the facts of his position is a severe puzzle to some of our
thorough-going friends. They ask, How can a man demonstrate that the
fall of rain is so governed by unchanging laws that the shower of
yesterday dates back in its causes to the origin of things, and,
having proved this to the comprehension of every soul present, finish
by _praying_ for an immediate outpouring upon the thirsty fields? We
confess that, to our modern way of thinking, there is a contradiction
here, but there is none at all to an heir of the Puritans. We reply to
our impatient young friends, that Henry Ward Beecher at once
represents and assists the American Christian of the present time,
just because of this seeming contradiction. He is a bridge over which
we are passing from the creed-enslaved past to the perfect freedom of
the future. Mr. Lecky, in his 'History of the Spirit of Rationalism,'
has shown the process by which truth is advanced. Old errors, he says,
do not die because they are refuted, but _fade out_ because they are
neglected. One hundred and fifty years ago, our ancestors were
perplexed, and even distressed, by something they called the doctrine
of Original Sin. No one now concerns himself either to refute or
assert the doctrine; few people know what it is; we all simply let it
alone, and it fades out. John Wesley not merely believed in
witchcraft, but maintained that a belief in witchcraft was essential
to salvation. All the world, except here and there an enlightened and
fearless person, believed in witchcraft as late as the year 1750. That
belief has not perished because its folly was demonstrated, but
because the average human mind grew past it, and let it alone until it
faded out in the distance. Or we might compare the great body of
beliefs to a banquet, in which every one takes what he likes best; and
the master of the feast, observing what is most in demand, keeps an
abundant supply of such viands, but gradually withdraws those which
are neglected. Mr. Beecher has helped himself to such beliefs as are
congenial to him, and shows an exquisite tact in passing by those
which interest him not, and which have lost regenerating power. There
_are_ minds which cannot be content with anything like vagueness or
inconsistency in their opinions. They must know to a certainty whether
the sun and moon stood still or not. His is not a mind of that cast;
he can "hover on the confines of truth," and leave the less inviting
parts of the landscape veiled in mist unexplored. Indeed, the great
aim of his preaching is to show the insignificance of opinion compared
with right feeling and noble living, and he prepares the way for the
time when every conceivable latitude of mere opinion shall be allowed
and encouraged.
One remarkable thing about his preaching is, that he has not, like so
many men of liberal tendencies, fallen into milk-and-waterism. He
often gives a foretaste of the terrific power which preachers will
wield when they draw inspiration from science and life. Without ever
frightening people with horrid pictures of the future, he has a sense
of the perils which beset human life here, upon this bank and shoal of
time. How needless to draw upon the imagination, in depicting the
consequences of violating natural law! Suppose a preacher should give
a plain, cold, scientific exhibition of the penalty which Nature
exacts for the crime, so common among church-going ladies and others,
of murdering their unborn offspring! It would appall the Devil.
Scarcely less terrible are the consequences of the most common vices
and meannesses when they get the mastery. Mr. Beecher has frequently
shown, by powerful delineations of this kind, how large a part
legitimate terror must ever play in the services of a true church,
when the terrors of superstition have wholly faded out. It cannot be
said of his preaching, that he preaches "Christianity with the bones
taken out." He does not give "twenty minutes of tepid exhortation,"
nor amuse his auditors with elegant and melodious essays upon virtue.
We need not say that his power as a public teacher is due, in a great
degree, to his fertility in illustrative similes. Three or four
volumes, chiefly filled with these, as they have been caught from his
lips, are before the public, and are admired on both continents. Many
of them are most strikingly happy, and flood his subject with light.
The smiles that break out upon the sea of upturned faces, and the
laughter that whispers round the assembly, are often due as much to
the aptness as to the humor of the illustration: the mind receives an
agreeable shock of surprise at finding a resemblance where only the
widest dissimilarity had before been perceived.
Of late years, Mr. Beecher never sends an audience away half
satisfied; for he has constantly grown with the growth of his splendid
opportunity. How attentive the great assembly, and how quickly
responsive to the points he makes! That occasional ripple of
laughter,--it is not from any want of seriousness in the speaker, in
the subject, or in the congregation, nor is it a Rowland Hill
eccentricity. It is simply that it has pleased Heaven to endow this
genial soul with a quick perception of the likeness there is between
things unlike; and, in the heat and torrent of his speech, the
suddenly discovered similarity amuses while it instructs. Philosophers
and purists may cavil at parts of these sermons, and, of course, they
are not perfect; but who can deny that their general effect is
civilizing, humanizing, elevating, and regenerating, and that this
master of preaching is the true brother of all those high and bright
spirits, on both sides of the ocean, who are striving to make the soul
of this age fit to inhabit and nobly impel its new body?
