There is great encouragement for the seemingly backward, hesitant youth
in the story of Henry Ward Beecher's early life.
He tells us that he used to be laughed at for talking as though he had
pudding in his mouth. Yet he became one of the greatest orators the
world has seen.
He joined the church merely because he was expected to do so. It was
only "pride and shamefacedness" that prevented him from expressing his
doubts as to whether he was a Christian. When he actually came to take
the step he wondered whether he should be struck dead for not feeling
more; and afterward he walked home crying and wishing he knew what he
ought to do and how he ought to do it. Yet he became one of the
greatest religious leaders of his time.
From the "Biography of Henry Ward Beecher," by W. C. Beecher and
Scoville. C. L. Webster Co., 1888.
"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 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 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
woodhouse, 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
lead 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 halfway 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 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 talking about souls writhing under conviction, and
I thought my soul was writhing under conviction. I had heard father
say that after a person 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.
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 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.'
"'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 until 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:
"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."
"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.
"H. W. B."
Mr. Montague says: "Mr. Beecher submitted to Mr. Lovell's 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. . . ."
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: