Found a grief-stricken home. Mrs Beecher cannot be comforted. His two
sons, the Colonel and Will, and their families, are by the dying bedside
of their dear father. I see my dearly beloved--paralyzed, unconscious,
never again to know any of those he loves. Dr. Searle, the faithful
family physician, with him, and tells us there is no hope. Still, the
family ask for another consultation. I went for Dr. Hammond, who tells
us that Mr. Beecher will never speak again--that it is only a question
of a few hours. It can hardly seem real. This great life is suddenly
ebbing. He breathes on. Mrs. Beecher asks me not to go away. Dr. Searle
and I waited and watched all night.
Monday, March 7.--Mr. Beecher seems in a deep sleep, as I have seen him
sleep many times when very tired. His left side is paralyzed. He can
move his right arm. He seems to be addressing audiences, and gestures
very earnestly. From 11 o’clock to past midnight I sat by his side, and
held his right hand. I believe he is conscious of my presence, for I ask
him to give my hand two grips if he knows me, and he immediately
responds. His breathing is harder, and at midnight there is a rattle in
his throat. Dr. Searle and I keep the watch again. Mrs. Beecher has not
laid down nor slept since he was stricken. She is heroic and brave.
Tuesday, March 8.--Dr. Searle awoke me at 4, saying: “Mr. Beecher is
failing fast.” I was on the lounge in the parlor, and could hear him
breathe distinctly in the room above. Everybody in the house was called,
and was soon by his bedside. Mrs. Beecher, Colonel Beecher and family,
Rev. Samuel Scoville and family, William C. Beecher and family.
Respiration, 56 to 60; pulse, 120. The great life is surely going--no
hope! He rallies, and raises the right arm. We again disperse; then we
are summoned again. Daylight reveals its sad scene. His breath is
shorter. Bulletins are sent out every fifteen minutes telling that Mr.
Beecher is dying. Dr. Searle holds his pulse. The family are weeping
about the dying bed. It is 9:40 A.M. Dr. Searle whispers to me: “His
pulse has stopped. He is breathing his last. He is gone!” Dr. Searle
lays the lifeless hand by his side, bends over, and is the first to kiss
the cheek of his departed friend, and amid a flood of tears and pitiful
sobs, walks away and announces to the waiting multitude outside that all
is over. Henry Ward Beecher is dead!
Good-by, my best beloved friend. I shall never have another like you.
Mr. Beecher died of apoplexy at his residence in Brooklyn on Tuesday,
March 8, 1887, at 9:40 A.M. The private funeral was held at 9:30 A.M. on
the following Thursday at his late home, where none but the members of
the family were present. The public funeral took place at Plymouth
Church at 10:30 A.M. on Friday, the 11th. In accordance with the request
so often repeated by Mr. Beecher, the funeral services were entirely
under the direction of his friend, the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall, of the
Church of the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, who conducted the simple and
impressive ceremonies at the house of mourning, and also at the church
in which the world-renowned preacher and orator had earned fame and
universal love. Dr. Hall’s public address was a model of simplicity,
dignity, and manly pathos. He rose to the height of the occasion, and
without a sign of exaggerated rhetoric impressed every mind with the
greatness of the man who had departed, and comforted every loving heart
under his firm yet tender touch. Mr. Beecher’s ideas of the fitness of
things were never more signally confirmed than by his choice of Dr.
Hall, “to bury, not to praise him.”
Surging crowds thronged the neighboring thoroughfares. Business was
suspended by proclamation of the mayor of Brooklyn. The streets in all
directions were filled with the sorrowing multitude, who stood in line
for hours with a hope of viewing once more the face of their departed
friend. When the funeral pageant entered Plymouth Church the interior of
the great structure was blooming like an immense bower of flowers and
living things. Evergreens and roses, smilax and blossoming vines,
greeted those who entered. It seemed, indeed, the ushering of the dead
into the realm of life. Lying in state during an entire day, the body
was viewed by thousands. The crush to gain one glimpse of the remains
was terrible, although the interior arrangements were perfect to secure
an orderly passing of the long lines of people. The Thirteenth Regiment
were the guard of honor; and hour after hour, from 10 in the morning
until 10 in the evening, while the great organ gave forth subdued and
solemn music, the people entered, looked, and passed. It was estimated
that in this slow but constantly moving stream over fifty thousand
persons--men, women, and children--had come to see his face for the last
time.
