// ppgen source beecher-src.txt
// 20150424211928beecher
// KD Weeks, Richard Hulse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
// first edit: 7/29/2017
.dt A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, by Wm. C. Beecher and Rev. Samuel Scoville
.de .sansserif { font-family: Arial, Ember, sans-serif;}
.de a:link { text-decoration: none; }
.de div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA;border:1px solid silver; margin:1em 5% 0 5%; text-align: justify;}
.de .blackletter { font-family: "Old English Text MT", Gothic, serif;}
.de .epubonly {visibility: hidden; display: none; }
.de @media handheld { .epubonly { visibility: visible; display: inline; } }
.de .htmlonly {visibility: visible; display: inline;}
.de @media handheld { .htmlonly { visibility: hidden; display: none; } }
.de div.ic002 { font-family: Arial, Ember, sans-serif; font-size:90%;}
.de div.ic004 { font-family: Arial, Ember, sans-serif;}
.de .column-container { margin: auto; clear: both; }
.de .width05 { width: 5%; }
.de .width10 { width: 10%; }
.de .width25 { width: 25%; }
.de .width30 { width: 30%; }
.de .width35 { width: 35%; }
.de .width50 { width: 48%; }
.de .width55 { width: 53%; }
.de .width60 { width: 58%; }
.de .width70 { width: 68%; }
.de .width90 { width: 85%; }
.de .column1 { display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; }
.de .column2 { display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; }
.de .column3 { display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: bottom; }
.de .column3a { display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; }
.de ins.correction { text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray; }
.de .quote { font-size: 95%; margin-top: 1.0em; margin-bottom: 1.0em; }
.de .nospace { margin-bottom: 0.0em;}
.de .linegroup .group { margin: 0em auto; }
.sr t |\[oe\]|œ|
.sr h |text-align: left; text-indent: -1em;|text-align: justify; text-indent: -1em;|
.sr h |||
.sr h |||
.sr t ||=|
.sr t ||=|
.dm ii $1
.dm-
// create errata table page references
.dm cref $1
.if t
$1
.if-
.if h
#$1:corr$1#
.if-
.dm-
// create markup
.dm corr_noid $1 $2
.if h
$2
.if-
.dm-
.dm corr $1 $2 $3
.if t
$3
.if-
.if h
$3$3
.if-
.dm-
.dm start_summary
.fs 90%
.in 4
.ti -4
.dm-
.dm end_summary
.fs 100%
.in
.dm-
.dm start_quote_nospace
.dv class='quote nospace'
.dm-
//Begin quote
.dm start_quote
.dv class='quote'
.dm-
//End Quote
.dm end_quote
.dv-
.dm-
// Begin Poetry
.dm start_poem
.sp 1
.fs 95%
.nf b
.dm-
// End Poetry
.dm end_poem
.nf-
.fs 100%
.sp 1
.dm-
.pb
.pi
.dv class='tnotes'
.ce
Transcriber’s Note:
.if t
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical
effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they
are referenced, and have been numbered sequentially.
Illustrations have been moved to fall on paragraph breaks.
.if-
.if h
Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they
are referenced, have been numbered sequentially, and are linked
for ease of reference.
Illustrations have been moved to fall on paragraph breaks.
.if-
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s #note:endnote# at the end of this text
for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered
during its preparation.
.if h
.dv class='htmlonly'
Any corrections are indicated using an
highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the
original text in a small popup.
.il fn=cover.jpg w=60%
.dv-
.dv class='epubonly'
Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the
reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections tale in the
note at the end of the text.
.dv-
.if-
.dv-
.bn 001.png
.pn +1
.nf c
BIOGRAPHY
OF
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.
.nf-
.bn 002.png
.bn 003.png
.bn 004.png
.il fn=i_frontis.jpg w=60% alt='Henry Ward Beecher'
.bn 005.png
.sp 4
.h1
A BIOGRAPHY | OF | REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER.
.sp 2
.nf c
BY
Wm. C. Beecher and Rev. Samuel Scoville,
.sp 2
ASSISTED BY
MRS. HENRY WARD BEECHER.
.nf-
.sp 2
.hr 20%
.sp 2
.nf c
New York:
CHARLES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY.
.nf-
.hr 5%
.ce
1888.
.bn 006.png
.sp 2
.nf c
Copyrighted by
CHARLES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY,
1888
(All rights reserved.)
.nf-
.sp 8
.dv class='sansserif'
.nf c
JENKINS & McCOWAN, PRINTERS,
224, 226 and 228 Centre St, N. Y.
.nf-
.dv-
.bn 007.png
.sp 2
.nf c
To Our Mother,
WHOSE FAITHFUL LOVE AND PATIENT SELF-DEVOTION COMFORTED
AND STRENGTHENED OUR BELOVED FATHER
DURING TROUBLES, BLESSED AND ENCOURAGED
HIM IN PROSPERITY,
A TRUE COMPANION AND DEVOTED HELPMEET,
WE DEDICATE THIS STORY OF HIS LIFE.
.nf-
.bn 008.png
.bn 009.png
.pn 7
.sp 4
.h2
CONTENTS.
.hr 10%
.sp 2
.ta h:54 r:10
CHAPTER I.
| PAGE
Ancestry—Beecher—Ward—Foote—The Anvil—The Oak—Courtship\
and Marriage of Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote—Home\
at East Hampton, Long Island—Removal to Litchfield,\
Connecticut | #17-29:ch01#
CHAPTER II.
Litchfield—Situation—Natural Features—Early Settlers—Social\
and Moral Advantages—Patriotism—North Street described—The\
Beecher Home—Birth of Henry Ward—The Times at\
Home and Abroad—His Birth-Mark | #30-45:ch02#
CHAPTER III.
Early Glimpses—Recollections of the Mother—Going to School at\
Ma’am Kilbourne’s—His First Letter—District School—The\
Coming of the New Mother—His First Ride on Horseback—A\
Merry Household—Fishing Excursions—Minister’s Wood-Spell—Saturday\
Night—Going to Meeting—The Puritan Sabbath—The\
Cold of Litchfield Hill—Rats—Work—The Catechism—Formative\
Influences—Summing Up | #46-71:ch03#
CHAPTER IV.
Boyhood—Sent to School at Bethlehem—The Widow Ingersoll’s—Failure—A\
Champion—Sent to Catharine Beecher’s School in\
Hartford—Humorous Incidents—Religious Experience | #72-81:ch04#
CHAPTER V.
Boston—Home Atmosphere—Various Experiences—Ethics rubbed\
in by a Six-pound Shot—Discontent—Makes up his Mind\
to go to Sea—To Study Navigation—Picture of his Life in\
Boston | #82-92:ch05#
.bn 010.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER VI.
School-Life at Mount Pleasant—Mathematics—Elocution—Testimony\
of Classmates—Religious Experiences—Troubles—A\
Romantic Friendship—Another Kind—Letter of Reminiscence—A\
Royal School-Boy | #93-108:ch06#
CHAPTER VII.
Amherst College—Private Journal—Testimony of Classmates—Tutor’s\
Delight—Begins his Anti-Slavery Career—Spiritual\
Darkness—Engagement—Letters of his Mother—Experiences\
in Teaching School—First Sermons—Lecturing—His Reading—The\
Record | #109-135:ch07#
CHAPTER VIII.
Lane Seminary—Dr. Beecher Called—Home at Walnut Hills—Amusing\
Incidents—Family Meeting—Death of Mrs. Beecher—Extracts\
from Journal—First Mention of Preaching in the\
West—Experience in Ecclesiastical Matters—Despondency—Meeting\
of Synod—Influences of the Times—Revulsion—A\
Rift along the Horizon—“Full iolly Knight” | #136-156:ch08#
CHAPTER IX.
Call to Preach—License—Examination by Miami Presbytery—Refusal\
to Subscribe to Old School—Ordination by Oxford Presbytery—Visit\
East—Marriage—Housekeeping | #157-180:ch09#
CHAPTER X.
The New Field—Growth of Influence—Social Life—The Secret of\
Effective Preaching—Editorial Labors—Lectures to Young\
Men—Call to Brooklyn—Departure | #181-209:ch10#
CHAPTER XI.
Invitation to come East—Call to Plymouth Church—Friendly Misgivings—Plainly\
Outlining his Views—Early Success—Plymouth\
Burned—Preaching in the Tabernacle | #210-224:ch11#
CHAPTER XII.
Plymouth Church—The New Building—Sabbath Service—Prayer-Meeting—Weekly\
Lecture—Socials—Church Polity—The Pastor’s\
Policy | #225-232:ch12#
CHAPTER XIII.
Beginning of the Great Battle—Five Great Eras—Compromise\
Measures of 1850—“Shall We Compromise”—The Fugitive\
Slave Law denounced—Right of Free Speech defended—Commercial\
.bn 011.png
.pn +1
Liberty—Fighting Caste—Liberty of the Pulpit\
defended—Quickness of Retort—Sentiment of the Times—Reaction—Visit\
of Kossuth—Election of 1852—The Parker\
Controversy—Degraded into Liberty—John Mitchel—Garrison—Close\
of this Era | #233-270:ch13#
CHAPTER XIV.
The Battle renewed—Repeal of the Missouri Compromise proposed—The\
Struggle in Congress—Mr. Beecher’s Appeals—The\
Battle lost in Congress is transferred to the Territories—Forces\
engaged—Kansas War—Dred Scott Decision—Mr.\
Beecher’s Defence of Kansas—“Beecher’s Bibles”—Charles\
Sumner attacked in the Senate—The Fremont Campaign—The\
Dog Noble | #271-291:ch14#
CHAPTER XV.
Remarkable Experiences—The Edmonson Sisters—Pinky and her\
Freedom-Ring—Slave Auction in Plymouth Church—John\
Brown—The Wrong and Right Way—Election of Abraham\
Lincoln—Secession—Buchanan’s Fast | #292-308:ch15#
CHAPTER XVI.
War Begun—Firing upon Fort Sumter—“The American Eagle\
as you want it”—Death of Col. Ellsworth—Equips his Sons—Personal\
Feeling yields to Patriotism—His House a Store-house\
of Military Supplies—Sends a Regiment as his Substitute—Our\
National Flag—The Camp, its Dangers and Duties—Bull\
Run—Becomes Editor of the Independent—Salutatory—The\
Trent Affair—Fight, Tax—Soldiers or Ferrets—Characteristics\
as an Editor—One Nation, one Constitution, one\
Starry Banner—McClellan Safe, and Richmond too—Mildly\
carrying on War—The Root of the Matter—The only Ground—A\
Queer Pulpit—President’s Proclamation of Emancipation—Let\
come what will—Close of the Third Era | #309-338:ch16#
CHAPTER XVII.
First Voyage to England—Extracts from Diary—Warwick Castle—Stratford-on-Avon—The\
Skylark—Oxford—Bodleian Library—London—Old-time\
Sadness—Paris—Catch-Words from\
Diary—Effect of Picture-Gallery—The Louvre—His Return | #339-349:ch17#
CHAPTER XVIII.
Church and Steamboat—Jenny Lind—Hospitality—Colonel Pertzel—The\
Family—Twins—Medicine—Giving Counsel—For\
the Sailor—An Absurd Story contradicted—Salisbury—Trouting—Death\
of Alfred and Arthur—Letters to his Daughter\
.bn 012.png
.pn +1
at School—Lenox—Equivocal Honors declined—The\
Pulpit—“Plymouth Collection”—“Shining Shore“—A\
Church Liturgy—Courting with his Father’s old Love-letters—1857\
a Year of Trial—Matteawan—Visit to Litchfield—1858 a\
Year of Harvest—Revival Meetings—Hospitality of Plymouth\
Church—Courtesy to Errorists—New Organ—Peekskill—Letters\
to his Daughter abroad—Marriage of his Daughter—Lecturing—Title\
of D. D. declined—Flowers in Church—Christian\
Liberty in the use of the Beautiful—His two Lines of Labor | #350-395:ch18#
CHAPTER XIX.
Visit to England in 1863—The Need of Rest—Condition of Affairs\
at Home—Arrival at Liverpool—Refusal to Speak—Visit to\
the Continent—Reception by the King of Belgium—Civil\
War discussed—News of Victories—Return to England | #396-407:ch19#
CHAPTER XX.
Facing the Mob in Manchester—Glasgow—Edinburgh—Desperate
Attempts to break Mr. Beecher down at Liverpool—Victory\
in London | #408-442:ch20#
CHAPTER XXI.
Close of the War—Distrust of the Administration—Kindlier Feelings\
after Mr. Beecher’s Return from England—Growing Confidence—Intimacy\
with Secretary Stanton—Fort Sumter—Lee’s\
Surrender—Lincoln’s Death | #443-456:ch21#
CHAPTER XXII.
Reconstruction—Mr. Beecher favors speedy Readmission—Soldiers’\
and Sailors’ Convention at Cleveland—The “Cleveland\
Letters” cause great Excitement | #457-478:ch22#
CHAPTER XXIII.
The “Silver Wedding” of Plymouth Church—Children’s Day—Services\
in the Church—Reunion of old Members—Historical\
Reminiscences—Dr. Storrs’s Tribute | #479-487:ch23#
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Conspiracy—Relations with Mr. Bowen—Disputes and Arbitration—Theodore\
Tilton’s Early Promise and Intimacy with\
Mr. Beecher—Bowen’s Ill-Will and Tilton’s Malice—Tilton\
discharged from Independent and Brooklyn Union—Tripartite\
Agreement—Moulton and Tilton Conspire to Blackmail Mr.\
Beecher—Tilton consults Dr. Storrs | #488-522:ch24#
.bn 013.png
.pn +1
CHAPTER XXV.
After-Effects—Charges against Tilton—Advisory Council—Investigating\
Committee called by Mr. Beecher—Its Report—Dropping\
Mr. Moulton—Council called by Plymouth Church | #523-536:ch25#
CHAPTER XXVI.
After-Effects of the Conspiracy—Calling Council of 1876—Principle\
of Selection—Mr. Beecher cautions his Church—Bowen\
Reappears; Proposes a Secret Tribunal—Mr. Beecher’s Reply—Bowen\
Dropped by Plymouth Church—Deliverance of\
Council sustaining Plymouth—Mr. Beecher’s Persecutors Denounced—Special\
Tribunal | #537-563:ch26#
CHAPTER XXVII.
Rest and renewed Activity—Lecturing Tours—Resignation from\
the Congregational Association—Boston Criticisms | #564-570:ch27#
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Attacking Corrupt Judges—Interest in Political Questions—Advocating\
Arthur’s Renomination—Opposing Blaine—Supporting\
Cleveland—Campaign of 1884—After the Battle | #571-587:ch28#
CHAPTER XXIX.
A Preacher—His Place—His Training—His Estimate of the\
Work—Defects—Effectual Call—Upon Drawing an Audience—His\
Theory—Preparation—Results—A Theologian—His\
Orthodoxy—Evolution—Ordinances—Christian Unity—Sectarianism—Peacemaker | #588-613:ch29#
CHAPTER XXX.
Love of the Country—Communion with Nature—Farming at\
Salisbury—Lenox—Matteawan—The Peekskill Farm | #614-638:ch30#
CHAPTER XXXI.
Home Life—Love of Children—His Method of Training and Education—Formation\
of Library and Art Collection—Personal\
Traits | #639-664:ch31#
CHAPTER XXXII.
1886—England Revisited—Speaking in the City Temple—Westminster\
Abbey—Lecturing through Great Britain—Addressing\
the Theological Students at City Temple—“Life of Christ”—Sickness—Rest | #665-683:ch32#
Appendix | #687:app#
.ta-
.bn 014.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
ILLUSTRATIONS.
.sp 2
.ta r:4 h:46 r:18
| | PAGE
1.| Anvil and Oak Stump | #18:i018#
2.| Foote Coat-of-Arms | #21:i021#
3.| Church in which Lyman Beecher preached, in East Hampton, L. I. | #28:i028#
4.| Beecher Residence at Litchfield | #39:i039#
5.| Room in which Mr. Beecher was born | #43:i043#
6.| Elms and Well which mark the Site of the “Beecher House” in Litchfield | #45:i045#
7.| Facsimile of the first Letter of Mr. Beecher | #50:i050#
8.| Ingersoll House | #73:i073#
9.| Stairs in Catharine Beecher’s House in Hartford | #111:i111#
10.| Mr. Beecher at the time of his Marriage | #168:i168#
11.| Mrs. Beecher at the time of her Marriage | #169:i169#
12.| Church at Indianapolis | Facing page #182:i182fp#
13.| Mr. Beecher’s House at Indianapolis | ”\ \ \ \ \ ”\ \ \ \ \ #202:i202fp#
14.| Mr. Beecher and his Father at time of Call to Brooklyn, | ”\ \ \ \ \ ”\ \ \ \ \ #210:i212fp#
15.| Pinky’s Freedom-Ring | #295:i295#
16.| Mr. Beecher in 1850 | #367:i367#
17.| Mr. Beecher at the Close of the War | #445:i445#
18.| Mr. Beecher and his Sister, Mrs. H. E. B. Stowe | #525:i525#
19.| Cottage at Peekskill | #619:i619#
20.| Old Apple-Tree | #621:i621#
21.| Mr. Beecher on his Farm | #625:i625#
22.| House at Peekskill | #631:i631#
23.| Hall in New House at Peekskill | #633:i633#
24.| Mr. and Mrs. Beecher at the time of Visit to England in 1886 | #667:i667#
25.| Lying in State in Plymouth Church | #679:i679#
.ta-
.bn 015.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
PREFACE.
.sp 2
A few months prior to his death our father undertook
the preparation of his Autobiography. This was earnestly
encouraged by his family, who shared with the public the
desire that he should tell the tale of his life in his own
words, giving those pictures of his inner self, the impressions
made on him by his varying experiences, that he alone could
give, and which, to a large extent, he alone knew. Confiding
and free-spoken as he was in his joys, in his griefs
he withdrew within himself, bearing in patient silence a
load of sorrow unknown even to those nearest to him.
But it was not to be. He had only jotted down a rough
outline of his plan, and written a part of an intermediate
chapter, when he laid down his pen for a little rest, never
to be resumed again.
In his contract with our publishers but a single volume
of not less than six hundred pages was contemplated. Unconscious
of its magnitude, we undertook to complete the
contract. Accepting the limitations of a single volume, we
began to collect the necessary material, and, when too late
to change the form of the work, discovered that two volumes
would hardly contain the history as it opened up to us,
so closely interwoven has his life been with the nation’s history,
and so full of important incidents. In the work of
condensation, to bring our story within the space prescribed,
we found it necessary to omit many of his letters, hoping
that in the not far-distant future we might publish a supplemental
volume containing all of his important correspondence.
.bn 016.png
.pn +1
The book before us we have sought, as far as possible,
to make autobiographic, telling the tale in our father’s words;
happily the many letters furnished us by friends, or retained
in the family, his public writings and utterances, supplemented
by the many personal reminiscences which he gave us at
various times, has enabled us to do so to a large extent.
We are fully conscious of the imperfect manner in which
we have woven these quotations into our story; the ordinary
writer who attempts to connect with his words those
glowing sentences white-hot with his fiery indignation against
slavery, or his eloquent appeal to the English public for fair-dealing,
or the brilliant play of wit and fancy in his more
humorous utterances, can hope, at the most, to give but a
respectable background that may aid by contrast.
We have sought to make this book a truthful history
from the beginnings of his life, through boyhood, manhood,
and ripened age, to the end, omitting no important period,
though passing innumerable incidents.
A man loving peace, he reached peace only through war.
From his early manhood he was called to meet in deadly
combat the great sins of the nation. Through his life, at different
times, he met and overcame bitter and deadly assaults
made upon him.
In our narration of these events we have had no revenge
to gratify nor theory to maintain. We have tried to give only
facts, omitting deductions or conclusions, leaving each reader
to draw his own inferences. If parts of our narrative bear
hardly on any, it is only the pressure of the facts which cannot
be suppressed in any fearless, truthful portrayal of our
father’s life. We do not make them; we merely state them.
We would acknowledge our indebtedness to the many
friends who have kindly furnished letters and reminiscences,
but especially to our mother, whose memory, running back
along the paths they travelled for so many years together,
.bn 017.png
.pn +1
has given to us much that never would otherwise have been
known.
If our readers get from a perusal of these pages a tithe
of the comfort and inspiration which we have obtained from
their preparation, we shall feel that our work has not been
in vain.
If they can see something of the fearlessness for right,
the patience under unjust suffering, the inextinguishable love
for fellow-men, and the abiding faith in God, that has been
revealed by a study of his life even to us, who knew him
best, we shall be satisfied.
.ll 68
.nf r
W. C. Beecher,
Samuel Scoville.
.nf-
.ll
Brooklyn, March 12, 1888.
.bn 018.png
.bn 019.png
.pn +2
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch01'
CHAPTER I.
.pm start_summary
Ancestry—Beecher—Ward—Foote—The Anvil—The Oak—Courtship and
Marriage of Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote—Home at East Hampton,
Long Island—Removal to Litchfield, Connecticut.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Henry Ward Beecher used to say that the first thing
for a man to do, if he would succeed in life, is to “choose
a good father and mother to be born of.” He himself
was eminently wise, or fortunate, as the case may be, in this
matter.
“My earthly life,” he says, “was given me by two of the best
folks that ever lived on earth.” His father, Lyman Beecher, was
one of the leading preachers, reformers, and controversialists of
his day. Sturdy in body and mind, full of sensibility, aflame
with enthusiasm, devoted to the highest aims and utterly unselfish
in life, a Christian in whom deep spirituality and strong
common sense were happily blended, he was just the man to
transmit excellent qualities to his children; a father to be enjoyed
while living, and to be remembered with love and reverence
after his death.
Of him his son says: “While he was eloquent and among
the foremost speakers of his day, I remember particularly that
I never heard from him a word of uncharitableness, nor saw
a symptom of envy or jealousy, or aught else but the most enthusiastic
love of men, and of young men and young ministers;
and knowing him in the household, I have yet to know another
person that was so devoid of the inferior feelings and so eminent
in the topmost feelings of human nature.”
Lyman’s father’s name was David, a well-read, clear-headed
man, with decided opinions upon the questions of the day; one
with whom Roger Sherman delighted, upon his return from Congress,
to talk over the business of the session and discuss public
affairs. He kept college students as boarders, that he might enjoy
their conversation, and made himself proficient in many of
their studies. Of him his son said: “If he had received a regular
education he would have been equal to anybody.” He was
.bn 020.png
.pn +1
both blacksmith and farmer, and had the reputation of “raising
the nicest rye and making the best hoes in New England.”
.il id=i018 fn=i_018.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca The Anvil and Oak Stump.
Lyman Beecher’s mother was a Lyman, a woman “of a joyous,
sparkling, hopeful temperament.” Her grandfather was a
Scotchman, thus giving a little Gaelic blood to the veins of her
descendants. In his autobiography Lyman Beecher says: “She
died of consumption two days after I was born. I was a seven-months
child, and when the woman that attended on her saw
what a puny thing I was, and that the mother could not live, she
thought it useless to attempt to keep me alive. I was actually
wrapped up and laid aside. But after a while one of the
women thought she would look and see if I were living, and, finding
I was, concluded to wash and dress me, saying: ‘It’s a pity
he hadn’t died with his mother.’ So you see it was but by a
hair’s-breadth I got a foothold in this world.” He was taken in
charge by “Aunt Benton” and brought up on his uncle Lot Benton’s
farm in North Guilford, where farm-work and farm-fare
made him strong.
Their intention was to make a farmer of him; but the intolerable
slowness of an ox-team, in ploughing fifteen acres of summer
.bn 021.png
.pn +1
fallow three times over in a single season, so disgusted the lad
that he became restless. His uncle saw it, and upon consultation
with the father they decided to send him to school to prepare
for Yale College, which was accordingly done. He often said,
“Oxen sent me to college.”
David’s father’s name was Nathaniel. He was also a blacksmith,
and the anvil of both father and son stood upon the stump
of that old oak under which John Davenport preached his first
sermon to the New Haven Colony. He married a Sperry, “a
pious woman,” whose mother was a Roberts from Forlallt, Cardiganshire,
Wales. From her, his great great-grandmother, came
the fervid Welsh blood with which Henry Ward was always so
well pleased.
Joseph was the father of Nathaniel. His father’s name was
John, of whom tradition says that he was one of those who in the
fall of 1637 accompanied Samuel Eaton in his explorations for a
suitable location for the colony of John Davenport, that had just
come over and was then staying at Boston; and that he was one
of the very few men who lived through the winter in the poor hut
that had been built at “Quinnipiack,” New Haven, that they
might pre-empt the territory and be in readiness to welcome the
colony in the following spring.
He was the only son of Hannah Beecher, whose husband,
born in Kent, England, died just before the colony sailed. She
was about to abandon the enterprise, but, being a midwife and
likely to be of service to the youthful colony, they promised her
her husband’s share in the town plot if she would come. They
kept their word, and it was in her lot that the historic oak just
mentioned stood.
Her business seems not to have been remarkably lucrative,
for at her death her estate inventoried only £55 5s. 6d.
One earlier mention of the family was found by Mr. Beecher
in the British Museum during his visit to England in 1863, and
copied in his diary:
“Visitation of Kent, 16,279 Brit. Museum.
“Henry Beecher, alderman and sheriff of London 1570,
ob’t 1571.”
Apparently of more than the average intellectual ability of
their class, there was one feature in which the men whom we have
described markedly excelled—namely, in their physical strength.
.bn 022.png
.pn +1
The standard of measurement was peculiar to those early times,
and may not be as well understood by us; yet it even now conveys
the idea of great stalwartness. David, it was said, could
lift a barrel of cider and carry it into the cellar; Nathaniel, his
father, was not quite as strong, yet he could throw a barrel of
cider into a cart; while Joseph exceeded them all, for he could lift
the barrel and drink out of the bung-hole. Of Henry, the sheriff,
no description has been found.
There was one especial feature of degeneracy in these modern
days, compared with the good old times of the fathers, over
which Henry Ward, when Mrs. Beecher was just within earshot,
moaned and groaned. His grandfather, he said, had five wives,
his father had three, but such was the meagreness of these penurious
times in which he lived, and the persistence of the Bullard
blood, that he saw no chance for himself to have more than one.
But afterwards, lest she should feel hurt at his raillery, he writes
her with many expressions of affection, in a letter dated March
31, 1872: has always been a shadow over the future to fear
that I should walk alone the few remaining years of my life,
for alone I shall be if you go from me. In jest we have often
spoken of other connections. But such a thing is the remotest
of possibilities. Should you go no one would ever take your
place.”
Such was the ancestry selected on the father’s side. Six generations,
without question, are known to us, reaching from the
hills of Litchfield, in Connecticut, to the chalk-cliffs of Kent,
England. For that distance we can trace the family stream up
to its sources in the great body of the English common people,
in that county most characteristic of England, where the Roman
had first struggled with the Briton, where the “free-necked
men,” under Hengist and Horsa, had first made a lodgment on
English soil, and near which was Hastings and the fields of the
Norman conquest, and where, perhaps more than in any other
county, mingled those different strains of blood, Briton, Roman,
Saxon, Northmen, Scots, and Picts, out of which has come England’s
strength and England’s greatness. We find all of them of
the yeomanry, all of them honest, useful, God-fearing men, fit to
be the progenitors of one who delighted in nothing more than
in his common experiences with common people, and valued
nothing more highly than their confidence and friendship.
.bn 023.png
.pn +1
Nor would it be difficult to find in the sturdy independence
and quaint humor of these men of the anvil and the plough, the
origin of much of that robust and humorous manliness which
made Henry Ward Beecher so conspicuous in his day and generation.
His power to strike heavy blows and to hit the nail on the
head was partly inherited, and that anvil-ring of the fathers has
been often heard in these latter days under his sledge-hammer
strokes. If the iron were not hot, he heated it by striking, and
sparks flew, and men’s hearts and minds were moulded and welded
before he was done.
.il id=i021 fn=i_021.jpg w=225px ew=45% align=r alt='Foote Coat-of-Arms'
More than this, there appears in him something of the love
of the “shield-game” and the “sword-play” of those earlier
generations that were “at heart fighters,” and something also of
the sadness and heroism which led them to say, “Each man of us
shall abide the end of his life-work;
let him that may, work his
doomed deeds ere death come.”
On the mother’s side the selection
was somewhat different.
While we find no more sterling
qualities, there is in this line a
higher social position, more culture,
a broader training in public
affairs, both civil and military,
and what with some may appear
of still greater importance, a coat-of-arms
given as a special mark
of royal gratitude.
Roxana Foote had gentle
blood in her veins. She could
trace her genealogy on the father’s
side back through Nathaniel
Foote, who came into Connecticut
with Hooker’s company
in 1636, to James Foote, an officer
in the English army, who aided
King Charles to conceal himself
in the “Royal Oak” and was knighted for his loyalty. As
the old primer has it:
.bn 024.png
.pn +1
.pm start_poem
“It was the tree, the old oak-tree,
Which saved his royal majesty.”
.pm end_poem
.ti 0
The tree stood in a field of clover, and the Foote coat-of-arms
still bears an oak for its crest and a clover-leaf in its quarterings,
with the motto “Loyalty and Truth.”
Her mother, Roxana Ward Foote, was descended from
Andrew Ward, who came over with Sir Richard Saltonstall and
settled in Watertown, Mass., in 1630.
He afterwards moved to Wethersfield, and was a member of
the first General Court, or Legislature, held at Hartford in 1636.
Later he moved to Stamford, and represented that colony in the
higher branch of the General Court at New Haven.
From him descended Colonel Andrew Ward, who took part
in the old French and Indian war and aided in the capture of
Louisburg in 1745. Of him it is told that, being a stanch cold-water
man, he took money in lieu of his daily rations of grog.
With this he bought six silver spoons, on which he had engraved
the name “Louisburg.” Some of these spoons are still preserved
in the family, witnesses to the virtue and valor of one of its honored
ancestors.
His son was General Andrew Ward, of Revolutionary fame,
who, at the close of the war, went back to his native town, Guilford,
and took up his residence upon a farm of about two hundred
acres, called Nutplains. For many years he represented
the town in the State Legislature, being nominated, it is said, year
after year by some one of the town worthies in this primitive
manner: “The meeting is now open, and you will proceed to
vote for General Ward and Deacon Burgess for representatives.”
When his daughter, an only child, who had married Eli Foote,
was left a widow, he took her with her ten children to his home
at Nutplains, and cared for them as if they were his own. Being
a great reader, and always bringing home with him from the
Legislature his saddle-bags full of books, which were read aloud
and discussed in the family, this home became a school that
afforded superior advantages for gaining acquaintance with literature,
for acquiring such knowledge of science as was accessible
at that time, and for exciting thought and interest. In that
school Roxana, the second-born of the family, is represented to
have been easily first both in intellect and goodness.
Taking her part in the labor of the household at a time when
.bn 025.png
.pn +1
it was expected that the woman portion would not only care for
the house, prepare the food, and make the clothes for all the
family, but also weave and spin the materials as well, she yet
managed to acquire an education of which graduates of our
modern schools and colleges might well be proud. “She studied
while she spun flax, tying her books to the distaff.” She not
only became well read in literature and history, and acquainted
with the progress of science, then just beginning to attract the
attention of scholars, but learned to write and speak the French
language fluently. She gave enough attention to music to be
able to accompany her voice on the guitar, and was sufficiently
skilled in the use of pencil and brush to paint some very creditable
portraits upon ivory, several of which are still in the family.
She was an adept in the mysteries of the needle, “in fine embroidery
with every variety of lace and cobweb stitch,” and was
gifted with great skill and celerity in all manner of handicraft, so
that in after-years “neither mantua-maker, tailoress, or milliner
ever drew on the family treasury.”
Belonging to a family distinguished in both branches of her
ancestry, and residing, while her father lived, in the centre of the
village of Guilford, which could boast that more than four-fifths
of its original population belonged to families with coats-of-arms
in Great Britain, and afterwards taken to the home of her
grandfather, General Ward, who was the foremost man of the
town and one of the leading men in the State, and who kept
open house to all strangers, she enjoyed the best social advantages
which the times afforded.
Tall and beautiful in form and feature, with a winning and yet
commanding presence, “she was so sensitive and of so great
natural timidity that she never spoke in company or before strangers
without blushing, and was absolutely unable in after-life to
conform to the standard of what was expected of a pastor’s wife
and lead the devotions in the weekly female prayer-meeting.”
She was early confirmed in the Episcopal Church; her parents,
although both from strictly Puritan families, having joined
that denomination upon their marriage. They had held through
all the Revolutionary struggle to their loyalty to King George,
and this had subjected them to the determined opposition of
their neighbors, and stamped the family, perhaps, with something
of that independence of character which opposition to a prevailing
.bn 026.png
.pn +1
popular sentiment is adapted to give, and which is so
marked a feature in her descendants.
Converted when she was but five years old, and scarcely
remembering the time when she did not go with her joys and
sorrows to God in prayer, and next to the oldest in a family of
ten children, her mother a widow, and all dependent upon the
grandfather, she early learned that patience, self-control, efficiency,
and unselfishness that characterized her through life and
left in her old home at Nutplains, as Mrs. Stowe tells us, traditions
like these: “Your mother never spoke an angry word in
her life.” “Your mother never told a lie.” And from the
husband such a testimony as this: “She experienced resignation,
if any one ever did. I never saw the like, so entire, without
reservation or shadow of turning. In no exigency was she taken
by surprise. She was just there, quiet as an angel from above. I
never heard a murmur; and if ever there was a perfect mind as
respects submission, it was hers. I never witnessed a movement
of the least degree of selfishness; and if there ever was any such
thing in the world as disinterestedness, she had it.”
No one reading her history will think that Henry Ward
exaggerated when, speaking of her and her influence upon him,
he said: “There are few born into this world that are her
equals. She was a woman of extraordinary graces and gifts; a
woman not demonstrative, with a profound philosophical nature,
of a wonderful depth of affection, and with a serenity that was
simply charming. From her I received my love of the beautiful,
my poetic temperament; from her also I received simplicity and
childlike faith in God.”
And again: “My communion with nature arose from the
mother in me. Because my mother was an inspired woman, who
saw God in nature as really as in the Book, and she bestowed
that temperament upon me, and I came gradually to feel that,
aside from God as revealed in the past, there was a God with an
everlasting present around about me.”
With these elements of a more personal nature also appear
certain family traits. As we saw how, from the father’s side, the
old anvil was constantly making itself heard in the strong, sturdy
qualities of the Beecher stock, so shall we see features from the
ancestry on the mother’s side coming to him almost unchanged.
The loyalty represented by the oak-tree, and the virtue displayed
.bn 027.png
.pn +1
at Louisburg, will constantly show themselves. Who that has
seen him standing, now for the black man in the face of the
adverse popular sentiment of his time in obedience to his
own convictions of right, now governing his political actions
by the same authority, and anon following his religious convictions
wherever they led him, can have failed to see, in him, the
oak-tree standing in the clover-field with the motto written upon
its shield, in letters of light, “Loyalty and Truth”? In his constant
advocacy of reform, in his early and strenuous opposition to
intemperance, appears “Louisburg” again, written this time, not
upon silver, but upon life and character—the Ward and the
Foote families showing in him the characteristics they had won.
More than this, probably no lines could better illustrate the
New England race-elements, the union of its democracy and its
gentry, the sturdy independence of its homes and its native ability
in war and peace, its intellectual and its spiritual independence,
its quaint humor and its shrewd common sense, than those that
united in him from both the parental roots.
He was a natural product of the New England stock, tempered
and sweetened by the broader traditions of the more aristocratic
blood of the Cavalier, of New England institutions and
New England character. And since New England, thus enriched,
illustrates the whole land, and by reason of the diffusion of her
blood has made her characteristics national, he was a typical
American, standing with unusual ability and conscientiousness
where every true American feels that he ought to stand—for
right and liberty. This, we doubt not, was in part the ground of
his national popularity and influence; he was felt to be so
thoroughly American. He represented us as do our national colors
and our battle-flags, and we were proud of him, grew enthusiastic
over him, and men that never saw him loved him. And
since these characteristics are but the product of English institutions
and the putting forth of Anglo-Saxon tendencies which were
always advancing, always protesting against some old abuse, and
always seeking the recognition of some right—now at Runnymede
among the barons, and now at Westminster among the
Commons; now taking up the question of negro-slavery, and
now the Irish question; always hopeful, expectant, progressive—and
America is but, as he claimed, “the better England
transplanted,” and he but “an Englishman from a broader
.bn 028.png
.pn +1
England,” a continental instead of an insular one, he was hailed
by all the English-speaking people as belonging to them as do
King Alfred and Shakspere.
As we go on we shall find many other influences at work—influences
of nature, of books, of college and profession; but
thus early we can see that, more than of any and all the rest,
Henry Ward Beecher was the product of New England parentage,
full-veined with English traditions and race characteristics.
The courtship of Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote took
place in 1798. It was marked by the interpenetration of religious
sentiment and earthly love, and was a true preparation for
home-making, and of such a home as should help to form the
remarkable personality of H. W. Beecher.
The letters that passed between them during this year give
evidence of the strong love of those who, while having still upon
them the dew of their youth, have each found in the other the
chosen mate—a love than which earth has no more influential nor
beautiful thing to give. They also show us the two akin in
intellectual powers and pursuits, and equally enjoying the treasures
which the world of letters opened to them. But most
prominent of all matters referred to in these letters are religious
questions and personal religious experiences. They revolve
around “the evidences” and similar subjects with an absorption
of interest that must seem almost incomprehensible to modern
lovers. In the perfect and unrestrained communion of heart
with heart these two speak of the sweet and wonderful experiences
that they have enjoyed from the presence of the Lord,
share their common hopes and anticipations of the coming glory
of the Redeemer’s kingdom, and strive to help one another to a
better understanding of the best things of God. Such thoughts
and efforts as these undoubtedly went far toward laying the
foundation of that “intimacy that existed throughout the whole
range of their being,” and for that deep and unswerving regard
and confidence which each cherished for the other until death.
She rested upon him, and he always looked upon her as intellectually
and morally the stronger and better portion of himself.
The very differences in their nature and education contributed
to this large and beautiful unity and confidence. While resembling
each other in many things, in others they were the
complements of each other. He was quick and impulsive, she,
.bn 029.png
.pn +1
perfectly serene and self-poised. He was logical, she was intuitive
as well. He was of the Independents, she was an Episcopalian.
From such a union, so sincere and broad, we may
expect a happy home.
Judging from these letters, we should say also that whenever
these two shall build their home they will build it strong and
high. Not only will love be there, with all its attractions, and
intellect with its stimulus and power, but the grand things of
heaven will be builded into it. And wherever it shall be established,
whether by the sea-shore at East Hampton or among
the hills of Litchfield, it will have a broad horizon; it will look
out upon something wider and deeper than the sea and higher
than the mountains. The high things of God will always be
kept in view; His broad, deep, measureless purposes will be
held within the range of its contemplation, and His presence will
be felt in shaping its policy and in giving vitality to its atmosphere.
From such a home we shall expect children that shall have
power in the world.
They were married at Nutplains, September 19, 1799.
“Roxana’s friends were all present and all my folks from
New Haven.” ... “Nobody ever married more heart and hand
than we.” Then came the packing up; “the candle-stand,
bureau, clothing, bedding, linen, and stuffs generally,” and the
going over by sloop to Long Island.
Their life in East Hampton, Long Island, was that of two
who believed, without one shadow of doubt, in their call of God,
and who took up their work, not only with the firm grasp of duty,
but with the enthusiasm of devout, self-sacrificing love. Their
faith was tested by his long-continued sickness, by the death of
one of their children, and by the numerous discouragements of a
country minister; but it stood the test, deepening and brightening
under trial.
It was a barren place to which they had come, but Lyman
Beecher brought such vigorous faith and added to it such enthusiastic
labors, now in the home church, now in the school-houses
of the surrounding districts, and now among the Indians
at Montauk Point, that he made the whole district fruitful. The
field was a narrow one, but by the interest awakened by his
sermons, especially the one upon duelling called forth by the
.bn 030.png
.pn +1
death of Alexander Hamilton from the pistol of Aaron Burr, he
broadened it until his parish stretched across the Atlantic.
.il id=i028 fn=i_028.jpg w=399px ew=66%
.ca Church in which Rev. Lyman Beecher preached, in East Hampton, L. I.
The wants of a young family made some effort necessary to
eke out the meagre salary of four hundred dollars, and a school
for girls was decided upon, to be kept by Mrs. Beecher. It was
successful in every respect but financially, and moderately so in
.bn 031.png
.pn +1
that; but it did not bring the relief that was sought, and there
came a necessity to change for a field where sufficient salary
could be had to support the family without the harassments of
other and unpastoral labors.
A marked providence, as it seemed to Mr. Beecher, opened
the way to his preaching on trial in Litchfield, Connecticut. He
made a good impression; the people were unanimous and eager
in their call; the Presbytery gave its consent; and now, without
a doubt that it is according to the will of God, the decision
is made, and the home which had first been planted within
the sound of the ocean surf at East Hampton, Long Island, in
1799, was transplanted to the quiet inland village of Litchfield
in 1810.
.bn 032.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch02'
CHAPTER II.
.pm start_summary
Litchfield—Situation—Natural Features—Early Settlers—Social and Moral
Advantages—Patriotism—North Street Described—The Beecher
Home—Birth of Henry Ward—The Times at Home and Abroad—His
Birth-Mark.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
As Henry Ward was perfectly satisfied with the parents that
bore him, so he was with the place in which he was born.
“Surely old Litchfield,” he says, “was a blessed place
for one’s birth and childhood. Although there were no mountains,
there were hills, the oldest-born of mountains, high, round,
and innumerable. Great trees there were, full of confidences
with the wind that chastised them in winter and kissed and caressed
them all the summer.”
The hills referred to were “Prospect” and “Mount Tom” on
the west, “Chestnut Hill” on the east, and others like them but
unnamed—the “high, round, and innumerable” ones of which
he speaks, and which together formed, with their sloping sides
and valleys between, that broad and irregular plateau of elevated
land, extending for miles on either side, in the midst of which
the village of Litchfield is situated. A country of hills, with that
wide and picturesque horizon which only such a landscape can
furnish, where the irregular outline appears as walls and watch-towers
for the protection of the home territory, with here and
there an open door, through which the imagination of youth or
the feet of maturer years may pass out into the great world of
sunshine or of cloud beyond.
Litchfield Hill itself, on which the village stands, is more than
a thousand feet above sea-level, “high and broad-backed,” and
belongs, with all its fellows, to the Green Mountain range, which,
beginning near the Gulf of St. Lawrence, sweeps in an irregular
curve to the seaboard at Long Island Sound, the back-bone of
this great New England peninsula.
High enough to be breezy and healthy, but not so high as to
be unfertile, and sloping to the south, it afforded then, as now, all
.bn 033.png
.pn +1
the inducements for residence which sun, soil, pure air, and a
beautiful landscape could furnish.
Lakes, without which no landscape is perfect, were added:
Little Pond to the southwest, and Big Bantam Lake beyond, were
the ones that were visible from the village, out of a large number
that can be found in the township; but the Sawmill Pond, where
Henry Ward caught his first fish, with an alder-stick for a pole
and a bent pin for a hook—caught it so thoroughly that it was
dashed in pieces upon the rocks behind him—has disappeared
with the tearing away of the dam that held it.
Brooks ran down between the hills and sang their way through
the meadows, each one offering some new feature to the landscape,
and each a field of new discovery for inquisitive youth.
Woods, made up of every variety of tree and shrub native
to our latitude, where nuts grew and all kinds of small game
abounded, where crows and now and then a hen-hawk built their
nests, were in easy reach upon the slopes of the hills both to the
west and east. Ledges of rock to the north were the lair of
wildcats, a vermin so numerous seventy-five years ago as to be a
serious pest to the farmers; and stone walls, where woodchucks
retreated from the clover-fields and thought themselves safe,
were the usual division-fences for the fields.
There were other things that were equally pleasing to a boy’s
fancy, and perhaps equally influential in his education. The
lakes, streams, and forests of the town had been the favorite fishing
and hunting ground of the Indians; arrow-heads were occasionally
picked up on the lake shore or turned up by the ploughshare
upon the hillside; and, best of all, Mount Tom was one
of the series of stations where blazed the signal-fires which the
Indians of this region built to warn their brethren of the whole
territory between the Housatonic and Naugatuck rivers of the
approach of their enemies, the fierce Mohawks.
Litchfield, in short, was the paradise of a birth-place for any
boy. It was paradise, school-house, gymnasium, church, and cathedral
to Henry Ward Beecher. In it he experienced his sweetest
pleasures, learned his best lessons, gained control of his powers,
and offered his first worship. He breathed its pure air,
climbed its rocks, wandered in its woods, wrestled with its winter
storms, and in this way laid the foundation for that superb
health for which he was remarkable through life.
.bn 034.png
.pn +1
With the hunger and inquisitiveness of a growing boy, he
searched nature’s storehouse of fruits and nuts, which opens with
the wintergreen plums and squaw-berries of the melting snow-time
of spring, and continues, a house of plenty for all that know
her secrets—partridges, squirrels, and boys—until the snow covers
the ground in December, and so gained that habit of investigation
into the things of nature, and of close observation, that distinguished
him ever after.
He lay on the ground and looked up into the blue sky and the
moving tree-tops for hours together, and listened to the voices
of spring-time and eventide, and in this way, as he tells us, received
the first distinct religious impressions that he remembered.
His nature, which seemed closed almost to the verge of stupidity
to the rules of syntax and the answers in the Westminster Catechism,
was wide open and receptive to all the processes and influences
of nature around him. He drank them in, and they became
not only a vast storehouse of facts and images to which he
resorted in after-life for illustrations, but, even more than that, a
very part of himself. The tree that so often appeared in his
sermons was made from those up whose trunks he had climbed,
in whose shade he had lain, and to the whisperings of whose
leaves he had listened in boyhood. The spring which so often
served in illustrating spiritual truths was but the description of
those that burst out from the foot of Chestnut or of Prospect
Hill, and the flowers so frequently referred to in the pulpit or in
private conversation were such as he had grown familiar with by
the roadside, in the meadows or the forests of his country home.
The moving of the great cloud-shadows across the fields of Litchfield,
the blue of its skies, the reddening of its mornings and the
gold of its sunsets, the flash of its sunlight upon the lake, its
wealth of apple-blossoms, the exquisite beauty of its violets hidden
away in fence-corners, the grace of its elm-branches, the ruggedness
of its oaks, the strength of its rocks, the soft catkins
of its willows, its meadow flower-garden of clover, daisy, and
buttercup, the gorgeousness of its forests in autumn, the gurgle
of its brooks, the song of its birds, the plaintive voices of its twilight,
the gentle breathings of its August winds and the fierce
rattle of its December storms, were all absorbed by his receptive
nature and continually reappeared in his writings and talk of
after-years. They added the grace and beauty native to them
.bn 035.png
.pn +1
to all that he wrote or spoke, and were in part the secret of that
charm in his words which attached and interested all alike.
They did more than this: they prepared him to be an interpreter
of nature to others, and, when he had become equally well
equipped with a rich spiritual experience, they fitted him, as we
shall see farther on, to be the reconciler of a spiritual faith and a
material science.
It was not an unimportant thing, but one of God’s beautiful
provisions, that Henry Ward Beecher was born in Litchfield,
where there is more of nature to the square foot, as we believe,
than in any other place on the globe; to learn his first lessons in
the beautiful school of her flowers, birds, brooks, meadows, pasture
lands, hill-tops, and forests.
“Dear old Litchfield! I love thee still, even if thou didst
me the despite of pushing me into life upon thy high and windy
hilltop! Where did the spring ever break forth more joyously
and sing at escaping from winter, as the children of Israel did
when that woman’s-rights Miriam chanted her song of victory?
Where did the torrid summer ever find a lovelier place in which
to cool its beams? What trees ever murmured more gently
to soft winds, or roared more lion-like when storms were
abroad?
“It was there that we learned to fish, to ride a horse alone, to
do the barn chores, to cut and split wood, to listen at evening to
the croaking frogs and whistling tree-toads, to go to meeting and
go to sleep, to tear holes in new clothes; there we learned to hoe,
to mow away hay, to weed onions, to stir up ministers’ horses
with an unusual speed when ridden to water; there we went
a-wandering up and down forest-edges, and along the crooked
brooks in flower-pied meadows, dreaming about things not to be
found in any catechism.”
Equally marked was Litchfield at that day for its social and
moral as for its natural advantages. Its early settlers, mostly
from the excellent stock from which the colonies of Hartford
and Windsor were formed, were men of broad and liberal mould,
and began their work upon this hilltop in a characteristic fashion.
They laid out their streets and staked off the village common
with such generous breadth that they remain the delight of residents
and the admiration of strangers to this day. They made
such liberal provision for education and religion that the settlement
.bn 036.png
.pn +1
soon became noted for the excellency of its schools and the
commanding influence of its pulpit.[1]
.fm rend=th
.fn 1
Out of sixty-four allotments into which the town was divided, one
was to be given to the first minister, to be his and descend to his heirs
for ever; a second was to be reserved for the use of the minister during his
ministry, and a third was reserved for the benefit of a school. While as
yet three houses, one in the centre of the present village, and one on
either side a mile distant, were picketed and garrisoned for protection
against the Indians, and while there were but sixty adult male inhabitants,
they built their first church edifice, with a Sabbath-Day House for the better
accommodation of the people.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
The law-school of Judges Reeve and Gould, and the young
ladies’ school of the Misses Pierce, made it an educational centre
scarcely second in the breadth of its influence to any in the land,
and attracted a class of residents of high social position.
Its courts gathered from time to time some of the leading
members of the bar from the whole country, not for a few hours,
as now with our railroad facilities, but for days and weeks together.
All these things helped to create a very high order of
public spirit—that force which, often wholly unregarded, is yet so
powerful in moulding the character and giving direction to the life.
One other element in this communal influence must not be
omitted—its intense patriotism. From the beginning to the
close of the Revolutionary struggle the records of the county
of Litchfield are stamped with the evidence of the most enthusiastic
loyalty to the cause of the struggling colonies. At the
time of the Boston Port Bill, Litchfield had forwarded a liberal
contribution for the aid of the poor of that city. When the
equestrian statue of King George, of gilded lead, was missing
from the Bowling Green in New York, it was shortly found in
the dwelling-house of Oliver Wolcott in this village, was melted
down by his daughters and their friends, and furnished forty
thousand bullets, which were sent to our soldiers in the field, to
be afterwards forwarded by them, from the muzzles of their
muskets, to the king’s Hessians, with the hissing compliments of
the American colonies.
No town excelled her in the proportionate number or quality
of the men she sent into the field (at one time every able-bodied
man in the town being, it is said, at the front), nor in the suffering
and loss which they endured. Thirty out of a company
.bn 037.png
.pn +1
of thirty-six who surrendered at Fort Washington, New York,
“died miserable deaths from cold, hunger, thirst, suffocation,
disease, and the vilest cruelties from those to whom they had surrendered
on a solemn promise of honorable treatment.” This
had made Ethan Allen, a native of this village, and, as is well
known, a professed infidel, grind his teeth and exclaim: “My
faith in my creed is shaken; there ought to be a hell for such
infernal scoundrels as that Lowrie,” the officer in charge of the
prisoners. Nor were these days so remote that their influence
was unfelt. In 1810 the spirit of ’76 was not seriously diminished,
and many of the principal actors in the stirring scenes of
the Revolutionary struggle were still alive. Colonel Tallmadge,
one of the most dashing and able cavalry officers of the army,
Governor Oliver Wolcott, Jr., a member of Washington’s cabinet,
and many other soldiers of the Revolution and actors of
less note, were residents of the village at the time of the coming
here of Lyman Beecher. When we note the burning patriotism
which was always so marked a characteristic of Henry Ward,
we must remember that he drank it in in his youth from its
primitive sources among the old soldiers of Litchfield.
We give his description of the village as it appeared to him
in his childhood, although a part of it is out of chronological
order. It is found in an article entitled “Litchfield Revisited,”
written in 1856:
“The morning after our arrival in Litchfield we sallied forth
alone. The day was high and wide, full of stillness, and serenely
radiant. As we carried our present life up the North Street
we met at every step our boyhood life coming down. There
were the old trees, but looking not so large as to our young eyes.
The stately road had, however, been bereaved of the buttonball
trees, which had been crippled by disease. But the old elms retained
a habit peculiar to Litchfield. There seemed to be a current
of wind which at times passes high up in the air over the
town, and which moves the tops of the trees, while on the
ground there is no movement of wind. How vividly did that
sound from above bring back early days, when for hours we
lay upon the windless grass and watched the top leaves flutter,
and marked how still were the under leaves of the same tree!
“One by one came the old houses. On the corner stood and
stands the jail—awful building to young sinners! We never
.bn 038.png
.pn +1
passed its grated windows without a salutary chill. The old
store, and same old name, Buell, on it; the bank, and its long,
lean legs spindling up to hold the shelf up under the roof! The
Colonel Tallmadge house, that used to seem so grand that it was
cold, but whose cherry-trees in the front yard seemed warm
enough and attractive to our longing lips and watery mouths.
How well do we remember the stately gait of the venerable colonel
of Revolutionary memory! We don’t recollect that he ever
spoke to us or greeted us; not because he was austere or unkind,
but from a kind of military reserve. We thought him good and
polite, but should as soon have thought of climbing the church-steeple
as of speaking to one living so high and venerable above
all boys!
“Then came Judge Gould’s! Did we not remember that
and the faces that used to illuminate it? The polished and
polite judge, the sons and daughters, the little office in the yard,
the successive classes of law students that received that teaching
which has since so often honored both bar and bench. Here,
too, we stopped to retrace the very place where, being set on by
a fiery young Southern blood, without any cause that we knew
of then or can remember now, we undertook to whip one of
Judge Gould’s sons, and did not do it. We were never satisfied
with the result, and think if the thing could be reviewed now it
might turn out differently.
“There, too, stood Dr. Catlin’s house, looking as if the rubs
of time had polished it instead of injuring. Next there seemed
to our puzzled memory a vacancy. Ought there not to be about
there a Holmes house, to which we used to go and get baskets
of Virgaloo pears, and were inwardly filled, as a satisfying method
of keeping us honest toward the pears in the basket?
“But Dr. Sheldon’s house is all right. Dear old Dr. Sheldon!
We began to get well as soon as he came into the house;
or, if the evil spirit delayed a little, ‘Cream-o’-tartar with hot
water poured upon it and sweetened’ finished the work. He
had learned, long before the days of hom[oe]opathy, that a doctor’s
chief business is to keep parents from giving their children medicine,
so that nature may have a fair chance at the disease without
having its attention divided or diverted.
“But now we stop before Miss Pierce’s—a name known in
thousands of families, where gray-headed mothers remember the
.bn 039.png
.pn +1
soft and gentle days of Litchfield schooling. The fine residence
is well preserved, and time has been gentle within likewise. But
the school-house is gone, and she that for so many years kept it
busy is gone, and the throng that have crossed its threshold
brood the whole globe with offices of maternal love. The
Litchfield Law School in the days of Judge Tapping Reeve and
Judge Gould, and Miss Pierce’s Female School, were in their day
two very memorable institutions, and, though since supplied by
others upon a larger scale, there are few that will have performed
so much, if we take into account the earliness of the times and
the fact that they were pioneers and parents of those that have
supplanted them. But they are gone, the buildings moved off,
and the ground smoothed and soft to the foot with green grass.
No more shall the setting sun see Litchfield streets thronged with
young gentlemen and ladies, and filling the golden air with laughter
or low converse which, unlaughing then, made life musical
for ever after!
“But where is the Brace house? An old red house—red once,
but picked by the winds and washed by rains till the color was
neutral, thanks to the elements. The old elm-trees guard the
spot, a brotherhood as noble as these eyes have ever seen, lifted
high up, and in the part nearest heaven locking their arms together
and casting back upon their separate trunks an undivided
shade. So are many, separate in root and trunk, united
far up by their heaven-touching thoughts and affections.
“Mrs. Lord’s house is the only one now before we reach our
own native spot. This, too, holds its own and is fertile in memories.
Across the way lived Sheriff Landon, famous for dry wit
and strong politics.
“But south of him lived the greatest man in town, Mr. Parker,
who owned the stages; and the wittiest man in town, with us
boys, was Hiram Barnes, that drove stage for him! To be sure,
neither of them was eminent for learning or civil influence, but,
in that temple which boys’ imaginations make, a stage proprietor
and a stage-driver stand forth as grand as Minerva in the Parthenon!
“But there are houses on the other side. The eastern side
of Litchfield North Street, like the eastern side of Broadway,
was never so acceptable to fashion, albeit some memorable
names lived there. It was our good fortune to be born on the
.bn 040.png
.pn +1
west side of the street. We know not what blessings must have
descended upon us from having been born on the fashionable
side; one shudders to think how near he escaped being born on
the other, the east side of the street.”
Into this village Lyman Beecher brought his family in 1810.
The dwelling had been described by himself: “The house I
shall purchase is in a beautiful situation, is convenient, has a large
kitchen, a well-room, a wood-house, besides two barns and a
shop on the premises, and one and a half acres of land; price,
about $1,350; and there is a good young orchard near for sale,
so that we can keep a horse and one or two cows and have apples
of our own from the money we shall reserve after paying our
debts.” A row of quince-trees “whose early blossoms were so
tender and whose switches were so tough—ah! those trees used
to come home very near to me!” was on the north side of the
house.[2]
.fm rend=th
.fn 2
This house, enlarged by the addition which Mr. Beecher found it
necessary to make, still remains substantially as it was seventy years ago,
although not upon the old lot. It is now a part of Dr. Buel’s hospital for
the insane, about a quarter of a mile above the original site.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
The home circle was large and varied. There were at this
time the parents and six children, “Sister Roxana and her little
group of countless numbers.” “Aunt Mary Hubbard,” the mother’s
favorite sister, “spent much of her time with us, and some
of mother’s favorite pupils from East Hampton, who had come
to attend Miss Pierce’s school, sought a home in our family.
Betsy Burr, an orphan cousin, lived with us like an adopted
daughter, while the kitchen department was under the care of the
good and affectionate Zillah and Rachel, who came with us and
completed the home circle.”
The circle was still farther enlarged by the coming of Grandma
Beecher and Aunt Esther, who, it will be remembered, was
Lyman Beecher’s half-sister—“a woman,” as Henry Ward once
said, “so good and modest that she will spend ages in heaven
wondering how it ever happened that she ever got there, and that
all the angels will be wondering why she was not there from all
eternity.” “They occupied half of the next house to ours on the
way to Prospect Hill, making a place of daily resort for some of
the family.”
.il id=i039 fn=i_039.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca The Beecher Residence at Litchfield.
“Uncle Samuel Foote,” the mother’s sea-captain brother,
.bn 041.png
.bn 042.png
.pn +2
“came among us, on his return from each voyage, as a sort of
brilliant genius of another sphere, bringing gifts and wonders
that seemed to wake new faculties in all. Whenever he came to
Litchfield he brought a stock of new books, which he and Aunt
Mary read aloud.”
It will be seen that, without referring to other inmates of
the family, such as boarders and visitors, who afforded a great
variety, some amusing and others instructive, the things which
Henry Ward said were “the great treasures of a dwelling—the
child’s cradle, the grandmother’s chair, the hearth and the old-fashioned
fireplace, the table and the window”—were all there,
and a great many things beside.
There were trials, almost hardships we should call them, as
appears from a letter of Mrs. Beecher’s dated January 13, 1811,
but none of them sufficient to bring discouragement or destroy
her interest in scientific subjects: “... Would now write you a
long letter, if it were not for several vexing circumstances, such
as the weather extremely cold, storm violent, and no wood cut;
Mr. Beecher gone, and Sabbath day, with company—a clergyman,
a stranger; Catharine sick; George almost so; Rachel’s
finger cut off, and she crying and groaning with the pain. Mr.
Beecher is gone to preach in New Hartford, and did not provide
us wood enough to last, seeing the weather has grown so exceedingly
cold.... As for reading, I average perhaps one page a
week besides what I do on Sundays. I expect to be obliged to
be contented (if I can) with the stock of knowledge I already
possess, except what I can glean from the conversation of others....
Mary has, I suppose, told you of the discovery that the fixed
alkalies are metallic oxides. I first saw the notice in the Christian
Observer. I have since seen it in an Edinburgh Review.
The former mentioned that the metals have been obtained by
means of the galvanic battery; the latter mentions another and,
they say, a better mode. I think this is all the knowledge I have
obtained in the whole circle of arts and sciences of late; if you
have been more fortunate, pray let me reap the benefit.”
Looking at both its sunshine and its shadows, this Litchfield
parsonage offers an illustration of an ideal New England home.
The household was large, large enough to contain in itself a great
variety of resources, and able in that roomy house to offer a
broad hospitality to all comers. Democratic in the best sense
.bn 043.png
.pn +1
of the word, servants being considered and treated as constituent
members; wide awake, reading all the new books, discussing
all the vital questions of the day, arguing all the knotty
points of theology; industrious and frugal; allied to the best life
of the place and the times, with a broad outlook that took within
its horizon all the interests of country and humanity, of the
kingdom of God at home and abroad, social, political, and spiritual,
it was good soil, and a good exposure for planting a tree
whose branches should spread abroad throughout the land and
the whole earth.
Into this family was born a son, June 24, 1813—“the fourth,
fifth, sixth, or seventh child, somewhere thereabouts,” as he himself
says in a speech before the London Congregational Board,
with that forgetfulness of numbers which was always characteristic
of him. In fact, the ninth child, the eighth living at the
time. It was in one of his favorite months, that of June, “which
bursts out from the gates of heaven with all that is youngest, and
clothed with that which is the most tender and beautiful,” that
he began his career.
The grandmother, Roxana Foote, being with her daughter
at the time, and remembering her own two favorite sons, who
died in youth, named the new-born infant after his uncles, Henry
and Ward.
They were stirring times, those of the early summer of 1813.
The second war of our national independence was then in
progress, and tidings had just reached the village that Fort
Brown had been captured by the United States forces. Lyman
Beecher says of those times:
“Our dangers in the war of 1812 were very great, so great
that human skill and power were felt to be in vain. Thick
clouds begirt the horizon, the storm roared louder and louder;
it was dark as midnight, every pilot trembled, and from most
all hope that we should be saved was taken away; and when
from impenetrable darkness the sun burst suddenly upon us
and peace came, we said: ‘Our soul is escaped as a bird from
the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken and we are
escaped.’”
Across the water Napoleon was rallying from the disaster of
his Russian campaign, and making the Continent again resound
with the roar of his cannon. Not only did these events
.bn 044.png
.pn +1
stir mind and heart of all alike, but the increased taxation and
the high prices that resulted from a world at war were severely felt
in the parsonage. Mrs. Lyman Beecher wrote: “We feel the
war somewhat more than we should one between the Turks and
Crim Tartars, inasmuch as, for the most part, every article is
double or treble the former price, and some things even more
than that.”
These were also the days of the inauguration of some of
those great moral movements that are even now in progress in
this State and in the land. It was but the year before that the
General Association of Connecticut, under the leadership of
Lyman Beecher, had taken decided action upon the temperance
question. In speaking of it he says:
“I was not headstrong then, but I was heart-strong—oh!
very, very! From that time on the movement went on, not only
in Connecticut but marching through New England and marching
through the world. Glory to God! Oh! how it wakes my
old heart up to think of it!”
Morals in general at this time were at a low ebb, and he
secured the organization of a “General Society for the Suppression
of Vice and the Promotion of Good Morals in the State.”
His sermon upon the “Building of Waste Places” resulted in
the institution of a “Domestic Missionary Society” for the work
of home evangelization in Connecticut, and he had already
secured a Foreign Missionary Society for Litchfield, which was
one of the most efficient auxiliaries of the American Board, then
but recently established. The conflict concerning the Standing
Order which in 1818 resulted in the withdrawal of State aid
from the Congregational churches, and which Dr. Beecher
feared as likely to open the flood-gates of ruin upon the State,
and by reason of which he says, “I suffered what no tongue
can tell, for the best thing that ever happened to the State of
Connecticut,” was just beginning.
In all the movements of this progressive period stands this
village parsonage, like an outpost of an advancing army, held
almost within the enemy’s lines.
Added to these public labors and troubles a very heavy
family sorrow was laid upon them during this year. The mother,
for months before the birth of her ninth child, saw her favorite
sister, Mary Hubbard, slowly wasting away with consumption,
.bn 045.png
.bn 046.png
.pn +2
and had need to call up all her resources of faith and resignation
to meet this complication of trials that was upon them.
.il id=i043 fn=i_043.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Room in which Mr. Beecher was born.
So this child was nourished, even before birth, in the sweet
spirit of a most godly soul, deepened and chastened by both
private griefs and public sorrows, and was ushered into the world
at an era of most important events, into the very midst of multiplied
labors and stirring, progressive movements. All these
formed, as it were, an atmosphere of influence as imperceptible
to the eye as common air, but as powerful in moulding character
in its formative periods as are the natural forces in shaping the
mountains or growing the forests. By virtue of that law by
which the offspring are affected by those things which most
interest the parents, we may safely say that Henry Ward Beecher
was in part a product of the times that preceded, attended, and
followed his birth, and was stamped by their strong and peculiar
characteristics. He carried war in him as a birth-mark, but with
him it was war against wickedness and wrong.
The springs of consolation, which flowed from him in after-years
for the relief of troubled souls the world over, were such
as his mother resorted to in days of trial, and were opened to
him in her bosom; and he was continually pressing forward
through life to some new measure of reform, to some new step of
attainment, by virtue of that reforming, progressive age that so
early became a very part of his nature.
.bn 047.png
.il id=i045 fn=i_045.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca The Elms and Well which Mark the Site of “The Beecher House” in Litchfield.
.bn 048.png
.pn +2
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch03'
CHAPTER III. | CHILDHOOD.
.pm start_summary
Early Glimpses—Recollections of the Mother—Going to School at Ma’am
Kilbourne’s—His First Letter—District School—The Coming of the
New Mother—His First Ride on Horseback—A Merry Household—Fishing
Excursions—Minister’s Wood-Spell—Saturday Night—Going
to Meeting—The Puritan Sabbath—The Cold of Litchfield Hill—Rats—Work—The
Catechism—Formative Influences—Summing Up.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
We of course see but little of him in these early years.
“The younger members of the Beecher family came into
existence in a great, bustling household of older people, all
going their several 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 absolute need of the virtue of passive obedience
and non-resistance as regards all grown-up people. To be statedly
washed and dressed and catechised, got to school at regular
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 those days.”
Here and there a glimpse is given, just enough to tell us the
direction the stream is taking. The first is found in a letter of
the mother to her sister, Harriet Foote, written when he was a
little more than a year old:
“July 12, 1814.—... I arrived Saturday at sunset, and
found all well, and boy (Henry Ward) in merry trim, glad at
heart to be safe on terra firma after all his jolts and tossings.”
Again in November of the same year:
“I write sitting upon my feet with my paper on the seat of a
chair, while Henry is hanging round my neck and climbing on
my back.”
He himself gives an experience of a little later period:
“I remember very well when I was but two years old
(strange as it may seem; sometimes I think I spent all my remembering
power on that early period!) finding myself in the
.bn 049.png
.pn +1
east entry of my father’s great house, alone, coming down-stairs,
or trying to. The sudden sense which I had of being alone
frightened me, and I gave one shriek; and then the echo of my
voice scared me worse, and I gave another shriek that was more
emphatic; and I remember seeing the light stream in from the
dining-room, and being taken up by loving hands. The face I
do not recall, the form I do not recall; but I remember the
warm pressure. It was my mother, who died when I was three
years old. She took me to her bosom. I recollect sitting by the
side of some one who made me feel very happy; and I recollect
seeing my father’s swart face on the other side of the table.
“Now I could not paint my mother’s face; but I know how
her bosom felt. I know how her arms felt. I have a filial sense,
a child’s interpretation, of motherhood. It was only an emotion
or instinct in me, but it was blessed.”
This incident of the mother is supplemented by two of the
sister Harriet, in which the little boy Henry had a part:
“In my own early childhood,” she says, “only two incidents
of my mother twinkle like rays through the darkness. One was
of our all running and dancing out before her from the nursery
to the sitting-room one Sabbath morning, and her pleasant voice
saying after us, ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’”
Another remembrance is this: “Mother was an enthusiastic
horticulturist in all the small ways that limited means allowed.
Her brother John, in New York, had just sent her a small parcel
of tulip bulbs. I remember rummaging these out of an obscure
corner of the nursery one day when she was out, and being
strongly seized with the idea that they were good to eat, and using
all the little English I possessed to persuade my brothers
that these were onions such as grown people ate, and would be
very nice for us. So we fell to and devoured the whole; and I
recollect being somewhat disappointed in the odd, sweetish taste,
and thinking that onions were not as nice as I had supposed.
Then mother’s serene face appeared at the nursery door, and
we all ran toward her and with one voice began to tell our
discovery and achievement. We had found this bag of onions
and had eaten them all up. Also I remember that there was not
even a momentary expression of impatience, but that she sat
down and said: ‘My dear children, what you have done makes
mamma very sorry. Those were not onion-roots, but roots of
.bn 050.png
.pn +1
beautiful flowers; and if you had let them alone ma would have
had next summer in the garden great, beautiful red and yellow
flowers such as you never saw.’ I remember how drooping
and dispirited we all grew at this picture, and how sadly we regarded
the empty bag.”
When the mother grew sick and the children were admitted
to her bedside once a day, Henry was among the number,
although no memory of the fact lingered with him in after-years.
Mrs. Stowe writes of this event:
“I have a vision of a very fair face with a bright red spot
on each cheek, and a quiet smile as she offered me a spoonful
of her gruel; of our dreaming one night, we little ones, that
mamma had got well, and waking in loud transports of joy, and
being hushed down by some one coming into the room. Our
dream was indeed a true one. She was for ever well; but they
told us she was dead, and took us in to see what seemed so cold
and so unlike anything we had ever seen or known of her.”
Mrs. Reeve, one of the most intimate friends of the family,
writes of the last day of her life:
“She told her husband that her views and anticipations of
heaven had been so great that she could hardly sustain it, and if
they had been increased she should have been overwhelmed, and
that her Saviour had constantly blessed her; that she had peace
without one cloud, and that she had never during her sickness
prayed for her life. She dedicated her sons to God for missionaries,
and said that her greatest desire was that her children
might be trained up for God, and she trusted God would, in his
own time, provide another companion for him that would more
than fill her place.
“She spoke of the advancement of Christ’s kingdom with
joy, and of the glorious day that was ushering in.
“She attempted to speak to her children, but she was extremely
exhausted, and their cries and sobs were such that she
could say but little. She told them that God could do more
for them than she had done or could do, and that they must trust
him.
“Mr. Beecher then made a prayer, in which he gave her back
to God and dedicated all that they held in common to him.
She then fell into a sweet sleep from which she awoke in heaven.
It is a most moving scene to see eight little children weeping
.bn 051.png
.pn +1
around the bed of a dying mother; but still it was very cheering
to see how God could take away the sting of death and give
such a victory over the grave.”
Mr. Beecher’s remembrance of this event was simply of a
feeling of fear and pain at the weeping of the children around
him, and of interest in the baby, Charles, in his little white dress,
as he was lifted up in the arms of one of the attendants.
Of the funeral we read from Mrs. Stowe’s pen:
“Henry was too little to go; I remember his golden curls
and little black frock, as he frolicked like a kitten in the sun in
ignorant joy.
“I remember the mourning dresses, the tears of the older
children, the walking to the burial-ground and somebody’s speaking
at the grave, and the audible sobbing of the family; and
then all was closed, and we little ones, to whom it was so confused,
asked the question where she was gone and would she
never come back? They told us at one time that she had been
laid in the ground, at another that she had gone to heaven.
Whereupon Henry, putting the two things together, resolved to
dig through the ground and go to find her; for being discovered
under sister Catherine’s window one morning digging with great
zeal and earnestness, she called to him to know what he was doing,
and, lifting his curly head, with great simplicity he answered:
‘Why, I am going to heaven to find ma!’”
We next hear of him in a letter written by his sister, February
1, 1817:
“... Henry is a very good boy, and we think him a remarkably
interesting child, and he grows dearer to us every day.
He is very affectionate, and seems to love his father with all his
heart. His constant prattle is a great amusement to us all.
He often speaks of his sister Harriet, and wishes spring would
come, so that she might come home and go to school with him.”
This was in the winter when he was past three years old.
Perhaps the prattle of this one will be instructive as well as
amusing some day. Who knows?
At last spring comes, and with it his sister Harriet from her
long visit at Nutplains, and an important era in his life opens.
He begins to go to school, with her as his companion and guardian.
He is just four years old that summer, the usual age for school
.bn 052.png
.pn +1
beginnings in rural New England. They went to Ma’am Kilbourne’s
on West Street, and there he clambered up the first
rounds of the ladder of book-learning and took his first lessons.
These consisted in repeating his letters twice a day, such as he
could remember, and having the others pointed out to him
from Webster’s spelling-book, as he stood, a chubby, bare-footed,
round, rosy-faced boy, in front of the dreaded schoolma’am, who
had been made sharp and angular by her years of labor in sharpening
the intellectual faculties of generations of children.
In due time Charles is large enough to join the older brother
and sister, and tells us:
“I remember all three of us coming out of our yard and
stringing along, holding each other by the hand and saying every
morning, ‘What if a great big dog should come out at us?’ and
Henry, as the larger brother and protector of the group, answering,
‘I would take an axe and chop his head off.’”
As yet he wears his hair in long golden curls, the badge of a
continued infantile state; but some of the girls at school improvising
a pair of shears from the pieces of tin thrown out from
a shop near by, and cutting off some of the coveted locks, it is
thought best at home to cut them all off; and now, with trousers,
and suspenders, and jacket, and short hair, and bare feet, he
emerges from the half-infantile, girlish state and becomes a full-fledged
boy, much to his own satisfaction: “he considered that
his manhood had now commenced.”
That the instruction of his teacher is not all thrown away is
evident by the letter which he wrote at this time, when he was
five years old, of which a facsimile is given. Its merits of directness
and originality, at least in the matter of spelling, will be
readily recognized:
.il id=i050 fn=i_050.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca
Der Sister
WE AR AL WEL
MA HAZ A BABY
THE OLD SOW HAZ SIX PIGS
.ca-
.bn 053.png
.pn +1
One incident of about these times, which is related by his
brother, is ludicrously prophetic:
“I remember Henry’s coming in and taking his turn” (reading
to Aunt Esther). “Once the piece was about wild beasts, and
it said ‘two monstrous lions came out.’ I can see Henry’s red
face and declamatory air as he read it ‘two monstrofalous great
lions came out.’”
From Widow Kilbourne’s he graduated into the district
school, which was a few rods north of the parsonage, and was attended
by all the children of quite a large farming district. Like
the other children, he carried sewing and knitting, and the sister
tells us that “this bashful, dazed-looking boy pattered bare-foot
to and from the little unpainted school-house, with a brown towel
or a blue checked apron to hem during the intervals between his
spelling and reading lessons.”
His eagerness for sister Harriet to return, that he may begin
school, has long since subsided, and given place to an unusual
dislike for his whole district-school experience, as appears from
reminiscences which he wrote in after-years:
“It was our misfortune, in boyhood, to go to a district school.
It was a little, square pine building, blazing in the sun, upon
the highway, without a tree for shade or sight near it; without
bush, yard, fence, or circumstance to take off its bare, cold, hard,
hateful look. Before the door, in winter, was the pile of wood
for fuel, and in summer there were all the chips of the winter’s
wood. In winter we were squeezed into the recess of the
farthest corner, among little boys, who seemed to be sent to
school merely to fill up the chinks between the bigger boys.
Certainly we were never sent for any such absurd purpose as an
education. There were the great scholars—the school in winter
was for them, not for us pickaninnies. We were read and spelt
twice a day, unless something happened to prevent, which did
happen about every other day. For the rest of the time we were
busy in keeping still. And a time we always had of it! Our
shoes always would be scraping on the floor or knocking the
shins of urchins who were also being ‘educated.’ All of our little
legs together (poor, tired, nervous, restless legs with nothing
to do!) would fill up the corner with such a noise that, every ten
or fifteen minutes, the master would bring down his two-foot
hickory ferule on the desk with a clap that sent shivers through
.bn 054.png
.pn +1
our hearts to think how that would have felt if it had fallen somewhere
else; and then, with a look that swept us all into utter
extremity of stillness, he would cry, ‘Silence in that corner!’
It would last for a few minutes; but little boys’ memories are
not capacious. Moreover, some of the boys had mischief, and
some had mirthfulness, and some had both together. The consequence
was that just when we were the most afraid to laugh
we saw the most comical things. Temptations which we could
have vanquished with a smile out in the free air were irresistible
in our little corner, where a laugh and a spank were very apt to
woo each other. So we would hold on and fill up; and others
would hold on and fill up too; till by and by the weakest would
let go a mere whiffet of a laugh, and then down went all the precautions,
and one went off, and another, and another, touching
the others off like a pack of fire-crackers! It was in vain to
deny it. But as the process of snapping our heads and pulling
our ears went on with primitive sobriety, we each in turn, with
tearful eyes and blubbering lips, declared ‘we didn’t mean to,’
and that was true; and that ‘we wouldn’t do so any more,’ and
that was a lie, however unintentional, for we never failed to do
just so again, and that about once an hour all day long.
“Besides this our principal business was to shake and shiver
at the beginning of the school for very cold; and to sweat and
stew for the rest of the time before the fervid glances of a great
box iron stove, red-hot. There was one great event of horror
and two of pleasure: the first was the act of going to school, comprehending
the leaving off play, the face-washing and clothes-inspecting,
the temporary play-spell before the master came, the
outcry, ‘There he is! the master is coming!’ the hurly-burly rush,
and the noisy clattering to our seats. The other two events of
pleasure were the play-spell and the dismissal. O dear! can
there be anything worse for a lively, mercurial, mirthful, active
little boy than going to a winter district school? Yes—going
to a summer district school! There is no comparison. The one
is the Miltonic depth, below the deepest depth.
“A woman kept the school, sharp, precise, unsympathetic,
keen, and untiring. Of all ingenious ways of fretting little boys
doubtless her ways were the most expert. Not a tree to shelter
the house; the sun beat down on the shingles and clapboards till
the pine knots shed pitchy tears, and the air was redolent of hot
.bn 055.png
.pn +1
pine-wood smell. The benches were slabs with legs in them.
The desks were slabs at an angle, cut, hacked, scratched; each
year’s edition of jack-knife literature overlaying its predecessor,
until it then wore cuttings and carvings two or three inches
deep. But if we cut a morsel, or stuck in pins, or pinched off
splinters, the little sharp-eyed mistress was on hand, and one
look of her eye was worse than a sliver in our foot, and one
nip of her fingers was equal to a jab of a pin; for we had tried
both.
“We envied the flies—merry fellows! bouncing about, tasting
that apple-skin, patting away at that crumb of bread; now
out the window, then in again; on your nose, on your neighbor’s
cheek, off to the very schoolma’am’s lips; dodging her slap, and
then letting off a real round and round buzz, up, down, this way,
that way, and every way. Oh! we envied the flies more than anything,
except the birds. The windows were so high that we could
not see the grassy meadows; but we could see the tops of distant
trees, and the far, deep, bounteous blue sky. There flew the
robins; there went the blue-birds: and there went we. We followed
that old polyglot, the skunk-blackbird, and heard him describe
the way they talked at the winding up of the Tower of
Babel. We thanked every meadow-lark that sung on, rejoicing
as it flew. Now and then a ‘chipping-bird’ would flutter on
the very window-sill, turn its little head sidewise, and peer in on
the medley of boys and girls. Long before we knew that it was
in Scripture we sighed: Oh! that we had the wings of a bird;
we would fly away and be out of this hateful school. As for
learning, the sum of all that we ever got at a district school would
not cover the first ten letters of the alphabet. One good, kind,
story-telling, Bible-rehearsing aunt at home, with apples and ginger-bread
premiums, is worth all the schoolma’ams that ever
stood by to see poor little fellows roast in those boy-traps called
district schools.
“I have not a single pleasant recollection in connection with
my school-boy days. The woods were full of temptations, the
trees called me, the birds wanted me, the brooks sung entreaties.
It seemed cruel to be shut up. The brooks, birds, flowers, sunshine,
and breezes were free; why not I?”
In the autumn of 1817, when Henry Ward was a few months
past four years of age, Dr. Lyman Beecher married Miss Harriet
.bn 056.png
.pn +1
Porter, of Portland, Maine, and brought his bride at once to
Litchfield.
The advent of the new mother is thus described by Mrs.
Stowe:
“I was about six years old and slept in the nursery with my
two younger brothers, Henry and Charles. We heard father’s
voice in the entry, and started up in our little beds, crying out as
he entered our room, ‘Why, here’s pa!’ A cheerful voice called
out from behind him, ‘And here’s ma.’
“A beautiful lady, very fair, with bright blue eyes and soft
auburn hair bound round with a black velvet bandeau, came into
the room smiling, eager and happy-looking, and, coming up to
our beds, kissed us and told us that she loved little children and
that she would be our mother. Never did stepmother make a
prettier or sweeter impression. The next morning I remember
we looked at her with awe. She seemed to us so fair, so delicate,
so elegant that we were almost afraid to go near her. We must
have been rough, red-cheeked, hearty country children, honest,
obedient, and bashful. She was peculiarly dainty and neat in
all her ways and arrangements; and I remember I used to feel
breezy and rough and rude in her presence. We felt a little in
awe of her, as if she were a strange princess rather than our own
mamma; but her voice was very sweet, her ways of moving and
speaking very graceful, and she took us up in her lap and let us
play with her beautiful hands, which seemed wonderful things
made of pearl and ornamented with strange rings.”
In a letter written to her sister Mrs. Beecher gives her impressions
of the group. She says: “We surprised them here
almost as much as Mr. Beecher did us. They did not expect us
till the following evening, but it was a joyful surprise to them.
I never saw so many rosy cheeks and laughing eyes. The little
ones were all joy and gladness. They began all, the first thing,
to tell their dreams, for it seems they have dreamed of nothing
else but father’s coming home; and some dreamed he came
without me, and some that he brought two mothers. They all
became immediately very free and social, except the youngest
(Charles), and he is quite shy; calls me ‘lady,’ and sometimes
‘dear lady,’ but he loves aunt much the best. I have never
seen a finer family of children, or a more agreeable. I am delighted
with the great familiarity and great respect subsisting
.bn 057.png
.pn +1
between parent and children. It is a house of great cheerfulness
and comfort, and I am beginning to feel at home. Harriet and
Henry are very desirous for me to send their love.”
Later she writes of them:
“I perceive them to be of agreeable habits, and some of them
of uncommon intellect.... Harriet and Henry come next,
and they are always hand-in-hand. They are as lovely children
as I ever saw, amiable, affectionate, and very bright.... Our
dwelling is pleasantly situated. The garden yields plenty of
vegetables for the year, plenty of cherries, and the orchard furnishes
cider and apples enough. A barrel of apple-sauce is made
in the fall, which the children use instead of butter.... The
boys are up before it is quite day, and make fires, and we are
all down and have prayers before sunrise. Our domestic worship
is very delightful. We sing a good deal and have reading
aloud as much as we can.”
The following silhouette, although following the last by quite
an interval of time—it is in 1819—is our next family picture in
order:
“Papa is well and is still writing that piece with a hard name,
I can’t remember what. Mamma is well, and don’t laugh any
more than she used to. Catherine goes on just as she always did,
making fun for everybody. George is as usual. Harriet makes
just as many wry faces, is just as odd, and loves to be laughed at
just as much as ever. Henry does not improve much in talking,
but speaks very thick. Charles is the most mischievous little
fellow I ever knew. He seems to do it for the very love of it; is
punished and punished again, but it has no effect. He is the
same honest little boy, and I love him dearly.”
It must have been about this time that Henry had the experience
which he thus describes:
“When I was a lad I was ambitious to ride, but never was
permitted to ride except behind an elder brother; but one fair
morning, as the horse was brought out to be watered, I bestrode
him and took the reins in my hand. He made for the brook
with considerable celerity; but though he was nimble I was
willing, and I succeeded in holding on and getting back without
any accident. So elated was I with my first attempt at horseback-riding
that I felt that I was the horseman of the neighborhood.
The next morning I repeated the ride, but with a
.bn 058.png
.pn +1
variation; for, being unaccustomed to some of the phases of
horseback-riding, I was not prepared for what occurred. The
horse did not perform just as I wanted him to, so I laid the whip
on him, and he darted forward, and when he reached the edge
of the brook he suddenly stopped and I went on!”
They are a merry lot of children, getting up little impromptu
concerts, charades, and games of all kinds, at one time going so
far as to dramatize a favorite story. They “curtain off the end
of the parlor,” and “complete the entertainment amid thunders
of applause.”
Animal life is regarded, and the absent members of the family
are kept duly informed of the well-being of their favorites:
“Old Puss is very well and sends her respects to you. And
Mr. Black Trip has come out of the barn to live, and says if
you ever come into the kitchen he will jump up and lick your
hands and pull your frock, just as he serves the rest of us.
Henry and Charles love to play with him very much.”
Little events in the family are noted and immortalized in
verse, of which the following letter is a sample:
“... Apropos, last week was interred Tom, Junior, with funeral
honors, by the side of old Tom of happy memory. What a
fatal mortality there is among the cats of the parsonage! Our
Harriet is chief mourner always at their funerals. She asked
for what she called an epethet for the grave-stone of Tom, Junior,
which I gave as follows:
.pm start_poem
“‘Here died our Kit,
Who had a fit
And acted queer.
Shot with a gun,
Her race is run,
And she lies here.’”
.pm end_poem
When Henry was eight years old we read of the three in this
wise:
“Harriet reads everything she can lay her hands on, and sews
and knits diligently. Henry and Charles go to school. Henry is
as sprightly and active, and Charles as honest and clumsy, as ever.”
Later in the year he can be had if really wanted:
“We have four boarders besides our own sick folk, so that
if you are lonesome for want of children we could easily spare
Henry or Harriet.”
.bn 059.png
.pn +1
Whether the hint was taken, and the boy who was sometimes
too “sprightly and active” and this girl who “reads everything
she can lay her hands on” were wanted and sent, is not told.
The next year perhaps they would not care to spare him. “I
had the alders down at the bottom of the east lot cut up, broke
it up, and planted to corn and potatoes. Henry and Charles
began to help hoe a little.” Any one who has had experience in
such matters knows that hoeing potatoes in a newly-ploughed
field just cleared of alders is no fun. At this time Henry was
nine years old.
It has been said by one whose hatred of orthodox religion is
only equalled by the beauty of the language with which he is
able to clothe his misconceptions, that “Henry Ward Beecher
was born in a Puritan penitentiary, of which his father was
one of the wardens; a prison with very narrow and closely-grated
windows.” But Mrs. Stowe wrote years ago: “One of
my most vivid impressions of the family, as it was in my childish
days, was of a great household inspired by a spirit of cheerfulness
and hilarity, and of my father, although pressed and driven
with business, always lending an attentive ear to anything in the
way of life and social fellowship.”
The brother Charles, who was an almost inseparable companion
for Henry in those days, says in a letter recently received:
“The parental authority was pronounced but not very strict.
That is, there was never any thought in the mind of the children
of disobedience, but resort to corporal punishment was rare.
“Nor was brother Henry made to work very hard, nor was
father very strait-laced or stern. Nor were we often switched,
tho’ I dare say we deserved it. I only remember once distinctly,
when Henry performed the gymnastics and I furnished the
music (out in the barn). Fortunately for me, the switch was
mostly used up on him as the elder—a birthright I did not envy—and
I howled in sympathy, with a few cuts for Da Capo.
“The fact is, father was very fond of all his children and
frolicked and romped with them. All the work there was to do
(chores we called it) was to take care of a horse and cow, and
in spring make garden, and, after wood-spell, carry in and pile
up wood. I remember that we were told if we made the
garden so and so, or did this or that, we should go fishing; and
we used to go, the whole family of us, to Little Pond or
.bn 060.png
.pn +1
Great Pond, and catch ‘Perchy, roachy, bullhead,’ as we sang it.
One afternoon at Little Pond, where father had taken Henry and
me in the chaise (‘one-hoss’), we were catching roach when the
church-bell rang, and father remembered that it was Preparatory
Lecture, and the way we scurried in the old vehicle may be imagined.”
Mrs. Stowe writes: “I remember when the wood was all in
and piled and the chips swept up, then father tackled the horse
into the cart and proclaimed a grand fishing party down to Little
Pond; and how we all floated among the lily-pads in our boat,
christened ‘The Yellow Perch,’ and every one of us caught a
string of fish, which we displayed in triumph on our return.”
The father was very wise in directing the homely labors of
the household, so that they became occasions of mental stimulus.
“I have the image of my father still, as he sat working the
apple-peeler. ‘Come, George,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do
to make the evening go off. You and I’ll take turns and see
who’ll tell the most out of Scott’s novels’ (for those were the
days when the ‘Tales of my Landlord’ and ‘Ivanhoe’ had just
appeared); and so they took them novel by novel, reciting scenes
and incidents, which kept the eyes of all the children wide open
and made the work go on without flagging.
“Occasionally he would raise a point of theology on some incident
narrated, and ask the opinion of one of his boys and run a
sort of tilt with him, taking up the wrong side of the question
for the sake of seeing how the youngster could practise his logic.
If the party on the other side did not make a fair hit at him,
however, he would stop and explain to him what he ought to
have said: ‘The argument lies so, my son; do that and you’ll
trip me up.’ Much of his teaching to his children was in this informal
way.”
A kindly country life surrounded the minister’s family, that
could not fail of stamping the impress of its plain sincerity
upon all who were brought in contact with it. Once a year this
came to its climax in the winter’s wood-spell, when all the farmers
upon a given day added their contribution to the minister’s
wood-pile—a festival of kindness and good cheer.
“The kind farmers wanted to see all the children, and we
were busy as bees in waiting upon them. The boys heated the
.bn 061.png
.pn +1
flip-irons and passed around the cider and flip, while Aunt Esther
and the daughters were as busy in serving the doughnuts, cake,
and cheese.”
Another influence we must not forget, and that was, being let
alone. “I think,” he says, “that I was about as well brought up
as most children, because I was let alone. My father was so
busy and my mother had so many other children to look after
that, except here and there, I hardly came under the parental
hand at all. I was brought up in a New England village, and
I knew where the sweet-flag was, where the hickory-trees were,
where the chestnut-trees were, where the sassafras-trees were,
where the squirrels were, where all things were that boys enterprise
after, therefore I had a world of things to do, and so I did
not come much in contact with family government.” “Nobody,”
so says his sister, “thought much of his future, further than
to see that he was safe and healthy, or even troubled themselves
to inquire what might be going on in his life.”
Some of the reminiscences of this period now given in his own
words are interesting, not only from the wide field which they
cover, but from the revelation they make of the susceptibility of
his nature to outside influences. Of “going to meeting” he
discourses in this wise:
“The coming on of Saturday night was always a serious business
with the youngsters. We had no stores of religious experience
on which it is presumed the old folks meditated, and
the prospect of a whole day without anything in it to interest us
was not a little gloomy. On no night of the week did the frogs
croak so dismally, or the tree toads whistle in a mood so melancholy,
as on Saturday night.
“But those blazing summer mornings! What a wealth of
light spread over that blessed old hill-top! What a wondrous
silence dwelt in the great round heavens above our head! The
birds sang on. The crows in the distance called out to each
other in hoarse discourse. The trees stood in calm beauty—the
great elm-trees, tall, pliant, graceful, the perfection of strength
and beauty. All this we saw and heard while buttoning up our
Sunday clothes by the side of the open window. For the cow
and horse had been foddered, and the pigs fed, and all the barn
chores done up, and a bountiful breakfast eaten, and our face and
hands washed, and every article of apparel, from shoe to hat, had
.bn 062.png
.pn +1
changed from a secular to a sacred use. Not the every-day hat,
soft, shapeless, universal instrument, used as a liquid or solid
measure; used now for the head, and now for a football; used
for a net to catch butterflies or to throw at wasps—no, not this
bag, pocket, hat, pouch, and magazine, but the Sunday hat,
round, stiff, hard, and respectable.
“Although the new hat was always disagreeable to our head,
yet we had a wonderful reverence for it, and spent no inconsiderable
portion of our time in church in getting it dirty and then
brushing it clean.
“Our jacket, too, was new. Only a handkerchief was then in
the pocket; no knife, no marbles, no strings, no stones, no fishhooks
or dried angle-worms. No; a boy’s Sunday pocket of the
olden time was purged of all temptation. In meeting-time we
often put our little hands down into our Sunday pocket with a
melancholy wish, ‘Oh! if I only had my other clothes on!’
“As soon as we were dressed and mustered in the sitting-room
an inspection was had. The collar was pulled up a little,
the hair had a fresh lick from the brush, the mouth must be
wiped with a wet towel, the shoestring tied, and, after being
turned round and round, we were started off.
“‘Now, Henry, be a good boy.’
“‘Yes, ma’am.’
“‘You must not laugh, or tease Harriet.’
“‘No, ma’am.’
“‘Don’t stop on the road—go right in when you get to
church.’
“‘Yes, ma’am.”
“Every word was sincerely promised, and efficaciously broken
within ten minutes.
“Oh! how high the trees seemed! Oh! how bright the heavens
were! Oh! how hard it was not to play with Chester Covington’s
dog, that came running to us with bark and frolic, and
seemed perplexed at our sturdy propriety.
“The old musical bell up in the open belfry was busy a-tolling.
It was the only thing that was allowed to work on Sunday—the
bell and the minister. That bell-rope was always an object
of desire and curiosity to our young days. It ran up into such
dark and mysterious spaces. What there was up in those pokerish
heights in the belfry tower we did not know, but something
.bn 063.png
.pn +1
that made our flesh creep. Once we ventured to pull that rope.
It was a bold and venturesome thing, we knew. But a sorcery
was on us. It came gently and easily to the hand. We pulled
again. ‘Dong! dong!’ went the bell. The old sexton put his
head out of the door when, on that particular morning, service
had begun, and said, in a very solemn and low tone, ‘Boy! boy!
you little devil you!’ and much more, I presume, but I did
not wait for it, but cut round to the other door and sat all church-time
trembling and wondering whether he would ‘tell my pa’;
and if he did, what he would say, and more especially what he
would do. I called up the probable interview. I had numerous
precedents on which to found a possible experience, and afflicted
our little soul all meeting-time with needless punishment by the
imagination.
“But ordinarily we escaped into the minister’s pew without
special temptations. Imagine a boy of eight years old, round as
an apple, hearty and healthy, an hour and a half in church with
nothing to do! We looked at the galleries full of boys and girls,
and wished we might go into the galleries. We looked at the
ceiling, traced all the cracks back and forth. We looked at the
dear old aunties all round the church, fanning themselves with
one hand and eating fennel-seed or a bit of dried orange-peel out
of the other. We gazed out of the window high above our heads
into the clouds, and wished we could only climb up and see the
trees and horses and dogs that abounded around the church on
Sunday.
“Gradually these died out and we dropped asleep. Blessed
liberty! the child’s gospel! All trouble fled away. For a
half-hour paradise was gained. But then an unusual thump
on the pulpit Bible, and the ring and roar of a voice under
full excitement, that went on swelling like a trumpet, and
that no one, not the most listless, could hear without catching
its excitement, waked us, blushing and confused that we had
been asleep in church! Even on the serene and marble face of
mother the faint suggestion of a smile came, as we clutched our
hat, supposing meeting to be over, and then sheepishly dropped
it and sank back in dismay. But even Sunday cannot hold out
for ever, and meetings have to let out sometime! So, at length,
a universal stir and bustle announced that it was time to go. Up
we bolted! Down we sat as quick as if a million pins were
.bn 064.png
.pn +1
sticking in our foot! The right leg was asleep! Limping forth
into the open air, relief came to our heart. The being out of
doors had always an inexpressible charm, and never so much
as on Sunday. Away went the wagons. Away went the people.
The whole Green swarmed with folks. The long village streets
were full of company. In ten minutes all were gone, and the
street was given up again to the birds!
“Little good did preaching do me until after I was fifteen
years old—little good immediately. Yet the whole Sunday, the
peculiar influence which it exerted on the household, the general
sense of awe which it inspired, the very rigor of its difference
from other days, and the suspended animation of its sermon time,
served to produce upon the young mind a profound impression.
A day that stood out from all others in a hard and gaunt way
might, perhaps, be justly criticised. But it left its mark. It did
its work upon the imagination, if not upon the reason. It had
power in it; and in estimating moral excellence power is an element
of the utmost importance. Will our smooth, cosey, feeble
modern Sundays have such a grip on the moral nature? They
are far pleasanter. Are they as efficacious? Will they educate
the moral nature as much?”
The cold of Litchfield Hill and the exposure of his old home
were always remembered.
“You may think you know something about winter; but if you
never spent a winter on old Litchfield Hill, where I was brought
up, you do not know much about it. It was before the days
of stoves. There were what we called ‘box-stoves,’ but they
were a very small power for generating heat. The idea of a
furnace was not born. It was not even within the reach of a
prophet to predict it.
“My father’s house was a great barn of a structure, with
rooms scattered about here and there. Mine was the west and
north room—on the corner; so that I had the full benefit, without
any subtraction or discount, of everything that was going
on out of doors; for double windows were not known, and the
carpenters did not care about making a tight fit. Therefore the
wind found no trouble in coming in, and on many and many a
morning the snow had blown from the window to my bed and
across the foot of it; and if anything inspires alacrity of step on
.bn 065.png
.pn +1
a winter morning when the feet are bare, it is a drift of snow.
Walking on it is like walking on wasps.
“To go back to the frigid houses of New England in winter,
without furnaces or hard coal, or air-tight stoves or steam,
would make our dainty skin tingle. What a pother is made to
ascertain the exact position of the North Pole, the very centre
and navel of cold! Why, I could have pointed to the exact spot
sixty years ago. It was on the northwest angle of my father’s
house in Litchfield, Connecticut, in the room where I slept.”
Not only did the severity of the elements affect him, but their
uproar as well, especially in the night-time.
“The war of winter winds to our young ears was terrible as
the thunder of waves or the noise of battle. All night long the
cold, shelterless trees moaned. Their strong crying penetrated
our sleep and shaped our dreams. At every waking the air was
full of mighty winds. The house creaked and strained, and at
some more furious gust shuddered and trembled all over. Then
the windows rattled, the cracks and crevices whistled each its
own distinctive note, and the chimneys, like diapasons of an
organ, had their deep and hollow rumble.”
And now comes an influence that we should have passed by,
if he himself had not given it place and elaborate notice:
“Next to the winds our night experiences in early boyhood
were much affected by rats. The old house seemed to have been
a favorite of this curious vermin. There is something in the
short, hot glitter of a rat’s eye that has never ceased to affect us
unpleasantly. We could not help imagining them to be the mere
receptacles of mischievous spirits, and their keen eyes had always
a kind of mocking expression, as if they said, ‘You think we are
rats, but if we get hold of you you will know that we are a good
deal more than that.’ We never could estimate how many populated
our old house. The walls seemed like city thoroughfares,
and the ceiling like a Forum or Roman theatre. We used to lie
in bed and marvel at what was going on. Sometimes there would
be a great stillness, as if they had all gone to meeting. Then
again they would troop about with such a swell of liberty and
gladness that it was quite plain that the meeting was out. But
nothing ever scared and amused us so much as their way of
going up and down the partitions. At first up would come one,
then another, and finally quite a bevy, squeaking and frolicking,
.bn 066.png
.pn +1
as if they were school-boys going up-stairs, nipping each other
and cutting up all manner of pranks. Then came a stillness.
Next a premonitory rat would rush down, evidently full of news,
and immediately down would pour after him a stream of rats,
rushing like mad, and apparently tumbling heels over head. By
and by some old sawyer would commence where he left off the
night before, cutting the same partition. To this must be added
nibblings, rat-nestled paper, an occasional race of rats across the
bed, the manipulation of corn in the garret, the foray with cats
and kittens, the rat engines—‘steel traps,’ ‘box-traps,’ ‘figure-four’s,’
and all manner of devices, in spite of which the rats held
their own, and, if allowed suffrage, would have outvoted the
whole family, dog and cats to boot, four to one.”
He was early taught to work and endure what now might be
called hardships.
“It was my duty, after I got to be about eight years old, to
go down-stairs and build a fire. Ours was a house in which,
when the weather was cold, if water was left in any vessel it
would freeze and split the vessel asunder; and of course crockery
had no chance. Our well used to choke up with ice so that
we had to cut it out in order to get the bucket down; and sometimes,
when the cistern was frozen up so that we could not get
water from it, I have gone, on washing-days, two miles, and
dipped water from a brook into barrels, and brought it home.
Therefore you see that, however dainty I may be nowadays, I
started on a very different pattern.”
But he came in after-years to be glad of this experience:
“I am thankful that I learned to hem towels—as I did. I
know how to knit suspenders and mittens. I know a good deal
about working in wood—sawing, chopping, splitting, planing,
and things of that sort. I was brought up to put my hand to
anything; so that when I went West, and was travelling on the
prairies and my horse lost a shoe, and I came to a cross-road
where there was an abandoned blacksmith’s shop, I could go in
and start the fire, and fix the old shoe and put it on again. What
man has done man can do; and it is a good thing to bring up
boys so that they shall think they can do anything. I could do
anything.”
The greatest trial of those days was the catechism. Sunday
lessons were considered by the mother as inflexible duty, and the
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
catechism was the sine qua non. “The other children memorized
readily and were brilliant reciters, but Henry, blushing, stammering,
confused, and hopelessly miserable, stuck fast on some sand-bank
of what is required or forbidden by this or that commandment,
his mouth choking up with the long words which he hopelessly
miscalled, was sure to be accused of idleness or inattention,
and to be solemnly talked to, which made him look more
stolid and miserable than ever, but appeared to have no effect in
quickening his dormant faculties.”
Such were the influences that were exerted upon Henry Ward
Beecher during these early and formative years. Various as they
were, they preserved a general character of healthful simplicity;
and numerous as they appear, they can yet be readily generalized.
The first were those that were addressed to conscience, and that
went to make this the strong, influential factor which it became
in all well-trained New England youth of that period, and in
none more markedly than in him. The stepmother led in this
work. She was the conscience of the family, training to the
strict observance of duty with a thoroughness which the father,
with his more impulsive nature, could never have equalled, although
he was in sympathy with the process. Home duties carefully
exacted, regular attendance upon school, the strict keeping
the Sabbath, even the hated lesson in the catechism, were some
of the instruments employed. Open to criticism, they may be, in
method and extent, yet they did their work, and strong conscientiousness
was developed that made him tremble at the
thought of wrong-doing, and kept him so free from viciousness
that he was able to say: “I never was sullied in act, nor in
thought, nor in feeling when I was young. I grew up as pure as
a woman.”
And although in after-years he gave more stress to heart
than conscience, and preached the Gospel rather than the law,
it was but the carrying out the natural process of soil-making
and forest culture: the granite ridges of conscience formed the
foundation, clothed and hidden by the growth, but not destroyed.
With all her admirable qualities his step-mother failed to
satisfy his longing for affection.
“It pleased God to give me a second mother, a very eminent
Christian woman. Now, my nature was enthusiastic and
outgushing; I was like the convolvulus—I wanted to be running
.bn 068.png
.pn +1
on somebody all the time. But my second mother was
stately and not easy to approach. She was a beautiful person,
serene and ladylike. She never lacked self-possession in
speech, gesture, or posture. She was polished; but to my young
thoughts she was cold. As I look back I do not recollect ever
to have had from her one breath of summer. Although I was
longing to love somebody, she did not call forth my affection;
and my father was too busy to be loved. Therefore I had to
expend my love on Aunt Chandler, a kind soul that was connected
with our family, and the black woman that cooked, who
were very kind to me. My mother that brought me up I never
thought of loving. It never occurred to me. I was afraid of
her. I revered her, but I was not attracted to her. I felt that
she was ready to die, and that I was not. I knew that at about
twilight she prayed; and I had a great shrinking from going past
her door at that time. I had not the slightest doubt that she had
set her affection on things above, and not on things beneath. I
had the strongest conviction of her saintliness. It stamped itself
upon my youth.”
Another division of influences comes under the head of spiritual:
“I can look back upon my own early life, and see how one
and another took me, and how one prepared me for another. I
can see how the largest natures did not always get access to me.
It was late in life before my father influenced me very much. I
think it was a humble woman who was in our family that first
gained any considerable control over me. I feel the effect of her
influence to this day.
“I next came under the influence of a very humble serving-man.
He opened up new directions to me and gave me new
impulses. He was a colored man; and I am not ashamed to say
that my whole life, my whole career respecting the colored race
in the conflict which was so long carried on in this country, was
largely influenced by the effect produced on my mind, when I
was between eight and ten years of age, by a poor old colored
man who worked on my father’s farm, named Charles Smith.
He did not set out to influence me; he did not know that he did
it; I did not know it until a great while afterwards; but he gave
me impulses, and impulses which were in the right direction; for
he was a godly and hymn-singing man, who made wine fresh
.bn 069.png
.pn +1
every night from the cluster. He used to lie upon his humble
bed (I slept in the same room with him) and read his Testament,
unconscious, apparently, that I was in the room; and he would
laugh and talk about what he read, and chuckle over it with that
peculiarly unctuous throat-tone which belongs to his race. I
never had heard the Bible really read before; but there, in my
presence, he read it, and talked about it to himself and to God.
He turned the New Testament into living forms right before me.
It was a revelation and an impulse to me.
“He talked to me about my soul more than any member of my
father’s family. These things impressed me with the conviction
that he was a Christian; and I never saw anything in him that
led me to think otherwise. The feeling that I was sinful, that I
needed to be born again, that there was such a thing as a regenerate
life produced by the Spirit of God in the soul—these feelings
came to me by observing the actual example of persons that I
lived with more than from all other sources put together.”
But above all others for diffusive and permanent impression
affecting his whole nature, bringing him into sympathy with God
in all his works as in all his words, and increasing to the day of
his death, was the influence of his own mother.
“The memory of my mother as one sainted has exerted a singular
influence on me. After I came to be about fourteen or fifteen
years of age I began to be distinctly conscious that there
was a silent, secret, and, if you please to call it so, romantic influence
which was affecting me. It grew and it grows, so that in
some parts of my nature I think I have more communion with
my mother, whom I never saw except as a child three years old,
than with any living being. I am conscious that all my life long
there has been a moral power in my memory of her. It is evident
to me that while in education and in other material respects
her death was a deprivation, it was also an inspiration, a communion—one
of those invisible blessings which faith comprehends,
but which we are not apt to weigh and to estimate.
“Do you know,” he says, “why so often I speak what must
seem to some of you rhapsody of woman? It is because I had a
mother, and if I were to live a thousand years I could not express
what seems to me to be the least that I owe to her. Three
years old was I when singing she left me and sung on to heaven,
where she sings evermore. I have only such a remembrance of
.bn 070.png
.pn +1
her as you have of the clouds of ten years ago—faint, evanescent;
and yet, caught by imagination, and fed by that which I have
heard of her and by what my father’s thought and feeling of her
were, it has come to be so much to me that no devout Catholic
ever saw so much in the Virgin Mary as I have seen in my mother,
who has been a presence to me ever since I can remember;
and I can never say enough for woman for my sisters’ sake, for
the sake of them that have gathered in the days of my infancy
around about me, in return for what they have interpreted to me
of the beauty of holiness, of the fulness of love, and of the heavenliness
of those elements from which we are to interpret heaven
itself.”
In those influences that went to move the intellect, to awaken
interest and thought, while the family life and the school and
nature were all doing something, the dear old Aunt Esther with
her Bible-readings and her innumerable stories and incidents
of animal life stood pre-eminent and unapproachable at this
period. It was but a few years before his death that he spoke
of her early influence upon him, and read to us the story of Joseph
as she used to read it to him, with the tears rolling down his
cheeks. He told us that he had never yet been able to read that
story or hear it read without crying.
But in those practical influences that had to do with life, that
gave him the impression that things could be done and must be
done, that gave him inspiration to labor, his father took the lead.
“What I was going to speak of was the effect upon my young
mind of observing my father’s conduct under trying circumstances.
I never once saw him flinch before the cold, or look as
though anything was hard, or as if there was a reason for not
pitching in and holding on when things were difficult. I have
seen the time when we had to cut a twenty-five-foot tunnel outward
from the kitchen-door, carrying the snow through the house;
and such tunnels would sometimes remain a month before they
would break down. I have seen the children around the house
crying with cold, and slapping their hands, and stamping their
feet, when father had to go and dig wood out of the snow-bank,
and cut and split it; and his alacrity and vigor infused themselves
into the children. I recollect particularly that if, on such nights
as this, when to the high wind severe cold and thick darkness
were added, my father had appointments, he always fulfilled them.
.bn 071.png
.pn +1
It was customary to have preaching-places all around the neighborhood,
here, there, and everywhere; and I never knew him to
think of shrinking from an appointment, or holding himself back
for a moment, on account of the weather. There never was a
snow so deep, or a wind so high, or a rain so driving, or a night
so black that the thought seemed to enter his head that he must
give up a meeting. I have many times seen him, on cold, bitter
nights, take out his old silk handkerchief and put it on, and go
forth into the storm without seeming to dread it; and often, as
I have remembered it, I have wished I could put on his spirit in
the same way. He did it as a matter of course. And such was
the effect of his example on his children that there was not one
of them that would not be ashamed to show the ‘white feather’
in the presence of external difficulties.
“When I was a boy I learned some hymns, and committed to
memory an indefinite number of texts, and waded a certain distance
into the catechism, never getting through it; and I forgot
them again very quickly. But I do not think all of them put together
exerted any material influence upon me one way or the
other—they did not remain in my mind to be understood when
I was older; but a great many things which my father did, but
which neither he nor anybody else spoke of, have had a strong influence
on my whole life. For instance, his defying the elements,
making himself master in every condition and under all circumstances,
and exhibiting an indomitable pluck which did not
pause nor shrink—that made a powerful impression upon me, and
has been one of the reasons of the success of my life; not just
here and now, but in my earlier career, when I was in the West
on the frontier, and when I was very poor and had to do a great
deal of rough work under circumstances of discouragement. I
had an ideal of what a man should be and should do, and it
stood me in stead better than any amount of catechetical instruction
could have done.”
So joined these—the stepmother, the mother, the humble servant
in the family, Charles Smith the happy Christian black man,
Aunt Esther, and the father—hand-in-hand with nature, with the
life and events that were moving on around them, and with God,
in directing and moulding him in every part in these early years.
There were none of them, perhaps, unusual, certainly not unprecedented;
for others besides Henry Ward Beecher have had
.bn 072.png
.pn +1
heavenly-minded and large-hearted mothers; others, as well as he,
have been trained in conscientiousness and have had a happy
Christian example set before them, and have enjoyed the influence
of fathers full of manly inspiration, while God and nature
have been with and around them, and yet no such marked results
have been seen as in him. Something native there was in the
soil that enabled it to respond to such genial influences with such
unusual fruitage. We are driven, in accounting for this, to that
especial endowment that was given to him and withheld from
others through the will of One who gives to every man according
to His own good pleasure. “And to one He gave five
talents.”
His appearance and attainments at this time are thus summed
up by Mrs. Stowe: “Henry was now ten years old, a stocky,
strong, well-grown boy, loyal to duty, trained in unquestioning
obedience, inured to patient hard work, inured also to the hearing
and discussing of all the great theological problems of Calvinism
which were always reverberating in his hearing;... but as to
any mechanical culture, in an extremely backward state, a poor
writer, a miserable speller, with a thick utterance, and a bashful
reticence which seemed like stolid stupidity....
“He was not marked out by the prophecies of partial friends
for any brilliant future. He had precisely the organization
which often passes for dulness in early boyhood. He had great
deficiency in verbal memory—a deficiency marked in him through
life. He was excessively sensitive to praise and blame, extremely
diffident, and with a power of yearning, undeveloped emotions
which he neither understood nor could express. His utterance
was thick and indistinct, partly from bashfulness and partly
from an enlargement of the tonsils of the throat, so that in
speaking or reading he was with difficulty understood. In
forecasting his horoscope, had any one taken the trouble then
to do it, the last success that ever would have been predicted
for him would have been that of an orator! ‘When Henry is
sent to me with a message,’ said a good aunt, ‘I always have
to make him say it three times. The first time I have no manner
of an idea more than if he spoke in Choctaw; the second I
catch a word now and then; by the third time I begin to understand.’”
Of the bashfulness referred to in the above he says: “We
.bn 073.png
.pn +1
had our own fill of it in childhood. To walk into a room where
‘company’ was assembled, and to do it erectly and naturally, was
as impossible as it would have been to fly. The sensations of
sensibility were dissolving. Our back-bone grew soft, our knees
lost their stiffness, the blood rushed to the head, and the sight
almost left our eyes. We have known something of pain in after-years,
but few pangs have been more acute than some sufferings
from bashfulness in our earlier years.”
Healthy, robust, frolicksome, conscientious, obedient, loving,
and efficient, but bashful in the extreme and backward in all his
studies, is the summing-up that we must make of Henry Ward
Beecher at this period of his life.
.bn 074.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch04'
CHAPTER IV.
.pm start_summary
Boyhood—Sent to School at Bethlehem—The Widow Ingersoll’s—Failure—A
Champion—Sent to Catharine Beecher’s School in Hartford—Humorous
Incidents—Religious Experience.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
To remedy the marked defects in his training, noticed in the
preceding chapter, something must be done, or this boy will
fail not only of becoming a student but of acquiring even a
decent common-school education. Mr. Brace’s select school
was tried for a year, but with little benefit. After a good many
family discussions and some correspondence it was decided to
place him in a private school in the village of Bethlehem, seven
miles distant from his home, under the care of Mr. Langdon, to
begin study in earnest. Of this important era, his first going
from home, we have not a syllable, as we are aware, from his own
pen or lips. That there was a mingled feeling of pain at leaving
home, of pleasure in the novelty, and a shrinking from the new
faces and the new duties, every one who remembers this epoch
in his own life can readily imagine. The ride, for a large part
of the distance across a broad plateau that stretched away cold
and strange like the Downs of England, was well calculated to
awaken that yearning sadness which was so prominent a feature
of his secret experiences from childhood, and gave in part that
tone of melancholy which appears so markedly in everything
that we know of him at this period.
Singularly enough, he boarded with the grandmother of the
one who afterwards became his son-in-law and is now aiding to
write this biography. Her name was Ingersoll, and she is well
described as a “large-hearted, kindly woman, a widow, living in a
great, comfortable farm-house where everything was free and unconstrained.”
He was well remembered by my mother, Mrs. Martha Ingersoll
Scoville, who, being somewhat older than he, had him much under
her care. She said he was always a good boy about the house,
.bn 075.png
.bn 076.png
.pn +2
but very bashful. “I used to feel very sorry for him, he seemed
so homesick. He liked to be off by himself, wandering around
in the woods, and I don’t think he studied much.”
.il id=i073 fn=i_073.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca The Ingersoll House.
This was true. Whether it was because this first separation
from home brought an increase of those gloomy yearnings
of heartsickness to which he was subject at times through life, or
simply because of his innate dislike to the study of mere names
and forms of things, that he failed to make progress in his books,
no one knows. We only know on the authority of his sister, Mrs.
Stowe, that “Henry’s studies were mostly with gun on shoulder
roving the depths of the forest, guiltless of hitting anything because
the time was lost in dreamy contemplation. Whence returning
unprepared for school, he would be driven to the expedient
of writing out his Latin verb and surreptitiously reading it out
of the crown of his hat—an exercise from which he reaped small
profit, either mentally or morally.” This was not understood at
home at the time, and Dr. Beecher writes concerning him:
“Mr. Langdon has been faithful with Henry, and I trust successful;
he says in a letter: ‘His observance of my regulations
relating to study has become exact and punctual. His diligence
all along has gradually increased, and I think he has arrived at
that full purpose which will insure his making a scholar. My
method of instruction for beginners is a system of extended,
minute, and reiterated drilling, and the make of his mind is such
as fits him to receive benefit from the operation.”
Perhaps the method of “reiterated drilling, extended and
minute,” was not so well adapted to the boy as the teacher
thought. At all events we have this testimony on the other side,
that “after a year spent in this way it began to be perceived by
the elders of the family that as to the outward and visible signs
of learning he was making no progress.”
He was therefore brought home to Litchfield, leaving but one
incident of his life at Bethlehem especially worthy of note. It
was this: One of the older boys, having studied Tom Paine’s
“Age of Reason,” was freely advocating infidel sentiments and
gaining a strong and vicious influence over his companions.
Young Beecher saw it and came to the rescue. He brushed up
the knowledge he had already gained at the hearth-stone and
table of his home, studied “Watson’s Apology,” challenged the
advocate of Tom Paine’s philosophy to a debate, and, in the
.bn 077.png
.pn +1
judgment of the school, gained a complete victory, proving himself
thus early to be a doughty champion of the faith.
The experiment at Bethlehem having proved substantially a
failure, his oldest sister, Catharine, who was then teaching a
young ladies’ school in Hartford, proposed to take the boy under
her care to see what she could do with him.
If his nature lay in strata, as has been said—the one a dreamy,
yearning melancholy lying at the bottom, which had its full exercise
in his lonely wanderings around Bethlehem; and the other,
the surface one, of humor and fun—it was the latter, constantly
effervescing and exploding, that appeared in his life in his sister’s
school of thirty or forty girls in Hartford. The story of his arranging
the umbrellas on the stairs one recess, when he was supposed
to be studying grammar, so that when the outside door was
opened by a late comer the whole series rushed pell-mell down
into the street, greatly to the dismay of the teachers and the enjoyment
of the school—with whom, of course, he was a great favorite—is
well known. And one of the incidents of the recitation-room
is equally familiar, but, as it is very characteristic, we
give it place, copied verbatim from Mrs. Stowe:
“The school-room was divided into two divisions in grammar,
under leaders on either side, and the grammatical reviews
were contests for superiority in which it was vitally important
that every member should be perfected. Henry was generally
the latest choice, and fell on his side as an unfortunate accession,
being held more amusing than profitable on such occasions.
“The fair leader of 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 indefinite 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
‘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 impracticable
scholar, with a quizzical twinkle. Each one of these sallies made
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
his young teacher laugh, which was the victory 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!’”
A letter from the afore-mentioned teacher, sent to him with
her New Year’s salutation, January 1, 1858, has lately come to
hand. She says, in recalling this incident: “Memory has daguerreotyped
upon my mind a boy, a small specimen of perpetual
motion, perpetual prank, and perpetual desire to give wrong answers
to every sober grammatical rule, thereby not only overwhelming
Murray but the studious gravity of a hundred school-girls.”
“Sometimes his views of philosophical subjects were offered
gratuitously. Being held of rather a frisky nature, his sister appointed
his seat at her elbow when she heard 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 hold of the moon
and pulls her, and she catches hold of the sea and pulls that, and
this makes the spring tides.’ ‘But what makes the neap tides?’
‘Oh! that’s when the sun stops to spit on his hands,’ was the
brisk reply.
“After about six months Henry was returned to his parents’
hands with the reputation of being an inveterate joker and an indifferent
scholar. It was the opinion of his class that there was
much talent lying about loosely in him, if he could only be
brought to apply himself.”
Of his religious life at this time we have a glimpse in a letter
written by Dr. Beecher in November, 1825:
“Our family concert of prayer was held in the study on
Thanksgiving Day—your mother, Aunt Esther, Henry, and
Charles. It was a most deeply solemn, tender, and interesting
time.... Henry and Charles have both been awakened, and
are easily affected and seriously disposed now. But as yet it is
like the wind upon the willow, which rises as soon as it is passed
over. It does not grapple, but the effect is good in giving power
to conscience, and moral principle producing amendment in
conduct.”
.bn 079.png
.pn +1
This was during a revival which was then in progress in
Litchfield, in which the pastor was assisted by Mr. Nettleton, the
great revivalist of that period. Henry was twelve years old.
That no permanent good resulted from this work appears
true, as the doctor feared, but for a reason very different from
that which he gives.
Henry Ward himself tells us why it was:
“My mother—she who in the providence of God took me to
her heart when my own mother had gone to see my Father in
heaven, she who came after and was most faithful to the charge of
the children and the household—she often took me, and prayed
with me, and read me the word of God, and expounded to me the
way of duty, and did all that seemed to her possible, I know, to
make it easy for me to become a religious child; and yet there
have been times when I think it would have been easier for me
to lay my hand on a block and have it struck off than to open
my thoughts to her, when I longed to open them to some one.
How often have I started to go to her and tell her my feelings,
when fear has caused me to sheer off and abandon my
purpose! My mind would open like a rosebud, but, alas! fear
would hold back the blossom. How many of my early religious
pointings fell, like an over-drugged rosebud, without a
blossom!”
Again, and more at length, he opens his religious experiences
of the whole period:
“I remember having religious impressions, distinct and definite,
as early as when I was eight or nine years of age.
“The first distinct religious feelings I had were in connection
with nature. Although I was born, as far as any one can
be born so, a Calvinist, and although I was conversant at a very
early age with the things which pertain to Calvinism, yet, as I
look back, I see that the only religious feelings or impressions I
had were those which were excited in my mind through the unconscious
influence of God through nature. It was not until
years later that I knew it was the divine element. I yearned, I
longed, for purity and nobility. I had the beginnings of the feeling
of self-renunciation. I had a wistful desire that something
higher, something superior to myself, should be developed out of
the system of nature to help me. I had the germs of evangelical
teaching; but I never spoke to anybody about them, and it seems
.bn 080.png
.pn +1
to me a hermit could not have been more solitary, so far as that
part of my life was concerned, than I was.
“The next thing I remember was a transition, under the influence
of teaching, from the religious conditions and tendencies
in my mind to a speculative state. I began to listen to sermons
when I was eight or nine years old, and what seems strange is
that the picturesque parts stopped not much with me; that they
faded out of my mind; that the colors were not ‘fast’; but
that I caught hold of the speculative parts, particularly those
which were most insoluble, about which men knew least and
taught most—the nature of God, the purposes of God, the
scheme of divine government, not those parts which are transcendently
important, namely, the elements of justice, truth, and
morality commingled; that God from all eternity foreknew;
that, foreknowing, he predestinated; that by predestination
things were fixed, made certain; that so many as he fore-ordained
to be saved would be saved, do what they would or
come what might—my mind greedily seized on these, not merely
as undoubted facts, as they were to me, but as having special
reference to myself.
“I recollect being sometimes, as it were, behind the entrenchments
of such a doctrine, and wishing I could get over them,
and feeling that I would give everything in the world if I only
knew that I was one of the elect, and praying that God would in
some way let me know whether I was or not.
“At other times it would come in this shape: I had probably
been reprimanded for a misdemeanor or a delinquency, or
something of that sort. I used to be melancholy and to sit in
judgment upon myself; and I remember thinking, ‘Well, it is no
use for me to try to be a good boy’—not a saintly boy; that sort
did not abound where I was born, and I was certainly no exception
to the average run. I don’t think there are many of that
kind outside of Sunday-school books. Judged by the ordinary
standard, I was a very good boy. I had no vices, and no objectionable
tendencies except those which sprang from robust
health, buoyant spirits, and immense nerve resources. But I
thought I was a base sinner. The pulpit represented all men as
being sinners, and I accepted it absolutely and literally. I
thought I was an awful transgressor; every little fault seemed to
make a dreadful sin; and I would say to myself, ‘There! I am
.bn 081.png
.pn +1
probably one of the reprobate. I have tried to be good, but I
am going down. The probability is, I am not one of the elect;
and what is the use of my trying? If I am not fore-ordained to
be saved there is no chance for me, and I may as well go by the
wholesale as by the retail.’ So sometimes on the one side and
sometimes on the other these thoughts wrought upon me. Not
once or twice merely, but many times, they passed through my
mind. They were the sub-base, as it were, of my life. I think it
was a period of fifteen or twenty years before I got relief from
that undertone. It had some advantages and not a few disadvantages.
“If I had had the influence of a discreet, sympathetic Christian
person to brood over and help and encourage me, I should have
been a Christian child from my mother’s lap, I am persuaded;
but I had no such influence. The influences of a Christian
family were about me, to be sure, but they were generic; and I
revolved in these speculative experiences, my strong religious
habitudes taking the form of speculation all through my childhood.
I recollect that from the time that I was about ten years
old I began to have periods when my susceptibilities were so
profoundly impressed that the outward manifestations of my
nature were changed. I remember that when my brother George—who
was next older than I, and who was beginning to be my
helpful companion, to whom I looked up—became a Christian,
being awakened and converted in college, it seemed as though a
gulf had come between us, and as though he was a saint on one
side of it while I was a little reprobate on the other side. It
was awful to me. If there had been a total eclipse of the sun I
should not have been in more profound darkness outwardly than
I was inwardly. I did not know whom to go to; I did not dare
to go to my father; I had no mother that I ever went to at such
a time; I did not feel like going to my brother; and I did not
go to anybody. I felt that I must try to wrestle out my own
salvation.
“Once, on coming home, I heard the bell toll, and I learned
that it was for the funeral of one of my companions with whom
I had been accustomed to play, and with whom I had grown up.
I did not know that he had been sick, but he had dropped into
eternity; and the ringing, swinging, booming of that bell, if it
had been the sound of an angel trumpet of the last day, would
.bn 082.png
.pn +1
not have seemed to me more awful. I went into an ecstasy of
anguish. At intervals, for days and weeks, I cried and prayed.
There was scarcely a retired place in the garden, in the wood-house,
in the carriage-house, or in the barn that was not a scene
of my crying and praying. It was piteous that I should be in
such a state of mind, and that there should be nobody to help me
and lead me out into the light. I do not recollect that to that
day one word had been said to me, or one syllable had been uttered
in the pulpit, that led me to think there was any mercy in
the heart of God for a sinner like me. For a sinner that had repented
it was thought there was pardon; but how to repent was
the very thing I did not know. A converted sinner might be
saved, but for a poor, miserable, faulty boy, that pouted, and got
mad at his brothers and sisters, and did a great many naughty
things, there was no salvation so far as I had learned. My innumerable
shortcomings and misdemeanors were to my mind so
many pimples that marked my terrible depravity; and I never
had the remotest idea of God except that he was a Sovereign
who sat with a sceptre in his hand and had his eye on me, and
said: ‘I see you, and I am after you.’ So I used to live in perpetual
fear and dread, and often I wished myself dead. I tried
to submit and lay down the weapons of my rebellion, I tried to
surrender everything; but it did not seem to do any good, and
I thought it was because I did not do it right. I tried to consecrate
myself to God, but all to no purpose. I did everything, so
far as I could, that others did who professed to be Christians, but
I did not feel any better. I passed through two or three revivals.
I remember, when Mr. Nettleton was preaching in Litchfield,
going to carry a note to him from father; and for a sensitive,
bashful boy like me it was a severe ordeal. I went to the room
where he was speaking, with the note in my trembling hand, and
had to lay it on the desk beside him. Before I got half-way
across the floor I was dazed and everything seemed to swim
around me; but I made out to get the note to him, and he said:
‘That’s enough; go away, boy,’ and I sort of backed and stumbled
toward the door (I was always stumbling and blundering in
company), and sat down. He was preaching in those whispered
tones which always seem louder than thunder to the conscience,
although they are only whispers in the ear. He had not uttered
more than three sentences before my feelings were excited, and
.bn 083.png
.pn +1
the more I listened the more awful I felt; and I said to myself:
‘I will stay to the inquiry meeting.’ I heard Mr. Nettleton talk
about souls writhing under conviction, and I thought my soul
was writhing under conviction. I had heard father say that after
persons had writhed under conviction a week or two they began
to come out, and I said: ‘Perhaps I will get out’; and that
thought produced in me a sort of half-exhilaration of joy. I
stayed to the inquiry meeting, felt better, and trotted home with
the hope that I was on the way toward conversion. I went
through this revival with that hope strengthened; but it did not
last long.”
It is evident from this chapter that if we would understand
Henry Ward Beecher and the influences that went to the formation
of his character and to the success of his life, other things
than parentage, home, school, or nature must be taken into the
account. The vast things of the invisible realm have begun to
speak to him, and his nature has proved to be peculiarly sensitive
to their influence.
He is thus early groping, unresting, and unsatisfied; but it is
among mountains, and not in marshes or quicksands. Some day
these mountain truths, among which he now wanders in darkness,
shall be radiant in his sight with the Divine Compassion
and his gloom shall give place to abiding love, joy, and peace.
.bn 084.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch05'
CHAPTER V.
.pm start_summary
Boston—Home Atmosphere—Various Experiences—Ethics rubbed in by a
six-pound Shot—Discontent—Makes up his mind to go to Sea—To
Study Navigation—Picture of his Life in Boston.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
In the spring of 1826 Dr. Lyman Beecher moved with his family
to Boston. Henry Ward was thirteen years old the following
June, “a green, healthy country lad,” “with a round, full,
red-cheeked face.” Here a new world opened to him and a new
set of influences was brought to bear upon him.
The same home life was around him, and, if possible, more intense
than ever; for Dr. Beecher had come to Boston to be the
champion “of the Faith once delivered to the saints,” and he
threw himself into the work with all the zeal and enthusiasm of
an intensely ardent nature.
He had watched with intense interest every step of that reaction
in Massachusetts from the strict theocracy of the Puritans,
called the “Unitarian Controversy.” He thoroughly understood
and heartily condemned the process, employed by the wealthy and
literary classes, of taking away from the church, composed presumably
of regenerate persons, the power to govern their own
affairs and of giving it to the congregation, which was often composed
of men hostile to a spiritual religion. He had seen the dominant
majority enter into the possession of church edifices and
church property, employ ministers opposed to the old faith, and
drive the orthodox ministry out into school-houses and town-halls;
and old foundations established by the fathers to perpetuate the
faith had been seized and made to support opposite and antagonistic
views. All this had kindled in him a burning indignation
against the wrong that had been perpetrated, and a deep sympathy
for the brethren who had suffered. “It was as a fire in my bones,”
he said. “My mind was all the time heating, heating, heating.”
“His family prayers,” we are told by Mrs. Stowe, “at this
period, departing from the customary forms of unexcited hours,
became often upheavings of passionate emotion such as I shall
never forget. ‘Come, Lord Jesus,’ he would say, ‘here where the
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
bones of the fathers rest, here where the crown has been torn
from thy brow—come and recall thy wandering children. Behold
thy flock scattered on the mountains; these sheep, what have they
done? Gather them, gather them, O Good Shepherd, for their
feet stumble upon the dark mountains.”
Mr. Beecher in after-years spoke of the work here as something
deeper than a mere dispute between rival denominations
or antagonistic creeds. “The outward form of the great excitement
was that of controversy between the Unitarian and Calvinistic
faiths. But, as compared with the great inward reality,
this was but superficial. It was broader than any doctrinal
controversy, deeper than any sectarian conflict. It was a resurrection
of vital religion, in all churches of every name, and in
the Unitarian churches as well as the Evangelical.”
It will be seen that the same atmosphere of deep feeling and
triumphant faith, if possible more tropical and more thoroughly
charged with electricity, continued in the new as in the old home;
but outside the family very different influences were brought to
bear upon the lad, and he was led out into a much wider range of
experiences. We give as many of these as space will allow.
The first thing that greatly impressed him seems to have been
the bells:
“Is there any boy left in Boston to whose ears the Christ
Church chimes sound as they did to mine? Some travelled persons
in Litchfield had informed me that the churches in Boston
were so thick that the bells on Sunday morning would almost
play a tune. The first Sunday morning after the family took
possession of the house in Sheafe Street, being in the back-yard,
I heard in a wondrous manner the tune of ‘Greenville,’ played on
bells! The whole air was full of ‘Greenville.’
“I was fully persuaded that this was the thing predicted, and
that this tune simply fell into place among the vast number of
bell-strokes. Too young to analyze or reason upon the matter,
I listened with a pleasure and amazement which I fear nothing
will ever give me again till I hear the bells ring out wondrous
things in the New Jerusalem. Blessed city! in which dwelt so
divine a spirit of harmony that some airy hand governed the
widely scattered belfries, and taught the notes which each bell
carelessly struck to come together in time and tune, and march
through the air in harmony. And when, after a few minutes, the
.bn 086.png
.pn +1
tune changed and ‘St. Martyn’s’ came sadly and slowly through
the air, I could contain myself no longer, but rushed, red and
eager, to bring out ‘Charles,’ the inseparable companion of all
my marvels, who opened his great eyes with a look of amazement
as utter and implicit as if he had been a young devotee witnessing
his first miracle. I expounded to him the cause, taking
for text the reports which had been made to me while yet in the
country. Alas for marvels! The cook, overhearing, laughed us
out of countenance, and explained that it was a chime of bells,
and also what a chime was. Of course we were wiser and less
happy. But never, in forty years, has that chime of bells sounded
in my ears without bringing back, for a second, the first electric
shock of wonder and
“Next to Boston bells were Boston ships. Here first we beheld
a ship! We shall never again see anything that will so
profoundly affect our imagination. We stood and gazed upon
the ship, and smelt the sea-air, and looked far out along the
water to the horizon, and all that we had ever read of buccaneers,
of naval battles, of fleets of merchantmen, of explorations
into strange seas, among rare and curious things, rose up in a
cloud of mixed and changing fancies, until we scarcely knew
whether we were in the body or out. How many hours have
we asked and wanted no better joy than to sit at the end of the
wharf, or on the deck of some newly-come ship, and rock and
ride on the stream of our own unconscious imagination! We
went to school in Boston Harbor.
“Next to the merchant marine was the Navy-Yard. We
stole over to Charlestown almost every week. With what awe we
walked past the long rows of unmounted cannon! With what
exhilaration we looked forth from the mounted sea-battery that
looked down the harbor, and just waited for some Britisher to dare
to come in sight! We have torn any number of ships to pieces
with those cannon, with imagination for our commodore and
patriotism for our cannoneer. There have been great battles in
Boston harbor that nobody knows anything about but ourself!”
Other experiences there were of a different nature.
The peaceful life of the quiet New England village, where
each one took his place mostly by the position of the family and
held it largely undisturbed, had given way to that of a city full of
antagonisms and strife. It was a life not exactly in accordance
.bn 087.png
.pn +1
with the instructions of a well-regulated Christian family, but its
rough experiences were undoubtedly adapted to bring out some
qualities that were useful in an after-career in which battle was
to have so prominent a place.
“It was with some slight contempt that we beheld our first
companions. Our first home was in Sheafe Street, far down at
the North End, next door to Mr. Gay, the landlord. The boys
thereabouts were smart and lively, but few of them could wrestle,
and none of them often held out with us in a downright race.
I was always long-winded, even before I began public speaking.
“In those days no boy was a good boy among his fellows
who had not the courage of battle. It was the duty of all living
in certain districts, upon proper occasion, to fight the boys of
other streets or districts. The Salem-Streeters included all the
small streets adjacent—Sheafe Street, Bennett Street, etc. When
nothing else was on hand small scrimmages were gotten up between
ourselves—Sheafe Street vs. Bennett Street, etc.; but we all
united against Prince Street. Prince-Streeters were the natural
enemies of all the surrounding streets. Yet, when the West-Enders
came over in battle array, yelling, throwing stones, and driving
in the timid lads caught out of bounds, all the North-Enders
rose, forgot their local feuds, and went forth in awful array to
chastise the wretches that lived at the West End. And if one
were to believe all the feats of which we boasted for a month
thereafter, he would be sure that since the days that Homer sang
no such fighting had ever taken place.
“But what were all these things to that implacable and ineradical
hatred which all true Boston boys entertained against
Charlestown Pigs? For by such a title did we expose the meanness,
the degradation, the cowardice, the utter despicableness of
a boy born the other side of the ‘draw’ of the Charlestown
Bridge!”
While the father was coming to leadership in the pulpit his
son Henry was reaching the same point in his set by the only
way opened to him at that time.
“Copp’s Hill? It recalled many a boyish prank. One sport
engaged our youthful leisure. It was called ‘Follow your leader.’
It was considered as a testimony to one’s courage when, by
acclamation, he was elected to leadership! The game was
simple; but the results, always amusing, were sometimes somewhat
.bn 088.png
.pn +1
too stimulating for pleasure. The leader started upon a
run, with a long trail of boys in a line behind him, whom he endeavored
to throw off by doing things which they were not strong
enough or skilful or daring enough to imitate. If twenty boys
started, half would drop away, after a sharp run, by mere want
of breath; another section could be thrown off by some feat
that terrified them.
“We recall one memorable chase. Called to the head of the
column, I plunged down Margaret’s Lane, up Prince and back,
up toward Copp’s Hill, reducing my followers, by sheer exhaustion,
one-half. A brick house was going up; into it I dashed, ran
up the ladder, walked along the floor-joists, and let myself down
by a rope attached to a guy on the front. Only six or seven
could follow. A large mortar-bed lay near by. I dashed into
that, wading through the slush. Five came out on the other side
with me. Tough five! They followed me into a shop, right back
into the adjacent parlor, out at a side-door, though some of the
last got the yard-stick well laid on by the indignant shop-keeper,
and the last one out came dripping from a pail of water which a
woman flung after ‘the nasty varmints,’ as she styled us. Many
other feats did we, but in vain. The five would stick. I remember
that a large part of Copp’s Hill had been dug down for filling
the ‘Causeway,’ leaving a precipitous face—well, say fifty feet
high to the eyes, but, if measured, perhaps twenty feet. Ascending
the hill, I drew near the verge, a little hesitant to venture the
plunge. But to confess that I dare not do anything would be disgraceful,
and so, with but a moment’s pause, I jumped for a little
crumbling foothold half-way down, and off from that, as soon as
on it, to the bottom, which I reached in a heap, with dirt and
stones and two boys following after! Not stopping to rub my
shins, rejoicing that only two were left, and desperate, I took my
way to the near wharf where ‘Billy Gray’s’ ships used to be,
climbed the side, ran along the deck, up the bowsprit, far out,
and then, with a spring, off into deep water! Down, down, down
we went, and seemed likely to go on for ever. At length the descent
stopped, and we rose again to the surface—O joy!—to see
the two boys standing on the bowsprit! They did not dare!
That day’s work established our reputation! We know how Alexander
felt! Cæsar and Napoleon can tell us nothing new
about the glories of victory!”
.bn 089.png
.pn +1
That his country honesty was not altogether proof against the
temptations of his life in the city is shown by a description he
gives, in “Eyes and Ears,” of his successful attempt to purloin a
six-pound cannon-ball from the Navy-Yard:
“One day I visited some ill-constructed vaults where shot had
been stored. The six and twelve pound shot were extremely
tempting. I had no particular use for them. I am to this
day puzzled to know why I coveted them. There was no
chance in the house to roll them, and as little in the street. For
base-ball or shinty they were altogether too substantial. But I
was seized with an irresistible desire to possess one. As I had
been well brought up, of course the first objection arose on the
score of stealing. But I disposed of that, with a patriotic facility
that ought long before this to have sent me to Congress, by the
plea that it was no sin to steal from the government. Next, how
should I convey the shot from the Yard without detection? I
tried it in my handkerchief. That was altogether too plain. I
tried my jacket-pocket, but the sag and shape of that alarmed my
fears. I tried my breeches-pocket, but the abrupt protuberance
was worse than all. I had a good mind to be honest, since there
was no feasible way of carrying it off. At length a thought
struck me: Wrap a handkerchief about it and put it in your
hat.
“The iron ball was accordingly swaddled with the handkerchief
and mounted on my head, and the hat shut over it. I
emerged from the vault a little less courageous than was pleasant,
and began my march toward the gate. Every step seemed a
mile. Every man I met looked unusually hard at me. The marines
evidently were suspecting my hat. Some sailors, leering
and rolling toward the ships, seemed to look me through. The
perspiration stood all over my face as an officer came toward me.
Now for it! I was to be arrested, put in prison, cat-o’-nine-tailed,
or shot, for aught I knew. I wished the ball in the bottom of
the sea; but no, it was on the top of my head!
“By this time, too, it had grown very heavy; I must have made
a mistake in selecting! I meant a six-pounder, but I was sure it
must have been a twelve-pounder, and before I got out of the
Yard it weighed twenty-four pounds! I began to fear that the
stiffness with which I carried my neck would excite suspicion, and
so I tried to limber up a little, which had nearly ruined me, for
.bn 090.png
.pn +1
the shot took a roll around my crown in a manner that liked to
have brought me and my hat to the ground. Indeed, I felt like
a loaded cannon, and every man and everything was like a spark
trying to touch me off. The gate was a great way farther off
than I had ever found it before; I seemed likely never to get
there.
“And when at length, heartsore and headsore, with my scalp
well rolled, I got to the gate, all my terror came to a culmination
as the sentinel stopped his marching, drew himself up, and, looking
through me, smiled. I expected him to say: ‘O you little
thievish devil, do you think I do not see through you?’ But,
bless his heart! he only said: ‘Pass!’ He did not say it twice.
I walked a few steps farther, and then, having great faith in the
bravery of my feet, I pulled my hat off before me, and, carrying
it in that position, I whipped around the first corner and made
for the bridge with a speed which Flora Temple would envy.
“When I reached home I had nothing to do with my shot. I
did not dare show it in the house nor tell where I got it; and
after one or two solitary rolls I gave it away on the same day to
a Prince-Streeter.
“But, after all, that six-pounder rolled a good deal of sense
into my skull. I think it was the last thing I ever stole (excepting
a little matter of a heart now and then), and it gave me
a notion of the folly of coveting more than you can enjoy, which
has made my whole life happier. It was rather a severe mode of
catechising, but ethics rubbed in with a six-pound shot are better
than none at all.”
His student life, which had been such a failure heretofore,
was improved a little, and but a little. By means of the pressure
of school discipline, backed up and made formidable by family
pride and the advice and exhortations heard at home, he
managed to make fair progress in most of his studies, especially
in the rules and exceptions of the Latin grammar, and to the
day of his death was able to establish his claims to proficiency
in that language by rattling off the list of eleven prepositions
that govern the ablative. But his heart was not in the work.
Disgust, insurrection, revolution, was the stormy way along
which he was rapidly travelling.
This period in his own life is described in “Norwood”:
“Long before the Amazon reaches the ocean it has grown so
.bn 091.png
.pn +1
wide that from the channel no shore can be seen from either
side. It is still a river, but with all the signs and symptoms of
becoming an ocean. There is a period, beginning not far from
fourteen, in young lives, when childhood is widened suddenly,
and carries its banks so far out that manhood seems begun,
though as yet it is far off. The stream is ocean-deep. Upon
this estuary of youth the currents are shifting, the eddies are
many. Here are united the strength of the sea and the hindrances
of the land.
“The important organic changes which, in our zone, take
place in the second full seven of years, produce important results
even in the coldest temperaments and in the slenderest natures.
But in persons of vigor of body and strength of feeling there
is frequently an uprising like a city in insurrection. The young
nature, swelling to the new influences with a sense of unmeasurable
strength, sometimes turbulent with passions, but always
throbbing with excited feelings led on and fed by tantalizing
fancies, seems transformed from its previous self and becomes a
new nature. New moral forces are developed into activity.
Aspirations begin to quicken the soul. Ambitions grow nobler.”
Mrs. Stowe says: “The era of fermentation and development
was upon him, and the melancholy that had brooded over his
childhood waxed more turbulent and formidable. He grew
gloomy and moody, restless and irritable. His father, noticing
the change, got him on a course of biographical reading, hoping
to divert his thoughts. He began to read naval histories, the
lives of great sailors and commanders, the voyages of Captain
Cook, the biography of Nelson; and immediately, like lightning
flashing out of rolling clouds, came the determination not to rest
any longer in Boston, learning terminations and prepositions, but
to go forth to a life of enterprise. He made up his little bundle,
walked the wharf and talked with sailors and captains, hovered
irresolute on the verge of voyages, never quite able to grieve
his father by a sudden departure. At last he wrote a letter
announcing to a brother that he could and would no longer
remain 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.
.bn 092.png
.pn +1
Now, the wood-pile was the doctor’s favorite debating-ground,
and Henry felt complimented by the invitation, as implying
manly companionship.
“‘Let us see,’ said 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.’ ‘But not merely as a common
sailor, I suppose?’ ‘No, sir; I want to be a midshipman, and
after that a 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 will send you up to Amherst
next week, to Mount Pleasant, and then you’ll begin your preparatory
studies, and if you are well prepared I presume 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.”
In a sermon preached by his brother, Rev. T. K. Beecher, we
have this picture:
“All of you know more about ‘Henry Ward Beecher’ than I
do, but I know more about ‘Brother Henry’ than you do.
“A little Boston boy five years old had a brother Henry who
was sixteen, and a brother Charles who was fourteen; and though
he knew of David and Goliath, who ‘fell down slambang,’ and
David, ‘little David ran up and cut his head off’! though he
knew about Samson and the lion, yet for the present strength and
greatness Henry and Charles were his heroes. Did they not
own a long sled and coast down Copp’s Hill and jump sixteen
sleds at the bounce? Did they not sharpen skates with enthusiasm
and go off to the mill-dam alone?
“By night when the tocsin rang and the little boy covered
his head and shivered under the sheets, did not Henry and
Charles rush down two flights of stairs and out the door, yelling
fire? And they were at school fitting for college at Mt. Pleasant.
Their hair-trunk was two days a-packing, and the stage took
them away before daylight, leaving the house so quiet and so
.bn 093.png
.pn +1
empty. Sixteen and five—oh! how magnificent the boy of sixteen
to the little boy of five. I speak of brother Henry.
“But at prayers, family prayers, Henry and Charles could
sing, and so could the little boy. A frail, blue-eyed, willowy
mother sat in the rocking-chair. Father would read—the little
boy knew not what. But for the singing from village hymns
Henry sometimes fluted, making a queer mouth; and then, all
kneeling, it was ever asked by father, ‘Overturn and overturn,
till He whose right it is shall come and reign, King of nations as
King of saints.’
“Prayers over, Aunt Esther and the little boy, he standing in
a chair, washed the dishes, and Henry and Charles stormed out
to the Latin School. But they went to Mount Pleasant, and Mr.
Colton was the teacher. Twice a year they came home, at
Thanksgiving and the summer vacation. The expected stage
drove up, and the little boy, in agony of delight that could not be
endured, hid himself on a trundle-bed under mother’s and braided
bed-cords till, searched out, he was tossed above the clouds
by great, strong brother Henry.
“At morning prayers, ‘Thou hast brought back our boys in
health,’ the little boy heard that and the ‘overturn and overturn’
part; and that little boy, now your pastor, bears witness in
your ears that the boys were kept, and that since those days
there have been overturnings not a few. And further he tells
you that those family prayers propagated the ancestral religion
in brother Henry, though they have failed to hand down the ancestral
theology.
“The boys must go to college, and leave the little boy to go
to infant school, to Miss Bull, and learn to tell the hour on a card
clock, and add, subtract, and count with an abacus. Henry in
the world of departed spirits, Amherst; Charles at Bowdoin.
Every morning father praying for our boys at college: ‘May
they become good ministers of our Lord Jesus Christ!’
”... Edward was a man, like father. But Henry and
Charles were heroes, doing things. How they could jump!
How they whirled around the horizontal bar! How Charles
could flog a top! And Henry had peanuts and red peppermints.
Shall I ever be big and do things, and run to fires, and go way
down Milk Street?
“Yes, one vacation brother Henry took the little boy down
.bn 094.png
.pn +1
on Milk Street, past two Unitarian churches safely, past Tremont
Theatre, past an open stable-door where lay a red cow with monstrous
horns, chewing her big mouth with nothing in it, and
looking, oh! so strong and hungry at that little boy. But Henry
wasn’t scared. He was whistling. ‘Come along, Tom,’ he said,
‘that’s only a cow.’
“Henry and Charles at college; father and eight of us staging
from Boston to Cincinnati, leaving my heroes. Amherst and
Bowdoin loom large in my fancy still. My heroes were to stay
and grow! Tidings once a month: Charles has a fiddle, Henry
has a six-keyed flute; Charles, and something about circles and
geometry; Henry, and phrenology and temperance lectures.”
Such was his life in Boston, undoubtedly to a certain extent
beneficial, and, by reason of the activity of the streets of
the city and the bustle of the wharves, attractive. But coming
at the turbulent period of his own development, when the
rough elements of its thoroughfares were more congenial to
him than the influences of its churches, libraries, or homes, it
was far from being satisfactory. Its liberty was not altogether
safe, nor were its restrictions healthful; and he says: “I cannot
see how, if I had remained much longer in Boston, I could
have escaped ruin.” We see him, therefore, start off on the
lumbering stage-coach, in the early autumn morning before
daylight, for Amherst, with a sense of relief and hearty thankfulness
that he is escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowler.
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch06'
CHAPTER VI.
.pm start_summary
School-Life at Mount Pleasant—Mathematics—Elocution—Testimony of
Classmates—Religious Experiences—Troubles—A Romantic Friendship—Another
Kind—Letter of Reminiscence—A Royal School-boy.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
It was in 1827, and Henry was fourteen years old, when he
entered the Mount Pleasant Institute. “He was admitted to
the institution at a price about half the usual charge, for
one hundred dollars per year.” “His appearance was robust and
healthy, rather inclined to fulness of form, with a slight pink
tinge on his cheeks and a frequent smile upon his face. In his
manners and communications he was quiet, orderly, and respectful.
He was a good-looking youth.” This is the testimony of
one of his teachers, Mr. George Montague.
“I think he must have been fond of children, for he was always
ready for a frolic with me. I don’t remember how he spoke,
except that he talked a good deal and was full of life and fun.”
So says a friend, in whose home he boarded, in a letter written
during the past year.
No place could have been better fitted to the condition of the
boy, as he then was, than the one chosen. He was tired of the
city with its brick walls, stone pavements, and artificial restrictions,
and longed for the freedom and the freshness of the country.
Amherst at that time was only a small village, fighting back
with indifferent success the country that pressed in upon it from
every side, and offering this city-sick lad, almost within a stone’s
throw of the school, the same kind of fields and forests that
were around him at Litchfield, and spreading out for him a landscape
equal in beauty to that of his childhood home.
Besides, he has an object in view that stirs his blood. He is
to fit himself for the navy; his father has promised his influence
to get him an appointment, if wanted, and Admiral Nelson and
all other brave admirals and commodores are his models. For
the first time in his life he takes hold of study with enthusiasm.
The institution was very popular in its day, and a great
.bn 096.png
.pn +1
advance upon the old academy. It was semi-military in its
methods, and in its government there was great thoroughness
without severity. Its teachers possessed superior qualifications,
and all were men of great kindness as well as of marked ability.
Among them were two men who especially had great influence
in directing his energies and preparing him not only for Amherst
College but for the greater work beyond, and who were
ever remembered by him with the deepest gratitude.
The first of these was W. P. Fitzgerald, the teacher of mathematics
at Mount Pleasant school:
“He taught me to conquer in studying. There is a very hour
in which a young nature, tugging, discouraged, and weary with
books, rises with the consciousness of victorious power into masterhood.
For ever after he knows that he can learn anything if
he pleases. It is a distinct intellectual ‘conversion.’
“I first went to the blackboard, uncertain, soft, full of whimpering.
‘That lesson must be learned,’ he said, in a very
quiet tone, but with a terrible intensity and with the certainty of
Fate. All explanations and excuses he trod under foot with
utter scornfulness. ‘I want that problem. I don’t want any reasons
why I don’t get it.’
“‘I did study it two hours.’
“‘That’s nothing to me; I want the lesson. You need not
study it at all, or you may study it ten hours—just to suit yourself.
I want the lesson. Underwood, go to the blackboard!’
“‘Oh! yes, but Underwood got somebody to show him his
lesson.’
“‘What do I care how you get it? That’s your business.
But you must have it.’
“It was tough for a green boy, but it seasoned him. In less
than a month I had the most intense sense of intellectual independence
and courage to defend my recitations.
“In the midst of a lesson his cold and calm voice would fall
upon me in the midst of a demonstration—‘No!’ I hesitated,
stopped, and then went back to the beginning; and, on reaching
the same spot again, ‘No!’ uttered with the tone of perfect
conviction, barred my progress. ‘The next!’ and I sat down in
red confusion. He too was stopped with ‘No!’ but went right
on, finished, and, as he sat down, was rewarded with, ‘Very
well.’
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
“‘Why,’ whimpered I, ‘I recited it just as he did, and you
said No!’
“‘Why didn’t you say Yes, and stick to it? It is not enough
to know your lesson. You must know that you know it. You
have learned nothing till you are sure. If all the world says No,
your business is to say Yes and to prove it!’”
The other helper of this period was John E. Lovell.
In a column of the Christian Union of July 14, 1880, devoted
to “Inquiring Friends,” appeared this question with the accompanying
answer:
.pm start_quote
“We heard Mr. Beecher lecture recently in Boston and found
the lecture a grand lesson in elocution. If Mr. Beecher would
give through the column of ‘Inquiring Friends’ the methods of
instruction and practice pursued by him, it would be very thankfully
received by a subscriber and student. / / / / / / E. D. M.
.pm end_quote
“I had from childhood a thickness of speech arising from a
large palate, so that when a boy I used to be laughed at for talking
as if I had pudding in my mouth. When I went to Amherst
I was fortunate in passing into the hands of John Lovell, a
teacher of elocution, and a better teacher for my purpose I cannot
conceive. His system consisted in drill, or the thorough
practice of inflexions by the voice, of gesture, posture, and articulation.
Sometimes I was a whole hour practising my voice on a
word—like ‘justice.’ I would have to take a posture, frequently
at a mark chalked on the floor. Then we would go through all
the gestures, exercising each movement of the arm and the
throwing open the hand. All gestures except those of precision
go in curves, the arm rising from the side, coming to the front,
turning to the left or right. I was drilled as to how far the arm
should come forward, where it should start from, how far go
back, and under what circumstances these movements should be
made. It was drill, drill, drill, until the motions almost became
a second nature. Now I never know what movements I shall
make. My gestures are natural, because this drill made them
natural to me. The only method of acquiring an effective education
is by practice, of not less than an hour a day, until the
student has his voice and himself thoroughly subdued and trained
to right expression.
.ll 68
.rj
H. W. B.”
.ll
Mr. Montague says: “Mr. Beecher submitted to Mr. Lovell’s
.bn 098.png
.pn +1
drilling and training with a patience which proved his interest in
the study to be great. The piece which was to be spoken was
committed to memory from Mr. Lovell’s mouth, the pupil standing
on the stage before him, and every sentence and word, accent
and pronunciation, position and movement of the body,
glance of the eye and tone of voice, all were subjects of study
and criticism. And day after day, often for several weeks in
continuance, Mr. Beecher submitted to this drilling upon the
same piece, until his teacher pronounced him perfect.”
His dramatic power was displayed and noted at this early
period. Dr. Thomas Field, a classmate in the school, says:
“One incident occurred during our residence in Mount Pleasant
which left an abiding impression on my mind. At the exhibition
at the close of the year, either 1828 or 1829, the drama of ‘William
Tell’ was performed by some of the students, and your
father took the part of the tyrant Gessler. Although sixty years
have passed, I think now, as I thought then, that it was the most
impressive performance I ever witnessed.”
His love of flowers was so marked as to attract the attention
of a gardener in the village, who gave him the use of a plot of
ground where he might sow and plant what he chose; and here
the boy spent many a play-hour in digging, sowing, and weeding,
that he might enjoy the beauty which his own hand had been
instrumental in producing. “In this garden-corner the chaplain
of Mount Pleasant Institute found him one day lost in admiration
for the opening buds and beautiful blossoms that were unfolding
under his culture, and could not forbear to improve the
and administer a gentle rebuke to the enthusiastic youth.
‘Ah! Henry,’ he said, ‘these things are pretty, very pretty, but,
my boy, do you think that such things are worthy to occupy the
attention of a man who has an immortal soul?’” The boy was
abashed before so much dignity, and, we may add, stupidity, and
assuming the stolid look that his bashfulness had made natural,
at this time, under such circumstances, went on with his work
among the flowers; but he said afterwards that he wanted to tell
him that “since Almighty God had taken time to make these
trifles, it did not seem amiss for him to take time to look at
them.” So, now a youth, he is walking as when a child among
flowers, and the leader of the boys in their most venturesome
sports is kneeling in adoring silence over beds of pansies and
.bn 099.png
.pn +1
asters, and feeding the hunger of his soul with the beauty of
their forms and colors.
In a letter dated December 24, 1828, addressed to his sister
Harriet—the first that has come to our hands from Mount
Pleasant—he gives some account of his manner of life at school,
and various experiences:
.pm start_quote
.ti 0
“Dear Sister:
”... I have to rise in the morning at half-past five o’clock,
and after various little duties, such as fixing of room, washing,
etc., which occupies about an hour, we proceed to breakfast,
from thence to chapel, after which we have about ten minutes
to prepare for school. Then we attend school from eight to
twelve. An hour at noon is allowed for diversions of various
sorts. Then dinner. After that school from half-past one to
half-past four. At night we have about an hour and a half;
then tea. After tea we have about ten minutes; then we are
called to our rooms till nine.
“Now I will tell you how I occupy my spare time—in reading,
writing, and playing the flute. We are forming a band here.
I shall play either the flute or hautboy. I enjoy myself pretty
well. In Latin I am studying Sallust. As to ease, all I have to
do is to study straight ahead. It comes pretty easy. My Greek
is rather hard. I am as yet studying the grammar and Jacob’s
Greek Reader. In elocution we read and speak alternately
every other day.
”... I find it hard to keep as a Christian ought to. To be
sure, I find delight in prayer, but I cannot find time to be alone
sufficiently. We have in our room only two, one besides myself,
but he is most of my play-hours practising on some instrument
or other. I have some time, to be sure, but it is very irregular,
and I never know when I shall have an opportunity for private
devotions until the time comes. I do not like to read the Bible
as well as to pray, but I suppose it is the same as it is with a
lover, who loves to talk with his mistress in person better than
to write when she is afar off....
.ll 68
.nf r
“Your affectionate brother,
“Henry.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
His religious experience, of which we have heard nothing
since he left Litchfield, the life in Boston apparently not being
.bn 100.png
.pn +1
very favorable to it, again attracts our attention at this point.
He says:
“When I was fourteen years of age I left Boston and went to
Mount Pleasant. There broke out while I was there one of
those infectious religious revivals which have no basis of judicious
instruction, but spring from inexperienced zeal. It resulted
in many mushroom hopes, and I had one of them; but I do not
know how or why I was converted. I only know I was in a sort
of day-dream, in which I hoped I had given myself to Christ.
“I wrote to father expressing this hope; he was overjoyed,
and sent me a long, kind letter on the subject. But in the course
of three or four weeks I was nearly over it; and I never shall
forget how I felt, not long afterward, when a letter from father
was handed me in which he said I must anticipate my vacation a
week or two and come home and join the Church on the next
Communion Sabbath. The serious feelings I had were well-nigh
gone, and I was beginning to feel quite jolly again, and I did not
know what to do. I went home, however, and let them take me
into the Church. A kind of pride and shamefacedness kept me
from saying I did not think I was a Christian, and so I was made
a church-member.”
In an editorial in the Independent, written in 1862, upon the
disbanding of this old church, the Bowdoin Street—originally
Hanover Street—Church, Boston, he describes this event:
“If somebody will look in the old records of Hanover Street
church about 1829 they will find a name there of a boy about fifteen
years old who was brought into the Church on a sympathetic
wave, and who well remembers how cold and almost paralyzed
he felt while the committee questioned him about his ‘hope’ and
‘evidences,’ which, upon review, amounted to this: that the son
of such a father ought to be a good and pious boy. Being tender-hearted
and quick to respond to moral sympathy, he had
been caught and inflamed in a school excitement, but was just
getting over it when summoned to Boston to join the church!
On the morning of the day he went to church without seeing anything
he looked at. He heard his name called from the pulpit
among many others, and trembled; rose up with every emotion
petrified; counted the spots on the carpet; looked piteously up
at the cornice; heard the fans creak in the pews near him; felt
thankful to a fly that lit on his face, as if something familiar at
.bn 101.png
.pn +1
last had come to break an awful trance; heard faintly a reading
of the Articles of Faith; wondered whether he should be struck
dead for not feeling more—whether he should go to hell for
touching the bread and wine, that he did not dare to take nor to
refuse; spent the morning service uncertain whether dreaming,
or out of the body, or in a trance; and at last walked home crying,
and wishing he knew what, now that he was a Christian, he
should do, and how he was to do it. Ah! well, there is a world
of things in children’s minds that grown-up people do not imagine,
though they too once were young.”
Unsatisfactory in many respects as was his religious experience,
it seems to have been powerful enough to change his whole
ideal of life. We hear no more of his becoming a sailor. He
appears to have yielded to the inevitable, and henceforth studies
with the ministry in view.
That there was awakened in him a strong sense of duty and a
deep earnestness of purpose appears from a letter written from
the school to his brother Edward:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Mount Pleasant, July 11, 1829.
.ll
.ti 0
”Dear Brother:
“I have been expecting a letter from you all the time; but I
suppose you have too much to do to write letters. Mr. Newton
has set up a Bible-class on Sabbath morning for the larger boys,
and a Sabbath-school on Sabbath afternoon for the smaller boys.
The Bible-classes are very interesting indeed. He first began with
the 73d Psalm; then he commenced the New Testament and is
going through it in course. The boys generally are very much
pleased with the lecture.
“On Wednesday evenings he is a-going to deliver doctrinal
sermons. All with whom I have conversed on the subject are
very desirous that he should commence them.
“There has been a boy named Forsyth who has since the revival
been very active in the cause of religion, and promised to be
a man of great usefulness; he is a boy of great influence, and he
has gone back. He does not oppose religion, but wishes that he
had it. His going back has caused a great deal of sorrow here
among the boys who profess to be pious.
“I room with Homes at present; he is, I think, very amiable
and pious. We have prayers together every evening. Then he
has an hour in the morning and I an hour in the evening for private
.bn 102.png
.pn +1
devotions. I find that if I neglect prayer even once that I
do not desire to pray again as much as I did before, and the
more I pray the more I love to do it.
“At present I am comparing the Evangelists together, and
looking up the passages in the Old which are referred to in the
New Testament.
“Charles and I correspond regularly. In order to make it
profitable as well as interesting, we have in every letter some
difficult passage for one another to explain. I like the plan very
much.
“Our examination is over, and exhibition also. I send you
one of our papers (published at the institution), which has a
scheme of the exhibition. I got through my examinations very
well. I hope that you will find time to answer this soon. Give
my best love to any of the family who may be in Boston, and
Aunt Homes’s family.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Your affec. brother,
“H. W. Beecher.“
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
In another one to the same, dated August, 1829, he says:
.pm start_quote
.ti 0
”My dear Brother:
“I received your letter Sabbath eve. I expect father received
a letter from me about the same time that you did this
one, in which I asked him to explain some things from the Bible
to me.... While I think of it, Mr. Newton explains the Bible
twice a week now instead of once. He presses the boys to the
study of the Bible and to prayer more than any minister I ever
knew, and I believe it to be not without effect. I, for one, have
read my Bible more and studied it more. Father recommended
me to keep a little book in which I should put all my loose
thoughts. I got one about a month since and have filled a good
deal of it already. My studies go pretty well. At present I am
studying Cicero and the Greek reader. I expect next term (in
about five weeks) to take up the Greek Testament, and Virgil,
and mathematics. I intend to stay here another year, almost for
no other purpose than to learn mathematics, it is taught so well
here! I exercise three hours in a day. One of the questions
which I wished to ask you is this, Matthew ii. 23: ‘That it
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets: He shall
.bn 103.png
.pn +1
be called a Mr. Newton gave one explanation, but
it did not satisfy me. I have been and am still reading Dr.
Gregory’s letters on the evidences, doctrines, and duties of the
Christian religion.
“I intend to spend a part of my vacation (which will commence
soon) in Hartford. I do not exactly understand the doctrine
of predestination, and several boys have been to me and
asked me to explain it to them, but I could never do it to my
own satisfaction. I am paying a considerable attention to elocution,
reading, etc.
“I wish to ask you concerning novel-reading. I know that
to read much of any such thing is bad, but do you think that
it would injure me to read now and then those of Scott and
Cooper? Write soon as possible.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your affec. brother,
“Henry.“
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The following letter, written near the close of his school-life,
affords a view of some of his troubles, and is given entire:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
”Mount Pleasant, Mar. 1, 1830.
.ll
.ti 0
“My dear Sister:
“I received your letter yesterday and have got up about an
hour earlier this morning in order that I may have time to answer
it. My studies are growing more and more difficult, for I
am preparing for examination, and most of the Greek which I
am reviewing I have never been over, and I have to learn something
like ten pages. Sometimes I feel almost discouraged, and
if I was studying for myself alone I should have given up long
ago; but when I think that I am preparing myself to bear the
commands of Him who is my Master, I can go with renewed
strength from day to day. A little time spent here in
performing our duty, and then our toil and trouble will be rewarded
with double and eternal happiness. I feel just as you
do while writing or thinking of these things—I feel drawn up
toward heaven, my home, and am enabled to look upon the earth
as a place of pilgrimage and not an abiding city. Those are
moments of true happiness, which the world knows not; but
when I mix with the boys I forget these things, and do talk and
act unworthy of a disciple of Christ. I find this to need much
.bn 104.png
.pn +1
watchfulness and prayer, for I believe that I take to light
trifling more than people generally do. I find much trouble with
pride. I am afraid every day that I shall get into some difficulty
with my instructors. I feel more at liberty when I write to you
than any other of my sisters; not because I do not love them, but
because you are nearer my age. I notice many things in reading
your letter which struck me as exactly like my own feelings. I
feel when in meeting, or when reading any book, as if I should
never cease serving Christ, and could run with patience the race
which is set before me. Oh! then I have such thoughts, such
views of God, and of His love and mercy, that my heart would
burst through the corrupt body of this world and soar up with
angels. Oh! how happy the thought that we may in all the
ages of eternity serve and enjoy the presence of that God, the very
glimpses of whom fill us with such joy here. I believe that if I
had not somewhere to lay my troubles, if Christ had not invited
all those that are ‘weary and heavy laden’ to come unto Him,
that I should have long since been discouraged, for I do not
think that my instructors do right with me; for although they
know that my lessons are double those of any other boy, still
they scold and ridicule me during recitation, and, what is worse,
the principals will at the close of the week, when the reports are
read, read off my reports and all the remarks which are made
of me by the under-instructors, and yet will not even say (I can
say it with my whole heart) that I exert myself all in my power.