The sermon over, a livelier song brings the service to a happy
conclusion; and slowly, to the thunder of the new organ, the great
assembly dissolves and oozes away.
The Sunday services are not the whole of this remarkable church. It
has not yet adopted Mrs. Stowe's suggestion of providing
billiard-rooms, bowling-alleys, and gymnastic apparatus for the
development of Christian muscle, though these may come in time. The
building at present contains eleven apartments, among which are two
large parlors, wherein, twice a month, there is a social gathering of
the church and congregation, for conversation with the pastor and with
one another. Perhaps, by and by, these will be always open, so as to
furnish club conveniences to young men who have no home. Doubtless,
this fine social organization is destined to development in many
directions not yet contemplated.
Among the ancient customs of New England and its colonies (of which
Brooklyn is one) is the Friday-evening prayer-meeting. Some of our
readers, perhaps, have dismal recollections of their early compelled
attendance on those occasions, when, with their hands firmly held in
the maternal grasp, lest at the last moment they should bolt under
cover of the darkness, they glided round into the back parts of the
church, lighted by one smoky lantern hung over the door of the
lecture-room, itself dimly lighted, and as silent as the adjacent
chambers of the dead. Female figures, demure in dress and eyes cast
down, flitted noiselessly in, and the awful stillness was only broken
by the heavy boots of the few elders and deacons who constituted the
male portion of the exceedingly slender audience. With difficulty, and
sometimes, only after two or three failures, a hymn was raised, which,
when in fullest tide, was only a dreary wail,--how unmelodious to the
ears of unreverential youth, gifted with a sense of the ludicrous! How
long, how sad, how pointless the prayers! How easy to believe, down in
that dreary cellar, that this world was but a wilderness, and man "a
feeble piece"! Deacon Jones could speak up briskly enough when he was
selling two yards of shilling calico to a farmer's wife sharp at a
bargain; but in that apartment, contiguous to the tombs, it seemed
natural that he should utter dismal views of life in bad grammar
through his nose. Mrs. Jones was cheerful when she gave her little
tea-party the evening before; but now she appeared to assent, without
surprise, to the statement that she was a pilgrim travelling through a
vale of tears. Veritable pilgrims, who do actually meet in an oasis of
the desert, have a merry time of it, travellers tell us. It was not so
with these good souls, inhabitants of a pleasant place, and
anticipating an eternal abode in an inconceivably delightful paradise.
But then there was the awful chance of missing it! And the reluctant
youth, dragged to this melancholy scene, who avenged themselves by
giving select imitations of deaconian eloquence for the amusement of
young friends,--what was to become of _them_? It was such thoughts,
doubtless, that gave to those excellent people their gloomy habit of
mind; and if their creed expressed the literal truth respecting man's
destiny, character, and duty, terror alone was rational, and laughter
was hideous and defiant mockery. What room in a benevolent heart for
joy, when a point of time, a moment's space removed us to that
heavenly place, or shut us up in hell?
From the time when we were accustomed to attend such meetings, long
ago, we never saw a Friday-evening meeting till the other night, when
we found ourselves in the lecture-room of Plymouth Church.
The room is large, very lofty, brilliantly lighted by reflectors
affixed to the ceiling, and, except the scarlet cushions on the
settees, void of upholstery. It was filled full with a cheerful
company, not one of whom seemed to have on more or richer clothes than
she had the moral strength to wear. Content and pleasant expectation
sat on every countenance, as when people have come to a festival, and
await the summons to the banquet. No pulpit, or anything like a
pulpit, cast a shadow over the scene; but in its stead there was a
rather large platform, raised two steps, covered with dark green
canvas, and having upon it a very small table and one chair. The
red-cushioned settees were so arranged as to enclose the green
platform all about, except on one side; so that he who should sit upon
it would appear to be in the midst of the people, raised above them
that all might see him, yet still among them and one of them. At one
side of the platform, but on the floor of the room, among the settees,
there was a piano open. Mr. Beecher sat near by, reading what appeared
to be a letter of three or four sheets. The whole scene was so little
like what we commonly understand by the word "meeting," the people
there were so little in a "meeting" state of mind, and the subsequent
proceedings were so informal, unstudied, and social, that, in
attempting to give this account of them, we almost feel as if we were
reporting for print the conversation of a private evening party.