On Saturday, March 12, 1887, Henry Ward Beecher’s body was buried in
Greenwood. His hearse was followed not only by his comrades of the
Thirteenth Regiment, his family, friends, parishioners, and fellow
Brooklynites, but in sympathy and honor by millions of his countrymen.
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 _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 as benign as the
atmosphere of June; and Christianity, calm, motherly, and
forgiving--these were the pallbearers by whom the body of our hero was
borne to its resting-place.
[Illustration: LYMAN ABBOTT]
The Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott was introduced to me by Henry Ward Beecher in
his library one morning in 1877 as the editor of _The Christian Union_,
then known as “Henry Ward Beecher’s paper.” We were about leaving for a
long lecture tour in the West, and the doctor had called to consult and
advise with his chief before leaving. I don’t know when I was ever more
favorably impressed with a gentleman than I was with Dr. Abbott as I
listened to his conversation and the general outline he was submitting
for work ahead. Turning to me, Dr. Abbott said:
“Major Pond, we are anxious to secure from Mr. Beecher full accounts of
his Western tour, as editorial correspondence, and I want to ask your
help. You know how valuable such material must be, as all his friends
are anxious to read every word he writes.”
This is the spirit that Dr. Abbott always manifested as associate editor
with Mr. Beecher up to the end of that partnership, and Mr. Beecher’s
love and appreciation of his friend was equally steadfast.
Mr. Beecher’s interest in _The Christian Union_ never diminished, even
after he left it, he insisting that now he was out of it Dr. Abbott
would feel much more freedom in carrying out his own ideas. Dr. Abbott
was a man of remarkable resources, could work easily, and grasp the
right and the fitness of things, and he was also a man of great
originality of thought, with a mind as clear as crystal, and was
progressive. Mr. Beecher said he wished Dr. Abbott had a body equal to
his head, but, he added, “he works easily and makes no false motions or
superfluous exertion. Every faculty counts.”
While on the tour just referred to _The Christian Union_ was regularly
forwarded to Mr. Beecher, and as he was reading it one time, he turned
to me and said: “I wish I could write like Abbott. He is the clearest
writer we have.” Then he would read aloud Dr. Abbott’s editorials and
comment on them as of the finest and soundest.
On another occasion Mr. Beecher told me that in profane history he
considered that Dr. Richard S. Storrs was one of the most notable
scholars of the day, while in Old Testament history his own brother,
Edward Beecher, was the best versed man he ever knew; he seldom had to
refer to the book, but could quote literally almost any passage, and
could give the names and views of commentators and authorities that
seemed almost endless. But the most accomplished, all-round Bible
scholar, he believed, was Lyman Abbott.
Once, when speaking of the future of Plymouth Church, I said: “Mr.
Beecher, what is to be the future of Plymouth Church? Certainly, there
is no one to take your place there.”
“If I thought that, I would go out at once,” he replied. “That church
has been too well brought up to be dependent on any one man for its
cohesiveness. I have no fear on that score. _Lyman Abbott_ only needs a
Columbus.”
I have known many instances where friends would complain to Mr. Beecher
that Dr. Abbott was working _The Christian Union_ to his own
aggrandizement. He always gave a sharp rebuke to these suggestions, and
lost no opportunity to defend his friend, whom he declared to be the
most patient, long suffering, and forgiving man in the world, or he
never could have stood the neglect he was constantly receiving at his
(Mr. Beecher’s) hands. This tendency to impugn Dr. Abbott’s methods
pervaded even Mr. Beecher’s household quite extensively, but to no
effect, for if ever Mr. Beecher could rise in his might, it was when
good motives of a friend were assailed, and he generally settled the
matter on the spot. Mr. Beecher died. The great church was left without
a pastor. There was not a minister in the world that this congregation,
as a body, wished to even consider as his successor. His friend, Dr.
