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HEN

I

{Y WARD BEECHFR
[ETAT 70. J ‘

BEEGHER:

CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER, PULPIT ORATOR, PATRIOT
AND PHILANTHROPIST.

A VOLUME OF A

A REPRESENTATlVE SELECTIONS

FROM THE SERMONS, EECTURES, PRAYERS, AND LETTERS
OF

HENRY WARD BEECHER,

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH V

BY THOMAS W. HANDFORD.

ILLUSTRATED BY TRUE WILLIAMS.

With Copious Index of Subjects.

CHICAGO :

DONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & CO.

407-425 DEARBORN STREET

IOPYRIGHT
1887.
BY BELFORD, CLARKE '& L‘o.

Donohue & Henneberry, Printers and Binders, Chicago.

PREFACE.

ENRY WARD BEECHER was so conspicuous a
figure, and occupied so commanding a position in

the religious and political life of America, that it would
not be remarkable if many books should appear, each pur-
porting to deal more or less exhaustively with the life and
labors of this illustrious man. Every eye sees itsown rain-
bow, and from various stand'points estimates will be formed
of the many-sided character of the Pastor of Plymouth
Church. There will be a great demand for a Life of Mr. .
Beecher, from the hand of some one who knew him inti-
'mately, and loved him well. Not from idle curiosity, but
from motives both of love and admiration, we shall all be
glad to know whatever can be told us of the inner life
of this great thinker .and teacher. There will also be a-
demand for a careful analysis of the doctrines Mr. Beecher
taught and of his methods of teaching. There is room,
also, for another book—a handy, portable volume—~pre-
senting, in compact and careful outline, a general impres-
sion of Mr. Beecher and his work. Such a book the
Compiler offers in these pages. The design of this volume
f—indicated on the page of contents—is to present to the
reader, along with a brief biographical sketch, extracts
from the sermons, lectures, prayers and correspondence of
Mr. Beecher, in such order as shall be a pleasant memorial
of the great preacher to those who had the privilege of
knowing him, and an equally pleasant possession to those
who know him, only through his published works. The
voice’of Mr. Beecher is heard mainly throughout these
"pages, and by their aid the reader will be able to spend

‘ raises

4 . , 7 PREFACE.‘

many pleasant hours in the genial and helpful companion-
ship of this man who, “being dead,” yet speaks to us in
impressive and perpetual eloquence. The preparation of
this book has been an exceedingly pleasant task. The
Compiler counts it one of the great privileges of his life
that he has been permitted to offer his tribute of admi-
ration and respect to the greatest Preacher and Teacher of
the Nineteenth century. -

Maywood, 121., July 8th, 1887’.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HENRY WARD BEECHER ............ 9
ANECDOTES AND LETTERS .................................... 51

SELECTIONS: ,
Religious — Concerning Jesus Christ — Death and Immortal.
ity — Illustrations from Nature —— Social Questions— Poli-

tics—Miscellaneous 67
EVOLUTION AND RELIGION ............ . ............ . . . . ...... 174
ORATION IN EXETER HALL, LONDON... . . . . . .. ............... , 203
BEECHERISMS ................................ . . . . .......... 221
COMMUNION SUNDAY IN PLYMOUTH CHURCH .................. 228
THE COVENANT OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH ....................... 237
THE SERVICE OF PRAISE AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH .. . . . .. . . .... ." 238
MR. BEECHER’S PUBLIC PRAYERS. .......... . ................ 249
DISCOURSE ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN ....... . ..... . .- ............. 270
MR. BEECHER’S LAST SERMON ............... . ............... 281
MR. BEECHER’S LAST PRAYER IN PLYMOUTH CHURCH .......... 293
FUNERAL ORATION BY DR. CHAS. H. HALL ..... . . . . Y. . . ...... 295
EULOGIES .............. I ................ . ...... .302

PLYMOUTH CHURCH MEMORIAL TO MR. BEECHER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

ILLUSTRATIONS.

mum.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, [ETAT 7O .. . . . . .. . ...... Frontispz’ece.
INTERIOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH.. . . . . ................ . . . . . . 33
HENRYVVARDBEECIIER,ETAT 50 ...... 65
ADDRESSING THE MEETING AT MANCHESTER ..... . . . . .. . . . . . . 97

INTERIOR VIEW OF MR. BEECHER’S STUDY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 129
MR. BEECRER’S COUNTRY HOME AT PEEKSKILL. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 161

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

For David, after he had served his own generation by the will
of God, fell on sleep, and was laid into his fathers. —Acts: xiii.- 36.

Spirits are not finely touched but to fine 1ssues.* * Heaven
doth with us as we with torches do, not light them for them-
selves; for if our virtues did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike as if
we had them not. ~Slzakespeare.

We live' in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial;

We should count time by heart throbs.

He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
And he whose heart beats quickest, lives the longest.

Lives In one hour mo1e than' 1n years do some.

* * 9(- 9(-

Life' 1s but a means unto an end; that end,
Beginning, mean, and end of all things, —— God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
—th’lz‘p James Bailey.

0 write wisely of a great man’s life, it is necessary to

y be a good distance from his grave. We are much
too near the grave of Henry Ward Beecher to think, or
speak, or write of him with perfect calmness. The light
has hardly faded from his genial face, the music of his
voice still lingers in our ears. There has not yet been
time for him to become a memory of the past. It seems
but yesterday that we heard the bells tolling a solemn re-
quiem over his lifeless clay. We have not yet grown
acciistomed to the world Without Henry Ward Beecher.
Some things seem too good to be true, and some too sad
to realize. A great void was created when the Plymouth
pastor died. He was so large a part of his age, so deeply

9

10 ‘ HENRY WARD BEECHER.

concerned in all its best interests, that in his departure
the world misses one of her “ Apostle lights.” Our moods
are too much charged with emotion to permit a perfectly
impartial judgment of the dead. And yet the hour is
ripe and the occasiOn at hand for laying gratefully a
simple wreath of im'mortelles on the silent orator’s grave.
In days to come, when all the materials are gathered, some
wise voice will tell the world a larger and completer story
of the life of the greatest preacher of the nineteenth
century. On Henry Ward Beecher fell the mantle of the
prophets of the elder days. He was a servant of God, and],
of the people. and of the age. Concerning him, that fine
scripture eulogy of David, King of Israel, might be tran-
scribed for an epitaph. “He served his own generation by
the will of God and fell on sleep.”

Henry Ward Beecher, the eighth child of Lyman and
Roxana Foot Beecher, was born at Litchfield,Conn., on the
24th of J nne, 1813; he died in Brooklyn on Tuesday morn-
ing, March the 8th, 1887. He was spared to pass the limit
of three-score years and ten, he went down to his grave in
a‘good and radiant age. Like a shock of corn fully ripe,
he was gathered to the garner of God. The lines fell to
him for the most part in pleasant places, his lot was cast
in the best years'of the best age of the world. The nine-
teenth century was only in its teens when Henry Ward
Beecher was born, and it was in the first flush of a prom-
ising manhood when in 1837, he commenced his great life-
work. Fifty years have passed since the young preacher
of Lawrenceburg put his hand to the Gospel plow. What
years they have been! The wonderful events of the last
half century have been rich enough in meaning to fill
with romance any dozen centuries of the world’s former
history. Few men have had more to do as individuals -in
forming the modern history of America than Henry Ward
Beecher. He has helped to the very uttermost of his
ability to make America the best, the freest, the happiest
country beneath the stars. And in doing this he has

CHILDHOOD. 11

madehimself a part of his country forever. As long as
the stars and stripes float in the blue free heavens, as long
as America endures, the pastor cf Plymouth Church will
be remembered with gratitude and pride.

Mr. Beecher’s life was not rich in great 0r prominent
event's. Some men by the deeds of a day have sprung into
perpetual fame; an hour on the battle-field, or the happy
accident of some great occasion has made heroes of them
forever. All honor to them! They deserve to be held
in grateful remembrance, but it is not by great events,
by great speeches or sermons uttered on great occasions,
but by fifty years of devoted service that Mr. Beecher has
endeared himself to his country.

In very early life Mr. Beecher lost his mother. He
was too young to understand all that that loss implied, and
yet the event made an impression on his young mind that
was never wholly effaced. But he was not permitted t6 go ’
through the early years of life with a great “mother-
want,” as Elizabeth Barrett Browning calls it, making his
young heart sad. Dr. Lyman Beecher married again, and
of this second mother Mr. Beecher speaks in very tender
terms: “my dear mother—not she that gave me birth,
but she that brought me up; she that did the office-work
of a mother, if ever a mother did; she that, according to
'her ability, performed to the uttermost her duties-—
was a woman of great veneration.”

No man can tell the story of his earlier years better
than Mr. Beecher himself. He says. “My childhood was
perhaps no different from that of others seventy years ago.
The little ones in those days were not given the considera-
tion that is now accorded them, and properly so. I didn’t
have any jumping-jacks, norvtops, nor marbles, nor toys
of any kind. It doesn’t Seem to me that I knew any boys
to play with, either. We lived in a part of the village
where theredidn’t seem to be any boys, and, so I was let
alone. My father was kept busy with his pastoral duties
and my mother had so many other children to attend to

12 HENRY WARD BEECHER. .

that little attention was paid to me. Occasionally the pa-
ternal government would reach me. Sometimes my father
would whip me. I remember that he used to tell me that
the whipping hurt him more than it did me. It was hard
to believe that, because he was a strong, man, but I believed
it, and it used to make me cry to be told so; then, of
course, I had to cry when the whipping began, and, all
in all, those were very doleful times.”

At the age of twelve we find the future pulpit orator at
the Latin School at Boston, where he made considerable, if
not brilliant progress. In these early days he found great
delight in the records of Nelson and Captain Cook. A
spirit of adventure seized him, and he determined to go to
sea; but this was not to be.

“ There 1s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them as we may.”

Dr. Beecher became aware of Henry’s purpose, and in-
stead of violently. opposing his plans, suggested a course
that seemed to be in line with the young adventurer’s de-
sires. A course of mathematics and navigation was con-
sidered necessary for such a vocation. The enterprising
youth was sent to Amherst, and there for a time he gave
his attention to mathematics.