And the deficiency is not for want of study. Nevertheless, if it
will do me any good, if it will break down my proud spirit, if it
will make me depend more upon help from above than earthly
help, I will suffer it—yes, rejoice in it.
“I write to you, Harriet, just as I would speak with you; and
if it seems to you that I am childish in feeling thus, I can say perhaps
I may be, but there are feelings which I have long had, and
have wished to relate to some one whom I loved and who could
advise me. I have said little or nothing to any of my schoolmates
concerning these things. You inquired something concerning
card-playing, etc. I don’t know what to think about it. I believe
that there are little societies which meet at certain places for the
purpose of playing. It is not among the large boys only, but
among those of ten or twelve years of age, and most all the boys
say ‘they would not play, because it is forbidden by Mr. Colton;
.bn 105.png
.pn +1
but they don’t think there is any harm in it any more than there
is in playing chess.’ Mr. Colton knows that the boys play, and
all that he has found out he has punished in some way or other;
but there are many that he has not found who still continue to
play in secret places, and it is not uncommon to hear little
boys of eight or nine years old swearing most shockingly.
“The bell is ringing and I must begin my studies now. Write
soon.
.ll 68
.nf r
Your most affectionate brother,
“Henry.
.nf-
.ll
“P. S. Will you send me a few questions that will be good
for a debating society? We wish to get the best one we can for
a public debate.”
.pm end_quote
Occasionally in some moment of frolicsome reminiscence he
would tell one of his grandchildren of another kind of experience
that belonged to these days. Bashful as he was and retiring by
nature, he was not by any means proof against the tender passion—in
fact, such a nature as his was just the one that its arrows
would reach the earliest, and into which they would strike deepest.
She was the sister of a schoolmate, and her name was Nancy.
All this vacation he had developed great fondness for this school
friend; was often at his house. “And there,” he said, “I would
lean against the window and watch Nancy sew, she had such little
pink fingers—how I wanted to take hold of them! And then
once in a while she would just glance up, and I would be covered
with hot and awkward confusion.”
On one evening in particular he had spruced up his dress and
screwed up his courage preparatory to making an evening call,
when, as the family sat around the fire, “Lyman,” said the mother,
without looking up from her lace knitting, “Mount Pleasant
is an excellent school. Henry is improving very much. He has
grown tidy, blacks his boots and brushes his hair, and begins to
pay a proper attention to his clothes.”
“At this point,” says Mr. Beecher, in telling the story,
“Charles gave an explosive giggle and punched me slyly. Father
lowered his newspaper; glancing over his glasses in our direction,
seeing me covered with confusion and Charles full of
suppressed laughter, said dryly:
“‘Oh! it is the school, is it? Humph! I guess the cause is
nearer home.’”
“How did it turn out, grandpa?”
.bn 106.png
.pn +1
“Oh! she was older than I, and married another fellow soon
after. A short time ago, after a lecture in Boston, a little old
lady introduced herself to me as ‘Nancy ———.’ But the charm
was gone. I shook the once tempting hand and felt neither
awkward nor hot.”
To some of his letters of this school-boy era he signs the
initials H. C. B. instead of H. W. B. The adoption of this
letter C came about from that enthusiasm of friendship which
was always one of his marked characteristics. The following is
the history of the matter:
On the back of a sheet of letter-paper which we have before
us, folded as if for filing, is written:
.nf c
“Henry W. Beecher
&
Constantine F. Newell,
Mount Pleasant Collegiate Institution,
Amherst, Mass.”
.nf-
Opening it we read:
.pm start_quote
“We do, in the presence of God and his holy angels, by our
signatures, mutually pledge ourselves to be and perform all things
subjoined:
“(1) We do pledge ourselves to be real, lawful, and everlasting
brothers; and that we will perform toward each other all the
duties of brothers, whether present or absent, in health or in
sickness, in wealth or in poverty, in prosperity or adversity; and
that we will love and watch over one another, seeking by all
means in our power to aid and make each other happy.
.ll 68
.nf r
”H. C. Beecher,
“Constantine F. Newell.
.nf-
.ll
“(2) If parted hereafter we pledge ourselves to write to one
another once in two months, provided we are both in the United
States. But if either shall remove or reside in any foreign land,
we will write four times each year, that is, once in three months,
unless we shall alter the arrangement.
.ll 68
.nf r
”H. C. Beecher,
“Constantine F. Newell.
.nf-
.ll
“(3) If we hear one another’s character evil spoken of, we
pledge ourselves fearlessly to defend it and shield it from reproach.
.ll 68
.nf r
”H. C. Beecher,
“Constantine F. Newell.
.nf-
.ll
.bn 107.png
.pn +1
“(4) We will pass over the little faults which we may observe
in each other, nor will we reproach one another of any little
misstep.
.ll 68
.rj
[Signatures omitted here.]
.ll
“(5) Our sorrows and joys shall be common, so that we may
rejoice in mutual prosperity and assist one another in adversity.
.ll 68
.nf r
”H. C. Beecher,
“Constantine F. Newell.
.nf-
.ll
“And now we consider ourselves as brothers, and we are
bound together by ties and obligations as strong as can be placed
upon us. But we rather rejoice in the relationship, as now
it has converted our former friendship into brotherly love. As
formerly we were connected by nothing save voluntary friendship,
which could be broken off, so now we are connected by a
love which cannot be broken; and we have pledged ourselves before
God and his angels to be as written above. But we do not
sorrow on this account—far from it, we greatly rejoice—for we
have not done this thoughtlessly, but being convinced by three
years’ friendship that we mutually love one another; and from
this time are now assumed new duties and obligations. And
to all the foregoing we cheerfully and voluntarily subscribe our
names. And now may God bless us in this our covenant and
in all our future ways, and receive us both at last in heaven.
.ll 68
.nf r
“H. C. Beecher,
“Constantine F. Newell.
.nf-
.ll
“Amherst, April, 1832.”
.pm end_quote
The explanation of this singular paper is found in a very
romantic history and friendship.
Constantine Fontellachi was a Greek from the island of Scio,
in the Grecian Archipelago. His parents were killed by the
Turks in that terrible massacre of the Sciotese which horrified
the world in 1822. Constantine, who was six or eight years old,
escaped and hid among the rocks upon the coast until he was
discovered and taken off by a coasting vessel. He made his
way to the New World and was adopted by Mrs. Newell, of
Amherst, as her own, and sent to the Mount Pleasant school.
His romantic but sorrowful history, his great beauty and grace
of person, captivated Henry Ward; as he said: “He was the
most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He was like a young
.bn 108.png
.pn +1
Greek god. When we boys used to go swimming together I
would climb out on the bank to watch Constantine swim, he
was so powerful, so beautiful.”
The brightness of his intellect and his kindliness of heart
were equal to the beauty of his person, and the admiration
excited deepened into the warmest and most sincere affection.
It was like that between David and Jonathan, and appears to
have been mutual.
When they separated at the close of their school-days, one
to enter college and the other to go into business in Boston, the
above covenant was written, admirable only as it illustrates what
has been called Mr. Beecher’s genius for friendship. Returning
to his native land in 1842, Constantine died very suddenly
of cholera. But even then the old friendship was not forgotten.
Years after Mr. Beecher gave to one of his sons “Constantine”
as a middle name, that he might have in his family one who
should always remind him of the friend so greatly beloved.
We close this chapter with a letter of reminiscence of Mount
Pleasant days.
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Amherst, Mass., May 17, 1849.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear Eunice and very dear Wife:
“Here am I in this memorable place. It is now fifteen years
since you received a letter from me dated as is this one. It is
twenty-three years since I first put my foot on the village sod! It
gives my head a whirl to look back so far, or to hear myself, with my
young-looking face and younger-acting one, talking of things that
happened to me at such long distances of time.... Arrived at
Northampton about four o’clock; took stage for Amherst, mounted
on top for sight-seeing. Rode through the old town along
by the ploughed fields to the bridge of memorable history. All
our experiences came very freshly back. I thought I could tell
the very places where I kissed you in our ride home....
“After emerging from this old town (Hadley) the colleges
shone out from afar; then Mount Pleasant gradually, and one by
one the various prominent dwellings in the village. I put up at
the Baltwoods’ old tavern.... I first went to the college; walked
up and down and around in the various entries, in the grove,
by the well, in the chapel, in each recitation-room. Then I
went to each of the rooms which I occupied in college. I sought
.bn 109.png
.pn +1
out the spots which had a very melancholy interest from events
in my morbid religious history. I then turned my steps to Mount
Pleasant. I cannot tell the emotions that I had when I once more
trod the grassy ascent where my opening manhood first fairly
dawned. As I walked up the long slope I almost thought that
I should see the crowd of boys break forth from some door. I
stopped on the terrace where for three years I mustered with
more than a hundred boys, and whence we marched to chapel, to
meals, to church, etc. As I stood there Constantine seemed to
rise up to greet me, as he never will greet me; Hunt, Pomeroy,
French, Burt, Thayer, Tilghman, Dwight, Van Lennep, Fitzgerald,
and scores of others. The wings of the building, the
chapel, the kitchen, etc., were all taken away, so that the places
where most I roomed, and the veranda in which I used to sit and
muse and feel the rise and swell of yearnings the meaning of
which I did not know, are all swept away. Here I spent the
half-ideal and half-emotive, dreamy hours in which I used to
look across the beautiful Connecticut River valley, and at the
blue mountains that hedged it in, until my heart swelled and
my eyes filled with tears; why, I could not tell. Then I
would push out into the woods and romp with the wildest of
them. I visited the grove, once beautiful, now meagre and forlorn.
I went into the rear building; each room brought up some
forgotten scene, some face remembered for good or ill. I went
to the room where I roomed early in my course. The boys
were at supper, and so I sat down and meditated awhile. The
room in which I lived with Fitzgerald was not to be found,
some changes in the interior of the house having shut it out
from the entry where I formerly found it. It was a strange mixture
of old things found again and old things not to be found—of
surprise and disappointment, of things painful and of things
joyful. All my favorites, the little fellows that I used to love and
cherish, their faces looked out at me at every turn. I tried to
find the trees, growing three from a root, on which I made steps
and built a slat house up among the branches; where I used to
sit wind-rocked and read or muse, cry and laugh, just as the
fancy took me. It was gone. There are twenty-five boys here
at a select school. They were playing down on the old football
ground, and the voices and shouts, quips and jokes, were
so natural that I could hardly help plunging down the hill,
.bn 110.png
.pn +1
catching up a club, and going into the game of ball with all my
old ardor. But they would have no remembrances to meet
mine. I should not have been Hank Beecher to them....
Good-by, dear wife.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Truly yours,
“H. W. B.
.nf-
.ll
“Love to all the children, big and little.”
.pm end_quote
For the benefit of all school-boys we call attention to some of
the most marked features of this period in the life of H. W.
Beecher, as they appear from the extracts given and from other
papers for which we have no space. He was healthy and robust,
a favorite among the boys upon the play-ground, who called him
“Hank” Beecher. He was a leader in their sports, and at the
same time a champion of the younger and weaker boys. He
learned to master his work, and by drill in school-room and
gymnasium gained control of his own powers of body and mind.
He kept his eyes open to the beauty of the world around him,
and was very susceptible to the attractions of fair faces as well.
He was open and manly in following his religious convictions,
clean-mouthed and pure-hearted in his morals. He pondered
big matters, and asked large questions, and sought out satisfactory
conclusions for himself and for his companions. He looked
for information in all directions, and took great pains to store
it away for future use. He read good books and a great many
of them, and the novels he read were of the best kind. Withal
he was a “hail-fellow-well-met” companion and a most devoted
and faithful friend. Upon the authority of every word of testimony
we have been able to get from teachers, classmates, and
old residents of the town, we declare him to have been a royal
school-boy, whose manly faithfulness, kindly service, stalwart
morality, and loving, cheerful friendliness prepared him for the
grand life which he afterwards lived and the great success
which he achieved, and make him a worthy example for all the
ingenuous, aspiring youth of our land.
.bn 111.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch07'
CHAPTER VII.
.pm start_summary
Amherst College—Private Journal—Testimony of Classmates—Tutor’s
Delight—Begins his Anti-Slavery Career—Spiritual Darkness—Engagement—Letters
of his Mother—Experiences in Teaching School—First
Sermons—Lecturing—His Reading—The Record.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Henry Ward Beecher entered Amherst College in
1830 in a class of forty members. Although prepared for
the Sophomore year, yet, following the advice of his father,
he entered as a Freshman in the class of ’34. On the cover of
a very commonplace-looking copy-book, brown and yellow with
age, which we have in our possession, he has written with a
great many flourishes “Private Journal,” and then has added
with equal emphasis, “Not to be looked into.” But since he
afterwards drew his pen through both clauses, we have taken
the liberty not only to look but also to make extracts from its
contents.
The pages appear to have been written for the most part with
reference to a correspondence which he was then carrying on
with his brother Charles, referred to in the previous chapter,
many of the questions being apparently argued, and incidents in
the diary noted with him in view. As a whole it forms a rather
odd mixture of excellent sentiments, religious doctrines, questions
and arguments, studied illustrations and daily incidents,
showing an alert mind, and one that, while awake to observe the
smallest events, was equally ready to grapple with the largest
subjects. A list of eleven “Tracts French” on half the first page
is followed on the blank spaces of the remainder with careless
pen-scrawls in which the name of “Nancy” appears with attempts
at monograms, showing the pleasant fancies that possessed his
idle moments.
“Tracts English” heads the next page, which is ruled for
names and numbers; but for some reason, perhaps because the
list was too great or the selection too difficult, the plan was never
carried out and not a single entry was made—a failure so human,
so common, that it at once brings him into the sympathies of
thousands who remember how often they have done the same
thing.
“Occasional Thoughts” comes next, printed with the pen in
.bn 112.png
.pn +1
small caps in the middle of a page, and surrounded with the usual
artistic pen-decorations. On the opposite page the thoughts begin.
The first is “Proof of a Hell.” “I prove first that there
must be a hell, and then it will appear evident that there must
be a judgment.” Six pages of proof-texts and argument follow,
when we come to the next question: “Who will enjoy heaven
most?” When this has been answered, somewhat more briefly
than the former, but apparently to his own satisfaction, he opens
the next subject:
“I wish to ask you [evidently addressed to his brother], not
as a question, but for my own information, what you think about
the devil? Now, this of itself is quite a curious question, but
what I wish to ask in this particular is, Do you think that he is
at all under the divine direction as we are?”
Several pages of pithy sayings and illustrations follow, of
which the first three are fair samples:
“God’s plans are like a hive of bees, for they seem to go on
without any order till they are accomplished, but then you can
see a great plan. Each one seems to be pursuing something
for itself, but, like the bees, they at the end help to form one elegant
edifice.”
“A half-way Christian has too little piety to be happy in the
next world, and too much to be happy in this.”
“Religion, like fire, will go out nearly as soon if no fuel is
added to it as if water is poured on it.”
These are not quotations, but original, and show thus early
a habit already formed and a power already being educated of
illustrating religious truth by natural objects and processes.
The last half of the book is used as a diary, written mostly
with a lead-pencil, and opens with an account of his journey from
Boston to Hartford on his way to enter college:
“I started from Boston Tuesday eve at ten o’clock, and, riding
all night, I arrived in Hartford in time to dine. I took passage
in the United States mail-stage. It can hold but six passengers
inside, it being made light in order to travel fast. I think that
we travelled very fast, for we went one hundred miles in about
fifteen hours. After I got into Hartford I started off to find
Mary. I went to her house, and sent word that I wished to see
Mrs. Perkins. After waiting awhile she came down-stairs, and
did not know me, and I had to tell her who I was. About five
.bn 113.png
.pn +1
o’clock I went to see Harriet and Catharine. Catharine knew
me, but Harriet did not. She could not think what to make of
it when I went up and kissed her.
“I shall now begin my journal:
“Catharine wishes me to go to her levée to-night. Don’t want
to much, but conclude that I will. Went before any of the company
came. Went into Catharine’s room and sat till it was time
to go down. The company began to come in, at first ladies, like
flocks of pigeons, stringing along through the parlors; soon also
the gentlemen began to come in. In the meantime I was sitting
by the side of the pianoforte, alone and ‘unbefriended,’ looking
at the different groups of persons talking. At length Harriet
came and sat down by me, and I had quite a talk; but she wishing
me to go with her into the other parlor, where a great many
young ladies and no gentlemen were sitting, I refused, whereupon
she kept pressing me, till at length, when she got up to go and
speak with some one on the other side of the room, I seized the
opportunity, and very quickly started for the door, but unluckily
ran against a gentleman, knocked him half-over, made an
apology, and got into the entry. Nor did my scrape end here;
for, getting my hat, I perceived that they saw me from the parlors,
and, getting the other side of the entry to hide myself from
them, I espied six or seven young ladies seated on the stairs,
watching to see what I was a-going to do. Well, I went back to
the table where I had taken my hat, and from there whipped
out of the door. After I had got home I sat and talked with
Aunt Esther and Mary for a few moments, and then I went out
to get a lamp. The stairs, I thought, were in this shape:
.il id=i111 fn=i_111a.jpg w=300px ew=60%
.ti 0
but instead of that they were in this way:
.il fn=i_111b.jpg w=300px ew=60%
.bn 114.png
.pn +1
.ti 0
You know when they are moved round in that way there are
four or five steps that meet in one point, a, and branch at b,
so you cannot step on them except at b. Well, I stepped
down at a and fell five stairs head-first—stretching my hands
forward saved my cranium—and tumbled the rest of the way, to
the no small annoyance of my shins and knees. So much for
running away from the levée.”
“Catharine and Harriet came to tea, after which I went home
with them, when Harriet put her curls on to my head and
her bonnet, Catharine a cloak and neck-handkerchief, and then
called the young ladies in, and they all thought that I was
Harriet; and then, to cap all, Harriet put on a man’s cloak and
my hat, and she looked exactly like you [Charles]!”
Such was Henry Ward Beecher at the age of seventeen, on
the eve of entering college—bashful, smooth-faced, and changing
rapidly in appearance, so that his own sisters did not know
him. The penmanship shows as yet an unformed hand, but in
its main features is like that of a later date.
He carelessly leaves out a word or a letter here and there,
and markedly in places continues the old habit of his early school
days—poor spelling. Nothing appears that indicates any talent
superior to the majority of young men on their way to college,
unless it be a certain enthusiasm, straightforwardness, and simplicity.
The college at this time was but nine years old, having been
established in 1821. Rev. Heman Humphrey was president. It
was small and poorly endowed, as well as young, but the chairs
of instruction were ably filled; and since it had been founded by
the orthodox Congregationalists as, in fact, an antidote to the
Unitarianism of Harvard, and with especial reference to the
education of young men for the ministry, its orthodoxy was
unquestioned and its religious spirit pronounced and active.
By reason of his excellent preparation and the admirable
mental training he had received, either of two courses were open
to Henry Ward. He might aspire to lead his class in scholarship,
become a “high-honor” man, and possibly take the valedictory,
or use the time which he had at his disposal in following
out those studies and readings that were to his taste.
He chose the latter, and, while giving sufficient study to the
college course to preserve a respectable standing in his class,
.bn 115.png
.pn +1
gave his greatest effort to carrying out his own plan of development
and culture.
“I had acquired by the Latin and mathematics the power of
study,” he says. “I knew how to study, and I turned it upon
things I wanted to know.”
The beauty of the Greek and Latin classics did not attract
him; it seemed cold and far away, belonging to another time and
another order of mind; but our English classics, with their
warmth of feeling, their lofty imagination, their delicate sentiment,
their power and eloquence, seemed akin and near to him;
they had to do with the present, and he gave himself to their
study with a whole-hearted enthusiasm that rendered him peculiarly
open to their influences.
Inspired and fed by them as to what to say, he also gave
especial attention to the manner of saying it. Rhetoric and
oratory were diligently pursued throughout his college course.
In these departments he seems, according to the testimony of
his class and college mates, to have excelled then almost as markedly
as he has since.
Says Dr. Thomas P. Field: “The first thing I particularly
remember about him in college was this: I went into our class
prayer-meeting on Saturday evening, and young Beecher gave an
exhortation. He urged us to a higher life and more constant
activity in religious work. I heard him a great many times after
he became a famous preacher, but I think I never was more
moved by his eloquence than in that boys’ prayer-meeting. In
the regular routine of our studies I always was aroused and astonished
by his extemporaneous debates. He surpassed all the
rest of us then in extemporaneous power of speech as much as he
did in his after-life. There was where he seemed to me particularly
to excel as a student. In mere recitation of mathematics
or languages many of us could surpass him, but in extemporaneous
debates he could beat us all. I was always greatly interested,
too, in his written essays. We were in the habit of reading
our essays to the professors in the class-room. Your father
always had something to say that was fresh and striking and
out of the beaten track of thought—something, too, that he
had not gotten from books, but that was the product of his own
thinking.”
Dr. John Haven, another classmate, says of him: “He was a
.bn 116.png
.pn +1
great reader, and probably had more general knowledge than any
one of his classmates when he graduated.”
Says Lewis Tappan, a classmate: “In logic and class debates
no one could approach him. I listened to his flow of impassioned
eloquence in those my youthful days with wonder and admiration.”
S. Hopkins Emery, another classmate, in answer to a letter,
writes: “Nobody could be gloomy or desponding near your
father. He made us all cheerful and happy. Do I remember
him in college? Indeed I do—more than I have time to write or
you patience, perhaps, to read. It seems but yesterday that I
was reading a composition in the lecture-room of Professor Worcester.
Beecher sat just behind me. I had finished reading,
when I heard a friendly whisper in my ear: ‘Emery, your porch
is too large for the house.’ It was a good criticism. In such
college studies which had to do with writing and speaking the
English language your father excelled. The dead languages and
mathematics never seemed to suit his taste. He might have
excelled in them if he had been so minded. He was equal to
anything he undertook. No one was his match in extemporaneous
talk or debate.”
This power and its exercise upon one memorable occasion
was fraught, according to a college mate, Rev. S. W. Hanks,
with very marked consequences:
“In the annual Sophomore and Freshman fray the former
found themselves engaged with a force that was more than a
match for them, and their pranks upon the Freshmen got repaid
with much more than the usual interest. In consequence of this
a meeting of all the classes in college was held to protest against
the barbarities of this customary war, in which the smoke of the
battle usually found its way into the Freshmen’s rooms. At this
meeting a leading member of the Junior class, finding the Sophomores
a little wanting in courage and speaking talent, volunteered
to act as their attorney, and made a telling and crushing speech
against the Freshmen class for their hard handling of the Sophomores,
who had only followed an old custom in their treatment
of the Freshmen. At the close of this speech by the ‘leading
Junior,’ Beecher arose and said he wished to say a word on the
other side, whereupon he ‘went for’ the Junior in a speech full
of wit and point, which altogether ‘turned the tables’ to the
.bn 117.png
.pn +1
great amusement of all present and the great annoyance of the
‘leading Junior.’ When the meeting broke up the Goliah of the
Junior class found himself suffering from a wound which the little
smooth stone from the sling of the hitherto unknown Freshman
had made. This was a new experience for the proud Junior, and
the wound rankled.
“It seems never to have been forgotten. Time passed on and
the ‘leading Junior’ became a leading lawyer, jurist, judge, and
Democratic politician, and when the great scandal arose volunteered
a very strong argument against Mr. Beecher. It had great
weight in some quarters, but was less convincing to those parties
who remembered that this judge was eagerly embracing the first
opportunity that had offered of paying off an old score of their
college days.”
“He was whole-souled and hearty, humorous in the extreme
but without a particle of viciousness, a reformer and an earnest
man.” This is again the testimony of his classmate, Dr. Field.
“We would often gather on the steps of the chapel, a number
of us incidentally, and if your father was in the gathering we
always had much wit and sparkling repartee, and anecdote and
description, all of which seemed to be infused by your father,
and of which, indeed, he was the greater part. He always
seemed full of health and hilarity, and yet, after all, there was a
prevailing seriousness, an earnest purpose, a determination to
be a good and true man. I never knew anything of him but
what was good, and great, and orderly, and becoming a Christian.
I have heard persons say he was wild in college. Nothing more
untrue. I never heard him utter a word, and never heard of
his doing a deed, that was contrary to the rules of morality
and propriety. He would criticise some things in college studies,
etc. I remember his maintaining very decidedly that the study
of mathematics was not a good discipline for the mind, but he
never set himself against college rules of order. He was a strong
temperance man, and was very bold to rebuke his fellow-students
in anything he thought to be wrong.”
Of his social and humorous qualities Mrs. Stowe says:
“In fact, Mr. Beecher was generally the centre of a circle of
tempestuous merriment, ever eddying round him in one droll form
or another.
“He was quick in repartee, an excellent mimic, and his stories
.bn 118.png
.pn +1
would set the gravest in a roar. He had the art, when admonished
by graver people, of somehow entrapping them into
more uproarious laughing than he himself practised, and then
looking innocently surprised.
“Mr. Beecher on one occasion was informed that the head
tutor of the class was about to make him a grave exhortatory
visit. The tutor was almost seven feet high, and as solemn as an
Alpine forest. But Mr. Beecher knew that, like most solemn
Yankees, he was at heart a deplorable wag, a mere whited sepulchre
of conscientious gravity, with measureless depths of unrenewed
chuckle hid away in the depths of his heart. When apprised
of his approach he suddenly whisked away into his closet
the chairs of his room, leaving only a low one which had been
sawed off at the second joint, so that it stood about a foot from
the floor. Then he crawled through the hole in that study-table
which he had made after a peculiar plan of his own, and, seated
meekly among his books, awaited the visit.
“A grave rap is heard. ‘Come in.’ Far up in the air the
solemn dark face appears. Mr. Beecher rose ingenuously and
offered to come out. ‘No, never mind,’ says the visitor; ‘I just
came to have a little conversation with you. Don’t move.’
“‘Oh!’ says Beecher innocently, ‘pray sit down, sir,’ indicating
the only chair.
“The tutor looked apprehensively, but began the process of
sitting down. He went down, down, down, but still no solid
ground being gained, straightened himself up and looked uneasy.
“‘I don’t know but that chair is too low for you; do let me
get you another,’ said Beecher meekly.
“‘Oh! no, my young friend, don’t rise, don’t trouble yourself;
it is perfectly agreeable to me; in fact, I like a low seat.’ And
with these words the tall man doubled up like a jack-knife, and
was seen sitting with his grave face between his knees, like a
grasshopper drawn up for a spring. He heaved a deep sigh and
his eyes met the eyes of Mr. Beecher; the hidden spark of native
depravity within him was exploded by one glance at those
merry eyes, and he burst into a loud roar of merriment, which
the two continued for some time, greatly to the amusement of
the boys who were watching to hear how Beecher would come
out with his lecture. The chair was known thereafter as the
‘Tutor’s Delight.’”
.bn 119.png
.pn +1
He carried his usual sports with him into college life. “On
Saturday afternoons,” says Lewis Tappan, “we often revisited the
woods in the rear of our former home, on which occasion your
father would climb the tallest trees and place a pillow-case over
the holes where the flying squirrels were. I on the ground
rapped the trees, startling the inmates, who were caught in their
efforts to escape.
“Botanical and geological specimens were collected on the way,
and in his room your father had a good collection of the latter.”
He joined a club of eight who boarded a mile from college,
that the going and returning for their meals might give them six
miles of exercise a day. This was done in part to save expense,
the board being cheaper at that distance from the village. He
also walked from college to Boston, more than a hundred miles,
on his vacations, for the same reason. Yet, with all his care in
economy, and although his board cost him but $1.50 a week, it
was thought at one time impossible to keep him in college on
account of the expense, as this letter, written by a friend of the
family during his Freshman year, will explain:
“While Henry and Charles were in college your father and
mother felt very much straitened for money. One evening particularly
they were talking about it, and did not know what they
should do to keep the boys along. At last your father said:
‘Well, the Lord always has taken care of me, and I am sure he
always will.’ The mother lay awake, she told me afterwards,
and cried. She cried because she did not see how they should
get along; but what most troubled her was that her husband had
so much faith and she had not any.
“The next morning was Sabbath morning. Some one rang
at the door, and a letter was handed in containing a $100 bill
and no name. They came up to tell me, as they always did, but
they did not know, nor I then, who gave it. I found out afterwards
it was Mr. Homes—a thank-offering at the conversion of
one of his children.“
The following letter, written near the close of his Freshman
year, shows the bent of his mind at this period:
.pm start_quote
.ti 0
”My dear Sister:
“I write principally to tell you that I have sent the ‘Book of
Nature,’ and that it is probably at the stage-house.
.bn 120.png
.pn +1
“But I want to consult you on a plan that I have formed—for
I possess real Beecher blood in the matter of planning. It is
this: In my six weeks’ vacation, and in the four weeks’ one, I
mean to attach myself as some kind of agent to the Bible, or
Tract, or Education, or some other society, wherever I can, and
travel round to the small towns at a distance, and collect funds
or distribute Bibles and tracts, or something like that, or do
something or other—of course I can’t tell what they may want
me to do.
“I shall in a month or two be eighteen years old, and I think
that that is old enough to begin to do something. I can get
letters of the president and professors here and of gentlemen of
Boston to establish my mission, so that folks will not think that
I am collecting for my own purposes under the name of some
society. Will you write to me about it? Tell C. that I have
engaged one to hear me recite botany. I am going to establish
a daily prayer-meeting here, and pray for a revival. Pray for
us, too. Mount Pleasant is in a very bad state. Lotteries are
here without number—five dollars is the highest prize—and
books and everything else, morals and all, are going, I believe,
and the masters (blind fellows) know nothing of it, although one
of the monitors handed in to Mr. Fellowes a lottery scheme instead
of his report in the division.
“Give my love to Mary and husband, Catherine, Cos. Elizabeth,
and all who care for me, taking a goodly portion to yourself.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Your Brother,
“H. C. B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Lest we get a stronger impression of his sanctity at this time
than the facts would warrant, we add this incident, related by
himself, of one of his vacation experiences in Boston that has in
it a very decided flavor of humorous and unsanctified humanity:
“Looking for a friend, I rapped at the door where I thought he
lived. The door stuck, but at last flew open after a good deal
of tugging from the other side, and a very red-faced woman appeared
and asked in a very cross tone what I wanted. ‘Does
Mr. ——— live here?’ I asked very meekly. ‘No, he don’t!’
snapped the woman, and slammed the door in my face. I
thought I would teach her a lesson; so, after I had walked a little
ways to give her time to get to work, I went back and rapped
.bn 121.png
.pn +1
again as if I wanted to tear the knocker off. And when the
same woman opened the door I shouted at the top of my voice,
‘Who said he did?’ and then turned and walked away. When I
reached the corner the woman was still gazing after me in
amazed silence.”
It was at Amherst that young Beecher began his anti-slavery
career, as he tells us in his sermon upon the death of Wendell
Phillips:
“Fifty years ago, during my college life, I was chosen by the
Athenian Society to debate the question of African colonization,
which then was new, fresh, and enthusiastic.... Fortunately I was
assigned to the negative side of the question, and in preparing to
speak I prepared my whole life. I contended against colonization
as a condition of emancipation—enforced colonization was but
little better than enforced slavery—and advocated immediate
emancipation on the broad ground of human rights. I knew
but very little then, but I knew this, that all men are designed of
God to be free, a fact which ought to be the text of every man’s
life—this sacredness of humanity as given of God, redeemed from
animalism by Jesus Christ, crowned and clothed with rights that
no law nor oppression should dare touch.”
Of his religious life at this period we give the story in his own
words:
“When I went to college there was a revival there, in which I
was prodigiously waked up. I was then about seventeen years
old, and I had begun to pass from boyhood to manhood, but I
was yet in an unsettled state of mind. I had no firm religious
ground to stand upon. I was beginning to slough hereditary
influences without being able to take on more salutary influences,
and I went through another phase of suffering which was far
worse than any that I had previously experienced. It seemed as
though all the darknesses of my childhood were mere puffs to
the blackness which I was now passing through. My feeling was
such that if dragging myself on my belly through the street had
promised any chance of resulting in good I would have done it.
No man was so mean that I was not willing to ask him to pray
for me. There was no humiliation that I would not have submitted
to ten thousand times over if thereby I could have found
relief from the doubt, perplexity, and fear which tormented me.
“I went to Dr. Humphrey in my darkness of soul and said:
.bn 122.png
.pn +1
‘I am without hope and am utterly wretched, and I want to be a
Christian.’ He sat and looked with great compassion upon me
(for he was one of the best men on earth; if there is a saint in
heaven Dr. Humphrey is one), and said: ‘Ah! it is the Spirit of
God, my young man; and when the Spirit of God is at work
with a soul I dare not interfere.’ And I went away in blacker
darkness than I came, if possible.
“I went to an inquiry-meeting which Professor Hitchcock was
conducting, and when he saw me there he said: ‘My friends, I
am so overwhelmed with the consciousness of God’s presence in
this room that I cannot speak a word.’ And he stopped talking,
and I got up and went out without obtaining rescue or help.
“Then I resorted to prayer, and frequently prayed all night—or
should have done so if I had not gone to sleep; I tried a great
many devices; I strove with terrific earnestness and tremendous
strength; and I remember that one night, when I knelt before
the fire where I had been studying and praying, there came the
thought to my mind: ‘Will God permit the devil to have charge
of one of his children that does not want to be deceived?’ and
in an instant there rose up in me such a sense of God’s taking
care of those who put their trust in him that for an hour all the
world was crystalline, the heavens were lucid, and I sprang to my
feet and began to cry and laugh; and, feeling that I must tell
somebody what the Lord had done for me, I went and told Dr.
Humphrey and others.
“I endeavored, from that time out, to help those who were in
trouble of mind like that in which I had been whelmed; and yet
I was in a sort of half-despair.”
It was in one of these half-despairing moods, doubtless, that
he sought counsel from Moody Harrington, of whose piety and
wisdom in directing inquirers he has often spoken. Harrington’s
room-mate writes:
“It was in the midst of this great religious movement that
one day Henry Ward Beecher came to our room—how distinctly
I remember it!—and, with a countenance betokening a mighty
pressure upon his spirit, said substantially: ‘Harrington, I am in
great distress, in spiritual darkness; I don’t think I have any religion.
I’ve come to talk with you.’ My room-mate took him
into his bedroom and talked and prayed with him a long time,
and when the young man came out from that interview his face
.bn 123.png
.pn +1
seemed radiant with hope and peace. Years after Beecher had
become famous he would repeatedly speak of Harrington as having
been to him a spiritual helper beyond that of any other man
he had known.”
His first talk in a religious meeting outside the school or college
is thus described:
“I think it must have been late in my Freshman career at
Amherst College or in my Sophomore. My mind was much stirred
and distressed at that time on the subject of religion. In the
class above, one Moody Harrington took much interest in me.
He was in some respects a remarkable man for profound religious
feeling, for fervid imagination, and for remarkable eloquence in
exhortation. He lifted me by his personal sympathy and his
encouragement out of great despondency and set me on my feet
with some tremblings of heart. On one occasion he asked me to
walk with him one evening to Logtown to a little prayer and conference
meeting. After Harrington had spoken for a while he
turned to me all unexpectedly and asked me to make some remarks.
I was confounded. I rose and said something—I do not
know what, nor did I quite know then, for everything was whirling
darkness while I was speaking, but it was the letting out of
waters. I never ride past the Dwight house without going out of
the cars to look over the place and to bring back to memory that
dismal night, and that dismal speech, and the dismal walk back
to college, ashamed and silent.”
Another important event took place in his Sophomore year,
January 2, 1832. He became engaged to Eunice White Bullard,
daughter of Dr. Artemas Bullard, of West Sutton, Mass. Of this
event, the preceding and succeeding acquaintance, our dear
mother has written in a paper entitled “Looking Back,” of which
she says: “Of course all this is no help to you in preparing your
father’s life, but I sit and dream of the past and write just as it
rises before me, as fresh as if but yesterday, hoping by doing so
something may come to me that will be of service to you.”
We shall give her notes just as she has written them, leaving
it for our readers to judge whether or not they are of any service:
.pm start_quote_nospace
.ce
“LOOKING BACK.
“Fifty-seven years ago last May, 1831, my brother Ebenezer,
then in his Freshman year in Amherst College, wrote: ‘The
.bn 124.png
.pn +1
term closes this week. I shall walk home (fifty miles), and would
like to bring two of my classmates with me. We shall start before
the sun and hope to be with you by supper-time. Don’t be at
any more trouble than if there were three Ebenezers coming home.’
“No; of course not! Sickness in the village made it impossible
to get help that summer, and mother and I were doing
the work alone for a very large family, so large that a half-dozen
more or less made little difference.
“In good time for supper, weary and travel-soiled, my brother
and his two friends made their appearance: one a tall, very
dark-complexioned gentleman, the other a very verdant-looking
youth, a Freshman of not quite eighteen—an age when one is
prepared to find a young man awkward and painfully embarrassed,
and to look with dismay on the prospect of trying to entertain
and make him comfortable.
“But even then the roguish mouth, the laughing, merry eyes,
the quaint humor and quick repartee, very soon put all such
anxiety to flight. This was Henry Ward Beecher as I first saw
him. Truth to tell, an exceedingly homely young man. But, in
youth or old age, who ever thought of that, or, thinking, believed
it after being with him an hour? Before that first evening was
ended none of the family thought of him as a stranger; he
was thoroughly at home with all. There were truly ‘only three
Ebenezers there,’ each equally ready for quiet conversation, music,
fun, repartee, or teasing; but the youngest of the three was
the most expert in the latter accomplishment.
“After our outside work was done mother and I took knitting
and sewing and sat down with them. I was going to wind a
skein of sewing-silk (that was before spools were common), and,
as was my custom, put it over the back of a chair. More gallant
and thoughtful, apparently, than his older companions, this
young gentleman insisted upon holding it for me to wind. For
some reason—perfectly unaccountable if one judged only by his
quiet, innocent face, without watching the eyes and mouth—that
skein became as intricately tangled as if tied by Macbeth’s
witches. ‘A badly tangled skein, is it not?’ said he, when I had
lost half my evening in getting it wound. ‘Rather more troublesome,
I imagine, than if I had kept it on the chair,’ I replied.
‘It was a good trial of patience, anyhow,’ was his response to the
laugh that followed.
.bn 125.png
.pn +1
“Even my quiet mother was not exempt from some of his
mirthful sallies, but he carried, in all his fun, such an inexhaustible
store of gentleness and good-humor that I think she really
enjoyed it. Often in after-years she used to say that Henry
always made her feel young again.
“My father had been called out some distance to see a
patient and had not yet met the ‘three Ebenezers,’ but came
in just as we were all laughing heartily at some story Henry had
told. He stood in the doorway, tall, dignified, and somewhat
stern. When at last we became conscious of his presence
brother at once came forward and introduced his classmates.
Father received them courteously, but a little of the sternness
still lingered on his face as he took the chair which, without the
least appearance of boldness, somehow young Mr. Beecher was
the first to bring him, yet in no way seeming to put himself forward.
Little by little the same subtle influence that had pervaded
the whole evening’s enjoyment began to steal over father.
The little cloud seen at first vanished, and long before it was
time to retire my father was telling stories and Henry following
with another as freely as if they had been boys together.
“The others joined, but it was to young Beecher that father
was most drawn. When the ‘good-nights’ were said, and while
I went to the dairy to make some preparations for breakfast,
father and mother took counsel together about the work for the
morrow and various matters; but just as I returned father was
saying: ‘He’s smart. If he lives he’ll make his mark in the
world.’ ‘Who, father?’ I asked. ‘Why, young Beecher.’
(But father didn’t quite like the ‘mark’ he made a few months
later—‘Nothing but a boy!’)
“The visit was prolonged some days, and there was no end
to the fun and frolic. Your father was constantly investigating,
and by no means lacked assistance from my brother and his
other more demure classmate, who, however, stayed only part
of the time.
“Mother and I were necessarily much of the time busy in the
kitchen, milk-cellar, dairy, etc., but these young collegians found
those places most attractive. The gentle way mother smiled at
all the younger one’s mischievous pranks was a source of perpetual
delight to him. He always said he fell in love with my
mother, and, not being able to get her, took up with me.
.bn 126.png
.pn +1
“One day, in taking out the bread, pies, etc., from the old-fashioned
brick oven with the long-handled shovel, she dropped
some ashes on one of the pies, and called me from the dairy to
get it off while she removed other articles. Your father sprang
forward. ‘No, no; I will get it off for you,’ and, respectfully taking
it from her hands, the three, without her seeing the mischief,
marched off with it into the garden, and, seating themselves
under a big apple-tree, ate it all up. This labor of love accomplished,
the others rather held back from proclaiming it, but your
father demurely walked in and handed mother the empty plate,
saying: ‘There! see, we have cleaned the plate nicely!’
“One evening your uncle told him one of their classmates was
engaged to Miss ———. ‘I don’t believe it,’ said young Beecher.
‘She knows nothing about singing, and I am sure F——— would
never marry one who did not. I know I never would marry
a woman who could not sing.’ Short-sighted mortal! In
the evening brother asked him to get his flute and have some
music. He did so, and after a short time asked me to sing. I
replied: ‘I can’t; I never sang a note in my life.’
“In the summer and fall after first meeting your father I
taught school in Clappville, South Leicester, Mass., and at the
commencement of his fall vacation at Amherst Henry found it
necessary to go from Amherst to Boston (thinking it shorter, perhaps!)
via Clappville, and entered my school-room just as I was
dismissing the school for the day. He spent the evening at
Brother Jones’s, where I was boarding, and, incidentally of
course, remarked that he understood I was intending to visit my
aunt in Whitingsville during the winter. I replied that after my
school closed I was thinking of having a play-spell before taking
another, and might be there at least through December.
“After my school closed, while spending some time at home
before my visit to my aunt, he called at father’s, and incidentally
(again) remarked that he had been requested to teach the town
school in Northbridge, and was to board at a Mr. Fletcher’s
(Whitingsville was only a part of Northbridge, and he knew it all
the time).
“‘Why,’ said my father, ‘that’s where Eunice will be. Now,
child, you have been teasing to go to some academy this winter
and go on with your Latin, but,’ turning to the demure, quiet-looking
young man, who had not seemed to pay any attention
.bn 127.png
.pn +1
to what was going on—‘but she has overworked the past few
months, and I won’t let her go to school. Perhaps, as you are
to board at her aunt’s and she will be there a short time, you
might give her some help if she is in trouble with her Latin!’
Strange as it may seem, he didn’t appear to feel it an intrusion,
but professed himself as very ready to render me any service.
Even my clear-sighted mother saw nothing out of the way in father’s
suggestion. ‘He was such a boy!’ as she said afterward.
Neither did I, as I might have done had he been older; only,
even though he was now a Sophomore, I didn’t believe he could
help me much—I who had been a school-ma’am for three terms!
And how young and boyish he did look! But (an after-thought)
he might, after all, know much more than his looks led us to give
him credit for.
“He came to uncle’s a week after I did, one Saturday, so as
to be ready to begin school Monday. That evening (January 2,
1832) the young teacher, my cousin, a young lad who was to be
under his care, and myself were all in the parlor writing. Uncle
and aunt were out calling. He interrupted my writing by asking
how far I had progressed in Latin. Was I perfect in the
Latin grammar? Could I conjugate all the verbs? etc. I
thought it a queer way to begin teaching, but I said, ‘Oh! yes;
I think so.’ ‘Suppose you try some of them, and let me see
how well you understand them.’ I laughed to myself, for I was
sure I knew them perfectly, and rather thought I knew them as
well as my teacher; but I respectfully conjugated the verbs as
he gave them out, and at last, ‘Go through the verb “amo.”’
I did so, soberly, honestly, without a thought of any mischievous
intentions. I went through it creditably, and was told that the
lesson was perfect.
“I then turned to my writing, and soon after he slipped a bit
of paper on to my writing-desk: ‘Will you go with me as missionary
to the West?’ A few minutes after my cousin finished
his studies for the evening and went to bed. Then some few
short questions ensued and a few shorter answers not necessary
to repeat. But, as the embarrassment consequent upon such
abrupt and unexpected questions had somewhat diminished, he
urged a more decided, definite answer from me personally. Simply
referring him to my parents did not satisfy him, so I quietly
remarked: ‘Why! I can’t sing, and only a short time since you
.bn 128.png
.pn +1
said you would never marry a woman who could not sing!’ ‘Oh!
that was six months ago, and I have changed my mind.’ ‘And
in six months from now you may change it again.’ ‘No! I did
change it the very minute you said that night that you never
sang. There is no fear of my changing again.’
“The next day, Sabbath, uncle’s horse shied going to church,
and tipped us all out of the sleigh; and Henry was so anxious
to know if I were hurt, paying no attention to others, that
he awakened uncle’s suspicions.
“That week at the week-day evening meeting (Preparatory
Lecture) Henry was called to speak, and did wonderfully well,
to the great surprise of all who heard that ‘young lad.’ After
that, while he stayed at Whitingsville, he spoke at almost all
the evening meetings, and always with increasing surprise and
acceptance. I do not remember your father’s alluding to those
meetings but once, and that, I think, was to an English friend
who called when we lived on ‘The Heights.’ He said, smiling:
‘Whitingsville was my first pastorate. While teaching there
one winter I spoke there several times and in some other places
near by.’
“The next Saturday after giving me that momentous question
on that little slip of paper, Henry rode to West Sutton and
spoke to father and mother, to their infinite surprise. Mother
was grieved, but father was very angry. ‘Why, you are a couple
of babies! You don’t know your own minds yet, and won’t for
some years to come,’ he repeated over and over again. (Fifty-seven
years have given ample proof that we did.) But father was
grieved, mortified, angry that he should have been so blind.
But who could resist your father when he pleaded in earnest?
Mother often spoke of it long after we were married. She said
it was wonderful how he swayed that strong, proud man, my
father, who winced at being outgeneralled by a boy. His extremely
youthful appearance perfectly blinded them both. But
mother was soon only a listener, charmed by the modest, manly,
earnest manner, illumined occasionally by flashes of humor, with
which he opened his heart to father and finally overcame him.
From the first Henry’s youth and the long engagement was
father’s only objection, and the fear that, as he grew older, he
would repent of such imprudence.
“From the first hour father saw him he was drawn to him,
.bn 129.png
.pn +1
and when he left after this conversation, and returned to Whitingsville,
father said: ‘Boy as he seems, he will be true to Eunice;
I have no fear on that score.’ Just before your father came to
teach several branches he went a few miles out from Amherst and
gave a lecture, I think on temperance (am not quite sure), for
which he received five dollars. With it, among other things, he
bought me Baxter’s ‘Saint’s Rest’—not a usual love-token—and
some paper that was for me if his suit prospered. On the fly-leaf
of the little book, in pencil, were the following lines:
.pm start_poem
‘Take it; ’tis a gift of love
That seeks thy good alone;
Keep it for the giver’s sake,
And read it for thine own.’
.pm end_poem
“Before his next vacation he walked to Brattleboro’, Vermont,
gave a lecture, received ten dollars, and then bought our
engagement-ring, a plain gold ring, which was also my wedding-ring.
With the remainder he bought books.
“The three years in college soon passed. We only met once
in three months—vacations—and there was nothing unusual to
record. The ‘young boy,’ ‘too young to know what he was
about,’ as we were so often told, went on toward manhood, unshaken
by opposition, laughing at all prophecies of inconstancy
or change, and then we bade farewell for four years while Henry
went to Lane Seminary, Walnut Hills, Ohio, for his theological
course.”
.pm end_quote
Somewhere Father Beecher has described a “Saxon courtship”
as “a grave and serious thing. It is a matter of consideration.
I have known a proposal of love to be stated like a proposition,
and calmly argued for and against with far less warmth
than Luther would have felt in debating a thesis. Indeed, many
courtships are like attempts at kindling fires with green wood—a
few starveling coals are heaped together, a mere spark dances in
and out upon the inhospitable charcoal, and disappears on one
side as fast as it appears on the other. But by all manner of
shavings and bits of paper—mere trinkets, as it were, and billet-doux—a
slight flame is got up, which strives, with doubtful prospect,
to convert the smoke into blaze. The bellows are called in,
the fire is fairly driven up to its work, the green sticks begin to
sizzle at either end; and though at last, when the heat triumphs,
.bn 130.png
.pn +1
the fire is large and lasting, the poor fellow that kindled it had
to work for it.”
Now, we never could bring ourselves to asking direct questions,
and we do not suppose that we should ever have been any
wiser if we had; but, from the references sometimes made to riding
through covered bridges, from the comical look that would
come to his face and the blushes that would be sure to come to
her cheeks when the raillery around the table became hot and
personal, we were led to believe that this was not their kind.
On two leaves of his diary, written probably while at his home
in Boston in the vacation that followed his Freshman year, and
during the summer in which he had made the acquaintance of
Miss Bullard, we find the following:
“Sept. 3, 1831, Sab. morn.—I found the correspondence of my
father and own mother this morning, and eagerly sought out her
letters and read them. O my mother! I could not help kissing
the letters. I looked at the paper and thought that her hand had
rested upon it while writing it. The hand of my mother! She
had formed every letter which I saw. She had looked upon that
paper which I now looked upon. She had folded it. She had
sent it. But I found out more of her mind than I ever knew before;
more of her feelings, her piety. I should think from her
writings that she was very amiable, lovely, and confiding in her disposition,
yet had much dignity. She appeared to have a mind
very clear, strong, yet not perceptible till brought out by her feelings.
Her letter to father in which she treats of ‘love to God,
whether we should love him because he has done us good or not,’
etc., I was much pleased with. And I could not help observing
that her letters were superior, more refined and conclusive, than
the corresponding ones of father’s. They corresponded upon
subjects, it seems, as pride, dress, slander, etc., etc. Her piety was
doubted by herself, although no one who reads her description
of her feelings can doubt for a moment that Christ was found
within her heart.
“The letter to father in reply, apparently, to one in which he
had expressed his feelings toward her and urged for her permission
to hope for a future union, pleased me much. There was
much playfulness about it. I thought that I could see that she
loved him while she was writing it, yet she tried not exactly to
show it. I should think that at the conclusion she told her feelings
.bn 131.png
.pn +1
frankly, from one line which I saw, but the rest was torn off.
I suspect that father did it that no one might ever see it.”
In common with many other students of limited means, he
taught a term of eight weeks during three of the four years of his
college course, using the winter vacation, which was at first six
weeks long, and borrowing two weeks from the winter term in
college.
Of his experience in Hopkinton and some other matters, especially
the fear of his friends concerning his engagement, the following
letter to his brother William gives some interesting details:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Hopkinton, Friday eve, 1832.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear Brother:
“... I know not as you would have had a reply at all if it
were not for something said on the first page. Now, I supposed
that my good friends would find out all at once that my engagement
had undermined all my habits of study and was ruining me,
nor did it surprise me to have you write it. It is all false, as false
as it can be. No term since I have been in college have I studied
so much as the last term; no year accomplished so much as the
last. I am not anxious, however, to vindicate myself; I am
ready to have you all think so, if needful, for I expected it from
the first.
“Soon after I began the school some of the boys began to be
fractious—all of them larger and stronger than myself. Their
parents set them on, and they determined to carry me out of the
room. A large fellow disobeyed me before the whole school, and
persisted in it. They hoped I would thrash him, and then they
would rise. But I turned him out of the school forthwith. He
came the next day. I had previously told the committee and
asked them to take the business out of my hands. They approved,
but said that they wished I would do it. The next day I saw
that they had got another great fellow in to help them. I called
two of the committee in, and then ordered this disobedient boy
out. He refused, and I took a rule and beat him, and finally
broke it over his head. He struck at me a number of times and
I parried them. The large ones then rose. I seized a club of
wood and struck the boy three times—tore the skin each blow.
The committee had to take the other fellows to keep them off. I
then dismissed the school; told the committee that I should not
keep the school where I could have them stand by and see such a
.bn 132.png
.pn +1
scene without doing something; that if they would see those
fellows removed I would go on, if not I would not. They said
that they would do it if they thought they had power. I settled
it all very soon by saying that I would not keep the school, and
set my face as though I would return to Amherst. But the next
day, Saturday, it rained. The committee liked my school, and
gave me a good dismission in writing. The scholars were pleased
for the most part, and through them their parents. They wished
me much to open a private school. I waited till I found they
were in earnest, and then opened one, and now am comfortably
teaching about thirty scholars. Besides this my time is loaded.
Sunday noon, Sabbath-school; Sunday afternoon, five o’clock, I
have a Bible-class of ladies; Wednesday and Saturday evenings,
meetings in the centre of town; two other evenings in the districts,
and, after this, Sunday evening in the vestry.... May
God bless and prosper you.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Your affectionate brother,
“H. W. B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Of his preaching at this time he says:
“My earliest remembered sermons were delivered at Northbridge,
Mass., where I taught school for three months in 1831.
I conducted conference meetings almost every night, and a temperance
address at Upton, Mass., where old Father Wood was
pastor, and in his church. In the winter of 1832 I taught school
in Hopkinton, Mass., and carried on revival meetings every night
and preached on Sundays. The people were plain and simple
and liked the effusions. During the winter of 1833 I again
taught school at Northbridge, and made a formal sermon in a
chapel over the new store built by Messrs. Whitings.”
It was in his Sophomore year that a number of students,
Henry Ward among them, invited a college mate who had been
reading up on phrenology to deliver a lecture upon that subject.
They did it for a joke, but it ended in Henry Ward’s accepting
this philosophy as the foundation of the mental science which he
used through life.
It was during his college course that he began lecturing—that
mode of communication with the people that afterwards became
so popular, and in which for so many years he was the acknowledged
leader. His first formal lecture for which he received
pay was delivered in Brattleboro’, Vt. He was paid ten
.bn 133.png
.pn +1
dollars, and walked the whole distance, nearly fifty miles each
way, that he might have the whole sum to expend as he pleased.
Speaking of this period, he says:
“There stands before me a line of battered and worn books—English
classics. Their history is little to them, but much to me.
In part it is my own history. I wish I could lay my hand on
the first book that I ever bought after the dim idea of a library
began to hover in my mind! But that book is gone. Here,
however, are others whose biography I can give. As early as
1832 I began to buy books—a few volumes, but each one a
monument of engineering. My first books, if I remember correctly,
were bought of J. S. & C. Adams, in Amherst, Mass. I
used to go in there and look wistfully at their shelves. My allowance
of money was very small—scarcely more than enough
to pay my postage, when a letter cost twelve and a half or twenty-five
cents. To take a two or three-dollar book from my five
dollars of spending-money would have left me in a state of sad
impecuniosity. Therefore, for many, many months I took it out
in looking.
“As early as at sixteen years of age I had begun to speak a
little in public—faint peepings, just such as I hear in young
birds before they are fully fledged. For such service the only
payment was a kind patience till I relieved them by finishing my
crude efforts. But at that time—say 1832—I was sent by the
college society as delegate to a temperance convention in Pelham,
or Enfield, or somewhere else. I conceived a desire thereafter
to give a temperance lecture. I have forgotten how I ever
got a chance to do it. But I remember that there came an invitation
from Brattleboro’, Vt., to lecture on the 4th of July.
My expenses were to be paid! A modest pride warmed my
heart at the thought of making a real speech in public. I smothered
all the fears and diffidences with the resolute purpose
that I would succeed! I remember the days of writing and
anxious preparation, and the grand sense of being a man when
I had finished my manuscript! But the most generous purposes
are apt to be ruined with selfishness; and my public spirit, alas!
had a financial streak of joy in it—my expenses were to be paid!
“Well, suppose I chose to walk and save all the expenses?
I should have at least eight dollars of my own, of which I need
give no account! That would be an era indeed. But grave
.bn 134.png
.pn +1
scruples arose. Was it honest to take money for expenses which
I had not really incurred? If I went by stage I might lawfully
charge my fare and food; but if neither of them cost me anything,
how could I honestly make a bill of expenses? I did
not get any relief in reflecting upon it. I started off on foot,
went up the Connecticut River valley, and reached Brattleboro’
by way of Greenfield.
“Every hour this question of honesty returned. My feet
blistered with walking, but I stamped on them hard in the morning,
and the momentary exquisite pain seemed to paralyze the
sensibility afterwards. Whether it was the counter irritation
that relieved my brain, or whether—as I fear that I did—I smothered
conscience by saying to myself that I would settle the matter
when the time came, I do not know. But I was relieved from
even that struggle, inasmuch as not a word was said to me about
expenses, or money in any form. Yet I had a charming visit.
The rising of the moon from behind the mountain that hedges
in the town on the east powerfully excited my imagination, and
led to the writing of the first piece, I believe, that I ever printed.
It was published in the Guest, a college paper, issued chiefly
as a rival to another college paper whose name (alas!) has escaped
me. And if anybody could send me a volume of that Guest I
should be exceedingly beholden to him!
“But after reaching college again—no longer a mere student,
but a public man, one who had made speeches, one who
determined to be modest and not to allow success to puff
him up—a very great and wonderful thing happened: the post
brought me a letter from Brattleboro’ containing ten dollars. I
could not believe my eyes. I forgot my scruples. Providence
had put it to me in such a way that I got my conscience over on
the other side, and felt that it would be a sin and shame for me
to be raising questions and scruples on such a matter! But O
that bill! How it warmed me and invigorated me! I looked
at it before going to sleep; I examined my pocket the next
morning early, to be sure that I had not dreamed it. How I
pitied the poor students, who had not, I well knew, ten dollars
in their pockets. Still, I tried to keep down pride in its offensive
forms. I would not be lifted up. I would strive to be even more
familiar than before with the plainest of my acquaintances.
‘What is money?’ said I to myself. ‘It is not property that
.bn 135.png
.pn +1
makes the man; it is—’ Well, perhaps I thought it was the
ability to deliver eloquent temperance addresses. But great is
the deceitfulness of money. I felt the pride of riches. I knew
every waking moment that I had money. I was getting purse-proud.
“I resolved to invest. There was but one thing to invest in—books.
I went to Adams’s store; I saw an edition of Burke’s
works. With the ease and air of a rich man I bought and paid
for them. Adams looked at me, and then at the bill, and then
at me. I never could make up my mind whether it was admiration
or suspicion that his face expressed. But I wanted him,
and panted to have him ask me, ‘Where did you get all of this
ten-dollar bill?’
“However, I concluded that the expression was one of genuine
admiration. With my books under my arm (I never to this
day could get over the disposition to carry home my own packages)
I returned to college, and placed on my table my volumes
of Burke! I tried to hide from myself that I had a vain purpose
in it, that I was waiting to see Bannister’s surprises and to
hear Howard’s exclamation, and to have it whispered in the
class-room: ‘I say! have you heard that Beecher has got a splendid
copy of Burke?’
“After this I was a man that owned a library! I became
conservative and frugal. Before, I had spent at least a dollar
and a half a year for knickknacks; but after I had founded a
library I reformed all such wastes, and every penny I could
raise or save I compelled to transform itself into books!
“As I look back on the influence of this struggle for books
I cannot deny that it has been salutary. I do not believe that I
spent ten dollars in all my college course for horses or amusements
of any kind. But at my graduation I owned about fifty
volumes. The getting of these volumes was not the least important
element of my college education. There are two
kinds of property which tend to moralize life. What they are I
will tell you some other time, if you will coax me.”
His reading, as we have said, was very largely of the old
English writers, whom he studied until the flavor of their language
had been so thoroughly appropriated that it is very plainly
discernible in all his early public writings. An old poet,
Daniel, who belonged to the times of Spenser and Shakspere,
.bn 136.png
.pn +1
was a great favorite of his. In a sermon preached in 1862 he
quotes the poem that especially pleased him. We quote it entire
with his introduction, and venture to say that the mind that
makes choice of such a poem is sound and healthy at the core:
“I remembered a poem that I had read in my youth, and
that I used to hang over with great interest. It had a strange
fascination for me then. The writer was born in 1562, and he
wrote it somewhere between that time and 1600. It has had a
good long swing, and it will go rolling down a great many years
yet:
.pm start_poem
“‘He that of such a height hath built his mind,
And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolvèd powers, nor all the wind
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong
His settled peace or to disturb the same—
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey?
“‘And with how free an eye doth he look down
Upon these lower regions of turmoil!
Where all the storms of passions mainly beat
On flesh and blood; where honor, power, renown
Are only gay afflictions, golden toil;
Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet
As frailty doth, and only great doth seem
To little minds, who do it so esteem.
“‘He looks upon the mightiest monarch’s wars
But only as on stately robberies;
Where evermore the fortune that prevails
Must be the right; the ill-succeeding mars
The fairest and the best-fac’d enterprise.
Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails:
Justice, he sees (as if seduced), still
Conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill.
“‘He sees the face of right as manifold
As are the passions of uncertain man,
Who puts it in all colors, all attires,
To serve his ends and make his courses hold.
He sees that, let deceit work what it can,
Plot and contrive base ways to high desires,
That the all-guiding Providence doth yet
All disappoint, and mocks the smoke of wit.
.bn 137.png
.pn +1
“‘Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks
Of tyrants’ threats, or with the surly brow
Of Pow’r, that proudly sits on others’ crimes,
Charg’d with more crying sins than those he checks.
The storms of sad confusion that may grow
Up in the present for the coming times,
Appall not him, that hath no side at all
But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.
“‘Although his heart (so near allied to earth)
Cannot but pity the perplexèd state
Of troublous and distressed mortality,
That thus make way unto the ugly birth
Of their own sorrows, and do still beget
Affliction upon imbecility:
Yet, seeing thus the course of things must run,
He looks thereon not strange, but as foredone.
“‘And whilst distraught ambition compasses,
And is encompassed; whilst as craft deceives,
And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man,
And builds on blood, and rises by distress,
And th’ inheritance of desolation leaves
To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon
As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye,
And bears no venture in impiety.’”
.pm end_poem
Such is the record of Henry Ward Beecher in college. It is
one of which none need be ashamed. It may be pondered
with advantage and followed with profit by every one standing
himself upon the threshold of that eventful period in his own
life. It is the record of a man who was loyal to duty, to truth
and purity. Independent in his line of thought and study, yet
obedient to the government of the college, industrious and aspiring,
his course was essentially a period of education, a drawing
out of his powers, a training-school of his whole nature, a fitting
preparation for that high place which he came ultimately to fill
in the confidence and affection of the nation and the world.
.bn 138.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch08'
CHAPTER VIII.
.pm start_summary
Lane Seminary—Dr. Beecher Called—Home at Walnut Hills—Amusing
Incidents—Family Meeting—Death of Mrs. Beecher—Extracts from
Journal—First Mention of Preaching in the West—Experience in Ecclesiastical
Matters—Despondency—Meeting of Synod—Influences of
the Times—Revulsion—A Rift along the Horizon—“Full iolly Knight.”
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
At the close of his college course, after a two-days’ visit to
Sutton with Miss Bullard, he started for Cincinnati to begin
his theological studies at Lane Seminary, of which institution
his father had been elected president and professor of
theology, and whither he had moved with his family two years
before. The Seminary, located at Walnut Hills, two miles out of
the city, had been established for the sake of supplying preachers
and pastors for the great and growing West. It was thought that
the territory traversed by the Ohio and the Mississippi was “the
valley of decision” for the great interests of our country and of
the world. To meet the emergency and take possession of this
broad domain for Christ, its rightful Lord, was felt to be the
most important work that could occupy the attention of the
Christian public. It had been decided that a theological seminary
established at Cincinnati, in the very centre of this district,
afforded the most effective means for attaining the great object
in view; that the best man in the whole country should be secured
to stand at its head; and that that man, all things considered,
was Dr. Beecher. He would bring energy, enthusiasm, and
practical wisdom; would secure confidence in the work among
Eastern capitalists, and conduct the enterprise to assured success.
Out of this conviction sprang the Seminary and the call to
Dr. Beecher to be its head. He was in perfect and enthusiastic
sympathy with the object in view. He says of the project:
“There was not on earth a place but that I would have opened
my ears to for a moment.... But I had felt and thought and
labored a great deal about raising up ministers, and the idea
that I might be called to teach the best mode of preaching to
the young ministry of the broad West flashed through my mind
.bn 139.png
.pn +1
like lightning. It was the greatest thought that ever entered my
soul; it filled it, and displaced everything else.”
Coming to this definite work under the inspiration of this
great thought, from a church which had been for years in the
midst of a continuous revival, he had naturally given the Seminary
a markedly practical tone of spiritual earnestness. A
strong man himself, he attracted men of like stamp; and there
had come, soon after he took charge of the institution, “a noble
class of young men, uncommonly strong, a little uncivilized, entirely
radical, and terribly in earnest.”
Dr. Beecher’s method of instruction was peculiar and in harmony
with his spirit and purpose. It was not so much of the
formal lecture order as of the free conversational kind, in which
questions were invited, objections were answered, thought was
quickened, and feeling was awakened, with the result that the
great truth which was the subject of the lecture was likely to be
not only in a large measure comprehended but felt and appropriated
by the students.
One of the professors, Calvin E. Stowe, for whom Henry
Ward conceived one of those ardent friendships which distinguished
him through life, helped him in the same direction.
“He led him to an examination of the Bible and to an analysis
of its several portions, not as the parts of a machine, formal and
dead, but as of a body of truth instinct with God, warm with all
divine and human sympathies, clothed with language adapted to
their fit expression and to be understood as similar language
used for similar ends in every-day life.” And we have now in
our hands a roll of manuscript in which, in line with this idea,
the young student wrote out during his theological course a careful
analysis of the miracles and parables of the New Testament.
Without doubt this tone of the institution and method of instruction
had an important and very beneficial influence upon
him at this formative period of his professional life, giving him a
genuine enthusiasm for his work, and training him to investigate
carefully and analyze clearly the truths brought under examination.
And, that there might be lacking no element for his fittest
training for the great work that was before him, the question of
slavery had arisen among the students, creating such a disturbance
.bn 140.png
.pn +1
that forty, under the leadership of Theodore Weld, had
withdrawn just before he appeared on the ground.
Of the place, his coming, and some of the incidents in his
life his brother, Rev. T. K. Beecher, says:
“By and by they two, Henry and Charles, came to study
theology in Lane Seminary, a brick building in the woods of
Ohio. The whistle of the quail, the scolding squirrels, once the
heavy, busky flight of wild turkeys—my hero killed one and
claimed a second—the soft thump and pat of a rabbit, the breezy
rush of wild pigeons, were here heard.
“A foot-path led through the woods, over which came three
times a day the heroes, shouting, exploding the vowel sounds,
and imitating cows, frogs, and crows—a laughing menagerie.
“The Academy of Music, two miles off down-town—Henry
primo-basso, Charles violin and tenor; and the little boy, at last
an alto, permitted to run between the heroes and sing, while eyes
feasted on Charles’s violin bow-hand, and ears were filled with
Henry’s basso, are well remembered.
“The ‘Creation’ and ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ were our winter’s
work, and Henry was off sometimes lecturing on temperance and
phrenology. Sometimes on a Saturday morning, at family prayer,
there were Catharine, George, Henry, Harriet, Isabella, Tom and
Jim, Aunt Esther, and father still praying ‘Overturn and overturn,’
and singing by all hands:
.pm start_poem
“‘Awake and sing the song
Of Moses and the Lamb;
Wake, every heart and every tongue,
To praise the Saviour’s name.
Sing on your heavenly way,
Ye ransomed sinners, sing!
Sing on rejoicing every day
In Christ the Heavenly King.’
.pm end_poem
Long, long discussions, lasting till past midnight and resumed
at every meal, of ‘free agency,’ ‘sovereignty,’ ‘natural and moral
ability,’ interpretations, and such.
“Charles could whittle graceful boats with sharp knife out
of thick sticks.
“Henry had the full set of Walter Scott’s works.
“Charles took lessons on the violin of Tosso, in the city.
Henry wrote something that Editor Charles Hammond printed
.bn 141.png
.pn +1
in the Cincinnati Gazette. O wonderful Henry! They both
wrote long, long letters to two far-away beings, and the little boy
sometimes took them to the post-office and paid twenty-five cents,
wondering what they could find to write such long, long letters
about.”
His brother Charles says:
“The glorious old forest lay between the Seminary and father’s
house, and we made it ring with vocal practice and musical scales
and imitations of band-music. The house father occupied was of
brick, and Henry whitewashed it with a kind of whitewash that
was equal to paint, of a sort of cream color. I can see him now,
on his tall ladder, with his spattered overalls, working away.
“One of our professors was B———, a nice, dapper, rosy little
man, in the chair of history. We naughty boys made fun of
him. Henry took notes. I would give something handsome for
that note-book. B——— was fond of quoting authors with sounding
names, Bochart among others, and Henry would have it ‘Go-cart,’
and made a hieroglyphic to that effect.
“We walked to and from the city, up and down the long hill,
and attended father’s church, Second Presbyterian, on Fourth
Street. Henry had a Bible-class of young ladies, for which he
made preparation by writing.”
For three years young Beecher was again a member of the
home-circle, from which he had been so long separated. This
home had apparently lost none of that broad, open-doored hospitality
and cheerful spirit that so markedly characterized it in
Litchfield. “The house was full. There was a constant high
tide of life and animation. The old carry-all was perpetually
vibrating between home and the city, and the excitement of coming
and going rendered anything like stagnation an impossibility.”
“It was an exuberant and glorious life while it lasted.
The atmosphere of the household was replete with mental oxygen,
full charged with intellectual electricity. Nowhere else have
we felt anything resembling or equalling it. It was a kind of
moral heaven, the purity, vivacity, inspiration, and enthusiasm of
which only those can appreciate who have lost it and feel that in
this world there is, there can be, no place like home.”
Of two of its members and some of their make-shifts we have
this account, copied from his journal:
“The Economical Family.—My father was an excellent man
.bn 142.png
.pn +1
(for no one provided better dinners—soups, codfish, mutton-chops;
even, upon great days, he has been known to have a
turkey). He was a man of enlarged mind and great sagacity.
He was before his age in his views, and always before his salary
in his expenses. This was from no want of calculation: nobody
ever was longer and shrewder in that. But he was aspiring,
and by nature seemed to go beyond things seen, far into the
region of things hoped for.
“His sister, an antique maiden lady, differed vastly from him
and could in no sense be called enlightened. It was astonishing
to see how his example and his reasoning were thrown away upon
her. To the last she clung to those earthly, low notions which
seem so peculiar to this world. She would persist in saying
that no one should buy what he could not pay for, nor pay for
any new thing until old debts were settled. Nor could she be
brought to adopt an enlarged policy in respect to the family.
We were obliged to wear clothes until they were worn out—at
least out at the knees and elbows—altho’ the fashion should
change a dozen times during that period. So that it was not uncommon
to find one’s self two or three times the pink of fashion
before a suit was fairly condemned as unseaworthy. In fact, we
may be said always to have set the fashion at such times, since
we were seen wearing the proper cut before even the leading
beau. But if this was comfortable it was but little amends for
the days of darkness which ensued. One day we revelled (?) in
our glory; the next every one gaped at our uncouth fashion.
We might properly be likened to a ship riding gracefully upon
the water, but suddenly left by the tide sticking in the mud, stiff
and immovable. I used to comfort myself, when laughed at, by
saying, ‘Never mind; you laugh now, before six months you’ll be
imitating me.’ And so it often proved, till I began to think I
was a prophet.
“But it is of the family I write and not of myself, for be it
known that I am not under vassalage. I am free from both authority
and—money; the latter condition as no reproach. I
have often noticed that these two kinds of independence are
closely allied. True independence seems always in the lurch.”
One amusing incident that grew out of the half country-farm
life which they then lived he used often to refer to.
Living in the outskirts of the city, where the fences were
.bn 143.png
.pn +1
poor and straying cattle often gave them great annoyance, Henry
one day, to his immense disgust, found a cow quietly resting in
the middle of the barn floor. With the accumulated indignation
aroused, by numerous chases, which these poachers of the
highway had led him, by many tramplings across flower-beds
and destruction of the garden vegetables, he drove her out and
chased her down the street. Coming in hot and tired from his
run, he threw himself upon the sofa, saying: “There, I guess I
have taught one old cow to know where she belongs!” “What
do you mean?” said the doctor, looking up apprehensively from
his paper. “Why, I found another cow in the barn, and I have
turned her out and chased her clear down the street, and I think
she will stay away now.” “Well,” said Dr. Beecher, “you have
done it. I have just bought that cow, and had to wade the
Ohio River twice to get her home, and after I have got her safely
into the barn you have turned her out. You have done it, and
no mistake.” And the chasing of that cow was renewed.
His humor bubbled out at all times and in all places, finding
its occasion even in so staid a matter as chapel prayers. He
roomed with Prof. Stowe, who was the soul of punctuality, and
was continually pained at the failure of his young room-mate to
be on time at morning prayers in the Seminary chapel.
Having done his best to wake him up one morning, apparently
without success, he had gone down-stairs with many expressions
of disgust. No sooner was he out of the room than Henry
sprang up, dressed himself as only college students can, ran to
the Seminary by a back way, and when the professor entered was
sitting demurely in front of the desk. The amazement of the
teacher at this unexpected appearance, rubbing his glasses and
peering at him again and again to determine whether it was real
or he only saw a vision, was always remembered by Mr. Beecher
with a chuckle of merriment.
For a short time near the close of his theological course
he edited a paper, and appears to have done his work with
marked success; but circumstances brought it to a speedy close.
“The Cincinnati Journal needed an editor. There was at that
time in the middle class of Lane Seminary a green young man
of some facility of pen. He had written a series of anonymous
articles on the Catholic question in the evening paper edited
by Mr. Thomas. He was considered rather tonguey, and not
.bn 144.png
.pn +1
likely to back down from anything from want of hopefulness and
self-confidence. Him Dr. Brainerd called to the chair, and, on
relinquishing the editorship, recommended this beardless youth
to the proprietors of the journal as his successor. One fine
morning this young man found himself an editor upon a salary!
An editor must have a coat; and Platt Evans made a lion-skin
overcoat that has never had a successor or an equal. He must
have a watch! A plain, white-faced watch soon ticked in his
pocket. Alas! evil days befell the publishers. The paper had
a new owner. He did not want the young editor; the young
editor did want the watch, but could not pay for it; the seller
took it back, to the great grief of the young theologian, who went
back disconsolate to his classes at Lane Seminary, and was
broken-hearted for a whole day. The young man recovered, and
has been in mischief ever since, some folks think.”
When the pro-slavery riots broke out in Cincinnati in 1836,
and James G. Birney’s printing-office and press were destroyed
by a mob headed by Kentucky slaveholders, young Beecher volunteered
and was sworn in as special constable, and for several
nights patrolled the streets thoroughly armed to protect the negroes
and their friends. He was earnest in this matter, as in
everything else that he undertook. His sister Harriet, finding
him busy running bullets, and asking him what he was doing it
for, was a good deal startled to hear him answer in a hard, determined
voice: “To kill men.”
Besides the influence of this common, every-day life, which
was afterwards reflected in his own hospitable spirit and home,
two domestic events took place during these three years that deserve
more especial notice. The first was “the Family Meeting.”
“Long before Edward came out here the doctor had tried to
have a family meeting, but did not succeed. The children were
too scattered. Two were in Connecticut, some in Massachusetts,
and one in Rhode Island. But now—just think of it!—there has
been a family meeting in Ohio! When Edward returned he
brought on Mary from Hartford. William came down from Putnam,
George from Batavia, Ohio; Catharine and Harriet were
here already; Henry and Charles at home, too, besides Isabella,
Thomas, and James. These eleven! The first time they all
ever met together! Mary had never seen James, and she had
.bn 145.png
.pn +1
seen Thomas but once. Such a time as they had! The old
doctor was almost transported with joy. The affair had been
under negotiation for some time. He returned home from Dayton
late one Saturday evening. The next morning they for the
first time assembled in the parlor. There were more tears than
words. The doctor attempted to pray, but could scarcely speak.
His full heart poured itself out in a flood of weeping. He could
not go on. Edward continued, and each one in his turn uttered
some sentence of thanksgiving. They then began at the head
and related their fortunes. After special prayer all joined hands
and sang ‘Old Hundred’ in these words:
.pm start_poem
“‘From all that dwell below the skies
Let the Creator’s praise arise.’
\ \ *\ \ \ \ \ *\ \ \ \ \ *\ \ \ \ \ *
.pm end_poem
“When left alone in the evening they had a general examination
of all their characters. The shafts of wit flew amain, the
doctor being struck in several places. He was, however, expert
enough to hit most of them in return. From the uproar of the
general battle all must have been wounded....
“Tuesday morning saw them together again, drawn up in a
straight line for the inspection of the king of happy men. After
receiving particular instructions they formed into a circle. The
doctor made a long and affecting speech. He felt that he stood
for the last time in the midst of all his children, and each word
fell with the weight of a patriarch’s. He embraced them once
more in all the tenderness of his big heart. Each took of all a
farewell kiss. With joined hands they united in a hymn. A
prayer was offered, and finally the parting blessing was spoken.”
The other event referred to was the death of Mrs. Beecher,
which occurred at the close of Henry’s first Seminary year. She
was his step-mother, but “she did all that she could for my
good.”
“In the holy yearnings of this truly devoted mother the
whole family was included; nor could the older children perceive
any less fervency in her desires for their true welfare than for
that of her own flesh and blood.” And it was with deep and true
feeling that he writes “that God was with her in her closing days,
and that the light of his countenance cheered her passage to the
tomb.”
.bn 146.png
.pn +1
These varied experiences of joy and sorrow in the home-life
of this period; this variety of occupation—now studying and attending
lectures in the Seminary, lecturing on temperance and
phrenology, drilling in the “Hallelujah Chorus,” painting the old
family mansion, accompanying his father in his attendance upon
presbytery and synod, now a constable and anon an editor—all
contributed to give him a broad culture, had much to do with
the variety of labor which he undertook in after-life, and fitted
him for that easy, natural, and familiar mingling with all kinds
and conditions of men which was in him so marked a characteristic.
Of what he did, read, and thought at this time we are fortunate
in having another source of authentic information from his
own pen. Upon the unruled blank leaf of a letter-book, as large
as a commercial ledger and heavily bound in leather, is written in
a large hand, large enough to cover the whole page:
.nf c
JOURNAL
OF
EVENTS, FEELINGS, THOUGHTS, PLANS, ETC.,
JUST AS THEY HAVE MET ME, THUS GIVING IN PART
A TRANSCRIPT OF MY INNER AND OUTER LIFE.
BEGUN JUNE, 1835, AT LANE THEOL. SEMINARY.
.nf-
On the first page, “Begun three days after birthday,” June
27. “I have tried times without number to keep a diary or
a journal of my religious feelings. I have never succeeded.”
1. “I am not enough contemplative to make a record of reflections
and feelings very definite.” 2. “I never could be sincere.
The only use which I distinctly know that I have derived
from it is a knowledge of my being very averse to saying just
what my feelings were. I could not help feeling: ‘This will,
perhaps, be seen.’ And why should I not so feel? One object
in keeping a journal is to look back upon your mind as it reflected
itself at different periods past, and if you keep one no one can
pretend to have enough of prospective wisdom to save it from
the hands of others.”
.bn 147.png
.pn +1
After half a page of reasons why this possibility—which has
indeed been realized—may take place, he says: “Can I conceal
it all from myself, and feign to myself that that which I am disclosing
and giving form and permanence to, my most secret feelings,
none will see? And when I feel secretly that they will be
seen, is it possible to go through honestly a narration of those
emotions from the disclosure of which I shrink in my inmost
soul?”
In view of this possibility, he decides upon a modification of
his ideal:
“In this journal I do not set before me as an object to tell
all my feelings, but only such as for any reason I may choose to
tell. I intend to record, too, my opinions and reflections on occurrences,
on persons, on books, and to find a resting-place, if
possible, for many of those daily thoughts which are too short and
unconnected to be noted down separately, and yet of some small
value, perhaps—at least to give variety to a journal. Then, too,
being little tenacious of dates, I here mean to record and date
all changes in my life, that afterwards, when business and multiplicity
of other facts have crowded from my mind such facts, I
may here recur as to a faithful chronicle and refresh my memory.
“Here, then, I mean to be at ease, and not molest myself with
any obligations to write so much, or so often, or so anything, but
in mental dishabille I will stroll through my mind and do as I
choose.”
It can well be supposed that with such an introduction facing
us we feel some delicacy, even with the quasi permission which
his departure from the true ideal of a journal gives, in handling,
and especially in giving to the public, the matters which are here
written. While we find no word that a perfectly upright and
honorable man need be ashamed of, we do find private matters
which we have no right to make public. Out of the great
amount of material which the journal affords we have selected
such portions as illustrate the salient features of his life, character,
work, and methods at this time.
First of all, we find him still keeping up the old habit of reading,
and after a very critical method.
“July 1, 1835.—I finished Scott’s ‘Antiquary’ this morning,
and I propose giving some little account of my impressions. To
do it I shall be obliged to collect my general scattered feelings
.bn 148.png
.pn +1
into a definite, tangible form; and if I always did it after reading
I should have more numerous ideas of things and of their forms,
and more correct ones.
“I think it one of Scott’s best, although my personal taste
gives his novels founded on warlike customs, as ‘Ivanhoe,’ more
relish. But that does not alter the abstract merits of this, for
there are grounds of judging a work altogether aside from our
taste as to the subject judged. There are but two general considerations
in estimating a novel. First, has the author been a
faithful copyist of nature, even when his effort is of the imagination?
And, second, has he made a judicious selection and skilful
combination of his material.”
After several pages of the large ledger have been devoted to
this subject, there follows this entry:
“July 4.—The difference between Scott and Shakspere is of
two kinds: (1) the difference of dramatic and prosaic description,
and (2) the native difference of the two men. The first
involves a discussion and comparison of the two kinds of
writing. The dramatic is narrower, more formal and measured,
and consequently more stiff. No one ever heard one speak
as Macbeth, as Hamlet, or as Iago, for no one ever spoke so.
Passion, or indeed nature, never marches in heroic measure. In
another respect it differs. There is a general sameness of language.
The imitation of nature respects feelings and character,
and not expression, if we except some comic characters. But
prose imitates with perfect freedom, unshackled by verse, not only
the passion, character, etc., but the expression and language.
“In this respect Scott differs from himself as a poet and novelist
as much as when a novelist he differs from Shakspere,
etc....”
Similar and lengthy criticisms of Crabbe, Coleridge, Byron,
Burns, and others follow, many of them crude, but all aiming to
grasp and express the original thought of the poet, as he says
after naming some rules by which to judge a book:
“But such things are the externals of criticism. I admire
the German way of going into the motive and spirit of a poem,
and discussing the principles and source of feeling.”
We find his habit of drawing from his own experiences some
moral or spiritual lesson, and then teaching it to others, thus early
formed:
.bn 149.png
.pn +1
“June 27, 1835.— ... Being unwell is by no means useless.
It crowds one on to thoughts of death, and sweeps away all the
mist of forgetfulness which the frivolity of events has accumulated.
One must either wrap himself in designed forgetfulness—which
is a stupid resource—or come to some conclusion in respect
to his religious prospects. For my part, in sickness (what
little I have had) I am not agitated, but rendered serious and
calmly apprehensive, and I begin to think what God is, and
Christ, and heavenly joy, and compare them with my tastes and
disposition, and see if they accord or are repulsive. I’ve written
enough for the present, so I’ll return to Scott’s ‘Legend of Montrose.’”
We find very little, almost nothing, concerning the regulation
work and studies of the theological course, possibly because
some other book which has not come down to us contained
these. He seems to have plenty to do, and carries into his work
a very decided determination to succeed.
“Aug. 2, 1835, Sunday.—I have for this time work enough:
two courses of lectures—one, for my Bible-class, to begin next
Sunday; the other a course of temperance lectures for Reading
and elsewhere. I don’t know how I shall succeed, but I am
never self-distrustful and often feel sure I shall do VERY well, and
as often see that I may fall through entirely. Either course failing
would mortify me. But here, as elsewhere, let me start with
feeling, ‘I will persevere, and with every endeavor which interest
and ingenuity can furnish.’ Such being one’s constant feeling
and action, hardly anything is invincible. Perseverance without
corresponding exercise of ALL ONE’S MIND is but a dogged spinning
out of tedious and useless effort. Remember when most discouraged
to labor as though you were in the full blossom of Hope,
and shortly you will be.”
At this time he was singing in, and sometimes leading, the
choir in his father’s church, as he writes:
“Nov. 14.—The medical authorities of the family, having ordered
me up for inspection, have decided that I was not sea-worthy,
but have, in view of past services, ordered me into
dock to be a receiving-ship, and there to undergo thorough repairs.
I am quietly riding in the dock without mast or rigging.
They have sent aboard two sets of workmen this morning, under
the care of Messrs. Calomel and Aloes; and these are to remove
.bn 150.png
.pn +1
all my cargo, ballast, etc., after which I am to be new-rigged and
furnished and sent out on a new cruise. This is well. I have
sailed very dully for some time and came near to foundering once
or twice.
“Will you take my place to-day and sing bass? I know of no
one possessing suitable gravity except yourself to confront the
audience and do justice to music....\ \ \ \ Yours truly,
.ll 68
.rj
“‘Old Constitution.’”
.ll
A line of tender sentiment runs through the journal, appearing
whenever any reference is made to the one to whom he was
engaged. Concerning so delicate a matter we only give extracts
sufficient to show the radiant atmosphere in which, at least at
times, he walked, and the deep and sincere affection which he
cherished. They are to be read as the opening stanzas of that
beautiful idyl that closed only with his life.
“Aug. 4, 1835.—It is a little curious, perhaps not, however,
that I very much dislike to say anything in my journal of my
thoughts and feeling for E., who is so much of my existence.
Well, I suppose the more and the more delicately we love the
less we care and wish to say about it. It becomes a matter of
heart, not of tongue; it becomes a feeling, and feeling has no language
except action. I have sent her a large letter, largely laden
with affection....”
“Aug. 5, 1835.—Woke up and thought of E———, M———,
and G———; compared their characters. M——— is marked by
INTELLECT, G——— by lady-like character, sweetness, and gayness.
E——— has neither so prominent, but both well combined
and softened by strongest and sweetest affectionateness. Her
character is uniform, and projects, if anywhere, in line of affection.”
“Sept. 14, 1835.—I wonder what people think of my warmth?
Some, I know, estimate it far too highly, because they have not
seen much of such things. Others, and most, suppose it very low
and suspect very little of it. It is in truth but medium naturally.
Well, in a year or two, and then E——— will be disappointed the
right way. What a noble creature E——— is! I could have
looked through ten thousand and never have found one so every
way suited to me. How dearly do I love her! I long for the
portrait.”
“Oct. 1, 1835.—Found a packet of letters from my dearest
.bn 151.png
.pn +1
E———. Oh, how dear! Her likeness too, which, though imperfect
in some respects, has very much the looks of the original,
and if only one feature were preserved I would feel grateful.
But, excepting the mouth, each feature is faithfully like her own.
I shall begin a letter to her to-night. God bless and keep her!
I love her more and more and say less and less about it.
“Harriet has had E———’s portrait all day, and I have felt
quite lonesome without it. Last evening I retired to bed and
very philosophically decided to leave the portrait in my side-pocket.
I lay for some half-hour and was quite convinced that
it was in the wrong place, and removed it to my pillow. It soon
underwent another migration—where, one may imagine if he will
recall all such doings as depicted in novels.”
The following is his first mention of preaching in the West:
“Aug. 9, Sunday, 1835.—Preached twice in George’s church.
In morning with great dryness and trouble, and felt much mortified—more,
I think, than grieved.
“Afternoon smaller audience, but had great liberty and fluency,
and produced effect; but whether superficial or permanent
and saving, God only knows. Afternoon text: ‘My ways
not as your ways’; Morning: ‘For we thus judge’ (2 Cor. v.
14, etc.)
“After preliminaries, subject, ‘The genius of Christianity is
not to produce gloom or debar from pleasure; but, contrary,
earthly pleasures can only be enjoyed by Christians, and much
more heavenly.’”
He begins to be conscious of unused powers.
“Sept., 1835.—Since reading Crabbe and Scott I am possessed
with the notion of writing characters. I have some models which
I know would be originals.”
His love of fun evidently subjected him now and then to
criticism. To one whose remarks had touched him to the quick
he writes in self-defence:
“Oct. 29 \[1835].—... You said last night that I was never
made for a minister. If a minister were made to wear a lachrymose
face and never to enjoy or make mirth, you said truly and
I was not born to it. There are, in fact, three classes of divines—the
ascetic, the neuter, and the sunshiny; the first conceive the
chief end of man to consist in a long face, upturned eyes, a profound
sanctimonious look.... I must plead guilty if you mean
.bn 152.png
.pn +1
that I was not born to the rank of these worthy personages. Far
be it from me to believe that religion makes ridiculous dunces.
And though I think many such are truly pious men, yet such endowments
are the deformity and misfortune, not the ornament,
of their piety. The second class I call neuter because they (like
the Chinese leaf by which character is told) quirl and roll just
according to the party with which they are.... I must confess
I have too many opinions of my own to be whirled about by every
change of company. And though it is proper and decent that
one should conform to the nature of different occasions, so as not
to jest at a funeral, laugh at church, or dance in a hospital among
the sick, the dead and dying; and though one should respect the
conditions of his company, so as not to obtrude upon age the
buoyancy of youth, ... yet I am sure neither old age nor old
reflections ... shall make me disown mirth.... Now for the
third class, the glorious, sunshiny ones. I envy them, I emulate
them. These are they who think there is a time for relaxation
and elegant enjoyment. Too much is to be done to allow them
long seasons of gayety.... But while they labor hard, think and
write, and preach and visit, weeping with those who weep, they
conceive by the same authority that they may unbend and refresh
the mind by laughing with those who laugh.... To be
mirthful is part of our constitution, and I believe God never gave
us that which it is a sin to exercise.... None but those who
feel it can tell how hard it is to restrain a disposition which sees
everything in the most ludicrous point of view. But God knows
that if I have a good deal of mirth I compensate for it in secret;
and although now I look for different times, yet till now I have
had enough of anything but joy to make mirth acceptable to me.
You said what you did in jest, but I lay awake all night thinking
of it. God will bear me witness that I love the ministry, and
if it be necessary for me to lay aside even my constitutional
gayety that I may be more useful, I will cheerfully do it....”
From a “catalogue of books in my possession” we learn that
on December 2, 1835, he had 42 volumes of theological works, 71
volumes of literary, 10 scientific, and 12 miscellaneous, making a
grand total in all of 135 volumes—not a bad showing for one
who had earned every book, either by labor or severe economy,
and, what is more to the point, had read and studied them all.
We must now turn from the perusal of his journal to note
.bn 153.png
.pn +1
other influences than those already referred to—those of the Seminary,
of home and books—that were at work upon him at this time.
There were some that had a very important influence in shaping
his ecclesiastical bearing through life.
These were days of heresy-hunting; days when Albert Barnes
was arraigned before presbytery for unsoundness because of
some kind of heterodoxy (?) discovered in his notes upon Romans,
and when the conflict between the two parties in the Presbyterian
Church was rapidly advancing to a division of that great
body into Old and New School. “Dr. Beecher,” so writes Mrs.
Stowe, “was now the central point of a great theological battle.
It was a sort of spiritual Armageddon, being the confluence of
the forces of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Calvinistic fatalism,
meeting in battle with the advancing rationalism of New England
New School theology. On one side was hard, literal interpretation
of Bible declarations and the Presbyterian standards asserting
man’s utter and absolute natural and moral inability to obey
God’s commands, and on the other side the doctrine of man’s free
agency and the bringing to the rendering of the declarations of
the Scriptures and of the standards the lights of modern modes
of interpretation.” This battle soon assumed the character of an
assault upon Dr. Lyman Beecher for the purpose of his destruction.
His son knew it to be wholly without justification and as
senseless as it was wicked. He knew his father’s earnestness, devotion,
and unselfishness, the sacrifices he had made to take up
this work, felt how greatly he deserved the gratitude of all
Christian men; and when he saw that father attacked for heresy
and brought before every tribunal of the Presbyterian Church,
except the highest, for trial, and all because his construction of
the Presbyterian Confession was not according to the views of
one or two of the leaders of that Church in the West, he was not
more indignant than disgusted.
He saw him triumphantly acquitted by one body after another,
but still pursued by suspicion, and knew that a conspiracy
had been formed in which some of his Eastern friends and one
or more Eastern seminaries were enlisted, with the avowed intention
of crushing him, and all this mostly by good men, under
the strong bias of ecclesiastical prejudice and in a mistaken zeal
for God’s service.
We must feel his disgust as he was compelled to go scurrying
.bn 154.png
.pn +1
through the country, not to rescue souls from danger nor to forward
any great moral end, but to anticipate the action of some
presbytery or arrange for some meeting of synod; we must realize
his indignation at seeing his father compelled to leave the
death-bed of his mother to defend himself against these heresy-hunters,
if we would understand the position which Mr. Beecher
occupied towards ecclesiastical bodies in after-years.
In a letter dated “Canal Boat, Wednesday morning, Oct. 14,
1835,” Henry Ward gives an account of a meeting of Synod.
After a humorous description of the eccentricities of Dr. Beecher,
for which we have no space, he writes: “At length we are ready
to start. A trunk tumbles out of one side as Thomas tumbles in
the other. I reverse the order—tumble Tom out, the trunk in.
At length all are aboard, and father drives out of the yard, holding
the reins in one hand, shaking hands with a student with the
other, giving Charles directions with his mouth—at least that part
not occupied with an apple; for since apples were plenty he has
made it a practice to drive with one rein in the right hand and
the other in the left, with an apple in each, biting them alternately,
thus raising and lowering the reins like threads on a loom.
Away we go, Charley horse on a full canter down the long hill,
the carriage bouncing and bounding over the stones, father alternately
telling Tom how to get the harness mended and showing
me the true doctrine of original sin. Hurrah! we thunder alongside
the boat just in time.... Yesterday the Synod was constituted
Old School. Moderator by a majority of seven, under his
administration the system is beginning to assume form and becomes
apparent. All the committees are one way, and the whole
aspect of affairs shows you that there is a deep-laid, regular plan,
and the elders are all drilled in. The committee give leave of absence
to all New School men, and refuse all others, so that they
may increase and we decrease.
“It is Tuesday morning and everybody is talking, planning,
plotting—all bustle; heads together; knots at every corner;
hands going up and down, and faces approaching earnestly or
drawing back in doubt; one taking hold of the other’s coat, leading
off into one corner for a particular argument; elders receiving
drill, some bolting the collar. Here, in my room, are father,
George, and Mr. Rankin. They are looking over the ground,
prognosticating, arranging for the onset, or for the reception of
.bn 155.png
.pn +1
an onset.... I never saw so many faces of clergymen, and so
few of them intellectual faces.... And the elders are just what
forty or fifty common farmers would be supposed to be—except
that for eldership the soberest men are chosen, and, as stupidity is
usually graced with more gravity than great good sense, the body of
elders are not quite so acute in look as the higher class of workingmen.”
Although written in a playful mood, it is evident that he had
no fancy for such work, and as he advanced his dislike increased.
The broad, kindly, hospitable living, the strong, practical, sympathetic
preaching, and the honest dislike of all the rattle of ecclesiastical
machinery, which marked his after-life, came naturally
from the training he received on the outside of Lane Seminary.
The influences of the place in which he lived as well as of
the times were powerful factors in his theological education.
The great West, with its boundless possibilities which had so
moved the spirit of his father, lay before him, and stirred
his imagination as at an earlier period the sea had done. And,
as when he looked out upon the broad Atlantic from the
wharves of Boston he had felt the impulse to go forth to
be a sailor, command ships, and fight naval battles, so did
the movement of the great streams of population Westward, and
the vast field that stretched out before him like the ocean,
move his spirit to go forth upon the sea of human life and conquer
for Christ.
In this period of theological study, when the most of students
withdraw themselves as much as possible from real life, he was
brought to face it in some of its most intense forms. Cincinnati
was then the central and most important city of the great West;
an immense commerce was carried on from its wharves; it was
the point where gathered the multitudes that were going out to
occupy the new territory; it was still the rendezvous for frontiersmen;
more than this, it lay upon the border-land between
the free and slave States, and already felt the uneasiness and bitterness
of the irresistible conflict. Chain-gangs of slaves were
continually passing on the decks of the steamboats, to be sold
down South, and fugitives from bondage were keeping the sympathy
or the hatred of the people in continual activity. Life
of high pressure and in great variety was presented to Henry
Ward Beecher there in the heart of the great West in the years
.bn 156.png
.pn +1
of 1834-1837; life that was very real, and that called not so
much for fine-spun theories as for practical forces; not for dead
and formal dogmas, but for living truth, for Him who is both
Life and Truth.
True, he might have measurably kept himself from it and immured
himself in the library and class-rooms of the Seminary, but
he followed an entirely opposite course; he lectured, wrote anti-slavery
editorials, joined the citizens’ body of police for the preservation
of order, every way keeping himself in sympathy with
the stirring times in which he lived, and they helped to make
him the living, practical preacher he afterwards became.
His Bible-class, to which he gave great attention, both in
preparation and in teaching the lesson, afforded him a field for the
application of the truths he had learned, and for testing the
methods he had adopted.
Yet for the most of the time his mind was not settled. His ideal
of the Christian ministry was so high that he sometimes despaired
of ever attaining it, and at times he seems to have seriously contemplated
giving up his preparation for the ministry and of devoting
himself to some other pursuit. Mrs. Beecher says that
through these years his letters were very full of the discomforts and
doubts that troubled him. “... Sometimes I think I shall not
succeed in anything. If, when my course here is finished, they
will not license me, suppose I go far West, enter a homestead (?),
clear the wood off, build a little log hut, work during the week,
and hunt up the settlers and hold conference and prayer meetings—will
you come to me if that is all I can offer you?” Then,
perhaps, in the next letter: “I will preach, if it is in the by-ways
and hedges; but oh! for more light to see my way clear!”
“During the last two years his letters had less of this depression.
He would preach, whether men would hear or whether they
would forbear.” “But I must preach the Gospel as it is revealed
to me, not as it is laid down in the schools.”
He gives his experience in these words:
“During the latter part of my stay in college my feelings were
unsettled. Sometimes they inclined one way and sometimes the
other, until I went to Lane Seminary. I was then twenty years
old, and there came a great revulsion in me from all this inchoate,
unregulated, undirected experience in religion. My mind took
one tremendous spring over into scepticism, and I said: ‘I have
.bn 157.png
.pn +1
been a fool long enough.’ I refused to be any longer played upon
in such a way. It was bitter, it was malignant, it was sad, it was
sorrowful; but it was wholesale, and swept away ten thousand fictions
and external observances. I said: ‘I will not stir one step
further than I can see my way, and I will not stand a moment
where I cannot see the truth. I will have something that is
sure and steadfast.’ Having taken that ground, I was in that
state of mind for the larger part of two years.
“It then pleased God to lift upon me such a view of Christ
as one whose nature and office it is to have infinite and exquisite
pity upon the weakness and want of sinners as I had never had
before. I saw that He had compassion upon them because they
were sinners, and because He wanted to help them out of their
sins. It came to me like the bursting forth of spring. It was as
if yesterday there was not a bird to be seen or heard, and as if
to-day the woods were full of singing birds. There rose up
before me a view of Jesus as the Saviour of sinners—not of
saints, but of sinners unconverted, before they were any better—because
they were so bad and needed so much; and that view
has never gone from me. It did not at first fill the whole
heaven; it came as a rift along the horizon; gradually, little by
little, the cloud rolled up. It was three years before the whole
sky was cleared so that I could see all around, but from that
hour I felt that God had a father’s heart; that Christ loved me in
my sin; that while I was a sinner He did not frown upon me nor
cast me off, but cared for me with unutterable tenderness, and
would help me out of sin; and it seemed to me that I had everything
I needed. When that vision was vouchsafed to me I felt
that there was no more for me to do but to love, trust, and adore;
nor has there ever been in my mind a doubt since that I did
love, trust, and adore. There has been an imperfect comprehension,
there have been grievous sins, there have been long
defections; but never for a single moment have I doubted the
power of Christ’s love to save me, any more than I have doubted
the existence in the heaven of the sun by day and the moon by
night.”
We have thus followed Henry Ward Beecher from the cradle
to the moment that he stands prepared to enter upon his life-work;
have noted every step of his course from the hills to the
sea, from school to college, from the East to the West; have
.bn 158.png
.pn +1
marked the influences of the home, of nature, of the city, of
school, college, and seminary, of the times, of the Word and
Spirit of God; have traced his experiences, felt his dawning
strength, examined the life he lived, the dispositions he manifested,
the hopes he cherished, and the character he formed;
and in our confidence and admiration choose, as not inappropriate
for him at this time, the description of “The Patrone of true
Holinesse” in the “Faerie Queene”:
.pm start_poem
“Full iolly knight he seemed, and faire did sitt,
As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt;
And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore,
The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead, as living ever, Him ador’d:
Upon his shield the like was also scor’d,
For soveraine hope, which in His helpe he had,
Right faithfull true he was in deede and word;
But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.”
.pm end_poem
.bn 159.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch09'
CHAPTER IX.
.pm start_summary
Call to Preach—License—Examination by Miami Presbytery—Refusal to
Subscribe to Old School—Ordination by Oxford Presbytery—Visit
East—Marriage—Housekeeping.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
In the early spring of 1837 Mr. Beecher graduated from Lane
Seminary. In accordance with the practice of the Presbyterian
Church, a clergyman might be licensed to preach,
even though not ordained; but such license could only be obtained
after the applicant had appeared before the Presbytery
for examination, and he was required also to read a “trial lecture,”
as it was called. Agreeably to this custom, upon graduating
from the Seminary Mr. Beecher went before the Cincinnati
Presbytery, was examined, and read his “trial lecture.” The examination
and lecture seem to have been satisfactory, for he was
duly licensed to preach.
For a few weeks prior to his examination for license he
preached in a little hall at Covington, Kentucky, just across the
river from Cincinnati. He seriously contemplated settling there
as soon as he should be licensed.
“After preaching there [Covington] three or four Sundays I
was called, by Martha Sawyer, a Yankee woman, to go to Lawrenceburg
and preach. There was a church in that place, composed
of about twenty members, of which she was the factotum.
She collected the money, she was the treasurer, she was the manager,
she was the trustee, she was the everything of that church.”
At this time the pulpit of the little, struggling Presbyterian
church at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, was vacant, and one of the
ladies of that church came up to Cincinnati to see if Bishop Little
could not secure for them a pastor. The good bishop introduced
her to young Henry Ward Beecher. This led to his preaching
one or two trial sermons at Lawrenceburg. The result of the
experiment seemed to be satisfactory on both sides, although the
first sermon was said to have been a lamentable failure through
the nervous apprehensions of the young preacher in facing the
unusually large audience of one hundred persons.
.bn 160.png
.pn +1
In May, 1837, he moved to Lawrenceburg and began
preaching regularly as a licentiate, not yet ordained.
It may not be uninteresting to read just here the brief memoranda
from the journal which he was keeping then:
“May 4 \[1837].—Returned from Lawrenceburg. I think
seriously of settling there—a destitute place indeed....
“If I go to Lawrenceburg, remember you can gain men
easily if you get round their prejudices and put truth in their
minds; but never if you attack prejudices. Look well at this....
”Mem.—My people must be alert to make the church agreeable,
to give seats and wait on strangers, etc.“
”June 15, Thursday.—To-day received call from Lawrenceburg,
and a very flattering call it was and did my heart good.
Meeting called June 12, 1837; about 30 persons present. Mr.
Hunt, moderator; D. S. Mayer, sec. Vote for me unanimous.
Blank filled for $250, with but one dissenting voice (he voting
for double that sum).“
”Monday, July 10.—Sat. eve., 8th, arrived here permanently
to remain....
“I mean to write down little plans and devices for pastoral
labor as they occur; I may else forget them.
“1. In different districts get men quietly to feel themselves responsible
for progress of temperance or Sunday-schools.
“2. Quietly to visit from house to house and secure congregations.
“3. Secure a large congregation. Let this be the first thing.
For this—
.in 8
“1. Preach well uniformly.
“2. Visit widely and produce a personal attachment; also
wife do same.
“3. Get the young to love me.
“4. See that the church have this presented as a definite
thing, and set them to this work just as directly as I
would to raising a fund, building, etc.
.in
“4. Little girls’ societies for benevolent purposes.”
The town was small, scarce fifteen hundred inhabitants, located
at the junction of the Ohio and Miami rivers—just across
the Miami from Ohio on the east, and the Ohio River from
Kentucky on the south—subject to devastating floods from both
rivers impartially.
.bn 161.png
.pn +1
The church was small, with meagre accommodations, the
people poor. We quote his description of the place and
church:
“You can form some conception of that field when I tell
you that it was a place where they had four gigantic distilleries,
from which was carried to market a steamboat-load of
liquor every day. When I went there and entered upon my
vocation of preaching, I found a church, occupying a little
brick building, with nineteen or twenty members. There was
one man, and the rest were women. With the exception of two
persons, there was not one of them who was not obliged to
gain a livelihood by the labor of the hands. So you will
understand how very poor they were. I could not, of course,
obtain my living in so small a church, and in a community that
was not overblessed with wealth. I was taken up, therefore,
as a pensioner by the Home Missionary Society, and my first
two years were spent in the field as a missionary, in part supported
by the funds of this society.
“I was sexton in the church. There were no lamps there,
so I went and bought some, and filled them and lit them. I
swept the church and lighted my own fires. I did not ring the
bell, because there was none. I opened the church before every
meeting, and shut and locked it after every meeting. I took care
of everything in the church.”
Here in this little frontier village, then upon the very borders
of civilization, began his real work. For twenty-four years
he had been preparing for this step. Now it must be determined
whether his life should be a success or a failure.
The year passed uneventfully, and it was not until September,
1838, when he applied for ordination, that he got his first taste of
trouble.
At this time the division between the Old School and the New
School Presbyterian churches was about to take place, and two
General Assemblies, afterwards called the Old School General
Assembly and the New School General Assembly, were, a short
time later, convened in Philadelphia. A resolution was introduced
into the Oxford Presbytery that no man should be licensed
or ordained by that body who did not connect himself with the
Old School Presbyterian Church, dropping from their care those
who declined to do so.
.bn 162.png
.pn +1
This resolution, it was thought, was probably aimed at Mr.
Beecher[3]—an attempt to strike the father over the shoulders of
his son. For the actual division and separation of the Presbyterian
Church into Old and New School was in no small measure
the result of the controversy carried on for several years previously
against Dr. Lyman Beecher. The doctor in 1832 had, as
we have seen, accepted the presidency and professorship of doctrinal
theology in Lane Seminary. He had been brought up in,
and had been connected with, the Congregational Church until
this time. While he entertained no revolutionary spirit, he had
some expectation that the free spirit of New England thought,
and that loving spirit of voluntary co-operation which he had
enjoyed so in his New England pastorate, might be infused into
the forms of Presbyterianism. The idea of an intimate friendship
and co-operation between the Congregational and Presbyterian
churches in the United States had always been dear to him.
.fm rend=th
.fn 3
“It is no inconsiderable matter in these days that Dr. Beecher has at
least one son who, after a full and free examination before the Oxford
Presbytery, has been pronounced to be orthodox and sound in the faith;
and that, in order to exclude the son of the arch-heretic, a new term of
ministerial communion had to be introduced” (Extract from letter of Dr.
Bishop, President of Oxford College, to Mr. Beecher in 1838).
.fn-
.fm rend=th
But when he went to Cincinnati there had already commenced
in different quarters a movement aiming at greater stringency
and the expulsion from the Presbyterian Church of what was
called the New England element, of which Dr. Beecher was an
eminent representative. His settlement at Lane Seminary was
followed by a more active demonstration of hostility. Formal
charges of heresy, slander, and hypocrisy were preferred against
him, to which reference has already been made.
These proceedings produced a very markedly unfavorable
impression in the public mind against Presbyterianism. They
had only ended at about the time his son, Henry Ward, came
to Lawrenceburg.
There was a good deal of feeling in the two branches of the
Presbyterian Church, and when Mr. Beecher applied to the Oxford
Presbytery, within whose jurisdiction Lawrenceburg was
located, a good deal of interest was aroused. A son of Dr.
Lyman Beecher was to be examined by a presbytery known to
be in marked hostility to him. It would be a good chance to
.bn 163.png
.pn +1
demonstrate the laxity and heterodoxy of Dr. Beecher. For, of
course, the young man would only reflect the father’s views.
The presbytery duly met in session in September, 1838, and
Henry Ward appeared before them. Writing to his brother
George, he refers to his examination. After telling of his family
affairs he says:
“So much for family news—a quiet lake; now for public
affairs—a troubled ocean casting up mud and dirt.
“I went some sixty miles up into Preble County, near Eaton,
before Oxford Presbytery. Presented my papers. Father
Craigh was appointed to squeak the questions. They examined
me to their hearts’ content. I was a model to behold, and so were
they! Elders opened their mouths, gave their noses a fresh
blowing, fixed their spectacles, and hitched forward on their
seats. The ministers clinched their confessions of faith with
desperate fervor and looked unutterably orthodox, while Graham
and a few friendly ones looked a little nervous, not knowing
how the youth would stand fire. There he sat, the young candidate
begotten of a heretic, nursed at Lane; but, with such a
name and parentage and education, what remarkable modesty,
extraordinary meekness, and how deferential to the eminently
acute questioners who sat gazing upon the prodigy! Certainly
this was a bad beginning. Having predetermined that I should
be hot and forward and full of confidence, it was somewhat
awkward, truly, to find such gentleness and teachableness!
“Then came the examination: ‘Will the mon tell us in what
relation Adam stood to his posterity?’ ‘In the relation of a
federal head.’ ‘What do you mean by a federal head?’ ‘A head
with whom God made a covenant for all his posterity.’ Then
questions on all the knotty points. ‘Still the wonder grew,’ for
the more the lad was examined the more incorrigibly orthodox
did he grow, until they began to fear he was a leetle too orthodox
upon some points. What was to be done? The vote on receiving
me was unanimous! Well, they slept upon it. Next day,
while settling the time of my ordination, Prof. McArthur, of Oxford,
moved to postpone the business to take up some resolutions.
In the first they ‘sincerely adhered to the Old School Pby.
Assembly’; second, required that all licentiates and candidates
under their care should do the same or be no longer such. I
declined acknowledging it to be the true one. Father Craigh
.bn 164.png
.pn +1
(whom my orthodoxy had softened) said they would give me six
months to think and decide, and I might continue to preach in
their bounds. I refused, and they turned me out and gave me
my papers back again. I asked them what the duty of my
church was. They replied that it was vacant—just what they had
to say, and just what I wanted them to say, and, moreover, just
what I determined they should say. I drove home forthwith;
got back on Saturday. On Sunday recounted from the pulpit
the doings of Pby., and declared them vacant if they continued
under Oxford; appointed a meeting for Wednesday P.M. for
their action. By a unanimous vote they withdrew from Oxford
and declared themselves an Independent Pbyn. ch. Now for Synod.
The Old School called a convention to meet two days before
Synod met; cut out a series of resolutions going for O. S.
Assembly, cutting off those who had officially joined the Constitutional
Assembly, etc., etc. After sermon by Jno. Rankin,
Stowe and Coe nominated for moderator—Stowe 47, Coe 70.
The New School then determined simply to urge on to voting.
All speaking was on one side. When they had passed the resolutions
to the one cutting off all who had joined N. S. Assembly
they inserted a new one, by which majority of Cincinnati Presbytery
were ejected! Jno. Rankin then rose and declared the body
and as moderator of last Synod would give them time to
leave the house, and would then form the true Synod. They
prayed and adjourned to Wilson’s. It was queer. ‘Synod of Cincinnati
will adjourn to meet at 7 in 1st Pby. ch.’; ‘Synod Cin.
will now come to order,’ etc. I left after this and both bodies
were still in session. I stepped in a moment Saturday morning
just before leaving, and they were then passing in our Synod a
resolution not to allow any slave-holder in our connection. Mills
agreed to it. I did not wait to hear votes, but presume it was
nearly unanimous. Synod declared the whole ground formerly
held by Oxford Pby. to be held by the Cin. Pby. Stowe has just
written me that Graham, Thomas, Chidlow, Merril, Crothers,
Dickey, and others have formally withdrawn from the Old School
Synod, but not yet united with ours. This is a brief sketch of
matters ecclesiastical. Pby. of Cin. will begin their new authority
over former territory of Oxford Pby., by coming here to ordain
me on Thurs., Nov. 8 \[1838].”
The New School Presbytery met in Cincinnati, and before
.bn 165.png
.pn +1
this body Mr. Beecher applied for ordination, the minutes of
which record that it ordained and installed him November 9,
1838, over the independent church at Lawrenceburg, Dr. Lyman
Beecher presiding, Dr. Blanchard charging the pastor, and
Dr. Calvin E. Stowe, his brother-in-law, charging the people.
Mr. Beecher felt that the division in the Church was wholly
uncalled for, but naturally was unwilling to desert the school to
which he was attached by its more liberal and democratic policy,
by the associations of his education, and the ties of filial love and
admiration. The bitterness of this controversy in the body of the
Church, and the utter folly of a great Church, organized for the
work of saving men’s souls, wasting its strength in harsh recriminations
and angry feuds over matters which seemed to him of
minor importance, and finally splitting the Church into two hostile
bodies, produced a profound impression upon Mr. Beecher’s
mind, and developed rapidly that trait, doubtless then latent,
which has so markedly characterized his preaching since then—a
disregard of mere forms, provided he could secure the substance.
And so he grew to look upon all denominations as his brethren,
wholly disregarding the formal differences that existed, rejoicing
heartily in all their successes, and wishing them God-speed, seeing
only the objects for which all labored—the enlightenment of
the world, the saving of mankind. He was always willing to co-operate.
He never withheld his hand or voice, when there was a
chance to help a struggling church, because it was of a different
denomination from his own.
He gave another account of these experiences and their effect
upon his mind, in some remarks at one of his Friday-night meetings,
suggested by the meeting, in the spring of 1869, of the Assemblies
of the Old and New Schools, and their reunion as one
body at that time:
“My whole life has more or less taken its color from the controversy
which led to the division of the Old School and the New
School Presbyterians. I was brought up in New England, a minister’s
son, the son of a minister who was doctrinally inclined and
whose warmest friends were great doctrinarians. My father’s
household was substantially a debating society. As early as I
can remember I knew enough to discuss foreordination, and I
could do it as well as my betters. I could go just as far as they
could, could run against snags at the same spots that they did,
.bn 166.png
.pn +1
and could not get off any better than they could. All those great
doctrines which tend powerfully to enlarge the imagination and
to sharpen the reason without feeding them were, I had almost
said, matters of daily conversation in my father’s family. When
I went to college I fell under the influence of a young minister
who became an Old School Presbyterian. He was a man of large
brain and marked ability. He had a naturally philosophic mind.
He was noble-hearted and genial. I remember that my poetic
temperament, alongside of his rigorous, logical temperament, used
to seem to me mean and contemptible. I thought he was like a
big oak-tree, while I was more like a willow, half-grown and pliant,
yielding to every force that was exerted upon it. At any rate, he
had a powerful influence upon my development. But as I came
to the possession of myself more and more I took on the logical
methods in the exercise of the reasoning faculty which God had
implanted in me, and they came near wrecking me; for I became
sceptical, not malignantly but honestly, and it was to me a matter
of great distress and anguish. It continued for years, and no
logic ever relieved me. My brother Charles went through the
same process, and he came back in the same way that I did,
through the instrumentality of a living Saviour. An abstract,
philosophical statement of the truth never met my wants, but
when there arose over the horizon a vision of the Lord Jesus
Christ as a living Friend, who had the profoundest personal interest
in me, I embraced that view and was lifted up. My heart
did for me then what my head had failed to do. This was an
experience which has constituted one of the greatest affirmative
forces that have acted on my mind in preaching. All my life
long I have had a strong disposition to so preach the truth as to
meet the wants of men who stand not only outside of the churches
but outside of belief. I suppose that as long as I live I shall
think of the truth, not as it looks to those that are within the
Church, but as it looks to those that are outside of the Church
and outside of belief itself.
“This has given to my preaching an element of naturalism.
It has led me to seek for a ground on which I could stand and
bring men to a knowledge of the love of Christ. I have gone far
from the usual narrow ecclesiastical and theological rules to broader
social methods by which men that are doubters can be reached.
“My first settlement as a pastor was at Lawrenceburg, Indiana,
.bn 167.png
.pn +1
where I was two years in the Presbyterian Church. When I
left Lane Seminary I went down there to preach, and I thought
nothing about Church connection. My business, as I supposed,
was to preach what little I knew and to lead men to the Saviour;
but I soon felt, for the first time, the authority of the Church. I
had not been ground; I was nothing but corn, and I had to be run
through a mill. This Lawrenceburg church was in the territory
of the Miami Presbytery. The Presbytery was not only a body
of Presbyterians, but was composed of Old School Presbyterians;
not only were they Old School Presbyterians, but they were
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians; and not only were they straight, but
they bent like a hoop the other way. I had received an ordination
license at the Cincinnati Presbytery—where my father belonged
at that time—in about 1837; but it was necessary that I
should undergo another examination. The Assemblies had not
then divided; there was only the one Church; but there were
two parties—the Old School and the New School. There was
the one great body, but there were these two sections. There
were presbyteries and synods of the New School, and there were
presbyteries and synods of the Old School; but they were under
the same authority.
“I went on horseback from Lawrenceburg to Oxford, where
the Presbytery was in session. And, by the way, I came near losing
my life in crossing the river. The water was high, and I was
thrown into it; but I got out and dried off, and started again,
and reached my destination without any further mishap, and
went through my examination.
“At that time, under the instruction which I had had in my
father’s family, under the college drill that I had gone through,
and under the training to which I was subjected in Lane Seminary,
I had become so familiar with the doctrines of theology
that it was difficult for any one to put me down in a discussion of
them. I could state them very glibly. I was ready with an explanation
of every single point connected with them. I knew all
their proofs, all their dodging cuts, all their ins and outs. Therefore
I had no trouble in standing my ground with the men who
examined me. They knew they had Dr. Beecher’s son before
them; the questions came like hail, and I was very willing.
Somehow I have always had a certain sympathy with human nature
which has led me invariably, in my better moods, to see
.bn 168.png
.pn +1
instinctively, or to perceive by intuition, how to touch the right
chord in people, how to reach the living principle in them; and
that faculty was fully awakened in me on this occasion. I recollect
that the presiding clergyman at that Presbytery was a man
that I had seen at my father’s house and that I had taken a sort
of fancy to. He was probably fifty or sixty years of age. He
was tall, and was thin in the face, and he had a shrill, ringing
voice. I felt that he was like a file; but still I liked him. Well,
he put questions to me. Some of them I answered directly, some
ingeniously, some intelligently, and others somewhat obscurely.
The examination extended over two or three hours; and I
thought I perceived a warming and melting influence among
those men. I was quite indifferent as to whether or not I came
out with their endorsement, and I have a recollection of feeling
very fine. They questioned, and questioned, and questioned;
and it happened that the points on which they were very particular
were man’s sinfulness, the influence of the Holy Ghost, its
necessity, its work, the thoroughness of it, and so on.
“Now, I was always immensely orthodox—thunderingly so;
and when they thought they were going to get heresy they got a
perfect avalanche of orthodoxy. This man whom I had seen at
father’s was quite carried away with me; he shielded me and
helped me over some rough places; and the Presbytery, without
a dissenting voice, voted that I was orthodox—to their amazement
and mine!
“I thought then that the bitterness of death was past, when
lo! a professor from Oxford University, Miami, introduced a
resolution, which was passed, that that Presbytery would not
license nor ordain any candidate who would not give in his adhesion
to the Old School Presbyterian General Assembly. It
was on that point that the Old and New Schools divided, and I,
being my father’s son, spurned the idea of going over to the Old
School; I felt as big as forty men; and when that resolution
passed I simply said: ‘Well, brethren, I have nothing to do but
to go back to my father’s house.’ They were kind to me; they
seemed to have conceived an affection for the young man; they
took the greatest pains to conciliate me; they endeavored to
smooth the way for me, and tried to persuade me to comply
with their wish; but I was determined, and said, ‘I won’t.’ I
always had the knack of saying that and sticking to it!
.bn 169.png
.pn +1
“So I turned my back on the Oxford Presbytery, and rode
to Lawrenceburg again; and the next Sunday morning I announced
to my congregation the result of my week’s pilgrimage,
told them of the vote which declared their church vacant, and
said to them: ‘Now, brethren, one of two things is necessary:
you must get somebody else to preach for you, or you must declare
yourselves independent of the Presbyterian Church.’ It
was no sooner said than done. Before sundown on that day they
declared themselves an independent church, and I decided to
stay with them. I was then ordained by the New School Presbytery
in Cincinnati, after which I went on with my work regularly.
“Preceding all this, you should recollect that during the
three years that I was in the Seminary the controversy between
the Old and New School Presbyterians ran very high on questions
of theology and on questions of Church authority. I had
been stuffed with these things. I had eaten and drank them. I
had chopped and hewed them. I had built up from them every
sort of argument. I had had them ad nauseam.
“When I went out into the field I found all the little churches
ready to divide, such was the state of feeling throughout the
whole West. Going into my work in the midst of that state of
affairs, I made up my mind distinctly that, with the help of God,
I would never engage in any religious contention. I remember
riding through the woods for long, dreary days, and I recollect
at one time coming out into an open place where the sun shone
down through to the bank of the river, and where I had such a
sense of the love of Christ, of the nature of His work on earth, of
its beauty and its grandeur, and such a sense of the miserableness
of Christian men quarrelling and seeking to build up antagonistic
churches—in other words, the kingdom of Christ rose up
before my mind with such supreme loveliness and majesty—that
I sat in my saddle, I do not know how long (many, many minutes;
perhaps half an hour), and there, all alone, in a great forest
of Indiana, probably twenty miles from any house, prayed for
that kingdom, saying audibly, ‘I will never be a sectary.’ I
remember promising Christ that if He would strengthen me and
teach me how to work I would all my life long preach for His
kingdom and endeavor to love everybody who was doing that
work. Not that I would accept others’ belief, not that I would
.bn 170.png
.pn +1
embrace their theology, not that I would endorse their ecclesiastical
organizations; but whatever their instruments might be, if
they were sincerely working for the kingdom of Christ I would
never put a straw in their way and never strike a blow to their
harm. By the grace of God I have kept that resolution to this
day. There was so much good that came from the discussions
and quarrels of the Old and New Schools by which at that
period of my ministry I was surrounded. So much for the influence
on my mind of those early scenes and experiences, which
were more, in some respects, a theological school to me than
Lane Seminary itself was.”
.il id=i168 fn=i_168.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Mr. Beecher at the Time of his Marriage.
.bn 171.png
.pn +1
Such was the beginning of his ministry.
We may now retrace our steps a little to take a look at the
beginning of his domestic life.
For seven years, like Jacob of old, he had labored, waiting for
the time when he could claim his wife. Of course, until he was
settled somewhere with some definite income, it was folly to think
of marrying. But when he began preaching on trial at Lawrenceburg,
and it seemed probable that he might be called there, his
mind ran forward to when, having a definite home, he might go
East for his bride. In his journal we find one of his written
reveries:
.il id=i169 fn=i_169.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Mrs. Beecher at the Time of her Marriage.
“Spring, March 1, 1837.—The winter has gone. Spring has
come—the time of the singing of birds. How vividly does that
little expression call up the whole scene—the bright sun, the
mild air, the heaven full of sweet influences, and the green
sprouting grass among patches of snow, and the swelling buds!
Every voice echoes in the air, and all sounds are mellow. The
falling of a plank, the pound of a hammer or beetle, the rumble of
a wagon, all, this morning, sound like joyful music. But I have
.bn 172.png
.pn +1
one thought sweeter than any of these, which makes these sweet:
it is that now only spring and summer are to fly before I meet
my dear wife, not again to be parted, except by death!”
In July, 1837, having been formally called, though before his
ordination—it then being apparent that he was to be definitely
settled at Lawrenceburg—he wrote to Miss Bullard, suggesting
that their marriage be celebrated shortly after his ordination,
which was then expected to be in the following September. He
had no sooner written and mailed the letter when he said to himself,
as he explained to his wife later: “Why should I wait for
my ordination? Why not have my wife present at it? And I
started that very afternoon.”
His letter reached Miss Bullard in the morning of Saturday,
July 29, and he himself appeared in the evening of the same day,
to the great surprise of all. His plan was explained, and after a
hasty discussion August 3 was fixed on for the wedding, and
three o’clock in the afternoon the hour.
“I was expected to be ready to leave in the afternoon of
August 3,” writes Mrs. Beecher. “The wedding-dress and wedding-cake
were to be made—for what New England damsel could
be married without wedding-cake? At one o’clock Monday
morning I began my work, sewing until the family were up.
After the breakfast was over the materials for the wedding-cake
were brought from the village store, and Henry and I began the
work for the cake. He picked over and stoned the raisins—taking
abundant toll while doing it—beating the eggs, and in every way
made himself useful, and kept the whole family in good spirits
and cheerful, when, but for him, in such hurried preparations we
might have felt the great exertion severely. But the work was
done, and the 3d of August dawned bright and rosy.
“Very few guests were invited outside of the brothers and
sisters, with their families, who were near enough to the old home
to reach us. Both my sisters were married in a storm, and I
had always said I would not be. Three o’clock was the hour appointed
for the wedding. About two a heavy thunder-shower
came on, and it began to rain, thunder, and lighten. At three
o’clock we were summoned, but I said: ‘Wait until the storm
passes,’ and, in spite of their remonstrance, they did wait. At
four o’clock the clouds broke away and the sun appeared, and we
were ushered into the parlor, Henry and I together. Just as we
.bn 173.png
.pn +1
were entering the door (it was very warm, and door and windows
all open) a rainbow, the most brilliant I ever saw, and so remarked
by all in the room, seemed through the open window to
span the parlor, and the spectators said we walked under its arch
to our places. In his prayer the clergyman spoke of the ‘bow
of peace and promise,’ which he hoped was the beautiful symbol
of what our lives were to be.
“We rode to Worcester after the long farewells were said, not
expecting to meet the home friends again for years.”
A few days later Mr. Beecher wrote from New York to his
sister, Mrs. Stowe:
.pm start_quote
.ti 0
“My very dear Sister:
“Before this gets to you, you will have begun to look for us
and wonder that we do not write or come. This is to certify that
we are alive, safely and thoroughly married. Coming, and came
as far as New York. Now, this damsel, my most comely wife,
longing for the leeks and cucumbers of Boston, did freely eat
thereof, and these, as in duty bound, did most freely hurt her.
Three days she bore it, but on arriving at New York they had
come well-nigh to the cholera morbus; and thus we are detained
for a few days. The doctor’s prescriptions have acted like a
charm. She is relieved, and rapidly grows better. Nevertheless,
it being now Thursday, we shall tarry until Monday for her to
gain strength, and then, God willing, we shall set our faces westward
and travel like the wind. We were married on Thursday
afternoon, at four o’clock, August the third. We went immediately
to Worcester, to Mr. Barton’s. Nothing could surpass his
delicate kindness to us.
“I preached a preparatory lecture to the three churches on
Friday P.M., and preached twice for Mr. Peabody on Sunday.
Monday left for Boston. Stayed until Tuesday of the week ensuing.
Preached in Bowdoin church in the morning of Sunday,
and at Park Street in the P.M. Was invited to preach all day
at Bowdoin, and also all day at Odeon, but preferred my course.
Left for New York on Tuesday noon; arrived next morning. Am
at Rev. Mr. Jones’s (Mrs. Beecher’s brother-in-law), and very
pleasantly situated. Lucy Ann is a dear, sweet sister, and Mr.
Jones a most amiable and well-read, gentlemanly man. Probably
.bn 174.png
.pn +1
I shall preach here on the Sabbath, but nothing has yet been
definitely said.
“Shall return by Pittsburgh, leaving this place on Monday
next, if God wills. At that rate you may calculate upon seeing
us somewhere about the middle of the week ensuing.
“Ah! Harriet, how I long to see you and Calvin. I shall
soon show you my dear, dear wife. I grow more and more proud
of her every day....
“Love to all—for I love you all, even to the little homely kitten—and
love to all our folks, Margaret Hastings and all.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Yours most affectionately, dear Harriet,
“H. W. B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Leaving New York, they started westward, partly by rail,
partly by steamer, and not a little by the slow method of the
canal; travelled day and night, until they finally reached Cincinnati
the last of August.
From Mrs. Beecher’s memory we obtain her impressions of
their first pastorate:
“We remained a few days at Walnut Hills, and then took the
little steamer with a free pass to Lawrenceburg. We were to
board for the present, as we did not think that eighteen cents in
pocket and three hundred dollars a year prospective salary would
enable us to begin housekeeping. Lawrenceburg was a small
place on the Miami.
“Mr. Beecher was obliged to take charge of that part of the
building in which he was to preach. Together we went every
Saturday afternoon, swept and dusted the room, filled the lard-oil
lamps, and laid the wood and kindlings ready for him to start
the fire the next morning before service, when needed; for the
members of the church were all, except a few families, poor laboring
people, with all they could attend to at home.
“But curiosity to hear the young preacher filled the room the
first Sabbath, and from that time it continued to be filled—crowded.
The Methodist church had always been the fashionable
church, where the wealthy and more refined part of the population
worshipped. This little Presbyterian church had almost
died out, and, when first requested to preach there, neither Mr.
Beecher nor the people had any thought of his coming for more
than that one Sabbath. But his manner of preaching was so very
.bn 175.png
.pn +1
different from what they had been accustomed to—so original—that
they wanted to hear him again, and after that they gave
him a call to settle there. The Home Missionary Society were
to give $150, and the little band who composed the church
thought they could manage to raise $150—in all $300—and the
call was accepted, notwithstanding the remonstrance of friends
in Cincinnati. They were more ambitious for him than he was
for himself, knowing that he could doubtless, in a short time,
get a better settlement. They knew, also, he intended to marry
as soon as his theological course was finished, and thought him
wild to think of bringing a wife out West and expect to be able
to live on three hundred dollars a year. But from the first he
acted up to the advice he always gave in after-years to young
graduates from theological seminaries: ‘Don’t hang round idle,
waiting for a good offer. Enter the first field God opens for you.
If He needs you in a larger one He will open the gate for you to
enter.’ And so he did.
“From his first sermon[4] in Lawrenceburg that little room was
crowded. He did not extemporize so entirely, at first, as in later
years—at least he wrote more copious notes—but those who
knew him can well imagine that when warmed up by his subject
his notes did not hold him very closely.
.fm rend=th
.fn 4
“See #Appendix A.:app#”
.fn-
.fm rend=th
“How vividly I recall that first Sabbath! How young, how
boyish he did look! And how indignant I felt, when some of
the ‘higher classes’ came in out of simple curiosity, to see the
surprised, almost scornful looks that were interchanged!
“He read the first hymn, and read it well—as they had never
heard their own ministers (often illiterate, uneducated men) read
hymns. I watched the expression change on their faces. Then
the first prayer! It was a revelation to them, and when he began
the sermon the critical expression had vanished, and they evidently
settled themselves to hear in earnest.
“The next Sunday the interest was still more strongly marked.
His preaching was to them something unusual. It was evident
the hearers were not quite at ease. He woke them up, and they
were not quite prepared to decide whether they were anxious to
be so thoroughly aroused. They were not exactly comfortable,
and some went away, after the services were over, a little irritated
and half-decided never to hear him again.
“The next Sabbath they concluded it would not hurt them
.bn 176.png
.pn +1
to go just this one time more, and from that time were constant
attendants. The satisfaction with this young preacher increased,
and many from all sects came regularly.”
On his return from the East with his young wife, not feeling
that they could afford to undertake housekeeping, he accepted
the hospitality of one of his elders, who had offered him a room
in his house. There they lived for some little time, when the
sudden death of a member of the family and the necessity of a
change in the good elder’s domestic arrangements required the
use of this room.
At this time Mr. Beecher was attending a synodical meeting at
Cincinnati. Mrs. Beecher set to work at once to get board elsewhere.
Failing in this, she sought to hire rooms. After hunting
until nearly exhausted she secured the refusal of two rooms over
a stable down by the banks of the Miami, which had been occupied
by the hostler, rental forty dollars per annum.
She immediately took the boat to Cincinnati, and then, being
too poor to hire a wagon, she walked to Walnut Hills, four miles
from Cincinnati—which was then the home of the Beecher family—to
report on the state of affairs to her husband. A hasty examination
of his finances showed just sixty-eight cents. As they had
no household furniture of any kind, the prospect was not alluring.
But an ability to get along somehow was a characteristic of those
days. Friends, though not over-rich themselves, were able each
to furnish something. One supplied half of an old carpet, another
some knives and forks, a third a few sheets and pillow-cases,
then a bedstead, a stove; and little by little, before they returned
home that night, there was gathered together enough to
meet the absolute requirements of living. Later the sale of Mrs.
Beecher’s cloak realized thirty dollars. The salary, though nominally
$500 per annum, was in fact but $300, of which one-half
was paid by the Home Missionary Society, and neither half paid
with great regularity. Any industrious day-laborer of modern
times would have been ill-content with either income or home
possessions.
Returning from Walnut Hills, the next thing was to cleanse
the rooms and settle down. Mrs. Beecher gives a graphic account
of their first housekeeping: “When we reached our former
boarding-house we found our good friends with whom we had
boarded very blue because their pastor and wife could find no
.bn 177.png
.pn +1
better rooms; but the lady was a true New England woman and
knew how soon a little hard labor would change the looks of the
rooms. Old Toby, their colored man, brought round, the next
morning, two pails and scrub-brushes and plenty of soap, and
Henry and I went to work with great energy. Think of father
with sleeves rolled up, a big apron on, scrubbing the floors!
But I confess I never had known anything so hard to clean. Tobacco-stains
and all manner of dirt that might have been looked
for from the former occupants was so soaked into the floor that it
seemed impossible to remove the stains. I asked the landlord if
we might get some paint and paint the floors. ‘Oh! no. That
would injure the wood!’
“In a day or two the rooms were as clean as faithful, hard
work could make them, and after our last breakfast with our kind
friends we bade them good-morning, with thanks and a blessing,
and went to get our furniture, which the good captain of the
steamboat had stored until we were ready. With it came some
groceries, wash-tubs, and a nice painted dining-table, and a husk
mattress, and husk pillows.
“‘Where did these last things come from?’ said your father.
“‘Part of my cloak,’ I replied, ‘but not all of it.’
“The kitchen-window looked out on a large back-yard that
could be made a fine one with a little care, but among the rubbish
I espied an old three-legged table and something that looked like
the remains of small hanging shelves. I ran down stairs and
asked the landlady if they had been thrown aside as worthless.
‘Oh! yes. They are good for nothing.’ ‘Then may I have
them?’ ‘Certainly. But on examination you will find them of
no use.’
“I washed and cleaned them well, and called to Henry to take
them up-stairs to our rooms. By the table I found the broken
leg. With very little trouble the table was repaired, the hanging
shelves put up, and both varnished. They proved to be mahogany,
and when the varnish was dry they looked quite nice. Among
your father’s very scanty wardrobe was an old coat past any
mending. I took the skirt, cleaned it, and put it on the top of
the table, and fastened the sides and ends with some strips of kid
that I had brought from home. It did look quite fine, and you
can hardly imagine how much pride and pleasure your father had
with his writing-table.
.bn 178.png
.pn +1
“The long boxes made in Amherst expressly to pack his
books in when he came West were well made of planed boards.
These we set one atop of the other, open side out, and filled with
books bought by his own labors while in college, teaching school,
and making speeches. These made quite a fine addition to the
room which was to be the parlor, study, and our bed-room all in
one.
“In the back room was a cook-stove given by brother George,
and the old three-quarter bedstead that your father used at Lane
Seminary, now all nice and clean, curtained with some four-cent
calico Mrs. Judge Burnet gave us. Henry made the upright
posts and ran a large wire round it on which the curtain was hung,
with a wide tape all round the top on which our clothes were
pinned. Crosswise from the door to the chimney a piece of four-cent
calico curtained the corner where wash-benches and tubs,
flour-barrel and sugar-barrel (the two last sent in by good friends)
were placed, and over the door leading to the loft in the adjoining
store your father had nailed some large pieces to hold saddle,
bridle, and buffalo-robe. On the other side of the range was a
good dish-closet, and in front a sink.
“So these two small rooms, at first so repulsive, were becoming
quite a pleasant home. The house was situated very near
the boat-landing on the wharf of the Miami River—too near
for comfort when freshets swept down in that direction, but a
pleasant outlook across on to the Kentucky hills; the river sometimes
so low that your father has walked across and gathered
flowers in Kentucky, then again rising so as to sweep everything
before it as it did two years ago, utterly obliterating all that portion
of Lawrenceburg where we lived.”
We are indebted to the Rev. John H. Thomas, the present
pastor of Mr. Beecher’s old church in Lawrenceburg, for the impressions
of his ministry there, as gathered from the reminiscences
of his surviving parishioners:
“Mr. Beecher made his mark immediately. His youthful appearance—he
was but twenty-three—and his careless dress may
have raised doubts as to his ability when his hearers first saw him,
but they disappeared as soon as he began to speak. The characteristics
of his later oratory were all present from the first—fluency,
glowing rhetoric, abundance of illustrations, witty points,
brilliant ideas. From the first he filled the church. Merchants
.bn 179.png
.pn +1
told their customers of the talented young preacher, and they
would come miles to hear him. He was annoyed at interruptions,
and when late-comers appeared he would stop speaking till
they were seated.
“His personal habits were as original and effective as his pulpit
efforts. He was not what would be called a good pastor. An
old pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church in Lawrenceburg
said to me: ‘Mr. Beecher could outpreach me, but I could out-visit
him, and visiting builds up a church more than preaching.’
The records of the church during his pastorate are yet in our
hands, though in one of the great floods here the volume floated
out of the submerged study of the pastor, and was found, by
chance, embedded in the yellow deposit of the Ohio. It is accurately
and neatly kept, in the beautiful hand of Mr. Beecher, each
entry signed with his well-known autograph. The additions to
the church were about on the average of other pastors.
“But outside of strictly pastoral work Mr. Beecher’s influence
was felt widely and beneficially. He was universally popular.
He was kindly, genial, and free with all classes. He would
hunt and fish with men not used to the society of clergymen, and
spent much time on the river, especially in catching drift-wood
brought down in every rise. Once he called to a poor German
emigrant woman that if she would bring him her clothes-line he
would show her how to get her winter’s supply of fuel. She
brought it, and he tied a stone to one end, and, flinging it out
from the shore over logs, would draw them in. In a little while
their combined efforts had brought in a dray-load.
“He was fond of talking with all sorts and conditions of men.
There was an old shoemaker in the town of pronounced infidel
views. Mr. Beecher would spend hours in the room where he
worked, discussing with him.
“There is no evidence that he lowered in any degree his character
as a Gospel minister, but plenty that his influence was felt
by the neglected classes, and even by the rough elements. And in
this did he not follow the example of his divine Master, of whom
it was said: ‘This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them’?
“He was not unscholarly, but is remembered as a reader
rather than as a student. He studied men even more than books.
A Baptist minister with whom he had a discussion one Sunday
is yet living here, and has told me that at the close of the discussion,
.bn 180.png
.pn +1
in which the Baptist minister thought he had the best of it,
Mr. Beecher waved his hand and said to the audience: ‘Well, I
don’t care if you all go down to the river and get immersed.’
“His going away was esteemed a great loss. ‘Cords of people,’
says an old lady graphically, ‘were about to come into the
Church.’ But Indianapolis, then with only 2,500 people, was the
State capital, and was rapidly outstripping the little town on the
river. It was a louder call.
“Mr. Beecher’s relations with the other ministers were happy,
although he outshone them completely. He established a popular
union Sunday-school, notwithstanding there was one in each
church, and he often spoke in other churches.”
Mr. Beecher described his preaching there as follows:
“I preached some theology. I had just come out of the
Seminary, and retained some portions of systematic theology,
which I used when I had nothing else; and as a man chops straw
and mixes it with Indian meal in order to distend the stomach of
the ox that eats it, so I chopped a little of the regular orthodox
theology, that I might sprinkle it with the meal of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But my horizon grew larger and larger in that one idea
of Christ. It seems to me that first I saw Christ as the Star of
Bethlehem, but afterward He seemed to expand, and I saw about
a quarter of the horizon filled with His light, and through years it
came around so that I saw about one-half in that light; and it
was not until after I had gone through two or three revivals of
religion that, when I looked around, He was all and in all. And
my whole ministry sprang out of that.”
At another time he said:
“I had no idea that I could preach. I never expected that I
could accomplish much. I merely went to work with the feeling:
‘I will do as well as I can, and I will stick to it, if the Lord
pleases, and fight His battle the best way I know how.’ And I
was thankful as I could be. Nobody ever sent me a spare-rib
that I did not thank God for the kindness which was shown me.
I recollect when Judge ——— gave me his cast-off clothing I felt
that I was sumptuously clothed. I wore old coats and second-hand
shirts for two or three years, and I was not above it either,
although sometimes, as I was physically a somewhat well-developed
man, and the judge was thin and his legs were slim, they
were rather a tight fit.
.bn 181.png
.pn +1
“There was a humorous side to this, but I could easily have
put a dolorous side to it. I could have said: ‘Humph! pretty
business! Son of Lyman Beecher, president of a theological
seminary, in this miserable hole, where there is no church, and
where there are no elders and no men to make them out of!
This is not according to my deserts. I could do better. I ought
not to waste my talents in such a place.’ But I was delivered
from any such feeling. I felt that it was an unspeakable privilege
to be anywhere and speak of Christ. I had very little theology—that
is to say, it slipped away from me. I knew it, but it
did not do me any good. It was like an armor which had lost its
buckles and would not stick on. But I had one vivid point—the
realization of the love of God in Christ Jesus. And I tried
to work that up in every possible shape for my people. And it
was the secret of all the little success which I had in the early
part of my ministry. I remember that I used to ride out in the
neighborhood and preach to the destitute, and that my predominant
feeling was thanksgiving that God had permitted me to
preach the unsearchable riches of His grace. I think I can say
that during the first ten years of my ministerial life I was in that
spirit.”
Here he began a habit which he followed during the first ten
years of his ministry—that of keeping a record of every sermon
preached, stating the date, text, an outline of the sermon, and
then the reasons why he preached that particular sermon, “as
giving a kind of guide to my course by a perusal of what I have
done, also to avoid repetition and to show why I made given sermons”;
thus forming the habit of preparing his sermons with a
view to reaching some specific object. This record, with his
daily journal in which he jotted down such thoughts on religious
subjects as came to his mind day by day, are now before us,
and show an immense amount of painstaking care. His habit of
careful analysis was of incalculable value to him later, giving a
logical method to his reasoning. It was not until after he came
to Brooklyn that, under the increased pressure of this larger
field of work, he abandoned this habit.
The last recorded sermons we find were those preached on
the morning and evening of January 5, 1848.
During the second year of his Lawrenceburg pastorate he
received a call to the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis,
.bn 182.png
.pn +1
at a salary of $600 per year. Though this opened up a much
larger and more effective field of labor, with the means of living
much more comfortably, yet, feeling that he was doing effective
work where he was, he refused the call. He was always opposed
to short pastorates and frequent changes: he had no faith in rolling
stones.
After a short time the call was repeated and again declined.
He was then urged to reconsider his refusal, and strong representations
were made to him that it was his duty to accept the
larger and more important field. At last, perplexed, he agreed to
lay the matter before the Synod and abide by their recommendation
The Synod advised that he accept the call.
Aside from the strong aversion which he felt for restless
changes, and the feeling that, no matter how humble the field
might be, he ought to labor there so long as there was work for
the Master to engage him, he also felt a great unwillingness to
leave the people to whom he was becoming strongly attached.
The life there, though rude and simple, had been very happy.
There his first child had been born. There for the first time he
really had begun to live and work in the field he had chosen.
But as he felt constrained to be guided by the advice which he
had sought, on the Synod’s recommendation he accepted the call.
On the afternoon of July 28, 1839, he preached his farewell
sermon at Lawrenceburg from the text: “These are the words
which I spake unto you while I was yet with you.”
.bn 183.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch10'
CHAPTER X.
.pm start_summary
The New Field—Growth of Influence—Social Life—The Secret of Effective
Preaching—Editorial Labors—Lectures to Young Men—Call to Brooklyn—Departure.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
With a heart full of tender feelings he parted with his people
and entered into the larger work in which he first
became known outside of the limits of his Presbytery.
In the last week in July, 1839, he removed his family to
Indianapolis, which, though it was the State capital, was hardly
more than a village, having less than 4,000 inhabitants, its
streets unpaved and noted for the depth and persistency of the
mud. Like most of the then frontier towns, it was very malarial;
chills and fever were expected as a matter of course, very rarely
disappointing the expectation.
The Second Presbyterian Church was an offshoot from the
“First” Church, a chip struck out by the axe of controversy,
then being so fiercely waged between the Old and New Schools.
The new church was of course New School. Its fifteen original
members, having been released from the First Church after
some little ecclesiastical difficulty, organized at once, and secured
the second story of the old Marion County Seminary.
Their first call was to Rev. S. Holmes, of New Bedford,
Mass.; he declined. They then invited Rev. John C. Young, of
Danville, Ky., with like result. Their next call was to Henry
Ward Beecher, who became their first pastor. He was then but
twenty-six, looking still young, but fresh, rugged, and full of life.
To the few survivors of that little band who knew and loved
him in those early days we are largely indebted for the impression
produced by his preaching in this church and in the community,
and for a brief account of his life among them.
“My first recollection of Mr. Beecher,” said one of his early
parishioners, “was when I was a journeyman printer. A man
named King came to me and, with much enthusiasm, declared he
had heard the greatest preacher he had ever listened to in his
.bn 184.png
.pn +1
life—a young fellow who was preaching at the Marion County
Seminary.
“I went there and heard him for the first time in the spring of
1840, I suppose it was. I was, like everybody else, perfectly carried
away with him. I soon formed his acquaintance, and, after
he got to the new church on the Circle, became a member in the
great revival of 1842. I was a printer when he delivered those
lectures to young men, and in the course of printing them (I was
at work in the shop where they were published) I was much in
contact with him. They were published by the old jobbing
house of E. Chamberlain, who was afterwards a bookseller here.
The Indiana Farmer was printed in the office where I worked,
published by a Quaker named Willis. Mr. Beecher was really the
life and soul of it—wrote all the articles in it that were good for
anything. I frequently assisted him in reading proofs. He had
no practical experience as an agriculturist, except that he was
thoroughly alive to every new thing. He took great pride in raising
flowers, and his garden was full of plants that had never
been seen here before. During his revival meetings—I think as
much to test my sincerity and earnestness as anything else—he
invited me to come to his house at five o’clock in the morning
and breakfast with him. It was a winter morning and before daylight.
Mrs. Beecher and the children were up, everything in perfect
order, and breakfast ready. He called his wife and children
together for family worship, and spoke and prayed in simple
words. It seemed to me the most beautiful and touching thing I
ever saw in my life. Mr. Beecher, I thought, was even then
broad in his ideas and the most industrious man I ever knew.
For a time he lived in one side of a little one-story house in the
alley half a square north of Washington Street, between East and
New Jersey Streets, in the rear of where the Jewish Synagogue
now stands. I think there were three rooms. At another time
he occupied a house that stood near the southeast corner of
Pennsylvania and New York Streets. He has told me that during
a malarial season he preached when he could hardly stand
up, and, making his way home, would, on entering his door, fall
from exhaustion.”
.il id=i182fp fn=i_182fp.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca The Church at Indianapolis.
Another writing to us says:
“I remember well the occasion of his advent here (from
Lawrenceburg). Almost immediately his ministry attracted a
.bn 185.png
.bn 186.png
.bn 187.png
.pn +1
strong following—quite too numerous and influential for the
limited seating capacity of one hundred and fifty the chapel could
accommodate, and a church was erected for him on the corner
of Market and Circle Streets. That was probably in 1840. The
building was regarded as a colossal edifice, and, while what
would now be considered primitive in the extreme, was in the
main comfortable and inviting. It was the first departure from
the orthodox style of high pulpits, and contained a low desk
and platform. From the first his preaching and precept were of
the beauty of holiness and praise, gladness and thanksgiving,
and to this end he added the attraction of music to the service of
lesson and prayer. In those days his choir was considered magnificent,
and what the organ might lack in volume was more than
made up in melody and soul-reaching timbre. He was especially
happy in the selection of music that seemed to be an accompaniment
to his discourse. He was also the first clergyman, out
of the Episcopal Church, to introduce chants in the service.
“Upon the opposite side of The Circle from his church, facing
west, was located the First Presbyterian Church, the Rev.
Phineas D. Gurley, pastor. I have often heard them spoken of
as the ‘two distinguished divines’ who were ‘the wheel-horses
among theologians.’ They were both leaders. I think that if
there was one impression more than another conveyed by Mr.
Beecher’s appearance it was that of reserve force. The steam
up, he was capable and eager for the work in hand. Indeed, he
seemed the very personification of energy. I recall, however,
that he was always neatly dressed, usually in black, and that he
was the first clergyman in this part of the country to wear a soft
hat. I am not sure if he did not wear the first straw hat in those
days of clerical conventionality. He was certainly devoted to
comfort, if in no manner given to taking his ease. I doubt if he
knew what it was to be idle. When apparently indulging in recreation
his active mind was storing food for thought and spiritual
teaching. The lightest romance which caught his fancy (for
he was an omnivorous reader) furnished material for practical
application.
“In form he was compactly built, with just enough flesh to
give grace to his lithe and active movements. His step was particularly
elastic and yet firm. All vigor and animation, there
was the rosy tint of health in his complexion, and his eyes were
.bn 188.png
.pn +1
as clear and bright as a child’s. His disposition was sunny, and
the kindly grasp of his hand confirmed the charm of his genial
presence. It followed that he was fond of young people and frequently
participated in their romps and sports. I remember in a
game of copenhagen at a church picnic he was in no way disconcerted
by being rolled over and over down the hill when
entangled in the rope.
“When need be he could be determined enough. At one
time a younger brother was an inmate of his family, and was a
classmate of mine at the University. In the boy’s judgment ‘all
work and no play made Jack a dull boy,’ and he went fishing and
was gone two days. Instead of whetting his appetite for study
the diversion had the opposite effect, and he openly declared he
would go to school no more. Mr. Beecher did not waste words
on the matter, but seized him and took him by main force. As
they drew near the University the lad broke loose and took to his
heels, Mr. Beecher after him. The mud in our streets at that
day was something phenomenal, and there was a tussle in it,
when the two closed, that sent the ‘soft impeachment’ in every
direction. For a little while the air was filled with mud; arms
and legs were scarcely distinguishable. The authority of elder
brother prevailed, carrying its point—and the younger brother,
too—and handed him over to the tender mercies of the principal,
Mr. Kemper, who was a rigid disciplinarian, and proverbial for
observing the Scriptural injunction of not sparing the rod. The
youth was equal to the occasion, however. Equipped in extra
thickness of clothing, he took his punishment with most astonishing
fortitude, much to the admiration of the other boys, whose
sympathies were naturally enlisted.
“This incident illustrated Mr. Beecher’s indifference to appearances
where a duty was involved. He also assisted in building,
painting, and varnishing his house, and, if material fell short
or heavy groceries were needed, did not hesitate to go after them
with his wheelbarrow and take them home. In the single particular
of giving dignity to labor, if there had been no other, his
influence in the community was invaluable.
“As in a notice of his personnel his characteristics first attract
attention, so in his ministerial labors his method of conversion
came before the inculcation of doctrine.
“I have spoken of his fondness for young men. It was reciprocated
.bn 189.png
.pn +1
to a degree amounting to championship. His influence
was personal and direct. In his revival work he did not
trust entirely to church service. He became personally acquainted
with people. He had a habit of taking long strolls
with men, and what his precept failed in his good companionship
made up. One long walk generally captured the sinner.
“He did not confine himself to Bible preachments. I heard
his lectures to young men in the basement of the church, and
they were so practical that they reached every mind. He struck
yeoman blows at the evils of intemperance, and engaged in a controversy
with an influential distiller of Lawrenceburg that attracted
much attention and was reported by the press of that
date. Largely owing to the sentiment aroused by the debate, no
doubt, the distiller abandoned his calling.
“He also engaged in the publication of an agricultural paper,
the Indiana Farmer, and, as far as known, was the only professional
man who ever put practical sense into a periodical of the
sort. A keen lover of nature, he may be said to have put his
heart in the work and made it a memorable success.
“I do not remember his making any political speeches, although
it is well known that his church was the favorite resort of
statesmen, who made a study of his oratory and diction for their
own benefit. I know that he was deeply interested in all charitable
enterprises, particularly the benevolent institutions that are
now the pride of the State.
“Nor am I aware that he ever addressed the legislative
bodies in particular, although the General Assembly men attended
his church almost in a body. He was known as a Whig, but was
not pronounced in that direction.
“The heart-felt interest he took in the slavery question was
well known. About the year 1842 a roving commission of Abolitionists
from the East visited Indianapolis. They held a meeting
on the State House grounds, and I remember seeing Mr. Beecher
a prominent figure on the platform.
“The unpopularity of the Abolition cause at that time cannot
easily be imagined. To be identified with it was to be socially
ostracized and boycotted generally. It required the courage of a
martyr to be an Abolitionist. As notable examples may be cited
two physicians who were members of Mr. Beecher’s church. Bold
enough to avow their principles, they were exceedingly unpopular
.bn 190.png
.pn +1
with the masses, and in their struggle to combat popular opinion
found it extremely difficult to support themselves and families.
They literally had no practice. The manner in which Mr.
Beecher sustained himself on this question was prophetic of the
personal hold he had upon men. It was exceptional.
“Meanwhile his popularity both as a preacher and man continued
to increase. Indeed, his success was without precedent
and has never been rivalled since. His church was crowded
every Sabbath, both by his own congregation and visitors from
other and distant churches. Although the pew system obtained,
at least one-fourth of the seats (one entire section) was reserved
for young men and strangers. Among them may be named the
judges of the Supreme, Federal, and local courts; distinguished
professional men; and if there was a Hugh Miller of a fellow,
picking out truths of humanity from stone or devoting himself
like the Owens to his fellow-man, he would be found in that imposing
body of men. I suppose Indianapolis could not then boast
of more than five thousand inhabitants, but there was an unusual
aggregate of culture and refinement, and it was pretty sure to
find delight in Mr. Beecher’s preaching and service.
“As a rule his morning sermons were more doctrinal and
more confined to notes than his evening discourse. In the delivery
of all of his sermons, however, he would at times become
very much enthused and dramatic.
“One frequent gesture that I noticed in attending his last
lecture here he retained through life. It was the habit of raising
his right hand high in air, and after a pause, sometimes prolonged,
bringing his arm down sharply to his side. An amusing incident
once occurred in consequence. At the identical moment that
his hand was raised a big, burly fellow, a member of his congregation,
aroused from a nap (even his eloquence could not keep
every man awake) and seeing the hand uplifted, the sleepy lout
thought the benediction was being pronounced. He gathered
himself up accordingly and marched toward the door, making a
terrible racket with his squeaking boots, to the visible annoyance
of the congregation. There was a charming twinkle of fun in
the preacher’s eye as he gravely said: ‘If others of the congregation
desire to leave I will wait.’ A laugh went round the
audience.
“In his liberal interpretation of the divine calling of bringing
.bn 191.png
.pn +1
sinners to repentance, some motley members, not to say black
sheep, were gathered into the fold. Among these was a lame
tailor who was a very hard case indeed, but was possessed of an
appreciative soul and a wonderfully retentive memory. He was
always to be found in his seat in church and was attentive
enough to inspire a speaker. The following morning the tailor’s
shop would be crowded to hear him repeat the sermon, or eloquent
passages thereof. This he would do, word for word, and
with a close imitation of voice and gesture that proved a first-class
actor had been lost to the world in the realm of ‘the shears’
and ‘goose.’ A propensity for gambling that could not be
checked was reported to the church and he was dropped from
the roll.
“Take them all in all, Mr. Beecher’s sermons in Indianapolis
were marvels of logic and learning, graced by rare beauty of expression
and that feeling to nature kin which touched the heart.
His usefulness could not be circumscribed by the then narrow
limits. His fame spread abroad in the land, and one fine
Sunday two or more strangers, with an unmistakable New York
air, appeared in the church. It transpired that they were a visiting
committee in search of a bright and shining pulpit light, and
it all ended in his call to Brooklyn.
“Great were the regrets of his congregation and the community
of which he was the great central figure of interest and
influence. The impress he left has not been obliterated, with
the growth of the city, by the lapse of time. In many respects
the city is a monument to his earnest efforts to promote her moral
and intellectual development.”
Mr. Beecher has often remarked in later years that his first
real preaching was at Indianapolis. Although at Lawrenceburg
he was noted for his brilliancy of diction and wonderful oratorical
power, and by his good-fellowship and the strong personal
interest which he took in all his people made many and lasting
friends, yet he did not feel that he was doing real, effective
work. “I can preach so as to make the people come to hear
me,” said he to good old Bishop Little, “but somehow I can’t
preach them clear into the kingdom.”
A year or two after his removal to Indianapolis he determined
to find out what the difficulty was.
“We had delivered hundreds before, but until then the sermon
.bn 192.png
.pn +1
was the end and not the means. We had a vague idea that
truth was to be preached, and then it was to be left to do its
work under God’s blessing as best it might. The result was not
satisfying. Why should not preaching do now what it did in the
Apostles’ days? Why should it be a random and unrequited
effort? These thoughts grew, and the want of fruits was so painful
that we determined to make a careful examination of the
Apostles’ teaching, to see what made it so immediately efficient.
We found that they laid a foundation first of historical truth
common to them and their auditors; that this mass of familiar
truth was then concentrated upon the hearers in the form of an
intense personal application and appeal; that the language was
not philosophical and scholastic, but the language of common
life. We determined to try the same. We considered what moral
truths were admitted by everybody and gathered many of them
together. We considered how they could be so combined as
to press men toward a religious state. We recalled to mind
the character and condition of many, who, we knew, would be
present, and then, after as earnest a prayer as we ever offered,
and with trembling solicitude, we went to the academy and
preached the new sermon. The Lord gave it power, and ten or
twelve persons were aroused by it and led ultimately to a religious
life.
“This was the most memorable day of our ministerial life.
The idea was born. Preaching was a definite and practical
thing. Our people needed certain moral changes. Preaching
was only a method of enforcing truths, not for the sake of the
truths themselves, but for the results to be sought in men. Man
was the thing. Henceforth our business was to work upon man;
to study him, to stimulate and educate him. A sermon was good
that had power on the heart, and was good for nothing, no matter
how good, that had no moral power on man. Others had learned
this. It was the secret of success in every man who ever was
eminent for usefulness in preaching. But no man can inherit
experience. It must be born in each man for himself. After
the light dawned I could then see how plainly Jonathan Edwards’s
sermons were so made. Those gigantic applications of
his were only the stretching out of the arms of the sermon upon
the lives and hearts of his audience. I could see it now, and
wondered that I had not seen it before.”
.bn 193.png
.pn +1
The application of this, to him, new idea soon began to be
apparent in rich results.
A series of revivals sprang up, by which many were brought
into the church. From one of his successors we learn that
“these were great foundation days for the church. Strong religious
impressions were made upon the young town, and very
many were redeemed to a life of Christian service. These were
fruitful years, starred over by three prolific revivals. In the
spring of 1842 nearly one hundred were received; again, in 1843,
was another spiritual blessing, and once more in 1845. Such
fruits vindicate the character and fervor of the pastoral activity.
Many of these converts are in the church to-day, old men, testifying
as elders and devout believers to the genuineness of this
work. Mr. Beecher preached seventy nights in succession during
one spring, in labors abundant. He ceased special effort, he
said, to permit many who did not wish to come out under an excitement,
to calmly join the church.
“Revivals have been characteristic of this church from the
beginning. They have brought it steady and growing and efficient
workers.”
He wrote to his father May 1, 1842:
“Prosperity and peace dwell with us. Our church is filled;
our young converts run well, and already there is gathered in
material for another revival of persons hitherto not wont to
attend church anywhere.
“I hope this fall and early winter to see the scenes of this
spring renewed. The neighborhoods about town are also revived.”
He has told us of one occasion when he attended a meeting
of the Presbytery with his father. Great efforts were made at
these meetings to awaken a religious interest among the people
especially in the church where the meetings were held. Several
sermons had been delivered on this occasion, with no great effect,
when he was called upon to preach. He selected for his subject
“The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” “As I went on describing
the going away of the sinner from God the people became interested;
as I described the sinner’s coming to himself the interest
increased; but when I came to the return of the sinner to God,
and God’s readiness, even hastening, to receive him, the whole
audience broke down, and father, who was on the platform with
.bn 194.png
.pn +1
me, said, wiping his eyes and spectacles, ‘Thank the Lord! a
revival is begun.’ Mr. C———, a good brother, grasped my hand
after the sermon with great fervor. ‘You did well, Beecher, you
did well; but you ought to have given ’em salt instead of sugar.’
But since the salt had been tried several days without effect, and
the sugar, as he called my preaching, brought many to Christ,
I did not agree with him.”
His zealous labors were by no means confined to
He was constantly called to help in the towns and villages
throughout the centre of the State. One, two, and even three
weeks at a time he would be gone, laboring to help some brother
striving to awaken his people.
Terre Haute, Madison, Greenwood, Greencastle, Lafayette,
Logansport, Fort Wayne, Laporte, and Columbus are the names
we find most frequently endorsed on the manuscript notes of his
old revival sermons now before us. These were the days he
loved to look back upon; though full of hardship, privations, and
not a little suffering, they were also full of that great joy which
comes to those who labor successfully in winning souls.
Revisiting Terre Haute in one of his lecture tours many
years afterward, and for the first time after coming East, he writes
back:
“And now my face is turned homeward! I am bound to
Terre Haute—clear across the prairie that I once traversed in
early days. Farm touches farm over these wide expanses which,
forty years ago, I thought could never be inhabited! No coal,
no timber—how, except along the streams, could men settle and
thrive? Railroads, those dry and solid rivers, have solved the
problem.
“Is this Terre Haute? How has thy prosperity increased
and thy beauty diminished!
“I wandered up and down the streets to find my Terre Haute!
It was gone, covered up, lost, utterly lost, in new streets, new
buildings! Where is the former green? Where the quiet fields
within bowshot of the town?
“At any rate, I shall know the church. There it was that I
first wrought in revivals, and every board and nail in it was precious.
I found it. I entered by the basement side-door and
stood in the lecture-room where I preached my first sermon, the
same day of my arrival in town, to aid Rev. Dr. Jewett. It was
.bn 195.png
.pn +1
a solemn feeling that stole over me. I saw the audience again.
The seats were filled with shadowy listeners! It only needed to
see a few of the familiar faces—L. H. Scott, Dr. Ketcham, Ball,
Gookin, and others—to make it real again! Just then came up
the aisle Harry Ross himself! It was the touch needed to round
out the reminiscence. Only one fact disturbed the sweet illusion.
This was not the same church. The old one had been burned,
and this one took its place! It was a gentle shock to my sensibilities.
But it stood on the very ground, and was on the old
foundations, and upon the same plan, and looked like the old
one, and so I inwardly voted that it was the old one and took my
comfort of it! The city is wonderfully improved in every way
except to those sentimentalists who come hither to renew the
past and live over again old experiences.
“After the lecture, in a special train, we sped, through darkness
and storm, to Indianapolis—three hours’ blessed ride. How
different this midnight ride from the first one, thirty-five years
before! For three weeks I had labored side by side with Brother
Jewett—the first revival in which I had ever taken part!
How helpless and wretched did I feel when Jewett sent for me—then
newly settled in Indianapolis—to come over and help him!
I had no effective sermons. I did not know how to preach in a
revival. Yet my elders said, Go. I rode two days the lonely
road, through beech forests (now all gone), in a dazed and wondering
state. Hardly was my saddle empty before Jewett was at
my elbow. ‘You have done well to come. You must preach to-night.’
In a moment the cloud lifted. The reluctance was
gone. It has been so all my life. At a distance I dread and
brood and shrink from any weighty enterprise; but the moment
the occasion arrives joy shines clear, and an eager appetite to
dash into the battle comes.
“Three memorable weeks at a time when events stamp the
memory and the heart as the die stamps the coin! When the
time came to return home did ever heart swell with stronger and
more unutterable feeling? To go back to the ordinary round of
church life from this glowing centre seemed so intolerable that
my whole nature and all my soul rose up in uncontrollable prayer.
Through the beech woods, sometimes crying, sometimes
singing, and always praying, I rode in one long controversy with
God. ‘Slay me if Thou wilt, but do not send me home to barrenness.
.bn 196.png
.pn +1
Thou shalt go with me. I will not be refused. I am
not afraid of Thee! I will prevail or die!’—these and even
wilder strains went through the soul.
“At length the clouds rolled away. The heavens had never
seemed so beautiful and radiant. An unspeakable peace and
confidence filled my soul. The assurance of victory was perfect,
and tranquillity blossomed into joy at every step. The first day
was one long struggle of prayer. The second day was one long
ecstasy of joy and thanksgiving! I need not say to the wise that
the fire of my heart kindled in the church, and for months the
genial warmth brought forth a spiritual summer, so that flowers
and fruit abounded in the garden of the Lord.
“And now in this three-hour midnight ride, amid outward
storms but inward joy and thanksgiving, I recalled the old days,
and mingled their light with the gladness of the passing hour.”