Abbott, who was now at the head of _The Christian Union_ Company, its
editor and business manager, had given up preaching for his present
work. He was available and invited to supply the pulpit, pending the
securing of a pastor. With hesitancy the doctor accepted, on the
distinct understanding that he was not a candidate for the pastorate,
and for months he preached to that great congregation, which seemed to
show no signs of depletion from the loss of its pastor. Only a few
famous preachers were thought of. When Rev. Dr. Parker, of London, came
over in 1887 for a lecture tour and to deliver a eulogy on his friend,
Mr. Beecher, the enterprising men of the press interviewed a large
number of church members and printed their expressions, both kind,
friendly, and unfriendly, to such an extent that before the doctor was
in this country a week he was dragged through the newspapers as one who
expected to be called to Plymouth Church, whereas he had his own great
congregation eagerly awaiting his return. I don’t wonder that he was
disgusted and discouraged and unable to finish his tour.
There was a young preacher in England who had made a great impression on
Mr. Beecher by his speech of welcome before the Congregational board, at
a reception given Mr. Beecher in Liverpool on our last day in England:
Rev. Charles Berry, of Wolverhampton.
I had published Mr. Beecher’s remarks concerning Mr. Berry in my “Summer
in England with Henry Ward Beecher,” and some Plymouth people had seen
them, and suggested that Mr. Berry be invited to come over and preach a
trial sermon. Meanwhile Dr. Abbott was preaching every Sunday, and the
church was always full. Mr. Berry was preaching in Wolverhampton on a
salary of £200 a year. He came to Plymouth Church, preached two sermons
and received a call, with an offer of $9,000 a year. Of course this
first real recognition of Mr. Berry as a preacher of unusual ability,
and a call to the most famous pulpit in the world, surprised the
religious public of Great Britain, and more than quadrupled his value at
home. The people of his own congregation at once strongly protested
against his going away, and from then until the time of his death he was
the leading minister of his denomination in his own country.
During all this time Dr. Abbott was occupying the pulpit and preaching
twice every Sunday. It finally dawned upon the Church Committee that
they were really having the finest and most acceptable preaching
available in all the world. Dr. Abbott was called to be their pastor,
and accepted. There was, of course, some protest, for it did not seem
possible to a great many that there were not some “great” men somewhere,
and Lyman Abbott had been all his life familiar to them. But the church
interest and attendance showed no falling off; it rather increased; the
sentiment in his favor became and remained unanimous, and for ten years
Lyman Abbott held that pulpit, and, as all the world knows, held it to
the highest grade among the pulpits of the land.
The most unanimous protest came in 1898, when Dr. Abbott surprised his
congregation by telling them that he was going to resign, and asked them
to look for his successor. They were not going to accept his
resignation. He had so completely filled their ideal of a pastor and
preacher that to lose him meant a certain calamity to the church. Only a
few of the veterans--who had seen Mr. Beecher followed by another,
without disaster--could believe that Plymouth Church could be satisfied
with a substitute for Dr. Abbott.
During all this decade Dr. Abbott had carried on his editorial work and
the management of his paper. He had dared to make some remarkable
changes. To the great dissatisfaction of many of his readers, he had
changed the name of his paper--that well-known, loved and appropriate
name, _The Christian Union_--to _The Outlook_. Even the name _Christian
Union_ was a magnificent property in itself, and the doctor had to
answer a great many complaints and listen to prophecies of disaster, but
it did not seem to worry him. There was an improvement in form and dress
made at the same time, and the smaller page with wider columns was
accepted cheerfully. It was a conspicuous and very welcome visitor in
the household, and soon had an enhanced popularity. This ran for only a
year or so, when another change was made to magazine form, with a neat
greenish-gray cover, resembling more the old-fashioned almanac than
anything else. This, many of the subscribers thought, was a fatal
innovation, but it took only a few short weeks to convince them that the
new size was more convenient to read, to carry, and to preserve; and so
all the changes came to be acknowledged as advance movements in keeping
with the times.