It was during his residence at Mount Pleasant Insti-
tute, Amherst, Mass, that Henry Ward Beecher gave
the first indications of what manner of man he "was to
become. The seeds that had been sown in earlier years
were now to bring forth good fruit. He was fourteen
years of age when he commenced his Amherst course, a lad
well grown, with vigorous health, trained to obedience and
hard work; full of bright dreams of the future, and ex-
ceedingly sensitive to kindly, genial influences. He made
very fair progress in the study of mathematics, and under
the guidance of Professor Lovell he became quite enthu-
siastic in the study of elocution, devoting an hour a day
during five days a week to thisvimportant branch of his
education3—especially important for him, from the fact

» commsrou. . ' 13

that his voice was naturally thick and husky, and his
enunciation was rendered very indistinct in consequence
of enlarged tonsils. The passages he niost of all de-
lighted to declaim were selections from “ Paradise Lost,”
from Shakespeare’s plays, from SheridanKnowles’ “Wil-
liam Tell,” and from the sermons of the eloquent Rob-
ert Hall, of Leicester. His study of this subject was
most thorough and exhaustive. Indeed, it is said that
he knew nearly the whole of “ Porter’s Rhetorical Reader”
by heart, and yet no man on'the platform of°America
manifested less _' than Mr. Beecher the traces of the
technical elocutionist. As time passed on, the ardent
desire for a seafaring life began to weaken. The stories of
Nelson’s naval conquests and Captain Cook’s intrepid wan-
derings lost something of their old fascination. Life was
filling fast with larger meanings. The young student of
Amherst was reaching toward the stature of an earnest
manhood. About this time, when in a mood of spiritual
anxiety, a religious revival arose, stirring the deep under-
currents of that spiritual susceptibility which had been,
for the most part, the habit of his life, and was largely
the result of his home training. Henry Ward Beecher
resolved to be a Christian, and in this bright, fair morn- '
ing of his days, he set himself to “follow the Lord fully.”
'IIis conversion—if we may use that word in this connec-
tion—was not the doleful giving up of everything glad
and beautiful to live a life of gloom and sadness. It was
a joyful consecration to the Lord. If Mr. Beecher could
not have been a joyful Christian, he would not have been
a Christian at all. All life was glad to him. Existence '
alone, under the blue skies and in the happy fields, was a
luxury. And he judged that the Christian life ought to
be of all lives the most joyful. True to these convictions,
his life was sunny where some thought it should only be
solemn. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe writes of him at this
period in her own characteristic manner. “The only
thing,” she says, “which prevented Henry from taking

14 HENRY WARD BEECHER.’

the first rank as a religious young man was the want of
that sobriety and solemnity which was looked upon as
essential to the Christian character. He was like a con-
verted bobolink, who should be brought to judgment for
short quirks and undignified twitters and tweedles, among
the daisy heads, instead of flying in dignified paternal .
sweeps, like a good swallow of the sanctuary, or sitting in
solemnized meditation in the depths of pine trees like
the owl.”

At the early age of seventeen he became a member of
his father’s church in Boston.

It was while he was a student at Amherst College that
the future brilliant preacher made his first public speech.
It was delivered at the college debating society, in a-debate
on Garrison’s attack on the Colonial Society. Beecher was
assigned to speak on the anti-GarrisOn side, but in reading
up the subject his mind changed, and at the last moment
he surprised the meeting by joining the ranks of his ad-
versaries.

The desire of Dr. Lyman Beecher’s heart—that his
son. Henry should become a preacher—was destined to be
fulfilled. Mr. Beecher might have made a good com-
mander on the deck of a ship, but the pulpit was to be his
throne of. power. We are told that Professor Stowe had a
good deal to do with Mr. Beecher’s final decision to devote
his life to the work of the Christian ministry. He did not
enter upon his sacred calling without very thorough con-
sideration. He was not dismayed at the solemn responsi-
bilities of the Christian ministiy. Indeed, he was not
dismayed at anything. He loved God with that whole-
hea1ted,trustful love that casts out fear, especially the
fear that sav ors of diead. His chief concern was to know
what to say to make men Christians. To really raise man
to God was in his view the only true test of success in the
Christian ministiy. The following paiagiaph contains
Mr. Beecher’ s own account of his determination to preach
the Gospel:

HIS FIRST PASTORATE. . 15

One memorable day whose almost every cloud I remember, whose
high sun and glowing firmament and waving trees are vivid yet,
there rose before me, as if an angel had descended, a revelation of
Christ as being God because he knew how to love a sinner ; not that
he would love me when 1 was true and perfect, but because I was so
wicked that I should die if he did not give himself to me, and so
inconstant that I never should be steadfast. ; as it weresaying to me,
“ Because you are sinful. 1 am yours.” Before that thought of a God
who sat in the center and seat of power that he might bring glory
and restoration to everything that needed him I bowed down in my
soul ; and from that hour to this it has been my very life to love and
to serve the all-helping and pitiful God. That determined me to
preach.

Knowing the man as we know him now, we are not at
all surprised that he accepted the first invitation to a pas-
torate that presented itself: He had resolved to preach
—-—where and under what circumstances were not to him
matters of great importance. He would probably have
accepted the charge of “a little garden walled around” if
it had been offered him, but he was quite as willing to be
“ a voice crying in the wilderness;” anythinguanywhere
—if he might but lift men into the light of God, and lead
their feet into paths of peace. '

In the year 1837—— just fifty years ago—Mr. Beecher
commenced his public life. He became pastor of a small
church in the village of Lawrenceburg, Ind. The flock
consisted .of twenty members: “Nineteen of them were
women,” he said, “and the other—was nothing.” Here
for two years he continued preaching with great joy to that
little flock. How poor they were, and how happy he was
in his work, his own words best tell : “I remember the
days of our poverty,” he says, “our straightness. I was
sexton of my own church at that time. There were no
lamps there, so I bought some ; and I filled them and lit
them. I did not ring the bell, because there was none to
ring. I made the fires and swept the building. I opened
the church before prayer-meeting and preaching, and
locked it when they were over, in fact, doing everything,
but coming to hear myself preach— that they had to do.
We were all poor together, and to the day of my death I
never shall forget one of those faces or hear one of those

16 ‘ HENRY WARD BEECHER.

names spoken without having excited in my mind the
warmest remembrances. Some of them I venerate, and
the memory of some has been precious as well as fruitful
of good to me down to this hour.”

From Lawrenceburg he removed to Indianapolis, where
for eight years he toiled with great success. In this pas-
torate he proved himself to be “ a workman that need not
to be ashamed.” He assailed intemperance and gambling
with such force that the whole town felt and acknowledged
his power.

It was here he delivered his famous “ Lectures to.
Young Men,” which have justly attained a world-wide
popularity. In the preface to the first edition he explains
in the following words the occasion of their delivery :

“ Having watched the courses of those who seduce the
young, —their arts, their blandishments, their pretenses ;
having witnessed the beginning and consummation of ruin,
almost in the same year, of many young men, naturally
well disposed, whose downfall began with the appearances
of innocence, -—— I felt an earnest desire, if I could, to raise
the suspicion of the young, and to direct their reason to
the arts by which they are with such facility destroyed.
I ask every YOUNG MAN who may read this book not to
submit his judgment to mine, not to hate because I de-
nounce, nor blindly to follow me ; but to weigh my reasons,
that he may form his own judgment. I only claim the
place of a companion ; and that I may gain his ear, I have
sought to present truth in those forms which best please
the young ; and though I am not without hope of satisfy-
ing the aged and the wise, my whole thought has been to
carry 7.0sz me the intelligent Sympathy of YOUNG MEN.”

In the preface to the last edition of these powerful ap-
peals to young men, he gives a quaint and pleasant account
of the mode of their preparation :

“ The lectures were delivered on successive Sunday
nights; the church was crowded during the series, .—-a
thing that seldom happened during my Western life.

LECTURES '1‘0 YOUNG MEN. ' 1’?

Indianapolis, in 1844, contained about four thousand inhab-
itants, and had not less than twelve churches of eight dif-
ferent denominations. The audiences of the Second Pres-p
byterian church, of which I was pastor, did not- average
five hundred in number during the eight years of my set-
tlement. But five hundred was regarded as a large audi-
ence. The lectures were written, each one during the
week preceding the day of its delivery. I well remember
the enjoyment which I had in their preparation. They
were children of eanly enthusiasm. I can see before me
now, as plainly as then, the room which in our little ten- '
foot home served at once as parlor, study, and bedroom;
and the writing-chair, the place by the window, and the
skeleton bookcase, with a few books scattered on solitary
shelves, like a handful of people in churchon a rainy day.”

If the work of these first ten years of his pastorate were
of value to Lawrenceburg and Indianapolis, they were not
without great value to Mr. Beecher himself. He was un-
consciously fitting himself for larger and more important
tasks. Faithful in his duty to these smaller flocks, he re-
ceived the guerdon that comes sooner or later to all faithful
toilers -— he was called to rule a larger and a mightier king-
dom. For in truth, when Henry Ward Beecher came ’to
Plymouth Church, he came to preach to thoughtful men of?
Brooklyn and New York, but his words were destined to be
echoed all round the" civilized world. On the morning of
October 10, 1847, he entered upon the duties, continued
through the remainder of his life, as pastor of Plymouth '
Church. One of his first acts was to distinctly state from
Plymouth pulpit his principles and beliefs. He announced I
that he wOuld preach Christ living and full of' love, by
whose standards all men should rule their daily acts,
advocate the temperance cause, and fight on the side of
anti-slavery. There was no need for him to wait in order
to prove his words by his deeds, for the storm burst almost
immediately. He came to his larger work when the days
were ripening to revolution. As he himself says, the con-

2

18 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

dition of the public mind at that time was a condition of
“imprisoned moral sense.” It was “the Egyptian era”
of American life. To form any true estimate of Mr.
Beecher’s work in the best twenty years of his service, it is
needful to be well informed concerning the true condition
of the nation in those days. . Speaking of this very matter,
a few days after his death, Professor David Swing said :—

C “ There is now a generation in active life in our land who
did not see the uprising of this eminent man, and hence
they cannot measure the height of his well-earned fame.
Our land is not mourning for a great writer; Irving and
Macaulay had more historic lore and literary grace than Mr.
Beecher possessed; Longfellow more and better poetry;
Lamartine and Coleridge could surpass him in describing
nature; Winkleman and Ruskin were greater in delineating
the merit and demerit in art. A heart or a mind of a type
differing from all these immortals has found the end in
death. Beecher joined the benevolence of a Wilberforce
to the eloquence of a Henry Clay or a Webster; he did not
have an eloquence that could express history, but an elo-
quence that could make it. A Macaulay could write a page,
but a Beecher could help make the nation that must fill the
page. He made facts for eloquence to record.

“ When this influential manhood began, our nation was
divided into two very hostile sections. The South had
become so alarmed regarding its peculiar property that a
Northern man having a known love of liberty did not dare
travel in the South. The Northern merchants were so
anxious to retain the cotton and sugar trade of the South
that they all froWned upon any politics which numbered
freedom among its ideas, and they would mob or burn a
church which contained the disciples of a Christian liberty
and equality. The students in Dartmouth College mobbed
free-soil speakers; the President sympathized with the
students. Churches, schoolhouses, asylums, and homes of
colored people in the North were burned, to check the
spread of hope among the Africans in the South. Twelve

AMERICA FORTY YEARS AGO. ’19

buildings were burned in New York; one large church and
many hOmes in Cincinnati; forty houses and two churches
in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Hall, built for anti-slavery
meetings, was burned down, along with its valuable library,
while mayor and council offered no protection and no word
of sympathy. White men were imprisoned in Boston for
preaching Abolitionism. In 183 7, a slave had been burned to
death over a slow 'fire in St. Louis, and for denouncing
such atrocity the Rev. Elijah Lovejoy, of this State, was
mobbed to death. ‘

“ It was in such days, reaching from 1830 to 1860, the
hot oratory of Mr. Beecher was fabricated like the'bolts of
Jupiter in the infernal shop of Vulcan. Thence came also
the equipment of Dr. Cheever, Phillips, Parker and Sum.
ner. The age sharpened their speech, condensed their
style, and poured in the heroism and passion which make
martyrs. Of all these men Mr. Beecher was the most vis-
ible, because his pulpit brought him each week before the
people. His logic, his simple style, his illustrations, his
pathos, his hope, made his words fly straight as arrows to
the heart. This vast plea for universal freedom was well
sustained for twenty years, and beginning in our West it
reached its zenith in England, when, in 1863, he had to
teach the horrors of slavery to the nation which had pro-
duced‘ Cowper and Wilberforce, but had forgotten them.
He embodied the new genius of the United States, He
lived, in 1840, the life our nation reached thirty years after-
ward. Boston railways built a mean, plain car for negroes.
to ride in. It was called the “Jim Crow” car. Charles
Lennox Redmond, an educated colored man, entertained
in England by persons of rank and fame, and commissioned
by O’Connell and Father Mathew to bear greetings from
libertyjn England to liberty in America, found, on going
from Boston to Salem, his borne, that he must not take the
good car, but must ride in the “Jim Crow” car. In such
a time Mr. Beecher began to ask the colored men to sit on his
platform in his church, and thus the “ negro car” was met

20 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

in equity by the refuge of the greatest pulpit the world
possessed. In 1835, while Mr. Beecher was looking out of
his soul window wit-h his powerful vision and tender nature,
he saw, in the Charleston Courier, a notice of a public sale
of slaves to satisfy a mortgage held by the Presbyterian
Theological Seminary of South Carolina; he read also that
the estate of the Rev Dr Furman was to be sold at auction
—— ‘the farm, a large theological library, twenty-seven
negroes, some of them very prime, two mules, one horse,
and an old wagon.’ In those days the Episcopal Bishop of
Virginia, Dr. Meade, had published some sermons to
slaves. One great thought was, that they must bear well
correction, and even if corrected when not guilty of the
offense, they. must bear the flogging in meekness, and assign
the whipping to some other transgression which had been
concealed from these masters in the Lord.

