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.”
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 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 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:
“‘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.’
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 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 (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 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
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 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:
“‘From all that dwell below the skies
Let the Creator’s praise arise.’
* * * *
“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.”
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:
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.
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.”
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 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:
“_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 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,
“‘_Old Constitution_.’”
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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”:
“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.”