In my intercourse with Dr. Abbott during these ten years I saw that he
was under great strain from his many duties. His two sermons a week, his
editorial duties, and his lecture engagements were more than any man
could keep up with, even had he the physique of an athlete. I learned
that his ambition was to reach the great people more extensively than
was possible through the pulpit. He told me long before he resigned that
he wanted to stop preaching and try to make _The Outlook_ more nearly
what it ought to be by giving it his best work. His sons were developing
good business ability, and he wanted to leave them an established
business. The fact that the increased growth and influence of his paper
has placed it as the very first in its line is evidence that his head
was level, for is not _The Outlook_ the paper above all others that
voices public sentiment on all the important issues of the times? In all
the improvements and continued elements of success he has been
peculiarly aided by the discriminating taste and literary talent of his
associate editor, Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, and by the intelligent
enterprise and judgment of his publisher, Mr. William B. Rowland; yet,
after all, _The Outlook_ is Lyman Abbott.
The Plymouth Committee was diligent in its search for a successor to Dr.
Abbott. I heard Thomas G. Shearman say the evening that Mr. Abbott’s
resignation was accepted: “We are going to have the greatest preaching
in Plymouth right along. Your committee are not ready to report yet, but
when they are ready, there will be no mistake.” This was at the close of
the meeting that had been devoted to eulogistic speeches on Dr. Abbott
in the doctor’s presence--speeches showing that, if one-half were true,
the doctor was certainly a greater man than any that had yet walked
upright on this terrestrial globe. It was for that congregation to bide
their time with patience and see what the committee would present. In
two weeks Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, of Chicago, was announced at a
prayer meeting for the following Sunday. The committee reported very
enthusiastically. They had heard the young man in Chicago, and were in
love with him at first sight. Dr. Hillis came. The church had been
prepared to do honor to an ideal minister. They did. Dr. Abbott was
foremost in welcoming the young stranger to the pulpit, to which he
certainly had reason to believe no other man could ever be so welcome as
he had been, and then, in all simplicity and modesty, Dr. Abbott took
his seat in the congregation and joined in the tide of enthusiasm which
rolled over Dr. Hillis. The new pastor was then and there carried up to
the highest possible place in the hearts of the congregation. Such a
scene of joy and general expression of love and satisfaction could not
often be witnessed in any other body of Christian men and women.
Plymouth Church is a unique institution--the fruits of forty years of
Henry Ward Beecher’s inspiration and harmonizing genius.
Since his retirement, Dr. Abbott seems to have been none the less busy.
He has been addressing large audiences continually. He has delivered
twelve lectures before the Lowell Institute, Boston, has been “preacher
to the University” at Yale, at Harvard, at Cornell, and elsewhere, year
after year, and at other important places all over the country has been
a welcome speaker and, what is better than all, he has given, “without
money and without price,” an extensive course of lectures before the
People’s Institute, Cooper Union, New York, where thousands have rushed
to hear him and many have been obliged to turn away because the houses
were filled on each occasion long before the time to begin. This great
crowd contains as intelligent people as exist anywhere, most of whom
have seen better days, and who show their appreciation of their
opportunities by expressions of joy that can come only from true, loving
hearts. The poor have the gospel preached to them by Dr. Lyman Abbott.
[Illustration: NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS]
Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, third and present pastor of Plymouth Church
(A.D. 1900), is one of whom I hardly dare attempt to write or prophesy,
as I fear my heart may outrun my head. He came to Plymouth Church in
April, 1899, and has been preaching twice every Sunday to a congregation
that tests the capacity of the famous church--the most critical and
intelligent congregation to preach to that exists in Christendom--a
congregation that seldom heard and never could endure a dull sermon from
any of its pastors.
Twelve years ago the public believed that the work of Plymouth Church
was sustained and carried on mainly through the tremendous personality
of Henry Ward Beecher, and that it must greatly suffer by his death; yet
Dr. Lyman Abbott surprised the religious world by infusing into the work
of that church increased vigor and strength for ten years longer. Now
comes this young minister from the West (more markedly Western than
either of his predecessors), born in Iowa thirty-seven years ago, and
takes up the work laid down by Henry Ward Beecher and Dr. Lyman Abbott,
and carries it on as vigorously as ever. Truly he must be a great man to
do this thing.
