and gave me the most valuable hints 
 and suggestions. When I went to Plymouth Bethel my 
 friends told Mr. Beecher that I was a Baptist. ' I have 
 no better friends in this country than the Baptists,' said 
 Mr. Beecher. And to me afterward he said : c I like a 
 man who holds fast to truth as he sees it, but I am done 
 with the controversy with your folks, if I ever had one. 
 In fact, that died with Fox and the Anabaptists.' 
 
 " He understood that I clung tenaciously to the prin- 
 ciples of my denomination, and in his love of pleasantry, 
 once when he came down to christen the ' Bethel. babies,' 
 as they were called, he turned to me after the ceremony 
 and playfully insisted that I should let him do the same 
 for me. He thought me a theological baby, I suppose. 
 
 " I recall a conversation I had with him in his own 
 parlor before he took his trip West in 1883. He then 
 spoke about Plymouth Church and the strange compo- 
 sition of its membership. ' I believe,' he said, ' we have 
 all denominations in Plymouth Church. We have Con- 
 gregational ists, of course, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, 
 Methodists, Roman Catholics, or those who have been, 
 Baptists, and I know not what others. Some from every 
 fold. It saddens me most of all things,' he added, as he 
 had said to so many, 'when I think of what will become 
 of Plymouth Church after my departure.' He sat, as he 
 spoke (it was a very warm day), in his shirt, trousers, and 
 stockings, in the midst of portmanteaus and traps that 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 469 
 
 were preparing for his journey, and that he had had brought 
 into the parlor for his convenience, I suppose, and as he 
 uttered the words he looked down steadily upon the floor, 
 and his great eyelids drooped, and the shades crept over 
 his face, so eloquent as the interpreter of his emotions." 
 
 General Horatio C. King, alluding to Mr. Beecher's 
 fondness of music, says : 
 
 His fondness of music was a special bond of sympa- 
 thy with me, and with that faculty he had of winning 
 friends to him and making them do his will cheerfully he 
 soon had'me in harness in the musical work. The church 
 had just before expended an unusually large sum for a 
 new organ upward of thirty thousand dollars. While 
 it was being put together, Mr. Beecher was as much in- 
 terested as a boy with a new toy, now going around the 
 workmen, asking questions without number, studying 
 the mechanism, cracking jokes on all sides, and finally 
 immortalizing the largest of the pipes of the thirty-two- 
 foot diapason by crawling through it. He was not so 
 large then as in the last few years of his life, but he was 
 big enough to fill the great tube and have a pretty hard 
 struggle to crawl through. The pipe still bears in lead- 
 pencil an inscription of this exploit. 
 
 Mr. Beecher's constant lament was that the then largest 
 church organ in America should be shut up all the week 
 and heard only on the Sabbath, and then in music ap- 
 propriate for the Sabbath-day. So he pressed several of 
 
 20 
 
470 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 us into the service, and instituted the series of organ con- 
 certs, some two hundred in number, which were extended 
 through several years. They did more to popularize 
 good organ music than anything ever before done. A 
 nominal charge for admission was made. The best or- 
 ganists were secured, and many times hundreds were un- 
 able to gain entrance to the church. He was a constant 
 attendant himself, and witnessed with great gratification 
 that the example was speedily followed, not only in New 
 York and Brooklyn, but throughout the country, so that 
 organ recitals in churches of all denominations ho longer 
 excite comment. Although he could not play any in- 
 strument, he had a very good theoretical knowledge of 
 the art, and could read ordinary music with some facility. 
 His sermons abound in illustrations drawn from music 
 and musical instruments, and he never blundered, as 
 speakers often do, in their apt application. 
 
 His disregard of the conventionalities of dress and eti- 
 quette were especially marked. If he ever owned a dress- 
 coat he never brought it out, and gloves were an abhor- 
 rence to him, except as a protection against the cold. 
 He was as free from ostentation as the humblest mem- 
 ber of his congregation, and yet an innate dignity pre- 
 served him from undue familiarity. He was never more 
 happy than in the household, where he could gather the 
 children about him, join in their sports and gambols 
 the most interested child of them all. 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 471 
 
 It was the highest enjoyment of the children of larger 
 growth to inveigle him into a discussion and ingeniously 
 leave him at last to do pretty much all the talking, when 
 he would draw from his apparently unlimited storehouse 
 of information, interlarding his talk with abundant wit 
 and humor, of which the supply seemed to be inexhaust- 
 ible. 
 
 In our various plans for amusing the young people we 
 were accustomed to get up charades, usually without 
 much preparation, and into these crude performances he 
 entered with as much zest as the youngest of the auditors. 
 If he happened to be hit off by some caricature, no one 
 enjoyed it more or laughed more heartily than he did. 
 His favorite position was on the floor with the children, 
 and his presence was also an inspiration to the amateur 
 performers, who knew they had in him a most generous 
 critic. 
 
 Probably no pastor ever had a more hearty corps of 
 workers than he had, and whatever he desired done there 
 were always plenty of willing hands to help. Little ac- 
 count has ever been made of the almost innumerable 
 benefactions made by means of concerts, fairs, teas, read- 
 ings, recitations, and similar means by which enjoyment 
 was combined with profit. Thousands of hearts have 
 been made happy in this way, and to the young espe- 
 cially, the church and Sunday-school have always been 
 made the most delightful place outside of the family. 
 
472 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 All of this was somewhat of a revelation to me, who had 
 always heard church-going and Sunday-school attendance 
 and work held up as a solemn duty ; for he made it a 
 pleasure and a delight. 
 
 He was in all relations of life truly great. His re- 
 markable self-control surpassed any I have ever known. 
 He was complete master of his feelings, and in the 
 twenty-two years of my acquaintance with him I have 
 never seen him give way to anger, though many times 
 he has had ample provocation. His disposition was as 
 nearly perfect as it seems to me possible to any human 
 being. His forgiving nature was sublime, and I believe 
 he did not harbor any ill-feeling even against those who 
 had wronged him most. 
 
 Only the week before his death he entered with his 
 usual zeal into a scheme for aiding the Soldiers' Home 
 at Leavenworth, Kan., to secure a library, as the Govern- 
 ment makes no appropriation for that purpose. The 
 Governor, Colonel Smith, had made an earnest appeal 
 for books to keep the soldiers at the home and away 
 from the temptations of the neighboring city. So we 
 planned a concert, and Mr. Beecher promised a good 
 notice, adding that he proposed to practise what he 
 preached and would send at least twenty-five volumes. 
 The next day down came two wheelbarrow-loads of ex- 
 cellent books from his library, and the congregation also 
 liberally increased the donation." 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 473 
 
 Professor Rossiter W. Raymond, who grew up under 
 Mr. Beecher's ministrations, says : " Many of his appli- 
 cations of science in the service of religion have been 
 such as to invite collaboration and assistance from me, 
 which I have given, receiving a good deal more than I 
 gave. Mr. Beecher used to carry rubies and topazes in 
 his pockets. He never included diamonds, as he did 
 not like them. Some of the stones belonged to him ; 
 some were lent. I have known him to sit for over an 
 hour at a time with his head in his hands, simply looking 
 into the hearts of these stones. He told me they were 
 like flowers to him, only more convenient to carry. 
 Some of the most magnificent outbursts of Mr. Beecher's 
 eloquence came unaware and suddenly in private conver- 
 sation. His words were squandered upon a few, when 
 they would have electrified thousands. 
 
 "Though he was passionately fond of Beethoven's 
 music, he gave up frequenting the Philharmonic concerts 
 because they exhausted him for his Sunday work. He 
 regulated his eating and sleeping so that they should 
 not interfere with his work. He had a most forgiving 
 nature, and he never spoke or wrote unkindly of anyone. 
 Once a man behaved so badly to Mr. Beecher that I cut 
 him dead. I was angry. For years we did not speak. 
 Imagine what I felt one day to see Mr. Beecher going 
 down the street with him, arm-in-arm. ' Well,' said I to 
 the pastor, ( if you can't cherish your own grudges, how 
 
474 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 can I cherish them for you.' He laughed, and told me 
 to drop it." 
 
 Thomas G. Shearman, one of Mr. Beecher's closest 
 friends, and his confidential legal adviser in the Beecher- 
 Tilton suit, says : 
 
 "The first thing that struck me about Mr. Beecher, 
 when I met him thirty-four years ago for the first time, 
 was his wonderful simplicity, his entire absence of selfish- 
 ness. I was then a poor boy, and was introduced to him 
 by a young man who was not only poor himself, but 
 whose acquaintance with Mr. Beecher was very limited. 
 Yet he received me in the same manner and with as 
 much cordiality as if the introduction had come from 
 one of his closest friends. He chatted pleasantly with 
 me, and when he discovered that I sought his advice, al- 
 though hundreds of people were crowding about anxious 
 to get a word with him, he did not cut me short. He 
 listened patiently, and with apparent interest, advised me 
 carefully, and left it to me to terminate the interview. 
 All that I have seen of him since has confirmed my first 
 impression that he was the most sympathetic and kind- 
 hearted of men. 
 
 One of his chief characteristics was his utter disregard 
 for rank, station, or wealth. The rich and poor were 
 alike to him, and I may mention an instance of this which 
 came under my own observation. At our Friday night 
 meetings there was one man who spoke almost every 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 475 
 
 time, fluently and intelligently, and with great fervor. 
 He was a stranger to most of us, a poor Scotch pedler, I 
 think, and yet Mr. Beecher seemed to pay special atten- 
 tion to him, and asked him to speak oftener than any 
 member of the congregation. 
 
 I often argued with Mr. Beecher, and yet he never 
 took offence. Thoroughly off-hand, frank and open, he 
 always spoke his mind, and yet was very careful not to 
 hurt the feelings of others. This consideration for others 
 was, in fact, something remarkable. He was never care- 
 ful, it is true, of what he said, but somehow escaped 
 wounding anyone seriously. His keen sense of humor 
 was continually finding amusement in the mistakes and 
 slips of speech of speakers in the meetings. This, how- 
 ever, was never perceptible except through the twinkle 
 of an eye or the twitching of the lips, unless the con- 
 gregation thoroughly caught the point, and then he 
 would give way to the general feeling and make some 
 sly, good-natured comment. 
 
 Many people misjudge him because he never visited 
 the sick and dying. He never, at least as far as I know, 
 undertook any of the technical pastoral work. His rea- 
 sons for not" doing it were not generally understood. He 
 was easily affected by sorrow, sickness, or death, and a 
 performance of the technical duties of the church would, 
 on account of his over-sympathetic nature, have certain- 
 ly overwhelmed him and consumed his vital energies. 
 
476 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Those who knew him best were thoroughly aware of 
 this, and although I have had several deaths in my 
 family, I never asked him to attend funerals. His nat- 
 ure was a sensitive one, and to a certain extent he was 
 obliged to harden himself on the outside or he would 
 never have been equal to his great work. 
 
 As a preacher he was like an air-plant. His inspira- 
 tion was drawn, not from books or study, but from an 
 actual observance of and contact with men. The ideas 
 he gathered thus he reproduced in dazzling forms. He 
 judged that his mission and duty as a preacher were to 
 accomplish the best pulpit work possible, and he bent 
 everything to this. A great head and a great heart, a 
 tender, sympathetic nature, quick perception, and lenient 
 judgment all these enabled him to see gold in mankind 
 where others could discover nothing but dross. His very 
 presence always struck me as that of a lion with a big 
 heart having power to smite to the earth, but disdain- 
 ing to harm even the weakest." 
 
 An old journalist of New York thus relates how he 
 first saw Mr. Beecher in 1854: 
 
 " I was then a boy setting type in Gray's printing office, 
 Frankfort and Cliff Streets, in this city. The Indepen- 
 dent^ the Knickerbocker, The Protestant Churchman, and 
 other publications were printed there. Mr. Beecher was 
 editor of The Independent at that time. Once a week he 
 came to the establishment to read his proof-sheets. The 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 477 
 
 proof-room opened directly back of my case. Everything 
 said within it was heard by the boys at the row of cases. 
 Louis Gaylord Clark, ex-President Roberts of Liberia, 
 old Dr. Tyng, and others frequently met Mr. Beecher in 
 this room and exchanged the latest stories. There were 
 no chestnuts in those days. Clark was excessively funny. 
 His yarns were light and trifling, and provoked surface 
 laughter. Beecher's stories were told with a gravity and 
 a sedateness that gathered all the elements of humor in 
 narration, and launched the climax upon the hearer with 
 side-splitting suddenness. His vividness of description 
 and terseness of phraseology never shone to better ad- 
 vantage than when whiling away a social hour in the 
 presence of literary friends. 
 
