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.
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 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]
-----
Footnote 18:
“A Summer in England with Henry Ward Beecher.” By J. B. Pond.
Published by Fords, Howard & Hulbert, of New York City.
-----
[Illustration: 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 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!”
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.
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 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 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 ceiling. After the service his people
thronged around the pulpit-stairs for one shake of the hand and one word
of welcome.
-----
Footnote 19:
The Common Council of Brooklyn voted him a public reception, which he
declined. The resolutions were as follows:
“IN COMMON COUNCIL, STATED SESSION,
Monday, Nov. 8, 1886.
“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:”
(Signed by the Mayor and Common Council).
-----
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.
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.
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 homœopathically.”
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 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
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. 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.
[Illustration: Lying in State in Plymouth Church.]
On Friday morning the public funeral service was held, Dr. Hall
preaching the sermon.
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]
-----
Footnote 20:
From the Brooklyn _Citizen_ of March 12.
-----
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 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 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 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.”
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
----------
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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 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]
-----
Footnote 21:
These two subdivisions were not written out in full, blank spaces
being left in the original for their fuller elaboration.
-----
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 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.
[Blank Page]
INDEX.
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,
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;
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;
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.
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._
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.