“ It was high time for religion to reach out its hand to
the slave. Oh, the joy that our hearts should feel that
these sad facts are all so far back of us that they must be
sought for in the records of almost forgotten history! The
slave block, the whip and the slave are gone from our land
forever!”

The pastor of Plymouth Church rose grandly to the
need of his age. When Wendell Phillips found no place
for free speech in New York or Brooklyn, Mr. Beecher
invited 'him to the platform of Plymouth Church, and
counted the words of the great Abolitionist as no desecra-
tiOn of its sanctity; for did not the Son of Man come to
preach the Gospel to the poor, and to set the captives free?
From the hour that Wendell Phillips made his great anti-
slavery speech from the platform of Plymouth Church
until the Emancipation Proclamation, nearly twenty years
after, the Plymouth preacher became a flaming advocate
for liberty of speech and action on the question of the
national evil. If there was anything on earth that he was
sensitive to up to the day ofhis death, it was any form of
denial to liberty, either in literature, politics or religion.

A TOUCHING INCIDENT. ‘ . 21

Although he boldly confronted the corrupt political spirit
of the age, he did not do it as an abolitionist, but as an anti-
slavery man. The professed abolitionist disclaimed the
obligation to maintain the government and the promises of
the Constitution . Mr. Beecher, with the anti-slavery men,
recognized the binding obligation, and sought the emanci-
pation of the slave by a more circuitous and gradual influ-
ence. But the opprobrious epithet “ Abolitionist ” was
applied to every man who, by any method, advocated the
abolition of slavery. To be an Abolitionist was to have the
mark of Cain set upOn the brow. To preach on personal
liberty for the slave was a punishable offense. From 1847
to 1865 was a time of battle, and his ardent nature found
expression through his bold and passionate utterances. His
voice of trumpet tone was far better for the time of such a
conflict than the flutes and harps and dulcet melodies of
pe.ace

A touching incident occurred early in the year 1861,
which helped to increase Mr. Beecher’ s reputation as the
friend of the slave. .

A beautiful octoroon girl, raised and owned by a
prominent citizen of this country, Mr. John Churchman,
attempted to make her escape North. She was arrested
and brought back. Her master then determined to sell
her, and fOund a ready purchaser in another citizen, Mr.
Fred Scheffer. Shortly after this the late owner was im-
pressed with the belief that the girl intended to make
another effort to go North the first opportunity that pre-
sented. To meet the emergency and save trouble Mr.
Scheffer proposed to Sarah that she should go N01th, and
raise enough money from the Abolitionists to purchase her-
_se.lf This proposition she eagerly accepted, and, being
furnished with means by Mrs. Scheffer to pay her fare, she
started. A few days after he1 arrival in IN ew York she
was taken to Mr. Beecher, and on the following Sabbath
evening was escorted to his pulpit in Brooklyn. She was
.a woman of commanding presence, rounded features, and

22 ~ HENRY WARD BEECHER.

winning face and long jet black hair, and of course, under
the circumstances, attracted most eager attention and in—
terest from the large and wealthy congregation assembled.
She was-requested to unloosen her hair, and as she did so
it fell in glistening waves over her shoulders and below her
waist. Robed in spotless white, her face crimsoned and
her form heaving under the excitement of the occasion, she
stood in that august presence a very Venus in form and
feature. For a moment Mr. Beecher remained by her side
without utterng a .word, until the audience was wrought
up to a high pitch of curiosity and excitement. And
then in his impressive way he related her story and her
mission. Before he concluded his pathetic recital the vast
audience was a sea of commotion, Tears ran down
cheeks unused to the melting mood, eager curiosity and
excitement pervaded the whole congregation, and as the
pastor announced that he wanted $2,000 for the girl be-
fore him to redeem herpromise to pay for freedom, costly
jewels and trinkets and notes and specie piled in in such
rapid succession, that in less time than it takes to write
this down, enough and much more was contributed than
was necessary to meet the call that had been made.

After she was free the ladies of the church wrote a
little book, in which a full account of her life was given.
With the money that was obtained from the sale of this
they bought a little place for her at Peekskill, where she
raised fowls and sold eggs and butter foraliving. She
is living there still, but is now a woman of mature years.
She was known as both Sarah Scheffer and Sarah Church-
man. She never married, and was never tired of talking
about how good Mr. Beecher and his family had been to
her. .

The crisis of the nation was at hand and Plymouth’s
patriot preacher girded himself for the fight. With pen
and voice he labored for the success of Abraham Lincoln
in the campaign of 1860, urging the preservation of the
Union and of national honor. When, on April 12, 1861,

- FORT SUMTER FIRED ON. 23

the first shot fired at Fort Sumter smote the Northern
heart, Mr. Beecher sprang to the aid of his country. From
Plymouth pulpit came the ringing words of patriotism,
cheering the timid, encouraging the downcast, denouncing
traitors, but hopeful of the future, pointing- out clearly
the path of right and duty for those who loved their
country.- His church, prompt to answer, raised and
equipped a regiment, the First Long Island, in which his
eldest son was an officer. Before this regiment went into
actual service, Mr. Beecher often visited the camp and
preached to the youngsoldiers, many being “my own
boys,” as he used to call them. Meanwhile, beside the
cares of his pastorate, he “was constantly delivering
speeches. At last his health began to fail. His voice
gave way, and he was imperatively commanded to seek
rest. To recruit his exhausted energies he sailed for
Europe, little thinking then that this journey was to
give him a world-Wide instead of a national reputation.

It has been erroneously imagined that Mr. Beecher’s
‘visit to England was arranged by the northern Executive,
and that he was a special commissioner in the pay of the
Government at Washington. This, however, is not true.
Mr. Beecher says: “ I had no commission; was sent on no
mission. I went of my own motion, for rest and strength;
for the war tarried, and there was no prospect of its coming
to an end for years. The South was yet confident, and
the North had not fairly revealed its resources. I was not
in a pleasing mood. The English public very largely re-
fused its sympathy to the Union, and, on the whole, Wished
well to the South. The laboring classes-of Great Britain,
and especially in Lancashire, sympathized with the North.
In those sterling days compromises had been burned up in
the war. My'own feeling was, .‘ He that is not for us is
against us.’ It was only after a summer on the continent
that I returned ‘to England and yielded to the persuasions
of some staunch friends of the North, and engaged to speak
in some of the large industrial centers.”

24 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Mr. Beecher spent a fortnight in Wales, and then
traveled through Germany, Switzerland and Italy. A
second request to speak in public 011 his return to England
was again declined. But Newman Hall, Francis Newman,
Baptist Noel and other prominent Englishmen and Ameri-
cans living in England, urged that he owed a duty to the
small party of resolute Union-lovers who were maintaining
the cause of America in England against overwhelming
odds. Mr. Beecher yielded, and engaged himself to speak
in the principal cities of England and Scotland.

- In order to fully comprehend the magnitude of the
work on which Mr. Beecher had entered, it‘is necessary to
recall the state of feeling in England at that time. Oliver
Wendell Holmes wrote after Mr. Beecher’s return: “ The
devil had got the start of the clergyman, as he very often
does after all. The wretches who have been for three
years pouring their leprous distillment into the ears of
. Great Britain had preoccupied the ground and were deter-
mined to silence the minister if they could. For this pur-
pose they looked to the heathen populace of the nominally
Christian British cities. They covered the walls with
blood-red placards, they stimulated the mob by inflamma-
tory appeals, they filled the air with threats of riot and
murder. It was in the midst of scenes like these that the
Single solitary American opened his lips to speak in behalf
of his country.” Howling mobs, urged on and rewarded
by paid tools of the South, crowded into Mr. Beecher’s
meetings.

_Nothing will account for the exceeding bitterness of
this opposition but the venom of party spirit, and the bit-
terness of men who felt that all their personal interests
were being endangered. For no true American could have
spoken in warmer terms of England and England’s queen
than Mr. Beecher had done. The following paragraph is
about as strong for England as anything well could be:

“Which is the strongest throne on the globe to-day?
Why, the English unquestionably. Partly because a noble,

A GOOD worm FOR ENGLAND. 25

virtuous, illustrious woman sits upon it. An everlasting
answer to those who say that a Woman ought not to speak
and vote is the fact that the proudest sovereign in the
world to-day is Queen Victoria. She dignifies woman-
hood and motherhood, and she is fit to sit in empire.
That is one reason why the English throne is the strongest,
but that is not the only reason; it is the strongest also
because it is so many-legged. It stands on thirty millions
of people. It represents the interests of the masses of its
subjects. Another cause why England is the strongest
nation, is because it is the most Christian nation—because
it has the most moral power. It has more than we have.
We like to talk about ourselves on the 4th of July; but we
are not to be compared to-day with Old England. I know
her sturdy faults; I know her stubborn conceit- I know
how many things are mischievous among her poor, common
people, among her operatives of the factory, and among
her common serfs of the mine; but taking her up one side
and down the other, there is not another nation that repre-
sents so much Christianity as Old England. If you do not
like to hear it, I like to say it, that the strongest power on
the globe to-day is that kingdom. It is the strongest
kingdom and the one that is least liable to be shaken
down. England should have been destroyed every ten or
fifteen years, from the time of the Armada to the present
day, in the prophesy of men. * * ‘* And yet she has
stood, as she now stands, mistress of the sea, and the
strongest power on the earth, because she has represented
"fnoral elements.” .

But Mr. Beecher braved the British lion in his most'
angry mood. His great speeches in Manchester, Glasgow,
Edinburgh, Liverpool and London were magnificent as spec-
imens of natural oratory, but they were sublime and heroic
as the utterances of one who loved his country, who be-
lieved his country to be in the right, and dared to say so
in the face of all the world. The great London speech,

26 ' HENRY WARD BEECHER.

the crowning effort of this strange campaign, will be found
in the later pages of this volume.