 " I last saw Mr. Beecher at the reception given to David 
 Dudley Field on his eightieth birthday. It was at the 
 house of his brother Cyrus, near Gramercy Park. The 
 parlors were filled with eminent men. Among them 
 were Roscoe Conkling, Jay Gould, John Kelly, Stephen 
 J. Field, John B. Haskin, George H. Watrous, and a 
 host of lesser lights. The greatest attractions were three 
 clergymen. One was Mr. Beecher, the second was the 
 Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, and the third was Monseign- 
 eur Capel. Beecher and Talmage were the centre of 
 admiring groups, while the Monseigneur stood in an an- 
 gle of the parlor shaking hands with those who had the 
 pleasure of an introduction. It was evident that neither 
 
 20* 
 
4/8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Mr. Beecher nor Dr. Talmage knew of the presence of 
 the distinguished Roman Catholic divine. The Mon- 
 seigneur wore a suit of clerical black, with a lilac-colored 
 sash over his shoulders and around his waist. When 
 asked whether he wished an introduction to Mr. Beecher, 
 he smiled and replied : 
 
 " ' It would be the greatest pleasure of my life. He is 
 the one man in America whom I particularly desire to 
 meet.' 
 
 " Three minutes later I had Mr. Beecher by the arm. 
 I told him that the Monseigneur desired an introduction 
 to him. Mr. Beecher's eyes twinkled. 
 
 " ' What's his calibre ? ' he asked, as he moved toward 
 the lilac-softened sash. ' And can you tell me whether 
 he is loaded for bear or for quail ? ' 
 
 " As the pride of intellectual Brooklyn was presented the 
 English priest moved forward and shook both his hands. 
 
 " ' Ah, Mr. Beecher,' said he, * this is indeed a pleas- 
 ure. Do I at last see the world-renowned apostle of 
 America ? It has been the ambition of my life. This is 
 the proudest moment of my existence.' 
 
 " ' The pleasure is mutual,' Mr. Beecher replied. * I 
 am glad to meet you. Your intellect I have admired, 
 but you are a much more handsome man than I had 
 imagined.' 
 
 " ' What,' broke in the Monseigneur, with a low laugh, 
 * getting jealous of me already ? ' 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 4/9 
 
 " After further pleasant badinage, Mr. Beecher gravely 
 invited Capel to come over to Plymouth Church some 
 Sunday and preach to his congregation. 
 
 " ' Beware, Mr. Beecher,' responded the Monseigneur, 
 in a seductive tone ; ' this is a day of wonderful possibil- 
 ities. I might turn your flock from the error of its ways. 
 Some might be converted.' 
 
 " ' If in one hour you can undo what it has taken me 
 forty years to develop,' Mr. Beecher said, ' you must be 
 a very remarkable man indeed. Come and preach to us. 
 It will do you good, and we shall be glad to listen to 
 you/ 
 
 " About this time the Rev. Dr. Talmage was intro- 
 duced. The Monseigneur had begun to anoint him with 
 the oil of flattery, when Mr. Thomas McElrath presented 
 Russell Sage. 
 
 " * He's worth $10,000,000,' were the words whispered in 
 the priest's ear, whereupon the man immortalized in 
 * Lothair ' turned his back on both Beecher and Talmage, 
 and vainly tried to fascinate the big-tailed fox of Wall 
 Street." 
 
 Mrs. Sarah Cole, eighty years of age, lives at 248 Adel- 
 phi Street, Brooklyn. Her father, John Cole, was the 
 first of that name to settle in Brooklyn. He lived with 
 his family for thirty years in a house which stood on the 
 site of Plymouth Bethel. The family were Episcopali- 
 ans, and went to old St. Ann's Church, but Mrs. Sarah 
 
480 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Cole went to hear the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher deliver 
 his first sermon in Plymouth Church, after he had been 
 called, and she has a very vivid recollection of it. 
 
 Her memory is excellent and her eyes undimmed in spite 
 of her years. She talks and laughs as cheerily as though 
 she were a score of years younger, and said to a visitor : 
 
 " I remember well the first sermon that Henry Ward 
 Beecher preached in Brooklyn after he had been called. 
 The church was crowded ; all the aisles were filled. Mr. 
 Beecher took for his text the words, ' Jesus Christ and 
 Him crucified.' He was a slim young man of medium 
 height. He had long dark hair and very strong features. 
 The face was not handsome, but very good. Such oratory 
 I never heard in all my life. What he said sounded so new, 
 nobody had ever heard anything like it before. It made 
 people feel so bright. The Bible was lighted up and 
 made plain and real to us. When the service was over 
 you ought to have heard people talking as they were going 
 out of the doors. They were astonished, and said to each 
 other, * That's preaching for you.' The congregation of St. 
 Ann's Church thought we were terrible. They imagined 
 we were going to leave the Episcopalians and join Ply- 
 mouth Church, but there was no fear of that we were too 
 much attached to Dr. Cutler. We went to hear Mr. 
 Beecher quite often, though, and grew to love him very 
 much. People didn't know what to make of Mr. Beecher. 
 They said he was not orthodox, but those who heard him 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 481 
 
 once said he was orthodox enough for them. He never 
 put on any airs even in those days. He was very good 
 to the poor. 
 
 " I was in his church on the morning the fire started. 
 Smoke was coming from some place and filling the room. 
 Deacon Howard approached Mr. Beecher, who was in his 
 pulpit, and whispered to ask if it would not do better to 
 dismiss the congregation. He said, ' Oh, no,' and went 
 on with the service. After the service was over they 
 hunted out the fire and extinguished it, but the flames 
 burst out again and the place burned down. The con- 
 gregation got a temporary place while the church was 
 being rebuilt. Clergymen and strict church people of 
 other denominations thought Beecher was off the track. 
 They said he was a Universalist, but he wasn't. He was 
 just as liberal then to all other denominations as he was 
 when he died. He never said anything against any other 
 creed. I've heard him say he would like to sit beside the 
 Roman Catholics in heaven. And he not only never 
 spoke any harm of others, but he also never thought any 
 harm of them. He was the most unsuspicious man I 
 ever met. He made the very best of everybody. The 
 good which he did was incalculable here. Six years ago 
 my sister went out on Sunday morning and came home 
 late for dinner. I said : ' Where have you been ? ' * I've 
 been in heaven,' she said. ' How you talk,' said I ; ' your 
 dinner has grown cold.' ' What I heard was dinner 
 
482 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 enough for me,' she said ; ' I was at Plymouth Church 
 listening to Mr. Beecher preaching. Oh, he was grand ! '' 
 That was the last sermon my sister ever heard. She took 
 pneumonia, and was dead in two weeks, but I believe that 
 sermon brightened her last days." 
 
 Allan Forman, editor of The Journalist, tells an anec- 
 dote charmingly illustrative of the interest Mr. Beecher 
 took in young people, and incidentally, of the broad 
 quality of his mind, which deemed nothing of kindly no- 
 tice too trivial for his remembrance. 
 
 " I was born almost within a stone's-throw of Mr. 
 Beecher's house, in Brooklyn," says Mr. Forman, "and 
 among my earliest recollections is that of the kind face of 
 the great pastor of the Plymouth Church. Mr. Beecher 
 was the friend of every boy in the neighborhood, and 
 nothing seemed to please him better than to watch us at 
 our games and to have us appeal to him for some decision 
 in our childish squabbles. 
 
 " I remember one morning it must have been twenty 
 odd years ago a crowd of us youngsters were playing 
 marbles not far from Mr. Beecher's house. Mr. Beecher 
 was out for his usual morning walk, and when he came to 
 us he stopped and stood for some time watching us as we 
 snapped the marbles around and yelled at the top of our 
 voices. At last he said : ' Now, look here, boys, you 
 don't know how to play marbles. You ought to let me 
 show you how.' " 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 483 
 
 " ' Come in ! Give us some points, Mr. Beecher ! ' we 
 yelled, and waited with our mouths open and our eyes 
 dancing, to see him get -down on his knees and win all 
 our marbles from us. 
 
 " ' Well, I am going down the street now,' said Mr. 
 Beecher, ' but I will come back in a few minutes and we 
 will have a good game.' 
 
 " And pretty soon he did come back ; and what made 
 us almost jump up and down with joy was that his 
 pockets were fairly bulging out with marbles. 
 
 " ' Come on, boys,' he said, and he stooped down and 
 started in on a game of ' snap in the ring.' 
 
 " Unfortunately for Mr. Beecher's prestige, his hands 
 were rather stiff, and it was not long before it was my luck, 
 as I was pretty nimble with the marbles, to ' clean him 
 out,' so to speak. In fact, when he got away from us he 
 didn't have a marble left, for we were playing ' in earnest.' 
 
 " Mr. Beecher took his defeat very good-naturedly, and 
 with the smiling remark that * he guessed he'd have to 
 practise a little before he tried it again,' left us. 
 
 " I had forgotten all about the incident, but not very 
 long ago I attended a fair at the Plymouth Church with 
 my wife, when Mr. Beecher came along and touched Mrs. 
 Forman on the shoulder, and pointing to me, said : 
 'Mrs. Forman, do you know that I haven't played marbles 
 since your husband swindled me out of my whole stock 
 when he was a boy.' " 
 
484 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 When Mr. Beecher was in Chicago a few years ago, a 
 reporter of one of the morning papers was assigned by 
 his city editor to report a sermon which the divine was 
 to preach at Centenary Church. While on his way from 
 the church to his office the reporter lost his notes out of 
 his pocket. In his desperation the news-gatherer sought 
 Mr. Beecher at his rooms, at the Palmer House, and 
 begged the divine to help him out of his dilemma. Mr. 
 Beecher, who was in bed at the time, arose and, seating 
 himself beside the reporter, went over his sermon with 
 so much deliberation that the newspaper man was en- 
 abled to give his paper the best report printed in the 
 city the next morning. This is only one of the many 
 courtesies Mr. Beecher showed to reporters. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 
 
 Fishing with Lampson at Litchfield. Result of Divine Mercy. An April 
 Fool. An Old Reporter's Reminiscences. A Friend to Newspaper 
 Men. Knowing One's Own Country. The Mood Necessary for 
 Work. The Leather Promissory Note. Weak Coffee. The Warm 
 Icicle. A Feast at Waterbury. Dr. Hall and Mr. Beecher. Mr. 
 Beecher's Humor. A Total Abstainer at Public Dinners. Mr. 
 Beecher's Visits to Washington. His Dinner Habits. A Bridal 
 Substitute. Hon. Willard Bartlett. Mr. Beecher's Fondness for 
 Dogs. The Prayer for Delivery from Sudden Death. A Little Boy's 
 Compliment. Last Appearance in Public in New York. Dr. Tal- 
 mage. Mr. Beecher a Good Swimmer. The Debating Society. 
 The "Beecher Calendar." Rev. Frank Russell. Rev. William M. 
 Taylor. Crossing the East River on the Ice. Eating Candy like a 
 School-boy. The Railway Lunch- Counter. Misunderstood in a Ser- 
 mon. Dead Letters. The Photographs. The Stomach the Boiler of 
 the System. The Giddy Gusher's Reminiscences. Mr. Beecher's 
 Friendship for Actors. His Present to Ellen Terry. 
 
 A GOOD story is told of Mr. Beecher when years ago he 
 spent a portion of his vacation at Litchfield. It was be- 
 fore the war, when the distinction, even in our Northern 
 States, was marked between the white man and the col- 
 ored man. Mr. Beecher had donned his regimentals, as 
 he called them, consisting of high top-boots, a farmer's 
 
486 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 straw hat, blouse coat, and pants tucked slouchingly in- 
 side his boots. Lampson, the whitewasher, was of gi- 
 gantic form, and as black as the ace of spades. 
 
 Mr. Beecher was in readiness to start for Bantam Lake, 
 when Mr. Hollister who was to accompany him, was 
 detained on legal business by parties from out of town. 
 