Referring to a revival at Terre Haute—perhaps the one just
mentioned—Dr. Lyman Beecher wrote:
“The revival here under Henry’s administration and preaching
was, in the adaptation of means and happy results, one of the
most perfectly conducted and delightful that I have ever
known.”
We can get some slight idea of the hard physical labor he
endured in his ordinary home preaching by quoting a single page
of his “Sermon Record Book”—a not unusual record:
.sp 1
.nf l
“Oct. 22. Rode 36 miles; Adams’ neighborhood by noon. Evening
rode five miles to Franklin; preached on Faith.
“ 23. Rode back to Adams, and at 10½ preached ordination
of Stimson: Duties of Pastor.
“ 24. Sunday morning and evening, our church.
“ 26. Funeral of Mrs. Jennison.
“ 31. Twice—once on Baptism.
Nov. 7. Morning, baptism; P.M., funeral.
“ 11. Rode 8 miles to Brewer’s and preached; home again.
“ 12. Rode 8 miles to N. Prov. Ch.; preached, and home.
“ 13. Preached morning and night, and rode 5 miles to M———;
P.M., 10 miles, preached 3 times a day.”
.nf-
.sp 1
At this time he undertook a minute and careful analysis of
the Gospels:
“I took the New Testament, I read it diligently, I made myself
.bn 197.png
.pn +1
familiar with the life and teachings of Christ, I became saturated
with the spirit of the four Gospels, I obtained all the helps
I could get for their interpretation, and I have now in my drawer
a heap of manuscripts in which I have condensed and compiled
these Gospels, everything in them being conveniently arranged
for use. It was an immense work. These four Gospels had, as
it were, been eaten and digested by me and gone into my blood
and bones.
“It was while I was engaged in this work that Christ was
brought to my soul for the first time in my life with a sweetness
and beauty, with a vividness and glory, that for the time transformed
the heavens and the earth to my eyes. I had a conception
of the depths of the nature of the Divine Being that made
metaphysical doctrines and philosophical formulas more repugnant
to me than they had ever been before, and I entered into a
vow and covenant that if I were permitted to preach I would
know nothing but Christ and Him crucified among His people.
I took my horse and saddle-bags and traversed the wilderness of
Indiana, keeping that view in my mind. For eight or ten years
I labored for the poor and needy, in cabins, in camp-meetings,
through woods, up and down, sometimes riding two days to
meet my appointments. I had no books but my Bible, and I
went from one to the other—from the Bible to men, and from
men to the Bible. When a case came up I said to myself:
‘What will reach that case?’ and I looked through the Acts of
the Apostles to see how they reached such cases. I hunted the
Bible through in order to get at the right way. So I worked on,
and at last the habit was formed in my mind of studying men,
their dispositions, their wants, their peculiarities; and then I
worked with reference to curing them, not constructing a system,
but striving to produce righteousness in the individual and in
communities.”
It is said that in his preaching he often went double-loaded.
He would go to church with a sermon specially prepared for
some person whom he greatly desired to reach. If, however, he
was not present, he would preach a more general sermon. But
when, on some other occasion, he found, on entering church, that
the object of his solicitude was present, he would lay aside the
sermon prepared for that day and preach the special one.
It often occasioned no little surprise in the mind of the subject
.bn 198.png
.pn +1
that Mr. Beecher should have happened that day to preach a
sermon so exactly fitted to his case.
Although he had the strongest feelings of love and kindliness
toward mankind, both in the abstract and the concrete, yet he
never hesitated to lash with stinging words any who took advantage
of their strength to abuse another’s weakness. And in such
a case nothing could induce him to back down or withdraw from
the attack, unless he could be satisfied that he had been mistaken
in his facts.
One noticeable incident of the kind occurred during his ministry
in Indianapolis, as narrated by Mrs. Beecher:
A man in the city hotel, and not a little feared because of his
brutality, had done something more brutal than usual, and, the
facts coming to Mr. Beecher’s knowledge, in his sermon on the
following Sunday he expressed in no gentle terms his abhorrence
of the act, and in very strong language rebuked the man.
Many of his listeners were alarmed lest the man would, when
he heard of the sermon, do Mr. Beecher some injury.
Of course before the day was over the substance in the sermon
had been reported throughout the town, and did not fail to
reach the man’s ears.
Monday morning Mr. Beecher went to the post-office immediately
after breakfast, and must go right by the hotel around
which this man would most likely be hanging. He got his mail
and turned to come home. As he passed the hotel there were several
standing by, evidently watching for some development. At
that moment the man came down the steps with a pistol in his hand.
“Did you say thus and so in your sermon yesterday?”
“I did.”
“Did you intend those remarks for me, or were you meaning
me?”
“I most certainly did.”
“Then take it back right here, or by ——— I’ll shoot you on
the spot.”
“Shoot away,” was the reply, as, looking the ruffian sternly
in the face, Mr. Beecher calmly, with deliberate step, walked past
the man. With pointed pistol and fierce oaths the man followed
for a few paces, when, baffled by the imperturbable coolness of
his opponent, he slunk away down a side-street, ashamed to return
to the hotel.
.bn 199.png
.pn +1
Mr. Beecher himself has given us an account of another similar
event:
“I remember that in Indianapolis there was a meeting called
for the enforcement of the laws against gamblers and against
grog-selling, at which I was requested to address mechanics and
laborers; and some of these violators of the law were there. A
man named Bishop, and others of that stamp, were in the meeting
to hear what was going to be said. They were the very men
that we were aiming at. I was much excited. There were gambling-dens
and liquor-saloons where young men were induced to
drink and form bad habits, and were in danger of being dragged
down to destruction; and I expressed myself plainly, and pointed
to Bishop, who sat on a back seat, and denounced him to his
face. There was a lively time, if I recollect right; and he gave
out the next day that when he and I met one or the other of us
was going to be whipped. I went down the street soon after, and
I had forgotten all about it until I was right in front of his shop.
He was a bully. He watched me as I came down, and I confess
that my first thought was a wish that I was not there; but
then it would never do for me to flinch, and I walked as though
I did not see him till I came close to him, when I turned and
looked at him. He thought I was going to attack him, and waited
a moment; I bowed and said, ‘Good-morning, Mr. Bishop,’
and passed on. He would not run after me and hit me, and so
the affair blew over.
“A year or two after that I left Indianapolis and went up the
river, and he chanced to be on the boat with me; and there
never was a man that paid me more kind attention than he did.
He looked after my children here and there, guarded me at night,
and wanted me to drink with him—some soda-water. He opened
his whole heart to me, and told me how he felt at the time of
my remarks, how he felt the next day, and how he had come
to feel since. He said he knew he was carrying on a wicked
trade, that he was mad with himself, and that he was mad with
me, and told me what it was that induced him to stop. I
found that under his love of gain, which had led him to sell
liquor, there was a conscience, a heart, and a good deal of
kindness.”
During the latter part of his ministry in Indianapolis the
Presbyterian clergymen had been requested by the presbytery to
.bn 200.png
.pn +1
preach at least one sermon during the year on slavery. Agreeably
to this suggestion Mr. Beecher prepared three sermons on
this subject. He waited until the United States Federal Court
came there, with Judge McLean as the presiding judge; and
when all of the State courts, Supreme Court and Circuit, were in
session and the Legislature was convened—so that all lawyers
and public officers, men of every kind, thronged the city—he announced
that he should preach on slavery.
From the original manuscript before us we learn that he presented
his subject in three sermons. In the first he discussed
ancient slavery, especially among the Hebrews, its origin, methods,
and final abandonment. In his second he presented “the
doctrine and practice of the New Testament in respect to
slavery.”
In his last he discussed the moral aspects of slavery and its
effect upon the community. These sermons made a profound
impression on the public mind. Indiana was just over the border
of slaveland, and many of its people sympathized heartily
with the slave-holders. The prevailing sentiment was very bitter
against the Abolitionists. There was very little patience with
such “cranks” and “fanatics.” So when Mr. Beecher attacked
slavery with the same unsparing earnestness which characterized
his utterances on this subject in latter days—for he did not hesitate
to denounce it as a crime against God and man—he stirred
up a very large and very energetic hornet’s nest. The city was all
excitement. Men talked of nothing else. The friends of slavery
were bitter and threatening; the few friends of freedom, overawed
by the threatening demonstrations, held their peace and waited
to see the outcome. Mr. Beecher stood almost alone. Many of
the church-brethren were shocked and grieved beyond all expression;
some even felt so outraged as to send for letters of
dismissal. Many prophesied that he had destroyed himself and
ended his influence for usefulness for ever, mourning over his
speedy downfall—a mournful prophecy so often repeated in
after-years by timid brothers whenever he took any advanced
position, and with the same results as in this instance.
Holding the United States Circuit, then in session, was Judge
McLean, of the United States Supreme Court, whose views upon
all public questions were naturally held in high esteem. The
hotel where he was stopping was full of lawyers and members of
.bn 201.png
.pn +1
the Legislature. On the Monday morning after these sermons, in
angry and excited groups, they stood in the public rooms of the
hotel, talking about the three sermons which had thrown the town
into such a ferment. The judge, happening to join one of these
groups, was asked his opinion. Instead of denouncing Mr.
Beecher’s bold stand as madness, he calmly but with decisive
emphasis replied: “Well, I think if every minister in the United
States would be as faithful it would be a great advance in settling
this question.” The judge’s words spread as rapidly as
had the sermons. They checked the flow of bitter criticism.
Men stopped talking and began to think; before the day was
out a revulsion of feeling set in. Many of the most hostile found
their anger changing into admiration—not convinced by Mr.
Beecher’s logic, but deeply impressed by his pluck. Those who
shared his views felt emboldened to speak out; and that middle
class, the social weather-vanes who like to go with the majority,
soon felt the changing breeze and began veering around to his
side. The timid church-members took heart, the applications for
letters of dismissal were recalled. The tide that threatened to
overwhelm the plucky preacher only lifted him up and carried
him the higher in public estimation. This was the first demonstration
of his ability to face and overcome an adverse public
sentiment while championing a just but unpopular cause—an
experience many times repeated in the forty years that followed.
Sometimes it seemed as if he could not stand against the flood
poured out upon him. Then the consciousness of right made
him strong and gave him that great peace that no whirlwind of
adversity could destroy, and roused up in him a determination
to only work the harder.
It was while in Indianapolis that he began his first real literary
work. It is true that he did some editorial work while at
Lane Seminary, but that was too short-lived and occasional to be
regarded as regular literary occupation.
Here at Indianapolis he accepted the editorial chair of the
Indiana Farmer and Gardener, and, as we are assured by those
who were readers of that journal, threw around the subjects
therein discussed a brightness of humor and fancy that made
the otherwise dry topics of fodder, fertilizers, and plantings seem
new and interesting subjects.
“It may be of some service to the young, as showing how
.bn 202.png
.pn +1
valuable the fragments of time may become, if mention is made
of the way in which we became prepared to edit this journal.
“The continued taxation of daily preaching, extending
through months, and once through eighteen consecutive months
without the exception of a single day, began to wear upon the
nerves, and made it necessary for us to seek some relaxation.
Accordingly we used, after each week-night’s preaching, to drive
the sermon out of our heads by some alterative reading.
“In the State Library were Loudon’s works—his encyclopædias
of Horticulture, of Agriculture, and of Architecture. We
fell upon them, and for years almost monopolized them.
“In our little one-story cottage, after the day’s work was
done, we pored over these monuments of an almost incredible
industry, and read, we suppose, not only every line but much of
it many times over; until at length we had a topographical
knowledge of many of the fine English estates quite as intimate,
we dare say, as was possessed by many of their truant owners.
There was something exceedingly pleasant, and is yet, in the
studying over mere catalogues of flowers, trees, fruits, etc.
“A seedsman’s list, a nurseryman’s catalogue, are more fascinating
to us than any story. In this way, through several
years, we gradually accumulated materials and became familiar
with facts and principles, which paved the way for our editorial
labors. Lindley’s ‘Horticulture’ and Gray’s ‘Structural Botany’
came in as constant companions. And when, at length, through
a friend’s liberality, we became the recipients of the London
Gardener’s Chronicle, edited by Prof. Lindley, our treasures were
inestimable. Many hundred times have we lain awake for hours
unable to throw off the excitement of preaching, and beguiling
the time with imaginary visits to the Chiswick Garden, to the
more than oriental magnificence of the Duke of Devonshire’s
grounds at Chatsworth. We have had long discussions in that
little bed-room at Indianapolis, with Van Mons about pears, with
Vibert about roses, with Thompson and Knight of fruits and
theories of vegetable life, and with Loudon about everything under
the heavens in the horticultural world.
“This employment of waste hours not only answered a purpose
of soothing excited nerves then, but brought us into such
relations to the material world that we speak with entire moderation
when we say that all the estates of the richest duke in England
.bn 203.png
.pn +1
could not have given us half the pleasure which we have
derived from pastures, waysides, and unoccupied prairies.”
He was an earnest advocate of manual labor. He had no
patience with those whose squeamish effeminacy made them look
upon labor as degrading.
On the fly-leaves of his “Editorial Agricultural Book,” begun
January 10, 1845, he wrote:
“It is my deliberate conviction that physical labor is indispensable
to intellectual and moral health, that the industrial and
producing interests of society are powerfully conservative of morals.
Especially do I regard the tillage of the soil as conducive
to life, health, morals, and manhood. I sympathize with the advance
of society through practical physical labors more than I do
through metaphysical speculations. I obtain clearer views of religious
truth through my sympathies with men and their life than I
do through books and their thoughts. Nor do I think any theology
will be sound which is made in the closet. It should be made in
the street, shop, ship, office, and on the farm. I have followed
both inclination and conviction in allying myself to the laboring
classes.”
His knowledge on the subject of farming was not altogether
theoretic. One of his old parishioners writes us:
“He loved to work and toil, especially in his own garden.
He always had the earliest vegetables in the market, and his garden
was better than any other in the city. He loved to work
among his flowers, and could call every flower by its name readily.
I think that he loved his flowers and took more pleasure
with them than anything else, excepting his family. He certainly
was more devoted to his family than any man I ever saw.”
It was no uncommon thing for him to take his vegetables to
the market before daylight, sometimes, as an especial favor,
taking his little five-year-old girl with him.
From the report of the fall exhibition of the Indiana Horticultural
Society we learn that Mr. Beecher took the three first
prizes for the best exhibition of squashes, beets, and oyster-plants.
His beets, it is stated, weighed from eight to fourteen pounds.
The literary production which first attracted any general
attention was his “Lectures to Young Men.” The State
capital seemed to be the headquarters for all those forms of temptation
and vice which are particularly liable to undermine the
.bn 204.png
.pn +1
morals of the young. Many a young man, whose future seemed
bright with the promise of an honorable and useful life, had Mr.
Beecher seen swept from his feet and whirled away to a dishonorable
end—young men who might have been saved had some
one been able to show them the dangers of the paths they were
treading, whose beginnings seemed so pleasant and fair. Greatly
distressed at what he saw, he finally determined to deliver a series
of lectures intended primarily for young men, and for the
purpose of opening their eyes. These were subsequently revised
and published, under the title of “Lectures to Young Men.”
The purpose of these lectures he aptly indicated in his preface:
“When a son is sent abroad to begin life for himself, what
gift would any parent consider excessive to him who should sit
down by his side and open the several dangers of his career, so
that the young man should, upon meeting the innumerable covert
forms of vice, be able to penetrate their disguises, and to experience,
even for the most brilliant seductions, a hearty and intelligent
disgust?
“Having watched the courses of those who seduce the young—their
arts, their blandishments, their pretences—having witnessed
the beginning and consummation of ruin, almost in the
same year, of many young men, naturally well disposed, whose
downfall began with the appearances of innocence, I felt an earnest
desire, if I could, to raise the suspicion of the young and to
direct their reason to the arts by which they are with such facility
destroyed.
“I ask every YOUNG MAN who may read this book not to submit
his judgment to mine, not to hate because I denounce, nor
blindly to follow me, but to weigh my reason, that he may form
his own judgment. I only claim the place of a companion; and,
that I may gain his ear, I have sought to present truth in those
forms which best please the young; and though I am not without
hope of satisfying the aged and the wise, my whole thought
has been to carry with me the intelligent sympathy of young men.”
He dedicated the book to his father—
.nf c
“TO
“LYMAN BEECHER, D.D.
.nf-
To you I owe more than to any other living being. In childhood
you were my Parent, in later life my Teacher, in manhood my
.bn 205.png
.pn +1
Companion. To your affectionate vigilance I owe my principles,
my knowledge, and that I am a minister of the Gospel of Christ.
For whatever profit they derive from this Book the young will
be indebted to you.”
Our space forbids any attempt at reproducing or analyzing
these lectures.
The evils that he attacked were real, and he did not mince
matters in the assault. In the course of his lectures some of his
good people, including one or two of the elders, thought that he
was too plain and outspoken in his description of the temptations
and dangers that beset the young, and undertook to advise him,
suggesting that he should be more prudent in the forms of his expressions.
He expressed regret that he should differ with them,
but he proposed, he said, to treat the subject as he thought he
ought, without regard to any instructions given. He did not propose
to fight a mad dog with a handful of straw. Notwithstanding
the timidity of his advisers, it appears, from the universal
testimony of those who heard them, that they did great good,
awakening the community to the dangers he exposed.
He was earnestly urged to revise and print them, “that their
usefulness may be extended beyond the place of their delivery.”
His first attempts at their revision were not at all satisfactory
to him, for he said afterwards:
“I remember, when I was reading over my lectures to young
men, with the intention of printing them, that I took down a volume
of Dr. Barrow’s sermons and read two on the subject of
‘Industry and Idleness.’ I had two lectures on similar subjects
that I thought of publishing, but they seemed to me so mean in
the comparison that I took up the manuscript and fired it across
the room and under the book-case, where it lay I do not know
how long, and said: ‘I am not going to put those lectures into
print and make an ass of myself.’ I thought that I would be a
fool to think there was anything in them worth publishing. Afterwards,
however, a volume of lectures to young men was lent to
me, and when I read them they seemed so thin and weak that
I said: ‘If these are acceptable to the public and will do good
I think I can print mine.’”
The many editions published in this country and England
justified his final conclusion.
Although his salary had been doubled on coming to Indianapolis,
.bn 206.png
.pn +1
had he received it all it would hardly have kept pace with
his necessities. Many little necessities incident to their new
surroundings called for expense. In the State capital two rooms
over a stable would hardly meet the requirements of his social
surroundings. It became necessary to hire an entire house, the
spare rooms of which were devoted to boarders whose rent helped
out the slender family purse. The house needed painting; why
hire a painter? He could do it himself. Was he not born and
brought up in sturdy old New England, where every lad was expected,
almost from the day he was weaned, to take care of himself
and add his labor to increase the common good; where a
man was thought wanting in ordinary “cuteness” who could not
turn his hand to any job and do anything he had seen another do?
Off he starts to the paint-store with his old horse and wagon,
entering so enthusiastically upon the work in hand that he wholly
forgot an engagement, made for that morning, to marry a couple.
As the paints were being put up, he suddenly recalls his engagement,
abruptly turns on his heel, rushes from the store, jumps
into his wagon, and goes clattering down the street, leaving the
astounded storekeeper in anxious solicitude for his sanity. Returning
shortly, with a merry laugh he explained the cause of his
precipitate outgoing. He found the couple waiting, married them,
and then returned for his paint. Getting his supplies, he goes to
work. He said:
“I wanted to economize in every way I could, and meant to
paint the house myself; and I did. I got along well enough until
I came to the gable end, which was two and a half stories
high. When I began to paint there I was so afraid that I should
fall off from the platform that I nearly rubbed out with my vest
what I put on with the brush, but in the course of a week I got
so used to climbing that I was as nimble as any painter in town.”
Here three more little ones came to swell the family circle,
adding new joys to the heart of one who loved almost with a
mother’s devotion every little child he saw. But these joys
brought three more mouths to feed, three more little bodies to
clothe.
Fortunately food was abundant and very cheap. In the fall
and early winter game abounded, so that pigeon, quail, and ducks
were bought for almost nothing, and at times were literally given
away.
.bn 207.png
.il id=i202fp fn=i_202fp.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Mr. Beecher’s House at Indianapolis.
.bn 208.png
.bn 209.png
.pn +1
We remember the story oft told by him of the man bringing
six dozen pigeons to town. He tried to sell them, and was
laughed at. He then offered to give them away; no one wanted
them. “Well,” he said, “I won’t take them home; perhaps if I
leave them in my wagon in the street some one will steal them.”
Returning a half-hour later, he found that some other hunter
equally anxious to get rid of his game had dumped eight dozen
more into his wagon.
His people would sometimes donate food or clothing. The
best suit of clothes he owned was made over from a discarded
suit donated by one of his parishioners.
Yet these were among the happiest years of his life.
For he found joy in his work. He loved his people and was
beloved. Above all, his teaching was bearing rich harvest, and
many, many souls found rest and peace through his words. His
success was very gratifying, and urged him on to greater effort.
Among the young his influence was especially marked. A
genial playfellow and companion, entering with hearty zest into
all their sports, helping them out of their little difficulties, he
gained their confidence and love. He guided the feet of many
into the paths of a higher and nobler life.
One of these friends writes:
“He had a class of young girls, and I do not think that any
one that recited to him could ever forget his original way of
teaching. There were eight in the class, and we enjoyed the
hour spent with him. He developed our originality. He first
attracted us toward Milton. We studied, for he inspired in us
the desire to know. In after-years, in his visits to Indianapolis,
the surviving scholars were looked up and called upon, and the
children of those who were gone were asked after. With some
of these scholars he was thrown more intimately than with others,
for all were not in his church. In these he naturally took much
interest and directed them in their reading. I remember his
telling me to ‘let Bulwer alone and the French novels,’ which
were then first being translated. At a company, a church social,
or the singing-school he had a merry word to say to one and
another. All felt at home with him.
“My brother tells this story: When he was nine years old
he had with great labor made a kite, at least what he thought
would serve as one. In those days there were no toy-shops here,
.bn 210.png
.pn +1
and, indeed, it was with difficulty material could be found out of
which to manufacture a kite. But, as I said, he and his little
sister had succeeded in shaping a thing which they called a kite.
So, on a spring day, they set forth to fly it. My brother held the
string and the little sister kept the kite off the ground. He ran,
and she after him; but run as they would, coax as they might,
their efforts availed nothing. Finally, disappointed, footsore, and
covered with dust, they stopped to take breath. While thus
brooding over their failure they saw Mr. Beecher standing near,
looking down upon them with an amused but sympathetic expression
on his face. ‘What do you call that?’ ‘A kite,’ was
the melancholy response. ‘Well! well!’ the kind heart fully taking
in the situation. ‘Come to my house to-morrow afternoon.’
There was hope in the tone, and the boy’s heart bounded. The
next day he went to Mr. Beecher’s. He was shown a kite bigger
than himself. He could scarcely believe his senses. Why, the
tail even was long enough to set him wild. ‘Where’s your
string?’ asked Mr. Beecher. Out of his well-worn pocket, where
all a boy’s treasures are hidden, he drew forth a cotton string
neither long nor strong. ‘This will not do; have you any money?’
‘No, sir.’ ‘Come, let’s go and get a string.’ To the nearest
grocery-store, where in early times everything was kept, from
pins up to ploughs, they went. A ball of twine was bought for a
‘bit’; one was not enough—two for a quarter. Out into the street
they went, and the kite was a success. Away it flew over their
heads, the heart of the happy boy flying with the kite far into the
heavens, and won to his pastor for all time by this simple, kindly
act.”
Like all mankind, he had to taste the bitter with the sweet
and pass under the shadow of the dark cloud of sorrow.
First his brother George, who had been a kind of guardian
brother to him, and deeply loved, was killed. The news came
with the shock of a lightning-bolt.
“I was called to go to Jacksonville to deliver an address,” he
said, speaking of his brother’s death. “The journey was a long
one, across two States (or one and a half). I took my wife and
child with me, and we were gone some two weeks. When, on returning,
we had got within two miles of Indianapolis, and were as
elated and songful and merry as one can imagine anybody to be,
we met one of the elders of my church riding out from the city,
.bn 211.png
.pn +1
and he said, after stopping to greet us: ‘Have you heard the
news?’ ‘No,’ said I; ‘what is it?’ ‘Your brother George has
killed himself.’ I did not say a word, my wife did not say a
word, and he did not say one word more. We rode on, and as
we rode I could not help thinking, ‘Killed himself! killed himself!
killed himself!’ It was nearly an hour before we got home,
and then I learned that my brother’s death was caused by an accident
with a double-barrelled gun while he was shooting birds in
the garden; and it was a great relief to me to know that ‘killed
himself’ did not mean suicide.”
Later came the death of his little boy George, the first loss in
his own immediate family. He wrote, a few years later, to his
sister, Mrs. Stowe:
“I was in a missionary field, enduring hardships, and thinking
in myself always how to stand up under any blow, even if it were
a thunder-stroke, with Paul’s heroism at once firing me and
putting me to shame. Our noble boy suddenly sickened. Our
people did not know how to sympathize. Few came while he
lived; fewer yet when, on a bleak March day, we bore him
through the storm, and, standing in the snow, we laid his beautiful
form in his cold, white grave. Eunice was heart-broken. My
home was a fountain of anguish. It was not for me to quail or
show shrinking. So I choked my grief and turned outwardly
from myself to seek occupation.”
In later years this sorrow had hardly lost its acuteness:
“I remember, to-night, as well as I did at the time, the night
that my eldest-born son died. That was my first great sorrow.
I remember the battle of hope and of fear, and I remember the
victory of submission. The child revived in the night. I went
to Indianapolis (I lived on the edge of that city), and I shall
never forget the amazing uplift of soul that I had, nor that one
unspoken, universal thought of prayer, which seemed to me to fill
the whole hemisphere, for the life of my child. I think that if
one ever came near throwing his soul out of his body, I did. And
yet before the morning dawned the child had found a brighter
world. This was a double sorrow because I had given him up
and then taken him back again. Then came the sudden wrench.
“It was in March, and there had just come up a great storm,
and all the ground was covered with snow.
“We went down to the graveyard with little Georgie, and
.bn 212.png
.pn +1
waded through it in the snow. I got out of the carriage, and took
the little coffin in my arms, and walked knee-deep to the side of
the grave, and looking in I saw the winter down at the very bottom
of it. The coffin was lowered to its place, and I saw the
snowflakes follow it and cover it, and then the earth hid it from
the winter.
“If I should live a thousand years I could not help shivering
every time I thought of it. It seemed to me then as though I
had not only lost my child, but buried him in eternal snows. It
was very hard for faith or imagination to break through the
physical aspect of things and find a brighter feeling.”
The attachment which his people felt for him was more than
reciprocated. He always loved to recall these early years and in
memory live over again their joys and sorrows, their struggles
and triumphs.
In the early winter of 1877, in the course of a Western lecture
trip, revisiting Indianapolis, he wrote back:
“I went to Indianapolis in the fall of 1849 with a sick babe
in my arms, who showed the first symptoms of recovery after eating
blackberries which I gathered by the way. The city had then
a population of four thousand. At no time during my residence
did it outreach five thousand. Behold it to-day with one hundred
and ten thousand inhabitants! The Great National Road, which
at that time was of great importance, since sunk into forgetfulness,
ran through the city and constituted the main street. With
the exception of two or three streets there were no ways along
which could not be seen the original stumps of the forest. I
bumped against them in a buggy too often not to be assured of
the fact.
“Here I preached my first real sermon; here, for the first
time, I strove against death in behalf of a child, and was defeated;
here I built a house and painted it with my own hands;
here I had my first garden and became the bishop of flowers for
this diocese; here I first joined the editorial fraternity and edited
the Farmer and Gardener; here I had my first full taste of
chills and fever; here for the first and last time I waded to
church ankle-deep in mud and preached with pantaloons tucked
into my boot-tops. All is changed now.
“In searching for my obscure little ten-foot cottage I got lost.
So changed was everything that I groped over familiar territory
.bn 213.png
.pn +1
like a blind man in a strange city. It is no longer my Indianapolis,
with the aboriginal forest fringing the town, with pasture-fields
lying right across from my house; without coal, without
railroads, without a stone big enough to throw at a cat. It was
a joyful day and a precious gift when Calvin Fletcher allowed me
to take from the fragments of stone used to make foundations
for the State Bank a piece large enough to put in my pork-barrel.
I left Indianapolis for Brooklyn on the very day upon which the
cars on the Madison Railroad for the first time entered the town;
and I departed on the first train that ever left the place. On a
wood-car, rigged up with boards across from side to side, went I
forth.
“It is now a mighty city, full of foundries, manufactories,
wholesale stores, a magnificent court-house, beautiful dwellings,
noble churches, wide and fine streets, and railroads more than I
can name radiating to every point of the compass.
“The old academy where I preached for a few months
is gone, but the church into which the congregation soon entered
still is standing on the Governor’s Circle. No one can look upon
that building as I do. A father goes back to his first house,
though it be but a cabin, where his children were born, with
feelings which can never be transferred to any other place. As
I looked long and yearningly upon that homely building the old
time came back again. I stood in the crowded lecture-room as
on the night when the current of religious feeling first was beginning
to flow! Talk of a young mother’s feelings over her
first babe—what is that compared with the solemnity, the enthusiasm,
the impetuosity of gratitude, of humility, of singing
gladness, with which a young pastor greets the incoming of his
first revival? He stands upon the shore to see the tide come in!
It is the movement of the infinite, ethereal tide! It is from the
other world! There is no color like heart color. The homeliest
things dipped in that for ever after glow with celestial hues.
The hymns that we sang in sorrow or in joy and triumph in
that humble basement have never lost a feather, but fly back
and forth between the soul and heaven, plumed as never was
any bird-of-paradise.
“I stood and looked at the homely old building, and saw a
procession of forms going in and out that the outward eye will
never see again—Judge Morris, Samuel Merril, Oliver H. Smith,
.bn 214.png
.pn +1
D. V. Cully, John L. Ketcham, Coburn, Fletcher, Bates, Bullard,
Munsel, Ackley, O’Neil, and many, many more! There
have been hours when there was not a hand-breadth between us
and the saintly host in the invisible church! In the heat and
pressure of later years the memories of those early days have
been laid aside, but not effaced. They rise as I stand, and move
in a gentle procession before me. No outward history is comparable
to the soul’s inward life; of the soul’s inward life no
part is so sublime as its eminent religious developments. And
the pastor, who walks with men, delivering them from thrall,
aspersing their sorrow with tears, kindling his own heart as a
torch to light the way for those who would see the invisible,
has, of all men, the most transcendent heart-histories. I have
seen much of life since I trod that threshold for the last time;
but nothing has dimmed my love, nor has any later or riper experience
taken away the bloom and sanctity of my early love.
And I can truly say of hundreds: ‘For though ye have ten thousand
instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in
Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel.’
“But other incidents arise—the days of sickness, chills and
fever, the gardening days, my first editorial experience, my luck
in horses and pigs, my house-building; and not a few scrapes—being
stalled in mud, half-drowned in crossing rivers, long, lonely
forest rides, camp-meetings, preachings in cabins, sleepings in
the open air.
“I was reminded of one comical experience as I was seeking
on Market Street to find the old swale or shallow ravine which
ran between my cottage and Mr. Bates’s dwelling. It had formerly
been a kind of bayou in spring when the stream above
town overflowed, but dried off in summer. To redeem it from
unhealth a dike had been built to restrain the river and turn the
superfluous freshets another way. But one year the levee gave
way in the night; and when the morning rose, behold a flood
between me and my neighbor! There was sport on hand! It
was too deep for wading, but I could extemporize a boat. I
brought down to the edge my wife’s large washing-tub, and intended
with a bit of board to paddle about. No sooner was I in
than I was out. The tub refused to stand on its own bottom.
Well, well, said I, two tubs are better than one. So I got its
mate, and, nailing two strips across to hold them fast together, I
.bn 215.png
.pn +1
was sure that they were too long now to upset. So they were, in
the long line; but sideways they went over, carrying me with
them with incredible celerity. Tubs were one thing, boats another—that
I saw plainly.
“I would not be baffled. I proposed a raft. Getting rails
from the fence, I soon had tacked boards across—enough of
them to carry my weight. Then, with a long pole, I began my
voyage. Alas! it came to a ludicrous end.
“A rail fence ran across this ravine in the field, just above
the street. One end of the fence had loosened, and the water
had floated it round enough to break its connection with its hither
side. A large but young dog belonging to a friend had walked
along the fence, hoping to cross dry-footed, till he came to the
abrupt termination, and, his courage failing him, he had crouched
down and lay trembling and whining, afraid to go back or to venture
the water. I poled my raft up to the rescue; and, getting
alongside, coaxed him to jump aboard, but his courage was all
gone. He looked up wistfully, but stirred not. ‘Well, you coward,
you shall come aboard.’ Seizing him by the skin of the
neck, I hauled him on to the raft, which instantly began to sink.
It was buoyant enough for a man, but not for a man and a lubberly
dog. There was nothing for it—as the stupid thing would
not stir, I had to; and with a spring I reached the fence just abdicated
by the dog, while he, the raft now coming to the surface
again, went sailing down the pond and was safely landed below,
while I was left in the crotch of the fence. One such experiment
ought to serve for a life-time, but alas!
“There is no end of things gone by. They rise at every
point; and one walks encompassed with memories which accompany
him through the living streets like invisible spirits.”
.bn 216.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch11'
CHAPTER XI.
.pm start_summary
Invitation to come East—Call to Plymouth Church—Friendly Misgivings—Plainly
Outlining his Views—Early Success—Plymouth Burned—Preaching
in the Tabernacle.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Mr. Beecher had confidently expected to have remained
permanently in the West, and to have grown up with
the new but rising country; but it was destined to be
otherwise.
His fame had spread Eastward, and in the early winter of 1846
a tentative effort was made to call him thither. Mr. W. T. Cutler,
returning from a visit at the West, wrote in December, 1846,
to Mr. Beecher that Dr. Storrs had been called to the Church of
the Pilgrims; that one of Dr. Cheever’s principal men, J. Hunt,
had “observed to me that Dr. Cheever named you as the man
for the Pilgrims, and he thinks that there will be new churches
formed on the Congregational plan here and in Brooklyn, and
that you are the man to build up one of them.” While in Cincinnati
Mr. Cutler called on Dr. Lyman Beecher relative to his
son’s going East, but “he set his face like flint against it.” He
then had a long and urgent talk with the son again, in answer to
which he received the following letter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Indianapolis, December 15, 1846.
.ll
”Dear Sir: Your letter has just come to hand, and thanks
for it. I am glad you saw father, for your sake, for his, and for
mine. Touching the question of our former conversations, this
is my position: My pride tells me that if the only question in
life were personal advantage, he is on the right road who is developing
truth within himself, and the road to truth lies in one’s
own self, and not in the place where he lives. But my conscience
tells me, and, I thank God, my whole heart goes with my conscience,
that the grand question in human life is the work of
benevolence—the doing good on our scale, just as God does on
His. I am sure that the shortest road to one’s own happiness is
by making others happy. Now, in this work, the labor of usefulness,
.bn 217.png
.pn +1
if there be one thing which, above all others, I especially
abhor, it is this cant talk about ‘taking care of one’s influence’;
going where one can ‘use his influence to best advantage’; refraining
from this or that for fear ‘of ignoring influence,’ and all suchlike
trash. A man’s influence is simply the shadow which usefulness
casts. Let him look out that he is doing enough, and doing
the right things, and then he may spare all time usually employed
in looking after his shadow lest it should give him the slip.
“As to where a man shall live and labor I have no plan, no
theory except this: That God has a very sufficient ability to
make Himself understood when He wants a man. A man should
work just where he is until he is clearly called somewhere else.
This keeping one’s ear open to hear if God is not calling, this
looking out every little while to see if one is not wished for
somewhere else, is rather of the nature of self-seeking. A minister,
like a maiden, ought not to make the first overtures, nor to
be over-eager to have them made to him.
“Now, I set forth this long preamble because it has occurred
to me that my situation and my conversations with you were a
little queer, and that it was worth while to state explicitly where
I stand.
“Whenever it clearly seems to me that God has work for
me to perform, I shall, I hope, perform it, wherever it lies and
whatever the work may be. Moreover, when God has work for
me in another sphere, I do not doubt that He will make it so
plainly His voice that calls me that I shall be in no more doubt
about it than Abraham was when called to leave his native land
or when called to offer up his son. I have no plan for staying
here, or for going to the West, or for going to the East. I
leave it entirely with Him who called me to the ministry where I
shall live, where and when I shall die; and in all fields, actual or
contemplated, I do desire above every other thing to have a heart
prepared to receive that welcome call, joyous to every one who
has tasted of the powers of the world to come, to go up and labor
in a higher field, with ennobled faculties and results, every one
of which shall be both perfect and illustrious.
“I believe that Christ will surely lead you wisely, if you will
be led; and that He will point out to you what enterprises it will
be wise for you to undertake, and to what one of all His multitudinous
servants you should apply for help. And should I never
.bn 218.png
.pn +1
labor in such service with you or near you, in New York, what
then? I feel, in that respect, as if we were like the two portions
of our army before Monterey. What matters it on which side of
the city we are, since on either side we are bravely pushing our
arms toward a common centre, and when we meet it will assuredly
be in the hour of victory?
“But if ever I come to you or go to any other place, although
I have no plan as to situations, I have, I hope, an immovable
plan in respect to the objects which I shall pursue. So
help me God, I do not mean to be a party man, nor to head or
follow any partisan effort. I desire to aid in a development of
truth and in the production of goodness by it. I do not care in
whose hands truth may be found, or in what communion; I will
thankfully take it of any. Nor do I feel bound in any sort to look
upon untruth or mistake with favor because it lies within the
sphere of any church to which I may be attached.
“I do not have that mawkish charity which seems to arise
from regarding all tenets as pretty much alike—the charity, in
fact, of indifference—but another sort: a hunger for what is true,
an exultation in the sight of it, and such an estimate and glory
in the truth as it is in Christ that no distinction of sect or form
shall be for one moment worthy to be compared with it. I will
overleap anything that stands between me and truth. Whoever
loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth is my brother.
He that doeth God’s will was, in Christ’s judgment, His mother,
His sister, His brother, His friend, His disciple.
“Your visit has certainly been of collateral advantage to me.
Some who did not seem to care whether I had anything to live
on or not have been stirred up, at least to attempt to discharge
the pledges to me for a support: $800 does not seem to me to be
an extravagant salary, but I would gladly take $600 in lieu of it,
if I could have it paid regularly.
“Give my love to Mr. Day and family, if you know them;
if not, just take this letter in your hand, go to his store, show
him this paragraph: ‘Mr. Day, allow me to present to you my
friend, Mr. Cutler. Mr. Cutler, I am happy in introducing you
to an old and valued friend, Mr. Day.’
“And now, as you are at the fountain of news, why will you
not drop me a line from time to time, and keep me apprised of
things in the great world? You hold the pen of a ready writer
.bn 219.png
.bn 220.png
.bn 221.png
.pn +1
as well as the tongue of a ready speaker. And though I may
have little news to send in return, such as I have will I give unto
thee.
.ll 68
.nf r
Truly yours,
“H. W. Beecher.“
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.il id=i212fp fn=i_212fp.jpg w=352px ew=60%
.ca Mr. Beecher and his Father at the time of Call to Brooklyn.
Again in February Mr. Cutler wrote, this time asking pointedly
if Mr. Beecher would accept a call to Brooklyn, stating that
the property formerly owned by the First Presbyterian Church—Rev.
Dr. Cox—had been purchased by Henry C. Bowen, Seth B.
Hunt, and David Hale; that it would be vacant in May, and
that they proposed to organize in it a new church on the Congregational
plan; that if he would come they would give him
a salary of $1,500 per annum, and, if necessary, make it $2,000.
Mr. Cutler held out many alluring inducements, but without apparent
effect. Mr. Beecher would not even entertain the proposition.
In the meantime Mr. Cutler shrewdly reasoned that if he
would come East, even for a short time, it might be possible to
make him change his mind. It was so arranged that Mr. Beecher
received an invitation from the American Home Missionary
Society to deliver an address, under its auspices, at what was
then called the “May Anniversaries” held in New York. He
accepted this invitation, intending, as he said since, “to urge
young men to go West, to show what a good field the West was,
and to cast some fiery arrows at men that had worked there and
got tired, and slunk away, and come back. I remember that I
was particularly glowing on this subject; but I came East not
knowing what I did. It was a trap. Brother Cutler (who has
gone to heaven), it seems, had a little plan at that very time, and
I was running into a noose, though I did not suspect it. The
result of that visit was the formation of this church [Plymouth].
Mr. David Hale, of the Journal of Commerce—whose
son Richard is still one of our members, though he is not with
us—with two or three others, desired at once to extend me an
invitation to become the pastor of this church. But the church
did not exist. It was like asking a young man to become the
husband of an unborn girl. There was no church to be my
bride. I refused to receive a call to an empty house. They
therefore made haste to form a church; and I think it was
early in June of the same year that some twenty-five persons
covenanted together over this very ground for the church as it
.bn 222.png
.pn +1
then stood. The main building fronted on one street, and the
lecture-room on the other. Here they agreed to become a
church of Christ; and then they extended to me a call to be its
pastor. The call was not publicly known until the October following;
but still the mischief was done.”
On Sunday evening, June 13, 1847, Plymouth Church was
formally organized with a membership of twenty-one, Rev. R. S.
Storrs, of the Church of the Pilgrims, preaching the sermon.
On the Monday evening following business meetings were
held by both the church and society, in each of which it was unanimously
voted to invite Mr. Beecher to be their pastor, with a
salary of fifteen hundred dollars the first year, seventeen hundred
and fifty the second year, and two thousand the third year
and thereafter.
A formal call was at once sent.
For the first time the question was taken into serious consideration,
and for the next two months every argument was presented
that might lead to an acceptance of the call, great stress
being laid on the fact that in the larger field could be accomplished
a more important work and an influence might be
exerted that would be felt throughout the entire country; that
the West could easily be reached from New York, when it might
be difficult to reach New York from the West.
Long and most urgent letters were sent to Dr. Lyman Beecher,
begging him to withhold any adverse influence. It is very doubtful
if any of the inducements or the flattering representations so
strongly presented had succeeded in winning him from the field
where he was then working, were it not that another influence was
silently and powerfully at work. The health of his wife, who literally
was giving her very life to aid and sustain him in his work,
was rapidly failing under the malarial influences of the West. It
became very evident that she must have rest and a change of
climate. A few years in the East might restore her health, then he
could return and resume his work. In August he came to a decision,
and on the 12th wrote his letter of resignation, in which
he set out his reasons and plans:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Indianapolis, August 12, 1847.
.ll
.ti 0
”To the Elders of the Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis:
“Dear Brethren: I have the very painful necessity laid
.bn 223.png
.pn +1
upon me of relinquishing the pastoral charge of the church over
which for eight years I have presided. I need not assure you
that I do it with extreme grief. If I could have had the control
of my own affairs I should certainly have supposed it wisest and
best that, for the present at least, I should remain in the West
and with you. It is only the firm belief that in removing temporarily
to the sea-coast I should save the life and restore the
health of my wife that has induced me to sever the connection
which has so long and so pleasantly existed between us. I am
peremptorily warned, not only by those in whose medical skill I
place implicit reliance, but by a continual confirmation of their
judgment in actual experience, to leave this climate if I would
save her life. You will perceive in this state of facts that against
which neither I nor any one can form any argument or persuasion.
I cannot express the feelings which have warred in my
breast in the anticipation of this necessity, nor can I without the
deepest regret recall the deficiencies of my ministry among you.
But I shall never forget the kindness with which my failings have
been borne, the sympathy which I have experienced from you in
the vicissitudes of the past eight years, and that co-operation without
which I am sure I could but in a small part have accomplished
the work which has been done. There are some details of
arrangements which I desire to make, but which can be better
treated in conversation.
“I am, with Christian and personal affection, very truly
yours,
.ll 68
.rj
H. W. Beecher.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
Having decided, he wrote at once to the committee of Plymouth
Church from whom he had received the call:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Indianapolis, August 19, 1847.
.ll
”Dear Brothers: I desire to convey through you to the
Plymouth Church and congregation my acceptance of the call to
the pastoral office tendered by them to me.
“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,
.bn 224.png
.pn +1
but I hope to arrive in Brooklyn in the middle of October, or at
farthest by the first of November.
.ll 68
.nf r
“I am, in Christian love, most truly yours,
“H. W. Beecher.
.nf-
.ll
.in 2
.nf l
“Jos. T. Howard,
“H. C. Bowen,
“Chas. Rowland,
and others.”
.nf-
.in
.pm end_quote
While in the East, after having received the call from Plymouth
Church and while the question of acceptance was still in
doubt, Mr. Beecher also received a call from the Park Street
Church of Boston—the same church where he had preached nine
years before, when on his way back to Lawrenceburg with his
young wife.
On June 10, 1847, he received a letter from the Rev. Silas
Aikens, the pastor of Park Street Church, stating that they very
much desired Mr. Beecher to accept a call to the position of associate
pastor.
Early in July a formal call was sent by the church and society
to the same effect, but was shortly afterwards declined.
The call to Brooklyn having been definitely accepted, Mr.
Beecher began at once to arrange for the removal of his family.
His salary was in arrears. To meet the necessities of his family
he had been obliged to borrow five hundred dollars. This, with
other and smaller debts, must be paid, and money must be raised
wherewith to transport his family East. But how? Fortunately
this difficulty had been foreseen, and as soon as it seemed probable
that the call would be accepted the friends at Plymouth
Church, in prophecy of that generosity which characterized them
in all after-years, promptly raised by subscription one thousand
dollars, and notified Mr. Beecher to draw thereupon as he might
need.
About the first of October, 1847, he started Eastward, leaving
Indianapolis on the first passenger-train run on the new road
just built. Modern luxuries had not then been introduced, if we
may rely upon his account of the ride:
“The car was no car at all, a mere extempore wood-box, used
sometimes without seats for hogs, but with seats for men, of
which class I (ah me miserable!) happened to be one. And so
at eleven at night I arrived in Madison, not overproud in the
.bn 225.png
.pn +1
glory of riding on the first train that ever went from Indianapolis
to Madison.”
October, 1847, marked a new era in Mr. Beecher’s experience.
By successive steps he had advanced from field to field with
steadily increasing responsibility, from the collegian tramping
twenty miles to deliver an occasional address in some adjoining
town on topics affecting public morals, to the young theologian
still in the seminary, trying his powers in some little hamlet—a
knight-errant breaking a lance with the adversary; to the young,
unknown missionary entering the lists for his first real, earnest
battle against “the world, the flesh, and the devil”; to the acknowledged
preacher called to the State capital, dealing stalwart
blows at those evils which sap the public conscience and allure
the youth into evil ways, a recognized leader not only within the
limits of his Presbytery but even throughout his State.
And at last, called to the metropolitan centre, he enters a field
whose limits of influence were to be bounded only by the limits
of the civilized globe. With each increase of influence came corresponding
responsibilities. So far he had developed resources
sufficient for each increase in his burdens; but would he be sufficient
for this new experience? He had fully sustained himself as
a missionary and a preacher in a pioneer State, in a comparatively
rude and uncultured society. He had earned a reputation that
had preceded him East; could he maintain it? Could he meet
the requirements of the refined, critical, and highly-cultured metropolis
(for New York and Brooklyn were, to all intents, one
great centre)? Many feared, and kindly volunteered the information
that neither the new church nor its new pastor would
last many months.
He was altogether too outspoken for his own good, said they.
It was all very well for a minister to combat evil, but he must do
it in the good old-fashioned, orthodox way: he should confine
himself to generalities and not be too specific. There were
some things he ought not to meddle with: the pulpit was no
place for politics, and slavery was purely a political question.
He would find that in New York the public would not tolerate
those things which had been permitted to him in Indiana.
If he persisted he would soon have empty pews to preach to,
even if he did not have a personal demonstration of the folly of
attacking those popular sins—sins which most of his clerical
.bn 226.png
.pn +1
brothers had had the good sense to leave alone. Endless were
the similes and metaphors indulged in, of which the well-worn
rocket was perhaps the most suggestive.
Some amiable critics even went so far as to intimate that his
success in the West was due more to the surreptitious use of the
father’s old sermons than any inherent ability in the son, and he
was generously given just one year to run through the barrelful
of such sermons supposed to have been brought on with him.
The barrel, like the widow’s oil-cruse, seems to have had a miraculous
power of refilling.
Many friends advised him against the change: the risk was
too great, his experience too little. He said of this time:
“In coming to Brooklyn I had but one single thought—that
of zeal for Christ. I came under all manner of warnings and
cautions. Many good brethren told me how men got puffed
up in the city, what temptations I would encounter, and how I
would very likely be conservative, and forget my zeal, and so
on; and I was obliged at last to say even to my father:
‘Father, do you understand, then, that God’s grace only extends
to the country, and that He cannot protect anybody in
the city?’”
On the other hand, some counselled self-interest: “It is not
necessary that you should settle in Brooklyn; with your talent
you will make more show in New York.” “I didn’t come to make
a show,” he replied. “I came to preach what I understand to be
the Gospel of Jesus Christ to men, and this is the first opening,
and I take it.”
He did not propose to have any misunderstanding on the
part of his new church as to the course he should pursue. He
intended to make that very plain and at the outset. If they
wanted him they would have to take him with their eyes open—wide
open.
October 10, the first Sunday after his arrival, he preached in
the new church, both morning and evening.
“My first sermon, I think, was directed to the Source of all
true religion—the Lord Jesus Christ and His power. In my
second sermon—on the evening of the first Sunday—I recollect
that I lifted up the banner and blew the trumpet in the application
of Christianity to intemperance, to slavery, and to all other
great national sins. I said to those who were present: ‘If you
.bn 227.png
.pn +1
come into this church and congregation I want you to understand
distinctly that I will wear no fetters; that I will be bound
by no precedent; that I will preach the Gospel as I apprehend
it, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, and that
I will apply it without stint, and sharply and strongly, to the
overthrow of every evil and to the upbuilding of all that is
good.’”
Well-meaning but timid friends took alarm at this bold declaration.
It was not customary; it was not what they were used
to; they came to him to “counsel him for his own good,” they said.
“Save yourself, anyway; don’t ally yourself to unpopular men
nor unpopular causes. There is no need of it. You can have
your own notions about abolition; what is the use of preaching
anti-slavery sermons?” To their great distress their counsels
had just the opposite effect intended: “I despised them all, and
preached like thunder on those subjects, especially before pew-renting.
For a period of more than ten years I never let a
month elapse before pew-renting that I did not come out with
the whole strength of my nature on the abominations of American
slavery. I remember saying, with some discourtesy and
with language that I should not use now: ‘If you don’t want to
hear such doctrines, don’t take a pew here next time.’ It had
something of youthful eagerness in it, but I am proud that it
pleased God to ally me to causes that were weak but right. It
has ever been a cause of great gratification to me that I have not
lost that spirit, and that I ally myself to that which I think to be
right; and I do not care what man says to me, provided only I
can believe that God likes it, and that I have the testimony of
His approval in myself.”
To have remained silent in the presence of such great evils
was to have shared the responsibility of their existence.
We quote here his views on this subject, uttered from his
pulpit many years later:
“In every reform from intemperance, from vice, from crime,
each individual citizen is responsible to the degree of influence
which he has, and if he does not exert it he is responsible for a
neglect of duty—a binding duty. He is bound to create a public
sentiment that shall work for virtue. He is bound to drain the
community of all those evils that run together and form a channel
for vice and crime. It is not a matter of election, it is a
.bn 228.png
.pn +1
matter of obligation; and because there are the most respectable
classes in the community that don’t do it, you are not set free.
Because the men of riches and the men of power and the men of
standing in society don’t do it, the poorest laboring man in the
community, if he does not, under the direction of his reason and
conscience, labor for the purification of the commonwealth, is
responsible to God. He is bound to do it. If his individuality
on the one side has shielded him against aggression, it brings
with it also certain obligations, and he is bound to meet them.
All parties hold their members only subject to the corrected
judgment and moral sense of the individual. If they go with
their party on the general ground that it is going right and is
doing right, as far as the limitations of human ignorance and
human power are concerned, travelling in the right direction also
with many imperfect steps and many imperfect elements, he may
justly go on with it; but if he is committed, as were the parties
of slavery, to so atrocious a wrong as that which violated the
fundamental rights of the whole human family, a man is bound
to fight the party, in and out of it: in it by correction, out of it
by protest and opposition. And merely because he can say,
‘The party did it, I did not,’ he is not relieved of responsibility.
Inasmuch as you knew what was right and did not do it, so
much you are involved in the guilt; and there was a great deal
of guilt. The Church itself was involved in the same—dumb
pulpits, uncirculated Bibles, a corrupt and vicious public sentiment.
“When I came into Plymouth Church as its pastor there was
probably hardly a single church in the bounds of New York or
Brooklyn of any note that dared to say a word for the liberty
of the abject slave. Was I wrong in protesting against it, with
the knowledge that I had? With the conscience that I had, had
I been silent I should have been doomed justly to the stroke
of God’s righteous judgment; and the want of moral courage
under such circumstances is a very great sin everywhere. You
are not right to stand still in any great party, moving in any
direction, doing wrong, without deliberately taking account with
yourself. Am I striving to correct the evil by all the influence I
can wield? On finding that to be impossible, do I free myself
from all imputation of partnership in any such guilt, one way or
the other?”
.bn 229.png
.pn +1
Now it is easy enough to express such sentiments: it is
popular; it is in the line of public sentiment. Then it was a very
different matter, and the living up to them still more difficult.
Recalling the early history of Plymouth Church, he said:
“It was formed in the midst of the development of the
greatest work of the modern century—the emancipation of the
slaves in America, by which the industry of the Continent was
also emancipated, and by which the Church and religion itself
were saved from a worse than Babylonian captivity.
“When I came here you could get no great Missionary Society,
Bible Society, or Tract Society to say one solitary word for
the slave. Such were the interests of the mercantile classes of
the South that it was extremely difficult to exert there any anti-slavery
influence. As the merchants largely held the funds, as
the great societies needed support, and as churches were built by
respectable men whose prosperity depended mainly upon the
peace and order of the South, the position that this church took
was a bold and unpopular one. Those who did not live then
can have no conception of what it was to form a church that
should stand right out in the intense light of the time, and declare
for universal liberty and for the right of the slave to the
Bible, and to full religious freedom. This church grew up right
against a flinty way of bitterness and opposition.”
Such was the beginning, and such the times!
Although he began preaching in Plymouth Church, October
10, 1847, Mr. Beecher was not formally installed until the 11th
of November following. On that day an ecclesiastical council
was convened “by letters from the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn,
in the State of New York, at their lecture-room, ... for the purpose
of installing (if the way should be found clear) the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher as their pastor,” etc.
“After an extended and thorough examination of the pastor-elect
respecting his views of the doctrine of natural and revealed
religion, his experience of renewing and sanctifying grace, and
his object in entering on the work of the Christian ministry, the
council unanimously pronounced the examination sustained and
voted to proceed to installation.”
The invocation and reading of the Scriptures was by the Rev.
Dr. Humphrey, of Pittsfield, Mass.; the sermon by Rev. Dr. Edward
Beecher, of the Salem Church of Boston, an older brother
.bn 230.png
.pn +1
of the new pastor; the installing prayer by Rev. Dr. Hewitt, of
the Second Congregational Church of Bridgeport; the charge to
the pastor by Rev. Dr. Lansing, of the Second Congregational
Church of New York; the fellowship of the churches by Rev.
R. S. Storrs, Jr., of the Church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn; address
to the people by Rev. J. P. Thompson, of the Broadway
Tabernacle, New York, and the concluding prayer by Rev. Dr.
Bushnell, of the North Church of Hartford.
As soon as he was fairly installed the pastor set himself
vigorously to work to build up the young church, and to fill it
with new converts.
The audience-room of the church began to fill rapidly, in the
morning being generally three-fourths full, and in the evening
entirely full. Early in 1848 difficulty was found in accommodating
those who wished to attend, the building being crowded
from that time on, both night and morning.
In the spring, daily morning prayer-meetings were held, under
the conduct of the pastor. Soon revivals broke out in the
church, which, though singularly free from undue excitement,
produced a deep and wide-spread influence. More than seventy
persons were converted, most of them joining Plymouth Church,
the rest uniting with other evangelical churches.
Notwithstanding the many doleful prophecies that greeted its
early beginnings, and the “dangerous stand” taken by its pastor
which alarmed so many conservative minds, the church was just
perverse enough to prosper and grow rapidly—a perversity which
characterized it for the next forty years. In a little over two
years from its birth it had an enrolled membership of four hundred
and four, of whom fifty-six joined in 1847; one hundred
and fifty-two in 1848; one hundred and thirty-six in 1849 (the
year of the fire), and sixty in the first part of 1850.
On the 13th of January, 1849, occurred one of those fortunate
mishaps which proved to be a blessing in disguise. For some
time previous, the congregation had been greatly disproportioned
to the capacity of the church; the necessity of rebuilding
began to be seriously discussed, when occurred a fire that abruptly
terminated the discussion. The building was so badly
damaged that it was unanimously determined to rebuild rather
than repair.
The kindly sympathy of neighboring churches, in volunteering
.bn 231.png
.pn +1
the use of their buildings for the houseless congregation, was
gratefully accepted for a short time.
It soon became apparent that this unsettled and migratory
condition was harmful to the church. It was therefore determined
to erect a temporary structure upon ground in Pierrepont
Street, kindly offered by Mr. Lewis Tappan. In thirty days a
building, one hundred by eighty feet, was put up, and in this the
church made its home until the first Sunday in January, 1850.
The whole expense of this “Tabernacle,” as it was called,
was twenty-eight hundred dollars. The subsequent sale of
the building, together with the weekly collections, more than repaid
this outlay, while the pew-rents were amply sufficient to
meet the current expenses.
As soon as possible after the fire, steps were taken to put up
the new building, which was to be constructed on a much larger
scale than the old one.
On May 29, 1849, the corner-stone was laid, and on the first
Sunday in January, 1850, the congregation worshipped in their
new church.
The new structure was built on Orange Street, and ran through
to Pineapple. It was really two buildings under one roof, the
church proper being one hundred and five feet long by eighty
broad. Adjoining and opening into this, from the rear, was a
lecture-room of two stories, eighty by fifty feet, the second story
being the Sunday-school.
The entire cost of the new church was about $36,000, of
which $31,127 was raised upon scrip, bearing interest, payable in
pew-rents. To provide for the balance, and a mortgage of $10,500
on the old property, the new building was mortgaged for
$16,000. The entire indebtedness and all encumbrances were
paid off by 1867, at which time the church was entirely free from
debt.
The cost of the lecture-room and Sabbath-school was about
$13,000, of which $10,800 were donated, the rest being paid
partly by festivals and fairs held for the purpose, and partly from
the general fund of the church.
The Sabbath-school at this time consisted of two hundred
and fifty scholars and thirty teachers.
The seating capacity of the pews and choir-gallery of the
church was about twenty-one hundred persons. This was
.bn 232.png
.pn +1
thought at first, by some, to be a very extravagant allowance.
But in 1857 the seating capacity could not supply the demand,
and folding-seats were placed in the aisles, fixed to the end of
each pew, and so constructed as to fold up against the pew-side
when not in use; while benches were set along the walls all
around the galleries, and in the vacant space in front of the pulpit.
These accommodated about eight hundred more, while the
standing space, almost always occupied during the last twenty-five
years, permitted about three hundred more to be present.
As his last year at Indianapolis had been consecrated by the
loss of his little boy, so in like manner were the first in his new
pastorate. Scarce had a month passed when the death of his
little girl “Caty” became the means of closer communion between
pastor and people through the bonds of sympathy and
kind service. He wrote to his sister:
“When Caty sickened and began her quiet march toward the
once opened gate, to rejoin the brother (cherub pair), we found
our house full of friends. Many of the truest, deepest hearts
asked no bidding, but, with instinctive heart taught right, lived
with us almost literally; and when her form was to go forth from
us, they embowered her in flowers, winter though it seemed,
and every thought and remembrance of her is sweet in itself and
sweet in its suggestions.
“What had I to bear up against? I was held up by increasing
love and sympathy on every side. Of this world I had more
than heart could wish; of friends, never so many or so worth
having; and the effect, as might be supposed, has answered to
the cause. I find now that it is with me as with mountains in
spring-time—every fissure is growing to a rill, every patch of soil
is starting its flowers, every shrub has its insect and every tree
its bird.”
.bn 233.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch12'
CHAPTER XII.
.pm start_summary
Plymouth Church—The New Building—Sabbath Service—Prayer-Meeting—Weekly
Lecture—Socials—Church Polity—The Pastor’s Policy.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
As we have stated, Plymouth Church took possession of its
new building on the first Sabbath in January, 1850. Then,
as on the Sabbaths of the nearly forty succeeding years in
which Mr. Beecher ministered here, the crowd came and filled
every available seat. Then began that sound, once heard never
forgotten, and heard nowhere else so continuously, of the incoming
multitude, the tread of hurrying feet like the sound of many
waters, as the crowds, held back for a time until pew-holders
have been in part accommodated, press in and take their
places. Here, on this first Sabbath, arose that song of thanksgiving
whose fulness and power were for so many years a marked
feature of the religious service of this great congregation. Here
began that long succession of sermons which opened to so many
thousands, at first by the voice and then by the printing-press;
the nearness, the righteousness, and the boundless love of God
revealed in Jesus Christ. And here began on that day to ascend
those prayers which drew hearts into the very presence
of the Most High and left them gladdened, refreshed, and filled
as with the fulness of God. Blessed old Plymouth Church!
Its every memory, its very walls are dear unto multitudes.
It was plain even to bareness—unnecessarily so in the opinion
of many—both without and within, with not the slightest effort at
show or even ornament. None of those harmonies of color nor
graces of form, such as are now shown or attempted in almost
every church edifice, were here found. It was builded with the
simple conscientious purpose of enabling as many as possible to
hear the Gospel, of affording every advantage to such as wished
to meet together in the prayer-meeting and sociable, and of instructing
the young in the Sunday-school. Herein lay the
beauty of the Plymouth Church building: its excellent adaptation
to the great end in view. More than any church of that
day, and, with all the progress of later times, excelled by but
.bn 234.png
.pn +1
few, if any, at the present time, Plymouth Church building afforded
superior accommodations for Gospel hearing and spiritual,
educational, and social training. By placing the seats in a
partial curve, by the admirable arrangement of the commodious
galleries, and by pushing the pulpit well forward toward the centre
of the circle, the vast audience of nearly three thousand
people were brought near together and near to the speaker.
While this enabled him to address them with great ease, it
also afforded an opportunity for the cultivation of that feeling
of homeness and fraternity that always characterized the
gatherings of this church with its pastor.
The pulpit was then, as now, a plain platform, with no railing
in front, and no other furniture than a set of chairs, a stand for
notices, and an open table for the Bible; as far removed as possible
from those boxes where the man must stand, cramped and
stiff, while he delivers his message. An offering of flowers was
also found there, the beginning of a custom which has been continued,
we believe, without the failure of a single Sabbath, from
that day to this.
Behind the pulpit was the organ and seats for a choir of fifty
or more who should lead the great congregation in their songs of
praise.
In the rear of the audience-room, opening back into another
street, was the lecture and prayer-meeting room, and above this
were the parlors and the Sunday-school rooms.
Such was the equipment that the pastor and Plymouth
Church began to use on that first Sabbath in 1850. It seemed
to many more than ample. The audience-room was more commodious
than any in the land. Would the young minister be
able to fill it? Would he hold out? The “six months” that
one of Brooklyn’s most oracular of D.D.’s had given “that
young man to run out in” had long since passed, and he gave, as
yet, no signs of waning popularity; but perhaps he will, and a few
possibly hoped, and some, it may be, feared, that it would be so;
but by far the larger part of that great congregation praised God
that day in joyful confidence without any fears or misgivings.
They had faith in their pastor as well as in God; and he, conscious
that he had builded sincerely, without sham or pretence,
had no question but that He who had begun this good work
would carry it prosperously forward to the end. All these appliances
.bn 235.png
.pn +1
had been demanded by the thousands in attendance.
Their necessity was of God, hence they could trust Him to vindicate
His own plans. The young pastor neither feared nor was
anxious. He was the Lord’s; let Him do with him as He
pleased.
Of this feeling in connection with his preaching he himself
says: “I had at that time almost a species of indifference as to
means and measures. I cared little, and perhaps too little,
whether I had or had not a church building. I thought of one
thing—the love of Christ to men. This, to me, was a burning
reality. Less clearly than now, perhaps, did I discern the whole
circuit and orb of the nature of Christ; but with a burning intensity
I realized the love of God in Jesus Christ. I believed it
to be the one transcendent influence in this world by which
men should be roused to a higher manhood and should be translated
into another and better kingdom. My purpose was to
preach Christ to men for the sake of bringing them to a higher
life; and though I preferred the polity and economy of the Congregational
churches, yet I also felt that God was in all the
other churches, and that it was no part of my ministry to build
up sectarian walls; that it was no part of my ministry to bombard
and pull down sectarian structures; but that the work of
my ministry was to find the way to the hearts of men, and to
labor with them for their awakening and conversion and sanctification.
“I have said that I had no theory; but I had a very strong
impression on my mind that the first five years in the life of a
church would determine the history of that church and give to
it its position and genius; that if the earliest years of a church
were controversial or barren it would take scores of years to
right it; but that if a church were consecrated, active, and energetic
during the first five years of its life, it would probably go on
through generations developing the same features. My supreme
anxiety, therefore, in gathering a church, was to have all of its
members united in a fervent, loving disposition; to have them
all in sympathy with men; and to have all of them desirous of
bringing to bear the glorious truths of the Gospel upon the hearts
and consciences of those about them.
“Consequently I went into this work with all my soul, preaching
night and day, visiting incessantly, and developing as fast
.bn 236.png
.pn +1
and as far as might be that social, contagious spirit which we
call a revival of religion.”
The services in the church were then, as ever since, in harmony
with the building—simple and without ostentation, differing
from those of other Congregational churches only in the spirit
of unusual heartiness and the impression of unusual power.
When the bell ceased tolling the organ began its work of preparing
the hearts of the great multitude for worship. Then followed
the invocation by the pastor, always devout, always joyful
and trustful, uniformly sincere, and always varied. No set
phrase ever took possession and held in its formal grasp the expression
of his praise and expectant prayer:
“Thou that dost hold the sun, and pour forth therefrom the
light and glory of the day, from Thine own self let there come,
streaming as the daylight, those influences that shall awake in us
all hope and all gladness of love. For we sleep except when
Thy beams are upon us. Only when we are in God are we alive.
Let us in, O our Father! and may all that is within us rise up
to worship Thee. Accept our service according to what we
would do and according to what Thou wouldst have us do.
Bless the word and the reading thereof. Bless our songs of
praise and our fellowship therein. Bless our communion one
with another and with Thee. Bless us in our meditation, in the
services of the day, at home, and everywhere. Make this a
golden day to our souls, through Jesus Christ our Redeemer.
Amen.”
Then followed, in those early days—in later years he often
omitted it—the reading of the hymn, simply, with no straining
after effect, but so as to give the full meaning of the words to be
sung, and in a measure to interpret their spirit. The singing
which followed, so full and appreciative, was something to remember.
It was the voices of the multitude joining and blending
in one great, full song of adoration and thanksgiving.
The reading of the Scripture was usually without comment,
but so vivid to his thought were the great truths uttered, and so
flexible was his voice in giving them expression, and so natural
the adaptation of his whole manner to their import, that his simple
reading gave a better understanding of Scripture than the
explanations of most other men.
The prayer that followed the hymn was very marked in its
.bn 237.png
.pn +1
general characteristics, comprehensive, and adapted to the occasion
and the needs of the people before him. It invariably gave
expression to a thankful spirit, lamented sins and failures, was
permeated with a yearning desire for communion with God and
with great sympathy with men, class after class of whom he
brought before the Heavenly Father for deliverance, comfort,
and blessing.
The sermon was long, consuming from three-quarters of
an hour to an hour, and sometimes more, in delivery, and
usually combined in a very marked degree the three elements,
the exegetical, the philosophic, and the hortatory. He delighted
in giving a full and broad opening of Scripture, that all might
be quickened and fed; in showing the relation and harmony of
the truths thus presented to other truths already admitted, making
their bearings clear by frequent illustrations, and pressing
them in the progress of the sermon, and especially at the close,
upon the acceptance of his hearers. His preaching informed,
convinced, inspired, and moved men to decisive action Godward,
or it was, in his view, a failure.
The benediction with which the services closed was as if he
saw the hands of the living Saviour stretched out over His beloved
people, and he became but a mouthpiece for the solemn
and tender expression of His beneficence.
Then followed the informal after-meeting, unadvertised and
unarranged—the pressing forward to the pulpit, or the waiting
in the aisles until he should pass out, of some who perhaps had a
word of thanks for help received in the sermon, of others asking
questions or bearing messages, of strangers who wished to press
his hand, or of troubled ones who wanted a word of cheer. The
meeting continued down the aisle, out into the porch, out on to
the street, as friends still walked along with him, talking as they
went.
The weekly meetings of the church, besides Sabbath services
and the Sunday-school, at this early period, were three: a “Lecture,”
Tuesday evening; a “Sociable,” Thursday evening; and a
Prayer-meeting, Friday evening.
The weekly lecture was a familiar meeting of the church
family and their friends, where, in simple and colloquial speech,
the pastor instructed them in the things that pertain to the spiritual
life. It was always spoken of, not as a sermon, but as a
.bn 238.png
.pn +1
“Lecture-Room Talk.” The subjects chosen were practical, like
these, given in the order in which he delivered them: “Groping
after God,” “Praying for Others,” “Fervency of Religious Feeling,”
“Conversing with the Impenitent,” picked up in his intercourse
with his people, selected with direct reference to solving
doubts, removing difficulties, and securing spiritual growth and
activity. In these, perhaps more than anywhere else, he displayed
the resources of his great common sense, revealed the
depth of his spiritual life, and drew most largely on the wealth
of his own Christian experience.
The prayer-meetings did not differ in form from those that
are common in Congregational churches. A moment before the
hour for the meeting Mr. Beecher came upon the platform, threw
his hat upon the floor by the side of his chair, sat down, and,
throwing back his cloak, took up the “Plymouth Collection,” and,
the instant the bell ceased tolling, without rising, gave out in a
clear, firm voice the number of some familiar hymn, usually of
thanksgiving. The pianist wasted no time in playing the tune
through, but struck the opening note firmly, the audience joined
without delay and sang without dragging, and the meeting gained
that most important advantage—a good send-off. No sooner had
the hymn ceased than the pastor arose and read a passage from a
Bible which he held in his hand. He then led in a prayer, simple,
confiding, hopeful, tender, that helped all weary and waiting
souls to realize that they were in the presence of their very
best Friend, and gave them needed help. Another hymn, given
out in the same manner and sung with the same spirit, followed.
Then, that there might be no break in the movement of
the service, looking at the individual addressed, usually some
one of the old warriors upon the front seats, he would say,
“Will Brother ——— lead us in prayer?” When this prayer was
finished his eye seemed to take a broader range and search out
some of the younger and less experienced to bring them into
the work. Woe be to you then if you have come in late,
taken a back seat, and tried to keep out of sight! He seemed
to know instinctively where you were, and how you felt, and how
essential, if you would enjoy the meeting, that this ice should be
broken; and on this second call for leaders you would be very
likely to hear your name pronounced with that same kind but
authoritative intonation that you could neither pretend not to hear
.bn 239.png
.pn +1
nor refuse to obey. Another hymn increases the kindly warmth
of Christian feeling that has begun to pervade the audience like
an atmosphere, and under its inspiration other prayers are offered,
at this stage by volunteers; experiences are related, often by the
pastor; questions are asked upon some practical difficulty, and
answers are given; failures and sins are confessed and lamented,
and prayers are requested and offered, until the hour was passed
all too quickly. Another hymn, and then the benediction closes
the meeting.
The social meetings, for the accommodation of which Mr.
Beecher added the parlors—at that time an unusual feature of a
church—were a very earnest attempt made by him in the meridian
of his social power and enthusiasm, and in a church more
than ordinarily inspired by his loving spirit, to overcome the
separations which different conditions and dissimilar social training
and surroundings bring about in the Church of Christ, and
to realize as nearly as possible the family ideal. A sewing-meeting
was held in the afternoon for some benevolent enterprise,
followed by a plain tea to which all were invited. Friends
dropped in, pleasant conversation ensued, and perhaps a few selections
of reading or song, prepared for the occasion, were
given. “Mr. Beecher then took his stand in the centre of the
large room, rapped with his pencil and called his flock around
him, and gave them ten minutes of appreciative, kindly, witty,
helpful talk. ‘Plymouth Collection of Hymns’ was then handed
round, and everybody sang, or tried to. After this, prayer and
‘good-night.’” This was about the outline, and for several years
it was moderately successful; but busy times crowded in upon it,
unregulated elements worked into it, getting and doing more harm
than good, and at length it was given up, and the members of
Plymouth Church chose their companions according to social
affinities, similarity of position, and circumstances, like other
people.
Such preaching and labors, with such appliances, under the
blessing of God were sure to bring abundant results, and revivals
followed each other in quick succession all through those early
years; in fact, Plymouth Church thus far during its whole history
may be called a revival church.
Its polity was Congregational, as we find in its manual of
1850:
.bn 240.png
.pn +1
“This church is an independent ecclesiastical body, and in
matters of doctrine, order, and discipline is amenable to no
other organization. This church will extend to other evangelical
churches and receive from them that fellowship, advice, and assistance
which the laws of Christ require.”
His own policy toward the church is given in these words:
“I have never managed. I have never employed management.
I have tried to inspire kind feelings and thus lead men to
take up their crosses. I have never sought to exert my authority,
but to promote the utmost freedom of thought and action....
I have maintained from the beginning the most profound desire
that there should be a church-life among you quite independent
of me, and that as the pulpit was independent, so should the
pews be also. I have scrupulously avoided meddling with the
liberties of this church, except to enforce them. My simple aim
from the beginning has been to develop among you as high a
standard of manhood, and of Christian manhood, as the infirmity
of human nature would permit; and for that—the exaltation of
manhood in Christ Jesus—I have labored in season and out of
season: not without flaw, not without fault, not without sin, but,
as God is my witness, with every power of my soul and body and
understanding, from year to year.”
Such was Plymouth Church as she stood a score and a half
and more years ago, and as she still remains.
“Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is this our
Mount Zion” well expresses the feelings of multitudes as they
recall these years and remember these places. Her streets of
Sabbath service and work-day conference and prayer were continually
trodden by eager crowds, and were made beautiful and
attractive by the Christian fellowship that grew up and blossomed
here on every side under the inspiration and culture of one
who himself so trustfully, hopefully, and exultingly walked with
God.
.bn 241.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch13'
CHAPTER XIII.
.pm start_summary
Beginning of the Great Battle—Five Great Eras—Compromise Measures
of 1850—“Shall We Compromise”—The Fugitive Slave Law Denounced—Right
of Free Speech Defended—Commercial Liberty—Fighting
Caste—Liberty of the Pulpit Defended—Quickness of Retort—Sentiment
of the Times—Reaction—Visit of Kossuth—Election
of 1852—The Parker Controversy—Degraded into Liberty—John
Mitchel—Garrison—Close of this Era.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Other things than opening the church building contributed
to make 1850 an eventful year to Henry Ward Beecher.
In that year slavery came to the place of supreme interest
in our national affairs which it never afterwards lost until it
was swept away in the battle-storm of 1861-65.
The very month that Plymouth Church took possession of its
new house, the first month of the last half of the nineteenth century,
Henry Clay submitted a series of resolutions in the Senate
of the United States as “compromise measures for a final and
complete adjustment of the slavery question.” In the debate,
passage, and enforcement of these measures, the utterly antagonistic
nature of the two contending elements, liberty and slavery,
which had been brought together under our Constitution, became
so evident; slavery, from the very necessity of self-preservation,
became so aggressive, advanced claims so comprehensive and so
forced the fighting, that the very measures intended to compromise
the whole difficulty made it clear that there could be no
compromise. There could be no amicable adjustment of interests
so diametrically opposed; one or the other, liberty or slavery,
must take undivided and undisputed possession of the government.
From debate of words the conflict passed rapidly to
the argument of arms, first on the plains of Kansas and eventually
over the whole southern half of our country, developing
into the greatest civil war ever known in the world’s history—a
.bn 242.png
.pn +1
war in comparison with which, in the numbers engaged on either
side, in the breadth of the battle-field, in the agents of destruction
employed and the important interests at stake, England’s
Wars of the Roses, and even the strife of the rival claimants
for the imperial purple of Rome, were insignificant and
secondary contests.
The part of this great slavery conflict in which Mr. Beecher
was actively engaged had five distinct eras, clearly marked by
well-defined boundaries, each presenting peculiar difficulties of
its own to be overcome, and each bringing forward peculiar and
important questions for solution. The first began with the agitation
of the Compromise measures of 1850, and ended in the
passage of those measures and their enforcement, more or less
complete, during the uneasy years of 1850 and 1853.
The second began with the proposition to repeal the Missouri
Compromise measures and continued through what was known as
“The Kansas Struggle,” until April 1, 1858, when the first substantial
victory ever won by the free States was gained in Congress
in the permission to give the actual residents of Kansas a
fair vote upon the question of the acceptance or rejection of the
infamous Lecompton Constitution.
The third began with the abandonment by the slave-power of
its dependence upon legislative enactments, which its defeat in
Kansas had proved to be futile, and the inauguration of an era
of secession and violence, and ended with the Proclamation of
Emancipation, which took effect January 1, 1863, and which legally
destroyed slavery in all the States in rebellion, and substantially
within the whole domain of the United States.
The fourth era began with the issuing the Proclamation of
Emancipation; extended through two years and more of battle by
which the proclamation was carried into effect, and slavery was
destroyed de facto as it had already been de jure, and foreign intervention
was prevented; and ended with raising the flag over
Sumter, the sign of the restoration of our national authority over
a free and undivided national domain.
The fifth includes the period of reconstruction, in which the
difficult task of bringing the States, once in rebellion but now
submissive, back into the Union was successfully accomplished.
It covers the ground from the close of the war to the present
time, or, more properly, from the death of President Lincoln,
.bn 243.png
.pn +1
when the South lay prostrate at the feet of the victorious North,
to the election of President Cleveland, when, as Mr. Beecher
hoped and believed, sectional lines were obliterated and the
South once more saw the candidate she favored raised to be the
chief magistrate of our common country.
The Compromise measures of 1850 were conceived for the
purpose of removing the serious and dangerous complications that
had arisen, between the North and the South, in the attempt to
organize the territory recently acquired from Mexico, and in
admitting California as a free State with a constitution for ever
prohibiting slavery within her borders. The South felt that such
an addition to the free States would so disturb the balance of
power between the sections that something must be given her as a
compensation. Hence these Compromise measures, which provided
for the admission of California as a free State, but gave the
South, as an offset, a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law and paid
Texas ten millions of dollars for the adjustment of her State
boundaries. Honestly intended, no doubt, and urged by the
mover, Henry Clay, and accepted by many who disliked it, from
patriotic motives, this Compromise was, nevertheless, wrong in
principle and proved only mischievous in results. It rested on
the false theory that the development of both liberty and slavery
was equally the duty of the Republic, and that whatever gain was
made by the former must be equalized to the latter by some new
concession, and led to constantly increasing disturbance in both
sections. While failing to satisfy the more radical men of the
South, it was utterly abhorrent to a much larger body at the
North. It seemed to the latter to be but another great step
taken by the slave-power in its attempt to gain possession of the
whole land. The first had been the Missouri Compromise, in
which slavery, surrendering what it never owned—viz., the territory
north of 36° 30′, called Mason and Dixon’s line—gained
Missouri and a quasi right to all territory south of that line. In
this second great step now proposed they did not fail to note
that the provision to prohibit slavery in the newly-acquired territories,
called the “Wilmot Proviso,” had been defeated in Congress,
nor fail to see that in these Compromise measures, should
they be carried, the slave-power would secure the right to hunt
and capture its fugitives in every city, town, and home of the free
States, and to compel every Northern citizen to aid in the work,
.bn 244.png
.pn +1
thus making, so far as fugitives were concerned, slave territory of
the whole North. They saw in this measure a great advance
towards nationalizing this institution and securing for it the right,
aimed at by its advocates from the first, to go unquestioned and
protected wherever the authority of the Constitution of the
United States was recognized. If this were passed they felt it
to be not at all improbable that the threat of Senator Toombs, of
Georgia, to call the roll of his slaves from the steps of Bunker
Hill Monument, would be executed, and they opposed it with
an energy born both of conviction and abhorrence. In this opposition
none were more strenuous than Mr. Beecher. Speaking
of this period, he says:
“In 1850, when the controversy came up about Clay’s 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 Fugitive Slave Bill. It was then
that I wrote that article, ‘Shall we Compromise?’ It 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. There is no alternative.
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 denouncing 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 professors—to take his part. The effort was to get
every great and influential 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, Dr. Hopkins, President
of Williams College in Massachusetts, and various other most
influential men, absolutely refused to sustain Webster.”
In the issue of the Independent of February 21, 1850, filling
three columns, we have the famous article referred to above.
We quote only enough to indicate its spirit and line of argument:[5]
.fm rend=th
.fn 5
This article entire can be found in Mr. Beecher’s “Patriotic Addresses,”
published by Fords, Howard & Hulbert, New York City.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
.bn 245.png
.pn +1
.ce
“SHALL WE COMPROMISE?
“Mr. Clay’s Compromise has been violently resisted by the
South and but coldly looked upon by the North.
“It is not that both sides are infatuated and refuse a reasonable
settlement; but the skill of Mr. Clay has evidently not
touched the seat of the disease. He either has not perceived or
else has not thought it expedient to meet the real issue now before
the people of the United States. The struggle now going
on is a struggle whose depths lie in the organization of society in
the North and South respectively; whose causes are planted in
the Constitution. There are two incompatible and mutually destructive
principles wrought together in the government of this
land.... These elements are slavery and liberty.... One or
the other must die.
”... The South now demands room and right for extension.
She asks the North to be a partner. For every free State she demands
one State for slavery. One dark orb must be swung into
its orbit, to groan and travail in pain, for every new orb of liberty
over which the morning stars shall sing for joy.
“... It is time for good men and true to gird up their loins
and stand forth for God and humanity. No compromises can
help us which dodge the question, certainly none which settle
it for slavery....
“There never was a plainer question for the North. It is her
duty openly, firmly, and for ever to refuse to slavery another
inch of territory, and to see to it that it never gets it by fraud.
It is her duty to refuse her hand or countenance to slavery where
it now exists. It is her duty to declare that she will under no
consideration be a party to any farther inhumanity and injustice....
“Mr. Clay’s Compromise resolutions demand better provision
for the recovery of fugitive slaves, and a bill is now pending in
the United States Senate for that purpose. On this matter our
feelings are so strong that we confess a liability to intemperance
of expression.
“If the compromises of the Constitution include requisitions
which violate humanity, I will not be bound by them. Not even
the Constitution shall make me unjust. If my patriotic sires
confederated in my behalf that I should maintain that instrument,
.bn 246.png
.pn +1
so I will to the utmost bound of right. But who, with
power which even God denies to Himself, shall by compact fore-ordain
me to the commission of inhumanity and injustice? I
disown the act. I repudiate the obligation. Never while I have
breath will I help any official miscreant in his base errand of recapturing
a fellow-man for bondage; and may my foot palsy
and my right hand forget her cunning if I ever become so untrue
to mercy and to religion as not by all the means in my power
to give aid and succor to every man whose courageous flight tells
me he is worthy of liberty!
”... From those compromises, like Mr. Clay’s, which seek
for peace rather than for humanity—from such compromises,
guileless though they seem, and gilded till they shine like
heaven, evermore may we be delivered.”
This battle in Congress resulted, like every battle since the
adoption of the Constitution, in a victory for the slave party. In
September of this year, 1850, the Compromise measures, which
had passed both Houses of Congress, were signed by President
Fillmore and became by a very decided majority the law of the
land. Many things had contributed to this result. On the one
hand, there was a strong party in the South, representing largely
the sentiment of that whole section, who felt themselves aggrieved
and deprived of their rights under the Constitution, since they
could not carry their property with them into the common territory
of the Union, and who saw in these Compromise measures a
step in the direction of nationalizing their peculiar institution;
on the other the commercial and manufacturing interests of the
North demanded a cessation of strife, that they might enter into
the prosperity opened to them by the discovery of the gold
upon our Western coast; again, the fear of disruption, if the bitter
discussion in Congress should continue, reconciled many to
such measures as promised peace; also, the habit of compromise,
which had been early formed, and stood apparently justified by
years of prosperity and growth, made it easier to again adopt
this course; and, perhaps more influential than any other, the
leaders most beloved and trusted at the North were in favor
of the measure. Henry Clay was its originator, and Daniel
Webster, the great expounder of the Constitution, in his fatal
speech of March 7, 1850, had justified the Compromise measures,
spoke not a word in condemnation of the legal or moral
.bn 247.png
.pn +1
crudities and enormities of the Fugitive Slave Law, and had reserved
the lightning of his sarcasm and the thunder of his condemnation
for the Abolitionists:
“Nothing can be plainer than that all parties in the state were
drifting in the dark, without any comprehension of the elemental
causes at work. Without prescience or sagacity, like ignorant
physicians, they prescribed at random; they sewed on patches,
new compromises on old garments, sought to conceal the real
depth of the danger of the gathering torrent by crying peace!
peace! to each other. In short, they were seeking to medicate
volcanoes and stop earthquakes by administering political quinine.
The wise statesmen were bewildered and politicians were
juggling fools.”
If the anti-slavery men of the North hated the Compromise,
and especially the Fugitive Slave clause in it, while it was being
debated in Congress, their abhorrence was increased a thousand-fold
now that all it had cost and all it threatened was in a measure
comprehended. Looking at it calmly, they saw that safe-guards
which from time immemorial had gathered around the
individual to protect him in person and liberty had, for a very
large class in the community, been suddenly destroyed.
Trial by jury was denied. Opportunity for the accused to
summon witnesses in his own defence was not given, and “in no
trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged
fugitives be admitted to evidence.” He had no hearing before
any competent judge, but before a commissioner appointed to
take depositions, who, whatever his ability or lack of ability,
was clothed by this infamous act with plenary power in the premises.
On the simple certificate of this man the unhappy victim was
hurried off at once into slavery, and no stay of proceedings or
liberty of appeal was granted. Dumb, undefended, his destiny
at the mercy of any accuser, and of a commissioner possibly
ignorant and possibly vicious, the accused was consigned to a
state worse to many than death.
Aimed at a particular class, its injustice was seen to be indiscriminate
enough to make an attack possible upon individuals of
any class; and its provisions for the deprivation of a single right
made necessary such a stringency in the exercise of other rights
as could not be tolerated in a free community.
.bn 248.png
.pn +1
Atrocious in itself, it became still more offensive and dangerous
by reason of the ease with which its provisions could be employed
by villains for kidnapping negroes, or even white men,
who had never been slaves. It was stated and believed that
along the whole line between the slave and free States arresting
fugitives at once became a regular business, with very little care
in many instances as to the previous liberty or slavery of those
arrested. Instances were continually being recorded of colored
boys and girls being unexpectedly spirited away and hurried off
into bondage. Great activity in this work of securing fugitives
who had lived in the North for years prevailed, and fear and apprehension
took possession of the whole negro population of that
section, and a corresponding indignation grew hot in the hearts
of multitudes of freemen.
Scenes and incidents were continually transpiring and published
in the newspapers that stirred the one party to greater
hatred of the institution of slavery, and the other party to greater
hatred to the means, regular or irregular, that were employed to
prevent the carrying out of its purpose.
As may well be supposed, Mr. Beecher speaks with no
greater affection for this measure, now that it has become a
law, than when it was being debated in Congress.
In a Star paper that appeared October 3, upon “The Fugitive
Slave Bill at its Work,” he meets it with undisguised and
open defiance. “With such solemn convictions no law impious
to God and humanity shall have respect or observance at our
hands. If in God’s providence fugitives ask bread or shelter,
raiment or conveyance, from us, my own children shall lack bread
before they; my own flesh shall sting with cold ere they shall lack
raiment; I will both shelter them, conceal them, or speed their
flight, and while under my shelter or my convoy they shall be
to me as my own flesh and blood; and whatsoever defence I
would put forth for my own children, that shall these poor, despised,
and persecuted creatures have in my house or upon the
road.”
He follows with another very thoughtful and able article upon
“Law and Conscience” in defence of his position, and for the
instruction of those who were in doubt what course to take in the
conflicting claims of the law of the land on one side and their
feelings of humanity upon the other.
.bn 249.png
.pn +1
In the first place, he makes the duty of obedience to law very
strong:
“Nothing could be more mischievous than the prevalence of
the doctrine that a citizen may disobey an unjust or burdensome
law. Should that liberty be granted, the bad, the selfish, the
cruel and grasping, might disregard wholesome laws as easily as
just men unjust laws. It would constitute every man a court in
his own case; and a court, too, in which selfishness would preside.
Society could not exist for a day.
“It is a question seriously asked by thousands: How can we
as good citizens subscribe to such wholesome doctrine and yet
openly resist the Fugitive Slave Law? Many reasons make it important
that this question should be thoroughly answered. There
are thousands who say that this law must be obeyed, and who,
with the next breath, bravely and generously declare that nevertheless,
should a distressed fugitive ask succor, shelter, and guidance
at their hand, he should have them. But this is breaking
the law. To keep this law you must not shelter a slave mother
fleeing to her free husband in the North, nor a slave girl whose
foot bounds at the sound of a pursuer, as if it were the knell of
virtue. You must not give direction to a fugitive, though his
head be white and his old limbs reveal half a century of unrequited
toil; though a man say to you, in the awful agony of his
soul, ‘Kill me, but for the love of God do not betray me!’ the
law enjoins you to go with the officer, if he summon you, and
help in his arrest! The minister of the Gospel, the humane
philanthropist, peacefully walking to the Sabbath-sounding bell,
must turn aside and help some scoundrel hireling to run down
his slave, if the marshal command him, or break the law!”
He then lays down this general principle:
“Every citizen must obey a law which inflicts injury upon his
person, estate, and civil privilege, until legally redressed; but no
citizen is bound to obey a law which commands him to inflict injury
upon another. We must endure but never commit wrong.
We must be patient when sinned against, but must never sin
against others. The law may heap injustice upon me, but no law
can authorize me to pour injustice upon another. When the law
commanded Daniel not to pray he disobeyed it; when it commanded
him to be cast into the lions’ den he submitted.
“A law which enjoins upon a citizen the commission of a
.bn 250.png
.pn +1
crime, and still more of an open, disgraceful, and flagitious crime,
has violated the confidence of the citizen, and is dissolved in the
court of God the moment it is enacted.
“Let no man stand uncommitted, dodging between daylight
and dark, on this vital principle. Let every man firmly and
openly take sides. This vibrating between humanity for the fugitive
and conscience for the law, this clandestine humanity in
spite of law, to which the lips only give a sullen and pouting
obedience, is not consistent with sincerity and open-hearted integrity.
We adjure every Christian man, every man to whom conscience
is more than meat, and honor better than thrift, to stand
forth and enunciate the invincible truth of the Christian’s creed:
Obedience to laws, even though they sin against me: disobedience to
every law that commands me to sin.”
His conviction of the origin of this whole trouble, his policy
concerning it, and his confidence in the working out of natural
causes are well set forth in an article at this period upon “The
Cause and Cure of Agitation”:
“It ought primarily to be understood that our Constitution
has invited this whole conflict which has raged about it. Had the
framers been gifted with prescience they would, we cannot but
think, have regarded the inevitable future mischief of that compromise
by which slavery had its rights embedded in a constitution
of liberty, as too great to be risked. They acted with the
light which they had. They swaddled and laid in one cradle two
infant forms. These were rocked together and grew up together;
but one was a wolf’s cub and the other a lamb. Both were alike
peaceful at birth—for a lion’s whelp when first dropped is as gentle
as a doe. Growth brought forth separate natures. Then appeared
hostility. Each acted to its nature.
“Our policy for the future is plain. All the natural laws of
God are warring upon slavery. We have only to let the process
go on. Let slavery alone. Let it go to seed. Hold it to its own
natural fruit. Cause it to abide by itself. Cut off every branch
that hangs beyond the wall, every root that spreads. Shut it up
to itself and let it alone. We do not ask to interfere with the internal
policy of a single State by Congressional enactments: we
will not ask to take one guarantee from the institution. We only
ask that a line be drawn about it; that an insuperable bank be
cast up; that it be fixed and for ever settled that slavery must
.bn 251.png
.pn +1
find no new sources, new fields, new prerogatives, but that it must
abide in its place, subject to all the legitimate changes which will
be brought upon it by the spirit of a nation essentially democratic,
by schools taught by enlightened men, by colleges sending
annually into every profession thousands bred to justice and hating
its reverse, by churches preaching a gospel that has always
heralded civil liberty, by manufactories which always thrive best
when the masses are free and refined and therefore have their
wants multiplied, by free agriculture and free commerce.
“When slavery begins, under such a treatment, to flag, we demand
that she be denied political favoritism to regain her loss;
we demand that no laws be enacted to give health to her paralysis
and strength to her relaxing grasp. She boldly and honestly
demanded a right to equality with the North, and prophetically
spoke by Calhoun, that the North would preponderate and crush
her. It is true. Time is her enemy. Liberty will, if let alone,
always be a match for oppression. Now, it is because statesmen
propose stepping in between slavery and the appointed bourne to
which she goes, scourged by God and nature, that we resent these
statesmen and refuse to follow them. If her wounds can be
stanched, if she may have adventitious aid in new privileges, slavery
will renew her strength and stave off the final day. But if
it be forbidden one additional favor and be obliged to stand up
by the side of free labor, free schools, free churches, free institutions;
if it be obliged to live in a land of free books, free papers,
and free Bibles, it will either die or else it ought to live.”
He ridicules those measures that had been adopted North
and South to enforce the peace, and compares those who keep
agitating against agitation to poor old “crazy Dinah” who used
to sit on the pulpit stairs in Litchfield. “Once she began talking,
but, startled at her want of manners, she said out loud:
‘Why I’m talking! I’m talking in meetin’! There, I spoke
again. I ought not to speak. There, I spoke once more. Tut,
tut! why, I keep a-speaking.’”
While advocating at this time, as ever afterwards, the utmost
liberty of discussion, he stated his creed in these words:
“There is nothing so safe in a free country as free discussion,
nothing so dangerous as the suppression of it; peace and liberty
of speech, violence and intolerance, respectively go together.”
He argued and advised in a lengthy paper against “the usual
.bn 252.png
.pn +1
unfortunate concomitants of controversy, bitterness, railing, unfairness,
and exaggerated prejudices.
“We have not the least objection to the most unbounded
ardor of expression, to the most enthusiastic convictions, expressed
in the most positive manner, so long as they relate to
truths or principles. But when the propagandist comes to regard
those who do not receive his views as devoid of all principle and
necessarily dishonest, and becomes offensively personal, then controversy
is morbid and mischievous. And as nothing gives such
vigor to like or dislike as conscience, so they who profess to be
conscientious are often conscientiously bitter. There is no revulsion
against men or measures so violent as that of pure and
honorable men. A man consciously right should watch against
severe judgments of others. It is sad and curious to observe the
progress of exaggerated impressions of personal character. Those
who do not follow our conscience on the slavery question are
often, nevertheless, on the whole, more conscientious men than
we. Those whose reasonings we pronounce cold and inhuman are
not cold or inhuman men. Those whose commercial interests
reduce them, as it seems to us, to a policy on this particular question
which outrages justice and rectitude, are in their private
character most estimable for truth, and even for tender sympathy.
Indeed, this is often shown in strange contrast; for the very men
who give their counsel and zeal and money against the unseen
slave of the South irresistibly pity the particular fugitive whom
they may see running through the North. They give the Union
Committee money to catch the slave, and give the slave money to
escape from the Committee.”
All who were acquainted with Mr. Beecher know that the
course he advised for others he persistently and conscientiously
pursued himself. We doubt if any man ever lived who was engaged
in so many severe battles and carried into them or brought
from them so little bitterness.
Such a vigorous treatment of large and vital questions commanded
a following; and it was not long before this young minister
from the West was recognized as one of the great anti-slavery
leaders and had a national reputation. Men at the South began
to hate him; men at the North, conservatives whose business
interests were wrapped up in the present state of things, whose
goods and principles were equally for sale in Southern markets,
.bn 253.png
.pn +1
were horrified and alarmed at his unwise sayings, his blasphemous
use of the pulpit for political ends, and his fiery denunciations
of the nation’s pet institution. But over against
these there was another class, daily growing larger, whose consciences
were set free by his clear discrimination of a citizen’s
and a Christian’s duty, whose intelligence was broadened and
enlarged by his lofty views, and whose hearts were set on fire by
his mighty enthusiasm and abounding love. This body daily increased
in numbers and came more and more to share the spirit of
their leader. Whatever he wrote they read. Whenever he spoke
the size of church or hall alone decided the number of hearers.
Without ambition, without self-seeking, with a simple, earnest
desire to do his work as God revealed it to him, unrasped by
hatreds, he had come to a place and leadership as broad and
high as there was in the land. With cheek still ruddy with
youth, with eyes from which the laughter never died out except
when the tears of sympathy filled them or the deep things of
God veiled them, with a heart that was in sympathy with all
nature round him, and which nature and He who is above
nature fed with perennial freshness, with a voice that could interpret
every emotion, with that excellent health that makes the
body a perfect channel of expression for the mind and a complete
instrument for its service, he stands like a David just come
from his sheepfolds, free, unencumbered, and singing as he
strikes.
In the progress of this discussion upon the Compromise measures,
which had its centre in Congress, but in which every hamlet,
almost every household, in the North had a share, other questions
came to the front as parts of the great controversy.
Among the earliest of these was the right of free speech—a
right utterly unknown where slavery was in power, and always
bitterly attacked where it had influence. As may well be
expected, it found in Mr. Beecher one of its most strenuous
champions. Early in his career he urged all the claims of
friendship, risked the safety of his new church building, and
defied the New York and Brooklyn mob, then under the control
of the notorious Captain Rynders, in its defence.
In a sermon preached in 1884 upon the death of Wendell
Phillips he gives an account of his experience in this matter:
“It is a part of the sweet and pleasant memories of my
.bn 254.png
.pn +1
comparative youth here that when the mob refused to let him
speak in the Broadway Tabernacle before it was moved up-town,
William A. Hall, now dead—a fervent friend and Abolitionist—had
secured the Graham Institute, on Washington Street, in
Brooklyn, wherein to hold a meeting where Mr. Phillips should
be heard. I had agreed to pray at the opening of the meeting.
On the morning of the day on which it was to have taken place
I was visited by the committee of that Institute (excellent gentlemen,
whose feelings will not be hurt, because they are all now
ashamed of it: they are in heaven), who said that, in consequence
of the great peril that attended a meeting at the Institute, they
had withdrawn the liberty to use it and paid back the money,
and that they called simply to say that it was out of no disrespect
to me, but from fidelity to their supposed trust. Well, it was a
bitter thing. If there is anything on earth that I am sensitive to
it is the withdrawing of the liberty of speech and thought. Henry
C. Bowen said to me: ‘You can have Plymouth Church, if you
want it.’ ‘How?’ ‘It is a rule of the church trustees that
the church may be let by a majority vote when we are convened;
but if we are not convened, then every trustee must
give his consent in writing. If you choose to make it a personal
matter and go to every trustee, you can have it.’ He meanwhile
undertook, with Mr. Hall, to put new placards over the old ones,
notifying men quietly that the meeting was to be held here, and
distributing thousands and tens of thousands of hand-bills at
the ferries. No task was ever more welcome. I went to the
trustees man by man. The majority of them very cheerfully accorded
the permission. One or two of them were disposed to
decline and withhold it. I made it a matter of personal friendship:
‘You and I will break if you don’t give me this permission,’
and they signed. So the meeting glided from Graham
Institute to this house. A great audience assembled. We had
detectives in disguise, and every arrangement made to handle
the subject in a practical form if the crowd should undertake to
molest us.”
Neither at this nor any other time was an attack actually made
upon Plymouth Church, although many times in its history have
angry men gathered in the immediate neighborhood, evidently
bent on mischief, but were restrained from violence by the
bold bearing of many in the audience who were known not to be
.bn 255.png
.pn +1
Quakers, and by the presence of the police, who were kept well
informed of their intentions.
Another of the secondary battles that were fought early in
this year was one for commercial liberty.
The South, by the help, and perhaps by the instigation, of
Northern co-operators, attempted nothing less than to boycott
every commercial or manufacturing company that was opposed
to them upon the great political questions of the day. A great
“Union Saving Committee” was formed in New York, and met
in Castle Garden and made out a black-list of the merchants that
were anti-slavery, from whom the South were to withdraw their
patronage. Mr. Beecher not only preached against the outrage,
but visited from store to store to uphold the courage of the merchants.
He says: “Mr. Bowen was, of course, included in that blacklist,
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 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 yourself.’ He took it to Hiram Barney, and he drew
up the card in the shape in which it appeared, including that
sentence, which was the snap of the whole thing.”
“My goods are for sale, but not my principles” became a
war-cry for the independent business men of the day, and had
immense influence upon commercial action.
He fought the petty ostracism of the North, and apparently
with success:
“I never preached on that subject. I never said to the people
in this congregation, from the beginning to this day, ‘You
ought to let colored folks sit in your pew.’ I preached the dignity
of man as a child of God, and lifted up the sanctity of
human life and nature before the people. They made the application,
and they made it wisely and well.
“When I came here there was no place for colored men and
women in the theatre except the negro pen; no place in the
opera; no place in the church except the negro pew; no place
in any lecture-hall; no place in the first-class car on the railways.
The white omnibus of Fulton Ferry would not allow colored persons
.bn 256.png
.pn +1
to ride in it. They were never allowed to sit even in the
gentlemen’s cabin on the boats.
“I invited Fred Douglass, one day in those times, to come to
church here. ‘I should be glad to, sir,’ said he; ‘but it would
be so offensive to your congregation.’ ‘Mr. Douglass, will you
come? And if any man objects to it, come up and sit on my
platform by me. You will always be welcome there.”
“At the Fulton Ferry there are two lines of omnibuses, one
white and the other blue. I had been accustomed to go in them
indifferently; but one day I saw a little paper stuck upon one of
them, saying: ‘Colored people not allowed to ride in this omnibus.’
I instantly got out. There are men who stand at the door
of these omnibus lines, urging passengers into one or the other.
I am very well known to all of them; and the next day, when I
came to the place, the gentleman serving asked: ‘Won’t you ride,
sir?’ ‘No,’ I said; ‘I am too much of a negro to ride in that
omnibus.’ I called the attention of every one I met to that fact,
and said to them: ‘Don’t ride in that omnibus, which violates
your principles, and my principles, and common decency at the
same time.’ I do not know whether this had any influence, but
I do know that after a fortnight’s time I had occasion to look in
and the placard was gone.”
But perhaps the most important, at all events the hardest-fought,
battle of this era was in behalf of the liberty of ministers
of the Gospel to preach in their pulpits for the slave and against
the atrocities of slavery.
It sprang from the publication, by an influential New York
daily paper, of an article in which it was threatened that clergymen
who spoke in their pulpits upon slavery “would have their
coats rolled in the dirt.” Mr. Beecher at once took up the glove
in his own defence and that of his brethren who thought it their
duty to preach on this subject. He entered into an examination
of the whole status of the slave with great thoroughness, and gathered
his materials for defence and attack from Southern sources.
A report made to the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia in
1833 says: “They have no Bible to read by their own firesides;
they have no family altars; and when in affliction, sickness, or
death, they have no minister to address to them the consolations
of the Gospel.
“They are destitute of the privileges of the Gospel, and ever
.bn 257.png
.pn +1
will be, under the present state of things. They may justly be
considered the heathen of this country, and will bear a comparison
with heathen in any country in the world.”
“Says Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, in a case brought
against defendant for shooting and wounding a woman who endeavored
to run away from a whipping: ‘With slavery it is far
otherwise. The end is the profit of the master, his security, and
the public peace. The subject is one doomed in his own person
and in his posterity to live without knowledge, and without capacity
to make anything his own, and to toil that others may reap
the fruits.’”
Aroused by such testimony from reports of religious bodies
and the decisions of the courts, he exclaims, with hot indignation:
“Yet the pulpit, whose echoes roll over the heathenism of the
globe, must be dumb!
“It is vain to tell us that hundreds of thousands of slaves are
church-members; does that save women from the lust of their
owners? does it save their children from being sold? does it save
parents from separation? In the shameless processions every
week made from the Atlantic to the Gulf are to be found slaves
ordained to preach the Gospel, members of churches, baptized
children, Sunday-school scholars carefully catechised, full of Gospel
texts, fat and plump for market. What is religion worth to
a slave, except as a consolation from despair when the hand that
breaks to him the bread of communion on Sunday takes the
price of his blood and bones on Monday, and bids him God-speed
on his pilgrimage from old Virginia tobacco-fields to the
cotton-plantations of Alabama?
“What is church fellowship, and church privilege, and church
instruction worth if the recipient is still as much a beast, just as
little loved, just as ruthlessly desolated of his family, just as
coolly sold, as if he were without God and without hope? What
motive is there to the slave to strive for Christian graces, when,
if they make him a real man, they are threshed out of him; or, if
they make him a more obedient and faithful man, raise his market
price and only make him a more merchantable disciple of
Christ? It is the religious phase of slave-life that reveals the
darkest features of that all-perverting system.”
Ridiculing the idea that it takes distance to make a topic fit
.bn 258.png
.pn +1
for the pulpit, and upbraiding the ministry, who are engaged in
snatching here and there a child from the Ganges, and have no
words for those children that, here at home, every year are
snatched from the parents’ bosom and sold everywhither, he
says:
“It requires distance, it seems, to make a topic right for the
pulpit. Send it to Greenland or to Nootka Sound, and you may
then practise at the far-away target. And the reason of such
discrimination seems to be that preaching against foreign sins
does not hurt the feelings nor disturb the quiet of your congregation;
whereas, if the identical evils at home which we deplore
upon the Indus or along the Burampootra are preached about,
the Journal says that it will risk the minister’s place and bread
and butter; and it plainly tells all Northern ministers that if they
meddle with such politics they will have their coats rolled in the
dirt. Will the Journal tell us how many leagues off a sin must
be before it is prudent and safe for courageous ministers to
preach against it?
“Every year thousands of women are lashed for obstinate
virtue, and tens of thousands robbed of what they have never been
taught to prize, and the Journal stands poised to cast its javelin
at that meddlesome pulpit that dares speak of such boundless licentiousness,
and send it to its more appropriate work of evangelizing
the courtesans of Paris or the loose virtue of Italy! And it
assures us that multitudes of clergymen are thanking it for such
a noble stand. Some of those clergymen we know. The platforms
of our benevolent societies resound with their voices,
urging Christianity to go abroad, stimulating the Church not to
leave a corner of the globe unsearched nor an evil unredressed.
But when the speech is ended they steal in behind the Journal to
give it thanks for its noble stand against the right of the pulpit to
say a word about home-heathen—about their horrible ignorance,
bottomless licentiousness, and about the mercenary inhumanity
which every week is selling their own Christian brethren, baptized
as much as they, often preachers of the Gospel like themselves,
eating from the same table of the Lord, praying to the same
Saviour, listening to snatches of that same Bible (whose letters
they have never been permitted to learn), out of which these
reverend endorsers of the Journal preach!”
He shows that the slavery of New England never was the
.bn 259.png
.pn +1
slavery of the South: “The slavery of the South in our day
adopts the Roman civil law as the basis of its code.... Now,
New England never held a slave on the basis of the Roman civil
law, but under a law which was expressly enacted for the benefit
of the slave and for the ultimate destruction of slavery—viz., the
Hebrew law of slavery. No system of slavery, in this land, can
be profitable which does not put the slave under a regimen
which denies him the rights of manhood. The North, on the
basis of the Hebrew slavery law, found it out; she refused to go
further and sacrifice her religious scruples. The South, on the
basis of the Roman civil law, imbibed its inhuman spirit, put on
the screws, and forced the system into its present legal attitude,
with a written code more infamous than the unwritten law of any
pirate’s deck.”
He proves that the North never sold out her slaves, with a
profit, to “her partners in the South, and so closed up the business,”
by showing that in most of the Northern States the slaves
were set free by the decisions of the courts upon the adoption
of the State constitutions, and that in the meantime their masters
were forbidden, under heavy penalties, to sell them South.
In New York gradual emancipation was enacted, and not
only was the sale of slaves out of the borders forbidden, but
masters travelling with their slaves in the South were required to
give heavy bonds for the safe return of the same.
These words reveal his own spirit in the discussion:
“In exploring this wilderness of inhumanity, filled with the
shapes and motley sights of degradation, I live in a perpetual
struggle how to calm the natural expressions of an honest soul
into that measured phrase that may best suit the sated public
ear. If one overhang this abyss until his spirit do drink in
its very import, his soul must be full of thunder and his words
glance like fire. Neither are these feelings the foul engenderings
of fanaticism. They are the true feelings of a heart taught to hate
injustice and degrading wrong, by that nature which God gave it;
by the Bible which educated it; by the law under which it was
made, and by the public sentiment in which it has been bred. It
is with a sense of shame that we see strong words for oppression
granted an unapologized liberty to walk up and down as they
will; while he who speaks for freedom must rake up his ardor
under the ashes of a tame propriety, and stand to answer for
.bn 260.png
.pn +1
want of a Gospel spirit if indignation at double and treble
wrongs do sometimes give forth a bolt! Nevertheless, we hope;
we trust; we pray; and hoping, trusting, and praying, we
soothe ourselves in such thoughts as these: ‘From this shame,
too, thou shalt go forth, O world! God, who, unwearied sitting
on the circle of the earth, hath beheld and heard the groanings
and travailings of pain until now, and caused Time to destroy
them one by one, shall ere long destroy thee, thou abhorred and
thrice damnable oppression cancerously eating the breasts of
liberty.’”
He concludes by giving his views upon the position of the
pulpit, and utters this solemn protest:
“Therefore, against every line of the Coward’s Ethics of the
Journal we solemnly protest, and declare a minister made to its
pattern fitter to be sent to the pyramids and tombs of Egypt
to preach to old-world mummies than to be a living man
of God among living men, loving them but never fearing them!
God be thanked that in every age hitherto pulpits have been
found, the allies of suffering virtue, the champions of the oppressed!
And if in this day, after the notable examples of
heroic men in heroic ages, when life itself often paid for
fidelity, the pulpit is to be mined and sapped by insincere
friends and insidious enemies, and learn to mix the sordid prudence
of business with the sonorous and thrice heroic counsels
of Christ, then, O my soul, be not thou found conspiring with
this league of iniquity; that so, when in that august day of
retribution God shall deal punishment in flaming measures to
all hireling and coward ministers, thou shalt not go down, under
double-bolted thunders, lower than miscreant Sodom or thrice-polluted
Gomorrah!”
Some idea of his mode of address and quickness in retort at
that day will appear from extracts from his speech at the annual
meeting of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and
two incidents that occurred at this meeting. Mr. Beecher answered
the Scriptural argument for the return of fugitives, based
on the return of Onesimus, in this manner: “There are two ways
of sending fugitives back into slavery. One is the way Paul
sent back the slave Onesimus. Now, if people will adopt that
way I will not object. In the first place, he instructed him in
Christianity and led him to become a Christian; then he wrote a
.bn 261.png
.pn +1
letter and sent it by Onesimus himself. Now, I should like to see
Marshal ——— or Marshal somebody else, of this city, send back
a slave in this way. In the first place, the marshal would take
him and teach him the catechism, and pray with him, and convert
him, and then write a letter to his master telling him to receive
him as a brother beloved; and then the slave goes of his own
free will to his master, and walks into the house, and, with his
broad, black, beaming face, says: ‘How d’ye do, my brother?
and how d’ye do, my sister?’” The broad, beaming face which
he himself wore as he described this scene and personated this
character was irresistibly comical, and nothing more was heard in
that quarter of Paul’s return of fugitives.
It was in this speech that, in describing the situation of the
slave, he says:
“They are married and separated in the South until perhaps
they have twenty wives.” [A voice: “There are men in New
York City who have twenty wives.”] “I am sorry for them,” he
answered at once. “I go for their immediate emancipation!”
He read extracts from the law as laid down by some of the
able members of the Southern bench in South Carolina and
Louisiana, to show that slaves are mere goods and chattels.
“The slave,” he exclaimed, “is made just good enough to be
a good slave and no more. It is a penitentiary offence to teach
him more.”
Here a person among a group in one corner of the gallery exclaimed:
“It’s a lie!”
“Well, whether it’s a penitentiary offence or not, I shall not
argue with the gentleman in the corner, as doubtless he has been
there and ought to know.”
Such was the voice that began to attract attention throughout
the whole land. It was as truthful and earnest as that of the old
Abolitionists, but took in a broader range of subjects and was
inspired by a higher spirit than theirs; it was as politic in its utterances
as that of the prince of politicians, Martin Van Buren,
but it was the policy of right and justice; it had in it the strength
of Webster’s, but argued from truer premises than he; it was
as popular as Henry Clay’s, but its sympathy was broader than
his; it was the voice of Henry Ward Beecher as he stood in the
early maturity of his powers, aflame with Christian love and
patriotism, preaching the Gospel of the Son of God, the Deliverer
.bn 262.png
.pn +1
and Saviour for slave and master, for North and South, for commerce
and manufactures, for our whole land from shame and
thraldom.
The need of such a voice will appear if we consider the state
of things at this time, as he himself described it:
“‘An Abolitionist’ was enough to put the mark of Cain upon
any young man that arose in my early day, and until I was forty
years of age it was punishable to preach on the subject of liberty.
It was enough to expel a man from church communion if he insisted
on praying in the prayer-meeting for the liberation of the
slaves. I am speaking the words of truth and soberness. The
Church was dumb in the North, but not in the West. A marked
distinction exists between the history of the New School of Presbyterian
churches in the West and the Congregational churches,
the Episcopal churches, the Methodist and Baptist churches in
the North and East. The great publishing societies that were
sustained by the contributions of the churches were absolutely
dumb. Great controversies raged round about the doors of the
Bible Society, of the Tract Society, and of the American Board
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The managers of these
societies resorted to every shift except that of sending the Gospel
to the slaves. They would not send the Bible to the South; for,
they said, ‘it is a punishable offence in most of the Southern
States to teach a slave to read; and are we to go in the face of
this State legislation and send the Bible South?’ The Tract
Society said: ‘We are set up to preach the Gospel, not to meddle
with political and industrial institutions.’ And so they went on
printing tracts against tobacco and its uses, tracts against dancing
and its abuses, and refusing to print a tract that had a shadow of
criticism on slavery!
“One of the most disgraceful things took place under the
jurisdiction of Bishop Doane, of New Jersey—I take it for granted,
without his knowledge. I have the book. It was an edition
of the Episcopal prayer-book. They had put into the front of it
a steel engraving of Ary Scheffer’s ‘Christus Consolator’—Christ
the Consoler. There was a semi-circle around about the beneficent
and aerial figure of our Saviour—the poor, the old, the sick,
the mother with her dead babe, bowed in grief; every known
form of human sorrow belonged to the original design and picture,
and among others a fettered slave, with his hands lifted to
.bn 263.png
.pn +1
heaven, praying for liberty. But this was too much; and so they
cut out the slave, and left the rest of the picture, and bound it
into the Episcopal prayer-book of New Jersey. I have a copy
of it, which I mean to leave to the Historical Society of Brooklyn
when I am done using it.
“These things are important as showing the incredible condition
of public sentiment at that time. If a man came to be
known as an anti-slavery man it almost preluded bankruptcy
in business.”
After the intense excitement, within and without Congress,
upon the discussion and the passage of the Compromise measures
of 1850, a reaction followed, and the year 1851 is, in many respects,
a marked contrast to that immediately preceding. The
people, in the main, tired of the discussion and the consequent
turmoil, thankful for their escape, as they thought, from the
threatened danger of the dissolution of the Union, were determined
to preserve the peace that had been won, and frowned
upon everything that endangered its continuance. Public meetings
and conventions, held for the expression of free-State sentiments,
were regarded with great disfavor and often broken up by
mob violence.
Four millions of people in a Christian land were denied every
right belonging to them, not only on the ground of Christianity
but of humanity, and yet they must be dumb. The pulpit, which
represented Him who came to set the captive free and preach the
Gospel to the poor, on this great matter must utter no voice.
Statesmanship must see consummated an utter perversion of the
fundamental principles and policy of the nation, and yet offer no
protest. A common humanity, outraged by the atrocities committed
against a fellow human being, must be silent or join in the
hue and cry for the capture of the unhappy victim.
This was the programme that conservatism, through the press,
in the pulpit, by the ballot-box, through business patronage, social
frowns or favors, and not unfrequently through mob violence,
attempted to execute. It was as vain as to try to still the voice
of Niagara or the noise of the breakers upon the coast.
One thing more powerful than any other contributed to prevent
a complete reaction and consequent stagnation upon this
subject—the activity of the South in availing itself of the advantages
offered by the Fugitive Slave Bill for obtaining possession
.bn 264.png
.pn +1
of the property that had escaped and was living on Northern
soil. The year 1851 was emphatically a year of slave-hunting.
And since these refugees from labor had, many of them, lived for
years at the North, had become respectable citizens and reared
families, their violent capture invariably occasioned, if not forceful
resistance, at least deep and bitter indignation.
The quiet of 1851 was not perfect and it could not be made
permanent. It was only the lull which weariness compels in
every hard-fought battle.
In December of this year Kossuth visited this country at the
invitation of the Senate, coming in a government steamer sent to
Asia especially for his conveyance. Many things contributed to
awaken immense enthusiasm for him. He had represented Hungary
in the Austrian Diet; had championed the liberty of free
press and free speech so fearlessly as to gain the honor of an Austrian
dungeon; had been elected governor of Hungary, and for
two years had waged successful war with Austria. Overcome by
the immense military power of that great empire in alliance with
Russia, he had been forced into exile with a price set upon his
head. He represented, in that year of European revolutions, the
struggles of the common people for liberty. These experiences,
united with his personal appearance and marvellous eloquence,
combined to secure for him a most enthusiastic reception by
the people of this country. The Senate, on the other hand, were
far more chary of their welcome. The Hungarian exile stood
for universal liberty, and that was just what at that time the
Senate of the United States were most interested in suppressing.
However, though granted no reception, a banquet was
given in his honor, at which most of our public men were present,
and Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, delivered the principal
address.
Quick to perceive the dilemma in which Congress found
itself, and eager that the nation at large should appreciate it, Mr.
Beecher writes a Star Paper in which, in his usual happy and
effective style, he describes the incongruity in the action of our
government in welcoming this fugitive from the oppression of
the Old World while we are engaged in remanding to their oppressors
fugitives in the New.
Invited by Mr. Beecher, Kossuth delivered an address in
Plymouth Church in behalf of the cause of Hungarian liberty.
.bn 265.png
.pn +1
So great was the eagerness of the people to hear him that some
ten thousand dollars were realized from the sale of tickets.
So did the pastor of this church link himself with the cause
of freedom all over the earth.
Fifty-two, being “election year,” saw efforts more persistent,
if possible, than ever before to regard the Compromise measures
as a finality and discourage all agitation of the subject of slavery.
A public pledge was signed by more than fifty senators, among
them the most influential from both the great parties, including
Henry Clay, agreeing that they would thereafter support no candidate
who did not approve and promise to abide by the provisions
of that compact. Both the great parties of the day—the
Whig and Democratic—put into their platforms resolutions declaring
that the above Compromise was accepted as a final
settlement of the questions at issue, and agreed to resist all
attempts at renewing the agitation of the slavery question
under any pretext whatsoever. In the election Franklin Pierce,
who had but two qualifications for the office of chief magistrate—he
was a gentleman and a radical pro-slavery man—was chosen
by an overwhelming majority for President, for the reason that
his party affiliations gave the best assurance that the pledges
which all had alike made would in his case be fulfilled.
General Scott and the Whig party made just as profound an
obeisance to the slave-power, and offered just as heavy a bid
for its favors; but there was not the same confidence in their
ability to perform the service demanded as in that of their
Democratic rivals, and they were in consequence disastrously
defeated. So did the popular vote upon its first opportunity
endorse the action of Congress and declare that discussion on
this great matter was closed. Yet, in spite of the verdict of the
ballot-box, in spite of resolutions, compacts, and threats, agitation
still went on. Mr. Beecher explains the phenomenon:
“Politicians inquire whence is the tenacity of life of the
anti-slavery movement. It is not fanaticism that animates or
controls it, it is the religious principle that is the secret of the
strength of this cause; it is because Jesus Christ is alive, and
there are Jesus Christ men who count this cause dearer than their
lives.”
In the summer and autumn of 1852 Mr. Beecher was engaged
in what was called “The Parker Controversy.”
.bn 266.png
.pn +1
We have no desire to open anew the bitterness of those old
matters which have passed so long ago into history, and almost
into forgetfulness, but no biography of the man would be complete
without a reference to this trial, the severest which he had thus
far endured, and which prepared him for other and greater ones
to come. In our study of the character and disposition of
Henry Ward Beecher we find him, as we believe, to have been
pre-eminently a man of peace. In his history we see him almost
continuously engaged in war. This anomaly is easily explained.
It was not from desire or disposition, but a necessary consequence
of the progress which he was making and the position
which he occupied. The age was moving forward: wrongs must
be overcome, new positions of advantage must be gained. By
the habit of his mind, the intuitions of his genius, and the
earnestness and simplicity of his purpose he found himself a
leader in this progress.
While others stopped to discover the truth by laborious study
in their libraries, he found it among the results of former researches,
derived it intuitively from well-admitted principles, or
gathered it from the people with whom he associated by the way.
While others were carefully weighing the consequences of their
actions, he, trusting in God, in the righteousness of his cause,
in the forces of nature and in himself, stepped forward to the
front. While others were laboriously forging their speeches his
sprang like the fabled Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, alive,
armed, and beautiful. He came into battle for the same reason
that the head of a column advancing to seize a favorable position
within the enemy’s lines is early brought under fire, or that a
heavy field-battery, which is sending its shot with deadly effect
into the ranks of the enemy, is attacked.
In his discussion with a New York daily, of which we have
already spoken, he had come in conflict with the commercial
spirit of the day which held its principles and its goods both for
sale, and against it had defended the right of the pulpit to discuss
the live topics of the hour. This had drawn fire. Men who
had been scored as he scored them in a Star Paper of January
24, 1850, entitled “A Man in the Market”— “... They hang
themselves up in the shambles of every Southern market; they
trust the pliant good nature of the North, and are only fearful
lest they should fail to be mean enough to please the South”—and
.bn 267.png
.pn +1
who deserved the scoring, would not be likely to forget it soon or
forgive it readily. The conflict in which he now became engaged
was more painful than the former, for it was waged with Christian
brethren. Beginning as a skirmish, it became a general battle,
in which the conservatism of the Church, which had expurgated
its religious tracts, curbed the religious press, and toned
down the utterances of the pulpit, so as not to hurt the feelings
of slave-holders, was engaged and brought to judgment.
It came about in this way: In “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” Mrs.
Stowe had described the sale of a child taken from the arms of
the mother, and of Tom’s feeling on the subject. “To him it
looked like something unutterably horrible and cruel, because,
poor, ignorant black soul! he had not learned to generalize and
take in large views. If he had only been instructed by certain
ministers of Christianity he might have thought better of
it, and seen in it an every-day incident of a lawful trade—a
trade which is the vital support of an institution which some
American divines tell us has no evils but such as are inseparable
from any other relations in social and domestic life.”
In a note she refers to Dr. Joel Parker by name as the man
who had given utterance to these sentiments, and as representing
the class which entertained them. The words, “No evils but
such as are inseparable from any other relations in social and
domestic life,” had been printed as his in a discussion which he
had held in Philadelphia, had gone the rounds of the papers as
his and had been printed and commented upon in England,
and he had never denied that they rightfully belonged to him.
But the quickened moral feeling which followed the publication
of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” made the authorship of such sentiments
less pleasant than formerly, and Dr. Parker suddenly discovered
that he had been wronged in having these words ascribed
to him, and threatened Mrs. Stowe with a suit for libel. A friend
of his lawyer visited her brother Henry, and suggested that
this matter could be arranged without a law-suit. With a
confidence that was born of sincerity and inexperience, the
brother attempts that most difficult rôle—that of peace-maker.
He visits Dr. Parker, becomes satisfied that his language is
capable of a less violent construction than had been put upon
it, confers with Mrs. Stowe and finds her ready to take the
most favorable view of the case possible, bears a letter from
.bn 268.png
.pn +1
her to the doctor, writes and discusses with him the answer which
he shall make, forwards Mrs. Stowe’s letter, which had been
somewhat changed in the discussion, to her for approval—which
being gained, he publishes both letters over the united
signatures of the two parties, and goes off to Indiana on a lecturing
trip, with the happy consciousness that he has done a good
thing. Never was a man waked from a sweeter dream to a
more bitter disappointment. Instead of making peace between
them, he found, as a result of his labors, their differences
increased and embittered, and himself charged with forgery both
of letter and signature. Offended professional pride, newspaper
rivalry, the hatred of men who had been lashed by his tongue
and pen, the fears of conservatives and the bitter hatred of
pro-slavery men, suddenly united their forces for his destruction.
This young radical had left himself open to attack, and
they all rushed to the onset or stood back and cheered others
on, and were already beginning to rejoice in his downfall. The
lead in the attack soon passed out of the doctor’s hands into
those of more able and less scrupulous men, and aimed at nothing
less than his annihilation. “The arrow was well shot,” he
said; “had I been unshielded it would have done its work, for
the point was poisoned.” But he was not unshielded! the overthrow
was not accomplished, and he stood, at the end, fully vindicated
from all the aspersions of his enemies.
In a long, carefully written article over his own name he gives
the whole beginning, continuance, and end of this unhappy matter:
“For myself I profess that no event of my life, not the loss of
my own children nor bereavements of friends most dear, have
ever filled me with so deep a sorrow as that which I have in being
made a party to a public dispute when three of the parties
concerned are ministers of the Gospel, and when the fourth is a
woman and the wife of a clergyman. At the very best it is a
shame and a disgrace. To avert it I labored most honestly and
with all my might.”
He closes with these words:
.pm start_quote
“I commit this narrative to the sober judgment of all good
men, and myself I commit to the charge of Almighty God.”
.ll 68
.rj
“Henry Ward Beecher.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 269.png
.pn +1
Two letters selected from the voluminous correspondence of
that time, one to a friend who approved, and the other to one
who condemned, his course, are given, that the spirit which he
cherished may be more thoroughly understood:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Brooklyn, Oct. 12, 1852.
.ll
.ti 0
”Barnabas Bates, Esq.:
“Dear Sir: Your kind letter gave me much pleasure, not as
adding anything to that quiet which belongs to a conscience void
of offence, but as showing that I have been able to manifest to
others that which was undoubted truth to me. It is very painful
to be placed before the public as I have been, even when the
verdict is ultimately favorable; for there is something repugnant
to one’s feelings even to feel it possible that a suspicion of his
honor could be for a moment entertained.
“But I am sure that I should be the most ungrateful of men
if I failed to recognize the presence and abundant blessing of my
God in all the passages of this painful experience.
“Not a promise made to me has been left unfulfilled, and I
know that it has been a better sermon to me than was ever
preached by human lips.
“Toward the parties of this wrong much must be allowed to
wounded vanity, much to partisanship, something perhaps to forgetfulness.
After all this, however, the rest will be a burden to
their conscience whenever they shall hereafter look back upon it.
And while I do most heartily forgive them, and could with earnest
good-will do either of them a kindness, I cannot refrain from
thanksgiving that I was the accused, not the accuser. Your kindness
I have felt the more because personally (although not
otherwise) a stranger to me, and because, coming among the first
letters of sympathy, it has been the harbinger of great kindnesses,
similar in kind, from many.
“I am, with sincere esteem,
.ll 68
.nf r
“Gratefully yours,
“H. W. Beecher.“
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
”Brooklyn, Oct. 12, 1852.
.ll
.ti 0
“Richard Hale, Esq.:
”Dear Sir: I was for a moment pained by the reading of
your note this morning, and but for a moment; for it has pleased
.bn 270.png
.pn +1
God to grant Himself to me in such measure that neither the
wrath of enemies, nor the strife of tongues, nor the unadvised
blows of friends have power to do me harm or unsettle my peace.
Had I ever doubted the promises of God I should now find every
shadow swept away; and I surely count the little annoyance
which this perversion of honor and truth in these unprincipled
men has caused me not worthy to be mentioned in the joy which
I have had in being folded into the very bosom of my Saviour.
“All that I can ask in your behalf is that when the day of
trouble shall come to you (with as little fault on your part as this
on mine) God may sustain you by that certainty of integrity and
that consciousness of honor which have given me unspeakable
comfort, and would were I this day standing before God’s judgment-seat.
“I do not blame you; I believe that you meant me no unkindness;
but it is manifest that with your present views it would
be as painful for you to associate with me as it would be impossible
for me to permit it.
“Whenever the evil impressions which have tempted you into
misjudgments shall have passed away (and they assuredly will),
and when my righteousness shall shine forth as the light (and God
will bring it forth), then you will find me unchanged in my affections
for you; nor shall I then remember anything but that you
were once my friend.
“I am, with God’s unwavering support, and with the patience
and peace which Christ only can give,
.ll 68
.nf r
“Truly your brother,
“Henry Ward Beecher.“
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Also we give extracts from a third:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
”Brooklyn, October 12, 1852.
.ll
“R. W. Landis:
”Dear Sir: Your welcome letter I received this morning. It
gave me great pleasure, though I did not need it for my happiness.
For it has pleased God so graciously to stand by me in
this fiercest attack of my life that if every friend in the world
had abandoned me I should not have been alone. I need not
tell you, who have both known and taught to others, that Christ
has a peace which, surpassing all other experience of earthly
.bn 271.png
.pn +1
joy, requires for its possession an unusual earthly trial. In that
peace I have rested as in God’s pavilion....
“I never expected to stand up in the publicity which God
has been pleased to draw me into, and faithfully to declare His
truth against the interests of commercial and political circles,
and not be visited with this wrath.
“But they shall neither destroy me nor daunt me nor silence
me, for my God is greater than their I will work yet harder
and speak more plainly for every blow they deal. May God
repay your kindness to me a thousand-fold!
.ll 68
.rj
”H. W. Beecher.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
We find no word from Mr. Beecher concerning the election
of this year, but an article immediately following shows that he
kept his eye upon the main issue, and that none of its humorous
any more than its sorrowful features escaped him. It was entitled
“Degraded into Liberty”:
“A Southern gentleman en route for Texas brought to New
York eight slaves, to be shipped hence by one of our ocean-going
steamers. The birds of the air informed the Abolitionists
of the facts, and it was not long before a writ was served upon
the whole chattel-gang, and they were hauled up before Judge
Paine to show cause why they should not be doomed to freedom.
The cruel inhospitality of New York was never more
manifest. These innocent fellow-beings, blessed by being born
slaves, and not painfully educated for it, as Northern Southerners
are; having had all the manifold mercies which make a Virginia
slave so much better off than a free factory-girl in Massachusetts;
having grown up in the indulgence of those hilarious dances and
in the practice of those songs which make plantation life perfectly
paradisaical, they were on their way to that land waving with
sugar-cane and cotton-plants, where, hoe in hand, they were to
while away the brilliant hours with gentle dalliances with loam
and clay—when lo! they were suddenly arrested.
“From these bright anticipations they have been ruthlessly
snatched, and plunged into freedom utterly unprepared! Are
there no tears in Castle Garden? Ought not the Union Committee
to spend something for a trifle of crape? Eight innocent
fellow-chattels changed into fellow-beings! No kind master
have they now. The tender relation is sundered. Our bereaved
.bn 272.png
.pn +1
master and mistress must depart slaveless and alone.
Having been worked for so long, and tended and taken care
of, it is doubtful whether they will be able to take care of themselves
now. Much as we sympathize with them, we do not consider
their affliction at all comparable to that of the late happy
slaves. These poor creatures are free, and we are assured in the
highest quarter that no greater evil than that can well befall the
slave population. They have degraded themselves. They have
refused to be ‘content rather.’ In all the world they cannot find
a man who owns them. They are now to sneak through life,
like white men, owning themselves! They must have had some
awful moments of compunction when the conviction first flashed
upon them that they owned their own hands, trod upon their
own feet, put their clothes upon their own shoulders, and felt
that thing throbbing under their ribs to be their own heart.
Some natural feelings must have shot through the maternal heart
as she pressed her own babe to her own breast, and dropped her
own tears upon its dusky cheek....
“Only one woman can be found faithful in this emergency.
Their former mistress alone has appealed to their conscience
and adjured them to return to her! Where were the teachers,
the chaplains, the casuists, the lawyers, that a little time ago
choked the press with beatitudes of slavery? ‘His watchmen
are blind; they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs; they
cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.’
“In reply to Mrs. Lemmon’s appeal the deluded slave-woman
drew herself up, and, pressing her child to her breast, said, ‘I had
rather be free!’ What! not value the radiant mercies of slavery
more than that? The creature is crazy! Slaves in their senses
are always contented. They are mere pets. The Uncle Toms
of Virginia do nothing but look after the children, or sit in sunny
nooks and smoke their stubbed pipes. The Aunt Phillises
are always fat, rollicking cooks, bursting with laughter. Nobody
is happy but slaves. The poor masters have all the care and
burden, slaves all the glee and leisure....
“It is a dreadful state of things here in New York, where we
feed upon Cotton, and have our very living in the smiles and
favor of the South, to be hurting their feelings by talking so
much about liberty and all that. A few more slaves set free,
and the South will get angry again; and then New York will
.bn 273.png
.pn +1
be in a world of trouble, and another call will call together another
Castle Garden full of anxious merchants, all full of love
to the South; and we shall have more sermons and more newspaper
articles; and nobody can tell what will happen the next
time.
“In part, the South is at fault. It has sent North the wrong
kind of negroes. Those who have run away, or been judicially
sentenced to freedom, or been bought—all these have loved liberty.
Now, won’t the South send us some of another sort—some
of those model slaves that love bondage and wouldn’t take liberty
if they could get it? With a few specimen copies of such,
we believe that we could do Southern institutions great good in
the North. \ \ \ \ \ *”
Fifty-three follows in much the same line as that of the two
years immediately preceding. Franklin Pierce, who had been
elected in November last, takes the oath of office on the 4th of
March. His inaugural gives expression to what was undoubtedly
the general feeling of the country—a determination that the Compromise
measures shall be enforced, and a fervent trust that the
question of slavery has been settled; and in his annual message,
upon the assembling of Congress in that year, promises that the
peace which now so happily existed through the land should not
be disturbed during his term of office, if he could prevent it.
A large majority of the people, both North and South, were undoubtedly
in perfect accord with this desire, greatly pleased with
this assurance, and tried to share his confidence.
Those were days in which a great deal of sympathy was felt
in this country for the Irish, and by many, too, who were stanch
opposers of liberty for the negro. Mr. Beecher had no patience
with men, on either side of the Atlantic, whose sympathy was
limited by the bounds of race or color; and when John Mitchel,
who had posed as the “Great Irish Patriot” of that day, having
escaped from an English penal colony and been received here
with great enthusiasm, took occasion to state in an editorial in
the Citizen, “We deny that it is a crime or a wrong, or even a
peccadillo, to hold slaves, to buy slaves, to sell slaves, to keep
slaves to their work by flogging or other needful coercion; we
only wish we had a good plantation well stocked with healthy
negroes in Alabama,” he (Mr. Beecher) enters into public correspondence
with him, in which he denies the claims of the refugee
.bn 274.png
.pn +1
to be an “apostle of liberty,” sorrows over his downfall, and
dismisses him to the test of history in these words:
“Once you stood like some great oak whose wide circumference
was lifted up above all the pastures, the glory of all beholders,
and a covert for a thousand timid singing-birds! Now you lie
at full length along the ground, with mighty ruptured roots ragged
and upturned to heaven, with broken boughs and despoiled
leaves! Never again shall husbandman predict spring from your
swelling buds! Never again shall God’s singing-birds of liberty
come down through all the heavenly air to rest themselves on
your waving top! Fallen! Uprooted! Doomed to the axe and
the hearth!
“But there is a future beyond this, even on earth! There is
a time promised, and already dawning, in which the human
family shall be one great brotherhood, and Love shall be the law
of man! In that golden age there shall be research made for all
the names that, since the world began, have wrought and suffered
for the good of their kind. There will be a memorable
resurrection of forgotten names. From the obscurity into which
despotism has flung all who dared to defy it, from the shades
and darkness of oblivion by which oppressors would cover down
the memory of all who proclaimed human right and human
liberty, they will come forth shining like the sun, and none be
forgotten that labored to bring to pass the world’s freedom! In
that day, when ten thousand names shall be heard, in all their
number not one shall utter that gone and forgotten name—John
Mitchel!”
We do not wish it to be inferred from our words that Mr.
Beecher was the only anti-slavery leader who was doing good
service in those days. There were many others, and some, perhaps,
were doing as effective work in a single line as he. But
we believe that, when the whole sphere of his activity was considered,
he went far beyond any man of his time.
In any one of the three channels of largest influence, of that or
of any time—the pulpit, the press, and the platform—he was the
peer, if not the superior, of any leader; and while the most of
his co-laborers used but one, or at the most two, of these instrumentalities,
he was constantly employing the three, and each with
unequalled efficiency.
His beliefs, as his labors, were broader than the most who
.bn 275.png
.pn +1
were at that day prominently identified with the anti-slavery
cause. He believed in the Constitution of the United States,
and claimed that, if the government should be administered
according to the original intent of this document, slavery must
speedily cease. In this he differed from Garrison and his school,
who held that “the (Federal) Constitution is a covenant with
death and an agreement with hell.” He believed in the ballot-box,
and in using its power to the utmost. In this he differed
from Wendell Phillips and others of his school, who had disfranchised
themselves for years, lest by voting they should seem
to countenance an institution that was being used for the perpetuity
of so great an injustice. He believed in the Church
and the moral forces which she could bring to the work. He
believed in love rather than hate, and most of all, with a triumphant,
joyful faith, he believed in the person, presence, and
leadership of the Redeemer and Reformer of the world. In all
this he separated from the great body, individuals here and there
excepted, of the Garrison and Pillsbury school of Abolitionists.
His judgment of the spirit of the leaders in this great movement
may be inferred from the following extracts:
“Events made Garrison a leader. We never thought, and
we do not now think, that Garrison deserved the one-half of the
bitter reproaches that have been heaped upon him. His worst
faults have been the reaction, in him, of the opposite faults of
men favoring slavery or indifferent to it. But we regard him as
one of the most unfortunate of all leaders for the best development
of anti-slavery feeling. He is a man of no mean ability,
of indefatigable industry, of the most unbounded enterprise and
eagerness, of perseverance which pushes him like a law of nature,
and of courage which amounts to recklessness. These are
the qualifications which make a man powerful for stimulation.
Had he possessed, as a balance to these, conciliation, good-natured
benevolence, or even a certain popular mirthfulness; had
he possessed the moderation and urbanity of Clarkson, or the
deep piety of Wilberforce, he had been the one man of our age.
These all he lacked. Had the disease of America needed only
counter-irritation, no better blister could have been applied.
“Garrison did not create the anti-slavery spirit of the North.
He was the offspring of it. It existed before he was born. But
he at one time more powerfully developed and organized it than
.bn 276.png
.pn +1
any other one mind; and developed it in modes and spirit, as
we think, most unfortunate. Anti-slavery under his influence
was all teeth and claw. It fought. It never conciliated. It
gained not one step by kindness. It won not a single fort by
surrender. It bombarded everything it met, and stormed every
place which it won. We do not deny that Garrison and his early
followers did a great work. Another generation will divide
praise and blame, as no one is fitted to do in the heats of the
present day. But when bare justice shall be done we believe
that it will be found that a noble soul, deeply and truly benevolent,
who sought the truest interests of his age, yet sought them
with such a fierceness and such a hard and relentless courage as
constantly roused up in his path the worst feelings of man, and
heaped obstacles before him to such a degree that at length, in
combating them, his sympathies for good seemed swallowed up
in a bitter hatred of evil. The result of the agitation, inspired
largely with this feeling, was that almost every interest in the
nation rose up against the movement with which he was identified.
Churches dreaded abolitionism, parties hated abolitionism,
commerce abhorred abolitionism. Mobs rioted around the meetings,
and threatened the dwellings, the stores, and the very persons
of Abolitionists.
“There was odium and influence enough arrayed against the
anti-slavery movement, under the form of early abolitionism, to
have sunk ten enterprises which depended on men for existence.
But there was a spirit in this cause, there was a secret strength,
which nerved it, and it lived right on, and grew, and trampled
down opposition, and came forth victorious! There was an
irresistibility in it which made it superior to the faults of its
friends and the deadly hatred of its enemies.”
It will be seen from the above how thoroughly he differed
from what may be called the right wing of the Abolition party.
This difference is emphasized and the spirit which impelled
him is indicated in an address which he delivered before the annual
meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, and in a letter which
he wrote to the New York Tribune in answer to a criticism that
appeared in that paper:
“I believe there is to be found Christianity enough in the
world, in the Church and out of it, in the Bible and out of it, i.e.,
in the record and in the living heart, and, I had almost said,
.bn 277.png
.pn +1
breathed through the very air, as a Divine Providence, inspiring
the great organic laws of society, controlling the moral sense of
the Church, yea, beating in the veins of political economy, subtly
guiding the common generosities of men into a public sentiment
which, in God’s own time, in spite of recreant clergymen, apostate
statesmen, venal politicians, and trafficking shopmen, shall
fall upon this vast and unmitigated abomination and utterly crush
it. But my earnest desire is that slavery may be destroyed by
the manifest power of Christianity. If it were given me to choose
whether it should be destroyed in fifty years by selfish commercial
influences, or, standing for seventy-five years, be then the
spirit and trophy of Christ, I had rather let it linger twenty-five
years more, that God may be honored, and not mammon, in the
destruction of it. So do I hate it that I should rejoice in its extinction,
even did the devil tread it out, as he first kindled it;
but how much rather would I see God Almighty come down to
shake the earth with His tread, to tread all tyrannies and oppressions
small as the dust of the highway, and to take unto Himself
the glory!”
This having been severely criticised, especially his willingness
to have slavery linger, if by so doing its destruction could become
a trophy to the prevailing power of Christ, he replies in a
letter addressed to the same journal:
“Our highest and strongest reason for seeking justice among
men is not the benefit to men themselves, exceedingly strong as
that motive is and ought to be. We do not join the movement
party of our times simply because we are inspired by an inward
and constitutional benevolence. We are conscious of both these
motives and of many other collateral ones; but we are earnestly
conscious of another feeling stronger than either, that lives unimpaired
when these faint, yea, that gives vigor and persistence to
these feelings when they are discouraged; and that is a strong personal,
enthusiastic love for Christ Jesus. I regard the movement
of the world toward justice and rectitude to be of His inspirations.
I believe my own aspirations, having a base in my natural
faculties, to be influenced and directed by Christ’s Spirit. The
mingled affection and adoration which I feel for Him is the
strongest feeling that I know. Whether I will or not, whether it
be a phantasy or a sober sentiment, the fact is the same nevertheless,
that that which will give pleasure to Christ’s heart and bring
.bn 278.png
.pn +1
to my consciousness a smile of gladness on His face in behalf of
my endeavor, is incalculably more to me than any other motive.
I would work for the slave for his own sake, but I am sure that
I would work ten times as earnestly for the slave for Christ’s
sake.
“I am not ashamed to own that I bear about with me an
ineffaceable consciousness that I am what I am from Christ’s influence
upon me. I accept the power to do good as His inspiration.
Life is sacred to me only by my belief that I am walking
in the scenes of a personal Divine Providence. When I drop
from these beliefs life becomes void, the events of human society
mere bubbles, and strifes of hope and fear, of good and bad, are
useless as the turmoil of the rapids above Niagara. Nay, there
is more than this: there is a heart-swell which no words can express;
there is a sense of the sweet freedom of love, a sense of
gracious pity, of patient condescension, of entire and transcendent
excellence in Christ, which makes me feel how utterly true was
the impassionate language of David: ‘Whom have I in heaven
but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee.
My heart and my flesh cry out for God!’...
“This sentiment does not spring from any indifference to the
slave, but from a yet greater sympathy with Christ Jesus—the
slave’s only hope, my only hope, the Saviour of the world!”
With this letter we close our consideration of Mr. Beecher’s
work in this era of slavery agitation. Great as were his labors—and
we think they were unsurpassed and unequalled by those of
any other man—we still believe that his best contribution to the
great cause was the spirit which he manifested and the motives
that influenced him. It was like the walking of the Hebrew
youths in the fiery furnace and coming forth unscathed from the
flames.
.bn 279.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch14'
CHAPTER XIV.
.pm start_summary
The Battle Renewed—Repeal of the Missouri Compromise Proposed—The
Struggle in Congress—Mr. Beecher’s Appeals—The Battle lost in Congress
is Transferred to the Territories—Forces Engaged—Kansas War—Dred
Scott Decision—Mr. Beecher’s Defence of Kansas—“Beecher’s
Bibles”—Charles Sumner Attacked in the Senate—The Fremont Campaign—The
Dog Noble.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
“Henry, the battle is coming on. When it will end I know
not. I only hope that every one feels as alert as I do”
(extract from a letter of Mrs. Stowe to Henry Ward
Beecher). It was dated November 1, 1852, but expresses the feeling
of some of the more sagacious ones during the whole of this
era of apparent peace. They were not deceived by the surface
calm. They felt that, beneath all party platforms, and the compromises
of party politics, and the make-shifts of a commercial
spirit, the great conscience of the North was being stirred. Deep
was calling unto deep, and the moanings of the sea that presaged
the coming tempest had reached their ears. The storm,
not a new one but the violent rising of the same old elements,
began in Congress in the early part of 1854, upon the question of
the organization of the territory of “The Platte,” afterwards
divided into two Territories called “Kansas and Nebraska.”
The star of empire was moving Westward, but of what kind
should this empire be, of liberty or slavery? If matters continued
as they then were it must be the former. California,
stretching along the Pacific coast for two hundred and fifty miles
below Mason and Dixon’s line, had declared for freedom through
all her borders. The Territories of New Mexico and Utah were
not favorable to any great growth of slavery nor capable of
rendering it much assistance. Texas, although intensely pro-slavery,
yet, by reason of State pride, would not divide her imperial
domain into quarters for the benefit of that institution.
Only in one direction was expansion and growth possible, and
that was in this broad domain which was now asking to be organized
into Territories and would soon demand admission as States.
.bn 280.png
.pn +1
Why should not this magnificent country be opened to the slave-owner
and his property as well as to the settler from the North?
Was not this his right? Other factors than property interests
have entered into the question. Conscience has been enlisted
upon the one side as on the other. The South has come to look
upon slavery as having equal rights, under the Constitution, with
liberty, and she feels aggrieved that she is not given all the
privileges of her fellow-citizens of the North. The only thing
that apparently prevented this natural and, as it seemed to her,
just expansion, was the Missouri Compromise, which had solemnly
guaranteed this whole territory to freedom. Why not repeal this
obnoxious measure? The proposition to do this sprang from
Kentucky. The same State which, through its senator. Henry
Clay, had been foremost in originally securing the act, now
through its senator, Mr. Dixon, his successor, was the first to
ask for its repeal. Unlike as the movement seems, and disowned
as it undoubtedly would have been by Mr. Clay, the great
projector of the Missouri Compromise, yet in reality the substance
of each is the same. In both there is but one design—to
placate the slave-power and save the country by attempting
to compromise, not diverse interests, but antagonistic principles.
They were but separate steps in one path, and that a road towards
national perversion, disgrace, and ruin. The guiding star
which once shone in the heavens had been lost, and our statesmen
were taking up with a will-o’-the-wisp, born of swamp and
miasma, in its place.
Although the project was conceived by the South, it could
not have been brought to the birth, much less nourished into
baneful strength, had it not been adopted by the North in the
person of Stephen A. Douglas, one of the ablest leaders of the
Democratic party, a member of the United States Senate, and
chairman of the Committee upon Territories. Into the bill for
organizing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which he reported
to the Senate in January of 1854, he introduced the proposition
to repeal the old Missouri Compromise. The mere proposal
was regarded as little less than sacrilege. For thirty years
that compromise had been looked upon as a sacred pledge, to be
held in the same reverence as the Constitution itself. Scarcely
four years before, the mover of the proposition for its repeal
had described it as “canonized in the hearts of the American
.bn 281.png
.pn +1
people as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would ever be
reckless enough to disturb.” An attempt to set it aside roused
the most intense excitement throughout the whole land, the
South in favor, the North opposed. The readiness with which
the flame sprang up proved that through these past years of apparent
quiet the fire had been covered but not put out. Now that
fresh fuel was added and the draught opened, it blazed up more
fiercely than ever. It was not confined to any class or condition.
All of anti-slavery tendencies saw in it an evidence of the
settled purpose of the South to nationalize the institution of
slavery, and a testimony that it would not scruple to use any
means to attain its end.
Moralists saw in it a disregard of most sacred promises, and
felt the ground of constitutional fidelity shaking under their feet.
More than three thousand clergymen in New England signed a
protest against the action proposed.
“We protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
as a great moral wrong; as a breach of faith, eminently unjust to
the moral principles of the community and subversive of all confidence
in national engagements; as a measure full of danger to
the peace and even the existence of our beloved Union, and exposing
us to the righteous judgments of the Almighty.”
Even the mere politician was angry that an issue so repugnant
to a majority of the people had been so unwisely precipitated.
Nor were his anger and apprehension unwarranted.
The storm of popular indignation swept down like a tempest upon
the forests, scattering dead leaves, breaking off dead branches,
and throwing down trees that had become rotten in trunk or
root. Before the end of the year the Democratic party had lost
its magnificent majority in Congress, and the Whig party had
practically ceased to exist, dishevelled, torn up by the roots,
buried by the storm.
During this preliminary contest Mr. Beecher is neither indifferent
nor silent. In lectures, in special sermons, and in numerous
Star Papers he makes his influence felt. In one of the latter
upon “The Crisis” his appeals and reproaches go out to all
classes:
“The virtue, the morals, the prosperity of a domain large
enough to be an empire has no safeguard about it. Those
future States, silent and unpopulous, are like so many lambs huddled
.bn 282.png
.pn +1
in a thicket by crowds of wolves, that only wait for some
single taste of blood to plunge in and tear the whole! Unless
there is a storm from the people that shall roll like thunder in
the mountains; unless the recreant and graceless herd in Congress
shall hear the coming down of many waters, like roaring
freshets from mountains on whose tops clouds have burst, there
will soon be no more ground to fight for. If anything is to
be done it must be done by the North. It must be quickly,
loudly, and impetuously done! There must be an outcry coming
up from the bosom of the people, like that which rent the midnight
of Egypt when all its first-born were stricken. Let no man
wait for his fellow. Let children and women lead and teach
sluggish manhood with what energy and soul a voice should be
heard for liberty, upon half a continent, like the voice of God
when He speaks in storms!
“Let every single man write, ‘I solemnly protest against the
perfidy and the outrage of abolishing the Missouri Compromise’;
and as he bears it to the post-office, if he find a fellow to sign it,
let him sign; but if not, let it go as his single protest.
“Let families send solemn protests—the father and mother,
the children and hired laborers. Let there be ten thousand petitions
from single families within a week at Washington.
“Let churches and congregations unite and send instant
petitions.
“In this solemn hour of peril, when all men’s hearts sink
within them, we have an appeal to those citizens who rebuked us
for our fears in 1850.
“Did you not declare that that should be a finality? Did
you not say that, by a concession of conscience, we should thereafter
have peace?
“Is this the peace? Is this the fulfilment of your promise?
Is not this the very sequence which we told you would come?
That compromise was a ball of frozen rattlesnakes. You turned
them in your hands then with impunity. We warned and besought.
We protested and adjured. You persisted in bringing
them into the dwelling. You laid them down before the fire.
Now where are they? They are crawling all around. Their
fangs are striking death into every precious interest of liberty!
It is your work!
“In this emergency where are those ministers of the Gospel
.bn 283.png
.pn +1
who have always refused to infuse into the public mind a sound
and instructed moral sentiment upon the subject of slavery?
Hitherto you have been silent, because it did not concern the
North. We earnestly protested that so deep and dreadful a
disease could not prey upon any limb of this nation and not
strike its taint and danger through and through the whole body
politic. We implored men not to let the first principles of human
rights die out of the popular mind; not to let a gigantic engine
of despotism, through its selfish remunerations of commerce,
deaden every quick sensibility to justice and bribe to sleep the
vigilance of humanity, though every palm should have thrice as
many pieces of silver as did he of old.
“The North is both bound and asleep. It is bound with
bonds of unlawful compromise! You, ministers of Christ, held
her limbs, while the gaunt and worthy minions of oppression
moved about, twisting inextricable cords about her hands and
feet; or, like Saul, stood by, holding the garments of those that
slew the martyr! The poor Northern conscience has been like
a fly upon a spider’s web. Her statesmen, and not a few of her
ministers, have rolled up the struggling insect, singing fainter
and fainter, with webs of sophistry, till it now lies a miserable,
helpless victim, and Slavery is crawling up to suck its vital
blood!
“What, then, do you owe to God, to heaven, and to your
country, in an effort to regain conscience, liberty, and duty?
God, who searches the heart, knows that it is not in our heart to
say these things for the sake of aspersion. We would lie down
before you, and let your steps tread our very neck, if you
were only marching toward the high ends of our country’s good.
But we cannot endure to see noble and venerable ministers of
the Gospel first duped and deceived, and made to serve the ends
of oppression, and then, when the mighty juggle is detected,
stand silent and aghast, as unwilling now to repair as before to
prevent the utter misery and evil.
“But let us not be deceived. Let every man be prepared for
a future! If this bill shall be defeated the North will be like
a man just dragged out of the rapids above Niagara! If this bill
pass, the North will be like a man whirled in the very wildest
rage of the infuriate rapids and making headlong haste toward
the awful plunge.
.bn 284.png
.pn +1
“Does any man believe that there can be peace if this iniquity
goes forward? Will the South, with such advantage gained, easily
relinquish her grip? Will the North, betrayed, wounded, and religiously
aroused from the very bottom, let slave States come to
the door of the Union, from the very territory of which she has
been cheated, and bid them enter? Such struggles are before us
as we have never seen. The next time the masses, the religious-minded
men of the then undivided North, are aroused, standing
on no flimsy base of compromise but on the solid foundations of
humanity, of natural feeling, of a Northern national feeling
springing from a love of liberty, they will not be put to sleep
again by any mere pretences of peace. The finality which the
South gave was a hollow truce but to give them time to forge
their arms and grind their swords. They bribed the North with
a lie. The next time the North reaches forth her hand it will
scarcely be for gold or silver. There is more danger now of wild
collisions than of lying finalities. It will come to that if the foolish
counsels of timid men prevail. If civil wars are to be prevented,
now is the time; courage to-day or carnage to-morrow.
Firmness will give peace; trembling will bring war.\ \ \ \ \ \ \ *”
Another one follows upon “The Christian’s Duty to Liberty”:
“Mar. 23, 1854.—At length God seems to have caught the
wicked in their own craft. It was not in the power of all the
men of the North to develop so earnest a feeling against slavery
and for liberty as is now finding tongue and giving itself forth all
over the North. All that for which we have been counted uncharitable
by men anxious to be honorable toward the South has
come to pass.
“Let the conscience of the North settle this question, not her
fears. God calls us to a religious duty. Long has our talent lain
in a napkin. Our testimony for liberty has been waived; our assertion
of freedom has been timid and without enthusiasm. We
have refused to accept at God’s hands the true mission of the
North, to preach liberty to the captives and elevation to the
whole human family. At length let the banner flow out to the
wind, let the battle begin. There will never be another day of
grace if this goes past. Retreat now and the North will never retreat
again. We beseech Christian men and ministers to put this
question where it belongs, upon a religious basis. Let them feel
their duty in their own land as they feel their duty of preaching
.bn 285.png
.pn +1
the truth of Christ, whether men will hear or whether they will
forbear.
“Oh! that God, by breathing a spirit of prayer upon His people
and of unflinching fidelity, would give us token that He has
appeared at length for our salvation!”
In spite of all efforts to the contrary, the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise was effected in September of 1854, and the
battle which had been fought in Congress and lost by the free
States was at once transferred to the newly-admitted Territory,
and was there waged with a fierceness and persistence that cannot
be understood or appreciated, unless it be remembered that Kansas
had become the strategic point of the whole great conflict.
Given Kansas, slavery would have not only additional territory,
but, what was even more important to its purposes, a majority in
the United States Senate that should for ever, as it hoped, prevent
the admission of more free than slave States, or the following
of any course which should be prejudicial to its interests. In
this new field the North at first labored under great disadvantage.
The peculiar institution had already been planted and had
taken root. The eastern border of Kansas was upon Missouri, a
slave State which was fully aware of the advantage that broader
fields would furnish the labor of her increasing slave population,
and containing enough of a rough and wild frontier element to carry
through any plan that desperation or villany might devise. The
President of the United States Senate and acting Vice-President
of the United States, David R. Atchison, was on the ground, and
for months had been organizing Blue Lodges and other secret
bodies, with the intent to take possession of the Territory, or at
least of its polling-places, and secure it for slavery. The officers
appointed by the President—a governor, three judges, a secretary,
a marshal, and an attorney—were, of course, all favorable to the
policy of the Administration, a policy which was all that the most
radical pro-slavery advocate could desire.
The party thus happily situated did not hesitate to avail itself
of its advantages. Its members swarmed across the borders at
the election of a delegate to Congress, took possession of the
ballot-boxes, appointed judges of election from their own number,
elected their man by an overwhelming majority, and then for
the most part returned to their homes in Missouri.
This was in October, 1854. In the following spring a Legislature
.bn 286.png
.pn +1
was elected by the same illegal process, and proceeded at
once to form a constitution most rabidly pro-slavery. It prescribed
the death-penalty for any who should entice or decoy
away a slave or assist him to escape, and ten years’ imprisonment
for harboring or concealing a fugitive slave. To deny the right
of holding slaves in the Territory, either by speaking, writing,
printing or circulating books or papers, was declared to be felony,
punishable with two years’ imprisonment. Having formed an
elaborate constitution of the above character, and made ample
provision for enforcing its requirements, they selected a site for
the new State capital, called it Lecompton—after the attorney of
the State, whose legal acquirements had assisted them greatly in
their villany—and adjourned.
Looking upon affairs as they then appeared, and seeing that
the Legislature, however elected, had been officially recognized,
and that its enactments were in form legal, that the whole machinery
of courts, marshals, and militia were in its hands and
could be used to enforce its statutes, that it was favored by
the Administration and the dominant faction at Washington,
which could employ the United States army for its support, it
would seem as if the battle had already been lost to the Free-State
men, and that Kansas could be counted upon to give that
majority in the United States Senate which the slave-power so
greatly coveted. But other forces were at work. In the first
place, the very enormity of these slave-laws compelled all the
decent residents of Kansas, whether Free-Soil, Whig, or Democrat,
to combine for their own defence against the possible outrages
to which they were exposed by these enactments. In the
second place, the party which had brought about the repeal of
the Missouri Compromise had, by this very act, lost the control
of the Lower House in Congress, and could not be relied upon
to admit the Territory with its present infamous code. Besides
these near and more immediate advantages, there were forces enlisted
on this side that were working slowly but with great certainty
toward the result aimed at by the Free-State men. The old
migratory instinct which had throbbed in the veins of this race
from the first, which had brought them from the steppes of Asia
to the shores of the Atlantic, pushed the stronger and abler ones
across the seas, moved them from the sea-coast to the foot of the
Alleghanies, then drove them across this barrier to take possession
.bn 287.png
.pn +1
of the great valley of the Ohio and the Mississippi, was still
as active as ever and readily responded to the enticements of the
new and fertile lands just opened in Kansas for settlement. No
sooner was it known that the broad plains of this Territory could
be occupied than the tide began to flow in this direction. Principle
also came in to strengthen and ennoble this instinct.
“Then arose a majesty of self-sacrifice that had no parallel
before. Instead of merely protesting, young men and maidens,
laboring men, farmers, mechanics, sped with a sacred desire to
rescue free territory from the toils of slavery, and emigrated in
thousands, not to better their own condition, but in order that
when this Territory should vote it should vote for freedom.”
Lest both instinct and principle should move too slowly or
with insufficient equipment, emigrant societies were formed at the
North to assist those who would offer themselves for the redemption
of Kansas. One of the earliest of these to be on the ground
was the “Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company,” headed by the
Hon. Eli Thayer. This organization sent out a body of some
thirty persons, who, in July of this year, had founded the town of
Lawrence. With this company, organized, mutually acquainted,
and trained in the orderly methods of New England, for a centre,
there rapidly gathered a strong body, and one that well represented
the bona-fide settlers of Kansas. They proceeded at once
to call a mass convention and elect delegates. In due time a
Constitutional Convention was called at Topeka, October 23,
1855, which formed a constitution, submitted it to the people,
from whom it met with a hearty endorsement. It was then transmitted
to Congress for approval.
These, Lecompton and Topeka, were the storm-centres around
which surged the principal events of those turbulent times in
Kansas which have been designated as “The Kansas War.” It
was a wild, irregular, barbarous, and bloody strife, made up of
night-attacks, house-burnings, secret murders, skirmishes between
armed bodies sometimes rising to the proportions of a battle,
Lawrence twice burned, Leavenworth sacked, and acts of that
description, filling up four years or more of most eventful history.
Kansas at that time was the skirmish-line of two great hosts
that were already settling down to a life-and-death struggle. On
the one side a Legislature, as we have seen, elected largely by
the votes of marauders from an adjoining State; a reckless population
.bn 288.png
.pn +1
just over the line, whose historic name, Border Ruffians,
seems to have been fully deserved, organized into secret bands
ready to march at a moment’s warning, equipped either to vote or
fight as should be required; a regiment of United States troops
placed at their disposal; the whole South awake to the work
they have undertaken, and forwarding supplies of men and money
for the support of those already on the field; and the Administration
at Washington, through portions of two presidential terms,
alternately scheming and commanding for its success.
On the other hand was a Legislature, illegally convened, but
elected by a large majority of the resident population of the Territory,
with a constituency, some of them doubtless adventurers,
some fanatics, and others possibly villains, but for the most part
honest homesteaders, living, it may be, in sod huts or dug-outs, but
living upon land which they had pre-empted and could call their
own; the great North behind them, slowly but surely moving
down to their rescue; the throb of the world’s progress beating
towards them; the consciousness that they are fulfilling the purposes
of God in saving this land to liberty animating them; and
the great natural elements of soil, air, and sunshine, that are always
on the side of liberty, working for them. These were the
forces on the other side.
Each section came to the support of its skirmish-line in characteristic
fashion: the South by military companies and the incursions
of armed bands of raiders aiming to conquer the country,
if necessary, by force of arms and overawe it into accepting
its bogus State constitution. The North came in emigrant-wagons,
with family, stock, house-furniture, and farm utensils,
prepared to remain and occupy the land.
The general trend of the government at an early period in
the strife, as seen in various acts at home and abroad, must also
be taken into the account. The Ostend Manifesto, issued under
the inspiration of President Pierce by our three ministers, Buchanan,
Mason, and Soulé, at the courts respectively of London,
Paris, and Madrid, recommended the purchase of Cuba, if possible;
if not that we obtain it by force. “If Spain,” they said,
“should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then by every
law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from
her, if we possess the power.” Slavery at this period had a
foreign as well as a home policy. It was that of the old buccaneer,
.bn 289.png
.pn +1
a policy of unscrupulous aggression, that would not hesitate
to embroil the nation in war, if necessary for the carrying
out of its designs. Filibustering expeditions, which were continually
being planned and attempted at this time against Cuba
and Central America, were rightly looked upon not only as additional
proof of the purpose but as the initial steps in the proposed
plan of foreign conquest.
As if the forces arrayed against liberty were not enough, as
the conflict advanced the Supreme Court of the United States
added its influence to the side of the antagonist. In the historic
Dred Scott decision, given in the spring of 1857, the ground is
taken that the negro slave is so completely and exclusively
property, under the Constitution, that the owner can take him, as
any other property, into any and all territory belonging to the
United States government. In effect “the negro has no rights
which the white man is bound to respect.”
After the lapse of many years, upon a calm review of that
decision it is difficult to say whether the historical errors, the
feeble reasoning, or the immoral sentiments most awaken our
surprise and contempt. It is sufficient for our purpose at this
time to know that this decision threw a vast influence against
the Free-State men. If it were final, then their struggle was
all in vain. Strive as much as they would, and suffer as much
as they might, they could never make Kansas a free State.
And yet, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, the hostility of
the Administration, and all other adverse forces and circumstances,
they held on. To this result had our country come through
the compromises and surrenders of three-quarters of a century:
slavery in possession of the machinery of government, nationalized
by the highest tribunal in the land, declared to have equal rights
with freedom in all the public domain, and, in logical sequence,
not to be shut out from even the free States. Every institution
of thirty millions of freemen was to be judged and graded,
encouraged or restrained, with supreme reference to the interests
of this institution. Dominant at home, it was already taking
steps preparatory to foreign conquest, and the only effective
obstacle in the way of the consummation of its plans was the
life-and-death tenacity with which the free settlers of Kansas
held to their determination that theirs should be a free State.