The following description of the great meeting in Exe-
ter Hall is from the pen of a gentleman who was present:

It was my privilege to hear him when he addressed an
audience of Englishmen in' Exeter Hall, London, on the
then all-absorbing tppic of the ‘American War.’ Never
shall I forget the scene, The masses of the English peo-
ple had already taken sides in favor of the Southern Open—
federacy, and only a few, such, for instance, as the Rev.
Newman Hall, the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Wriothesley
Noel, and a few other nouconformist clergymen of the
same stamp, had the courage to defend the North, and
this at the hazard of mob violence, when Mr. Beecher sud-
denly appeared, and fighting his way from Manchester to
London dared to face the howling and vicious mobs who
assailed him, and by his indomitable courage succeeded in
gaining at least a respectful hearing, which, at Exeter
Hall, culminated in a grand triumph on behalf of liberty
and justice. On that occasion his grand eloquence carried
his audience until burst after burst of deafening cheers
greeted his every period, and the scene at the close of his
address can never be fully realized, except by those who
were eye-witnesses of this grand event. To him alone
should be attributed the credit of having turned the
tide of English opinion, and of having succeeded in
laying the foundation of that better judgment which pre-
vented the government of that day from officially recog-
nizing the Confederacy as an accomplished fact.

One of the most impressive and one of the most in-
formal of all Mr. Beecher’s speeches was delivered at the
Lancashire Independent College, Manchester, on the afteii:
noon of Saturday, October 10, 1863. '

An address from the students was presented and read”
by Mr. Atkinson, the senior student, to which Mr. Beecher»

made the following happy reply :

Although I am pressed for time, I could not deprive myself of the
pleasure of meeting you, for I feel a most lively interest in all young
men who are preparing themselves for that which I esteem to be the
most honorable and by far the happiest work in life— the Christian
ministry, My father, you know, was a clergyman before me, and

ADDRESS To MANCHESTER STUDENTS. 2'?

it pleased God to give him eight sons. Every one of them is a minis-
ter of the Gospel, and their children are—not all, but in numbers,
also, becoming clergymen.

I can say that I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews. My own ministra-
tion has extended now over a peiiod of from twenty- -five to thirty
years. I wasc called, having been born and educated in New Eng-
land, to leave immediately Dafter my graduation at college, for the
West, whele I labored f01 fifteen years as a settled pastor in the Pres-
byterian church, for the ministry is interchangeable between the Con-
gregational and Presbyterian churches. Inb our country Presbyte-
rians take Congregational churches, and Congregationalists P1 esbyte-
rian, indifferently.

I was called to minister in the P1esbyterian church in the West
for a period of about fifteen years, studying and preaching in the
midst of communities where, from recent settlement and sparseness
of population, there was much missionary work to be done. My study
was my saddle for yea1s of my life. After that I was removed to
the great metropolis of our country, B1 ooklyn being really a pa1t of
the city of New York, separated only by a liver. T l1e1e I have pur-
sued my ministry from that day to this, in a time of agitation unpar-
alleled 1n the history of our country.

I have stated these facts because I Wish to bear Witness that after
this experience, and with the knowledge that I now have. if any
oflice of State, or any office in society of any description whatever,
wele profiered me as an honor, or as a place of joy and comf01t I
should, Without any hesitation, reject them each and all as being less
than the Gospel n11n1st1 y

T o a young man who looks out with some proper diflidence of his
own power; who is uncertain whether he shall succeed or not; who
has, if he be a cautious man by nature, some provident fears, as to
support and as to relative position in society, it ought to be something
encouraging to hear one as old as I am, and, after so many years of
n1inist1ation, say, that there is nowl1e1e else in the world where the
promise of the Saviour is so sure to be fulfilled, “Seek ye first the
kingdom of God and his 1ighteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you’

Young gentlemen, if you seek a settlement for the purpose of
forestalling God’s providence and making you1 own a1 ran gements, if
it is an ambitious settlement, if it is a profitable settlement, you put
that promise away from you. You make men your almoners and
treasurers— not God. But I had rather settle in poverty with God for
my treasurer than take the most ambitious position in life with only
man to lean upon. He never betrays his promises, and although -I
have seen days of poverty, days also of abundance; under both cir-
cumstances I have the most simple, unfeigned and childlike faith in
this, that if a man will Without reserve give himself to the work of
God, God will put about him the everlasting arms of his support, and
he never, not 1°01 an hour, not for a moment, whatever the seeming
may be, will be betrayed or forsaken.

You may trust God, and you may give yourselv,cs without a
thought f01 exteinal matters, to the work of the ministlation of the
Lord Jesus Christ. _

But this leads me to say that for this wo1k you must love Christ.

There are a great many 1eligious people in the world, but I am

28 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

afraid not many Christians. There are many whose religion is a
duty; whose religion is worship, or submission, or holy fear and rev-
erence, which are all indispensable auxiliaries. But no man is a
Christian who does not love. And it is love as a very torrid zone in
the heart, and love to Christ as distinguished from the Father or the
Spirit, that makes a man a Christian. And Where one has that heroic
inspiration where more than father, more than mother, more than
wife, more than child, more than friends, more than self, he, loving
the Lord Jesus Christ, has the witness of it day by day in his own
soul, so that all these other, relationships derive their odor, their
flavor, their light and their beauty from the reflection of the higher
love in him to the Lord Jesus Christ, where it‘is his life, so he can
say with the apostle, “ The life which I live in the flesh I live by
faith in the Son of God,” then it will become easy to do it; otherwise,
hard.

I beseech of you never to neglect a duty; never to cease to culti-
vate conscience; but I beseech of you do not go into the ministry to
be duty-performing ministers. Let me say, without offensive person-
ality, that I do not preach because it is my duty. I both preach and
I labor because I don’t know anything on earth that is so pleasant to
me; I love it. .

Every year it pleases my people to give me some four Sabbaths of
rest, and the weeks on either side make it a rest of about eight secular
weeks.- I am always glad to go away and rest, for I am very tired
when the hot month of August comes; but I can bear witness that I
go back a reat deal more glad to my work than ever I went away
from it. Ihave to say again and again, “ After all, vacation is the
heaviest month in the year to me.” And yet that season is happy, it
is floral, it is full of God in nature; but after all, to stand among my
people, to look among those faces that I shall yet see glorified, to know
that I hear my Master’s heart in my hand, and that I am laboring for
the dear Christ, and am to present spotless before the throne of eternal
glory those whom he has committed to my charge; to see the evolu-
tion of God’s grace in the hearts of men; to trace, to follow, to aid— I
know of nothing under the sun that is such fruition and such joy, and
such continual peace as that. Why, a man who knows as much as I
do about the Christian ministry is a fool if he don’t preach. If you
consulted but selfish joy, if that were a possible thing, you had better
be a minister of Christ’s Gospel—not a fearing minister, not an
anxious minister, not a minister that is always talking and thinking
about his “awful responsibilities.” That is the way a slave should
talk, but that is not the way, as a son of God, you should talk. You
are children, not servants, who have been taken into the bosom and
confidence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and why should you ta}k about
“awful responsibilities?” Love and Trust are the victorious mottoes
of every Christian minister. No evil can befall you; nothing can
harm you, if ye be followers of Christ. To go cheerfully and hoping,
and loving, and courageous, and undaunted, always sure that there is
a Providence in which you are moving— this is, indeed, to be a true
man. And there is nothing that takes away the fear of man and
the fear of human society, and nothing which takes away that fear
which is the most troublesome of all, the fear that works through
conscience, so much as love. “Love casts out fear," and it is not
perfected till it does.

AGONIES on THE ENGLISH CAMPAIGN. 29

No one can ever tell through What depths of anguish
Mr. Beecher passed in that terrible English campaign.
The soldiers who went forth in defense of the Union, who
laid their-lives on the altar of their country and are
now sleeping in the Wilderness or on the bloody field of'
Gettysburg, were brave and heroic; not less brave and
heroic was he who, to set his slandered country right in
the eyes of England and the world, dared the anger and
confronted with fearless front the wild, mad fury of the
bigots of Manchester, and especially of Liverpool. There
is a martyrdom that burns at the stake and springs
full-statured in an hour; there is also a martyrdom that
lives and endures and suffers long. It was the palm of
this latter order of martyrdom that Mr. Beecher won and
waved. The following letter addressed to a personal friend
from the scene of conflict is worth careful perusal.

God awakened in me a desire to be a full and true Christian to
ward England the moment I put my foot on her shores, and he has
answered the prayers which he inspired. God has kept me in perfect
peace. I stood in Liverpool and looked on the demoniac scene without
a thought that it was I who was present. It seemed rather like a storm
raging in the trees of the forests, that roared and impeded my progress,
yet had no matters personal or wilful in it against me. You know how,
when we are lifted by the inspiration of a great subject, and by the almost
visible presence and vivid sympathy with Christ, the mind forgets the
sediments and dregs of trouble and sails serenely in an upper realm of
peace as untouched by the noise below as is a bird that flies across a battle-
field. Just so I had at Liverpool and Glasgow as much an inward peace
as everI did in the loving meeting of dear old Plymouth Church. And
again and again when the uproarraged, and I could not speak, my heart
seemed to be taking of the infinite fulness of the Saviour’s pity, and
breathing it out on those poor troubled men. I never had so much
the spirit of continuing unconscious prayer, or rather of communion‘I
with Christ. * * * And I have been able to commit all to him, my-‘
self, my family, my friends and in an especial manner the cause of my
country; Oh, my friend, I have felt an inexpressible wonder that
God shOuld give it to me to do something for the dear land. When
sometimes the idea of being clothed with the power to stand up in this
great kingdom against. an inconceivable violence of prejudice and mis-
take, and clear the name of my dishonored country, and let her brow
shine forth, crowned with liberty, glowing with love to man. Oh, I
have seemed unable to live almost ! It almost took my breath away !
I have not in a single instance gone to the speaking halls without all
the way breathing to God unutterable desires for inspiration, guidance
and success; and I have had no disturbance of personality. I have
been willing, yea, with eagerness, to be myself contemptible in man’s

3O HENRY WARD BEECHER.

sight, if only my disgrace might be to the honor of that cause which is
entrusted to our own thrice dear country.

I have asked of God nothing but this—and this with uninterrupted
heart -flow of yearning request—“ Make me worthy to speak for God and
for man.” I have never felt my ignorance so painfully, nor my great want
of moral purity and nobility of soul, as when approaching my task of de-
fending liberty in this her hour of trial. I have an‘ideal of what a man
should be that labors for such a cause that constantly rebukes my real
condition and makes me feel painfully how little I am. Yet that is
hardly painful. There passes before me a view of God’s glory so pure
so serene, uplifted, filling the ages, and more and more to be revealed,
that I almost wish to lose my own identity, to be like a drop of dew that
falls into the sea, and becomes a part of the sublime whole that glows
under every line of latitude and sounds on every shore. “ That God may
be all in all ”-"—that is not a prayer only but a personal experience.

And in all this time I have not had one unkind feeling toward a
single human being. Even those who are opposers I have pitied with
undying compassion. * it * God be thanked who giveth us the vic-
tory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

My dear friend when I sat down to write I did it under this impulse
that I wanted somebody to know the secret of my life._ I am in a noisy
spectacleand seem to thousands as one employing mere-1y worldly imple-
ments and acting under secular motives. But should I die on sea or
land I wanted to say to you who have been so near and dear to me that
as God’s own very truth ‘ ‘ the life I have lived in the flesh Ihave lived by
faith of the Son of God.” I wanted to leave it with some one to say for
me that it was not in natural gifts nor in great opportunities, nor in per-
sonal ambition, that I have been able to endure and labor, but that the
secret and spring of my outward life has been an inward, complete and
all-possessing faith of God’s truth and God’s own self-working in me to
will and to do of his good pleasure.