 " Never mind, Hollister," said Mr. Beecher, " I will go 
 on alone." 
 
 The first person he met after leaving the Mansion 
 House was the black person, Mr. Lampson. 
 
 " See here, my man," said Mr. Beecher, " do you ever 
 go fishing ? " 
 
 " Yes, sah." 
 
 " And enjoy it ? " 
 
 "Yes, sah." 
 
 " Well, then, come with me." 
 
 While Lampson was absent for the horse someone told 
 him that his companion was no less a personage than the 
 great preacher, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Lamp- 
 son was awe-stricken. Forgetting to secure the horse, he 
 approached Mr. Beecher, hat in hand, and said : 
 
 " Be you Mr. Beecher ? " 
 
 " Yes," laughed the preacher, " but what of that ? " 
 
 " I was sure you had made a mistake, or perhaps you 
 are most blind." 
 
 " Not in the least, my man. Come, the sun is getting 
 high ; let's be off." 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 487 
 
 Lampson made another stand against occupying the 
 same wagon-seat with the great man, but finally all ob- 
 stacles were removed, and they started at a rapid pace 
 down West Hill. 
 
 The fishing was excellent, and Lampson drew up his 
 lines about as rapidly as he could set them. Soon the 
 bottom of the boat was well filled with pickerel, roach, 
 a few catfish, and one bass. But Mr. Beecher had not 
 been successful in making. a single haul. 
 
 As Lampson was gathering up the fish, Mr. Beecher 
 still sat in the boat and watched him with a serene ex- 
 pression upon his face as he said: "Don't tell me that 
 the black man is the white man's inferior. Look at the 
 spoils of to-day. Which is the better man of the two ? " 
 From that day out the colored people of Litchfield had a 
 reverence for Mr. Beecher which exceeded that for any 
 other earthly human being, and Lampson especially was 
 ready always to assert that he was one of the greatest of 
 the great men of the age and time. 
 
 When the Lyman Beecher Lectureship in the Yale 
 Theological School was established, the distinguished 
 son of the great polemic was naturally chosen as the 
 first lecturer. This was in 1872, when his intellectual 
 and oratorical powers were at their climax, and his fame 
 was brightest. Of course, the size of the chapel, which 
 was far too small, was the only limit to the size of the 
 audiences. It was Mr. Beecher's custom, at the close of 
 
488 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 every lecture, to submit to a rattling fire of cross-ques- 
 tions upon every phase of theological doctrine, of homi- 
 letics, and of pastoral work. Professors and students 
 were the questioners, and it will readily be believed that 
 some of them sought rather to puzzle the witness than 
 to elucidate the subject. But Mr. Beecher never hesi- 
 tated for an answer, and often turned the laugh upon 
 the man who perhaps had expected to embarrass him. 
 Altogether, it was a remarkable display of mental nimble- 
 ness. One day an anxious inquirer, after many efforts, 
 obtained a hearing, and asked : 
 
 " Mr. Beecher, how is it, in your opinion, that there 
 are so many short pastorates in these days ? " 
 
 " Largely of the Divine mercy," was the instantaneous 
 response. 
 
 It is needless to add that the audience broke into a 
 roar of laughter, which burst forth anew as often as it 
 subsided, until it seemed as if it would never stop. 
 
 One of the almost countless instances of Mr. Beecher's 
 readiness at repartee occurred a few years ago on the first 
 of April. Some would-be wag sent him a letter con- 
 taining on a sheet of paper only the words, " April Fool." 
 Mr. Beecher opened it, and then a delighted smile beamed 
 over his face as he exclaimed : " Well ! I've often heard 
 of a man writing a letter and forgetting to sign it ; but 
 this is the first case of a man signing his name and for- 
 getting to write the letter ! " 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 489 
 
 " The newspaper men will always remember him with 
 kind regard," remarks an old New York reporter. " Of 
 all prominent public men, I think he was the most ap- 
 proachable. Even during his great trials both Church 
 and State the eminent divine was affable to the 
 humblest scribe, though the latter may have been con- 
 nected with a paper that was anti-Beecher, with a duty 
 assigned him that was to discolor the bright plush of 
 Plymouth's pulpit. True it is that his counsel and friends 
 kept Mr. Beecher as much aloof as possible from inter- 
 views by press representatives, and well they might, for 
 words had been placed in type in cold lead that never 
 fell from the great preacher's mouth, and ' Bohemian ' 
 translations were given to his expressions as far removed 
 from the truth as an Egyptian hieroglyphic is from a 
 hanging-order to a sheriff. 
 
 The last time I met Henry Ward Beecher was in the 
 Brackett House, Rochester, N. Y., when he and his pri- 
 vate secretary were on their way to Salt Lake. This 
 was some time after the last trial, and shortly subsequent 
 to the time when he was chosen chaplain of the Thir- 
 teenth (Brooklyn) regiment of the New York National 
 Guard. He had been absent from home several days, 
 having made the trip to the point named via the Erie 
 road, as he wished to pay a visit to his brother Thomas, 
 in Elmira. I found him in the hotel parlor waiting for 
 the Western train. He was reading by the aid of a half- 
 
490 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 burned wax-candle which he held in his hand close to 
 the paper, although there was the usual ample gas-light 
 in the room. Very pleasantly he remarked that his eye- 
 sight had grown dim and necessitated a nearer light than 
 that generally afforded by the illuminating fixtures in 
 public places. He said he was making a Western trip, 
 perhaps for the last time, and that only one more exten- 
 sive journey was in contemplation, and that that was 
 across the sea. " I hate," he said, " to go to Europe and 
 have people ask me about places of note in my own coun- 
 try, and then have to confess I never saw them. Hence, 
 I intend to make very close observations during this 
 Western journey." 
 
 On being asked if he did not think the ordeal through 
 which the Tilton scandal had forced him would occasion 
 him rather unpleasant publicity, he said he had never 
 given that matter a thought since the case had ended in 
 the courts. In fact, as the newspapers had made it their 
 own property, he did not even then have a first mort- 
 gage on the scandal. It so happened that on the day 
 referred to Frank Leslie's illustrated journal had arrived, 
 with the first-page picture representing Henry Ward 
 Beecher in the full military dress of the chaplain of the 
 Thirteenth. When it was shown him for the first time, 
 he laughed heartily, and remarked that the picture was 
 very life-like indeed, especially as he had never worn the 
 uniform, and in fact had not at that time ordered it. 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 491 
 
 He hoped, however, that the tailor would make as good 
 a fit as the sketch artist had, and also as cheap. Wendell 
 Phillips had lectured in Rochester that night on " Daniel 
 O'Connell." When Mr. Beecher heard of this he became 
 very enthusiastic in praise of the great orator, and ex 
 pressed his regret at not being in the city at an hour that 
 would have permitted his attendance at the lecture. 
 " Wendell and I have been friends for a lifetime," he 
 said, " and there is only one thing I have to blame him 
 for. He ought to have been a minister. What good he 
 could have done ! Yes, he might have been a chaplain 
 of a militia regiment, and I do not doubt in the least that 
 had he taken clerical orders he would have been the 
 target of scandalous tongues and pens. One thing is 
 certain, however, he has done more than a regiment of 
 soldiers and preachers for the freedom of the negro, and 
 if Ireland had one or two such champions, that distressed 
 country would need no Fenian organization." 
 
 Just before Mr. Beecher departed for the West, Wen- 
 dell Phillips arrived at the depot to take the train for 
 the East. The meeting between the two great American 
 orators was of the most cordial character, and profuse re- 
 grets were heartily expressed that they were not going in 
 the same direction. Thus ended an interview ever to be 
 remembered. 
 
 Though methodical in his habits of labor, he could 
 never work when he did not feel in the humor for it. 
 
492 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHEK. 
 
 " I can't work unless the sap flows," was his common re- 
 mark when urged to finish the " Life of Christ." His 
 correspondence was immense. If away for a few days 
 his table would be covered with letters from all over the 
 world. He was punctual in replying to all that he found 
 worth answering. This was about the only writing he 
 was accustomed to do at night. 
 
 If a certain promissory note, made upon a piece of 
 leather, be found among his assets, it will be dated " Sar- 
 atoga," and contain the signature of a Saratogian who 
 expected to reap a rich harvest by having the distin- 
 guished divine lecture in the Town Hall one evening 
 several winters ago. Unfortunately, the weather that 
 night was of the blizzard pattern, and the attendance 
 was a numerical disappointment to the individual man- 
 agement. The lecturer was to have begun at eight 
 o'clock, but he did not ascend the platform till 8.15 P.M. 
 It subsequently leaked out that the person who had en- 
 gaged Mr. Beecher was financially heart-broken at the 
 result and was able to hand him only a portion of the 
 $2 50 agreed upon. " I will give you my note for the bal- 
 ance," said the Saratogian. " That is a good idea," said 
 Mr. Beecher, " but allow me to suggest that you make 
 it out on leather, in order that I can the better preserve it." 
 Whether the leather note relic is found or not, the inci- 
 dent illustrated the eminent pulpit orator's keen apprecia- 
 tion of the ludicrous and grotesque. 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 493 
 
 Two or three times during the lecture referred to 
 above Mr. Beecher was annoyed by the insufferable 
 noise created by a gallery door, the hinges of which had 
 evidently not been greased for years. An overgrown 
 fellow, wearing a new pair of heavy boots, blundered 
 through the swinging door and measured his way to a 
 seat, when Mr. Beecher stopped in the centre of a brill- 
 iant flight of oratory, and with a quizzical expression 
 remarked : " I actually believe that it would greatly add 
 to the happiness of all if the hand of industry would ap- 
 ply the oil of harmony in order to alleviate the excruciat- 
 ing agony of that squeaking hinge." The wearer of the 
 boots was of the opinion that he was the " hinge " re- 
 ferred to, and consequently was the only one in the au- 
 dience who did not enjoy the lecture. The hinge not 
 the boots has been oiled regularly since that date. 
 
 Once while taking supper at a second-rate hotel in 
 Central New Jersey, Mr. Beecher, after a few moments of 
 meditation, called to the colored waiter. " Can you give 
 me a. good deal of your time to-night?" said the great 
 preacher to the son of Africa. The son of Africa, with 
 bright visions of a two-dollar bill, replied, " Yes, sah. May 
 find it mighty hard, sah, but I'll try." "Well," said Mr. 
 Beecher, " I want you to sit up all night with that coffee. 
 It's so weak it's going to die before morning." 
 
 While delivering the Lyman Beecher course of lect- 
 ures in 1872, Mr. Beecher was asked by one of the theo- 
 
 21 
 
494 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 logical professors if a cold and unsympathetic man ought 
 to enter the ministry. " As well," quoth Mr. Beecher, 
 " take an icicle to warm a sick man's bed." 
 
 The Young Men's Institute engaged Mr. Beecher to 
 lecture in Waterbury, Conn. It being his first visit to 
 Waterbury, Hotchkiss' hall was filled in floor and gal- 
 lery. Beecher stopped at the Scoville House. Its repu- 
 tation then (kept by a former landlord) was not very 
 good. It was at a time when the firemen, at their an- 
 nual ball supper, were given cold rice and used to have 
 to draw cuts between each couple for an oyster stew, as 
 this delicacy in those days was alternated down the long 
 tables with clam chowder. 
 
 On the morning following the lecture Mr. Beecher de- 
 cided to visit a friend in New Milford, and concluded to 
 drive overland. A team was hired at the Scoville House 
 stables. Jerry Flynn, the stable-boy, engaged to drive 
 Mr. Beecher to New Milford. Not a word was spoken 
 for ten miles, when going up a long hill near Southbury, 
 the divine spoke up abruptly : 
 
 " Boy, did you ever feel like a stuffed sausage ? " 
 
 " No," said the boy. 
 
 " Well, sir, you never will if you board at the Scoville 
 House." 
 