The contest continued for four years before any substantial
.bn 290.png
.pn +1
advantage was gained for the Free State party. Four governors,
three appointed by President Pierce and one by President Buchanan,
had successively been sent, and then deposed and disgraced
because they could not, or would not, carry out the unjust
measures proposed by the Administration. The victory in
Congress in 1858 was simply a resubmission of the Lecompton
constitution to the people of the State to be voted upon, whether
they would accept it or frame one for themselves. They of
course buried it amid universal execrations. Slight and unmistakably
just as was this concession of Congress, it was nevertheless
secured but by a small majority. The change of five votes
would have passed the notorious Lecompton Bill, admitted the
State with slavery into the Union, added two senators to the slave-power,
restored the supremacy of that power in the Senate of the
United States, to be followed by the carrying out the Dred
Scott decision to its logical consequences, slavery supremacy at
home, slavery aggression, annexation, and expansion over Cuba
and Central America, abroad. A vast slave-empire stretching
from the lakes to the southern shores of the Caribbean Sea seemed
not an improbable dream, if there had not been wisdom enough
or will enough to fight the battle out in Kansas. All honor to
those brave men and women who in those days saved this Territory
to the North! All honor to those who stood by them and
helped them to win! A more important battle was never fought
in our history, and a more heroic spirit was never shown. What
the château of Hougoumont, held by the British right centre, was
to the battle of Waterloo; what the “Bloody Angle” held by
Hancock was to the battle of Spottsylvania Court-House, such
was the Kansas war in the early and determining era of the great
American conflict.
Call this four years of struggle one battle, and it will take rank
with the “fifteen great battles” of the world’s history, second in
importance to none.
We have thus given an outline of this great preliminary struggle
of the war, that Mr. Beecher’s position and labors, which were
much criticised at the time, may be seen in their true light. As
is well known, he threw himself into this work with all the enthusiasm
which such an emergency might be supposed to awaken.
He felt the importance of the struggle and the need of instant
action. Since, under the doctrine of “squatter sovereignty,”
.bn 291.png
.pn +1
which had taken the place of the former restriction, the question
of freedom or slavery in Kansas must be decided by the vote of
the actual settlers, these must be aided to emigrate to that Territory
from the North, and at once. Since they were to be the
foundation elements of a Christian State, they should be supplied
with Bibles; and since they would doubtless be called upon to defend
themselves against attack, they must be supplied with firearms.
He lectured and took up collections in Plymouth Church
and from the lecture platform for Sharp’s rifles, an arm then but
just come into notice. He preached, lectured, and bought rifles
with the same object in view—to redeem men to liberty; and
with the same spirit—love to God and man. Some of the rifles,
it is said, were sent in boxes marked Bibles, but without his
knowledge, and so passed in safety through Missouri and the enemy’s
lines. Hence the term Beecher’s Bibles came to be applied
to these effective weapons.
At this time he published his famous “Defence of Kansas,”
that showed not more clearly the warmth of his spirit than his
clear understanding of the issues at stake and the dangers that
were impending:
“A battle is to be fought. If we are wise it will be bloodless.
If we listen to the pusillanimous counsels of men who have never
shown one throb of sympathy for liberty, we shall have blood to
the horses’ bridles. If we are firm and prompt to obvious duty,
if we stand by the men of Kansas and give them all the help
they need, the flames of war will be quenched before it bursts
forth, and both they of the West and we of the East shall, after
some angry mutterings, rest down in peace. But if our ears are
poisoned by the advice of men who never rebuke violence on the
side of power, and never fail to inveigh against the self-defence
of wronged liberty, we shall invite aggression and civil war.
And let us know assuredly that civil war will not burst forth in
Kansas without spreading. Now, if bold wisdom prevails, the
conflict will be settled afar off in Kansas, and without blows or
blood. But timidity and indifference will bring down blows there,
which will not only echo in our houses hitherward, but will by
and by lay the foundation for an armed struggle between the
whole North and the South. Shall we let the spark kindle, or
shall we quench it now? But, that intelligent citizens may the
better judge, let the facts of this case be reviewed....
.bn 292.png
.pn +1
“There was never so strong an appeal to public sympathy as
that which is presented in the case of Kansas free settlers. Their
emigration was a mission of mercy, full of the ripest fruits of
Christianity. Their conduct has been noble. They have borne
hardships without faltering, they have borne outrage and persecution
with patience, returning good for evil. They have suffered
wrongs manifold and infinitely provoking, without retaliation.
When aggression on one occasion was pushed so sorely
that their patience failed, some of the men said: ‘We cannot
bear such wrongs.’ The reply made by Pomeroy will become a
maxim of Christian men: ‘Be patient! your wrongs are your
very strength.’
“When the armed day came, and their adversaries came out
to consume them, then, and only then, they took up arms and
surrounded their homes with living men, determined not to
attack, but never to surrender.... Once when England only
asserted the right to tax the colonies without representation, the
colonies rebelled and went to war. But now a foreign Legislature
has been imposed upon Kansas. That Legislature has legalized
slavery against the known wishes of nine-tenths of the actual
settlers. It has decreed that no man shall enter the Territory
who will not take an oath of allegiance to this spurious Legislature.
It has made it death to give liberty to the man escaping
from oppression. It has muzzled the press. It has forbidden
discussion. It has made free speech a penitentiary offence. The
rights for which the old colonists fought were superficial compared
with these. These are the rights which lie at the very
heart of personal liberty.
“Indeed, there can be no personal freedom where free speech,
a free press, a free canvass and discussion are penitentiary offences!
These are the laws which the President is determined to
enforce! Congress is to be asked for money to sustain this government
in Kansas, or to pay for an army to cut the throats of
every free citizen who will not yield to this infamy!...
“Peace in Kansas means peace everywhere; war there will
be war all over the land. Now it can be stopped. But fear will
not do it. A truculent peace will not do it. Indolence and presumptuous
prayer will but hasten the mischief. When tyrants are
in arms they who cry peace become their confederates. Manliness,
action, courage, and ample preparation for defence will stop
.bn 293.png
.pn +1
the danger. The Providence that will help us is the Providence
that we help. God works for those who work for Him. When
He answers prayer for harvests He inspires men to work, and
petitions for crops and harvests are answered through ploughs and
spades. And God will answer prayers for peace by inspiring
men with justice, with abhorrence of oppression; by making good
men bold and active, and bad men feeble and cowardly; by stopping
the ears of the community to the counsel of cowards and
hypocrites. Let every man in this awful crisis not fail to pray,
and, that they may pray without hypocrisy, let them watch and
work! How shall we dare ask God to save us from bloodshed
when we will not use the means He has put into our hands? Faith
without works and prayer without works are dead—stone-dead.
Let the emigrants go hither and thither by hundreds, and pray as
they go! Let them that have money now pour it out, and pray
as they give! Let them that have sons in Kansas send them
arms, and pray that they may have no occasion to use them; but
that, if they must be used, that the son may so wield them that
the mother be not ashamed of the son whom she bore! Let
them that have influence speak out! Let ministers and Christian
free men now, if ever, speak against barbarism and uphold the
whole retinue of Christian institutions! Let those whose tongue
has been hitherto palsied by evil advisers now loose their tongue
and speak! Of whom will the land take counsel? There have
been two sorts of counsellors hitherto. One has pointed out for
twenty years the nature of slavery, its tendencies, the dangers
which it threatened; and all the prophecies have come true. The
other kind of counsellors have predicted peace, dissuaded from
action, urged compromise, and at each reluctant step have promised
the country peace. In not a single instance have they been
right. Events have overthrown every one of their promises.
They have led us down deeper into trouble at every step. We
have been betrayed by kisses. Excitements have deepened, lessons
have multiplied, compromises have bred cockatrices. We
are spun over with webs. We are tangled with sophistries. We
have everything but manliness, straightforwardness, courage, and
decisive wisdom....
“But what is done must be done quickly. Funds must be
freely given; arms must be had, even if bought at the price mentioned
by our Saviour: ‘He that hath no sword, let him sell his
.bn 294.png
.pn +1
garment and buy one.’ Young men who would do aught for
liberty should take no counsel of fear. Now is the time when a
man may do for his country in an hour more than in a whole
life besides. Time flies. Events hasten. Fear and treacherous
peace, that betray duty with ignorant words of religion, will ruin
all; but energy, courage, action will save all. Woe to us if war
comes from our fault! If it comes, on the skirts of false peace
will its blood be found!”
Of the result of this sending armed colonists into Kansas
he speaks a few weeks later:
“Of all the revolutions on record, we remember none so remarkable
as that which has been wrought by Sharp’s rifles. We
do not know that a single man has ever been injured by them.
They are guiltless of blood. But the principle which they involve
has brought the whole South to a protest against violence,
even in the extremest necessity of self-defence! These aforetime
heroes of the knife and revolver are now deep in the Scriptures.
They are quoting all the peaceable texts; they hang with
irrepressible delight over all those passages which teach forbearance.”
Being attacked in a religious paper for his aggressive attitude,
he answers: “We have acted consistently with our settled belief.
We have NOTHING to retract.”
An event that took place at this time added still more fuel
to the hot indignation that was glowing through the North—the
attack by Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, upon Charles
Sumner, May 22, 1856, in the Senate Chamber. It was an act
so cowardly and atrocious that it cannot be recalled after these
many years without a tingling of the blood. If a blow had been
given at the moment of the debate, if the man seeking redress
had approached his adversary face to face and given him opportunity
to defend himself, if it had been but a single blow, possibly
some extenuation could be offered; but to strike a man a
stunning blow without warning, when he is sitting at his desk
and so hampered that he is unable to rise until he has torn the
desk up from its fastenings; to follow with more than a score of
blows until the instrument of attack, a heavy cane, is broken to
pieces and his victim is left senseless—is an act that, search where
it may, can find nothing to add to its infamy. Among the meetings
called all over the North to give voice to the anger of
.bn 295.png
.pn +1
the people at this dastardly act, one was in New York City.
The advertised speakers were William M. Evarts, John Van
Buren, Daniel Lord, Jr., and others of eminence. The speeches
were able but tame and conservative. They did not meet
the demand of the popular heart over that tremendous outrage.
Just as the meeting was being adjourned Mr. Beecher was
discovered in the back part of the room, having come in to listen
to men whose reputation was so great but whom he had never
heard. At once the cry from the unsatisfied audience was
“Beecher, Beecher!”
So unexpected was the call, and so annoyed was he at being
called out, that it required almost physical force to get him to
take the platform; but when once there his soul kindled with the
occasion. A simple recital of facts led the audience step by step
over the ground which had been traversed for the last ten years.
The grand principles of our polity were uncovered to their
view. Scene after scene was depicted by his marvellous dramatic
power, culminating in that outrage in the Senate Chamber on account
of which they had gathered; and the audience, alternately
moved by his pathos, fired by his passion, or swept by his humor,
became one with the speaker. They saw as he saw, they felt as
he felt; and he stamped them that night with the impress of his
hatred of slavery and his burning enthusiasm for liberty. The
next day the press carried this impression to the multitude of its
readers, and, dismissing the other speeches of the evening with a
formal notice, gave his as nearly as possible verbatim. It was
his meeting for the first time upon the platform with the leading
men of the country, and from that hour he took his place with
them and held it to the end.
Many leading men in Massachusetts having been invited to a
similar meeting held in Boston, and sending regrets, he analyzes
their excuses in a Star Paper upon “Hearts and no Hearts”:
“Admirable! The man is sacrificed to the position. No tear,
no indignation, no heart-felt throb, no voice or gesture which befits
an open and free heart. All instincts and spontaneity must
be judged by supposed interests of a professorship. In such
cases as this the man is a mere Jonah in the whale’s belly. His
professorship has swallowed his manhood! Alas for the whale!”
Of this attack on Sumner he said in the Star article of June
12, “Silence must be Nationalized”:
.bn 296.png
.pn +1
“This deed stands absolutely alone in our history. It has not
a single fellow! There have been brutal things, and cruel things,
and mean things, and cowardly things, and wicked and inhuman
wrongs, but nothing before that epitomized them all. With the
exception of one or two papers, the whole South has accepted the
act and made it representative! It is no longer Brooks that
struck Sumner! He was the arm, but the whole South was the
body! And with one consent it is declared that for the crime
of free speech it was done and deserved!”
In the meantime a new party, born of this conflict, was rapidly
coming into power. Made up of elements apparently most diverse,
it was brought together by a common purpose and fused
into one by a grand enthusiasm. There was, for a nucleus, the
larger part of the old Free-Soil party, that had been in existence
since 1842; then came Abolitionists, of which there had been
for years a sprinkling in all the Northern States; seceders from
the Whig party, called in New York State “Silver Grays,” and
from the Democratic party, called “Barnburners;” and a multitude
of others, a daily increasing host, vital in every member
with the spirit of the hour. Combining some of the best elements
of all the parties, it had a breadth of power that no one
party could have given it alone. While it had enough men of
experience in affairs to secure wisdom of action, its recruits
were for the most part young men, who brought the inspiration
of their youth, their numbers, their hope, and their indignation.
After a preliminary mass convention in Pittsburgh on
Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1856, they met in Philadelphia
and adopted a platform of principles and nominated
candidates for President and Vice-President.
In this platform they gave their attention mostly to the great
issue of supreme importance—that between liberty and slavery.
Their action here was positive and unequivocal: no more slave
territory; no more coddling of slave institutions. Upon this platform
it nominated John C. Fremont for its standard-bearer, and
organized its hosts for the great presidential contest of that year.
The party thus brought before the country had some great
advantages over all rivals. The Whig party was already dead,
although not yet fully conscious of the fact, and awaiting burial;
the Democratic party was inextricably associated, for weal or
for woe, with the slave-power; while the Know-Nothing party
.bn 297.png
.pn +1
was but a mushroom, and a poisonous variety at that. On the
other hand, this new organization was intensely alive. It had
a definite object in view and was not afraid to avow it. It had
the strength of intense moral conviction. Its cause gave opportunity
for inspiration and awakened the grandest enthusiasm. It
was in harmony with the fundamental principles of our nation
and the early struggles of our people. It was in sympathy with
the great movement of the age in all lands. Its lengthening lines
and the rising hosts of the Old World were parts of the same
army. Its standard-bearer, by reason of his youth, adventurous
career, and brilliant service, was well adapted to awaken a loyal
and spirited following. It had nothing to conceal; it had nothing
to fear; it carried with it the hopes of the nation and the world.
Adopting the “Marseillaise,” the greatest liberty song that was
ever written, it adapted its own chorus to the music and sang
at its meetings with boundless enthusiasm:
.pm start_poem
“Arise, arise, ye braves!
And let your war-cry be,
‘Free speech, free press,
Free soil, free men,
Fremont, and victory!’”
.pm end_poem
Mr. Beecher gave himself unreservedly to this contest:
“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 often three times 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 between Fremont and Buchanan.
I generally made a three hours’ speech a day in the open air to
audiences of from eight 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.”
Of Mr. Beecher’s contributions to the literature of the campaign
we can, for lack of space, give but few quotations, and
these only as they afford an idea of the humorous and enthusiastic
manner in which he stood up for his candidate. In the
.bn 298.png
.pn +1
close scrutiny of private life, which is so marked a feature of
presidential campaigns, it had been learned that John C. Fremont
and Jessie Benton had fallen in love with each other, and,
her father not approving of his daughter’s selection, the two
lovers had made a runaway match of it, and in their haste had
been married by a Roman Catholic priest. This escapade was
being used against the candidate by the opposite party, not because
he ran away with the fair Jessie—the ballot of the average
American voter would as likely be won as lost by such an exhibition
of youthful enterprise—but because it helped to prove,
what was persistently claimed, that he was a Roman Catholic.
In answer Mr. Beecher wrote a vigorous article disproving the
charge, and justifying the groom in securing the services of any
one competent to perform the marriage ceremony, closing with
these words: “Like a true lover and gallant man, Fremont said
that he did not care who married him, so that it was done quick
and strong. If we had been in Colonel Fremont’s place we
would have been married if it had required us to walk through a
row of priests and bishops as long as from Washington to Rome,
ending up with the Pope himself!”
He ridicules the persistency with which certain newspapers
returned to the attack upon Fremont on the assumed ground of
his being a Roman Catholic, with the story of “The Dog Noble
and the Empty Hole,” that probably did as good campaign service
as any story that was ever written:
“The first summer which we spent in Lenox we had along
a very intelligent dog named Noble. He was learned in many
things, and by his dog-lore excited the undying admiration of
all the children. But there were some things which Noble could
never learn. Having on one occasion seen a red squirrel run into
a hole in a stone wall, he could not be persuaded that he was not
there for evermore!...
“The intense enthusiasm of the dog at that hole can hardly
be described. He filled it full of barking. He pawed and
scratched as if undermining a bastion. Standing off at a little
distance, he would pierce the hole with a gaze as intense and fixed
as if he were trying magnetism on it. Then, with tail extended
and every hair thereon electrified, he would rush at the empty
hole with a prodigious onslaught.
“This imaginary squirrel haunted Noble night and day. The
.bn 299.png
.pn +1
very squirrel himself would run up before his face into the tree,
and, crouched in a crotch, would sit silently watching the whole
process of bombarding the empty hole with great sobriety and
relish. But Noble would allow of no doubts. His conviction
that that hole had a squirrel in it continued unshaken for six
weeks. When all other occupations failed this hole remained to
him. When there were no more chickens to harry, no pigs to
bite, no cattle to chase, no children to romp with, no expeditions
to make with the grown folks, and when he had slept all that his
dog-skin would hold, he would walk out of the yard, yawn and
stretch himself, and then look wistfully at the hole, as if thinking
to himself: ‘Well, as there is nothing else to do, I may as well
try that hole again!’
“We had almost forgotten this little trait until the conduct
of the New York Express in respect to Colonel Fremont’s religion
brought it ludicrously to mind again. Colonel Fremont
is, and always has been, as sound a Protestant as John Knox
ever was. He was bred in the Protestant faith and has never
changed....
“But the Express, like Noble, has opened on this hole in the
wall, and can never be done barking at it. Day after day it resorts
to this empty hole. When everything else fails this resource
remains. There they are indefatigably—the Express and
Noble—a church without a Fremont, and a hole without a squirrel
in it!...
“We never read the Express nowadays without thinking involuntarily,
‘Goodness! the dog is letting off at that hole again.’”
The election of 1856 resulted, as is well known, in the choice
of James Buchanan for President. Since his policy was dictated
by the same power behind the throne as that of Mr. Pierce, it
was, of course, not unlike that of his predecessor; and this era in
the great conflict which opened with the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise closes with the Administration at Washington more
than ever submissive to the demands of the South. But it also
closes with the right wing of the great army of liberty, whose
lines reached from the Atlantic to the roots of the Rocky Mountains,
securely entrenched and holding its position, and with continually
increasing numbers, barring farther aggressions of slavery
for ever.
.bn 300.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch15'
CHAPTER XV.
.pm start_summary
Remarkable experiences—The Edmonson Sisters—Pinky and her Freedom-Ring—Slave
Auction in Plymouth Church—John Brown—The Wrong
and Right Way—Election of Abraham Lincoln—Secession—Buchanan’s
Fast.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
While these larger public matters were engaging his attention
there was an equally engrossing field of private activity
in which he was constantly engaged, and which
developed into some very peculiar and remarkable experiences.
As early as 1848 we find him conducting an auction sale, in
New York City, of the two Edmonson sisters.
This case at the time attracted wide attention. Two respectable
young women of light complexion, living in Washington City,
had the misfortune to be born while the mother was a slave.
After they had grown to womanhood they found that the former
owner of their parent was about to sell them to a slave-dealer for
exportation to New Orleans and the market. Despairing of being
able to raise the exorbitant sum at which they were valued, and
not knowing how to escape from a doom far more dreadful than
death, they risked everything by going on board the Pearl
schooner with seventy-seven others, in the hope of escaping
to a land of liberty and purity. The ship was captured and they
were hurried off to Slater’s Den, Baltimore, and thence to New
Orleans. By some most extraordinary providences they were
brought back from New Orleans to Washington, and their sad
case at length reached the ears of those who had hearts to feel
and means to save. A meeting was held in the Tabernacle
October 23, at which Dr. Dowling and Mr. Beecher spoke with
so much effect that $2,200 were raised and the captives were
free. Mr. Beecher’s speech is described by an eye-witness, himself
a minister, as beyond anything he has ever heard before or
since. He extemporized there on the stage an auction of a Christian
slave. The enumeration of his qualities by the auctioneer,
and the bids that followed, were given by the speaker in perfect
character. He made the scene as realistic as one of Hogarth’s
.bn 301.png
.pn +1
pictures and as lurid as a Rembrandt. Physical excellences, mental,
moral, and spiritual qualities, are each dwelt on with an emphasis
and moving effect that proved that he would have made
a capital auctioneer if he had chosen that business.
“And more than all that, gentlemen, they say he is one of
those praying Methodist niggers; who bids? A thousand—fifteen
hundred—two thousand—twenty-five hundred! Going,
going! last call! Gone!”
The audience were wrought up to a perfect frenzy of excitement
while that picture was being drawn, and when real contributions
instead of imaginary bids were called for, the sum was
easily raised and the girls were free. He says of it: “I think
that of all the meetings that I have attended in my life, for a
panic of sympathy I never saw one that surpassed that. I have
seen a great many in my day. An amount of money was subscribed,
and they were bought and set free. The mother was a
very old woman. She had been a 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.”
We have lying before us as we write a little leather-covered
account-book, soiled and worn by use, which has upon its first
pages letters from various humanitarians—William Lloyd Garrison
being among the number—recommending to the Christian
public one Pomona Brice, who “is engaged in collecting money to
secure the ransom of her daughter and two grandchildren who
are scattered somewhere in North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama,
and Missouri.” The names of subscribers follow, with the
sums subscribed—ranging from twenty-five cents to ten dollars—among
which stands the familiar autograph “H. W. Beecher, if
the whole is made up, five dollars.” Receipts from the different
savings-banks where she had deposited the money; a letter from
her lawyer to Mr. Beecher telling him that at her request he
had examined the laws of the above-mentioned States, and found
them all against her; a bill for his services and a judgment of the
court against her for $100, all either directed or entrusted to Mr.
Beecher, give us an inkling of another kind of work that wore
upon his time, sympathy, and purse.
Not only did he help by his subscriptions some poor mother
or grandmother to buy the liberty of her children or grandchildren,
but sometimes brought the slave upon Plymouth pulpit
.bn 302.png
.pn +1
and raised the money for its redemption on the spot. A handful
of letters in our possession gives the preliminaries to such a
transaction.
One is from a Mr. Blake, who has called on the “nigger
trader” and obtained the refusal of the child for $900, and has
also “obtained four or five good names to a bond for the payment
of the money or return of the child. When I told the
grandmother what I had done the poor old soul cried for joy.
‘God bless you!’ she said. ‘I will sit up all night to get you
some breakfast. You have saved my child.’” Then comes a
hitch in the proceedings. A partner to the trader before spoken
of appeared. He hated “the d——— Abolitionists, and would
not let the child go among them.” “Do you not think something
could be done without the child? She has light flaxen
hair. Her owner said I would easily get her on the cars, for no
one would know her from a white child. The grandmother has
purchased herself. She has also saved up about $200 to support
her in her old age. She is willing to give this. If we take
it we shall want $700 more. If you can do anything, in God’s name
do it and save the child.
.ll 68
.rj
“G. Faulkner Blake.”
.ll
In some way, the letters do not tell us how, the difficulties
were overcome. The permission of the joint owners of this flaxen-haired
girl was obtained, bonds were given to the railroads as
well as the owners to secure them from loss in case this property
should not be returned, and the child was brought to the auction-block
of Plymouth pulpit and was bought for liberty.
The following is Mr. Beecher’s farther account of this matter:
“Before the passage of the Red Sea, before the escape of the
Israelites (in this country, not in Egypt), I was accustomed, from
time to time, to buy slaves here; and it was thrown up that this
was one of the best slave-auction places anywhere to be found—that
better prices were obtained for slaves that were put up for
sale here than for any others. Some thought there was an inconsistency
in it. I did not. I was always glad, at suitable
times, as often as was proper, to bring before you living men and
women, and let them stand and look you in the face, that you
might see what sort of creatures slaves were made of. I was
glad by every means in my power to arouse men’s feelings
against the abomination of slavery, which I hated with an unutterable
.bn 303.png
.bn 304.png
.pn +2
hatred, and which I hate still in memory as much as then
I hated it in substance and in fact.
.il id=i295 fn=i_295.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Pinky’s Freedom-Ring.
“Well, at one time there was a girl named ‘Pink,’ or ‘Pinky,’
brought here. She came through the agency of G. Faulkner
Blake, a brother of one of our own members. He was studying
in the Episcopal Seminary at Alexandria, I believe. He learned
from her old grandmother that ‘Pinky,’ who was too fair and
beautiful a child for her own good, was to be taken away from
the grandmother and sent South.
“To make a long story short, those interested in the girl
wrote me to see if I could purchase her. I replied, ‘I cannot
unless you send her North’; and there was trouble in bringing
her here. I wrote that I would be responsible for her, and that
she would be lawfully purchased or sent back.
“I remember that the pen-keeper paid me a compliment
which I shall never forget, by saying that if Henry Ward Beecher
had given his word he considered it better than a bond. So she
was brought here and placed upon this platform; and the rain
never fell faster than the tears fell from many of you that were
here. The scene was one of intense enthusiasm. The child was
bought, and overbought. The collection that was taken on the
spot was enough, and more than enough, to purchase her. It so
happened (it is not wrong to mention now) that a lady known
to literary fame as Miss Rose Terry was present; and as, like
many others, she had not with her as much money as she wanted
to give, she took a ring off from her hand and threw it into the
contribution-box. That ring I took and put on the child’s hand,
and said to her, ‘Now remember that this is your freedom-ring.’
Her expression, as she stood and looked at it for a moment, was
pleasing to behold; and Eastman Johnson, the artist, was so
much interested in the occurrence that he determined to represent
it on canvas, and he painted her looking at her freedom-ring;
and I have a transcript of the picture now at my house in
the parlor, and any of you can see it by asking.
“So the girl was redeemed. She went back South after her
redemption; but she was in the North for a time and received
some rudiments of education. At length I lost sight of her until
1864, I think, when she was at Chief-Justice Chase’s, and I received
word that she wished to see me.
“It seems that ‘Pinky’ was not a good enough name for
.bn 305.png
.pn +1
her when she was free, though it was when she was a slave; so
they mixed things and called her ‘Ward,’ after my name, and
‘Rose,’ after the name of this lady; and ever since her name
has been Rose Ward—a very nice name indeed. She then had
grown to be a young woman, and was very fair. I supposed she
would probably live and die in labor to support herself and her
grandmother, who was becoming infirm; but it seems that she
has shown uncommon intelligence, and has manifested a very
earnest desire to become a laborer for her people, and she is to
be educated and to become a teacher and missionary among
them.
“Now, it suits me exactly to have this child brought out of
slavery, redeemed on this platform, and grow up and develop a
Christian disposition, and go back and labor for her people. She
does not know anything about it, but if we can raise $150 she
shall have a year’s schooling in the Lincoln University at Washington.
It seems to me as though there was poetic justice and
fitness in it. As you redeemed her in the first instance from
slavery, in the second instance you must redeem her from ignorance
by contributing the amount necessary to send her a year to
that university.“ And it was done.
An account of another is found in the weekly press:
.pm start_quote_nospace
.ti 0
”Slave Made Free in Plymouth Church, June 1, 1856.—
“There was never a more thrilling exemplification of Gospel
principles than last Sabbath morning, June 1, in Rev. H. W.
Beecher’s church, Brooklyn. Mr. Beecher preached from Luke
x. 27.
“Just after announcing the last hymn he stepped to the platform
and said: ‘I am about to do a thing which I am not wont
to do, which I have never done before upon this day; and, in
order that you may have no scruples about it, I will preface it by
reading what the Lord Jesus Christ says of the Sabbath and its
duties: “And it came to pass also on another Sabbath that
He entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a
man whose right hand was withered.... And He said to the
man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in
the midst. And he arose and stood forth. Then said Jesus unto
them, I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the Sabbath days
to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? And looking
.bn 306.png
.pn +1
around about upon them all, He said unto the man, Stretch
forth thy hand. And he did so; and his hand was restored whole
as the other.”
“‘Some two weeks since I had a letter from Washington
informing me that a young woman had been sold by her own
father to go South—for what purpose you can imagine when you
see her. She was purchased by a slave-trader for $1,200; and
he, knowing her previous character and the circumstances of the
case, was so moved with compassion that he offered to give her
an opportunity to purchase her freedom. He himself gave
towards it $100, and persuaded a friend and another slave-trader
to give each $100 more. So much of good is there in the lowest
of men! He allowed her to go to Washington to solicit aid from
the Free-State men there, and she succeeded in obtaining $400
more. I was then applied to, to know if we would do anything
to raise the remaining $500. I answered we would do nothing
unless the woman could come here. After much hesitation on
the part of her master she was allowed to visit New York, giving
her word of honor that she would return to Richmond if the
money were not raised’; and, going to the platform stairs, ‘Come
up here, Sarah, and let us all see you,’ said he.
“A young woman rose from an adjacent seat, and, ascending
the steps, sank down, embarrassed and apparently overcome by
her feelings, in the nearest chair. She was of medium size and
neatly dressed. The white blood of her father might be traced
in her regular features and high, thoughtful brow, while her
complexion and wavy hair betrayed her slave mother. ‘And
this,’ said Mr. Beecher, ‘is a marketable commodity. Such as
she are put into one balance and silver into the other. She is
now legally free, but she is bound by a moral obligation which
is stronger than any law. I reverence woman. For the sake of
the love I bore my mother I hold her sacred, even in the lowest
position, and will use every means in my power for her uplifting.
What will you do now? May she read her liberty in your eyes?
Shall she go out free? Christ stretched forth His hand and the
sick were restored to health; will you stretch forth your hands
and give her that without which life is of little worth? Let the
plates be passed and we will see!’ There was hardly a dry eye
in the church; and amidst tears and earnest lookings at the poor
woman, who sat with downcast eyes, the plates went around.
.bn 307.png
.pn +1
Every purse was in requisition, and as the bills were thrown
down Mr. Beecher said: ‘I see the plates are heaping up. Remember
every dollar you give is the step of a weary pilgrim toward
liberty, and that Christ has said: “Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto Me!”’
At this Mr. Lewis Tappan rose and said, ‘There need be no anxiety
about the matter; some gentlemen had just now pledged
themselves to make up the deficiency, whatever it might be.’
“Then she was free! And when Mr. Beecher told her so and
announced it to the great congregation, there was an involuntary
burst of applause. It was in the church, upon the Sabbath day,
but it was no desecration—rather it was echoed by richer acclamation
in heaven! As it subsided Mr. Beecher said: ‘When
the old Jews went up to their solemn feasts they made the mountains
round about Jerusalem ring with their shouts. I do not
approve of an unholy clapping in the house of God, but when a
good deed is well done it is not wrong to give an outward expression
of our joy....’
“He then read the closing hymn, saying, as he handed her
the book, ‘We shall sing this hymn as we never have sung a hymn
before, and she will sing it too.’ This was the hymn:
.pm start_poem
“‘Do not I love Thee, O my Lord?
Behold my heart and see;
And turn the dearest idol out
That dares to rival Thee.’
. . . . . .
“‘Hast Thou a lamb in all Thy flock
I would disdain to feed?
Hast Thou a foe before whose face
I fear Thy cause to plead?’
. . . . . .
.pm end_poem
“The blessing was pronounced and the meeting was over;
but many lingered to know the amount of the contribution, and
when it was found that $783 had been raised, so that not only
she but her child of two years old could be redeemed, the applause
burst forth anew.
“In the plates were several articles of jewelry, thrown in by
those who had no money with them or were unable to give anything
else.
.bn 308.png
.pn +1
“Thus may Plymouth Church be consecrated. Verily ‘it is
lawful to do good on the Sabbath day.’”
.pm end_quote
A handful of photographs of children, white and beautiful,
who had been set free, have come to my hand with the above letters.
Having to do with white-faced, flaxen-haired children born
under the curse of slavery; with mothers carrying their little account-books
from house to house, gathering funds wherewith to
accomplish the apparently hopeless task of first finding their children
who had been swept away from them in the black maelstrom
of slavery, and then of purchasing them; of grandmothers who
wept for joy at the prospect of saving their grandchildren, and
willingly surrendered all the money which they had laid aside for
their old age if it could be accomplished, would make a man
tender toward the victims and hard against the system which
caused their trouble.
Through this course of training he walked in these years, his
heart now dissolved in tears and now hot with righteous indignation.
No compromise, no surrender, no betrayal, no yielding,
but the destruction of slavery and the salvation of the Union.
The Kansas and Nebraska troubles had resulted in more than
establishing certain theories or in deciding the status of portions
of our territory. It had intensified the feeling in both sections of
our country, and men were being irreconcilably divided upon the
subject of slavery. Out of these troublous times sprang John
Brown, originally a farmer, born in the northern part of Connecticut,
and emigrating to Ohio when a child. In 1854 his four
elder sons migrated to Kansas, joining with the thousands from
the North to make that a free State and to secure homes for
themselves and their families. Plundered and harassed, they
wrote to their father to procure arms. To make sure that they
should get these he went with them. This was his introduction
into Kansas. We have no design of following out his history in
detail, but only claim that his fanatical zeal and his unreasonable
expectations were the product of the times in which he lived and
the experiences which he suffered, acting upon a temperament
peculiarly unselfish, heroic, and religious. Enough for us is it to
know that his course led him, with an army of sixteen men, to the
capture of Harper’s Ferry and to a conflict with the whole State
of Virginia, in fact with the power of the whole United States
government, and ultimately to the scaffold. His courage, his
.bn 309.png
.pn +1
calmness, his undoubting faith in the future deliverance of the
slaves, crowned by his heroic death, made his name the war-cry
of the future legions of the loyal States, who sang as they
marched:
.pm start_poem
“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
But his soul is marching on.”
.pm end_poem
The attack on Harper’s Ferry was made October 17. On
Sunday evening, October 30, Henry Ward Beecher preached upon
“The Harper’s Ferry Tragedy,” and gives his judgment of the
principal actor in the following language:
“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 liberty
ever inspired or religion enriched. A great scowling slave State,
its nearest neighbor, sought to tread down this liberty-loving
colony and to dragoon slavery into it by force of arms. The
armed citizens of another 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 were posted by cars night and day for the
poor, the weak, the grossly-wronged men in Kansas. There was
an army there that unfurled the banner 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 impulse. A tender
father, whose life was in his sons’ life, he saw his first-born
seized like a felon, chained, driven across the country, crazed by
suffering and heat, beaten by the officer in charge like a dog, and
long lying at death’s door! Another noble boy, without warning,
without offence, 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 and weak!
“The shot that struck the child’s heart crazed the father’s
brain. Revolving his wrongs and nursing his hatred of that
.bn 310.png
.pn +1
deadly system that breeds such contempt of justice and humanity,
at length his phantoms assume a slender form and organize
such an enterprise as one might expect from a man whom grief
had bereft of good judgment. He goes to the heart of a slave
State: one man—and sixteen followers! He seizes two thousand
brave Virginians and holds them in duress.
“When a great State attacked a handful of weak colonies the
government and nation were torpid; but when seventeen men
attacked a sovereign State, then Maryland arms, and Virginia
arms, and the United States government arms, and they three
rush against seventeen men!
“Travellers tell us that the Geysers of Iceland—those singular
boiling springs of the North—may be transported with fury by
plucking up a handful of grass or turf and throwing them 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, child-bereft
old man is the manliest of them all. Bold, unflinching,
honest, without deceit or dodge, 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 this
whole drama. The governor, the officers of the State, and all
the attorneys are pigmies compared to him.
“I deplore his misfortunes. I sympathize with his sorrows.
I mourn the hiding or obscuration of his reason. I disapprove
of his mad and feeble schemes. I shrink from the folly of the
bloody foray, and I shrink, likewise, from all the anticipations of
that judicial bloodshed which, doubtless, ere long will follow—for
when was cowardice ever magnanimous? They will kill the man,
not for treason, but for proving them cowards!
“By and by, when men look back and see without prejudice
that whole scene, they will not be able to avoid saying: ‘What
must be the measure of manhood in a scene where a crazed old
man stood head and shoulders above those who had their whole
reason? What is average citizenship when a lunatic is a hero?’”
He also availed himself of this opportunity to show the wrong
way and the right way in our treatment of this whole question
of slavery. I can only mention the heads, but they so far outline
.bn 311.png
.pn +1
his whole principle of action during the war that I give them that
his position may be understood:
“1st. We have no right to treat the citizens of the South with
acrimony and bitterness because they are involved in a system of
wrong-doing.”
“2d. The breeding of discontent among the bondmen of
our land is not the way to help them.”
“3d. No relief will be carried to the slaves or to the South as
a body by any individual or organized plans to carry them off or
to incite them to abscond.”
As to the right way:
“1st. If we would benefit the African at the South we must
begin at home. No one can fail to see the inconsistency between
our treatment of those amongst us who are in the lower walks of
life and our professions of sympathy for the Southern slaves.
How are the free colored people treated at the North? They
are almost without education, with but little sympathy for ignorance.
They are refused the common rights of citizenship which
the whites enjoy. They cannot even ride in the cars of our city
railroads. They are snuffed at in the house of God, or tolerated
with ill-disguised disgust. Can the black man be a mason in
New York? Let him be employed as a journeyman, and every
Irish lover of liberty that carries the hod or trowel would leave
at once or compel him to leave! Can the black man be a carpenter?
There is scarcely a carpenter’s shop in New York in
which a journeyman would continue to work if a black man were
employed in it. Can the black man compete in the common industries
of life? There is scarcely one in which he can engage.
He is crowded down, down, down, through the most menial callings,
to the bottom of society. We tax them, and then refuse to
allow their children to go to our public schools. We tax them,
and then refuse to sit by them in God’s house. We heap upon
them moral obloquy more atrocious than that which the master
heaps upon the slave.”
“2d. We must quicken all the springs of feeling in the free
States in behalf of human liberty, and create a public sentiment
based upon truth and true manhood.”
“3d. By all the ways consistent with a fearless assertion of
truth, we must maintain sympathy and kindness toward the South.
If, in view of the wrongs of slavery, you say that you do not care
.bn 312.png
.pn +1
for the master but only the slave, I reply that you should care
for both master and slave! If you do not care for the fate of the
wrong-doing white man, I do care for the fate of the wrong-doing
white man! But even though your sympathy were only for
the slave, then for his sake you ought to set your face against,
and discountenance anything like, an insurrectionary spirit.”
“4th. We are to leave no pains untaken, through the Christian
conscience of the South, to give to the slave himself a higher
moral status.”
“5th. The few virtues which shall lead inevitably to emancipation
are to be established and insisted upon—the right
of chastity in the woman, unblemished household love, and the
right of parents to their children. The moment these three
stand secure, that moment slavery will have its death-blow
struck.”
“6th. And, lastly, among the means to be employed for promoting
the liberty of the slave we must not fail to include the
power of true Christian prayer. When slavery shall cease it
will be by such instruments and influences that shall exhibit
God’s hand and heart in the work. May He, in His own way
and time, speed the day!”
With such radical yet conservative and kindly speech, bringing
home to his audience their own deficiencies and pointing out
the way that must be taken, did he temper and direct the hot
passion of those fiery days.
The heat occasioned by the John Brown raid in the fall of
1859 was not cooled by the after-events that occurred both in and
out of Congress during the following winter; and the country
came to nominating its candidates in 1860 in a state of the most
intense feeling. Four parties were in the field, each representing
as its essential characteristic some phase of feeling towards slavery.
Among them stood the Republican party, with a well-defined
purpose, clearly understood and openly declared—no
interference with and no extension of slavery. Abraham Lincoln
was its nominee for President. Mr. Beecher had met him in
1859 when he came to New York to deliver his speech at Cooper
Institute, and, with his quick perception of the ability of men,
and already well acquainted with his record, had placed confidence
in this tall, gaunt Westerner from the first. He had
doubted the policy of nominating Mr. Seward, and one of his
.bn 313.png
.pn +1
first interviews with a member of the New York delegation, who
had labored earnestly but vainly for his nomination, is thus described:
“With a laugh that was almost a roar he burst into the
editorial room where Mr. Raymond sat, his chair tilted upon its
two fore legs, and, grasping him cordially, heartily, vigorously,
said: ‘Young man, I know the people of this country at heart
better than you do. Your friend Seward has too much head
and too little heart to succeed in any such crisis as this.’
“‘And yours,’ replied Mr. Raymond, ‘I fear, has too much
heart and too little head for such a crisis as will assuredly be precipitated.’
“‘Trust, then,’ replied Mr. Beecher, ‘in God, and keep your
powder dry.’”
For the election of their nominee Mr. Beecher labored with
pen and voice to the utmost of his ability. His sermons Sunday
evenings often had reference to the great questions of the day.
His lectures of this period were little more than political addresses,
and by his Star Papers in the Independent, which were
largely copied in other papers, he made his views known to the
reading public throughout the land. Believing that the election
of Abraham Lincoln was of the utmost importance, he gave himself
unreservedly to make it an accomplished fact, and made himself
as obnoxious to the timid and time-serving as he was admirable
to the opposite party. Of this period he says: “We next
had to flounder through the quicksands of four infamous years
under President Buchanan, in which senators sworn to the Constitution
were plotting to destroy that Constitution; in which the
members of the Cabinet, who drew their pay month by month,
used their official position, by breach of public trust and oath of
allegiance, to steal arms, to prepare fortifications, and make ready
disruption and war. The most astounding spectacle the world
ever saw was then witnessed—a great people paying men to sit
in the places of power and offices of trust to betray them.”
Most portentous events followed the election. State after
State in the South called their conventions and passed decrees
of secession, in every case, except in South Carolina, by the jugglery
of political leaders, in spite of the popular Representatives
withdrew from the House, senators from the Senate,
and members from the Cabinet, and flocked to Montgomery,
Ga., where a rebel government was being organized. The most
.bn 314.png
.pn +1
specious arguments were urged in justification of secession, were
substantially admitted even by so excellent an authority as the
New York Tribune, and the right to coerce a sovereign State, as
well as the expediency of the attempt, was denied by a large portion
of the Northern press. Preparations to make secession
successful, if resisted, were made openly, while the denial of the
right to prevent the same tied the hands of the government and
left it powerless in the toils of its enemies. In the meantime
different schemes of conciliation, all amounting to some species
of concession or compromise, were advanced both in and out
of Congress, and urged to the very utmost possible limit of
forbearance and kindness. Against “peace at any price” and
all patched-up compromises Mr. Beecher, together with a multitude
of others of like feeling at the North, threw his influence.
His Thanksgiving sermon this year was upon this topic:
“Against a Compromise of Principle.” He recounts the common
but abundant blessings of the year, and gathers assurance
that they are from God on the following testimony.
“All the sons of God rejoice and all good men rejoice. It
needs but one element to complete the satisfaction. If we could
be sure that this is God’s mercy, meant for good and tending
thereto, we should have a full cup to-day. That satisfaction is
not denied us. The Mayor of New York, in a public proclamation,
in view of this prodigal year that has heaped the poor man’s
house with abundance, is pleased to say that there is no occasion
apparent to him for thanksgiving. We can ask no more. When
bad men grieve at the state of public affairs, good men should
rejoice. When infamous men keep fast, righteous men should
have thanksgiving. God reigns and the devil trembles. Amen.
Let us rejoice!”
He then describes the true nature of the compromise that is
asked, and shows the impossibility of making any that shall be
satisfactory to either side:
“We are told that Satan appears under two forms—that when
he has a good, fair field he is out like a lion, roaring and seeking
whom he may devour; but that when he can do nothing more in
that way he is a serpent and sneaks in the grass. And so it is
slavery open, bold, roaring, aggressive, or it is slavery sneaking
in the grass and calling itself compromise. It is the same devil
under either name. If by compromise is only meant forbearance,
.bn 315.png
.pn +1
kindness, well-wishing, conciliation, fidelity to agreements, a concession
in things, not principles, why then we believe in compromise,
only that is not compromise, interpreted by the facts of our
past history.
“We honestly wish no harm to the South or its people; we
honestly wish them all benefit. We will defend her coast; we
will guard her inland border from all vexations from without; and
in good faith, in earnest friendship, in fealty to the Constitution,
and in fellowship with the States, we will, and with growing earnestness
to the end, fulfil every just duty, every honorable agreement,
and every generous act within the limits of truth and honor;
all that and no more—no more though the heavens fall; no more
if States unclasp their hands; no more if they raise up violence
against us—NO MORE! We have gone to the end.”
He did not agree with Mr. Lincoln in his hope that the South
would be satisfied by the careful explanations given in his inaugural,
nor with Mr. Seward in his expectation that the difficulty
would be settled in ninety days; but he did believe with all his
heart that God was in the work, and that the trouble would be
settled some day, and that it would be settled right. In the turmoil
of that turbulent time his mind was kept in perfect peace,
because it was stayed on God.
The Republican party was charged with having brought
about this unhappy state of the country. This charge he answers
in a sermon preached January 4, 1861, the day appointed by
President Buchanan for Fasting and Prayer:
“What is the errand of this day? Why are we observing a
sad Sabbath? a day of humiliation? a day of supplication? It
is for the strangest reason the world ever heard. It is because
the spirit of liberty has so increased and strengthened among us
that the government is in danger of being overthrown! There
never before was such an occasion for fasting, humiliation, and
prayer! Other nations have gone through revolutions for their
liberties; we are on the eve of a revolution to put down liberty!
Other people have thrown off their governments because too oppressive;
ours is to be destroyed, if at all, because it is too full
of liberty, too full of freedom. There never was such an event
before in history.... Meanwhile we have had no one to stand
up for order. Those who should have spoken in decisive authority
have been—afraid! Severer words have been used; it is
.bn 316.png
.pn +1
enough for me to say only that in a time when God, and providence,
and patriotism, and humanity demanded courage, they
had no response but fear. The heart has almost ceased to beat,
and this government is like to die for want of pulsations at the
centre. While the most humiliating fear paralyzes one part of the
government, the most wicked treachery is found in other parts
of it.”
So closes in shame and fear the second era of the great conflict.
“Buchanan’s Fast” marks the lowest point of degradation
the government of the United States ever reached—a point of
abject fear of the consequences of its own sins, of feeble persistence
in them, and of cowardice in applying the remedy for its
trouble.
Instead of abandoning its policy of falsehood and injustice,
and making a manly use of the means still at hand to avert the
threatening dangers, it held to its course, declared that it could
do nothing more under the Constitution than to advise and remonstrate
with treason, and made a frantic appeal to the Christians
of the land to plead with Jehovah to save it from the inevitable
consequences of its folly and wickedness.
It was a failure. The Call of the President to his kind of
Fast awakened little response from the people. Another Proclamation
was ringing in their ears. It was that of the old prophet
uttered centuries before. “Is not this the Fast that I have
chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy
burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every
yoke?”
This Fast of the Lord was rapidly approaching, and for it the
people were getting ready.
.bn 317.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch16'
CHAPTER XVI.
.pm start_summary
War Begun—Firing upon Fort Sumter—“The American Eagle as you
want it”—Death of Col. Ellsworth—Equips his Sons—Personal Feeling
yields to Patriotism—His House a Store-House of Military Supplies—Sends
a Regiment as his Substitute—Our National Flag—The Camp,
its Dangers and Duties—Bull Run—Becomes Editor of the Independent—Salutatory—The
Trent Affair—Fight, Tax—Soldiers or Ferrets—Characteristics
as an Editor—One Nation, one Constitution, one Starry
Banner—McClellan Safe, and Richmond too—Mildly Carrying on
War—The Root of the Matter—The only Ground—A Queer Pulpit—President’s
Proclamation of Emancipation—Let come what will—Close
of the Third Era.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
For five months the daily papers had borne for their prominent
headlines, “The National Crisis,” “Pro-Slavery Rebellion,”
“Pro-Slavery Revolution,” “The War-Cloud.” At
length the issue of April 12, 1861, was headed, “The War Commenced:
The first Gun fired by Fort Moultrie against Fort
Sumter”; the next day, “Fort Sumter Fallen.”
Mr. Beecher was lecturing in Cincinnati when the tidings
came North of the bombardment of Fort Sumter. The committee
who had charge of the lecture were alarmed, and, remembering
the old pro-slavery riots of thirty years before, declared
that it would be unsafe for him to deliver his lecture. He told
them that to give that lecture was his object in coming to Cincinnati,
and do it he should; if not in a hall, then on the public
street. With many misgivings on their part, he was permitted
to go ahead, but so great was the fear of a riot that few attended.
That night he turned his steps homeward. Eager to learn his
opinion of the matter, we met him on the doorsteps. His oldest
son, having left his position up the river, had stopped at a recruiting
station on Broadway, already opened, and enlisted, and had
then come home. Fearing something of the kind, the mother
gave strict commands that he should not leave the house until his
father’s return—a command which he was the more ready to obey
since the business had already been attended to. Naturally he
felt some little solicitude as to what his father should say, and his
.bn 318.png
.pn +1
first words were: “Father, may I enlist?” and was answered:
“If you don’t I’ll disown you.”
The next day was Sunday. The report of his sermon was
headed thus: “Henry Ward Beecher on the Crisis: ‘What will
you do, stand still or go forward?’
“The good people of Brooklyn have shared with us all the
fears and anxiety of the past weeks. Yesterday there was, if possible,
a more dense mass of human beings than usual packed
within the walls of Plymouth Church, and a more than ordinary
curiosity on the part of strangers, and a more than customary
solemnity pervading the congregation. It was manifestly the
belief of all there that the pastor would not fail to improve the
occasion by preaching to the people of this age upon the duties
of the present trying hour, and that he would deal with so grand
a subject in a manner befitting its character, its importance, and
its universal occupation of the American mind. Nor were they
disappointed. Mr. Beecher delivered a sermon from the text,
‘Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward.’”
The above appeared in one of the daily papers. We have not
time to give the synopsis of the reporter. The sermon was a
careful review of the present condition of affairs and a sober
counting the cost of both advance and retreat.
“Peace can be had by two-thirds of the nation yielding to
the one-third; by legalizing the right of any discontented community
to rebel; by changing our charter of universal freedom
into a charter of deliberate oppression; by becoming partners in
slavery and ratifying this gigantic evil; by surrendering all right
of discussion, of debate or criticism. On these terms,” he said,
“we may have peace.
“You can have your American eagle as you want it. If, with
the South, you will strike out his eyes, then you shall stand well
with Mr. Davis and Mr. Stephens, of the Confederate States; if,
with the Christians of the South, you will pluck off his wings, you
shall stand well with the Southern churches; and if, with the new
peacemakers that have risen up in the North, you will pull out
his tail-feathers, you shall stand well with the Society for the Promotion
of National Unity! But when you have stricken out his
eyes, so that he can no longer see; when you have plucked off his
wings, so that he can no longer fly; and when you have pulled
out his guiding tail-feathers, so that he can no longer steer himself,
.bn 319.png
.pn +1
but rolls in the dirt, a mere buzzard—then will he be worth
preserving? Such an eagle it is that they mean to depict upon
the banner of America.
”... So far as I myself am concerned, I utterly abhor
peace on any such grounds. Give me war redder than blood
and fiercer than fire, if this terrific infliction is necessary that I
may maintain my faith in God, in human liberty, my faith of the
fathers in the instruments of liberty, my faith in this land as the
appointed abode and chosen refuge of liberty for all the earth!
War is terrible, but that abyss of ignominy is yet more terrible!“
He then pointed out the steps that must be taken in the
going forward. They were, deepening and cleansing our convictions,
making them more earnest and religious; drawing the
lines; cherishing feelings of benevolence, and aiming at a peace
built on foundations of God’s immutable truth, so solid that nothing
can reach to unsettle it.
To show the spirit which he cherished in those days, we cannot
do better than give one of the familiar lecture-room discussions
which were so frequent between him and his people. It
was immediately after the death of Colonel Ellsworth, which
took place May 21, 1861:
”Ques. Will you please explain one point? I am so much a
natural man as not to be able to obey the injunction which calls
upon me to love my enemies; and when I stand on Broadway in
New York, and see men in regiments which are bound for the
field of battle, having been taken from their homes, their wives,
their children, and all that is dear to them on earth, by the conduct
of miscreants, I cannot understand how you can have such
feelings as you express. I wish you would speak on that subject.”
“I have no doubt that the brother feels just as he says he
does, and I have no doubt that I do not feel a bit so. When
I consider the interests of God’s advancing kingdom of justice,
and judgment, and mercy, and purity, and truth, and liberty, I
think that all the things in the earth are of no value at all in the
comparison, and that the earth might melt with fervent heat, the
elements dissolve, and the globe vanish away rather than that
this kingdom should not prevail. ‘Let God be true, but every
man a liar.’ Let the nations perish, let everything go, but let the
eternal treasures of God—truth, liberty, mercy, judgment, and
.bn 320.png
.pn +1
purity—be preserved. I feel lifted up to a sovereign height of
inspiration when I conceive of the majesty of these treasures,
effluent from the heart of God, which He is seeking to embody in
our time, in our earth, in this nation. Therefore, when I see
justice put down I feel like a lion. When I see a great moral
principle overborne there are no bounds to my indignation.
When I see a great humanity trodden under foot I long to be a
champion for it. And when I look on the face of an ignorant,
erring, wicked multitude, I think of a great many things besides....
“For the sake of these great principles I would give my life
as quick as I would pour out a glass of water; or I will do what
is harder than that—I will keep it and use it for forty years, if
God spares it, increasing its toil every year. I will make any
sacrifice or perform any labor for the sake of a moral principle.
But when I look at the South, other feelings besides those of
vengeance are excited in me. Every one of those traitors is as
wicked as you think, and more. The Floyds, the Davises, the
Toombses, the Rhetts, and all such as they, are more wicked than
we know; and yet the Lord Jesus Christ is the Saviour held up
for every such one. They are all immortal, they are all, like myself,
pilgrims toward the bourne of the eternal. And when I
think how many ignorant creatures are led by those base men to
do wicked things, half of the wickedness of which they do not
know, I feel compassion for them and am sorry for them. If they
array themselves against justice it is necessary that they should
be overborne; but not one blow more than is necessary for the
defence of the principle assailed should be struck. We are not
authorized to inflict vengeance. ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,
saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed
him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt
heap coals of fire on his head.’ About the use of every single
sword and spear and ball needful to assert a divine principle
there should be no squeamishness. I am for war just so far as it
is necessary to vindicate a great moral truth. But one particle
of violence beyond that is a flagrant treason against the law of
love. And I can say to-night that I would go to war with every
State in the Southern Confederacy, if called of God to join the
army, and would hold them to the conflict till the cause of right
was vindicated; and that I could, at the same time, pray for
.bn 321.png
.pn +1
those misguided men as easily as to-night I can pray for my own
babes. I am as sorry for them as for any set of men in the
world. I do not think I utter a prayer on any morning that I do
not pray for them, and that God does not see my feeling of tenderness
and sorrow toward them. And that is not all. I regard
them as citizens yet. I love this whole country. I love its past
and its prospective history. God do so to me, and more also, if
I ever cease to feel for them all, misguided though they be, as
anxiously as for my own kin and brethren. We cannot afford
to be very critical with wickedness.
“However, there are some difficulties involved in this question.
Colonel Ellsworth, who has just been murdered by one
of these ‘miscreants’ of whom you speak, I knew well. I was
thinking of my own sensations when I walked over from New
York after hearing the sad news. Why, I was forty feet high!
I was scared, I grew so fast. I walked so lordly that every step
seemed to have the weight of a mountain; yet I did not feel the
touch of the earth. For one hour I think I had enough volume
of feeling to have swept away a continent. I was almost frightened
at the turbulent and swelling tide within me, and I said:
‘Suppose my Master should come and say: My child, what are
you doing with such feelings? Where is My teaching? What
are you taking on yourself My supreme attribute for? “Vengeance
is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”’ Is it not charming
how these texts will exorcise the devil? I put that passage
on my head as a crown, and I have felt as peaceful as a lamb
ever since. And although it was very base and wicked for that
man to murder Colonel Ellsworth as he did, I can say that had
he not expiated his crime, and had the victim been my brother, I
could still have forgiven him and prayed for him.
“Now, my brethren, I am going to fight this battle right
straight through from beginning to end, and not lose my Christian
feelings either. I am going to stick close to my Saviour.
And, with regard to the past, I am not sorry for one sermon that
I have preached among you, or that I have preached during the
last twenty years of my life. If the question were put to me to-night,
‘When you look back upon your public life and see what
you have done to bring about the present issue, are you not sorry
for the ground you have taken?’ I would say, No. I bless God
for every word I have spoken and every influence I have exerted
.bn 322.png
.pn +1
in that direction. Knowing all that was to be, I would do over
again all that I have done if the same state of things existed,
only my little finger should be as heavy as my loins have been.
“Now that the time of conflict has come, we must accept it.
I mean to go through it, and you shall; and I pray God that the
whole anointed Church at the North may, bearing the banner of
Christ along with the banner of our country. The stars over us
shall not be brighter and purer than those that we carry into this
very conflict. We have had examples enough to know that even
in such a desperate case as civil war a man may be a Christian.
I thank God that praying men have gone into the army from
this church. Every day and night there is a prayer-meeting
in our camp, and there will be to the end. And I believe that
among our soldiers are those who, if they saw the bitterest and
most blasphemous of the enemy suffering and dying, would relieve
their sufferings by kind offices and soothe their last moments
by comforting words. God grant that it may be so, and
that, both in the service of the country and in the service of the
Lord Jesus Christ, they may be true soldiers!”
It is impossible to describe, or even, in our time, to conceive,
the fervor of patriotism that followed the firing upon Fort Sumter.
Patriotic meetings were held in nearly every village of the
North, and the raising of flag-poles with their accompanying exercises
was the order of the day. A monster mass-meeting was
held in Union Square, New York, over which John A. Dix
presided, and where the flag which had been lowered at Sumter
was displayed. The attack on the Massachusetts regiment in
Baltimore as it hastened to the defence of Washington deepened
and increased the excitement. The ranks of military companies
already organized were speedily filled, and the young men
met, in most of our Northern cities, week by week for military
drill. A squad of these was formed in Brooklyn. Some fifteen
of us wanted to go to the front, and offered ourselves to
one of the New York regiments, but the offer was refused with
thanks. Their ranks were full and they had no place for us.
Hearing of this, Mr. Beecher, who took a deep interest in this
whole matter and used to attend our drills, proposed that two of
us, his own son and one who expected to belong to his family,
should join a cavalry regiment then being enlisted in New York.
He gave us each a horse, brought us home our equipment of
.bn 323.png
.pn +1
pistols, bowie-knives, etc., and, the next day, went with us to New
York to see us enlist; but the enlisting officer had received notice
from Washington the day before to accept no more recruits—cavalry
regiments were not thought to be necessary for the
ninety days’ struggle; and so we were refused. One of us went
to Riker’s Island, and, after a month of waiting, was able to get
into service; the other, having just finished his theological
course, and having for weeks been importuned by a church to
become its pastor, concluded that it was God’s will that he
should preach, left the city, and went to work.
There was great variety of work to be done. No need now of
efforts to arouse the public mind—the firing upon Fort Sumter
had done that; no need now of urging men to the front—the
young men of the nation had formed into companies and regiments
faster than the government was willing to accept them.
Illinois asked permission to furnish all the men that were required.
But another work pressed upon heart and hand. Homes
at the North were being made desolate, not only by the absence
but by the death of their loved ones. Tidings began to reach
us of what afterwards seemed skirmishes, but were important
battles in those days—Big Bethel, Newport News, and others; and
the list of the dead, small to what it afterwards became, carried
with it then, as always, sorrow and heart-break. The bodies of
fallen sons and brothers, picked up on the battle-field or gathered
from the hospitals, covered with the stars and stripes, were being
borne through the streets of our cities on the way to bereaved
homes, and the people needed comforting. Then it was that
the words of one perfectly assured of the justice of the cause,
that it was of God, and that those who upheld their country’s
flag were doing His work, and who viewed life and death as
only and equally desirable when they accomplished His will,
rang out like the resurrection challenge of St. Paul: “O death!
where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?”
In a sermon preached May 26, 1861, when but the first mutterings
of the storm had been heard and the first splashes of rain
were felt, he says: “He whose remains are to pass to-day, amid
many tears, through yonder city, lived long though he died early.
Why? Because he lived to a moral purpose. Because he has
given his name to patriotism. Millions of men shall live four-score
years and shall not leave any such memorial as he has left.
.bn 324.png
.pn +1
He had lived long enough. Any man that can give the whole
weight of his being and his heart-life to a great truth or cause has
lived long enough. Measure him by the higher and not by the
lower standard. Do not say that he has lost days, that he has
lost coming honors, that he lost pleasure. He lost nothing. He
gained everything. He gained glory, and paid his life for it in
such a way as to take on immortality.”
One very intimate with him in those days says: “I do not
think that he spent a moment in solicitude for the fate of those
who were at the front, not even of his own flesh and blood. Everything
seemed swallowed up in his zeal for his country, and for
her he was ready to sacrifice everything without complaint or
hesitation.”
“My oldest son is in the army, and shall I read with trembling
anxiety the account of every battle to see if he is slain? I gave
him to the Lord, and I shall not take him back and I will not
worry and fret myself about him. I will trust in God though
He slay not only him but me also; and all I have I put on the
same ground—I try to, sometimes not succeeding and sometimes
succeeding a little. My God, this Christ Emmanuel—God with
me—has sustained and comforted me in care and trouble, and
taken away my fear and put hope in its place, and I will look to
Him still; and if there are any here that have carried burdens,
and whose faces are wrinkled with care, I beseech of you to try
living by faith in a present Saviour that loves you and ordains all
things, and says that everything shall work for your good if you
love God.”
Among the things that occupied his time and called forth
all his energies was the equipment of the Fourteenth Long Island
Regiment. His home at 124 Columbia Heights became a
store-house of military goods and a place of consultation for
men interested in the events that were taking place; Plymouth
Church became a rendezvous for regiments passing to the front,
and the church parlors a workshop where the women and maidens
of the church, under the direction of Mrs. Beecher, met daily
to sew and knit and pack for the soldiers. He told Mrs. Beecher
to use all his salary in this direction, except such as was absolutely
necessary for running the household. She did this, and
added to the amount by personal solicitation from families and
merchants, until an immense sum was raised and expended.
.bn 325.png
.pn +1
While many men sent single substitutes, Mr. Beecher determined
to be represented in the war by a whole regiment; and so,
after helping to fit out two regiments, he took upon himself the
entire burden of equipping a new one, called “The Long Island
Volunteers,” afterwards the Sixty-seventh New York. This regiment
would never have had any existence but for the labors of
Mr. and Mrs. Beecher, and the members of the church whom
they interested in it. Their eldest son, Henry Barton Beecher,
joined it and was made a lieutenant. In those days the government
had plenty of men and very little money, and therefore
declined to accept this regiment for many weeks after it was
organized, during which time the entire expense of feeding and
clothing the men was borne by subscriptions raised by Mr.
Beecher. It was not until after the battle of Bull Run, at the
end of July, 1861, that the regiment was even in form accepted,
and not until much later that it was actually mustered into the
national service.
In those days of multiplied and harassing labors Mr. Beecher
did not lose his hope, his cheerfulness, nor even his mirthfulness.
He had a refuge to which he constantly fled when the pressure
became too heavy. He had also the power of seeing the humorous
side of many common or even tragic events, and drawing
from them laughter as well as tears. The flowers, too, and the
clouds had their message for him. He kept the channels of his
soul wide open on every side to receive, and became a fountain
of perpetual inspiration to others.
At this time, while the route through Baltimore was closed
against our troops on their way to Washington, he preached to
the “Brooklyn Fourteenth,” on the eve of their departure to
the front, upon “Our National Flag.” After giving the history
of our banner he more particularly addressed the soldiers before
him:
“And now God speaks by the voice of His providence, saying,
‘Lift again that banner! Advance it full and high!’ To
your hands God and your country commit that imperishable
trust. You go forth self-called, or rather called by the trust of
your countrymen 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 floated before
.bn 326.png
.pn +1
the wind. God bless the men that go forth to save from disgrace
the American flag!
“Accept it, then, in all its fulness of meaning. It is not a
painted rag. It is a whole national history. It is the Constitution.
It is the government. It is the free people that stand in the
government on the Constitution. Forget not what it means;
and, for the sake of its ideas rather than its mere emblazonry,
be true to your country’s flag. By your hands lift it; but let
your lifting it be no holiday display. It must be advanced ‘because
of the truth.’
“That flag must go to the capital of this nation; and it must
not go hidden, not secreted, not in a case or covering, but full
high displayed, bright as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as
an army with banners! For a single week that disgraceful work,
that shameful circuit, may be needful; but the way from New
England, the way from New York, the way from New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, to Washington, lies right through Baltimore, and
that is the way the flag must and shall go! [Enthusiastic cheers.]
But that flag, borne by ten thousand and thrice ten thousand
hands, from Connecticut, from Massachusetts (God bless the
State and all her men!), from shipbuilding Maine, from old
granite New Hampshire, from Vermont of Bennington and
Green-Mountain-Boy patriotism, from Rhode Island, not behind
any in zeal and patriotism, from New York, from Ohio, from
Pennsylvania and New Jersey and Delaware, and the other loyal
States—that flag must be carried, bearing every one of its insignia,
to the sound of the drum and the fife, into our national
capital, until Washington shall seem to be a forest in which every
tree supports the American banner!
“And it must not stop there. The country does not belong
to us from the Lakes only to Washington, but from the Lakes to
the Gulf of Mexico. The flag must go on. The land of Washington
shall see Washington’s flag again. The land that sits in
darkness, and in which the people see no light, shall yet see light
dawn and liberty flash from the old American banner! It must
see Charleston again, and float again over every fort in Charleston
harbor. It must go further, to the Alligator State, and stand
there again. And sweeping up through all plantations and over
all fields of sugar and rice and tobacco, and every other thing, it
must be found in every State till you touch the Mississippi; and,
.bn 327.png
.pn +1
bathing in its waters, it must go across and fill Texas with its
sacred light. Nor must it stop when it floats over every one of
the States. That flag must stand, bearing its whole historic spirit
and original meaning, in every Territory of this nation!”
Other sermons of similar character followed. “The Camp,
its Dangers and Duties,” was one:
“For any one that is going forth to meet the temptations of
camp life I had almost said I would sum up in one single word
of remembrance a talisman of safety—temperance, absolute
temperance.... The men that are dangerous in camps are not
bloated drunkards, shameless gamblers, and such as they. But
an accomplished officer, a brilliant fellow, who knows the world,
who is gentle in language, who understands all the etiquettes of
society, who is fearless of God, who believes nothing in religion,
who does not hesitate, with wit and humor, to jeer at sacred
things, who takes an infernal pleasure in winding around his finger
the young about him, who is polished and wicked, and walks
as an angel of light to tempt his fellow-men, as Satan did to
tempt our first parents—if there be in camp such a one, he is
the dangerous man.
“There ought to be a bold stand taken in favor of virtue by
the good in each one of the various companies. If there is not
such a stand taken in Company C of the Fourteenth Regiment,
I shall be ashamed of my preaching.”
He was constantly invited to lecture, and almost any sum was
offered to secure his services. These, as we may well conceive,
were mostly patriotic addresses upon the great subjects that were
then burning in the minds of the American people.
We remember well his having a course at Providence, Rhode
Island, the third of which was delivered Monday, after the heavy
work of the day previous, and when he took the train he had
not touched pen to paper nor given it a moment’s thought; but
his mind and heart were fully awake, and the resources of a lifetime
of thought and labor were at his command.
The battle of Bull Run, which was fought in July, as is well
known, was the first battle of the war of really national importance.
The result was sobering and humiliating to the North.
On the following Sunday evening Mr. Beecher preached a sermon
upon “God in National Affairs.” After tracing His way in
the history of the nation, he says:
.bn 328.png
.pn +1
“The battle is well begun. If I consult my pride, if I consult
my vanity, I fain would never have seen our banners dip;
and yet, if I consult a larger wisdom, I know not but that the
best thing that can befall us is that humiliation which shall
teach us not to rely so much on words and cheers and newspaper
campaigns. A defeat just sufficient to make us feel that we
must fall upon the interior stores of manhood, that we must have
faith in God, that we must set aside everything but a solemn
purpose and an earnest consecration of ourselves to this work
which God has given us to do—such a defeat cannot but be
beneficial.”
And so it proved. The battle of Bull Run awoke the North
from its dream of easy conquest, and thenceforth she took up the
war in earnest.
In his Thanksgiving sermon in November of that year, upon
“Modes and Duties of Emancipation,” he shows the conservatism
of his belief and his confidence in the national authority
if rightly used—“This conflict must be carried on through our
institutions, not over them”—and his view of the great forces engaged—“While
preparations for this conflict have been going on
God has poured money into our coffers and taken it away from
those who might use it to our harm. He is holding back France
and England, and saying to all nations, ‘Appoint the bounds!
Let none enter the lists to interfere while those gigantic warriors
battle for victory! Liberty and God, and slavery and the devil,
stand over against each other, and let no man put hand or foot into
the ring till they have done battle unto death!’ Amen! Even so,
Lord Almighty. It is Thy decree, and it shall stand! And
when the victory shall come, not unto us, not unto us, but—in
the voice of thrice ten thousand, and thousands of thousands,
of ransomed ones, mingled with Thine earthly children’s gladness—unto
Thee shall be the praise and the glory, for ever and
ever. Amen.”
During all these years, almost from the time he came to
Brooklyn, Mr. Beecher had been fortunate in having a channel
of communication with the public, in general so in harmony
with his own views and spirit as the New York Independent. In
its second number appears an extract from a sermon of his, followed
by frequent contributions from his pen called “Star Papers,”
and for the last three years a sermon in full upon the second
.bn 329.png
.pn +1
page. He is now called to its head. In the issue of December
19, 1861, appears his “Salutatory.” Since in this he gives, in
brief, his conception of the office and importance of the religious
newspaper, it is given in full:
“The undersigned has to-day assumed the editorial management
of the Independent. This will not involve any change in
the principles, the purposes, or general spirit of the paper. The
Independent was founded to illustrate and to defend the truths
and doctrines of the Christian religion; to employ them as the
authoritative standards by which to estimate and influence events,
measures, and men; to infuse a spirit of truth and humanity into
the affairs of this nation; to give aid and encouragement to
every judicious scheme of Christian benevolence. It has sought
to leaven with the Christian spirit all the great elements of
our civilization. These were the aims. The results are upon
record.
“For the future, studying a catholic sympathy with all who
love our Lord Jesus Christ, and seeking to promote concord
among all Christians of every name, the Independent will still
continue explicitly and firmly to hold and to teach those great
cardinal doctrines of religion that are substantially held in common
by the Congregational orthodox churches of New England
and by the Presbyterian churches of our whole land. But, as
heretofore, this will be done for the promotion of vital godliness
rather than for sectarianism.
“The Independent will not deviate from that application of
Christian truth to all public questions which has thus far characterized
its course. While seeking to promote religious feeling, as
such, and to incite and supply devotional wants, it will not forget
that there is an ethical as well as an emotive life in true religion.
We shall therefore assume the liberty of meddling with
every question which agitates the civil or Christian community,
according to our own best discretion.
“The editorial profession, with the progress of popular intelligence,
has assumed an importance second to no other. It may
unite in it the elements of power hitherto distributed in the several
professions, and add, besides, many that have belonged to no
other calling. He who knows the scope and power of the press
need desire no higher office than the editorial.
“In that silent realm of influences out of which proceed the
.bn 330.png
.pn +1
actions of men and the events of history, the editor is the invisible
leader. Votes cannot raise him higher. His pen is more
than a sceptre. Profoundly impressed with such a responsibility,
desiring to honor God in the welfare of men, we ask the sympathy
of good men and the remembrance of all who pray.
.ll 68
.rj
“Henry Ward Beecher.”
.ll
At this time the excitement growing out of the capture of
Mason and Slidell on board the British steamer Trent, by Commodore
Wilkes on the San Jacinto, was at its height. News had
just reached this country of the bitter feeling awakened by “the
outrage,” of the shipment of troops to Canada, and other hasty
preparations by Great Britain to avenge the insult to her flag.
And Mr. Beecher’s first editorial bears the somewhat ominous
title of “War with England.”
As we might expect, it is both temperate and defiant in language
and tone:
“We have no idea that there will be any war with that power.
England has a peculiar practical wisdom in affairs which touch
her own material interests. Her folly will be expended in words;
her wisdom reserved for actions. It is not her interest to go to
war with the Northern States in the interest of the Southern
States. There is no probability that she will allow herself, whatever
she has done in other days, to be found fighting for slavery
against freedom....
“There is no desire on our part for so unnatural a war.
To avert it we shall be willing to yield anything but honor. Our
hands are sufficiently full. To have a British fleet thundering at
our sea-doors, while the volcano was yet pouring lava through
our Southern States, would be a little more business on hand
than could be attended to with that thoroughness which our people
desire in all warlike enterprises.
“Yet should England force us into war, terrible and atrocious
as that would be, America is determined to put her in the wrong
before the world. If we have transgressed any law of nations;
if we have, indeed, violated any right of England; if we have,
to the width of a hair, passed beyond the line of our own proper
duty and right, we shall, upon suitable showing, need no menace
to make ample reparation. We shall do it for the satisfaction of
our own sense of justice. But if we are right, if we have done
.bn 331.png
.pn +1
right, all the threatenings in the world will not move this people
from their steadfastness....
“Our wish is to unite with England in a race of civilization.
But if she will fight, we must.”
Some idea of the variety and character of the work he did
at this time may be gained by a look at his editorials found in
the Independent of January 16, 1862, the third week of his administration
as editor. The first is “Our Help from Above,” in
which he directs all burdened hearts to the great sources and
divine methods of consolation. “The nearer our thoughts come
to the infinite and the divine the more power have we over our
troubles. The act of consolation is, to a great degree, the act of
inspiration.”
The raising, equipping, and feeding such vast armies as, it was
now seen, would be required for the prosecution of the war,
awakened in the minds of thoughtful men a question scarcely
second in importance to any. By what plan or on what system
shall the money required for these large and expensive enterprises
be secured? His second editorial upon this page takes up this
matter under the head of “A Word from the People to Congress,”
in which he urges the fearless imposition of taxes sufficient to
carry on the war, and justifies such a course upon the simple
basis of honesty. The article opens with this sentence, “Taxation
and national honesty are now synonymous,” and closes
with this, “Every honest man in America ought to send to
Washington one message in two words, Fight, Tax.”
How to treat the black men that came into our lines, or were
liberated by the advance of our armies, was another of the pressing
questions at this time, and one concerning which there was
a great difference of opinion. He treated this subject in a
column article on this page, entitled “Men, not Slaves.” The
position which he held, and advocated with great force and clearness,
is given in this sentence: “One thing is plain—one thing
as a starting-point admits of no doubt, needs no hesitation: let
us forget that these blacks ever were slaves, and remember only
that they are men. With this as our first principle we cannot go
far wrong.”
This money-raising was a matter of so great importance that
he devoted another column to it on this same page, on the
“Duty of the Hour.” In the first article he sent a message to
.bn 332.png
.pn +1
Congress; in this he speaks to the Christian public: “Whether
the great impending patriotic tax shall be a moral triumph and a
testimony to the religious life of this people will depend largely
upon the conduct of Christian men and the action of Christian
teachers.... There seems to have been very little education of the
consciences of Christian men to the duty of a cheerful support of government
by their property. Even Christian men are tempted to give
grudgingly, selfishly, meanly. The nobler sentiments of the heart
have been allowed but little scope in this part of citizen duty.
“Is the Gospel worn out? Are ministers of the Gospel less
manly and Christian than in the days of the fathers? Has the
American pulpit forgotten that its place is in the van—that it
leads, not follows, the camp?
“Every church should have a public sentiment developed
within it which shall make this national tax almost a free-will
offering. Let Christian laymen take counsel together. Let the
leading men of towns and neighborhoods not only set a good example,
but make it their duty to cheer and inspirit the slow and
reluctant. Let Christian men everywhere, and in all things, seek
to inspire the public mind with an earnest willingness to discharge
this great debt which we are called to pay for national
unity, national safety, and national glory.”
In those days of dress-parades in our largest army, and “all
quiet on the Potomac,” men chafed continually over what appeared
to be inaction and timidity on the part of the government
at Washington. This found expression in still another article by
this same pen upon this same page, “Courage and Enterprise”:
“There was never a time when timidity was so nearly allied
to rashness, and courage to the highest prudence, as now. We
have every element of national prosperity except the courage to
use our power. Standing on a centre and whirling around with
sound and celerity may make a top, but never an administration.
Courage to see and accept the whole national danger; courage
to see and to accept the thoroughest remedy; courage to ask
the people for all that is needed, without a thought of refusal;
courage to use the means, willingly afforded, so as to put the
whole strength of this nation into every blow; courage to dash
in pieces every enemy, without stopping to consider just how we
shall mend the pieces afterward—this is the very critical prudence
of good administration.
.bn 333.png
.pn +1
“Since war is upon us, let us have courage to make war.
“There is no money needed, there are no men wanted, there
is no enthusiasm that the North will not give with eager gladness,
if only SOMEBODY will speak to the nation such words as the
fathers spoke! Then men LOVED liberty! The nation suffered
for a principle! What are we doing now? Are we raising moss
on cannon-wheels, or are we fighting? Is it husbandry or war
that is going on? Are we to starve Southern armies or conquer
them? Do we mean to put down rebellion by soldiers or
ferrets?”
These editorials showed certain features which were as characteristic
of his work in the editor’s chair as they were in the
pulpit and upon the platform; the first of these was this: he chose
his subjects from among the things which at that time affected
and interested the people. This he did, not simply because he
could then get the ear of the public, nor because these were in
themselves the largest or most important matters, but from a
deep religious conviction that these present questions and present
interests were a part of God’s providence, by which and through
which He was accomplishing His purposes; and that in treating
these matters he was working together with Him. He believed
thoroughly in God’s action in common affairs and through the
impulses given to common men. This conviction made him a
leader of the people without bringing him into bondage to them.
It gave him the kind of leadership to which he attained: not of
the abstract thinker in the movements of a hundred years hence,
but of the practical man of affairs in the battles of to-day. This
gave him the boldness that he never failed to display. Confident
that he was moving in harmony with God’s purpose and at
His own appointed time, he waited for no gathering of numbers,
but pushed on alone, if necessary, with an assurance born of
faith. Storms and confusion did not daunt him, because he
recognized in these but the necessary methods by which the Almighty
carries out His designs in the moral and spiritual as in the
material world.
Another characteristic feature was seen in his treatment of
the subject in hand. He uniformly regarded it from the standpoint
of the law of Christ’s kingdom on the earth—“Bear ye
one another’s burdens.” This insured harmony in his policy
through all changes of events around him, and ultimately secured
.bn 334.png
.pn +1
success. All the forces of the universe, because created and
administered by the Saviour of mankind, were on the side not
only of justice and truth but of kindness, forbearance, and helpfulness,
and must in time prevail. So deep was his conviction of
the direct and universal application of the law of this kingdom
that he instinctively took this side, and linked his action and his
destiny with its fortunes, when prudence and policy would seem
to dictate a different course, with a sublime confidence in its
final victory.
A third characteristic was this: He wrote so as to awaken inspiration,
to stir men’s hearts to feel. It was not enough that
men believed a truth; that was nothing unless they felt it. His
words must take hold, they must excite the emotions and move
men to action, or they were a failure.
Besides the editorial articles referred to on this one page,
there was his sermon in this same issue occupying more than four
columns of the second page of the paper. It was upon the Divine
Government, and moved along on these lofty heights: “We believe
that God is in His own world and that He governs it by His
personal will; that this government includes nations, families, and
individuals; that it aims at the highest good and the everlasting
good of sentient and intelligent creatures; that it is one which
admits the action of our minds upon God’s and the action of
God’s upon ours; that it has in it a place for all human yearnings
and strivings and longings.” “I bring you a Gospel that
will never wear out, a Gospel which is for ever fresh, and that
is, Emmanuel—God with us: God with you, in you, around you,
loving you, bearing with you, forgiving you, helping you, watching
over you, taking you up and carrying you as the parent takes
up and carries the little child.”
The first anniversary Sunday of the attack on Fort Sumter
was marked by a sermon on the “Success of American Democracy,”
the tone of which may be judged by the following
passage:
“‘We will give every dollar that we are worth, every child
that we have, and our own selves; we will bring all that we are
and all that we have, and offer them up freely—but this country
shall be one and undivided. We will have one Constitution
and one liberty, and that universal.’ The Atlantic shall sound it
and the Pacific shall echo it back, deep answering to deep,
.bn 335.png
.pn +1
and it shall reverberate from the Lakes on the North to the unfrozen
Gulf on the South—‘One nation, one Constitution, one
starry banner!’ Hear it, England!—one country, and indivisible.
Hear it, Europe!—one people, and inseparable. One
God; one hope; one baptism; one Constitution; one government;
one nation; one country; one people—cost what it may,
we will have it!”
The summer of 1862 was, perhaps, a period of as great discouragement
to the North as any during the war. After months
of preparation and wearisome delays, with the grandest army
that had ever been gathered on this continent, McClellan had
made his advance against Richmond, only to entrench, retreat, and
at last to be hurled back defeated and shattered. It was when
these terrible disasters were beginning to be understood and
their true significance appreciated that Mr. Beecher’s editorials
in the Independent rose to their highest point of power and influence.
They were directed to the people and to the government
as occasion demanded, but always with such a grouping of facts,
with so clear an appreciation of the situation, and with so great
earnestness of appeal and power of denunciation that they must
be reckoned among the loyal forces. We give the titles and a few
sentences from several of that time, that their general character
may be understood. On July 3, 1862, we have one upon “The
Great Duty”:
“In another column will be found the President’s call for
300,000 more soldiers. These, and as many more if needed, can
be raised. The North has not changed her mind. The integrity
of this nation, the authority of its Constitution over all its original
territory, will be maintained at every hazard and at whatever
expense.
“It is our duty to the nation and to the family of nations to
make a slaveholders’ rebellion so odious and disastrous that it
shall stand to all ages like Sodom and Gomorrah. Whatever it
may cost in men and money, the North is fully assured that for
nothing else can money be so well spent, and for nothing nobler
can men live, or, if need be, lay down their lives!
“The great duty now is to maintain a united North. No
event can be more sure than the victory of this government over
the slaveholders’ conspiracy, if the loyal States are united. But
if secret feuds or open factions shall divide and paralyze the
.bn 336.png
.pn +1
popular feeling, the cause will fail, or succeed only after long,
wasting, and useless expenditures.”
In the next issue, July 10, he has an equally strong editorial
upon “The Country’s Need.” The suppression of news, the
failure to trust the people, the political intrigues at the capital,
moved him to righteous and sorrowful indignation:
“Did the government frankly say to this nation, We are defeated?
To this hour it has not trusted the people. It held
back the news for days. Nor was the truth honestly told when
outside information compelled it to say something. It is even to
this hour permitting McClellan’s disaster to be represented as a
piece of skilfully planned strategy! After the labor of two months,
the horrible sickness of thousands of men poisoned in the swamps
of the Chickahominy, the loss of probably more than ten thousand
as noble fellows as ever lifted a hand to defend their country,
McClellan, who was four miles from Richmond, finds himself
twenty-five miles from the city, wagons burned, ammunition-trains
blown up, parks of artillery captured, no entrenchments, and
with an army so small that it is not pretended that he can reach
Richmond! The public are infatuated. The papers that regaled
us two weeks ago with visions of a Fourth of July in Richmond
are now asking us to rejoice and acclaim—not at victory—but
that we have just saved the army! McClellan is safe!—and
Richmond too!
“The government, upon this disaster, procures the governors
of the States to ask it to call for 300,000 more men. Why did
not the President take the responsibility, plainly confess our
disaster, say that we were within a hand-breadth of ruin, throw
himself on the people? No. The people pay taxes, give their
sons and brothers—but that is all. We are sick and weary of this
conduct. We have a sacred cause, a noble army, good officers,
and a heroic common people. But we are like to be ruined by
an administration that will not tell the truth; that spends precious
time in playing at President-making; that is cutting and
shuffling the cards for the next great political campaign. Unless
good men awake, unless the accursed silence is broken that has
fallen on the people, unless the government is held sternly to its
responsibility to the people, we shall dally through the summer,
make brigadier-generals until autumn, build huge entrenchments,
but fight no battles till they are forced upon us, and then we
.bn 337.png
.pn +1
shall be called upon to celebrate our defeats or retreats as masterly
strategies!
“We have a country. We have a cause. We have a people.
Let all good men pray that God would give us a government!”
This is followed by one, July 17, on the “Patriotism of the
People.” Its tone will be understood by these few sentences:
“There is no need of rousing the patriotism of the people.
It is an inexhaustible quality. It underlies their very life. The
government itself is buoyed up by it, and rides upon it, like a
ship upon the fathomless ocean.
“No. It is the government that needs rousing. We do not
need meetings on the Hudson, but motion on the Potomac. It
is not in Boston, or Buffalo, or Cincinnati, or New York that
this case is to be settled, but in Washington. There is no use of
concealing it. The people are beginning to distrust their rulers—not
their good nature, their patriotism, their honesty, but their
capacity for the exigency of military affairs. They know that in
war an hour often carries a campaign in its hand. A day is a
year. The President seems to be a man without any sense of
the value of time. The people admire his disinterestedness.
They believe him firm when he reaches decisions. But they
perceive how long a period he requires to form judgments; how
wide a circuit he takes of uncertainty and vacillation before he
determines. In civil affairs, that can bear to wait, the people
deem him among the best of our long line of Presidents. But
it is war! Armies are perishing. Months are wasting. We
are in the second year of rebellion. We have been just on the
eve of doing something for sixteen months!
“The nation rose up in its majesty to punish rebellion. It
put a magnificent army into the President’s hand. For one year
that army was besieged in the capital!
“At length, this past spring, began the campaign in Virginia.
The people gloried in the belief that the majesty of the government
would be asserted. After four months’ campaign the
armies of the United States are on the defensive! Not less than
a hundred thousand men have been lost by death, wounds, sickness,
and captivity; McClellan is cooped up on James River;
Pope is collecting an army; and the country is to-day actually
debating whether the enemy cannot strike a blow at Washington!
Is this such a management as will confirm the confidence of the
.bn 338.png
.pn +1
country in Mr. Lincoln’s conduct of the war? Do we need to
ask why men are slow to volunteer? Does any man need to
be told what the end of such things must be? This is not punishing
rebellion; it is helping it....
“We speak plainly, sorrowfully, earnestly. An enemy of the
Administration would have no right to speak so. We are friends—all
the more because we speak out what millions think but do
not utter, lest it might hinder the cause. But, unless some one
speaks, there will soon be little cause left to hinder or to help.”
In the next issue, that of July 24, he has another two-column
editorial upon “The Duty of To-day”:
“In the beginning of this great struggle the question among
loyal men was, How shall we save this nation? One year of
fighting and the question is, Whether we can save it? That is
the question of to-day....
“The South has simplicity and unity of purpose. The North
is uncertain which she wishes most—to subdue the rebellion, to
leave slavery unharmed, or to have the right President at the
next election!
“The South adjourns every question and postpones every interest
in favor of arms. The North is busy with conflicting
schemes and interests—and is also mildly carrying on war.
“Does anybody doubt the result of such a course? It is so
certain that it is not worth our while to waste another man or another
dollar! Either the Administration policy should instantly
change or the war cease! It is not more vigor so much as a different
internal idea. If the Administration cannot be disenchanted
of the traditional policy that has grown up during the heartless,
timid, compromising era of the last half-century, and adopt
the simple and straightforward policy that becomes a people
striving for liberty and free institutions upon the American continent,
then we are doomed! It is war that we are making—war
first, war second, war wholly! It is not politics. It is not Constitution-making.
It is not the decision of legal niceties. These
are not the business of government, as toward the South. It is
war, absolute, terrible, and immeasurable war!
“The South has organized on the fact of slavery, and fights
on that issue, pure and simple. The North must organize on the
doctrine of liberty, and fight right through on that issue, pure and
simple.
.bn 339.png
.pn +1
“The South sacrifices everything that conflicts with her central
idea. The North must do the same. The South is not
ashamed of slavery. The North must not be ashamed of liberty!
”... The government cannot any longer avoid choosing the
issue that has been made up and thrust upon it—freedom or slavery.
The time has come. So long as there was a chance of
solving this question as a civil question it was wise to leave it, as
far as possible, to the States concerned, and to employ the moral
influences which change men’s minds. But slavery has become a
military question. One year has changed all things. A remiss
and vacillating policy of the Administration; the committing of
the armies of the United States for a whole year to a man who
thought he was at West Point giving a four years’ course of instruction
to five hundred thousand men infinitely at leisure, has
changed the relations and possibilities of things. It has taken
slavery out of the realm of discussion and placed it in the arena
of war. It must be settled by force....
“Nothing will unite this people like a bold annunciation of a
moral principle. Let the American flag be lifted up by Mr. Lincoln,
as was the brazen serpent, and let it be known that every
man who looks upon it on this continent shall be free, and a
tide of joy and irresistible enthusiasm will sweep away every
obstacle. Let Mr. Lincoln decree it. The nation will do it!
“Such a policy would carry the conscience of the North;
would kindle the enthusiasm for liberty, which is always the most
potent of influences; would bring all the historic traditions of
the old American struggle to enkindle the ardor of the young,
who are to form our armies. It would brush away at one stroke
a thousand hindrances, give simplicity and unity to our plans, and
distinctness to our policy. It would end all threat of foreign intervention.
Above all, it would give to the American armies
that pillar of smoke by day and fire by night by which God the
Emancipator led forth His people from bondage into liberty!”
In the next issue, July 31, he writes a two-column editorial
upon “The Root of the Matter”:
“It is not enough that we increase our men and means. We
shall never succeed until we accept the idea latent in this conflict.
Slavery must be crushed. Liberty must have absolute and
unquestioned dominion on this continent. We will not have oppression
under the symbol of a sceptre or of a whip—neither exported
.bn 340.png
.pn +1
from abroad nor sprouting from our own soil! This
continent is dedicated to Liberty. It is the mission of this generation
of men to establish free institutions from ocean to ocean.
We sought to do it in peace. Since war has come, we will seek
to take from its repulsiveness and horror by making it serve the
noblest ends of human liberty. If it is for liberty upon a whole
continent that we fight, then every son or brother that falls is
a sacrificial victim. By his blood we ransom generations of
men!
“The way to make the Administration see this truth is to see
it ourselves. There is a kind of political mesmerism. Our
rulers will partake of our sensations. What the people see the
President will see. What the people taste will repeat itself on
the President’s tongue.
“Let the sentence be spoken. Let all hindrances and hesitations
end. Lift up the banner! And as the winds of war roll
out its folds, let those letters shine out as if God had written
them with heavenly light, ‘Universal Emancipation.’”
The next editorial, August 7, is upon “A Leader for the
People.” These were the days of Pope and the disasters of the
army, and the uncertainty and terror at Washington. Two columns
of argument and appeal for more genuine enthusiasm for
the great doctrines on which this government was founded
close with a prayer, the only relief of a heart bursting with a
mighty passion of sorrow and impatience:
“Great God, what a people hast Thou brought forth upon
this continent! What love of liberty; what heroic love of law
and institution; what courage, and constancy, and self-sacrifice
hast Thou given them! And no man is found to lead this so
great a nation! Be Thou Leader! Lord God of Hosts, hast
Thou forgotten how to lead a people? There are no ages on
Thy head! Years make Thee neither old nor weary! Behind
Thy unwrinkled brow no care dwells! Teach this people to
need no other leader but Thyself! Then, led by Thee, teach
them to be all-sufficient for every deed of justice, and omnipotent
for liberty!”
These are followed, August 14, by a three-column editorial
upon “The Time has Come”:
“We have been made irresolute, indecisive, and weak by the
President’s attempt to unite impossibilities; to make war and
.bn 341.png
.pn +1
keep the peace; to strike hard and not hurt; to invade sovereign
States and not meddle with their sovereignty; to put down
rebellion without touching its cause; to bring an infuriated
people into enforced union with their enemies, and to leave all
their causes of quarrels unsettled and vigorous, and yet hope for
future concord.
“Thus far the conservative North has been striving to conduct
this war so as not to meddle with the so-called Southern
right of slavery. But, in spite of every scruple, events have
crowded men to the necessity of confiscation and emancipation.
There is one more step. It is the last sublime step toward national
safety and national Christian glory. It is immediate and
universal emancipation!”
In the next issue, August 21, is another article, upon “The
Only Ground,” of the same temper, urging the same plea:
“The President has the right and power to destroy slavery.
Let him account to the civilized world for not doing it.”
And another August 28, upon “Reconstruction”:
“Since, then, the old Union is de facto ceased, and all the
local rights lapsed by rebellion to the hands of the government,
and it is to reconstruct the Union, would it be a stretch of authority
in the government so to reconstruct it as to insure its perpetuity
by purging out all possible cause of future discord? The
President has the authority. He is exercising it every day. All
that we ask is that he will look forward and not backward; that
he will consider the nation of the future, and not mere precedents
in the past.... To put down rebellion first, and attend to slavery
afterwards, is letting two serpents uncoil that may as well be
stricken through with one blow.”
The preacher’s pulpit is in perfect accord with the editor’s
chair. In a sermon of July 27, 1862, he says: “God has been
pleased to bring this nation at this time into great trials that are to
test the faith of all true men. I think that we have not by a long
way touched bottom yet. I think that the wind has not yet blown
its fiercest. There are blacker clouds than those that have yet
expended their fury. I cast no confidence away. I do not know
that we are to succeed to-day or to-morrow; but we are going to
succeed. I do not know that we are going to succeed in Virginia
for the present, but we are a-going to succeed in
“When I die there will be a great many things that, if I have
.bn 342.png
.pn +1
time to think of them, I may be sorry for. After I die there
may be a great many inconsistencies, a great many sins, a great
many unperformed duties that, when I behold them in retrospect,
I shall regret. But I tell you that, whether in the passage
of death, or at the gate of heaven, or before God’s eternal throne,
I never expect to be sorry that I have preached so often and so
strongly in behalf of those that were in bonds; that I have spoken,
as I have had opportunity, for those that could not speak for
themselves; that I have roused up, according to the measure of
my influence, the whole community to vindicate the cause of God
toward His oppressed ones. I shall not be sorry for that. I
shall be sorry that I have not done more; but I never shall be
sorry that I have done so much.
“And my faith in this cause was never so strong as it is now.
I do not throw it away. I feel certain that if the will of God is
done in this matter, though we may have to wait, we shall have
great recompense of reward in waiting.
“May God inspire the hearts of our rulers by the right things!
May God unite the hearts of this great people in right counsels
and in right feelings! May God accept the offerings that we
make of our children, of our brothers, of our neighbors, of everything
that we have! Let us put them all on the altar of patriotism,
knowing that in this case the altar of patriotism is the altar
of God. He will accept the offering, and in His own time, by
tokens infallible, He will reward our faith and bring us forth
purged, purified, strengthened by the things which we have suffered.”
With all his earnestness he must have his laugh at a contemporary,
“A Queer Pulpit”:
“We knew that the Journal of Commerce was famous upon
statistics and prided itself upon its good literary taste. But we
had no idea before of the powers of its rhetoric. We extract a
figure from its issue of August 27 that should be commended to
the directors of the New York Hospital:
“‘It is the voice of a glorious past which speaks to him, in
the tones of the fathers whose graves are with us. It is the voice
of the living nation, millions on millions of whom utter the same
words we utter to-day. It is the voice of posterity, speaking from
the womb of time, that calls on him to save the Constitution, which
was made, not for the duration of a human life, but to be the
.bn 343.png
.pn +1
blessing of all men and all nations until the end of thrones and
earthly powers. That he will be faithful we do not for one instant
doubt.’
“This is taking part in politics rather early. Constitutional
studies must be pursued under difficulties in this case. But if
posterity are so greatly stirred in their minds, there is nothing
for it but for the President to write them a letter. He answered
Horace Greeley. Surely he will heed the sufferings of posterity
in such uncomfortable quarters.
“For ourselves, we cannot be too thankful that we are already
born. We prefer open-air speaking. If the President
don’t save the Constitution now, it is a hopeless case!”
In an editorial, September 11, upon “The Contrast,” he sums
up the difference in sentences like these:
“Richmond determines, Washington reasons; Richmond is
inflexible, Washington vacillates; Richmond knows what it
wants to do, Washington wishes that it knew; Richmond loves
slavery and hates liberty, Washington is somewhat partial to liberty
and rather dislikes slavery; Rebellion is wise and sinful,
Government is foolish.”
Upon a report that a member of the Cabinet had said
“that nations often lose their institutions, their liberties, and yet
preserve their national life, and that in our case we must aim to
preserve the national life,” he writes an editorial (September 18,
1862) which he properly entitled “The Trumpet”:
“... Let other people imagine as they may a national life,
like a disembodied spirit, wandering over the continent seeking
rest and finding none. We propose no such issue to this struggle.
The nation must emerge from war shorn of no attribute
and mutilated in none of its members. We claim this continent
for liberty. We demand the execution of slavery for treason.
We arraign this arch-conspirator, arrested with a dagger in its
hand aimed at the life of this government and the liberties of the
people, and in the name of mankind and before Almighty God
we demand that its life be forfeited. Let the trumpet sound!”
These are but samples of the editorials that were sent out
from his pen through the columns of the Independent. Week
after week they continued, pleading for vigor, denouncing inaction,
urging that liberty be recognized as the great issue at stake,
and demanding immediate emancipation of the slave.
.bn 344.png
.pn +1
At last, after this long, weary, heart-breaking delay, he publishes,
September 25, “The Proclamation” of the President announcing
“that on the first day of January, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons
held as slaves within any State, or any designated part of a State,
the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United
States, shall be thenceforward and for ever free.” Mr. Beecher
says of it:
“We send forth to-day the most important paper ever published
in the Independent, the most extraordinary document ever
proceeding from this government....
“No more guises and veils. No more side-issues. No more
deceitful compromises. The government has taken ground, and
every man in the nation must take ground. You are for or
against this government, and this government is declared to
mean liberty to the slave! There is no neutral ground for traitors
to hide in, playing wolf at night and sheep by day. The
President’s proclamation will sift the North, give unity to its
people, simplicity to its policy, liberty to its army! That whole
army is no longer a mongrel something between a police force
and a political caucus. It is an army organized to strike where
blows will be most felt.
“The Proclamation emancipates slaves in thrice thirty days.
But it emancipates the government and the army to-day. The
nation is freer than it was on the 21st. We have a policy. The
people will base it upon a principle. It is the policy of liberty
upon the principle of justice. The future is before us!
Through what dark days we must pass we know not. What battles
and what reverses are in store we do not inquire. At last
we have a right to believe that God is leading us. He who carried
His people from bondage through the wilderness, and established
them in the promised land, can surely guide us!
“Let sorrows fall fast; there is joy before us! We behold
upon the troubled sea a Christ coming to us, walking on the
waves! In His hand are winds and storms. Every hour now
moves toward the great day of Emancipation. At length the
dawn shall bring that day most eminent in our national calendar.
Amid all the festivities that usher in the year, there shall be a
great joy, deeper, purer, holier than ever came to us with the New
Year—the joy of a nation that, after long sorrow and shame, shall
.bn 345.png
.pn +1
cast off from itself the guilt of slavery, and stand erect before
the world a consistent witness for liberty!”
He looks upon it as the beginning of the end, and is satisfied
if it be God’s will that his work should now cease. On the evening
of the last day of slavery in America—Wednesday evening,
December 31—he says in his lecture-room talk:
“As for myself, let come what will come, I care not. God
may peel me, and bark me, and strip me of my leaves, and do as
He chooses with my earthly estate. I have lived long enough;
I have had a good time. You cannot take back the blows I
have given the devil right in the face. I have uttered some
words that will not die, because they are incorporated into the
lives of men that will not die. Through my instrumentality,
aided by God’s providence, many souls have been converted and
gone singing home to their eternal abode. I think I have a larger
church in heaven than I have on earth, and I think they love me
and want me there. I have no reason to ask for longer life. If
my work is done, and God does not want me here, and this is my
last night of labor on earth, ought I to be sorry? Ought I not
to be the most grateful man that ever lived that I have had such
health, that I have had such an open field, that I have had the
privilege of speaking the truth right straight along for fifteen
years, whether men would hear or whether they would forbear,
and that I have been borne up, in doing this, by so large
a church, composed of such an enthusiastic body of God’s
people?
“And to-night the shadows of the past come over me. I remember
when I first stood, in about this place, in the old church.
I remember the sermon that I preached to you on the first Sunday
night after I came among you, as if it were but an hour ago. I
then declared to the inchoate congregation gathered here that
it was my purpose to preach the Gospel in its applications to
slavery, and peace, and war, and moral purity, and every Christian
reform, and that I would do it whether you heard it or not,
and whether you stood by me or forsook me. I recollect those
times perfectly well.
“Fifteen years have passed since then, and here we are talking
about the President of the United States emancipating four
million slaves. Here we are in the midst of a war whose inevitable
outcome from this time must be to make war on slavery.
.bn 346.png
.pn +1
Mightier than Congress now is the arm for emancipation—mightier
than all things! In the providence of God what wonderful revolutions
and changes have taken place in fifteen years! I am
willing to live fifteen years more, if God wishes it, if I may renew
my youth and work on. I should dread to find now that there
were no more locks to get up, and that I must henceforth travel
on a dead level. I would try and pull with my freight-boat on a
level, if God wished me to, though I would like here and there
to rise. It would be a pleasure to live, if it were God’s will, till
the day-star dawned, for I know it will dawn, but I am willing
to lay down my burden at any time, if it please God. If He will
accept the thanks that I give Him for all that He has permitted
me to do, to say, and experience in days past, then, as to the
future, let His will be done. I ask neither to live nor to die.”
This closes the third era of his work in the great anti-slavery
contest. We now turn back to glance over the same period and
note some of the more important events aside from this struggle,
public, domestic, and private, that marked the years from
1850 to January, 1863.
.bn 347.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch17'
CHAPTER XVII.
.pm start_summary
First Voyage to England—Extracts from Diary—Warwick Castle—Stratford-on-Avon—The
Skylark—Oxford—Bodleian Library—London—Old-time
Sadness—Paris—Catch-Words from Diary—Effect of Picture-Gallery—The
Louvre—His Return.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
In the middle of the year 1850 his labors were interrupted.
“Henry Ward Beecher, our esteemed brother, sailed for
Europe on Tuesday, July 9, in the ship New World, Captain
Knight. It was a sudden move, but having received a friendly
invitation from the captain, and taking the advice of his friends
that a voyage out and back would be of essential benefit to his
health, which has been considerably shattered by repeated attacks
of illness, he accepted the invitation, but expects to return with
the vessel. During his absence the pulpit of Plymouth Church
will be supplied by the pastor’s younger brother, Rev. Charles
Beecher, of Indiana.” This item we find in the Independent of
that week:
“Journal.—Landed from New World July 30, 1850. Waterloo
Inn.”
This is the first entry in a memorandum-book now in our
hands, and it tells its own story. He is in Liverpool, England.
We have spoken of Mr. Beecher’s perfect health, and such
he enjoyed, for the most part, through life. But it was only retained,
after he came to Brooklyn, by great care on his part. Before
he had learned the necessity of this there had been several
failures. One was an attack of erysiphaltic fever, in the spring
of 1849, which kept him out of his pulpit for several months.
During the following winter he had a severe attack of quinsy,
from the exhaustion of which it seemed to his friends that he
was breaking down, and they procured passage for him to
Europe, as has just been stated, and gave him a three months’
leave of absence.
Another experience now opened to him. The sea, out upon
which he had so often looked with longing eyes, in boyhood,
from the wharves of Boston, and across whose waters he had
often sailed in imagination, he now, for the first time, traversed
.bn 348.png
.pn +1
in reality. He found it far less agreeable than he expected, and
learned on this his first voyage, what no after-experience ever
contradicted, that for him “the only pleasant thing about going
to sea was the going ashore.”
From his note-book and diary we can follow him, step by
step, and from his letters to friends can learn of some of those
experiences that made this trip memorable in its impressions
and influence. The next entry in his journal reads:
“July 31, Manchester and back. Hedges same as combed
and uncombed hair. Railroad mile-posts subdivided; grading in
manufacturing villages. Go out from London under ground,
come into Manchester over tops of houses. Clothes-line across
streets.
“August 3, Birmingham; railroad stations. Knight says
thirty-three ocean steamers have been put afloat in eighteen
months; only the Bremen steamers before afloat.
”Plated Ware.—Pattern dies, stamping, handles, etc.; spoons,
forks, plain piece, cut shape, then slit tines, stamp shape; filing-room,
polishing, chasing or fretting, plating, brushing. Designer
gets £2 to £2 10/per week.”
This is the first page of his note-book, and is given entire, not
because there is anything remarkable about it, but because it is
a sample of his note-books in general. They are full of facts,
and facts of every description. He seldom gives impressions
or sentiments. He has a hunger for all kinds of items; give him
these and the sentiments will take care of themselves. Occasionally
he concludes with a description that sets the items
in some higher relation and shows the processes that are going
on in his own mind; as when, after giving some dozen particulars
in the process of manufacturing papier-maché, he closes the list
of catch-words with this: “It is the art of creating plastic wood.
It grows by hand and not by vegetable vitality, then hardens and
receives Art.”
But it was not items alone that he learned in his travels; he
became familiar with objects of which he had read, and gained
inspiration from a more intimate acquaintance. In Warwick
Castle and Kenilworth he walked among scenes made vivid to him
in his youth in the pages of Sir Walter Scott. He entered, as he
said, “into the very life of that olden time, and took from it its
good without tasting its evil.”
.bn 349.png
.pn +1
Cæsar’s Tower, which had stood for eight hundred years, co-eval
with the Norman Conquest, especially aroused his imagination:
“I stood upon its mute stones and imagined the ring of the
hammer upon them when the mason was laying them to their bed
of ages. What were the thoughts, the fancies, the conversations
of these rude fellows at that age of the world? I was wafted
backward, and backward, until I stood on the foundations upon
which old England herself was builded, when as yet there was
none of her. There, far back of all literature, before the English
tongue itself was formed, earlier than her jurisprudence and
than all modern civilization, I stood in imagination, and, reversing
my vision, looked down into a far future to search for the men
and deeds which had been, as if they were yet to be; thus
making a prophecy of history, and changing memory into a
dreamy foresight.
“Against these stones, on which I lay my hand, have rung
the sounds of battle. Yonder, on these very grounds, there raged,
in sight of men that stand where I do, fiercest and deadliest conflicts.
All this ground has fed on blood....
“I walked across to Guy’s Tower, up its long stone stairway,
into some of its old soldiers’ rooms. The pavements were
worn, though of stone, with the heavy, grinding feet of men-at-arms.
I heard them laugh between their cups, I saw them devouring
their gross food, I heard them recite their feats, or tell
the last news of some knightly outrage or cruel oppression of the
despised laborer. I stood by the window out of which the
archer sent his whistling arrows. I stood by the openings
through which scalding water or molten lead was poured upon
the heads of the assailants, and heard the hoarse shriek of the
wretched fellows who got the shocking baptism. I ascended to
the roof of the tower, and looked over the wide glory of the
scene, still haunted with the same imaginations of olden time.
How many thoughts had flown hence besides mine!—here where
warriors looked out or ladies watched for their knights’ return.
How did I long to stand for one hour, really, in their position
and in their consciousness who lived in those days; and then
to come back, with the new experience, to my modern self!”
In this is shown his sympathy with the old Saxon yeomanry,
and was his Saxon ancestry taking voice; all the romantic, picturesque
.bn 350.png
.pn +1
elements of his nature were fed, and ran, like the streams of
springtide, full-banked to the sea.
We next find in his note-book these items and references:
“Approach to Stratford-on-Avon. How peaceful the associations
in contrast with those of Warwick and Kenilworth!”
“The place: old English houses; Red Horse Inn.”
“Birds: thrush, lark, nightingale, sparrow, robin, starling,
rooks, cuckoo.”
“A different but, to me, even greater interest attaches to Avon
from the throngs from every nation that have visited it.”
“Shakspere: eleven years old when Elizabeth visited Kenilworth.”
“No greater change can be imagined than from the warlike
towers of Guy of Warwick to the quiet home of Shakspere, Stratford-on-Avon.”
The change in his experience was equally
marked. In the one the martial spirit of the warrior, in the
other the loving, receptive spirit of the prophet and poet, were
aroused and fed. In Stratford-on-Avon he had one of those luminous
hours which were, in his experience, like Mountains of
Transfiguration.
In a letter to a friend describing a Sabbath here, written at
this time, he says:
“The scenes of Saturday had fired me; every visit to various
points in Stratford-on-Avon added to the inspiration, until, as I
sallied forth to church, I seemed not to have a body. I could
hardly feel my feet striking against the ground; it was as if I
were numb. But my soul was clear, penetrating, and exquisitely
susceptible....
“I had been anxious lest some Cowper’s ministerial fop
should officiate, and the sight of this aged man was good. The
form of his face and head indicated firmness, but his features were
suffused with an expression of benevolence.
“He ascended the reading-desk and the services began. You
know my mother was, until her marriage, in the communion of
the Episcopal Church. This thought hardly left me while I sat,
grateful for the privilege of worshipping God through a service
that had expressed so often her devotions. I cannot tell you how
much I was affected. I had never had such a trance of worship,
and I shall never have such another view until I gain the Gate.
“I am so ignorant of the church service that I cannot call
.bn 351.png
.pn +1
the various parts by their right names, but the portions which
most affected me were the prayers and responses which the choir
sang. I had never heard any part of a supplication, a direct
prayer, chanted by a choir, and it seemed as though I heard not
with my ear but with my soul. I was dissolved; my whole being
seemed to me like an incense wafted gratefully toward God.
The divine presence rose before me in wondrous majesty, but of
ineffable gentleness and goodness, and I could not stay away
from more familiar approach, but seemed irresistibly yet gently
drawn toward God. My soul, then thou didst magnify the Lord
and rejoice in the God of thy salvation! And then came to my
mind the many exultations of the Psalms of David, and never
before were the expressions and figures so noble and so necessary
to express what I felt. I had risen, it seemed to me, so high
as to be where David was when his soul conceived the things
which he wrote. Throughout the service—and it was an hour
and a quarter long—whenever an ‘Amen!’ occurred it was given
by the choir accompanied by the organ and the congregation.
Oh! that swell and solemn cadence rings in my ear yet!
“Not once, not a single time, did it occur in that service without
bringing tears from my eyes. I stood like a shrub on a
spring morning—every leaf covered with dew, and every breeze
shook down some drops. I trembled so much at times that I
was obliged to sit down. Oh! when in the prayers, breathed
forth in strains of sweet, simple, solemn music, the love of Christ
was recognized, how I longed then to give utterance to what that
love seemed to me. There was a moment in which the heavens
seemed opened to me and I saw the glory of God! All the
earth seemed to me a store-house of images made to set forth the
Redeemer, and I could scarcely be still from crying out. I never
knew, I never dreamed before of what heart there was in that
word amen. Every time it swelled forth and died away solemnly,
not my lips, not my mind, but my whole being said: ‘Saviour,
so let it be.’
“The sermon was preparatory to the communion, which I
then first learned was to be celebrated. It was plain and good;
and although the rector had done many things in a way that led
me to suppose that he sympathized with over-much ceremony,
yet in his sermon he seemed evangelical and gave a right view
of the Lord’s Supper.
.bn 352.png
.pn +1
“For the first time in my life I went forward to commune in
an Episcopal church. Without any intent of my own, but because
from my seat it was nearest, I knelt down at the altar, with
the dust of Shakspere beneath my feet. I thought of it as I
thought of ten thousand other things, without the least disturbance
of devotion. It seemed as if I stood upon a place so high
that, like one looking over a wide valley, all objects conspired to
make but one view. I thought of the General Assembly and
Church of the First-Born, of my mother and brother and children
in heaven, of my living family on earth, of you, of the whole
church entrusted to my hands—they afar off, I upon the banks
of the Avon.”
He did not forget his old friends, birds and trees. From
Stratford-on-Avon he writes:
“As I stood looking over on the masses of foliage and the
single trees dotted in here and there, I could see every shade of
green, and all of them most beautiful, and as refreshing to me as
old friends. After standing awhile to take a last view of Stratford-on-Avon
from this high ground and the beautiful slopes
around it, and of the meadows of the Avon, I began to walk
homeward, when I heard such an outbreak behind me as wheeled
me about quick enough. There he flew, singing as he rose, and
rising gradually, not directly up, but with gentle slope—there was
the free-singing lark, not half so happy to sing as I was to hear.
In a moment more he had reached the summit of his ambition
and suddenly fell back to the grass again. And now if you
laugh at my enthusiasm I will pity you for the want of it. I have
heard one poet’s lark, if I never hear another, and am much happier
for it.”
At Oxford a new world opened to him—that of an English
university town enriched with the growth and associations of
seven hundred years. The beauty of its architecture, its cloistered
quiet, its galleries, and, most of all, its libraries, impressed
him.
“Few places affect me more than libraries, and especially the
Bodleian Library, reputed to have half a million printed books
and manuscripts. I walked solemnly and reverently among the
alcoves and through the halls, as if in the pyramid of embalmed
souls. It was their life, their heart, their mind, that they treasured
in these book-urns. Silent as they are, should all the
.bn 353.png
.pn +1
emotions that went to their creation have utterance, could the
world itself contain the various sounds? They longed for fame!
Here it is—to stand silently for ages, moved only to be dusted and
catalogued, valued only as units in the ambitious total, and gazed
at occasionally by men ignorant as I am of their name, their
place, their language, and their worth. Indeed, unless a man can
link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so
that they shall draw from them as from wells, there is no more
immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the
muscles and the bones. A library is but the soul’s burial-ground.
It is the land of shadows.”
It was, however, not all shadowy.
“Noon Refection.—‘What will you take to drink, Oxford
ale or a little wine?’ Cold water. ‘Oh! not cold water, surely?
A little sherry and water?’ ‘Surely you will not come to England
to drink cold water?’ My dear sir, I am a thorough-going teetotaler,
and you surely would not have me come to England to lose
my good principles? ‘Why, sir, I am not a teetotaler, but I am
a temperance man—was never drunk in my life—but you surprise
me!’
“Dining and tea-room of Fellows. Elaborate carved oak—no
sham. In all respects college in quadrangle proposes to take
care of its students, head and stomach, soul, intellect, and body,
and therefore has added kitchen to library.”
“London, August 9.—Arrived last night. Old Bell. Visited
Trafalgar Square and Westminster Abbey, Guildhall, Bank of
England, Tower, Tunnel, etc.”
In London something of the old-time sadness came over him,
with the old-time sources of relief:
“Now, too, I am apt, if I do not fall asleep soon enough—or
more frequently when I awake, hours before it is the fashion here
to get up—to lie and think over my way of life hitherto; and
my life-work seems to me to be so little, and so poorly done, that
I feel discouraged at the thought of resuming it! I have everywhere
in my travelling—at the shrine of the martyrs in Oxford, at
the graves of Bunyan and Wesley in London, at the vault in
which Raleigh was for twelve years confined in the Tower—asked
myself whether I could have done and endured what they did,
and as they did! It is enough to make one tremble for himself
to have such a heart-sounding as this gives him. I cast the lead
.bn 354.png
.pn +1
for the depth of my soul, and it strikes so soon that I have little
reason for pride.
“Had it not been for paintings, and flowers, and trees, and
the landscapes, I do not know what I should have done with myself.
Often when extremely distressed I have gone to the parks
or out of the city to some quiet ground where I could find a
wooded stream, and the woods filled with birds, and found,
almost in a moment, a new spirit coming over me. I was rid of
men, almost of myself. I seemed to find a sacred sweetness and
calmness, not coming over me, but into me. I seemed nearer to
heaven. I felt less sadness about life, for God would take care
of it; and my own worthlessness, too, became a source of composure,
for on that very account it made little difference in the
world’s history whether I lived or died. God worked, it seemed
to me, upon a scale so vast and rich in details that anything and
anybody could be spared and not affect the results of life.”
He crossed over to Paris in August, and his note-book gives
us catch-words and sentences evidently intended for reminders
of sights, incidents, and adventures that he wished to remember.
So disconnected are they that they are of little worth except as
showing what interested him in this great city on this his first
visit, and as affording the raw materials out of which grew his
letters and more finished descriptions.
When he arrived, by what route, at what hotel he stopped, he
apparently did not think worth noting; but what he saw in the
life of the people he wished to remember, and the first few pages
of his diary are filled with items like these: “Three mothers with
their babies.” “Boy and sister frolicking, six or seven years
old.” “Family on seat; little thing talking, about three years
old.” “Twelve soldiers going to relieve sentinels.” “Stand for
flowers,” etc.
Next to the life of the common people the largest space in
his diary is given to the art-galleries. On two pages he jots
down “Effect of Gallery on my Mind”:
“1st. Astonishment, at number and exquisite character, beyond
what had expected—not of something finer, but such as to
make me feel that before I had not seen anything.
“2d. Then sense of intense pleasure, from what do not stop
to inquire. It is not color, form, composition, nor mere sympathy
with thing expressed. It is the whole. The walls flame
.bn 355.png
.pn +1
out as if the hall was a summer and all shining in concentration
upon you. I see all that is painted—and more. I see, beyond,
other visions, the mute figures speak. I imagine the scene before
the time chosen and afterwards.
“3d. Then comes sense of beauty, complex, of rich and exquisite
coloring; also the beauty of the scenes. The objects, in
other words, and the instrument of their manifestation.
“4th. Then you begin to select and to hang in a dreamy review
over one or another. Time is not known; you wake by
some footfall. Whether you have been here an hour or four you
cannot tell; it seems by the populous experience a long time.
You do not weary, but you exhale—i.e., the senses seem to flag,
while mind is keener than ever, and you imagine rather than see;
as one who is exhilarated by wine sees, to be sure, but his own
mind affords the color and—”
In his letters he afterwards enlarged upon this topic: “Ah!
what a new world has been opened to me, and what a new sense
within myself! I knew that I had gradually grown fond of pictures
from my boyhood. I had felt the power of some few. But
nothing had ever come up to a certain ideal that had hovered in
my mind, and I supposed I was not fine enough to appreciate with
discrimination the works of masters. To find myself absolutely
intoxicated; to find my system so much affected that I could not
control my nerves; to find myself trembling, and laughing, and
weeping, and almost hysterical, and that in spite of my shame and
determination to behave better—such a power of these galleries
over me I had not expected. I have lived for two days in fairyland,
wakened out of it by some few sights which I have mechanically
visited, more for the sake of pleasing friends at home, when
I return, than for a present pleasure to myself, but relapsing again
into the golden vision....
“I could not tell whether hours or minutes were passing.
It was a blessed exhalation of soul, in which I seemed freed from
matter, and, as a diffused intelligence, to float in the atmosphere.
I could not believe that a dull body was the centre from
which thought and emotion radiated. I had a sense of expansion,
of etherealization, which gave me some faint sense of a
spiritual state. Nor was I in a place altogether unfitted for such
a state. The subject of many of the works—suffering, heroic
resistance, angels, Arcadian scenes, especially the scenes of
.bn 356.png
.pn +1
Christ’s life and death—seemed not unfitting accompaniment to
my mind, and suggested to me, in a glorious vision, the drawing
near of a redeemed soul to the precincts of heaven! Oh! with
what an outburst of soul did I implore Christ to wash me, and
all whom I loved, in His precious blood, that we might not fail
of entering the glorious city whose builder and maker is God!
All my sins seemed not only sins but great deformities. They
seemed not merely affronts against God but insults to my own
nature! My soul snuffed at them and trod them down as the
mire in the street. Then, holy and loving thoughts toward God
or toward man seemed to me to be as beautiful as those fleecy
islets along the west at sunset, crowned with glory; and the
gentler aspirations for goodness and nobleness and knowledge
seemed to me like silver mists through which the morning is
striking, wafting them gently and in wreaths and films heavenward.
Great deeds, heroism for worthy objects, for God, or for
one’s fellows, or for one’s own purity, seemed not only natural
but as things without which a soul could not live.
“But at length I perceived myself exhausted, not by any
sense of fatigue (I had no sense or body), but by perceiving that
my mind would not fix upon material objects, but strove to act
by itself. Thus a new picture was examined only for an instant,
and then I exhaled into all kinds of golden dreams and visions.
“I left the gallery, and in this mood, as I threaded my way
back, how beautiful did everything and everybody seem! The
narrow streets were beautiful for being narrow, and the broad
ones for being broad; old buildings had their glory, and new
structures had theirs; children were all glorified children; I
loved the poor workmen that I saw in the confined and narrow
shops; the various women, young and old, with huge buck-baskets,
or skipping hither and thither on errands, all seemed happy,
and my soul blessed them as I passed.
“My own joy of being overflowed upon everything which I
met. Sometimes singing to myself, or smiling to others so as to
make men think, doubtless, that I had met some good luck or
was on some prosperous errand of love, I walked on through
street after street, turning whichever corner, to the right or left,
happened to please the moment, neither knowing or caring where
I went, but always finding something to see and enjoying all
things. Nor do I know yet by what instinct I rounded up my
.bn 357.png
.pn +1
journeyings by finding my proper lodging. That night I slept,
as to my body, but felt little difference between dreaming asleep
and dreaming awake.”
We turn from his note-book and letters to one of the papers of
the day, and read: “Rev. H. W. Beecher, our esteemed brother,
has returned from his transatlantic trip with improved health.
He reached New York yesterday (evening) in the Asia, September
11.”
He arrived unexpectedly and found his family, which had
been spending the summer at Sutton, Mass., with the grandmother,
awaiting him. His trip had been a success in every particular.
Not only was his health restored, but his field of observation
had been vastly broadened and his experiences greatly
deepened. England, the home of his race, had been seen and
touched; he had visited her castles, colleges, and churches;
walked among her fields, become acquainted with her people; and
henceforth her noble history, great achievements, and mighty
names seemed more real to him, and she was more admired and
beloved than ever.
In Paris he became conscious for the first time of the power
of true art, and began that study of it which only ended with his
life.
But, whether in England or France, so well read was he in
the history of the places visited, and so vivid was his imagination
to bring back the scenes and men that made these places
memorable, that his journey was as a sojourn with the wisest and
best of our race, and he returned from it refreshed and enlarged
for the work that, for a few weeks, had been laid aside.
.bn 358.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch18'
CHAPTER XVIII.
.pm start_summary
Church and Steamboat—Jenny Lind—Hospitality—Colonel Pertzel—The
Family—Twins—Medicine—Giving Counsel—For the Sailor—An Absurd
Story Contradicted—Salisbury—Trouting—Death of Alfred and
Arthur—Letters to his Daughter at School—Lenox—Equivocal Honors
Declined—The Pulpit—“Plymouth Collection”—“Shining Shore.”
A Church Liturgy—Courting with his Father’s old Love-letters—1857 a
Year of Trial—Matteawan—Visit to Litchfield—1858 a Year of Harvest—Revival
Meetings—Hospitality of Plymouth Church—Courtesy to
Errorists—New Organ—Peekskill—Letters to his Daughter abroad—Marriage
of his Daughter—Lecturing—Title of D.D. declined—Flowers
in Church—Christian Liberty in the Use of the Beautiful—His two
Lines of Labor.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
No sooner has he put his foot on shore than he is engaged in
battle. This time it is against religious bigotry and intolerance
upon the seas. A Star article from his pen appeared
September 19 upon “Church and Steamboat—Cunard
Line”:
No religious service was allowed on the steamers except
that which was appointed for the crew, at which the passengers
were permitted to be present. No one was allowed to read the
service there except the captain, who, having been playing cards
late Saturday night, and being addicted to the sailor habit of profanity,
was not considered fit for the office. No one at all was
permitted to preach, or, if the rule were ever varied, only a clergyman
of Episcopal ordination. One of the owners, who happened
to be on the ship, when courteously asked to allow some one of
the nine clergymen on board to preach, and to give the use of
one of the several cabins to those who chose to have service of
their own, lost his temper and said that if Americans did not
choose to go on his line, “d——— ’em! they may go to h———.”
All this appeared to Mr. Beecher as rank injustice and an interference
with the freedom of worship of multitudes of travellers.
Humorously, yet with good, solid, set phrase, he denounces this
bigotry in the article above mentioned. Like most of his articles,
it was strong enough to draw the fire of the enemy.
.bn 359.png
.pn +1
The captain and the son of this owner reply in letters which
partly explain, partly deny, but wholly charge Mr. Beecher with
falsehood. This brings another article from him in the next
issue, September 26:
“It is not to be supposed, gentlemen, that either of you can
sympathize fully with me in an inveterate prejudice which I have
contracted against lying in all its moods and tenses. But, really,
I feel hurt that you have so low an opinion of my ingenuity as to
suppose that, if I set out to tell lies, I should tell such poor and
graceless ones.
“Allow me to assure you, gentlemen, that while my principles
forbid me to employ falsehood, yet should I attempt it I should
conscientiously endeavor to lie well.”
He reiterates his charges, adds to them some further remarks
upon the gambling habits of the captain, which unfit him to act
as conductor of public worship, procures affidavits from responsible
parties to substantiate his charges, and refers them to the
courts for redress, if they think themselves aggrieved.
The first battle upon his return to his native land was waged
for freedom of worship upon the high seas!
In this same month of September, Jenny Lind came to this
country and began that series of concerts which have never
been surpassed. Her first concert in Castle Garden, September
11, netted $30,000. Some of the papers having criticised
her and her manager for the high price of tickets, and the community
for paying it, Mr. Beecher takes up the cudgels in her
behalf:
“Jenny Lind, if we understand her desires and aims, is employing
a resplendent musical genius in the most noble accordance
with the spirit of the Gospel. In her we behold a spectacle
of eminent genius employing its magic power in the elevation of
the human race.
“If men would spare from the disgusting weed and poisonous
liquors one-half of what they spend every month, there are few
so poor as not to be able to hear Jenny Lind. \ \ \ \ \ \ \ *”
One of his children gives this incident:
“In those early days father always had a flower-garden in the
back-yard of our city homes. I remember when we lived in the
little, brown wooden house on Columbia Heights, Jenny Lind
came to board near us for a short time. All the neighboring
.bn 360.png
.pn +1
children used to gather round her door to see her start for her
drive; and one day when we saw the carriage in front of her
house, I ran in to ask father if H——— and I could go and see her
come out. He was at work in the garden among his flowers,
and, after giving his consent, called me back, cut a handful of
roses, and told me I could take those and give them to her. So
off H——— and I went, but I believe, after all, my courage failed,
and I brought them home again, very much ashamed. Father
laughed, but comforted me by saying he’d rather I would be too
shy than too bold.”
He closes this eventful year (1850) with two Star articles—the
one (December 12), “Remember the Poor”: “Upon the
whole, we doubt if there is any other means of grace so profitable
to a Christian as the whole duty of relieving the poor; for giving
money is but a small part, and often the least effective part, of
duty to them. Every man ought to take a single case or family,
and look after them through the winter.” Another (December
19) upon “Different Ways of Giving”: “Now and then you
will find a man whose face is March but whose pocket is June.
He will storm and scold at you, but send you away with ten
times as much as you asked.”
Mr. Beecher was very hospitable, and kept open house for
friends, and even for such chance acquaintance as came to be associated
with him. “When Kossuth was in this country, Colonel
Pertzel, his chief of staff, with his wife, stopped with us for
several weeks. When they went away she gave me her bracelet
of national coins, which, she said, was prized by the Hungarian
women in their exile above all their possessions.
“Our own family circle at this time consisted of father, mother,
and three children—two boys and a girl. Besides these
Aunt Esther was with us, whom I remember as little and round,
straight and precise, with snapping black eyes, looking after the
second generation of nephews and nieces, and telling us stories;
and also Grandma Bullard, doing the mending and cosseting
while she sang ‘Bounding Billow’ and ‘Like the Hart and the
Roe.’ Dear, ideal old grandmother!”
December 20, 1852, there was an addition to this circle. “I
can remember sitting in the parlor one evening with Aunt Esther,
and father’s coming in, going up to her, and kissing her first on
one cheek and then on the other, and her giving a little jump,
.bn 361.png
.pn +1
saying, ‘Not two, Henry!’ and his answering, ‘Yes, two.’ Then
he told me that I had two little new brothers up-stairs.
“Father was so proud of these twins that I remember on New
Year’s day he took fifteen or twenty of the Hungarians who were
making New Year’s calls up into mother’s room to see them.”
At the Thanksgiving service of this year Mr. Beecher had
announced that an effort would be made to raise by subscription
the sum of $13,000 to pay off the floating debt of the church before
January 1, and the papers of a later date contain the announcement
that the sum was promptly subscribed, “and Plymouth
Church may now be considered on a firm foundation in
temporal matters, and is in every way in a prosperous condition.”
The church entered the new year, 1852, without debt, and
more than ten thousand dollars were realized from the rent of
the pews.
Evidently he begins the year with especial effort to overcome
spiritual coldness among the people, and bring in the summer of
Christian life and growth, for his Star Papers are upon subjects
like these: “Ice in the Church,” “Various Convictions of Sin,”
and later are announcements in the papers of morning prayer-meetings
in “Plymouth Church,” “Preaching Every Evening.”
In due time the announcement is made that “sixty persons
were last Sabbath morning received into the church, fifty upon
profession of faith.”
He is experiencing one of the evils to which religious meetings
are prone, and concerning it he sends out a note of warning,
“One Cause of Dull Meetings”:
“We hardly know of a more unprofitable exercise for social
meetings than what is called exhortation. Men impose upon
themselves and social meetings degenerate into absurd formalities—a
pretence of caring for what they do not care for, of renouncing
what all the world knows they do not renounce, of asking for
what they do not desire and desiring what they dare not ask.”
Through life Mr. Beecher was as free with pathies in medicine
as of isms in religion, and used allopathy, hom[oe]opathy,
hydropathy, electricity, or hand-rubbing, as seemed to him at the
time most likely to secure the coveted result. In general he
trusted more to the man than to the system. His position on
this matter, which he held substantially for years, is given in a
review of a medical work:
.bn 362.png
.pn +1
“In good earnest, we regard medicine with little favor. Our
first recipe for sickness is, not to get sick. Our second is reliance
upon a well-bred, sensible doctor. We select the doctor.
It is his business to select the medicine, and we do not care a
pin what it is. To all who ask us, therefore, what school we belong
to, we reply: ‘We are firmly persuaded of Dr. ———.’ This
is the sum of our present creed.”
His interest in common men and their affairs brought many
to him by letter or in personal conversation for advice in their
difficulties. Probably few physicians or lawyers in good practice
were consulted by more people than came daily to Mr. Beecher.
So practical were his principles of action, so great his sympathy
with men in trouble, and such his ability to see through the difficulty,
that men came to him for counsel from far and near.
A man asks him as to his duty to his creditors under certain
peculiar circumstances which he mentions. Mr. Beecher goes
over the matter in detail, states the ground of difficulty in that
and all similar cases, and points out the way of relief in this
fruitful sentence: “Selfishness is the great mischief-maker in
settlements. Men think of their own rights first and their
creditors’ afterwards. Reverse this. Be careful first that no man
suffer by you.”
Again, at this time a man writes asking as to the duty of a
temperance man and a professor of religion in regard to selling
liquor as an agent.
“... He, therefore, who loves his situation or his pocket
more than his religion can expect but little sympathy from robust
Christians, and little favor from that Christ of the cross
who has ordered a church of cross-bearing disciples. But we
will turn our friend in such a dilemma over to our friend Hall,
a drayman in New York, who utterly refuses to cart liquor, who
will not unload a ship if in so doing he must cart brandy. For
he says he will not disgrace any horse that he owns by letting
him be seen with a load of liquor behind him.”
While carrying a free lance ready as any knight of old to
champion every cause that was suffering injustice, we want to
emphasize the fact that he had none of that small, truculent spirit
that leads to personal attacks. He was very lenient to individual
human failures, charitable in his judgments, and would rather
attempt to save by hiding than to punish by exposing them. In
.bn 363.png
.pn +1
answer to a question which we once asked concerning a man
who, to our mind, had greatly transgressed the limits of public
propriety, if not of morality, “Why don’t you pitch in and show
up this matter?” this man of a thousand battles said quietly,
with just a shade of rebuke for the spirit we had shown in his
tone: “I don’t like to pitch into folks as much as some do.”
But when wrong or injustice had wrought itself into a system,
it made no difference to him how high in position they were who
upheld it, or how low in the scale were the sufferers, or how securely
entrenched was the wrong; he waited for no invitation, he
asked no permission, he sought for no support, but attacked it at
once, aiming to expose and remove the root element of the evil.
An illustration of this characteristic of Mr. Beecher is afforded
by an article written by him at this time upon “Naval
Discipline,” in which he brings to the sailor the same broad sympathy,
established principles, and clear reasoning that he was accustomed
to employ in the case of another and very different
class:
“... It is of little use to cobble a system whose radical idea
is wrong. This is our judgment in the case of the American
navy. The republican institutions of America, slavery always
excepted, contemplate the improvement and elevation of the
masses. Government does not undertake to educate the citizen,
but it contemplates, it is obliged from its origin to accommodate
itself to the radical idea of, the liberty of the people to move
among themselves, to guide, to change, to advance freely in any
direction. The American navy is a monarchy. Its subjects are
regarded in but one light—they are to be under service. More than
this nothing is thought of. Sailors have no liberty. There is
neither provision for, nor expectation of, improvement....
There must be an entirely new spirit infused into the whole system
of such service.
”... In short, the naval system must address the social
and moral need of the sailor. They must be allowed to act
under all those high motives which develop men on shore.”
While moved by these world-wide sympathies, he was in no
mood to submit with patience to bigotry nearer home, and utters
a very strong protest against the ostracizing of certain Sabbath-schools
by the orthodox schools of Brooklyn in their yearly parade:
.bn 364.png
.pn +1
“We ought to seize such an occasion to promote kindly feelings
and cultivate such sympathy as differing sects might lawfully
have in common. There is no liberality in urging this matter;
it is simply common sense and common decency....
“Does the ——— (paper) regard it as dangerous to walk the
streets with a Unitarian? Is heresy like smallpox, so contagious
that one school will give it to another by sitting for an hour in
the same audience-room with it?... We shall pray more earnestly
than ever for the advance of that day when the love of God
shall abound in the hearts of men and inspire men to love each
other.”
His Star Papers of 1852 close with this, which will at once
be recognized as eminently characteristic:
“We had always supposed that absurd stories grew in this vicinity
like weeds in the tropics or trees planted by rivers. For
once, however, the country newspapers have got ahead of our
neighborhood.
“We have made diligent search, taken the census, examined
every cradle, drawer, closet, crib, nook, and corner, and are prepared
to affirm the following story, which was born in the Windham
County Telegraph, the Norwich Tribune, Springfield Republican,
Boston Chronicle, and other papers, to be exaggerated:
“‘Rev. H. W. Beecher’s lady has presented him with five little
responsibilities in a little better than one year: two soon after
the arrival of Kossuth and three the other day.’
“Twins there were a year ago whose blessed faces fill the
house with light, but the three above-mentioned were born of those
maternal editors whose brains fulfil the prophet’s word, ‘Ye
shall consume chaff; ye shall bring forth stubble.’
“We turn these mousing, mongering editors over to the
next woman’s-rights convention; or, if they are not fit for a seat
there, they may amuse the children with nursery tales while
the mothers are at discussion; or, if not fit for that, let them
in mercy be bound out as very dry nurses at some foundling
hospital.”
He spends the summer of 1853, as he had the one preceding,
at Salisbury, Connecticut.
“Once more we find ourselves at home among lucid green
trees, among hills and mountains, with lakes and brooks on every
side, and country roads threading their way in curious circuits
.bn 365.png
.pn +1
among them. All day long we have moved about with dreamy
newness of life. Birds, crickets, and grasshoppers are the only
players upon instruments that molest the air. Chanticleer is at
this instant proclaiming over the whole valley that the above declaration
is a slander on his musical gifts. Very well; add chanticleer
to cricket, grasshopper, and bird. Add, also, a cow, for I
hear her distant low melodious through the valley, with all roughness
strained out by the trees through which it comes hitherward.
O this silence in the air, this silence on the mountains, this silence
on the lakes!”
He closes a long letter upon trouting in this fashion:
“You forget your errand. You select a dry, tufty knoll, and,
lying down, you gaze up into the sky. O those depths! Something
in you reaches out and yearns. You have a vague sense of
infinity, of vastness, of the littleness of human life, and the sweetness
and grandeur of divine life and of eternity. You people
that vast ether. You stretch away through it and find that celestial
city beyond, and therein dwell oh! how many that are yours!
Tears come unbidden. You begin to long for release. You
pray. Was there ever a better closet? Under the shadow of the
mountain, the heavens full of cloudy cohorts, like armies of
horsemen and chariots, your soul is loosened from the narrow
judgments of human life, and touched with a full sense of immortality
and the liberty of a spiritual state. An hour goes past.
How full has it been of feelings struggling to be thoughts, and
thoughts deliquescing into feeling! Twilight is coming. You
have miles to ride home. Not a trout in your basket! Never
mind; you have fished in the heavens and taken great store of
prey. Let them laugh at your empty basket. Take their raillery
good-naturedly; you have certainly had good luck.”
The sadness which is plainly visible in the passage quoted is
an old acquaintance. We have learned to expect its appearance
somewhere at every feast. At this time undoubtedly it comes
the oftener because of the sorrowful experiences of the early
summer. The twins, Alfred and Arthur, “whose blessed faces
fill the house with light,” had both died on the fourth of July
of this year, and been buried in the same grave.
It was one of the deep sorrows of his life, seldom mentioned
save when attempting by his sympathy to comfort others in like
affliction; it became a fountain of deep and tender feeling for all
.bn 366.png
.pn +1
in distress, and of earnest longings for the rest and the reunions
of heaven.
The going away of his daughter to boarding-school during
the autumn makes another break in the family, to which he refers
in a letter in November:
.pm start_quote
“... This is the first departure of any of my children from
home, and it is an experience which testifies to my affection for
you and my solicitude; yet I do not in the least doubt that you
will do well....
“There is little news at home. Your room is occupied by
E——— B———, who now lives with us and takes care of W———.
She seems a very good girl, and W——— is getting very fond of
her. He makes no resistance to her dressing him, and submits
even to having his hair curled with great peace. The rogue is fat
and happy, and opens his big eyes with a half-tearful, dreamy look
when we ask him: Where is Sister H———?...
“We are all going to Aunty H———’s to dinner, and in the
evening Mrs. H——— and family will come round there too. As
for me, I am in the agony of writing my Thanksgiving sermon....
“There, H———, I have made quite an effort, for me, at
letter-writing and news-telling. Let me hear from you.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Your loving father,
“H. W. B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
In a letter to her the following June he mentions an important
domestic event:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Brooklyn, June 24, 1854.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear H———:
“I must answer your last letter to me before you leave, lest I
lose my repute as a good and frequent correspondent; and I am
the more willing to do it as I have very agreeable tidings to communicate
to you.
“You will receive a visit from W——— A———, of our church,
whom I presume you remember. Well, it has been thought best,
after consultation, and some mysterious correspondence with
your Aunt S——— which you may have noticed, that you should
meet me at Cleveland and spend the next Sabbath there, July 2;
go to Painesville and spend July 4 with me there; and then come
.bn 367.png
.pn +1
back at our leisure to see your mother and a new little brother
who was safely born into this world on last Thursday, June 22,
at three o’clock in the afternoon, weighing ten pounds, and filling
all people’s hearts with joy at his health and general peaceable
qualities. As yet we have fallen upon no name....
”... Meanwhile young Master Nameless is sleeping off all
traces of remembrance of that former state of existence from
which Edward supposes him to be an emigrant to this world....
.ll 68
.rj
“H. W. B.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
This year he spent the summer in Lenox, Berkshire County,
Massachusetts, where a few friends have aided him to purchase
a farm, “which the deeds, with great definiteness, say contains
ninety-six acres, more or less.” Annoyed by the inquisitiveness
of certain newspapers, he goes on to say:
“We gave for farm and farm-buildings $4,500; for the crops,
stock, implements, etc., $1,000 more; total, $5,500. Any person
in search of useful information can have further particulars as to
terms of payment and any other private publicities by personal
application to us.”
His emotions upon taking possession are described in a letter
of that date:
“It was in the presence of this pasture elm, which we name
the Queen, that we first felt to our very marrow that we had indeed
become owners of the soil! It was with a feeling of awe
that we looked up into its face, and when I whispered to myself,
‘This is mine,’ there was a shrinking, as if there were sacrilege
in the very thought of property in such a creature of God as this
cathedral-topped tree! Does a man bare his head in some old
church? So did I, standing in the shadow of this regal tree,
and looking up into that completed glory at which three hundred
years have been at work with noiseless fingers! What was
I in its presence but a grasshopper? My heart said, ‘I may not
call thee property, and that property of mine! Thou belongest
to the air. Thou art the child of summer. Thou art the mighty
temple where birds praise God. Thou belongest to no man’s
hand, but to all men’s eyes that do love beauty, and that have
learned through beauty to behold God! Stand, then, in thine
own beauty and grandeur! I shall be a lover and a protector,
to keep drought from thy roots and the axe from thy trunk.’”
.bn 368.png
.pn +1
Although the owner of the farm, we are not to suppose that
he took hold of work as the neighboring farmers did. We fancy
that his love of downright hard work exhausted itself in the
West.
“The chief use of a farm, if it be well selected and of a
proper soil, is to lie down upon. Mine is an excellent farm for
such uses, and I thus cultivate it every day. Large crops are
the consequence, of great delight and fancies more than the
brain can hold. My industry is exemplary. Though but a week
here, I have lain down more hours and in more places than that
hard-working brother of mine in the whole year that he has
dwelt here. Strange that industrious lying down should come
so naturally to me, and standing up and lazing about after the
plough or behind the scythe so naturally to him!”
When we remember how many ministers who take an interest
in public affairs find themselves elected to some town or village
office, made mayor of a city, sent to the State Legislature or
even to Congress, we are surprised that Mr. Beecher was never
elected, so far as we remember, to the smallest public office.
This was largely owing to the fact that he looked upon the
work of a preacher, to inspire men to right conduct in public affairs,
as more important than filling any official position, however
high.
He declares this opinion facetiously, but none the less as a
matter of deliberate judgment, in a letter:
.pm start_quote
.ce
EQUIVOCAL HONORS DECLINED.
“The Tribune last Saturday, in reply to a private letter asking
its advice on the matter, recommends that we be nominated for
Congress, elected and sent, and, when that shall be done, that
we go....
“Had the proposal to go to Congress proceeded from the
American Board of Missions there would have been grave reasons
for considering it. We doubt whether they have a harder field
in all heathendom, nor yet a field where the Gospel is more
needed. But, for mere political reasons, to backslide from the
pulpit into Congress is a little too long a slide for the first venture.
We beg to decline in advance.”
In some of the sharp discussions of this year, 1854, the ministry
.bn 369.png
.pn +1
have been bitterly criticised by papers who opposed politics
in public, and a great deal of advice has been given to ministers
concerning preaching. This receives his attention in this fashion:
“When one considers the amount of advice given to ministers
about preaching, it is surprising that there should ever be
again a dull or improper sermon.
”... We have no doubt that a rigorous landlord, having
sharked it all the week, screwing and gripping among his tenants,
would be better pleased on Sunday to doze through an able
Gospel sermon on divine mysteries than be kept awake by a
practical sermon that, among other things, set forth the duties of
a Christian landlord. A broker who has gambled on a magnificent
scale all the week does not go to church to have his practical
swindlings analyzed and measured by the ‘New Testament
spirit.’ Catechism is what he wants; doctrine is to his taste. A
merchant whose last bale of smuggled goods was safely stored
on Saturday night, and his brother-merchant who on the same
day swore a false invoice through the custom-house—they go
to church to hear a sermon on faith, on angels, on resurrection.
As they have nothing invested in those subjects, they expect the
minister to be bold and orthodox. But if he wants respectable
merchants to pay ample pew-rents, let him not vulgarize the pulpit
by introducing commercial questions. A rich Christian
brother owns largely in a distillery, and is clamorous against
letting down to the vulgarity of temperance sermons. Another
man buys tax-titles and noses around all the week to see who
can be slipped out of a vacant lot. On Sunday he naturally
wants us to preach about eternity, or moral ability and inability.
A mechanic that plies his craft with the unscrupulous appliance
of every means that will win, he, too, wants “doctrine” on the
Sabbath—not these secular questions. Men wish two departments
in life—the secular and the religious. Between them a
high and opaque wall is to be built. They wish to do just what
they please for six long days. Then, stepping the other side of
the wall, they wish the minister to assuage their fears, to comfort
their conscience, and furnish them a clear ticket and insurance
for heaven. By such a shrewd management our modern financiers
are determined to show that a Christian can serve two masters,
both God and Mammon, at the same time.”
.bn 370.png
.pn +1
While fully alive to all the advantages of natural forces, the
Sabbath, the pulpit, and a spiritual church-membership always
held the highest place in his regard.
“It is no small thing, as it regards the education of the community,
that from their youth up they have been taught to discuss
all questions from ascertained and authoritative moral
grounds....
“The pulpit is the popular religious educator. Its object is
to stimulate and develop the religious feelings....
“When a whole community are wont to have their social life,
their secular business, their public duties taken out of their low
and selfish attitudes, and lifted up into the light of God’s countenance,
and there measured, judged, repressed, or developed, and
wholly bathed or inspired by the spirit of conscience and of
love, then they are receiving a moral education for which there
is no other provision except the Sabbath and the pulpit.
“Such are the members that make a church rich—poor in
this world’s goods, but rich toward God—rich in faith, in hope,
in meekness, in patience, in prayer, and, according to the feeble
measure of their ability, in good works. Many a church is destroyed
through an ambition of having strong and wealthy men,
only rich, not holy....
“It may be very easy to sustain a church that has great wealth
and little piety, but it is not worth sustaining. It is not a moral
power.”
He had no confidence in secret political organizations. “One
might as well study optics in the pyramids of Egypt or the subterranean
tombs of Rome, as liberty in secret conclaves controlled
by hoary knaves versed in political intrigue, who can
hardly enough express their surprise and delight to find honest
men going into a wide-spread system of secret caucuses. Honest
men in such places have the peculiar advantage that flies have in
a spider’s web—the privilege of losing their legs, of buzzing
without flying, and of being eaten up at leisure by big-bellied
spiders!...
“When will men understand that simple, open integrity, an
unflinching adhesion to PRINCIPLE, is the peculiar advantage of
truth and liberty? All that the Right asks is air, light, an open
enemy, and room to strike. It is Wrong that sneaks in the dark
and gains by the stiletto.\ \ \ \ \ \ \ *”
.bn 371.png
.pn +1
From time to time he gave examination to modern spiritualism,
with this result:
“I am a stout unbeliever in the spiritual origin of this phenomenon,
either by good spirits, bad spirits, or any spirits whatever.
“A belief in modern spiritualism seems to weaken the hold
of the Bible upon conscience, the affections, and to substitute
diluted sentimentalism and tedious platitudes instead of inspired
truth.”
In 1855 Mr. Beecher published the “Plymouth Collection.”
Of its history he has spoken somewhat at length:
“Soon after I came to Brooklyn from the West the conductor
of music in this church was a Mr. Jones. He was intimately
associated with the house of Mason Bros., publishers of music in
New York, and sons of Lowell Mason, of honored and revered
memory. I desired very much to inaugurate a new day in music—that
is to say, to transfer to the great congregation on Sunday
the same methods, so far as singing was concerned, that we had
already instituted in our evening meetings, our conference meetings,
and our revival meetings—namely, that of having both
the hymns and the music before them at the same time.
“I can go back in my memory, easily, to the time when there
was no hymn-book with notes for church use. The ‘Christian
Lyre,’ edited by Joshua Leavitt, was largely used in the revivals
under Dr. Finney, and ‘Christian Songs,’ by Mr. Hastings (the
sweet singer of Israel, whose service to the church was never
adequately recognized), were also used in revivals. When these
books came they brought a progeny with them; but still there
was nothing of the kind for the great congregation. The music-books
for choirs were those long, narrow, inconvenient ones
which could not well be held in the hand, but must always needs
be laid upon a shelf. These were granted to the choir only,
and the congregation had to sing from memory or not at all. It
seemed to me that it would be a step in the right direction to put
the tunes and hymns together, so that everybody who had the
one should also have the other.
“With this end in view I asked the trustees of this church
to agree to purchase a few copies of the ‘Temple Melodies,’ a
small book of hymns, the music for which was to be selected by
Mr. Jones and myself, and in which I interested the publishing
house of Mason Bros.
.bn 372.png
.pn +1
“Connected with this was a curious incident. Mason Bros.
would not publish the book unless we would pay for the stereotype
plates; and the trustees agreed to take a certain number of
copies of the book—enough to cover the cost of the plates—so
that the publishers should suffer no loss. When the book came
to be published there was an acknowledgment of the services
of Mr. Jones, but my name was not mentioned. Although I did
not care particularly about that, I was curious to know how it
should happen that Mr. Jones, conductor of music in my
church, was personally mentioned, and I, who had given to the
work time and influence, and who had obtained means with
which to pay for the plates, was not mentioned at all. Though
I was the father of the book, everybody else got a slice of the
credit, and I was left without a crumb. I asked Jones how it
was, and, blushing up to his ears, he said (if you will pardon the
adjective) that the publishers said that they would not have the
name of a d—d abolitionist in their book.
“This was the first step in that direction. The success of the
undertaking was such as to satisfy me that a larger endeavor of the
same sort would be successful also; and I went to work and laid
the foundation for the ‘Plymouth Collection.’ It was to be published
by Mr. A. S. Barnes, but it was necessary that there should
be a guarantee in the form of an advance sufficiently large to pay
for the plates, that the publishers might run no risk in issuing the
book. Mr. Henry C. Bowen and Mr. James Freeland agreed to
furnish the money, with the understanding that when the income,
if there was one, from our copyright should equal the amount they
had advanced, with interest, all further profits from the copyright
should inure to the benefit of the choir of this church.
“The book has been a profitable one on the whole; but I
know not how much the choir has ever received from it. There
was no written agreement, and the memorandum lapsed. I forgot
to make any arrangement for myself. The consequence was
that I was left out in the cold, and never got a penny for my services
in the matter. I do not care for that. The object for
which I was eager and earnest was to procure for the churches a
book of hymns and tunes, so that they should have both before
them at the same time.
“The book was assailed, but was defended, and it made its
way.
.bn 373.png
.pn +1
“Since that time there have been eight or ten books of the
same general character adopted, and they have so exactly copied
the ‘Plymouth Collection’ as to size, type, and form that you
may take the eight or ten volumes and set them on a shelf, and
unless a man stood close to them he could not tell one from the
other. So that the ‘Plymouth Collection’ not only has been a
good book for this church, but has been a good pattern for other
churches to follow. Although it was the first one of its kind, it
was so well adapted to the want of the community that it has not
been deemed expedient to change in the least degree its form,
nor to change, except to a very small extent, its method. It has
invariably proved to be a book acceptable and well suited to the
purpose for which it was designed. It was made on a theory of
my own, or rather it was the result of my observation and experience.
I had observed what hymns appealed to the imagination
and the affections of the people; and I did not believe that any
hymn-book would ever be popular which had not in it hymns
the elements of which appealed to these faculties. I had observed,
also, what tunes the people loved. I had observed that
any music, however irregular or grotesque, that appealed to their
imagination and affection, they would adopt and make their
own. Guided by that observation, I introduced into the book a
great many melodies of a kind that were unknown in the sobriety
of the old-fashioned psalmody, but that have been developed
more fully and skilfully in subsequent books.
“With that conception of what a hymn-book should be, I was
very much shocked in a conversation with Mr. Lowell Mason,
whose services to American music cannot be over-estimated, and
who has gone to a higher choir, but who in his old age fell upon
a theory that I thought to be as vicious as it could possibly be—the
theory, namely, that all music should be of one character,
and that the tune should be the main thing. He said to me one
day: ‘I think a perfect hymn-tune is one to which you ought to
be able to sing every psalm in the whole collection.’ I considered
that simply monstrous, literalizing and Platonizing everything.
His late books lost ground a great deal because they were
so insuperably flat. A man might sing them to all eternity and
not find in them anything which hooked on to his memory or
affections, or anything that had a tendency to develop his higher
nature.
.bn 374.png
.pn +1
“About twenty years ago Mr. Love, of Chicago—who has
conferred great benefit upon churches and schools by his compositions—and
I were riding together from Brooklyn to Boston, and
we discussed this question of music. He was under the influence
of Mr. Mason, and partook of his views on the subject, and
I blew him up soundly and told him how preposterous I thought
they were. He went home pondering what I said, and subsequently,
as I afterward heard, cut out from a newspaper the
verses beginning ‘My days are gliding swiftly by,’ and with that
conversation in his mind he sat down and wrote the ‘Shining
Shore’ to go with them. Whether this tune has justified my
idea or not, it has been employed in this congregation for many
years. Moreover, it was taken by the Brooklyn Fourteenth Regiment
to the war, it was performed by their band, and whenever
they gave anything like a serenade in the army the ‘Shining
Shore’ was called for. Since that time this tune has been played
and sung all over the continent. How great a favorite it has
been here you know.”
This collection was vehemently attacked by one of the religious
papers of the day in the lead, several others following, and
was vigorously defended by Mr. Beecher in a series of articles
in the Independent over his well-known signature, the *. So simple
a matter as bringing out a hymn-book for the use of his own
church, and only for others so far as they chose, would hardly
seem likely to call out so strong a protest, but it shows the position
that he had already come to occupy in the public mind.
With his advanced views and strong following, everything that
he did demanded examination, must be sifted and probably
marked dangerous. In the vigorous defence of this child of his
heart he discourses at length upon hymns. We have room for
only two or three extracts:
“Hymns are the exponents of the inmost piety of the
Church. They are crystalline tears, or blossoms of joy, or holy
prayers, or incarnated raptures. They are the jewels which the
Church has worn; the pearls, the diamonds, and precious stones
formed into amulets more potent against sorrow and sadness than
the most famous charms of wizard or magician. And he who
knows the way that hymns flowed knows where the blood of
piety ran, and can trace its veins and arteries to the very heart.
.il id=i367 fn=i_367.jpg w=340px ew=60%
.ca Henry Ward Beecher in 1850.
“Oftentimes when, in the mountain country, far from noise
.bn 375.png
.bn 376.png
.pn +2
and interruption, we wrought upon these hymns for our vacation
tasks, we almost forgot the living world, and were lifted up by
noble lyrics as upon mighty wings, and went back to the days
when Christ sang with His disciples, when the disciples sang too,
as in our churches they have almost ceased to do. Oh! but for
one moment, even, to have sat transfixed and to have listened to
the hymn that Christ sang and to the singing! But the olive-trees
did not hear His murmured notes more clearly than, rapt in
imagination, we have heard them!
“There, too, are the hymns of St. Ambrose and many others,
that rose up like birds in the early centuries, and have come flying
and singing all the way down to us. Their wing is untired
yet, nor is the voice less sweet now than it was a thousand years
ago.
“There are Crusaders’ hymns, that rolled forth their truths
upon the Oriental air, while a thousand horses’ hoofs kept time
below and ten thousand palm-leaves whispered and kept time
above! Other hymns, fulfilling the promise of God that His saints
should mount up with wings as eagles, have borne up the sorrows,
the desires, and the aspirations of the poor, the oppressed, and
the persecuted, of Huguenots, of Covenanters, and of Puritans,
and winged them to the bosom of God.
“In our own time, and in the familiar experiences of daily life
how are hymns mossed over and vine-clad with domestic associations!
“One hymn hath opened the morning in ten thousand families,
and dear children with sweet voices have charmed the evening
in a thousand places with the utterance of another. Nor do
I know of any steps now left on earth by which one may so soon
rise above trouble or weariness as the verses of a hymn and the
notes of a tune. And if the angels that Jacob saw sang when
they appeared, then I know that the ladder which he beheld was
but the scale of divine music let down from heaven to earth.”
We must find room for his answer to the charge of having
left out from Watts “fifteen splendid hymns,” whose first lines
are mentioned. After accounting for five of them by showing
that they were left out because others of Watts’s versions of the
same Psalms, and better ones, have been selected, he goes on to
say: “Next in the list the ——— charges that we have omitted
Watts’s hymn, ‘Glory to Thee, my God, this night.’ This evening
.bn 377.png
.pn +1
hymn, dear to thousands of hearts, was probably written before
Watts was born, certainly before he had written his psalms and
hymns, by Bishop Ken, who was thirty-seven years old when
Watts was born, and who died when Watts was but thirty-six
years old. There is not, perhaps, another hymn in the language
which it would require such ignorance to ascribe to Dr. Watts.
To make the blunder full-orbed, it turns out that the hymn is not
omitted, after all, from ‘Plymouth Collection,’ but may be found
at page 416, hymn 1287.
“The next omission from Watts charged by the ——— is the
hymn ‘While my Redeemer’s near.’ We left that hymn out
from Watts because Dr. Watts left it out himself, not thinking it
honest, we suppose, to insert a hymn before it was written, or to
appropriate another author’s labors as his own. For this hymn
was written by Mrs. Steele, I know not how many years after
Watts’s death. How dearly this critic must have loved Watts!
“We are next charged with excluding from ‘Plymouth Collection’
the hymn of Watts, ‘God is our Refuge and Defence.’
Alas! this hymn is by Montgomery, and not by Watts at all.
“How precious Watts’s hymns must be to a man who cannot
tell a Steele or a Montgomery from a Watts! With what grief
must one be afflicted at the injury done to Watts by not ascribing
to him Bishop Ken’s hymns? Why did not the ——— go on
and mention the even more glaring omissions from Watts in the
‘Plymouth Collection,’ such as ‘Ye Mariners of England, ‘Drink
to me only with thine eyes,’ ‘To be or not to be’—all of which
are left out of Watts and the ‘Plymouth Collection,’ and which
should have attracted the learned attention of the critic of the
———.
“It is rumored that the Psalm-Book of the New School Assembly
is to be revised. If so, the interests of the Church require
that the editor of the ——— should be put on the committee.
His accuracy, his carefulness, his profound knowledge of hymns,
and especially his intelligent admiration of Dr. Watts, cannot be
spared in such a labor.”
In this discussion his adversaries found out, what to this day,
we think, is not well understood, that his action, however impulsive
it might appear, really sprang from very clearly defined
principles, which could be justified whenever, wherever, and by
whom attacked, and that, however careless he seemed, he had a
.bn 378.png
.pn +1
habit of making himself thoroughly acquainted with the matter
in hand, and was prepared to meet any antagonist. Mr.
Beecher had great boldness and perfect confidence in his conclusions,
and was willing to stand alone upon them, because he
had thought them out and settled the matter once for all.
From the kindly manner in which he had often spoken of the
Episcopal Church, his mother’s communion, and in his account
of the effect which the service had upon him at Stratford-on-Avon,
it might seem that he would attempt to bring some form
of it into use in Plymouth Church; but no movement in that
direction was ever made, and he appears to have been well satisfied
with the possibilities that lay in the simple forms of his own
order. He has several articles at different times upon a proposed
“Congregational Liturgy,” but advocates no change of method,
only an improvement of spirit. “Our services are barren, not
from any want of common forms of devotion, but from the want
of common sympathy. A church has a right to the gifts of every
one of its members, and the minister is set to disclose and develop
them. He is not to lean upon the strong, or avail himself alone
of the services of those already developed. It is his office to take
hold of every individual man, and to educate him, so that he may
bring forth the one, or five, or ten talents which are committed to
him for the use and profit of all his brothers. A man of books, a
man of ideas, a man of sermons, is not Christ’s idea of a minister.
‘Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.’ A minister is a
man of men. He is an inspirer and driller of men.... But a
dead church with a liturgy on top is like a sand desert covered
with artificial bouquets. It is bright for the moment. But it
is fictitious and fruitless. There are no roots to the flowers.
There is no soil for the roots. The utmost that a liturgy can do
upon the chilly bosom of an undeveloped, untrained church is to
cover its nakedness with a faint shadow of what they fain would
have but cannot get....
“As to ‘surpliced boys,’ we have them already. The whole
congregation is a choir, and our boys, bright and happy, unite and
respond with the elders; so the surplice which they wear is just that
thing which the dear mother threw over them when they left her.
“If we were disposed to use any liturgy, we know of no one
which we should sooner employ than that which expressed the
earliest religious feelings of our own mother, now in heaven.
.bn 379.png
.pn +1
The mere fact that she had used and loved it would for ever
make it sacred to us. We never hear it pronounced by a sincere
and earnest man without deriving profit from it ourselves; and
we have no doubt that others are benefited by its use. We do
not, however, believe that its continual use as the only vehicle
of expression of the religious feeling of the congregation would
be as profitable, on the whole, as an extemporaneous worship. If
we did we should use a liturgy. While, then, we decline to use it
in public, because we think it, on the whole, less edifying than
the usage of Congregational churches, we do it without wishing
to detract from its intrinsic excellence, and without wounding
the feelings of those who delight to use it.”
At this time he takes pains to contradict the report that he had
spoken slightingly of the Episcopalian forms in saying that “he
would as soon go a-courting with his father’s old love-letters as
to go to church and carry a book to pray out of”:
“So far from its being true that the remark in this story was
applied to the Episcopal or any other liturgy, it was applied to
what are called extemporaneous prayers in Congregational and
Presbyterian prayer-meetings. We were reprehending the practice
of praying without sincerity or real religious feeling. We
said that when men began to lead in public prayer they should
be simple, truthful, and strictly individual, expressing their own
wants or feelings with child-like truthfulness. We commented
upon the undeniable fact that men too often borrowed their
prayers, copying the elder or deacon or minister, not to express
real feelings, but as forms. Thus extemporaneous prayers became
hereditary. And it was in reference to these unwritten forms of
prayer, in our own Congregational churches, that the remark imputed
to us was made. It was not a fling at the Episcopal
service. We never indulge in such remarks at the expense of
other denominations, and never intend to do it. We regard the
whole practice of railing at other sects or their religious usages,
from the pulpit, as not only unchristian but discourteous and
ungentlemanly.”
The year 1857 was one of great commercial trouble through
the country. Many of his people were involved and became
bankrupt. This gave him much uneasiness from his sympathy
with them, and to some extent affected his health, which he alludes
to in a letter to his brother later in the year:
.bn 380.png
.pn +1
“I do not think it safe for me to undertake so much work
this winter. My head is already suffering from overwork and
anxiety induced by commercial troubles among my people.
God will in the end make it a greater blessing than their prosperity.”
A family affliction which he felt very keenly, both in his personal
affection and in sympathy with those who were bereaved,
added to his burden. In a letter to the Independent, July 16,
1857, he says:
“The writer has been called by the stroke of violence to part
with three nephews within two weeks—two of them of one age—dying,
one in New Hampshire, and the others in Ohio.
“Two sons of Dr. Talbot Bullard, of Indianapolis, Ind.—Henry,
aged thirteen, and Frank, aged eighteen—were thrown
with the cars over an embankment, and died the same day.
“Nobler, truer, more gentle, and more amiable natures never
were. Just a moment before the accident one of them said to a
gentleman by their side: ‘In a few moments we shall be at
home.’ They were indeed nearer home than they thought.
“Henry E. B. Stowe was the eldest son of his father’s
On the 9th of July, while bathing in the Connecticut River, he
was drowned. But we sorrow not as those without hope: his
race was quickly run.”
We are not surprised, therefore, that we detect in most of the
letters of this year a tinge of sadness accompanied with increased
spiritual tenderness, as if he were finding the sources of consolation
for himself, that he might lead others to them.
Lenox was found to be so far from Brooklyn that it was given
up as a summer home, and this year, 1857, he spends his vacation
at Matteawan, on the Hudson. His first letter gives us this bit of
characteristic description:
“We are living in a pleasant old house, around which fruit-trees
have grown in which birds have bred and lived unmolested
from year to year. It is but a dozen wing-beats from the trees
to the mountain woods. Nothing can please a meditative bird
better than to have domestic scenes on one side and the seclusion
of the wilderness on the other. A bird loves a kind of shy familiarity.
Here we have a garden, a door-yard, an orchard, and
a barn grouped together; and they on the other side have the
young forests of scooped mountain-side. So the birds come
.bn 381.png
.pn +1
down here for fun and go up there for reflection. This is their
world; that is their cathedral.”
.pm end_quote
“In the Mountain and the Closet” he is speaking out of his
own experience:
“The influences which brood upon the soul in such a covert
as the closet are not like the coarse stimulants of earthly thought.
The soul rises to its highest nature and meets the influences that
rest upon it from above. What are its depths of calmness,
what is the vision of faith, what is the rapture, the ecstasy of
love, the closet knows more grandly than all other places of human
experience.”
It is not all sadness even in this year of the minor key. In
August we have a long article upon “Hours of Exaltation,” in
which he gives us some of those higher experiences which were
common to him:
“... We are filled with the very affluence of peacefulness
and joy. There is neither sorrow, nor want, nor madness, nor
trouble in the wide world. The glory of the Lord, that at other
times hangs upon the horizon like embattled clouds full gorgeous
with the sun, on such days as we have described descends and
fills the whole earth. The impassioned language of the psalmists
and prophets, which on other days is lifted up so high above
our imaginations that we can scarcely hear it, now comes down
and sounds all its grandeur in our ears. The mountains do
praise the Lord; the trees clap their hands. The clouds are His
chariot and bear Him through the air, leaving brightness and joy
along their path. The birds know their King. The flowers lift
up their hands, and with the silent tongue of perfume praise God
with choice odors. The whole earth doth praise Thee.”
In September of this year he visits Litchfield with his father—the
latter for the first time since he had moved to Boston—and
writes a letter upon “An Aged Pastor’s Return”:
“A man past eighty going through the streets, to visit all the
fathers and mothers in Israel that had been young in his ministry
there, was a scene not a little memorable. One patriarch in his
ninety-ninth year, when his former pastor came into the room,
spoke not a word, but rose up and, putting his trembling arms
around his neck, burst into tears....”