His preaching differs widely from any other that this generation has
heard. It is nineteenth century preaching, embellished by all the
intellectual appliances conceivable. I remember that while I was a
printer, away back in the fifties, the New York _Sun_ announced a
cylinder press that could print two thousand papers in an hour. What a
sensation in the daily newspaper world! Now, one hundred thousand are
printed on one machine in that time, and the demand for an increased
output has constantly kept ahead of achievement The same wonderful
progress in facilities for travel, in telephony and telegraphy and other
applications of electricity, multiplying the efficiency of every
conceivable faculty and resource, in every line of thought and
invention, has extended even to the pulpit of Dr. Hillis. Such
preaching! So much preaching, and such sound and commonsense preaching!
Such showers of words and finished sentences, epigrammatic outpourings
of sound thoughts, quotations from the best books on all subjects,
ancient and modern! His head is a storehouse of knowledge. Such an
encyclopedia of words and facts it seems impossible for one man to be.
There is enough in a single sermon to make four good ones for four good
ministers, and then there would be enough left over to supply four more.
I sit, just one in that great crowd, and listen spellbound, for it will
not do to lose one of those sparkling sentences. I want him to stop, for
he has given me more than I can possibly digest in one week; but yet I
want him to go on, too, for it seems wrong to break the spell of
enchantment. I catch a suggestion that I might surely profit by, but I
cannot remember it, there is so much else that I must hear crowding it
out. I risk a turn of my head to see if all the crowd are as intensely
interested as I am. None of them see me, so intent is each one to catch
every word. So it goes on for an hour. When he suddenly stops with, “Let
us pray,” the whole congregation gives one simultaneous long breath. It
is a short prayer. Then there is a hymn by the united choir and
congregation--old Plymouth congregational singing, nowhere else to be
heard. The great crowd rises to go away. I look in front of me and see
there this young minister, meeting and shaking hands with the crowd that
is rushing forward to greet him, as placid and quiet and as gently
receiving his friends as though he had but just now stepped into the
hall. There is not the slightest show of fatigue. And here I discover
the greatest element in all this young man’s attractiveness. Dominating
all else is his personality. All who meet him and have the privilege of
speaking to him and shaking his hand are his devoted, loving friends.
Such is Dr. Hillis, and this the dawn of his career. What will he be at
high meridian?
The Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker, minister of City Temple, London, and the
greatest of living pulpit orators--I do not say the greatest preacher,
for I think that distinction has belonged to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn,
during the past fifty-three years--has eccentricities that have retarded
his friendships among strangers. Dr. Parker and his congregation in
London were loyal, staunch friends of Mr. Beecher and his church during
the time of the great preacher’s deepest sorrow. In 1886, while in
England with Henry Ward Beecher, I engaged Dr. Parker to come over here
and make a lecture tour.
[Illustration]
Meanwhile his friend, Mr. Beecher, died, and as Dr. Parker was coming to
America, it was arranged that he should deliver a eulogy on his friend
in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn. The net proceeds I was to present to
the Beecher Statue Fund, then being raised. It was the Doctor’s first
appearance on the tour, and a large audience of Mr. Beecher’s friends
nearly filled the Academy. The net proceeds were subsequently turned
over to the Statue Fund as a contribution from me.
At the end of the first week I paid Dr. Parker for five lectures, which
included the Beecher eulogy. I made no objections to this. In fact, I
knew I had a perfect right to do so. Nothing was said about it in
settlement. The Doctor delivered five lectures and I had paid him. The
net proceeds of the first lecture I had donated to the Beecher Statue
Fund. I should have sent in a check as the net receipts of the lecture,
with no further explanation, and then everything would have been all
right and no questions asked; but as many thought the net
receipts--about $1,100--looked small for so large a house, and did not
take into consideration the expense of the Academy of Music rental,
advertising, etc., I made a confidential statement to a member of the
Statue Committee of all items, including the fee of the speaker. The
secretary happened to be the very last man I should have trusted. He at
once had an item for the newspapers, and rushed to the office, and that
evening appeared in all the daily papers sensational headlines:
“DR. PARKER TAKES PAY FOR EULOGIZING HIS FRIEND.”
“MAJOR POND WITHHOLDS MONEY BELONGING TO THE
BEECHER STATUE.”
“DEACON WHITE DENOUNCES THE THIEF AND ACCOMPLICE,
ETC.”