On his return from England he was welcomed with an
enthusiasm that knew no bounds. Not Brooklyn alone,
but the whole of the North, felt that Mr. Beecher had laid
his beloved country under a debt of gratitude. Oliver
Wendell Holmes spoke of him as America’s great Plenipo-
tentiary, and added: “After a few months’ absence, Mr.
Beecher returned to America having finished a more
remarkable embassy than any envoy who has. represented
us in Europe since Franklin pleaded the cause of the
young Republic at the court of Versailles. He kissed no
royal hand, he talked with no courtly diplomatists, he was
the guest of no titled legislator, he had no official existence.
But, through the heart of the people, he reached the
nobles, ministers, courtiers—the throne itself.”

After the close of the war Mr. Beecher devoted himself

A CLOUDED SKY. 31

with renewed ardor to the g1and work of his life: the
preaching of the Gospel and the building up of Plymouth
Church.

When the sun was brightest 1n the heavens, a terrible
storm swept a010ss the horizon of Mr. Beecher’ s life; a
storm that threatened to sweep away his usefulness, if not
his very life. The world has probably heard all it wants
to hear of the famous Beecher-Tilton trial. Yet it would
be impossible to pass by so remarkable an event in Mr.
Beecher’s life without some comment. Having, however,
neither space nor inclination to enter into the discussion
of this matter in detail, we venture to quote a passage
from The Christian Herald of March 17, 1887, containing
a brief and judicious reference to this painful subject:

“The most distressing episode in Mr. Beecher’s life,
both for him and his friends, occurred when his fame and
influence were at their zenith. At a time when men of
character, intelligence, and piety hung upon his wmds,
when the most cult med classes of the country accepted
him as their guide, whenthc first place as a p1eache1 and
an orator was accorded to him on all hands, and when his
Writings were eagerly read from one end of the land to
the other, a formidable assault was made upon his reputa-
tion. At first vague hints were circulated reflecting upon
him, then a direct charge appeared in print, but not in a
quarter to which the people looked for reliable information.
Finally, in/an action at law, brought by Theodore Tilton
against Mr. Beecher, with a claim for $100,000 damages,
the whole case was disclosed, and for six months the pru-
rient appetites of the sensual and the malice of scOffers at
Christianity were gratified by the details of the terrible
accusation against. the pastor of Plymouth Church.

“Three times did Mr. Beecher meet his accusers, and
three times the charge was investigated. First it was
heard by a committee of the church, appointed at Mr.
Beccher’s request, and the committee pronounced the
pastor innocent. Afterward it Was tried in court When

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32 HENRY WARD BEECIIER.

the jury disagreed, and thirdly by a council of Congrega-
tional ministers. Undoubtedly the scandal was a cause of
reproach not only to Mr. Beecher, but to religion. _ That
it would be so if it .were made public, whatever the issue
might be, Mr. Beecher and his friends had foreseen from
the first, and, unhappily, in attempting to prevent its
coming to trial, they actually prejudiced the case, and
their efforts to keep it from the public were regarded as
an admission of guilt. It was a noteworthy fact that
Theodore Tilton, who brought the charge, was a protégé
of Mr. Beecher’s, a man possessing undoubted talent, a
sphere for‘the exercise of whichhad been provided by Mr.
Beecher.”

The unwavering fidelity of Plymouth Church to its
pastor during this fierce ordeal, the love and sympathy of
his wife, and the unfaltering allegiance of a host of friends
in this country and in Europe encouraged and supported
him, and enabled him to continue his pastorate and
public work.

After the terrible ordeal was over, Dr. Armitage, one of
Mr. Beecher’s life long friends, asked him: “ Beecher, how
have you managed to live through it?” His eyes filled
with tears,” and, with half-choked utterance, he said,
“Armitage, I could not have lived through it if the Lord
had not strengthened the back for the burden. Some-
times I thought I must sink, but I said, ‘.Lord, here is my
heart; whatever others may say, I know I am thine.’ ”

In personal appearance Mr. Beecher was one of the
most striking men about New York. He was of medium
height, with broad shoulders and a heavy girth. His head
was large, his forehead high, and his features strong and
full. His hair was gray, turning to white in recent years,
and hung in loose looks down his black coat collar. His
face was always smooth-shaven. His eyes were of a gray-
ish blue, full of fire and expression in his moments of feel-
ing, always humorous and inquisitive.

But to portray the ideal Henry Ward Beecher requires

AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 33

that he be taken as he stood before the public eye at, the
close of the civil war. He was thenpabout fifty-two years
of age; perfect in health, robust, yet graceful, his voice
strong, clear, and of great compass—a commanding voice,
his body the willing and complete servant of his mind and
hearth—his whole frame responding to his changing mo'ods.
He had come of an ancestry so famous in American eccle--
siastical history that he was introduced in England by one
who thought to do him the greatest honor as “the son of
the great Dr. Beecher, of America.” In personal presence
he was remarkable, chiefly by the great transformation of
his countenance under the play of emotion. On the plat-
form of Plymouth Church he was a king upon his throne.

The editor of the Andover Review, in a judicious, kindly
and exhaustive article on Mr. Beecher, to which we gladly
acknowledge our indebtedness, gives a fine analysis of Mr.
Beecher on the platform of Plymouth Church.

“Mr. Beecher’s conduct of the service was full of interest.
Who that ever heard him pray can forget the impression ?
There Were many among his parishioners who valued his
ministry of prayer more than the message of the sermon.
In our personal experience we never heard but one man
besides Mr. Beecher—the English Unitarian, James Mar-
tineau—who seemed actually communing with God face to
face, as a finite representative would speak the needs and
aspirations of a people to the ear of the Infinite Father.
The ideas were those appropriate to public prayer, copious,
simple, yet varied as the wants of the soul; every suppliant
seemed to feel, “ That is my prayer, that is for me.” In
expression, and as the nobler passions began their action,
then the voice would expand in volume, become vibrant
and concentrated, strong, rich, and impassioned; the latent
inward heat filled the mild blue eyes withflashing fire, it
radiated the face with earnestness ; it penetrated arms,
hands and fingers, and produced gestures forcible, varied,
and significant." There was no grace of‘elegance, and yet
his action was graceful with that freedom which goes with

3

34 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

disciplined power, moving easily. His whole body became
an obedient servitor of the impassioned soul. The vast
audience looked, listened, admired, and loved. Deeply
moved, they unconsciously threw out their own inward
fire. It kindled the speaker to a whiter heat. Their
sympathies formed a Whole key-board on which he played
with a master hand. For the time they gave a simulta-
neous assent to every thought he uttered.

“ But this consummate manager of the multitude was too
wise to keep their emotions beyond the pitch he instinct-
ively felt'to be natural for them and true for him. He
understood the power of contrast in appealing to the heart
and the imagination. He appreciated the value of neu-
tral tints in emotional expression. Before the audience
were aware of it, he had gradually subsided into the easy
naturalness of colloquial speech, and they would find them-
selves smiling, perhaps laughing, at some witty thrust, or
humorous anecdote or illustration. The next moment his
voice was full of a tremulous tenderness or touching pathos,
like a Welsh song ; tears would be running down his face,
and the audience would respond with a tribute of emotion
they did not try to conceal. It was the beauty in the
pathos and the tender-hearted manliness of the speaker,
that moved them. By his art of resting an audience,
through variety of vocal and rhetorical treatment in differ-
ent parts of any form of public address, he often held the
people unwearied through a discourse of an hour or more
in length. He used to say that the speaker helps his au-
dience ‘by enabling them to listen with different parts of
their mind ;" one part rests the others.’ The eye looked
upon the noble form and its eloquently expressive action;
the ear heard the resonant voice with its varied melody;
but the mind felt the influence of his personal force——
they felt it in his style. His style was impassioned be-
cause his temperament was impassioned; because the
spirit of his time was impassioned. In the reading both
of the Scriptures and of hymns he never lifted the eye

THE PREACHER AT HIS WORK. 35‘

from the page, except to give significance to an idea, and
the look was always associated with a pause. Therepwas
often an undertone in his Scripture reading, especially in
the interpretation of sublimity of thought, or grave rebuke,
or solemn warning, or affecting personal experience, that.
suggested his silent personal commentary upon the passage.
His tone hinted the deep impression that the ideas were
producing upon his own mind, and that he was sympathiz-
ing with the author. ‘

“When he came to the sermon he faced his audience
with a bearing of calmness and repose. His placid self-
possession instantly won the confidence of the auditor. His
presence engaged and riveted attention before he opened
his lips. Artistic Skill in various forms has made his pic-
tured face a cherished possession in every household, and
the future, through the same medium, will know his form
and feature. Of good height, he was not sufficiently tall
to be styled “magnificent” in person, but he was nobly
and benignantly impressive. His superb physical advan-
tages, even at threescore and ten, made him our'Demose
thenes. Few public speakers since the great Greek have
been so generously gifted for a forty years’ continuous serv-
ice as preacher, lecturer, political orator, and conqueror
of mobs. And yet his face and physical appearance were
scarcely two days alike. His features varied . with his
temperamental conditions and his emotional moods. His
voice was an organ of a hundred stops. It was at once
strong, of great volume, penetrating, flexible, melodious,
and capable (f great power of endurance. An infant might
be soothed to sleep by it, and asavage would feel himself
getting civilized under it. It was a robust baritone in its
musical register, and covered a wide compass. Training
had put it under perfect control; and it was always kept
in tune from constant practice in speaking and the fineness
of his ear for music. Few men were so susceptible to
sound as he. Good music of any kind would first excite
his sensibilities, then lull his outward senses, and all, man-

36 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

ner of fancies and imagination would teem in his brain. '
His choir had no more intelligent, sympathetic, and grate-
ful listener than Mr. Beecher. The introductory passages
of the sermon were generally given in a low, gentle, con-
versational tone, as if conversing in a friendly way with
his'farthest auditors. Gesture and all modes of physical
expression in public address, except the voice, were re-
served for the rising tide of emotion. His familiarity with
the philosophy of delivery, as well as his instinctive ora»
torical sense, led him to recognize the true source of action,
—the feelings. Gesture, to him, was 1egulated according
to the spontaneous action of the excited sensibilities.”

The Friday evening prayer meeting was one of the favor-
ite institutions of Plymouth Church. These meetings
were of a social nature and very informal in their charac-
ter. The following description will call to the minds of
many readers pleasant memories of the Plymouth prayer
meeting:

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. N o pulpit, 01 anything like a pulpit, casts
a shadow over the scene; but' in its stead there was rathera large plat-
form, 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 inclose the green platform all about, except on
one side; so that he who should sit upon it would appear to be 1n 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 platfor,m 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 1n a
“ meeting’ state of mind, and the subsequent proceedings were so in-
formal, unstudied, and social, that 1n attempting to give this account
of them, we almost feel as if we were reporting for print the conver-
sation of a p11vate 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-one.”