“The particular errand that brought us hither was a lecture.
A new organ was to be bought. All Litchfield boys were permitted
.bn 382.png
.pn +1
to help. Our contribution was asked in the shape of a
lecture. My part was soon done. Then the aged pastor came
forward. A crowd of old and young gathered at the pulpit-stairs
to greet the hand that had baptized them or had broken to
them the bread of life. It was a scene of few words. One woman
gave her name, but was not recognized in her married name.
She then mentioned her maiden name. That touched a hidden
spring. Both burst into tears, but spoke no words. The history
came up instantly before both, but silently, which had occasioned
the preaching of those sermons upon intemperance whose influence
for good will never cease.”
And now he points to one of the dangers which he has
learned to avoid, and opens to us some of the lessons which he
has himself learned from the experiences of this year:
“Many troubles in life cease when we cease to nurse them.
“Many troubles are but the strain which we endure when
God would carry us the right way and we insist upon going the
wrong. Troubles come to us like mire and filth, but when well
mingled they change to flower and fruit.
“It should be borne in mind and thought of with thankfulness
that although a heavy pecuniary pressure has been resting
on the community, nothing perishes. No ships will rot, as under
embargo; stores will not go down; not a wheel will rust, but
only rest; the railroads, whose creation has cost us so much, are
created, and will not go back but thunder on. Not an acre will
go again to the forest; not a seed will rot.
“We shall hold the substantial elements gained, losing no art,
no science, no ideas, no habits, no skill, no industry, nothing but
a little temporary comfort; and for that we shall receive back
steadiness, safety, reality, and consolation worth a thousand-fold.”
That there had been no diminution of the prosperity of the
church appears from an announcement in one of the New York
papers of the annual pew-renting, which took place January 7 of
the following year:
“The membership of Plymouth Church was never so large as
at present, and the size of the congregation is undiminished.
The building admits of an audience of about three thousand persons,
and it is not an uncommon occurrence on a pleasant Sunday
evening for fully as great a number as this to go away from
.bn 383.png
.pn +1
the church-doors, unable to get even standing-room within the
walls.”
If the year 1857 was one of sadness, that of 1858 was one of
rejoicing. The sowing with tears was followed by the reaping
with joy. Never in the history of our country were revivals of
religion so frequent, so deep and wide-spread, as in the year that
followed the great financial disasters of 1857. The shattering of
men’s hopes of wealth, the disturbance and destruction of their
confidence in material things, was followed by a very general
turning to those things that endure. From a little book entitled
“The Revival in Plymouth Church,” published anonymously,
from the testimony of those who were active at that
time, and from letters and sermons besides, we get a very clear
idea of the part which Mr. Beecher took in this great work and
the methods he pursued. Near the close of the year preceding he
had received a letter from a young man in New York, who described
himself as slowly but surely sinking beneath the temptations
which he could not escape, and who implored help from the
destruction that hung over him. He said, “Preach to me the terrors
of the law, anything to arouse me from this fearful lethargy.”
Mr. Beecher read the appeal to his audience, and answered it by
preaching on the love of God in Jesus Christ as the only remedy
for man’s sin and the only power for his salvation, and said: “If
this remedy fails I know of no other. If love will not save you,
fear will be of no avail.” He then led the congregation in a
most earnest and tender prayer for that young man and for the
great multitude which he represented.
It was by such means as this, enlisting the feeling of his audience
in specific cases, awakening and directing the sympathies
of the church, that the work began. He disclaimed any confidence
in a revival, born of mere excitement, carefully explained
God’s methods in saving men, and threw the whole responsibility
for success upon Christians. If their hearts were filled with the
love of God the influence would be felt with power by those
around them.
On the last Sabbath in February he preached upon the reasonableness,
usefulness, and Scriptural nature of revivals, combated
objections against them, and finally brought it home to the
conscience of his people: “Ought you not to have a revival?”
On the next Sabbath, at the communion season, he preached
.bn 384.png
.pn +1
upon the words, “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto
you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ,” holding up before his people with great
clearness and tenderness the privileges and the infinite rewards
of patient, Christian following and labor. The father, who
assisted at the service which followed, expressed the feeling of
many hearts when, in his prayer, he said: “Lord, we thank Thee
for the opening out of Thy word this morning; we have been
brought very near heaven; we see not how we can be any nearer
till we stand within the very gates.”
On the Wednesday evening following, at the usual weekly
lecture, he spoke to a crowded audience upon the conversion of
the Philippian jailer. It was a service of confession of the lack
of faith in the ever-present grace of God, of instruction concerning
the spirit and methods of the apostles, and of guidance to
any who were seeking light and peace. A prayer-meeting followed,
at which any who desired prayers for themselves or
others were given opportunity to make their desire known, and
the work was begun.
“Morning meetings were opened daily, and were attended
by ever-increasing numbers, while so many remained afterward
for instruction that the pastor’s work was rarely over before
eleven or twelve o’clock. He called in lieutenants of both sexes,
who helped him in the work. No one who attended on those
occasions can ever forget the fascinating mixture of tenderness,
earnestness, pathos, dry humor, quick wit, and sound common
sense that ran through all the instruction of those meetings.
One would be told to pray; another, whose knees were almost
worn out and whose mind was diseased with useless anxiety,
was told in the next breath to stop praying and go to sweeping;
the many timid and shrinking ones were encouraged into freedom,
while one or two, who thought that all the angels were anxiously
awaiting the news of their conversion before the business of
heaven could proceed, were taken down by a little quiet humor
that cured yet did not wound; and all alike were brought into the
one fold. Under such influences and instructions three hundred
and thirty-five persons united with the church this season.
“The morning prayer-meeting has been in Plymouth Church
emphatically a ‘love-feast,’ the attractive influences being love
to Christ, to the pastor, and to one another in full and lively
.bn 385.png
.pn +1
exercise. No better description of these meetings can be given
than that of a happy and united family gathering together, under
the guidance of a beloved and honored father, for morning worship.
No wonder that men as they passed along the street,
though unused to a prayer-meeting, could not resist the voice of
song which fell on their ear daily in the sweet morning hour; and
no wonder that, once having entered, they should be fascinated
by the scene which met their eye and warmed by the atmosphere
of love which they breathed, and should return saying: ‘Surely
God is in this place, though we knew it not; this is indeed the
house of God, and this is none other than the gate of heaven.’
There was no such feeling as that smiles, or even an honest
laugh, were sinful; smiles and tears mingled in curious proximity,
without any attempt at restraint; in short, everything was
natural.
“At the close of a meeting, when, owing to the quaintness of
speech of some of the brethren, especially the newly-awakened
ones, in the relation of their varied experiences, we had laughed
and cried alternately, the one as heartily as the other, Mr.
Beecher said: ‘I call you to witness whether this has not been a
good meeting, whether there has not been a tender spirit among
us, and whether the influence of the Holy Ghost has not been
here? I say this because, as you know, many persons entertain
the opinion that laughing is quite inexpedient on such occasions
as these and a sure means of grieving away the Spirit. Bear
this meeting in mind, and let it be your answer to the charge
of irreverence whenever it may be brought against us on this
score.’”
He gave one of his own experiences:
“You know that my usual frame of mind is hopefulness.
I am apt to look at the bright side of things and take cheerful
views of life. On this very account an occasional experience of
sadness is an inexpressible luxury to me. Last night, I know not
why, but I could not sleep for some hours. I lay restlessly, turning
from side to side, till this morning between one and two.
No sooner was I asleep than it seemed to me I was in an Episcopal
church, robed in black, where a clergyman was celebrating
the Lent service. By and by he ascended the pulpit and began
to speak. There was no eloquence in his language, nor anything
particularly striking in his mode of dealing with his subject, but
.bn 386.png
.pn +1
his heart was evidently in it. He was setting forth in simple language
the sufferings of Jesus, and as I listened there seemed to
rise up before me a vivid conception of the Saviour in His last
agony on Calvary. I gazed till the tears gushed from my eyes,
and I awoke to find my pillow soaking wet. I composed myself
again to sleep, and my imagination took up the stitch just where
I had dropped it, and knitted on. I beheld the same vision,
and again the tears flowed. I gazed and wept until it seemed
to me as if my very soul would dissolve and the fountain of
tears be itself exhausted. Again I awoke, and, again falling
asleep, the vision was for the third time repeated, and I seemed
to weep my very life away. I know not when I had before
such a sweet, rich experience of the love of my Saviour; and
when I awoke finally this morning, it was with a tenderness of
soul I cannot well describe. I was thankful I did not sleep
sooner, and that when I did sleep I made such good use of
my time.”
Opportunity was given at these meetings to any who wished
to ask the brethren to pray for themselves or for others, and was
largely used. A little before the close of the meeting Mr.
Beecher would rise, and, taking the slips of paper that covered
his table, read from them aloud. After reading these he would
ask, “Are there any here who desire to make requests on behalf
of their friends?” And then when these had all been made he
would say, “Are there any who desire to ask on their own account?”
Then having caught the eye of each as they arose, and
acknowledged the request by a slight inclination of the head, in
token of recognition, until they ceased rising, “in a low, soft tone
would come the words, ‘Let us unite in prayer,’ and instantly
every head was bowed. The prayers which followed these scenes
were the most precious opportunities of communion with the Lord
Jesus Christ which we were ever permitted to enjoy. We believe
that he who uttered them was taught of the Holy Ghost, and that
he spake as the Spirit gave him utterance. There was an exuberance
of faith and love in these utterances not usually found in
prayer; a gladness on the part of the speaker, and a recognized
consciousness of gladness on the part of Christ. They were the
breathings of love into a loving ear.” “We always concluded
with a hymn, for Mr. Beecher was wont to say that he liked to
send us away with a full tide of song, and for a long time our
.bn 387.png
.pn +1
choice for concluding hymns lay between ‘Shining Shore’ and
‘Homeward Bound.’”
March 27, 1858, Mr. Beecher gave a twenty-minute address
in Burton’s old theatre in Chambers Street at the noon
prayer-meeting. “I wish to leave the impression that the matter
of salvation is a matter between your own heart and the Lord
Jesus Christ; that there is between you a sympathy so plain
that there is no need of any interference. You may become a
Christian now, and go home to your household and be enabled to
ask a blessing at your table to-day.”
Letters are frequent this year upon subjects like this, “Trust
in God”:
“We ought not to forget that an affectionate, confiding, tender
faith, habitually exercised, would save us half the annoyances of
life, for it would lift us above the reach of them. If an eagle
were to fly low along the ground every man might aim a dart at
it; but when it soars into the clouds it is above every arrow’s
reach. And they that trust in God ‘shall mount up with wings
as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and
not faint.’”
About this time he answers a criticism that appeared in several
papers upon the extravagant income of Plymouth Church:
“It is easy to stand off and rail. Will any one suggest a plan
by which five thousand men can be put into a church that can
hold only three thousand?
“The poor should be held in lively remembrance. But ought
we to provide for the poor in a way that shall punish those who
are not poor?...
“In closing we will only say that from the beginning no
church ever more conscientiously endeavored to give the Gospel
to all classes, rich and poor, resident or strangers. For ten years
the members of this society have cheerfully submitted to an inconvenience,
for the sake of the poor and of strangers, such as
has rarely had a parallel. Gentlemen have paid hundreds of
dollars for pews which were, with the exception of a single Sabbath
in the year, more or less filled with the poor.
“Every Sabbath day families who have paid hundreds of dollars
for a pew, coming to church, find it pre-occupied by the poor
and the stranger, and it is a rare exception that in such cases
there is any irritation.
.bn 388.png
.pn +1
“Generally the owner, distributing his family as best he can,
takes a seat in the aisle or stands in the entry. And this is not
an occasional thing. It is the regular experience of the congregation,
year after year.”
The year 1859 opens with some very characteristic letters
from Mr. Beecher. He had been charged with having held the
doctrine of total depravity up to ridicule in a lecture which
he delivered in Boston. This brings from him a letter, two or
three passages of which we here transcribe:
“But although we did not employ the phrase total depravity
in any opprobrious sense at the time mentioned, we do not hesitate
to say that we regard it as one of the most unfortunate and
misleading terms that ever afflicted theology....
“On the other hand, we do believe, with continual sorrow of
heart and daily overflowing evidence, in the deep sinfulness of
universal man.... We heartily hate the phrase total depravity,
and never feel inclined to use it except when reading the ethics
of ——— or the religious editorials of ———.”
He was shortly after this attacked for lecturing in a “Fraternity
Course” in the same city. This calls out a long answer
upon “Working with Errorists,” in which he says:
“I have long ago been convinced that it was better to love
men than to hate them, that one would be more likely to convince
them of wrong belief by showing a cordial sympathy with their
welfare than by nipping and pinching them with logic. And
although I do not disdain but honor philosophy applied to religion,
I think that the world just now needs the Christian heart
more than anything else. And even if the only and greatest
question were the propagation of the right theology, I am confident
that right speculative views will grow up faster and firmer
in the summer of true Christian loving than in the rigorous
winter of solid, congealed orthodoxy or the blustering March of
controversy....
“If tears could wash away from Mr. Parker’s eyes the hindrances,
that he might behold Christ as I behold and adore Him,
I would shed them without reserve. If prayers could bring
to him this vision of glory, beyond sight of philosophy, I would
for him besiege the audience-chamber of heaven with an endless
procession of prayers, until another voice, sounding forth
from another light brighter than the noonday sun, should cast
.bn 389.png
.pn +1
down another blinded man, to be lifted up an apostle with inspired
vision.
“But since I may not hope so to prevail, I at least will carry
him in my heart; I will cordially work with him when I can, and
be heartily sorry when I cannot.
“While we yet write word comes that Mr. Parker, broken
down by over-labor, seeks rest and restoration in a warmer climate.
Should these lines reach his eyes let him know that one
heart at least remembers his fidelity to man in great public exigencies,
when so many swerved of whom we had a right to
expect better things. God shield him from the ocean, the storm,
the pestilence, and heal him of lurking disease! And there shall
be one Christian who will daily speak his name to the heart of
God in earnest prayer, that with health of body he may receive
upon his soul the greatest gift of God—faith in Jesus Christ as
the Divine Saviour of the world.”
Another incident calls forth a similar response:
“At the recent celebration of Tom Paine’s birthday at Cincinnati
the infidels present toasted: ‘The heretic clergy, Parker,
Emerson, Conway, Chapin, Beecher, and all who love man above
all creeds, and sects, and rituals, and observances, who regard man
as the highest and holiest and most sacred of all in the universe—may
their motto be: Ever onward, greater freedom, and
clearer light.’” Having disclaimed any distinction as one who
loves man more than creeds, since this is “true of all Christians
when they are in their most Christian disposition,” and
having accepted their motto as being in line with sundry passages
of Scripture, he gives his true and honest feeling towards
them in these words:
“Let no man think that we despise the sympathy and well-wishing
of a convention of infidels. We thank them for their
kind feelings. Like our Master, we had rather discourse with
publicans and sinners than dine with the most select and eminent
Pharisee. But we love a true Christian better than either.
But, infidel or Pharisee, all need the grace of God, and all,
by repentance of sin and faith in Christ, the Saviour of sinners,
may yet meet in heaven.
“Gentlemen of the Cincinnati convention of infidels! we
should be ashamed to be less kind and courteous than you
.bn 390.png
.pn +1
have been, and in concluding we take leave of you kindly, saying,
in the words of Inspired Writ:
“‘Now may the God of peace, that brought again from the
dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through
the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in
every good work to do His will, working in you that which is
well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ. To whom be
glory for ever and ever.’ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ *”
The setting up of a new organ in Plymouth Church this winter
is thus duly announced:
“The organ long expected has arrived, been unpacked, set
up, and glorified over. It has piped, fluted, trumpeted, brayed,
thundered. It has played so loud that everybody was deafened,
and so softly that nobody could hear.”
After speaking of the characteristics of the many organists
who have tried it, and of one who was an especially brilliant
player, he says: “But he was not a Christian man, and the organ
was not to him a Christian instrument, but simply a grand Gothic
instrument, to be studied just as a mere Protestant would study a
cathedral, in the mere spirit of architecture and not at all in sympathy
with its religious signification or uses. And before long
he went abroad to perfect himself in his musical studies, but
not till a most ludicrous event befell him. On a Christmas day
a great performance was to be given. The church was full; all
were musically expectant. It had been given out that something
might be expected. And surely something was had a little more
than was expected. For when every stop was drawn, that the
opening might be with a grand choral effect, the down-pressing of
his hands brought forth not only the full expected chord, but also
a cat that by some strange chance had got into the organ. She
went up over the top as if gunpowder had helped her. Down
she plunged into the choir, to the track around the front bulwark
of the gallery, until opposite the pulpit, when she dashed down
one of the supporting columns, made for the broad aisle, when a
little dog joined in the affray, and both went down toward the
street-door at an astonishing pace. Our organist, who, on the
first appearance of this element in his piece, snatched back his
hands, had forgotten to relax his muscles, and was to be seen
following the cat with his eyes, with his head turned, while his
astonished hands stood straight out before him, rigid as marble!”
.bn 391.png
.pn +1
In the spring of this year he purchased a farm in Peekskill,
and explains his object as follows:
“I knew that the place was good for grass, for grain, and for
fruits, of all which I talked a good deal during the preliminary
approaches to a purchase, but for which I cared about as much
as I should whether the inside of my boots were red or yellow.
“If the thing must be told—and I mention it to you, Mr.
Bonner, confidentially—it was the remarkable aptitude of the
place for eye-crops that caught my fancy. It was not so much
what grew upon the place, as what you could see off from it,
that won me. It is a great stand for the eye. If a man can
get rich by looking, I am on the royal road to wealth. And,
indeed, it is true wealth that the eye gets, and the ear and all
the finer senses; riches that cannot be hoarded or squandered;
that all may have in common; that come without meanness
and abide without corrupting. So long as it remains true that
the heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth His handiwork,
so long will men find both heart wealth and strength by
a reverent admiration of the one and a sympathetic familiarity
with the other.”
In a letter to his daughter he describes the new home:
“... Farm—I wrote so far at home, but being interrupted
have brought it up to the green hills. You will be quite
ashamed to think that Matteawan ever seemed beautiful to you
when you shall have seen this place. It has no wild or romantic
features, but it is full of soft, nice, beautiful views. No barren
fields are seen, no brown pasture-lands, no rugged hills—the very
mountains in the horizon are carved into round and graceful
shapes. The near hills are round, gentle, smooth, and verduous
to the very top. Only one summit is rugged and wild, and we
keep that in the distant foreground as a contrast to all the other
graceful shapes. The river in the distance is like a lake, except
the fleets of sloops and schooners give it a sense of navigation.
From the top hill of the farm you can see almost as wide a prospect
as from Bald Mountain in Salisbury—on the north and east,
wild, mountainous, solitary; but all the rest beautiful and cultivated,
with the Hudson rolling along the west. I have traced
a rude diagram[6] on the opposite page, but it will be only just
.bn 392.png
.pn +1
better than nothing, though you must confess that it is exceedingly
well drawn for me!
.fm rend=th
.fn 6
The Publishers regret that the diagram could not be given.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
”... I heard from H——— yesterday. He is well and lively,
and wrote me quite a sprightly and witty letter. W——— is round,
rosy, curly, and loving as usual. B———, the rogue, is fairly recovering
from a double charge of scarlet-fever and whooping-cough,
and is becoming most healthfully saucy.“
Early in the autumn they returned from the country and began
life again in the city. We give copies of several letters
written to his daughter:
.ll 68
.rj
”Brooklyn, Sept. 4, 1859.
.ll
“... In the beginning let me say, my dear child, that I
heartily approve of all that you have done. I am not a superstitious
observer of the Sabbath, nor do I hold to the rigor either
of the Jewish or the Puritan Sabbath. But I do believe that one-seventh
part of our time was originally appointed for rest, for
home-society, and for religious culture....
“When I was myself in Paris I acted just as I do in Brooklyn.
I took no more liberties, and was quite as observant of my
home proprieties. And I must say that I do not relish the idea of
our young countrymen going to Europe to learn how to get rid
of religious habits. Foreign travel should improve our manners,
increase our information, enlarge our experience of men, enrich
our imagination, cultivate our tastes, but not enervate our conscience....
“Everything is going well at the farm. I have bought a yoke
of cattle, white with mottled necks and red heads; also two
Ayrshire calves, and a little bull calf of the same breed. Your
mother is driving away at her cheeses in the most housewifely
style. She has already made, eaten, and given away two or three,
and she has four or five on hand, good large ones, which are to
grow old for city use. Already I imagine myself a nimble little
maggot making the cheese fly. The pet ponies do bravely, the
pigs are fat and flourishing, the chickens comely, and the ducks
noisy but drawing very near to doom and dinner.
“I would not advise you to use wine unless you are weak and
it is recommended by judicious advisers for real reasons of
health; and then I should take it frankly and without hesitation.
But while you do not use it, you are not bound to take it on any
occasion for others’ sake. If the occasion comes, call for a glass
.bn 393.png
.pn +1
of water and calmly lift that to your lips. But more of this by
and by. I have no objection to your learning to dance as a part
of physical education.”
The home life in Brooklyn ran undisturbed through the
autumn, until, early in 1860, a serious accident befell Mrs.
Beecher, which Mr. Beecher describes in the following letter:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“February 11, 1860.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear Child H———:
“I suppose you will not scold me if I relieve your mother of
letter-writing this steamer; it is, I think, the first time she has
missed. But she is too lame to write to-day, having had an accident
that ought to have killed her, and that would have killed
anybody else. And that your fears may not magnify the matter, I
shall go back and describe it all to you.
“On Wednesday last, February 8, she took the horse and
chaise (a two-wheeled chaise, which we have bought of Mr. M———),
and started to go to New York and meet and bring me home
from the New Haven depot. Eliza and Bertie were taken in,
the former to go over to the Hudson River Railroad for milk,
and Bertie for the ride. The horse was spirited and soon got
under way beyond control, but did not run till, turning into
Hicks Street from Orange, she dashed off like lightning, ran to
Fulton Street and right across it, up on to the pavement and
headlong on to the Brooklyn Bank steps. The carriage was
broken and turned over, and all, of course, heaped up together—horse,
chaise, and people. Men sprang to the horse, held and
detached her; others succored the party. Bertie had a smart
thump on his right eye, or above it, which has done him no harm,
and he has not been kept in from his play, though made a little
homelier than he was before. Eliza was thrown against the stone
and a smart slit cut in her head, which bled profusely, and though
she has kept her bed by the doctor’s orders, she expects to be
about to-day. Your mother, as usual, took everybody’s share on
herself. She was shot out apparently head-first, and fell upon
the right side of her head, neck, and shoulder, bruising her, but
breaking nothing. She was insensible when taken into the drug-store
close by. I know not how H——— was notified so soon, but he
seems to have been on the spot within five minutes, and manifested
as much self-possession and decisive wisdom as would
have done credit to a much older head. He gave orders to have
.bn 394.png
.pn +1
his mother taken home, sent for Dr. Adams to come to the drug-store,
sent another messenger to the stableman to look after the
carriage and horse (who, confound her homely self! was but little
hurt), and then took a hack to meet me at the New Haven depot
and bring me home.
“I reached the house very nearly as soon as your mother did.
Found Mrs. E——— B———, Mrs. L———, Mrs. B———, Mrs. E———,
and one or two strange ladies present, the doctor, a policeman
or two, and scores of people running to and fro; yet, in the
main, there was order and good sense.
”... The doctors regard her as out of danger, but she will
be a sufferer for a week or more. Everything is going on regularly
in the house, except that I am at home all the time, which
is very irregular in my habits.
“... And so when you read this you must remember that
though it seems to you as if it had just happened, it will have
been all past, and your mother doubtless, while you read, will be
marching forth in full authority. Everybody who saw the scene
speaks in admiration of her courage and skill. She guided the
horse to the last, though she could not control her, and was
game to the end. But that we should all expect. Nor does her
courage flinch yet. Some one said to her yesterday: ‘Well, I
suppose you will never drive that horse again.’ ‘Yes, I shall
too,’ said she; and she shall. We are very grateful for her safety
and merciful deliverance, and although she will suffer from
twinges, yet, as there are no internal injuries, no bones fractured,
it is only a matter of patience.... Slept very well and has the
beginning of an appetite, although I am constrained to say that
when I mentioned the little luxury of gruel as something appetizing
and excellent for her, she turned up her nose (I could not
be mistaken) at the suggestion, so that she is evidently not quite
settled yet in her mind. She can walk slowly, takes her bath,
submits to packs, and has refreshed herself once or twice with a
hand-glass, looking at the recent improvements about her countenance.
”... Love to all. I shall keep you faithfully apprised of
her health, and you need not fear that anything is a bit worse
than I say. I shall tell the truth. Good-by.
“May God have you in His care!
.ll 68
.nf r
“Your affectionate father,
H. W. Beecher.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
.bn 395.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“February 14.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear H———:
“Your aunt has told you of your mother, and little is to be
added on that score.... I wish you would take all your gauze
paper and send it to Cardinal Antonelli, or the pope, or the—that
is, burn it up, tear it up, crumple it, throw it away, do
anything with it except sending it to me. Go forth and search
and buy some that is respectable, for I wow a wow that I will vex
my eyes no more with such intolerable stuff. I feel as though I
could say a little more with great comfort to myself, but, as I
must receive several letters before this reaches you and reforms
your writing materials, I reserve a stock of wrath for those
several occasions.
”Wednesday, Feb. 15.—Your mother this morning is generally
better, though suffering from cramps. She is now lying in
a pack. Mrs. F——— has been as good as an angel, and a great
deal more useful. Indeed, I do not think much of angels, unless
they have a good serviceable body on. Of course Auntie
B——— is on hand kindly and constantly. Everybody is kind.
Mrs. G——— has spent four days here, two in the parlors to receive
company, etc., and two with your mother. Mrs. L———
has been incessantly here, and has both watched, waited, and run
for watchers and nurses without tire or fatigue. We had a meeting
on Monday night for new church. The action of the trustees
was confirmed, and they were requested to go ahead immediately
and raise the necessary funds, and as soon as $100,000
were secured to proceed to lay the foundations. I do not regard
the enterprise as quite sure yet, though looking favorably.
Give my love to the pope. I am sorry for his situation. If he
only sat under my preaching how much his eyes might be
opened! As it is, if he chooses to write to me in regard to any
of his little difficulties, I hope he will allow no delicacy to restrain
him. I will do the best I can for him. Ditto Antonelli.
“I am now the holder of your room. There nap I, and there
sleep I, and seldom either without a faint shadow of a rosy-cheeked,
Minerva-eyed girl that whilom tenanted it. I have removed
the boys, W——— and B———, into the room next it, formerly
H———’s, while he holds the front large room, now pink-papered
and famously carpeted and furnished. Eliza is quite
well and trots about the house with a diligence that shows how
.bn 396.png
.pn +1
wholesome it is for an Irishwoman to have her head broke. I
have promised her, whenever she is sick, to give her a granite-steps
course, instead of water, as being much better adapted to
her wants and nationality. Give my love to all the great American
family.... Remember that paper, THAT PAPER, THAT
PAPER!
.ll 68
.nf r
“Your loving and longing father,
“H. W. B.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
“Good-by, old fellow. Give my love to Hattie, and tell her
that her father hasn’t forgotten her,” were the first words of Mr.
Beecher to me that I remember. I had been introduced to him
the evening before, but he had just returned from a lecturing
tour, tired and sleepy, and if he said anything brilliant it has entirely
escaped my memory. I was going, in company with Mrs.
Stowe’s son, to take a pedestrian tour in Europe. We expected,
in time, to join her party, who were then on the Continent, and
were busy getting ready to go on board ship that day. It was a
hearty send off to one who was comparatively a stranger, that
was very characteristic of the man.
Of course I remembered the message and gave it faithfully;
and after several months’ acquaintance, travelling in Switzerland
and Italy, made an addition of the same in kind on my own account,
which being accepted and reciprocated, we were married
September 25, 1861.
“The innumerable friends of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
would hardly forgive us if we were to omit mentioning the pleasing
incident that occurred at his country residence at Peekskill
last week. On Wednesday morning, after the dew was dry, Mr.
Beecher chose a spot under the shadows of the trees near his
garden, where, in the presence of a fit circle of friends and neighbors,
he gave away his only daughter in a novel ceremony of
marriage. The beauty of the day and the beauty of the ceremony
together rendered the scene singularly charming, tender,
and impressive.”
Of his method of making himself acquainted with the peculiar
features of the villages in which he lectured, and his pleasant
words concerning the people he met, the following letter is a
good illustration:
.bn 397.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
.ti 0
“My dear Doctor:
“I sent you a scrap from the goodly town of Norwich, N. Y.,
in which I have most pleasantly spent a portion of three days,
and would fain have added as many more. It is one of the many
towns in this Chenango Valley of which Dr. Dwight said that
the time would come when men of wealth would leave the seaboard
cities and retire to it as a place of rare repose.
“The great hammer manufactory of the New World is also
located here. What hardware man has not seen David Maydole’s
name? Many of the best improvements in the hammer have
sprung from his ingenious skill. But there is room for improvement
still. Thus our hammers have the power of hiding themselves.
“After investigating many cases it becomes plain that hammers
have a power of locomotion, and that when we are asleep they
crawl off. We have never seen them actually move, but we have
almost. We have found them on the ground or floor, and they
were probably on their way somewhere when we surprised them,
and then, like many insects, they feigned dead.... We should
be glad to listen every night to as sweet music as that which rose
up before our window in Hamilton and in Norwich.”
.pm end_quote
As a complement to the above an experience in not lecturing
is here given in full:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“St. Louis, ———, 1859.
.ll
.ti 0
”Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Brooklyn:
“Dear Sir: On behalf of the Mercantile Library Association
of this city, it is my pleasant duty to address you. We are
now endeavoring to form the lecture programme for our association
for the coming season, and we wish to do so as early as
possible. Fully appreciating your well-known reputation as a
lecturer and an orator, we should be pleased to make an engagement
with you for two or three lectures the coming fall and
winter. If you can serve us, will you be so kind as to give us
your terms, time, and subject as soon as possible?
“As our Association may not be well known to you, permit
me to say one word in regard to it. We think that there is no
library association in this country that is in a more prosperous
condition than ours. It has some eighteen hundred members,
and is rapidly increasing. Its members are merchants, clerks,
.bn 398.png
.pn +1
and members from the several professions. As a matter of
course these members come from all parts of our country, and
naturally entertain a variety of views, both as to politics and religion.
Hence it becomes our Association to be very careful to
eschew all matters pertaining to either of these subjects in its
lectures. Should you be so kind as to favor us with a course of
lectures—and we sincerely hope you will do so—you will please
bear the above facts in mind. Hoping to hear from you at your
earliest convenience, I remain, Yours truly,
.ll 68
.nf r
“R. H. D———,
”Chairman Lecture Committee, M. L. A.“
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
They heard from him at once as requested, and this was the
answer:
.pm start_quote_nospace
.ce
MR. BEECHER’S REPLY.
.ll 68
.rj
”Brooklyn, ———, 1859.
.ll
“Dear Sir: I have received your letter politely inviting me
to give one or more lectures before the St. Louis Mercantile Library
Association next fall or winter. But you ask, in consequence
of the diversity of opinions among your members, that I
should, if I accepted your invitation, ‘eschew all matters pertaining
to politics and religion.’ I am too much of a patriot to
eschew the one, and too good a Christian to neglect the other.
Indeed, the only motive that I have for lecturing at all is the
hope that I may make better citizens and better Christians of
my fellow-men. And it seems to me that a course of lectures
from which have been strained out ‘all matters pertaining to
politics and religion,’ must afford but a very meagre diet to the
young people of St. Louis.
“Nor can I imagine why you should, under the circumstances,
have wished me to visit you. If I have ever been of any service
to my fellow-men, it has been because I never would eschew any
topic which I thought it needful for them to hear. Nor have I
ever allowed myself to stand on any platform where I could not
follow my own judgment as to what should be said with the most
unlimited freedom. And it is too late in my life for me to yield
up my sense of self-respect and come under a censorship.
“I hope I have not taken seriously a matter which, perhaps,
you meant only as a pleasant jest. For, on reading your letter
again, I hardly repress the conviction that you deemed it a
.bn 399.png
.pn +1
pleasant jest to ask me to come all the way to St. Louis to give
lectures, under an implied agreement that I should ‘eschew all
matters pertaining to politics and religion!’”
.pm end_quote
When the title of Doctor of Divinity was offered him he declined
it, as follows:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Peekskill, August 21, 1860.
.ll
”To President and Board of Trustees of Amherst College:
“Gentlemen: I have been duly notified that at the last
meeting of the Board of Trustees the title of D.D. was conferred
upon me. It would certainly give me pleasure should any respectable
institution bear such a testimony of good will, but that
Amherst College, my own mother, should so kindly remember a
son is a peculiar gratification. But all the use of such a title
ends with the public expression. If the wish to confer it be accepted,
for the rest it would be but an encumbrance and furnish
an address by no means agreeable to my taste. I greatly prefer
the simplicity of that name which my mother uttered over me in
the holy hour of infant consecration and baptism.
“May I be permitted, without seeming to undervalue your
kindness or disesteeming the honor meant, to return it to your
hands, that I may to the end of my life be, as thus far I have
been, simply
.ll 68
.rj
Henry Ward Beecher.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
One of the peculiar features of Mr. Beecher’s work in those
days of 1861-63 was the revival interest that continued, with variations
of intensity, it is true, but with no substantial interruption,
for years. The revival of 1858 had not entirely ceased at that
time, and although those days of war, especially since he gave
himself so intensely to public matters, would naturally be regarded
as unfavorable to any marked religious interest, yet it continued
notwithstanding, as is shown by the numbers that constantly
sought admission to the church upon profession of faith. This
was owing, we doubt not, to the perfect conviction of Mr. Beecher
that the whole work of that time was the Lord’s, and to his
entering upon it with such consecration that he was continually
shielded and refreshed by experiences of the divine presence.
This gave a deep practical spirituality to his preaching, which
was appropriated and reflected by his church, making the Gospel
attractive, in those days of trouble, as never before. Men turned
to the refuge which they saw he had found, and which, with
.bn 400.png
.pn +1
deepest sympathy and with abundant hopefulness, he was pointing
out to them. He himself says: “It is a mistake to suppose
that the preoccupation of the public mind with the war, and the
great excitements which are fed by the ever-changing rumors
and news, are unfavorable to the work of a true minister of the
Gospel.”
The continued ingathering into Plymouth Church during all
those years of the war was something almost phenomenal. One
marked occasion, the May communion of 1862, was described in
a newspaper of that day: “Every part of the house was densely
packed. The platform and desk were decorated with vases of
flowers, while banks of azaleas, magnolias, carnations, fuchsias,
white lilies, roses, and other plants in blossom reached from the
pulpit floor to the orchestra. After the usual exercises of singing,
reading, and prayer, Mr. Beecher read a list of about eighty
names of persons who were to unite with the church. Many of
them were members of the Sabbath-schools and Bible-classes.
Some were persons of middle age; a few were persons of advanced
years. After a brief address Mr. Beecher read the
articles of faith, to which the parties gave their assent. The ordinance
of baptism was then administered to those who had
never before received it; after which the members of the church
arose and received the new members into full and cordial communion.
Mr. Beecher took his text from John x. 3, 4. There
had been provided memorial bouquets for each new communicant,
which were distributed at the close of the services.”
These floral decorations may almost be said to have been
introduced by Plymouth Church, and were justified by Mr. Beecher
upon the highest moral and religious grounds. He says of
“Flowers in Church”:
“They are simply the signs of gladness. They are offerings
of joyful hearts to God.
“Flowers are not of man. They are divine. Man can, by
culture, develop all that God has hidden in them, but can add
nothing to them, nor can he invent or build them.
“God has made flowers for everybody. They are next in
abundance to the great elements—air, light, water. The poorest
man has a roadside flower-garden. No mission-church is so poor
that it cannot afford wild flowers upon the altar and a few assorted
leaves in the windows. How beautifully would woman’s
.bn 401.png
.pn +1
hand light up the dreary plaster wall and frigid seats of many
a church room, if permitted to garnish them with these field-thoughts
of God!
“The effect upon children is well worth our thought. To
teach a child to love flowers is to give him riches that no bankruptcy
can reach. This is the wisdom of finding our pleasures,
not in conventional arrangements, but in sympathy with nature,
which never is confiscated, or goes out of fashion, or becomes old
and exhausted. There is a new heaven and a new earth every
day, as if suggesting that grand and final event of prophecy.
“The use of flowers on social and religious occasions soon
gives to them meanings which they had not to us before. We
read nature more thoughtfully and lovingly.
“Weeds change to flowers. The moment a plant inspires intelligent
emotion in us it ceases to be a weed and becomes a
flower. The natural world is not any longer godless or commercial
and mechanical. It has a moral power.
“At first many will shrink at seeing flowers upon the speaker’s
desk or on the pulpit. But why? Is the place too holy?
But is it holier than God? And are not flowers His peculiar
workmanship? If God deemed it suitable to His dignity and
glory to occupy His mind with making and preserving such
innumerable flowers, are we wise in disdaining them or considering
the place too sacred for God’s favorites? Do men reflect
that God has been pleased to name Himself from flowers?
‘I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley.’”
In line with this are his views upon “Christian Liberty in the
Use of the Beautiful”:
“I cannot but think Christian men have not only a right of
enjoyment in the beautiful, but a duty, in some measure, of producing
it, or propagating it, or diffusing it abroad through the
community.
“But in all your labors for the beautiful, remember that its
mission is not of corruption, nor of pride, nor of selfishness, but
of benevolence! And as God hath created beauty, not for a few,
but hath furnished it for the whole earth, multiplying it until, like
drops of water and particles of air, it abounds for every living
thing, and in measure far transcending human want, until the
world is a running-over cup, so let thine heart understand both
the glory of God’s beauty and the generosity of its distribution.
.bn 402.png
.pn +1
So living, life shall be a glory, and death a passing from glory to
glory.”
If we have supposed that his love for nature was intuitive or
came to its fulness without effort or study, the following letter
will correct that impression:
“We are performing not alone a work of love in commending
Ruskin, but paying a small part of a debt that can never be discharged.
We are more indebted to him for the blessings of
sight than to all other men. We were, in respect to nature, of the
number of those who, having eyes, saw not; and ears, heard not.
He taught us what to see and how to see. Thousands of golden
hours and materials both for self-enjoyment and the instruction
of others, enough to fill up our whole life, we owe to the spirit
excited in us by the reading of Ruskin’s early works.
“The sky, the earth, and the waters are no longer what they
were to us.
“We have learned a language and come to a sympathy in
them more through the instrumentality of Ruskin’s works than
by all other instrumentalities on earth, excepting always the
nature which my mother gave me—sainted be her name!”
.sp 1
We have again come to the point, 1863, which we once before
reached in this biography, but this time upon entirely different
lines. In our first examination, for the sake of unity of impression,
we confined ourselves to the events of the great anti-slavery
conflict. In this which we have just completed we have sketched
the outline of other labors and the events of his home life
during this period. No one, we suspect, reading the first record,
the record of strife and battle, would conceive it possible that
a life so full of all manner of peaceful pursuits and home labors
was being lived; nor, on the other hand, would any one going
over his work of preaching, lecturing, writing helpful Star articles
upon all manner of common subjects, imagine that he had the
time or the spirit for the former work. But, in fact, in his
case they were each the necessary complement of the other.
We have seen how, at the West in the midst of continued revival
efforts, he took up the study of landscape-gardening as an
alterative. This was an illustration of his habit through life.
In the midst of the most exciting events he would escape and go
apart from them all, if possible, to some point where he could
.bn 403.png
.pn +1
look out upon the landscape or up to the clear heavens. Such
places at such times seemed to become Mountains of Transfiguration,
where he would meet the Master and be refreshed by His
presence, and whence returning he would bring back a store of
beautiful experiences that enabled him to give cheer and inspiration
to his fellow-toilers, who had not, perhaps, noted his absence
from their side. Or he would escape to some quiet nook and
hold converse with birds and flowers, delight himself in quaint
and pleasant fancies, look at life from a new standpoint, until he
was able again to take up the burden without weariness; or he
would sit down with his boxes of seeds or catalogues of plants,
and lose himself in their imagined growth and beauty; or, drawing
from his pocket some one of the precious stones he always
carried with him, gather rest and inspiration as he watched its
changing hues.
In this way he was enabled to carry on the most various and
exhaustive labors, and at the same time to preserve that mental
health and good cheer for which he was remarkable.
.bn 404.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch19'
CHAPTER XIX.
.pm start_summary
Visit to England in 1863—The Need of Rest—Condition of Affairs at
Home—Arrival at Liverpool—Refusal to Speak—Visit to the Continent—Reception
by the King of Belgium—Civil War Discussed—News of
Victories—Return to England.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
The spring of 1863 found Mr. Beecher thoroughly exhausted
and greatly in need of both mental and physical rest.
The past twelve years had been a season of unremitting
care and toil. In addition to the regular duties of his new and
growing church, and the active revival work carried on at this
period, which were quite enough to task the energies of any one
less fortunately endowed with mental and vital energy, he had
taken a very active part in the anti-slavery agitation, and from the
pulpit, the lecture platform, and the columns of the Independent
kept up a constant fire upon this national evil. In 1856, as we
have seen, he had thrown himself heart and soul into the Fremont
campaign, well-nigh destroying his health. From 1860 he had
been laboring, without rest, to uphold the government, to rouse
and maintain the patriotic confidence of the North, and through
all of this time was a contributor to the New York Independent,
and since 1861 its editor-in-chief. Fagged out and despondent
from exhaustion, rest was imperative.
His church, with that generous love which has always characterized
it, voted him a four months’ leave of absence with expenses
paid.
In company with Dr. John Raymond, then the president of
Vassar College, a warm personal friend, he set sail early in
June for a holiday, making his second trip across the water.
Fortunately we are able to give almost wholly in his own
words the history of this trip:
“I left New York in June, 1863, for a tour through Europe
during the summer vacation. I was not requested, either by
President Lincoln nor by any member of the Cabinet, to act in
behalf of this government; it was purely a personal arrangement.
.bn 405.png
.pn +1
The government took no stock in me at that time. Seward was
in the ascendency, and, as I had been pounding Lincoln during
the early years of the war, I don’t believe there was a man in
Washington, excepting perhaps Mr. Chase, who would have
trusted me with anything; at any rate, I went on my own responsibility,
with no one behind me except my church. They told
me they would pay my expenses and sent me off. I went away
wholly for the sake of rest and recuperation. I went simply as a
private citizen, and I went with a determination not to speak in
Great Britain.
“It was perhaps the dreariest period in the whole war. One
after another of our generals had been sent to school in the field
to learn the art of generalship. The task was too large for most
of them, and they took a secondary rank. At that time, up to
the date of my departure, we had made a stand and maintained
it, but had gained but very little. The most defensible country,
perhaps, on earth is our own in its southern portion; and the line
that ran two thousand miles of active warfare through our middle
had been so fortified, and was defended with such skill and
unquestionable bravery, that our forces had not been able to
push back the line of rebellion much, and there had been nothing
to encourage the hearts of our people beyond their faith—for
we lived by faith and not by sight in those days.
“I had not, except in times of sickness, when the whole tone
of my nervous system was lowered, had an hour of doubt. I was
sure of victory. There were some sick hours in which I remember
distinctly thinking, ‘One nation is ground to make soil for
another, and it may be that this nation will be ground up in
order that another one may grow up on its ruins’; but ordinarily
I was full of courage and hope, not unfounded I think now in
review; and it stood me in good stead abroad.
“At that time Grant had not emerged. McClellan had, and
had retired again. Burnside had briefly shown that he was too
modest and not strong enough to take McClellan’s place.
Hooker, who had lost his head in the great battle which he
fought, was at the head of affairs, and we were on the eve of one
more change—a change which has surrounded the name of
Meade with lustre. Grant was at the time besieging Vicksburg.
Lee had not yet ventured into Pennsylvania, out of which he
never ought to have been permitted to go.
.bn 406.png
.pn +1
“It was at about that stage of things that I left. The political
condition of the country, and also its civic and secular condition,
will justify a word or two. There was a great party of
the Union, made up of men indifferently from all foregoing parties.
Old lines were effaced, old questions sank to the bottom,
and the one question that united the strangest elements, discordant
in every other respect, was the wise determination to maintain
intact the union of this whole country. That formed the
band and belt that gave unity to the party of war. The great
Democratic party was divided into three ranks. The largest
part, and the noblest, joined themselves to the party of the
Union; and better men never came from any party than those
that formed under our banner, bearing briefly and for a time the
name of Republicans, but very largely going back again, after the
war was over, to the Democratic party. There was a second division
of lukewarm Unionists in the Democratic party, that were
always hoping the war would be compromised—men of great
patriotism, who could not forbear to ask: ‘What will be my
position politically when we shall have secured peace again?’
They were for compromise and for easy adjustment.
“Now, war is good for nothing if it is not intense and cruel.
It means organized force; and it is nonsense to go into the field
with anything else except guns in your hands and swords at your
side. The attempt so to fight, as in the earlier periods of our
struggle, as not to hurt anybody, is most disastrous, whether in
prudence or in civil successes. The South never did make war
except to hurt somebody; and in the earlier day the vehemence,
the courage, and the convictions which they brought into the
field, made them more than a match for our Northern soldiers.
Very largely our generals had anticipations of Congress, or the
Presidency, or what not, before them; and such political anticipations
never whet anybody’s sword.
“There was a third section, and that was the least—those that
were directly in league with the Southern and slavery element. Of
them it is not necessary that anything should be said. They are
wiped out, and that is fulfilled in regard to them which the
Scriptures hath spoken: ‘The name of the wicked shall rot.’
“In that divided state Lincoln was under great discouragements,
yet maintaining invincible his purpose, without compromise,
to destroy all oppositions to this Union. Meanwhile
.bn 407.png
.pn +1
we were maintaining a blockade of about three thousand miles—an
unexampled blockade. We had to extemporize a navy, as we
shall again if we have any war. We are always wise afterward.
For the sake of economy we are the most wasteful of all nations,
without foresight in such matters; too confiding. There is not a
ship in the American navy to-day that could not be blown out of
the water in a ten minutes’ conflict with the best-armored ships
of Europe; and Congress, that has no end of money for votes,
through pensions and various other channels of distributing,
cannot be persuaded to do anything for stability and inexorable
defence against foreign invasion and warfare.
“We had at that time converted almost every sea-going craft
into a man-of-war; and this extended blockade was in the main
well served. Europe stood watching as a vulture does to see
the sick lamb or kine stagger to fall, and from her dried branch
of observation she was ready to plunge down. Napoleon did.
He already had sent French armies into Mexico. That was a
mere preface. Mexico was not his final object. The recovering
again of territory that once had belonged to France lay in the
achievements or the expectations of this weak and wicked potentate
in the future.
“In this condition of things we were hovering on the very
edge of intervention. It was well known to those acquainted
with the condition of affairs in other lands that Napoleon was
disposed by every art and intrigue to persuade the government
of Great Britain to interpose, to break the blockade, and to give
its moral support to the rebellion of the South.
“I found in England the utmost scepticism prevailing as to
our success, and an exaggerated conception of the endurance
and courage of the South; and no sentence was more frequently
uttered in my hearing than this, ‘You will never subdue the
South’; to which I invariably replied, ‘We shall subdue the
South.’
“I found that, with a few noble exceptions—Mr. John Bright,
Richard Cobden, Mr. Forster, and such like—that the statesmen
of Great Britain were either lukewarm or in avowed sympathy
with the South. The middle-class and laboring people of Great
Britain were in sympathy, on the whole, with the North; but
they had no votes. As a general thing, the officeholders under
the government, the rich families, the manufacturing interests,
.bn 408.png
.pn +1
the educated and professional men of Great Britain, believed that
our Union had been or would soon be dissolved. Some one said
to me at that time, ‘All men who ride in first-class cars, and put
up at first-class hotels, and live upon intellectual professions, together
with most of the clergymen, even of the dissenting bodies
of England, are adverse to the Northern cause.’
“The conduct of the laboring classes in Great Britain was
admirable. While they were on the verge of starvation in the
cotton districts, they patiently endured their sufferings without
retracting their sympathy for the Northern cause. As a body,
the Quakers, whose testimony against slavery had been continuous
and unswerving, were in sympathy with the North. The
Congregational churches of Great Britain, with few exceptions,
were adverse to the North. The Congregational churches of
Wales were almost wholly in sympathy with the North.
“All the world looked upon America as about to be split asunder.
Here and there was a faithful witness and a faithful friend.
The civilized nations of Europe looked with varying emotions upon
our conflict, but agreed generally that it was an impossible task
that the North had undertaken; and everywhere I felt the numbness
that that produced.
“It was at just that period that I left our shores and was in
Great Britain.”
From his letters home we have gathered something of an outline
of his experience and first impressions:
“I reached the mouth of the Mersey, seven miles from Liverpool,
on Wednesday night. The tide would not let us across till
five the next morning.... Duncan was on the tug when we
reached the city—for there are no wharves at Liverpool, and we
lay in the middle of the stream and landed passengers by means
of a little steam-tug.... Before leaving the boat a Mr. Estcourt,
of Manchester, was at hand to invite me to have a reception
and speech at Manchester. The same happened for Liverpool
within a few hours, and letters from London, from two committees,
came within a day, soliciting the same. I declined them all and
declared my intention not to speak anywhere at present, and until
I had had time to form some judgment of things. I find that all
our American friends at Liverpool approve highly of my decision.
And even those who most solicited speeches admit that they
think my decision the wiser one. I will not trouble you with any
.bn 409.png
.pn +1
description of the state of the English mind toward our country.
We have nothing to hope from it when it might be of use to us,
and we shall not by and by care a pin whether they think ill or
well.” After a week’s run in the country he returned to Liverpool
and “went to meet some friends at the parlor of a store.
The great stores here have parlors, in which the heads of departments
dine every day. Gave them a plain talk about America.
At the end, as we got familiar, they confessed that America had
sufficient reason for her complaints against Great Britain.”
Writing from London a week later:
“Every man I meet who is on our side commends my determination
to keep quiet for the present. I do not mean in preaching,
but public addresses and public receptions. There is but
little favor for the North. Whatever may be said, a narrow but
intense jealousy is felt, and fear of future rivalry....
”London, July 7.—On Monday of this week (yesterday) I met
a circle of temperance men at a breakfast. It was private in
this, that no reports were to be made or published. I gave
them a good talk on our affairs.... To-day a like meeting
with a section of anti-slavery men.”
He attended the meeting. Of course he was expected to
make some remarks, and he did. He says, speaking of this
incident: “Several speeches had been made when I was called
upon, and made a statement expressing my indignation at the
position of the Congregational clergy of England in view of this
war. They were men who were seeking to know the signs of
the times, and had as a whole body gone wrong and had virtually
arrayed themselves on the side of slavery and against liberty. I
put my best leg foremost, and, although I succeeded in making a
favorable impression, I saw that I was likely to be regarded as an
enthusiast, and so determined that I should clinch the arguments
I had advanced with a speech from a calm-minded man, and accordingly
when I had concluded I said: ‘Gentlemen, Dr. John
Raymond, president of Vassar College, is present and will add a
few views of his own.’ He was a cool man and not easily excited,
but his sympathies were with the Union, and when he had
kindled up to his work I sat and looked at him in perfect amazement.
He went at them like a hundred earthquakes, with a
whirlwind thrown in. He made a magnificent speech, of such
towering indignation as I never have heard before or since.”
.bn 410.png
.pn +1
The expectation that the speeches would not be reported was
misplaced; there appears to have been “a chiel amang us takin’
notes,” and the substance of the speeches was quite fully reported
the next day.
Almost immediately thereafter he crossed over to the Continent,
and did not return to England until the following September.
He remained strongly disinclined to make any formal addresses,
though he had been urged to speak in London, Liverpool,
and Manchester on his return.
Writing from Switzerland, July 28, to Mrs. Stowe, he refers to
the two meetings in London, and his views regarding his return
in the fall:
“My time in London, where I spent ten days, was, for the
last six or eight, spent in meeting private circles of gentlemen,
and talking to them like a father. I breakfasted with almost a
hundred from the Temperance Alliance, with seventy-five of the
Congregational Liberty Association, with forty or fifty at a soirée
at Mr. Evans’s, president of the Emancipation League, where
Baptist Noel was the questioner, and I responded for two hours.
I hear since that great good was done, and at the time there was
elicited a great deal of confession from many that they had been
both ignorant and wrong. There was a universal and vehement
desire that I should arrange to speak in London, and elsewhere,
when I return to England in the autumn. If I see the way
clear to do so, these conferences will have opened the door effectually.
Meanwhile I shall wait and watch the development
of things.... But let me tell you that the root of all the conduct
of England is simple and absolute fear. I do not mean
fear of a narrow and technical kind. But the shadow that the
future of our nation already casts is so vast that they foresee
they are falling into the second rank—that the will of the Republic
is to be the law of the world. There is no disguising of
this among Englishmen.
“I was told by Rev. Henry Allen, of London, eminent among
the Congregationalists, that they had long felt that a time must
come when England would have to take hold of us and curb
our power, and that, now that we were divided against ourselves,
they rejoice to see their work done for them. The Duke of
Argyle distinctly recognized this feeling, not in himself but in
.bn 411.png
.pn +1
others. Roebuck openly avowed it in the House of Commons.
The papers on all hands abused him for it. But, in fact, it was
because he spoke the truth, which they were ashamed to have
spoken so boldly and openly. I met at Yungfrau a young
Irishman, friendly, who gave the same view of English feeling.
Indeed, I have searched into it and am thoroughly satisfied
that it is mainly and deeply the dread of our gigantic
national development in the future, that has been coiled up as
the main-spring under all the other reasons, excuses, and pretendings,
and that has, consciously or unconsciously, moved the
whole mind of England. Against this what will reasoning or exposition
avail? Is there any explanation that will make England
ready to stand second? Is there any way of stating our gigantic
power that would lead her to rejoice in it? I do not propose to
pull wool over their eyes, nor to play the sheep in any way. For
I distinctly see the difficulty. I know it to be unremovable,
and all that can be done is to appeal to the higher feelings of the
Christian part of England, that the elect few, in both countries,
may hold fast the golden cords of love till God in His own way
shall have settled the future.”
As late as August 27 we find him still in doubt as to what he
will do in England; at that date he writes:
“When you read this, therefore, I shall probably be in London.
I cannot yet decide anything about my course in England.
From a distance I do not see any occasion or necessity for my
squandering time there in speaking....”
On his way back to England he passed through Brussels;
while there he paid his respects to the United States minister,
Mr. Sandford. We give his experience in his own words:
“In drawing near to England I went to Brussels, and at a
dinner by our American minister there, found him very much
wavering as to our final success. I expressed such sentiments,
and expressed them so firmly, as to lead him to wish that I
should see King Leopold of Belgium, who was considered the
wisest sovereign in Europe, and to whom Queen Victoria and
others were accustomed to refer many questions for judgment or
arbitration.
“For the first and only time in my life I prepared myself for
the ordeal. But oh! consider it, ye that dwell at home, ye
that sit at ease among flowers and all pleasant things—consider
.bn 412.png
.pn +1
my sufferings in a fashionable hat, a white cravat, and a pair of
white gloves! Yes, it was even so! I reluctated, but Sandford
plead; and as it was more for his sake than my own that I consented
to the interview at all, and also because the king was very
influential with all the sovereigns of Europe, and especially with
Victoria, and was pleased with attentions from Americans, I took
to myself a hat, cravat, and gloves, and in an open barouche
with two white horses, and Mr. Simmonds sitting by the side
of the driver, large as life, and most happy to be the courier of
a party called on in all the capitals by American ministers and
consuls, and now going actually to see the king! Happy, happy
Simmonds! The crowd stared; the people gave way right
and left; the royal guard at the Governor’s House opened; we
dismounted just at eleven (hat, cravat, gloves, and all). A golden-laced
official received us at the lower door and jabbered French
in our faces, which we answered by making for the stairs beyond
him. At the top two officers, much dressed, bowed and seemed
to be expecting us, showing us toward a pair of folding-doors
which, opening into the ante-room, revealed to us an aide-de-camp
in waiting, who took my card, walked softly to the next
door, communed with some one within, returned, and said that
in a moment the king would receive us.
“In a moment the door opened, a servant beckoned us, and
we entered. A tall man in full military uniform, blue, with
eleven orders, crosses, etc., on his left breast, with hair black
(not his own), of a face quite reverend, long, thin, somewhat
corrugated, came towards us graciously and paternally, bowed
gently, and began a conversation of our travels, of Europe, of
America a little. Well, it was my duty, of course, always to address
him as ‘Sire,’ but I generally managed to call him ‘Sir’
with a hasty correction to ‘Sire.’
“After some conversation, in which he plainly intimated to
me that he would rejoice in bringing us to terms and peace
again, all the while intimating that the South could not be overcome,
and that it would be very wise for us to make a compromise,
and that he would be entirely willing to render service in
that direction, I said to him: ‘Your majesty’—I got it out once
or twice right—‘if there were any ruling sovereign in Europe to
whom more than to another we should be glad to refer this question,
it would be to the king of Belgium, a judge among nations
.bn 413.png
.pn +1
and adviser among kings; but we do not propose to refer it to
any one. We are going to fight it out ourselves; the strongest
will win in our conflict, and so it must be settled.’
“Turning from that, he asked me what I thought of sending
Maximilian to Mexico—for at that time he had not been sent to
be the emperor of this new nation the Latins had established
there; and, without suitable diplomacy, I said to him: ‘Your
majesty, any man that wants to sit upon a throne in Mexico, I
would advise to try Vesuvius first; if he can sit there for a while,
then he might go and try it in Mexico.’
“This very soon brought our conversation to a close. He
bowed, we bowed. He stepped back a step, we two, and, repeating
the operation, we were soon at the door and out of it.”
The next day finds Mr. Beecher at London. But a short time
before, and while in Paris, an event occurred that had a marked
effect upon his subsequent course in England and the results
which he achieved. The news came to him of the fall of Vicksburg
and the repulse of Lee at Gettysburg:
“Such a revulsion of feeling as I experienced myself, and
such a revulsion and intoning as all patriotic Americans experienced
(for all Americans were not patriotic; very largely they
were commercial cowards), from those tidings, one can scarcely
imagine who was not there to see. At this time I was staying in
Paris at the Grand Hotel. It was on a radiant Sunday, as I
wended my way from the hotel to the church, that the news came
of the surrender of Vicksburg. No words can tell the buoyancy,
the awful sense of gladness that I had. I went into the
house of God and sat down in the pew of our minister to France,
Mr. Dayton. By my side sat his daughter. In a pause in the
service I turned to Miss Dayton and asked, ‘Have you heard the
news?’ ‘No,’ said she, looking earnestly at me. ‘Vicksburg
has fallen!’ ‘Is it true?’ ‘Yes, be sure.’ She answered me not
a word, but turning to her companion, another young lady, she
whispered it to her, and both sat still as statues. The hymn
was given out, the music sounded, and she began to sing; but no
sooner had she opened her lips than, in a flood of tears, she
buried her face in her hands and wept for gladness and triumph.
It overwhelmed her, and it overwhelmed me too. And before
the sun went down, yea, before the sun was at noon, the other
tidings came of the victory at Gettysburg; and then my cup ran
.bn 414.png
.pn +1
over. No man can tell how victoriously I walked. In the ample
court of the Grand Hotel there usually gathered a very large
company of Southern men, to whom my name was not savory;
and day after day, as I went out, they were wont to collect in one
corner, and with sneers and undisguised attempts at insult they
met me as I came in and went out, even sending contemptible
messages to me by the servants (which I never received, being
intercepted at the office, although I heard of them afterwards).
But on that day when I heard that Lee had been driven out
of Pennsylvania and that Vicksburg had surrendered to Grant, I
put on my best coat, walked down-stairs and out into that court
to see how it fared with my brethren of the South; but, alas!
they were not there, not one of them. They, too, had heard
something!
“The effect which these tidings produced throughout Great
Britain was immense. Before this no avowed friend of the North
could go through the Exchange in Liverpool without being
looked at and watched, largely as one would look at a bear escaped
from a menagerie. My friend Charles Duncan had
scarcely been able to transact business without being insulted at
every step; when the good news came he went down into the
Exchange to look into the faces of these men that had been
so insulting, but there was not a man in the whole Exchange who
had not been on our side from the very beginning, and who had
not always believed in us, in our cause, and in our final victory!
How wonderful are the workings of Providence!
“On returning to England representations were made to me
which compelled me to consent to a series of public speeches.
Our friends said: ‘We have sacrificed ourselves in your behalf,
and have been counted as the offscouring, because we had championed
the cause of the North; and now if you go home without
making a recognition of our efforts we will be overwhelmed.’
Aside from other considerations, I found that a movement was
on foot to induce Parliament to declare for the Southern Confederacy.
This they were very willing to do, but did not dare to
without the approval of the unvoting English, who held great
power. Steps had been taken by friends of the Southern cause
to have orators go through the manufacturing districts for the
purpose of enlisting the sympathies of the laboring classes.
“By projecting a series of meetings on the other side it was
.bn 415.png
.pn +1
hoped that this mischievous course might be baffled and forestalled.
At first there was thought of but a single speech, and
that at Manchester. So soon as it was known that there was to
be such a meeting applications were made from Glasgow, from
Edinburgh, from Liverpool and London, for like meetings in
these places.”
.bn 416.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch20'
CHAPTER XX.
.pm start_summary
Facing the Mob in Manchester—Glasgow—Edinburgh—Desperate Attempts
to break Mr. Beecher down at Liverpool—Victory in London.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
“After spending some days in the Lake district I went to
Manchester to meet the engagement there for October
9th. Great excitement existed; the streets were placarded
with vast posters, printed in blood-red, appealing to the
passions and even to the spirit of violence on the part of the people.
Threats resounded on every side. Both there and at Liverpool
afterwards it was declared that I should never come out of
the audience alive.
“I was met at the station by John Estcourt and young Watts,
whose father was Sir Something Watts and had the largest business
house in Central England. When they approached me I saw
that there was something amiss, and before I had proceeded
twenty steps they let the cat out of the bag: ‘Of course you
know there is a great deal of excitement here’—at the same time
pointing to placards printed in red letters, with which the streets
were flooded, denouncing the Northern cause and all its advocates.
I always feel happy when I hear of a storm, and I looked
at them and said: ‘Well, are you going to back down?’ ‘No,’
said they, ‘but we didn’t know how you would feel.’ ‘Well,’
said I, ‘you’ll find out how I’m going to feel. I’m going to be
heard. I won’t leave England until I have been heard.’
“The Free Trade Hall, I was informed, held from five to six
thousand. It was the purpose of our adversaries to break down
my first speech in England there, and prevent my being heard
thereafter. All the great papers of London and of the kingdom
were represented. The tumult defies description. No American
audience, under any amount of excitement that I have ever
known, could be compared for one moment with the condition of
the audience at Manchester; and that was equalled, and surpassed
even, by the one subsequently at Liverpool. If one can imagine
a shipmaster giving orders to a mutinous crew in the midst
.bn 417.png
.pn +1
of a tropical thunder-storm, he will have some faint idea of the
task that was on my hands.
“Although in every speech I was obliged to rehearse substantially
the same general facts in regard to the questions at issue in
America, yet each speech had a field peculiar to itself. In Manchester
I discussed the effect of slavery upon manufacturing interests
of the world, and gave a history of the external political
movement for fifty years past, so far as it was necessary to illustrate
the fact that the American war was only an overt and warlike
form of a contest between liberty and slavery that had been
going on politically for over half a century.”
After Mr. Beecher was introduced, and before he had fairly
entered upon his speech, the mob began to show its teeth, and in
a few seconds there was one unparalleled scene of riot and confusion.
Mr. Beecher took the measure of his audience, about one-fourth
of whom only were against him, but they made up in noise
and tumult what they lacked in numbers. They had been systematically
bunched about the house, so as to make their interruptions
the more effective. He had come with his speech carefully
prepared in manuscript, but when the interruptions began
he tossed the paper to one side, and, stepping forward, with head
erect, said: “My friends, we will have a whole night’s session, but
we will be heard.” It was like attempting to preach a sermon
through a trumpet in a howling gale; but the press was well represented,
and, bending forward, he said to the reporters: “Gentlemen,
be kind enough to take down what I say. It will be in
sections, but I will have it connected by and by.” The uproar
continued, and all sorts of insulting questions were hurled at the
speaker. The latter, however, had made up his mind to be
heard, and he was. He would wait until the noise had somewhat
subsided, then, arresting the attention of the audience by some
witticism, he would take advantage of the lull to give them some
telling sentences. Finally, after about an hour of speaking by
fits and starts, the audience became manageable. The English
admire pluck, and they had an excellent example of the article
before them, and finally could not fail to show their appreciation.
His cool, determined appearance as he said, “I have many times
encountered similar opposition, and afterwards been heard; I
shall be heard to-night,” produced a marked effect, and in a short
time thereafter the vast assemblage was brought in perfect silence
.bn 418.png
.pn +1
and into full sympathy with the speaker. They listened during
the remaining hour, and were convinced; the next morning
every paper in England printed the entire speech.
Just as the speaker was drawing to a close, occurred a stirring
incident that strongly emphasized the effect of this speech.
The chairman, taking advantage of a slight pause, touched Mr.
Beecher on the shoulder and whispered a few words to him.
The latter retired sufficiently to give his place to the chairman,
who, raising a paper which he held, said in a distinct voice: “I
hold in my hand a telegram just received from London, stating
that her Majesty has to-night caused the ‘broad arrow’ to be
placed on the rams in Mr. Laird’s yard at Birkenhead.” This
meant the stoppage of the ships which were being built for Confederate
cruisers. The effect was startling. The whole audience
rose to its feet. Men cheered and waved their hats, while
women waved their handkerchiefs and wept.
At the conclusion of his address the feeling of the audience,
which a short time previous had been a howling mob, can be
best portrayed by the following incident: A big, burly Englishman
who was sitting in the gallery, seeing that it would be impossible
to reach Mr. Beecher to shake hands with him, cried,
“Shake my umbrella,” at the same time reaching it down to him.
Mr. Beecher complied with the request, and as he did so the enthusiastic
Englishman cried, “By Jocks! nobody sha’n’t touch
that umbrella again!” Hundreds of others, more fortunate,
crowded in to shake the speaker’s hand.
Of course it will be impossible, within our space, to give the
speeches entire, whilst an attempt at analysis would be like presenting
a bony skeleton bared of its flesh, omitting all that gave
them life and strength. But a few of the more striking passages
from each speech may not be uninteresting:[7]
.fm rend=th
.fn 7
These speeches have been reprinted in full in “Patriotic Addresses,”
by Messrs. Ford, Howard & Hulburt, of New York.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
“I have not come to England to be surprised that those men
whose cause cannot bear the light are afraid of free speech. I
have had practice of more than twenty-five years, in the presence
of tumultuous assemblies, opposing those very men whose representatives
now attempt to forestall free speech. Little by little,
I doubt not, I shall be permitted to speak to-night. Little by
.bn 419.png
.pn +1
little I have been permitted in my own country to speak, until at
last the day has come there, when nothing but the utterance of
speech for freedom is popular. You have been pleased to speak
of me as one connected with the great cause of civil and religious
liberty. I covet no higher honor than to have my name joined
to the list of that great company of noble Englishmen from
whom we derived our doctrines of liberty. For although there is
some opposition to what are here called American ideas, what are
these American ideas? They are simply English ideas bearing
fruit in America. We bring back American sheaves, but the
seed corn we got in England; and if, on a larger sphere and
under circumstances of unobstruction, we have reared mightier
harvests, every sheaf contains the grain that has made Old England
rich for a hundred years....
“Allusion has been made by one of the gentlemen to words
or deeds of mine that might be supposed to be offensive to Englishmen.
I am sure that in the midst of this mighty struggle at
home, which has taxed every power and energy of our people, I
have never stopped to measure and to think whether my words,
spoken in truth and with fidelity to duty, would be liked in this
shape or in that shape, by one or another person, either in England
or America. I have had one simple, honest purpose, which
I have pursued ever since I have been in public life, and that
was, with all the strength that God has given to me, to maintain
the cause of the poor and of the weak in my own country. And
if, in the height and heat of conflict, some words have been
over-sharp and some positions have been taken heedlessly, are
you the men to call one to account? What if some exquisite
dancing-master, standing on the edge of a battle where Richard
C[oe]ur de Lion swung his axe, criticised him by saying that ‘his
gestures and postures violated the proprieties of polite life’?
When dandies fight they think how they look, but when men
fight they think only of deeds. But I am not here either on trial
or on defence. Here I am before you, willing to tell you what
I think about England or any person in it. The same agencies
which have been at work to misrepresent good men in our
country to you, have been at work to misrepresent to us good
men here; and when I say to my friends in America that I have
attended such a meeting as this, received such an address, and
beheld such enthusiasm, it will be a renewed pledge of amity.
.bn 420.png
.pn +1
I have never ceased to feel that war, or even unkind feelings between
two such great nations, would be one of the most unpardonable
and atrocious offences that the world ever beheld, and
I have regarded everything, therefore, which needlessly led
to those feelings out of which war comes, as being in itself
wicked. The same blood is in us. We hold the same substantial
doctrines. We have the same mission amongst the nations
of the earth. Never were mother and daughter set forth to do
so queenly a thing in the kingdom of God’s glory as England
and America. Do you ask why we are so sensitive, and why have
we hewn England with our tongue as we have? I will tell you
why. There is no man who can offend you so deeply as the one
you love most.... Now (whether we interpreted it aright or not
is not the question), when we thought England was seeking opportunity
to go with the South against us of the North, it hurt us
as no other nation’s conduct could hurt us on the face of the
globe; and if we spoke some words of intemperate heat, we
spoke them in the mortification of disappointed affection. It
has been supposed that I have aforetime urged or threatened war
with England. Never! This I have said—and this I repeat
now and here—that the cause of constitutional government, and
of universal liberty as associated with it, in our country, was so
dear, so sacred that, rather than betray it, we would give the last
child we had; that we would not relinquish this conflict though
other States rose and entered into a league with the South; and
that, if it were necessary, we would maintain this great doctrine
of representative government in America against the armed world—against
England and France.... We ask no help and no
hindrance. We do not ask for material aid. We shall be grateful
for moral sympathy; but if you cannot give us moral sympathy
we shall still endeavor to do without it. All that we say
is, Let France keep away, let England keep hands off; if we cannot
manage this rebellion by ourselves, then let it not be managed
at all. We do not allow ourselves to doubt the issue of this
conflict. It is only a question of time. For such inestimable
principles as are at stake—of self-government, of representative
government, of any government at all, of free institutions rejected
because they inevitably will bring liberty to slaves unless subverted,
of national honor, and fidelity to solemn national
trusts—for all these war is waged; and if by war these shall be
.bn 421.png
.pn +1
secured, not one drop of blood will be wasted, not one life
squandered. The suffering will have purchased a glorious future
of inconceivable peace and happiness! Nor do we deem the
result doubtful. The population is in the North and West. The
wealth is there. The popular intelligence of the country is there.
There only is there an educated common people. The right
doctrines of civil government are with the North. It will not be
long before one thing more will be with the North—victory.
Men on this side are impatient at the long delay; but if we can
bear it, can’t you? You are quite at ease; we are not. You are
not materially affected in any such degree as many parts of our
own land are. But if the day shall come in one year, in two years,
or in ten years hence, when the old stars and stripes shall float
over every State of America; if the day shall come when that
which was the accursed cause of this dire and atrocious war—slavery—shall
be done away; if the day shall have come when
through all the Gulf States there shall be liberty of speech, as
there never has been; when there shall be liberty of the press, as
there never has been; when men shall have common schools to
send their children to, which they never have had in the South;
in short, if the day shall come when the simple ordinances, the
fruition and privileges, of civil liberty, shall prevail in every part
of the United States—it will be worth all the dreadful blood
and tears and woe. You are impatient; and yet God dwelleth
in eternity, and has an infinite leisure to roll forward the affairs
of men, not to suit the hot impatience of those who are but children
of a day and cannot wait or linger long, but according to
the infinite circle on which He measures time and events!...
“The institutions of America were shaped by the North; but
the policy of her government, for half a hundred years, by the
South. All the aggression and filibustering, all the threats to
England and tauntings of Europe, all the bluster of war which
our government has assumed, have been under the inspiration
and under the almost monarchical sway of the Southern oligarchy.
And now, since Britain has in the past been snubbed by
the Southerners, and threatened by the Southerners, and domineered
over by the Southerners—yet now Great Britain has
thrown her arms of love around the Southerners, and turns
from the Northerners. [A voice, ‘No.’] She don’t? I have
only to say that she has been caught in very suspicious circumstances.
.bn 422.png
.pn +1
I speak as I have, perhaps as much as anything else,
to bring out from you this expression; to let you know, what we
know, that all the hostility felt in my country towards Great Britain
has been sudden, and from supposing that you sided with
the South and sought the breaking up of our country; and I
want you to say to me, and through me to my countrymen, that
those irritations against the North, and those likings for the
South, that have been expressed in your papers, are not the feelings
of the great mass of your nation. [Great cheering, the
audience rising.] Those cheers already sound in my ears as the
coming acclamations of friendly nations; those waving handkerchiefs
are the white banners that symbolize peace for all countries.
Join with us, then, Britons. From you we learnt the doctrine
of what a man was worth; from you we learnt to detest all
oppressions; from you we learnt that it was the noblest thing a
man could do TO DIE FOR A RIGHT PRINCIPLE. And now,
when we are set in that very course, and are giving our best
blood for these most sacred principles, let the world understand
that the common people of Great Britain support us....”
The attempt to “break Beecher down at his first speech”
signally failed. He had beaten the mob. He had made himself
heard, and the full reports of his speech were scattered
throughout the entire kingdom. Many crude misconceptions were
corrected, not a few of his opponents were converted, while many
others were forced to admit that they had received some new
ideas respecting the North and the United States government.
On the 13th he spoke in Glasgow, where the blockade-runners
were being built, and where the laboring-classes were in some
sense bribed by their occupation in the shipyards. Here were
discussed the effects of slavery upon the welfare of the working-classes
the world over, showing the condition of work or labor
necessitated by any profitable system of slavery, demonstrating
that it brought labor into contempt, affixing to it the badge of
degradation; that a struggle to extend servile labor across the
American continent interests every free workingman on the
globe, and that the Southern cause was the natural enemy of free
labor and the free laborer all the world over.
A strong Southern sentiment existed here, and the same attempt
was made as in Manchester to break the speaker down.
The City Hall was crowded to its utmost limits with friends and
.bn 423.png
.pn +1
opponents. The opposition here was neither so determined nor
prolonged as at Manchester. His success there had encouraged
him while it discouraged them.
His opening sentences established a kindly bond between
the hearers, so devotedly attached to their own country, and the
speaker. Their kindly interest once aroused, it was not difficult
to gain and keep their sympathy throughout the speech. The
unruly element was soon put down, but little disturbance occurring
after the first half-hour.
“No one who has been born and reared in Scotland can know
the feeling with which, for the first time, such a one as I have
visited this land, classic in song and in history. I have been
reared in a country whose history is brief. So vast is it that
one might travel night and day for all the week, and yet scarcely
touch historic ground. Its history is yet to be written; it is yet
to be acted. But I come to this land, which, though small, is as
full of memories as the heaven is of stars, and almost as bright.
There is not the most insignificant piece of water that does not
make my heart thrill with some story of heroism or some remembered
poem; for not only has Scotland had the good fortune to
have had men that knew how to make heroic history, but she has
reared those bards who have known how to sing her histories....
I come to Scotland, almost as a pilgrim would go to
Jerusalem, to see those scenes whose stories had stirred my imagination
from my earliest youth; and I can pay no higher compliment
than to say that, having seen some part of Scotland, I am
satisfied; and permit me to say that if, when you know me, you
are a thousandth part as satisfied with me as I am with you, we
shall get along very well together. And yet, although I am not
of a yielding mood nor easily daunted, I have some embarrassment
in speaking to you to-night. I know very well that there
are not a few things which prevent my doing good work among
you. I differ greatly from many of you. I respect, although I
will not adopt, your opinions. I can only ask as much from you
for myself. I am aware that a personal prejudice has been diligently
excited against me.... It is not a pleasant avenue to a
speech for a man to walk through himself. But since every pains
is taken to misrepresent me, let me once for all deal with that
matter. In my own land I have been the subject of misrepresentation
and abuse so long that when I did not receive it I felt
.bn 424.png
.pn +1
as though something was wanting in the atmosphere. I have
been the object of misrepresentation at home simply and only
because I have been arrayed, ever since I had a voice to speak
and a heart to feel—body and soul I have been arrayed, without
regard to consequences, and to my own reputation or my own
ease, against that which I consider the damning sin of my country
and the shame of human nature—slavery. I thought I had a
right, when I came to Great Britain, to expect a different reception;
but I found that the insidious correspondence of men in
America had poisoned the British mind, and that representations
had been made that I had indulged in the most offensive language
and had threatened all sorts of things against Great Britain. Now,
allow me to say that, having examined that interesting literature,
so far as I have seen it published in British newspapers, I here
declare that ninety-nine out of one hundred parts of those things
that I am charged with saying I never said and never thought—they
are falsehoods wholly and in particular. Allow me next to say
that I have been accustomed freely and at all times, at home, to
speak what I thought to be sober truth both of blame and of
praise of Great Britain, and if you do not want to hear a man
express his honest sentiments fearlessly, then I do not want to
speak to you. If I never spared my own country, if I never
spared the American Church, nor the government, nor my own
party, nor my personal friends, did you expect I would spare
you?... I have heard the voice of my Master, saying, ‘If any
man come unto Me and hate not father, and mother, and brother,
and sister, yea, and his own life also, he is not worthy of Me.’
When, therefore, the cause of truth and justice is put in the scale
against my own country, I would disown country for the sake of
truth; and when the cause of truth and justice is put in the scale
against Great Britain, I would disown her rather than betray what
I understood to be the truth. We are bound to establish liberty,
regulated Christian liberty, as the law of the American Continent.
This is our destiny, this is that towards which the education of
the rising generation has been more and more assiduously directed
as the peculiar glory of America—to destroy slavery and
root it out of our land, and to establish in its place a discreet, intelligent,
constitutional, regulated Christian liberty.... I call
your attention to a few propositions, then, in reference to slavery
as it exists in the extreme Southern States. And, first, the system
.bn 425.png
.pn +1
of slavery requires ignorance in the slave, and not alone intellectual
but moral and social ignorance. Anybody who is a slaveholder
will find that there are reasons which will compel him to
keep slaves in ignorance, if he is going to keep them at all. Not
because intelligence is more difficult to govern; for with an intelligent
people government is easier.... The slave would not
be less easily governed if he were educated. If the slaveholder
taught him to read and write, if he made him to know what he
ought to know as one of God’s dear children, the South would
not be so much endangered by insurrection as she is now. There
is nothing so terrible as explosive ignorance. Men without an
idea, striking blindly and passionately, are the men to be feared.
Even if the slaves were educated they would be better slaves.
What is the reason, then, that slaves must be kept in ignorance?
The real reason is one of expense. In order to make slave labor
profitable you must reduce the cost of the slave; for the difference
between the profit and the loss turns upon the halfpenny
per pound. If the price of slaves goes up and cotton goes
down a shade in price, in ordinary times, the planters lose. The
rule is, therefore, to reduce the cost of the man; and the slave,
to be profitable, must be simply a working creature. What does
a man cost that is a slave? Just a little meal and a little
pork, a small measure of the coarsest cloth and leather—that is
all he costs. Because that is all he needs—the lowest fare and
the scantiest clothing. He is a man with two hands, and two
feet, and a belly. That is all there is of a profitable slave.
But every new development within him which religion shall
make—the sense of fatherhood, the wish for a home, the desire
to rear his children well, the wish to honor and comfort his
wife, every taste, every sentiment, every aspiration—will demand
some external thing to satisfy it. His being augments. He
demands more time.... Profitable slaveholding requires only so
much intelligence as will work well, and only so much religion as
will make men patient under suffering and abuse. More than
that—more conscience, more ambition, more divine ideas of human
nature, of men’s dignity, of household virtue, of Christian
refinement—only makes the slave too costly in his tastes. Not
only does the degradation of the slave pass over to his work, but
it affects all labor, even when performed by free white men.
Throughout the South there is the most marked public disesteem
.bn 426.png
.pn +1
of honest homely industry.... But even in the most favored
portions of the South manual labor is but barely redeemed from
the taint of being a slave’s business, and nowhere is it honored as
it is in the great and free North. Whereas, in the richer and more
influential portions of the South, labor is so degraded that men are
ashamed of it. It is a badge of dishonor. The poor and shiftless
whites, unable to own slaves, unwilling to work themselves,
live in a precarious and wretched manner but a little removed
from barbarism, relying upon the chase for much of their subsistence,
and affording a melancholy spectacle of the condition
into which the reflex influence of slavery throws the neighboring
poor whites. Having turned their own industry over to slaves,
and established the province and duties of a gentleman to consist
of indolence and politics, it is not strange that they hold the people
of the North in great contempt. The North is a vast hive of
universal industry. Idleness there is as disreputable as is labor
in the South. The child’s earliest lesson is faithful industry.
The boy works, the man works. Everywhere through all the
North men earn their own living by their own industry and ingenuity.
They scorn to be dependent. They revolt at the dishonor
of living upon the unrequited labor of others. Honest
labor is that highway along which the whole body of the Northern
people travel towards wealth and usefulness. From Northern
looms the South is clothed, from their anvils come all Southern
implements of labor, from their shops all modern ware, from
their lasts Southern shoes. The North is growing rich by its
own industry. No wonder, then, that Southerners have been wont
to deride the free workmen of the North. Governor Hammond
only gave expression to the universal contempt of Southern slaveholders
for work and workmen when he called the Northern
laborer the ‘mudsill of society,’ and stigmatized the artisan as
the ‘greasy mechanic.’ The North and South alike live by
work: the North by their own work, the South by that of their
slaves! Which is the more honorable? I have a right to
demand of the workmen of Glasgow that they should refuse
their sympathy to the South, and should give their hearty sympathy
to those who are, like themselves, seeking to make work
honorable and to give to the workman his true place in society.
Disguise it as they will, distract your attention from it as they
may, it cannot be concealed that the American question is the
.bn 427.png
.pn +1
workingman’s question all over the world! The slavemaster’s
doctrine is that capital should own labor—that the employers
should own the employed. This is Southern doctrine and
Southern practice. Northern doctrine and Northern practice
is that the laborer should be free, intelligent, clothed with full
citizen’s rights, with a share of the political duties and honors.
The North has from the beginning crowned labor with honor.
Nowhere else on earth is it so honorable.”
On the following evening, October 14, he spoke in Edinburgh.
The crowd, that packed the hall and completely blocked the
entrances, was so vast that it very nearly deprived the meeting
of both chairman and speaker. With great difficulty they managed
to struggle through and finally reached the platform.
Edinburgh being a centre of refinement and learning, Mr.
Beecher aimed to give some idea of the philosophy of slavery,
showing, how, out of separate colonies and States intensely jealous
of their individual sovereignty, there grew up and was finally established
a nation; and how, in that nation of united States, the
distinct and antagonistic systems were developed and strove for
the guidance of the national policy, which struggle at length
passed and the North gained the control. Thereupon the South
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. Comparatively speaking, but
little opposition was encountered at this meeting. At the outset
some disturbance was attempted, but the temper of the audience
was opposed to the unruly ones and they were soon quieted.
The speech produced a marked impression, the resolution and
vote of thanks being carried with “loud and prolonged applause.”
We give a few extracts from it:
“During the last fifteen years I believe you cannot find a
voice, printed or uttered, in the cotton States of the South, which
deplored slavery. All believed in and praised it, and found
authority for it in God’s Word. Politicians admired it, merchants
appreciated it, the whole South sang pæans to the newfound
truth that man was born to be owned by man. This
change of doctrine made it certain that the South would be annoyed
and irritated by a Constitution which, with all its faults,
still carried the God-given principle of human rights, which were
not to be taken by man except in punishment for crime. That
.bn 428.png
.pn +1
Constitution, and the policy which went with it at first, began to
gnaw at, and irritate, and fret the South when they had adopted
slavery as a doctrine. How could they live in peace under a
Constitution that all the time declared the manhood of men and
the dignity of freedom? It became necessary that they should
do one of two things, either give up slavery or appropriate the
government to themselves, and in some way or other drain out of
the Constitution this venom of liberty and infuse a policy more
in harmony with Southern ideas. They took the latter course.
They contrived to possess themselves of the government; and
for the last fifty years the policy of the country has been
Southern. Was a tariff wanted? It was made a Southern
tariff. Was a tariff oppressive? The Southerners overthrew
it. Was a tariff wanted again? The Southern policy declared
it to be necessary, and it was passed. Was more territory
wanted? The South must have its way. Was any man to obtain
a place? If the South opposed it he had no chance whatever.
For fifty years most of the men who became judges, who
sat in the presidential chair and in the courts, had to base
their opinions on slavery or on Southern views. All the filibustering,
all the intimidations of foreign powers, all the so-called
snubbing of European powers, happened during the period in
which the policy of the country was controlled by the South.
May I be permitted to look on it as a mark of victorious Christianity
that England now loves her worst enemy, and is sitting
with arms of sympathy round her neck? The man who was an
Abolitionist when I was twenty-one years of age might bid farewell
to any hopes of political advancement; and the merchant
who held these opinions was soon robbed of customers. As far
as I remember, there was nothing in the world that so ruined a
man—not crime itself was so fatal to a man’s standing in the
country—as to be known to hold abolition sentiments. The
churches sought to keep the question of slavery out; so did the
schools and colleges; so did synods and conventions. But still
the cause of abolition progressed; and still, as is always the case
with everything that is right, though the men who held those
sentiments were scoffed at, though such men as Garrison were
dragged through the streets with halters round their necks, yet
the more it was spoken of and canvassed the more the cause
prospered, because it was true. The insanity at last abated; for
.bn 429.png
.pn +1
the command came from on High saying to the evil spirit concerning
the North: ‘I command thee to come out of her.’
Then the nation wallowed on the ground and foamed at the
mouth; but the unclean spirit passed out, and she became
clean. The more some people wanted to keep down this subject
and keep out the air, the more God forced the subject on their
minds. When Missouri knocked at the door there were those
who opposed its admission as a slave State, but by Southern
management and intimidation Henry Clay persuaded the North
to a compromise. Now, when there is no difference in principle,
but only conflicting interests, a compromise is honorable
and right; but when antagonistic principles are in question I
believe compromises to be bargains with the devil, who is never
cheated.... We do not want to quarrel; we do not want animosity
between Great Britain and America. No man has spoken
of Great Britain words of praise and blame with more honest
heart than I have. That man is not your friend who dares not
speak of your faults to your face. The man that is your friend,
tells you when he thinks you are wrong; and whether I am right
or wrong, I assert that in giving moral sympathy largely to the
South, and, above all, in allowing the infamous traffic of your
ports with the rebels, thus strengthening the hands of the slaveholders—and
that without public rebuke—you have done
wrong. I have said this because, dear as your country is to us,
precious as were the legacies given to us of learning and religion,
and proud as we have been for years past to think of our
ancestry and common relationship to you, yet so much dearer
to us than kindred is the cause of God that, if Great Britain sets
herself against us, we shall not hesitate one moment on her
account, but shall fulfil our mission! ... I have a closing word
to speak. It is our duty in America, by every means in our
power, to avoid all cause of irritation with every foreign nation,
and with the English nation most especially. On your side it is
your duty to avoid all irritating interference, and all speech that
tends to irritate. Brothers should be brothers all the world over,
and you are of our blood, and we are of your lineage. May that
day be far distant when Great Britain and America shall turn
their backs on each other and seek an alliance with other nations!
The day is coming when the foundations of the earth will
be lifted out of their places; and there are two nations that
.bn 430.png
.pn +1
ought to be found shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand for
the sake of Christianity and universal liberty, and these nations
are Great Britain and America.”
The effect of these three speeches was being very widely
felt. It looked at first as though the backbone of opposition
had been broken.
This pleasant impression was soon dispelled. The mob
spirit was not dead; it was only resting and gaining breath for
a final and more desperate effort.
The next speech was to be in Liverpool on the 16th, at the
great Philharmonic Hall.
Liverpool was the headquarters of the Southern sympathizers.
A great many Southern men were there.
The feeling was very strong that if Mr. Beecher should succeed
there he would carry the day. A determined and desperate
effort was to be made, at any cost, to prevent the delivery of
the speech.
The streets were placarded with abusive and scurrilous placards,
often posted over the notices of the meeting, couched in
the most inflammatory language, urging that “Englishmen see
that he gets the welcome he deserves.” On the morning of the
16th the leading papers came out with violent editorials against
Mr. Beecher, full of falsehoods and misquotations from his
speeches. Every art was resorted to to work the passion of the
mob up to the point of violence.
We quote a brief extract from the Liverpool Courier of that
date:
“The visit of Mr. Henry Ward Beecher to Liverpool to-night
is not likely to do the Federal cause much service in this neighborhood.
His views on slavery are too violent and unreasonable
to meet with much favor from thoughtful people; and even those
who earnestly desire the freedom of the Southern slaves would
not consent to adopt the extreme, sanguinary principles enunciated
by Mr. Beecher.... But, apart from his abolition doctrines,
Mr. Beecher, unless he has been greatly misrepresented,
has displayed the most intense hatred of Great Britain, and has
vilified the British people in a disgraceful manner. He was most
violent in his denunciations of England during the never-to-be-forgotten
Trent affair, and if his views had been adopted the
two great Anglo-Saxon peoples would have been plunged into
.bn 431.png
.pn +1
war. When he said, ‘The best blood of England must flow for
the outrage England had perpetrated upon America,’ he used
language unbecoming a man, still more a professing preacher of
the Gospel. Yet the person who could thus insult the British
nation has now the audacity to come amongst us to lecture us on
American politics. Such conduct evidences unbounded impudence
and little discretion, and can only be explained by the
assumption that he is the accredited emissary of the Federal
government.”
It was openly declared that if he should dare to address the
meeting he would never leave the hall alive—a threat believed to
have been sincerely made, with the fullest intention of fulfilment.
The friends of Mr. Beecher were greatly alarmed, many advising
him not to attend the meeting.
He was fully conscious of the risk that he ran, and knew that
to be present was to carry his life in his hand. During the whole
day he was under the shadow of a black cloud. He was plunged
into the depths of despondency. He was going to the meeting, but
would he leave it alive? Could he make himself heard? Must
he fail now that he was on the very verge of success? These
and similarly anxious thoughts tormented him throughout the day.
No light illumined the darkness of his soul until, having left the
hotel, he was on his way to the hall; then, he says, suddenly a
great light burst in upon him, and, night though it was, it seemed
as if the whole heavens blazed with light like the noonday.
Fears and anxious doubts disappeared like mists before the
morning sun. A great peace settled down upon him, and as he
entered the hall he was filled with the certainty of succeeding.
It was well known that the mob was armed; it was not so
well known that a small but determined band of young men,
occupying a commanding position to the right of the platform,
were also armed, determined, if any dangerous outbreak occurred,
to protect Mr. Beecher at all hazards. Mr. Beecher himself
was in ignorance of the fact until some days later. Happily
nothing more serious than noise was developed, the cool and
determined appearance of the speaker and the earnest demonstration
by the majority present seeming to discourage a resort to
violence.
The speech was devoted to a discussion of the relation of
slavery to commerce, showing that, in the long run, it was as
.bn 432.png
.pn +1
hostile both to commerce and manufactures the world over as it
was to free interests 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 interest of every
manufacturing country to promote freedom, intelligence, and
wealth amongst all nations; that the attempt to cover the fairest
portion of the globe with a slave population that buys nothing,
and a degraded white population that buys next to nothing, should
array against it every political economist and every thoughtful
and far-seeing manufacturer, as tending to strike at the vital
wants of commerce, which was not cotton but rich customers.
It would be impossible for tongue or pen adequately to describe
the scenes at the meeting. The great hall was packed to
the crushing point. The mob was out in force, with lungs in
good working order and a disposition to use them to the best advantage.
Manchester and Glasgow were love-feasts in comparison.
We give an attempt at description from one of the Liverpool
papers:
“For several days before the meeting it was understood that
efforts would be made to create a disturbance.
“For some moments before the time fixed for the commencement
of the proceedings, cat-calls, groans, cheers, hisses, etc.,
were freely indulged in, and it was evident that a strong force of
the pro-Southern (or at least of the anti-Beecher) party had congregated
in front of the gallery and at the lower end of the body
of the hall. The début of the Rev. Mr. Beecher was, judging
from the frequently manifested impatience of the audience,
awaited with intense interest. Several occupants of seats in the
upper gallery loudly insisted upon somebody bringing him out;
and when the reverend gentleman did step on the platform, the
enthusiasm of his friends and the indignation of his opponents
were almost indescribable. Cheer rolled after cheer with deafening
effect, and, in the brief pauses between each hurrah, hisses
fell upon the ear with a sound like that of a falling torrent. The
uproar was maintained so long that the chairman, Mr. Robertson,
determined not to await the abatement of the storm, but to try to
subdue it by a few judicious words. He was only partly successful
until he appealed to the audience as Englishmen to stand up
for fair play and not to withhold justice from a stranger.
.bn 433.png
.pn +1
“Mr. Beecher’s introduction surprised though it did not disconcert
that gentleman. He was evidently prepared for some opposition;
but he could hardly have expected that his appearance
at the front of the platform, would rouse one portion of the audience
to a high state of enthusiasm, and cause the other portion to
approach almost a state of frenzy. For some time it was doubtful
whether the celebrated Abolitionist would be allowed to speak;
but those who sat near the reverend gentleman, and observed his
firmly-compressed lips and imperturbable demeanor, saw at once
that it would require something more than noise and spasmodic
hisses to cause Mr. Beecher to lose heart. He stood calmly at
the edge of the platform, a representation of ‘patience smiling at
grief,’ and a simile of sincerity, battling tacitly but successfully
with opposition. One of the two must sooner or later give way,
and no one who scrutinized Mr. Beecher’s features could imagine
that he would be the first to become tired. At last there was a
lull; clergymen and ladies ceased to wave their umbrellas and
handkerchiefs, the torrent of hisses became less perceptible, and
the chairman made another appeal to the meeting for fair play
to Mr. Beecher. His assurance that an opportunity would be
offered, after Mr. Beecher had concluded his address, to persons
who wished to ask the reverend gentleman questions, was not
very favorably received, and a series of disturbances ensued.
Cries of ‘Turn him out!’ were heard in various parts of the
hall, and efforts were made to eject some members of the unruly
party. When the scuffling had partly subsided, the chairman expressed
his determination to preserve order by calling in, if necessary,
the aid of the police. This announcement produced
something like order, and Mr. Beecher took up the advantage
and commenced his address. The interruptions were incessant,
while a scene prevailed the equal of which has seldom been witnessed
in Liverpool. ‘Three cheers for Jeff. Davis!’ was a proposal
which once more met with a hearty response from a portion
of the audience; and as the admirers of the Confederate
President were loath to cease their expressions of approval, Mr.
Beecher composedly sat down on the low parapet of the platform
and awaited a calm, at the same time apologizing to the reporters
for causing them to be so long detained. At one time, about a
score of persons were speaking in various parts of the hall, and
Mr. Beecher, as a last resource, said that if the meeting would
.bn 434.png
.pn +1
not hear him he would address the reporters. From the gallery
were suspended placards on which the words, ‘Who is Henry
Ward Beecher?’ were conspicuous; and, taken all in all, the
scene was one of complete disorder. Mr. Beecher repeatedly
declared that it was not new to him; but he admitted that his
struggle for an hour and a half against the prevailing disorder
had caused his voice to fail. So far, indeed, had his voice suffered
that he was compelled, in concluding, to declare that he
could not answer any questions unless perfect order prevailed.
He did reply, in comparative peace, to one or two written interrogatories;
but, the disturbance being renewed, Mr. Beecher sat
down.”
A few quotations from this speech will not only give an idea
of the line of Mr. Beecher’s argument, but, by retaining the interruptions
as indicated by the reports in the next day’s papers, will
also to some extent show the conditions under which the speech
was delivered.
“For more than twenty-five years I have been made perfectly
familiar with popular assemblies in all parts of my country except
the extreme South. There has not for the whole of that time
been a single day of my life when it would have been safe for me
to go south of Mason and Dixon’s line in my own country, and
all for one reason: my solemn, earnest, persistent testimony
against that which I consider to be the most atrocious thing under
the sun—the system of American slavery in a great, free
republic. [Cheers.] I have passed through that early period
when right of free speech was denied to me. Again and again I
have attempted to address audiences that, for no other crime
than that of free speech, visited me with all manner of contumelious
epithets; and now since I have been in England,
although I have met with greater kindness and courtesy on the
part of most than I deserved, yet, on the other hand, I perceive
that the Southern influence prevails to some extent in England.
[Applause and uproar.] It is my old acquaintance; I understand
it perfectly [laughter], and I have always held it to be an unfailing
truth that where a man had a cause that would bear examination
he was perfectly willing to have it spoken about. [Applause.]
And when in Manchester I saw those huge placards, ‘Who is
Henry Ward Beecher?’ [laughter, cries of ‘Quite right,’ and
applause], and when in Liverpool I was told that there were those
.bn 435.png
.pn +1
blood-red placards, purporting to say what Henry Ward Beecher
had said, and calling upon Englishmen to suppress free speech—I
tell you what I thought; I thought simply this: ‘I am glad of
it.’ [Laughter.] Why? Because if they had felt perfectly secure
that you are the minions of the South and the slaves of slavery,
they would have been perfectly still. [Applause and uproar.]
... And, therefore, when I saw so much nervous apprehension
that if I were permitted to speak [hisses and applause]—when
I found they were afraid to have me speak [hisses, laughter,
and ‘No, no’]; when I found that they considered my
speaking damaging to their cause [applause]; when I found
that they appealed from facts and reasonings to mob law [applause
and uproar], I said: No man need tell me what the heart
and secret counsel of these men are. They tremble and are
afraid. [Applause, laughter, hisses, ‘No, no,’ and a voice:
‘New York mob.’] Now, personally, it is a matter of very little
consequence to me whether I speak here to-night or not. [Laughter
and cheers.] But one thing is very certain—if you do permit me
to speak here to-night you will hear very plain talking. [Applause
and hisses.] You will not find a man [interruption]—you will not
find me to be a man that dared to speak about Great Britain 3,000
miles off, and then is afraid to speak to Great Britain when he stands
on her shores. [Immense applause and hisses.] And if I do not
mistake the tone and the temper of Englishmen, they had rather
have a man who opposes them in a manly way [applause from
all parts of the hall] than a sneak that agrees with them in an
unmanly way. [Applause and ‘Bravo.’] Now, if I can carry
you with me by sound convictions, I shall be immensely glad
[applause]; but if I cannot carry you with me by facts and
sound arguments, I do not wish you to go with me at all; and all
that I ask is simply FAIR PLAY. [Applause, and a voice: ‘You
shall have it, too.’] Those of you who are kind enough to wish
to favor my speaking—and you will observe that my voice is
slightly husky, from having spoken almost every night in succession
for some time past—those who wish to hear me will do me the
kindness simply to sit still and to keep still; and I and my friends
the Secessionists will make all the noise. It is just as important
to have customers educated, intelligent, moral, and rich out of
Liverpool as it is in Liverpool. [Applause.] They are able to
buy; they want variety, they want the very best; and those are
.bn 436.png
.pn +1
the customers you want. That nation is the best customer that
is freest, because freedom works prosperity, industry, and wealth.
Great Britain, then, aside from moral considerations, has a direct
commercial and pecuniary interest in the liberty, civilization, and
wealth of every people and every nation on the globe. [Loud
applause.] You have also an interest in this, because you are a
moral and a religious people. [‘Oh! oh!’ laughter, and applause.]
You desire it from the highest motives; and godliness is profitable
in all things, having the promise of the life that is, as well as
of that which is to come; but if there were no hereafter, and if
man had no progress in this life, and if there were no question of
civilization at all, it would be worth your while to protect civilization
and liberty, merely as a commercial speculation. To evangelize
has more than a moral and religious import—it comes back
to temporal relations. Wherever a nation that is crushed,
cramped, degraded under despotism is struggling to be free, you,
Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Paisley, all have an interest that
that nation should be free. When depressed and backward people
demand that they may have a chance to rise—Hungary, Italy,
Poland—it is a duty for humanity’s sake, it is a duty for the
highest moral motives, to sympathize with them; but beside all
these there is a material and interested reason why you should
sympathize with them. Pounds and pence join with conscience
and with honor in this design. Now, Great Britain’s chief want
is—what? They have said that your chief want is cotton. I deny
it. Your chief want is consumers. [Applause and hisses.] ...
Now, there is in this a great and sound principle of political
economy. [‘Yah! yah!’ from the passage outside the hall, and
loud laughter.] If the South should be rendered independent—[at
this juncture mingled cheering and hisses became immense;
half the audience rose to their feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs,
and in every part of the hall there was the greatest commotion
and uproar.] You have had your turn now; now let me
have mine again. [Loud applause and laughter.] It is a little
inconvenient to talk against the wind; but, after all, if you will
just keep good-natured—I am not going to lose my temper; will
you watch yours? [Applause.] Besides all that, it rests me,
and gives me a chance, you know, to get my breath. [Applause
and hisses.] And I think that the bark of those men is worse
than their bite. They do not mean any harm—they don’t know
.bn 437.png
.pn +1
any better. [Loud laughter, applause, hisses, and continued uproar.]
What will be the result if this present struggle shall
eventuate in the separation of America, and making the South
[loud applause, hisses, hooting, and cries of ‘Bravo!’] a slave
territory exclusively [cries of ‘No, no,’ and laughter], and the
North a free territory—what will be the first result? You will
lay the foundation for carrying the slave population clear through
to the Pacific Ocean. There is not a man that has been a leader
of the South any time within these twenty years that has not had
this for a plan. Never have they for a moment given up the plan
of spreading the American institutions, as they call them, straight
through towards the West, until the slave who has washed his
feet in the Atlantic shall be carried to wash them in the Pacific.
[Cries of ‘Question!’ and uproar.] There! I have got that
statement out, and you cannot put it back. [Laughter and applause.]
... Now, here are twelve millions of people, and only
one-third of them are customers that can afford to buy the kind
of goods that you bring to market. [Interruption and uproar.]
My friends, I saw a man once, who was a little late at a railway
station, chase an express-train. He did not catch it. [Laughter.]
If you are going to stop this meeting you have got to stop it before
I speak; for after I have got the things out you may chase
as long as you please—you will not catch them. [Laughter
and interruption.] But there is luck in leisure; I’m going to take
it easy. [Laughter.] Two-thirds of the population of the
Southern States to-day are non-purchasers of English goods. [A
voice, ‘No, they are not,’ ‘No, no,’ and uproar.] And if by
sympathy or help you establish a slave empire, you sagacious
Britons [‘Oh! oh!’ and hooting]—if you like it better, then, I
will leave the adjective out [laughter, hear, and applause]—you
will be busy in favoring the establishment of an empire from
ocean to ocean that should have fewest customers and the largest
non-buying population. [Applause; ‘No, no.’] ... It was the
South that obliged the North to put the tariff on. [Applause
and uproar.] Just as soon as we begin to have peace again and
can get our national debt into a proper shape, as you have got
yours [laughter], the same cause that worked before will begin
to work again; and there is nothing more certain in the future
than that the American is bound to join with Great Britain in the
world-wide doctrine of free-trade. [Applause and interruption.]
.bn 438.png
.pn +1
Here, then, so far as this argument is concerned, I rest my case,
saying that it seems to me that in an argument addressed to a
commercial people it was perfectly fair to represent that their
commercial and manufacturing interests tallied with their moral
sentiments; and as by birth, by blood, by history, by moral feeling,
and by everything, Great Britain is connected with the liberty
of the world, God has joined interest and conscience, head and
heart, so that you ought to be in favor of liberty everywhere.
[Great applause.] There! I have got quite a speech out already,
if I do not get any more. [Hisses and applause.] ...
“It is said that the North is fighting for Union, and not for
emancipation. The North is fighting for Union, because we
never shall forget the testimony of our enemies. They have gone
off declaring that the Union in the hands of the North was fatal
to slavery. [Loud applause.] There is testimony in court for
you. [A voice, ‘See that,’ and laughter.] We are fighting for
the Union, because we believe that preamble which explains the
very reason for which the Union was constituted. I will read it.
‘We’—not the States—‘We, the people of the United States, in
order to form a more perfect NATION’ [uproar]—I don’t wonder
you don’t want to hear it [laughter]—‘in order to form a more
perfect NATION, establish justice, assure domestic tranquillity [uproar],
provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of LIBERTY [‘oh! oh!’] to ourselves
and our posterity, ordain and establish this Constitution of the
United States of America.’ [A voice: ‘How many States?’]
It is for the sake of that justice, that common welfare, and that
liberty for which the National Union was established, that we
fight for the Union. [Interruption.] Because the South believed
that the Union was against slavery, they left it. [Renewed interruption.]
Gentlemen, I have travelled in the West ten or
twelve hours at a time in the mud knee-deep. It was hard toiling
my way, but I always got through my journey. I feel to-night
as though I were travelling over a very muddy road; but I
think I shall get through. [Cheers.] ... In the first place, I
am ashamed to confess that such was the thoughtlessness [interruption],
such was the stupor of the North [renewed interruption]—you
will get a word at a time; to-morrow will let folks see
what it is you don’t want to hear—that for a period of twenty-five
years she went to sleep, and permitted herself to be drugged
.bn 439.png
.pn +1
and poisoned with the Southern prejudice against black men.
[Applause and uproar.] ... When I was twelve years old my
father hired Charles Smith, a man as black as lampblack, to work
on his farm. I slept with him in the same room. [‘Oh! oh!’]
Ah! that don’t suit you. [Uproar.] Now, you see, the South
comes out. [Loud laughter.] I ate with him at the same table;
I sang with him out of the same hymn-book [‘Good’]; I cried
when he prayed over me at night; and if I had serious impressions
of religion early in life, they were due to the fidelity and example
of that poor humble farm-laborer, black Charles Smith.
[Tremendous uproar and cheers.] ... There is another fact that
I wish to allude to—not for the sake of reproach or blame, but
by way of claiming your more lenient consideration—and that is,
that slavery was entailed upon us by your action. [Hear, hear.]
Against the earnest protests of the colonists the then government
of Great Britain—I will concede not knowing what were the mischiefs—ignorantly,
but in point of fact, forced slave-traffic on the
unwilling colonists. [Great uproar, in the midst of which one
individual was lifted up and carried out of the room amidst cheers
and hisses.] ... We do not agree with the recent doctrine of
neutrality as a question of law. But it is past, and we are not
disposed to raise that question. We accept it now as a fact, and
we say that the utterance of Lord Russell at Blairgowrie [applause,
hisses, and a voice, ‘What about Lord Brougham?’],
together with the declaration of the government in stopping war-steamers
here [great uproar and applause], has gone far towards
quieting every fear and removing every apprehension from our
minds. [Uproar and shouts of applause.] And now in the future
it is the work of every good man and patriot not to create
divisions, but to do the things that will make for peace. [‘Oh!
oh!’ and laughter.] On our part it shall be done. [Applause
and hisses, and ‘No, no.’] On your part it ought to be done;
and when, in any of the convulsions that come upon the world,
Great Britain finds herself struggling single-handed against the
gigantic powers that spread oppression and darkness [applause,
hisses, and uproar], there ought to be such cordiality that she can
turn and say to her first-born and most illustrious child, ‘Come!’
[Hear, hear, applause, tremendous cheers, and uproar.] I will
not say that England cannot again, as hitherto, single-handed
manage any power [applause and uproar]; but I will say that
.bn 440.png
.pn +1
England and America together for religion and liberty [a voice,
‘Soap, soap,’ uproar, and great applause] are a match for the
world. [Applause; a voice, ‘They don’t want any more soft
soap.’]”
Thus in the wildest confusion, little by little, a few sentences
at a time, the speech was delivered. For nearly three hours the
fight was kept up, until at last the speech was done. Although
the mob was not quieted—it did not come there for that purpose—yet
the speech was delivered, and, what was more to the point,
was printed verbatim in the morning’s papers. The mob wholly
failed to accomplish their object. It did not break down Mr.
Beecher.
Four days later the concluding speech of the series was to be
delivered at Exeter Hall, London. The great metropolis was the
centre of political thought and influence. It was of great importance
that the London speech should be a success, and to
that end that the speaker should be in good condition himself.
But the constant strain upon his voice in his efforts to be
heard in the first three speeches, culminating in the prolonged
struggle at Liverpool, where his strength had been taxed to the
uttermost, had at last gone beyond even his powers of endurance.
The day before the London speech his voice failed him;
by night he could not speak above a whisper. Voiceless, he was
helpless. When he first realized the truth he was for a moment
overwhelmed. To fail in London was, in very large measure,
to lose the ground so hardly gained.
“I felt all day Monday that I was coming to London to speak
to a public audience, but my voice was gone; and I felt as
though about to be made a derision to my enemies, to stand up
before a multitude and be unable to say a word. It would have
been a mortification to any one’s natural pride. I asked God to
restore me my voice, as a child would ask its father to grant it a
favor. But I hoped that God would grant me His grace to enable
me, if it was necessary for the cause that I should be put to
open shame, to stand up as a fool before the audience. I said:
‘Lord, Thou knowest this. Let it be as Thou wilt.’”
Rest being of the first importance, he retired early, and, having
wrapped his throat in wet bandages, dismissed all further
thought of the morrow and slept.
In the morning waking refreshed, the first thought that came
.bn 441.png
.pn +1
to him was, “Can I speak?” For a while he lay silent, fearing
the attempt. First he tried a low whisper, then louder, finally
spoke out. His voice had returned, not in its old strength, yet
strong enough to use. Now his exaltation was as great as twelve
hours before had been his depression.
The night came, and with it increased strength, fully sufficient
for the work before him.
In this speech slavery was discussed in its moral relations.
Of the meeting we quote briefly from the published account of
an eye-witness:
“In the five great speeches which Mr. Beecher has made in
England and Scotland on the American question, before vast
audiences, he has taken care to observe a system of selection
which has brought before the country all the great salient points
of the American war. He has not repeated himself, but met the
Confederate sympathizers here, upon every field which they had
chosen for their own advantage. But the grand climax of all his
efforts was that which was made at Exeter Hall last night, before
a crowd as great as ever gathered into that immense hall, and
which, despite the persistent efforts of the opposition to destroy
the meeting and its effect, made a mark upon English opinion
which must prove of the utmost importance.
“Mr. Beecher’s strokes in other cities of the kingdom having
invariably drawn blood from the hides of the Confederate sympathizers
here, it was plain that they had determined to meet
with yells and uproar what they could not meet with argument.
That an organized opposition was contemplated was not concealed.
During all yesterday, posters were scattered through the
length and breadth of the city, making all kinds of charges of a
personal character against him, abounding in fictitious and distorted
quotations from discourses and lectures delivered by him
in old times. It had been considered of prime importance to the
Confederate cause here that Lord Russell’s assertion at Blairgowrie,
that the moral sympathies of the English people were
adverse to the Southern cause, should be disproved; and it was
hoped, through personal assaults upon Mr. Beecher, to injure
the effect of the meeting, and then claim it in as the verdict of
London in favor of the Southern Confederacy.
“At an early hour the hall was crowded to overflowing, and
there was evidence, too, that they were orderly men and women,
.bn 442.png
.pn +1
who, whether sympathizing with the North or not, had come to
hear a fair discussion of the question which concerns all, and
were determined to secure fair play. The crowd outside in the
Strand and Exeter Street was enormous, and consisted chiefly of
the opposition. One of the committee came in smilingly, and
said: ‘Our shilling admission-fee has filtered the crowd. The
Southern sympathizer is always a man who looks hard at a shilling
before he parts with it, and then don’t part with it.’ Yet it
was known that in two or three sections of the house there were
parties who meant mischief.
“When Beecher arose there were five minutes of the most
tremendous cheering that I have ever witnessed. Wave after
wave, as of a tumultuous sea of sound, came thundering up from
the gallery at one end to the organ at the other, in the midst of
which stood Mr. Beecher, calm as a rock in the midst of the
surges. A hiss was then begun, but at his first word it sank
back into the diaphragms of those who uttered or meant to utter
it. The first glance and the self-possessed manner of the man
told plainly that he had something to say in Exeter Hall that
night, and that he meant to be heard.
“Mr. Beecher’s voice was scarcely as sonorous and clear as
it usually is, and all recognized that this was natural after the
many speeches in immense halls which he had given during the
week. ‘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 sentiment
was received with great applause; and Beecher’s hoarseness was
thus impressed to the service of his cause. But he so economized
his voice that every word was distinctly heard by the vast
assembly. And I assure you that every word was freighted; in
the day when men are called to give an account for every idle
word spoken, Mr. Beecher will not be confronted by any one
uttered last night at Exeter Hall. At one time, when there was
an interval of a few moments arising from the effort of the hisses
to triumph over the cheers, Mr. Beecher, with a quiet smile,
said: ‘Friends, I thank you for this interruption; it gives me a
chance to rest.’ The hisses thereupon died away, and had no
resurrection during the evening. It was evident, indeed, that
the speaker, who knows a thing or two about audiences, felt that
the meeting was his and that no interruption would succeed.
.bn 443.png
.pn +1
But many of his friends had serious apprehensions. One of the
editors of the Star, himself a distinguished speaker, and thoroughly
acquainted with English audiences, who sat near to me,
whispered in my ear: ‘There are a great many here who do not
cheer; there is a strong chance of a row yet; but the meeting
is just in such a condition that its result will depend upon the
power and equanimity of the speaker.’ ‘Then,’ I replied, ‘you
needn’t fear.’ If Mr. Beecher had heard our brief whispers he
could not have more distinctly appreciated the remark of the
editor. At that moment, although he had been interesting all
along, he suddenly stepped one side from the desk upon which
his notes lay, and his face gleamed like a sword leaping from a
scabbard. No more hisses, no more cheers, now for half an
hour; the audience is magnetized, breathless; when the first pause
came, a Sir Somebody, sitting behind me, said, ‘Why, he looked
at first like a heavy man, but he’s got wings’; whilst a reporter
near our feet whispered audibly to a brother writer, ‘Oh! but
he can put things!’ Mr. Beecher forgot all things but his subject;
his tongue burned with living coals; his arm pointed like
a prophet’s rod. The shams of our enemies in England; their
talk of peace when they mean every kind of bloodshed except
that which is for justice—‘the aspect of a lamb with the voice of
a dragon,’ as St. John saw it; their cant about emancipation
being not a principle with Mr. Lincoln, but only an expedient, as
if that would make liberty any less a prize to the slave and
humanity if they got it—all these collapsed palpably before the
masses then gathered, and all the fine points of Roebuck and
Lindsay became toads under the touch of his flame-tipped spear.
“‘This cannot go on,’ whispered a clergyman near; ‘these
strokes draw too much blood; the victim is writhing in pain
now.’
“Again did Mr. Beecher level his lance; it was at those who
were making capital out of what they call ‘American sympathy
with the oppressor of Poland.’ Nothing could exceed the drollery
with which, almost blushing, he presented the loving and
jealous maiden who, when her suitor is not attentive enough, gets
up a flirtation with some other man. ‘America flirts with Russia,
but has her eye on England.’ Now, the presence of warships
from Russia at New York has been the leading card of the
Confederates here in their game to win popular sympathy for the
.bn 444.png
.pn +1
South; for our friends among the English people are also the
friends of the Poles. It was plain that the opposition in the
meeting did not mean to let this matter pass without trying to get
some capital. Consequently, when Mr. Beecher said, ‘But it is
said it is very unworthy that America should be flirting with
the oppressor of Poland,’ there were violent shouts, ‘Yes, yes,’
‘Certainly it is,’ etc. Mr. Beecher waited until the cries had entirely
subsided, and a little time had been allowed for friend and
foe to speculate as to his reply; then, leaning a little forward, he
put on an indescribably simple expression, and said mildly: ‘I
think so, too. And now you know exactly how we felt when you
flirted with Mason at the lord-mayor’s banquet.’ I cannot attempt
to describe the effect of these words on the throng. The
people arose with a shout that began to be applause, but became
a shout of laughter. The hit was so perfect and felicitous that
roars of hearty laughter told that that topic was summed up for
ever. Three loud groans given for the late lord-mayor—his
place is now filled with a much better man—ended that scene,
and the drama proceeded.
“In the heart of Mr. Beecher’s oration was given a denunciation
of slavery more powerful than I have ever heard from his
lips. He scored and scourged it until it seemed to stand before
us a hideous monster, bloated with human blood and writhing
under his goads.
“Mr. Beecher, having sustained himself throughout better
than I had ever known him to do before—and I am pretty familiar
with his grand successes in our own country—having carried
the meeting entirely and evoked the warmest expressions of
good-will to America, sat down, leaving the audience hungry
and shouting ‘Go on, go on!’”
London was captured; the speech was discussed in every
parlor and in every club. It was the topic of the day. Farewell
meetings, veritable love-feasts, were held in London, Manchester,
and Liverpool on the 23d, 24th, and 30th of October, and then
Mr. Beecher sailed for home.
That these speeches, delivered just at this time, in connection
with the events at home, produced a marked effect cannot be
doubted. They certainly cleared up many gross misconceptions
that filled the English mind, and gave the English people a
clearer insight into the real purpose of our government and the
.bn 445.png
.pn +1
true object of the South. This seems to have been the judgment
of contemporaneous opinion. A prominent English paper said:
“Before he left England he had thoroughly enlisted the sympathies
of the people with the cause of the North; and he had
no small share in averting a collision, which at one period of the
Civil War threatened ominously, between this country and the
United States.”
On his return to Brooklyn he was called to address two monster
meetings on his English experiences, one in Brooklyn in aid
of the War Fund Committee, and one in New York in aid of
the United States Sanitary Commission. In his introductory
speech at the former, Dr. R. S. Storrs thus eloquently summarizes
Mr. Beecher’s work abroad:
“We are here as American citizens all, to welcome one who
has done to our country on foreign shores a signal service! The
rapid and private trip which he undertook, simply for the purposes
of rest and recreation, was transformed, not so much by
his own device or desire or will as by the persistent urgency of
Englishmen, into a real international embassy of peace and good-will.
And by consent of all who know, of all the interpreters,
the advocates, the champions of our great national cause in England—of
whom there have been not a few able and eloquent—no
one has labored more faithfully, zealously, and effectively than
he....
“We may gratefully recognize the kindness and the wisdom
of that preceding preparation of both body and mind which
fitted him for this work. The rest and leisure of those weeks
upon the Continent prepared him not only to face the rough seas
that have delayed his return, but to meet and master the more
tempestuous savagery of the Liverpool mob. The Alpine peaks
to whose summit he climbed contributed, no doubt, to lift him
afterwards to the climax of his eloquence at London and at
Manchester. And so it has come to pass that to him it is owing,
as much, perhaps, as to any other one man on either hemisphere,
that the mind of the great middle class in England—which is the
mind that in the last analysis moulds and governs the government
of Great Britain—is at least now partially informed concerning
the principles and the history of our struggle; that the warships
framed by Confederate malice and commercial cupidity to
harass our commerce, break our blockade, or desolate our cities,
.bn 446.png
.pn +1
are not to be left to step out to sea through any loose interpretation
of the law, but are to be kept chained to the docks and held
there by the strong arm of the government, and that stars of
promise are shining in the east, where lately the thunderbolts of
war seemed to gather.”
At this same meeting Mr. Beecher himself gave an outline of
the state of public opinion when he reached England, and some
estimate of his own work in changing this public opinion:
“I desire this evening to speak upon that which you all have
come to hear—namely, my impressions and experiences in respect
to the condition of things in Great Britain, as they relate to
this struggle and this country.
“There are many reasons why an American would have presumed
it easy to understand British feeling and British policy.
There was a similarity of institutions in England and America
and a sameness of radical principles; but that very similarity,
since it begets, through different institutions and different vehicles,
different policies, is liable to deceive us. If I had judged of
the condition of England from the impressions produced upon
me by my first four weeks’ tarry there in the summer, I should
have judged very wrongly. You are aware that the original expectation
of our people was almost universal that in Great
Britain we should find a sympathizer. One thing we counted
sure, and that was that, if all the other nations stood aloof, there
was one which would stand by us in the hour of our peril, and
that one was Great Britain. And the sharpness of our retaliatory
complaints was acuminated by that very disappointment of a
very confident conviction. We never asked for help. We never
asked that she should lend us anything, or stretch out so much
as the little finger of her right hand. We did ask simply a generous
confidence and a generous moral sympathy, and that was
all. I found, in the first place, on going there, that every man I
met was a Southern man—not literally born in the South, but this
is the designation they have themselves made. They are Southerners
and Northerners even more than we are here. I found
that on the railways, on the boats, in the hotels, and wherever
there was a travelling public, there was a public that sympathized
with the South and adverse to the North.
“The nobility as a class are also against us, though there are
some very noble exceptions.
.bn 447.png
.pn +1
“In Parliament, if a vote were taken to-day according to the
private thoughts, sympathies, and wishes among its members, I
suppose they would vote five to one against the North and in
favor of the South. It is believed, too, by those well informed,
that at least a portion of the government have been entirely willing
to go into a rupture with the North, and that but for the unflinching
restraints they would have done so long ago. But it is the impression
throughout the realm that the sovereign of Great Britain
has been from the first our judicious but our steadfast friend. It
is believed, and so represented to me, that her never-rightly-estimated
and lamented consort was our fast friend, and that
among the last acts of his life were those which erased from
documents presented to him sentences that would have inflamed
the growing anger. And if you ask me what is the great underlying
influence that has been at work upon the upper class of
England, I answer thus:
“1. Commercial interest and rivalry therein.
“2. Class-power and the fear of contagion from American
ideas.
“3. (I know not how I shall say it so that it shall be the least
offensive to our friends on the other side, but neither they nor
you have come to the bottom of the conduct of Great Britain
until you have touched that delicate and real foundation cause.)
We are too large and strong a nation.
“With this state of facts you will ask how it is that the English
people have been restrained? How is it that they have not
gone into overt belligerency? That is the very question that I
propose to answer, and in the statement that the English heart is
on our side. The nobility is against us; the government is
divided and a part is against us. I think I may say that while the
brains that represent progress in Great Britain are in our favor,
yet the conservative intelligence of Great Britain is against us,
and that all there is on the surface of society, representing its
dignities, its power and intelligence, is anti-American. And the
question I propose to you is, How, with the papers, magazines,
and universities, how with their titled estates opposed to us, that
they have been restrained from manifesting this in open hostility?
It is because there is a great underlying influence that restrains
them—it is the influence of that under-life, and to a very great
extent of the non-voting English, which has produced this effect,
.bn 448.png
.pn +1
It is a thing I could not understand at first, and which it is very
difficult for us to understand; for wherever in our country there
is a majority of the votes there is sure to be a direction of affairs.
But it is not so in England. I learned that the men who could
not vote, where they were united and determined, had the power
to control the men who do vote. I hold in my hand a letter from
Richard Cobden. He says: ‘You will carry back an intimate
acquaintance with a state of feeling in this country among what,
for a better name, I call the ruling class. Their sympathy is undoubtedly
strongly for the South, with the instinctive satisfaction
at the prospect of the disruption of the great Republic. It is
natural enough. But do not forget that we have in this case, for
the first time in our history, seen the masses of the British people
taking sides for a foreign government against its rebellious citizens.
In every other instance, whether in the case of the Poles,
Italians, Hungarians and Corsicans, Greeks, or South Americans,
the popular sympathy of this country has always leaped to the
side of the insurgents the moment the rebellion has broken out.
In the present case our masses have an instinctive feeling that
their cause is bound up in the prosperity of the States—the
United States. It is true that they have not a particle of power
in the direct form of a vote, but, when millions in this country
are led by the religious middle class, they can go and prevent
the governing class from pursuing a policy hostile to their sympathies.’
“Into such an atmosphere and among such a people I went.
And when, unsought, and indeed against my feelings if not against
my judgment, I entered upon the labor of the past few weeks of
my sojourn in England, I assumed the responsibility, I cannot say
with trembling—for I am not accustomed much to tremble—but I
assumed the responsibility with the gravest sense of what it was.
I have felt the inspiration of nationality often, but I never before
was placed between two such great peoples, where I saw them
both in prospective, both in their present relations and in their
future. I never before felt so much as I felt all the time, waking
or dreaming, night or day, what it was to stand and plead for the
unity of these two great nations, for the sake of struggling mankind;
and it was at once an excitement to me and a support.
But, after all, I did not know how my countrymen would regard
my efforts. If you had disapproved I should have been sorry
.bn 449.png
.pn +1
that you disapproved, but not sorry for what I had done. I did
the best I knew how to do, every time, everywhere disinterestedly,
for the love I bear to the cause and to the principles which underlie
it. I did not hear from home whether my representations
of policy, of fact, of history, and of the tendencies of things
would accord with yours, or whether I should not be caught up
in the whirl of conflicting parties, my reasonings traversed, and
my arguments denied. When I landed in Boston I learned for
the first time that my services had been accepted by my countrymen....
“That to a certain extent my speeches produced among the
common people beneficial results there can be no doubt; but
how far that extended, or whether they had influence upon the
thinking classes, others could say better than I. They were
certainly greatly aided by the fact that Lee was defeated at
Gettysburg and driven back to Virginia, and that at the same
time Grant received the surrender of Vicksburg. Those timely
victories, together with other causes, held in check the man[oe]uvres
and diplomacy of crowned heads and made intervention
less certain and more remote; and gave time for Grant’s
success at Chattanooga, and his transfer to the Army of the Potomac,
and in turn his promotion to general-in-chief of the operations
in the field.
“I put no immoderate estimate on my services. I believe I
did some good wherever I spoke. But it should be remembered
that a single man, a stranger in the community, would be eaten
up by vanity if he said or supposed, that he had done all the
good that had been accomplished. There must have been
preparation. He merely came to touch the train that had
already been laid. When, in October, you go to the tree and
give it a jar, and the fruit comes down all around you, it is not
you that ripens it. A whole summer has been doing that. You
merely brought down the fruit prepared. It was my happy fortune
to be there to jar the tree. The fruit that fell was not of my
ripening.”
A few brief extracts from three of the leading papers in New
York, published at the time, are quoted as indications of the popular
sentiment as to the value of his work:
“It is plain, from the whole tone of the British press, that Mr.
Beecher has been instrumental in starting, or at least hastening, a
.bn 450.png
.pn +1
complete revolution of the popular feeling of the kingdom in
favor of our National cause. He is the man who ought to
have been sent to England two years ago to enlighten and
rouse the people. Had this been done he could have hardly
failed of preventing a vast deal of that bitterness which has since,
all the while, been fermenting between the two nations.”
“The Administration at Washington have sent abroad more
than one man to represent the cause of the North and press it
upon the minds of foreign courts and citizens; but here is a person
who goes abroad without official prestige, on a mere private
mission to recruit his health, and yet we doubt whether his four
or five speeches in England have not done more for us, by their
frank and manly exposition of our principles, our purpose, and
our hopes, than all the other agencies employed.”
“Every loyal American, whatever his opinions respecting the
past words and acts of Henry Ward Beecher, will thank him for
his work across the water. It is no exaggeration to affirm that
the five speeches he has delivered—in Manchester, Glasgow,
Edinburgh, Liverpool, and London—each pursuing its own line
of argument and appeal, have done more for our cause in England
and Scotland than all that has been before said or written.”
Whatever may have been the causes, it is historical that the
English government, which had been trembling upon the very
verge of intervention, withdrew from this project and began to
entertain much more peaceful and friendly feelings towards the
United States—feelings that have grown stronger and deeper
with each successive year.
.bn 451.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch21'
CHAPTER XXI.
.pm start_summary
Close of the War—Distrust of the Administration—Kindlier Feelings after
Mr. Beecher’s Return from England—Growing Confidence—Intimacy
with Secretary Stanton—Fort Sumter—Lee’s Surrender—Lincoln’s
Death.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
On his return home from England, Mr. Beecher found that
there was a marked change in the feelings of the Administration
towards him. It was the popular verdict, in which
Washington concurred, that the series of speeches just delivered,
in conjunction with the successes of our armies in the field, had
switched the English government off from the track leading to
intervention and probably war, and had started it in the direction
of friendliness and peace. Before that time he had succeeded in
creating in the minds of the President and his cabinet a feeling
which, if not hostile, was at least not friendly. With many
things that had occurred or failed to occur during 1861-2 and
early in 1863 he had felt great impatience. He had had no sympathy
with the feeling, that prevailed so generally during the first
few months of the war, that it would be an affair of but a few
months, that 75,000 men would be more than enough to end the
rebellion. He felt that the proper policy was for the government
to crush the rebellion by the power of an enormous army, and
that it was but poor economy to send forward troops by driblets.
Nor did he at all believe in the distinction that existed between
the United States regulars and the State troops. He thought
that they ought to be all United States troops. What he felt he
was not slow to say. On June 10, 1861, he wrote to the President,
urging the government to accept a regiment raised by Colonel
Stockton:
“Ought not such a man as the one whom I send to you, Colonel
T. B. W. Stockton, of Michigan, a West Point graduate, a
colonel in the Mexican war, to have a chance in this great war,
with a thousand men at his back?
“Do we not need men that have seen fire?
“I am exceedingly desirous, anxious even, that a large demonstration
.bn 452.png
.pn +1
of power should be made, as a matter of economy, of
humanity, and of expedition.
“Are we not in danger of being injured by a Northern misconstruction
of State rights, which shall prevent government from
taking troops where it pleases, without being obliged to come to
the people through the machinery of State governments?
”It is the people’s war. The people must be allowed to have
a fair chance for the exertion of their will.”
And later, when political expediency was permitted to play so
prominent a part in the selection and action of our generals, his
indignation was intense and outspoken. While he felt great
admiration for President Lincoln and great confidence in him,
still he felt that he was making serious mistakes. As we have
seen, Mr. Beecher was then the editor-in-chief of the New York
Independent, and through its editorials he sought to rouse both
the President and public sentiment. Speaking of this time, he
says:
“In 1862 the great delay, the want of any success, the masterly
inactivity of our leading generals, roused my indignation,
and I wrote a series of editorials addressed to the President” [to
which we have referred and from which we have largely quoted
in a previous chapter], “and as near as I can recollect they were
in the nature of a mowing-machine—they cut at every revolution—and
I was told one day that the President had received them
and read them through with very serious countenance, and that
his only criticism was: ‘Is thy servant a dog?’ They bore down
on him very hard.”
Not unnaturally, neither the President nor his cabinet felt especially
pleased at this. They looked upon it as a hostile attack,
and did not regard him with any over-friendly feeling.
But in November, 1863, we find all this changed. The Administration
now could see in past criticism, not personal hostility,
but an anxious desire, through love of country, to prevent mistakes
and secure the best course of action. A far more kindly and
confidential relation was established, which continued through
that Administration. When, in 1864, there was so much talk about
compromise, Mr. Beecher went direct to the President and had a
confidential talk with him, which he describes in a brief sketch
(of Lincoln):
.il id=i445 fn=i_445.jpg w=330px ew=60%
.ca Mr. Beecher at the Close of the War.
“There was some talk early in 1864 of a sort of compromise
.bn 453.png
.bn 454.png
.pn +2
with the South. Blair had told the President that he was satisfied,
if he could be put in communication with some of the leading
men of the South in some way or other, that some benefit
would accrue. Lincoln had sent a delegation to meet Alexander
Stephens, and that was all the North knew. We were all very
much excited over that. The war lasted so long that I was
afraid Lincoln would be so anxious for peace, and I was afraid
he would accept something that would be of advantage to the
South, so I went to Washington and called upon him. We were
alone in his receiving-room. His hair was ‘every way for Sunday.’
It looked as though it was an abandoned stubble-field. He had
on slippers, and his vest was what was called ‘going free.’ He
looked wearied, and, when he sat down in a chair, looked as
though every limb wanted to drop off his body. And I said to
him: ‘Mr. Lincoln, I come to you to know whether the public
interest will permit you to explain to me what this Southern commission
means?’ Well, he listened very patiently, and looked
up to the ceiling for a few moments, and said: ‘Well, I am
almost of a mind to show you all the documents.’
“‘Well, Mr. Lincoln, I should like to see them if it is proper.’
He went to his little secretary, and came out and handed me a
little card as long as my finger and an inch wide, and on that
was written—
.pm start_quote
“‘You will pass the bearer through the lines’ (or something
to that effect).
.ll 68
.rj
‘A. Lincoln.’
.ll
.pm end_quote
“‘There,’ he said, ‘is all there is of it. Now, Blair thinks
something can be done, but I don’t, but I have no objection to
have him try his hand. He has no authority whatever, but to go
and see what he can do.’
“‘Well,’ said I, ‘you have lifted a great burden off my
mind.’”
During the last year of the President’s life they became very
intimate, and the respect and admiration which Mr. Beecher
shared, in common with the general feeling of the North, deepened
into a strong personal love. In one of his Friday night
prayer-meetings, shortly after Mr. Lincoln’s death, he refers to
their intimacy:
“I am sure no one more than I, can feel the personal affliction,
outside of those that were immediately associated with
.bn 455.png
.pn +1
President Lincoln. I need not say to you how my public relations
have brought me, not only to the most constant study of
his course and of his character, but into some personal relations
with him that have given me more knowledge of him than otherwise
I should have had. I was reading to-night, before I came
here, the last letter that I received from him. It had reference
to an interview which I had had with him on a particular subject.
It is a precious letter to me. During the time that I was
with him (it was between eleven and twelve o’clock at night, in
Washington) his great kindness, his great simplicity, and his
great frankness opened him to me, and I saw him more fully
than ever before, as very wise, as shrewd as well as wise, as far-reaching
and sagacious as well as shrewd, and, above all, as
faithful to the great interests that were committed to him. That
interview has come up to me over and over and over again. It
seemed as though it was but yesterday. And when the tidings
that he was gone came to me, I know not how I shall describe
the sense that I had of a strange personal loss.”
During this period Mr. Beecher formed the acquaintance of
Stanton, which speedily ripened into a very strong friendship,
largely through an impulsive act of sympathy by Mr. Beecher:
“I came up Wall Street one day and met a friend, who said:
‘I have just come back from Washington. Stanton is breaking
down; he won’t hold out much longer.’
“Well, it just struck me all into a heap. I walked into an
office in Wall Street and said, ‘Will you allow me pen and ink?’
and wrote to him just what I had heard—that he was sick and
broken down and desponding. I wrote that he need not despond,
that the country was saved, and, if he did not do another
thing, he had done enough. I sent the letter, and in the course
of a few days I got back a letter, and if it had been a woman
writing in answer to a proposal it could not have been more tender.
And when I went to Washington he treated me with great
tenderness, as if I had been his son.”
From this letter of Secretary Stanton, which is before us, we
quote:
“How deeply your kind note has affected me is beyond my
power to tell.... The approbation, confidence, and sympathy
of any man was never more highly prized than yours is by me.
Your friendly words are a cordial that strengthens me, and your
.bn 456.png
.pn +1
kind sympathy will serve to dispel the gloom and despondency
that, as you rightly judged, does sometimes, in moments of physical
weariness, gather upon my brain and press heavily upon my
heart. Let me tell you that often and often, in dark hours, you
have come before me, and I have longed to hear your voice,
feeling that above all other men you could cheer, strengthen,
guide, and uphold me in this great battle, where, by God’s Providence,
it has fallen upon me to hold a post and perform a duty
beyond my own strength. But, being a stranger, I had no right
to claim your confidence or ask for help, and so have been
forced to struggle on patiently as I might from day to day, supported
only by fervent faith in our sacred cause, and the consciousness
that prayers were being offered up by good people
for aid. Now, my dear sir, your voice has reached me, and your
hand is stretched forth as to a friend, and henceforth I shall look
to you and lean upon you with a sure and abiding trust. Already
my heart feels renewed strength and is inspired with fresh
hope. There are some points involved in, or developed by, this
present contest, on which I wish to commune with you before
long.”
Early in 1865, and shortly after the surrender of Charleston,
in reply to a letter received from Mr. Beecher making some suggestions,
the Secretary wrote:
“It will not be in my power to go to Charleston just now, but
I would be glad to send you, and as many school-teachers as will
go.... Your idea of raising the flag over a colored school and
making our banner the banner of civilization is indeed a noble
one, and heartily my feelings respond to the suggestion. Soon
after the 4th of March I may be able to go to South Carolina
and do what may be done in that direction.... We received this
morning the news of the capture of Wilmington yesterday.
Surely the end cannot be afar off. The battle of physical force is
nearly won, and now we must fight for civilization, including
therein legal protection to the rights of all, and universal education.
What of strength, heart, and hope is left to me I am willing
to spend with you in that cause. Please let me know if you
will go to Charleston without waiting for me. The sooner you
go the better.”
Shortly after this it was decided to celebrate the anniversary
of the fall of Fort Sumter (April 14) by an imposing military and
.bn 457.png
.pn +1
naval demonstration, and by raising again the old flag over its
parapet, and the project of sending to Charleston a delegation
headed by Mr. Beecher was abandoned.
As soon as the general plan of the Fort Sumter celebration
had been decided upon, the President invited Mr. Beecher to be
present and deliver the address.
On March 27, 1865, the following general order was issued:
.pm start_quote
.if t
.ta l:18 c:2 l:46
“GENERAL ORDERS,| }| War Department,
\ \ \ \ \ \ No. 50. | }| \ \ Adjutant-General’s Office,
| }| \ \ \ \ Washington, March 27, 1865.
.ta-
.if-
.if h
.dv class='column-container'
.dv class='column1 width25'
.nf c
GENERAL ORDERS,
No. 50.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv class='column2 width05'
}
.dv-
.dv class='column3 width60'
.nf l
War Department,
\ \ Adjutant-General’s Office,
\ \ \ \ Washington, March 27, 1865.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv-
.if-
.ti 0
“Ordered—
”First. That at the hour of noon, on the 14th day of April,
1865, Brevet Major-General Anderson will raise and plant upon
the ruins of Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, the same United
States flag which floated over the battlements of that fort during
the rebel assault, and which was lowered and saluted by him and
the small force of his command when the works were evacuated
on the 14th day of April, 1861.
“Second. That the flag, when raised, be saluted by one hundred
guns from Fort Sumter, and by a national salute from every
fort and rebel battery that fired upon Fort Sumter.
”Third. That suitable ceremonies be had upon the occasion,
under the direction of Major-General William T. Sherman,
whose military operations compelled the rebels to evacuate
Charleston, or, in his absence, under the charge of Major-General
Q. A. Gillmore, commanding the Department. Among the
ceremonies will be the delivery of a public address by the Reverend
Henry Ward Beecher.
“Fourth. That the naval forces at Charleston, and their commander
on that station, be invited to participate in the ceremonies
of the occasion.
“By order of the President of the United States.
.ll 68
.nf r
”Edwin M. Stanton,
“Secretary of War.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
The steamer Arago was sent by the government to New
York to transport the invited guests to Charleston. As soon as
the formal invitations to the guests of the government had been
issued and accepted, Secretary Stanton telegraphed Mr. Beecher:
.bn 458.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
“A list of the persons who have accepted invitations on the
Arago has been forwarded to General Van Vliet. I do not exactly
understand the extent of the accommodations on the Arago,
but think there may perhaps be room for a few more; if you will
see him and find that more can be accommodated, you are authorized
to fill up the number with such persons as you may
wish to accompany you. On presentation of this telegram he will
give them free transportation and subsistence as if this were a
formal order....
.ll 68
.nf r
“Edwin M. Stanton,
“Secretary of War.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
During this spring the Secretary was in constant telegraphic
communication with Mr. Beecher, keeping him informed of each
victory or successful move of our army as it occurred.
This led to a thrilling incident in Plymouth Church. During
the month of March of this year it became very plain that
the war was surely drawing to a close. Lee, hemmed in by
Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan, obviously could not hold out
very much longer.
The whole country watched and waited with almost breathless
interest as slowly but surely the end drew on, the intensity
of feeling growing stronger as the end seemed nearer. It was in
this condition of the public mind, and on Sunday, April 2, that,
just after Mr. Beecher had finished his sermon and had given out
a hymn, a telegram was handed up to him on the platform.
Catching the feeling in the air that something of importance
had happened, every eye was turned to the platform and a silence
like death fell upon the three thousand gathered there.
Eagerly the telegram was opened, and as the flash of joy lit up
Mr. Beecher’s face a thrill ran through the congregation, instantly
hushed as he said:
“The congregation will turn to ‘America’ while I read the
following telegram:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“‘War Department, Washington,
“‘April 2, 1865.
.nf-
.ll
.ti 0
“‘To Rev. H. W. Beecher, Brooklyn:
“‘A despatch just received from General Grant’s adjutant-general
at City Point announces the triumphant success of our
.bn 459.png
.pn +1
armies after three days of hard fighting, during which the forces
on both sides exhibited unsurpassed valor:
.pm end_quote
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.nf r
“‘City Point, Va., April 2, 1865,
“‘5.30 A.M.
.nf-
.ll
“‘A despatch from General Grant states that General Sheridan, commanding
cavalry and infantry, has carried everything before him. He captured
three brigades of infantry, a wagon-train, and several batteries of
artillery. The prisoners captured will amount to several thousand.
.ll 68
.rj
“‘(Signed) T. S. Bowers, A. A. G.
.ll
.nf r
“‘Edwin M. Stanton,
“‘Secretary of War.’”
.nf-
.pm end_quote
As he ceased speaking the great throng rose and, as one man,
with streaming eyes joined in the triumphant anthem,
.pm start_poem
“My country, ’tis of thee!”
.pm end_poem
The organist drew the trumpet stops, and turned the full power
of the great organ into the hymn, but it was drowned by the
voices raised in solemn thanksgiving. Not a voice was silent,
not an eye was dry. As the last notes of the hymn died out
many a strong man dropped into his seat and sobbed with thankfulness.
The beginning of the end had come.
.tb
On the 8th of April the Arago sailed from New York for
Charleston. The day after she sailed came the surrender of
Lee’s army.
Of course no word of the news was received aboard the
Arago until she arrived off Charleston Harbor.
“It was when I was tossing upon the sea,” said Mr. Beecher,
“off the harbor of Charleston, that we were spoken, and the tidings
were communicated to us from another ship, ‘Lee has surrendered!’
And the wild outcry, the strange caprices and exultations
of that moment, they never will forget who were present.
We were far off from the scene of war; we saw no
signs nor tokens; it was as if the heaven had imparted it to us;
but oh! what gladness, what ecstasy there was in that news no
man can know but those who have suffered as we had suffered.”
Of his speech at the raising of the flag we can only quote a
few brief extracts:
“On this solemn and joyful day we again lift to the breeze
our fathers’ flag, now again the banner of the United States, with
.bn 460.png
.pn +1
the fervent prayer that God will crown it with honor, protect it
from treason, and send it down to our children with all the blessings
of civilization, liberty, and religion. Terrible in battle,
may it be beneficent in peace! Happily no bird or beast of prey
has been inscribed upon it. The stars that redeem the night
from darkness, and the beams of red light that beautify the
morning, have been united upon its folds. As long as the sun or
the stars endure may it wave over a nation neither enslaved, nor
enslaving. Once, and but once, has treason dishonored it. In
that insane hour, when the guiltiest and bloodiest rebellion of
time hurled its fires upon this fort, you, sir [turning to General
Anderson], and a small heroic band, stood within these now
crumbled walls, and did gallant and just battle for the honor and
defence of the nation’s banner....
“After a vain resistance, with trembling hand and sad heart
you withdrew the banner from its height, closed its wings, and
bore it far away to sleep amid the tumults of rebellion and the
thunder of battle....
“To-day you are returned again. The heavens over you are
the same; the same shores are here; morning and evening come
as they did. All else how changed! What grim batteries crowd
the burdened shores! What scenes have filled this air and disturbed
these waters! These shattered heaps of shapeless stone
are all that is left of Fort Sumter. Desolation broods in yonder
sad city; solemn retribution hath avenged our dishonored banner.
You, who departed hence four years ago, leaving the air
sultry with fanaticism, have come back with honor. The surging
crowds that rolled up their frenzied shouts, as the flag came
down, are dead, or scattered, or silent, and their habitations are
desolate. Ruin sits in the cradle of treason. Rebellion has
perished. But there flies the same flag that was insulted. With
starry eyes it looks all over this bay for that banner that supplanted
it, and sees it not. You that then, for the day, were
humbled, are here again, to triumph once and for ever. In the
storm of that assault this glorious ensign was often struck; but,
memorable fact, not one of its stars was torn out by shot or shell.
It was a prophecy. It said, ‘Not one State shall be struck from
this nation by treason.’ The fulfilment is at hand. Lifted to
the air to-day, it proclaims that, after four years of war, ‘not a
State is blotted out!’...
.bn 461.png
.pn +1
“Wherefore have we come hither, pilgrims from distant
places? Are we come to exult that Northern hands are stronger
than Southern? No; but to rejoice that the hands of those who
defend a just and beneficent government are mightier than the
hands that assaulted it! Do we exult over fallen cities? We
exult that a nation has not fallen. We sorrow with the sorrowful.
We sympathize with the desolate. We look upon this shattered
fort and yonder dilapidated city, with sad eyes, grieved
that men should have committed such treason, and glad that
God hath set such a mark upon treason that all ages shall dread
and abhor it.
“We exult, not for a passion gratified, but for a sentiment
victorious; not for temper, but for conscience; not, as we devoutly
believe, that our will is done, but that God’s will hath been
done! We should be unworthy of that liberty entrusted to our
care if, on such a day as this, we sullied our hearts by feelings
of aimless vengeance; and equally unworthy if we did not devoutly
thank Him who hath said, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,
saith the Lord,’ that He hath set a mark upon arrogant Rebellion,
ineffaceable while time lasts!...
“That long night is ended! And for this returning day we
have come from afar, to rejoice and give thanks. No more war.
No more accursed secession! No more slavery, that spawned them
both!
“Let no man misread the meaning of this unfolding flag! It
says, ‘Government hath returned hither.’ It proclaims, in the
name of vindicated government, peace and protection to loyalty,
humiliation and pains to traitors. This is the flag of sovereignty.
The nation, not the States, is sovereign. Restored to authority,
this flag commands, not supplicates.
“There may be pardon, but no concession. There may be
amnesty and oblivion, but no honeyed compromises. The nation
to-day has peace for the peaceful, and war for the turbulent.
The only condition of submission, is, to submit! There is the
Constitution, there are the laws, there is the government.
They rise up like mountains of strength that shall not be moved.
They are the conditions of peace.
”One nation, under one government, without slavery, has been
ordained and shall stand. There can be peace on no other
basis. On this basis reconstruction is easy, and needs neither
.bn 462.png
.pn +1
architect nor engineer. Without this basis no engineer or architect
shall ever reconstruct these rebellious States....
“I charge the whole guilt of this war upon the ambitious,
educated, plotting political leaders of the South. They have
shed this ocean of blood. They have desolated the South. They
have poured poverty through all her towns and cities. They
have bewildered the imagination of the people with phantasms,
and led them to believe that they were fighting for their homes
and liberty, whose homes were unthreatened, and whose liberty
was in no jeopardy....
”But for the people misled, for the multitudes drafted and
driven into this civil war, let not a trace of animosity remain.
The moment their willing hand drops the musket and they return
to their allegiance, then stretch out your own honest right
hand to greet them. Recall to them the old days of kindness.
Our hearts wait for their redemption. All the resources of a
renovated nation shall be applied to rebuild their prosperity and
smooth down the furrows of war.”
After the ceremonies of the 14th Mr. Beecher and his party
spent two days in visiting the various historic points in the city
and harbor of Charleston, then went to Hilton Head, where the
steamer Sua Nada was placed at his disposal by the government.
From Hilton Head Mr. Beecher and his party went on an excursion
visit to Beaufort. The day, which opened so bright and
beautiful, was to close in the gloom which overshadowed the nation.
The near points of interest about Beaufort had all been
seen, and the party, full of the joyous brightness of the day,
were sauntering back to the boat which was to take them to Hilton
Head, when a telegram was handed to Senator Wilson that
drove the smile from every lip. Lincoln had fallen, struck down
by an assassin! Dazed and bewildered, for a few moments all stood
silent; then Mr. Beecher exclaimed, “It’s time all good men
were at home,” and in mournful silence they hastened back to
Hilton Head. The Sua Nada was ordered to get under weigh at
once. In sadness and gloom the party, that but a few days before
had left New York with hearts filled with joy and thankfulness,
now hastened back through dreary rain-storms—nature’s
sympathetic mourning.
We can best describe that awful sorrow by quoting from Mr.
Beecher’s sermon preached in memory of the martyr:
.bn 463.png
.pn +1
“Never did two such orbs of experience meet in one hemisphere
as the joy and the sorrow of the same week in this land.
The joy was as sudden as if no man had expected it, and as
entrancing as if it had fallen a sphere from heaven. It rose up
over sobriety, and swept business from its moorings, and ran
down through the land in irresistible course. Men embraced
each other in brotherhood that were strangers in the flesh. They
sang, or prayed, or, deeper yet, many could only think thanksgiving
and weep gladness. That peace was sure; that government
was firmer than ever; that the land was cleansed of plague;
that the ages were opening to our footsteps, and we were to begin
a march of blessings; that blood was stanched, and scowling
enmities were sinking like storms beneath the horizon; that the
dear fatherland, nothing lost, much gained, was to rise up in unexampled
honor among the nations of the earth—these thoughts,
and that undistinguishable throng of fancies, and hopes, and desires,
and yearnings that filled the soul with tremblings like the
heated air of midsummer days, all these kindled up such a surge
of joy as no words may describe.
“In one hour joy lay without a pulse, without a gleam or
breath. A sorrow came that swept through the land as huge
storms sweep through the forest and field, rolling thunder
along the sky, dishevelling the flowers, daunting every singer in
thicket or forest, and pouring blackness and darkness across
the land and up the mountains. Did ever so many hearts, in so
brief a time, touch two such boundless feelings? It was the
uttermost of joy: it was the uttermost of sorrow—noon and
midnight, without a space between.
“The blow brought not a sharp pang. It was so terrible that
at first it stunned sensibility. Citizens were like men awakened
at midnight by an earthquake, and bewildered to find everything
that they were accustomed to trust wavering and falling. The
very earth was no longer solid. The first feeling was the least.
Men waited to get straight to feel. They wandered in the streets
as if groping after some impending dread, or undeveloped sorrow,
or some one to tell them what ailed them. They met each
other as if each would ask the other, ‘Am I awake, or do I
dream?’ There was a piteous helplessness. Strong men bowed
down and wept. Other and common griefs belonged to some
one in chief: this belonged to all. It was each and every man’s.
.bn 464.png
.pn +1
Every virtuous household in the land felt as if its first-born were
gone. Men were bereaved, and walked for days as if a corpse
lay unburied in their dwellings. There was nothing else to
think of. They could speak of nothing but that; and yet of
that they could speak only falteringly. All business was laid
aside. Pleasure forgot to smile. The city for nearly a week
ceased to roar. The great Leviathan lay down and was still.
Even avarice stood still, and greed was strangely moved to generous
sympathy and universal sorrow. Rear to his name monuments,
found charitable institutions and write his name above
their lintels; but no monument will ever equal the universal,
spontaneous, and sublime sorrow that in a moment swept down
lines and parties, and covered up animosities, and in an hour
brought a divided people into unity of grief and indivisible fellowship
of anguish.”
.bn 465.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch22'
CHAPTER XXII.
.pm start_summary
Reconstruction—Mr. Beecher favors speedy Readmission—Soldiers’ and
Sailors’ Convention at Cleveland—The “Cleveland Letters” cause
great Excitement.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
With President Lincoln’s death the Rebellion died. A few
fitful flames and a few smouldering coals here and there
were all that was left of the great conflagration, but the
Rebellion was broken and dead. In its death-struggles it struck
one wicked, random blow, and left the victors mourning in the
very hour of victory—never was so great a victory so sad and
joyless.
But the nation soon roused itself and turned to the solution
of those new problems which confronted it. Through four harsh
and bitter years, years of suffering, this peace-loving nation had
been trained to war. Energetic fighting men had been pushed
forward, by the necessities of the times, to the front, and put in
command of national affairs. A vast army, trained for fighting,
was at hand. When suddenly the war was at an end, and he
who with patient wisdom had stood at the helm, and guided the
nation through such troubled seas, was stricken down. A new
and untried man was, by virtue of his office, called to the head
of the government. Armies were to be disbanded. The credit
of the nation was to be sustained, and steps taken to meet the
vast debt rolled up by the war. The problem was changed: instead
of war was peace, disarmament, and reconstruction. Most
serious of all was this question of reconstruction—what to do
with the conquered States and conquered people. Having rebelled
and led armies against the national government, the leaders
had been guilty of high treason. What should be done to
them? Should they be punished, and, if so, how? What
should be done with the States? It had been determined that
they should not depart from the Union. They were not in, and
how should they be received back?
They had submitted, offered anew their loyalty to the government
.bn 466.png
.pn +1
of the Nation, and asked to be taken back again. The
passions of a four-years strife, and such a strife, were slow to
subside; boiling blood cools but slowly. At first a strong feeling
of resentment set in, and it was earnestly proposed to hang
out of hand the leading rebels. Then they proposed to hang
Jefferson Davis as a symbol of defeated treason, and so vicariously
punish the South. In time even that feeling passed away.
But on the question of reconstruction and readmission the feelings
of the Republican party leaders ran high.
President Johnson, himself a loyal Southerner, was strongly
in favor of readmitting the Southern States to a participation in
the government (upon such terms as might be just), and receiving
Senators and Congressmen from the readmitted States. To this
plan Congress, which was overwhelmingly Republican, was bitterly
opposed, and the result was the executive and legislative
branches of the government divided one over against the other,
waging a fierce and disgraceful fight—disgraceful alike to each.
As in all other matters that affected the welfare of the government,
Mr. Beecher was deeply interested in this, and lost no opportunity
to express his views from the pulpit and the platform.
He was strongly opposed to any vindictive course, and when
it was proposed to make an example of Jeff Davis he declared:
“The war is itself the most terrific warning that could be set
up, and to attempt, by erecting against this lurid background
the petty figure of a gallows with a man dangling at it, to
heighten the effect, would be like lighting tapers when God’s
lightnings are flashing across the heavens to add to the grandeur
of the storm.”
On the 20th of February, 1866, at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music, in answer to Wendell Phillips’s lecture entitled “The
South Victorious,” given a short time previous, Mr. Beecher
delivered a speech which he called “The North Victorious.” In
this he took a pronounced stand on the question of reconstruction:
“Each day will develop the prosperity of the South moving
upon the new basis, and each day will make it plainer and plainer
to them that nationality is necessary for their prosperity. Old
aspirations must die. The war passion must cease. It is a new
South we are talking about. It has a new political economy. It
has a new future. God has said by the side of the sepulchre,
.bn 467.png
.pn +1
‘South, come forth!’ and the South has come, though bound
hand and foot. Methinks I hear the Saviour say, ‘Loose her
and let her go.’
“On the other hand, look for one moment at the effects of a
prolonged exclusion of the Southern States. It is weaning the
citizens of those States more and more from the national government.
For five years they have not thought of Washington
except to curse her. They have not felt the need of it. They
have not felt any blood running through them that came from
the national heart. It is proposed to make them live five years
more out of the Union. Is that the way to make them love it?
Is that the way to make them feel their need of the government?
“The utmost evil in admitting them that can result will be
that we shall be obliged to take a longer time to do some things
which now we mean to do by legislation. Many of the things
which we seek to accomplish by laws we shall be obliged to accomplish
by moral means. I have seen this anxiety to do everything
by legislation, legislation, legislation, waiting for it, and I
have seen the power of great moral causes. Although there is a
wisdom in legislation which I would be far from invalidating,
the forms of wholesome legislation, still I would balance that by
the other consideration that it may take too long a time, and we
may rely too much upon legislation. I rely upon reason and
conscience. Churches are my congresses, and school-houses are
my legislators. Kindness, equal, reciprocal, or identical interests—these
are renovating influences; and I would not wait
too long for laws, which at best are but as mills which must run
by some external power. What is a windmill without wind, or
a water-mill without a stream of water? Why put a mill upon
the hill-top with a water-wheel, or in a valley if made with a
sail? What are laws without public sentiment? They are
water-mills without water, wind-mills without wind. We must
fall back upon moral force. It may take a little more time, but
we shall do the work more thoroughly; and I believe we shall
yet see the day when, throughout the South, they will show an
enthusiasm for liberty, and schools, and churches, and colleges,
such as we have never seen even in the North; when every man
shall sit under his own vine and fig-tree, blessed and blessing.”
Shortly after the assassination of President Lincoln he said,
referring to its effect upon the South:
.bn 468.png
.pn +1
“I know not how this may turn, so far as the South is concerned;
I know not but that the cords will be drawn tighter
than they would have been if Mr. Lincoln had been spared; yet
I am not without hope that those men who have for four years
learned almost nothing but to curse the name of our beloved and
now martyred President, with the beginning of better thoughts
and feelings may, by sorrow and by grief, be led back again
toward a national feeling. The North has been unified by a
sorrow of one kind; and I would fain hope that God, in His
providence, will make use of this great affliction to produce the
beginnings of compunction and the return of national feeling
throughout the South. And so the death of Mr. Lincoln may be
blessed to them as well as to us.
“But, brethren, my heart goes out toward my whole country.
I mourn for those outcast States. The bitterness of their destruction;
the wrath that has come upon them; their desolation—you
know nothing of these. The sublimest monument that
has ever been reared in this world to testify God’s abhorrence of
cruelty and rebellion has its base as broad as fifteen States. No
pyramid was ever lifted up in such awful majesty as is the pyramidal
overthrow of these fifteen States. And I pray God that
this last, cruelest, wickedest offspring of the Rebellion may be
an expiation through which they shall be redeemed. Christ,
when He died, prayed for those that crucified Him, and instead
of asking vengeance on them, said: ‘Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do.’”
Just before going to Fort Sumter in April, 1865, he said
from his pulpit:
“I would be no man’s servant to go to add additional sorrows
to those that already press and weigh down the South.... I go
to say to them, ‘Sound government has come back; beneficent
government has come back; the day has dawned; and, as brethren
to brethren, I come to bring you good tidings of great joy’”—a
feeling that was more fully expressed in his speech at the fort.
Shortly after Johnson had been called to the presidential
chair, and before the open rupture with Congress and his subsequent
extravagant follies, Mr. Beecher wrote him:
“The two points that have lain most at my heart are:
“1. That the government should not allow itself, by any
temptation, to invade the true State rights. The temptation is
.bn 469.png
.pn +1
strong. But the precedent established might by and by plunge
us again into great trials, and even conflicts.
“2. The other point is, the necessity of securing for freedmen
the kindness and good-will of Southern white men. Their fate
will largely depend upon their neighbors’ dispositions toward
them. Northern people nor the government can hold them up
long if all the State populations around them are inimical.
“In both these respects, as in others, I perceive that your
sentiments are enlightened and statesmanlike.
“May it please Almighty God to endue you with health and
strength to complete the work which you have so auspiciously
begun!”
By the autumn of 1866 there had grown up in the Republican
party quite a minority, called “Conservative Republicans,”
who were opposed to the policy of exclusion; and an effort was
made that fall to elect Congressmen who would be in favor of
admitting the Southern States again under such terms and restrictions
as might be deemed necessary. This feeling was quite
marked among the soldiers themselves, who, with the chivalry
natural to bravery, were opposed to humiliating a conquered
enemy. In September a National Convention of Soldiers and
Sailors was called to be held on the 17th in Cleveland, Ohio, to
give expression to this feeling. The preparatory committee sent
to Mr. Beecher an invitation to serve as chaplain to the convention,
saying in it:
“Your name has been selected by the Executive Committee
from sincere admiration of your character, and as the only tribute
within their power to pay in acknowledgment of your noble devotion
to the cause of the Union, and your earnest and unceasing
efforts in behalf of our soldiers and sailors during the recent
war.
“The Executive Committee also find in your course since the
termination of the struggle substantial harmony with the views
to which they desire to give effect in the convention—your eloquence
and the just weight of your name being employed to enforce
upon the country a generous and magnanimous policy
toward the people of the lately rebellious States, and a prompt
reconstruction of the Union under the Constitution as the best
means of regaining the national tranquillity which the country so
much needs, and readjusting the rights of all sections, under the
.bn 470.png
.pn +1
new order of things, on a basis of law, order, Christian brotherhood,
and justice.
“In the call for the convention, which the undersigned have
the honor to transmit herewith, you will see fully set forth the
motives which actuate the military and naval defenders of the
Union in their present unusual course of taking part in a political
movement; and it is our hope—as we have always looked to
you in the darkest days of the war for inspiration, aid, and the
cheering sympathy of a noble heart, never failing to find them—that
you will consent to invoke the Divine Blessing upon the
Convention of the Soldiers and Sailors of the United States who
served during the late Rebellion, and who approve the restoration
policy of President Johnson and the principles announced by the
recent national convention of Philadelphia—the first convention
since 1860 in which all the States of our beloved Union were
represented.”
As the convention was called for a time when he was prostrated
by his annual “hay cold,” he was obliged to decline, but
wrote to them what has since become famous as his first Cleveland
letter.
This invitation, which seems so proper and natural to-day, and
the letter in reply recapitulating the views which, as we have seen,
had been expressed again and again in public, to the intense astonishment
of Mr. Beecher produced a perfect tornado, and for
a few days he was in the centre of a wild and furious whirlwind
that threatened to destroy his influence in public affairs—then
very great—and even to rend his church asunder. It seems impossible,
as we look back twenty years, to believe that such results
could have followed such a cause.
It would seem, as we follow the exposition of his views almost
daily on this subject, as though the public, and certainly his
friends, would have become fully accustomed to them, and would
have recognized the object for which he strove; and the sudden,
almost blind outburst of anger, indignation, and grief that followed
the Cleveland letter, can only be explained on the theory
that the course of President Johnson had so exasperated the
Northern feelings, that the people, fairly beside themselves with
anger, indignation, and suspicion, could see nothing right in what
he did or advised, and would not permit any one to speak a
kind word either for him or any of the views that he advocated.
.bn 471.png
.pn +1
Eighteen years later, looking back upon the accomplishment
of that which he had so strenuously advocated, and seeing men
commending as wisdom that which they had then condemned as
folly, he recalls this incident in his life, which, like many others
before and since, awaked the mournful prophecies of timid friends.
From his Thanksgiving sermon, November 27, 1884, we quote:
.pm start_quote
“But one thing more was needed, and that was to chase the
scowl from the Southern brow; to revive the old friendship; to
clasp hands again in a vow of loving and patriotic zeal. It was
given to us last, because it is the greatest of God’s gifts. There
never has been such a scene since the earth was born; there
never has been such a rupture, never such a conflict, never such
a victory, never such a reconstruction, never such restoration of
integrity in business, never such a reconciliation and gladness
between good men on both sides, as come to us to-day. As yet
the eyes of many are holden, and they cannot see how great a
blessing God has brought to our unbelieving eyes and timid
hands. From the bottom of my soul I believe in the honor and
integrity of thoughtful Southern men; and when I get from
them such letters as I do, and hear from their lips such declarations
as I hear, that they feel at last that they are in and of the
Union, as much as we, and point to the flag, declaring, with
tears, ‘That is now my flag,’ I believe it; I should be faithless
to God and to Providence if I did not. I believe it with an
enthusiasm of faith, and with a longing heart of love; for I
think they are above hypocrisy or insincerity, and that, if we
choose, the last cloud will rise from between us and then pass
away for ever.
“Moses, after forty years of toil, was allowed to see the promised
land from afar off only. Less worthy, yet more blessed,
I am spared to go over with the rejoicing tribes into the land
flowing with milk and honey. What am I, or my father’s house,
that to me should be given the privilege of laboring in all this
drama, and seeing it end nobly thus? The discipline is complete,
and to the end of time this great epic of liberty, our struggle
with slavery, will shine like the sun.
“Not the least joyful element in this reconciliation is the
assured safety and benefit which will accrue to the colored race.
That has come to pass which was their only safety. Just as
soon as the Southern statesmen accept the perfect restoration of
.bn 472.png
.pn +1
themselves to the great body politic, and find that there is no
division, as between Northern men and Southern men, in any of
the honors of government; just as soon as they are in and a
part of every administration—as, thank God! they will be—just so
soon of necessity that will take place which has taken place
everywhere, in every community: there will be the party of administration,
the ‘ins,’ and the party opposed to them, the opposition,
the ‘outs.’ The moment you have these two parties,
each party has a sentinel watching it. In the South that will
take place which is the salvation of the colored race. As long
as they were a fringe upon a Northern party the South was condensed
and solidified against it. As soon as they are divided at
home between the administrational party and the opposition
party, they will be guarded and taken care of. The administration
party will not allow its voters to be injured; the opposition
party will not allow its voters to be injured. They will be distributed
as they should be, and the strength of each party in the
South will be the safeguard of the intermediate voters. I regard
this now, with schools and academies and various seminaries
spread among them, as the final step of emancipation.
“It is in these views that I have acted; and in the calmest
retrospect I now rejoice that I was able to act so.
“The greatest mistake of my life has happened twice, as I
have been informed.
“I was in 1866 invited to act as chaplain to the convention
called at the city of Cleveland, Ohio, of the soldiers and sailors
of our army and navy. The object of that convention was to so
shape our Northern politics as to bring the Southern States back
immediately, or as soon as possible; and in that general tendency
I sympathized.
“The question of reconstruction of the seceding States
was under discussion, and feeling ran high, not alone on account
of the nature of the work to be done, but also by reason
of the disturbed relations between President Johnson and Congress.