 This was the only word uttered during the trip, but it 
 verifies the statement that Mr. Beecher liked something 
 good to eat. 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 495 
 
 The great friendship that has always existed between 
 Mr. Beecher and the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall, of Holy 
 Trinity, has been a favorite theme of discussion among 
 Brooklyn pastors, and the following incident shows the 
 depth of that feeling : It was during the famous trial, and 
 a celebration of some kind was being held in Dr. Hall's 
 church. To the surprise of the strict Episcopalians, Mr. 
 Beecher attended, and to their horror was admitted be- 
 hind the chancel-rail. This provoked an expression of 
 indignation from some of the members, who carried their 
 grievances to Dr. Hall. That gentleman drew himself 
 up to his full height, and inquired : " What have you to 
 say about it ? Mr. Beecher is not convicted ; he is only 
 on trial ; and I reserve the right to extend the right 
 hand of fellowship to any man who needs it or deserves 
 it. He is my friend, and what kind of a man is he who 
 will not in time of trouble help his friend ? What have 
 you to say against it ? " 
 
 " But the Bishop what will he say ?" asked the in- 
 dignant members. 
 
 Dr. Hall's face grew blacker than ever. " The Bishop," 
 he said " what business is it of his ? What right has 
 the Bishop to interfere with my private affairs ? " 
 
 Mr. Beecher remained, and the only comment of the 
 indignant members was, "Well, Dr. Hall is the only 
 man who could do that, and Mr. Beecher is the only one 
 who could make him do it." 
 
49^ LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 An old-time New York journalist, who had had inti- 
 mate associations with Mr. Beecher for many years, said, 
 recently : " I never found anything about Mr. Beecher 
 more characteristic than his humor. He was filled with 
 amusing anecdotes about public men, and loved to hear 
 one .at his own expense. I met him one night on the 
 steps of Moulton's house, in Brooklyn, and he sat down on 
 the cold stone to listen to a story about his first volume 
 of the ' Life of Christ.' Mr. Beecher laughed heartily over 
 it, and admitted its entire truth. When the book was 
 ready for the press a steel plate costing $400 was made 
 for the title-page. It read, as engraved, ' Life of Jesus 
 Christ. By Henry Ward Beecher ; ' but Mr. Beecher 
 had written on the margin, for insertion after Jesus and 
 before Christ, the word ' the.' The idea had not come to 
 him until after the plate was made, and the question of 
 expense never occurred to him." 
 
 " Naturally enough," said a friend of Mr. Beecher, " he 
 was frequently present at public dinners, and a singular 
 feature of his conduct on such occasions was his total ab- 
 stinence from the solid and liquid good cheer set before 
 him. His abstinence, he told me, was in accordance with 
 his doctor's advice, and a measure of precaution against 
 apoplexy. Just fancy the stoicism and self-denial in- 
 volved in a man of Beecher's enthusiastic temperament 
 sitting through a long dinner, and patiently waiting for 
 the time to come when he should share in the intellectual 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 497 
 
 part of it. I have seen him occasionally drink a little 
 water at a banquet, but beyond that indulgence he never 
 went." 
 
 A friend in Washington says, there is no doubt that 
 President Cleveland held Mr. Beecher in very high es- 
 teem. This was so notorious, it will be remembered, 
 that during the early part of the present administration 
 there was some talk about the divine going to England as 
 Minister to the Court of St. James. But Mr. Beecher had 
 no taste or ambition for such a position, were it offered 
 him. 
 
 A number of times during the past six years Mr. 
 Beecher visited Washington. Usually he came in the 
 capacity of lecturer, and occupied the pulpit at the First 
 Congregational Church. He drew large audiences of the 
 best people. He always stopped at the Ebbitt, and a 
 large number of citizens would go to the hotel for meals 
 during his stay, simply to get to see and hear him in his 
 more private capacity than he appeared in when on the 
 rostrum. 
 
 When Mr. Beecher entered the dining-room he was in- 
 variably seated at a table alone, and ere ten minutes 
 elapsed there would not be a vacant seat at the table oc- 
 cupied by him. Instantly upon his seating himself there 
 would be a movement about the dining-room. Every- 
 body who knew him, and many who did not know him 
 personally, insisted upon going to his table. And scarcely 
 
LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 a moment during the hour and a half at the table would 
 all have sober faces. It was an uninterrupted season of 
 laughing from the moment one sat down beside him till 
 he was out of sight. He insisted that serious subjects 
 ought not to be discussed at the dining-table, as they re- 
 tarded digestion. 
 
 Mr. Beecher was to have married a young couple at 
 his house on Thursday evening of the week before his 
 death, but on Wednesday night the young man came to 
 announce that the lady had backed out. " Cheer up," 
 said Mr. Beecher " I will get you a better girl," and he 
 summoned his house-maid, Mary Moloney. 
 
 Mr. Beecher was present at a dinner to Herbert 
 Spencer some years ago, and addressed a highly intellect- 
 ual, not to say sceptical, audience, and brought them to 
 their feet in a perfect storm of applause by a speech 
 which he concluded with the confident assertion of his 
 belief in immortality. Hon. Willard Bartlett says : " He 
 then vindicated his title to be considered the greatest 
 preacher of his time, not only to the common people, 
 but to those who, in some sort at least, claim to be the 
 wisest of mankind." 
 
 Once in an address in the Broadway Tabernacle he 
 described some atrocity in the South, and said : " Is 
 there anybody worse than that in Sing Sing ? " From 
 the highest gallery a shrill voice cried out, " Yes." " I 
 give it up, then," said Mr. Beecher ; " you've been there." 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 499 
 
 When the audience learned that it was not prearranged, 
 the cheering was tremendous. 
 
 Mr. Beecher even had a fixed opinion about dogs. He 
 once said : " If the dog isn't good for anything else, it is 
 good for you to love, and that is a good deal. I have two 
 miserable little scraggy dogs up at my Peekskill farm. 
 They are practically good for nothing, but I sometimes 
 think that they are worth more to me than the whole place.'' 
 
 He did not like the petition in the Litany in the Book 
 of Common Prayer for delivery from sudden death. His 
 father, Lyman Beecher, lived long after his mental facul- 
 ties were impaired. Referring to his father's experience, 
 he once said to a friend : " I know there is a purgatory, 
 for I have seen it." 
 
 He was very proud of a compliment paid his preaching 
 by a little boy who said : " I don't know what he means, 
 but somehow I feel better." 
 
 As before stated, Mr. Beecher's last public speech was 
 delivered at a demonstration in Chickering Hall, in New 
 York, on February 26th, in favor of the Crosby High 
 License Bill. He was received with a perfect tumult of 
 applause. When he began his address he did so in a 
 somewhat low tone of voice, which elicited cries of 
 " Louder ! " He replied : I'll be loud enough when I 
 get warmed up." 
 
 Dr. Talmage was asked what he thought of the nar- 
 row-minded refusal of the Chicago clergy to send Mrs. 
 
50O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Beecher an expression of sympathy. He smiled gently, 
 and said : " I read of a battle fought in a fog, during the 
 late rebellion, when two regiments of the same army 
 shattered each other before it was found that friends were 
 destroying friends. Mr. Beecher was too great for de- 
 struction by a battle in a fog." 
 
 A young gentleman who has grown up under the 
 ministrations of the Plymouth pastor thus describes his 
 youthful acquaintance with him : 
 
 " Mr. Beecher was always a great swimmer. There 
 was in those days near Fulton Ferry a huge floating 
 boat-house, kept by an old-time exhorter named Gray. 
 Thither Mr. Beecher used to go in his younger days, and 
 with head-long jump, plunge deep into the East River 
 waves, spouting and puffing with all the energy of a fully- 
 developed whale an expert swimmer, a diver better than 
 any boy in the City of Churches. The price for a bath 
 was a shilling, and I never shall forget the odd sensation 
 I experienced one day when, meeting the dominie in the 
 street, he asked if I would go down to the ferry and 
 take a bath. I was about eight years old, and not over- 
 burdened with spending money, and bluntly told him I 
 would like to go first-rate, but that I hadn't got the 
 shilling. A quizzical look spread all over his ruddy face, 
 as laughingly he took me by the hand and said : * Come 
 along. When you ask a young lady to take ice-cream 
 with you, you don't expect her to pay for it, do you ? ' 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 501 
 
 " Later on a number of us boys clubbed together and 
 started a debating society. Governor Banks, John H. 
 Raymond, President of Vassar College, and Mr. Beecher 
 were among our lecturers. We hired the Athenaeum, 
 corner of Atlantic and Clinton Streets, Brooklyn, and 
 with a flourish of trumpets announced Mr. Beecher in 
 his famous lecture on ' Character.' His clean-cut dis- 
 tinction drawn that night between character and reputa- 
 tion produced an impression upon many a mature mind, 
 and started thoughts in many a youthful mentality that 
 have been of vast usefulness in stormy periods since. It 
 fell to my lot to introduce the lecturer, and just before 
 we went on, while waiting in the little ante-disrobing 
 room, I said, suiting the action to the word, with chin in 
 the air, this is the way I am going to sit. Beecher 
 laughed and said : ' No, no ; put down your chin. 
 Whenever you see a man with his chin in the air, you 
 may know there is nothing in the front of his head.' 
 Continuing, he asked : ' What are you going to say ? ' I 
 told him I wanted to announce that the next lecture 
 would be delivered by Mr. Banks, of Massachusetts, but 
 that I really didn't know how to do it. ' Why,' said he, 
 'do it just as you have done it to me. Tell them what 
 you have to say and then sit down.' 
 
 " The receipts of the lecture were about one hundred 
 and seventy-five dollars ; the expenses, including rental 
 of the hall, advertising, and attendance, about fifty dol- 
 
 21* 
 
5O2 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 lars. After the lecture was over Mr. Beecher, my cousin, 
 and I walked home together, and as we said ' Good-night' 
 at the door of my father's house, while shaking hands 
 with him I left in his palm his fee of fifty dollars. Recog- 
 nizing in a moment what it was, he pushed it back with 
 a gesture almost of impatience, certainly of annoyance, 
 and said : ' Nonsense ; keep that to pull you through.' " 
 
 Mr. Beecher spent most of the last day of his con- 
 scious life driving about New York with his wife on vari- 
 ous errands of pleasure and business. Mr. E. C. Fisher, 
 a prominent member of his church, met him at the sec- 
 ond landing of the stairs leading to Cassell & Co.'s office, 
 at No. 739 Broadway. Mr. Beecher was out of breath 
 and exhausted with the effort of climbing, and as he sank 
 into a chair at the door of the office he said, " Confound 
 those stairs ! " 
 
 " Why, Mr. Beecher," said Mr. Fisher, " I never heard 
 you speak ill of anybody before." 
 
 " Well, those stairs are not anybody," Mr. Beecher re- 
 plied, and he would not budge from the chair at the 
 outer door until he was thoroughly rested. 
 
 Then he went with Mr. Fisher to the inner office to 
 be introduced to Mr. Dunham, the manager of the house. 
 He had come to get a " Beecher Calendar " for every 
 one of his children and grandchildren. When the calen- 
 dar was issued Mr. Beecher took very little interest in it, 
 and said that he was not epigrammatic enough to furnish 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 503 
 
 brief selections suitable for such a purpose ; it was too 
 easy in that way to get hold of one end of his idea and 
 leave the other in the air. But a friend who had one of 
 these calendars converted him by reading to him, when- 
 ever he appeared, the very concise and appropriate 
 phrases in which he had hit off the sentiments. After 
 that he regarded it with more interest, and was really 
 quite pleased with the way " that old fellow " daily 
 touched upon the foibles, provoked the mirth, and 
 soothed the sorrows of his kind. 
 
 The following from the pen of the Rev. Frank Russell, 
 who was intimate with Mr. Beecher's family, may be 
 suggestive of one charm : 
 
 " The impression is prevalent that Mr. Beecher's life 
 was one of singular charity and generosity, and in this 
 regard he was probably susceptible of easy imposition. I 
 have seen him hand money to those asking alms, or call- 
 ing at his door with pitiful tales of distress, in amounts 
 which I silently thought were far too large for the 
 occasion. The remark was common among those who 
 knew of the circumstances, when his apparently large 
 salary was the theme of conversation, that it made very 
 little difference how much Mr. Beecher received, for he 
 would give all away but his living, and his family had to 
 watch pretty closely to get that." 
 