A rustling of the leaves of hymn- -books interpreted the meaning of

PLYMOUTH PRAYER-MEETINGS. 3'7

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 har- .
mony 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, al-
ternating with singing ; and when that part of the exercises was con-
cluded, Mr. Beecher had scarcely spoken. The meeting ran along
in the most spontaneous and pleasant manner ; andswith all his heart-
iness 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 I first began to walk as a Christian in my youthful zeal
I made many resolutions that were well meant, but indisc‘reet.
Among others, I remember, I resolved to pray, at least in some way,
every hour that I was awake. I tried faithfully to keep this resolu-
tion, but never having succeeded a single day, I suffered the pangs of
self-reproach until reflection satisfied me that the only possible wis- ,
dom 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 ex-
pressed 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 inclosure. to
be entered, if at all, with the consent of the owner, and with defer-
ence 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. Mr. Beecher always keeps his seat.
He not unfrequently interrupts others with a question, they some-
times interrupt him. A good-humored play of feeling or fancy is
not uncommon; and rippling laughter is not regarded as any infringe-
ment of the decorum of 'the place-

In the departure of" Mr. Beecher the lecture plathrm

38 . HENRY “WARD BEECHER.

has lost one of its greatest ornaments. For nearly two
generations America rejoiced in three great lecturers, un-
rivaled by any platform orators of the civilized world.
These names were Wendell Phillips, John B. Gough and
Henry Ward Beecher. They have all gone whence they
will not return. They have left vacancies that will never
be filled. They each had the inspiration of a great cause,
and to their work they brought not only remarkable pow-
ers, but that which gave their powers their due influence,
a consecrated enthusiasm for their work. Major Pond has
many interesting stories to tell concerning Mr. Beecher’s
lecturing tours, having been for many-years his agent and
guide. The following paragraph records one very interest--
ing lecture episode, and is from the pen of the major :

In all the five hundred lectures which I have heard from Mr.
Beecher, and I have traveled with him over 200,000 miles, there was
no one so remarkable as that delivered in Richmond,.Virginia. I
had sold his lecture for $500 to a man by the name of Powell, who
owned the theatre. We went to Washin ton and I was telegraphed
to by him that we must not come, as r. Beecher would not be
allowed to speak in Richmond. I said nothing to Mr. Beecher about
it, but telegraphed to Powell that we should be there. As we arrived
at Richmond in the morning, he came aboard the train and said to
me, “ It won’t do for Mr. Beecher to speak here,” and he showed me a
four-page circular issued by a State official, the heading of. which ran
something like this: “Shall Beecher be allowed to speak in Rich-
mond? The brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe! Henry Ward
Beecher, Who sent the Sharp’s rifles to Kansas! Henry Ward Beecher,
who is famous for drawing the bead, and probably is as liable to draw
the head on his auditors as any ! Henry Ward Beecher who helped
to dig the graves of millions of our best sons of the South! Henry
Ward Beecher, who has been false to his country, false to his religion,
false to his God ! Shall this man be allowed to speak in Richmond!”

When we got into the city the newsboys were selling anti-
Beecher poetry and. songs in the street; and that night when
we arrived at the theatre we found it crowded with a shout-
ing, 'noisy audience. Mr. Powell was afraid we would be
egge . Mr. Beecher knew that it was to be a wild meeting;
but at last he said to me: “Well, I’m ready,” and together we
went out and took seats. As we sat down, the vast crowd of
men, and the few ladies in the gallery began to applaud, and some
turbulent characters gave a regular rebel yell. I rose at last and
introduced Mr. Beecher, merely saying that there was no act of my
life that gave me such pleasure as introducing so great and good a
man as Henry Ward Beecher. I sat- down and they went at it again.
Wespeak of a man rising to an emergency. He stood up there in his

LITERARY TASTES. ' 39

old way, and let them yell until they got tired. He was to lecture on
“Hard Times,” and his first words were that there is a law of God, a
common and a natural law, that brains and money control the uni-
verse. He said, “ This law cannot be changed even by the Virginia
legislature, which opens with prayer and closes with a benediction.”
As the legislators were all there in a body the laugh went around. It
was not five minutes before the house was clapping. Mr. Beecher-
talked two hours and a half to them, and of all the speeches that I
ever heard that was the best one.

Of his literary tastes Mr. Beecher has himself given
an idea : “ I read for three things— first, to know what
the world has done in the last twenty-four hours, and is
about to do to-day; second, for the knowledge which I
especially want to use in my work; and thirdly, for what
will bring my mind into a proper mood. Amongst the
authors which I frequently read are De Tocqueville, Mat-
thew Arnold, Mme Guyon, and Thomas a Kempis. I
gather my knowledge of current thought from books and
periodicals and from conversation with men, from whom I
get much that cannot be learned in any other Way. I am
a very slow reader. I never read for style. I should urge
reading history. My study of Milton—has given me a con-
ception of power and "vigor which I otherwise should not
have had. I got fluency out of Burke very largely, and I
obtained the sense of adjectives out of Barrow, besides the
sense of exhaustiveness.” '

We should get but a very imperfect idea of the work
Mr. Beecher did were we to omit the literary toils.
The materials for estimating the qualities of his mind,
the principles of his teaching, and the literary character-
istics of his written and spoken styles are to be found, in
his published writings. In mere quantity of published
matter he ranks among authors whose works are compara-
tively limited. But few of them were composed for publi-
cation. They were chiefly gatherings of articles from the
journals with which he was connected. He revised many
of them at the request of friends for permanency in book
form. The famous “ Star Papers,” which were occasional
essays on his. experiences of art and nature, “Eyesland

40 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Ears,” “Pleasant Talks on Fruits, Flowers and Farming,”
“Aids to Prayer,” “Views and Experiences on Religious
Subjects,” “A Circuit of the Continent,” and the most
far-famed of all, the “Life Thoughts,” received his edi-
torial attention. Robert Bonner persuaded Mr. Beecher
into a reluctant consent to write a novel for the “ New York
Ledger,” and “Norwood, a Tale of Village Life in New
England,” was the result—and his sole venture into the
field of fiction. This novel is simply an interesting, pic-
turesque and didatic story, with'no dramatic or artistic
value, and adds nothing to the author’s fame. His criti-
cal and philosophical work appears in the “ Yale Lectures
on Preaching,” “ Working with Errorists,” “Eight Ser-
mons on Evolution and Religion,” discussing the bearings
of. the evolutionary philosophy on the fundamental doc-
trines of evangelical Christianity, and the last work. of his
life, which he hoped to be his best monument — his “ Life
of Jesus, the Christ.” A large collection can be made of
the occasional lectures and addresses that were made dur-
ing the last twenty-five years of his public career“ The
best known are: “ The Loss of the Arctic,” “Raising the
old Flag at Sumter,” “The Death of Lincoln,” “Wen-
dell Phillips,” “ Man and his Institutions,” “ Hard Times,”
“Reasons for .Lecturing in the Fraternity Course,” the
speeches made in Great Britain during the Civil War,
eleven lectures before the Cooper Union in New York, his
platform lecture on “Democracy,” and his last effort in
occasional oratory, the “Eulogy on General Grant.” Of
the thousands of sermons that he preached during his min-
istry of half a century, the first that were published were
the remarkable “ Lectures to Young Men,” delivered dur-
ing his early ministry in Indianapolis. The “ Plymouth
Pulpit” series of sermons, numbering over a score of vol-
umes, is a collection of stenographic reports of his sermons
and prayers, all of which were extemporaneously delivered.
Two volumes of carefully selected sermons representative
of the preaching in the Plymouth pulpit were revised by

NATURE : HUMANITY : ART. 41

their author, and reveal the great preacher at the height
of his power and in his best vein of thought and expres-
sion. Many of his strongest and choicest public efforts,
especially his Lyceum addresses and after-dinner speeches,
have never been printed in full. Much of his most forcible
and brilliant writing can be found only by consulting the
'columns of The Independent and The Christian Union,
with which he was connected either as editor or contribu-
tor. In the fragments of his time while a pastor at Indian-
apolis he wrote for the Indiana Journal, and cenducted
the agricultural department under the title of “ Western
Farmer and Gardener.” This department was reprinted
monthly, and gained a national reputation.

A glance at the Beecher literature just enumerated
will indicate the province of his published authorship, both
in variety of topic and their numerical amount. The range
of his subjects was varied enough and the area of his dis-
cussion broad enough to give full play for the exercise of’
his literary gifts. His thought embraced in its expression
almost all the essential forms of prose, —narrative, descrip-
tive, philosophical, oratorical, and the miscellaneous essay.

Nature, humanity and art he saw only in their relations
to the divine. Like a true man he hated shams above all
things, but he believed in the true and the real, because
he saw God in everything and everything in its relation to
God. With Carlyle he would tolerate the toad for the
sake of the jewel, and like Ruskin he was inclined to the
existence of the jewel because of the toad, but unlike both
he‘felt that toad and jewel were both divine, and that
somewhere and somehow there was discoverable between '
them an essential harmony. He could not conceive of any
toad without a jewel; of humanity unrelated to deity; of
a nature that did not reveal the mind of a creator. He
has been called a Christian pantheist. Nothing could be
wider of the truth. He did not worship nature, but saw
in it the evidence of God. He did not worship God as a
divine man, but looked upon man with a peculiar and uni-

42 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

versal reverence as the clearest exponent—the nearest
analogy of the divine. This” idea of the holiness and
divinity of beauty, he impressed not only on our religious
thought, but on our literature and even on our politics.
The tender, exalted and truthful religious, patriotic and
artistic ideals of the generations which have listened to his
teachings owe to him'the fusing, intensifying and enlarge—
ment of the thought of his great contemporaries. He was
pre-eminently the Christian interpreter of nature.

He was like a reed flourishing in the Oriental gardens,
so formed that the winds of Nature blew through him and
awoke the sweetest and most varied of beautiful melodies.
Greatest as a teacher and as a moral teacher, hewould
have shone with brilliancy in any other profession to which-
he had lent his gigantic intellect and his wonderful mag-
netism. If his life had been cast in Southern Europe or
Asia, he would have been a great prophet, and swayed
nations. Of all men, he possessed that strong personality
and vivid eloquence which rouse men to the enthusiasm
thatvcontrols events. And he expended his magnificent
endowments with a noble prodigality. No movement that
concerned itself with the advancement of humanity or the
uplifting of the oppressed, no purpose that had for its ob-
ject charity and good-will to the world was ever brought
to his attention but it found in him a ready leader and a
warm and eloquent champion.