“President Lincoln had been assassinated, and Johnson had
assumed his place. The statesmen whose vigor and courage had
carried the country through the civil war were less adapted to
the delicate task of restoring the discordant States to peace and
unity than they had been to the sudden duties of war.
.bn 473.png
.pn +1
“In a general way there were two parties: one counselling a
speedy readjustment, and the other a longer probation.
“President Lincoln and Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts,
in the last conversations which I had with them, inclined to the
policy of immediate restoration; and their views had great
weight with me. It was in the interest of such a policy that the
Cleveland convention was called.
“My first letter was in reply to the invitation from the convention:
.ll 68
.rj
“‘Peekskill, N. Y., August 30, 1866.
.ll
.in 2
.ti -2
“‘Chas. G. Halpine, Brevet Brig.-Gen.; H. W. Slocum, Major-Gen.;
Gordon Granger, Major-Gen., Committee:
.in
“‘Gentlemen: I am obliged to you for the invitation which
you have made to me to act as chaplain to the Convention of
Sailors and Soldiers about to convene at Cleveland. I cannot
attend it, but I heartily wish it and all other conventions, of what
party soever, success, whose object is the restoration of all the
States late in rebellion to their federal relations.
“‘Our theory of government has no place for a State except
in the Union. It is justly taken for granted that the duties and
responsibilities of a State in federal relations tend to its political
health and to that of the whole nation. Even Territories are
hastily brought in, often before the prescribed conditions are fulfilled,
as if it were dangerous to leave a community outside of the
great body politic.
“‘Had the loyal senators and representatives of Tennessee
been admitted at once on the assembling of Congress, and, in
moderate succession, Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina,
and Virginia, the public mind of the South would have been
far more healthy than it is, and those States which lingered on
probation to the last would have been under a more salutary influence
to good conduct than if a dozen armies had watched
over them.
“‘Every month that we delay this healthful step complicates
the case. The excluded population, enough unsettled before,
grows more irritable; the army becomes indispensable to local
government and supersedes it; the government at Washington
is called to interfere in one and another difficulty, and this will
be done inaptly, and sometimes with great injustice; for our
.bn 474.png
.pn +1
government, wisely adapted to its own proper functions, is utterly
devoid of those habits, and unequipped with the instruments,
which fit a centralized government to exercise authority in remote
States over local affairs. Every attempt to perform such
duties has resulted in mistakes which have excited the nation.
But whatever imprudence there may be in the method, the real
criticism should be against the requisition of such duties of the
general government.
“‘The federal government is unfit to exercise minor police
and local government, and will inevitably blunder when it attempts
it. To keep a half-score of States under federal authority,
but without national ties and responsibilities; to oblige the
central authority to govern half of the territory of the Union by
federal civil officers and by the army, is a policy not only uncongenial
to our ideas and principles, but pre-eminently dangerous
to the spirit of our government. However humane the ends
sought and the motive, it is, in fact, a course of instruction preparing
our government to be despotic, and familiarizing the
people to a stretch of authority which can never be other than
dangerous to liberty.
“‘I am aware that good men are withheld from advocating the
prompt and successive admission of the exiled States by the fear,
chiefly, of its effect upon the freedmen.
“‘It is said that, if admitted to Congress, the Southern senators
and representatives will coalesce with Northern Democrats
and rule the country. Is this nation, then, to remain dismembered
to serve the ends of parties? Have we learned no wisdom
by the history of the past ten years, in which just this course of
sacrificing the nation to the exigencies of parties plunged us into
rebellion and war?
“‘Even admit that the power would pass into the hands of a
party made up of Southern men and the hitherto dishonored and
misled Democracy of the North, that power could not be used
just as they pleased. The war has changed, not alone institutions,
but ideas. The whole country has advanced. Public
sentiment is exalted far beyond what it has been at any former
period. A new party would, like a river, be obliged to seek out
its channels in the already existing slopes and forms of the continent....
“‘I hear with wonder, and shame, and scorn the fear of a few
.bn 475.png
.pn +1
that the South, once more in adjustment with the federal government,
will rule this nation! The North is rich, never so rich;
the South is poor, never before so poor. The population of the
North is nearly double that of the South. The industry of the
North, in diversity, in forwardness and productiveness, in all the
machinery and education required for manufacturing, is half a
century in advance of the South. Churches in the North crown
every hill, and schools swarm in every neighborhood; while the
South has but scattered lights, at long distances, like light-houses
twinkling along the edge of a continent of darkness. In the presence
of such a contrast how mean and craven is the fear that
the South will rule the policy of the land! That it will have an
influence, that it will contribute, in time, most important influences
or restraints, we are glad to believe. But if it rises at once
to the control of the government it will be because the North,
demoralized by prosperity and besotted by grovelling interests,
refuses to discharge its share of political duty. In such a case
the South not only will control the government, but ought to
do it.
“‘It is feared, with more reason, that the restoration of the
South to her full independence will be detrimental to the freedmen.
The sooner we dismiss from our minds the idea that the
freedmen can be classified and separated from the white population,
and nursed and defended by themselves, the better it will
be for them and us. The negro is part and parcel of Southern
society. He cannot be prosperous while it is unprospered.
Its evils will rebound upon him. Its happiness and reinvigoration
cannot be kept from his participation. The restoration of
the South to amicable relations with the North, the reorganization
of its industry, the reinspiration of its enterprise and thrift,
will all redound to the freedman’s benefit. Nothing is so dangerous
to the freedman as an unsettled state of society in the South.
On him comes all the spite, and anger, and caprice, and revenge.
He will be made the scapegoat of lawless and heartless men.
Unless we turn the government into a vast military machine,
there cannot be armies enough to protect the freedmen while
Southern society remains insurrectionary. If Southern society
is calmed, settled, and occupied, and soothed with new hopes
and prosperous industries, no armies will be needed. Riots
will subside, lawless hangers-on will be driven off or better
.bn 476.png
.pn +1
governed, and a way will be gradually opened to the freedmen,
through education and industry, to full citizenship with all its
honors and duties.
“‘Civilization is a growth. None can escape that forty years
in the wilderness who travel from the Egypt of ignorance to the
promised land of civilization. The freedmen must take their
march. I have full faith in the results. If they have the stamina
to undergo the hardships which every uncivilized people has undergone
in its upward progress, they will in due time take their
place among us. That place cannot be bought, nor bequeathed,
nor gained by sleight of hand. It will come to sobriety, virtue,
industry, and frugality. As the nation cannot be sound until the
South is prosperous, so, on the other extreme, a healthy condition
of civil society in the South is indispensable to the welfare of the
freedmen.
“‘Refusing to admit loyal senators and representatives from
the South to Congress will not help the freedmen. It will not
secure for them the vote. It will not protect them. It will not
secure any amendment of our Constitution, however just and
wise. It will only increase the dangers and complicate the difficulties.
Whether we regard the whole nation or any section of
it or class in it, the first demand of our time is entire reunion!
“‘Once united, we can, by schools, churches, a free press, and
increasing free speech, attack every evil and secure every good.
Meanwhile, the great chasm which rebellion has made is not
filled up. It grows deeper and stretches wider! Out of it rise
dread spectres and threatening sounds. Let that gulf be closed,
and bury in it slavery, sectional animosity, and all strifes and
hatreds!
“‘It is fit that the brave men who, on sea and land, faced
death to save this nation, should now, by their voice and vote,
consummate what their swords rendered possible.
“‘For the sake of the freedmen, for the sake of the South and
its millions of our fellow-countrymen, for our own sake, and for
the great cause of freedom and civilization, I urge the immediate
reunion of all the parts of this Union which rebellion and war
have shattered.
.ll 68
.nf r
I am, truly yours,
“‘Henry Ward Beecher.’”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
This letter was published by the convention in the hope that
.bn 477.png
.pn +1
it would make an impression on the public mind. It did. Their
most sanguine expectations were more than realized in that respect.
But it was a step in advance of the prevailing public
sentiment, and, like such steps, was largely misunderstood or
misrepresented.
The partisan Republican press at once assailed Mr. Beecher,
some bitterly, some indignantly, and some compassionately.
Read hastily, it was construed as a declaration against the Republican
party and in favor of President Johnson, who by this
time had come in violent collision with Congress and the general
sentiment of the North. The President’s course was regarded
as treacherous, and a feeling of hatred was spreading
through the North, so intense that it was only necessary for him
to advocate any measure to have it looked upon with suspicion
and be bitterly opposed. Many of Mr. Beecher’s personal friends
were alarmed and distressed, fearing that he was giving aid and
comfort to the enemy. He was overwhelmed with letters full of
fear—fear for the country, fear for the Republican party, fear for
him and his future usefulness. Some who had been among his
intimate friends attacked him openly and fiercely in the public
prints. The Independent, whose editorship he had but recently
resigned, and to which he was still a regular contributor, in its
leading editorial, from the pen of Theodore Tilton, attacked him
with intense and persistent bitterness. Writing shortly afterwards
to a friend, he said:
“The rage and abuse of excited men I have too long been
used to, now to be surprised or daunted.... I stood almost
alone, my church, in my absence, full of excitement; all my ministerial
brethren, with a few honorable exceptions, either aloof
or in clamor against me; well-nigh the whole religious press denouncing
me, and the political press furious.”
On the other hand, many thoughtful, earnest men agreed with
the letter and commended it most earnestly. We quote from
a letter received from Dr. Stephen H. Tyng as a type of this
class:
“I have just read your admirable letter in the Times of to-day.
My eyes are wet with tears of sympathy and thanksgiving.
You have expressed in terms and with beauty peculiar to yourself
precisely what I have in my humble way thought and felt....
The recognition and establishment of our Union on the
.bn 478.png
.pn +1
basis of undisputed loyalty to the national government, unlimited
liberty to the people, universal fidelity in payment of our
responsibility, and generous reciprocation and acknowledgment
of mutual kindness and confidence among all portions of our
territory and all classes of our people, is to me the one great
immediate end for us to strive for. I have not a doubt that all
our interests and hopes, social, moral, and economical, are far
safer in the union of our States and the complete acknowledgment
of them all, than they can be in its refusal—nay, that they
are safe in no other course. I cannot justify the partisan and
acrimonious action which resists and impedes this immediate
union.... The country has been much indebted to you for
faithful and powerful defence, but it has never had more occasion
to honor you than for the letter which I have read this
morning....”
The reply to Dr. Tyng, written some days before the second
letter, is valuable as showing how little his critics understood
Mr. Beecher’s position, and with what unreasonable and passion-blinded
haste they jumped to the conclusion that he had abandoned
the Republican party, become a Johnson man, Copperhead,
etc.:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Peekskill, Sept. 6, 1866.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear Dr. Tyng:
“Your kind letter surprised and delighted me, and has been
a great comfort withal. You perhaps are aware by this time
that my letter has been excessively distasteful to the great body
of men with whom I have acted, and to my own congregation.
Nothing but a deep sense of public danger, to which the eyes
of our best men seem blind, induced me to write it. The sentiments
contained in it I had, in speeches and lectures, openly
declared in all the principal cities of the East during the whole
winter and spring, and I was therefore not a little surprised at
the wonder and excitement with which they have now been received.
“I attribute it to the sharp issue made by Mr. Johnson and
Congress, and to the exasperation of the public mind with the
President, especially his most unwise speeches made during his
present tour. I am far from being a Johnson man. I am an advocate
of the principles of speedy readjustment, without waiting
for a greater but at present unattainable good. I am, however,
.bn 479.png
.pn +1
constrained to say that Mr. Johnson just now and for some time
past has been the greatest obstacle in the way of his own views.
The mere fact that he holds them is their condemnation with a
public utterly exasperated with his rudeness and violence. The
TRUTH is, however, just as important as if it had a wiser advocate.
“Things may go so far that no choice will be left but between
a Copperhead Johnson party and a radical Republican, and I
cannot for a moment hesitate on which side I shall be, or rather
already am.
“The moral sentiment of justice, liberty, and Christian progress
is with the Republican side. There are the men whom I
most esteem, and with whom I have always acted, and for whom
first and last I have wished success.
“For that very reason I have desired and labored assiduously
to secure to them more practical views than those at first peculiar
to a few extreme men, but which, partly by the President’s
indiscretions, partly by the inflammation of the public mind and
the adroitness with which things have been managed by a few,
seem likely to become the enthusiastic belief of the whole community,
or of a large majority. I must submit to things which I
cannot control. Should things turn out better than my fears I
shall be glad to find myself a false prophet. But I confess that
the cause of the freedmen, which lies near my heart, looks gloomy
in the future. With a very Southern South and a very Northern
North I do not see but they will be ground to powder. But God
rules—that is my unfailing comfort. His cause gains as well
by disaster as by success. Good and evil both serve Him....”
.pm end_quote
On the 7th of September Mr. Beecher received a letter from
Dr. R. S. Storrs, then an intimate friend, which expressed the
feelings of not a few of his friends. In this he urged Mr.
Beecher to make a fuller and more explicit statement of his
position, and to show plainly that he was not in sympathy with
Johnson, Seward, etc., in their general attitude. “A vast number
of people who have loved and honored you for years are
really beginning to believe that you have gone over bodily; of
course all those who know you as I do, know this to be an
utter misapprehension of your position.”
Many of the members of Plymouth Church shared the common
.bn 480.png
.pn +1
misapprehension, while many saw plainly what Mr. Beecher
was seeking, and sympathized with him. As a consequence the
church was deeply stirred and in commotion.
To quote again from Mr. Beecher:
“Not many days after, President Johnson began that ill-favored
journey, known as ‘swinging around the circle,’ during the
progress of which his temper, attitude, and injudicious speeches
thoroughly alarmed the community.
“It was believed that he was betraying the country, and that
all that had been gained by the war was about to be lost by the
treachery of the President. The public mind was greatly inflamed,
and my Cleveland letter was received with violent protests.
Many personal friends and members of Plymouth Church
were greatly exercised.
“There was a great pother made about that. My own friends
were very hot. Some dove into the newspapers, some into letters.
They flew thick and fast all around about me. Neighboring
ministers thought that I was unseated and disrupted for ever.
In the midst of it all I knew I was right, and that if I had patience
others would know that I was right. And they did,
though they still talk about that greatest blunder of my life, ‘the
Cleveland letter.’ I am going to send down that document to
my children as one of the most glorious things that I ever did
in my life. But such was the excitement and clamor that I
thought it wise to alleviate the fear and trouble of my people by
giving a fuller view of the ground of my first letter and to
confute the idea that I had abandoned the Republican party, so
I wrote the second letter to a friend to read to the church,
assuming the same position, but with explanatory reasoning.”
This was the second so-called “Cleveland Letter”:
We give a few extracts from this letter, which was a very long
one, covering nearly the same ground as the first, only giving his
reasons more fully:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Peekskill, Saturday, Sept. 8, 1866.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear ———:
“I am obliged to you for your letter. I am sorry that my
friends and my congregation are grieved by my Cleveland
letter.
“This feeling, however, has no just grounds, whatever may
be the seeming. I have not left, and do not propose to leave,
.bn 481.png
.pn +1
or to be put out of, the Republican party. I am in sympathy
with its aims, its great principles, and its army of noble men.
But I took the liberty of criticising its policy in a single respect,
and to do what I could to secure what I believed, and still believe,
to be a better one.
“I am, and from the first have been, fully of opinion that
the amendment of the Constitution proposed by Congress, equalizing
representation in Northern and Southern States, was intrinsically
just and reasonable, and that it should be sought by a
wholesome and persistent moral agitation.
“But, from the present condition of the public mind and
from the President’s attitude, I deemed such a change to be
practically impossible, in any near period, by political action.
And a plan of reconstruction based upon that seems to me far
more like a plan of adjourning reconstruction for years, at least,
with all the liabilities of mischief which are always to be expected
in the fluctuations of politics in a free nation.
“It is not the North that chiefly needs the restoration of government
to its normal sphere and regular action. Either the
advantages of Union are fallacious, or the continuous exclusion
of the South from it will breed disorder, make the future reunion
more difficult, and especially subject the freedmen to the
very worst conditions of society that can well exist. No army,
no government, and no earthly power can compel the South to
treat four million men justly, if the inhabitants (whether rightly
or wrongly) regard these men as the cause, or even the occasion,
of their unhappiness and disfranchisement. But no army, or
government, or power will be required when Southern society is
restored, occupied, and prospering in the renewed Union. Then
the negro will be felt to be a necessity to Southern industry, and
interest will join with conscience and kindness in securing for
him favorable treatment from his fellow-citizens....
“Neither am I a ‘Johnson man’ in any received meaning of
that term. I accept that part of the policy which he favors, but
with modification. I have never thought that it would be wise
to bring back all the States in a body, and at once, any more than
it would be to keep them all out together. One by one, in due
succession, under a special judgment rather than by a wholesale
theoretic rule, I would have them readmitted. I still think a
middle course between the President’s and that of Congress
.bn 482.png
.pn +1
would be wiser than either. But with this my agreement with
the President ends.
“And now allow me to express some surprise at the turn
which the public mind has taken on my letter. If I had never
before spoken my sentiments, I could see how friends might now
misapprehend my position. But for a year past I have been advocating
the very principles of the Cleveland letter in all the
chief Eastern cities—in Boston, Portland, Springfield, Albany,
Utica, Rochester, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh,
and Brooklyn (at the Academy of Music last winter). These
views were reported, discussed, agreed to or differed from,
praised and blamed abundantly. But no one thought, or at least
said, that I remember, that I had forsaken the Republican party
or had turned my back upon the freedman. My recent letter
but condenses those views which for twelve months I have been
earnestly engaged in urging upon the attention of the community.
I am not surprised that men dissent. But this sudden consternation
and this late discovery of the nature of my opinions
seem sufficiently surprising. I could not ask a better service
than the reprinting of that sermon of last October, which first
brought upon me the criticisms of the Tribune and Independent.
“I foresaw that, in the probable condition of parties and the
country, we could not carry suffrage for the freedman by immediate
political action. When the ablest and most radical Congress
of our history came together they refused to give suffrage
to negroes, even in the District of Columbia; and only in an indirect
way, not as a political right but as the hoped-for result of
political selfishness, did they provide for it by an amendment of
the Constitution. What was prophecy with me, Congress has
made history. Relinquishing political instruments for gaining
the full enfranchisement of men, I instantly turned to moral
means; and enunciating the broadest doctrine of manhood suffrage,
I gave the widest latitude to that, advocating the rights of
black and white, of men and women, to the vote. If any man
has labored more openly, on a broader principle, and with more
assiduity, I do not know him. More ability may have been
shown, but not more directness of purpose or undeviating consistency....
“Deeming the speedy admission of the Southern States as
necessary to their own health, as indirectly the best policy for
.bn 483.png
.pn +1
the freedmen, as peculiarly needful to the safety of our government,
which, for the sake of accomplishing a good end, incautious
men are in danger of perverting, I favored, and do still
favor, the election to Congress of Republicans who will seek the
early admission of the recusant States. Having urged it for a
year past, I was more than ready to urge it again upon the representatives
to Congress this fall. In this spirit and for this end
I drew up my Cleveland letter. I deem its views sound; I am not
sorry that I wrote it. I regret the misapprehension which it has
caused, and yet more any sorrow which it may have needlessly
imposed upon dear friends. As I look back upon my course, I
see no deviation from the straight line which I have made, without
wavering, for now thirty years in public life, in favor of justice,
liberty, and the elevation of the poor and ignorant.
“The attempt to class me with men whose course I have
opposed all my life long will utterly fail. I shall choose my own
place, and shall not be moved from it. I have been from my
youth a firm, unwavering, avowed, and active friend of all that
were oppressed. I have done nothing to forfeit that good name
which I have earned. I am not going weakly to turn away from
my settled convictions of the public weal for fear that bad men
may praise me or good men blame. There is a serious difference
of judgment between men as to the best policy. We must all remit
to the future the decision of the question. Facts will soon
judge us.
“I feel now profoundly how imperfect my services have been
to my country, compared with its desert of noble services. But
I am conscious that I have given all that I had to give, without
fear or favor. Above all earthly things is my country dear to
me. The lips that taught me to say ‘Our Father’ taught me to
say ‘Fatherland.’ I have aimed to conceive of that land in the
light of Christianity. God is my witness that with singleness of
heart I have given all my time, strength, and service to that
which shall make our whole nation truly prosperous and glorious.
Not by the lustre of arms, even in a just cause, would I seek her
glory, but by a civilization that should carry its blessings down
to the lowest classes, and nourish the very roots of society by
her moral power and purity, by her public conscience, her political
justice, and by her intelligent homes, filling up a continent
and rearing a virtuous and noble citizenship.
.bn 484.png
.pn +1
“By night and by day this is the vision and dream of my life,
and inspires me as no personal ambition ever could. I am not
discouraged at the failure to do the good I meant, at the misapprehension
of my course by my church, nor the severity of former
friends. Just now those angry voices come to me as rude
winds roar through the trees. The winds will die, the trees will
live. As soon as my health is again restored I shall go right on
in the very course I have hitherto pursued. Who will follow or
accompany it is for others to decide. I shall labor for the education
of the whole people; for the enfranchisement of men
without regard to class, caste, or color; for full development,
among all nations, of the liberty wherewith Christ makes men
free. In doing this I will cheerfully work with others, with parties—any
and all men that seek the same glorious ends. But I
will not become a partisan. I will reserve my right to differ and
dissent, and respect the same right in others. Seeking others’
full manhood and true personal liberty, I do not mean to forfeit
my own.
“Better days are coming. These throes of our day are
labor-pains. God will bring forth ere long great blessings. In
some moments which it pleases God to give me I think I discern
beyond the present troubles, and over the other side of the
abyss in which the nation wallows, that fair form of Liberty—God’s
dear child—whose whole beauty was never yet disclosed.
I know her solemn face. That she is divine I know by
her purity, by her sceptre of justice, and by that atmosphere of
Love that, issuing from her, as light from a star, moves with her
as a royal atmosphere. In this, too, I know her divinity, that
she shall bless both friends and enemies, and yield the fullest
fruition of liberty to those who would have slain her, as once
her Master gave His life for the salvation of those who slew Him.
“I am, your true friend and pastor,
.ll 68
.rj
“Henry Ward Beecher.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
At the conclusion of his Thanksgiving sermon from which we
have already quoted, after reviewing these letters, he summed up
the subject:
“My dear friends, if I had written that for to-day I could
not have written it better, and I do not think it needs to be written
any better. I stand on that, and I have read it this morning
.bn 485.png
.pn +1
not only because inspired by the parallelism, but because it has
been represented that my Cleveland letter was the greatest blunder
of the day; and then, worse than that, that I backed down
from it and retracted it. And I have read, therefore, both of
them, in parts, so far as bears more immediately on questions of
to-day, that you may know that God gave me the light to do one
of the best things I ever did when I wrote that letter; and that
He gave me the grace to stand on it without turning back for one
single moment; and that He has given me grace to lay my path,
by sight, along those two letters—hindsight and foresight—from
that day down to this; and that He has given me grace to withstand
the impleadings of those that I love dearly, not only of my
immediate household but of my blood and kindred; of those
that are in the church, that are to me as my own life, and those
that are of the political party with which I have labored thus
far.
“Still seeing that luminous light, as God reveals it to me, I
have walked in it and toward it, and abide in that same direction
to-day; and, God helping me, so will I live to the end.”
To most of his friends the second letter gave great relief.
The excitement in the church was quickly allayed, and, as it
abated, the calm second-sight of his people began to see more
and more in the letters in which they could agree.
After the second letter Dr. Storrs wrote again:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Brooklyn, Sept. 10, 1866.
.ll
.ti 0
”Dear Beecher:
“Your letter is admirable in all respects, and must make precisely
the right impression of your position and views on every
one who reads it. Now let the winds ‘crack their cheeks.’ All
my solicitude is over, and Andy J. and Seward fully deserve
what things they are going to get.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Most affectionately,
“R. S. Storrs, Jr.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
In letters to prominent public men and journalists Mr.
Beecher urged that the conservative Republicans should express
themselves plainly and clearly for the speedy reunion of the loyal
Southern States and restoration of a more kindly feeling, but
that this should be done, not in opposition to the Republican
.bn 486.png
.pn +1
party, but within it. He was emphatic that the work of reconstruction
could not then be safely left to the Democratic party.
As soon as the public began to understand, what one would think
had been plainly apparent at the start, that it was not, and had not
been, his intention to leave the Republican party, but to urge the
party to take up speedy reconstruction as its line of policy, and
that he was laboring to create a sentiment within the party in its
favor, the general excitement began to abate, and soon the bitterness,
except with a few extremists, passed away.
A few sparks which took their heat from this fierce excitement
remained, however, smouldering unnoticed and unsuspected,
to aid, a few years later, in creating the most terrible and fiery
ordeal that ever a good man was called to undergo, since the
time of Him who came on earth to give Himself a voluntary sacrifice,
that through His death the world might live; whose tender
kindness, patient forgiveness, and generous self-sacrifice
were made the guide and rule of life, so far as human nature
could, by him whose life we seek to portray.
.bn 487.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch23'
CHAPTER XXIII.
.pm start_summary
The “Silver Wedding” of Plymouth Church—Children’s Day—Services in
the Church—Reunion of old Members—Historical Reminiscences—Dr.
Storrs’s Tribute.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
As in nature violent storms are often succeeded by peaceful
calms, and as the sun shines brightest and the air seems clearest
and most purified after the thunder-storm has broken
and passed away, so in Mr. Beecher’s life we find that the stormy
trials that beset him, at different periods, were followed by calms,
in which the sun of popular favor shone the brightest; by periods
of peace, during which he seemed endowed with increased power
for useful work.
It was his lot to be generally a few years ahead of the times,
but it was his good fortune to live to see his views accepted, and
to find his hottest critics standing on the very ground, that they
had so fiercely assailed him for occupying, but just a short time
before.
So, for some years after 1866, we find him working with increased
power and usefulness in his church, from the lecture
platform, and through the columns of the press. His church
had never been more prosperous, his people never more active in
all departments of good work; never had he had so wide a field
in which to labor. His sermons, which at first had only been
printed in certain papers, were now issued in book-form, and
were read wherever the English tongue prevailed.
From his pulpit went forth words of cheer, of hope and love,
that lifted up weary hearts, that infused new life in desponding
souls, that shed a new light in upon spirits that had lived in
the darkness of sin, throughout the civilized globe. His sermons
were translated into German, French, Spanish, and Italian. No
four walls, no State boundaries, nor the limits of any one nation,
held his congregation.
In this period he undertook, in addition to his ordinary duties
and labors, the principal literary work of his life, writing “Norwood,”
.bn 488.png
.pn +1
completing the first volume of “The Life of Christ,”
organizing and carrying on the Christian Union as its editor-in-chief.
Though the shadows of the coming trouble began, during the
later part of this period, to fall across his path, at times darkening
and oppressing his inner life, yet to the world, to the church,
and to his friends it seemed as if a lasting season of peace and
prosperity had settled down upon Plymouth Church, and its
pastor, promising many years of uninterrupted and blessed usefulness.
October 10, 1872, completed the full quarter-century of Mr.
Beecher’s pastorate at Plymouth Church. His people determined
to celebrate in fitting manner this “Silver Wedding,” as it was
called. It was decided to devote the week in which the anniversary
occurred to the celebration of this jubilee.
In the minds of his people there might well have been some
little feeling of pride and triumphant jubilation. They had seen
Plymouth, from the little handful, twenty-one in all, whose organization
had awakened prophecies of a speedy death, grow
to the great church of over twenty-seven hundred, with its
three large Sunday-schools—Plymouth, Bethel, and Mayflower—the
nurseries of the church, where nearly three thousand scholars
gathered every Sunday to learn the way of life. They had seen
its influence extended throughout the entire nation, throughout
the civilized globe, a power for good. They had seen churches
by the score spring from its loins, and not a few had they seen,
in periods of weakness when liable to fail, kept alive, nourished,
and sustained by its strong hand until strong enough to stand
alone.
Its history formed a part of the nation’s history in the dark
days of slavery, in the struggle for national existence, and the exciting
period of reconstruction, as has been well said: “For the
better part of a generation Plymouth Church, under the influence
of Mr. Beecher, has been a conspicuous light among the churches
of the land. It has been the birthplace of countless good works
which have blessed the whole community. It has been the nursery
of noble impulses, of free thought, of patriotism, of generous and
inspiriting actions. Its pupils have gone out into all parts of the
country, carrying its fresh spirit with them, to infect other communities.
Its influence is felt from Maine to the Pacific, and its
.bn 489.png
.pn +1
memory is to-day affectionately cherished by thousands who were
never within its walls and never saw its preacher.”
But in Mr. Beecher’s heart, while not forgetful of the glorious
record of his church, the predominating feeling was one of profound
gratitude to God.
In his Friday night prayer-meeting preceding the jubilee he
expressed his feelings to his people:
“If I thought next week was to be a kind of historical glorification
of this church; still worse, if I thought it was to be a
sort of personal glorification, I should shrink from it with more
than dislike—with positive loathing. It has pleased God to recognize
the instrumentality of this church in the work it has done
for the last quarter of a century; but, after all, the reason of its
success, the absolute cause of its moral power, has been the presence
of God, and the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, here
during the last quarter of a century; and if we have a celebration,
it ought to be a celebration of what the Lord has done
among us. The feeling ought to be that of gratitude, and of the
most profound recognition of the goodness and mercy and loving-kindness
of our Lord and Saviour, who has walked in our
households and in the midst of this artificial Christian family,
and has not ceased to do us good, for the past twenty five years.
“So, that all the services of the week may be infused with a
more reverent and loving sense of the Lord’s mercy to us, I hope
you will give yourselves to prayer in your closets and in your
homes. May it be a week, not for the laudation of men or of
churches, but for a grateful recognition of God’s way with us,
and of that dear name which should be dearer to us every day
that we live, until we shall see Him in His glory for ever.”
Monday, October 7th, was the first day of the jubilee. This
was “Children’s day,” the exercises being devoted principally to
the Sunday-schools.
In the afternoon the three schools united in one column and
marched past Mr. Beecher’s house; as they filed by, the schools
gave their pastor, as he stood upon his doorstep, a marching
salute. Each child as it passed cast a flower at his feet, until he
stood literally embanked in flowers. The day was wondrously
beautiful, sunny, clear, and crisp—as though glorious October,
nature’s painter, catching the prevailing enthusiasm, was consciously
contributing its share to make the occasion a success.
.bn 490.png
.pn +1
Mr. Beecher was deeply touched. “We gave Monday to the
children—and a beautiful day it was—and a sight brighter than
which I shall not see until I look in the New Jerusalem, and see
all the children who have left us for that better land.”
Tuesday, as “Teachers’ day,” was devoted to a reunion of
the teachers and officers then serving or who had done duty in
either of the three Sunday-schools.
Wednesday, as “Members’ day,” was like a great family reunion:
it was the home day.
The church auditorium, the lecture-room and Sunday-school
rooms, decorated with flowers, were thrown open to the members.
We quote a description of the decorations: “What with
the warbling of sweet-voiced birds, the profusion of leafy and
floral decorations artistically arranged, the many beautiful paintings,
the liquid, melodious strains from a band of musicians with
stringed instruments stationed in the gallery, the picturesque
though sober dresses of the lady-promenaders, but, above all, the
vocal sound of animated, sparkling conversation, a kaleidoscopic
picture was presented which awakened and gratified all the
senses, and which, however, could only be appreciated by an
eye-witness.”
The exercises were eminently social, a part of the evening
being devoted to humorous reminiscences, by the older members,
of the “early days.” Music and a lunch helped to increase the
general enjoyment.
Thursday, “Historical day,” was, more perhaps than any
other, a public day. As the name indicates, it was devoted to a
review of the church, its growth in size, in works, and its ever-extending
influence for good. From Mr. Beecher’s speech we
give only the opening and closing paragraphs, which briefly
review the beginning of his pastorate in Plymouth Church, his
purpose in his work, and its continuance to that time:
“At my first coming I had no plans; I had marked out no
future; I had no theories to establish, no system to found, no
doctrines to demolish, no oppugnation of any kind. I remember
distinctly that over and over again I held account with myself;
and I came into this field simply and only to work for the awakening
of men, for their conversion to Christ, and for their upbuilding
in a Christian life. I had almost a species of indifference
as to means and measures. I cared little, and perhaps too
.bn 491.png
.pn +1
little, whether I had or had not a church-building. I thought of
one thing—the love of Christ to men. This, to me, was a burning
reality. Less clearly than now, perhaps, did I discern the whole
circuit and orb of the nature of Christ; but with a burning intensity
I realized the love of God in Jesus Christ. I believed it
to be the one transcendent influence in this world by which men
should be roused to a higher manhood, and should be translated
into another and better kingdom. My purpose was to preach
Christ to men for the sake of bringing them to a higher life.
And though I preferred the polity and economy of the Congregational
Church, yet I also felt that God was in all the other
churches, and that it was no part of my ministry to build up sectarian
walls; that it was no part of my ministry to bombard and
pull down sectarian structures; but that the work of my ministry
was to find the way to the hearts of men, and to labor with them
for their awakening, and conversion, and sanctification.
“I have said that I had no theory; but I had a very strong
impression on my mind that the first five years in the life of a
church would determine the history of that church and give to
it its position and genius; that if the earliest years of a church
were controversial or barren it would take scores of years to
right it, but that if a church were consecrated, and active, and
energetic during the first five years of its life, it would probably
go on through generations developing the same features. My
supreme anxiety, therefore, in gathering a church, was to have
all of its members united in a fervent, loving disposition; to
have them all in sympathy with men; and to have all of them
desirous of bringing to bear the glorious truths of the Gospel
upon the hearts and consciences of those about them....”
“I bless God when I look back. I have lived my life, and
no man can take it from me. The mistakes that I have made—and
they are many—none know so well as I. My incapacity
and insufficiency none can feel so profoundly as I.... And
yet I have this witness: that for twenty-five years I have
not withheld my strength, and have labored in simplicity and
with sincerity of motive for the honor of my God, and for the
love that I bear to you, and for the ineradicable love that I have
for my country and for the world.
“My time is drawing near; but if I should fall to-morrow,
I have lived. I have seen this land rise up from its drunkenness
.bn 492.png
.pn +1
and its shame. I have seen the original principles of liberty,
which had well-nigh been buried, come like Lazarus forth from
the grave. What if, for the first few steps of the new life—bound
hand and foot in grave-clothes, and with a napkin about his
head, staggering somewhat—it knew not how to find the rightful
path? Our country is free; and it has pleased God to give you
and me some part in the work of enfranchisement and the settlement
of this land on the old foundation of truth and justice and
universal liberty.
“I have lived through a quarter of a century, and had a free
platform; and you have sustained me in speaking just what I
thought to be true. You have never servilely believed anything
because I said it; for you have maintained opinions different
from mine from the beginning to the end....
“I am admonished that the best of my years are past
and that my sun will soon go down. Let it go down to-day,
to-morrow, whenever it may please God. I will not ask for the
lengthening out of one single day. I have lived a happy life. I
have been a happy pastor. I have loved you and been beloved
by you. I have seen your children come up and walk in the
ways of life. I have gone down with hundreds to see the framework
laid in the dust, believing that the spirit was above. We
have come down together, without a quarrel, without a break,
and without a shaking of confidence, to this blessed hour. And
now, in these closing words which I address to you and to all
who are present, join with me, not in self-gratulation, nor in the
interchange of compliments, but in thanksgiving to Christ that
has loved us, to the Spirit of God that has inspired us, and to
the dear Father that has kept us together in the one household
of faith, beloved and loving, thus far.”
Twenty-five years before Dr. Storrs gave the right hand of
fellowship to Mr. Beecher at his installation, then to encourage
him to future labor. Again he gives him the hand of fellowship,
but now, in words tender and eloquent, to dwell on the work
done, to congratulate him on the rich and abundant harvest he
had garnered, and to testify his brotherly love and admiration.
The scene was a solemnly touching one, as Dr. Storrs, in the
words we quote, closed his glowing tribute to the man who, for
twenty-five years, had stood by his side laboring for a common
cause, and who had loved him as a brother:
.bn 493.png
.pn +1
“At any rate, we have stood side by side in all these years;
and they have been wonderful and eventful years.
.pm start_poem
“‘Our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,
When He loosed the fateful lightnings of His terrible swift sword,
And His truth went marching on!’
.pm end_poem
“We have differed many times, but two men so unlike never
stood side by side with each other, for so long a time, in more
perfect harmony, without a jealousy or a jar! Though we have
differed in opinion, we have never differed in feeling. We have
walked to the graves of friends in company. We have sat at the
table of the Lord in company. He knows, as he has said, that
when other voices were loud and fierce in hostility to him mine
never joined them. When other pens wrote his name, dropping
gall and venom as they wrote it, my pen never touched the paper
except in honor and admiration of him. And I know that whenever
I have wanted counsel or courage given me from others, he
has always been ready, from the overflowing surplus of his surcharged
mind, to give them to me.
“So we have stood side by side—blessed be God!—in no spirit
but of fraternal love, for that long space of twenty-five years
which began with the Right Hand of Fellowship then, and closes
before you here to-night.
“I am not here, my friends, to repeat the service which then
I performed. It would be superfluous. When I think of the
great assemblies that have surged and thronged around this platform,
when I think of the influences that have gone out from
this pulpit into all the earth, I feel that less than almost any
other man on earth does he need the assurance of fellowship
from any but the Son of God! But I am here to-night for another
and a different service! On behalf of you who tarry, and
of those who have ascended from this congregation; on behalf
of Christians of every name throughout our city, who have had
such joy and pride in him, and the name of whose town has, by
him, been made famous in the earth; on behalf of all our
churches, now growing to be an army; on behalf of those in
every part of our land who have never seen his face or heard his
voice, but who have read and loved his sermons, and been quickened
and blessed by them; on behalf of the great multitudes
.bn 494.png
.pn +1
who have gone up from every land which his sermons have
reached—never having touched his hand on earth, but waiting
to greet him by and by—I am here to-night [taking Mr. Beecher
by the hand] to give him the Right Hand of Congratulation, on
the closing of this twenty-fifth year of his ministry, and to say:
God be praised for all the work that you have done here! God
be praised for the generous gifts which He has showered upon
you, and the generous use which you have made of them, here
and elsewhere, and everywhere in the land! God give you
many happy and glorious years of work and joy still to come in
your ministry on earth! May your soul, as the years go on, be
whitened more and more in the radiance of God’s light, and in
the sunshine of His love! And, when the end comes—as it will—may
the gates of pearl swing inward for your entrance, before
the hands of those who have gone up before you, and who now
wait to welcome you thither; and then may there open to you
that vast and bright Eternity—all vivid with God’s love—in
which an instant vision shall be perfect joy, and an immortal
labor shall be to you immortal rest!”
“This magnificent concluding passage,” said the Brooklyn
Union of the next day, “was uttered with an eloquence that
defies description. At its conclusion Mr. Beecher, with tears,
and trembling from head to foot, arose, and, placing his hand on
Dr. Storrs’s shoulder, kissed him upon the cheek. The congregation
sat for a moment breathless and enraptured with this simple
and beautiful action. Then there broke from them such a burst
of applause as never before was heard in an ecclesiastical edifice.
There was not a dry eye in the house.”
Friday, “Communion day,” ended the jubilee. After a brief
season of prayer and remarks, the solemn service of the Lord’s
Supper closed the meeting, over two thousand persons participating
in the communion.
The week was a blessed one for pastor and people, making
stronger the bonds of love, confidence, and mutual trust that
united them into a single church, and, no doubt, helped and
strengthened both in the crossing of that stormy sea of trouble,
at the very shore of which they were then standing.
Little could the people of Plymouth Church foresee as they
crowded around their pastor, striving, in loving emulation, to out-do
each other in marks of affection and confidence, that the most
.bn 495.png
.pn +1
infamous conspiracy of modern times was rapidly involving
pastor and church in a network of wicked lies.
None would have believed in those happy days that the very
men who owed most to their pastor, who had received at his
hands aid and comfort when most needed, whom he had nurtured
and strengthened by his love, were using the very power they
had derived through him, to destroy their benefactor; with the
malignant ingenuity of the fallen angel, were weaving webs of
falsehood and misrepresentation about his feet, working on his
feelings, ever sensitive to any neglect of duty upon his part, by
false statements of injury done by his thoughtlessness or neglect;
cunningly interweaving his exaggerated outbursts of self-accusing
grief with their falsehoods, prepared by them, with cool deliberation,
to fit his words. They sought by his very horror of evil to
give the appearance of evil. Closing his mouth by a pledge they
well knew his honor would observe, they, disregarding their
pledges, by busy whisperings strove to fasten suspicion on him,
who, they knew, would not speak in self-defence.
The warmth of that heart that loved all mankind, that bore
malice to none, but sought by greater loving-kindness to overcome
enmity, returning good for evil, fell upon a serpent’s nest,
warming into life the malignant, venomous brood, the intensity
of whose desire to injure seemed in the proportion that each had
been benefited. The eggs had hatched, and the serpents were
daily growing stronger and more dangerous.
But least of all did Plymouth Church suspect that those
whose hands they had just grasped in fraternal love, who, by
their own teachings and their calling, should have been slow to
believe evil of their brethren, would in a few short weeks join
hands with her bitterest enemies, lending to them the moral support
of their own blameless lives and high reputations, giving
them advice, aid, and comfort, opening their churches as an asylum
to the discontented and treacherous in Plymouth Church;
and, even while the words of brotherly love and deep, abiding
confidence, just flown from their lips, were ringing with joy and
comfort in the heart of their brother, would lend the ears of
ready listeners, to the base tales of baser men—men whom they
themselves knew to be tainted in honor and morals—holding
their cloaks to screen the would-be assassins.
.bn 496.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch24'
CHAPTER XXIV.
.pm start_summary
The Conspiracy—Relations with Mr. Bowen—Disputes and Arbitration—Theodore
Tilton’s Early Promise and Intimacy with Mr. Beecher—Bowen’s
Ill-Will and Tilton’s Malice—Tilton discharged from Independent
and Brooklyn Union—Tripartite Agreement—Moulton and
Tilton conspire to Blackmail Mr. Beecher—Tilton consults Dr.
Storrs.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
While it will not be possible in the space of a volume such
as this, nor at all desirable if it were possible, to go to
any considerable extent into the details of that experience
in Mr. Beecher’s life, commonly called “the Scandal,” yet no
biography would be complete or truthful which ignored this
period.
Therefore, while we avoid all those details likely to offend
against a rational public sentiment, we shall try to give such an
outline of the general facts as may be necessary for a clear understanding
of this monstrous conspiracy.
To do this we must necessarily go back to the beginnings,
some of which exerted a powerful influence on subsequent
events. In 1856 Mr. Beecher was invited to become a contributor
to the Independent, then published and controlled by Henry
C. Bowen and his partner, Mr. McNamee. This was accepted,
and in November of that year a contract was made between
them to that effect.
This contract, with a few subsequent modifications, remained
in force until the year 1860, when a new one was made by which
Mr. Beecher became the editor-in-chief, Theodore Tilton, his assistant,
relieving him wholly of the office routine work. Mr. Tilton
was at this time a young man with the promise of a brilliant
future before him. Determining upon journalism and public
speaking as his profession, he sought to familiarize himself with
the speeches and writings of those most prominent in his chosen
field. Early in the “Fifties” he began reporting Mr. Beecher’s
.bn 497.png
.pn +1
sermons for the Observer. This led to an acquaintance between
them.
Tilton, though scarcely more than a boy, was even then very
clever. His bright speeches, his boyish enthusiasm in following
out the high purposes he had formed, the really manly aspirations
he then felt, and, above all, his sunny disposition, soon won
for him a very warm place in Mr. Beecher’s heart, which he
only lost years later, when his uncontrollable egotism and vanity—the
mildew of precocity—worked his destruction, wrecking his
reputation, his morals, and his life.
Mr. Beecher delighted in aiding and promoting him, seeking
by wise counsels to strengthen every good quality and to hold
in check every malign tendency, advancing him as rapidly as
possible in his profession. All this Mr. Tilton fully recognized,
writing Mr. Beecher, a short time before he began his plotting:
“My Friend: From my boyhood up you have been to me
what no other man has been, what no other man can be. While
I was a student the influence of your mind on mine was greater
than all books and all teachers. The intimacy with which you
honored me for twelve years has been, next to my wife and family,
the chief affection of my life. By you I was baptized;
by you married; you are my minister, teacher, father, brother,
friend, companion. The debt I owe you I can never pay. My
religious life, my intellectual development, my open door of opportunity
for labor, my public reputation—all these, my dear
friend, I owe in so great a degree to your own kindness that
my gratitude cannot be written in words, but must be expressed
only in love.”
Early in their intimacy Tilton left the Observer and joined
his fortunes to the Independent.
Through the affection and influence of his friend he was
advanced steadily, until, in the fall of 1860 or early 1861, he
was made assistant editor. In the spring of 1861 occurred an
incident that was to produce ultimately no little trouble.
Mr. Beecher had from time to time bought, from Mr. Bowen’s
dry-goods store, various articles to be sent to the Brooklyn
Phalanx, a regiment largely enrolled from the youths and friends
of Plymouth Church, and in which Mr. Beecher’s eldest son was
an officer. These purchases were charged against Mr. Beecher’s
salary account. In May, 1861, Mr. Bowen claimed that Mr.
.bn 498.png
.pn +1
Beecher’s account had been very greatly overdrawn, by goods
purchased and money drawn out. The matter was finally arbitrated,
the arbitrator awarding Mr. Bowen $1,000, which was
paid.
Whether it was the failure to receive all that he expected, or
some other and unknown grievance, we cannot say, but from
about this time began a feeling of hostility on the part of Mr.
Bowen, which a few years later, after Mr. Beecher had finally left
the Independent, took shape in scandalous whisperings behind
Mr. Beecher’s back, but always so carefully guarded as not, at
that time, to reach his ears.
In 1863 Mr. Beecher made his memorable visit to England.
During his absence he arranged to have Mr. Tilton take the
entire editorial charge of the Independent. In this the latter did
so well, that in February, 1864, Mr. Beecher, being then in need
of relief from the care and responsibility of his position, made
a new arrangement with Mr. Bowen, whereby Mr. Tilton was to
be retained as editor-in-chief, Mr. Beecher contributing editorially
and by “Star articles” (his articles were unsigned, but marked
with * at the foot, hence the name); the publication of his sermons
and lecture-room talks being continued, his name remaining
for a year as one of the editors. After one year Tilton was
to be announced as the actual editor-in-chief.
In 1865, then, Theodore Tilton found himself at the head of
one of the most influential papers in the land; for the Independent,
though a religious paper, had, largely through the controversies
on slavery, war, and other important topics carried on by
Mr. Beecher in its columns, acquired a reputation and influence,
in general public affairs, that was equalled by no other journal
of its kind.
Soon Mr. Tilton’s inordinate conceit began to manifest itself.
He was to supersede, in influence, his patron. From his lofty
pedestal he could look down upon his old friend and adviser,
dwarfed by comparison.
Already he had begun to entertain “advanced” ideas, repudiating
as old-fogy and behind the times the principles and
beliefs which he had received from his former instructor.
Not content with his fancied overshadowing of Mr. Beecher, he
began about this time to take part in Bowen’s campaign of scandalous
whisperings; but when one of his tales came to Mr.
.bn 499.png
.pn +1
Beecher’s ears he promptly denied it and assured Mr. Beecher that
he had never said anything of the kind, that it was wholly false.
This denial satisfied Mr. Beecher, who thought no more of the tale.
When in 1866 Mr. Beecher wrote his “Cleveland letters,”
the Independent assailed him so virulently, through its editorial
columns, that he felt he could no longer be connected with it,
even as a contributor, and thereupon terminated his contract and
all further connection with the paper. This was a further aggravation
in Mr. Bowen’s eyes, as it was likely to be a pecuniary
loss to the paper, and so to him. Shortly after this Mr. Tilton
began in the editorial columns of the Independent to take a decidedly
“advanced” stand upon religious and ethical subjects.
His views began to savor very strongly of the atheistic, and he
more than intimated a belief in theories, on the subject of marriage,
that seemed hardly appropriate in the columns of a religious
newspaper; so that when he published his “Editorial Soliloquy”
in 1867, there broke out an indignant protest both from the East
and West against such a use of the columns of the Independent.
Tilton’s course, together with Bowen’s retention of certain objectionable
advertisements, threatened serious injury to the paper.
Steps were taken to start a new religious paper in Chicago, to supersede
the Independent in the West; at about the same time
overtures were made to Mr. Beecher, to accept the control of a
new paper to be started in New York. This alarmed Mr. Bowen,
who at once promised to muzzle Tilton and prevent the publication
of any more objectionable “views.” On this assurance the
opposition to the Independent was suspended. The contract was
a larger one, however, than Bowen had anticipated. Tilton soon
began anew ventilating his theories, and in December, 1870, wrote
an editorial so pronounced in its advocacy of his peculiar views,
that the public patience was exhausted. The Advance was at
once established in Chicago and became a formidable rival to
the Independent, Dr. Edward Beecher, the elder brother of Henry
Ward, being one of its promoters.
In the fall of 1869 the Christian Union was organized in
New York City, and in January, 1870, Mr. Beecher took control
of it. Bowen was in despair. Here were two dangerous rivals
to his paper. He was afraid to discharge Tilton; he had said
too much in his presence to care to offend him. He must in
some way, however, get Tilton out of the editorial chair of the
.bn 500.png
.pn +1
Independent. After some negotiation he arranged with Tilton
that he should resign the editorship of the Independent, and a
new contract was made by which he should take the editorship
of the Brooklyn Union for five years, at five thousand dollars a
year, and should be the chief contributor to the Independent,
receiving a further five thousand dollars therefor. This change
was effected on the 20th of December, 1870, and on the 22d his
valedictory was published in the Independent. Up to the year
1870 Tilton could hardly be said to have been hostile to Mr.
Beecher, certainly in no such sense as he was during the following
year. At this time he looked upon him as his mental and
social inferior, and not infrequently spoke of him patronizingly,
as one whom he had outgrown, bestowing upon him a sort of
affectionate pity because he had been cast in a mould so much
smaller than his own. It is true that, in that kind of “strictest
confidence” which always insures a quiet circulation, he whispered
stories, from time to time, derogatory to Mr. Beecher’s reputation,
but these were born of his vanity, rather than of malice.
He was still able to see that his own vagaries did not meet with
public favor. He felt that he was a little ahead of his times,
and it might benefit him to saddle similar theories upon Mr.
Beecher. He probably had no intention of doing an injury, at
least at that time. With Mr. Bowen, however, it was different.
Mr. Beecher’s resignation first from the editorship, and then as
contributor, and withdrawing his sermons from the Independent,
was an injury in his eyes for which Tilton’s appointment did
not compensate, and seemed to intensify that ill-will which had
its origin at the time of the pecuniary misunderstanding, already
referred to. And now, to have Mr. Beecher’s brother participate
in starting the Advance in Chicago, while he himself accepted
the management of the Christian Union in New York—a paper
that sprang at once into a very large circulation, threatening
to crowd the Independent in the East as the Advance promised
to do in the West—this capped the climax. Bowen’s dislike
was the more intense since there seemed no way in which
he could assail Mr. Beecher with any hope of success. His
whisperings necessarily had to be guarded, and his confidants did
not seem inclined, or able, to give him much comfort.
This hostility Mr. Beecher was aware of, though little suspecting
at the time its extent, attributing it to the fact that he
.bn 501.png
.pn +1
had been obliged to withdraw from the Independent, and take a
stand squarely opposed to its apparent policy. For he wrote
to a friend: “It is well known that I am in a positive antagonism
with the whole general drift of the paper. Mr. Bowen will
scarcely recognize me on the street, and feels bitterly my withdrawal
from all part or lot in the paper.”
By December, 1870, Tilton’s attitude had become decidedly
hostile. His patronizing had now begun to change into fear.
For he thought that Mr. Beecher might become a dangerous
rival; and when finally he was retired from the editorship of
the Independent he felt sure that it was through some intentional
and malign influence of Mr. Beecher. That his own conduct
and expressed opinions were responsible for the change, his
vanity would not permit him to think.
As soon as it was publicly known that Tilton had been deposed
from the editorial chair of the Independent, the stories of
his past life began to pour in on Mr. Bowen like a flood. The
latter was alarmed and began to doubt the possibility of retaining
him in any capacity.
The expression of this fear to mutual friends led to an interview
between the two. Tilton characteristically mounted his high
horse, and imperiously demanded an investigation and that he
be confronted with his accusers. In a very few moments Mr.
Bowen satisfied him that he was quite fully posted, and that an
investigation was the last thing that he would desire.
Tilton then struck out on a new line of operations. Knowing
Mr. Bowen’s fear and dislike of Mr. Beecher, intensified daily by
the steadily increasing circulation of the Christian Union, Tilton
cunningly began to suggest the great danger that threatened the
Independent from the Christian Union.
He struck the keynote to Bowen’s animosity, and, skilfully
working on his feelings, he suggested that their mutual welfare
demanded the overthrow of Mr. Beecher. Bowen was all attention.
To destroy Mr. Beecher, and cripple the Christian Union,
would be a wonderful stroke of good-fortune.
After referring to the injuries that Bowen had suffered at the
hands of Mr. Beecher, he suggested that he, too, had a grievance
against him. This was news to Bowen, who eagerly besought
Tilton to tell him what it was. He then stated that Beecher
had been guilty of “improper proposals” to his wife. Bowen was
.bn 502.png
.pn +1
quick to discover the situation. This was the first tangible bit of
evidence which had ever come to him against Mr. Beecher.
He had never dared publicly father any of his own stories.
Now, if Tilton would attack Mr. Beecher on such a charge, he
could stand by and watch the fight without becoming involved
himself, but would be ready, from his safe point of vantage, to
take profit by the result, whichever way it ended. If Tilton succeeded,
so much the better. If he failed, he would be rid of him;
and would not be responsible for the attack, which Tilton would
both originate and carry on.
Mr. Bowen suggested to Tilton the writing of a letter to
Mr. Beecher, which was written, calling on him to resign his pastorate,
and leave Brooklyn. This Bowen was to carry to Mr.
Beecher, which he did.[8]
.fm rend=th
.fn 8
We take the details of this interview from Tilton’s sworn testimony—very
poor evidence by itself, but, as it has never been contradicted by
Mr. Bowen, is consistent with many known facts; and as the fact of the
interview was admitted by Mr. Bowen, we have given it place.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
Mr. Tilton, returning home, reported to his friend Francis D.
Moulton what he had done, and was informed that he had made
“a ——— fool” of himself, that he had put himself in Bowen’s
hands. At this point the conspiracy may be said to have been
born. With the conspiracy proper, from this time out, Mr.
Bowen seems to have had nothing to do. Both Tilton and Moulton
distrusted him. While his hostility towards Mr. Beecher did
not abate, and he was soon afterwards clearly recognized as a
bitter enemy, yet we do not learn that he ever thereafter actively
co-operated with the two arch-conspirators; for a short time
after Tilton’s letter he professed to be friendly to Mr. Beecher.
The carrying of Tilton’s letter to Mr. Beecher, and the calling
in of Moulton, were the starting-point of this conspiracy.
Bowen, as we shall see later, discharged Tilton from both the
Independent and the Union.
The latter was in desperate straits, and then it was that he
and Moulton seemed to have come to the determination to try
through Mr. Beecher to better Tilton’s fortunes. At the first it
is highly improbable that either had any very definite plan of
operations against Mr. Beecher, and certainly not the faintest
idea of the desperate step they would finally be driven to by the
.bn 503.png
.pn +1
logic of their own falsehoods. Little by little, deeper and deeper,
they worked themselves into the mud and mire, until, as a last
desperate venture, they were compelled to make the final plunge
in the hope of forcing through to a solid footing. With this introduction
we give Mr. Beecher’s account of this trouble in his
own words, as written in 1874, when the facts were all fresh in
his mind; condensing it somewhat to meet the requirements
of our space, and omitting details which, though necessary then,
need not now be gone into. This presents the history as he
saw it, and shows how Moulton by cunning treachery wormed
himself into Mr. Beecher’s confidence for the purpose of destroying
him:
“Four years ago Theodore Tilton fell from one of the proudest
editorial chairs in America, where he represented the cause of
religion, humanity, and patriotism, and in a few months thereafter
became the associate and representative of Victoria Woodhull
and the priest of her strange cause. By his follies he was
bankrupt in reputation, in occupation, and in resources. The interior
history, of which I now give a brief outline, is the history of
his attempts to so employ me as to reinstate himself in business,
restore his reputation, and place him again upon the eminence
from which he had fallen. It is a sad history, to the full meaning
of which I have but recently awaked. Entangled in a wilderness
of complications, I followed until lately a false theory and a
delusive hope, believing that the friend who assured me of his
determination and ability to control the vagaries of Mr. Tilton,
to restore his household, to rebuild his fortunes, and to vindicate
me, would be equal to that promise. This self-confessed failure
has made clear to me what for a long time I did not suspect—the
real motive of Mr. Tilton. My narrative does not represent a
single standpoint only as regards my opinion of Theodore Tilton.
It begins at my cordial intimacy with him in his earlier career,
and shows my lamentation and sorrowful but hopeful affection
for him during the period of his initial wanderings from truth
and virtue. It describes my repentance over evils befalling him
of which I was made to believe myself the cause; my persevering
and finally despairing efforts to save him and his family by any
sacrifice of myself not absolutely dishonorable; and my growing
conviction that his perpetual follies and blunders rendered his
recovery impossible. I can now see that he is and has been
.bn 504.png
.pn +1
from the beginning of this difficulty a selfish and reckless
schemer, pursuing a plan of mingled greed and hatred, and weaving
about me a network of suspicions, misunderstandings, plots,
and lies, to which my own innocent words and acts, nay, even
my thoughts of kindness toward him, have been made to contribute.
“That I was blind so long to the real nature of the intrigue
going on around me was due partly to my own overwhelming
public engagements, partly to my complete surrender of this affair
and all papers and questions connected with it into the hands of
Mr. Moulton, who was intensely confident that he could manage
it successfully. I suffered much, but I inquired little. Mr. Moulton
was chary to me of Mr. Tilton’s confidences to him, reporting
to me occasionally in a general way Mr. Tilton’s moods and
outbreaks of passion only as elements of trouble which he was
able to control, and as additional proofs of the wisdom of leaving
it to him. His comment of the situation seemed to me, at the
time, complete, immersed as I was in incessant cares and duties,
and only too glad to be relieved from considering the details of
such wretched complications, the origin and the fact of which remain,
in spite of all friendly intervention, a perpetual burden to
my soul. I would not read in the papers about it; I would not
talk about it. I made Moulton for a long period my confidant
and my only channel of information.
“From time to time suspicions were aroused in me by indications
that Mr. Tilton was acting the part of an enemy; but
these suspicions were repeatedly allayed by his own behavior
towards me in other moods, and by the assurances of Mr. Moulton,
who ascribed the circumstances to misunderstanding or to
malice on the part of others. It is plain to me now that it was
not until Mr. Tilton had fallen into disgrace and lost his salary
that he thought it necessary to assail me with charges which he
pretended to have had in mind for six months. The domestic
offence which he alleged was very quickly and easily put aside,
but yet in such a way as to keep my feelings stirred up, in order
that I might, through my friends, be used to extract from Mr.
Bowen $7,000, the amount of a claim in dispute between them.
The check for that sum in hand, Mr. Tilton signed an agreement
of peace and concord—not made by me, but accepted by me as
sincere. The Golden Age had been started. He had the capital
.bn 505.png
.pn +1
to carry it on for a while. He was sure that he was to lead a
great social revolution. With returning prosperity he had apparently
no griefs which could not be covered by his signature to
the articles of peace.[9] Yet the changes in that covenant, made
by him before signing it, and represented to me as necessary
merely to relieve him from the imputation of having originated
and circulated certain old and shameless slanders about me, were
really made, as now appears, to leave him free for future operations
upon me and against me.
.fm rend=th
.fn 9
Tripartite agreement.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
“So long as he was, or thought he was, on the road to a new
success, his conduct toward me was as friendly as he knew how
to make it. His assumption of superiority and magnanimity, and
his patronizing manner, were trifles at which I could afford to
smile, and which I bore with the greater humility since I still retained
the profound impression made upon me as explained in the
following narrative—that I had been a cause of overwhelming
disaster to him, and that his complete restoration to public standing
and household happiness was a reparation justly required of
me, and the only one which I could make.
“But, with a peculiar genius for blunders, he fell almost at
every step into new complications and difficulties, and in every
such instance it was his policy to bring coercion to bear upon my
honor, my conscience, and my affections, for the purpose of procuring
his extrication at my expense. Theodore Tilton knew me
well. He has said again and again to his friends that if they
wished to gain influence over me they must work upon the sympathetic
side of my nature. To this he has addressed himself
steadily for four years, using as a lever, without scruple, my attachment
to my friends, to my family, to his own household, and
even my old affection for himself.
“Not blind to his faults, but resolved to look on him as favorably
and hopefully as possible, and ignorant of his deeper
malice, I labored earnestly, even desperately, for his salvation.
For four years I have been trying to feed his insatiable egotism,
to make the man as great as he conceived himself to be, to restore
to popularity and public confidence one who, in the midst
of my efforts in his behalf, patronized disreputable people and
doctrines, refused when I besought him to separate himself from
.bn 506.png
.pn +1
them, and ascribed to my agency the increasing ruin which he was
persistently bringing upon himself, and which I was doing my utmost
to avert. It was hard to do anything for such a man. I
might as well have tried to fill a sieve with water. In the latter
part of the history he actually incited and created difficulties, apparently
for no other purpose than to drive me to fresh exertions.
I refused to endorse his wild views and associates. The best I
could do was to speak well of him, mention those good qualities
and abilities which I believed him to possess in his higher moods,
and keeping silent concerning the evil things which, I was assured
and believed, had been greatly exaggerated by public report.
I could not think him so bad as my friends did. I trusted
to the germs of good which I thought still lived in him, to Mr.
Moulton’s apparent power over him, and to the power of my
persistent self-sacrifice.
“Mr. Moulton came to me at first as the schoolmate and
friend of Mr. Tilton, determined to reinstate him, I at first suspected,
without regard to my interests, but on further acquaintance
with me he undertook and promised to serve his friend
without doing wrong to me. He said he saw clearly how this
was to be done, so as to restore peace and harmony to Mr.
Tilton’s home, and bring a happy end to all misunderstandings.
Many things which he counselled I absolutely refused, but I
never doubted his professed friendship for me, after friendship
had grown up between us; and whatever he wished me to do
I did, unless it seemed to me wrong.
“My confidence in him was the only element that seemed
secure in that confusion of tormenting perplexities. To him I
wrote freely in that troublous time, when I felt that secret machinations
were going on around me, and echoes of the vilest
slander concerning me were heard of in unexpected quarters;
when some of my near relatives were set against me, and the
tattle of a crowd of malicious women, hostile to me on other
grounds, was borne to my ears; when I had lost the last remnant
of faith in Mr. Tilton or hope for him; when I heard with unspeakable
remorse that everything I had done to stay his destruction
had made matters worse and worse; that my attempt to
keep him from a public trial (involving such a flood of scandal
as has now been let loose) had been used by him to bring up new
troubles; that his unhappy wife was, under his dictation, signing
.bn 507.png
.pn +1
papers and recantations, and I knew not what; that, in short,
everything was breaking up, and the destruction from which I
had sought to save the family was likely to be emptied on other
families, the church, the community, with infinite horrors of woe
for me; that my own innocence was buried under heaps and
heaps of rubbish, and nobody but my professed friend (if even
he) could save us. To his assurances that he could still do so I
gave at least so much faith as to maintain under these terrible
trials the silence which he enjoined. Not until Mr. Tilton, having
attempted, through Frank Carpenter, to raise money from
my friends, openly assailed me in his letter to Dr. Bacon, did I
break that silence, save my simple denial of the slanderous
rumors against me a year before.
“On the appearance of the first open attack from Mr. Tilton
I immediately, without consulting Mr. Moulton, called for a
thorough investigation with a committee of my church. I am
not responsible for the delay, the publicity, or the details of that
investigation. All the harm which I have so long dreaded and
have so earnestly striven to avoid has come to pass. I could not
have further prevented it without a full surrender of honor and
truth. The time has arrived when I can freely speak in vindication
of myself. I labor under great disadvantages in making a
statement. My memory of states of the mind is clear and tenacious,
better than my memory of dates and details. During four
troubled years, in all of which I have been singularly burdened
with public labor, having established and conducted the Christian
Union, delivered courses of lectures, preaching before the
Theological Seminary of Yale College, written the first volume
of the ‘Life of Christ,’ delivered each winter Lyceum lectures in
all the North and West—all these duties, with the care of the
great church and its outlying schools and chapels, and the miscellaneous
business which falls upon a clergyman more than
upon any other public man, I have kept in regard, and now, with
the necessity of explaining actions and letters resulting from complex
influences apparent at the time, I find myself in a position
where I know my innocence without being able to prove it with
detailed explanation. I am one upon whom trouble works inwardly,
making me outwardly silent but reverberating in the
chambers of my soul; and when at length I do speak it is a pent-up
flood and pours without measure or moderation. I inherit a
.bn 508.png
.pn +1
tendency to sadness, the remains in me of positive hypochondria
in my father and grandfather, and in certain moods of reaction
the world becomes black and I see very despairingly.
“If I were, in such moods, to speak as I feel, I should give
false colors and exaggerated proportions of everything. This
manifestation is in such contrast to the hopefulness and courage
which I experience in ordinary times that none but those intimate
with me would suspect one so full of overflowing spirit and eager
gladsomeness to have within him a cave of gloom and despondency.
Some of my letters to Mr. Moulton reflect this morbid
feeling. He understood it, and at times reproved me for indulging
in it. With this preliminary review I proceed to my narrative.
“Mr. Tilton was first known to me as a reporter of my sermons.
He was then a youth just from school and working on the
New York Observer. From this paper he passed to the Independent,
and became a great favorite with Mr. Bowen. When, about
1861, Drs. Bacon, Storrs, and Thompson resigned their places, I
became editor of the Independent, to which I had been from its
start a contributor. One of the inducements held out to me was
that Mr. Tilton should be my assistant and relieve me wholly
from routine office work. In this relation I became very much
attached to him. We used to stroll the galleries and print-shops
and dine often together. His mind was opening freshly and with
enthusiasm upon all questions. I used to pour out my ideas of
civil affairs, public policy, religion, and philanthropy. Of this
he often spoke with grateful appreciation, and mourned at a later
day over its cessation.
“August was my vacation month, but my family repaired to
my farm in June and July, and remained there during September
and October. My labors confining me to the city, I took my
meals in the families of friends, and from year to year I became
so familiar with their children and homes that I went in and out
daily almost as in my own house. Mr. Tilton often alluded to
this habit, and urged me to do the same by his house. He used
to often speak in extravagant terms of his wife’s esteem and affection
for me. After I began to visit his house he sought to
make it attractive. He urged me to bring my papers down there
and use his study to do my writing in, as it was not pleasant to
write in the office of the Independent. When I went to England
.bn 509.png
.pn +1
in 1863 Mr. Tilton took temporary charge of the Independent.
On my return I paved the way for him to take sole charge of it,
my name remaining for a year, and then he becoming the responsible
editor. Friendly relations continued until 1866, when the
violent assaults made upon me by Mr. Tilton in the Independent,
on account of my Cleveland letter, and the temporary discontinuation
of the publication of my sermons in that paper, broke off
my connection with it. Although Mr. Tilton and I remained
personally on good terms, yet there was a coolness between us in
all matters of politics. During this whole period I never received
from Mr. Tilton or any member of his family the slightest hint
that there was any dissatisfaction with my familiar relations to
his household. As late, I think, as the winter of 1869, when
going upon an extended lecturing tour, he said: ‘I wish you
would look in after, and see that Libby is not lonesome or does
not want anything,’ or words to that effect. Never by sign or
word did Mr. Tilton complain of my visits to his family until he
began to fear that the Independent would be taken from him, nor
did he break out into violence until on the eve of dispossession
from both the papers—the Independent and the Brooklyn Union—owned
by Mr. Bowen.
“In the latter part of July, 1870, Mrs. Tilton was sick, and at
her request I visited her. She seemed much depressed, but gave
me no hint of any trouble having reference to me. I cheered
her as best I could, and prayed with her just before leaving.
This was our last interview before trouble broke out in the
family. I describe it because it was the last, and its character
has a bearing upon a later part of my story. Concerning all my
visits it is sufficient to say that at no interview which ever took
place between Mrs. Tilton and myself did anything occur which might
not have occurred with perfect propriety between a brother and sister,
between a father and child, or between a man of honor and the
wife of his dearest friend; nor did anything ever happen which
she or I sought to conceal from her husband.
“Some years before any open trouble between Mr. Tilton and
myself, his doctrines, as set forth in the leaders of the Independent,
aroused a storm of indignation among the representative
Congregationalists in the West; and as the paper was still very
largely supposed to be my organ, I was written to on the subject.
In reply I indignantly disclaimed all responsibility for the views
.bn 510.png
.pn +1
expressed by Mr. Tilton. It was understood that Mr. Bowen
agreed, in consequence of proceedings arising out of this remonstrance,
to remove Mr. Tilton or suppress his peculiar views, but
instead of that he seemed firmer in the saddle than before, and
his loose notions of marriage and divorce began to be shadowed
editorially. This led to the starting of the Advance in Chicago,
to supersede the Independent in the Northwest, and Mr. Bowen
was made to feel that Mr. Tilton’s management was seriously injuring
the business, and Mr. Tilton may have felt that his position
was being undermined by opponents of his views with whom
he subsequently pretended to believe I was in league. Vague
intimations of his ‘feeling hard’ toward me I ascribed to this
misconception. I had in reality taken no step to harm him.
“After Mr. Tilton’s return from the West in December, 1870,
a young girl whom Mrs. Tilton had taken into the family, educated,
and treated like an own child was sent to me with an urgent
request that I would visit Mrs. Tilton at her mother’s. She said
that Mrs. Tilton had left her home and gone to her mother’s in
consequence of ill-treatment of her husband. She then gave an
account of what she had seen of cruelty and abuse on the part of
the husband that shocked me; I immediately visited Mrs. Tilton
at her mother’s, and received an account of her home life, and
of the despotism of her husband, and of the management of a
woman whom he had made housekeeper, which seemed like a
nightmare dream. The question was whether she should go
back or separate for ever from her husband. I asked permission
to bring my wife to see them, whose judgment in all domestic
relations I thought better than my own; and accordingly a second
visit was made. The result of the interview was that my
wife was extremely indignant toward Mr. Tilton, and declared
that no consideration on earth would induce her to remain an
hour with a man who had treated her with a hundredth part of
such insult and cruelty. I felt as strongly as she did, but hesitated,
as I always do, at giving advice in favor of a separation.
It was agreed that my wife should give her final advice at
another visit. The next day, when ready to go, she wished a
final word; but there was company, and the children were present,
and so I wrote on a scrap of paper, ‘I incline to think that
your view is right, and that a separation and a settlement of support
will be wisest, and that in his present desperate state her
.bn 511.png
.pn +1
presence near him is far more likely to produce hatred than her
absence.’
“Mrs. Tilton did not tell me that my presence had anything
to do with this trouble, nor did she let me know that on the
July previous he had extorted from her a confession of excessive
affection for me.
“On the evening of December 27, 1870, Mr. Bowen, on his
way home, called at my house and handed me a letter from Mr.
Tilton. It was, as nearly as I can remember, in the following
terms:
.sp 1
“‘Henry Ward Beecher: For reasons which you explicitly
know, and which I forbear to state, I demand that you withdraw
from the pulpit and quit Brooklyn as a residence.
.ll 68
.rj
“‘Theodore Tilton.’
.ll
.sp 1
“I read it over twice, and turned to Bowen and said: ‘This
man is crazy; this is sheer insanity,’ and other like words. Mr.
Bowen professed to be ignorant of the contents, and I handed
him the letter to read. We at once fell into a conversation
about Mr. Tilton. He gave me some account of the reasons
why he had reduced him from the editorship of the Independent
to the subordinate position of contributor—namely, that Mr. Tilton’s
religious and social views were ruining the paper. But he
said as soon as it was known that he had so far broken with Mr.
Tilton, there came pouring in upon him so many stories of Mr.
Tilton’s private life and habits that he was overwhelmed, and
that he was now considering whether he could consistently retain
him on the Brooklyn Union or as chief contributor to the Independent.
We conversed for some time, Mr. Bowen wishing my
opinion. It was frankly given. I did not see how he could
maintain his relations with Mr. Tilton. The substance of the
conversation was that Tilton’s inordinate vanity, his fatal facility
for blundering (for which he had a genius), and ostentatious independence
in his own opinions, and general impracticableness,
would keep the Union at disagreement with the political party
for whose service it was published; and now, added to all this,
these revelations of these promiscuous immoralities would make
his connection with either paper fatal to its interests. I spoke
strongly and emphatically under the great provocation of his
.bn 512.png
.pn +1
threatening letter to me and the revelation I had just had concerning
his domestic affairs.
“Mr. Bowen derided this letter of Tilton’s which he had
brought to me, and said earnestly that if trouble came out of it I
might rely upon his friendship. I learned afterwards that in the
further quarrel, ending in Tilton’s peremptory expulsion from
Bowen’s service, this conversation was repeated to Mr. Tilton.
Although I have no doubt that Mr. Tilton would have lost his
place at any rate, I have also no doubt that my influence was decisive
and precipitated his final overthrow. When I came to think
it all over, I felt very unhappy at the contemplation of Mr. Tilton’s
impending disaster. I had loved him much, and at one time
he had seemed like a son to me.
“But now all looked dark; he was to be cast forth from his
eminent position, and his affairs at home did not promise that
sympathy and strength which make one’s house, as mine has been,
in times of adversity, a refuge from the storm and a tower of defence.
“It now appears that on the 29th of December, 1870, Mr.
Tilton, having learned that I had replied to his threatening letter,
by expressing such an opinion of him as to set Mr. Bowen finally
against him, and bring him face to face with immediate ruin, extorted
from his wife, then suffering under a severe illness, a document
incriminating me, and prepared an elaborate attack upon
me.
“In my then morbid condition of mind I thought that this
charge, although entirely untrue, might result in great disaster, if
not absolute ruin. The great interests which were entirely dependent
on me, the church which I had built up, the book which
I was writing, my own immediate family, my brother’s name, now
engaged in the ministry, my sisters, the name which I had hoped
might live after me and be in some slight degree a source of
strength and encouragement to those who should succeed me,
and, above all, the cause for which I had devoted my life, seemed
imperilled. It seemed to me that my life-work was to end abruptly
and in disaster. My earnest desire to avoid a public accusation,
and the evils which must necessarily flow from it, and
which now have resulted from it, has been one of the leading
motives that must explain my action during these four years with
reference to this matter.
.bn 513.png
.pn +1
“It was in such a sore and distressing condition that Mr.
Moulton found me. His manner was kind and conciliatory; he
seemed, however, to be convinced that I had been seeking Tilton’s
downfall, that I had leagued with Mr. Bowen against him,
and that I had by my advice come near destroying his family. I
did not need any argument or persuasion to induce me to do, and
say, anything which would remedy the injury, of which I then believed,
I had certainly been the occasion if not the active cause.
But Mr. Moulton urged that, having wronged so, the wrong meant
his means of support taken away, his reputation gone, his family
destroyed, and that I had done it. He assured me of his own
knowledge that the stories which I had heard against Mr. Tilton,
and which I had believed and repeated to Mr. Bowen, were all
false. I was persuaded into the belief of what he had said, and
felt convicted of slander in its meanest form. He drew the picture
of Mr. Tilton wronged in reputation, in position, wronged in
purse, shattered in his family where he would otherwise have found
a refuge, and at the same time looking upon me out of his deep
distress, while I was abounding in friends, most popular, and with
ample means; he drew that picture—my prosperity overflowing and
abounding, and Tilton’s utter degradation. I was most intensely
excited. Indeed, I felt that my mind was in danger of giving
way. I walked up and down the room, pouring forth my heart in
the most unrestrained grief and bitterness of self-accusation, telling
what my ideas were of the obligation of friendship and of
the sacredness of the household; denying, however, an intentional
wrong, saying that if I had been the cause, however remotely,
of that which I then beheld, I never could forgive myself,
and heaping all the blame on my own head. The case, as it
then appeared to my eyes, was strongly against me. My old fellow-worker
had been dispossessed of his eminent place and influence,
and I had counselled it. His family had well-nigh been
broken up, and I had advised it; his wife had been long sick and
broken in health and body, and I, as I fully believed it, had been
the cause of all this wreck by continuing that blind heedlessness
and friendship which had beguiled her heart and had roused her
husband into a fury of jealousy, although not caused by any intentional
act of mine. And should I coldly defend myself?
Should I pour indignation upon this lady? Should I hold her up
to contempt as having thrust her affections upon me unsought?
.bn 514.png
.pn +1
Should I tread upon the man and his household in their great
adversity? I gave vent to my feelings without measure. I disclaimed
with the greatest earnestness all intent to harm Theodore
in his home or his business, and with inexplicable sorrow I both
blamed and defended Mrs. Tilton in one breath.
“I had not then the light that I now have. There was much
then that weighed heavily upon my heart and conscience which
now weighs only on my heart. I had not the light which analyzes
and discriminates things. By one blow there opened before
me a revelation full of anguish: an agonized family, whose inmates
had been my friends, greatly beloved; the husband ruined
in worldly prospects, the household crumbling to pieces, the
woman, by long sickness and suffering, either corrupted to deceit,
as her husband alleged, or so broken in mind as to be
irresponsible; and either way it was her enthusiasm for her pastor,
as I was made to believe, that was the germ and beginning
of the trouble. It was for me to have forestalled and prevented
that mischief. My age and experience in the world should have
put me more on my guard. I could not at that time tell what
was true, and what was not true, of all the considerations urged
upon me by Mr. Tilton and Moulton. There was a gulf before
me in which lay those who had been warm friends, and
they alleged that I had helped to plunge them therein. That
seemed enough to fill my soul with sorrow and anguish. No
mother who has lost a child but will understand the wild self-accusation
that grief produced, against all reason, blaming herself
for what things she did do, and for what she neglected to
do, and charging upon herself, her neglect or heedlessness, the
death of her child, while ordinarily every one knows that she
had worn herself out with her assiduities.
“Mr. Moulton and Mr. Tilton both strove to obliterate from
my mind all belief in the rumors that had been circulated about
Mr. Tilton. There was much going on in silencing, explaining,
arranging, etc., that I did not understand as well then as now.
But of one thing I was then convinced, viz., that Mr. Tilton had
never strayed from the path of virtue. I was glad to believe it
true, and felt how hard it was that he should be made to suffer
by evil and slanderous foes. I could not explain some testimony
which had been laid before me; but, I said, there is undoubtedly
some misunderstanding, and if I knew the whole I should find
.bn 515.png
.pn +1
Theodore, though with obvious faults, at heart sound and good.
These views I often expressed to intimate friends in spite of their
manifest incredulity, and what, in the light of the facts, I must
now call their well-deserved ridicule. Mr. Moulton lost no occasion
of presenting to me the kindest view of Mr. Tilton’s
character and conduct. On the other hand, he complained that
Mrs. Tilton did not trust her husband or him, and did not assist
him in his effort to help Theodore. I knew that she distrusted
Mr. Moulton, and felt bitterly hurt by the treatment of her husband.
I was urged to use my influence with her to inspire confidence
in Moulton and to lead her to take a kinder view of
Theodore. Accordingly, at the instance of Mr. Moulton, on
February 7, 1871, I wrote a letter to her of that date, designed
for the purpose of giving her confidence in Mr. Moulton.
“In my letter to Mrs. Tilton I alluded to the fact that I did
not expect, when I saw her last, to be alive many days. That
statement stands connected with a series of symptoms which I
first experienced in 1856. I went through the Fremont campaign,
speaking in the open air three hours at a time, three days
in the week. On renewing my literary labors I felt I must have
given way; I very seriously thought that I was going to have apoplexy
or paralysis, or something of the kind. On two or three
occasions, while preaching, I should have fallen in the pulpit if
I had not held on to the table. Very often I came near falling
in the streets. During the last fifteen years I have gone into the
pulpit, I suppose a hundred times, with a very strong impression
that I should never come out of it alive. I have preached more
sermons than any human being would believe, when I felt all the
while, that whatever I had got to say to my people I must say
then, or I never would have another chance to say it. If I had
consulted a physician, his first advice would have been, ‘You
must stop work.’ But I was in such a situation that I could not
stop work. I read the best medical books on symptoms of nervous
prostration, and overwork, and paralysis, and formed my
own judgment of my case. The three points I marked were: I
must have good digestion, good sleep, and I must go on working.
These three things were to be reconciled; and in regard to
my diet, stimulants, and medicines I made the most thorough
and searching trial, and, as the result, managed my body so
that I could get the most work out of it without essentially
.bn 516.png
.pn +1
impairing it. If I had said a word about this to my family, it
would have brought such distress and anxiety on the part of my
wife, as I could not have borne. I have for many years so steadily
taxed my mind to the utmost that there have been periods
when I could not afford to have people express even sympathy
with me. To have my wife or friends anxious about my health,
and showing it to me, would be just the drop too much.
“In 1863 I came again into the same condition just before
going to England, and that was one of the reasons why I wished
to go. The war was at its height. I carried my country in
my heart. I had the Independent in charge, and was working,
preaching, and lecturing continually. I knew I was likely to be
prostrated again.
“In December, 1870, the sudden shock of these troubles
brought on again these symptoms in a more violent form. I was
very much depressed in mind, and all the more, because it was
one of those things that I could not say anything about; I was
silent with everybody. During the last four years these symptoms
had been repeatedly brought on by my intense work, carried
forward on the underlying basis of so much sorrow and
trouble.
“My friends will bear witness, that in the pulpit, I have very
frequently alluded to my expectation of sudden death. I feel
that I have more than once, already, been near a stroke that
would have killed or paralyzed me, and I carry with me now,
as I have so often carried, in years before this trouble began, the
daily thought of death, as a door which might open for me, at
any moment, out of all cares and labors into most welcome rest.[10]
.fm rend=th
.fn 10
These impressions of impending death he carried with him constantly
during the year or two just preceding the final outbreak of this
plot.
In the spring of 1873 he wrote to his wife:
“My dear Wife: Thanks for your letter from Jacksonville. It
cheered me. God knows that I do not need any more loads; and a comforting
letter never could come to a better market.
“My life is almost over. I am like one waiting for the stage, his
things all packed. The world is bright enough and good enough, and I
enjoy a hundred things in it, and am neither moody nor morbid. Yet I
have an abiding sense that my work is almost done. Every new thing
done, lecture, sermon, or course of lectures, I count as clear gain—so
much more than I expected, What the other life is I do not know, and
none know so little as those who pretend to know best. That it will be
bright and gladdening I am sure; that is all. That I have had success
and achieved something gives me pleasure, chiefly because my life has
been used for those who were weak and helpless. My lot has been cast
in a time when the rights of the under-classes were to be considered.
That I have been identified with that great movement of humanity is reward
enough, and is the chief satisfaction which I take in the retrospect.
But enough, enough.”
In another letter:
“I wish I were with you. When you are gone I feel how much you
are to me. May God keep you for me for many years to come, if many
years are in store for me.
“Your loving but heavy-hearted husband,
.ll 68
.rj
“H. W. B.”
.ll
In his private diary he wrote:
“I have not lived for myself; all my force has been devoted to the
promotion of men’s happiness—happiness through justice, truth, goodness.
Whatever prosperity I have had came to me almost unconsciously,
certainly not by any wit or wisdom of my own. I am grateful for having
lived. I shall go without murmur or discontent.
“I hope that there will be those who will be sorry when I leave, and
those beyond who will be glad when I arrive.”
This same feeling remained with him, more or less, though not in so
pronounced a form, through the remainder of his life.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
.bn 517.png
.pn +1
“During the whole of the year 1871 I was kept in a state of
suspense and doubt, not only as to the future of the family, for
the reunion and happiness of which I had striven so earnestly,
but as to the degree to which I might be personally subject to
attack and misconstruction, and the trouble be brought into the
church and magnified by publicity. The officers of the church
sought to investigate Mr. Tilton’s religious views and moral conduct.
On the latter point I had been deceived into the belief
that he was not in fault. As to the religious views, I still hoped
for a change for the better. It was proposed to drop him from
the list of members for non-attendance; and as he asserted to me
his withdrawal, this might have been done, but his wife still attended
the church and hoped for his restoration. I recollect
having with him a conversation in which he dimly hinted to me
that he thought it not unlikely that he might go back into his old
position. He seemed to be in a mood to regret the past. And
so, when I was urged by the Examining Committee to take some
steps, I said I was not without hopes that by patience and kindness
.bn 518.png
.pn +1
Tilton might come back again into his old church works and
be one of us once more. I therefore delayed a decision upon this
point for a long time. Many of our members were anxious and
impatient, and there were many tokens of trouble from this quarter.
Meanwhile one wing of the female-suffrage party, had got
hold of his story in a distorted and exaggerated form, such as
had never been intimated to me by Mr. Tilton or his friends.
I did not then suspect what I now know, that these atrociously
false rumors originated with Mr. Tilton himself. I only saw the
evil growing instead of diminishing, and perceived that while I
was pledged to silence, and therefore could not speak in my own
defence, some one was for ever persevering in falsehood, growing
continually in dimensions, and these difficulties were immensely
increased by the affiliation of Mr. Tilton with the
extremists in the female-suffrage party.
“The winter following (1871-72) Mr. Tilton returned from
the lecture-field in despair. Engagements had been cancelled,
invitations withdrawn, and he spoke of the prejudice and repugnance
with which he was everywhere met as indescribable. I
urged him to make a prompt repudiation of these women and
their doctrines. I told him that no man could rise against the
public sentiment with such a load. Mr. Tilton’s vanity seldom
allowed him to regard himself as in the wrong or his actions
faulty. He could never be made to believe that his failure to
rise again was caused by his partnership with these women, and
by his want of sensible work, which work should make the public
feel that he had in him power for good. Instead of this he
preferred, or professed, to think that I was using my influence
against him, that I was allowing him to be traduced without
coming generously to the front to defend him, and that my
friends were working against him; to which I replied that, unless
the laws of mind were changed, not Almighty God Himself could
lift him into favor if these women must be lifted with him. Nevertheless
I sought in every way to restore peace and concord to the
family which I was made to feel had been injured by me and
was dependent on my influence for recovery.
“But one thing was constant and apparent—when Tilton, by
lecturing or otherwise, was prosperous, he was very genial and
affectionate to me. Whenever he met rebuffs and was in pecuniary
trouble, he scowled threateningly upon me as the author of
.bn 519.png
.pn +1
his troubles, and Moulton himself seemed at times to accuse me
of indifference to Tilton’s misfortunes.
“I now come in my narrative to give an account of the origin
of the somewhat famous tripartite agreement. Early in February,
1872, Mr. Tilton returned to the city thoroughly discouraged
with the result of his lecturing tour. The Golden Age (a
paper organized for Tilton by his friends), which had then been
established for about twelve months, had not succeeded, and was
understood to be losing money. His pecuniary obligations were
pressing, and although his claim against Bowen for the violation
of his two contracts had a year previously been put under the
exclusive control of Moulton with a view of settlement, it had
not as yet been effected. About this time Mr. Moulton, who was
sick, sent for me and showed me a galley-proof of an article, prepared
by Mr. Tilton for the Golden Age, in which he embodied
a copy of a letter written by him to Mr. Bowen, dated January 1,
1871, in which he charged Mr. Bowen with making scandalous
accusations against my character. This was the first time that I
had ever seen these charges, and I had never heard of them except
by mere rumor, Mr. Bowen never having, at any time, said
a word to me on the subject. I was amazed at the proposed
publication. I did not then understand the real object of giving
circulation to such slanders. My first impression was that Mr.
Tilton designed, under cover of an attack upon me in the name
of another, to open the way for the publication of his own pretended
personal grievances. I protested against the publication
in the strongest terms, but was informed that it was not intended
as an hostile act to myself, but to Mr. Bowen. I did not any
the less insist upon my protest against this publication. On its
being shown to Mr. Bowen he was thoroughly alarmed, and
speedily consented to the appointment of arbitrators to bring
about an amicable settlement. The result of this proceeding
was that Mr. Bowen paid Mr. Tilton over $7,000, and that a
written agreement was entered into by Bowen, Tilton, and myself
of amnesty, concord, and future peace.[11] It was agreed that
the offensive article, the publication of which had produced such
.bn 520.png
.pn +1
an effect upon Mr. Bowen and secured a settlement, should be
destroyed without seeing the light. It was an act of treachery
peculiarly base that this article was permitted to get into hands
which would insure its publication, and that it was published. I
.bn 521.png
.pn +1
was assured that every vestige of it had been destroyed, nor until
a comparatively recent period did I understand how Mr. Tilton
secured its publication without seeming to be himself responsible
for the deed.
.fm rend=th
.fn 11
“We three men, earnestly desiring to remove all causes of offence
existing between us, real or fancied, and to make Christian reparation for
injuries done, or supposed to have been done, and to efface the disturbed
past, and to provide concord, good-will, and love for the future, do declare
and covenant each to the others as follows:
“I. I, Henry C. Bowen, having given credit, perhaps without due
consideration, to tales and innuendoes affecting Henry Ward Beecher, and
being influenced by them, as was natural to a man who receives impressions
suddenly, to the extent of repeating them (guardedly, however, and
within limitations, and not for the purpose of injuring him, but strictly in
the confidence of consultation), now feel therein that I did him wrong.
“Therefore I disavow all the charges and imputations that have been
attributed to me, as having been by me made against Henry Ward Beecher,
and I declare fully and without reserve that I know nothing which should
prevent me from extending to him my most cordial friendship, confidence,
and Christian fellowship; and I expressly withdraw all the charges, imputations,
and innuendoes imputed as having been made and uttered by me,
and set forth in a letter written to me by Theodore Tilton on the 1st day of
January, 1871; and I sincerely regret having made any imputations, charges,
or innuendoes unfavorable to the Christian character of Mr. Beecher, and I
covenant and promise that for all future time I will never by word or deed
recur to, repeat, or allude to any or either of said charges, imputations, and
innuendoes.
“II. And I, Theodore Tilton, do, of my own free will and friendly
spirit toward Henry C. Bowen and Henry Ward Beecher, hereby covenant
and agree that I will never again repeat, by word of mouth or otherwise,
any of the allegations, or imputations, or innuendoes contained in my letter
hereunto annexed, or any other injurious imputations or allegations suggested
by or growing out of these; and that I will never again bring up or
hint at any cause of difference or ground of complaint heretofore existing
between the said Henry C. Bowen and myself or the said Henry Ward
Beecher.
“III. And I, Henry Ward Beecher, put the past for ever out of
sight and out of memory. I deeply regret the causes of suspicion, jealousy,
and estrangement which have come between us. It is a joy to me to have
my old regard for Henry C. Bowen and Theodore Tilton restored, and a
happiness to me to resume the old relations of love, respect, and reliance
to each and both of them. If I have said anything injurious to the reputation
of either, or have detracted from their standing and fame as Christian
gentlemen and members of my church, I revoke it all, and heartily covenant
to repair and reinstate them to the extent of my power.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Henry Ward Beecher.
“Theodore Tilton.
“Henry C. Bowen.”
.nf-
.ll
.fn-
.fm rend=th
“After vainly attempting to obtain money both from myself
and my wife as the price of its suppression, the Woodhull women
published their version of the Tilton scandal in the November of
1872. The details given by them were so minute, though so distorted,
that suspicion was universally directed toward Mr. Tilton
as the real author of this, which he so justly calls ‘a wicked and
horrible scandal,’ though it is not a whit more horrible than that
which he has now fathered, and not half so wicked, because they
did not have personal knowledge of the falsity of their story, as
Mr. Tilton has of his.
“To rid himself of this incubus Mr. Tilton drew up a voluminous
paper called ‘A true statement,’ but which was familiarly
called ‘Tilton’s case.’ Tilton’s furor for compiling statements
was one of my familiar annoyances. Moulton used to tell me
that the only way to manage him was to let him work off his periodical
passion on some such document, and then to pounce on
the document and suppress it. This particular ‘true statement’
was a special plea in abatement of the prejudices excited by his
Woodhull partnership. It was a muddle of garbled statements,
manufactured documents, and downright falsehoods. This paper
I knew he read to many, and I am told that he read it to not less
than fifty persons, in which he did not pretend to charge immorality
upon his wife; on the contrary, he explicitly denied it and asserted
her purity, but charged me with improper overtures to her.
It was this paper which he read to Dr. Storrs, and poisoned therewith
his mind, thus leading to the attempt to prosecute Tilton in
Plymouth Church, the interference of neighboring churches, and
the calling of the Congregational Council. After the Woodhull
story was published, and while Mr. Tilton seemed really desirous
for a short time of protecting his wife, I sent through him the
following letter to her:
.pm start_quote
“‘My dear Mrs. Tilton: I hoped that you would be shielded
from the knowledge of the great wrong that has been done to
you, and through you to universal womanhood. I can hardly
bear to speak of it or allude to a matter than which nothing can
.bn 522.png
.pn +1
be imagined more painful to a pure and womanly nature. I
pray daily for you “that your faith fail not.” You yourself know
the way and the power of prayer. God has been your refuge in
many sorrows before. He will now hide you in His pavilion until
the storm be overpast. The rain that beats down the flower to
the earth shall pass at length, and the stem bent but not broken
will rise again and blossom as before. Every pure woman on
earth will feel that this wanton and unprovoked assault is aimed
at you, but reaches to universal womanhood. Meantime your
dear children will love you with double tenderness, and Theodore,
at whom the shafts are hurled, will hide you in his heart of
hearts. I am glad that revelation from the pit has given him
a sight of the danger that was before hidden by spurious appearances
and promises of usefulness. May God keep him in
courage in this arduous struggle which he wages against adversity,
and bring him out through much trial, like gold seven times
fined! I have not spoken of myself. No words could express
the sharpness and depth of my sorrow in your behalf, my dear
and honored friend. God walks in the fire by the side of those
He loves, and in heaven neither you nor Theodore nor I shall
regret the discipline, how hard soever it may seem now. May He
restrain and turn those poor creatures who have been given over
to do all this sorrowful harm to those who have deserved no such
treatment at their hands! I commend you to my mother’s God,
my dear friend! May His smile bring light in darkness, and His
love be a perpetual summer to you!
.ll 68
.nf r
“Very truly yours,
“Henry Ward Beecher.”
.nf-
.ll
“The whole series of events, beginning with the outbreak of
the Woodhull story, brought upon me a terrible accumulation
of anxieties. Everything that had threatened before now started
up again with new violence. Tilton’s behavior was at once
inexplicable and uncontrollable. His card ‘to a complaining
friend’ did not produce the effect he pretended to expect from
it, of convincing the public of his great magnanimity. Then
his infamous article and letter to Mr. Bowen made its appearance
in the Eagle. It had been suggested that the publication
of the ‘tripartite covenant’ would have a good effect in counteracting
the slanderous stories about Mrs. Tilton and myself,
.bn 523.png
.pn +1
which Tilton professed to regard, but which his foolish card and
the publication of that article had done so much to revive and
render mischievous. Mr. Moulton urged me to get from the gentleman
who held the ‘tripartite covenant’ a copy of it for us,
when suddenly Mr. Wilkeson came out with it on his own responsibility.
Its publication in this manner I made strenuous but
unavailing efforts to prevent. He had originally kept a copy of
it. (Everybody in this business seems to have copies of everything
except myself.) On the appearance of that paper Tilton
went into a rage. It put him, he said, in a ‘false position’ before
the public, and he said he would publish another card giving a
statement something like what he afterward wrote to Dr. Bacon—that
is, as I recollect the matter, declaring that I had committed
an offence, and that he had been the magnanimous party in the
business. It was necessary to decide what to do with him.
Moulton strongly urged a card from me exonerating Tilton (as
I could honestly do) from the authorship of the particular scandals
detailed in his article to Mr. Bowen and alluded to in the
covenant.
“I said I would think it over, and perhaps write something.
This was Friday or Saturday. The covenant appeared on Friday
morning, and the alarm was sounded on me immediately that
Tilton would do something dreadful if not restrained. On Sunday
I had made up my mind to write to Mr. Moulton the following
letter, garbled extracts of which are given in Mr. Tilton’s
statement:
.ll 68
.rj
“‘Sunday Morning, June 1, 1873.
.ll
“‘My dear Frank: The whole earth is tranquil and the
heaven is serener, as befits one who has about finished this world-life.
“‘I could do nothing on Saturday. My head was confused.
“‘But a good sleep has made it like crystal. I have determined
to make no more resistance. Theodore’s temperament is
such that the future, even if temporarily earned, would be absolutely
worthless, filled with abrupt changes, and rendering me
liable at any hour or day to be obliged to stultify all the devices
by which we saved ourselves.
“‘It is only fair that he should know that the publication of
the card which he proposes would leave him far worse off than
.bn 524.png
.pn +1
before. The agreement was made after my letter through you
was written. He had had it a year. He had condoned his
wife’s fault. He had enjoined upon me with the utmost earnestness
and solemnity not to betray his wife nor leave his children
to a blight. I had honestly and earnestly joined in the purpose.
“‘Then this settlement was made and signed by him [Tripartite].
It was not my making. He revised his part so that
it should wholly suit him, and signed it. It stood unquestioned
and unblamed for more than a year. Then it was published.
Nothing but that. That which he did in private, when made
public excited him to fury, and he charges me with making him
appear as one graciously pardoned by me! It was his own deliberate
act, with which he was perfectly content till others saw
it, and then he charges a grievous wrong home on me!
“‘My mind is clear; I am not in haste. I shall write for the
public a statement that will bear the light of the judgment day.
God will take care of me and mine. When I look on earth it is
deep night. When I look to the heavens above I see the morning
breaking. But, oh! that I could put in golden letters my deep
sense of your faithful, earnest, undying fidelity, your disinterested
friendship! Your noble wife, too, has been one of God’s
comforters. It is such as she that renews a waning faith in
womanhood.
“‘Now, Frank, I would not have you waste any more energy
on a hopeless task. With such a man as T. T. there is no possible
salvation for any that depend on him. With a strong nature,
he does not know how to govern it. With generous impulses,
the undercurrent that rules him is self. With ardent affections,
he cannot love long that which does not repay but with admiration
and praise. With a strong theatric nature, he is constantly
imposed upon with the idea that a position, a great stroke—a
coup d’état—is the way to success. Besides these he has a hundred
good things about him, but these named traits make him
absolutely unreliable. Therefore there is no use in further trying.
I have a strong feeling upon me, and it brings great peace with it,
that I am spending my last Sunday and preaching my last sermon.
Dear, good God, I thank Thee! I am indeed beginning to see
rest and triumph. The pain of life is but a moment; the glory
of the everlasting emancipation is wordless, inconceivable, full of
breaking glory. O my beloved Frank! I shall know you then,
.bn 525.png
.pn +1
and for ever hold fellowship with you, and look back and smile
at the past. Your loving
.ll 68
.rj
H. W. B.’
.ll
“There are intimations at the beginning and end of this letter
that I felt the approach of death. With regard to that I merely
refer to my previous statement concerning my bodily symptoms,
and add that on this day I felt symptoms upon me. The main
point is that I was worried out with the whole business, and
would have been glad to escape by death, of which I long had
little dread. I could see no end but death to the accumulation
of torture, but I resolved to stop short and waste no more time in
making matters worse. I felt that Mr. Moulton had better stop,
too, and let the whole thing come out. I determined, then, to
make a full and true statement, which I now make, and to leave
the result with God. Mr. Tilton had repeatedly urged me, as
stated in my letter, not to betray his wife, and I felt bound by
every sense of honor, in case I should be pressed by inquiries
from my church or family as to the foundations of rumors which
might reach them, to keep this promise. By this promise I meant
only that I would not betray the excessive affection which his
wife, as I had been told, had conceived for me and had confessed
to him. In reply to this note, which was calm and reserved rather
than gloomy, Mr. Moulton wrote that same day a letter of three
and a half sheets of copy-paper. He began as follows:
.sp 1
“‘My dear Friend: You know I have never been in sympathy
with the mood out of which you have often spoken as you
have written this morning. If the truth must be spoken let it be.
I know you can stand if the whole case was published to-morrow,
and in my opinion it shows a selfish faith in God.’
.sp 1
“Having proceeded thus far, Mr. Moulton seems to have perceived
that the tone of this letter was rather likely to encourage
me in my determination to publish the whole case than otherwise;
and as this was opposed to the whole line of his policy, he crossed
out with one dash of the pencil the whole of this and commenced
anew, writing the following letter:
.sp 1
.ll 68
.rj
“‘Sunday, June 1, 1873.
.ll
“‘My dear Friend: Your letter makes this first Sabbath of
summer dark and cold like a vault. You have never inspired me
.bn 526.png
.pn +1
with courage or hope, and if I had listened to you alone my hands
would have dropped helpless long ago. You don’t begin to be in
the danger to-day that has faced you many times before. If you
now look at it square in the eyes it will cower and slink away
again. You know that I have never been in sympathy with, but
that I absolutely abhor, the unmanly mood out of which your
letter of this morning came. This mood is a reservoir of mildew.
You can stand it if the whole case were published to-morrow. In
my opinion it shows only a selfish faith in God to go whining into
heaven, if you could, with a truth that you are not courageous
enough, with God’s help and faith in God, to try to live on earth.
You know that I love you, and because I do I shall try and try
and try as in the past. You are mistaken when you say that
‘Theodore charges you with making him appear as one graciously
pardoned by you.’ He said the form in which it was published
in some of the papers made it so appear, and it was from this that
he asked relief. I do not think it impossible to frame a letter
which will cover the case. May God bless you! I know He will
protect you.
.ll 68
.rj
Frank.’
.ll
.sp 1
“In the haste of writing Mr. Moulton apparently failed to perceive
what he had already written. In the first instance, he wrote
on one side of a half-sheet of paper, then, turning it over, inadvertently
used the clean side of that half-sheet for the purpose
of the letter, which he sent in the final shape above given. But
it will be seen that he deliberately, and twice in succession, reaffirmed
his main statement that there was nothing in the whole
case on which I could not safely stand. He treats my resolution
as born of such morbid despair, as he had often reproached me
for, and urged me strongly to maintain my faith in him. Tilton
yielded to his persuasion, and graciously allowed himself to be
soothed by the publication of a card exonerating him from the
authorship of the base lies to which the tripartite covenant referred.
So once more, and this time against my calmer judgment,
I patched up a hollow peace with him.
“That I have grievously erred in judgment with this perplexed
case no one is more conscious than I am. I chose the wrong path,
and accepted a disastrous guidance in the beginning, and have
indeed travelled on a ‘rough and ragged edge’ in my prolonged
efforts to suppress this scandal, which has at last spread so much
.bn 527.png
.pn +1
desolation through the land. But I cannot admit that I erred in
desiring to keep these matters out of sight. In this respect I appeal
to all Christian men, to judge whether almost any personal
sacrifice ought not to have been made, rather than to suffer
the morals of an entire community, and especially of the young,
to be corrupted by the filthy details of scandalous falsehoods,
daily iterated and amplified, for the gratification of impure curiosity,
and the demoralization of every child that is old enough to
read.
“The full truth of this history requires that one more fact
should be told, especially as Mr. Tilton has invited it. Money
has been obtained from me in the course of these affairs, in considerable
sums; but I did not, at first, look upon the suggestions
that I should contribute to Mr. Tilton’s pecuniary wants, as savoring
of blackmail. Afterward I contributed at one time $5,000,
which I came to do in this way: There was a discussion about
the Golden Age. Moulton was constantly advancing money, as
he said to me, to help Tilton. The paper was needy. One evening
I was at his house. We were alone together in the back parlor,
and Moulton took out of his pocket a letter from ———. It
was read to me, in which the writer mentioned contributions
which he had made to Theodore. I understood from him, that
the writer of this letter had given him some thousands of dollars
down in cash, and then taking out two time-checks or drafts,
which, as I recollected, were on bluish paper—although I am not
sure of that. There were two checks, each of them amounting to
one or two thousand dollars more, and I should think it amounted
in all to about six thousand dollars, although my memory about
quantities and figures is to be taken with great allowance; but it
produced the impression in me, that the writer had given him
one or two thousand dollars in cash down, and, as the writer explained
in the letter, it was not convenient to give the balance in
money at that time, but had drawn time-drafts, which would be
just as useful as money; and Moulton slapped the table and
said, ‘That is what I call friendship,’ and I was stupid, and said,
‘Yes, it was.’ Afterward, when I got home, I got to thinking
about it. ‘Why,’ said I, ‘what a fool! I never dreamed what he
meant.’ Then I went to him and said to him, ‘I am willing to
make a contribution and put the thing beyond a controversy.’
Well, he said something like this: ‘That he thought it would be
.bn 528.png
.pn +1
the best investment that ever I made in my life.’ I then went
to the savings-bank and put a mortgage of five thousand dollars
on my house. I took a check which was given me by the bank’s
lawyer, and put it into the bank, and, on Moulton’s suggestion
that it would be better than to have a check drawn to his order,
I drew the money in five-hundred-dollar or one-thousand-dollar
bills—I have forgotten which, but I know that they were large,
for I carried the roll in my hand—and these I gave into his
hands. After the money had been given to Mr. Moulton, I
felt very much dissatisfied. Finally a square demand and a
threat was made to one of my confidential friends, that if $5,000
more were not paid, Tilton’s charges would be laid before the
public. This I saw at once was blackmail in its boldest form,
and I never paid a cent of it, but challenged and requested the
fullest exposure.”
.pm end_quote
As we have seen, the “Woodhull scandal,” at the secret instigation
of Tilton, was published late in October, 1872.
On the 2d of November Dr. Storrs wrote to Mr. Beecher:
.pm start_quote
“My dear Beecher: I hear from different quarters that
scandalous and annoying publications have been made about you.
“If they are such as to trouble you, and if I can at any time
be of any service to you, you know, of course, that you have only
to intimate the wish to get all the help that I can give, on any
occasion or in any way. Ever affectionately yours,
.ll 68
.rj
“R. S. Storrs, Jr.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
At this time Mr. Beecher felt that he was bound in honor to
be silent. It was not until the spring of 1873, when realizing
that Tilton was industriously, in person, and through his friends,
whispering tales against his character, and stimulating the publication
of the scandal, that he felt himself relieved from this obligation.
Then he published a card in the Brooklyn Eagle, emphatically
branding the stories as false and challenging the production
of any evidence against him.
But, at the time of Dr. Storrs’s letter, to say a little and not
say all, would be worse than silence, while to confide the whole
matter to Dr. Storrs would necessitate repeating the statements
against Tilton and Bowen, which would be a breach of the tripartite
agreement (a pledge which he alone had observed). He
did not call on the doctor or answer the letter. He kept silent.
.bn 529.png
.pn +1
A short time later (December 16) Tilton called upon Dr. Storrs
with a friend, and read to him his so-called “true statement,”
which, as we have seen, he had drawn up to counteract, as he
pretended, the Woodhull scandal. In this he asserted most
positively his wife’s innocence, and charged Mr. Beecher with
“improper proposals.”
The effect of this interview played an important part in the
subsequent events. We are not aware that Dr. Storrs ever went
directly to his old friend and laid what he had heard before him,
or indignantly denied the charges as a slander; but, on the contrary,
almost in the face of his letter of November 2d proffering
aid, he lent his ear to tales, carried by such a man as he knew
Tilton to be; and we very soon find him acting, in conjunction
with Dr. Budington, as the recognized champion and adviser of
Mr. Beecher’s enemies; his hostility, later on, ripening into the
most intense personal bitterness, the fierce heat of which seemed
to grow stronger rather than weaker as years rolled by, and did
not seem to abate even when the cold hand of death fell upon his
former friend. We have searched in vain for any reasonable justification
for this sudden change, from the most glowing friendship,
to the most scorching enmity. We feel unwilling to believe the
commonly accepted theory of jealousy, while the doctor’s own
suggestion that his feelings were hurt by Mr. Beecher’s neglect
of his friendly overtures, seems belittling to a man so gifted and
refined, and one cast in so large an intellectual mould.
We say that injured feelings were the reason suggested; for
when, about a year later, he appeared in open hostility to Mr.
Beecher, and wondering friends inquired the reason, he stated in
effect that he felt hurt by Mr. Beecher’s neglect to even answer
his friendly letter (of November 2, 1872), though admitting that
it did not necessarily call for an answer. Later, after the publication
of the scandal, Mr. Beecher explained to both Drs. Storrs
and Budington the reason for his silence, which explanation
they then professed to accept as satisfactory.[12] On November 7,
1873, a friend of both Dr. Storrs and Mr. Beecher called on the
doctor, to whom he stated that while Mr. Beecher’s enemies had
.bn 530.png
.pn +1
come to him, and he had not felt it right to refuse to hear what
any one had to say, Mr. Beecher’s friends had not come near him;
that he himself (Dr. S.) had never once commenced a conversation
with any one on this subject, and that he was sorry that he could
not see this affair as Mr. Beecher’s friends did, and wished he
could believe that he was suffering for the sins of others.
.fm rend=th
.fn 12
This occurred early in 1874, when Drs. Storrs and Budington were
in conference with Mr. Beecher, seeking for some way of avoiding the complications
between the three churches, which ultimately led to the Advisory
Council of 1874. During this period they addressed Mr. Beecher in their
letters as “My dear Brother,” joined with him in prayer asking for divine
guidance out of the existing complications. Neither of them intimated
any belief in the scandalous stories then afloat, but put the whole burden of
their complaint on the ground of discourtesy, and, when Mr. Beecher explained
his reasons for silence and the pledge he felt himself to be under,
expressed themselves as fully satisfied, and as late as 1876 their clerical
friends understood that their hostility grew out of feelings hurt by fancied
neglect, and not from a belief in any guilt on the part of Mr. Beecher. See
Dr. Bacon’s letter of February 27, 1876, page 559.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
From his own statement, then, it would seem that he gave
his ear to the tale-bearer, listening to all that was brought to him
by Mr. Beecher’s enemies, but he himself never once sought for
information from Mr. Beecher’s friends.
About the first of June, 1873, Mr. Beecher had become satisfied
that there was no longer any use of trying to help Mr. Tilton,
his eyes being at last opened to the fact, that Tilton had been
deceiving him right along, and little by little had been dealing
scandalous stories out to the public. He declared that he would
stand it no longer, and when it was stated that Mrs. Woodhull
had implicating letters from him he published the following card
in the Brooklyn Eagle:
“I have just returned to the city to learn that application has
been made to Mrs. Victoria Woodhull for letters of mine supposed
to contain information respecting certain infamous stories
against me. I have no objection to have the Eagle state, in any
way it deems fit, that Mrs. Woodhull, or any other person or
persons who may have letters of mine in their possession, have
my cordial consent to publish them. In this connection, and at
this time, I will only add that the stories and rumors which for
some time past have been circulated about me are grossly untrue,
and I stamp them, in general and in particular, as utterly false.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Respectfully,
Henry Ward Beecher.
.nf-
.ll
“Brooklyn, N. Y., June 30, 1873.”
.sp 1
At this time the stories afloat were vague and general.
.bn 531.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch25'
CHAPTER XXV.
.pm start_summary
After-Effects—Charges against Tilton—Advisory Council—Investigating
Committee called by Mr. Beecher—Its Report—Dropping Mr. Moulton—Council
called by Plymouth Church.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
In October, 1873, formal charges were preferred against Theodore
Tilton, by Plymouth Church, for slandering his pastor.
He replied to the clerk of the church, that he was not,
and for four or more years had not been, a member of the church.
The church then voted to drop his name from the rolls, agreeably
to the provisions of its manual, relating to such cases.
Most of the sister churches were content that Plymouth
Church should attend to her own affairs in her own way. Not
so the Church of the Pilgrims (Dr. Storrs) and the Clinton
Avenue Church (Dr. Budington).
They felt themselves outraged by this action of Plymouth, in
omitting to try the charges preferred against Tilton.
Special meetings were called in these churches, and a committee
of seven appointed in each, to formulate, and send, a letter
of remonstrance to Plymouth Church. After a considerable, but
ineffectual correspondence between the churches, and consultations
between the pastors, looking to an amicable adjustment of
their differences, the two dissatisfied churches called the “Advisory
Council” of 1874, to advise them as to their course toward
Plymouth Church.
While the correspondence and conferences referred to were
going on, a very serious difficulty broke out in Dr. Budington’s
church, which at one time threatened to split it asunder. A
large number of influential members denounced the manner of
calling the special meeting, at which the committee of seven was
appointed, and by which the church was committed to its position
of hostility to Plymouth, as being irregular, and in violation
.bn 532.png
.pn +1
of their own rules.[13] This led to a number of stormy meetings,
in which great bitterness was felt and expressed on both
sides.
.fm rend=th
.fn 13
They presented a formal protest, which, after rehearsing the action
of their pastor in calling the special meeting, concluded:
.ce
“WE PROTEST,
“Because the committee was not appointed by the church;
“Because its action has never been approved by the church;
“Because the substance and form of the documents it has prepared
have not been authorized even by the instructions given at irregular and
invalid gatherings, until it was too late to offer criticism or objection;
“Because these documents, neither authorized in advance nor subsequently
approved by this church, have apparently committed it to an attitude,
and pledged it in advance to acts of antagonism and censure towards
a near and beloved sister church, never contemplated or desired, still less
resolved upon, by this church;
“Because the question of discipline, originally raised as a matter of
controversy, is one upon which the record of this church is such as to make
it especially necessary that we should proceed with great circumspection
when seeking to advise or censure other churches—it being our own practice
to drop members for absence, without censure, at every annual meeting (Manual,
sec. 6, art. 2), and the practice having extended in the past, as we are informed,
to members at the time currently reported to be under grave charges.
“The whole management of this case has misrepresented the spirit of
this church, defeated its just right of self-government, suppressed the
honest and free expression of individual opinion, and tended to subject
the church to the control of a few members, without regard to the convictions
of the remainder.
“We, therefore, denounce the action of the committee as a dangerous
attack upon Christian liberty and Congregational polity; and we declare it
to be, and to have been from the beginning, null and void.”
.fn-
.fm rend=th
Mr. Beecher, instead of fomenting this difficulty—which might
easily have been made the means of turning the tables upon his
clerical critics, and forcing them from the attack to the defensive—or
even sitting still, to await any advantages that might accrue to
him or his church, came at once to Dr. Budington’s relief. On
January 12th he wrote to a prominent member of the latter’s
church, urging in the strongest terms that both the doctor, and
the protestants, should seek for some intermediate ground on
which they could meet in peace, and that the best men of the
church should join to avert the catastrophe which seemed impending.
He also wrote an earnest letter to Dr. Storrs, that he
.bn 533.png
.bn 534.png
.pn +2
should join with him in seeking the peace and unity of Dr.
Budington’s church.
.il id=i525 fn=i_525.jpg w=340px ew=60%
.ca Mr. Beecher and his Sister, Mrs. H. E. B. Stowe.
At the same time he wrote a long letter directly to Dr.
Budington, in which, among other things, he said:
.pm start_quote
“ ... I pray you not to think that I am intruding on your
affairs, or that I am indelicate in offering to do anything I can.
... Now let me assure you, my dear friend, that my first and
last desire, as God sees my heart, is to see your church harmonious,
and to see you more honored and firmly seated in the
affection of your people than ever. I suppose I do not exaggerate
in saying that there is a large number of your people who
are aggrieved, and that they, like yourself, stand upon a sincere
conscience. Ought there not to be a way among those who have
the humility of Christ to conciliate and to reconcile difficulties?
And, my dear brother, ought not you, as teacher and leader of
this flock, to be a leader in self-abnegation, in tender regard for
those who differ with you, in overcoming evil with good, in subduing
opposition by love?
“Pardon me, I pray you. I long to see your power augmented
and your name, now honorable, still more honored....
I count the integrity of your church and your continued usefulness
in it as a blessing, which cannot be lost without great
blame somewhere, and if I can help you I will do it with all the
earnestness of my nature! I long for restored peace in our
churches.
“The peace which love brings is full of the fruits of the
Spirit. I think much of you; I pray for you in the watches of
the night! If I could help you effectually I should count it
worth all that I have suffered! I pray you do not put me from
you, but let my heart be strengthened and comforted by the
reciprocal love of yours.
.ll 68
.nf r
“I am, dear brother,
“Truly yours,
“Henry Ward Beecher.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
He also advised such of his friends in Dr. Budington’s
church as he met, to the same effect. Ultimately the storm blew
over, though a feeling of soreness remained in the Clinton Avenue
Church for a long time.
On March 24, 1874, the Advisory Council convened in Dr.
.bn 535.png
.pn +1
Budington’s church. Plymouth Church had been invited to be
present at the council by pastor and committee, “to correct any
statement of fact that may seem to them erroneous, and to furnish
any further and special information the council may request.”
To this Plymouth Church replied “that the calling of this
ex-parte council to consider the affairs of a church which has
not declined a mutual council is the consummation of a course
of proceedings against which, as irregular and unwarrantable, we
have felt bound to protest from the beginning. That we recognize
in the statement, the letter-missive, and the invitation as in
former communications addressed to us, a persistent attempt to
put this church under accusation and on trial, and that we cannot
accept the invitation of these two churches to appear before a
council in the calling of which we have been permitted to take
no part, in which we have not been offered the right of equal
members, and in which we are not even allowed to be ordinary
defendants, but only to be witnesses to correct errors and answer
questions propounded to us.”
On the 28th the council made its “deliverance,” but so like
a Delphic oracle that neither its friends nor its foes seemed able
to agree upon its exact meaning.
As nearly as we can make out from the “deliverance” itself,
and the comments made upon it by members of the council, it
was to the effect: 1. That Plymouth Church was not en regle in
its disposal of Mr. Tilton’s case; 2. That the two sister-churches
were unwise and hasty; and 3. That Plymouth Church should
not be read out of fellowship.
Very shortly after the adjournment of the council a series of
letters were written by Dr. Bacon, of New Haven, and published
in the Independent, which reflected very strongly upon Mr. Tilton,
who, in the latter part of June, published a statement in which he
made an open charge; in this he declared that Mr. Beecher had
committed an offence against him which he forbore to name.
This was the first public charge made by Mr. Tilton. Up to this
time the stories afloat were vague and indefinite, impossible of
tracing to their source.
Mr. Beecher was absent from the city when Tilton’s statement
was published, but, returning the next day, at once sent the following
to the gentlemen named therein:
.bn 536.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Brooklyn, June 27, 1874.
.ll
”Gentlemen: In the present state of public feeling I owe it.
to my friends, and to the church and the society over which I
am pastor, to have some proper investigation made of the rumors,
insinuations, or charges made respecting my conduct, as compromised
by the late publications made by Mr. Tilton. I have
thought that both the church and the society should be represented,
and I take the liberty of asking the following gentlemen
to serve in this inquiry, and to do that which truth and justice
may require. I beg that each of the gentlemen named will consider
this as if it had been separately and personally sent to
him, namely:
“From the Church—Henry W. Sage, Augustus Storrs, Henry
M. Cleveland.
“From the Society—Horace B. Claflin, John Winslow, S. V.
White.
“I desire you, when you have satisfied yourselves by an impartial
and thorough examination of all sources of evidence, to
communicate to the Examining Committee, or to the church,
such action as then may seem to you right and wise.
.ll 68
.rj
”Henry Ward Beecher.“
.ll
.pm end_quote
These names were selected after conference with the Examining
Committee of the church, most of them being suggested by
that committee. Two of the gentlemen named were members of
the Examining Committee, which immediately ratified the selection,
and by formal vote made them a sub-committee of its
own.
After the committee had been organized and begun its examination
Mr. Beecher wrote and sent the following letter:
.sp 1
”Gentlemen of the Committee: In the note requesting
your appointment I asked that you should make full investigation
of all sources of information. You are witnesses that I have in no
way influenced or interfered with your proceedings or duties. I
have wished the investigation to be so searching that nothing
could unsettle its results. I have nothing to gain by any policy
of suppression or compromise.
“For four years I have borne and suffered enough, and I will
not go a step further. I will be free. I will not walk under a
.bn 537.png
.pn +1
rod or yoke. If any man would do me a favor, let him tell all
he knows now. It is not mine to lay down the law of honor in
regard to the use of other persons’ confidential communications;
but, in so far as my own writings are concerned, there is not a
letter nor document which I am afraid to have exhibited, and I
authorize any and call upon any living person to produce and
print forthwith, whatever writings they have from any source
whatsoever.
“It is time, for the sake of decency and of public morals,
that this matter should be brought to an end. It is an open pool
of corruption, exhaling deadly vapors.
“For six weeks the nation has risen up and sat down upon
scandal. Not a great war nor a revolution could more have filled
the newspapers than this question of domestic trouble; magnified
a thousandfold, and, like a sore spot in the human body,
drawing to itself every morbid humor in the blood. Whoever is
buried with it, it is time that this abomination be buried below
all touch or power of resurrection.”
The committee commenced their sittings on the 28th of June
and did not complete their report until the 28th day of August.
The committee requested the attendance of thirty-six witnesses,
and endeavored to obtain such facts as were relevant to the inquiry
from all attainable sources of evidence. In their report
they stated that “most of the persons named have attended as
requested before the committee. One notable exception is Francis
B. Carpenter. Francis D. Moulton promised to testify fully, but
has failed to do so. He has submitted three short statements in
writing to the committee, consisting chiefly of reasons why he declined
to testify, and of promises to testify at the call of the committee.
The committee have called him three times, with the results
stated. In addition to the evidence of the persons named,
we have examined a considerable number of letters and other
documentary evidence which, in some way, were supposed to relate
to the subject-matter of inquiry. We have held in the prosecution
of our investigations twenty-eight sessions.”
Mr. Tilton appeared and presented a partial statement, finally
refusing any further examination. Mrs. Tilton was examined,
and most emphatically and solemnly denied the charge which her
husband had made. Mr. Beecher was also examined; the substance
of his statement we have already presented. While the
.bn 538.png
.pn +1
committee was in session, and on the 21st of July, Mr. Tilton
published a statement in the Brooklyn Argus, in which for the
first time he made the specific charge of adultery. Up to this
time, in his private statements, he had charged “improper proposals”;
this statement he had made repeatedly, in confidence, to
many different persons, and had incorporated in his so-called
“true statement,” which he had shown to several; in this, in the
most positive manner, he had denied that his wife had been
guilty. The reason for this change of position will be made
apparent later.
The committee in their report, after exhaustively reviewing
the evidence, concluded:
.pm start_quote
We find from the evidence that Mr. Beecher has never committed
any unchaste or improper act with Mrs. Tilton, nor made
any unchaste or improper remark, proffer, or solicitation to her of
any kind or description whatever.
“If this were a question of errors of judgment on the part of
Mr. Beecher, it would be easy to criticise, especially in the light
of recent events. In such criticism, even to the extent of regrets
and censure, we are sure no man would join more sincerely than
Mr. Beecher himself.
“We find nothing whatever in the evidence that should impair
the perfect confidence of Plymouth Church or the world in the
Christian character and integrity of Henry Ward Beecher.
“And now let the peace of God, that passeth all understanding,
rest and abide with Plymouth Church and her beloved and
eminent pastor, so much and so long afflicted.
.if t
.in 10
.ta l:25 c:5 l:25 w=75%
“Henry W. Sage, | }|
“Augustus Storrs, | }|
“Henry M. Cleveland,| }| Committee of
“Horace B. Claflin, | }| Investigation.
“John Winslow, | }|
“S. V. White, | }|
.ta-
.in
.if-
.if h
.dv class='column-container width90'
.dv class='column1 width35'
.nf l
“Henry W. Sage,
“Augustus Storrs,
“Henry M. Cleveland,
“Horace B. Claflin,
“John Winslow,
“S. V. White,
.nf-
.dv-
.dv class='column2 width10'>
.dv-
.dv class='column3a width50'>
.nf l
Committee of
Investigation.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv-
.if-
“Dated Brooklyn, Aug. 27, 1874.”
.pm end_quote
This report, with its conclusions, was presented to the
church on Friday evening, the 28th, and accepted with great
enthusiasm by a unanimous vote, the immense throng, nearly three
thousand in number, rising en masse when the vote was put.
.bn 539.png
.pn +1
The terrible struggle in silence had passed, and to Mr. Beecher
the relief at feeling that he could speak out in his own defence
was unutterable. He spoke of it often and strongly:
“And what was most singular was that when the church
came into the eclipse I came out of it. I had had my time when
I was dumb and opened not my mouth, and was led as a sheep
to the slaughter; but when the trouble came upon the whole
church, with its intense suffering, there came to me emancipation.
God was pleased to uphold me as I walked alone and in
silence, and afterwards He gave me such relief that during the
two or three years in which the church was shrouded in great
anxiety I was filled with trust and courage, and was enabled all
the time to lift up the church and carry it hopefully along from
Sabbath to Sabbath.”
“ ... I have rolled off my burden; I am in the hands of
God; I am certain of salvation and safety in God, and I do not
give it any lower application; but I am hidden in His pavilion, I
am surrounded by His peace, and I have got back, through
storms and troubles, to the simplicity and the quiet enjoyment
which belonged to me many years ago. My thought, my feeling,
and my soul run very quiet; and it is the result, not so much of
any visible and external thing, as that I am sure I am surrounded
by the hand of my God. I live in Him, and He lives in me, and
He gives me the promised peace.”
The publication of Mr. Beecher’s statement (a short time prior
to the committee’s report) was as great a relief to Mr. Beecher’s
friends, as the opportunity to make it had been to him. Many
who trusted him implicitly, believing that there was some reason
for his silence, could not but wonder what it might be; and when
they learned that he had suffered reproach in silence, rather
than open the doors to the vile flood which would deluge the
land, bringing sorrow to hundreds of homes, unwilling to violate
the pledge he had given to Tilton and Bowen until the former’s
treachery at last compelled him, their loving confidence and sympathy
were only intensified.
The clouds of mystery had been cleared away, and all was
plain as noonday. We have room to quote but one of the many
letters received, as an apt expression of the feelings produced
by the statement. We give entire the letter of President Porter,
of Yale College:
.bn 540.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Lake Placid, New York.
.ll
”My dear Mr. Beecher: I have been on the point of writing
to you for the last few weeks, from time to time, to express
my unabated confidence and my increasing sympathy for you in
your great trial; but I have refrained, knowing that you were
too much occupied to listen to anything except necessary advice.
But I have just read your statement, and am more than satisfied
with it. It would be a slight thing to say that I believe it to be
true. I do not read for myself, but for the world at large. I
believe it will be accepted as true by all, except sons of Belial,
and those who have been committed against you in decided partisanship.
More than this: I think that it will secure you the
warm sympathy of multitudes whom you have not reached, or
only slightly, before this, and that you will be held in higher
honor than ever for integrity of purpose and generosity of self-sacrifice,
and that your example, while it will teach discretion
from your weakness, will enforce, in a manifestly more impressive
way, the dignity and strength of a willingness to suffer in silence,
that others might be spared. I believe the Lord will make
your latter days better than in the beginning (as is said of Job),
and if you are willing to stop doing twice as much as any mortal
should attempt, your pulpit and pastoral influence will be more
blessed than ever.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Most affectionately, your friend,
“Noah Porter.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
Early in the sessions of the committee Mr. Tilton withdrew—as
we understand, not liking to be followed up on cross-examination—threatening
to institute legal proceedings against Mr.
Beecher, and, as preliminary thereto, published his statement
of July 21.
We have alluded to the fact that at this stage Tilton wholly
changed the nature of his charge. In all the stories which he
and Moulton had told to various friends at different times, and
in the statements which he had prepared and shown in confidence,
the charge was always “improper proposals” and an emphatic
assertion of his wife’s innocence. Now he proposed to
stake all on one cast of the dice. He would bring a suit, and, if
he could get no more help, he would at least, so his vanity and
Mr. Beecher’s evil-wishers assured him, crush Mr. Beecher. Indeed,
.bn 541.png
.pn +1
he and Moulton were cornered, and must resort to some
desperate measures or surrender themselves to everlasting infamy.
Had they been left to themselves, it is perhaps doubtful if
they would have attempted so desperate a remedy, even in self-defence;
but there were those, not a few, who egged them on,
contributing to the expense of the suit, glad to keep up the attack
on Mr. Beecher, provided only their names were not brought out.
But an action at law would not lie for merely “improper
proposals”; it must go further than that. The case must be reconstructed.
In no published statement, up to this time, had
Tilton made any definite charge. Now he would put his charge
in such shape as would serve the purposes of a suit; hence
the statement of July 21, followed by a similar statement from
Moulton published in the Graphic on August 21. The same
day Tilton began his action against Mr. Beecher, placing his
damages at $100,000.
On the 3d of October both Tilton and Moulton were indicted
for criminal libel by the Grand Jury of Kings County, on Mr.
Beecher’s complaint. (After the failure of the jury to agree in
the civil suit, this was nolle-prossed.)
Tilton’s suit came on for trial the 6th of January, 1875, before
Judge Joseph Neilson, of the Brooklyn City Court. It is
not necessary to go into the details of this trial. The same evidence,
substantially, was presented as was received by the investigating
committee, and as appeared in the published statements.
For six months the case occupied the time of the court and jury,
the testimony covering several thousand pages of printed matter.
The case was submitted to the jury the 24th day of June.
For nine days the jury strove to reach an agreement, finally being
discharged the 2d day of July, standing three for plaintiff and
nine for defendant.
We are informed, on the authority of one of the jurors, that
several times they stood eleven to one in defendant’s favor, and
once all agreed on a verdict for defendant, when a juror unfortunately
remarked that his son had wagered a large sum on a verdict
for the defendant; this statement split the jury at once,
and from thence on they remained three to nine, until they were
discharged. The case was never brought to trial again, the
plaintiff wholly abandoning it. It is well known that after plaintiff
had abandoned his case, his leading counsel, Hon. William A.
.bn 542.png
.pn +1
Beach, frequently and publicly declared that the trial of the
cause had convinced him of Mr. Beecher’s innocence, and that
he felt as though they had been a pack of hounds trying to pull
down a noble lion. Five years later he expressed similar views
to the writer.
In the course of the trial Mrs. Moulton took the stand against
Mr. Beecher. With downcast eye, and hesitating voice, she corroborated
her husband.
Before the trial she withdrew from the public service of Plymouth
Church, and became a constant attendant at the Church
of the Pilgrims (Dr. Storrs).
Plymouth Church could no longer tolerate her within its
membership. It was fully believed that, under the coercion of
her husband, she had committed perjury during the trial, and had
grossly slandered her pastor. This would have been the ground
of charges against her, but the church was advised that to try her
on any charge based upon her testimony in court, while the suit
was still pending (plaintiff’s attorneys had renoticed the cause for
a new trial, shortly after the disagreement), might involve them
in a contempt of court, and, in any event, would be construed as
an attempt to intimidate one of plaintiff’s most important witnesses.
But, since she had persistently absented herself from
the services of the church, she could be dropped under the seventh
rule of the church manual. She was accordingly notified
of the proposed action of the church and invited to be present
on the 4th of November. After hearing her defence through her
legal counsel, her name was dropped from the rolls by a vote of
the church.
She at once demanded a mutual council, to be called by
Plymouth Church and herself. Plymouth Church protested
against Drs. Storrs’s and Budington’s churches participating
therein, both of whom she had named, on the ground that they
were obviously committed to her side and could not be impartial,
but at the same time stated that they would go on with the
council. Mrs. Moulton declined unless the protest were withdrawn.
This being refused, she withdrew.
About this time it was being rumored in certain circles, and
notably in Boston, that Mr. Beecher and his church had some
great secret that they were concealing from the world, and for
this reason had declined the mutual council which Mrs. Moulton
.bn 543.png
.pn +1
had proposed—forgetting that Mrs. Moulton was the one who had
abandoned the council, and further forgetting that an opportunity
had been offered to any who knew anything detrimental to Mr.
Beecher, to testify against him, first before the committee, that sat
for two months, and then in the trial, that lasted over six months.
Friends of Mr. Beecher wrote to him from Boston of this feeling.
He sent word at once to a friend to get the doubters together,
and that his brother, Dr. Edward Beecher, would meet them and
answer all questions. From this friend we received the following
account of the meeting:
“Immediately I set about the work of collecting those who,
I thought, were honorable men, but misinformed into believing
many things in the case which I knew to be false.... I did not
invite a man who had given signs of being a friend of your father,
but I asked every man of weight in the community whom I had
reason to believe was prejudiced against him, and every man, to
whom I had access, who had expressed to my knowledge a judgment
hostile to him.
“The majority accepted.... My parlors were filled....
At the appointed hour a hack arrived from the depot, and out
stepped your father, followed by his brother. He entered the
parlors, and said in substance:
“‘Gentlemen, I have been told that some of you feel that
there is a lack of frankness on my part with reference to the
painful matter in controversy, and that there is a desire, either
on my part or on the part of my friends, to cover up and conceal
facts. If you think so you are in error. Our first desire is to
make everything known. But it is, we find, impossible to do so,
because so many false rumors are flying about, and everything we
say gets into the papers twisted awry. I have come here to beg
you to ask any questions you desire. Do not spare my feelings.
Do not be restrained by any consideration of delicacy. The
more searching, the more crucial your questions are, the kinder
you will be. I will answer any question you can ask pertaining to
this affair.’
“Hour after hour questions were asked. They were put
one at a time, slowly. Some seemed but slightly relevant. Some
made my blood boil to hear. Some seemed such as a judge
might ask of a convicted criminal before pronouncing sentence.
But every question was answered categorically, when that was
.bn 544.png
.pn +1
possible, but always fully and exhaustively, so that the questioner
pronounced himself entirely answered by the reply.
“During the entire session there did not fall from your father’s
lips one impatient word, one harsh rejoinder. Not by a
gesture did he give evidence that he suffered. Only the quick
flush that came at times upon his cheek, showed the keenness of
the torture caused him by this inquisition.
“Before he left I asked each one present, privately, if there
was any question he could think of, an answer to which would,
in his opinion, throw light upon the matter, which had not been
asked. In every case I received a negative reply.”
.bn 545.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch26'
CHAPTER XXVI.
.pm start_summary
After-Effects of the Conspiracy—Calling Council of 1876—Principle of Selection—Mr.
Beecher Cautions his Church—Bowen Reappears; Proposes
a Secret Tribunal—Mr. Beecher’s Reply—Bowen Dropped by
Plymouth Church—Deliverance of Council sustaining Plymouth—Mr.
Beecher’s Persecutors Denounced—Special Tribunal.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
But now the organized determination to break down Mr.
Beecher’s ministry and overthrow his church manifested
itself by a new line of tactics.
There were at this time a few members whose relation to the
church was very peculiar, who were neither in it nor out of it,
apparently, who did not ask, or who refused positively, to take
letters to other churches, who were not amenable to the discipline
of the church, but who stood off, would not attend its
meetings nor observe its ordinances, and who, when dealt with
fraternally, in every way the church knew how, to procure
them peaceably to sever their connection and relieve the
church from responsibility, refused to do it or neglected to do
it; and then, when it was proposed to drop them, without any
reflection more than belonged to the nature of the case, they
threatened, “If you drop us we will call a council.” There
were at one time four councils threatened, by four different members
on these grounds. It soon became very clearly understood,
that the tactics of the adversary were now, to wear out the patience
of the people, by a continuous series of councils, which
would at last weary men from coming to a church where there
was such incessant trouble.
It was in consequence of these tactics, that Plymouth Church
determined to end all such annoyances, by calling a National
Advisory Council, that should look through its rules and principles,
and its entire administration under them; to have it
of such magnitude, and made up of such churches and men, as
that its deliverances would be final, making an end of all these
controversies and giving the church solid ground to go on.
.bn 546.png
.pn +1
Invitations were sent to one hundred and seventy-two
churches, to be represented by pastor and delegate, and twenty
ministers without charges, principally theological writers and
professors in theological colleges. None were invited from New
York City or Brooklyn, because of the general local feeling.
The principal questions submitted were, substantially, whether
Plymouth Church had acted contrary to the word of God or
the principles of Christian justice in allowing to itself in any case
any other mode of terminating membership than death, letters
of dismission, and excommunication?
2. What course ought it to pursue towards those who persistently
absented themselves from its services for various personal
reasons?
3. And towards those who were reported as having made insinuations
affecting the character of other members, but who
neither admit nor deny such reports?
4. Whether the church should have called a mutual council to
investigate the charges against its pastor when so required by a
member who submits no charges, and more than a year after a
full investigation by the church, in which the pastor had been
sustained by a unanimous vote?
5. Whether its course in the case of Mrs. Moulton had been
wise and just?
6. Whether, in its maintenance of order, it had gone beyond
its rights, so as to justly forfeit its claim to the confidence and
fellowship of Congregational churches?
The letter-missive was dated February 1, 1876, and the council
was called for the 15th.
The principle upon which the council was made up, we can
learn from a letter written January 28, 1876, by Mr. Beecher to
an eminent doctor of divinity whose advice he wished respecting
certain churches in his vicinity:
“Allow me to say a word as to the principles of selection in
this council. It will be gathered from the whole land, as far
West as the Mississippi. It leaves out men committed to a policy,
or who are known to be working in league with adversary
churches. But I wish to have honest men, capable of judging
upon facts and evidence, who are not so obstinate that
they will not yield to conviction, or so tied to theories that
they will look at everything under a bias. I don’t care whether
.bn 547.png
.pn +1
they like me or not, whether they agree with my views, whether
they approve or disapprove of all the policy of Plymouth
Church. I only want men who will be candid and who will act
impartially.”
Quite a number attended who had been members of the prior
council of 1874; and when the council met, a considerable majority—their
views having been acquired from newspaper reports—entertained
grave doubts as to the regularity of Plymouth
Church in its previous conduct. The effect which the evidence
presented had upon their minds will appear later on.
At the Friday night prayer-meeting just preceding the sitting
of council, Mr. Beecher cautioned his people respecting their
conduct during the council.
“This church has for years been called to go through deep
waters. For more than twenty years we had well-nigh unabated
prosperity, and we were almost ready to boast that we had such
wise methods of government and such signal presentations of
truth as made our church life easy; that we had not the vexations
which belonged to other churches; and it is not unlikely
that we may have become proud and self-sufficient. But certainly
for the last few years God has been dealing with us as with sons,
and has chastened us; and it becomes us to bear in mind that
the best gift of God to an individual or to a church is that kind
of chastisement which works out trust, patience, long-suffering,
kindness, and fruitfulness in labor.
“With these thoughts in mind, I wish to-night to speak a few
words to you, and exhort you, even more signally in days that
are to come, than you have in days that are past (for from my
heart I can commend you in this respect), to carry out and ennoble
that patience, that fidelity, and that churchly love, which, under
great difficulties you have shown.
“My beloved, beware lest your intelligent judgment and conscientiousness
in the cause of Christ, be absorbed in the feeling of
personal love and sympathy for your elder brother. Beware lest
you be drawn into a kind of clannish feeling of anxiety for him.
I know that I have your love and sympathy, and I know that I
am prayed for by you. That suffices me; but on your part it
will be very bad for you to suffer this mere human feeling toward
an individual to fill so large a place in your heart as that it may be
said to fill your experience. You are a church of Christ set on a
.bn 548.png
.pn +1
hill, and you cannot be hid; and your business here is to manifest
Jesus Christ to the world in such a way as to win them to a
nobler life; and you ought not to forget for what you are ordained.
I have tried to set you an example. I have endeavored
to keep free from such states of mind, and from such personality,
either as regards you or myself, as should interfere with the
teaching and the reception here of the fullest and most edifying
truths of our common faith; and by the grace of God I have
been enabled mainly to succeed in doing it. I doubt if any
one hearing the sermons that have been preached here, with one
or two exceptions, for the last five years, would from them suspect
anything of that history through which this church has gone.
“So far as you are concerned, I do not say that it is possible
for you not to converse about our difficulties in your families,
and with each other; but you may do it too much; and, therefore,
I wish to emphasize that your business as a church is not to
take care of me, but to take care of and forward the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ, your Head and Master. Do not, therefore,
under the influence of amiable feelings, and warm sympathies,
make the mistake of supposing that you are in a campaign of any
sort, except that of rallying around about our appointed Leader.
In the church, in your families, and in our mission schools, your
business is to promote the teaching of Christ, for the awakening
of men, and for the building up of all those who have undertaken
the Christian life.
“In pursuing this course, it behooves you to remember that
under such severe and prolonged trouble, God expects of you, not
only that you will be constant and faithful in His service, but
that you will grow richer, more spiritual, and in every way more
like Christ. You have had, and are having, a better opportunity
for fulfilling the disposition set forth in the Gospel, than is given
to one church in a hundred. God has been and is dealing with
you as with sons.
“We are on the eve of a memorable week. In 1874 a great
council was called in Brooklyn to sit on our affairs, in which
we were not to participate; now we have called a council to act
upon our own affairs, and in this we must needs participate; and
there are one or two things that I wish to say to you.
“First, you that receive the brethren into your households,
ought to set up in your hearts a sentiment of honor that shall
.bn 549.png
.pn +1
have no downfall nor intermission. Those gentlemen that come
to take part in this council come impartially. Their office is to
hear, and to give such advice as the Lord may inspire in them,
upon the facts that shall be presented. In some sense—not
technically—they are as judges; and you must not attempt in
your homes to influence them, nor by your sympathy and kindness
in the least degree to beguile them from the fullest and
fairest discharge of their duty. Even if their judgment should
be adverse to your convictions and mine, nevertheless it is very
plainly a matter of Christian honor that they should be in your
families, without in the least being biassed by social influences.
“Secondly, when you shall attend the open meetings of the
council (for it must needs be that largely the audience will be
composed of members of this church and society), I beseech of
you, by all that is honorable and by all that is gentlemanly, that
there be, neither from the gallery nor from any other part of
the house, first or last, the slightest exhibition either of approval
or disapproval. I could wish that you might sit in your pews as
if you were marble, though I know that your hearts are hot within
you. That council ought to be able to sit in the midst of the
congregation of this church and never hear a whisper nor feel a
wave of influence exerted upon them. We called them that they
might do their duty faithfully; and I trust that you will commend
yourselves in their sight by the most absolute abstention
from any expression of thought or feeling in their presence.
“In the third place, I beg of you, both now and when they
shall have assembled, to bear them in your hearts in prayer,
morning and night, before God.
“If you will pray more for men you will have less occasion
to do anything else; and, in regard to this council, praying for
them is a mode of exerting an influence upon them, which you
may indulge in. Do you believe in God? Do you believe in
the Holy Spirit? Do you believe in prayer? Do you not believe
that it is in the power of God to descend into such a council,
to bring a summer atmosphere into them and around them,
and to lead them by the invisible hand of truth, of love, and of
justice? Pray much for them.
“And in one last word let me say that while all this agitation
is going on, while the papers are full of bickerings, full of fiery
darts that fall like sparks from the smith’s forge, remember that
.bn 550.png
.pn +1
your duty is in church work and in church life. So far as possible,
throw these unpleasant things off from your mind; take
care of your classes and schools; attend faithfully to your mission
work; live sweeter and holier lives in the family; be better
men and better Christians in the household; do not let too much
of the storm whistle through the cracks and crevices of your experience—keep
it out; live individually and collectively near to
Christ, and He will take care of me and of you. As He has done
in times past, so will He do, and more abundantly, in the future,
to the joy of our hearts and to the honor of His own great
name.”
In the interim between the calling of the council and its convening,
the case of Mr. Bowen came up before the church. For
several years past, the old stories, which were supposed to have
originated with him, had been set in circulation again, and quite
recently a card appeared in a Brooklyn paper, over the signature
of Mr. Bowen’s son, in effect repeating these slanders. A committee
of Plymouth Church waited upon Mr. Bowen, but he refused
to admit or deny that he was the originator of the stories—refused
to make any statement or do anything. Ultimately he
sent a letter to the committee (at the same time publishing it in
the newspapers) making charges against Mr. Beecher, but in
effect refusing to substantiate them, because he had not time to
look up his evidence; but offering to submit his charges to a confidential
committee of three, provided he should not be called
on to give names, and that the committee should report only
their conclusions.
When this letter was read at a church meeting Mr. Beecher
arose and said:
“I do not propose to argue this question to-night—it is not
fit that I should do it. I only propose to say one or two words
on the matter; and one is: if for the last fifteen years and more,
Mr. Bowen has been in possession of such facts as he now alleges
in his letter, that he has, and never has mentioned them
to me, nor communicated them to any officer of this church,
nor in anywise brought them to the knowledge of the church
itself, he deserves to be expelled from the church for a violation
of his covenant. If I am what he alleges me to be, and have
been what he alleges I have been, and he knew it, and permitted
it, without a word of warning to me or to this church, he has committed
.bn 551.png
.pn +1
a crime against the church, and against morality; and if
his allegation is not true, but is a lie, then he is guilty of one of
the blackest crimes that ever emanated from the bottomless pit—and,
before God, I pronounce the allegations that he has, made
to be utterly false.
“Further let me say that when Mr. Bowen, being called upon
to state what these facts are, and what are the proofs of them
which he has in his possession, pleads that he is upon trial, and
that he has not time to look them up, what are we to think of
such a plea? He had time to write that letter, and to charge me
with being a criminal before the public of this continent, and,
having had time to represent me as a monster, and to publish that
representation in the newspapers, now, when he is asked, ‘What
is your evidence?’ he has not time to produce it! Ought not that
to have been thought of before he made the charge public?
“I have another word to say, and that is in regard to the
tribunal which he proposes—a tripartite committee, a committee
composed of three persons—on condition that in their presence
he may hide names, and that then their judgment be given out in
adjudication of the question. Now, I say that no secrecy shall
rest on this matter. I do not say that I would not in some respects
be willing to go before such a committee, but this I say:
Nothing on this subject shall be kept secret. If this matter is
not explored to the bottom it shall be because my will is set
aside. I do not propose that Mr. Bowen shall hide himself, nor
will I permit anything to be hidden about me, by having the
matter referred to any three gentlemen who shall only let out
what they think. What they think will not satisfy you; what
they think will not satisfy me; and since the allegations have
been made public through the newspapers, and Mr. Bowen’s
name is attached to them, he has got to face the facts, he has got
to produce the evidence. And as for myself, I have only this to
say: I pronounce all the insinuations and allegations he has
made as false, and, with Almighty God and the judgment day before
me, I arraign him as a slanderer and a liar.”
Mr. Bowen produced no evidence to sustain his charges, and
the church subsequently voted that they could dispense with him.
.sp 1
On the 15th of February the council, the largest of its kind
that had ever been convened in this country, met. Dr. Bacon
.bn 552.png
.pn +1
was chosen moderator; ex-Governor Dingley, of Maine, and
General Erastus N. Bates, assistant moderators.
While the questions presented to the council were principally
as to church regularity, the sixth also opened up the question of
the action and result of the Investigating Committee referred to,
and, generally, the whole conduct of the church with reference to
its pastor; this naturally led to questions being put to Mr. Beecher
personally as to the policy he had followed respecting the scandal.
Both Mr. Beecher and the committee of the church invited
the fullest questioning on any point that could be suggested;
urged the council to invite Drs. Storrs and Budington to be
present, to call Mrs. Moulton’s counsel, and to examine Mr.
Bowen—all of which the council did, Drs. Storrs and Budington
declining to attend.
For eight days—three sessions each day, morning, afternoon,
and evening—Mr. Beecher and the committee stood as targets for
the questions of the council.
We present some of Mr. Beecher’s replies, as throwing light
upon himself, and his actions, during the origin and growth of the
scandal.
To the question why he had remained silent during the earlier
rumors set afloat by Bowen and Tilton, and did not demand an
investigation, he said: “This was the reason. The relations
which subsisted between me and my people were those of very
strong personal affection. I know all of you must be very much
beloved by those whom you attend in sickness, to whom you
preach, and whose troubles and sorrows you console. My God
has given me a sympathetic nature, ardent and loving. I attract
friends to me, and usually I hold them. I was dear to very
many; and it has been the honor, as it has been the glory, of my
recollection, that I have been beloved by those, to be beloved by
whom is itself enough witness and enough honor. And it was
because, from various reasons, intimations were made pointing to
one, and another, and another, that I saw that, if I were to rush
recklessly out after every rumor of this kind, which came insidiously
and circuitously, I should bring a torrent of publicity and
reproach upon one, two, three, many persons; and the question
with me was, not simply what I ought to do, but, ‘Will you, for
your own vindication, bring on an investigation, and project into
publicity those persons who have the rights, the sanctities, and
.bn 553.png
.pn +1
the delicacies of the domestic circle around about them?’ And
now you see, when the first of these rumors has been brought
into public notice, how it has spread and gone, like a fire on a
prairie, all over the United States; and you see just what I apprehended
would be the case. Having connected with me, in my
relations to public affairs, parties and discussions of many sorts, I
knew that the connection with my name in one of these various
matters, under the circumstances, would proclaim it throughout
Christendom; and the question with me was: ‘Will you stand
patiently for God to vindicate you from these suggestions, putting
to shame those that accuse you falsely; or will you vindicate
yourself by bringing sheeted publicity, and lurid investigation,
on one, on two, or on scores?’ I chose the course of silence.”
In reply to another question:
“Now, I wish to hear the other part of the question, sir—whether
I am willing that Dr. Storrs and Dr. Budington should
state anything that they know—any facts? I should like to know
how much longer a man need be at the focus of a solar microscope,
with all the sun in the heavens concentrated upon him for
six months, and everything that could be raked, from the North
Pole to the South Pole, and round the earth forty times circuited,
raked up and brought in, and be willing to have it raked
up and brought in again? How much longer does a man want to
have his willingness to have the truth come out, vindicated? If
there is any man on earth that has anything to say—that he wants
to say—if there is any man on earth that has anything to say to
my detriment, I here and now challenge him to say it! I go further
than that. If there be any angel of God, semi-prescient and
omniscient, I challenge him to say aught. I go beyond that, and,
in the name of our common Redeemer, and before Him who
shall judge you and me, I challenge the truth from God Himself!
And what is all this going to do? To-morrow morning
it will be said in the local journals: ‘Well, Mr. Beecher—how
rhetorically he managed the matter!’ And it will be put in
the religious papers: ‘Oh! yes; that was a very plausible statement
at the time, but—but—’ And I am in judgment between
two devils, ‘But’ and ‘If.’ Nothing that I say is taken to be
true, and I am put upon a perpetual trial of my veracity; although
I am willing to be tried, I don’t disguise from myself, suppressing
every sentiment of natural honor that pertains to a gentleman—I
.bn 554.png
.pn +1
know perfectly well this whole process is a continuous
trial and crucifixion of every sentiment of honor and every sensibility
of my soul, and that I am questioned, and questioned, and
questioned, and questioned, as I have been, through months and
years, on the supposition that the truth has not been got out.
And I suppose it will be so to the end of my life. I don’t look
with any great hope for the result of this council. I don’t look
for any hope from the result of any council or tribunal. I think
there is hope in the grave, and beyond; but for me, I expect to
walk with a clouded head, not understood, until I go to heaven,
and that is not far off—that is not far away. And I am content
to bear just that lot that my dear Lord puts on me. He knows
what is best. I have accepted it. Though the natural man rebels
once in a while and bubbles out, yet grace in the end puts it
down. But I am content to walk so. All my sorrow is that the
preciousness of the Gospel, which it is given to me to preach, is
hindered somewhat by this trouble; but to work for Christ, and
to save men, is my calling, and not to vindicate myself.”
Again, referring to the perverse malignity that had characterized
his enemies: “I said, and now I repeat it, that this church
and its pastor have been systematically, studiously pursued with
perversions and what cannot be considered other than deliberate
falsehoods. In some quarters, whatever has happened has been
so uniformly twisted, as to indicate what I supposed to be the
truth—namely, an organized movement to pervert everything and
destroy that influence which I formerly had with the common
people of America, and then to bring vexations, so many and so
frequent, upon the church as to disintegrate its patience, and thus
to leave me alone without anything. And I will say that the
backbitings, the whisperings, the innuendoes, the studious shutting
of the understanding to all fairness, when I make statements,
and the opening it wide to all partisan misrepresentations, when
those statements were reported otherwise, have been such as to
open a new chapter in my mind of human experience, and to
carry me far back towards the old doctrine of total depravity.”
In the course of one of the sessions the pastor of a Boston
church, referring to the unjust rumor, current in certain quarters,
that since the scandal had come out the church and its pastor
had not brought out all the facts, that there were rumors of something
yet unpublished, and that they were now unreasonably refusing
.bn 555.png
.pn +1
to submit the matter before some new tribunal, expressed
his surprise at hearing the statement of the committee, and wondered
that Mr. Beecher and his church had not been better understood
by the public. To this Mr. Beecher replied:
“Gentlemen, you won’t suspect me of any disrespect to you,
but I want to put a home question to you. This church has
been occupied in publishing to the world for the last three years,
a statement of those facts that have set you perfectly aghast, as
novel and wonderful. What are you going to do when the representatives
of the morality and the intelligence of this nation won’t
read a word that is published, of the results of the church investigation,
and the court investigation, but, coming up after they
have been published for months, yet are amazed at the simple
statement of that, which has been in the newspapers and the court
records, during all this time? Are we forced not only to forge
wedges of intelligence, but use clubs to drive them into your
heads? We have been doing everything that man could do, in
opening, in publishing, and, as far as it took any definite shape,
in meeting. But you cannot hunt a stench; you can an arrow,
but a smell you can’t. And therefore these odorous beasts are
going up and down the streets, casting some venom and some
odor; we can’t spend the time of a Christian church for ever
hunting these things. Am I to run after every rat in creation?
Am I to run after every leech, and worm, and every venomous
insect?
“You have a right to demand of us that we shall meet accusations
when they come up responsibly stated. Did we not meet
them the moment the ‘Bacon letter’ appeared? Within the time
that was necessary to bring me back from the country and back
to the city, did we not instantly meet them with a call for investigation
in the church? Was not that investigation made with a
proclamation to the world to bring in everything known? It was
not zeal covering me, it was dissection, and when the investigation
had been made it was published to the world. No sooner
had it been completed than we all distributed ourselves in the
country for rest. When we came back I went instantly to a civil
court. That trial was noticed for action immediately on my return,
and I continued for six months in that court-room, and
every paper in the United States helped distribute the information
of the facts that were then disclosed. In July or August the
.bn 556.png
.pn +1
court adjourned and we went back into the country. We had
scarcely come back again from the summer vacation, before we
took the matter up again in regard to members of this church,
and issued process upon them, and this process has been that
which has filled, the whole time since, the newspapers and the
clerical mind of the country. Where has been the time and space
in which we could institute anything else? Have we not been
busy? Or shall we stay up all night, and turn Sunday into a
judicial day, and investigate somewhat more?
“I don’t know—as long as God knows, and my mother, how
it is, I have come to about the state of mind that I don’t care for
you or anybody else. Well, you know that is not so: I do care
and I don’t, and I do again and then I don’t—just as I happen
to feel. I am tired of you; I am tired of the world; I am tired
of men that make newspapers, and men that read them; I am
tired of a community that has not a particle of moral reaction.
I am tired of an age which will permit the newspapers to be
flooded, and to make themselves the common sewers of filth and
scandal; I am tired of a community that can read them, and
read them, and read them without revolting. I am tired of waiting
for an honorable man that shall stand up at last, and say, in
the name of honor and manhood, ‘This is outrageous!’
“And yet I am going to bear it, and I am going on preaching,
and I am going to preach here, and when I am shut up here I
don’t know where I shall preach; but I don’t believe that I shall
live long after I have stopped preaching. But what I want is to
do God’s work, and if it is necessary to have a reputation in Andover,
or a reputation in Chicago, before I am to preach, I may
as well stop at once. But my own feeling about it is this: I am
entrusted with the tidings of salvation to dying men, and the first
wish of my heart, is not my good name nor my reputation. Dear
as they are to me for my children’s sake, and for the sake of my
family, after all there is a Name that is better to me than mine,
there is a Name above every other name—for my trouble has
brought me very near to it, and the glory of Christ. God’s glory
and God’s delicacy, and sweetness and love were never made so
apparent to me, as since I have felt the need of them in other
folks.
”... I will answer as regards any paper that is in the possession
of any man, woman, or child on this continent, or on the
.bn 557.png
.pn +1
sea, or on the land, and beyond the sea; anybody in heaven and
anybody in hell, that has any document that I have ever written,
or any information that touches me in any manner, I hereby give
my permission to them to produce it, and I challenge them to
produce it, and if it is anything that will throw light on me and
inculpate me, I demand, by every consideration of honor, truth,
and justice, that it be delivered now and here, or that for ever
after they and everybody shall hold their peace.”
At another time, referring to the burden of expense in the
civil trial alone:
“I think people look upon my being tried as if it was a game
of battledore and shuttlecock, and as if being tried was nothing
but being tossed through the air by two clever fellows, and as if
I ought to like it. And any expression of preference of one tribunal
over another, or any arithmetical expression of how many
times I would like to be tried, is said to be covering up something
or other. I would like to state to the brethren here that
my expenses for the trial of six months, and expenses of living
for the year, amounted to $118,000. I do not feel disposed to go
through a great many more such trials, but I trust you won’t
think it is because I want to cover anything up, unless it is my
pockets. And if there is anybody who wishes to take my place
in the matter, and will pay the expenses, I will give up most
cheerfully and let them represent me. I ought to state further
in regard to these expenses—I state it in love and honor to my
dear friend Shearman—that he would not take one penny for the
whole year’s service, and that, aside from serving freely without
money and without price, he so absolutely abandoned his business,
that his income was cut down nine-tenths or more of what
he was accustomed to receive, and that, great as my expenses
were, relatively, his were double mine, for the love-service which
he performed during this time.”
On the 24th of February the “result of council was announced.”
In this the council sustained Plymouth Church on every point,
at the same time recommending a few changes in its manual
which it was thought might save complication in the future.[14]
.fm rend=th
.fn 14
Most of them had at the time been proposed by the church, and all
were promptly adopted.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
.bn 558.png
.pn +1
The council further advised in its “result”:
“In view of the fact that the pastor of this church has demanded
that his accusers be brought to face him, and has invited
such investigation as this council may think desirable, for the
peace and prosperity of the churches, and in order to protect
Plymouth Church from further vexatious proceedings, this council
advises this church to accept and empower a commission of
five members, to be created by a committee of three, hereinafter
specified, out of the twenty men hereinafter named; the duty of
which commission shall be to receive and examine all charges
against the pastor which they may regard as not already tried....
“We hold the pastor of this church, as we and all others are
bound to hold him, innocent of the charges reported against him
until substantiated by proof.” The time within which such
charges should be preferred was limited to sixty days.
This tribunal was thereafter appointed, and waited a year.
It is perhaps needless to say that no charges were preferred.
In the closing addresses of the council to the church the
speakers expressed more freely the prevailing personal feeling.
We quote Dr. Wellman, the first speaker:
“I would not depreciate at all the intense interest with which
many of us, strangers to the pastor, have looked upon him, and
watched him, and heard him as he has appeared before us and
addressed us. But while I say that, I must say, for one, that I
watched with still keener interest the men associated with him,
and who came upon this platform to present this case—the members
of the Plymouth Church Investigating Committee. And
why have I watched these men with such intense interest? Now,
all men know the power of this man of God to persuade men;
and some of us, who live far away, have been told again and again,
that this pastor had such persuasive power, that he could manage
all his men here, and make them believe anything and do
anything, and therefore it did not follow that, because this great
church and people were so loyal to their pastor, that he was an innocent
and pure man. Now, your loyal and magnificent devotion
to your pastor, is your praise all over this land and all over this
world. We had not seen you; we did not know what kind of men
were associated with this man of God; and it was possible, we
thought, that they were weak men, who could be blinded and
could be made to believe anything. I have watched these men,
.bn 559.png
.pn +1
and I aver to-night that they are not men of feeble mind, and
not men who would have an impure pastor here if they knew it,
and not men to be managed by any pastor; and it has been the
joy of my heart to find that such men have been associated, during
these years of your darkness and sorrow, with this man of
God.
“It has been said that this pastor is managing this council.
Somehow people all over the world have great confidence in the
managing power of this man. So far as I can see, he is the very
last man to manage anybody; and as to his managing this council,
I wish to say here and now, once for all, and I wish it to go
through you to all the world, that he has managed us—just as
that man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and robbed, and
stripped, and wounded and thrown aside and left half-dead, managed
that other man who came to his distress and bent over him
and poured oil upon his wounds and dressed them, and took him
up and brought him to the inn and cared for him. So this man
has managed us, and in no other way. I had no acquaintance
with him; I never spoke to him until the last week; but, coming
here, I have been greatly touched—indeed, nothing has touched
me more than the manner in which this pastor has laid bare his
heart to us, and asked us to search him through and through, his
heart and his life, and tell him if there be anything wrong in him
or in what he has done. He has done this again and again, before
the council, and it has made me feel, for one, that there was
no need of searching such a man. I have noticed repeatedly,
during the presentation of this case, that the pastor of this church
seemed to be living two kinds of lives, one a sad one, and the
other a life of earnest duty. Underneath his work and his addresses
to us, there came out every now and then a sad undertone,
as if he felt that he must live and toil for all the rest of his
life, under this dark cloud of suspicion and constant misrepresentation,
and with these constant dagger-rents in his heart. Now, I
do not believe that he is to live the rest of his life under this
cloud and this burden of trouble. Ever since this council was
by itself, I have seen out of all this darkness a bright morning
coming, and never has that morning seemed so near and so close
as it does to-night.”
And from the address of Dr. Sturtevant, president of Illinois
College:
.bn 560.png
.pn +1
“What now are we to expect? What is to be the result of
this? This: Brother Beecher and his church are to be assured
from this hour that they have our confidence. He is to be regarded
as innocent until charges of guilt have been tabled and
substantiated—not floating rumors, not the slime of the crawling
serpent, but charges clear, definite, with all needed specifications
of names and dates and witnesses, charges behind which there
stands a responsible endorser; and while he stands thus, we extend
to him the hand of our hearty fellowship, and entire confidence,
until those charges are tabled and established. That
confidence begins here and now; and it enables him to say, and
his people to say: ‘All these rumors, these innuendoes, these
floating stories that circulate through the press, and through the
ten thousand channels in which rumor flows, are worthy of no
account until they are backed by responsible men, who are willing
to face that commission, and to attempt to prove those
charges before that commission; and if men continue to rail and
continue to tell horrible stories of what they know, how it was
ten years ago, and seven years ago, and five years ago, etc., and
what this man said and what that woman said—if they continue
to say such things, believe them not. They are just as respectable
as Shimei was, when he went along the hill and cursed
David.’”
From parts of Mr. Beecher’s address to the council at the
close, after the “result” had been announced, we get a clearer
insight of his feelings, and of his life during these troublesome
times, than from most anything else that he has uttered:
“It has come to pass that for so many years I have read of
myself and heard of myself, that I have ceased in some moods to
have any actual self, and am projected as an idea before my own
mind. And if I shall therefore speak somewhat freely, after the
manner of men, about myself, I wish you to consider it a part of
those metaphysics which Dr. Porter says are very bad. I have
often read as if I were reading in a novel about the bad hero, and
waked up from the dream and grimly laughed as I asked myself:
‘Is it me that they mean? Is it possible for a man to live as long
as I have, and as openly, and to have acted upon so large a theatre,
and been agitated by such world-shaking events, and be so
utterly misconceived?’ I have had the reputation of being a
frank man. But it may be true that I am a man of very cautious
.bn 561.png
.pn +1
speech, and may therefore sometimes not have expressed myself
intelligently, though at other times I have had the reputation of
being able to make myself understood! Nevertheless it has come
to pass that I supposed myself to have been more thoroughly canvassed,
and construed in no very enviable light, than it has befallen
to any of my contemporaries. I am very sorry that it should
be so. I have no love of being a hero, and I have still less of
being such a hero as I have been made to be. I tell you that to
hear men talking whether I am or am not guilty makes the very
mother-thought shiver within me. For I have sensibility—I am
open to the keenest sense of truth and purity, and honor and
right; and to be held before a jury, and to sit six long months, and
to have rained upon me perjury and professional abuse, and to
feel that over the whole broad extent of this land, I was the focal
point on which journalism was expending itself, and that, too, not
as to whether I was Republican or Democrat, not whether I was
orthodox or heterodox, not whether this or that system expounded
was rightly held, but whether I was an ineffable culprit! I
have not been hunted as an eagle is hunted; I have not been
pursued as a lion is pursued; I have not been pursued even as
wolves and foxes. I have been pursued as if I were a maggot in a
rotten corpse. And do you suppose that it is in human nature to
go through that, through months and through years, and not feel
it? And yet, if it please God, who has enabled me to go through
the desert and the Red Sea, that I should go on, God is my
judge, that I am both willing and I am able to go on again another
five years; for I can do all things, Christ strengthening me,
and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son
of God, who loved me never so much as now.
“At some time it may be in my power to defend myself on
every count and charge. It may be in my power, at some time,
with dates and circumstances to expound the reason of my conduct.
I am the child of a noble mother and of a noble father,
and I was brought up in an austere morality and in a pure and
unblemished household, with a most reverent honor for truth, for
duty, for love. And to me has been given a nature for which,
whether it be prudent or whether it be not, I am not questionable.