Anything more unlike an old-fashioned prayer-meeting it is not
possible to conceive.
Mr. Beecher took his seat upon the platform, and, after a short pause,
began the exercises by saying, in a low tone, these words: "Six
twenty-two."
A rustling of the leaves of hymn-books interpreted the meaning of this
mystical utterance, which otherwise might have been taken as
announcing a discourse upon the prophetic numbers. The piano confirmed
the interpretation; and then the company burst into one of those
joyous and unanimous singings which are so enchanting a feature of the
services of this church. Loud rose the beautiful harmony of voices,
constraining every one to join in the song, even those most unused to
sing. When it was ended, the pastor, in the same low tone, pronounced
a name; upon which one of the brethren rose to his feet, and the rest
of the assembly slightly inclined their heads. It would not, as we
have remarked, be becoming in us to say anything upon this portion of
the proceedings, except to note that the prayers were all brief,
perfectly quiet and simple, and free from the routine or regulation
expressions. There were but two or three of them, alternating with
singing; and when that part of the exercises was concluded, Mr.
Beecher had scarcely spoken. The meeting ran alone, in the most
spontaneous and pleasant manner; and, with all its heartiness and
simplicity, there was a certain refined decorum pervading all that was
done and said. There was a pause after the last hymn died away, and
then Mr, Beecher, still seated, began, in the tone of conversation, to
speak, somewhat after this manner.
"When," said he,
"I first began to walk as a Christian, in my youthful zeal I
made many resolutions that were well meant, but indiscreet.
Among others, I remember I resolved to pray, at least once,
in some way, every hour that I was awake. I tried faithfully
to keep this resolution, but never having succeeded a single
day, I suffered the pangs of self-reproach, until reflection
satisfied me that the only wisdom possible, with regard to
such a resolve, was to break it. I remember, too, that I
made a resolution to speak upon religion to every person
with whom I conversed,--on steamboats, in the streets,
anywhere. In this, also, I failed, as I ought; and I soon
learned that, in the sowing of such seed, as in other
sowings, times and seasons and methods must be considered
and selected, or a man may defeat his own object, and make
religion loathsome."
In language like this he introduced the topic of the evening's
conversation, which was, How far, and on what occasions, and in what
manner, one person may invade, so to speak, the personality of
another, and speak to him upon his moral condition. The pastor
expressed his own opinion, always in the conversational tone, in a
talk of ten minutes' duration; in the course of which he applauded,
not censured, the delicacy which causes most people to shrink from
doing it. He said that a man's personality was not a macadamized road
for every vehicle to drive upon at will; but rather a sacred
enclosure, to be entered, if at all, with, the consent of the owner,
and with deference to his feelings and tastes. He maintained, however,
that there _were_ times and modes in which this might properly be
done, and that every one _had_ a duty to perform of this nature. When
he had finished his observations, he said the subject was open to the
remarks of others; whereupon a brother instantly rose and made a very
honest confession.
He said that he had never attempted to perform the duty in question
without having a palpitation of the heart and a complete "turning
over" of his inner man. He had often reflected upon this curious fact,
but was not able to account for it. He had not allowed this repugnance
to prevent his doing the duty; but he always had to rush at it and
perform it by a sort of _coup de main_; for if he allowed himself to
think about the matter, he could not do it at all. He concluded by
saying that he should be very much obliged to any one if he could
explain this mystery.
The pastor said: "May it not be the natural delicacy we feel, and
ought to feel, in approaching the interior consciousness of another
person?"
Another brother rose. There was no hanging back at this meeting; there
were no awkward pauses; every one seemed full of matter. The new
speaker was not inclined to admit the explanation suggested by the
pastor. "Suppose," said he,
"we were to see a man in imminent danger of immediate
destruction, and there was one way of escape, and but one,
which _we_ saw and he did not, should we feel any delicacy
in running up to him and urging him to fly for his life? Is
it not a want of faith on our part that causes the
reluctance and hesitation we all feel in urging others to
avoid a peril so much more momentous?"