And yet, great as was this remarkable man, how simple
was hell The smallest child found in him a playful and
sympathetic companion, and its merry laugh was to his
ears the happiest of music and to his heart a well-spring
of pleasure. The world to Henry Ward Beecher without
children would have been like a garden without flowers ;‘ a
vine without grapes; a brook, and no water gurgling and
gushing in its channels. His nature was full of love for
beauty, whether it took the form of a merry child, a beau-
tiful flower, or a feathered songster decked with rich
plumage. He was at home with everything that was

FAREWELL ADDRESS. 43

beautiful, and Nature never found a more ardent admirer
of its different moods and changes. ,

In the summer of 1886, Mr. Beecher made another
tour through England and Scotland. He was the guest
of Dr. Joseph Parker, of the City Temple, London. He
lectured and preached in London, Manchester, Glasgow,
and Edinburgh. On Tuesday, September 28, 1886, the
London Board of Congregational Ministers, with their
wives and a few invited guests, entertained Mr. and Mrs.
Beecher at a social meeting in the Memorial Hall. ,In
response to the kindly words spoken, Mr. Beecher made
the following touching reply:

I say in regard to all church worship, that is the best form of
‘ church‘economy that in the long run helps men to be the best Chris-
tians. In regard to ordinances I stand very nearly where the Quakers
do, except that they think that because they are not divinely com- .
manded they are not necessary. I think they are most useful. Com-
mon schools are not divinely ordered, Sunday schools are not divinely
ordered ; but would you dispense with them ? Is there no law and
reason except that of the letter ? Whatever thing is found when
applied to human nature to do good, that is God’s ordinance. If
there are any men that worship God through the Roman Catholic
Church — and there are —— I say this in regard to them : “I can not,
but you can ; God bless you !” In that great, venerable church there
is gospel enough to save any man ; no man need perish for want of
light and truth in that system ; and yet what an economy it is, what
an organization, what burdens, and how many lurking mischiefs that
temptation will bring out I I could never be a Roman Catholic, but
I could be a Christian in a Roman Catholic church; I could serve
God there. I believe in the Episcopacy—for those that want it.
Let my tongue forget its cunning if I ever speak a word adverse to
that church that brooded my mother, and now broods some of the
nearest blood kindred I have on earth. It is a man’s own fault if he
do not find salvation in the teaching and worship of the great
Episcopal body of the world. Well, I can find no charm in the
Presbyterian government, I was for ten years a member of the Pres-
byterian church, for I swore to the confession of faith; but at that
time my beard had not grown. The rest of the Book of Worship has
great wisdom in it, and rather than not have any brotherhood, I would
be a Presbyterian again if they would not oblige me to swear to the
confession of faith. On the other hand; my birthright is in the Con-
gregational church. I was born in it, it exactly agreed with my
temperament and with my ideas; and it does yet, for although it is
in many respects slow-molded, although in many respects it has not
the fascinations in its Worship that belong to the high ecclesiastical
organizations ; though it makes less for the eye and less for the ear,
' and more for the reason and the emotions ; though it has, therefore,
slender advantages, it has. this : that» it does not take men becausethey

44 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

are weak and crutch them up upon its worship, and then just leave .
them as weak after forty years as they were when it found them.
A part of its very idea is so to meet the weakness of men as that they
shall grow stronger: to preach the truth and then wait till they are
able to seize that truth and live by it. It works slowly, but I tell you
that when it has finished its work it makes men in the community;
and I speak both of the Congregationalists that, are called Baptists
and those that are called Congre ationalists ; they are one and the
same, and ought to be hand in han with each other, in perfect sym-
pathy.

Speaking of Mr. Beecher after his demise, the Chicago
Inter Ocean made the following reference to him as a
patriotic American:

Beecher is fully as signal a product of the American life and
spirit as was John Adams, Washington, Franklin, Webster, Greely,
Lincoln, or Grant; Demosthenes was not more identified with Greece,
nor Cicero with Rome, nor Luther with Germany, nor John Knox
with Scotland, nor Hampden with England, nor Grattan with Ireland,
nor Cotton Mather with New England, nor Calhoun with the South,
nor Douglas with the West, nor Phillips with Abolitionism than
Beecher with America. As an American reformer, during the period
of his golden prime, Beecher was matchless. His championship of
the cause of liberty was often terrific as any storm or cyclone, but
was, nevertheless, almost always sweet and full of assurance as any
morning. As determined as Garrison or Phillips, he never steeped his
word in bitterness, or cursing and despair. He did not for a moment
lose faith in God, or in the ultimate and speedy resurrection of the '
American conscience, drugged to death, though it had seemed to
him, by the poisoned cup in the hand of the Southern slave
power. No country in the world was ever blessed with a nobler
host of patriots than America. In no other country did patri-
otism ever have a meaning and intent so vast and sublime. And
what American was ever more possessed by its spirit than Mr.
Beecher, specially in those heroic days of our history, used to be?
He had not only the partiot’s heart, but the prophets vision and fore-
vision. He hated slavery, but he never hated the South. He saw
awful and ugly obstacles in the way, but at the same time he saw the
more or less hidden forces 'of truth and righteousness that were at
work and that would, in one way or another, clear the way for the
new and the fairer order of things. ‘

Among some of the latest utterances of Mr. Beecher in
Plymouth Church, we cull the following paragraph, which
would almost give the impression that he was half aware
that his end was not far:

“ I look back now upon nearly forty years’ ministry
here, and see what the fruit has been. It has not been as
large and as good as it would have been if you had had a

R'EJOICING IN' HIS WORK. 45

better fruiterer. But I am not unwilling to compare with
others the men and women that have grown up under my
preaching, their development in nobleness, their cheer,
their hopefulness, their courage, their kindness, their lov-
‘ableness and their self-denial, which ceases to be self-
denial because they learn to love working for others. I
think I am not apt to be proud, but I may thank God
that I have the test before me in hundreds and in thou-
sands that the word preached by me has been blessed, not
simply towthe hope of their final salvation, but to their
present evolution into higher, statelier, more beautiful,
attractive, winning souls.

“ I have never preached what I did not believe ; I have
never asked myself whether to preach a truth that I did
believe would be popular or unpopular. .I have never been
afraid of man, though I have been afraid of God as the
child is afraid of the father it loves. The whole concep-
tion of life that I have had has been to serve my fellow-
men, and when, in the day that men despised the poor,
oppressed negroes that could not plead their own cause, I
was more than willing, I was inexpressibly grateful to be
permitted to stand for them, and not to forsake them until
they were clothed in the majesty of equal rights by the
great revolution. I attempted all my life long to take the
part of those who had no defender; and I have done it.
And in all matters in my own church I have steadily
sought one thing—to reproduce, so far as I was able to
reproduce, the lineaments of the Lord Jesus Christ in
your hearts.”

The dawn of the present year found Mr. Beecher in the'
enjoyment of good health, and full of plans of work. He
had addressed himself with new energy to the second part
of “ The Life of Jesus the Christ,” and was also engaged on
an autobiography which would have been of unspeakable
value. But the sun was setting quickly, and he knew it
not. The golden bowl was soon to be shattered, the
“pitcher was to be broken at the fountain, and the wheel

46 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

broken at the cistern. The voice that had swayed thou-
sands and influenced the history of the nation through two
generations was to be hushed in pathetic silence. It was
the privilege of this great warrior to pass away without the
pangs of dying. He had often expressed the hope that he
might be spared the agonies of a lingering illness. His
hope was fully realized. On the evening of March 3rd,
1887, Mr. Beecher retired, and after an hour or two of
restlessness, he fell into that dreamless sleep that knows no
waking. He continued in an unconscious state till the
morning of Tuesday, March 8th, when, with his family gath- '
ered around him, he sighed, then passed

“ With the boatman pale
To the better shores of the spirit-land.”

A ray of sunlight, full and strong, flashed into the bed-
chamber through the window just as his last breath was
drawn. Calmly, and with no struggle, the regular breath-
ing had ceased and the great preacher was gone. Mr.
Beecher’s long gray hair lay on the pillow, brushed back in
its customary fashion from the broad brow. The face,
though worn by the terrible illness and lack of nourish-
ment, looked peaceful and noble. The blue eyes which
had looked for the last time on earthly scenes were closed,
and the eloquent tongue was silent forever.

It is difficult to describe the scene at this moment.
Notwithstanding the fact that his death was looked for—-
that it had been expected hourly—it seemed to come With
such crushing force that the family were perfectly pros-
trated with grief. They could not bring themselves to the
sad realization that the "kindly, musical voice of the bus
band, father and grandfather was forever hushed in death,
' and that they had only the remembrance of his kind
admonitions. Mrs. Beecher, who had borne up so bravely
from the first, and who had watched so constantly at the
bedside of her dying husband, was utterly broken down,
and when supported by her son Harry as she tottered from

' THE LAST OF EARTH. 47

the room looked as if it would not be long before 'she would
follow her beloved husband.

No crape was hung on the door, Mr. Beecher having
always objected to the use of this and the gloom associated
with it in the presence of death. Instead, a magnificent
wreath of flowers hung from the left side of the doorway,
at the top of the stoop, composed of white and red roses
and lilies of the valley, and tied up with white satin.

The announcement of Mr. Beecher’s death called forth
universal expressions of reverence for his character, and
regret at his departure; but the scene at Plymouth Church
on the occasion of his funeral was one never to be forgot-
ten. By an arrangement made years before the Rev.
Dr. Charles Hall conducted the solemn service.

One who knew him and loved him well writes thus of
that funeral scene: “He loved the multitude, and the
multitude came to his funeral; he loved the flowers,»and ten
thousand buds breathed their fragrance and clad his resting-
plaCe in beauty; he loved music, and the Voice of the organ
arose, and the‘anthems which had delighted him again
rolled their harmonies to the rafters; he loved the- sunshine,
and it streamed through the windows and was a halo around
him. No emblem of sorrow or parting was there, but the
symbols of love, and faith, and hope, the glad tokens of
resurrection, immortality and eternal reward, such as befit-
ted his life, his death, and his fame, which shall endure,
for many generations shall approve him and bless him.
There was a hush in the city he had chosen for his toil,
and people thronged to do him reverence. The flag his
great eloquence had helped to defend rippled its glories
in the sun; the doors of the public buildings were closed;
the busy hum of commerce was still; bell answered bell
from the solemn spires; there was the throb of drums
in the street, the flaunting of his regiment’s colors and
the flash of arms, and through the thoroughfare streamed
the rich and the poor, men of all creeds and nation-
alities, the aged, bowed with many years and troubles,

48 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

and children with curls tossing and cheeks aflame, moth-
ers and maidens, the strong and the feeble all pouring
in one common stream to cast a last look on the tranquil.
face of him whose greatness was of deeds wrought for love
of them. Orator, teacher and statesman, philosopher and
poet, diplomat, journalist—~he was these as well as minister
of God; he was the comforter of those in sorrow; he was
the helper of those who needed; he enlightened the ignor-
ant; he fought for the slave and the oppressed; he defend-
ed those who were in danger; he lifted those who were
trodden upon;'he guided those who had wandered from
the right, and his strength became the strength of the
weak—he was all men’s friend, and all men’s thoughts now
turned to him. .

“ There was nothing of gloom in this last public tribute
of Brooklyn to her greatest son and to the nation’s fore-
most citizen, whose life, full of worthiness and honors, had
fallen ripe from the branch of mortality to become immor- I
tal. All day long, through the aisles which led to his
coffin, passed the ceaseless stream, never pausing ; yet
night fell and found many thousands still ungratified.
Churches were thronged to hear his praises and thank God
for such a man, yet not a tithe of those eager to do him
reverence could find a foothold ;. the streets about his rest-
ing-place ,teemed all day with patient hundreds awaiting
their turn ; no building in the world could have contained
the myriads gathered in his name.

“And. this was the victory of death. Flowers, sunlight,
music, the pageant of arms, the dip of the nation’s colors, ’
the recital of his glorious life and achievements, the voice
of ten thousand in thanksgiving and prayer, the gathering
of friends and lovers, the clanging of great bells whose
tongues tell only of the passing of the great, the stopping
of the wheels of busy life, the hush upon the city—these
were answers to the boast of the oDestroyer, and upon the
lips of the mighty dead was a smile of love and of peace to

THREE FUNERALS. 49-

tell all who beheld him that his last slumber had been
blessed and was welcome.

“There were flowers—flowers everywhere—in Ply-
mouth Church. The casket looked only a mound of
blossoms, for its sides and supports were hidden in a
swathing band of roses, and its top was lost under a
white coverlid of lilies of the valley, with just enough
green to break the glare of the white mass. The plat-
form was out of sight, and all that could be seen as a
background for the coffin were great masses of buds, of
bloom, of blossoms—white roses and pink, and lilies by the
hundred.”