 The principal charm of Mr. Beecher's sermons was 
 that they were neither bookish nor shop-worn. There 
 
504 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 was none of the atmosphere of the study on them, nor 
 the flavor of midnight oil. The Rev. William M. Tay- 
 lor once wrote concerning his sermons, saying : 
 
 " Those who know him best say that he studies his 
 sermons in the shops and stores, in the streets and in the 
 ferry-boats ; and we believe it, for they are like the pro- 
 ductions of a man who has gone through the city with 
 his eyes open." 
 
 Mr. Beecher said concerning his sermons that he never 
 put them on the market before they were ripe ; or, in 
 other words, he never preached a sermon that he had not 
 carefully thought out beforehand. He preached to his 
 people, not at them. 
 
 Some years ago, a friend relates, the East River was 
 frozen over, and the passage of the ferry-boats between 
 New York and Brooklyn stopped for several hours until 
 a channel could be cut. A number of venturesome busi- 
 ness men, anxious to reach New York, crossed on the ice 
 near Pierrepont's stores, landing on the New York side 
 below Fulton Ferry. Mr. Beecher came down from his 
 residence, with the intention of taking passage to New 
 York, and rinding the boats not running he led a large 
 party across the ice-field, which late-comers had hesitated 
 to venture upon. Mr. Beecher acted most of the way, 
 like a school-boy running and sliding and when he 
 reached the New York shore he declared, " I've not had 
 as much fun since I was a boy ! " 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 505 
 
 A neighbor of Mr. Beecher relates that he never grew 
 old in his love of simple pleasures. He would eat candy 
 like a school-boy. One night the neighbor was crossing 
 Fulton Ferry at a late hour, when Mr. Beecher sauntered 
 aboard and took his seat under one of the side gaslights. 
 He was unattended, and there were very few passengers 
 in the cabin. He had a big, white paper of "mixed 
 candy." There must have been a pound of it at least. It 
 was cone-shaped, and while with one hand he held the 
 apex he thrust the other into the sweets every few 
 minutes and conveyed a handful to his mouth. He 
 munched away without ceremony, regardless of the side- 
 long glances stolen at his democratic feast. When the 
 boat struck the slip he moved out into the street and up 
 the Heights, eating away with childish relish and at a 
 rate that promised the total consumption of the supply 
 before he got to his house. 
 
 At another time the same gentleman was on his way 
 to Washington by the limited express when, just as the 
 train was about to leave the depot at Jersey City, Mr. 
 Beecher came hurriedly aboard. The place assigned him 
 happened to be one of the sofa-seats in the same com- 
 partment with his friend. It was in the winter, and he 
 had on a capacious overcoat. The outside pockets were 
 stuffed with pea-nuts. The train had hardly started 
 when he produced a package of papers, most of them 
 religious weeklies, and began to read. Although he must 
 
506 ' LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 have had breakfast hardly an hour before, he brought out 
 a handful of pea-nuts and proceeded to eat them. From 
 this moment onward until the train reached Wilmington, 
 at two o'clock in the afternoon, he never left his seat. 
 But he read the papers and ate pea-nuts. Even in the 
 fifteen minutes for lunch at Philadelphia the caterer on the 
 train did not divert him from his twofold occupation. 
 He drank nothing ; he saw nothing; he ate nothing but 
 pea-nuts. The discarded shells were carefully thrown in a 
 heap at the end of the sofa, and would have more than 
 filled a peck measure when the train arrived at Wilming- 
 ton. Here the monotonous business was interrupted at 
 last. A gentleman who got aboard at this point walked 
 through the train, looking for someone. It was a com- 
 mittee-man delegated to meet the clergyman and escort 
 him to his hotel in Baltimore, where he was to deliver a 
 lecture that night. 
 
 Ex-Postmaster McLeer, of Brooklyn, relates an amus- 
 ing story of Mr. Beecher. He notified Mr. Beecher that 
 a " dead letter " of his was held, and received in reply 
 the following : 
 
 " October 28, 1880. 
 " COLONEL MCLEER 
 
 DEAR SIR ; Your notice that a letter of mine was 
 dead and subject to my order is before me. 
 
 " We must all die ! And though the premature de- 
 cease of my poor letter should excite a proper sympathy 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 507 
 
 (and I hope it does), yet I am greatly sustained under the 
 affliction. 
 
 "What was the date of its death ? Of what did it 
 die ? Had it in its last hours proper attention and such 
 consolation as befit the melancholy occasion ? Did it 
 leave any effects ? 
 
 " Will you kindly see to its funeral ? I am strongly 
 inclined to cremation. 
 
 " May I ask whether any other letters of mine are sick, 
 dangerously sick ? If any depart this life, don't notify 
 me till after the funeral. 
 
 " Affectionately yours, 
 
 " HENRY WARD BEECHER." 
 
 Colonel McLeer examined the deceased letter and 
 wrote to Mr. Beecher : " I hesitate, Mr. Beecher, to 
 carry out your instructions in regard to the cremation of 
 your letter, as it contains a check for $150." 
 
 On the receipt of this information, Mr. Beecher hast- 
 ened to Colonel McLeer's office. Entering the room 
 with a rush, he threw his hat with force on the desk. 
 Drawing himself to his full height he, without preface 
 and looking the colonel full in the face, said : 
 
 " I do hereby fully revoke, cancel, and rescind all the 
 powers delegated to you to cremate any letters of mine, 
 or any in which I may have an interest." 
 
 Then he demanded his letter, received it, and the two 
 
508 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 friends sat down and endeavored to outdo each other in 
 telling stories. 
 
 The following letter was written by Mr. Beecher to a 
 local artist some time ago, after a number of photographs 
 of himself had been submitted to him : 
 
 " DEAR SIR : One of the small photos is comely in 
 my wife's eyes. The larger ones are good, provided you 
 finish one of them for women and one for men i.e., one 
 of them as I ought to look, and the other as I do look. 
 
 " HENRY WARD BEECHER." 
 
 Chandos Fulton relates that he was taken by a mutual 
 friend to call on Mr. Beecher, and see his collection of 
 engravings, when he lived in his home on the Heights. 
 The stories he had heard in childhood, in his Southern 
 home, of Mr. Beecher strongly prejudiced him, and he 
 determined to have little to say to him. Mr. Beecher, 
 however, was so cordial and affable, the introducer being 
 an esteemed friend, that the Southerner's predilections 
 soon vanished, and he observed, " Oh, Mr. Beecher, if the 
 Southern people only knew you, you would have many 
 friends there." Mr. Beecher, who had just returned from 
 his first Southern lecturing-tour, responded, " I wish I 
 could be the cement for a reunited North and South." 
 
 Fulton was then a pale-faced stripling, and the conver- 
 sation turning on the physique, Mr. Beecher, glancing at 
 
MB. BEECHER'S RESIDENCE, BROOKLYN, N. Y. THE HOUSE 
 IN WHICH HE DIED. 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 5 I.I 
 
 the slender waist of his guest, laughingly exclaimed, "Ad- 
 ministrative men need good stomachs. The stomach is 
 the same to the man that the boiler is to the locomotive. 
 See what large, rotund boilers the locomotives require 
 to haul trains over the mountains here, because great 
 work is required of them. They couldn't do their work 
 without great, big boilers. A man needs a good corpora- 
 tion to do much sustained, active, great work." 
 
 The conversation was interrupted by a parade of the 
 Plymouth Sunday-school, which Mr. Beecher reviewed 
 from his front steps. Each child was provided with a 
 large bouquet of roses, which was thrown to Mr. Beecher, 
 and by the time the procession had passed he stood knee- 
 deep in a pile of fragrant roses. In showing his engrav- 
 ings to his visitor Mr. Beecher evinced an artist's enthu- 
 siasm in his appreciation. 
 
 Mrs. M. H. Fiske tells the following anecdote : Some 
 years ago, shortly after the great Brooklyn trial, I took 
 an early morning train for Pittsburg, and to my satisfac- 
 tion the occupant of the next chair proved to be Henry 
 Ward Beecher. Notwithstanding a dozen attempts made 
 by passengers to enter into conversation, he dozed until 
 nearly noon, and then, though pleasant to those who from 
 time to time gathered about, conversation was confined 
 to his questioners ; he took very little part in it. 
 
 There was*a solid-looking old fellow opposite, and he 
 fell to talking to me of a very dreadful sentence he was 
 
512 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 reading about that had just been passed on some crimi- 
 nal. The man was to be confined in a prison for a year ; 
 at the end of the year he was to be taken out and 
 hanged. 
 
 " It's something horrible to think of that man living a 
 year with certain death hanging over," said the stranger. 
 
 " We're in the same boat," said I. " Perhaps our sen- 
 tence will take effect in less than a year. There's many 
 a person on board this train who hasn't twelve months' 
 imprisonment to serve." 
 
 Mr. Beecher swung around in his chair. 
 
 " No doubt about that," said he. " And probably that 
 criminal will give as little heed to the end as we do, until 
 the months narrow down and the very scaffold is in sight." 
 
 The conversation became interesting. Mr. Beecher 
 said he questioned the wisdom of granting that man's 
 prayer who said, " Oh, Lord, let me know my end." 
 We discussed capital punishment, and about all the great 
 questions of the day, when, to my horror and utter as- 
 tonishment, the old man said : " This Beecher business 
 is an unfortunate affair. What's your opinion of its effect 
 on the Church ? " 
 
 I don't know which of us got the worst of that blow. 
 We both fairly staggered. I looked in the face of the 
 well-meaning, innocent old questioner, and then the fun 
 of the thing struck me, and I burst out laughing. Mr. 
 Beecher was amused and perplexed, so I said : 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 513 
 
 " Haven't you read the conditions on which this Pan- 
 Handle road issues tickets ? " 
 
 " Why, no." 
 
 " It expressly states that a ticket is forfeited if anyone 
 holding it converses about the Beecher case." 
 
 " I've heard they put up such notices in factories it 
 led to so much discussion," laughed the old man. 
 
 " And it's specially objectionable in railway trains," 
 said I. 
 
 Mr. Beecher was looking at a Philadelphia paper with 
 a not wholly pleased smile on his face. 
 
 " I am afraid the artists of country journals are not 
 very successful in their portraits," said he, as he laid it 
 down, with an expressive glance at me. 
 
 Then things went on very pleasantly until the train 
 stopped for dinner, and a hungry looking minister came 
 in from another car, straightened up before us and sung 
 out, in a hymn-book voice : 
 
 " Well, Brother Beecher, will you go out and try this 
 place ? " 
 
 And Brother Beecher replied that he would like to 
 shake the cramps out of his legs by a turn on the plat- 
 form, but he had a painful recollection of that refresh- 
 ment-room as containing more mediaeval sandwiches and 
 prehistoric pie than any other on the road. 
 
 Our poor companion was almost paralyzed at men- 
 tion of the name. I saw him give a hasty but en- 
 
5 14 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 lightened glance at the big gray mane and florid face of 
 H. W. B. 
 
 When the two ministers left the cars, in a despairing 
 tone the patriot across the way said : 
 
 " I do believe that's Beecher himself." 
 
 " It certainly is," responded I. The old fellow mut- 
 tered something about a smoke, got up, took all his bag- 
 gage and went to some remote car to finish his journey 
 alone. 
 
 After Mr. Beecher came back he said : 
 
 " I wouldn't have believed that outside a blind asylum 
 such an incident as that could have occurred." 
 
 Then we fell to talking of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and 
 the play and the people who played in it, and he told 
 me of meeting some old actor and asking him if he ever 
 played in " Uncle Tom," and the old fakir replying that 
 he had done " everything in it but Eva and the cake of 
 ice that Eliza escaped on." 
 
 " They are a large-hearted, great-souled people as a 
 class," said he of actors. " I question if there are any 
 happier persons in the world than those in the theatrical 
 profession. ' All the world's a stage,' and I clasp hands 
 with my fellow-actors as often as I can." 
 
 And he certainly did. I remember Ellen Terry showed 
 me a strange old aqua-marine ring he gave her, and she 
 told me what a charming Sunday Mr. Irving and she 
 had spent at the parsonage in Brooklyn. 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 515 
 
 At a New England dinner in Boston Mr. Beecher 
 heard Nat Goodwin in some imitations, and was de- 
 lighted with him. Meeting him afterward at a hotel in 
 the West, Nat told him a story of some New York cler- 
 gyman, unconsciously imitating the voice and manner- 
 isms of the gentleman. 
 