Mr. Beecher said the cases were not parallel. Irreligious persons, he
remarked, were not in imminent danger of immediate death; they might
die to-morrow; but in all probability they would not, and an ill-timed
or injudicious admonition might forever repel them. We must accept the
doctrine of probabilities, and act in accordance with it in this
particular, as in all others.
Another brother had a puzzle to present for solution. He said that he
too had experienced the repugnance to which allusion had been made;
but what surprised him most was, that the more he loved a person, and
the nearer he was related to him, the more difficult he found it to
converse with him upon his spiritual state. Why is this? "I should
like to have this question answered," said he, "if there _is_ an
answer to it."
Mr. Beecher observed that this was the universal experience, and he
was conscious himself of a peculiar reluctance and embarrassment in
approaching one of his own household on the subject in question. He
thought it was due to the fact that we respect more the personal
rights of those near to us than we do those of others, and it was more
difficult to break in upon the routine of our ordinary familiarity
with them. We are accustomed to a certain tone, which it is highly
embarrassing to jar upon.
Captain Duncan related two amusing anecdotes to illustrate the right
way and the wrong way of introducing religious conversation. In his
office there was sitting one day a sort of lay preacher, who was noted
for lugging in his favorite topic in the most forbidding and abrupt
manner. A sea-captain came in who was introduced to this individual.
"Captain Porter," said he, with awful solemnity, "are you a captain in
Israel?"
The honest sailor was so abashed and confounded at this novel
salutation, that he could only stammer out an incoherent reply; and he
was evidently much disposed to give the tactless zealot a piece of his
mind expressed in the language of the quarter-deck. When the solemn
man took his leave, the disgusted captain said, "If ever I should be
coming to your office again, and that man should be here, I wish you
would send me word, and I'll stay away."
A few days after, another clergyman chanced to be in the office, no
other than Mr. Beecher himself, and another captain came in, a
roistering, swearing, good-hearted fellow. The conversation fell upon
sea-sickness, a malady to which Mr. Beecher is peculiarly liable. This
captain also was one of the few sailors who are always sea-sick in
going to sea, and gave a moving account of his sufferings from that
cause. Mr. Beecher, after listening attentively to his tale, said,
"Captain Duncan, if I was a preacher to such sailors as your
friend here, I should represent hell as an eternal voyage,
with every man on board in the agonies of sea-sickness, the
crisis always imminent, but never coming."
This ludicrous and most unprofessional picture amused the old salt
exceedingly, and won his entire good-will toward the author of it; so
that, after Mr. Beecher left, he said, "That's a good fellow, Captain
Duncan. I like _him_, and I'd like to hear him talk more."
Captain Duncan contended that this free-and-easy way of address was
just the thing for such characters. Mr. Beecher had shown him, to his
great surprise, that a man could be a decent and comfortable human
being, although he was a minister, and had so gained his confidence
and good-will that he could say _anything_ to him at their next
interview. Captain Duncan finished his remarks by a decided expression
of his disapproval of the canting regulation phrases so frequently
employed by religious people, which are perfectly nauseous to men of
the world.
This interesting conversation lasted about three quarters of an hour,
and ended, not because the theme seemed exhausted, but because the
time was up. We have only given enough of it to convey some little
idea of its spirit. The company again broke into one of their cheerful
hymns, and the meeting was dismissed in the usual manner.
During the whole evening not a canting word nor a false tone had been
uttered. Some words were used, it is true, and some forms practised,
which are not congenial to "men of the world," and some doctrines were
assumed to be true which have become incredible to many of us. These,
however, were not conspicuous nor much dwelt upon. The subject, too,
of the conversation was less suitable to our purpose than most of the
topics discussed at these meetings, which usually have a more direct
bearing upon the conduct of life. Nevertheless, is it not apparent
that such meetings as this, conducted by a man of tact, good sense,
and experience, must be an aid to good living? Here were a number of
people,--parents, business-men, and others,--most of them heavily
burdened with responsibility, having notes and rents to pay, customers
to get and keep, children to rear,--busy people, anxious people, of
extremely diverse characters, but united by a common desire to live
nobly. The difficulties of noble living are very great,--never so
great, perhaps, as now and here,--and these people assemble every week
to converse upon them. What more rational thing could they do? If they
came together to snivel and cant, and to support one another in a
miserable conceit of being the elect of the human species, we might
object. But no description can show how far from that, how opposite to
that, is the tone, the spirit, the object, of the Friday-evening
meeting at Plymouth Church.