When they rebuke the vine for throwing out tendrils and
holding on to anything that is next to it, whether it be homely or
handsome, whether it be dry or full of sap, then they may rebuke
.bn 562.png
.pn +1
me. When you shall find a heart to rebuke the twining
morning-glory, or any other plant that holds on to that which is
next to it, you may rebuke me for misplaced confidence; you
may rebuke me for loving where I should not love. It is not my
choice; it is my necessity. And I have loved on the right and
on the left, here and there, and it is my joy, that to-day I am not
ashamed of it. I am glad of it, and if I had my life to live over
again, and were to choose between a cold caution, calculating
every step, without trust and confidence in man, I would, with
all its liabilities, choose to be generous, to be magnanimous, and
to be trustful, and to lean though some should step aside and
let me fall to the ground. And let me say further that I was
brought up in a household where the name of woman was only
next to the name of saint, and with good reason I always thought
it should stand there. The memory of my mother has been to
me, what the Virgin Mary has been to a devotee of the Roman
Church. She has been part and parcel of my upper life—a star
whose parallax I could not take, but nevertheless, shining from
afar, she has been the light that lit me easier into the thought of
the invisible and the presence of the Divine. My sisters I need
not speak of. My associations have been with women who have
left upon my mind an indelible impression of honor, of reverence,
and of affection; and all that I have gone through, and all
that I have suffered at the hands of those that are of another
school, has not changed, nor in the slightest degree blurred, the
sense that I have of the dignity and the sacredness and the
beauty of womanhood. And when I have stood upon the threshold
of what seemed to me—knowing the secret elements that
were in it, and how a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand might
roll up and cover the whole heaven—when I have stood and
looked out upon what might come, what misery might be, I have
said, and God knows the sincerity and the depth of it, ‘It is better
for me—if it be possible—it is better for me to stand, and be
misunderstood than that there should be suffering over so wide
a circle,’ as I believed there would be. And that there have been
so many heart-aches, that there have been so many, whose faces
I never saw, that have been bathed in tears, that there has been
even the eclipse of faith that has been mentioned in many, only
shows how much would have been saved to humanity, if it had
been possible that that policy of suffocating a domestic trouble,
.bn 563.png
.pn +1
and keeping it in the origin of it, had been followed out and honorably
observed. The fire, that at the first is only so much that
you can stamp it out, may, by fanning winds or reckless hands, be
spread beyond your reach, and the whole city deluged with flame,
the whole prairie be sheeted with fire. That which, in its beginning,
seems quite manageable, it seems to me policy not only,
but duty, to suppress and maintain in its seclusion; for if it
bursts out it will know no bounds and no termination. The endeavor
I do not regret; the ill success of it I do.
“But having gone through it all, my only question—that is,
my only deepest question—is, Has it wrenched you from the
foundations of a true manhood? Do you believe in God? Do
you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you live by the communications
of the Holy Ghost? Is the higher part of your nature
in commerce with God? I look around among men and I say,
Has it made you hating? Has it made you jealous? Has it
made you a misanthropist or a misogynist? Are you sound—sound
in your chest, sound in your heart? Are you a man? Do
you love men? Do you trust men? Do you honor women?
Do you trust them? Are you willing to labor for them? Are
you willing to suffer for them? I think I may say, without any
fear, I do believe that I live in the Spirit of God and very near to
Him, and in regard to my feelings toward mankind there does
not live the man on the face of this earth that I would harm if I
had him in my power. There is not that human creature—I
know it—there is not that human creature that lives, that I would
not rather help than hurt. There is not that creature that lives
for whom I would not bear suffering, if I could save him from
greater suffering. I have tried to live in the spirit of Christ, who
wrought our joy by His sorrow, who saved us by sacrificing
Himself. I have endeavored to so live. And now let me say
further than this, that while I make these asseverations of the
honesty of my intent, and while I mean to convey, in the strongest
language, my consciousness of innocence and rectitude, and
honor and purity, I do not mean to say that I have always
been wise, and still less that I should advise another to attempt
to walk the path that I have walked, or that I have always
kept my temper, or that I have always restrained my
tongue. These, which I will not call infirmities, if you please to
call them wrongs or sins—name them yourselves, and I will still
.bn 564.png
.pn +1
excel you in condemning, in myself, anything that has been less
than the straight line of sweetness, and of meekness, and of gentleness.
I do condemn myself often that I am rash, that in an
over-heat I said things I ought not to have said, and I am the
more concerned, when I learn that these words are not merely a
rhetorical fault, nor regarded simply as a blur upon me, but that
they go like poisoned arrows and afflict other hearts; and if there
is any word that I have said, that has hurt the pastors of near
churches, or churches afar off, I would to God that I could so
utterly recall it, that they should never think of it again; and I
would be the first of all to humble myself before them, and crave
that pardon of them, which I have asked before of God. And if
that which I have said or done is a hindrance to a full reconciliation,
I would to God that all the waters of the Jordan might wash
it out from every memory. I disown it and take it all back, and
beseech of you, as I beseech of every other one, to remember of
me, only those things that are like the Lord Jesus Christ, and that
by His grace I have been enabled to do rightly. I am discharged
of all jealousy. I have no pride that hinders me from saying
these things to you, and giving you leave to give to them the utmost
latitude in their application.
“Allusion has been made to sadness on my part, of which no
man may know. For whatever may be the range of a man’s outward
life, there is a world within, unknown to any but God, and
the most vital part of every man’s life, is that which is within the
crystal cave of his own silence and secrecy; and of that I do not
propose to speak any further than this—that I have often felt
that my life had come very near to its end. I live in the shadow
of that feeling every day. At some hour or other of every day,
it seems to me as though but a hand’s breadth was between me
and the New Jerusalem. It is not either, necessarily a desire for
dying nor an expectation of dying; it is a sentiment. And I live
very much in that habit; not altogether a painful one—often far
from it. But this I have felt in looking back in those moments
upon my past life—I have felt a great joy that no man can take
it from me. I lived when the reformation of intemperance first
began, and I gave great time and strength to recover my countrymen
from the vice. I began early my career, when there were
few to plead for the liberty of the slave. I have lived in a minority
all my days, contesting for the right and for liberty. I
.bn 565.png
.pn +1
had the privilege of living through that glorious revolutionary
epoch of our time, when the political economy, and the politics,
and the constitutional elements of our land were regenerated.
Few men have ever had such a chance, or the health, or the opportunity
to put in labor, in a field so rich in future results. No
man can take it from me that I have loved my country and that
I have labored for her. No man can take it from me that I have
loved the Church of Jesus Christ and that I have labored for it.
No man can take it from me that I have loved my kind without
caste or distinction. No man can take it from me! Now, I do
not care for my reputation after I am dead and gone. That kind
of love of reputation I never had, but there is something that is
to me as sweet as the bells of heaven. If I have been able to inject
into the literature of my time a truly sweet and Christian
spirit; if I have been able to clothe nature so that children and
women and grown people will have associations with trees and
clouds, with the ground, with all the processes of annual resuscitation;
if I have been able to clothe them with religious associations,
so that the heavens declare again the glory of God and the
earth His handiwork; if I have put into words that which will
cheer the sick and the poor, that will inspire the young, and that
will go on working after I am dead—this has been a very sustaining
and a very comforting thought to me. There is my joy for
posterity—that when by and by the clouds are all gone, when
by and by the truth is as much known as the earth will ever
know truth, that which I have done will stand, that which I am
God will know, and cause it to stand for ever and ever.”
We give some extracts from his diary, and from letters written
near this time, which show how he looked upon the past few
years:
“I have never read or heard of an instance where a pastor was
called to carry forward a great church under such a pressure as I
have. Whatever is deepest, tenderest, and best in manhood has
been crucified with a prolonged crucifixion. I have seen the poisonous
malaria, affecting my reputation in the whole community
where I have dwelt for so many years with an unblemished character.
I have seen false brethren silently bringing to bear upon
me the odium of the most damaging suspicions. I have seen them
secretly taking counsel together, tampering with the fidelity of the
members of Plymouth Church, and seducing my personal friends,
.bn 566.png
.pn +1
violating, under false pretences, ecclesiastical good neighborhood,
calling councils to interfere with the peace and harmony of Plymouth
Church, and thus spreading a local scandal and a ruinous
suspicion over, literally, the wide world. From this persecution
among false brethren the trouble broke out into public and prolonged
trial by the newspapers of the country.
“With a few honorable exceptions, the religious press was
quick to believe evil and to confirm suspicion, and, with a few
equally honorable exceptions, the secular press joined my adversaries.
“I was next tried by my own church, and after a minute research,
and upon grounds never controverted or undermined, I
was acquitted and justified. For six months thereafter I was subjected
to the disgrace of sitting before a court of justice and having
every atom of evidence admitted that money and malice could
bring together. And after this long and weary trial the jury refused
to grant to my enemy the verdict which he sought; whereupon
my ministerial neighbors, reversing the fact that the jury
refused him damages, reported that I was not cleared—as if I had
gone into court voluntarily, sought a verdict, and lost my suit.
“Following the civil trial, these insidious enemies commenced
a course of vexatious attempts to call councils, and so to weary
the patience of the Plymouth people.
“To meet this vexatious proceeding the church called the
largest council ever convened upon this continent. Its members
came almost to a man, with doubting hearts, but went away with
enthusiastic joy, having justified the church and justified its pastor.
But, perceiving the venomous spirit that disguised itself under
pretence of anxiety for ecclesiastical regularity, the Great Council
provided a court to sit and act when the council should be
dissolved—a court composed of legal men, than whom none
more impartial, just, and pure were ever called to sit upon the
bench. No one dared to bring charges, though the court waited
for years.
“In this long and dreadful season it would be difficult to say
which suffered most intensely, the church or its pastor.
“No one will ever know the nervous strain required to bear
this terrible pressure, to maintain a Christian spirit, to carry on
my pulpit duties, and to encourage and sustain the spirit of the
church.”
.bn 567.png
.pn +1
.ce
NOVEMBER, 1875.
“Nov. 12, Friday morning.—For several years I have been
passing through severe trials on account of the troubles in the
Tilton family. This has taken hold upon the church, personal
friends, family, newspapers, civil courts, ecclesiastical bodies, etc.
I have thus been like a lamb, not before her shearers, but before
a fire, every stick of which has had enough heat in it to consume
one’s peace and comfort. In all this six years I have laid
down for myself the strictest adherence to Christian principles,
in all my feelings toward each person or party concerned, and
upon my conduct in every part of the perplexing and exhausting
struggle for life—for my life is aimed at, and the struggle is for
life, in every sense in which life is a blessing.”
“Tuesday, Nov. 23, 1875.—H——— called from Missionary
Association to inquire what I thought of their asking Dr.
Storrs to speak at opening of Fisk University at Nashville.
Replied, No reason against, unless they thought that just at this
time, when he heads and inspires a movement against Plymouth
Church and me. But that they, and not I, should determine.
“In myself there are two thoughts: (1) Should I give help to
an enemy who will use it for my harm? and (2), and a better one,
Ought I to take any care or notice of the ascent or descent in
influence of one not friendly? Is it not better to go on doing
duty and leave wholly to the Over-ruler the disposition of
affairs?
“‘Fret not thyself because of evil-doers.’”
Shortly after the council had adjourned, and on the 27th of
February, 1876, Dr. Leonard Bacon, in that spirit of brotherly
love that filled the council at its close, wrote to Mr. Beecher:
“... ‘A brother offended,’ whether Storrs (R. S.) or Budington,
‘is harder to be won than a strong city.’ But is it not
possible for you (God helping you) to win Brother Storrs, and
then to win Budington also?
“Of course you are an innocent man, grievously calumniated,
pierced through and through with arrows, like St. Sebastian.
You feel that the position of those two brethren in relation to
you is unbrotherly and unkind. You complain (and, I will say,
reasonably) that neither of them came to you in the beginning
of these troubles, or has come to you at any later time, with a
.bn 568.png
.pn +1
request for explanation or with offers of sympathy and assistance.
They, on the other hand, think that you have withheld
your confidence and have stood aloof from them.... Is it not
possible for you to win Storrs?... You will not win him by
waiting till he shall come to you.... What, then, would be
the effect on Brooklyn, on our country, on ‘English-speaking
Christianity,’ if it should be announced that you three are
‘brothers reconciled’? Have I proposed an impracticable thing?
Am I imagining an impossible result? If so, alas!...”
To this Mr. Beecher replied:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“Brooklyn, March 1, 1876.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear Doctor Bacon:
“I heartily thank you for your letter and its kind and Christian
suggestions. They are such as a father might give to a son,
and I am emboldened to hope that for my father’s sake you will
allow me to hold, in some degree, such a relation to you.
“There is nothing in my heart to prevent a reconciliation with
my offended brethren.
“If it required only that I should express my regret for unanswered
letters, and my sorrow for harsh words forced from me in
the height of distress, the whole matter might be settled in an hour.
But it has largely ceased to be a personal affair, and has assumed
the complex character of two parties with strong party feeling.
“So that Dr. Storrs, for instance, is not at liberty to act from
personal considerations alone.
“Pass by his long and repeated interviews with Mr. Tilton as
late as last New Year’s, and take the most recent case, that of
Mrs. Moulton.
“Mrs. M. and I are in such opposition as admits of no
middle ground. To take her up is to take sides against me. Our
testimony in court is in deadly opposition.
“But Dr. Storrs has assumed her cause to the extent, that,
(aside from all counsel during her negotiations with Plymouth
Church) he sends her to Mr. Bell (who has just taken charge of
the Mission Sabbath-school of his church), with a letter requesting
him to give her a class. Such an act, at such a time, produced
profound impressions, even more within his own church than
out of it. After two Sundays’ attendance Mrs. Moulton retired
from the school under plea of ill health, a great excitement having
arisen within the school.
.bn 569.png
.pn +1
“Dr. Storrs is surrounded by such men as ———, ———, ———,
and ———, whose animosity reaches bitterness.
“I have very little hope, therefore, of favorable results.
“You should be aware that from time to time during the
years past, I have conveyed to these brethren my desire of
reconciliation.
“After the civil suit of last summer I drew up a letter to Dr.
Storrs at the request of several members of his church (warm
friends of mine), in which I expressed everything which one Christian
gentleman could to another. But my advisers said that such a
letter should not be sent until it was distinctly ascertained that
Dr. S. would take it kindly; for, if disposed to do so, it might
lay the foundations for a refusal with reasons, which would leave
the case far worse than it was before. As the summer vacation
was at hand, the matter was dropped.
“I fear that Dr. Storrs is so fully committed that it is too
late. He could not have made a declaration of war more effectually
than by taking up Mrs. Moulton, considering her deadly
antagonism to me and her peculiar relations to Plymouth
Church.
“But if the Lord will open a way, you may be sure that I
shall not hold back nor hesitate. I do not regard my own personal
feelings or interests as comparable to the welfare of these
neighboring churches, and the cause of religion in all churches.
I would go to the very verge of truth and honor in my expressions
of regret and retraction. Yet, with all this, I fear, alas! there is
no hope.
“But I leave all to God. The effect of a reconciliation
would be pentecostal.
“I am the man going to Jericho, stripped, wounded, and left
for dead. Nevertheless I am writing to apologize both to the
priest and Levite, for not considering the proprieties and respect
due them as they passed by.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Gratefully yours,
“Henry Ward Beecher.”
.nf-
.ll
“P.S. I have thought long and anxiously upon this matter.
I have sent friends to Dr. Storrs, who could get no word of encouragement.
He eschews even my personal friends who were
his warm friends.
.pm end_quote
.bn 570.png
.pn +1
“I have thought that any movement with hope of success
must come from within his own church. But there is an undeveloped
party on each side.
“On the whole, I have come to about this:
“That the families of the two churches should hold on to
each other more firmly than ever before, and on both sides refuse
to be separated.
“Then, as time goes on and the scandal gives place to other
things in the public mind, occasions or influences which we do
not now command may arise in God’s good providence, and a
way be opened.
“I have often and often thought that if it were God’s will
that I might die, a great stumbling-block would be taken away,
and health would come out of my grave to the ailing hearts
about me.
“And why not?
“I have lived long, and no one ever had leave to live in an
age of such opportunities, as those who have had their prime in
the past thirty years. One ought not to be greedy of years.”
The hope in which the Great Council was called was realized.
The pastors and delegates, called from twenty-one States, returning
to their homes, became centres of a noble, generous influence,
correcting false impressions, setting doubts at rest, renewing
again the old love and confidence.
It is true that here and there, especially in certain theological
centres, there were those whose partisan zeal, jealous malice, or
even personal hatred would not let them rest content with the
deliverance; who would rather have kept Christendom deluged
with the vile mess than that Mr. Beecher should stand cleared
and justified.
But the great serpent was dead; only its tail wiggled and
stirred a little dust for a short time. After a little even that lay
quiet.
The clouds were dissipating, the sky was clearing, and soon
the sun shone with its former brightness, giving comfort, light,
and life to many thousands.
The conspiracy had failed. Where to-day are the conspirators?[15]
.fm rend=th
.fn 15
A friend has aptly put the story in a few short lines:
.fn-
.fm rend=th
.bn 571.png
.pn +1
.ce
THE FALSE SECRET.
.pm start_poem
“’Twas the thistle that told the yellow-bird,
And the yellow-bird told the bee,
And the gossip winds that overheard
Went telling the willow-tree;
And that is the way the little tree-frog
Is supposed to know it all;
He told his cousins that lived in a bog,
And they croaked to the rushes tall;
They whispered the reptiles that live in the mud,
And wiggle and creep and crawl,
To tell the mosquitoes that feast on blood
That a star was seen to fall.
“But the lilies knew that it could not be true,
The lilies that looked on high;
And the waters blue, where the lilies grew.
Not so the little fire fly:
He met his friends where the garden ends
And the low marsh meadows lie;
They said it was sad as sad could be
That a star must fall and die,
And the goblin meteors danced with glee—
But the star is still in the sky.”
.pm end_poem
.bn 572.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch27'
CHAPTER XXVII.
.pm start_summary
Rest and renewed Activity—Lecturing Tours—Resignation from the Congregational
Association—Boston Criticisms.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Very shortly after Mr. Beecher settled in Brooklyn he began
working in a somewhat different and larger parish than
the one included in his church. At first in the more immediate
vicinity of New York, then gradually widening and enlarging
his circuit, he spent no small portion of the week, during
the winter months, in lecturing. He sought to elevate the public
morals, to educate public sentiment along the line of integrity
and morality. While his lectures were full of the humorous,
alive with bright poetic thoughts, there was always a purpose
sought in each and this always seemed essential to the development
of his best efforts. No lecture was ever delivered by him
that some of his audience did not go home strengthened and encouraged
in their purposes of right living, or awakened to begin a
better life. They were week-day sermons on practical morals.
His field had gradually broadened, until by 1870 it included all
of the Northern States east of the Mississippi River. From these
lectures he derived no inconsiderable income, which was expended
with no mean hand for charity, on friends, and the gratification
of his artistic and literary tastes.
With the outbreak of the Tilton conspiracy, and the various
vexatious proceedings incidental to and in aid thereof, he naturally
found too much employment at home, and too great a strain
on mind and body, to leave either strength, leisure, or inclination
for lecturing. With the close of the Great Council came comparative
peace, and in the winter following he resumed his regular
lecturing. For this there were several reasons.
The mental and nervous wear and tear of the past five or six
years had been terrible. As we have seen, he had many times
been brought to the verge of complete prostration, which he
feared might end in death or paralysis.
It was imperative that he should get some relief from this
.bn 573.png
.pn +1
strain. With him rest did not mean idleness, but rather activity
in a different direction, often greater than the work which had
fatigued him. Such a remedy he found in lecturing.
Then it was necessary to make good the great expenditure of
money entailed upon him. The “trial year” alone had cost him
over $118,000, and, notwithstanding the loving generosity of his
people had raised his salary for that year to $100,000, he found
himself heavily in debt. Lecturing afforded the means of remedying
this difficulty.
Another reason strenuously urged by friends, was that, to meet
and talk with the many thousands scattered over the land, who
had so long loved and trusted him, would greatly aid in scattering
the clouds that had been so long lowering; that it would be
a source of strength and comfort to them, and greatly benefit
him. A series of lecture-tours followed during the next two or
three years, extending through the New England States, West,
Southwest, and South, the results of which fully justified every
reason for this undertaking.
Then for the first time he realized how many friends he had.
It is true that when the sky was darkest he received many hundreds
of letters from friends and strangers expressing unabated
confidence and sympathy. Grateful and comforting as these
were to him, they did not so fully reveal to him the hold that he
had on the hearts of the American people as the demonstrations
that greeted him on these lecture-trips.
What these demonstrations were we can gain some idea from
his letters home, brief and hasty sketches, written at odd intervals:
“Next Boston. Temple full. Received me with prolonged
clapping.... Preached Sunday A.M. for ———. Had great liberty,
and, as he says, swept everything.... At night in Boston
for ———. Ten thousand people couldn’t get in. Shook hands
with whole audiences. Papers next morning with kind notices.
Went to Congregational ministers’ meeting on Monday morning.
Cheered and clapped when I entered. After paper for day was
finished it was moved that I address the meeting. I did so, and
closed with prayer. All wept, and it broke up like a revival
meeting. D———, S———, A———,[16] etc., present; did not shake
.bn 574.png
.pn +1
hands, but scores of others did.... I learn that the Andover
students have come back three to one against S———. They intend
asking me over to-morrow morning to talk to them....”
.fm rend=th
.fn 16
Leaders among the opposition clergy.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
“I preached yesterday in St. Paul (Minn.) I returned early
this morning to meet the clergy of this city in Stimpson’s study,
about twenty-five, of all churches, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational,
Baptist, Lutheran, Free-Will Baptist, etc. Two hours,
in which they questioned me about my views on doctrines, sermon-making,
preaching, etc., etc., and at close I prayed with them.
Royal time. They were more than cordial. Excitement for to-night’s
lecture even greater than for that of Friday. Dr. Post, of
St. Louis, writes to me to fill his pulpit, also the other Congregational
minister; while the very papers that used, a year or two ago,
to abuse me, are demanding that the largest hall or theatre shall
be taken, so that the common people can get in.”
“The sense of spring has accompanied me all the way. I am
now in the middle of my third week—nearly half through. Laus
Deo. Everywhere the same kindness, affection, and enthusiasm.
Madison is the capital of this State, and the Speaker and members
of the Legislature have just sent a committee requesting me to
open the house with prayer.... In short, the whole slander is
burned over out here, like a prairie or an old corn-field, and will
never lift itself again.”
“I had not expected a large audience, but I had it. I expected
but few of the upper class of people, but I had the best of
the city; even Watterson, of the Courier-Journal, that had always
vilely blackguarded me, sent for tickets for himself, family, and
his father. I was in good trim, and for nearly two hours I
avenged myself upon that audience. The enthusiasm was complete.
Every one said that I had conquered Louisville, and so I
am enjoying the fruits of revenge! I had an uncommonly successful
trip. In Pittsburgh there was a grand audience—all the
ministers from far and near. It was said that there were a hundred
in the audience.”
“All my life long I have had good, warm friends, but I never
knew until recently what friendship was outside of those of my
own immediate circle. The unmistakable enthusiasm, the love
and eagerness, the lingering and the longing, have been such as
to fill my cup full.
“I have felt, time and again, that that which I have had of
.bn 575.png
.pn +1
trouble I have bought at a cheap rate; the trouble has been but
a small price to pay for a lodgment in the hearts of the best men,
the best women, and the children. I have found that those whose
love is deepest and warmest represent families who look at everything
in the world from the standpoint of the household—who
judge of preaching, of ethics, and of methods by the relation
which they bear to the bringing up of the young, and to the
founding and maintaining of Christian homes. That part of the
community who live in the household, and honor it, I had almost
said, were universally my most dear and cordial friends.”
From this time on until his death he was more or less in the
lecture-field every year.
Another period of restful calm sets in, during which he devoted
himself, comparatively undisturbed, to his duties in the
pulpit, the editorial chair of the Christian Union, and the lecture-field.
During this period of quiet he made those definite announcements
of his beliefs that so much disturbed many of his theological
brethren, notably his sermon on the “Background of Mystery,”
in which he discussed that mysterious question of future
punishment; and a little later the series since published under
the title of “Evolution and Religion,” discussing the application
of the theory of evolution to religious beliefs.[17] Notwithstanding
many of the most eminent of the American and
English clergy had both entertained and expressed similar
views, their exposition by Mr. Beecher, as usual, called forth
much criticism, more or less severe according to the theological
bent of the critic, but also much friendly comment.
.fm rend=th
.fn 17
We present Mr. Beecher’s theological beliefs more fully in another
chapter.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
He was at this time a member of “The Congregational Association,”
composed of Congregational clergymen of New York
and Brooklyn. Feeling that many of his brethren did not agree
with his views, and that yet they might be held to some extent
responsible for his beliefs, he determined to resign from the Association.
At the meeting October 13, 1882, he had been assigned for
discussion the topic of “Spiritual Barbarism.” After discussing
the theological beliefs which he regarded as appropriately
.bn 576.png
.pn +1
coming under that expression, he went on to give a full declaration
of his personal beliefs, and then at the close stated:
“I have reason to believe that a great many of the brethren
of the Congregational faith would speak more than disapproval,
and that many even in the Association to which I belong feel as
though they could not bear the burden of responsibility of being
supposed to tolerate the views I have held and taught; and it is
on this account that I, as a man of honor and a Christian gentleman,
cannot afford to lay on anybody the responsibility of my
views. I cannot afford especially to put them in such a position
that they are obliged to defend me. I cannot make them responsible
in any way, and therefore I now here, and in the greatest
love and sympathy, lay down my membership of this Association
and go forth—not to be separated from you. I shall be
nearer to you than if I should be in ecclesiastical relation. I
will work for you, I will lecture for you, I will personally do
everything I can for you. I will even attend these meetings as a
spectator with you. I will devote my whole life to the Congregational
churches and their interests, as well as to all other
churches of Christ Jesus. I am not going out into the cold. I
am not going out into another sect. I am not going away from
you in any spirit of disgust. I never was in warmer personal
sympathy with every one of you than I am now; but I lay down
the responsibility that you have borne for me—I take it off from
you and put it on myself. And now you can say, ‘He is a member
of the Congregational Church, but he has relieved his brethren
of all responsibility whatever for his teachings.’ That you
are perfectly free to do. With thanks for your great kindness,
and with thanks to God for the life which we have had here together,
I am now no longer a member of the Congregational
Association of New York and Brooklyn, but with you a member
of the body of Christ Jesus, in full fellowship with you in the
matter of faith and love and hope.”
He was earnestly urged to reconsider his resignation. He
felt it to be his duty to adhere to the determination expressed.
The Association unanimously passed the following resolution
expressive of their feelings:
“Resolved, That the members of the New York and Brooklyn
Association receive the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher’s resignation
of his membership in this body with very deep pain and regret.
.bn 577.png
.pn +1
We cannot fail to recognize the generous magnanimity
which has led him to volunteer this action, lest he should seem
even indirectly to make his brethren responsible before the public
for the support of philosophical and theological doctrines
wherein he is popularly supposed to differ essentially with those
who hold the established and current evangelical faith. His full
and proffered exposition of doctrinal views that he has made at
this meeting indicates the propriety of his continued membership
in this or any other Congregational Association. We hereby declare
our desire that he may see his way clear to reconsider and
withdraw it. We desire to place on record as the result of a long
and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Beecher, and a familiar observation
of the results of his life, as well as his preaching and
pastoral work, that we cherish for him an ever-growing personal
attachment as a brother beloved, and a deepening sense of his
worth as a Christian minister. We cannot now contemplate the
possibility of his future absence from our meetings without a
depressing sense of the loss we are to suffer, and unitedly pledge
the hearts of the Association to him, and express the hope that
the day for his return may soon come.”
Of course much comment followed this step—perhaps more
marked among some of the Boston clergy than elsewhere—and
in its turn drew from Mr. Beecher several characteristic letters.
One to a near friend:
“Don’t be scared because Boston has boiled over; it has not
put the fire out.
“It is amusing to see the pains taken to prove that I am of
no account, dead, useless, a castaway. I know that I am dead.
I knew it twenty years ago; I have been certified of the fact
every year since. I have no influence—I never had, cannot have;
a hundred fluttering ministers are eager to say so before the
world! Well, what of it? The wild-fowl return from the north
as usual, winter comes on, the spring will come in its season,
birds and flowers—indeed, it does seem to me that Nature cares
nothing at all for all this squabbling of men! I am astonished
at Nature!...”
Another in reply to an invitation to answer his critics through
the columns of the Boston Traveller:
“I thank you for the letter and paper. I have read the
somewhat large expressions of these many and excellent men in
.bn 578.png
.pn +1
regard to my orthodoxy, consistency, influence, and general
merit, without wishing for a moment to reply, as you kindly request
me.
“When a dead man is lying on the dissecting-table under the
hands of experts, it would be unbecoming in him to rise up suddenly
and discuss with his surgeons the propriety of their methods
and the truth of results. It is not often that one can see
himself as others see him, and especially as Boston sees him, and,
more than all, as Boston clergymen see him. I am reduced to
pulp, but, thank Heaven! not to ashes. When you suggest a reply
to these, I am sure you can have no conception of the subdued
and enlightened state of my mind. I am bent on improvement.
Laying aside all my old notions of my beliefs and of my standing,
I am carefully putting together the real man that I now am taught
that I am. When I get my new personal identity together and
in working shape, I intend to study theology somewhere, though
in my present confusion I cannot yet say whether I shall study at
Andover or Boston; New Haven is nearer, but Dr. Smythe has
been settled there, and I fear laxity of doctrine in his neighborhood.
Princeton is not far to the south of me, but Dr. McCosh
is a Christian evolutionist, and it would be folly, after what I
have suffered, to come under the malarial influence of that philosophy.
On the whole, I incline to study at Park Street. But
wherever I may go I am determined before I die to find a theology
which will pass muster at Bangor, at Andover, at Cambridge,
at New Haven, at Princeton, at Alleghany, at Oberlin, at Chicago,
and at Park Street.
“Then I shall willingly die.”
.bn 579.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch28'
CHAPTER XXVIII.
.pm start_summary
Attacking Corrupt Judges—Interest in Political Questions—Advocating
Arthur’s Renomination—Opposing Blaine—Supporting Cleveland—Campaign
of 1884—After the Battle.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
It had always been Mr. Beecher’s belief that a Christian gentleman
should be a good citizen, and that being a good citizen
involved some responsibility in securing and enforcing
righteous laws, in electing honest men, and defeating the corrupt
and unworthy. With this belief his whole life was consistent.
In his early ministry we find him fighting corruption, intoxication,
and slavery, the then three great public evils. Later he stood as
one of the sponsors to the Republican party. In 1856 he entered
with all his force in the Fremont campaign, and in 1860 stumped
the Middle and New England States for Lincoln. The overthrow
of slavery was his objective point—the one great public
evil which at that time overtopped all others.
When, in 1864, Lincoln ran for re-election, he spared no effort
to secure it.
And as he thought that whatever pertained to the duties of a
Christian man might properly be discussed in the pulpit, he did
not hesitate, during those war times, when the national existence
was threatened, to advocate the cause of the nation and the
cause of liberty from his pulpit; at one time, just before the
election of 1864, devoting his evening sermon for the six preceding
weeks exclusively to the nation’s cause.
We remember vividly the great throngs that packed the
church for two hours before the sermon, many getting entrance
through the side windows, while the street contained as many
more trying in vain to even reach the open doors.
We shall never forget the thrills of excitement that ran
through the audience under the influence of Mr. Beecher’s impassioned
eloquence. He was thoroughly aroused, and seemed
to impart much of the intensity of his own feelings to his audience.
He felt that to defeat Lincoln then meant to throw away
.bn 580.png
.pn +1
all that had been obtained by such a sacrifice of men and
money.
We are not surprised, then, in 1868-69—at the time when
the flood of corruption had deluged New York city, reaching
even to the judges on the bench—that his voice was raised in
continuous protest against that disgraceful state of affairs, calling
on all good men to unite and purge the city of its corruption.
The attack from Plymouth pulpit upon the corrupt judiciary,
especially, was unsparing and continuous, sometimes through
whole sermons and sometimes incidentally.
The times were in desperate need of some bold moral surgery,
for it would be hard to imagine a worse condition in the public
administration—in well nigh every department and branch—than
that which existed from 1867 to 1871. The infamous Tweed had
assumed virtually the dictatorship, and impudently wanted to
know of the people, “What are you going to do about it?” A
query which was fully answered a few years later. But the climax
was reached in the almost utter corruption of the bench. There
were some honest judges in New York then, but they suffered
from the same imputation that, in more modern times, falls upon
any man who has had the misfortune to have been elected an
alderman of the same city. Friends of some of the judges were
rash enough to attempt an answer through the public press to
Mr. Beecher’s attack. But this only furnished the text for a
series of more terrible denunciations in reply, which led to a
very hasty muzzling of the rash defenders of the bench. A public
discussion, even in those days of public apathy and demoralization,
was the last thing that was wished by the corruptionists
whom he was attacking.
To a member of the federal bench who wrote him, protesting
that there were some honest judges who would be injured by Mr.
Beecher’s strictures, he replied:
“... Of the fourteen (elective) judges of New York there
are not over five who are not known to be corrupt—i. e., who do
not employ their office for the promotion of their private interests
at the expense of the public good—and hardly one of the whole
fourteen who is not guilty of flagrant nepotism.
“Now, if clergymen were violating the vows of their calling
in half that proportion they would have no right to complain, if
some judge declared ‘the clergy were corrupt,’ and the judges
.bn 581.png
.pn +1
have no just reason of complaint, when a clergymen declares the
courts of New York to be corrupt, and that their judges ‘stink’
(asking pardon of your sensibility).
“If this allegation in so broad a form involves the innocent
along with the guilty, it is because such is the law of social liability....
“If the honorable men who are alive to the purity of the judicial
reputation can find no way of making a public and recognized
distinction between themselves and their unworthy companions,
they should not be surprised if their own names are
clouded, too.
“In regard to yourself, personally, I have never heard a whisper
of dishonor, ... and if you do not receive the full meed of
your desert, is it not because you belong to a profession which,
in New York City, is earning itself an odious reputation?
“I wish to arouse a conscience in the community, outside of
courts, which will compel those judges who are pure, and who
value their reputation, to manifest their repugnance at corruption.
I do not mean to pause....
“I am obliged to you for the frankness of your letter, and
none the less because I entirely disagree with your judgment.
“You fear that such indiscriminate censure will ruin the influence
of law and courts, and demoralize society.
“Bad laws and bad judges demoralize society, and not the exposure
of them. Religion was in no danger when our Master denounced
the priesthood of the temple, among whom, as with
judges, there were many devout and pure men. He expressed,
as I do, the opinion of society outside of the profession. The
exposure was a step toward reformation.”
How far his persistent denunciation stimulated and awakened
the public conscience and hastened the final overthrow of that
colossal reign of corruption, of course no man can say. But the
attention and excitement aroused thereby indicated that his part
in that strife was no insignificant one.
In his own city he took an active part in the local elections,
working earnestly for the public welfare, striving to secure the
election of those men who would best administer the local
government.
In the earlier years of the Republican party questions vitally
affecting the welfare of the nation, and even its very existence,
.bn 582.png
.pn +1
were before the people. And on these the Republican party
maintained those principles, which he believed were essential to
the maintenance of the nation. He threw his entire strength
and influence with that party, sparing nothing. After the war
had determined the questions of secession and slavery, and the
reconstruction period had past and a sound financial policy been
established, he noticed with no little disturbance the insidious
growth of corrupting influences in various branches of the government,
and the gradually increasing prominence and influence
in the party’s councils of men who did not, in his opinion, stand
for the highest principles of personal and political honesty. So
far as he could he sought to counteract this tendency downward.
He earnestly supported the better men in the party, and tried to
prevent the dangerous ones from obtaining power.
So long as the high national principles for which the party
stood were in the least in danger, and were acquiring a settled
permanence, he viewed these disquieting signs as morbid
growths upon a body healthy in the main, and which the general
strength of the body could throw off, like boils or skin eruptions
on a strong man—painful and unsightly, but not dangerous to
life nor difficult to cure.
But as the government became more and more settled, and as
the questions which called the Republican party into existence
and which followed in the reconstructive period became more
and more fixed facts, he noticed with increasing disquietude that
the struggles at the national election were becoming more a contest
for party supremacy than for national security, where personal
benefit was rapidly outstripping the country’s welfare. At
each election the politicians on either side found an increasingly
greater difficulty in framing a platform that should differ in any
important particular from its opponent’s, save on the tariff question,
regarding which Mr. Beecher was not in accord with his
party. The party platforms were rapidly becoming noticeable
only for the ingenuity with which the same ideas were expressed
in high-sounding phrases, differing only in words.
Even as far back as 1877, in a sermon published under the
title of “Past Perils and Perils of To-day,” he gave an intimation
of his growing feeling, almost prophetic:
“The perils of the hour are the last that I shall mention, and
they are the least. Whatever may betide the questions that are
.bn 583.png
.pn +1
now at issue, they will result in nothing worse than simple transient
mischief, moral, political, and civil. The foundations are
settled. The future policy of this nation, whichever hands undertake
to hold the helm, is assured. I would rather that the
nation, which has been rescued by the great Republican party,
and borne through all the shoals and whirls and troubles of the
reconstructive period, for which they are now receiving more
curses than kindnesses, and whose mistakes are multiplied before
the eyes of men, while their wisdom is little thought of—I would
rather that this nation should remain in their hands, if they are
worthy to hold the helm; but if not, give me a hand that can
hold the helm, whosesoever it is. If their light is extinguished
along the coast, and they have no longer power to guide the
ship of state to a safe harbor, let other lights be kindled. We
cannot afford to wait for any party. The nation is more important
than any party. It is not, then, any particular peril of a
change of administration that is to be feared. I look upon that
with interest, but still with equanimity.”
He noticed with jealous interest the men who were growing
up and pushing to the front in the Republican party, studying
their characters, watching their actions, noting their words to see
toward what they were tending, whether good or evil, whether
they would be safe leaders and wise administrators. So that
when the notable campaign of 1884 began, and the conventions
were called to select the candidates for the Presidency, he had
very clearly defined opinions as to the fitness of the various aspirants
in both parties, the result of long and careful observation.
Of course his first concern was as to the action of the Republican
party. He earnestly hoped that the party would have the
wisdom to renominate President Arthur.
When General Arthur was called to the Presidential chair by
the sad death of General Garfield, Mr. Beecher, in common with
many others, had grave misgivings as to his wisdom and ability
to administer so important an office. But he developed such
unexpected administrative ability, showed so much wisdom and
such rare fortitude in resisting his party’s leaders, in any unwise
or hurtful action, and so much discrimination in the exercise
of his veto power, that he won the admiration and esteem of
those who had, with doubt and solicitude, seen him enter upon
his untried duties.
.bn 584.png
.pn +1
Every instinct of good sense, every argument of wisdom,
urged his renomination; the precedents of the party gave him a
second term.
With this feeling Mr. Beecher was fully in accord. So when
a meeting of merchants and business men was called at the
Cooper Institute, early in the summer of 1884, to give expression
to this sentiment, Mr. Beecher very gladly accepted an invitation
to address it.
He had a double reason in advocating General Arthur’s renomination,
or rather two reasons, one positive and the other
negative.
He had acquired great confidence in General Arthur, and
admiration for his past administration. He believed that he was
by all odds the best man in his party for the place.
He also felt sure that if General Arthur was not nominated,
Mr. Blaine would be, and in Mr. Blaine he saw, as he believed, a
very serious threatening danger. He was one of the men whose
career he had carefully watched, and for whom he had a very
pronounced distrust. Of him he said:
“For twelve years I have watched him, anxious that he
should be the right man—that he is not. For more than ten
years I have been afraid of him.”
Behind Mr. Blaine, as his earnest advocates, he saw the men
who had been most prominent in the jobbery and corruption
that had, from time to time, broken out like plague-spots in different
parts of the country.
He strongly felt that his election would be regarded by the
world at large as an endorsement of the idea, painfully prevalent,
that all a man should aim at in politics is success, no matter how.
He deeply regretted the unwisdom of not renominating General
Arthur.
When the National Convention put Mr. Blaine in nomination
Mr. Beecher had three courses left open to him: either (1) support
Mr. Blaine, as his party’s nominee regularly presented by
the National Convention; or (2) stay at home and not vote; or
(3) support the opposing candidate.
To the first his answer was:
“It is almost the one argument I hear on every hand: ‘I
don’t like Blaine. He was not my choice, but then he is the
regular nominee of our party.’
.bn 585.png
.pn +1
“Why, according to your logic, you must vote for whomsoever
the convention gives you. If the convention had given you
Tweed, every mother’s son of you would have dropped your
tail between your legs and voted for Tweed. The logic of this
is infamous.... You would not do it anywhere else, I tell you,
except where the murrain of a blighted politics had fallen upon
you.”
The second course had too much of prudential shirking to
suit Mr. Beecher’s temperament. If the Republican nominee was
an unfit man to vote for, he was an unfit man to be elected; and,
unless his opponent should be as conspicuously unfit, every vote
should be so cast as to affect the greatest result.
The third course alone seemed open, and when the Democratic
Convention, in a sudden spasm of good sense and wisdom,
nominated Governor Cleveland, Mr. Beecher’s mind was speedily
made up.
With the first outbreak of that campaign of slanders Mr.
Beecher was greatly disturbed. He at once requested some personal
friends residing in Buffalo, and well acquainted with Governor
Cleveland’s life and reputation, themselves Republicans,
to make a thorough investigation of the scandalous stories in
circulation, and was satisfied from their report that with the one
exception, admitted, repented of, and lived down by a life of
honesty and integrity, the stories were false.
Once satisfied of their falsity, he entered into the campaign
with all his old-time fire and zeal.
His indignation was intensely roused at their circulation, and
it only needed the timid caution of friends, that he would injure
himself, by advocating the cause of a man about whom such stories
were told, to arouse him to an outburst of indignant scorn.
“In all the history of politics we do not believe that lies so
cruel, so base, so atrocious have ever been set in motion. The
air is murky with the shameless stories of Mr. Cleveland’s
private life. To our sorrow and shame we find these cockatrice’s
eggs brooded and hatched by rash and credulous clergymen.
They could not go to Mr. Cleveland with honest inquiry, so they
opened their ears to the harlot and the drunkard. They have
sought by hint, innuendo, irresponsible slander, to poison the
faith of holy men, of innocent women, and they have sought to
make back-biting a copt virtue, and to change the sanctuary into
.bn 586.png
.pn +1
a salacious whispering-gallery. Is it for our sins, or for a trial of
our faith, that God has permitted the plagues of Egypt to revisit
us? The land swarms with vermin, frogs slime our bread-troughs,
and lice crawl about our chambers.
“Do timid ministers ever reflect that the guilt of a vice or a
crime measures the guilt of him who charges them falsely?
Slander takes on the guilt of crime alleged. True religion does
not creep through twilight passages, but is open, frank, rejoicing
not in iniquity, but rejoicing in the truth, hoping all things.
These vespertilian saints, whose soft bat’s wings bear them from
house to house, and from town to town, in the service of Baal,
the God of flies and lies, will one day creep into the holes and
clefts of rocks and hide themselves....
“When in the gloomy night of my own suffering I sounded
every depth of sorrow, I vowed that if God would bring the day
star of hope I would never suffer brother, friend, or neighbor to
go unfriended should a like serpent seek to crush him. 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 an upright man and magistrate. Men counsel me to prudence
lest I stir again my own griefs. No! I will not be
prudent. If I refuse to interpose a shield of well-placed confidence
between Governor Cleveland and the swarm of liars that
nuzzle in the mud, or sling arrows from ambush, may my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth and 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 bonds. They stood by me with God-sent loyalty. It was a
heroic deed. They have set my duty before me, and I will imitate
their example.”
Of course many of Mr. Beecher’s friends were greatly exercised,
and lamented what they feared would be a suicidal course.
Again, for the twentieth time or more, he was rushing upon self-destruction—his
prestige would be destroyed, his influence lost,
and untold woes would follow.
As we look back, scarce three years, we cannot but smile, in
the light of subsequent events, at the great excitement and grief
that existed then.
But then it was real. Every effort was made at first to win
Mr. Beecher to support Mr. Blaine, and then that he should not
.bn 587.png
.pn +1
support Governor Cleveland, and this was carried even to the
extent of threats.
The excitement threatened a serious division in his church,
and the danger seemed more real than on any previous occasion.
Party zeal ran high.
But Mr. Beecher had acted only after careful deliberation;
being satisfied as to what his duty was, no argument could sway
him in the least that appealed to his fears or personal benefit.
To a clerical friend who wrote in early autumn, just before
the real campaign began, he replied:
“... But, now, hear me. If I thought it my duty to speak
for Cleveland and against Blaine, I would do it, though I lost all
my influence, all my friends, my church, and even my own
family. All considerations urged upon me which touch my feelings,
hopes, interests, are repelled by me with the whole force of
my nature, and I cannot treat my friends better than I do my
innermost self. I will not be bribed even by love. I have but a
few years left. They shall not put to shame all my anti-slavery
days. I do not doubt that you love me, but if you loved me
yet more you would urge me to stand firmly to my conscientious
convictions and not heed ‘what men can do unto me.’ The
election of Blaine will be a sign of such demoralized moral sense
as I never dreamed could befall Christian men and ministers; or
I should feel so, if I had not seen good men and ministers in the
great anti-slavery struggle....
“I wish you would say to all my honest-hearted brethren,
please let me alone! I am as old as you are, as diligent in seeking
the truth, and as conscientious in deciding and acting.”
To a letter of remonstrance and advice from a dear friend, a
member of his church, he wrote:
“I am sure that I receive with consideration any advice
which grown-up men desire to lay before me, especially those of
my church. But, on the other hand, I hope the brethren will
take into consideration that I am as much interested in being
right as they can possibly be, and that I have had some experience
in public life, and that all that is said in the newspapers,
and constituting the knowledge in which the brethren act, is also
before me, and that I have a profound interest in the welfare of
the nation and of the young men in it.
“That, after forty years’ hot experience of stormy times, I
.bn 588.png
.pn +1
have been led, hitherto by God’s providence, to the right conclusion.
“I am still in God’s hands, and daily ask His guiding providence.
What more?
“The alarm of friends, the party excitement of others, has no
effect upon me whatever. Any new and real information I shall
be grateful for, but to tell me nothing, and only to express
amazement, wonder, concern, etc., and let me know how damaging
to my reputation and interests it will be if I follow my judgment,
and not theirs, who love me as I am sure these brethren do,
indicates how far gone in political excitement they are, and how
little they understand the man whom they love.
“I shall do my duty as God reveals it to me, without a moment’s
consideration of its effect on me. I am ready to resign
my pastorate at an hour’s notice, when I no longer have freedom
to follow my convictions, or when doing so divides the
church and scatters the congregation.
“I am thankful to the brethren who have written; even more
so to those who have not.
“I receive ten to forty letters a day from all over the land,
clean and unclean, and merely glance at them and burn them.”
To one who went to the extent of threats he replied:
“Your remarkable note of August 8th is received. I have
nothing to say to the general views, except that every man should
determine his duty for himself and respect the same liberty in
other people.
“To your closing sentence, which contains the threat that, if I
vote for Cleveland, you ‘(I) shall feel compelled to withdraw
from your Church and your teachings,’ I would only say that, having
profited so little by my teachings, as this arrogant sentence indicates,
I should certainly advise you to change your church relations
in the hope of better results.”
It was not until the campaign had gotten under full headway,
and within three or four weeks of the election, that Mr. Beecher
began to take any very active part in it. At first he intended to
speak only in New York and Brooklyn; but as the campaign progressed
he realized the importance of devoting every energy to
securing the States of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Accordingly, during the last two weeks he spoke every day save
Sunday, and on some days twice, visiting the more important
.bn 589.png
.pn +1
cities of those three States. He was very earnest that the “Independents”
should not enter the Democratic party, but should
organize as “Independent Republicans.”
He thought that it was time that the political managers should
understand, that there was a moral sense in the community that
would not submit to bad nominations; that the best way to redeem
his party was by defeating unworthy nominees, and that, if
this was persisted in, the politicians would soon see the necessity
of deferring to an enlightened public sentiment, and putting in
nomination only its best men.
He felt that the Republican party was being misled, by the
same influences that had secured unwise or improper nominations,
into a very dangerous path, that would ultimately lead to
the utter destruction of the party itself.
In one of his earlier speeches in the campaign of 1884, he
voiced that feeling when he spoke of his appearing in opposition
to the organized action of the party:
“I confess, at the risk of the imputation of some immodesty,
that my appearance here to-night, to antagonize the organized action
of the Republican party, is itself a fact of the most significant
character. Before many of you were born I was rocking
the cradle of the Republican party. I fought its early battles
when it was in an apparently hopeless minority. I advocated its
cause, speaking day and night, at the risk of my health and of
my life itself, which I counted as nothing compared with the interests
of my country, when Fremont was our first notable candidate.
When Mr. Lincoln became our candidate I gave all I had
of time, strength, influence, and persuasion, and when his election
was ascertained and efforts were made to intimidate the
North, and to prevent his being inaugurated, I went up and
down through this country stiffening the backs of willow-backed
patriots. I faced mobs, I preached day and night in my own
church, to hold the North up to its own rights and interests.
When the war broke out, I sent to it the only boy I had big
enough to hold a musket. And as the war went on my contribution
could not be much, but such as it was I gave it—I gave it as
a mother gives her breast to her child.
“And when, seeking some rest from exhausting cares and
labors, I went abroad, I did not suffer the grass to grow under
my feet, but, in the face of royalty and aristocracy and of great
.bn 590.png
.pn +1
wealth in England, I upheld the justice and the rectitude of the
cause for which we were all striving. And at every canvass from
that day to this I have not held back health, strength, or influence.
Why, then, is it that I am now opposed to the organized
movement of the Republican party? That is a significant question.
“I am now opposing the party whose cradle I rocked, because
I do not mean to be a pall-bearer to carry the coffin of
that party to the grave. The Republican party is on its way to
destruction, unless you turn the switch and run it on a side
track. And by all my love of my country—and it is next to
my love of my God—by all my pride in the past, I feel bound
to do whatever God will inspire me to do, to stop the ruinous
progress of the Republican party and to save it.
“It behooves you, therefore, not to make mere amusement of
the work of this evening. I speak to you as to a jury. The case
before you is not that of some trembling culprit, or some wronged
citizen seeking redress. It is your whole country that is before
you to-night, whose cause I am to plead—to plead as if life or
death hung on the issues. I am in dead earnest. It is very
natural that men working through a political party, should, by
and by, come to look upon all events in the community in their
relation to party welfare and party success. But I, who have had
nothing to do with parties, except as moral instruments, naturally
look upon their movements and purposes from the moral
standpoint. What are they attempting to do for this great people?
What does their success mean? How does it stand alongside
the intelligence, the morality, the true religion of this people,
alongside that patriotism which rests its feet on morality, but
whose head stands in the spirituality which connects man with
God? I study public affairs from the moral and religious standpoint,
and that which is offensive to God may I never live to see
the day when it may be acceptable to me and to my countrymen.
“Looking forward, as the pilot looks, what are our perils?
The war is over. The great questions that agitated the community
are past. You can’t bring them back. There are, however,
two great dangers that betide our government. One is the
danger that comes from the corrupt use of wealth; the other,
that which comes from the corruption of too-long-held power.
.bn 591.png
.pn +1
It is a common proverb, ‘An honest man can bear watching; a
dishonest man needs it.’ This is just as true of politics as of
common procedure. This is the age of enterprise, of production,
of commerce—of money. Russia, Austria, and France
failed in their greatest recent wars and enterprises because those
countries were honeycombed with official corruption. We are in
danger from the same cause.”
He regarded the introduction of the moral element into politics
as an event of the greatest importance.
Politics had become so eminently “practical” that any one
who should suggest the wisdom, or even propriety, of basing political
action on any moral principle, was in danger of being laughed
at as a “crank,” “dude,” or “political pharisee.”
And when in the birth of the Prohibition party, and the sudden
uprising of the Independent Republicans, he saw the attempt
to found practical politics upon a purely moral foundation, he
hailed them both as among the most hopeful signs of the times.
Writing of these two movements, he said:
“Men of moral aims have been ruled out as impracticables,
as ignorant of real politics, as enthusiasts and sentimentalists,
as idealists and doctrinaires. This has been very true, and they
have hitherto hung on the border of parties like a fringe of no
substance or use. But the development of the party of Prohibitionists
and of Independent Republicans is a disclosure, it seems
to me, of a great providential development in politics, and that
there is to be hereafter a place found for the moral elements in
the politics of our country!
“I have spoken of the two formative elements as likely to
coalesce. For, though there be thousands who cannot become
technical prohibitionists, yet they will help them to create a
higher moral sentiment on the subject of temperance.”
The results of the election and the part that Mr. Beecher
took therein have become history, and need not be further detailed.
Mr. Beecher’s action was not, as has been erroneously suggested,
caused by any sudden impulse. On the contrary, it was
the result of careful and earnest deliberation, and was not taken
until his mind was fully made up, and it retained the approval of
his later judgment, after the heat and excitement of the contest
had died out.
.bn 592.png
.pn +1
In his Thanksgiving sermons, it was his custom to review to
some extent the political as well as material growth of the
country, to find in both whatever there might be fit for thanksgiving.
On Thanksgiving, 1884, he, at first, intended to review the
course of the events of the campaign just completed, and commenced
a sermon for that purpose. After writing a part, he
changed his plans and prepared another, in which he reviewed
the reconstruction of the country since the war. From this we
have quoted in a previous chapter.
The manuscript of his unfinished sermon we have, and, though
it is a fragment only, it will be of value as showing his more
sober judgment, reviewing in retrospect the campaign just past
and his part therein.
“During the great political campaign which has just terminated,
I have scrupulously refrained from introducing into the
pulpit, or into the social meetings of this church, a word that,
directly or indirectly, had any bearing upon politics.
“Not that I had not the right, but because it was not expedient.
Out of the bounds of the church I felt called to take an
active part.
“I am not willing that you should be ignorant of my inmost
motives, and that you should have spread out before you the
whole map of affairs as looked at from my standpoint. Many
of you, steadfast friends, will not agree with my theory and judgment
of my duty; but you will acquit me of apostasy, or of inconsistency,
and perhaps will even admit that, if my view of
the whole condition of national affairs was correct, my action
and career have been in one direction for forty years, and
that the very influences which led me to help in the formation of
the Republican party, to accept its hardships, its perils, its reproaches,
in all the successive periods of its development, have
at this late day led me to dissent from its aims and policy. I
have not left the party. I am standing on the very ground over
which the battles have raged, when I have lost good repute and
suffered endless revilings.
“No, I have left nothing. If there has been any change, it
is not in me. I would not take one step away from those great
moral principles which have been the strength of this great historic
party.
.bn 593.png
.pn +1
“Others may think that I have mistaken the reality of affairs,
and been misled by will-o’-wisp lights.
“But, taking all counsel of all sobriety and deliberation, every
true man must follow his own ripe judgment. I have followed
mine, and, looking back over the canvass, I should be conceited
indeed if I said that I had been perfect, had carried a cool intensity
always, said nothing too severely. Accepting my own
limitations, I nevertheless look back upon the past few months
as worthy to be associated with the months and years of half a
century of public labor, and indeed, if you will forgive the conceit,
I regard this service as the very blossom of my life.
“These words I speak to my friends and to my church. I
owe no apology or explanation to the public. But to the great
multitude of members of the Church and society, with whom so
much of my life has been spent, whose friendship and love I have
had, whose unity of heart and soul around me has been the source
of so much gladness and strength; to you, fathers, mothers, and
friends of every name—to you, laying aside my too sensitive pride
and my somewhat fierce sense of personal independence, I shall
to-day unbosom myself, and shall try to give you a bird’s-eye
view of the condition of the United States at this hour, and my
understanding of what it is that God’s providence is calling us to.
“I shall enumerate, point by point, the themes for thanksgiving
to-day:
“To-day is waging a great battle between Optimism and Pessimism.
What is Optimism? That happy temperament which
leads one to see all things in a hopeful light and in a joyful courage.
“What is Pessimism? It is that structure of mind which
inclines one to see all events in a sad and discouraging way.
Either disposition carried to its farthest limit is unphilosophical.
Good is not all good; bad is not all bad. Good and evil are
combined, like lights and shadows in art—sometimes, as in Rembrandt,
voluminous darkness nursing a small spot of light;
sometimes all light and hardly enough dark to cast a shadow.
“In looking at our own day and our own country there is
both light and shadow. There are reasons for criticism and regret,
but more for gladness and thanksgiving.
“Great excitements in monarchical governments are great
dangers. When the government takes care of the people, the
.bn 594.png
.pn +1
people feel little need of caring for themselves. When the people,
by the genius of their institutions, are to look out for themselves,
they learn how, like lofty trees, to let violent winds sway
all their branches without disturbing the root. That is anchored
fast.
“The roaring anger of the wind and the sharp cry of anguish
in the resisting branches soon pass and die away, and the tree,
unclasped by the demon Storm, comes back to peace, only a few
leaves lost, a few branches twisted.
“Three weeks ago a foreigner, beholding the superlative excitement
of the whole community, East, North, West, and South,
would have thought that there could never be peace more.
Newspapers flew like unquenchable arrows every whither, business
was almost forgotten, the streets were crowded processions,
meetings were convoked, and men of every profession, arguing,
appealing, inflamed the people. Friends let go each other’s
hands, families were divided for a time. Words ran high, every
truth was carried to the utmost limit of violence. A wordy
prophesy filled the land, of good or of evil. The lawyer forgot
his brief, the artist his æsthetic dream, the merchant his bargains,
the judge the plushy decorum of the bench. Refined ministers
of the Gospel, loving elegant retiracy, burst forth in interviews.
Venerable pastors presided at wild political demonstrations, and
some even went forth speaking up and down the land, like Saul
of old, in prophesying fury. Hundreds of honored and beloved
ministers marched in full panoply of zeal, like Balaam of old, to
curse....
“Three weeks have passed! It is all gone. No more banners,
lanterns, transparencies, or shouts of men. The lamps are
out, the men gone home to work, trades resumed, the lawyer to
the courts, the clergyman to his pulpit. The anger, the scare,
the grief of surprise that everybody had, that everybody should
have said or done what everybody did, is dying out, the sore
places are healing, friends are reaching out kindly hands again.
“The storm that darkened the heavens, the turbulent sea that
thundered on the shore, have resumed their peaceful mien. The
only mourners are they who sought and found not, who knocked
and unto whom it was not opened. Even they will ere long
cool their anger, shorten their sighs, and, like a weary child in its
mother’s lap, hide all its grief in sleep.”
.bn 595.png
.pn +1
Mr. Beecher was very much gratified, not only at the election
of Mr. Cleveland, for whom he had grown to feel a strong personal
friendship, and in whose administration, despite the occasional
mistakes that proved even the President to be subject to the
fallibilities of mankind, he found so much of moral courage, firmness,
and honest good sense to admire and approve, but in addition
to these reasons, he felt that an administration in which the
South should be permitted to have a part, meant the reuniting of
the country in fact as well as in name, and a fitting sequel to that
reconstruction which he had so earnestly advocated nearly twenty
years before. He had earnestly prayed that he might see the
day when our country should be one nation, without the lines of
a bitter sectionalism, dividing North from South or East from
West; and in his last year expressed the great satisfaction he felt
in the part he had been permitted to play in bringing about such
a result.
.bn 596.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch29'
CHAPTER XXIX.
.pm start_summary
A Preacher—His Place—His Training—His Estimate of the Work—Defects—Effectual
Call—Upon Drawing an Audience—His Theory—Preparation—Results—A
Theologian—His Orthodoxy—Evolution—Ordinances—Christian
Unity—Sectarianism—Peacemaker.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
It now belongs to us, among the closing chapters of this biography,
to speak of Henry Ward Beecher, or rather to allow
him, for the most part, to speak for himself, as a preacher,
a theologian, and an administrator of ordinances—three spheres
of activity so blended that it is of advantage to treat them together.
His doctrines necessarily shaped his preaching, his
preaching colored and emphasized his theology, and both together
determined his estimate of the Church as an organized
body, and the value of its rites and ceremonies.
Among them, the preacher stood pre-eminent. He himself
regarded preaching as especially his vocation, and in his judgment
it ranked highest of all earthly pursuits. Nowhere else
was he so happy as in this his chosen work. As a preacher he
was most widely known, and for his labors in this sphere, we
doubt not, he will be the longest remembered.
His field was broader than was ever before given to any
preacher, and no man that ever lived preached continuously to
so large and influential audiences. During his forty years in
Plymouth pulpit men from every part of the civilized world came
to hear him, and to every part of the civilized world did his published
sermons find their way, bringing instruction, inspiration,
and comfort to multitudes.
Of his rank as a preacher, it is not for us to speak dogmatically.
We stood too near him—perhaps all men of the present
time stand too near him—to be impartial judges. Many letters
and reports of sermons have come to us in which he is given the
first place among the preachers of this age, and a few, among
them some from men who themselves hold the first rank, place
him before all preachers since the Apostle Paul. Which of these,
.bn 597.png
.pn +1
or whether either, is the true estimate or not, it does not belong
to us nor to any man living to decide; but we believe that the
latter judgment will in time largely prevail.
The open heart that receives inspiration of God; the prophetic
insight of the true preacher that sees into the heart of
things, and sees God there, and believes, with an intense conviction
born of experience, that God’s nature is love; that this love
is not for the Jew only, for those of favored lineage, of excellent
position, of high moral standard and attainment, or of right belief,
but is for the Gentile, for the wandering, the erring, the
lost, outside the Church, outside even the sympathies and hope of
religious men, the only power that can save, but able to save to
the uttermost; the ability to see this love incarnated in Jesus
Christ and feel it as sunshine upon the soul, continually dispelling
the darkness; to love Him, as He is so manifested, with an
all-absorbing passion of personal affection, before which all
things pass away from their old adjustments and become new;
to see Him not only head of the Church, but head over all
things; to find in Him the centre of unity which the world
needs, middle walls of partition between Jew and Gentile, between
learned and unlearned, between ranks and classes, between
science and religion, broken down; the power to rejoice
in sufferings for His sake, to bear without faltering, to love
without failing, although “the more we love the less we be
loved”; the ability to open this Gospel to others, in speech that
moved all hearts, as the winds move the tree-tops, that never
touched an object, however common, but to leave it exalted, set
in some new and higher relation; the ability to move men to
think, to act, to love—all this, we believe, has never been possessed
to an equal degree with Mr. Beecher by any preacher
since Saint Paul preached to the Athenians, taking the altar of
the unknown god for his text; since he described charity to the
Corinthians, told the Colossians that all the creation consists,
stands in harmony, in Jesus Christ, and wrote the Epistle to the
Ephesians. Nor do we believe that to any one but to him
has there been given a work that so nearly resembled that of
the great Apostle to the Gentiles, whose part it was to bridge
over by a living faith, or rather by faith in a living One,
the vast differences that kept classes and orders and nationalities
separate; to give expression to the new and broader hope;
.bn 598.png
.pn +1
to reconcile the old to the new and more vital faith, and show
the relation of a risen Lord to a material universe. But in this
we may be unduly prejudiced by our affection. We will let the
sifting processes of the years decide.
That he became a minister, as did his brothers, by reason
of the unswerving faith and prayer of the parents, is already
well known. “Out of six sons not one escaped from the pulpit.”
“My mother dedicated me to the work of the foreign missionary;
she laid her hands upon me, wept over me, and set me
apart to preach the Gospel among the heathen, and I have been
doing it all my life long, for it so happens one does not need to
go far from his own country to find his audience before him.”
Ushered into the preparation for the ministry by the parental
faith, stumbling and discouraged and ready to give up the work,
another hand was not wanting to open still more clearly the way,
draw back the curtains, and let in the light:
“I beheld Him as a helper, as the soul’s midwife, as the soul’s
physician, and I felt because I was weak I could come to Him;
because I did not know how, and, if I did know, I had not the
strength, to do the things that were right—that was the invitation
that He gave to me out of my conscious weakness and want. I
will not repeat the scene of that morning when light broke fairly
on my mind; how one might have thought that I was a lunatic
escaped from confinement; how I ran up and down through the
primeval forest of Ohio, shouting, ‘Glory, glory!’ sometimes in
loud tones and at other times whispered in an ecstasy of joy and
surprise. All the old troubles gone, and light breaking in on my
mind, I cried: ‘I have found my God; I have found my God!’
From that hour I consecrated myself to the work of the ministry
anew, for before that I had about made up my mind to go into
some other profession.”
His early training-school for effective preaching was well
selected. It was, as is well known, one of the little villages on
the banks of the Ohio River, where the wants of river barge-men
and frontiermen demanded his attention. It was there he
decided what his life-work should be.
“‘My business shall be to save men, and to bring to bear
upon them those views that are my comfort, that are the bread
of life to me’; and I went out among them almost entirely cut
loose from the ordinary church institutions and agencies, knowing
.bn 599.png
.pn +1
nothing but ‘Christ, and Him crucified,’ the sufferer for
mankind. Did not the men round me need such a Saviour?
Was there ever such a field as I found? Every sympathy of my
being was continually solicited for the ignorance, for the rudeness,
for the aberrations, for the avarice, for the quarrelsomeness
of the men among whom I was, and I was trying every form and
presenting Christ as a medicine to men. I went through the
woods and through camp-meetings and over prairies. Everywhere
my vacations were all missionary tours, preaching Christ
for the hope of salvation. I am not saying this to show you how
I came to the knowledge of Christ, but to show you how I came
to the habit and forms of my ministry. I tried everything on to
folks.”
Added to the forces of experience and surroundings was
always that of his own personal, natural endowment. This he
found fault with and tried to change, as most people do at some
period of their lives, but finally accepted and concluded to use as
best he could, without murmuring, but always conscious of its
limitations.
“I have my own peculiar temperament, I have my own method
of preaching, and my method and temperament necessitate
errors. I am not worthy to be related in the hundred-thousandth
degree to those more happy men who never make a mistake in
the pulpit. I make a great many. I am impetuous. I am intense
at times on subjects that deeply move me. I feel as though
all the ocean were not strong enough to be the power behind my
words, nor all the thunders that were in the heavens, and it is of
necessity that such a nature as that should give such intensity at
times to parts of doctrine as to exaggerate them when you come
to bring them into connection with a more rounded-out and
balanced view. I know it—I know it as well as you do. I
would not do it if I could help it; but there are times when it is
not I that is talking, when I am caught up and carried away so
that I know not whether I am in the body or out of the body,
when I think things in the pulpit that I never could think in the
study, and when I have feelings that are so far different from any
that belong to the lower or normal condition that I neither can
regulate them nor understand them. I see things and I hear
sounds, and seem, if not in the seventh heaven, yet in a condition
that leads me to understand what Paul said—that he heard
.bn 600.png
.pn +1
things which it was not possible for a man to utter. I am acting
under such a temperament as that. I have got to use it, or not
preach at all. I know very well I do not give crystalline views
nor thoroughly guarded views; there is often an error on this
side and an error on that, and I cannot stop to correct them. A
man might run around, like a kitten after its tail, all his life, if
he were going around explaining all his expressions and all the
things he had written. Let them go. They will correct themselves.
The average and general influence of a man’s teaching
will be more mighty than any single misconception, or misapprehension
through misconception.”
Successful as he was, he yet had none of the self-conceit that
would lead him to believe that he had reached perfection; on
the contrary, his language was always that of one who had not
yet attained, but was continually reaching out unto it. “Young
gentlemen, I want to tell you true preaching is yet to come. Of
all professions for young men to look forward to, I do not know
another one that seems to me to have such scope before it, in the
future, as preaching.
“And as my years increase I want to bear a testimony. I
suppose I have had as many opportunities as any man here, or
any living man, of what are called honors and influence and
wealth. The doors have been opened, the golden doors, for
years. I want to bear witness that the humblest labor which a
minister of God can do for a soul for Christ’s sake is grander and
nobler than all learning, than all influence and power, than all
riches. And, knowing so much as I do of society, I have this
declaration to make: that if I were called to live my life over
again, and I were to have a chance of the vocations which men
seek, I would again choose, and with an impetus arising from
the experience of this long life, the ministry of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, for honor, for cleanliness, for work that never ends,
having the promise of the life that now is as well as of that
which is to come—I would choose the preaching of the Gospel:
to them that perish, foolishness; to them that believe and accept
it, life everlasting.”
And that not because of great success: “There is a deep enjoyment
in having devoted yourself, soul and body, to the welfare
of your fellow-men, so that you have no thought and no care but
for them. There is a pleasure in that which is never touched by
.bn 601.png
.pn +1
any ordinary experiences in human life. It is the highest. I
look back to my missionary days as being transcendently the
happiest period of my life. The sweetest pleasures I have ever
known are not those that I have now, but those that I remember,
when I was unknown, in an unknown land, among a scattered
people, mostly poor, and to whom I had to go and preach the
Gospel, man by man, house by house, gathering them on Sundays,
a few—twenty, fifty, or a hundred, as the case might be—and
preaching the Gospel more formally to them as they were
able to bear it.”
In his whole course we believe that he was as little moved
by personal ambition as any man could possibly be. Upon his
graduation he took the first church that asked for his services—as
undesirable a church at that time probably, in position, character,
and strength, as could well have been found. And the
two removes he made were the result of necessity rather than of
choice. He had no large and stock sermons with which to
awaken the admiration of men. Large subjects he had in plenty,
but the sermon was such as grew at the time.
From our knowledge of him we believe he spoke with absolute
truthfulness when he says:
“I have had no ambitions; I have sought no laurels; I have
deliberately rejected many things that would have been consonant
to my taste. It would have been for me a great delight to
be a scholar; I should have relished exceedingly to have perfected
my thought in the study, and to have given it such qualities
as that it should stand as classics stand. But when the
work was pressed upon me, and my relations to my own country
and to mankind became urgent, I remember, as if it were but
yesterday, when I laid my literary ambition and my scholarly
desires upon the altar and said: ‘If I can do more for my Master
and for men by my style of thinking and working, I am willing
to work in a second-rate way; I am willing to leave writing
behind my back; I am willing not to carve statues of beauty, but
simply to do the things that would please God in the salvation of
men.’”
He had not only no ambitions for himself, but he had no patience
in that seeking for place which, sometimes with the best
of intentions, ministers adopt. We well remember how, early in
our ministry, hearing that a larger church was offered to us, and
.bn 602.png
.pn +1
fearing lest, in our inexperienced zeal, we might accept, he telegraphed
us not to decide until we had seen him, but to come on
to Brooklyn, that he might urge upon us the importance of a
young man’s staying in his first parish until “he had done something,”
by which he meant doing the work he had gone there to
undertake.
Two things he considered essential to an effectual call to the
minister to change his parish: one was “an open door in front,
and the other was a kick from behind.” It was not enough that
there was an open door; some pressure of health or dissatisfaction
was needed to make a perfect call. What a man was to do
when he got the kick, and there was no open door in front, we do
not remember.
Again he writes me:
.pm start_quote
.ti 0
“My Dear Sam:
“It is not needful that a Christian should be a Stoic, and indifferent
to all experiences of success and popularity among
others; yet, if a straightforward working man finds that he does
not produce popular results, it is not for him to worry about it.
If a man reaches the true spirit, he will find a certain high and
solemn satisfaction, down deep in himself, that he is thoroughly
and earnestly faithful without the outward signs and remunerations.
“This is working ‘as unto the Lord,’ and not unto men. You
will find much of this in Paul, who was not popular, as Apollos
was, and who dug out his results by the hardest—and saw but little
at that—of all his real usefulness. Read 2 Cor. xii. 12-15. That
last verse is deeply affecting. It goes far beyond and below any
experience that you or I ever had. As to the not drawing large
audiences, my own experience is probably, in my early ministry,
far less encouraging than yours. My Lawrenceburg church held
about one hundred and fifty to two hundred, and was never
crowded. At Indianapolis I never saw my church really full but
three or four times in eight years. I think that my audience for
the first ten years of my preaching life did not average two hundred
and fifty.
“I never regarded myself as particularly popular, nor destined
to any considerable success more than belongs to any hard-working
and sensible minister. The fact is, when I came East I came
.bn 603.png
.pn +1
with a real but unexpressed determination to work hard for
common folks, and not to expect much; and I have become thoroughly
seasoned to the feeling that large, hard, and painful work,
heartily performed for Christ, is dearer to Him when it pays
nothing outwardly to the doer, than when, by overt success, it
gratifies the natural feelings.
“In this, too, we must learn ‘to walk by faith and not by sight,’
by the inside eyes and not by the outside vision.
“I think a minister who is discouraged should read the
eleventh and twelfth chapters of Second Corinthians every week.
It is the most wonderful record of experience ever penned, if
you consider how uncomplaining—without acrimony—how cheerful,
how wholesome and victorious is the whole spirit in which
his career is recited. It is not the language of a discouraged and
baffled man. It is the calm retrospect of a great nature, superior
in one part of his soul to experiences which he acutely feels
in another part.
.ll 68
.nf r
“Yours lovingly,
“H. W. Beecher.”
.nf-
.ll
.pm end_quote
His theory of preaching, which came to be formed out of his
experience of the grace of God and his labors for men, he himself
has given:
“To preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ; to have Christ so
melted and dissolved in you that when you preach your own
self you preach Him as Paul did; to have every part of you living
and luminous with Christ, and then to make use of everything
that is in you, your analogical reasoning, your logical reasoning,
your imagination, your mirthfulness, your humor, your indignation,
your wrath; to take everything that is in you all steeped in
Jesus Christ, and to throw yourself with all your power upon a
congregation—that has been my theory of preaching the Gospel.
A good many folks have laughed at the idea of my being a fit
preacher because I laughed, and because I made somebody else
laugh. I never went out of my way to do it in my life; but if
some sudden turn of a sentence, like the crack of a whip, sets
men off, I do not think any worse of it for that—not a bit. I
have felt that man should consecrate every gift that he has got in
him that has any relation to the persuasion of men and to the
melting of men—that he should put them all on the altar, kindle
them all, and let them burn for Christ’s sake. I have never
.bn 604.png
.pn +1
sought singularity, and I have never avoided singularity. When
they wanted some other sort of teaching I have always said, ‘Get
it. If you want my kind, here I am ready to serve you; if you
do not, serve yourself better.’”
For this preaching there was always going on a certain preparation,
almost involuntarily. It consisted in a constant study of
the processes of nature around him, examining them and digesting
them, until he saw the relations in which they stood to
other facts, and a principle was discovered or an illustration of
some deeper moral and spiritual truth was gained. This action
of his mind, we believe, became almost automatic. He had an
insatiable curiosity to learn facts. But he wanted them for the
same reason that a miller wants grain, to grind and make bread.
So he worked them over until he had got something from them
that fed his mind or heart, and this was the only way he could
remember them.
For this preaching there had been carried on for years a study
of the Bible. The evidences, found in note-books and books of
analysis, of his broad and painstaking study of the Gospels have
astonished us. People seeing him always on the wing, finding
him never in his study—in fact, having in his house no study-room,
as such—got the impression that he worked but little; but they
made a great mistake. He worked, but it was in his own way.
The winter that I saw him most he had Stanley’s “Commentary
upon the Epistles to the Corinthians,” which he carried for weeks
in his carpet-bag, studied, and annotated from beginning to end.
Mr. Pond, who has travelled with him thousands of miles, says
that Bible reading and study was a part of his daily work while
on the train.
The results of such reading and study appear in scores of
little note-books that he used, some of which lie before us, containing
subjects, heads of sermons jotted down at moments of
inspiration, in the family circle, on the railroad, in the street-car,
after a talk with some friend, written for the most part in that
strong, full hand that is so well known, sometimes plainly, at
other times so obscurely as to make it doubtful if he himself
could read it after it had become cold.
This was his method of getting subjects. These were the
acorn thoughts, out of which grew up in time strong, wide-spreading
oak-tree sermons.
.bn 605.png
.pn +1
With eyes wide open to see things, he kept his active sympathy
and hearty fellow-feeling for men in exercise by constant
intercourse with those about him. Some have a regard for
mankind in general, but only criticism and coldness for the concrete
specimen before them. This was not the case with him;
he liked the common men of the present, and made it an object
to get acquainted with them and to be with them. Very seldom
did he cross the river on the ferry-boat but he made his way up
into the pilot-house, to which a key had been given him, to have
a talk with the pilot.
We have been often asked, “How does Mr. Beecher prepare
his sermons?” His general preparation we have already given.
The more special preparation for preaching on the Sabbath began
on Saturday and consisted in doing as little work as possible—doing
what pleased him, making it a kind of active rest-day.
Perhaps, if the weather permitted, he ran up to Peekskill to look
over the place, and get rid of all friction and rasp by giving attention
to its common and homely details, or to feed his imagination
by looking out upon its beautiful landscape. Perhaps he
spent it in the city. If so, he has probably been over to New
York, looking into shop-windows, dropping into Appleton’s to
look at books, or into Tiffany’s to look at gems, having a little chat
in each place with some of the clerks. You may be sure he did
not forget his afternoon nap of from one to two hours; wherever
he was he aimed to secure that. He has fed well to-day, but
has been careful not to eat anything that does not agree with
him. He will have the body in perfect order for the great
work of the morrow. The evening he spent quietly at home,
or, possibly, ran into one or two of the homes where he
was most familiar, where he could have his own way and
be not bored by anybody’s trying to draw him out into
some excited discussion. If you had followed him there
you would very likely have found him taking his ease upon
the sofa, while the family life went on around him, in which he
took part by humorous sallies or quiet suggestions, as the fancy
prompted him; home and a few games of backgammon with Mrs.
Beecher, and to bed by eleven o’clock. Up to this time he has
not decided upon the subject or text that he will handle on the
morrow; to have chosen it so early as this, especially to have
written any part of it down, would have killed his sermon the
.bn 606.png
.pn +1
next day. He could not have kindled up to it and made it a
living thing, if it had been for so long a time buried on parchment.
Even upon so important a matter as his first lecture of
the Lyman Beecher lectureship in Yale College—a new enterprise,
with the faculty of the college as well as the clergymen of the
city present, and his lecture to be reported in the religious press—he
did not touch pen to paper until after he had reached New
Haven, taken dinner, had his nap, and was within an hour of its
delivery, although of course the subject-matter had been for a
long time a-brewing. Then while shaving the outline came clear
to his mind, and he slashed his face with his razor in his eagerness,
but his lecture secured the hearty and grateful commendation
of Dr. Leonard Bacon, who said: “If I had heard such talk
as that before I began to preach, it would have made a better
preacher of me.”
The decision was made in a general way when he awoke in the
morning—that is, the kind of sermon he would preach that day. If
he was heavy and a little cloudy in the higher faculties, he would
select a subject that was in harmony with that state of mind. If
he was stirred in spirit and imagination, a subject that drew upon
those higher elements, and that ministered to the same in others,
would be decided upon. There was no approach to a sanctimonious
expression on his face as he came down to the breakfast-table,
and he did not refuse to take part in the conversation,
whatever it might be; and very likely there would some humorous
remark drop from his lips, or he would steal the bread
from the plate of one of the children as usual. Yet it was all
done with the air of a man that had something that engaged his
attention apart from us. Family prayers were likely to be short
that morning, and if there were any of those delays that sometimes
occur in the best-regulated families, he would depute some one
else to conduct them. And then he locked himself in his own
room, and for an hour and a half must be left undisturbed,
except in the case of some imperative necessity, and then to be
approached by no one but his wife. No noise in the halls. The
hour of the whole week had come to him, and he must have it
without interruption. Of course none of us, and no one but
God, ever saw him in that hour, but we know that then he made
his final and definite selection of a subject, perhaps taking it from
one of those little note-books; that he wrote with his goose-quill
.bn 607.png
.pn +1
pen, upon large sheets of paper, his introduction; that he put
down head after head, with such opening as the time permitted,
and gave a word of illustration here and there. The vision stood
before him, and as hastily as possible he sketched the outline.
As the bell began to ring for the last time, some fifteen minutes
before the opening of the service, he would come out with his
papers hastily thrown together and held in his hand, or thrust
into his coat-pocket, and, with scarcely a word to any one, put
on his hat, take Mrs. Beecher on his arm, and start for the
church.
This hour may be shortened. It may be spent in some other
place than in his study, but as a rule it was had, this time of
supreme choice and arrangement, and jotting down the heads of
his sermon. As an extreme illustration of his powers of making
all places available, and to seize the most outwardly unpropitious
surroundings for this final preparation, I can say from personal
knowledge that the notes of the sermon which he preached in
Charleston in 1865 to the thousands in Zion Church, and which
was one of great scope and power, was outlined in the outhouse of
the home where we were stopping, on scraps of envelopes which
he happened to have with him. From thence we went directly
to the church and to the delivery of that grand sermon. When
I spoke to him afterwards about the sermon and its power, he
said: “The vision came to me there, and if I could only have
brought it out as I saw it, it would have been worth hearing; but
I could not.”
When he preached upon the occasion of the two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Congregational
Church in Stamford, he came into my house hastily, stopping
only long enough to kiss his daughter as he hurried upstairs. In
about fifteen minutes he came down, putting away some notes in
his side-pocket, and said to her: “Well, I have got my sermon
ready for the evening.” This was in the forenoon. Being prepared
so long beforehand, it got cold before the time for its delivery,
and when he went into the pulpit he felt barren and dry.
Neither the singing by the choir nor the prayer by a brother minister,
of which he spoke afterwards very highly, gave him the desired
relief, and he sat with the fixed, settled expression of a man
who is bound to do his duty as well as he can; but to those who
knew him well there was a lack of the light in the eye and the
.bn 608.png
.pn +1
deep, full, restful look of countenance which was marked in him
when he was all prepared. It happened that we had at that time
a solo-singer of great richness and sweetness of voice, and she
sang for an offertory just before preaching. “The Three Kings
of the Orient.” The sympathetic rendering of the words of that
beautiful solo smote the rock; the waters gushed out and suffused
soul and intellect, and the sermon was one of great power
and beauty.
Because of its adaptation to awaken devotion in his own
heart and in the hearts of his audience he valued organ music,
but it must be rendered by one who himself felt its power and
could express this feeling through the instrument. If the organist
failed in this, no brilliancy of execution nor facility in rendering
popular tunes could atone for the fundamental lack. By
reason of John Zundel’s ability to express and interpret religious
emotion he valued him above all players that ever officiated at the
organ in Plymouth Church. As with the organ, so with the
choir. No efficiency in the leader of the choir, in the machinery,
could atone for the lack of appreciation of the devotional element
in the music.
In the Scripture-reading he was himself, feeding upon the
word which he read, drinking in and appropriating its truths;
and in the prayer he came to the fountain-head, to Christ Himself,
for refreshing and life power.
And now for the sermon itself. For the first few moments
his eyes followed the manuscript closely. He seemed to be reading;
perhaps he was, and perhaps there were only catch sentences
upon the page which he was scanning so carefully. He was
gathering his forces, getting under headway, making preparatory
explanations, divisions, and definitions. He will get into the full,
rushing current of thought and feeling and speech presently.
We can liken the whole process to nothing better than the
descent of some of our Western rivers under the care of a skilful
guide. You get into the boat in some sheltered cove. He takes
the oar and pushes out gently but strongly, points out the
rocks on either side and avoids them, and makes his way around
some tree-top that has fallen in from the shore. Like to this
was often Mr. Beecher’s opening. The current now is felt and
begins to bear you along on its bosom, and in that hour all your
life-experiences are gone over or pointed out to you. You are
.bn 609.png
.pn +1
in the shallows where life seems poor and worthless, and he
shows you how to find the deeper channels. He points out the
pleasant places on the shore, and shows you where living springs
burst out; takes you under the shadow of the lofty trees whose
branches sweep down within your reach, and anon out under the
clear, sun-lighted heaven. Swirls of temptation are before you,
and he shows you how to steer straight through or how to avoid
them. You are now in the very rapids, in the rush of the life
that for six days in the week is roaring around you, and all
things seem to be rushing to destruction; but this man is not
disturbed. He is no still-water pilot. He has thoroughly studied
that river and knows all its dangers. Through the fiercest
rapids that ever boat was called upon to pass he will guide you
safely; over the deepest fall that ever boats must venture he will
stand by you. He goes with you until he has brought you into
some quiet spot of God’s great and present mercy, or perhaps to
the mouth of the river and in sight of the islands of the blest.
What a hand was that, so gentle, skilful, strong! What a voice,
so clear, tender, inspiring, confident! What a heart, that knew
all the ways of sorrow! What a guide and helper he was!
“O my father! my father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen
thereof!”
In the largeness of his audience, in his power over them for
the time being, there can be no question; but how about the permanent
results in growth and strength of Christian character, in
making men and women Christlike?—for this, as he would be
first to claim, is the only true success. Our first witness here, of
course, must be Plymouth Church, the body that received most
impress from the word he preached and the life he lived. One
of the largest churches in the land, it has been called a drag-net
“which has been cast into the sea and has gathered of every
kind.” And undoubtedly it has its proportion of human weakness
and imperfections, but, after making all deductions of this
nature, it nevertheless remains true that, tried by all the tests
that can apply to a church, it will answer as well as any that can be
found. It has been singularly harmonious and free from quarrels
and contention, and that under trials the like of which few churches
have ever been called to endure. Its failures in Christian
character have been as few; its works have been as broad and
beneficent; its weekly care to provide for strangers that visited
.bn 610.png
.pn +1
it as hospitable; its benevolent contributions as generous, we
believe, as those of any other church. But, deeper than all this,
and better than all, the spirit that has pervaded the church has
been unusually kind, helpful, Christlike.
It was said that it had no life separate from Mr. Beecher.
But the bearing of that body since the death of its pastor has
given an emphatic denial to that statement. From the day that
his body lay in state, and its members gathered like a stricken
household around the coffin, the church, to all outward appearances,
has been growing more earnest in developing its powers,
more loving in its spirit. The seed so long planted is bearing
fruit, the benediction so long resting upon it is showing its
beauty, and is proving that indeed it is the fruit of but one
thing, and that is the Gospel of God’s dear Son, of Jesus the
Christ.
But other witnesses rise up to testify—troubled, weary, heartbroken
souls the world over, who have read the sermons as they
have come to them from Plymouth pulpit; and they bear witness
that this one spake as he was moved of the Holy Ghost, that his
message was of Him who came to heal the sick, to raise the dead,
to set at liberty the captive.
We call to the witness-stand all ministers and all denominations
of every name who have ever read his sermons or heard
him preach, and they will testify that his message was of God.
Yea, we will go beyond this circle and ask those of other pursuits—laborers,
workers, soldiers, actors—if there has not shone
upon them something of the light that our Saviour shed upon all
classes and conditions of men, and their answer will be unanimously
in the affirmative. We go beyond the personality of
men and come into the realm of beliefs and relationships, and
affirm, without fear of denial, that theology is to-day more truthful,
science more devout, religion more attractive, sectarianism
less bitter, churches more loving, politics purer, property more
humane, labor more faithful, social ranks more tolerant, and
nations brought nearer together, by reason of the preaching of
the Gospel by Henry Ward Beecher.
To speak of Mr. Beecher as a theologian will awaken, we are
well aware, a smile of incredulity with many. It will be said that
theology was not his forte; that he seldom made use of the term
except to make fun of it, or of those who were its exponents and
.bn 611.png
.pn +1
teachers. Now, we acknowledge that we might give a definition
of this science in which he would appear to very poor advantage.
But if theology can be considered as the knowledge of God in
His relations to living men and to this present world, then was
Mr. Beecher a theologian excelled by few now living or that ever
have lived. He had this knowledge of God. It was as real to him
as his own existence. He had the nature and order of God’s attributes
very clearly settled in his own mind. He had His relations
with the whole universe in which He dwelt very thoroughly
outlined in his thought. He had his own system, upon which he
worked from day to day, which included all existences and orders,
and all times, and all worlds; that, as he believed, had a place for
all truth that had ever been lived or revealed, and for all that
ever should be lived or revealed, here, or in Saturn, or Sirius, in
this present time or in the ages of ages. He made a great deal
of fun of theologians, sometimes because of the one-sidedness of
their views, sometimes because of their dryness, at others because
of their pretensions, and partly because all classes of men
were, in his view, at times objects of legitimate mirth-making.
Yet nevertheless he greatly valued them and their work.
“Now, young gentlemen,” he said in his “Lectures to Yale
Students,” “I have often indulged myself in words that would
seem to undervalue theologians; but you know I do not mean it.
I profess to be a theologian myself; my father was a theologian;
my brothers are all theologians, and so are many men whom I
revere, and who are the brightest lights of genius, I think, that
have ever shone in the world. I believe in theologians, and
yet I think it is perfectly fair to make game of them! I do not
think there is anything in this world, whether it be man or that
which is beneath a man, that is not legitimate food for innocent,
innocuous fun; and if it should cast a ray of light on the truth
and alleviate the tediousness of a lecture now and then to have a
slant at theologians, why, I think they can stand it! It will not
hurt them and it may amuse us. So let me speak freely—the
more so because I affirm that it is indispensable for every man
who is to do a considerable religious work during a long period,
or with any degree of self-consistency, to be a theologian. He
must have method; there must be a sequence of ideas in his
thoughts. And if the work runs long enough and far enough,
and embraces many things, there must be a system of applying
.bn 612.png
.pn +1
means to ends, there must be a knowledge of instruments.
These things are theology in a sense—a part of it, at any rate.”
Equally indispensable, in his view, was it that a man have a
theology that would change by growth:
“As summer makes the tree so much larger that the bark
has to let out a seam, because the old bark will not do for the
new growth, and as the same thing takes place from season to
season, so mental philosophy—for all theology is mental philosophy—changes
from age to age through both obvious and latent
causes.”
His bearing towards theological questions was largely decided,
as he tells us, by his own religious experience, and by the
controversies which in his early life were raging around him:
“In the first place, let me say that my early religious experience
has colored all my life. I was sympathetic by nature, I was
loving, I was mercurial, I was versatile, I was imaginative. I was
not a poet executively, but sympathetically I was in union with
the whole universal life and beauty of God’s world and with all
human life. My earliest religious training was at home. My
father’s public teaching may be called alleviated Calvinism.
Even under that the iron entered my soul. There were days
and weeks in which the pall of death over the universe could not
have made it darker to my eyes than those in which I thought:
‘If you are elected you will be saved, and if you are not elected
you will be damned, and there is no hope for you.’ I wanted to
be a Christian. I went about longing for God as a lamb bleating
longs for its mother’s udder, and I stood imprisoned behind
those iron bars: ‘It is all decreed. It is all fixed. If you are
elected you will be saved anyhow; if you are not elected you
will perish.’ While in that state, and growing constantly and
warmly in sympathy with my father, in taking sides with orthodoxy
that was in battle in Boston with Unitarianism, I learned of
him all the theology that was current at that time. In the quarrels
also between Andover and East Windsor and New Haven and
Princeton—I was at home in all these distinctions. I got the
doctrines just like a row of pins on a paper of pins. I knew them
as a soldier knows his weapons. I could get them in battle array.
I went from my college life immediately to the West, and there I
fell into another fuliginous Christian atmosphere when the Old
School and the New School Presbyterians were wrangling, and the
.bn 613.png
.pn +1
Church was split, and split on the rock of slavery, and my father
was tried for believing that a man could obey the commandments
of God, and Dr. Wilson was contending against him in church
courts that men had no ability, either moral or physical, to obey
God; and the line of division ran all through the State, and
there was that tremendous whirl of Old School theology, old
Calvinism and new Calvinism, and by the time I got away from
the theological seminary I was so sick—no tongue can tell how
sick I was of the whole medley. How I despised and hated this
abyss of whirling controversies that seemed to me to be filled
with all manner of evil things, of everything, indeed, but Christ!
And then on one memorable day, whose almost every cloud I
remember, whose high sun and glowing firmament and waving
trees are vivid yet, there arose before me, as if an angel had
descended, a revelation of Christ as being God, because He
knew how to love a sinner; not that He would love me when
I was true and perfect, but because I was so wicked that I should
die if He did not give Himself to me, and so inconstant that I
never should be steadfast—as if He were saying to me: ‘Because
you are sinful I am yours.’ Before that thought of a God who
sat in the centre and seat of power, that He might bring glory
and restoration to everything that needed Him, I bowed down in
my soul, and from that hour to this it has been my very life to
love and to serve the all-helping and pitiful God.” This was
addressed to the association of which he was a member.
One who was present wrote that while he was saying this “he
seemed to lose consciousness of his audience; his voice, although
clear and distinct, became low and gentle; he was carried away
by one of those very inspirations which he was describing; and
when he spoke of the revelation of Christ to himself, as one who
loved men because they needed love, his face underwent a marvellous
change: it seemed transparent with a radiant light, like a
sunset glow on the Alps, while rapid and instantaneous changes
of expression passed over it, such as can only be compared to
heat-lightning silently playing over the golden clouds of a summer
evening.”
From this living experience there came into existence an
order of truths. “As I went on, and more and more tried to
preach Christ, the clouds broke away and I began to have a distinct
system in my own mind.” There grew up also a very
.bn 614.png
.pn +1
decided dislike and oppugnance to much of the theology that
was then in vogue, for it seemed to stand in the way of men
instead of helping them:
“I dedicated myself, not to be a fisher of ideas, nor of books,
nor of sermons, but a fisher of men, and in this work I very soon
came to the point in which I felt dissatisfied with the views of
God that had been before given. I felt dissatisfied with that
whole realm of theology which I now call the machinery of religion,
which has in it some truth, and I would it had more. But
I came to have this feeling, that it stood in the way of sinful
men. I found men in distress, in peril of soul, on account of
views which I did not believe were true, or, if true, not in any
such proportion. If you want to know why I have been fierce
against theology, that is it: because I thought with Mary, and I
said time and again, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I
know not where they have laid Him.’ It seemed to me that men
could not believe in such a God as I heard preached about, that
men could not believe such a schedule of truth as I had seen
crystallized and promoted among men. I do not care the turn
of my hand about a man’s philosophy; I do not care about one
system or another; any system that will bring a man from darkness
to faith and love I will tolerate; and any system that lets
down the curtain between God and men, whether it is canonical
priest or church service or church methods, whether it is the
philosophical or theological—anything that blurs the presence of
God, anything that makes the heavens black and the heart hopeless,
I will fight it to the death.”
But how about his orthodoxy? He says: “I hold there is
but one orthodoxy, and that all others are bastard orthodoxies.
The orthodoxy of the heart, that loves God, and loves man to such
an extent that it is willing to suffer for him, and to endure hardship
for the sake of the love it bears to men—that is the true
orthodoxy, and there is none other.”
He said in an address given at a meeting of Congregational
ministers in London in September, 1886:
“I think I am as orthodox a man as there is in this world.
Well, what are the tests of orthodoxy? Man universally is a
sinner; man universally needs to be born again; there is in the
nature of God that power and influence that can convert a man
and redeem him from his animal life; and it is possible for man
.bn 615.png
.pn +1
so to bring to bear this divine influence in the ministration of the
Gospel as that men shall be awakened, and convicted, and converted,
and built up in the faith of Jesus Christ. There is my
orthodoxy. But how about the Trinity? I do not understand
it, but I accept it. If anybody else understands it I have not
met him yet; but it seems to me that that is the easiest way of
rendering the different testimonies or words of truth in the New
Testament, neither do I see any philosophical objection to it at
all, and I accept it without questioning. What about original
sin? There has been so much actual transgression that I have
not had time to go back on to that. On what grounds may a
man hope? On the atonement of Christ? Yes, if you want to
interpose that word, atonement, on that ground, unquestionably,
I am accustomed to say Christ saves men. But how? That is
His look-out, not mine. I think that because the nature of God
is sanative, God is love. ‘If ye, being evil, know how to give
good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father
which is in heaven give good gifts to them which ask Him?’ If
you choose to fix it in this way, and say that Christ saw it possible
to do thus and so, and that was the atonement He made—if
you take any comfort in it, I shall not quarrel with you. But it
is enough for me to know this, that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh,
has proclaimed, to whosoever will, health, life, new life—‘born
again.’ He has offered these, and therefore I no more want
to question how he does it than a sick man questions the doctor
before he takes a pill. If he says, ‘Doctor, what is in it?’ the
doctor says, ‘Take it and you will find out what is in it.’ If
men think I am heterodox because I do not believe this, that,
and the other explanation of the atonement of Jesus Christ, it is
enough for me to say I believe in Christ, and I believe Christ is
atonement. Now, if you ask me whether I believe in the divinity
of Christ, I do not believe in anything else. Let a man stand
and look at the sun, then ask him what he sees beside. Nothing:
it blinds him. There is nothing else to me when I am thinking
of God: it fills the whole sphere, the heaven of heavens, and the
whole earth and all time; and out of that boundlessness of love
and that infiniteness of divine faculty and capacity it seems to me
that He is, to my thought, what summer is when I see it marching
on after the cold winter is over. I know where the light
comes from and where the warmth comes from. When I see anything
.bn 616.png
.pn +1
going on for good and for the staying of evil I know it is
the Sun of Righteousness, and the name to me is Jesus—every
time Jesus. For Him I live, for Him I love, for Him I labor, for
Him I rejoice in my remaining strength, for Him I thank God
that I have yet so much in me that can spend and be spent for
the only one great cause, which should lift itself above every
other cause in this whole world.”
Concerning one other doctrine, future punishment, he states
his belief as follows:
“I have my own philosophical theories about the future life;
but what is revealed to my mind is simply this: The results of a
man’s conduct reach over into the other world on those that are
persistently and inexcusably wicked, and man’s punishment in
the life to come is of such a nature and of such dimensions as
ought to alarm any man and put him off from the dangerous
ground and turn him toward safety. I do not think we are authorized
by the Scriptures to say that it is endless in the sense in
which we ordinarily employ that term. So much for that, and
that is the extent of my authoritative teaching on that subject.”
From his life-long interest in material science it may well be
supposed that he watched the development of the theory of evolution
with the greatest eagerness. It was not, in substance, unknown
to him:
“Slowly, and through a whole fifty years, I have been under
the influence, first obscurely, imperfectly, of the great doctrine
of evolution. In my earliest preaching I discerned that the
kingdom of heaven is a leaven, not only in the individual soul
but in the world; the kingdom is as a grain of mustard-seed. I
was accustomed to call my crude notion a seminal theory of the
kingdom of God in this world. Later I began to feel that science
had struck a larger view, and that this unfolding of seed
and blade and ear in spiritual things was but one application of
a great cosmic doctrine which underlay God’s methods in universal
creation, and was notably to be seen in the whole development
of human society and human thought. That great truth—through
patient accumulations of fact, and marvellous intuitions
of reason, and luminous expositions of philosophic relation, by
men trained in observation, in thinking, and in expression—has
now become accepted throughout the scientific world. Certain
parts of it yet are in dispute, but substantially it is the doctrine
.bn 617.png
.pn +1
of the scientific world. And that it will furnish—nay, is already
bringing—to the aid of religious truth as set forth in the life and
teachings of Jesus Christ a new and powerful aid, fully in line
with other marked developments of God’s providence in this His
world, I fervently believe.”
He had great hope from the influence he felt certain it would
exert:
“The theology that is rising upon the horizon will still rise.
I cannot hope that it will be the perfect theology, but it will be
a regenerated one, and I think far more powerful than the old—a
theology of hope, and of love, which shall cast out fear. Nay,
more, it is to be a theology that will run nearer to the spirit and
form of Christ’s own teachings, He who found the tenderness of
Divine Providence in the opening lilies of the field, and the
mighty power of God’s kingdom in the unfolding of germ and
leaf and fruit.”
Mr. Beecher’s view of ordinances was in harmony with his
practical view of preaching and of theology. To his mind the
ordinance was appointed by God because it helped men, and was
to be continued on that same ground, and the form best suited
to that end was the one he adopted. The form of church government
and of administration of ordinances was left uncertain, because
it was to be adapted to the peculiar conditions of the times
or the circumstances of people. It was of principle rather than
of rule. It was the expression of the new life rather than of
any artificial arrangement. Hence he believed that different
forms of church government and different methods of administering
ordinances were equally Scriptural, and to be adopted
without controversy if they secured the end in view—the bringing
into and training up of men in Christ Jesus—and equally antagonistic
to the New Testament view when they were a mere form.
But of this he himself has spoken somewhat at length:
“Now, there is one more thing that I want to say something
about—that is, church economy, ordination, and ordinance. I
regard it as true that there is laid down in the New Testament
no form of church government whatever nor of church ordinance—none.
Paul did not see the outlines of the Church; they grew,
they developed out of the nature of things. And so I say, in
regard to all church worship, that is the best form of church
economy that in the long run helps men to be the best Christians.
.bn 618.png
.pn +1
Whatever thing is found when applied to human nature
to do good, that is God’s ordinance. If there are any men that
worship God through the Roman Catholic Church—and there
are—I say this in regard to them: ‘I cannot, but you can; God
bless you!’ In that great, venerable church there is Gospel
enough to save any man, no man need perish for want of light
and truth in that system; and yet what an economy it is, what an
organization, what burdens, and how many lurking mischiefs that
temptation will bring out! I could never be a Roman Catholic,
but I could be a Christian in a Roman Catholic Church; I could
serve God there. I believe in the Episcopacy—for those that
want it. Let my tongue forget its cunning if I ever speak a
word adverse to that church that brooded my mother, and now
broods some of the nearest blood kindred I have on earth. It is
a man’s own fault if he do not find salvation in the teachings and
worship of the great Episcopal body of the world. I was for ten
years a member of the Presbyterian Church, for I swore to the
Confession of Faith; but at that time my beard had not grown.
The rest of the Book of Worship has great wisdom in it, and,
rather than not have any brotherhood, I would be a Presbyterian
again if they would not oblige me to swear to the Confession of
Faith. On the other hand, my birthright is in the Congregational
Church. I was born in it, it exactly agreed with my temperament
and my ideas; and it does yet, for although it is in many
respects slow-moulded, although in many respects it has not the
fascinations in its worship that belong to the high ecclesiastical
organizations, though it makes less for the eye and less for the
ear, and more for the reason and the emotions, though it has
therefore slender advantages, it has this: that it does not take
men because they are weak and crutch them up upon its worship,
and then just leave them as weak after forty years as they
were when it found them. A part of its very idea is so to meet
the weakness of men as that they shall grow stronger; to preach
the truth and then wait till they are able to seize that truth and
live by it. It works slowly, but I tell you that when it has
finished its work it makes men in the community.”
“I immerse, I sprinkle, and I have in some instances poured,
and I never saw there was any difference in the Christianity that
was made. They have all, for that matter, come out so that I
should not know which was immersed or which was sprinkled.
.bn 619.png
.pn +1
“The unity of Christians does not depend upon similarity of ordinance
or methods of worship. It is a hard business. I do not believe
the millennium will see one sect, one denomination, any more
than the perfection of civilization will see only one great phalanstery,
one family. The man on this side of the street keeps house
in one way, and the man over on the other side keeps house in
another. They do not quarrel; each lets the other alone. So I
hold about churches. The unity of the Church is to be the unity
of the hearts of men—spiritual unity in the love of Christ and
in the love of each other. Do not, then, meddle with the details
of the way in which different persons choose to conduct their
service. Let them alone; behave at least as decently in the
church of Christ as you would do in your neighborhood and in
each other’s families. I do not know why they should not concurrently
work in all the great causes of God among mankind. I
am not, therefore, to teach Congregationalism, I am not to teach
the Baptist doctrine, I am not to teach Presbyterianism; I am to
preach ‘O ye that are lost by reason of your sins, Jesus Christ
has found a ransom for you; come, come, and ye shall live.’
That is my message, and in that I have enthusiasm. It is not to
build up one church or another church, or to cry down one
church or another. Brethren, we have been trying conscience for
a great while; what have we got by it? About one hundred and
fifty denominations. There is nothing so unmanageable as a
conceited conscience. Now, suppose we should try another
thing; suppose we should try love a little while; suppose we
should try sympathy, trust, fellowship, brotherhood, without
inquisitorial power; suppose we should let men’s theologies
take care of themselves, and bring this test to bear upon
them: What is the fruit of their personal living, and what is the
fruit of their personal teaching? ‘By their fruits shall ye know
them’ did not exhaust itself in personal thought alone. It is a
good test for denominationalism, and whenever I find a denomination
that puts emphasis upon holiness, where there is no envy,
nor detraction, nor backbiting, nor suspicion, nor holding each
man to philosophical schedules, when I find a denomination in
which they are full of love and gentleness and kindness, I am
going to join that denomination. But I do not expect to change
for some time.”
His estimate of sectarianism was very low:
.bn 620.png
.pn +1
“The selfishness that inheres in the very elements of sectarianism
is radically opposed to the spirit of the Gospel. Love
works from within outward. Selfishness or sectarianism works
from without inward. One is centrifugal, the other is centripetal.
The only difference between a pious denominational spirit
and sectarianism is the difference between a cub and a full-grown
wolf. You may baptize your wolf every year with what
soft names you please; it is a wolf still, that will never cease to
make havoc on the flock. As for ourselves, in all this tumult of
men running up and down throughout the vast and misty realm
of ecclesiasticism, we will none of it. There is a fairer realm,
there are brighter skies, distilling selecter influences. We are
well satisfied that this world will never behold any earthly force
so great as the heart of man irradiated by the fire of Christ, and
turned in all its warmth upon men; hence our prayer for our
brethren shall not be for esprit de corps but for esprit de Christ.”
And so, wherever he was, we find him bearing one character.
In the matter of rituals he grasped the reality, as he
thought, and, looking at men on either side of him, asking, not
surrender of principle, but charity. And all sects found that
they had something in common with him.
In doctrines, while accused of heresy, yet, when making a full
statement of his belief before the New York and Brooklyn Association,
or the meeting of Congregational ministers in England,
his views received the heartiest commendation from men of all
shades of opinion; while as a preacher what multitudes of every
class and of all sects have been brought together in Plymouth
Church!
Among parties, except when in the very onset, it was the
same. When the battle had been fought, not a blow more than
was necessary to secure the victory, not an act for revenge. In
the very midst of the war of the Rebellion, in 1862, as we have
already mentioned, he said, “I think I never pray for the loyal
States without praying, at least in thought, if not in utterance, for
those misguided men in the South that wage this rebellion; and,
let me tell you, I have a tender place in my heart for them.”
And when the war had ceased he stood up for what he deemed
best for their prosperity, at the loss, for the moment, of a great
deal of his popularity at the North. In England he plead,
with no tones of fear but with manly words, for peace between
.bn 621.png
.pn +1
the mother and daughter. In this age of spiritual growth on
one side and materialistic tendencies on the other, Mr. Beecher,
born with an intense love for nature, given a surpassingly deep
and rich Christian experience, and reconciling them both in himself,
and feeling that each interprets and enriches the other, and
both are unified in Him who is the head over all, became—he
was raised up for that purpose—a mediator between the deepest
spiritual experience and the most advanced stage of real
science.
One scene illustrates his true position—the place he has
held between many diversities, and the one that we are sure
will be more and more recognized as his as the years go by. It
was when the delegates from England were presenting their credentials
to the National Council of Congregationalists in Boston, at
about the close of the war. There was a very sore feeling in the
hearts of many of the loyal people of the North at the position of
antagonism that their brethren in England and Wales had taken in
the great Rebellion, and it happened that the delegates present had
belonged very decidedly to the obnoxious side. The question
was upon receiving them, and several speeches had been made,
and it seemed that a very unpleasant result would be reached.
At last Mr. Beecher was recognized and called to the platform.
In a few words he described the situation, represented the failure
of each side in the great matter of Christian charity, showed
how grand an opportunity was given to illustrate this highest of
Christian virtues, and closed by reaching down and clasping a
hand of each delegate, while the whole audience of venerable
ministers and delegates arose and showed their delight by cheers
and waving of handkerchiefs. It was his rightful place, won
by years of patient charity. Other names have been given him.
He has been called Reformer, War Trumpet, Popular Lecturer,
Preacher. They are all good, but we lift a name that we never
remember to have seen applied to him, but which is his by right,
which represents the resultant of all his life of toil and battle—the
name which belongs to him as to but few men that ever lived—and
place it lovingly upon his brow, while our eyes long for
the look which he used to give: the name “Peacemaker”; and
the familiar words come with a new significance as if spoken for
him, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children
of God.”
.bn 622.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch30'
CHAPTER XXX.
.pm start_summary
Love of the Country—Communion with Nature—Farming at Salisbury—Lenox—Matteawan—The
Peekskill Farm.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
Like the fabled Antæus of old, Mr. Beecher found strength
by contact with old Mother Earth; not only that, but
rest, health, and inspiration; while from the study of natural
processes, in which he delighted, he gained a deep insight
into the beautiful and, to so many eyes, hidden mysteries of nature,
which was a never-failing source of comfort and pleasure to
him through all his life—a rich treasury, from which he drew so
much of that illustrative imagery which illuminated and beautified
his writings and speeches. If Earth was the mother, Nature was
the grandmother, equally beloved and loving. Nothing that came
from her hands was uninteresting; each and every of her children
found a true and faithful brother in Mr. Beecher, to whom in
turn they showed that trust and confidence that opened up to him
such glorious visions, such secrets, full of exquisite beauty, vouchsafed
to but few among mankind. Of course he was fond of fishing
and hunting. Not that he ever shot or caught anything: he
was generally innocent of any such charge. He loved to tramp
the woods, and stroll along the brookside, ostensibly hunting or
fishing, but really communing with nature. The gun and rod
were only for pretext. We take his own confessions:
“But, aside from the pleasure which arises in connection
with seeking or taking one’s prey, we suspect that the collateral
enjoyments amount, often, to a greater sum than all the rest:
the early rising, the freshness of those morning hours preceding
the sun, which few anti-piscatory critics know anything about;
that wondrous early-morning singing of birds, compared to which
all after-day songs are mere ejaculations—for such is the tumult
and superabundance of sweet noise, soon after four o’clock in
summer, that one would think that if every dewdrop were a musical
note, and the bird shad drank them all, they could not have
been more multitudinous or delicious. Then there is that incomparable
.bn 623.png
.pn +1
sense of freedom which one has in remote fields, in forests,
and along the streams. His heart, trained in life to play
with jets, like an artificial fountain, seems, as he wanders along
the streams, to resume its own liberty, and, like a meadow-brook,
to wind and turn, amid flowers and fringing shrubs, at its own
unmolested pleasure.
“Care and trouble, in ordinary life, and especially in cities,
disturb the fountains of feeling, as rubbish fallen into the fountains
of ruined cities in the East chokes them, or splits and scatters
their streams through all secret channels.
“One who believes God to have made the world, and to have
expressed His own tastes and thoughts in the making, cannot
express what feelings those are which speak music through his
heart. A little plant growing in silent simplicity in some covert
spot, or looking down upon him from out of a rift in some rock
uplifted high above his reach or climbing—what has it said to
him, that he stops and gazes as if he saw more than material
forms? What is that rush of feeling in his heart, and that strange
opening up of thoughts, as if a revelation had been made to him?
Who that has a literal eye could see anything but that solitary
flower casting a linear shadow on the side of the gray rock—a
shadow that loves to quiver, and nod, and dance to every step
which the wind-blown flower takes? But this floral preacher up
in that pulpit has many a time preached tears into my eyes, and
told me more than I was ever able to tell again.
“Indeed, in many and many a tramp the best sporting was
done on my back. Flat under a tree we lay, a vast Brobdingnag,
upon whom grasshoppers mounted, and glossy crickets crept,
harmless, with evident speculation of what such a phenomenon
could portend. Along the stems creep aspiring ants, searching
with fiery zeal for no one can even tell what. The bluejay is in the
tree above you. The woodpecker screws round and round the
trunk, hammering at every place like an auscult doctor sounding
a patient’s lungs. Little birds fly in and about, gibbering to each
other in sweet little detached sentences, confidentially talking
over their family secrets, and expressing those delicate sentiments
which one never speaks above a whisper in twilight. When you
rise, the birds flutter and fly, and clouds of insects fly off from
you like sparks from a fire when a log rolls over. The brook that
gurgled past the tree, feeding its roots, and taking its pay in summer
.bn 624.png
.pn +1
shadows, varied every hour, receives a portion of out-jumping
fry. Far off their coming shines. But before they had even
touched the water, that bold trout sprung sparkling from the surface
and sunk as soon, leaving only a few bubbles to float down.
There! if the trout has a right to his grasshopper, have I not a
right to the trout? I’ll have him! After several throws I find
that it takes two to make a bargain.
“At length one must go home. I never turn from the silence
of the underbrush, or the solitude of the fields, or the rustlings of
the forest, without a certain sadness as if I were going away from
friends.”
Flowers and birds were his delight. Every spring he watched
almost impatiently for the first arbutus, anemone, bloodroot, and
violet, and enjoyed their short stay with an intensity that years
increased rather than abated. The first song of the robin, the
first plaintive note of the bluebird, and the sweet lay of the song-sparrow
were each year listened for, and eagerly announced to
the family with all the enthusiasm of early boyhood. Through
the summer he watched and cared, with tender solicitude, for the
roses, lilies, dahlias, and chrysanthemum, with the many, many
other of the flower-world which he always had about him. And
as each in its turn lived out its short span, faded, and fell, he
watched the scattering petals almost mournfully, finding consolation
only in the certainty of their return another year.
Each season with its many changing moods was a living allegory
to him.
Spring was the young child just born, full of smiles, of
tears, and winsome ways—the beginnings of life. Summer was
early maturity, in which the first promises of fruitage were beginning
to be fulfilled. Steadier and more sober, with increasing
responsibilities. Fall perfected maturity with its full fruitage.
Early winter, extreme old age, lingering at the threshold
of the grave. Midwinter, nature’s death, which, like the soul’s,
ends not in destruction, but only rests awhile to awaken into a
more glorious resurrection.
Nature was to him God’s book wide open, each leaf free and
unbound, filled with that which comforted his soul and confirmed
his faith.
Not even in evolution, that bugbear of so many of his clerical
brethren, did he find anything to disturb his trust in God,
.bn 625.png
.pn +1
his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, or his confidence in the Bible,
as life’s guide-book; but quite the contrary. He found his trust,
his faith and confidence, strengthened and enlightened thereby.
Many rough places were smoothed, many dark spots enlightened.
In it he saw the highest proof of God’s wonderful wisdom.
A mind that could conceive, perfect, and put into operation so
wonderful, so simple and yet effective a natural law, could only
be divine.
It is not strange that, with his tastes and feelings, a plot of
land to cultivate became early a necessity. While not exactly
“brought up” on a farm, he was brought into intimate relation
with most forms of farm-labor. The small plot of land around
his father’s house furnished the field for quite a little practical
farming. For in New England every one was expected to raise
the greater part of his own vegetables, and the boys, as soon as
they were big enough to run around, were expected to contribute
their little quota towards the common good.
It was not until he was settled in Indianapolis that Mr.
Beecher owned a plot of his own large enough for flowers, fruit,
and vegetables. There he worked daily, finding rest from his
head-work, fresh air, and healthful exercise, which would alone
have more than repaid him for all expense or trouble. Rising
before five in the summer, he was out in his garden when most
of his neighbors were enjoying the sweet unconsciousness of
their morning naps. Aside from the big dividend of increased
health and vigor, he was further rewarded by unusual success in
raising small fruits and flowers. His roses were a revelation to
the community, and lent their fragrance to many an humble
home or sick room. For fruit and flowers did pastoral duty,
cheering the sick, brightening the dark side of life in many a
poverty-cramped family; while the impulse along the line of
taste and love for the beautiful, and the feeling of the dignity of
honest labor, which he gave to the whole community, we are told
is still felt, and will long be remembered as a souvenir of his
pastorate in Indianapolis.
His contributions to the theory of gardening and farming in
the Indiana Farmer and Gardener we have already referred to
in an earlier chapter.
During the first few years of his Brooklyn pastorate he does
.bn 626.png
.pn +1
not seem to have had the time to look about for any place in
which to practise his favorite avocation.
Of course the crowded condition of city life precluded the
possibility of having either farm or garden near his home. He
was accustomed then to visit among friends a part of the time,
spending the bulk of the summer in some picturesque place.
The earliest bit of country that lies within our memory was
Salisbury, in Connecticut, where Mr. Beecher spent the summers
of 1852 and 1853.
We remember well how, with the semi-savagery of early boyhood,
we, with our misguided playmates, lay in wait for some
frisky guinea-pigs, playing harmlessly in their little pen, and,
after capturing a number, transported them to an upper veranda,
and, in imitation of the ancient heathen’s treatment of captives,
dashed them upon the stones below; and how retribution, in the
form of a very indignant father, seized upon our youthful person,
and, with the dexterity born of some little practice, gave us
a long-abiding illustration of how dreadful a thing was cruelty.
There also we obtained our first practical insight into a hornet’s
disposition and activity.
Salisbury, doubtless, was a lovely spot, but its memories to us
are not cheering, and we pass on.
In 1853 Mr. Beecher purchased his first farm in the East,
a plot of ninety-six acres, situated in the town of Lenox, up
among the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts. This was known
as the “Blossom Farm.” It was justly celebrated for its fine
fruit, especially apples. But it did not altogether suit Mr.
Beecher, nor tempt him into any great agricultural outlay. It
was too far from the city. He could not run up for a day, and
back again. He could not be there in spring and seed time, owing
to his pastoral duties. Six weeks’ vacation time in midsummer,
with an occasional visit of two or three days, was about the limit
of his time there. He had to run the farm by proxy, which was
about as enjoyable, to him, as employing some one to eat his
meals.
Having a chance, in 1857, to sell the place, he did so, and
then hired another farm at Matteawan, just back of Fishkill
Landing, on the Hudson River. This promised to be a more
satisfactory place; but a little over two hours from New York,
he could run up and back the same day, and spend many a halfday
.bn 627.png
.pn +1
at work in his garden, from which he was debarred by distance
at Lenox. This, doubtless, would have been his country-place,
had not some happy chance led him a little further down
the river, to Peekskill-on-the-Hudson, just at the entrance to
the Highlands. There he found his ideal summer home, on
the east side of the river, facing the sunset, but about forty miles
from New York; the land rising by a succession of easy hills,
terrace-like, six hundred feet above the river level, until one
reached the farm a little over a mile and a half from the
depot. Although when he first saw it the place was rough,
but little cultivated, with gnarled and half-dead apple-trees scattered
here and there over it, yet the possibilities were such that
on the first inspection he decided to buy. So it came about
that in the fall of 1859 he gave up his Matteawan place and
bought the hillside at Peekskill, which he named “Boscobel.”
.il id=i619 fn=i_619.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca The Cottage at Peekskill.
At the foot of his lawn the turnpike runs along a level
stretch for nearly a quarter of a mile; from the road the land rises
.bn 628.png
.pn +1
on the north by a gradual, easy grade in graceful lines up to a
comparatively level plateau, on which the cottage and the old
barns were located, in true old-fashioned style, in happy disregard
of either convenience or scenic effect. Taking a fresh start, the
grade rose upward again for three or four hundred yards, forming
a third level space on top, and then plunged steeply down into the
valley of Peeks-kill. From the turnpike the private approach ran
up between a double row of stately maples to the very doorstep.
This hill was one of the spurs that ran back from the river at
right angles to its course—a detached foot-hill of the Highlands.
With the exception of a few acres on the crest of the hill, the
farm lay along the south slope, sheltered by its own crest from
the north winds, its face to the southern sun. In this Mr.
Beecher saw peculiar advantages for early fruit and vegetables,
while the view in every direction delighted his eye. From the
house, looking west, lay the river, visible only for a mile or so,
and lying like a beautiful Swiss lake encircled by protecting
mountains. To the south and southeast the landscape was
varied and charming—low hills, woodland and green fields, making
up a beautiful picture. Whilst from the hill-top, reputed to
be the highest point in Westchester County, the country lay out
like one great panorama on all sides, the view to the north
and west being especially grand; another glimpse of the Hudson
being visible just before it is swallowed up by the grim
mountains of the Highlands. Over all in the distance rise, blue
and faint, the Catskills, whilst to the east the country rolls in
graceful, broken stretches for miles.
Such were the general features of the farm when Mr. Beecher
bought it.
The house was a low, two-story, wooden farm-house of pre-Revolutionary
origin, where, as the legend goes, that sturdy old
warrior, Israel Putnam, had his headquarters at one time—a
legend strongly corroborated by the silent testimony of cannon-balls,
bayonets, and various military trappings from time to time
unearthed by the inquisitive and grubbing plough. In the spring
of 1860 Mr. Beecher took possession of his new farm of thirty-six
acres, and began at once the work of reformation and improvement.
At first the low, scrubby bushes that, under the pretence of
bearing edible fruit, had long been allowed to outlive their usefulness,
.bn 629.png
.pn +1
were grubbed up and made into fagots for kindling.
Then one by one the trees in the ancient apple-orchard, which
Putnam’s patriots had, doubtless, many a time assaulted and carried
by storm well-nigh a hundred years before, and which in
turn took a sharp and colicky revenge upon their assailants—unless
the quality of their fruit had greatly deteriorated in modern
times—yielded to the axe, and in the generous open fireplace, the
glory of the old-fashioned farm-house, paid their last tribute to
their master, man.
.il id=i621 fn=i_621.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca The Old Apple-Tree.
The last to fall a victim to axe and fire, and then only when
extreme old age and decay had ended its apple-bearing life, and
made it a standing menace of danger to all who passed under
its rotted branches, was one entitled to special notice. Mr.
Beecher wrote of it:
“I have a tree on my place at Peekskill that cannot be less
than two hundred years old. Two ladies, one about eighty years
old, called upon us several years ago, saying that they had been
.bn 630.png
.pn +1
brought up on the farm, and inquiring if the old apple-tree yet
lived. They said that in their childhood it was called ‘the old
apple-tree,’ and was then a patriarch. It must now be a Methuselah,
and is probably the largest recorded apple-tree in the
world. I read in no work of any apple-tree whose circumference
exceeds twelve or thirteen feet. This morning I measured the
Peekskill apple-tree, and found that, at four feet from the ground,
where the limbs begin to spring, it was fourteen feet and ten
inches in circumference, and at six feet from the ground fourteen
feet and six inches. I am sorry to add that the long-suffering
old tree gives unmistakable signs of yielding to the infirmities of
old age.” Where the enormous limbs branched out, so great was
the space, a summer-house was built, in which the children played
keeping house.
Then the old ramshackle barns were taken in hand, with
their successive additions hitched on, as more space might be
required—architectural after-thoughts, regardless of everything
except capacity. Some were torn down, others removed to more
convenient and less obtrusive localities—the smaller buildings
doing duty for carriages and chickens; the larger ones, with a
little ingenuity and the aid of a carpenter or two, being consolidated
into one commodious building.
Of course this was the work of several years, and required no
little planning and arranging, furnishing that restful change of
occupation, from the continuous and intense mental strain, which
Mr. Beecher so much needed.
The surface cleared, then began the more serious work of
subsoiling, draining, and clearing up of stones. Every inch of
the thirty-six acres, save only where trees and buildings stood,
was turned over to the subsoil. The deep subsoil plough, with
four sturdy oxen to give it force, drove its steel nose twenty
inches down into the earth, taking different parts of the farm in
successive seasons, each then being seeded down to grass, grain,
or vegetables, as the case might be. The loose stones, having first
been carefully gathered from the upturned surface, were then
utilized in laying gutters by the roadside, in building foundations
for barns, sheds, etc., or in making drains—for he
found that the live springs that filled the hillside, unless
regulated, might make his lawn too damp. So deep drains were
sunk across the lower half of the hill in different directions, which
.bn 631.png
.pn +1
carried off the surplus moisture; while under house, barn, and
cattle-sheds wells were sunk from eight to ten feet, furnishing a
supply of cool, sparkling water, never failing in the dryest summer.
With these later improvements began his real gardening
and farming; every form of flower, fruit, and vegetable that the
latitude would permit was planted and raised. Pears, apples,
and grapes, among the fruit, might be said to have been his
specialty; between two and three thousand trees and vines
were planted, carefully watched, trimmed, and pruned year by
year until they came into full bearing, while the smaller fruit,
vines, and bushes became well-nigh innumerable. Though he
kept the place always well stocked with what might be called
the standard crops, he was very fond of taking up, for a year
or two, several specialties, devoting his principal attention and
study to these until he had pretty thoroughly mastered their
habits, peculiarities, and capacities, then for the next year or two
take up something else, and so on, gradually in time making a
special study of every flower, fruit, and vegetable that could be
grown in that latitude.
When strawberries were in hand he tried every variety, early
and late, large and small, sweet and tart, and in such numbers
that several hundred quarts were often picked in one day. The
same was true of pears, apples, plums, peaches, cherries, grapes,
raspberries, blackberries, as well as peas, corn, potatoes, cabbages,
etc.
After one class of fruit or vegetable had had its turn, it was
not neglected, but one or two of the varieties found best adapted
to the locality were retained (except in the large fruit-trees, of
which a large assortment was always kept), and only sufficient
planted to supply the family with about four times as much as
could possibly be used; for, unless there was enough of everything,
so that each person in the family at the time might, if so
inclined, make a meal of any one thing, he would not touch it.
“Skimpy messes,” as he used to call them, were his utter abomination.
But the thing that gave him the greatest pleasure was
to beat his neighbors in early crops. Across the turnpike, at the
foot of the lane, for many years lived a very dear friend, Mr.
George Dayton, a gentleman of means, well skilled in every phase
of scientific farming; and between the two was carried on, so
long as Mr. Dayton lived, a most earnest rivalry on the subject
.bn 632.png
.pn +1
of farming. Nothing delighted Mr. Beecher more than to gather
a basket of peas, a large dish of strawberries, or a dozen ears of
corn, the first of the season, that had ripened just a day or two
ahead of Mr. Dayton’s, and bringing them down to his friend’s,
deliver them to him, as, with an air of mock sympathy, he condoled
with him over his inability to raise early vegetables or
fruit; then, with a hearty laugh, invite him up on to the hillside
to learn how a farm should be run. The natural advantages of
his location, sheltered from the north and open to the first warm
breezes from the south, generally gave him these pleasant triumphs
by two or three days; though once in a while the tables would be
turned, and he had to take his turn at being bantered and receiving
his friend’s so-called charity.
We confess we used to prefer these infrequent reverses, for
our youthful eyes watched regretfully the dishful of great,
luscious strawberries going in triumphal procession to Mr. Dayton’s.
We used to think that the first fruits, like charity, should
be tried at home, and had to find such guilty consolation as we
could in a surreptitious visit to the strawberry-bed. This was
not altogether satisfactory, for aside from the attendant risks,
the remaining berries would only be half-ripe.
At the same time he bought the place it was his good fortune
to meet an English gardener, Mr. Thomas J. Turner, and to secure
his services as superintendent, or “boss,” as he was known
to the men—one of those simple-minded, faithful, hard-working
men, who never spared himself, nor his subordinates. His devoted
attachment to the family and the place—“Our farm” he
used to call it—made him an invaluable helper.
For flowers and ornamental shrubs Turner had at first but
little taste; his great ambition was to make the farm “pay,”
and the contest for supremacy between master and man caused
much amusement to all parties.
Turner was always trying to extend the borders of his pea
and potato patches, encroaching on the hollyhocks and dahlias,
while Mr. Beecher would crowd the corn and lima beans to make
more room for roses and pinks.
How Mr. Beecher outwitted his opponent we will let him
narrate:
“I am as set and determined to have flowers as my farmer,
Mr. Turner, is to have vegetables; and there is a friendly quarrel
.bn 633.png
.pn +1
in hand all the season, a kind of border warfare, between flowers
and vegetables—which shall have this spot, and which shall secure
that nook; whether in this southern slope it shall be onions or
gladioluses; whether a row of lettuce shall edge that patch, or of
asters. I think, on a calm review, that I have rather gained on
Mr. Turner. The fact is, I found that he had me at a disadvantage,
being always on the place and having the whole spring
to himself. So I shrewdly tampered with the man himself, and
before he knew what he was about, I had infected him with the
flower mania (and this is a malady that I have never known
cured), so that I had an ally in the very enemy’s camp. Indeed,
I begin to fear that my manager will get ahead of me yet in skill
and love of flowers!”
.il id=i625 fn=i_625.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Mr. Beecher on His Farm.
In the years when corn, cabbage, or potatoes were being specialized
Turner was happy. With a proud and beaming face he
would drive down to the local market, load after load of choice
.bn 634.png
.pn +1
vegetables. His cup of happiness would overflow when he returned
and announced that “our vegetables” brought the best
price of any in the market.
But, alas! like many a man before him, his pride became,
figuratively speaking, his ruin; for after a while the fact was discovered
that Turner was selecting the largest and fairest for the
market, and that the home table had to be content with second
and third rates, too poor to sell with credit. That ended all
further farming for profit. From that time on nothing further
was raised for the market.
As full of interest as every process connected with farming
and fruit culture was, Mr. Beecher’s greatest pleasure was in the
cultivation of flowers and ornamental shrubs. Their ever-varying
form, their delicate perfume, and, above all, their abounding
wealth of color, furnished him a bouquet of which he never tired.
Roses were perhaps his standard favorites, and, whatever other
specialty he might be studying, they were kept up always. Of
these he wrote:
“All rosedom is out in holiday attire, and roses white and
black, green and pink, scarlet, crimson, and yellow, striped and
mottled, double and single, in clusters and solitary, moss-roses,
damask roses, Noisette, Perpetual, Bourbon, China, tea, musk,
and all other tribes and names, hang in exuberant beauty. The
air is full of their fragrance. The eye can turn nowhere that it
is not attracted to a glowing bush of roses. What would not
people shut up in cities give to see such luxuriance of beauty!...
The wonder is that every other man is not an enthusiast,
and in the month of June a gentle fanatic. Floral insanity is one
of the most charming inflictions to which man is heir. The garden
is infectious. Flowers are ‘catching,’ or the love of them is.
Men begin with one or two. In a few years they are struck
through with floral zeal. And one finds, after the heat, and strife,
and toil of his ambitious life, that there is more pure satisfaction
in his garden than in all the other pursuits that promise so much
of pleasure and yield so little.”
In different years he tested every variety of form and color
which could be found in the single and double hollyhocks, single
and double dahlias, phlox, geraniums, pansies, lilies, fuchsias, and
chrysanthemum, sometimes massed in great banks of color,
sometimes scattered in different beds and along borders, or in
.bn 635.png
.pn +1
little beds hidden amid the shrubbery. From early May till frost
came, “Boscobel” was always ablaze with the glories of flowers
in their different seasons.
It is given to few to understand, and fewer still to experience,
the wonderful effect which flowers had upon him. Fagged with
hard work, vexed with cares, with nerves strained and irritated,
a few hours among his flowers rested his brain, soothed his
nerves, and refitted him for days of hard work. Doubtless
change of occupation, open air, and the slight physical exertion
required in tending his pets, did something towards rest and recreation;
but there was a subtle power in many colors that
worked upon his nerves in a strangely mysterious way, that
gave him more relief from nerve excitement in an hour than
any drug ever compounded. Flowers and colored gems—which
he called unfading flowers—possessed this soothing power above
everything else.
In his younger days his farming and gardening experiences
were intimately associated with hard physical work. But after he
had settled at “Boscobel” the number and pressure of his regular
engagements made farm labor, except by proxy, impossible. He
worked some, it is true, but principally for exercise; the real
use and benefit of the farm being its sweet and soothing restfulness.
His description of his “work” and the unalloyed pleasure he
found in “farming” needs no enlarging:
“The light is just coming. I do not care for that, as I do not
propose to get up at such an hour. But the birds do care. They
evidently wind up their singing apparatus over-night, for when
the first bird breaks the silence, in an instant the rest go off as if
a spring had been touched which moved them all. There are
robins without count, wood-thrushes, orioles, sparrows, bobolinks,
meadow-larks, bluebirds, yellowbirds, wrens, warblers, catbirds
(as the Northern mocking-bird is called), martins, twittering swallows.
Think of the noise made by mixing all these bird-notes
together; add a rooster and a solemn old crow to carry the base;
then consider that of each kind there are scores, and of some
hundreds, within ear-reach, and you will have some faint conception
of the opening chant of the day. You may not think that I
wake so early, but I do; or, having awakened, I again go to sleep,
but I solemnly do. I don’t think of getting up before six.
.bn 636.png
.pn +1
“After breakfast there are so many things to be done first
that I neglect them all. The morning is so fine, the young leaves
are so beautiful, the bloom on the orchard is so gorgeous, the
sounds and sights are so many and so winning, that I am apt to
sit down on the veranda for just a moment, and for just another,
and for a series of them, until an hour goes by. Do not blame
me! Do not laugh at such farming and such a farmer.
“The soil overhead bears larger and better crops, for a sensible
man, than does the soil under-feet. There are blossoms in
the clouds. There is fruit upon invisible trees, to those who
know how to pluck it.
“But then sky-gazing and this dallying with the landscape
will not do. What crowds of things require the eye and hand!
Flowers must be transplanted. Flower-seeds must be sown;
shrubs and trees pruned; vines looked after; a walk taken over
the hill to see after some evergreens, with many pauses to gaze
upon the landscape, and many birds watched as they are confidentially
exhibiting their domestic traits before you. The kittens,
too, at the barn must be visited, the calf, and the new cow.
Then every gardener knows how much time is consumed in
watching the new plants. For instance, I have eight new kinds
of strawberries that need looking after, each one purporting to
be a world’s wonder. I am quite anxious about eight or ten new
kinds of clematis, two new species of honeysuckle, eight or ten
new and rare evergreens, and ever so many other things, shrubs
and flowers.
“But what shall I say of the new peas, new beans, rare cucumbers,
early melons, extraordinary potatoes? Do you not see
that it is impossible for me, amid such incessant and weighty
cares, to write? The air is white with apple-blossoms; the trees
are all singing; the steaming ground beseeches me to grant it a
portion of flower-seeds; by night the whippoorwill, and by day
the wood-thrush and mocking-bird, fill my imagination with all
sorts of fancies, and how can I write?”
After a number of years Mr. Beecher began to think that he
would like to build a house that should embody his ideal of
what a home should be—a real homestead whose hospitable
largeness could readily accommodate all the children and the
children’s children, and which in design, in finish and decoration,
should be an education for his children. Several years were
.bn 637.png
.pn +1
spent in talking over plans and examining designs proposed by
architects before the final plan was adopted. Then the Tilton
conspiracy broke out, and for a short time deferred the proposed
building. But the need of some diverting occupation, something
that should change the entire current of his thoughts, became
so decided that in self-defence he began building the new house.
On that peaceful hillside, amid the busy workmen, he found a
grateful asylum and refuge from the tempest with which his
enemies had sought to destroy him.
It has never been doubted in his family, that the relief which
he found in the pure air, the beautiful scenery, the sweet communion
with flowers and birds, at Peekskill, with his engrossing
interest in “the house,” saved his life during those years when
the burden was the heaviest.
He has often said that he never spent money more profitably
than in building his new house and in laying out his grounds.
Stone by stone and brick by brick he watched the foundations
and the lower stories rise. Each floor-beam, joist, and girder
received his zealous scrutiny. The reasons for this, and the
causes for that, he must know all about; until, long before the
house was finished, he was, barring the manual dexterity, as good
a mason or carpenter as the best of those at work. Every day,
and often a dozen times a day, he climbed from cellar to ridge-pole,
studying, investigating, making suggestions, or proposing
alterations—these latter the terror of his architect; for, though
often decided improvements on the first plans, they sometimes
involved a serious modification of the work in hand. Every gentleman
who visited him must make the tour clear to the ridge-pole,
for there the view was finest. Once, when a young man was
his visitor and victim, he insisted that they should mount the
lofty but unfinished chimney to get a little more extended outlook,
setting the example himself; but his companion, who was
hugging a firmly-secured cross-tie, in momentary fear of losing
his balance and falling, declared that he drew the line at the
chimney, and would aspire no higher.
When finally the house was up came the internal finishing
and decoration. Nothing was omitted that, in his opinion, would
increase comfort or convenience; while, in the decorative and
ornamental finish, he aimed at results which should educate the
eye and tastes of his children.
.bn 638.png
.pn +1
“Boscobel” was to be the family home, and ultimately his
permanent residence, for then he used to say that when he
reached seventy, he proposed to retire from the public and devote
his closing years to literary work.
Here children and grandchildren were together each summer,
pilgrims to this domestic Mecca. The house must be
large enough to hold them all, and friends besides, without
crowding; and it was, twenty and twenty-five being no unusual
number gathered within its walls. And on one occasion,
when a clerical union was invited to meet at “Boscobel,” thirty
were, with a little ingenious packing, entertained over-night.
It was not until the summer of 1878 that the workmen were
finally dispossessed and the family entered into the new house.
What a sense of expansion we all experienced! We looked back
upon the humble little cottage, hallowed by so many years full of
enjoyment, and wondered how it could ever have held us all—something
as a butterfly, with broad, expanded wings, might contemplate
its empty chrysalis, surprised that it had lived so long,
cramped within so small a compass.
The richness of the wall-paper and the delicacy of the frescoing
would not permit the hanging of pictures, while Mr. Beecher’s
love of the beautiful would not permit him to rest quiet
until he had found some way of further decoration appropriate
to his walls. This led him to the study of the various ornamental
ceramics. China, Japan, England and France, Germany and
America, were each laid under contribution for its characteristic
productions. Fortunately he had made his mantel-pieces broad
and high, with many little shelves and brackets, convenient resting-places
for vases, cups, and bowls. Once the house was complete
came the final work of improvement—the landscape, grading,
planting ornamental shrubs, and laying out of his lawn, whose
ten acres spread out before the new house. The trimming of
trees and shrubs into fantastic or mathematical figures, and strict
regularity of path and plot, he detested. Landscape-gardening
should be only an assistant to nature, not a remodeller.
On this theory he laid out his place. In the changing of
grades, grouping of shrubs, planting of tangled copses, he sought
to give to everything the appearance of natural growth and formation.
.il id=i631 fn=i_631.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca The House at Peekskill.
Having taken up ornamental trees and plants, with his usual
.bn 639.png
.bn 640.png
.pn +2
thoroughness he exhausted the subject. Every tree and shrub
that with reasonable care could be made to grow on that favored
place was planted. And so skilfully and naturally have they
been grouped that, though there are over sixteen hundred of the
ornamental varieties growing within the limits of those thirty-six
acres, they are not crowded, and nearly twenty acres are free for
grass, vegetables, and fruit.
It was stated by an experienced landscape-gardener, in 1884,
that, with the exception of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington,
no collection similar in extent and variety could then be
found in America.
Of course this building, improving, and planting called for a
constant and heavy outlay of money. It was in part to meet this
that he projected and carried out the series of lecture-tours that
ran through the last ten years of his life.
In the commercial sense of the word his farming was not
profitable. He spent upon his place many thousands of dollars
that never came back to him in coin or currency. His receipts
were of the kind not to be found in the open market, not affected
by the flurries in “The Street”; neither defaulting cashier nor
stock-jobbing speculator could depreciate or lessen them.
If money be valued at the amount of comfort and happiness it
affords, then the thousands lavished on his beloved home were
well spent, for seldom has the same amount given so much of
real, healthful happiness, and to so many.
None outside of the family will ever know to how many
“Boscobel” was a veritable tower of refuge in dark days and
troublous times; how many found inspiration there for greater
work, and increased courage for burden-bearing; whilst to Mr.
Beecher it was an investment that repaid him, in dividends of
life-lengthening rest, reinvigoration, and happiness, many hundred
per cent. No wonder that he loved every spear of grass,
every budding leaf and perfumed flower, upon that hillside.
They were his children, at least by adoption. No wonder that
the birds, and even the very insects, his uninvited summer guests,
were dear to him; and that each fall, as he turned his back upon
the summer and the hillside, to enter again into the harassing
turmoils of city life, his thoughts ran back in gratitude to the
many friends that had contributed so much to his happiness:
.il id=i633 fn=i_633.jpg w=500px ew=90%
.ca Hall in New House at Peekskill.
“Neither can a sensitive nature forget his summer companions,
.bn 641.png
.bn 642.png
.pn +2
or stint them in their meed of praise and gratitude.
Worms whose metamorphosis we have watched; spiders whose
webs glitter along the grass at morning and at evening, or mark
out geometric figures among the trees—spiders red, brown,
black, green, gray, yellow, and speckled; soft-winged moths;
gorgeous butterflies, steel-colored and shining black crickets,
locusts and grasshoppers, and all the rabble of creaking, singing,
fiddling fellows besides, which swarm in air and earth—we
bid you all a hearty good-by. Sooth to say, we part from some
of you without regret. But for the million we feel a true yearning,
so much have we watched your ways, so many hours has
our soul been fed by you through our eyes. Ye are a part of
the great Father’s family.
“Oh! how goodly a book is that which God has opened in
this world! Every day is a separate leaf—nay, not leaf, but
volume, with text, and note, and picture, with every dainty quip
and quirk of graceful art, with stores of knowledge illimitable,
if one will only humble himself to receive it! One should not
willingly be ungrateful, even to the smallest creatures or to inanimate
objects that have served his pleasure.
“And so, to reed and grass, bush and tree, stone and hill,
brook and lake, all creeping things and all things that fly, to
early birds and late-chirping locusts, we wave our hand in grateful
thanks!
“But to that Providence over all, source of their joy and
mine, what words can express what every manly heart must feel?
“Only the life itself can give thanks for life.”
While house, flowers, and plants occupied the greater part of
his farming time, they by no means monopolized it. He took a
very deep interest in his chickens. White Leghorns, Buff Cochins,
and Brown Brahmas, out of the many kinds that he tried,
were the final favorites, and repaid him well in eggs—the universal
hen currency—for his pains and care. Of these he wrote:
“It is a day for the country; the city palls on the jaded nerve.
I long to hear the hens cackle. There are lively times now in
barn and barn-yard, I’ll warrant you.... The Leghorn, of true
blood, leads the race of fowls for continuous eggs, in season and
out of season—eggs large enough, of fine quality, and sprung from
hens that never think of chickens. For a true Leghorn seldom
wants to sit. They believe in division of labor. If they provide
.bn 643.png
.pn +1
the eggs, others must hatch them.... The Brahmas and Cochins
have good qualities. They are large, even huge. They are
peaceable. And the Cochins do not scratch—an important fact to
all who have gardens.... But a more ungainly thing than Buff
Cochins the eye never saw. A flock of Leghorns is a delight to
the eye; their forms are symmetrical, and every motion graceful.
But the fat, podgy Cochins waddle before you like over-fat
buffoons. They are grotesque, good-natured, clumsy, useful
creatures, with a great love of sitting. We keep Cochin hens to
sit on Leghorn eggs.”
So long as he raised chickens in the good old-fashioned, orthodox
way he was very successful; but when, one unlucky day,
he fell into the hands of the agent of some patent chicken-breeding
process, his sorrows began.
The hatcher and brooder appeared in due time, with trays,
tin pans, heater, self-regulating thermometer, and enough other
paraphernalia to hatch out an ostrich. Three hundred selected
eggs were taken for the first experiment, carefully stowed in the
trays, the heat turned on, the regulating thermometer put in gear;
then we all stood back and gazed in wondering admiration upon
the machine which was to grind out chickens like a mill. Our
impatience could hardly be restrained to await the eventful day
when the shells should crack, and the downy occupants come
tumbling out of the trays; while visions of tender broiled
chickens, chickens roasted, stewed, and fricasseed without limit,
danced through our exultant minds. Three hundred spring
chickens! Phew! And the process could be repeated indefinitely.
At last the long-expected day arrived when, according to the
regulations, all well-behaved eggs should hatch.
Mons laboravit et—no, not a mouse, but one solitary little
chicken came forth. Two hundred and ninety-nine good eggs
had gone wrong!
The second trial resulted better: one in every ten responded
at the roll-call. But even these found this cold world uncongenial,
and, what with the pips, gapes, and other maladies incident
to chicken babyhood, their little band rapidly diminished
to zero. But these discouragements only stimulated Mr. Beecher
to greater effort, determined that, if the machine could be made
to work, he would make it. It would be hard to say what the
.bn 644.png
.pn +1
upshot might have been, had not the machine, one fine night,
started off on an original plan of its own, with a view to forcing
the eggs, which resulted in burning the hatcher, chicken-house,
part of a barn, and nearly cleaning out the entire general establishment.
After that the hens had a monopoly of the hatching
business.
With his cattle he was uniformly successful, no one having
invented any calf-hatching machine. For many years he raised
nothing but Ayrshires—very handsome cows and very generous
milkers—but finally he began to try the Jerseys, and never after
changed from them. Their beautiful deer-like heads, small, graceful
limbs, and kindly dispositions made them universal favorites;
while their milk, scant in quantity but wonderfully rich in
cream, made berry-time a marked season of the year. As he
never cared to keep more than six or eight cows, he had each
year to sell several heifers; these, thanks to the kindness of Mr.
Kittredge, his next-door neighbor, having been registered in the
Jersey stock-book, sold for large prices.
.sp 1
No farm so well stocked with flowers should be without its
bees; so about eight years ago he purchased four hives of
Italian bees, had a proper shed erected, and the bees duly installed.
After a few preliminary experiments he delegated the care
and culture of bees to our hands. The necessity of appearing
in his pulpit at regular stated times, with a face reasonably free
from distortion, compelled him to forego the pleasure and exercise
of caring for and dodging bees. But if he found it prudent
to turn the bees over to others, he none the less enjoyed watching
his proxy, making humorous suggestions—from a convenient
distance. Though he did not himself handle them, he kept
himself fully posted respecting their habits. All that the text-books
could teach he learned, and then would question us as to
our actual experience. Whenever a hive swarmed he was on
hand, if at the farm, and none were more interested in capturing
the swarm than he.
As we have intimated, his bees sometimes showed a want of
respect for “the cloth,” and an inappreciation of his friendly interest.
At these times he joined as heartily as the less interested
spectators in the laugh raised at his expense; for there seems to
.bn 645.png
.pn +1
be something irresistibly comical in the sight of a full-grown man
waging a hopeless war with a mere mite of a bee. His relish for
the humorous could not be stayed even by the smart of a bee’s
sting, while a little patience was sure to afford him a chance to
return the laugh with interest.
On one occasion an enormous swarm had settled on the lower
limbs of a cherry-tree, just over the place where an unconscious
calf was tethered and peacefully browsed. By some strange
freak the swarm dropped from the limb upon the unsuspecting
calf. Fortunately, while swarming, bees are not apt to be aggressive.
The calf, terrified at this crawling mass so suddenly
enveloping it, began to bleat and rush frantically around as far
as its chain would permit. The bees, at last annoyed at the shaking
up they received, began to remonstrate in a very pointed
manner. Matters were momentarily growing more and more serious
for the calf, when one of the farm-hands, happening by, rushed
in, with more zeal than discretion, trying to free the calf; before
he could unfasten the chain the calf succeeded in entangling
him, finally tripping him up and falling with him to the ground, a
confused mass of calf, bees, and Irishman. Fortunately another
man ran in, and, pulling up the spike to which the chain was fastened,
released them all. Happily no one was seriously hurt, but
the final rescuer, with face and hands still smarting, meeting Mr.
Beecher, burst out, in somewhat incoherent excitement: “Those
domded bees have murthered the calf, an’ Kelly’s kilt and gone
to h——— the other way.”
Mr. Beecher was never able to get any satisfactory explanation
as to what the “other way” was.
Between the Jerseys and the bees, Boscobel soon became a
land veritably flowing with milk and honey.
.sp 1
No account of the Peekskill home would be complete without
some mention of the dogs. Like all true lovers of nature, Mr.
Beecher was very fond of dogs, and generally had a fairly large
family on hand.
From Bruno and Jack, two canine giants—one a St. Bernard
and the other half Russian bloodhound and half mastiff—to the
little, wiggling mite of a diminutive black-and-tan, all bark and
wiggle, through all the intervening grades of size and kind—mastiff,
colly, Esquimaux, and terrier—one thing only was insisted
.bn 646.png
.pn +1
upon invariably: the dog must be kind and gentle to children.
He might be ever so homely, ever so useless, and he would be
petted and loved; but if he once snapped at the little ones who
tumbled over him, pulling tail and ears, the fiat went forth, as
irrevocable as the laws of the Medes and Persians—banishment
or death. He loved to watch them frolicking among themselves
or with the children, chasing and being chased. With them he
would take long walks, and often sit upon the bank and talk to
the companion who, with ears pricked up and wagging tail,
seemed almost to understand him. Of one he once wrote:
“I have a four-legged heathen on my place—‘Tommy.’ He
is a most intelligent and a most discriminating little dog; he is a
gentleman in disguise, and I am really sorry for him that he
cannot talk. If ever there was a dog that was distressed to think
that he could not talk, that dog is. I sit by him on the bank, of
a summer evening, and I say, ‘Tommy, I am sorry for you’;
and he whines, as much as to say, ‘So am I.’ I say, ‘Tommy, I
should like to tell you a great many things that you are worthy
of knowing’; and I do not know which is the most puzzled, he
or I—I to get any idea into his head, or he to get any out of
mine; but there it is: I know what he thinks, and he knows not
what I think. He knows that there is something above a dog,
and he manifests his canine uneasiness by whining, and in other
ways. His aspiration shows itself from his ears to his tail. He
longs to be something more and better; he yearns to occupy a
larger sphere; but, after all, he does not, and he cannot.”
To the children “Boscobel” was a beautiful home, filled with
everything that could educate the eye and taste, and cultivate
the love of the beautiful in nature; made doubly dear by the
daily association with our father in his happiest and brightest
moods.
To the friends for whom its doors were ever open it was a
delightful, to its owner a veritable haven of rest.
From its commanding height he looked out upon the country
lying below and beyond, with the eye of ownership; for he used
to say: “I own all I can see. I enjoy all that there is of beauty
and peacefulness in my neighbor’s lands as much as they, without
the responsibility or the taxes.” This, he declared, was the most
profitable kind of land-owning.
.bn 647.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch31'
CHAPTER XXXI.
.pm start_summary
Home Life—Love of Children—His Method of Training and Education—Formation
of Library and Art Collection—Personal Traits.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
To the public Mr. Beecher was best known as the eloquent
preacher and speaker, the fearless advocate of right and
foe to wrong, the champion of the weak and oppressed, a
friend to all mankind. But it was only to those who knew him
in his home-life that the softer and sweeter sides of his nature
were fully revealed. For his home and family he had the deepest
and most tender affection. Though brought up in New England,
where respectful reverence from child to parent was often carried
to such an extreme that the father was almost unapproachable
to his children, he retained none of the puritanical austerity
that largely filled the social atmosphere of Connecticut seventy
years ago, partly because in his own home there was more of the
feeling of fellowship between the father and children, but more
especially because his intense love for children swept away all
barriers of cold formality. To his own he was the companion
and playfellow, the partner in every joy, the comforter in every
sorrow. Patient in unravelling those mysteries of mind and matter
that perplex the early life of every healthful child, he never
answered their childish wonderings with the impatient “don’t
bother me,” which too often checks that curiosity which is nature’s
mode of self-education, and which often makes childhood one
long, continuous “why.”
Every little prattler was his by love’s adoption. In more than
a score of households he was the “Grandpa” par excellence, often
sadly interfering, we fear, with the rules of government; for, by
tacit consent between parents, children, and “Grandpa,” he was
superior to all nursery regulations. His consent, and often co-operation,
was a warrant of pardon for any and all pranks and
escapades committed thereunder.
He was always very careful to exercise this power along the
line of healthy sport, in little pranks that gave amusement to all,
.bn 648.png
.pn +1
but at the same time leading the boys to be more manly and the
girls to be more womanly. Many a young man and woman today
looks back upon those bright days of their childhood with
deep and tender affection, and sees where, in what seemed then
mere sport and fun, they had caught the inspiration for higher
and nobler living.
In this childhood’s Utopia things were sometimes strangely
transposed. Nothing would at first more surprise a stranger, in
whose memory still lingered pungent recollections of early discipline,
than to see a troop of children pounce down upon Mr.
Beecher, clamoring with shouts and laughter for a whipping.
He remembered that shouts and clamor were constant concomitants
in the execution of domestic penalties in his early days, but
nothing in his experience recalled laughter in that connection.
The mystery would soon be explained, when, with mock
frowns and assumed violence, the children were seized, twirled
and tumbled into a row along the wall; and ordered to hold out
each right hand; one after another each hand was seized and
several blows administered—with a stick of candy. Of course the
sticks did not get away. The rods were not spared, and we
don’t think that any of the children were spoiled.
And the stranger, as with quiet smile he looks upon them,
wonders, after all, if parents resorted to that kind of whipping
more, whether the increased feeling of good-fellowship would not
render the need of the other kind less frequent.
In the training of his own children he seldom resorted to actual
physical punishment, and then only when the little culprit
had been guilty of some especially aggravated offence. But when
he did resort to the laying on of hands, he entered into it with
great earnestness. Dishonesty, falsehood, cruelty, and meanness
of every kind were capital offences. The sinner did not lose his
head in such cases, but some other parts of his person were so
actively stimulated, that standing became the most comfortable
position for a long time thereafter. These little rencounters naturally
produced profound impressions. We were not apt to invite
another by repeating that particular offence.
We well remember some experiments in natural philosophy,
conducted by us when about six or seven years old, in which a
kitten and a tub of water figured prominently, some features of
which, bordering on the barbarous, we will omit. Just then our
.bn 649.png
.pn +1
father came along, and—well, things were generally reversed, including
the youthful experimenter. The kitten was fished out,
and we had it so thoroughly impressed upon our understanding
that kittens won’t swim under water, that we do not remember to
have experimented any further in that direction.
After these profoundly impressionable interviews he would
talk earnestly and lovingly to the culprit, declaring that it hurt him
more to punish than it did the sinner to be punished—which we
can well believe now, from our knowledge of his deep and tender
loving-kindness, and from the similar duties time has brought
to us. Then it used to seem strongly paradoxical, measuring his
pain by our still smarting skin we generously thought that
we would willingly have foregone any benefits derived from the
experience, and have spared him so much suffering.
Happily, these graver cases were infrequent. The minor misdemeanors
from childhood’s restless carelessness were generally
met with quiet, gentle talks, the mischief fully explained with all
its whys and wherefores; the little penitent being finally dismissed
with a kiss, honestly and heartily determined to keep out of
mischief, and succeeding, by great effort, for an hour or two, until
he tumbled into something else. With such cases the father’s
patience was infinite.
As the children grew older he was untiring in his care that
they should form those habits of body, mind, and morals that
should make them strong, useful, and moral men and women.
He stimulated their natural curiosity, but at the same time taught
them to be self-helpful. If a question were asked that could be
answered by any book that he had, the questioner was sent for it,
and told, “Now read that carefully, and tell me what you learn;
I want to know it, too;” adding: “Information which you get
when your attention is fully aroused, and for which you have to
stop and take some little trouble, you will be pretty sure to remember.”
“Never ask a question,” he used to say, “if you can find the
answer yourself, but never hesitate to ask if you can’t find it: remember
always you have a tongue in your head.”
His letters to the absentees at school and college were full of
well-considered advice, and well illustrate what we have referred
to:
“I am more glad than I can express that you feel so much
.bn 650.png
.pn +1
interest in religious meetings, and I hope that God will lead you
to embrace with your whole soul a religious life. It is the only
way to perfect honor and to the highest truth and duty. Religion
is only the highest use and regulation of every faculty. To love
God and live in true benevolence toward men is the very way to
make yourself wise, happy, and good.... In all your own personal
conduct act upon conscience, and do not try to please yourself
merely, but to do what is right, and because it is right. Towards
your companions, in all things, seek to be unselfish, kind in little
things, studying their good and not your own.... One word as
to reading your Bible. You must not regard the book with superstition,
and imagine that you will get good by merely reading it.
You must remember that it is a very large and widespread book;
many things will not be of service to you yet. It has something
in it for every age and all circumstances.... Every day try to
put in practice something that you read in the Bible. Remember
that being a Christian does not take away anything that is innocent
and joyous, but only adds to them higher and nobler
joys.”
.pm start_quote_nospace
.ti 0
“My dear ———:
“I am glad that you have found a pleasant friend in the
minister. It seems fit that the son of a minister, whose father’s
father was a minister, should have a liking for ministers. I am
glad, too, that you are fortunate in having a man who is sensible
enough to understand that a Christian is not less than a man.
Whatever it is right for anybody to do, it is right for a Christian
to do; and what a Christian gentleman may not do, nobody has
a right to do. Religion regulates our pursuits and pleasures, but
does not destroy them....
“You are fifteen years old; that is close upon manhood. I
have no doubt that you begin to look at times quite seriously
toward the future. But fidelity to the present is the best preparation
for the future. Do everything thoroughly. Do not be a superficial
scholar. Go to the roots of everything you study.
“As to profanity out of doors, I should not, in ordinary cases,
meddle much, especially in a way that should seem as though
you owned the boy, or were responsible for his conduct. Nothing
is more provoking to a young person than to have people
assume authority over them in moral things. But in your own
.bn 651.png
.pn +1
room it is different; profanity there is an intrusion on your rights,
and is not to be tolerated. If kind measures will not check it,
then peremptory ones should. I would say to such a one:
‘You must take your choice, to find some other room or to observe
the decencies of life here!’ ... Now as to your studies.
It is not mainly the time employed, but the concentration of mind,
that induces rapid progress. Mere scholars study without great
grasp and sharp and quick application of thought. They take two
hours to do what could better be done in one. In part this
capacity of rapid comprehension and accurate perception depends
upon one’s native endowments, but it depends even more on habit
and training. While you seek primarily accuracy, you should
steadily aim with it to accelerate your process, to see quicker,
think quicker, decide quicker. But if you study intensely you
must take much air. Don’t be tempted to give up a wholesome
air-bath, a good walk, or skate, or ride every day. It will pay
you back over your books, by freshness, elasticity, and clearness
of mind. I have noticed that lessons which require acuteness and
memory both, are best gotten by studying them the last thing before
going to bed, and then taking hold again early in the morning.
That which we study just before sleeping seems to come out in
strong relief the next day, if we renew the impression by going
over the work again. For difficult tasks, then, take this hint: go
over just before sleeping, and review in the morning. But, again,
take care of health; learning in a broken body is like a sword
without a handle, like a load in a broken-wheeled cart, like
artillery with no gun-carriage.”
“But, my dear fellow, there is one thing that will be hard, but
that is to be the root of all success and enjoyment—viz., the habit
of boning down to things which you don’t like. In all your after-life,
your success will depend upon your ability to do things
which you do not particularly like to do. In other words, duty
must become your watchword, and not pleasure or liking.”
“I wish, at the beginning of your college course, to say a few
words which, if you will read over once in a while, may help you.
You are not in college for the sake of its pleasures, or for form’s
sake, but to have your whole intellectual nature roused up and
brought into efficient drill. No matter what powers one has by
nature, he requires thorough drill to know how to use them. It
is not wise for you to choose a profession, long before you have
.bn 652.png
.pn +1
any knowledge of yourself, with such thoroughness as is needful.
You are not grown yet inwardly. You do not know your own
powers and adaptations. The business of life is too serious to
be settled upon before one knows anything about his fitness for
one or another’s course.... Bear in mind that life is given you
not to be trifled with. God will hold you to strict account for
the use you make of your endowments.
“You were sent into life to work and be useful, not to frolic
and enjoy yourself. You are drawing near the time when you
must begin life for yourself. My dear boy, your own soul, your
honor, and your father’s name are committed to your keeping.
Guard them from dishonor. May God have you in his holy
keeping!”
“I want to say a word to you about your style. In every energetic
nature, the style, in its essential spirit, will follow a man’s
disposition. So it is somewhere said that ‘style is the man.’
But while this is true of its spirit, yet its external form may be
much modified and improved by attention and care. Now, you
have never apparently made this a matter of thought, and still
less of study.
“I am not going to recommend, in addition to your other
studies, that you should read on style, but only this: that in conversation
and in your letters you should begin to consider ease,
fulness, grace, and scrupulous accuracy. I wish you would get
from the library a copy of Cowper’s letters and read them, and
some of them many times. See what interest he throws around
trivial things by an elegant way of narrating them. He draws
pictures, he puts daily trifles in an artistic light. He is as thorough
and complete in each instance as if it were a great historical
event, instead of being a rabbit’s play, a bird’s freak, or a tea-table
affair. The simplicity of his style, its purity and clearness,
its accuracy, as clear cut as is the finest cut-glass goblet, are
worthy of notice and imitation. Now, the first step towards improvement
is a consciousness of its necessity, then an instant attempt
at it. Suppose you make your letters a means of practice;
see that nothing is stated in an awkward or slovenly way;
leave nothing merely hinted and left for the reader to make out
as best he can; and, generally, make it a rule never in letters, nor
even in the mere sketchy memoranda for the purpose of study,
nor in your note-book, to do things carelessly. Form the habit of
.bn 653.png
.pn +1
stating things clearly, and in scrupulously accurate and grammatical
language; you have formed the habit of not letting your lips
tell falsehoods; now do not let your pen do so either, nor let it
tell half-truths, nor grotesque truths, but pure and simple truths,
as they are. That is good style.”
.pm end_quote
To a young friend who had much artistic ability, but who was
discouraged because it was not of the highest grade, he wrote:
“Your note pained me for your sake, as it indicated a bad
state of ideality. The sense of the beautiful and of the perfect
was designed to stimulate and not to discourage effort. We are
not to aim at the highest, but the highest attainable by us. Here,
however, comes in that pride of which you speak, and which is
unwise, inartistic, unchristian.
“Now, the province of art may be said to be to make homely
things handsome, and good things beautiful.
“The power or the gift of the artist is not to glorify himself,
but to make the way of human life smoother to tender feet.
While, then, high art has an important function, so has decorative
art. It is the democratic form of art—i.e., the form which allies
it to Christianity.
“Washing the feet is not an agreeable but a most necessary
act. ‘If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also
ought to wash one another’s,’ etc. It is the keynote of Christianity
that one should be willing to serve, not rule. Christ ‘emptied
Himself of reputation,’ ‘took upon Him the form of a servant.’
”You are not willing to do things which give pleasure to common
people. You are not willing to make plain people happy,
to make common homes more cheerful and beautiful. You do
not join ideality to benevolence, but to self-adoring pride. If you
could perform great works, you would be willing to toil, and even
suffer. Being unable to do that, you are not willing to perform
the gentler offices of art, the sweetest and most womanly, and
give hues and colors to those homely implements that every-day
life needs.
“If I had your gifts and your calling, I think that every day
I should send thanks to God that, though I could not do great
things, I could do that which would cheer daily human life, that
would cast a ray of beauty along the homely path where the
poor must walk.
“It seems to me that your eyes are holden, and that you do
.bn 654.png
.pn +1
not see God’s angel sent to you, saying, ‘Will you not be a
worker together with God, for all, and for the lowly first?’ You
push him away and say, with bitterness, ‘Let me help the strong,
the high, the rich, or let me die.’
“It is a wicked pride, and you must be born again, and repeatedly,
until you can say to your Lord, ‘I will follow Thee in
Thy poverty, in Thy humiliation, and if need be I will die to the
highest ambition, that I may with my whole soul work for the
lowly and in a lowly way!’
“Idealized pride.
“Idealized conscience.
“These are your enemies. They stand between you and your
life’s work—between you and Him who died for you.
“I would never have taken the trouble to write this, if I did
not love you so much, and did not hope to see you yet one day,
‘clothed and in your right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus.’”
It was his idea that home should be a training-school for his
children, by precept, example, and by object-teaching. Partly
in gratification of his own love of learning and of the beautiful,
but more for the training of the family and development of correct
tastes in all departments of literature and art, he covered
his walls with paintings, etchings, and engravings; when wall-space
gave out, portfolios, drawers, and cabinets were filled
with the choicest specimens of art that he could find—not with
the zeal of a collector, who seeks the rare merely for its rarity,
but because the thing itself was beautiful, or illustrated some
type or period of art. As a result his collection of prints furnished
a good illustration of etching and engraving, from the
earliest rude woodcuts of the fifteenth century, through the various
growths of improvement, down to the parchment proofs of
the modern etcher. Dürer, Rembrandt, Ostade, Wille, Schöngauer,
and many others, exemplified the old school, while
through a multitude of the French, German, Italian, and English
artists were traced the growths of modern art. All the wall-space
that could be spared from the paintings and framed engravings
was devoted to book-cases well filled. The ancient and
the English classics were well-nigh complete, and every modern
writer of note, in any department of learning, could find upon Mr.
Beecher’s shelves the best of his brain’s offspring. As in art, so in
literature, he bought nothing because it was rare, but only because
.bn 655.png
.pn +1
it would gratify the higher tastes or could teach something.
The student in any department of art, science, manufacture,
agriculture, medicine, or theology would find in Mr. Beecher’s
library the best authorities in his special branch of study, and
generally with the marks of careful reading apparent upon
their pages; while the professional man, whose life had been
devoted to the study and practice of his particular profession,
has often wondered how Mr. Beecher could have found it possible,
with his many duties, to acquire a theoretic knowledge, in
that branch of learning, so accurate and comprehensive. The
solution of the mystery lay in the fact that he never had to learn
a thing twice. The knowledge he acquired he retained. He
was remarkably watchful and observant was deeply interested
in everything that was going on about him; and when he became
interested in a subject, would buy all the books he could
find that would enlighten him, and study them carefully. He delighted
in visiting workshops, factories, laboratories, studios, and
all other places where men worked, there watching attentively
the worker, and in a few probing questions reaching such facts
as he had failed to find in his books—applying the precept he
gave his children: learning what he could by his own observation,
then filling the gaps by questioning.
While his memory of words, dates, and the like was very
bad, rendering it almost impossible for him to quote accurately,
or recall figures or dates, yet his memory of facts was wonderfully
accurate. The language by which he learned a fact he
could seldom repeat, but the information he never forgot. The
former was only the shell; it was the meat of the nut alone
that he cared for.
Of course in making up his library he bought many books
which in fact he never used, for he said: “A library is like a
bountiful table, on which each guest can find everything that
he wants; yet it don’t follow that each guest must eat from
every dish. My library is the table for my mind, from which I
take what I want to-day, and from which I can get what I may
want at any time hereafter.” His library was eminently a working
library. Most of his books were bought when he was still
a young minister, when economy and love of books waged constant
warfare, of which contest we give his humorous description:
.bn 656.png
.pn +1
“Alas! where is human nature so weak as in a book-store?
Speak of the appetite for drink, or a bon-vivant’s relish for dinner!
What are these mere animal throes and ragings to be compared
with those fantasies of taste, of imagination, of intellect,
which bewilder a student in a great bookseller’s temptation-hall?...