 " Give me an imitation of myself," said Beecher. 
 " Why, peculiarities I have never noticed I recognize in 
 your imitations. I'd really like to hear my own defects 
 so voiced that I might remedy them." 
 
 But as Nat would never do Irving for Irving, so he 
 didn't treat Beecher to Beecher. 
 
 The great orator had a marvellous memory. Ten years 
 after that ride to Pittsburg, although I had met him 
 many times, we had never discussed the funny old man 
 of the train. But when Klunder gave a big flower-show 
 at the Metropolitan Opera House I had seen almost 
 everyone turn to take a second look at Beecher, when of 
 a sudden a couple of men halted near us, and one said 
 audibly : " Which one is Beecher ? where is Beecher ? " 
 
 Mr. Beecher laughed and turned to me and said : 
 
 " That old man's got back from Pittsburg," showing 
 plainly that the ten-year-old incident was un forgotten by 
 him. 
 
 " I knew I should meet you here," said an old lady to 
 him. " I never went to a flower-show in my life that I 
 did not find you there before me." 
 
5l6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 "I'm like all the other old ladies in my love for 
 flowers," said he. 
 
 As an Irishman remarked of his dead friend, " How he 
 would have enjoyed his funeral if he had lived." 
 
 Another intimate friend of Mr. Beecher says that he 
 occasionally seemed to lose confidence in himself. " Time 
 and again," said this friend, " he has told me that when 
 before an audience at some public meeting, and while 
 awaiting his turn to speak, he was often almost on the 
 point of getting up and going out. ' As I listened to one 
 and another speaker address the meeting/ he used to say, 
 * I would think, my goodness, I never can make such 
 speeches as those : I'd better leave here at once.' But 
 when he was once on his feet all these feelings vanished, 
 of course, and he felt completely at ease. He was al- 
 ways subject to these times of self-depreciation both in 
 and out of the pulpit. When he first came to Brooklyn 
 he used to go round the back streets just to avoid meet- 
 ing people whom he might know. He combined with 
 his wonderful vigor and boldness the shrinking timidity 
 of a school-girl." 
 
 Of Mr. Beecher's absent-mindedness, Dr. Searle, his 
 physician, told this story : " Mrs. Searle was standing at 
 the parlor window one day, when she noticed Mr. 
 Beecher go up Mr. Raymond's stoop, over the way, and 
 ring the bell. Before it was answered he came down 
 the steps, and continued on his way up the street. See- 
 
REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 517 
 
 ing Mrs. Searle he crossed over, and with a smile said : 
 ' Say, can you tell me where I am going this after- 
 noon ? ' 
 
 " * Why, you are going to baptize Mr. Howard's child 
 to-day, are you not ? ' 
 
 " < That's it, that's just it,' he replied, 'but for the life 
 of me I couldn't recall the fact.' 
 
 " Another instance I recollect," continued the doctor, 
 " happened at his house. I was there at dinner. Major 
 Pond, who was also present, spoke about a concert that 
 was to be held in New York that evening. Mr. Beecher 
 said he would like to attend it with him. ' But you 
 can't go,' said Mrs. Beecher to him, ' you have an engage- 
 ment for to-night.' ' Oh, no, I haven't,' he rejoined, ' I 
 am free to-night, and I think I'll go over to the concert.' 
 While she was trying to convince him that he really had 
 some other matter on hand a carriage drove up to take 
 him to Hoboken, where he was booked for a lecture." 
 
 In reference to Mr. Beecher's memory, the doctor 
 added : " It was marvellously poor. About the only 
 thing that he could remember, he used to say, was the 
 list of prepositions that govern the ablative case in Latin. 
 These he could rattle off like sixty, and did so fre- 
 quently." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 
 
 Mr. Beecher's Visit to England in 1886. Declines to Interfere in Eng- 
 lish Politics. Preaching and Lecturing. Declines a Reception on 
 Returning Home. His Last Sermon in Plymouth Church. The 
 Fatal Stroke of Apoplexy. How the News was Received. Incidents 
 of His Illness. Sinking Steadily. His Death on Tuesday, March 
 nth. Sympathy for the Family. Private Service at the House. 
 A Public Funeral without Crape. Floral Decorations. Lying in 
 State. Services Simultaneously in Five Churches. Testimony of a 
 Hebrew. The Closing Ceremony. Laid at Rest. 
 
 IN 1886 Mr. Beecher visited England for the third time, 
 partly for rest and change of scene, and partly to fulfil 
 numerous lecture-engagements. He was accompanied 
 by Mrs. Beecher and Major Pond, and sailed on June 
 1 9th on the Cunard steamship Etruria. At that time 
 all England was ablaze with the national elections. It 
 was a question whether Gladstone and Parnell should 
 control, or whether Home Rule should go to the wall. 
 The period was a critical one. Everybody knew in what 
 direction Mr. Beecher's sympathies tended, and there 
 was an expectation that when he reached the other side 
 there would be something in the nature of a repetition of 
 his war-time triumphs over English prejudice. There 
 
HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. $19 
 
 was some disappointment on this side, therefore, when 
 he failed to realize the expectations of some of the folks 
 who were hopeful that he would work toward the good 
 of Ireland. 
 
 On arriving at Liverpool he found telegrams and let- 
 ters awaiting him, asking his attendance at the Home 
 Rule meetings that were then being held throughout the 
 land. He was compelled to ignore them all. Delegation 
 after delegation waited upon him to urge his presence at 
 this, that, or the other place throughout the United King- 
 dom, where Gladstone's policy was to be upheld, but to 
 all of them Mr. Beecher returned, in substance, this an- 
 swer : 
 
 " I am here simply as an American citizen. Whatever 
 may be my personal feeling in this matter, I am debarred 
 just now from thrusting my views upon the voters of the 
 country. From an international stand-point it would not 
 be courteous, and from my stand-point it would be im- 
 pertinent." 
 
 At the same time he could not restrain himself en- 
 tirely. His sympathies were so thoroughly aroused in 
 the cause of the Irish people, which was to him broader 
 than the mere question of sectionalism, that he was per- 
 force embroiled to some extent in the contest. He de- 
 layed his departure to London for three days in order to 
 be present at Gladstone's closing address in the campaign, 
 at Henglar's Circus, Liverpool. The " two grand old 
 
 22 
 
520 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 men " met in the ante-room at that meeting, and when 
 they went upon the platform there were almost as many 
 and as enthusiastic cheers for Beecher as there were for 
 the latter-day industrial liberator. Despite the urgent 
 calls for some utterance from the man who, a quarter of a 
 century before, had quelled the pro-Southern Liverpool 
 mobs and brought them to reason, Mr. Beecher would 
 say nothing, adhering to his belief that at that time it was 
 not fitting that there should be any American interfer- 
 ence. 
 
 For a month he stopped in London. His social recep- 
 tion there was of the most emphatic and flattering de- 
 scription. He lectured extensively, being greeted every- 
 where with crowded houses ; and after a four months' 
 absence, returned home and was received with open arms 
 by a people who cherished him as a man of large heart, 
 great brain, and large manhood. 
 
 When he arrived there was some talk of a reception by 
 his church, which he discouraged, and the Common 
 Council of Brooklyn tendered him a public reception. 
 This, also, he declined, with expressions of abundant ap- 
 preciation of the honor offered him. He said that, while 
 he was pleased and grateful that his fellow-citizens held 
 him in high esteem, he dreaded going through the ordeal 
 of sitting during a whole evening while his praises were 
 being spoken, which he presumed would be the form the 
 reception would take. But aside from that, and more 
 
HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. $21 
 
 decisive in the matter, was his reluctance to accept a 
 demonstration of the kind proposed at the very time 
 when the Church of the Pilgrims was celebrating the 
 fortieth anniversary of the Rev. Dr. R. S. Storrs' pas- 
 torate. He said that Dr. Storrs was justly entitled to 
 great honor, and that it would be unseemly for another 
 minister in his own denomination to consent to a recep- 
 tion to himself which might even seem to be intended to 
 divide public attention. 
 
 While he was abroad he wrote as follows to an old 
 friend in Brooklyn : 
 
 " I want to come home. I have wandered enough. I 
 cannot say I have rested enough, for I am kept very busy. 
 True, I was never in better health and vigor, and am do- 
 ing my work easily. I do not think I shall come back 
 jaded. Yet I long every year to lay down my tasks and 
 depart. It is not a judgment formed on reasonable 
 grounds. It is simply a quiet longing of the spirit, a 
 brooding desire to be through with my work, although I 
 am willing to go on if need be." 
 
 After his return Mr. Beecher was occupied in his usual 
 manner, in lecturing and the work of the Church, and also 
 in writing the second volume of the " Life of Christ." In 
 addition he wrote weekly letters for a newspaper syndi- 
 cate, and prepared some magazine and other miscellaneous 
 articles. Certainly he had few if any idle moments. 
 
 His last sermon was delivered in Plymouth Church 
 
522 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 Sunday evening, February 27, 1887, from the text, Luke 
 xvi. 4, the first clause : " I am resolved what to do." 
 
 The following extracts from this sermon will be read 
 with interest in view of the circumstances of their utter- 
 ance : 
 
 "The unjust steward had been accused, and rightfully, 
 of betraying his trust and wasting that committed to 
 him. His master called him to an account, and he was 
 satisfied that the end had come; and he communed with 
 himself, and as the result of that, and looking over all 
 the circumstances, he said, * I am resolved what to do/ 
 
 " What he resolved to do was not very honest, but it 
 was very shrewd. He resolved to make friends of all the 
 debtors of his lord. He called them up and settled with 
 them in such a way as to lay them under obligations 
 gratitude to Him. And so, although he and they cheated 
 the master, he made his own nest warm and the master 
 praised him not Jesus, but the man that owned the 
 property is the one. When he heard of it he said to him- 
 self : ' Well, that is shrewd ; that is cunning ; that is wise,' 
 and the -comment on it is : Children of this world are 
 wiser than the children of light ; that is to say, men who 
 are acting in worldly reasons, for worldly reasons, are very 
 much wiser than the men becoming good from the high- 
 est moral considerations. But that that they have se- 
 lected is simply this : ' I am resolved what to do.' 
 
 " What, then, is the nature of a resolution what is the 
 
MB. BEECHER'S CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y., CALLED PLYMOUTH 
 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 525 
 
 scope of it, the potency ? A resolution is a purpose in 
 so far as simple things, uncompounded, incomplex, are 
 concerned. A resolution may be executed immediately, 
 without loss of time; indeed, the greatest number of 
 resolutions are those which, like the stroke of the ham- 
 mer or the explosion of the gun, are almost without any 
 appreciable interlapse of time. ' I am resolved what to 
 do.' Natural resolutions: At the cry of fire the man 
 instantly looks out to see what to do ; at the call of a 
 man to step to the door and see a stranger or a friend, 
 he resolves to do it ; although the resolution is latent in 
 such a sense by repetition, he is not conscious of making 
 up his mind. 
 
 " There are a good many people who don't seem ever 
 to have a resolution ; they are like sieves all their 
 thoughts run through and are wasted ; there is a great 
 deal of diffidence about them. There are some men whose 
 thoughts are like the ratchet-wheel, the wheel that has, 
 notch by notch, to hold what it has got ; and there are a 
 great many whose thoughts are like thistle-downs, that 
 are going everywhere, and don't know that they are 
 going anywhere, and are subject to the mutations of the 
 wind. There is a great deal of difference need be to 
 win men to form resolutions, sometimes, of a strong nat- 
 ure and a sterling, strong purpose ; when once they have 
 resolved never to flinch, they never know in any hour a 
 downsliding ; they may be less active at one time than 
 
526 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 another, but they don't turn back. Once having put 
 their hand to the plough, they don't look back again. 
 But then there are those that have the same policy reso- 
 lution, but they are made of different stuff ; it slides 
 away ; they forgot it ; they are not stiff enough to stand 
 up against the wind, it may be, that shall come upon 
 
 them. 
 