Have we "Liberals"--as we presume to call ourselves--ever devised
anything so well adapted as this to the needs of average mortals
struggling with the ordinary troubles of life? We know of nothing.
Philosophical treatises, and arithmetical computations respecting the
number of people who inhabited Palestine, may have their use, but they
cannot fill the aching void in the heart of a lone widow, or teach an
anxious father how to manage a troublesome boy. There was an old lady
near us at this meeting,--a good soul in a bonnet four fashions
old,--who sat and cried for joy, as the brethren carried on their
talk. She had come in alone from her solitary room, and enjoyed all
the evening long a blended moral and literary rapture. It was a
banquet of delight to her, the recollection of which would brighten
all her week, and it cost her no more than air and sunlight. To the
happy, the strong, the victorious, Shakespeare and the Musical Glasses
may appear to suffice; but the world is full of the weak, the
wretched, and the vanquished.
There was an infuriate heretic in Boston once, whose antipathy to what
he called "superstition" was something that bordered upon lunacy. But
the time came when he had a child, his only child, and the sole joy of
his life, dead in the house. It had to be buried. The broken-hearted
father could not endure the thought of his child's being carried out
and placed in its grave without _some_ outward mark of respect, _some_
ceremonial which should recognize the difference between a dead child
and a dead kitten; and he was fain, at last, to go out and bring to
his house a poor lame cobbler, who was a kind of Methodist preacher,
to say and read a few words that should break the fall of the darling
object into the tomb. The occurrence made no change in his opinions,
but it revolutionized his feelings. He is as untheological as ever;
but he would subscribe money to build a church, and he esteems no man
more than an honest clergyman.
If anything can be predicated of the future with certainty, it is,
that the American people will never give up that portion of their
heritage from the past which we call Sunday, but will always devote
its hours to resting the body and improving the soul. All our
theologies will pass away, but this will remain. Nor less certain is
it, that there will always be a class of men who will do,
professionally and as their settled vocation, the work now done by the
clergy. That work can never be dispensed with, either in civilized or
in barbarous communities. The great problem of civilization is, how to
bring the higher intelligence of the community, and its better moral
feeling, to bear upon the mass of people, so that the lowest grade of
intelligence and morals shall be always approaching the higher, and
the higher still rising. A church purified of superstition solves part
of this problem, and a good school system does the rest.
All things improve in this world very much in the same way. The
improvement originates in one man's mind, and, being carried into
effect with evident good results, it is copied by others. We are all
apt lazily to run in the groove in which we find ourselves; we are
creatures of habit, and slaves of tradition. Now and then, however, in
every profession and sphere, if they are untrammelled by law, an
individual appears who is discontented with the ancient methods, or
sceptical of the old traditions, or both, and he invents better ways,
or arrives at more rational opinions. Other men look on and approve
the improved process, or listen and imbibe the advanced belief.
Now, there appears to be a man upon Brooklyn Heights who has found out
a more excellent way of conducting a church than has been previously
known. He does not waste the best hours of every day in writing
sermons, but employs those hours in absorbing the knowledge and
experience which should be the matter of sermons. He does not fritter
away the time of a public instructor in "pastoral visits," and other
useless visitations. His mode of conducting a public ceremonial
reaches the finish of high art, which it resembles also in its
sincerity and simplicity. He has known how to banish from his church
everything that savors of cant and sanctimoniousness,--so loathsome to
honest minds. Without formally rejecting time-honored forms and
usages, he has infused into his teachings more and more of the modern
spirit, drawn more and more from science and life, less and less from
tradition, until he has acquired the power of preaching sermons which
Edwards and Voltaire, Whitefield and Tom Paine, would heartily and
equally enjoy. Surely, there is something in all this which could be
imitated. The great talents with which he is endowed cannot be
imparted, but we do not believe that his power is wholly derived from
his talent. A man of only respectable abilities, who should catch his
spirit, practise some of his methods, and spend his strength in
getting knowledge, and not in coining sentences, would be able
anywhere to gather round him a concourse of hearers. The great secret
is, to let orthodoxy slide, as something which is neither to be
maintained nor refuted,--insisting only on the spirit of Christianity,
and applying it to the life of the present day in this land.