“Then, too, the subtle process by which the man satisfies
himself that he can afford to buy. Talk of Wall Street and
financiering! No subtle manager or broker ever saw through a
maze of financial embarrassments half so quick as a poor book-buyer
sees his way clear to pay for what he must have. Why, he
will economize; he will dispense with this and that; he will
retrench here and there; he will save by various expedients hitherto
untried; he will put spurs on both heels of his industry;
and then, besides all this, he will somehow get along when the
time for payment comes! Ah! this Somehow! That word is
as big as a whole world, and is stuffed with all the vagaries and
fantasies that Fancy ever bred on Hope....
“Moreover, buying books before you can pay for them promotes
caution. You don’t feel quite at liberty to take them
home. You are married. Your wife keeps an account-book.
She knows to a penny what you can and what you cannot afford.
She has no ‘speculation’ in her eyes. Plain figures make
desperate work with airy ‘somehows.’ It is a matter of no small
skill and experience to get your books home, and in their places,
undiscovered. Perhaps the blundering express brings them to
the door just at evening. ‘What is it, my dear?’ she says to
you. ‘Oh! nothing—a few books that I cannot do without.’
That smile! A true housewife, that loves her husband, can smile
a whole arithmetic at him in one look! Of course she insists,
in the kindest way, in sympathizing with you in your literary
acquisition. She cuts the strings of the bundle (and of your
heart), and out comes the whole story. You have bought a whole
set of costly English books, full bound in calf, extra gilt! You
are caught, and feel very much as if bound in calf yourself, extra
gilt, and admirably lettered.
“Now, this must not happen frequently. The books must
be smuggled home. Let them be sent to some near place.
Then, when your wife has a headache, or is out making a call,
or has lain down, run the books across the frontier and threshold,
.bn 657.png
.pn +1
hastily undo them, stop only for one loving glance as you put
them away in the closet, or behind other books on the shelf, or
on the topmost shelf. Clear away the twine and wrapping-paper,
and every suspicious circumstance. Be very careful not to be
too kind. That often brings on detection. Only the other day
we heard it said somewhere: ‘Why, how good you have been
lately! I am really afraid that you have been carrying on mischief
secretly.’ Our heart smote us. It was a fact. That very
day we had bought a few books which ‘we could not do without.’
After a while you can bring out one volume, accidentally, and
leave it on the table. ‘Why, my dear, what a beautiful book!
Where did you borrow it?’ You glance over the newspaper,
with the quietest tone you can command: ‘That? Oh! that is
mine. Have you not seen it before? It has been in the house
this two And you rush on with anecdote and incident,
and point out the binding, and that peculiar trick of gilding, and
everything else you can think of; but it all will not do—you
cannot rub out that roguish, arithmetical smile. People may
talk about the equality of the sexes! They are not equal. The
silent smile of a sensible, loving woman will vanquish ten men.
Of course you repent, and in time form a habit of repenting.”
When we consider how strongly developed was his love of the
beautiful, we are not surprised at his fondness for music and
precious stones. At first the two seem widely dissimilar, but to
his mind they were only different forms of the same thing, and
to both he was profoundly impressionable. Gems and precious
stones were only valued for their color. They were color crystallized,
and to color he was peculiarly and strangely susceptible.
Music was color expressed in terms of sound. The one
was color to his eye, the other to his ear. The mere enjoyment
of sweet sounds and beautiful colors we can readily understand;
it is common to all who can see or hear, in greater or less degree.
But the marked peculiarity in Mr. Beecher’s case was
what we might describe as their drug effect. This is not, perhaps,
unusual with others in the case of music, for, with many, soft and
gentle music will quiet the excited mind, soothe the soul, and
bring peace where the tempest raged. This was so with him,
but in a greater and more marked degree. Colors would produce
the same effect. When disturbed or nerve-tired, or when, after
some marked effort in the pulpit or upon the platform, he found
.bn 658.png
.pn +1
his brain aflame and every nerve keyed to the highest tension,
he would sit down in his study, take out from his pocket or table-drawer
an opal, garnet, hyacinth, or flashing diamond, hold it
lovingly in his open hand, drinking in through his eyes the soft,
rich rays of color. Almost as if by magic, the turgid veins on
brow and temple grew less prominent, the deep flush upon his face
softened gradually into its natural color, the muscular tension
abated, the nerve-strain relaxed, and a soft and gentle peacefulness
settled down upon him, like the comforting shadow of an
angel’s wing. Casting himself upon his bed, he would sleep as
peacefully as a child upon its mother’s bosom.
A notable illustration of this occurred while in England in
1863. When he returned to his hotel, after a three hours’ struggle
with the mob in the Philharmonic Hall at Liverpool, he found
himself still under the excitement of the fierce strife, every nerve
still vibrating under the strain. The waves of thought and
imagination rolled through his brain, like the billows of the
ocean still tossing after the gale has passed. He had been
roused to the very centre of his being, and it promised to be a
night of restless, sleepless tossings. He had with him an opal of
wonderful fire and color. Sitting down in his room, he placed
the stone in his hand, and for half an hour sat watching the play
of its changing colors. As he watched, the stormy brain grew
quiet, a gentle sense of physical fatigue and sleepiness stole over
him, yielding to which he went to bed, dropping at once into a
quiet, unconscious sleep, unbroken till, late in the morning, he
awoke, rested and refreshed.
These color-opiates he always carried with him; a dozen of the
finest stones were set in rings and strung upon a key-ring carried
in his pocket; while in the recesses of some inner vest-pocket
were hidden a number of unset stones, carefully wrapped in
paper. His love in that direction was well known to all the
prominent jewellers, who laid aside for his inspection the finest
specimens of those stones for which he especially cared. One
of these gentlemen writes:
“Mr. Beecher’s love for fine gems was neither on account of
their value nor their rarity. He loved them because they spoke
to him of nature and the God who rules nature, and this voice
appealed to him most strongly in the specimens which possessed
the richest colors. He might admire a perfectly clear diamond
.bn 659.png
.pn +1
if it was unusually brilliant, but this admiration sank to insignificance
by the side of that awakened by one possessing color.
‘How grand,’ he would say, ‘is that nature which can catch the
hues of the rainbow and fasten them in imperishable stone! The
rainbow passes away, the beautiful flowers fade, but in the loveliness
of these gems are held permanently the colors of both.’
In one of my visits to Europe I secured a magnificent diamond,
which I am confident has never been excelled. Its color is hard
to describe, but I likened it to molten gold. I had no commission
from Mr. Beecher to purchase anything of this kind, but
nevertheless it was for him I bought it, knowing his taste in
these matters, and consequently I resisted all temptations to sell
it abroad, and brought it home with me. Mr. Beecher was
delighted, as I thought he would be, and compared its hue to
the deep reddish gold of a setting sun. This gem was set in a
black enamelled ring, and was often worn by him—the only jewel
I ever knew him to wear. He was as loyal to the gems of his
cabinet as he was to his animate friends, and indeed the stones
were also his friends. Rubies, sapphires, amethysts, topaz, hyacinths,
aqua-marines, all were objects of his deep love, not alone
because they gratified his keen enjoyment of color, but also because
he seemed to read in them a page of the great book of
nature. Neither was there any superstition connected with or
tainting this love. The ill-omened opal was a part of his collection
when the prejudice against it was strongest, and, in fact, Mrs.
Beecher wore these stones frequently. I have said that richly-colored
gems were his friends, and so they were, and more.
From them he gathered inspiration, rest, peace, and even truth
itself. He saw them, but he also saw beyond them. Their colors
seemed to him to be one of those mysteries through which God
speaks to man—a mystery in which his spirit delighted to bathe,
and from which he seemed to inhale strength and much of that
inspiration which all nature appeared to yield up to him ungrudgingly.
His gems gratified his sense of sight, his sense of
poetry, his sense of a beautiful nature, and, more than all these,
his sense of an omnipotent divinity. None of them, that I know
of, had any special history. He loved them for themselves alone
and for what they might teach him.”
He used to say half-jokingly, but with a great deal of underlying
earnestness, that it was the duty of every one to be healthy
.bn 660.png
.pn +1
and strong; that weakness was the penalty which men had to
pay for disobeying the laws of nature, sins committed either by
themselves or their parents. Preservation of health was a prime
duty, its waste a cardinal sin.
As he preached, so he practised; he handled his body as an
intelligent engineer does his engine. He made it a matter of
careful study. He knew just what he could do with impunity,
and just what he must avoid. If he found that eating a certain
thing harmed him, that thing he left alone. For the stomach
was the furnace and must be kept free and clear; if that broke
down, the whole engine came to a standstill.
He studied the effect upon himself of the various kinds of
food and drink, and used them at the times and in the manner
which experience and study taught him would give the best
results.
Some things affected him very peculiarly, and of this he took
advantage in their use. This was markedly so with tea and
coffee. He found that coffee produced a mild kind of mental
stimulus that made all things look brighter and more joyous; that
its use before preaching stimulated the brighter and happier side
of his nature, adding a slightly roseate tinge to all he saw. It
was optimistic. While with tea the effect was the reverse. Objects
appeared in their more sober, sombre colors. The rosy
faded into the blue, and while it could not be said that he felt
depressed exactly, yet the tendency was downward. Life seemed
somewhat sterner, its responsibilities became more prominent, its
joys less conspicuous. Tea was slightly pessimistic.
But, strangely, when he drank both, as he usually did, they
held each other in check; he then saw both the lights and the
shadows of life in their true relation to one another. His mind
pursued the even tenor of its way.
Wines, beer, and their like he never used for pleasure or as
beverages; as medicines, in certain conditions of stomach disorders,
he found them useful. But then, as his library attests,
he first carefully studied and investigated the peculiar properties
of each that he used, and confined their use to the condition in
which he found them most useful. For instance, Burgundy wine
was used only to counteract certain tendencies toward hepatic
trouble. Beer was used only as a substitute for the bromides to
relieve insomnia.
.bn 661.png
.pn +1
Writing to a friend, who had inquired anxiously as to the
truth of certain rumors respecting his use of stimulants, he
replied:
.pm start_quote_nospace
.ll 68
.rj
“Brooklyn, February 21, 1870.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear Sir:
“In reply to your letter of February 14th, I would say that
I do keep intoxicating liquors of various kinds in my house, and
probably shall do so as long as I keep house. But I am not ‘in
the habit of offering them to my friends when they call.’ Nothing
can be more false or injurious than the impression conveyed
by such language. I keep them and use them strictly and
always as I would medicine, and I should as soon think of offering
a well man a dose of rhubarb as a dose of brandy.
“I am a total abstainer, both in belief and in practice. I hold that
no man in health needs or is the better for alcoholic stimulants;
that great good will follow to the whole community from the
total disuse of them as articles of diet or luxury; and that so soon
as the moral sense of society will sustain such laws, it will be
wise and right to enact prohibitory liquor laws. My practice
strictly conforms to my precepts. When I was depressed in
health, at times, I have made use of various kinds of stimulants,
precisely as I would have used drugs—indeed, as a substitute
for them. This has been occasional, exceptional, and wholly
medicinal....”
.pm end_quote
Careful as he was himself, he disliked exceedingly to have
others looking after or inquiring about his health. If unwell,
he would lie down, and in careful dieting and sleep soon find
relief. On such occasions he preferred to be left to himself,
undisturbed by questioning or fussing. If well, he repelled solicitude
by jokes or humorous bantering.
Exposed so constantly in his lecture-tours (in one season
travelling twenty-seven thousand miles) to the danger of accidents,
and to sickness through unavoidable exposures, it was not strange
that Mrs. Beecher felt no little anxiety for his welfare, and when
rumors came back, with the usual newspaper distortions and exaggerations,
her solicitude would naturally be greatly increased.
On one occasion, when her anxiety, in consequence of some rumor,
became too great to be restrained, she wrote an anxious letter to
him, inquiring about his health and expressing her fears. She
received the following characteristic letter in reply:
.bn 662.png
.pn +1
.pm start_quote
.ti 0
“My dear Wife:
“I see that you are incorrigible. O cruel woman! will not
forty years of incessant assault suffice?
“How many heads have you crushed! Not a bone in my
body that you have not broken; not a method of mutilation that
you have not tried. You have plunged me down ravines, pitched
me over precipices, drowned me, burned me, torn me asunder.
I have lost innumerable arms, legs, and feet. I go limping,
handless, toward I know not what dire future. You have conspired
with every element of earth, air, and water, by day and by
night, and wrung out every terrible fate that ever poet sang or
Dante dreamed of. I do not think that there is—well! well!
Just think of this latest. I had some disturbance in my stomach—you
turn me end for end and call it apoplexy. I was faint—you
changed it to paralysis. I am getting to crouch and creep
through life in fear that you have set some terrible disaster upon
me. I think I see leaves winking mischief at me. Every stone
seems ready to fly at me. Cars and engines are traps, and seem
to say, ‘Will you walk into my parlor, Mister Fly?’ ... I am
fighting fine—my knees better, head clear; and if I only had
a wife” (Mrs. Beecher was then in Florida) “I should be perfect.”
.pm end_quote
What a careful observance of the rules of health did toward
keeping his body in thorough working order, sleep did for his
brain. Every hour of sleep that he could get he counted clear
gain; but even that was regulated according to the drafts made
upon his brain. During vacation time, or when he had but little
work on hand—rare occasions—he found the night’s rest sufficient.
But on Sundays, while lecturing, or when pressed by
mental work of any kind, he would supplement the night with
a long nap in the afternoon. So long as he kept his health and
had sleep enough, no amount of work tired him. Under such
circumstances it might almost be said that his brain worked spontaneously;
thinking came as easily and naturally to him as
breathing.
He was spared the mental drudgery that oppresses so many
men. His own illustration was that “some men are like live
springs, that bubble up and flow perpetually; while others are like
pumps—one must work the handle for all the water he gets.”
.bn 663.png
.pn +1
His methods of preparation for the pulpit were peculiar. In
one sense his whole life was a constant preparation, for he was
always observing and studying, laying up stores for future use,
seldom knowing just when he would utilize the material, yet
sooner or later employing it all. His memory was a great magazine,
filled with ammunition, on which he drew as the occasion
required. This might be called his general preparation. Just
before preaching or speaking he would enter into his special preparation,
unlock the magazine, and lay out the material he wished
to use. This he would do just in advance of speaking (his ammunition
was highly volatile, and, if left exposed too long, was
apt to evaporate and be lost).
His Sunday-morning sermons were prepared after breakfast,
and the evening sermons after tea. He would retire to his study
and think out the result which he wished to reach, making outline
notes of the steps by which he proposed to reach it. He
could never preach a sermon on a given topic unless it was in his
mind. It sometimes happened that after wrestling with his subject
in his study for an hour or two, and finally preparing a very
unsatisfactory outline of what he wanted to preach, he would go
to his church, and, while the choir were singing the opening
hymn, the whole subject would come up before his mind in the
form he wanted. Hastily tearing a fly-leaf from his hymn-book,
or taking the back of his notes, he would sketch out in a few
lines the new-born sermon, which would perhaps occupy an hour
in its delivery. These were very apt to be among his best sermons.
Speaking on this subject, he once said: “My whole life is a
general preparation. Everything I read, everything I think, all
the time, whether it is secular, philosophic, metaphysic, or scientific—it
all of it goes into the atmosphere with me; and then,
when the time comes for me to do anything—I do not know why
it should be so, except that I am of that temperament—it crystallizes,
and very suddenly too, and so much of it as I am going to
use for that distinct time comes right up before my mind in full
form, and I sketch it down and rely upon my facility, through
long experience, to give utterance and full development to it
after I come before an audience. There is nothing in this world
that is such a stimulus to me as an audience. It wakes up the
power of thinking and wakes up the power of imagination in me.”
.bn 664.png
.pn +1
After a speech or sermon had once been formed in his mind,
if not soon delivered, it would evaporate and be lost. While he
might recall it, it would be in different form.
When in the delivery, and the thoughts were surging at full
tide through his brain, he became like one inspired, but half-conscious
of his external surroundings.
The sermon once preached, and his mind quieted down to its
normal condition, it would be impossible for him to recall or repeat
the words and expressions that had but just left his lips.
The general outline, the result, he could of course recall, but the
language was a part of the inspiration, and left him with it.
His reply to one asking for a copy of a prayer illustrates this:
“You request me to send you the prayer made on Decoration
Day evening. If you will send me the notes of the oriole
that whistled from the top of my trees last June, or the iridescent
globes that came in by millions on the last waves that rolled
in on the beach yesterday, or a segment of the rainbow of last
week, or the perfume of the first violet that blossomed last May,
I will also send you the prayer that rose to my lips with the
occasion, and left me for ever. I hope it went heavenward
and was registered there, in which case the only record of it
will be found in heaven.”
The thought and labor necessary to keep up with his duties
as pastor, editor, and lecturer would seem to have been enough
to tax to the uttermost his time and strength. But, by a kind of
selfish blindness, the general public seemed wholly unconscious of
the value of his time. By post or in person, an unending stream
poured in upon him, seeking everything that human ingenuity or
perversity could suggest.
Begging for help in every conceivable form. One wanted
three thousand dollars to lift the mortgage from his farm. A
clergyman in distress asked for a thousand, saying that the Lord
would repay it. A young theologian asked that Mr. Beecher
would write him a lecture that he might deliver, and from its
proceeds pay his education for the ministry. A school-girl
requested that he write for her a composition, suggesting the
topic and briefly outlining the way she wished it treated. Another
came in person from a distant State, requesting that he
adopt and educate her; as she had exhausted her means coming
on, he had to pay her fare back. One man, who had discovered
.bn 665.png
.pn +1
the locality of Captain Kidd’s treasures, wanted him to bear
the expense of their exhumation, the profits to be divided. These
are a few actual incidents in the line of begging letters.
He has described the callers:
“It is six o’clock in the morning. The day is begun. The
family are emerging. Breakfast will be ready in half an hour.
You look for the Tribune. The bell rings. A man has called
thus early for fear you might be out. You despatch his business.
Sitting down to breakfast, the bell rings, and the servant says the
man will wait. But what pleasure can one have at a meal with a
man upstairs waiting for him, and the consciousness of it hastening
the coffee and the toast on their way? You run up. Can
you marry a couple at so-and-so? That is settled. Prayers are
had with the family. The bell rings once, twice, three times.
When you rise there are five persons waiting for you in the front
parlor. A young man from the country wishes your name on his
circular for a school. A young woman, in failing health by confinement
to sewing, does not know what to do; behind in rent;
cannot get away to the country; does not wish charity, only
wishes some one to enable her to break away from a state of
things that will in six months kill her. Another calls to inquire
after a friend of whom he has lost sight. While you are attending
to these the bell is active, and other persons take the place of
those who go. A poor slave-mother wants to buy her son’s wife
out of slavery. A kind woman calls in behalf of a boarder who
is out of place, desponding, will throw himself away if he cannot
get some means of livelihood. Another calls to know if I will not
visit a poor family in great distress in ——— Street. A good and
honest-looking man comes next; is out of work, has ‘heard that
your “riverince” is a kind man,’ etc. Another man wants to get
his family out from Ireland; can pay half, if some one will intercede
with ship-owners to trust him the balance. A stranger has
died, and a sexton desires a clergyman’s services. Several persons
desire religious conversation. It is after ten o’clock. A
moment’s lull. You catch your hat and run out. Perhaps you
have forgotten some appointment. You betake yourself to your
study, not a little flurried by the contrariety of things which you
have been considering. You return to dine. There are five or
six persons waiting for you. At tea you find others also, with
their divers necessities.
.bn 666.png
.pn +1
“This is not overdrawn, and for months of the year it is far
underdrawn. There is no taxation compared to incessant various
conversation with people for whom you must think, devise,
and for whose help you feel yourself often utterly incompetent.”
Half of his life-work would have been left undone had he
attempted to have given the letters and callers his personal attention.
All that related to his pastoral duties, and much besides,
he attended to personally. The rest he turned over to his wife.
If his life has been a benefit to mankind, then the world owes a
heavy debt of gratitude to her for the self-sacrificing protection
she afforded him. She was his helpmeet indeed; nine-tenths of
his correspondence she carried on. Few save his church-members
and personal friends had access to him until she had first
learned their errand, and determined whether the case was one
that should be brought to his attention. Yet, with all this care,
he seldom saw less than ten or a dozen callers each day while he
was at home.
The drain upon his purse was constant, for he could hardly
withstand a tale of suffering and want. Of course he was not
infrequently imposed upon, as every generous man is apt to be.
He used to say that the satisfaction of relieving one really deserving
sufferer was compensation enough to make up for being
swindled ten times.
Nor was his generosity, or its abuse, confined to those who
sought material aid. Among those who engaged his affection
and confidence, some there were who, Judas-like, turned against
him when it seemed for their interest to do so. Toward these he
never felt resentment, save momentarily under the smart of some
sudden, treacherous blow. The love which he once gave to a
friend he never forgot. He would be very slow to believe any
one, once trusted, to be unworthy, and never lost a deep and tender
feeling for such, even after he felt that they were unworthy
of confidence. It was this feeling that led to no little criticism
at the hands of those whose cynicism made trusting hard and
hating easy. By these his tender, sympathetic trustfulness was
called “gush” and “slopping over.” To their criticisms he
replied:
“I suppose I do slop over sometimes. Well, I never saw a
pan just full of milk that did not slop over. If you do not want
.bn 667.png
.pn +1
any slopping-over, take a pint of milk and put it in a big bucket.
There will be no slopping-over then. And a man who has only
a pint of feeling, in an enormous bucket, never slops over. But
if a man is full of feeling, up to the very brim, how is he going
to carry himself without spilling over? He cannot help it.
There will be dripping over the edges all the time. And as
every flower or blade of grass rejoices when the rain falls upon
it, so every recipient along the way in which a man with overflowing
generous feeling walks, is thankful for his bounty.
“How to carry a nature full of feeling, and administer it
without making mistakes, I do not know, you do not, nobody
does, nobody ever did, and nobody ever will; so we must take
it and get along as best we can. Life is a kind of zigzag, anyhow;
and we are obliged to resort to expedients, and make experiments,
and learn from our blunders, which are inevitable.
We find out a great deal more from men’s mistakes than from
their successes.
“But, after all, I am not sorry that I have been imposed
upon, and that I have trusted men that were not worthy to be
trusted. I am not sorry that I have been duped. It falls out
from an abundance of generous feeling. It is the mistake of a
disposition that I think it is a great deal better to have, with all
the impositions which it suffers, than that kind of cold caution
which prevents your venturing anything on the side of kindness,
because you always want to be safe.
“I was much impressed with what I once heard my father
say. His chance sayings have been like rudders to me all my
lifelong. A man whom he had befriended, and done a great deal
for, turned against him and acted very meanly. One day father
came home very much exercised about it, and I expected he was
going to blow out—for he shook his head in a peculiar way that
he had when his feelings were very much wrought up. He said
(raising his hand, and bringing it down slowly, but with great
emphasis), ‘Well, when I have acted honorably toward a man,
and he goes away and acts meanly toward me, I am never sorry
that I acted honorably toward him!’
“Now, I think that was a sign of nobility.”
Plymouth Church, although the principal field of his ministerial
work, was not by any means his only pastorate; he had a
number of other subsidiary pulpits. Most prominent among them
.bn 668.png
.pn +1
was the White Mountains. Such was his thirst for work in
the fields of his Master, he made even his infirmities an instrumentality
for good. For nearly thirty years he had been afflicted
with that but little understood American malady, “hay fever,”
which attacked him every year about the 16th of August, almost
to the day. For nearly six weeks he suffered the torments of
that distressing malady; during which reading, writing, and
almost all forms of mental work were impossible.
Finally his attention was called to the exemption which the
clear, bracing air of the White Mountains afforded, and, trying
the experiment, happily found complete relief. The first year
or two he merely rested, but after that he began holding, at first,
informal services Sundays; then the large hotel parlor became
the church, and every Sunday morning he preached. Soon the
demand for more room crowded them out, and then one of the
great tents used in the State fairs was secured, filled with benches.
Here, during the last two or three years that he visited the Twin
Mountain House, he preached regularly every Sunday during his
six weeks’ vacation.
From the neighboring hotels and all the adjacent towns the
people came by hundreds, filling the great tent. Each morning,
after breakfast, fifty to a hundred of the guests would gather in
one of the smaller rooms and join with Mr. Beecher in family
prayers. To these he read a chapter from the Bible, briefly expounding
its meaning, and then made a short prayer.
Another field in which he worked, widely different from any
other, was the State militia. In January, 1878, he was invited to
take the chaplaincy of the “Brooklyn Thirteenth,” as it was
called, and accepted the invitation. His reasons for this step
we give in his own words:
“It was not because I had nothing to do, and wanted to fill
up vacant time. It was not, certainly, because I have any eminent
military gifts, or what might be called a military spirit, by
which I am led to delight in such things. I was as much surprised
as any one could be when the invitation came through
Colonel Austen, bearing the request of all the officers and all the
privates in this regiment that I should act as their chaplain.
“After the surprise had a little subsided, of course my first
impulse was to say, ‘No, I cannot.’ My second thought was,
‘Is it a matter simply of your own convenience, or is there a
.bn 669.png
.pn +1
moral duty here?’ The question came, not exactly ‘Should
you?’ but, ‘Why should you not?’ Is it not an eminently wise
and proper thing for a body of citizen-soldiery to have a chaplain,
and ought we not to be grateful that they desire it? Made
up, as our regiments are, of young men in the prime of life, in
this and in all associations of men, unrestrained and uncivilized,
one might almost say, in the absence of woman, great mischiefs
have often ensued from a relaxation of moral principle, a sort of
vortex being formed, down which young men might slide to their
destruction; and therefore it is a matter of importance that they
should have a moral influence thrown about them. And when
the request came from the Thirteenth that I would act as their
chaplain, it seemed to me that somebody ought to answer their
request; and there were some reasons why I thought I should
answer it. I was forward in all those movements which brought
on the war, and during the whole period of the conflict I did as
much as I possibly could to bear my part of the responsibility;
and with the end of the war, to drop the whole matter of our
citizen-soldiery and show no more interest in them, to throw
them aside as an instrument employed and worn out and no
longer of use, did not appear to me wise or proper.
“Moreover, many of these young men belong to my congregation
and to my parish; they were therefore in some sense my
own sheep, after whom I ought to look; and I reasoned that if
it was desirable to have a citizen-soldiery as a kind of background
on which civil authority could retreat in times of great
peril, it was eminently desirable that that soldiery should be
moral, manly, expert, and in every way fitted for the high task
to which they were assigned.
“Under those circumstances, because I am an old citizen
here, because I have a right in some sense to be a father to the
young men in this neighborhood, and because I very heartily believe
in the formation of these centres of citizen-soldiery, I did
not feel at liberty to shrink from the duty that was laid upon me;
and I went with the hope and purpose, not simply as a mere recipient
of courtesy, but with the feeling that I might be able to
do them good—to do them good in the first instance as soldiers,
and in the second instance as men.”
As their chaplain he preached to his “boys”—as he was fond
of calling them—at stated intervals, and, as far as his other engagements
.bn 670.png
.pn +1
permitted, attended at their reviews and public parades.
Of course his inexperience in military matters led to many
amusing incidents.
Being a capital horseman, he found no trouble in maintaining
himself in his saddle; but when it came to manipulating his
sword, his troubles began. Then the path to martial glory did not
seem easy. His first trouble was to get his sword drawn; once
drawn, he was puzzled to know what on earth to do with it. He
almost invariably neglected to salute his reviewing officer, to the
great amusement of his fellow-members on the staff, who enjoyed
bantering him. As one of his colonels remarked:
“His temporal sword was a source of some anxiety to him,
and he always drew it with reluctance, preferring, as he said, to
wield the more familiar ‘sword of the spirit.’”
Next to his sword the receipt of military orders bothered
him most, leading often to humorous comments to those about
him or to his commanding officer. To one of these orders he
replied:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“December 19, 1884.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear Colonel:
“I enclose a circular with a humble request for its interpretation.
It is, without doubt, clear as crystal to the military mind,
but to my peaceful mind it is as dark as theology, or a pocket,
or midnight, or a wolf’s mouth.
“It orders, first and beginning, that we are to come in fatigue
uniform, without side-arms.
“It ends by ordering us to bring our best coat, knots, and
swords. I humbly inquire whether one end of this letter does
not seem to eat up the other.
“Shall I wear my resplendent chapeau or my ridiculous cap,
in which I look like a pumpkin with a ribbon around it? Shall
I wear my coat and golden straps, or my other military coat,
which I have not got, and never had?
“Lastly, may I go directly to Historical Hall, and not to the
armory?
“I am, your ignorant chaplain and captain,
.ll 68
.rj
”Henry Ward Beecher.
.ll
“Are overcoats forbidden? Thermometer nearly down to
zero!”
.pm end_quote
.bn 671.png
.pn +1
On another occasion receiving a circular printed by one of
the reduplicating processes then in vogue, but which was nearly
illegible from the paleness of the ink, he wrote the colonel:
.pm start_quote
.ll 68
.rj
“February 12, 1885.
.ll
.ti 0
”My dear Colonel:
“I do admire black ink and legible writing. I return you a
model. Do help me.
“(1) Is this a spiritual communication—from some feeble
spirit to some pale-ink medium? How shall I reply? Do you
keep a heavenly mail?
“(2) Or is it from Wolseley, asking me to come to the
Soudan? I cannot go, of course, without your permission.
“(3) Or is it merely an advertisement of a writing-master,
showing how to increase piety by teaching men to live (and read)
by faith, and not by sight?
“(4) In that case have you got any more clerks—who can
write invisible messages? I might want them for my Sunday-schools.
“(5) You ought to send out a reader (if this is a military
document) to inform all who read it what it says.
“(6) On the theory that it is a regimental order, I shall soon
commence studying the tactics, and be ready for a parade—which,
if it resembles the writing, ought to take place at midnight,
after the moon is gone, by the light of oil street-lamps.
.ll 68
.rj
“H. W. B.”
.ll
.pm end_quote
As chaplain he enjoyed the “rank and pay” of captain, and
on all military occasions was addressed as “Captain Beecher.”
A few years after his appointment, being at the New England
dinner with General Grant, the latter referred to him several
times as “major.” Supposing it to be a slip of the tongue,
“Captain” Beecher said nothing about it. A few nights later they
met again at some other public dinner, when the general persisted
in calling him “colonel”; then the captain protested, but
Grant assured him laughingly that the next time he should promote
him to be general, “and if you don’t keep on going higher
it will be because the titles give out.” We believe he never got
above “general.”
All of those who were familiar with Mr. Beecher, either in the
.bn 672.png
.pn +1
pulpit, on the platform, or in social life, are familiar with that
moral courage which led him to face unhesitatingly an adverse
public sentiment in defence of what he believed to be right. The
preceding pages are filled with many illustrations of this.
His physical courage, though perhaps not so well known to
the public, was quite as pronounced as his moral courage. Athletic,
self-reliant, and in his younger days wonderfully agile, he
faced the most threatening danger without a tremor of his nerve.
In his advocacy of the slave he daily carried his life in his
hands. At Liverpool he faced undaunted an imminent danger,
no doubt largely averted by the utter fearlessness of his bearing.
But in more marked degree was his courage shown in an incident,
never made public, that occurred soon after he settled in
Brooklyn.
A rabid dog, with lolling tongue and dripping jaws, threatening
death in its most frightful form, appeared suddenly in the
street near his house, and fortunately ran for a moment into the
area under the front-door steps of a neighbor’s house, where he lay
crouching in the corner, with his glaring eyes turned to the doorway.
In the street children were playing; at any moment, the
impulse to spring out might seize the beast. Seeing the danger,
Mr. Beecher sprang instantly to the area-door, within less than
four feet of the crouching brute, and closed the gate. Stepping
back to his house, he got his axe. When he returned the dog
was rushing furiously around in the confined space, striving to
get out. Raising the axe with one hand, with the other Mr.
Beecher opened the area-door, and as the dog sprang at him
struck him dead with one blow.
.bn 673.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id='ch32'
CHAPTER XXXII.
.pm start_summary
1886—England Revisited—Speaking in the City Temple—Westminster
Abbey—Lecturing through Great Britain—Addressing the Theological
Students at City Temple—“Life of Christ”—Sickness—Rest.
.pm end_summary
.sp 2
For several years before his death earnest efforts were made
to induce Mr. Beecher to revisit England. His manly fight
against such odds, in 1863, had quite captured the heart of
the English people, who always have a tender feeling for a good
fighter.
What began as admiration steadily grew and deepened into
affection. His sermons, his writings, and even the meagre reports
of lectures and speeches, were eagerly read—quite as much so in
England as in America.
And when the great cloud of scandal loomed up in 1873-6,
none were any more steadfast and loyal in love and confidence
than the friends in old England. Among the many testimonials
treasured by his family are the resolutions of sympathy and confidence
received from clerical associations in England, Scotland,
Wales, and even from the distant provinces.
With each succeeding year the importunities that he should
spend a summer in England increased, until, in the early spring
of 1886, he finally decided to brave the discomforts of an ocean
voyage—to him no slight trial—and visit again his English
friends. This being a trip of peace and not of war, he determined
to take Mrs. Beecher with him. His decision was made
the latter part of May. The next Sunday he made the announcement
from the pulpit. On the following Sunday he
preached his farewell. The church was packed, if possible, fuller
than usual, the throng crowding around the pulpit-steps at the
close of the service to say farewell.
He engaged passage on the Etruria for Saturday, June 19.
The Friday night preceding the regular prayer-meeting night became
a regular leave-taking. The services were over by nine
o’clock, and from that hour until eleven Mr. and Mrs. Beecher
.bn 674.png
.pn +1
were the centre of a circle of friends that filled the lecture-room
and overflowed into the church auditorium, anxious to shake
hands and say God-speed.
The Etruria was to start early Saturday morning, so Mr. and
Mrs. Beecher went aboard Friday night.
Promptly at six o’clock the hawsers were cast off, and the
great steamer slowly drew out from the pier, and, gathering headway,
turned her prow eastward and slowly steamed down the
bay. Almost simultaneously the excursion steamer Grand Republic,
with three thousand friends—whose enthusiastic affection
had called them, before the sun was up, to pay their farewell tribute—left
her wharf in Brooklyn to intercept the Etruria in the
Upper Bay. Just off Liberty Island the Etruria slowed down
and the Grand Republic came alongside; her passengers, crowding
to the nearer guards, gave vent to their feelings in ringing
cheers. Mr. and Mrs. Beecher, standing on the upper deck, responded
with hat and handkerchief. The band aboard the Grand
Republic played “Hail to the Chief,” the whistles of the steamers
saluted, and as the Etruria, getting under way again,
forged rapidly ahead, the choir of Plymouth Church sang the
Doxology, the sweetly solemn notes growing fainter as the steamers
drew apart.
Going below, they found their staterooms literally embanked
in flowers. One enthusiastic friend had left twenty homing
pigeons, with instructions to release them at stated intervals during
the day. To these short notes were attached, and borne back
by the swift, home-seeking wings, being the last words to many
friends until the cable announced Mr. Beecher’s safe arrival at
Queenstown on the 26th.
Our space forbids an attempt to give more than a very general
account of this visit; a full account of the entire trip has
already been published, with verbatim reports of the sermons and
lectures delivered by Mr. Beecher in England.[18]
.fm rend=th
.fn 18
“A Summer in England with Henry Ward Beecher.” By J. B. Pond.
Published by Fords, Howard & Hulbert, of New York City.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
.il id=i667 fn=i_667.jpg w=341px ew=60%
.ca Mr. and Mrs. Beecher at Time of Visit to England in 1886.
It would be impossible in cold words to express the deep and
tender feelings with which Mr. Beecher put his foot again on
English soil after an absence of nearly a quarter of a century.
Memory, swift-flying, ran back through the twenty-three years
.bn 675.png
.bn 676.png
.pn +2
past, and like some grand panorama the impressive events, both
national and personal, moved by his mind’s eyes in silent procession.
Slavery, that blight upon America’s fair name, had been blotted
out, and the places that had known it, knew it no more for ever.
The struggle for national existence, which had been hanging almost
on even balance when, twenty-three years before, he had
raised his voice in this same land, and pleaded the nation’s cause,
had ended in complete victory and triumphant vindication of
those principles for which he had contended. It was with no
little pride that he was able to stand again before an English audience
and say “that every single substantial sentiment that was
set forth in those several popular addresses had now become
history.”
Within that same period he had himself passed through
the flood of a personal persecution which, for persistent and
malignant intensity and unchristian bitterness, exceeded anything
recorded in the annals of history. He had seen his name,
his life-work, all that he had lived and labored for, threatened
with black destruction. Through this he had passed, emerging
safely upon the firm shore of the continued love and confidence
of his countrymen. Nor could he forget the assurances of fullest
trust that came to him from public utterances and private letters
of the many friends in England:
“For no other nation except our own have I such strong
affinities as for Great Britain. My ancestors came from there.
I have been bred on its literature. I have fed on the thought
and feeling of its heroic men. I am a child, though born away
from home, of the English people; and God forbid that I should
be indifferent to those throes which are to bring forth the man-child
yet! I look with profound sympathy, with the feeling of a
child that venerates a parent in distress, upon that people; and
I go there with a heart as warm for them as it was for its own
country in the day of its division and trials. Twenty-three years—and
what a space between! Twenty-three years! Darkness,
thunder, tears, blood, and war—they have gone, and the white
mantle of peace is spread over our shores, and the fields laugh
and rejoice, and the heavens are propitious, and the earth is
bountiful, and men are growing more and more into manliness.
What hath God wrought!”
.bn 677.png
.pn +1
After a short rest in Queenstown, Mr. and Mrs. Beecher went
direct to Liverpool; there on the 28th he had an opportunity to
hear Mr. Gladstone, meeting him after the address.
The next day they proceeded to London, where, on the following
Sunday, Mr. Beecher was to preach for Dr. Parker at
the City Temple. On Thursday he attended the regular weekday
services held in that church every Thursday, intending to
enjoy the unusual pleasure of listening to somebody else’s
preaching. But after the sermon Dr. Parker insisted upon his
addressing the meeting and closing it in prayer. On calling Mr.
Beecher to the pulpit, the doctor spoke a few words in tribute
to his friend, concluding with the much-quoted sentence:
“My brethren, I am sorry to break in upon a man’s singularity,
so that the palm may, even for a moment, seem to be divided
between two; I am, however, constrained to violate the
sanctity of a definite personality, and to say that last week there
was in England a Grand Old Man: to-day there are two of them!”
On the 4th he preached for Dr. Parker, and on the 5th
attended a dinner given to him by the lord mayor of London.
On the 11th he preached for Dr. Henry Allen in London, and in
the afternoon attended the service at Westminster Abbey, calling
afterwards, by previous invitation, upon Dean Bradley, with
whom were present a number of the clergymen of the Church of
England, who had been invited to meet him. After tea the dean
invited him to visit the various historical private rooms of the
Abbey.
Many of the rooms were quite as familiar to Mr. Beecher,
through his reading, though never seen before, as they were to
the clergy of the church itself. These listened with intense
interest to his familiar exposition and discussion, of what must
have seemed to them to be their own peculiar province of history.
The “Jerusalem Chamber” greatly impressed him. “I am
struck with awe. No room has greater interest to me, unless it
be the ‘Upper Room.’”
He recalled with deep interest the many notable events that
had there occurred intimately connected with religious history—the
Westminster Assembly, the Confession of Faith, the two revisions
of the Bible, etc. This was to Mr. Beecher a red-letter
day, fuller of quiet, tender enjoyment, probably, than any
other during his stay.
.bn 678.png
.pn +1
On the 19th, as he said, his play-day being over (he had
preached every Sunday, generally twice, and delivered addresses
every week), his work began. At Exeter Hall, London, where
he delivered the last of the famous speeches in 1863, he delivered
the first of his lectures in 1886. From that time on until the
21st of October he lectured, on an average, four nights a week,
preaching every Sunday. A letter home gives some humorous
experiences:
“... You would be amused at the way of public meetings
in England and Scotland. After the lecture the chairman calls
on some one, previously agreed upon, to move a vote of thanks,
which he does, with a speech in which he pours out such a flood
of compliments that before he is half through you lose all sense
of personal identity, and wonder what heroic personage he is
talking about, and then he moves the distinguished gentleman a
vote of thanks. Thereupon the chairman informs the audience
that Reverend or Professor So-and-so will second the motion.
He takes up the thread of eulogy where the other bit it off, and
winds you up with golden cords until you swing high in the
heavens. Thereupon the vote is put by the chairman, the audience
raise their hands, and then fall into a perfect tempest of clapping;
as this subsides, you are expected to rise and, with modest
self-depreciation, to explain how much you are elated and how
grateful you are.... But it is after the assembly is dismissed that
the most serious business of the evening begins. All on the platform
shake hands; women climb up and shake you; at every step
downward a host of hands—men, women, girls, and boys are
reaching; the hallway is crowded with men that pull you, shake
you, hustle you; the outward passage is lined with scores and
scores, and finally, on the sidewalk, the rush to get your hand is
fearful, and the police have to crowd them back to get you into
the carriage, and then the windows bristle with more hands,
and as the carriage moves on the crowd run along by its side
still fiercely pushing each other to get a chance to shake.
“A ludicrous event happened at York. Just away from the
hall is a bridge, for which foot-passengers pay a cent and carriages
two cents. A woman or girl stands out on the sidewalk,
extending her hand for the fee. After I had shaken hands at
the hall, along the street, with scores, we came to the bridge,
hardly yet shaking off the crowd. A hand was thrust into
.bn 679.png
.pn +1
the window, which I shook; the woman said something indistinctly,
which I afterwards learned was, ‘A penny, sir.’ Thinking
it some affectionate blessing, I took her hand again, and gave
it a more emphatic shake. She put her face in the window and
said, ‘A penny, sir’; Pond meanwhile sitting by and laughing
heartily.
“Your mother, too, frequently comes in for her share, and
you can imagine how comical she looks as, with a modest smile
and some surprise, she deals out her ‘thank you’s’ to the host of
admirers.”
From July 4, when he preached first for Dr. Parker, until
his departure, October 24, Mr. Beecher preached seventeen
times, delivered nine public addresses and fifty-eight lectures.
This was his summer vacation. From this period of restful
recreation, such was his peculiar capacity and enjoyment of mental
activity, he derived great benefit; and on his return home,
after a few days’ rest from the disturbing influences of the, to
him, ever-unrestful ocean, he declared that he never felt stronger,
or more vigorous, or better equipped for work in his life. In the
course of his stay he visited and lectured in each of the cities,
and generally in the same hall where he had “fought with the
wild beasts of Ephesus,” as he used to say, in 1863.
Just before his departure he addressed one meeting which, on
account of its peculiar significance, we must mention more fully
ere we pass on. So much has been said of late in certain quarters
respecting Mr. Beecher’s theology, so many criticisms upon
his orthodoxy, that his standing among so conservative a body as
the English clergy may not be uninteresting. He had already
addressed the London Congregational Board, the Congregational
School (for the sons of Congregational clergymen), and had
preached nearly twenty times, so that there had been a tolerably
fair opportunity to learn something of his religious views,
when he was invited to address the theological students on the
subject of preaching.
The meeting was held in the City Temple, October 15. Six
hundred students attended, the remaining space in the body of
the house being occupied by ministers, who came from all parts
of the country to attend this meeting. It was understood that
Mr. Beecher would, after the address, answer such questions as
any might want to ask. As the hour fixed was eleven o’clock in
.bn 680.png
.pn +1
the forenoon, all of the theological schools had to rearrange their
school-hours for that day, in order to allow the scholars a chance
to attend. This was done with great readiness. After an address
of nearly an hour, he offered to receive such questions,
pertinent to the topic discussed, as might be put by the scholars
or any of the clergy present, and occupied the remainder of his
time in answering them.
On the 24th Mr. and Mrs. Beecher boarded the Etruria at
Queenstown for their return home, reaching New York on
the 31st.
In accordance with his expressed wishes no attempts were
made to “receive” him, but he was allowed to go quietly home
and rest, his people reserving their welcome until the following
Sunday.[19] On that day the church was decorated with flowers
and evergreen vines, the pulpit being literally a bank of flowers,
which ran up along the face of the great organ, even to the
.bn 681.png
.pn +1
ceiling. After the service his people thronged around the pulpit-stairs
for one shake of the hand and one word of welcome.
.fm rend=th
.fn 19
The Common Council of Brooklyn voted him a public reception,
which he declined. The resolutions were as follows:
.ll 68
.nf r
“In Common Council, Stated Session,
Monday, Nov. 8, 1886.
.nf-
.ll
“The following was presented:
”Whereas, This Common Council has heard with pleasure of the return
from abroad of that distinguished American, our fellow-citizen, the
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher; and
“Whereas, In recognition of the eminent services rendered to his
country and mankind, both here and on the other side of the Atlantic, of
the broad and generous nature of his manhood and of his genius, which
has already shed its lustre for half a century; therefore be it
”Resolved, That his Honor the Mayor be, and he is hereby requested
to offer to the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, on behalf of the Mayor,
Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of Brooklyn, a public reception
at the Academy of Music, at such time as may suit his convenience.
“Resolved, That a committee of five members be appointed by the
chair, who, together with his Honor the Mayor, of which committee he
shall be chairman, shall make the necessary arrangements for such reception,
and to insure an adequate expression on that occasion of the honor
and esteem in which the citizens of Brooklyn, without distinction of party
or creed, hold this their distinguished and beloved fellow-citizen.
“The resolutions were unanimously adopted by the following vote:”
.ll 68
.rj
(Signed by the Mayor and Common Council).
.ll
.fn-
.fm rend=th
Early in the winter he began to seriously think of completing
the second volume of the “Life of Christ.” Friends and members
of his family had for some years been urging that the book
should be completed. A fatality seemed to have hung over that
book.
At the time when the Tilton conspiracy first broke out he
had written a considerable part of Volume II., and undoubtedly
would have soon finished it, when that outbreak, with the church
persecutions that followed, interrupted the work, and for a number
of years kept his mind so engrossed in other matters as to
make writing an impossibility. This was followed by the business
embarrassments of his publishers, and then the care of reorganizing
the Christian Union. At last, peace and quiet having
been restored, he began again to arrange for the completion of
the work, when a vexatious suit was brought against him by
Samuel Wilkeson, who had bought the original contract for the
book from the publishers at an assignee’s sale, and, claiming that
Mr. Beecher had broken his contract, sued for $60,000. The
pendency of this suit stopped all further work on the book.
After some delay the cause was tried and the complaint promptly
dismissed by the court.
Twice, after the suit, an attempt was made by Mr. Beecher to
accomplish the long-deferred completion of the book, but on
each occasion something occurred to interrupt and further defer
the work.
Finally, in January, 1887, he determined to complete the book,
and at the same time to write his Autobiography. No small
part of the credit for this final determination is due to Major
J. B. Pond, who for many years past had been Mr. Beecher’s
lecture manager, and who joined with Mr. Beecher’s family in
urging the undertaking of both works. Finally it was decided
that he would deliver no more lectures during the year 1887,
but devote all of his time outside of his church duties to these
literary labors.
In February a contract was made with Charles L. Webster &
Co., of New York—our present publishers—to publish both books.
The “Life of Christ” was to be completed before July 1, 1887,
and the Autobiography before July 1, 1888.
.bn 682.png
.pn +1
With great zeal Mr. Beecher began at once to re-read, revise,
and complete the “Life of Christ,” sometimes resting his mind
by changing his work and writing a little on his Autobiography.
In this way, by March 1, he had revised all of his former manuscript
of the “Life of Christ,” and had completed it down to
chapter xxv. Eight chapters of Volume II. were completed in
this manner, and the outlines of the remaining three, within
which space he intended to complete the work, were clearly
blocked out in his own mind. As he got more and more back
into the long-interrupted current of thought, his interest deepened,
and with increased interest came greater mental ease.
Several times he remarked that he had never seen the subject
so clearly and luminously in his mind before. It seemed at
times as though Christ’s life were revealed to him with a clearness
and a nearness that had never before been given him. In one of
his exalted moods he burst out: “Twenty men could not in a
life-time write all I now see; how can I put it into one book?”
But a few days before his last sickness an English clergyman
called to see him, and after a pleasant chat, as he rose to leave,
asked if there was any prospect of his completing the “Life of
Christ.” Mr. Beecher replied that he was at work on it then,
and would probably finish it in two or three months. The
clergyman was greatly delighted, saying that he had been
long waiting, hoping for the second volume. As the visitor left,
Mr. Beecher, kneeling in his great arm-chair, as was often his
wont when in a reverie, with one elbow on the chair-back, and
chin resting in his open palm, gazed in silent abstraction out of
the window facing him. Suddenly, his face lighting up, he exclaimed,
as though thinking aloud: “Finish the Life of Christ!
Finish the Life of Christ! Who can finish the Life of Christ!
It cannot be finished.”
Prophetic words! Almost within the week he was called to
that closer communion with his Saviour, and entered into that
lasting peace for which he had so often longed.
During the day of Thursday, March 3, he was in the best of
spirits and apparently perfect health. He had repeatedly stated
since his return from England that he had never felt better, or
better able to work. We had often during the past month jokingly
called him the youngest boy in the house. None of us
dreamed that Thursday was to end his long career of usefulness.
.bn 683.png
.pn +1
During the night he awoke, complaining of nausea, and was
taken with vomiting, but soon fell asleep again. Friday morning
he did not get up; though he roused when spoken to, he would
immediately after fall asleep again. These symptoms disturbed
no one, as they were quite common whenever he had any bilious
trouble. The family thought that something he ate for supper
had disagreed with him, and that he was working it off in his
usual way, by sleeping and lying quiet.
Friday afternoon the doctor was for the first time called in.
He thought, with the family, that the trouble was with the
stomach, though some symptoms made him think that perhaps
there might be some other complicating causes than mere biliousness.
Later in the evening, when one of his sons called in, he roused
himself quite fully, called for toast, complained that his feet
were cold, and that his head ached some. When asked what
was the matter, he replied, jokingly, in a sort of half-sleepy
manner:
“I had a dream last night. I thought that I was a duke and
your mother a duchess, and I was trying to figure the interest on
a hundred thousand pounds a year—you know I never was good
at mathematics. It gave me a headache; but I’ll have your
mother boil a page of arithmetic and make a tea of it. I’ll cure
it hom[oe]opathically.”
He was then helped to sit up in bed and eat his toast, which
he did with eyes still closed, as though half-asleep. When laid
back upon his pillow he fell asleep at once.
Saturday morning the dreadful truth first became apparent.
Dr. Searle found that the left side showed unmistakable signs of
paralysis, and then, recalling the previous symptoms, which had
been attributed to other causes, said at once that it was apoplexy
and that there was nothing to hope for. At first none would
believe the diagnosis. Up to that moment all had thought the
illness nothing that need cause any apprehension, when with the
suddenness of a lightning-stroke came the announcement of utter
hopelessness.
That no chance should be overlooked, Drs. Hammond and
Helmuth, of New York, were called in consultation during the
day, and confirmed the hopeless diagnosis. Nothing could be
done—nothing but wait. The patient did not suffer; only
.bn 684.png
.pn +1
those who stood about his bed, watching the beloved face, suffered.
Several times during Saturday afternoon, in response to loud
questions put by the doctors, he roused enough to comprehend
the questions and briefly answer them. With each attempt his
articulation became more difficult.
After the consultations were over he never spoke again. His
unconscious sleep became deeper and more profound through
Sunday and Monday, until Tuesday morning, at twenty minutes
to ten, his breath grew fainter—then stopped. The end he had
hoped for was his. As warriors of old prayed that they might
die in full armor, not a piece wanting or rusted from disuse, in
the full activity of the fight, so he prayed that he might be
spared the slow wasting of disease or the impairment of his
physical and mental powers.
No black, no mourning drapery of any kind, was permitted
about the house or on his coffin. At the door hung a beautiful
wreath of delicate pink and white roses, gathered at the top by
a large white satin bow, renewed afresh each morning by the
hands of a beloved friend.
Against every form of mourning he had always revolted; to
him death was but the gate to heaven, and the black symbols of
ancient paganism he could not endure:
“The scholastic theology, filled with gloomy ideas sifted
through stern Romish minds from teachings of pagan Romans
has come down to us, until the representations of death that
exist in the literature of Rome are more abominable and cruel
than all the vices of all the Neros, or any other of the corrupt
emperors. The scholastic conceptions of dying and of death are
unworthy of reason, unworthy of conscience, and are blasphemous
to God and to His government. They have no foundation in the
New Testament, none certainly in the Old, and they ought to be
purged out of our imaginations. Yet it lingers with us, and when
death has come the household has not one note of triumph, not
one star shines through the grief, nor one door of flashing light
is opened. We cover the pictures, we shut up the instruments
of music, we close the windows and shut out the light;
we have a black hearse with plumes plucked from the wings of
midnight, and we send for our minister, who doles out lugubrious,
mournful themes, and we sing awful hymns. And then because
.bn 685.png
.pn +1
one’s child has gained the coronation of glory, and is in the
arms of Jesus, and rests from all labor and trial and temptation,
we put on black—black over the head, black around the neck,
black down to the feet, black inside! We carry the habiliments
of woe and darkness and gloom, and think that we can see death
everywhere. No other thing is as this. The one thing that men
carry everywhere with them, and they are bound to share alike
with brothers, strangers, friends, is that one thing that is borrowed
from the despotism and cruelty of heathenism. Not one
joy, not one thanksgiving, not one gleam of faith and hope, not
one promise of Jesus Christ, not one single second of immortality
and glory, is permitted to cheer the soul. All is night, black
night, hopeless night. Sinful, the whole of it, unchristian, ungrateful!...
“One of the most beautiful things I ever saw in my whole
European tour was the burial place of a Prussian queen who
died during the great struggle against Napoleon, when the nation
was ground almost to extinction, leaving her kingly husband almost
inconsolable. At some distance from the capital, and in
the midst of the solemn wood, he built a temple to her memory.
It was of marble. As I entered, the light shone down through
blue glass, casting a sad, sorrowful tone on all that its rays shone
upon. But further on, upon entering the inner chamber, the
cheerful light of God’s sun streamed in through the numerous
windows and illuminated the ceiling, which was covered with
glowing Scripture passages of death and immortality. And there
in that blessed sunlight lay the sculptured form of the queen,
forming the most perfect embodiment of rest, and peace, and
triumph that my eyes ever beheld. There was nothing, sad or
sorrowful, or painful to be seen; only the light of the glory of
God as set forth in the sun; and the whole room glowed with
cheer and brightness, and the monument was not gloomy but
peaceful. I bless God with all my heart for that sight; it
has been a comfort to me in many a dark day and long struggle
of suffering, for already have I seen the triumph of death,
the sweetness and the peace of victory, in that monumental
marble.”
On Thursday a private funeral service was held at the house,
the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall, of the Church of the Holy Trinity,
officiating, in accordance with the expressed wish of Mr.
.bn 686.png
.pn +1
Beecher. Between the two a deep and lasting friendship had
existed. In the dark days, when not a few of the clerical brethren
of his own denomination in Brooklyn doubted, or, hesitating,
held back awaiting the result, Dr. Hall, in a manner characteristic
of his brave and manly nature, went out of his way to show, in
public, his confidence and love for Mr. Beecher. The latter attending
service one day, during the time when the clouds hung
heaviest, at the Church of the Holy Trinity, the doctor, seeing
him in the congregation, descended into the aisle, and, taking his
friend by the hand, led him to a seat within the chancel. Mr.
Beecher, always forgetful of injuries, never forgot an act of
friendship. It was his oft-repeated wish that, should he be called
first, the voice of this brave, beloved friend might speak the
words of cheer and comfort to those he left behind.
At the close of the service, Company G, of the Thirteenth Regiment—which,
having been largely recruited from the young men
of Plymouth Church, was called the “Plymouth Company,” and
affectionately styled by Mr. Beecher “My boys”—with arms
reversed, banners furled, and muffled drums, marched to the
house, and, as a guard of honor, escorted the body of their pastor,
chaplain, and friend to the church, as he was borne for
the last time within its doors, and laid him, silent for the first
time, at the foot of that pulpit from which his voice, during well-nigh
forty years, had so often rung out to right the wrong, to lift
up the down-trodden, to uphold the weak, to elevate mankind;
that had so often preached comfort to the sorrowing, light to those
in great darkness, pointing out the way of life to struggling sinners,
and revealing that boundless love of God which was the
keynote of his theology.
Till Saturday morning an almost continuous stream passed
through the church to look in a last farewell upon the face of a
friend, scarcely ending with midnight, renewed again by daylight,
all day long. Old men and children, rich and poor, met to
mourn a common loss.
He rested in a bed of flowers, the coffin hidden from sight by
twining smilax, covered with white pinks and rosebuds; pulpit
and organ buried in flowering shrubs and graceful plants, decorated
with many floral designs.
.il id=i679 fn=i_679.jpg w=347px ew=65%
.ca Lying in State in Plymouth Church.
On Friday morning the public funeral service was held, Dr.
Hall preaching the sermon.
.bn 687.png
.bn 688.png
.pn +2
Simultaneous with the services at Plymouth, funeral services
were held in the three nearest adjoining churches.
On the proclamation of the mayor, business was suspended
during the day; the Legislature adjourned, sending a special
committee to attend as its representatives at the funeral.
On Sunday a memorial service was held in Plymouth Church,
in which the representatives of every creed took part—Jew and
Gentile, Catholic and Protestant—and nearly every denomination
of Protestantism vying each with another in paying tributes of
respect, gratitude, and love to their common brother—a most fit,
practical example of that for which he had always preached, the
universal brotherhood in God.
On Saturday, the 12th, the body was taken quietly to Greenwood.
“To-day Henry Ward Beecher’s body was buried in Greenwood.
His hearse was followed in sympathy and honor by millions
of his countrymen. The mourners were of all kindred and
of every language. Not in this generation, at least, has there
been a funeral so nobly significant. In the stately procession
walked the viewless forms of principles, of governments, of nations,
and of races. The guardian spirit of the slave whom he
helped to liberate; the fair, sad genius of the Green Isle, for
which he so often and so eloquently pleaded; the dusky representative
of the Chinese Empire, in behalf of whose sons he again
and again demanded justice; the fair form of modern science
with the radiance of the morning sun on her queenly brow; the
benign angel of charity, clothed in the whiteness of that purity
which renders sin invisible; democracy, with her free step, flowing
hair, and cap of many hues; Columbia, full of matronly grace
and benignant as the atmosphere of June; and Christianity,
calm, motherly, and forgiving—these are the pall-bearers by
whom the body of our hero was borne to its resting-place....”[20]
.fm rend=th
.fn 20
From the Brooklyn Citizen of March 12.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
On a sunny slope in that most beautiful of all cemeteries,
overlooking the Bay of New York, is the grave of Henry Ward
Beecher. But it is only the grave: “When I fall, and am buried
in Greenwood, let no man dare to stand over the turf and say,
‘Here lies Henry Ward Beecher,’ for God knows that I will not
lie there. Look up; if you love me, and if you feel that I have
.bn 689.png
.pn +1
helped you on your way home, stand with your feet on my turf
and look up; for I will not hear anybody that does not speak
with his mouth toward heaven.”
With all our sorrow we cannot begrudge him the rest and
peace so well earned, nor that for which he had so often prayed—a
quiet, painless departure while yet each faculty was unimpaired.
He remembered with deepest pain the failing years of
his own father, who lingered till all his faculties became impaired:
“My venerable father, who was a second David in his time—a
man of war—and yet who had as sweet a heart as ever an angel
woman had, lived through many last years of weakness and obscuration,
and I had to remember a great way back to find my
father. It was very pitiful, very painful.
“That is one reason why I do not want to be an old man. I
hope God will have so much consideration for my weakness—if
it be a weakness—as to let me drop down in my harness and in
the full energy of work. I have no fear whatever of dying: it
is only the fear of living that I have before my eyes....
“Some persons talk about a man having passed through a
stormy life, and sitting now at the end of his life in quiet, preparing
himself for heaven. Heaven does not want any such preparation
as that. That is the best preparation which a man makes
when he is using the whole force of his being in his day and
time. I would rather die with the harness on and be dragged
out by the heels. I would like to fall in the traces. You cannot
help scoring one year against yourself and growing old in one
way; but it is the outward man that is growing old. The wine
that is in you ought to be growing better and better every year.
Time should mellow and ripen it. True, if a man’s power is
dried up, he cannot do more than he has strength for; but every
man should do up to the measure of his strength, and not forget
the sudden appearing of God in his own day and in his own
time.
“I love those streams that run full, clear to the ocean. Some
men there are who are like mountain streams, torrent-fed, that
boom in the spring, with wondrous glory of fulness and power,
and go rushing through the earlier months, but slacken their
speed, and by midsummer are only a trickling reminiscence of
the river. I like to think of streams like the old Merrimac, that
begin work up near their head-waters, and never run a league
.bn 690.png
.pn +1
without turning some mighty wheel of industry, and have no vacation
to the end, but go into the sea with the very foam on their
surface.”
For him death had no terrors; it was the gate opening into
eternal rest and peace—that peace for which he had so often
yearned and longed in his later years. Death was the welcome
friend, not the dreaded foe.
“Is there anything sweeter to grief and sorrow than that
passage where the New Testament, sweet book of the soul,
speaks of dying? Let Tuscanized Romans talk of death; let
heathen mythologies come to us with skulls, and cross-bones,
and hideous images of dying, of the monster Death, of the
tyrant Death, of the scythe-armed Death, of a grim and terrible
fate; but what terror can any of these representations have for
us when we have for our encouragement and hope the promises
of the New Testament?
“On a summer’s day the gentle western wind brings in all the
sweets of the field and the garden; and the child, overtasked by
joy, comes back weary, and climbs for sport into the mother’s
lap; and before he can sport he feels the balm of rest stealing
over him, and lays his curly head back upon her arm; and look!
he goes to sleep; hush! he has gone to sleep, and all the children
stand smiling. How beautiful it is to see a child drop
asleep on its mother’s arm! And it is said, ‘He fell asleep in
Jesus.’ Is there anything so high, so noble, or divine, as the
way in which the New Testament speaks of dying? How near
death is, and how beautiful!
“If you have lost companions, children, friends, you have
not lost them. They followed the Pilot. They went through
airy channels, unknown and unsearchable, and they are with the
Lord; and you are going to be with Him, too. I die to go, not
to Jerusalem, but to the New Jerusalem. I die, not to wait in
the rock-ribbed sepulchre, which shall hold me sure; I die, that
when this body is dropped I shall have a place, in the inward
fulness of my spiritual power, with the Lord.
“Then welcome gray hairs! they come as white banners that
wave from the other and higher life. Welcome infirmities! they
are but the loosening of the cords preparatory to taking down
the tabernacle. Welcome troubles! they are but the signs that
we are crossing the sea, and that not far away is our home—that
.bn 691.png
.pn +1
house of our Father in which are many mansions, where dwells
Jesus, the loved and all-loving. And let us rejoice that He has
gone from the body, that He may be ever present in the spirit,
and that ere long we may be with Him.”
His life had been full and complete. Unconsciously, in
words of matchless beauty, he painted his own picture when he
said:
“And the most beautiful thing that lives on this earth is not
the child in the cradle, sweet as it is. It is not ample enough.
It has not had history enough. It is all prophecy. Let me see
one who has wrought through life; let me see a great nature
that has gone through sorrows, through fire, through the flood,
through the thunder of battle, ripening, sweetening, enlarging,
and growing finer and finer, and gentler and gentler, that fineness
and gentleness being the result of great strength and great knowledge
accumulated through a long life—let me see such a one
stand at the end of life, as the sun stands on a summer afternoon
just before it goes down. Is there anything on earth so beautiful
as a rich, ripe, large, glowing, and glorious Christian heart? No,
nothing.”
.bn 692.png
.bn 693.png
.pn +2
.sp 4
APPENDIX.
.sp 4
.bn 694.png
.bn 695.png
.pn +2
.sp 4
.h2 id='app'
APPENDIX.
.hr 15%
.sp 2
Mr. Beecher’s trial lecture was the first sermon which he preached
as a clergyman. It may be interesting, both from that fact and because, as
Mr. Beecher himself once remarked, it shows how commonplace a sermon a
man might write who subsequently attained to some eminence as a preacher.
.ce
Trial Lecture.
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not
thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may
give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth
forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.—Isaiah
lv. 10, 11.
No one can read the Bible, even superficially, without observing how
much it brings in the natural world to illustrate the truths of the moral.
Of the truths of God’s government or of his own Being it may be said
“the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made.” The passage assigned
as the subject of this lecture is remarkable in this respect, since two departments
are compared—the truth of God is compared with the elements.
It will be particularly noticed here that no formal analogy is set up
between the effect of truth and the effect of natural causes. Nor are the
two compared in all respects.
It is not intimated that truth acts as natural causes act—that truth produces
effects on mind in the same way as rain does upon the earth and its
vegetation. Nothing of this. The comparison instituted respects one thing,
and only one thing, and that is the equal certainty of two things. The
passage teaches simply and only that there is as much certainty that the
truth of God will produce its appropriate results, in its own way, as there
is that natural elements will, in their own way, produce their natural results.
Those who attempt to draw a parallel between the operations of
God’s moral government and His natural one, and call upon this passage
for witness, neither understand the import of this text nor the nature of
the thing whereof they treat.
It is a comforting declaration, and to none more so than to Christians
who love truth. We often fear that it will be covered up, its influence destroyed;
that through the weakness of men, or the power of evil, or some
disastrous reverse of events, its power will be lost. And particularly are
.bn 696.png
.pn +1
ministers, whose chief duty it is to study truth, to promulgate and confirm
it throughout the community, liable to despond when they find themselves
coping with so many malign influences, so much coldness, and scepticism,
and worldliness, and ignorance. If they look only upon the narrow
scale upon which they labor, it often would seem as if there were indeed no
power in truth, no certainty that it would fructify.
It is an assurance, then, to our faith, and a great comfort to us in our toil,
when we listen to Him who sitteth in the heavens, and before whom all
things are open and naked—who sits serene above all the whirl which distracts
and confuses us on this dusty earth, and hear Him say, seeing the beginning
from the end of all things: “For as the rain cometh down, and the
snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and
maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread
to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall
not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it
shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”
We design at this time to draw from our text a few obvious inferences,
to confirm and illustrate and apply them.
1. We may infer that truth is adapted to produce moral results in this
world.
How it produces them we shall not examine. It is a matter of philosophy,
of speculation, and we concern ourselves with the practical bearing of
our text.
This inference will appear the more plainly true if we consider—
1. That the Bible is explicit upon this head. Paul says to Timothy:
“From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make
thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
And not satisfied with specific assertion, he generalizes and makes it
a general principle: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished
unto all good works” (2 Timothy iii. 16–17).
Could anything be more untrue, if truth has not an adaptation to produce
what it is said to do?
Throughout the Bible God regards truth as sufficient to accomplish His
purposes, and nothing is so severely dealt with, by rebuke and judgment,
as that deficiency and sin which comes of neglecting or refusing truth.
“What more could I have done for my vineyard than I have done?
Wherefore, when I looked, that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth
wild grapes?”
A constant visible Providence, mighty acts, the record of wonderful deliverances
and mercies, and the institutes of a beneficent law—were not
these adapted to produce the required obedience in the Jews? If truth
have not adaptation to produce moral results, the Jew very pertinently
might have replied to this severe rebuke: What has been done to produce
obedience? Nothing but a series of truths have been given which
have no adaptation or tendency to produce holiness.
.bn 697.png
.pn +1
Nothing has been done to make us other than we are. And in exact
accordance with the spirit of this was Christ’s teaching when He said: “If I
had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they
have no cloak for their sin” (John xv. 22).
2. The very object for which truth was revealed confirms the truth of
our inference. It was revealed either for something or for nothing. If
for nothing, it was foolishness. But if for something, then either it was
fitted to produce what it was created for, or it was not. If it was not
adapted to produce that for which it was created, then God attempted to
bring to pass an end with means ill-adapted to that end. He raised up an
instrumentality without adaptation to do what he desired. But what is
meant by instrumentality, which has nothing of an instrument in it? What
is instrumentality without any adaptation to do anything? Consequently
if we would avoid imputing such weakness, such double folly and failure
to God, we must admit with the Bible the adaptation of truth to produce
its appropriate moral results.
Men travel across the express declarations of His word, and cross
reason, to support a philosophical theory which, after all, destroys the very
thing for which they framed it.
3. Our inference becomes still more apparent in truth if for a moment
we admit the opposite doctrine and watch its results.
(1) The law is composed of truths respecting God, His relations to us,
and ours to Him—the duties flowing thence, the penalties and rewards respectively
of disobedience or obedience, our duties to one another, etc.;
and all this professedly is given to restrain from evil and produce good.
But if truth has no adaptation to produce moral effects, the law was
designed to do what it had no adaptation to do. It could have no influence
and no power, and God is represented as framing a law to do what it
had no relevancy to do.
(2) The character of God—why is it held forth to excite admiration
and love, if that has no adaptation to excite such feelings?
There is nothing in God, nothing in His attributes, which can awaken
the least emotion, unless truth can work out moral results.
(3) And precisely so of all the recorded doings of God since creation,
especially that stupendous spectacle—the Atonement. All is thrown
away as respects influence upon intelligent moral beings, they are utterly
worthless, if they have no power to do anything. In short, this theory, so
unfounded, so monstrous either in philosophy or fact, so repugnant to
every declaration of God, would destroy every influence which the Bible
was sent to produce.
It cuts off the mind from any influence except that by which a stick or
stone might be moved from place to place. The strong declaration of the
Bible that men resist the truth—how, if nothing to resist?
We admit that truth, as a matter of fact, does not produce its legitimate
results without the influence of the Holy Spirit. But then the reason lies
in the depravity of our hearts, and not in any want of adaptation in the
truth.
.bn 698.png
.pn +1
God made it ample, it was enough to create infinite obligation, and,
if unresisted, to have kept us from sin and trained us up in holiness. Our
depravity resisted its action, and would always; and this is the ground and
necessity of the interference of the Holy Spirit.
Not the want of light, but men love darkness better; not the want of
adaptation in truth, but men resist it, and will do so for ever, unless God
shall send the Holy Spirit. In His hands truth becomes omnipotent. He
pierces with it the darkest eye, and sounds it upon the deafest ear, and
rouses up the deadest heart, “enlightening by it their minds spiritually
and savingly to understand the things of God, and effectually drawing
them to Jesus Christ, being made willing by His grace.”
We are not, however, to rest satisfied with this mere intellectual view
of this point. It has very deep, practical importance, which I shall briefly
lay open to you.
1. It shows you the importance of knowing what the truth is exactly.
God has made truth to produce certain results of good, and no substitute
for it will. The husbandman who would raise a harvest of wheat
must sow wheat, not something which is only very much like it. The
Christian who would have the fruits of truth in his heart must believe the
truth, and not something that is very much like it.
He who would have the fruits of God’s love in his heart, who would
grow rich in the graces of the Spirit of God, must understand God’s character
just as it is revealed—i.e., just as it is, for it is the truth of His character
which will produce salutary results, and nothing else will. Hence
those who entertain false views of God have a deficient condition of
mind and heart in exact proportion as they deviate from the truth; and
this is the reason why those who reject the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour
wane in piety, in happiness, and finally experience from their view
of God hardly one beneficial result. They have expected that what was
not true would produce in them the effect of what was true. Consequently
we find the sacred writers anxiously inculcating a diligent, careful study
of the character of God, as Paul to the Colossians (chap. ii. 2, 3): “That
their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all
riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of
the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; in whom are hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
And just before: “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all
pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge
of God.”
So, too, Eph. i. 17: “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in
the knowledge of Him.”
2. So also respecting doctrine. We are bound to know exactly what
God has revealed, for that is to produce the good effect in the hands of the
Spirit, and not an imagination which we think is true. If by total depravity
we teach something else than that which the Bible teaches, will the same
results flow? If, instead of regeneration, as Christ and Paul explain it, we
.bn 699.png
.pn +1
vamp up a theory aside and different from it, will the effect be the same?
Will the Holy Spirit employ it equally with the other?
Nay, he who does not preach truth, and believe truth, preaches error
and believes error. Truth saves, and error destroys. And this is the reason
why it is some matter what a man believes, provided he is sincere.
God does not regenerate and save by sincerity, but by truth. Error received
sincerely is only error placed where it shall work out its fullest evils with
the greatest certainty, and with every help which the heart can afford. Error
sincerely received is death cordially embraced.
3. Hence we see how deeply important it becomes for Christians to
employ prayer and diligent study of the Bible, that the Holy Spirit of God
may enlighten their minds with all truth.
All that which constitutes a pure and holy heart must come from truth;
ourselves and our hearers are to be saved by truth in the hands of the
Holy Spirit. How earnestly, then, should we seek His divine, unerring
guidance! If He teach us, we shall have truth indeed; but if left to our
depraved hearts how soon shall we draw in error, how soon shall we be
spoiled by vain philosophy and deceit after the traditions of men, after the
rudiments of this world, and not after Christ! And if deserted forever, how
rapid will be our deterioration from bad to worse, until eternal death do
close upon us!
4. The importance of propagating, through all the world, the Bible,
is most particularly taught in the text, and is most appropriately deduced
from our position. God has promised that His Holy Spirit shall go with
it, shall make it effective. Would we fill the earth with the power of
God’s Spirit, send abroad the Bible, by which He has graciously determined
to act, and through which He will sanctify and save.
II. The second inference which I draw from this passage is that,
when the truth is properly explained and applied, we are both allowed and
bound to expect corresponding auspicious results.
1. So Christ and His apostles taught by example. Christ refused to
throw away labor when nothing could be expected from it. Hence He
never would open to the Pharisees and bigoted doctors of Jerusalem the
nature of His message, nor descant upon the character of God, nor urge
upon them His claims, nor urge them to repent, nor work miracles before
them. He knew the heart of man, and knew that no good would follow.
If, then, the ground of exclusion from the labors of His ministry was that
there could be no hope of success, then where He did labor it must have
been upon the ground of hope of success.
So Paul repeatedly rejoices in the power of the Gospel to save mankind,
and gloried in this with great exultation, proclaiming that on this account
he was not ashamed of it.
Now, was it the mere fact that Paul felt that the truths of the Gospel
had the power, abstractly, to save mankind, without any particular expectation
that they would do so, or did his heart fire because he most confidently
expected that nations would be born to Christ by his preachings?
No one whose heart ever burned with a desire of glorifying God by gathering
.bn 700.png
.pn +1
in souls to His kingdom can hesitate to say which of these inspired
Paul. It is no joy, no subject of particular gratulation, that the Gospel
can save mankind, unless we also believe that it actually will.
The only reason why we rejoice in its adaptation to save the world is
because we believe that the world should be saved.
How wide of the truth are they who think that a faithful, sincere Christian
or minister has no right to expect the fruits of their labor, but are
bound to rest as satisfied that it should not as that it should happen! It
is a spirit utterly repugnant to the Gospel. Some would imagine that we
should not so expect—expect confidently the fruit of our labors—because
God is a Sovereign and worketh according to the counsel of His own will.
But this is the very ground upon which we build our confidence.
It is because God, as a Sovereign, acting most freely and according to
the purposes of His own will, hath joined to truth its appropriate results,
and has encouraged us to expect them. If God were no Sovereign, we
should have no confidence, never knowing what might or might not happen.
But now, since He is Supreme, and hath joined truth, well applied,
to a certainty of corresponding results, we shall most shamefully do violence
to His Divine Sovereignty if we affect to doubt whether it will in
fact be as He hath ordained that it shall be. If He had not joined means
to ends it would be temerity to expect the one from the other.
But since He has, it would be doubting Him, contradicting Him, if we
were not so to do.
To the diligent farmer God gives abundant increase, to the laborious
artist remuneration corresponding to his skill. To the faithful minister,
who rises betimes to sow the seeds of life and waters them with his tears,
God will give him an abundant harvest; and the diligent Christian who employs
all the means of truth within his reach, in humble reliance upon
God, shall not be disappointed. He may expect growth in grace, and God
will not falsify his hopes.
The Sovereignty of God is the sure ground upon which every one
may build his hopes and not be disappointed. For God is not a man that
He should lie, hath He said, and shall He not do it?
2. Success of ministry and Christian effort demand it for very constitution
of our nature.
3. Only ground on which the multiplied institution of the Gospel can
be available.[21]
.fm rend=th
.fn 21
These two subdivisions were not written out in full, blank spaces being left in the
original for their fuller elaboration.
.fn-
.fm rend=th
III. The third inference which I draw from this passage is that the
instrumentality of the truth, the efficiency of the means, does not detract from
the power of God, but highly illustrates it.
1. It will be observed in this passage that, although so much efficiency
is given to truth, yet God is continually speaking, and speaking, too,
in the air of most sovereign authority. Truth is made to appear perfectly
subservient to his Divine Will. “So shall My word be that goeth forth
.bn 701.png
.pn +1
out of My mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”
2. The reason why it illustrates and does not detract from God’s supremacy
and power may now easily be seen. It shall do just what God
wishes to be done, and for which He appointed it, and for which He made
it efficient. Besides this it can do nothing else. It can only do this because
God so wills. Truth is not an agent acting, since God made it, independently
of God, self-moved; nor is it to be turned by man to do as
he wishes. It does what it was made to do, and God made it, so that all
its effects are but new examples of the power of God. It hangs where
God placed it, and shines in the sphere He circumscribed, and nowhere
else.
3. It accomplishes this result, which belongs to it, not from any inherent
virtue which redeems it from the power of God, and causes its
effects to illustrate only its own power, but simply and always because
God pleases that it should do so. As its powers are enlarged and encompass
greater results, so must be the conception of His power who clothed
it with such efficiency.
And God always sustains truth, and those circumstances by which it
can produce fitting results, and if He dropped them for one moment from
His care they would perish.
Whoever, then, finds that the employment of means of truth is producing
a forgetfulness of God, may be assured that he is using them wrongfully.
It is a pernicious result wrought in him by abusing our constituted
mode of action.
He who properly appreciates the notion of means and instrumentality
will ever have most occasion to admire both the power and goodness of
God, and His wisdom too, in that constitution of things which He has
made.
.bn 702.png
.pn +1
[Blank Page]
.bn 703.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
INDEX.
.sp 2
.ix
Abolitionists, feeling against, H. W. Beecher on, #268#, #420#;
ostracized socially, #185#;
Webster, Daniel, on, #239#.
Advance, the, organization of, #491#.
Advisory Council (1874), assembling of, #526#;
call for, #523#;
deliverance of, #527#;
Plymouth invited at, declines, #527#;
protest against, a, #524#.
Advisory Council (1876), assembling of, #543#;
Beecher, H. W., cautions on, to church, #539#,
statements at, #544–549:Page_544#,
declared innocent by, #550#,
address to, at close, #552#;
call for, #537#;
committee on charges, advises an, #550#, #558#;
composition of, #538#;
officers of, #543#, #544#;
Plymouth sustained by, #549#;
principle of selection of, #538#;
questions submitted to, #538#;
Sturtevant’s, Dr., opinion of Mr. Beecher, #551#;
Wellman’s, Dr., opinion of Mr. Beecher, #550#.
Allen, Ethan, remark of, on British cruelty, #35#.
America, a “better England,” #25#.
Amherst, Mass., in 1827, #93#;
Beecher’s, H. W., garden plot in, #96#.
Amherst College in 1830, #112#;
Beecher’s, H. W., course at, #109#-135;
offers title of D.D. to Mr. Beecher, #391#.
Anderson, Gen. Robert, tribute to, by Mr. Beecher, #452#.
Anecdotes:
Boston woman, the cross, #118#;
calf and bees, #637#;
cannon-ball, the, #87#;
cat in the organ, #382#;
cow, chase of the, #141#;
“Dinah, Crazy,” 243;
dog Noble, #290#;
English beggar, #670#;
“follow-your-leader,” 85;
Fulton omnibuses, #248#;
grammar, lesson in, #75#, #76#;
Grant, Gen., and Mr. Beecher’s titles, #663#;
kite, the, #203#;
liquor-seller, the, #195#;
lions, two monstrous, #51#;
ruffian, the, #194#;
slaves, teaching of, #253#;
sleeper in church, #186#;
.bn 704.png
Stowe, Prof., outwitted, #141#;
tides, explanation of, #76#;
truant, the, #184#;
tub-raft, the, #208#;
“Tutor’s Delight,” #116#.
Arthur, Chester A., opinion on, of Mr. Beecher, #575#;
on renomination of, #576#.
Articles, H. W. Beecher’s, sources and characteristics of, #325#, #326#;
Cause and Cure of Agitation (1850), #242#;
Christian’s Duty to Liberty (1854), #276#;
Church and Steamboat (1850), #350#, #351#;
Contrast, The (1862), #335#;
Controversy, Harsh (1850), #244#;
Convictions, Various, and Sin (1852), #353#;
Country’s Need (1862), #328#;
Courage and Enterprise (1862), #324#;
Crisis, The (1854), #273#;
Defence of Kansas, #283#;
Degraded into Liberty (1852), #263#;
Different Ways of Giving (1850), #352#;
Disbanding of Bowdoin St. Church (1862), #98#;
Dog Noble and Empty Hole (1856), #290#;
Dull Meetings, One Cause of (1852), #353#;
Duty, The Great (1862), #327#;
Duty of the Hour (1862), #323#;
Duty of To-day (1862), #330#;
Flowers in Church (1802), #392#;
Fugitive Slave Bill (1850), #240#;
Ground, The Only (1862), #333#;
Hearts and No Hearts (1856), #287#;
Hours of Exaltation (1857), #373#;
Hymns, Church (1855), #366#;
Ice in the Church (1852), #353#;
Infidel Toast, The (1859), #389#;
Law and Conscience (1850), #240#, #241#;
Leader for the People (1862) 332;
Lind, Jenny (1850), #351#;
Litchfield Revisited (1856), #35#;
Liturgy, Church, #370#;
Men, not Slaves (1862), #323#;
Mountain and the Closet (1857), #373#;
Naval Discipline (1852), #355#;
Newspaper Report, on a (1852), #356#;
Our Help from Above (1862), #323#;
Patriotism of the People (1862), #329#;
Proclamation of Emancipation, on (1862), #336#;
Queer Pulpit, A (1862), #334#;
.bn 705.png
.pn +1
Reconstruction (1862), #333#;
Remember the Poor (1850), #352#;
Root of the Matter (1862), #331#;
Salutatory (1861), #321#;
Shall we Compromise? (1850), #237#;
Silence must be Nationalized (1856), #287#;
Time, The, has Come (1862), #332#;
Trumpet, The (1862), #335#;
Use of the Beautiful by Christians, #393#;
War with England (1861), #322#;
Word from the People to Congress (1862), #323#;
Working with Errorists (1859), #380#.
Atchison, David R., in Kansas war, #277#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Bacon, Rev. Leonard, letters of, against Tilton, #527#;
letter of, on reconciliation, #559#.
Barnes, Hiram (Litchfield), reminiscence of, #37#.
Beach, Hon. W. A., convinced of H. W. Beecher’s innocence, #533#.
Beecher, Rev. Charles, anecdotes by, of H. W. Beecher, #50#;
music, early work in, #92#, #138#, #139#;
recollections by, of boyhood, #57#, #58#,
of Seminary days, #139#.
Beecher, David, character of, #17#;
strength of, #20#.
Beecher, Rev. Edward, promotes Advance, #491#.
Beecher, Esther, influence of, on H. W. Beecher, #68#, #69#;
in Brooklyn, #352#;
Mr. Beecher’s tribute to, #38#.
Beecher, George (son of Lyman), death of, #204#.
Beecher, Hannah, reminiscence of, #19#.
Beecher, Harriet (daughter of Lyman)—see #Stowe, Harriet B.:HBS#
Beecher, Harriet (wife of Lyman), arrival of, at Litchfield, #54#;
Beecher’s, H. W., opinion of, #65#,
religious instruction by, #77#,
tribute to, #143#;
death of, #143#;
home training, methods of, #65#;
impressions of Beecher family, #54#, #55#;
marriage of, to Lyman Beecher, #53#;
reminiscence of, by Mrs. Stowe, #54#.
Beecher, Henry (1570), notice of, #19#.
Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward,
Administration, strictures on, in 1862, #328–331:Page_328#, #335#;
distrusted by, in 1863, #397#, #443#,
feeling changed, #444#.
Advisory Council (1876), on, #538#;
cautions his people as to, #538#;
statements at, #544#;
challenge at, #545#;
demands production of letters, #549#;
declared innocent by, #550#;
address to, at close, #552#.
.bn 706.png
Agriculture, articles on, #182#;
studies in, #198#;
work in, #199#.
See under Farm, p. 698, and Peekskill, p. 701.
Aid sought from, some samples of, #656#.
Ambition of, for enterprise, #89#;
personal, devoid of, #593#,
advice to a relative on, #593#, #594#.
American, a typical, #25#.
Amherst College, enters, #109#;
course at, choice of, #112#;
studies at, #113#;
reminiscences by Dr. Field, #113#, #115#,
by Dr. Haven, #113#,
by L. Tappan, #114#, #117#,
by S. H. Emery, #114#,
by Rev. S. Hanks, #114#;
debate, a victory in, #114#;
“Tutor’s Delight,” 116;
sports at, #117#;
financial difficulties, #117#;
plans to earn money, #118#;
in anti-slavery debate, #119#;
record at, #135#.
Ancestry of, #20#, #21#;
its legacy of loyalty and truth, #24#.
Anderson, Gen. Robert, tribute to, #452#.
Art, effect of works of, #346–348:Page_346#;
high, versus decorative, on, #645#;
his collection of prints, #646#.
Arthur, Chester A., praise of, #575#;
renomination of, reasons for desiring, #575#, #576#.
Aspirations, on youthful, #89#.
Attainments of, at ten, #70#, #71#.
Atonement, on doctrine of, #607#.
Auction-sale, slave, imitation of, #292#.
Audiences of, on early, #594#.
Autobiography of, preparations for, #673#.
Bacon’s, Dr. L., letter to, on reconciliation, #559#;
reply, #560#.
Bashfulness of, youthful, #70#.
Battle of, a youthful, #36#.
Beautiful, on Christian enjoyment of the, #393#;
in nature, his love for, #394#.
Beecher, Esther, tribute to, #38#;
influenced by, #68#.
Beecher’s, Harriet, impressions of, #55#;
instructed in religion by, #77#;
his tribute to, #143#.
Beecher, Lyman, estimate of, #17#;
effect on, of conduct of, #68#, #69#;
indignant at persecution of, #151#.
Beecher, Roxana, tribute to, #24#;
recollections of, #47#;
influenced by memory of, #67#, #554#;
opinion of, from her letters, #128#.
Beecher, Rev. T. K., reminiscence by, #90#, #138#.
Belgian court, experiences at, #404#.
Bible, early analysis of, #137#, #192#;
on method of reading, #642#.
Birth of, #37#, #41#.
Birds, love for, #615#, #616#.
Blaine, J. G., opinion of, #576#;
refuses to support, #577#,
threatened for refusal, #579#;
.bn 707.png
election of, on probable result of, #579#.
Books, on buying, #648#.
Boston, bells of, amazed at, #83#;
ships and Navy-Yard in, enthusiasm over, #84#;
on juvenile feuds of, #85#;
chief in, of “follow your-leader,” 85;
cannon-ball, purloins a, #87#;
life at, in boyhood, #90–92:Page_90#;
moral influence of, bad, #92#;
joins Bowdoin St. Church, #98#;
receives call to, #216#;
defence at, on scandal rumors, #535#.
Bowen, Henry C., hostility of, #490#, #492#;
action of, in Tilton’s charge against Mr. Beecher, #511#,
charge published, #513#, #514#;
on renewed charges of, #542#, #543#.
Brattleboro, Vt., lecture at, #130–132:Page_130#.
Brice, Pomona, help for, #293#.
Brooklyn, declines reception by Common Council of, #672#.
Brown, John, sermon on, #301#.
Brussels, visit to, in 1863, #403#.
Buchanan, Pres., on administration of, #305#;
on fast-day of, #307#.
Budington, Rev. W., church of, seeks to heal dissension in, #524#;
letter to, on its protest, #526#.
Callers, daily, description of, #657#.
Calvinism, early teaching in, #70#, #77#.
Camp, life in, on dangers of, #319#.
Catechism, a failure at, #65#.
Character, moulding of, #44#, #81#;
at seventeen, #108#, #112#;
during college course, #113–116:Page_113#;
in manhood, #258#.
Charity, on, #352#;
demands on his, #658#.
Charleston, S. C., invited to deliver address at (1865), #449#;
Stanton’s despatch concerning, #450#;
address at, #451–454:Page_451#;
purpose of, in going to, #460#.
Children, love for, #639#;
a method of whipping, #640#;
his own, on newspaper report as to, #356#;
training of, #640#;
justice tempered by love, #641#;
advice to, on self-helpfulness, #641#,
on religion, on Bible-reading, #642#,
on study, #642#, #643#,
on health and on duty, #643#,
on choosing profession, #643#,
on literary style, #644#.
Chimes, church, first experience with, #83#.
“Choosing good parents,” on, #17#.
Christianity, on power of, to crush slavery, #268#.
Christian Union, in control of, #491#.
Church, going to, when a boy, #59#,
promises made, #60#,
experiences at, #61#;
on growth of a, #227#, #483#;
on proper work of a, #540#.
Church-bell, adventure with a, #60#.
Church-membership, on, #362#.
.bn 708.png
Cincinnati, O., family life at, #140#;
drives off his father’s cow, #141#;
constable at, a, #142#;
“family meeting” at, #142#;
Journal of, editor of, #141#.
Cleveland, Pres., remarks on slanders against, #577#;
support of, reasons for, #577–580:Page_577#;
on administration of, #587#.
Cleveland letters: invited as chaplain to convention, #461#;
reply to invitation, #465#,
public clamor against, #462#,
remarks on, #474#, #475#;
Tyng’s, Dr., letter on, #469#,
reply, #470#;
Storrs’s, Dr., letter on, #471#;
Mr. Beecher’s second letter, #472#,
effect of, #477#,
Storrs, Dr., on, #477#;
assailed by Independent for, #501#.
Coffee, effect of, #652#.
Colors, how affected by, #649–651:Page_649#.
Compromise measures, article on, #236–238:Page_236#;
Missouri Compromise, on repeal of, #273–277:Page_273#;
appeal to ministers as to, #275#, #276#;
on offer of, in 1860, #306#;
in general, on, #421#;
on proposal for, in 1864, #446#.
Congress, on proposed nomination to, #360#.
Congregational Association, resigns from, #567#, #568#;
statement to, #568#;
remarks on criticisms of his action, #569#.
Congregational Church, estimate of, #610#.
Conspiracy against, beginning of, #494#;
statement on, #495–520:Page_495#,
effect of publication of, #531#;
investigating committee, calls for an, #499#, #528#,
action of, #529#, #530#;
publicity of, motives for avoiding, #504#, #519#, #531#, #544#;
Eagle, card in, as to Woodhull letters, #522#;
demands production of any letters, #529#;
letter to, of Pres. Porter, #532#;
on malignity of conspirators, #546#, #553#;
on prompt demands for investigation, #547#;
on publishing of, #548#;
cost of, #549#, #565#;
Shearman’s, T., part in, #549#;
reflections on, #557#;
hostility of press in, #558#;
nervous strain from, #558#;
English sympathy during, #668#.
Conscientiousness of, how developed, #65#.
Controversy, harsh, advice against, #244#.
Conversion of, #98#;
recollections of, #590#.
Correspondence of, how conducted, #658#.
Courage of, physical, in killing mad dog, #664#.
Country, intense love for, #416#, #460#.
Courtship of, #121–127:Page_121#,
on false reports as to effects of, #129#;
Saxon, description of, #127#.
Cowper, William, on style of, #644#.
Creditors, on duty to, #354#.
.bn 709.png
.pn +1
Cunard steamers, on bigotry upon, #350#;
falsehood as to, charged with, #351#.
D.D., declination of title of, #391#.
Daniel, Samuel, poem of, #134#.
Darkness, early spiritual, #78–81:Page_78#, #119–121:Page_119#, #604#;
darkness dispersed, #155#.
Davis, Jefferson, on proposed hanging of, #458#.
Death, impending, feelings of, #507#, #508#, #516#, #556#;
of his brother George, #204#;
of his son George, #205#;
of his daughter “Caty,” #224#;
of his twin sons, #357#;
of three nephews 372;
no fear of, #681#, #682#;
remarks on, #682#;
his death, #676#,
wishes concerning, #681#,
private service at, #677#,
service in Plymouth, #678#;
burial of, #680#;
grave of, #680#.
Debate, early power in, #113#, #114#.
Denominationalism, on, #611#.
“Depravity, total,” hatred of phrase, #380#.
Divine, the, early strivings for, #77#, #78#, #100#.
Doctrine, early knowledge of, #163#, #165#, #604#;
commended for, #612#.
Douglass, Fred, invitation to, to Plymouth, #248#.
Dramatic power of, early, #96#.
Ecclesiastical machinery, dislike of, #152#, #153#, #606#.
Edinburgh, Scotland, speech at, in 1863, #419–422:Page_419#.
Editor, on power of an, #321#;
editorial articles, sources of, #325#,
characteristic features of, #325#, #326#.
Edmonson sisters, in purchase of, #292#.
Elections of 1884,
distrusts Mr. Blaine, #576#;
endorses Mr. Cleveland, #577#, #578#,
remarks on, #578#,
answer to remonstrance on, #579#, #580#,
answer to threat, #580#;
active work in, #580#;
review of, #584–586:Page_584#;
excitement in, on calm after, #586#.
Ellsworth, Col., on death of, #313#.
Elocution, how acquired, #95#, #96#;
gesture in, a favorite, #186#.
Emancipation, demands, #331#, #332#, #333#, #335#;
Proclamation of, article on, #336#;
God’s will, resigned now to, #337#, #338#.
England, on war with, #322#, #412#;
departure for, in 1850, #339#;
impressions of Warwick Castle, Kenilworth, #340#,
of Cæsar’s Tower, Guy’s Tower, #341#,
of Stratford-on-Avon, #342#, #344#,
of Oxford, Bodleian Library, #344#, #345#;
Episcopal services in description of, #342–344:Page_342#;
return from, #349#.
Departure for, in 1863, #396#;
motives for, #396#, #397#;
on sympathy in, for South, #399#, #400#;
arrival in, declines to speak, #400#;
.bn 710.png
Congregational clergy of, strictures on, #401#;
London, first speech in, #401#, #402#,
second speech in, #432–436:Page_432#;
United States, on English dread of, #402#, #403#;
consents to speak in, #406#;
requests for speeches in, #407#;
Manchester, speech at, #408–414:Page_408#;
offensive utterances against, denies, #416#;
Liverpool, speech in, #422–432:Page_422#,
placarded in, enmity of press of, #422#;
speeches in, effect of, #436#, #441#;
Storrs, Dr., on the work in, #437#;
impressions from the visit, #438–441:Page_438#;
New York papers on his work in, #441#;
welcomes delegates from, to Boston Council, #613#.
Departure for, in 1886, #665#;
friends’ enthusiastic farewell, #666#;
retrospect on landing, #666#, #668#;
likened in, to Gladstone, #669#;
preaching in London, #669#;
Westminster Abbey, visit to, #669#;
his work in, #670#, #671#;
public meetings in, on customs at, #670#;
address in City Temple, #671#;
return from, #672#.
English-speaking peoples, claimed by all, #26#.
English classics, love for, #113#, #114#, #133#;
criticisms on, #145#, #146#.
Episcopal Church, impressed by service of, #343#;
on liturgy of, #370#;
charged with disrespect towards, #371#;
vision of sermon in a, #377#;
tribute to, #610#.
Evil, method of combating, #194#, #195#, #217#, #218#, #219#, #355#.
Evolution, sermons on, #567#;
belief in, #608#, #609#.
Exhortation in social meetings, on, #353#.
Extemporaneous speech, early aptitude for, #113#, #173#.
Farm, work on, beginning of, #57#, #617#;
knowledge of farm-work, #199#;
on one use of a, #360#;
at Peekskill, #383#, #619–638:Page_619#;
work on, as a recreation, #617#.
Fishing, first experience at, #31#;
a confession as to, #614–616:Page_614#.
Flowers, love for, #96#, #616#, #626#;
brings him a rebuke, #96#;
on abundance of, #392#;
pulpit, on use in, #393#;
at Boscobel, #626#, #627#;
how influenced by, #627#.
Freedom of speech, on, #243#, #245#;
on stifling of, in Kansas, #284#.
Fremont, on marriage of, #290#.
Fugitive Slave Law, articles on, #236–238:Page_236#, #240–244:Page_240#.
Future punishment, on doctrine of, #608#.
Gaelic blood in, source of, #18#.
Garrison, William L., estimate of, #267#.
Glasgow, Scotland, speech in, in 1863, #414–419:Page_414#.
.bn 711.png
.pn +1
Gospel, must preach it as revealed to him, #154#.
Gospels, an analysis of, #192#;
broad study of, #596#.
Government, divine, views on, #326#;
church, views on, #609#.
Graduates, advice to, #173#.
Grammar, youthful definition in, #75#.
Hall, Rev. Chas. H., deep friendship for, #677#.
Hammers, on animation of, #389#.
Harrington, Moody, helped by, #120#.
Health of, how founded, #31#;
impaired in 1849, #339#,
in 1863, #396#;
management of, #652#;
on duty as to, #651#.
Heaven, digging to find, #49#.
“Homeward Bound,” liking for, #379#.
Home-life of, #639#.
Honors, worldly, compared with ministry, #592#.
Hopkinton, Mass., teaching at, #129#, #130#.
Horseback-riding, early attempt at, #55#.
Horticulture, love for, #96#;
studies in, #198#;
work in, #199#;
as an alterative, #394#, #395#.
Humorousness, early, #115#;
some examples of, #75#, #76#, #116#, #118#, #122#, #124#.
Hymns: see #Music:MUSIC#, p. 700.
Imposed upon, remarks on being, #659#.
Independent, contributor to, #328#, #488#;
editor of, #321#, #488#;
Salutatory, #321#;
editorials in, in 1862, #322–336:Page_322#;
assailed by, for Cleveland letters, #469#, #491#;
resigns editorship, #490#;
severs connection with, #491#.
Indiana Farmer, editor of, #182#, #185#, #197#.
Indianapolis, called to, #179#,
accepts call, #180#;
recollections of parishioners, #181–187:Page_181#;
his churches at, #181#, #183#, #207#;
his residences at, #182#, #202#;
personal appearance at, #183#;
a refractory brother, #184#;
popularity at, #186#, #203#;
an imitative tailor, #187#;
revivals at, sermon before Presbytery, #189#;
work in other towns, #190#, #193#;
labors in, against crime, #194#, #195#;
sermons at, on slavery, #195–197:Page_195#;
painting his own house, #202#;
his class of girls at, #203#;
helps at kite-making, #204#;
recollections of, #206–209:Page_206#;
tub, adventure with, #208#;
departure from, #216#;
success at, charged to plagiarism, #218#;
garden work at, #617#.
Infidelity, early victory over, #74#.
Infidels at Cincinnati, on the toast of, #381#.
Influences on, early, #65#, #66#;
of Charles Smith, #66#;
of Esther Beecher, #68#;
of his father, #68#, #69#;
in Boston, #83#, #84#.
Information, early desire for, #108#.
.bn 712.png
Instruction, catechetical, soon forgotten, #69#.
Investigation, habit of, how acquired, #32#.
Johnson, Pres., letter to, on reconstruction, #460#;
stricture on, #470#, #471#;
accepts policy of, #473#.
Journal of Commerce, criticism on, #334#.
Journals of, object in keeping, #144#, #145#;
some extracts from, #109–112:Page_109#, #139#, #144–150:Page_144#, #169#, #339#, #340#.
Judiciary, corrupt (1867–71), thunders against, #572#, #573#.
Kansas, on emigration to, #284#;
sends arms to, #283#, #286#;
on the contest in, #283#, #301#;
strictures on Administration, #302#.
Knowledge, art of retaining, #647#.
Kossuth, Louis, on the visit of, #256#;
gift of Hungarian bracelet, #352#.
Labor, physical, views on, #199#;
in the North and the South contrasted, #418#.
Lane Seminary, influence of, #137#;
life at, #154#;
graduates from, #157#.
Latin, result of studies in, #88#.
Law, on obedience to, #241#, #242#.
Lawrenceburg, called to, #157#;
removes to, plans, #158#;
church duties at, #159#, #172#;
success and salary at, #173#;
housekeeping at, #174#, #175#;
Thomas’s, Rev. J. H., reminiscences, #176#;
influence at, #177#;
on a gift of clothing, #178#, #179#;
farewell sermon at, #180#.
Laws lacking public sentiment, on, #459#.
Leader, as a popular, #325#.
Lectures of, his first, #130–132:Page_130#;
at Cincinnati in 1861, #309#;
during Rebellion, #319#;
politics and religion in, #390#;
purpose of, #564#;
field of, #564#;
proceeds of, how spent, #564#;
omitted during Conspiracy, #564#;
resumption of, reasons for, #564#, #565#;
demonstrations at, #565#,
remarks on, #566#;
in Boston, reception at, #565#;
West, reception in, #566#;
Louisville, reception at, #566#;
first before Yale students, how prepared, #598#;
expenses in lecture-tours, #653#.
“Lectures to Young Men,” purpose of, #200#;
publishing of, #201#.
Left to himself in boyhood, #59#.
Lenox, Mass., farm at, #359#, #618#;
work on, #360#;
relinquished, #372#.
Leopold, King, presented to, #403#, #404#;
advice to, as to Mexico, #405#.
Letter of, an early, #50#.
Levée, adventures at a, #111#.
Library of, how founded, #131#, #133#;
contents of, in 1835, #150#,
in later life, #646#, #647#;
.bn 713.png
.pn +1
a working library, #647#;
remark on, #647#.
License, obtains a, #157#.
“Life of Christ,” first volume of, completed, #480#, #674#;
second volume of, work on, #673#, #674#;
prophetic remark concerning, #674#.
Lincoln, Pres., estimate of, work for, #304#, #305#;
on call of, for troops, #327#, #328#;
on vacillation of, in 1862, #329#, #332#, #333#;
on duty of, #331#;
on Emancipation Proclamation of, #336#;
on Southern commission of, in 1864, #446#;
tribute to, #447#, #456#;
death of, #454#,
remarks on, #446#, #455#.
Lind, Jenny, defence of, #351#;
reminiscence of, #351#, #352#.
Liquor, on selling of, by Christians, #354#;
use of, #652#, #653#;
on need of, except as medicine, #653#.
Litchfield, Conn., early life in, #31–33:Page_31#;
visit to, in 1856, #35–38:Page_35#;
reminiscences by people of, #36#, #37#;
winter at, #62#, #63#;
North Pole situated in, #63#;
visit to, in 1857, #373#.
Liturgy, on church, #370#, #371#.
Liverpool, Eng., arrival in, in 1863, #400#;
talk in, a, #401#;
speech in, #422–432:Page_422#;
placarded in, #422#, #426#;
threatened with violence in, #423#;
risk in speaking in, #423#;
subject of speech, #423#;
reception at the hall, #424#, #425#.
London, Eng., first speech in, in 1863, #401#;
second speech in, #432–436:Page_432#;
voice in, threatened failure of, #432#, #433#;
success in, #436#;
preaches in, in 1886, #669#.
Love, to enemies, on, #311–313:Page_311#;
Christian, better than logic, #380#;
for friends, #658#,
“slopping over,” remarks on, #658#, #659#.
McClellan, on defeat of, #328#;
criticism on, #331#.
Manchester, Eng., reception in, in 1863, #408#, #409#;
subject of speech in, #409#;
speech in, #410–414:Page_410#;
victory in, #410#;
effect of speech, #414#.
Manliness and power, source of, #21#.
Marriage of, #170#, #171#;
of his daughter, #388#.
Mathematics, backwardness in, #94#;
opinion of, #114#.
Matteawan, N. Y., residence at, #372#, #618#.
Medical schools, views on, #353#, #354#.
Memory of, where defective, #647#.
Militia, on need of moral influence on, #661#;
as a member of, #660–663:Page_660#.
Ministers, classification of, #149#;
should be joyous, #150#;
on duty of, as to slavery, #248–252:Page_248#,
as to war-tax, #324#,
in public affairs, #360#,
as to preaching against evil practices, #361#;
.bn 714.png
spiritual office of, #370#.
See #Preacher:PREACHER#, p. 701.
Mitchel, John, prophecy on, #266#.
Monarchies, excitements in, contrasted with United States, #585#.
Moral principles, sacrifices for, #312#.
Moulton, Frank, confidence in, #496#, #497#;
letter to, June, 1873, #515#;
on letter from, #518#;
wife of, opposition to, #560#.
Mount Pleasant Institute, enters, #93#;
mathematics at, #94#, #100#;
elocution at, #95#;
recollections of W. P. Fitzgerald and J. W. Lovell, #94#, #95#;
chaplain of, rebukes H. W. Beecher, #96#;
life at, #97#;
studies at, #97#, #100#, #101#;
religious experiences at, #97–102:Page_97#;
Bible work at, #99#, #100#;
troubles at, #102#;
on card-playing at, #102#;
visit to, in 1849, #107#;
his character while at Institute, #108#.
Mourning, on outward symbols of, #676#;
Prussian queen, on tomb of a, #677#.
Music, early work in, #92#, #124#, #138#, #139#, #144#;
church music, on old methods of, #363#;
reform in, #365#;
“Plymouth Collection,” compilation of, #363–366:Page_363#;
hymns, views on, #366#, #368#;
music-writers, acquaintance with, #368#, #369#;
at prayer-meeting, #378#;
organ, on value of, #600#.
Name of, its source, #41#;
names bestowed upon, #613#.
Nation above party, #577#.
Nature, love for, #32#, #33#, #59#, #74#, #96#,
acquired by study, #394#;
religious impressions connected with, #77#;
study of, for preaching, #596#, #614#, #615#.
Navy, American, on moral defect in, #355#.
Negroes, feeling toward, how influenced, #66#;
fugitive, on help to, #240#, #241#, #323#,
on return of, #252#;
on ostracism of, #247#;
on treatment of, by omnibuses, #247#, #248#;
on freedom being given to eight, #263#;
treatment of, at North, #303#;
on slaves liberated by army, #323#;
on benefits to, of restoration of South, #463#, #467#, #473#.
Newell, Constantine, affection for, #104–106:Page_104#.
New England stock, a product of, #25#, #26#.
“Noble,” anecdote of, #290#.
Northbridge, Mass., teaching at, #130#.
Northern merchants, on boycott of, #247#.
Norwich, N. Y., impressions of, #389#.
“Norwood,” quoted, #88#;
published, #479#.
Observation, habit of, how gained, #32#.
Optimism, definition of, #585#.
.bn 715.png
.pn +1
Oratorical powers, imperceptible in youth, #70#.
Ordinances, church, view of, #609#.
Ordination, examination for, #161#, #165#, #166#;
Old School, refuses to subscribe to, #161#, #162#, #166#;
ordained, #163#, #167#.
Original sin, on doctrine of, #607#.
Orthodoxy, definition of, #606#;
on tests of, #606#, #607#.
Paris, visit to, in 1850, #346#;
art-galleries of, how affected by, #346–348:Page_346#, #349#;
Vicksburg, hears of fall of, while visiting, #405#,
effect on Southerners in, #406#.
Parker controversy, peacemaker in, #259#;
results, #260#;
letters on, #261#, #262#.
Parker, Theodore, condemned for associating with, #380#;
tribute to, #381#.
Party, political, on blind subservience to, #577#;
on redemption of a, #581#.
Pastorates, short, opposed to, #180#.
Patriotism of, where nurtured, #35#;
strength of, #416#.
Paul, St., compared with, #588#, #589#.
Peace (1861), denounces terms of, #310#, #311#.
Peekskill, N. Y., farm at, #383#;
description of, #619#, #620#;
cottage at, #620#;
improvements made, old apple-tree, #621#, #622#;
products of, #623#;
early crops at, rivalry over, #623#, #624#;
Turner, T. J., outwitted by Mr. Beecher, #624#,
thrifty nature of, #626#;
flowers at, #626#;
his “work” at, #627#, #628#;
new house at, #628–630:Page_628#,
chimney of, as a look-out, #629#,
decoration of, #630#;
trees and shrubs at, #630#, #632#;
benefits derived from, #632#;
insects at, gratitude to, #632#, #634#;
fowls at, #634#, #635#,
the patent hatcher, #635#, #636#;
cattle at, #636#;
bees at, #636#, #637#;
dogs at, #637#,
remarks on “Tommy,” 638.
Perseverance, thoughts on, #147#.
Personal attack, averse to, #354#.
Pessimism, definition of, #585#.
Phillips, Wendell, in Brooklyn, work for, #246#.
Phrenology, acceptance of, #130#;
lecturing on, #138#, #144#.
“Pinky,” buying freedom of, #294–297:Page_294#.
Plurality of wives of ancestors, remark on, #20#.
Plymouth Church, invited to come to, his answer, #210–213:Page_210#;
called to, #214#;
accepts call, reasons, #214#, #215#;
failure at, predicted, #217#;
first sermon at, #218#;
slavery, labors at, against, #219–221:Page_219#;
installed, #221#;
success at, #222#, #225#;
revivals at, work in, #222#, #375#, #391#;
prayer at, sample of a, #228#;
.bn 716.png
prayer-meeting, lecture, sociable at, #229#-231;
policy towards, #232#;
retrospect, a (1863), #337#;
prayer-meetings at, daily, #376#,
influence of, #377#;
on income of, #379#;
organ at, on a new, #382#;
on flowers in, #393#;
on Silver Wedding of, remarks at, #481–484:Page_481#;
generosity of, in Conspiracy, #565#;
tribute to, #578#;
result of work in, #601#;
welcome at, in 1886, #672#;
funeral services at, #678#;
memorial service at, #680#.
“Plymouth Collection,” history of, #363–366:Page_363#;
terms of publication of, #364#;
on alleged omission of Watts’s hymns from, #368#.
Political secret societies, on, #362#.
Politics, in the army, indignant at, #444#;
on honesty and morality in, #583#.
Prayer, early love for, #97#, #100#;
sample of, #228#;
on extemporaneous, #371#;
at prayer-meeting, #378#;
reply to request for copy of a, #656#.
Prayer-meetings, method of conducting, #376#, #377#;
on laughter in, #377#.
Preacher, his rank as a, #588#;
qualities as a, #589#;
parental faith his first incentive, #590#;
early training-school, #590#;
temperament as a, #591#;
high estimate of a, #592#;
early life as a, a happy period, #593#;
call to a, two essentials to, #594#;
discouraged, advice to a, #595#;
should consecrate every gift, #595#.
See #Ministers:MINISTERS#, p. #700#.
Preaching, beginnings of, #130#;
first in the West, #149#;
naturalism in, #164#;
to preach Christ only, #167#, #178#, #193#, #227#;
first real, at Indianapolis, #187#;
versatility in, #193#;
courage in, incidents of, #194#, #195#;
means of relief from, #198#;
spirituality in, one source of, #391#;
estimate of, #588#;
on future scope of, #592#;
theory of, #595#;
involuntary preparation for, #596#;
influence of his, on theology, #602#;
manner in, an example, #605#;
preparation for, #597–600:Page_597#, #655#.
Precious stones, love for, soothing effect of, #649–651:Page_649#;
relief derived from, at Liverpool, #650#;
reason for love of, #650#, #651#.
Pride, early struggles with, #102#.
Private Journal of, at Amherst, #109#;
contents of, #109#, #110#.
Profanity, on a case of, #642#.
Prussian queen, on tomb of a, #677#.
Pulpit, on freedom of, #248–252:Page_248#;
duty of, as to war-tax, #324#,
in public affairs, #360#, #361#;
as a popular educator, #362#;
preparation for, #655#.
.bn 717.png
.pn +1
“Puritan penitentiary,” not born in a, #57#.
Rats, at Litchfield, description of, #63#.
Rebellion, on enlistment of son for, #310#;
interest of, in organizing militia, #314#;
sacrifices for, #316#;
Fourteenth Regiment, equipment of, #316#,
sermon to, #317#;
Sixty-seventh Regiment, equipment of, #317#, #488#;
Union soldier, on duty of, #317#, #318#;
Bull Run defeat, on, #350#;
on Administration’s inactivity and mismanagement, #324#, #325#, #328#, #329#,
on duty of, #330#, #331#;
God’s leadership in, prayer for, #332#;
Union success in, confident of, #333#;
Confederacy and Administration contrasted, #335#;
state of, in 1863, #397#;
enormous army, should be crushed by an, #443#;
troops in, should be no distinction between, #443#;
end of, joy at, #451#, #455#;
brought on by Southern politicians, #454#.
Reconstruction of South, on President’s duty in (1862), #333#;
speech on, #458#;
letter on, to Pres. Johnson, #460#;
on benefits of, to colored race, #463#;
on military government in, #465#, #466#.
Recreation, mental, how taken, #394#, #395#.
Religion, meaning of, #642#.
Religious experience of, at Litchfield, #65–69:Page_65#, #76–81:Page_76#;
at Mt. Pleasant, #97–102:Page_97#;
at Amherst, #119–121:Page_119#;
at Lane, #154#, #155#;
spiritual exaltation (1857), #373#;
influence of early, #604#.
Republican party, work for, in 1856, #289#,
in 1860, #304#, #305#,
in 1864, #571#;
esteem of, #471#;
in sympathy with (1866), #473#;
favors election of members of, to Congress (1866), #475#;
corruption in, labors against, #574#;
reasons for not working for, #581–583:Page_581#;
still a member of, #584#.
Republics, on political excitement in, #583#.
Reputation, on posthumous, #557#.
Responsibility, on individual, #219#.
Retort, quickness of, #252#, #253#.
Revivals, at Litchfield, #81#;
at Mt. Pleasant, #98#;
at Amherst, #119#;
at Terre Haute, #191#, #192#;
at Plymouth, #222#, #231#, #391#;
method of conducting, #375–378:Page_375#.
Romance of, an early, #103#.
Ruskin, John, tribute to, #394#.
Sadness, a tendency to, #345#, #346#, #500#, #556#.
Sailor, on needs of the, #355#.
St. Louis Library Association, asked to lecture before, #389#;
matters to be avoided, his reply, #390#.
.bn 718.png
Salisbury, Conn., on beauties of, #356#.
Salvation, on, #379#.
Sarah —, buying freedom of, #298–300:Page_298#.
Saviour, vision of sufferings of, #377#.
Scepticism, a touch of, #154#, #164#.
Scholar, desires to be a, #593#.
School life, beginning of, #49#, #50#;
experiences at district school, #51–53:Page_51#,
at Mr. Brace’s and Mr. Langdon’s, #72#, #74#,
at Catharine Beecher’s, amusing incidents, #75#, #76#;
progress in his studies, #83#;
at Mt. Pleasant, #93–108:Page_93#.
Schools, the two Presbyterian, views on, #163#.
Scott, Walter, early critique on, #145#.
Sea-life, determines on, #89#;
to study for it, #90#, #93#;
design abandoned, #99#.
Seasons, allegorical view of, #616#.
Sectarianism, on, #611#, #612#.
Sermons, illustrations for, how acquired, #32#;
his earliest, #130#;
first Western, #149#;
first at Lawrenceburg, #173#;
record book of, #179#, #192#;
at Indianapolis, #186#, #187#;
modelled on Apostles’, #188#;
proper aim of, #188#;
sermon on “Prodigal Son,” #189#;
first sermon in Plymouth, #218#,
outline of, #229#;
issued in book form, #479#;
Thanksgiving, custom in, #584#;
note-books on, #596#;
method of preparing, #597–600:Page_597#, #655#,
remarks on, #655#;
the one at Charleston, #599#,
at Stamford, #599#;
method of delivering, #600#;
fruits of, #602#;
must be delivered immediately, #656#;
trial sermon, #687#.
Seward, Wm. H., opinion of, #305#.
Shakspere, early criticism on, #146#.
“Shining Shore,” a favorite with, #366#, #379#.
Sickness, thoughts on, #147#;
his final, #675#.
Slavery, work done against, at Amherst, #119#,
at Indianapolis, #185#, #195–197:Page_195#;
course on, defined, #217–220:Page_217#, #242#;
on Church’s timidity towards, #221#;
Fugitive Slave Law, articles on, #236–238:Page_236#, #240–244:Page_240#;
leader against, an acknowledged, #244#;
pulpit labor against, defence of, #248–252:Page_248#;
tenacity of anti-slavery, on cause of, #257#,
instrumentalities for, use of, #266#;
Constitution, ballot, Church, as forces against, #267#;
Christianity against, on power of, #268#;
battle against, religious element in, #269#, #270#;
on treatment of, #303#, #331#;
military question, a, #331#;
system of, requires ignorance, #417#.
Sleep, habits as to, #654#.
.bn 719.png
.pn +1
South, not safe to visit, #426#;
on reconstruction of, #453#, #458#, #461#;
on kindness to people of (1865), #454#;
on effect of exclusion of, #459#, #468#, #473#;
affection for, #460#;
faith in honor of, #463#;
on restoration of States of, #465–468:Page_465#,
Northern fear of, #466#, #467#;
to be effected by Republican party, #477#;
on results to, of elections of 1884, #587#;
mediation for, #612#.
Speculative, early aptitude for the, #78#, #79#.
Spiritualism, disbelief in, #363#.
Sports, youthful, superiority in, #85#, #108#.
Stanton, Edwin M., encouraging note to, reply, #447#;
requested by, to go to Charleston, #449#;
telegram from, on Sheridan’s success, #450#.
Stockton, Col.], recommends to Lincoln, #443#.
Storrs, Dr. R. S., reasons for not confiding in, #520#;
attempted reconciliation with, #561#.
Stowe, Rev. Calvin E., indebtedness to, #137#;
a joke on, #141#.
Strength of paternal ancestry of, #19#.
Studies, in youth, backward in, #70#, #74#, #102#.
Study, on wrong method of, #643#.
Style, literary, remarks on, #644#.
Sumner-Brooks affair, speech on, #287#;
article on, #288#.
Sunday, influences of, when a boy, #62#.
Synod meeting, description of, #152#.
Tasks of, in boyhood, #64#.
Taxes for war, on, #323#;
Christian’s duty as to, #324#.
Tea, effect of, #652#.
Temperance, early work in, #130#, #138#, #144#, #147#;
in Lawrenceburg, #185#;
“teetotal” at Oxford, Eng., #345#;
to his daughter, on practice of, #384#;
use of liquors as medicine, #652#, #653#.
“Temple Melodies,” compilation of, #363#;
name omitted from title of, #364#.
Terre Haute, Ind., reminiscence of, #190–192:Page_190#.
Theologian, as a, #602#, #603#;
estimate of, #603#.
Theology, proposes to find a universal, #570#;
his influence on, #604#;
theological disputes, hatred of, #604#, #605#;
dislike of, reason for, #606#;
future, on the, #609#.
Thirteenth Regiment, accepts chaplaincy of, #660#;
sword a source of trouble, #662#;
military orders, experience with, #662#, #663#;
title in, #663#.
Tides, youthful definition of, #76#.
Tilton, Theodore, affection for, #489#, #500#;
first charge of, #493#;
called on to leave Brooklyn by, #494#, #503#;
.bn 720.png
efforts to reclaim, #495#, #497#;
opinion of, to Bowen, #503#;
self-accusations of unintentional wrong to, #505#;
moral conduct of, deceived in, #509#;
urges him to break with Mrs. Woodhull, #510#;
on bad traits of, #516#;
promise to, as to Mrs. Tilton, #517#;
payment to, of $5,000, #519#;
openly charged by, #527#;
charge changed by, #532#;
civil suit by, #533#.
Tilton, Mrs. T., advice asked by, as to separation, #502#;
letter to, Feb. 17, 1871, #507#;
letter to, on Woodhull scandal, #513#.
Tools, readiness with, #64#.
Travel, foreign, religion weakened by, #384#.
Trinity, on doctrine of, #607#.
Tripartite agreement, part in, #512#;
honored by him alone, #520#.
Trouble, on surmounting, #374#;
how affected by, #499#.
Trouting, letter on, #357#.
Trust in God, on, #379#;
how strengthened, #616#, #617#.
Truth, desire for, #212#.
“Tutor’s Delight,” the, #116#.
Tweed frauds, denunciations of, #572#.
Twin sons of, birth of, #352#;
death of, #357#.
Undenominational spirit of, #163#, #167#, #227#, #483#, #611#.
Unitarian reaction in Massachusetts, on the, #83#;
Sabbath-school, on ostracism of a, #355#, #356#.
Vicksburg and Gettysburg, on victories of, #405#, #406#.
War, views on, #312#, #313#, #398#;
Christians in, on bearing of, #314#;
with England, on, #322#.
Welsh blood in, source of, #19#.
White Mountains, summer services in, #660#.
Widowerhood, possible, remark on, #20#.
Woman, reverence for, #554#.
Writing-paper, dislike of foreign, #387#.
Young, fondness for, #184#, #185#, #203#;
“Lectures to Young Men,” 199.
Beecher, Mrs. H. W., an accident to, #385#;
determination of, #386#;
Beecher’s, Henry W., letter to, on his health, #653#;
Lawrenceburg, description of pastorate at, #172#,
of housekeeping at, #174#;
retrospect by, of Mr. Beecher’s youth, #121–127:Page_121#;
wedding of, #170#;
journey to West, #171#.
Beecher, John, a pioneer of New Haven Colony, #19#.
Beecher, Joseph, reminiscence of, #19#;
strength of, #20#.
Beecher, Nathaniel, reminiscence of, #19#;
strength of, #20#.
.bn 721.png
.pn +1
Beecher, Rev. Lyman, affection of, for his wife, #26#.
Beecher, Roxana, opinion of, #24#, #26#.
Birth and childhood of, #18#.
Boston, removal to, #82#.
Character of, #17#, #26#, #27#.
Children of, their regimen, #46#;
tulip-bulbs, adventure with, #47#;
at their mother’s death, #49#;
some amusements of, the cat’s funeral, #56#;
treatment of, by their father, #57#;
fishing trip, a, spoiled, #58#;
teaching of, by their father 58;
father’s spirit, influenced by, #68#.
Cincinnati, household at, #138–140:Page_138#;
family meeting at, #142#.
College, preparation for, #19#.
Courtship of, #26#.
Death of, H. W. Beecher on, #681#.
Duelling, effect of sermon on, #27#.
East Hampton, life and labors at, #27#;
departure from, #29#.
Farm life, disgusted with, #18#.
Financial difficulties, faith under, #117#.
Indomitable spirit of, infused into his children, #68#, #69#.
Kindness of, abused, remark on, #659#.
Lane Seminary, president of, #136#, #160#;
instruction at, method of, #137#;
heresy, charged with, #151#, #160#;
union of churches, wish for, #160#.
Letters of, to Roxana Foote, #26#, #27#.
Litchfield, called to, #29#;
dwelling at, #38#, #62#,
rats in, #63#;
household at, #38#,
H. W. Beecher on, #553#;
ideal home, an, #40#;
labors at, made a mental stimulus, #58#;
visit to, in 1857, #373#.
Marriage of, to Roxana Foote, #27#;
to Harriet Porter, #53#.
Missionary societies in Connecticut formed by, #42#.
New School, battle for, #151#.
Orthodoxy, zeal for, #82#.
Plymouth Church, at a revival in, #376#.
Religious temperament of, #26#.
Shrewdness of, in H. W. Beecher’s sea project, #90#.
Society for Prevention of Vice in Connecticut formed by, #42#.
Synod, moderator of, #152#.
Temperance, action on, #42#.
Unitarian reaction, protest against, #82#.
United States in 1813, remarks on, #41#.
Woodspell, the yearly, #58#.
Beecher, Roxana, accomplishments of, #23#.
Ancestry of, #21#, #22#.
Beecher’s, H. W., estimate of, #128#;
her influence on, #67#, #554#.
Courtship of, #26#.
Death of, #48#.
East Hampton, L. I., life in, #27#.
.bn 722.png
Education of, how acquired, #23#.
Episcopal Church, member of, #23#, #24#.
Letters of, to Lyman Beecher, #26#.
Love of, for her husband, #26#.
Parents of, loyal to king, #23#.
Personal characteristics of, #23#, #24#.
Recollections of, #47#.
Religious temperament of, #24#, #26#.
School of, in East Hampton, #28#.
Science, interest in, #40#.
Trials of, some, #40#.
Beecher, Rev. Thomas K., reminiscences by, of Henry and Charles, #90#, #138#.
Benton, Lot, Lyman Beecher brought up by, #18#.
Big Bantam Lake (Litchfield), #31#.
Blaine, James G., H. W. Beecher on, #576#, #577#.
Blake, G. Faulkner, in ransom of slaves, #294#.
Boscobel—see #Peekskill:PEEKSKILL#.
Boston, Mass., bells of, #83#;
Beecher’s, H. W., life in, #90–92:Page_90#,
adventure with cross woman of, #118#,
rumors in, against, #534#, #546#,
rumors refuted, #535#;
reception in, at lecture, #565#;
Beecher, Lyman, removes to, #82#,
dwelling at, #85#;
feuds of, juvenile, #85#;
Navy-Yard of, H. W. Beecher’s enthusiasm over, #84#,
purloins cannon-ball from, #87#;
ships of, impress H. W. Beecher, #84#;
sport of, a juvenile, #85#.
Bowen, Henry C., H. W. Beecher’s dispute with, as to accounts, #489#,
scandalous hints concerning, #490#,
hatred of, intensified by resignation, #492#,
bitter enemy to, #494#,
promises support to, #504#,
renews charges against, #542#,
proposed committee on, #543#;
card of, on black-listing, #247#;
Conspiracy, part in, #493#;
Plymouth Church, dropped by, #543#;
Tilton, Theodore, early troubles with, #491#,
reasons for reducing, #503#,
charged by, with scandalous stories, #511#;
tripartite agreement, part in, #512#.
Brice, Pomona, help afforded to, #293#.
Brooklyn, N. Y., H. W. Beecher called to, #187#, #210–216:Page_210#,
speech at, on return from England, #438#,
in answer to Wendell Phillips, #458#;
Common Council of, tender reception to Mr. Beecher, #672#;
Fourteenth Regiment, equipment of, #316#;
martial spirit in, in 1861, #314#;
services in, at death of Mr. Beecher, #680#;
.bn 723.png
.pn +1
slaves ransomed in, #292–300:Page_292#;
Thirteenth Regiment of, elects Mr. Beecher chaplain, #660#.
Brooks, Preston S., attack of, on Charles Sumner, #286#;
Mr. Beecher on, #287#, #288#.
Brown, John, H. W. Beecher on, #301#, #302#;
name of, a war-cry, #301#;
sketch of, #300#.
Brussels, Belgium, visit to, of Mr. Beecher, #403#.
Buchanan, Pres., administration of, #305#;
election of, #291#;
fast-day of, #307#.
Budington, Rev. W. I., Advisory Council (1876), refuses to attend, #544#;
Beecher, H. W., enmity to, #521#;
church of, divided on calling council, #523#,
protest on, #524#,
letter to, from Mr. Beecher, on protest, #526#.
Bull Run defeat, H. W. Beecher on, #320#;
effect of, at North, #319#, #320#.
Burgess, Deacon, annually nominated for Legislature, #22#.
Burr, Betsey, #38#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Calhoun, John C., on Compromise Bill, #236#.
California, admission of, as State, #235#.
Calvinism, H. W. Beecher’s early training in, #70#, #77#;
Beecher’s, Lyman, zeal for, #82#;
reaction against, in Massachusetts, #82#, #83#.
Catlin, Dr. (Litchfield), reminiscence of, #36#.
Charleston, S. C., exercises at, in 1865, addressed by Mr. Beecher, #449–454:Page_449#;
his sermon at, how prepared, #599#.
Chestnut Hill (Litchfield), #30#.
Children, H. W. Beecher’s love for, #639#;
method of whipping, one, #640#;
advice to his children on self-help, religion, Bible-reading, study, health and duty, choosing profession, literary style, #641–644:Page_641#.
Christian Union, H. W. Beecher editor of, #491#;
formation of, #491#.
Cincinnati, O., in 1834, #153#;
Beecher’s, H. W., lecture in, in 1861, #309#.
Citizen, Brooklyn, on burial of Mr. Beecher, #680#.
Clay, Henry, Compromise measure of, #235#,
Beecher, H. W., on, #237#;
Omnibus Bill of, #236#.
Cleveland, Grover, slanders against, Mr. Beecher on, #577#, #578#;
supported by, in 1884, #577–580:Page_577#.
.bn 724.png
Cleveland, O., army and navy convention at, object, #461#, #464#;
invitation of, to Mr. Beecher, #461#.
Cleveland letters, history of, #461–478:Page_461#;
invitation to Mr. Beecher by convention, #461#;
reply, #465#,
public clamor against, #462#;
second letter, #472#.
Cobden, Richard, on English sympathy for American Union, #440#.
Compromise measures, acceptance of, by political parties, #257#;
Beecher, H. W., on, #236–238:Page_236#, #306#, #421#;
evil of, #235#;
introduction of, in Congress, #233#;
object of, #235#;
passage of, #238#;
popular endorsement of, #257#, #265#.
Congregational Association, H. W. Beecher resigns from, #567#,
statement to, #568#;
resolution of, on resignation, #568#.
Congregational Church, proposed liturgy for, #370#;
Beecher, H. W., on extemporaneous prayer in, #371#;
of England, favors Confederacy, #400#, #402#,
Mr. Beecher on, #401#;
Mr. Beecher’s estimate of, #610#.
Connecticut, Congregational churches of, withdraws aid from, #42#;
Society for Prevention of Vice, missionary societies in, #42#;
temperance question, #42#.
Conspiracy, the, H. W. Beecher’s account of, #495–520:Page_495#,
on malignity of, #546#;
beginning of, #493#, #494#;
Boston, rumors in, concerning, #534#,
Mr. Beecher’s defence at, #535#;
Bowen’s, H. C., part in, #493#;
civil suit, the, #533#;
Moulton, Mrs., against Mr. Beecher, #534#;
cost of, to Mr. Beecher, #549#;
end of, #562#;
“False Secret,” the, #563#;
history of, #488–563:Page_488#;
investigating committee on, #499#, #527–530:Page_527#,
members of, Mr. Beecher’s letter to, #528#;
Moulton, Frank, joins, #494#;
tripartite agreement in, #496#, #497#, #511#, #512#;
Woodhull scandal in, #513#.
Cowper, William, style of, #644#.
Cuba, annexation of, #280#, #282#;
expedition against, #281#.
Cunard steamers, H. W. Beecher on bigotry on, #350#, #351#.
Cutler, W. T., in Mr. Beecher’s call East, #210#, #213#;
letter to, of Mr. Beecher, #210#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Daniel, Samuel, poem of, quoted, #134#.
Dayton, George, neighbor at Peekskill, #623#.
.bn 725.png
.pn +1
Democratic party, divisions in, in 1863, #398#;
losses of, in 1854, #273#;
success of, in 1852, #257#,
in 1856, #291#.
Douglas, Stephen A., resolution of, to repeal Compromise, #272#.
Douglass, Fred., invited to attend Plymouth Church, #248#.
Dred Scott decision, the, #281#;
logical results of, #282#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Eagle, Brooklyn, Tilton’s infamous article in (1873), #514#.
East Hampton, L. I., Beecher family in, #27#,
departure from, #29#;
school in, of Roxana Beecher, #28#.
Edinburgh, Scotland, H. W. Beecher’s speech in, #419–422:Page_419#.
Editor, H. W. Beecher on power of an, #321#;
editorial articles of, sources, #325#;
their characteristic features, #325#, #326#.
Edmonson sisters, freedom of, purchased, #292#, #293#.
Election of 1884, H. W. Beecher’s work in, #575–583:Page_575#;
review of, #585#, #586#.
Ellsworth, Col., H. W. Beecher on death of, #313#.
Emancipation, H. W. Beecher demands, #331#, #332#, #333#;
Proclamation of, article on, #336#.
Emery, S. Hopkins, reminiscences by, of H. W. Beecher, #114#.
Emigration societies, to aid fight in Kansas, #279#.
England:
America, introduced slavery into, #431#.
Beecher’s, H. W., visit to, in 1850, #339–349:Page_339#;
impressions of Warwick, Kenilworth, #340#,
of Cæsar’s and Guy’s Towers, #341#,
of Stratford-on-Avon, #342#, #344#,
of Oxford, Bodleian Library, #344#, #345#.
Trip to, in 1863, #396–436:Page_396#;
speeches in Manchester, #408–414:Page_408#,
in Liverpool, #422–432:Page_422#,
in London, #432–436:Page_432#;
effect of speeches, #436#, #441#.
Visit to, in 1886, #665–672:Page_665#;
Westminster Abbey, visit to, #669#;
on customs at public meetings in, #670#;
address in City Temple, #671#.
Classes in, upper, favor Confederacy, #339#, #400#, #438#,
reasons for, #439#;
laboring classes favor North, #400#, #440#.
Confederate cruisers, building of, stopped, #410#.
Congregational clergy in, favor South, #400#, #402#;
H. W. Beecher on, #401#.
Parliament of, willing to declare for South, #406#.
.bn 726.png
Product of institutions of, in New England, #25#.
Public meetings in, customs at, #670#.
Queen of, a friend to North, #439#.
Confederacy, results in, of its success, #429#;
feeling in favor of, universal, #438#.
Vicksburg and Gettysburg, effect of victories at, #406#, #441#.
War with, H. W. Beecher on, #322#, #412#.
United States, reasons for wishing disruption of, #402#, #403#, #439#, #440#;
material reasons for supporting Northern cause, #428#, #429#.
Express, New York, on Fremont’s
marriage, #291#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
“False Secret,” the, #563#.
Fast-day, Buchanan’s, #307#.
Field, Thomas P., reminiscences by, of H. W. Beecher, #96#, #113#, #115#.
Fitzgerald, W. P., H. W. Beecher’s instructor in mathematics, #94#.
Foote, James, notice of, #21#.
Foote, Nathaniel, notice of, #21#.
Foote, Roxana—see #Beecher, Roxana:RB#.
Foote, Roxana Ward, names H. W. Beecher, #41#;
notice of, #22#.
Foote, Samuel, reminiscence of, #38#.
Fourteenth Regiment, formation of, #316#;
H. W. Beecher’s sermon to, #317#.
Freedmen—see #Negroes:NEGROES#.
Freedom of speech, H. W. Beecher on, #243–245:Page_243#;
on stifling of, in Kansas, #284#.
Fremont, John C., marriage of, used against him, #290#;
nominated for President, #288#;
religion of, #291#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Garrison, William L., H. W. Beecher on, #267#.
Gettysburg, victory at, effect in England, #406#.
Glasgow, Scotland, H. W. Beecher’s speech in, in 1863, #414–419:Page_414#.
Gould, Judge, law-school of, at Litchfield, #34#, #37#;
reminiscence of, #36#.
Grant, Gen., and Mr. Beecher’s military titles, #663#.
Guilford, Conn., #22#, #23#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Hall, Rev. Charles H., friendship of, for H. W. Beecher, #677#;
preaches at his death, #678#.
Hanks, S. W., reminiscence by, of H. W. Beecher, #114#.
Harrington, Moody, a religious helper to H. W. Beecher, #120#, #121#.
.bn 727.png
.pn +1
Haven, John, reminiscence by, of H. W. Beecher, #113#.
Hopkinton, Mass., H. W. Beecher’s school at, #129#.
Hubbard, Aunt Mary, #38#;
death of, #42#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Independent, the, H. W. Beecher’s early contributions to, #320#, #488#,
editor of, #321#, #488#,
editorials in (1862), #322–336:Page_322#,
assailed in, for Cleveland letters, #469#, #491#, #501#;
conduct of, protest against, #491#;
influence of, early, #490#;
purpose of, #321#;
rivals of, #491#, #492#;
Tilton, Theodore, editor of, #490#,
resigns, #492#.
Independent Republicans, H. W. Beecher on, #561#, #583#.
Indianapolis, Ind., H. W. Beecher called to, #179#, #181#,
his churches at, #181#, #183#,
departure from, #216#;
condition of, in 1839, #181#, #206#;
railroad train from, the first, #207#, #216#.
Indians, antiquities of, at Litchfield, #31#;
Lyman Beecher’s labors among, #27#.
Ingersoll, Mrs., reminiscence of, #72#.
Investigating Committee (in Conspiracy), asked for, by Mr. Beecher, #528#;
report of, #530#.
Ireland, American sympathy for, #265#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Johnson, Pres., plan of, as to reconstruction, #458#,
H. W. Beecher to, #460#;
course of, Northern anger against, #462#, #469–471:Page_469#.
Jones, Mr., part of, in “Temple Melodies,” #363#, #364#.
Journal of Commerce, New York, H. W. Beecher’s criticism on, #334#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Kansas, H. W. Beecher on the contest in, #283#, #301#;
Brown, John, in, #300#;
emigrants to, rush of, #279#,
H. W. Beecher on, #284#;
forces in, opposing, #280#;
freedom, personal, endangered in, #284#;
governors of, deposed, #282#;
importance of, in slavery contest, #277#;
Lecompton Constitution, adoption of, #278#,
rejected by the people, #282#;
Legislatures of, the two, #279#, #280#;
rifles sent to, by Mr. Beecher, #283#, #286#;
situation in, in 1855, #278#;
slave-laws of, #278#, #284#;
Topeka Constitution, adoption of, #279#;
war in, beginning of, #271#,
deeds committed in, #279#,
results of, #282#, #300#.
.bn 728.png
Kilbourne, “Ma’am,” H.W. Beecher’s first teacher, #50#.
Kossuth, Louis, sketch of, visit to America, #256#, #352#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Landon, Sheriff, reminiscence of, #37#.
Lane Seminary, Ohio, Lyman Beecher president of, #136#,
gives earnest tone to, #137#;
object of, #136#;
slavery question at, #137#.
Langdon, Mr., school of, attended by H. W. Beecher, #72#;
teaching, method of, #74#.
Lawrenceburg, Ind., H. W. Beecher called to, #157#,
residence at, #174#, #176#,
success at, #173#, #176#;
church of, independent, #162#, #167#;
description of, #158#, #159#.
“Lectures to Young Men,” purpose of, #200#;
publishing of, #201#.
Lecture-room talks of H. W. Beecher:
Conversion of Philippian Jailer (1858), #376#;
Division in Presbyterian Church, #163#;
Emancipation Proclamation, #337#;
Love to Enemies, #311#.
Lenox, Mass., H. W. Beecher’s farm at, #359#, #360#, #618#;
residence at, given up, #372#.
Leopold, King, receives H. W. Beecher, suggests compromise in Rebellion, #404#;
Mr. Beecher’s advice to, on Mexico, #405#.
Letters quoted:
Beecher, H. W., to Dr. Bacon, March, 1876, #560#.
To Barnabas Bates, October 12, 1852, #261#.
To Mrs. Beecher, May 17, 1849, #106#;
1873, #508#;
on his health, #654#.
To Edward Beecher, July 11, 1829, #99#;
August, 1829, #100#.
To William Beecher, 1832, #129#.
To Dr. Budington, 1874, #526#.
To W. T. Cutler, December 15, 1846, #210#.
To Richard Hale, October 12, 1852, #261#.
To Indianapolis Church, August 12, 1847, #214#.
To Investigating Committee, 1874, #528#.
To R. W. Landis, October 12, 1852, #262#.
To Frank Moulton, June, 1873, #515#.
To Plymouth Church, August 19, 1847, #215#.
To S. Scoville, on Ambition, #594#.
To St. Louis Library Association, 1859, #390#.
To Mrs. Tilton, November, 1872, #513#.
To New York Tribune, #268#, #269#.
To Dr. Tyng, September 6, 1866, #470#.
To his sister, 1817, #50#;
December 24, 1828, #97#;
March 1, 1830, #101#;
1831, #117#;
1837, #171#.
To his daughter, November, 1853, #358#;
June 24, 1854, #358#;
.bn 729.png
.pn +1
1859, #383#, #384#;
February 11, 1860, #385#;
February 14, 1860, #387#.
To his children, #642–646:Page_642#.
To Colonel of Thirteenth Regiment, December 19, 1884, #662#;
February 12, 1885, #663#.
Bacon, Dr. Leonard, to H. W. Beecher, February 27, 1876, #559#.
Moulton, Frank, to H. W. Beecher, June 1, 1873, #517#.
Storrs, R. S., to H. W. Beecher, November 2, 1872, #520#.
St. Louis Library Association to H. W. Beecher, 1859, #389#.
Tyng, Dr. S. H., to H. W. Beecher, 1866, #469#.
“Life of Christ,” first volume of, completed, #480#, #674#;
second volume of, work on, #673#, #674#;
prophetic words of Mr. Beecher on, #674#.
Lincoln, Pres., H. W. Beecher’s confidence in, #304#;
work for, #305#;
on call of, for soldiers, #327#, #328#;
on vacillation of, in 1862, #329#, #444#;
on invincible purpose of, in 1863, #398#;
visit to, in 1864, #446#;
tribute to, #447#.
Emancipation Proclamation of, #336#.
Nomination of, #304#.
Restoration of South, favors immediate, #465#.
Nomination of, for presidency, #304#.
Lind, Jenny, H. W. Beecher’s defence of, #351#.
Litchfield, Conn., antiquities of, #31#;
appearance of, in 1856, #35–38:Page_35#;
Beecher, Lyman, called to, #29#,
residence and household at, #38#, #62#, #63#;
courts of, their brilliancy, #34#;
description of, by H. W. Beecher, #30#;
education and religion, reputation for, #33#, #34#;
foundation of, wisdom shown in, #33#;
natural beauties of, #32#, #33#;
paradise, a, for a boy, #31#;
patriotism of, during Revolution, #34#;
school of, H. W. Beecher at, #51–53:Page_51#;
situation of, #30#, #31#;
winter in, H. W. Beecher on, #62#.
Litchfield Hill, #30#.
Little Pond (Litchfield), #31#.
Liverpool, England, Mr. Beecher’s first speech in, in 1863, #401#,
second speech, #422–432:Page_422#,
placarded in, #422#,
threats against, #423#,
reception of, #424#;
Courier of, on Mr. Beecher, #422#.
London, England, Mr. Beecher’s first speeches in, in 1863, #401#, #402#;
second speech in, #422–436:Page_422#.
Lord, Mrs. (Litchfield), reminiscence of, #37#.
.bn 730.png
Love, Mr., author of “Shining Shore,” 366.
Lovell, John E., Mr. Beecher’s instructor in elocution, #95#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
McClellan, Gen. George, defeat of, #327#;
H. W. Beecher on, #328#.
McLean, Judge John, on H. W. Beecher’s slavery sermons, #196#, #197#.
Manchester, Eng., Mr. Beecher’s speech at, #408–414:Page_408#.
Mason, Lowell, on hymn-music, #365#.
Massachusetts Emigrant Company, work of, #279#.
Matteawan, N. Y., Beecher family at, #372#, #618#.
Missouri Compromise, the, #235#;
repeal of, proposed, #272#,
effected, #277#,
clerical protest against, #273#,
H. W. Beecher’s articles on, #273–277:Page_273#.
Mitchel, John, H. W. Beecher’s prophecy on, #266#;
slavery, views on, #265#.
Moulton, Frank, assurances of, to H. W. Beecher, #496#, #497#;
urges him to write to Mrs. Tilton, #507#;
urges letter from, clearing Tilton, #515#;
letter to, June 1, 1873, #517#;
innocence of, affirms, #518#.
Conspiracy against Mr. Beecher, joins, #494#.
Indicted by Grand Jury, #533#.
Investigating Committee, fails to attend, #529#.
Part of, in $5,000 to Tilton, #519#.
Tilton’s cause, advocacy of, #505#.
Wife of, dropped by Plymouth, results, #534#.
Montague, George, recollections by, of H. W. Beecher, #93#, #95#.
Mount Pleasant Institute, appearance of, in 1849, #107#;
Beecher, H. W., enters, #93#;
lotteries at, #118#;
standing of, #94#.
Mount Tom Hill (Litchfield), #30#;
signal station at, ancient, #31#.
Music, H. W. Beecher’s early work in, #92#, #124#, #138#, #139#, #144#;
church music, an old method of, #363#,
reform in, #365#;
“Plymouth Collection,” compilation of, #363–366:Page_363#;
hymn-music, H. W. Beecher’s views on, #366–367:Page_366#;
organ, value of, to H. W. Beecher, #600#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Napoleon III., Mexican campaign of, sympathy with Confederacy, #399#.
Negroes, H. W. Beecher on help to fugitive, #240#, #241#,
on return of, #252#;
on social ostracism of, #247#;
on treatment of, at North, #247#, #248#, #303#;
.bn 731.png
.pn +1
on freedom given to eight, #263#;
on benefits to, from admission of South, #463#, #467#;
suffrage refused to, #474#.
Nettleton, Mr., revival by, at Litchfield, #77#, #80#.
Newell, Constantine, character of, #106#;
covenant of, with H. W. Beecher, #104#;
history of, #105#.
New England, H. W. Beecher a product of, #25#, #26#;
influence of, on the nation, #25#;
slavery in, Mr. Beecher on, #250#.
New Jersey, slave erased from Prayer-Book of, #254#.
New York, law of, as to slaves, #251#.
New York City, corrupt judiciary of (1867–71), #572#.
North, the, admission of Southern States, fear from, #466#, #467#;
blockade by, in 1863, #399#;
feeling at, against Compromise, #235#, #236#,
for Compromise, #238#;
Fugitive Slave Law, abhorrence of, #239#, #240#;
industry in, universal, #418#;
merchants at, black-listed, #247#;
political parties in, in 1863, #398#;
population and intelligence of country resident in, #413#;
Rebellion, military ardor in, in 1861, #314#, #315#,
desolation from, #315#,
unity of, not to be broken by, #327#,
conflicting schemes in, #330#,
army of, in 1863, #397#;
slavery at, abolition of, #251#;
soldiers of, on exclusion of South, #461#, #462#;
Sumter, Fort, excitement over fall of, #314#;
workingman, doctrine as to (1863), #419#.
Norwich, N. Y., H. W. Beecher on, #389#.
“Nutplains,” Roxana Foote at, #22–24:Page_22#, #26#, #27#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Omnibus Bill, Clay’s, #236#.
Omnibuses of New York and negroes, #247#, #248#.
Ostend Manifesto, the, #280#.
Oxford Presbytery, rule of, as to licenses, #159#, #166#;
H. W. Beecher examined by, #161#, #162#, #166#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Paris, France, H. W. Beecher’s visit to, its art-galleries, #346–348:Page_346#.
Parker, Theodore, H. W. Beecher on, #380#, #381#.
Parker, Dr. (London), tribute of, to Mr. Beecher, #669#.
Parker, — (Litchfield), reminiscence of, #37#.
.bn 732.png
Parker controversy, the, #257–262:Page_257#.
Peekskill, N. Y., farm at, #383#;
description, #619#, #620#;
cottage at, #620#;
old apple-tree at, #621#;
products of, #623#;
flowers at, #626#;
new house at, #628–630:Page_628#,
decoration of, #630#;
trees and shrubs at, #630#, #632#;
fowls at, #634#,
the patent hatcher, #635#;
cattle at, #636#;
bees at, #636#, #637#;
dogs at, #637#,
“Tommy,” #638#.
Phillips, Wendell, experiences of, in Brooklyn, #246#.
Phrenology, H. W. Beecher’s adoption of, #130#.
Pierce, Pres., Ostend Manifesto inspired by, #280#;
peace, hopes for, #265#;
qualifications of, for office, #257#.
Pierce, Misses, ladies’ school of, at Litchfield, #34#;
reminiscence of, #36#.
“Pinky,” freedom of, bought at Plymouth, #294–296:Page_294#.
Plymouth Church, Advisory Council (1874), declines to attend, #527#;
deliverance of, how affected by, #527#.
Advisory Council (1876), calls an, #537#;
composition of, #538#;
questions discussed by, #538#;
sustained by, #549#;
recommends committee on charges, #550#.
Beecher, H. W.. generosity to, in Conspiracy, #565#;
his sermons in, in 1864, #571#;
welcome to, in 1886, #672#;
service in, at death of, #678#;
memorial service in, #680#.
Building, the new, #387#.
Burning of first building, #222#.
Call of, to Mr. Beecher, #214#.
Condition of, in 1858, #374#.
Courtesy at, by pewholders, #379#, #380#.
Danger to, from mobs, #246#.
Debt of, extinguished (1851), #353#.
Flowers in, introduction of, #392#.
Formation of, #213#, #214#.
Generosity of members of, #216#.
Growth and popularity of, #222–224:Page_222#, #225#, #480#.
Income of, criticism on, #379#.
Influence of, #480#.
Investigating Committee, accepts report of, #530#.
Lecture at, weekly, #229#.
Members in (1862), reception of, #392#;
exercised over Cleveland letter, #472#;
number of, in 1872, #480#;
troubles caused by, after Scandal, #537#;
duty of, as to Advisory Council, #539–542:Page_539#.
Moulton, Mrs., dropped by, #534#.
Organ at, the new (1859), #382#.
Phillips, Wendell, at, #246#.
Polity of, #232#.
Prayer meetings at, weekly, #230#;
.bn 733.png
.pn +1
daily, #376#,
influence of, #377#,
prayers in, #378#.
Regiments, rendezvous for, #316#.
Revival at, in 1848, #222#;
in 1858, #375#;
in 1861–63, #391#.
Sheridan’s victory, joy over, #450#.
Silver Wedding of, #480#;
Children’s day, #481#;
Members’ and Historical days, #482#;
Communion day, #486#;
Storrs’s, Dr., speech at, #484–486:Page_484#.
Slavery, its stand against, #221#.
Slaves ransomed in, #293–300:Page_293#.
Sociable at, weekly, #231#.
Sunday-schools of, #480#.
Sunday services in, #228#, #229#.
Tabernacle, building of, #223#.
Tilton, Theodore, dropped from rolls of, remonstrances against, #523#.
“Plymouth Collection,” history of, #363–366:Page_363#;
terms of publishing of, #364#;
a model for others, #365#;
H. W. Beecher on alleged omissions from, #368#.
Porter, Pres. Noah, letter to H. W. Beecher on Conspiracy, #532#.
Prayer, H. W. Beecher’s early love for, #97#, #100#;
sample of, #228#;
on extemporaneous, #371#;
reply to request for copy of a, #656#.
Presbyterian Church, division in, #151#, #159#, #165#,
one cause of, #160#,
one result of, #168#;
H. W. Beecher on, #163#.
Prohibition party, H. W. Beecher on, #583#.
Prospect Hill (Litchfield), #30#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Raymond, John, sails for England with H. W. Beecher, #396#;
speech of, in London, #401#.
Rebellion, the, H. W. Beecher on, #310#, #313#, #314#;
sacrifices for, #316#;
on Union soldier’s duty in, #317#, #318#;
on Southern unity and Northern uncertainty in, #330#;
on distinction between Union troops in, #443#;
on end of, #451#, #455#.
Beginning of, #309#.
European sentiment regarding, #400#.
Federal army in, condition of, in 1863, #397#.
Federal disasters in, in 1862, #327#.
Reconstruction, H. W. Beecher on, #458–461:Page_458#,
sermon on, #463#;
feeling as to, in North, #464#;
Johnson’s, Pres., plan of, #458#;
problem of, #457#.
Reeve, Judge Tapping, law-school of, at Litchfield, #34#, #37#.
Reeve, Mrs., death of Roxana Beecher, description of, #48#.
Republican party, the, advantages of, over rivals, #289#;
.bn 734.png
H. W. Beecher’s early work for, #289#,
in 1860, #305#,
in 1864, #571#,
reasons for opposing in 1884, #581–583:Page_581#;
campaign song of, #289#;
charge against, a, answered, #307#;
corruptions in, #574#;
formation and composition of, #288#;
issue of, in 1860, #304#;
Lincoln nominated by, #304#;
platform of, first, #288#;
South, exclusion of, minority against, #461#,
restoration of, by the party, #477#.
Roebuck, John (England), favors South, why, #403#.
Ruffin, Judge (N. C.), on legal status of slaves, #249#.
Ruskin, John, influence of, on H. W. Beecher, #394#.
Russell, Lord John, support by, of American Union, #431#, #433#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Salisbury, Conn., H. W. Beecher at, #618#.
Sawmill Pond (Litchfield), #31#.
Sawyer, Martha, gives H. W. Beecher’s first call, #157#.
Scandal—see #Conspiracy:CONSPIRACY#.
Scotland, H. W. Beecher’s tribute to, #415#;
his speeches in, #415–422:Page_415#.
Secession, decree of, #305#;
H. W. Beecher on, #307#.
Sermons of H. W. Beecher quoted:
American Democracy, Success of (1862), #326#;
Background of Mystery, #567#;
Camp, The (1861), #319#;
Campaign of 1884, #584#;
Compromise, Against (1860), #306#;
Confidence in Union Success (1862), #333#;
Crisis, The (1861), #310#;
Death of the Soldier (1861), #315#;
Evolution and Religion, #567#;
Fast-day of Buchanan (1861), #307#;
Government, Divine (1862), #326#;
God in National Affairs (1861), #319#;
Harper’s Ferry Tragedy (1859), #301#;
Individual Responsibility, #219#;
Lincoln’s Assassination, #455#;
Modes and Duties of Emancipation (1861), #320#;
Our National Flag (1861), #317#;
Past Perils and Perils of To-day, #574#;
Phillips, Wendell (1884), #245#;
Revivals (1858), #375#;
first sermons in Plymouth, #218#;
Trial Sermon, #685#.
Shearman, Thomas G., services of, in Conspiracy, #549#.
Sheldon, Dr. (Litchfield), reminiscence of, #36#.
“Shining Shore,” history of, #366#;
H. W. Beecher’s liking for, #379#.
.bn 735.png
.pn +1
Silver-Grays, the, #288#, #289#.
Sixty-seventh N. Y. Regiment, equipment of, by Mr. Beecher, #317#, #489#.
Slavery, battle against, #233#, #271#;
Beecher’s, H. W., debate on, at Amherst, #119#,
sermons on, in Indianapolis, #195#,
their effect, #196#, #197#,
in Brooklyn, #219#, #220#;
Christianity against, power of, #268#;
Church’s timidity as to, #221#, #254#;
Compromise measures on, #233–239:Page_233#;
Constitution, ballot, and Church as forces against, #267#;
doctrine of, #419#;
dominance of, in 1857, #281#;
eras of, five, #234#;
feeling towards, in Indiana, #196#,
in United States in 1854, #271#;
at Lane Seminary, #137#;
military question, a, #331#;
Mitchel’s, John, views on, #265#;
preaching against, threatened, #248#,
H. W. Beecher on, #248–252:Page_248#;
religious societies, attitude of, #252#;
treatment of, H. W. Beecher on, #303#, #331#.
Slaves, eight freed by law in New York, #263#;
Beecher, H. W., on help of, #240#,
on pulpit work for, #248–252:Page_248#,
on return of fugitive, #252#,
on proper treatment of, #303#, #304#;
freedom purchased for, in Brooklyn, #292–300:Page_292#;
hunting of, in 1851, #255#;
ignorance of, why necessary, #417#;
Kansas laws against, #278#;
status of, religious, #248#,
legal, #249#.
Smith, Charles, influence of, on H. W. Beecher, #66#, #69#, #431#.
South, the, advantage to, of Compromise Bill, #235#, #238#.
Civil liberty in, suppression of, #413#.
Cruisers for, building stopped by queen, #410#.
English sympathy for, #399–401:Page_399#, #413#.
Grievance of, on slavery, #238#, #272#.
Labor in, dishonorable (1863), #418#.
Northern merchants black-listed by, #247#.
Rebellion, unity of purpose in, #330#;
vehemence and courage in, #398#;
caused by political leaders of, #454#.
Slavery in, code of, #251#;
plan of, for spreading slavery, #429#.
States of, decree secession, #305#;
reconstruction of, problem as to, #457#;
effect of exclusion of, #459#;
Northern soldiers against exclusion of, #461#;
Northern fear from admission of, #466#;
H. W. Beecher’s mediation for, #612#.
Speeches of H. W. Beecher quoted:
at Charleston (1865), #451–454:Page_451#;
Edinburgh (1863), #419–422:Page_422#;
Glasgow (1863), #414–419:Page_414#;
Liverpool (1863), #419–422:Page_422#;
.bn 736.png
London (1863), #432–436:Page_432#;
Manchester (1863), #410–414:Page_410#;
North Victorious, The (1865), #458#.
Spenser, Edmund, “Faerie Queene” quoted, #156#.
Stanton, Edwin M., note to, from H. W. Beecher in 1864, and reply, #447#;
Charleston, proposes to send Mr. Beecher to, #448#;
Fort Sumter, fall of, order on anniversary of, #449#;
telegram of, as to Sheridan’s victory, #451#.
Stockton, Col. T. B. W., sent to Lincoln by Mr. Beecher, #443#.
Storrs, Dr. R. S., Advisory Council (1876), declines to attend, #544#;
Beecher, H. W., address on English speeches of, #437#,
letter to, on Cleveland letters, #471#, #477#,
tribute to (1872), #484–486:Page_484#,
letter of help to, #520#,
refuses reconciliation with, #561#;
hostility of, to H. W. Beecher, reasons for, #521#;
judgment as to Mr. Beecher, on ex-parte testimony, #522#;
Moulton, Mrs., assumes cause of, #560#;
Tilton’s influence on, #513#.
Stowe, Calvin E., assistance of, to H. W. Beecher, #137#.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, attainments of H. W. Beecher, remarks on, #70#,
on studies of, #74#;
Beecher, Harriet, reminiscence of, #54#;
childhood of, impressions of, #57#;
diligence of, early, #56#;
her mother’s death, recollections of, #48#, #49#;
Parker controversy, part taken in, #259#, #260#;
reminiscences of, #55#;
Roxana Beecher, tribute to, #24#;
tulip-bulbs, adventure with, #47#.
Sturtevant, Dr., on H. W. Beecher, #551#.
Sumner, Charles, attack on, by Preston Brooks, #286#;
meeting on, in New York, #287#;
H. W. Beecher on, #287#, #288#.
Sumter, Fort, anniversary of fall of, exercises at, #449–454:Page_449#;
fall of, #309#,
excitement in North, #314#.
.ix-
.sp 2
.ix
Tallmadge, Col. (Litchfield), #35#;
reminiscence of, #36#.
Tappan, Lewis, reminiscences by, of H. W. Beecher, #114#, #117#.
Temperance, H. W. Beecher’s early work in, #130#, #138#, #144#, #147#,
in Lawrenceburg, #185#,
practice of, at Oxford, Eng., #345#,
to his daughter on, #384#.
habits as to, #652#, #653#;
Lyman Beecher’s action on, #42#.
.bn 737.png
.pn +1
Terre Haute, Ind., H. W. Beecher’s reminiscence of, #190–192:Page_190#.
Texas, effect on, of Compromise, #235#.
Thayer, Hon. Eli, in Kansas struggle, #279#.
Thirteenth Regiment, Brooklyn, H. W. Beecher as chaplain of, #660#;
Company G of, guard at his funeral, #678#.
Thomas, Rev. John H., on H. W. Beecher’s Lawrenceburg pastorate, #176#.
Tilton, Theodore, associations of, evil, #497#.
Beecher, H. W., early affection for, letter to, #489#;
esteems himself greater than, #490#, #492#;
whispers stories against, #492#;
hostility to, first charge against, #493#;
demand on, to leave Brooklyn, #494#, #503#;
treachery to, #496#;
urges him to use his house, #500#;
bitterest against, when in pecuniary difficulties, #510#;
secures $5,000 from, #519#;
blackmail of, attempted, #520#;
charge against, makes open, #527#;
civil suit against, #533#.
Blackmail, attempts at, #499#, #520#.
Bowen, Henry C., denies tales of, #490#;
claim against, for $7,000, #496#;
charge against, #511#,
secures publication of, #515#.
Charge of, denied by Mrs. Tilton, #529#;
specific charge, #530#;
charge changed, #532#.
Church-membership, proposed deprivation of, #509#.
Counsel of, declares Mr. Beecher innocent, #534#.
Eagle, Brooklyn, infamous article in, #514#.
“Editorial Soliloquy” of, #491#.
Family of, H. W. Beecher’s intimacy with, #501#.
Independent, assistant editor of, #488#;
editor of, #490#;
resigns editorship, #492#.
Indicted by Grand Jury, #533#.
Investigating Committee, before the, #529#.
Lecturing, failure at, blames Mr. Beecher, #510#.
Moral conduct of, #506#.
Observer, work on, #488#.
Plymouth Church, dropped from rolls of, #523#.
Sketch of, #488#.
Stories of past life of, #493#.
Storrs, Dr. R. S., T. reads “True Statement” to, #521#.
Tripartite agreement, signs, #496#;
his changes in, object of, #497#;
part in, #512#.
“True Statement” of, results, #513#.
Views of, “advanced,” #491#, #502#;
public protest against, #501#.
Wife, treatment of his, she asks advice of Mr. Beecher, #502#;
incriminating document extorted from, #504#,
.bn 738.png
Woodhull, Victoria, alliance with, #510#;
scandal version of Mrs. W., statement on, #513#.
Union, Brooklyn, editor of, #492#.
Toombs, Senator Robert, threat of, concerning Fugitive Slave Bill, #236#.
Trent affair, the, #322#;
English papers on Mr. Beecher’s action in, #422#.
Tripartite agreement, history of, #511#, #512#;
publication of, #515#,
Tilton’s rage at, #515#, #516#.
Turner, Thomas J., superintendent at “Boscobel,” #624–626:Page_624#.
Tyng, Rev. Stephen H., on Mr. Beecher’s Cleveland letter, #469#.
.ix-
.sp 2
.ix
Union Sewing Committee, formation of, #247#.
Unitarian movement in Massachusetts, #82#, #83#;
Sabbath-school, ostracism of a, #355#, #356#.
United States,
Administration of, in Kansas struggle, #277–280:Page_277#;
pro-slavery, #291#;
inactivity of, in 1862, #324#,
H. W. Beecher on, #328#, #329#,
on mismanagement by, in 1862, #329#,
on duty of, #330#, #331#;
distrusts Mr. Beecher in 1863, #397#,
changes its opinion of him, #444#.
Commercial disaster in, in 1857, #371#, #375#.
Compromise in 1854, feeling on, #265#;
schemes of, in 1860, #306#.
Condition of, in 1813, #41#, #42#.
Congress of, and President Johnson, #458#, #469#, #470#;
constitutional amendment by, proposed, #473–475:Page_473#;
suffrage to negroes, refuses, #474#.
Elections of 1884, condition after, #586#.
Federal army of, in 1863, #397#.
Free trade in, a future certainty, #429#.
Ireland, sympathy for, #265#.
Navy of, H. W. Beecher on, #399#.
Political condition of, in 1863, #398#.
Policy of, fifteen years, Southern, #420#.
Reaction in, for Compromise, in 1851, #255#.
Reconstruction in, problem of, #457#.
Repeal of Compromise, excitement over, #273#.
Senators of, pledged to Compromise, #257#;
plot for rebellion in 1856–60, #305#.
Slavery in, in 1854, feeling on, #271#.
States of, decree secession, #305#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Vicksburg, fall of, effect on H. W. Beecher, #405#;
effect of, in Great Britain, #406#.
.ix-
.sp 1
.ix
Ward, Andrew, sketch of, #22#.
.bn 739.png
.pn +1
Ward, Col. Andrew, sketch of, #22#.
Ward, Gen. Andrew, sketch of, #22#, #23#
Webster, Daniel, support by, of Compromise Bill, #236#, #238#.
Weld, Theodore, in early slavery movements, #138#.
Wellman, Dr., on H. W. Beecher, #550#.
Westminster Abbey, H. W. Beecher’s visit to, #669#.
Whig party, defeat of, in 1852, #257#;
extinction of, in 1854, #273#.
White Mountains, H. W. Beecher’s summer services in, #660#.
Wilkeson, Mr., part of, in Conspiracy, #515#.
Wolcott, Oliver, King George’s statue melted by, #34#.
Wolcott, Gov. Oliver, Jr., reminiscence of, #35#.
Woodhull, Victoria, blackmail of H. W. Beecher, attempted, #513#;
letters in possession of, Mr. Beecher on, #522#;
scandal, version of, published, #510#, #513#, #520#.
.ix-
.pb
.dv class='tnotes'
.ce
Transcriber’s Note
At the foot of p. 173, an unreferenced footnote appears, referring the
reader to “Appendix A.” for the text of Rev. Beecher’s inaugural sermon.
(The Appendix has no “A”, per se.) A reference to the footnote has been
added.
On pp. #265#, #276#, #351#, #362#, #382# an asterisk appears right-justified at the
end of a quoted passage. As explained on p. #366#, this was used by Beecher
as a signature. These are retained here, though merely with an extended space
between the text and his ‘signature’.
The index entry for Beecher's remarks about the proposed compromise of 1864,
refers to p. 445, should have been p. #446#, Likewise, references to music
and hymns on p. 367 should have been #368#. Both were likely caused by the
interpolation of a numbered full page illustration, and have both been corrected.
The format of the two-column index has been changed to single column,
and the punctuation regularized.
Hyphenation of compound words is retained as printed. Where the hyphen
appears on a line or page break, it is retained or removed depending on
the preponderance of usage elsewhere.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.
.ta l:8 l:46 l:12 w=90%
| [‘/“]It has always been a shadow | Replaced.
| Now decline he.[’] | Added.
| the first electric shock of wonder and pleasure.[”] | Removed.
| to improve the opportu[tu]nity and administer | Removed.
| He shall be called a Nazarene.[”/’] | Replaced.
| and declared the body dissolved[./,] | Replaced.
| by no means confined to Indianapolis[.] | Added.
| for my God is greater than their devil[.] | Added.
| in spite of the popular vote[.] | Added.
| but we are a-going to succeed in America.[’] | Removed.
| was the eldest son of his father’s family[.] | Added.
| from time to time during the two[ two] years past | Removed.
| It has been in the house this two months.[”/’] | Replaced.
.ta-
.dv-