 
 " Did you ever undertake to take apart a watch ? 
 That is very easy. Did you ever undertake to put it 
 together again ? That is not so easy. You don't know 
 which screw goes in which hole ; you don't know exactly 
 which wheel goes in first ; but one thing is perfectly cer- 
 tain, and that is that nothing else will fit together but 
 that of which the watch was made, and each wheel was 
 destined to one place and to one avocation, and if you 
 can bring them together, according to the intent of the 
 maker, it will perform, and otherwise it will not. Now, 
 a man was built with a great deal more care than ever a 
 watch was. He has definite relations to himself. A 
 man was made to live with men, and there is only one 
 way and one principle on which men can live together 
 kindness, love. . . . True Christianity means living 
 in those relations for which we were created harmoniza- 
 tion of ourselves, harmonization of our relations to our 
 fellow-men, harmonization of our relation to the invisible 
 future. 
 
HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 527 
 
 " Are you, then, resolved at once to become a Chris- 
 tian ? Can I be a Christian at once ? In one sense, no ; 
 in another sense, yes. Nobody ever learned a trade at a 
 blow, but he can begin this day ; no man ever became a 
 scholar by a resolution, but he never can become one 
 without a resolution ; it is a complex one and a con- 
 stantly repeating one, ancillary resolutions upholding the 
 main one. Are you willing to take the Bible just as a 
 ship-master takes the chart ? When he leaves the last 
 shore-light and takes his direction he never says, * Read 
 me a direction or two of the sailing-directions, and then 
 read me the draughtings inside again and then again.' 
 They have no relations at all to his course, to his actual 
 sailing ; but he is not going to read so many parts of his 
 chart and of his sailing-directions. Why, no he lays out 
 his voyage from the beginning and every day he takes 
 observations, and then he checks down on the chart just 
 where he is. At noon to-morrow he takes another ob- 
 servation ; not because there is any need of reading his 
 chart, in reading any book on navigation ; not because 
 he is studying astronomy for the sake of anything that is 
 in astronomy. He has got a definite purpose in life ; 
 after which he sells his astronomy, and after which he 
 sells his books, or those which lay his course. Are 
 you willing to begin a Christian course and voyage by 
 going to the Word of God to ascertain exactly what is 
 expected of you, both what you are to reject and what 
 
528 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 you are to adopt ? That is sensible, that is right resolv- 
 ing, according to a practical basis and resolution. Are 
 there any of you that are willing to make that resolve ? 
 For a little while it will be a troublesome thing, for a 
 little while; and then easier and easier, with remuneration 
 and exhilaration and joy and final victory." 
 
 On the morning of Sunday, March 6, 1887, the news- 
 papers throughout the country spread before their readers 
 the startling intelligence that Mr. Beecher was lying at 
 the point of death. His physicians had long feared an 
 apoplectic stroke, and it came on Saturday, March 
 5th ; there were a few preliminary symptoms, running 
 through Thursday and Friday, but no one recognized 
 in them anything but a trifling illness, and the blow came 
 at last with the force and horror of an unexpected thun- 
 derbolt. He had been ill since Thursday. He had 
 been in New York the greater part of the day and went 
 to his son's house in Brooklyn late in the afternoon with 
 a feeling of nausea. By the time he reached the house, 
 No. 124 Hicks Street, he seemed quite prostrated. Dr. 
 W. S. Searle, who has been his family physician for 
 years, was summoned. In addition to the nausea and 
 headache, the doctor found Mr. Beecher suffering from a 
 soreness about the throat and chest to such an extent that 
 he feared an attack of pneumonia. These symptoms 
 quickly passed away and the patient grew better ; but 
 when he went to bed he complained of a severe pain in 
 
HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 529 
 
 his head. After a while he dropped off to sleep, but 
 awoke at intervals all through the night. 
 
 After daylight he began to improve, and by the time 
 the doctor called he was better. Through Friday his 
 condition was favorable, quieting all alarm felt by the 
 family. 
 
 Saturday morning a sudden change for the worse took 
 place, and of such an alarming character that Dr. William 
 A. Hammond, of New York, was hastily summoned. He 
 and Dr. .Searle made an examination and declared that 
 Mr. Beecher was suffering from an apoplectic attack. He 
 lay in a semi-comatose condition, but neither conscious- 
 ness nor his unfailing sense of humor had quite forsaken 
 him. 
 
 " Can you raise your arm, Mr. Beecher ? " asked Dr. 
 Hammond. 
 
 " Yes, I guess so," came the low reply. 
 
 " How high can you raise it ? " 
 
 " Well, high enough to hit you, doctor," said the 
 clergyman, with a feeble smile. 
 
 All the family was summoned as soon as the doctors 
 pronounced the condition of Mr. Beecher dangerous. 
 During Sunday and Monday he continued to sink slowly 
 but surely, and his death occurred in the forenoon of 
 Tuesday, the 8th. About three in the morning of that 
 day Mr. Beecher began to fail rapidly, and at half-past 
 four the doctor issued a bulletin saying that the end was 
 
 22* 
 
53O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 approaching. There was a brief rally an hour later, but 
 at half-past seven the sinking was renewed, and the fact 
 of speedy death was known to be inevitable. In another 
 hour Mr. Beecher was dying. The pulse grew more and 
 more feeble, the breathing became irregular and shallow, 
 there was an accumulation of mucus in the throat, and 
 the respiration became stertorous. The pulse flickered 
 and stopped, the breathing grew fainter and died away, 
 the mouth closed, the muscles relaxed, and Henry Ward 
 Beecher was dead ! 
 
 His death was what he had wished for, painless, and 
 not preceded by a long illness. He had often expressed 
 the hope that he would die suddenly, and in the midst 
 of work, and he had no sympathy with the prayer in the 
 Episcopal service which asks that we may be delivered 
 from sudden death. 
 
 Not since the death of General Grant has the demise 
 of any man touched the popular heart in America as did 
 that of Mr. Beecher. Letters and telegrams of condo- 
 lence came to Mrs. Beecher from all parts of the country, 
 and there were several cablegrams from England to the 
 same purpose. In Brooklyn and New York flags were 
 at half-mast all over those cities, and many religious, 
 political, and social organizations held special meetings 
 to pass resolutions of sorrow. The letters and resolutions 
 that reached the mourning family would fill a volume. 
 All breathed the same sentiment, that a great man, a 
 
HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 531 
 
 power in the nation and the world, had been laid low, 
 and the event had stricken the whole country with 
 grief. 
 
 Private funeral services were held at the house on 
 Thursday, March loth, the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall, of 
 Holy Trinity Church, Brooklyn, officiating. When Mr. 
 Beecher's eldest sister, Catharine, went to live with her 
 brother, Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, in Elmira, N. Y., 
 and died there, Dr. Hall wrote to Mr. Beecher saying 
 that, as Miss Beecher had at one time been a member of 
 his church, he would be glad to go to Elmira and con- 
 duct the funeral services. Mr. Beecher replied, thanking 
 him, and said it would not be necessary ; " but," he 
 added, " I wish now to mention what I have already 
 told my family and friends, and I might as well tell it to 
 you. It is that you shall have charge of my funeral if I 
 should go before you. That you shall be present is my 
 hope and desire." 
 
 After the private service, the body was taken to Ply- 
 mouth Church, where it lay in state during the rest of 
 the day and till late in the evening. In compliance with 
 Mr. Beecher's well-known desire, the church was deco- 
 rated with flowers instead of the customary drapery of 
 black. The huge audience-room was transformed into a 
 bower of roses and smilax and evergreens. The reading- 
 desk and the chair from the Mount of Olives were set 
 on either side of the platform. Mrs. Susan Howard, the 
 
532 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 friend of half a century, who for years had furnished the 
 decoration of the desk on festal occasions, had that his- 
 torical object swathed in pink and French roses and 
 vines. The stout chair where the pastor sat for many 
 years was upholstered for Mrs. S. V. White in pink and 
 Eucharis roses, white carnations, and smilax. Back of 
 these pulpit-relics an arras of flowers stretched from the 
 platform-floor almost to the summit of the giant organ, 
 festoons of laurel-rope stretched from chandelier to the 
 four corners of the ceiling, and a ball of roses hung from 
 the former. The facade of the gallery was bright with 
 potted plants, interspersed with wreaths -of laurel. Ever- 
 greens were around the walls both above and beneath 
 the balcony, while under the gallery-wall smilax and 
 flowers were also festooned. The front of the church 
 outside was also decorated with evergreens. 
 
 There was an immense crowd waiting outside the 
 church, and when the doors were opened for the proces- 
 sion it began immediately. By actual count, between 
 seventy and seventy-five persons a minute got a chance to 
 look at the life-like face of the dead preacher. It is a 
 safe estimate to say that at least nine-tenths of the line 
 was composed of women and children. Many of the 
 women held handkerchiefs to their eyes, and not a few 
 were led up to the casket sobbing and in tears. Strong 
 men wept, and hurried by as if afraid that their emotions 
 would overcome them. It was estimated that fully 
 
HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 533 
 
 eighty thousand people passed the coffin of Mr. Beecher 
 during the hours of Thursday and Friday when the pub- 
 lic was admitted. 
 
 The public funeral was on Friday, the nth, Dr. Hall 
 paying an admirable tribute to his deceased friend, which 
 was heard by an audience that filled every inch of sitting 
 or standing room in the vast edifice. Simultaneously 
 with this service there were services in four other churches 
 of Brooklyn, a circumstance without a parallel in the his- 
 tory of that city. These additional services were as fol- 
 lows : Firsfr Baptist Church, by Rev. T. De Witt Talmage ; 
 First Presbyterian Church, by Rev. C. Cuthbert Hall ; 
 Church of the Saviour, by Rev. W. T. Dixon (colored) ; 
 and Sands Street Methodist Church, by Rev. Alexander 
 McLean. All the clergymen spoke eloquently in honor 
 of Mr. Beecher, and dwelt earnestly upon the great work 
 he had performed in his exceedingly active life. In the 
 Sands Street Church, Rabbi Harrison spoke of the work 
 of Mr. Beecher to secure the toleration of the Hebrew 
 race in this and other countries, and added : 
 
 Men revered him as they watched him in his pulpit, week after 
 week, pleading for humanity. All sects revered him, all churches 
 and creeds recognized in him the incarnation of their best thoughts. 
 He was'a hero, a moral and intellectual hero, a champion of the 
 poor and the oppressed of every land and every creed. He was a 
 protector of social equality, a champion of religious tolerance. He 
 stands at the head of his age, and his fame will always remain. To 
 
534 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 all creeds, to all classes, he has been a help, a succor, a light to 
 guide in the darkness. 
 
 On the morning of Saturday, March I2th, the remains 
 of Mr. Beecher were removed from Plymouth Church to 
 the vault in Greenwood Cemetery. Only a limited 
 number of persons accompanied the hearse. Altogether 
 there were about fifty in the company, which consisted 
 of the Church Committee, the trustees, the deacons, and 
 a few prominent members of the church, representing 
 various large family circles. All along the route many 
 persons raised their hats as it passed a deference to the 
 dead common in other countries, but not here. Arrived 
 at the cemetery, the casket was placed in a zinc-lined 
 box and carried to the receiving vault, whose double 
 gates were beautifully decorated with flowers. Rev. Mr. 
 Halliday offered a touching prayer. The casket was 
 placed in the vault, with its decorations of palms, and 
 Henry Ward Beecher was at rest. 
 
 It is probable that the remains will rest in the vault 
 for at least a year, and in the meantime the family will 
 secure a burial plot in Greenwood. It is a fact not gen- 
 erally known, that Mr. Beecher had little respect for the 
 bodies of the dead. He held that the spirit was the val- 
 uable part, and when once it had gone out of the body 
 there was little left worthy of love or sympathy. He 
 could not understand the reason why people visited cem- 
 
HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 535 
 
 eteries and spent their tears above the tombs of the dead. 
 He never, or seldom, visited the resting-place of his chil- 
 dren's remains. " I believe that they are in heaven, not 
 in Greenwood," he would say. It was this belief which 
 made him so careless about providing a plot for his own 
 resting-place and for the widow and children who would 
 come after him. 
 
 Had Mr. Beecher lived until next October to cele- 
 brate the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination as a minis- 
 ter, the fortieth anniversary as Pastor of Plymouth 
 Church, and the golden anniversary of his marriage, he 
 would have received a testimonial of a noteworthy char- 
 acter. President Cleveland and the members of his 
 Cabinet, the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, Lord Tenny- 
 son, and others prominent in the literary, social, and re- 
 ligious world, had agreed to unite in the presentation to 
 him of letters and literary contributions, which were to 
 have been presented to Mr. Beecher at a public meeting, 
 to be held in the Brooklyn Academy of Music early in 
 October. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 Tributes from Many Christian Pulpits. All Denominations Honor Him. 
 Loss of Beech er Like the Removal of a Mountain. His Speeches 
 in England one Long Speech. His Fervid Eloquence. The Great 
 Leader in Pulpit and Republic. Who will Wear His Mantle? The 
 Shakespeare of the Christian Pulpit. A Marvellous Imagination 
 Wonderful Knowledge of Character. Great in the Life of the Re- 
 public. The Most Striking Figure of Our Time. The Incarnation 
 of Love. A Part of America's Life. Tributes from the Hebrews 
 of New York. A Great Star Below the Horizon. The Representa- 
 tive of Democracy in the Pulpit. The End. 
 
 ON the Sunday following Mr. Beecher's death nearly all 
 the clergymen of New York and Brooklyn, as well as 
 many others in all parts of the country, without regard 
 to denominational differences, devoted a portion of their 
 discourses to the character of this remarkable man and 
 his influence upon the moral and religious world. Vol- 
 umes might be compiled from these testimonials, and 
 even then the supply would not be exhausted. All of 
 them bore tribute to Mr. Beecher's transcendent abilities 
 as a preacher and an orator, and as a man who loved his 
 fellow man. In this, our concluding chapter, we have 
 only the space for a few brief selections from the pulpit 
 utterances in honor of his memory. 
 
ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 537 
 
 Rev. J. H. Chadwick, the eloquent Unitarian preacher, 
 of Brooklyn, said among other things : 
 
 " The sense of loss and vacancy occasioned by the 
 death of Henry Ward Beecher is common to all people 
 of intelligence and .thinking minds in the United States, 
 but to us, who knew him in our daily walks, the loss is 
 more keenly felt. He was our foremost citizen^ He 
 has carried the name of the city everywhere, and he has 
 attracted more people to the city than any other man. 
 His life has been one of the hardest kind of work. His 
 work in crushing the slave power is hardly less than that 
 of the great abolitionists, William Lloyd Garrison, Wen- 
 dell Phillips, John Brown, and Abraham Lincoln. His 
 work in robbing religion of its terrors is greater than that 
 of any man the world has ever produced. The loss of 
 Beecher is something like the sudden removal of a 
 mountain. There it had been, year after year, our child- 
 hood's wonder and our manhood's pride. To awake 
 some morning and find the mountain gone is our feeling 
 in these last days. But no such loss can compare with 
 ours. He had faults, but they were unique. He spoke 
 oftener from his emotions than from his beliefs. When 
 he came to Brooklyn he was advised to let politics 
 alone. Had they advised the sea to leave the moon 
 alone they would have been listened to as much. No 
 other orator had his power to call upon men to do and 
 suffer all things for the right. Noisy opposition was 
 
538 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 meat and drink to him. His auditors never found him 
 nodding. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that Beecher's 
 five speeches in England were in reality one long speech, 
 with its introduction in Manchester and its closing words 
 in London. 
 
 Rev. Charles H. Eaton, of the Church of the Divine 
 Paternity, New York, took for his text Romans x. 15 : 
 " How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the 
 gospel of peace." In speaking of Mr. Beecher he said : 
 " His was a noble character. His whole life was spent 
 upon the broad ocean of humanity. Mankind was his 
 study, and the amelioration of the race his constant aim. 
 All that he was, was due to his ancestry. He came of a 
 sturdy, honest stock, and inherited their virtues. He- 
 redity counted more than country. While the glorious 
 climate of Connecticut gave him a vigorous constitution, 
 his mental powers were inherited away back from the 
 sturdy blacksmith, Nathaniel Beecher, who plied upon 
 his anvil under the very tree where the celebrated Dav- 
 enport preached his first sermon in New England. 
 From Nathaniel Beecher and his descendants down to 
 the brainy Lyman Beecher, his distinguished father, 
 Henry Ward Beecher inherited his manly spirit of inde- 
 pendence, his love of religion, and broad spirit of philan- 
 thropy. ..." Greatness is derived in different fields 
 of action. Stephenson's genius lay in an invention ; Sen- 
 eca's in morals ; Webster's in statesmanship ; and Can- 
 
ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 539 
 
 ning's in oratory. It was as an orator that Beecher 
 will go down in history. All that he accomplished 
 was through the power of his fervid eloquence. And 
 why ? Because he dealt with great principles. He 
 dealt with the verities of God. He removed the vail 
 which hid the Redeemer from mankind. He was un- 
 questionably one of the greatest preachers of the age, 
 and as a leader of the masses, he had few equals." 
 
 " Mr. Beecher's Mantle and Who Will Wear It," was 
 the subject of Rev. N. B. Thompson's address at the 
 Free Baptist Church, Twenty-fifth Street, near Eighth 
 Avenue, New York. " During the past week," said Mr. 
 Thompson, " the eyes of the world have been turned to 
 the city across the river. For forty years there lived in 
 Brooklyn a man whose name was a household word 
 throughout the Christian world. Henry Ward Beecher 
 was the head of the people, the Elijah of the Church. 
 We shall never see his like again. What Elijah was to 
 the other prophets, that man of Brooklyn was to the 
 modern Church. The mantle of our later prophet is 
 fluttering down from the skies, and no one dares to touch 
 it or lay hold upon it. And now the question goes echo- 
 ing through Christendom as to who shall wear it. There 
 are many who would be glad to crawl into that mantle. 
 But so large was it that it could wrap within it nine- 
 tenths of the prophets of the present day and have room 
 for more." 
 
540 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 " Henry Ward Beecher, the Shakespeare of the Chris- 
 tian Pulpit," was the subject of Rev. John Rhey Thomp- 
 son's discourse in the Washington Square M. E. Church, 
 New York. After reviewing Mr. Beecher's firm action 
 in the cause of the emancipation of the negro slaves in 
 the South, the pastor narrated at length the great 
 Brooklyn divine's work in freeing the pulpit from the 
 scholasticism fastened upon it by the Calvinists. He 
 made the pulpit, according to Mr. Thompson, a natural 
 and humble place, and taught that right conduct led to 
 correct belief, or, in the words of the Bible, " The pure 
 in heart shall see God." 
 
 " Shakespeare," continued Mr. Thompson, " was con- 
 sidered the king of English literature, and what he is to 
 literature Henry Ward Beecher is to the Christian 
 pulpit. There are many points of similarity between 
 the two. The critics often say that it is impossible that 
 Shakespeare is the author of the works which bear his 
 name. They ask, How is it possible for a man of his 
 limited opportunities to write ' Hamlet ? ' It is even 
 claimed that Lord Bacon was the author of the plays 
 ascribed to Shakespeare. So with Beecher. He also 
 was a man of limited opportunities. Both men learned 
 from within. What other people dig patiently and 
 wearily for, they abstracted by intuition, and what the 
 one is to his field, the other is to his. In reading De 
 Quincey and Paine on Shakespeare, one could strike out 
 
ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 541 
 
 the names of the bard, and substituting Beecher, find the 
 criticisms to apply equally well. Shakespeare was a 
 man of royal imagination. Who denies a royal imagi- 
 nation to Henry Ward Beecher ? Both were true to 
 nature. Shakespeare had a marvellous knowledge of 
 character. Beecher could sweep every key in the mighty 
 organ of the human soul." 
 
 At the Church of the Messiah, Rev. Robert Collyer 
 prefaced his remarks by reading from 2 Chronicles, chap- 
 ter xxiv., verse 16, " They buried him among the kings 
 because he had done good, both toward God and toward 
 his house." Continuing he said : 
 
 " Mr. Beecher's death has touched the heart of our 
 nation and moved it as it was never moved before by 
 the death of one who has filled a sacred office. No 
 nation's heart has been so moved since Martin Luther 
 died three hundred and forty years ago. He was not 
 an old man, for the autumn days had hardly touched 
 the life that lay within. He was still the great leader in 
 the American pulpit, and I know of no one who was 
 greater in the life of the Republic, and so full of enthu- 
 siasm for the work he had to do. His heart was open 
 and warm, and his eye watched carefully for the light on 
 all the wide horizons, and welcomed it with the gift and 
 grace of earlier years rather than our later ones. Where 
 would you look for the eagle glance, and the eager, open 
 heart more surely than in the Plymouth pulpit. His 
 
542 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 laughter was blended with tears, and in his quick, clear 
 wit, born of a man at his best, there still were woven 
 threads of gold through the warp and woof of his public 
 discourse and his private talk. Those who knew him 
 best wondered how little three score and thirteen years 
 had abated the royal gift. 
 
 Not only did the clergymen of all Christian denomi- 
 nations speak in his praise, but there were words of com- 
 fort to his sorrowing friends from the Hebrew syna- 
 gogues in New York and other cities. His love for 
 mankind included all races and religions, and the 
 Hebrews were prompt to acknowledge the services he 
 had rendered to them on many occasions. At the me- 
 morial service in the Temple Emanu-El, in New York, 
 the front of the altar was decorated with a magnificent 
 portrait of Mr. Beecher, and above it was suspended a 
 large wreath of white flowers. Rev. Dr. Gottheil, rabbi 
 of the temple, spoke of Mr. Beecher's address in that very 
 temple two years before, on the occasion of the memorial 
 services in honor of the celebrated Hebrew philanthro- 
 pist, Sir Moses Montefiore, and read several extracts 
 from it. He then delivered an affecting tribute in which 
 he said : Henry Ward Beecher will live in generations 
 to come, the^giant he was. It can also be said of him 
 as of the old prophet, that ' His eye did not grow dim.' 
 Such a death is dying by the kiss of the Almighty. No 
 mortal man has disclosed the true greatness of this coun- 
 
ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 543 
 
 try as Henry Ward Beecher. This typical American 
 was the perfect citizen of the world. He disdained all 
 outward show and artificial authority. A great, brilliant 
 star has sunk below the horizon, and the American peo- 
 ple are watching where it has disappeared, to wait God 
 knows how long until his return." 
 
 Professor Felix Adler, President and leader of the So- 
 ciety for Ethical Culture, paid a glowing tribute to the 
 memory of Mr. Beecher, closing as follows : " He was the 
 type of the American democracy in the pulpit. He was 
 not a vain man in the ordinary sense, but he was su- 
 premely conscious of his power : no man ever more so 
 than he. The secret of his power is to be found in the 
 fact, that the American democracy beheld their qualities 
 reflected in him as a mirror so enlarged and enhanced 
 that he was pre-eminently the American Democratic 
 man, the representative of American Democratic ideas 
 in the pulpit. He rose above social prejudice, which is 
 worse than political prejudice. Let him pass to his rest 
 with Lincoln, Sumner, Phillips, and Grant. * The great 
 war preacher' let that be his just title to "enduring 
 fame." 
 
 Nothing can be more appropriate for the closing page 
 of this memorial volume than some of 'Mr. Beecher's 
 utterances on the question of death and the future life. 
 
 " To one who is living aright, no death can be sudden, 
 and no place unfavorable. One step and all roads meet. 
 
544 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 " Dying is the best part of life to one who knows how 
 to live worthily. 
 
 "When we comprehend the fulness of what death 
 will do for us, in all our outlook and forelock, dying is 
 triumphing. Nowhere is there so fair a sight, so sweet a 
 prospect, as when a young soul is passing away out of 
 life and time through the gate of death the rosy, the 
 royal, the golden, the pearly gate of death. 
 
 " Death is as sweet as flowers are. It is as blessed as 
 bird-singing in spring. I never hear of the death of any- 
 one who is ready to die, that my heart does not sing like 
 a harp. I am sorry for those that are left behind, but 
 not for those who have gone before. 
 
 " Beat on, then, O heart, and yearn for dying. I have 
 drunk at many a fountain, but thirst came again ; I have 
 fed at many a bounteous table, but hunger returned ; I 
 have seen many bright and lovely things, but while I 
 gazed their lustre faded. There is nothing here that can 
 give me rest, but when I behold thee, O God, I shall be 
 satisfied." 
 
 FINIS CORONAT OPUS. 
 
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