The three greatest funerals of the last ten years have
been those of Garfield, Grant and Beecher. Their services
to their country will never be forgotten. On tented field,
and in the halls of the legislature, and from that platform
of Plymouth Church that was higher and mightier than a
throne, they fought for freedom, for righteousness, for
truth; and fighting thus for their country and their age
they have built for themselves an everlasting name.

“ Behind their forms the form of Time is found,
His scythe reversed, and both his pinions bound.”

“ The loss of Mr. Beecher’s autobiography is immeasur-
able. Many autobiographies have shown us that no man is
really fitted to be his own biographer, but there was such
frank, cordial simplicity in this man, who touched human-
ity and the national life at so many points, that we cannot
help feeling that a record of great value and exceeding
interest has been broken by the hand of death. What biogra-
pher shall statue this incomparable man 2? Almost any one
may feel that his forehead does not touch the feet of the
noble figure ; but it is from below that we appreciate impres-
sive objects. Defects of teaching and defects of character
will be recorded. Men without faults are apt tobe men
without force. The faults of great and generous natures

are often the shadows which their virtues cast. But there
4,

5O HENRY WARD BEECHER.

is noble praise for him which far outweighs the deficien-
cies. In the life-long warfare that he waged against the
slavery of moral evil, and in behalf of intellectual, relig-
ious and political liberty, he wielded the weapon of ora-
tory with “the splendid excellences of insight, sincerity,
sympathy, simplicity and strength. ‘Lay on his coffin a
sword; for he was a brave, brilliant and eflective soldier in
the war of liberation of humanity.’ ”

ANECDOTES AND LETTERS.

‘51

ANECDOTES AND LETTERS. '

The Prayer on the Mountain Side.

JUDGE TOURGEE relates the following touching
story: Something more than thirty years ago a home-
sick Western boy wandered about the Berkshire hills.
Despite their picturesque beauty they seemed petty to one
accustomed to the mighty forests and vast horizons of the
West. It may seem a curious thing, but the very rugged-
ness and irregularity of the outlook oppressed him. He
longed for the silence of the great woods; the sight of its
familiar denizens; the blue lake in the distance, gilded by
the sunshine or flecked with White caps by the storm. In
short, he was homesick ——not for home, perhaps, but for the
West—for his accustomed surroundings. Of course he
did not know what ailed him. He had been accustomed
to the woods and a gun almost from infancy, and with a”
gun he sought the dwarfed and scraggy thickets upon the
mountain side as a cure for the nostalgia he did not under-
stand. Though he could traverse miles of level woodland
with an instinct as’ unerring as a homing pigeon, he was
easily lost among the hills through which the Housatonic
flows in and out with puzzling uncertainty. One autumn
day when the blue haze hung over the hills; when the
maples flamed out against the hemlocks here and there in
gaudy rivalry; when the beeches were growing brown; the
birches beginning to show their white limbs, and the wil- .
lows a yellow fringe between the green aftermath of the
meadows and the dark blue of the waters, he had strayed
beyond the limit of his knowledge.

Perched upon the outmost point of a cliff that marks
the face of one of the most noted peaks that overlook the
valley, he sought anxiously but vainly for some familiar
landmark. Whether it was Lee or Lennox, Stockbridge or,
Great Barrington that lay at his feet he could not deter-
mine. Of course everything that ought to have been famil-
iar was absolutely unrecognizable. He was utterly lost.

53

54 HENRY WARD BEECH‘ER.

The only way out of his predicament was to go to some of
the houses in sight in the valley, inquire his way home, and
sneak back ignobly and shamefacedly along the highway..
As he was about to take this course he heard some one
clambering along the rough pathway at the foot of the
ledge, nigh a hundred feet below him. Screened by the
thick laurels he watched the new-comer’s advance, himself
undiscovered. He knew Mr. Beecher by sight, and knew
where the country house; which was then his haven of
rest, was situated. He recognized at a glance the flushed
face and stalwart figure then in the prime of manly strength.
His browwas covered with perspiration, for besides the
rough walk he had taken he was burdened with an armful
of trophies he had gathered on the way. Just at the point
of the cliff a clear spring bubbled out from under a gray,
mossy rock. He threw his variegated armful down, tossed
off his soft hat, and, lying prone upon the ground,
quenched his thirst. Then he. stood up, threw back his
long hair, wiped his brow, gazed at the prospect that lay
outspread at his feet, sat down upon a spur of the rock,
and picked up one by one the leaves and flowers he had
gathered. Then he sat for a long time, silent and unmov-
ing, looking down into the quiet valley and off at the hazy
hills beyond. The boy had overcome his shyness, and was
about to descend and inquire his way homeward when he
heard the soft, full tones which stole with such insensible
power into every car. Looking down he saw his compan-
ion in the luminous solitude kneeling in the midst of the
painted leaves he had scattered on the dun rock, the bright
autumn sunshine lighting up the warm, brown hair, and
touching with unwonted radiance the soft lines of his placid
face as he prayed—alone—upon the mountain, with no
thought that any one but God could hear.

' The boy listened in amazement. He had been accus-
tomed to prayer. The family altar was an almost univer-
sal'institution then. Prayer as an act of duty; prayer
'as a religious rite; prayer as a religious service—all
these were familiar things to his consciousness. He even
had his own ideas about prayer, and when he felt that
he had been exceptionally bad or had a desire to be ex-
ceptionally good, he had sometimes tried praying on his
own account over and above his share in the evening
and morning devotions. He regarded it as a pretty
serious business, however, a thing that needed to be done

ANECDOTES AND LETTERS. 55

and ought by no means to be neglected, and which,
if persevered 1n, brought at length a sort of fervid rapture
which carried the worshiper into a mystic realm of super-
natural bliss. But such a prayer as this he had never
heard before—indeed, he has never heard such another
since. A calm, tender, quivering rhapsody of thankful-
ness that God had made the earth so beautiful. A burst
of gratitude for mountain and valley, river and spring,
rock and. brake, sunshine and shadow, tinted leaf and
whirring pheasant—everything that had gladdened the
eye or charmed the sense during the autumnal stroll.

I have no idea how long he prayed. For the first time
I thought a prayer too short. ~I wished he might have
kept on forever. I had some curious fancies during its
continuance. Perhaps, as I looked at his glowing face and
saw his dewy, luminous eyes as it concluded, I may be para
doned if I thought of the Mount of Transfiguration. I
trust there was no sacrileg’e in it. After a while I stole
down and timidly asked my way home. I felt ashamed of
having been an eavesdropper on his devotions. He evi-
dently noted it, and to put me at myyease asked me if I did
not think it was “a pretty cradle God had made for his
children.” He walked nearly a mile with me away from
his house, which must have been three or four miles from
our starting point, to make sure that I did not lose my
way. I do not remember anything he said, but I walked
all the way home in a sort of delicious dream.

Mr. Beecher and The Children.

The following story is told by an eye witness of the
scene. Mr. Beecher was wonderfully fond of children, and
he often carried oranges and candies in his pockets to
help entertain them on the cars. If he saw a poor mother
with a baby crying in her' arms, he would go and comfort
it, and make it stop its crying where others failed. In
coming up from Washington one time, a characteristic
incident occurred. There were two little children,yboy
and girl, eight or nine years old, in the car, and they hud-
dled close up together and appeared to be very fond of
each other. We had breakfast at Wilmington, but the
children did not get off the car and they had evidently
traveled all night without anything to eat. When Mr.

56 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Beecher came back from breakfast, his arms were laden
with. good things for the children. Then he talked to
them. , He found that they were from the South, that
their parents had died, and that they were on their way to
this city to find an uncle whom they expected to meet
them. The train was late, what if the uncle should fail
to meet them? When the train arrived in Jersey City, Mr.
Beecher got out of the car with the children, walked slowly
along, looking around to see if he could discover anyone
looking for. the children, and gotout between thetwo
ferries and stood there waiting until both boats had gone.
Soon a man came hurrying along in great distress and saw
the two children, but as he expected to find them unac-
companied, he stopped in doubt. Mr. Beecher suspected
that he might be the uncle, and asked him what he was
looking for.

“ Two children.”

“ Well,” said Mr. Beecher, “ I guess they’re here.
These look like two children, don’t they?”

It was the uncle, and he was indeed grateful. Thank-
ing Mr. Beecher, he said:

“ Will you kindly give me your name?”

“My name is Beecher.”

“Where do you live?”

“ In Brooklyn.”

“What! Can you be the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher?”

“ I am inclined to think I am.”

Tears came into the man’s eyes, and he explained to
the little ones who it was who had befriended them. The
two children were soon after seen in Plymouth Church,
and they have since then listened to Mr. Beecher’s sermons
frequently.

Mr. Beecher and Herbert Spencer.

Mr Beecher’s belief in evolution as an explanation of
nature, of human life and progress, dated from reading
the first volume of Herbert Spencer’s essays, placed in his
hands by Prof. E. L. Youmans, who died in York two
months ago. In 1860, when through poverty, it was feared
that Spencer must stop writing, Youmans, Beecher and
others got up a subscription in his aid of $7,000. Mr.
Beecher was commissioned to write the letter enclosing the
amount to Spencer, which ran in substance thus; “ A few

ANECDOTES AND LETTERS. 57

of your American readers, who feel themselves greatly
indebted for your contributions to thought, beg you to
permit them to express their indebtedness in a form which
may enable you to do something in completing the system
of philosophy you have planned and worthily begun.”

Spencer was greatly touched by the gift; it proved
the turning point in his career; very soon afterward his
writings began to be remunerative. When he showed
Beecher’s letter to friends at the Athenaeum Club in
London, he declared that never before in the history of
letters had so generous a gift been made by readers in one
country to an author in another. When Spencer visited
America, in 1882, he met Beecher personally several times
and thanked him most heartily. At the Delmonico ban-
quet to Spencer, Beecher made an eloquent speech. The
influence of the recluse thinker on the popular preacher
was profound. Not only Beecher’s belief in Evolution,
but his desire to restrict rather than extend governmen-
tal functions was derived from Spencer.

Mr. Beecher and General Grant.

Another story is told that Mr. Beecher and U. S. Grant
were, at one time, together at a public dinner given in
Brooklyn, when Mr. Beecher suddenly looked at his watch
and remarked that as the time was rapidly nearing a certain
hour, he would have to ask the company to pardon his
early departure, as he had a marriage ceremony to per-
form. Saying this, Mr. Beecher arose from the table, and
as he did so General Grant, who had been sitting next to
him, removed a rosebud from the lapel of his coat, and
handing the flower to Mr. Beecher, said:

“ Will you kindly hand this to the bride, and give to
her and her future husband my best wishes?”

Mr. Beecher accepted and fulfilled the trust, and the.
bride of that time still has the faded flower, and treasures
it as a precious souvenir.

Mr. Beecher Tells a Fish Story.

I first went down to Maine in the summer of 1849 on a
fishing water-cure. My father, Dr. Lyman Beecher, and a
younger brother, Thomas K. Beecher accompanied me.

58 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

My father from his boyhood was an enthusiastic fisherman;
and when he became a fisher of men he still retained his
enthusiasm for the brookside. On this trip, though now an
old man, laid aside from preaching his right hand had not
forgot its cunning. We fished in Eastport, had chowder on
the islands, gathered a company for ‘ the Schoodic Lakes
took canoe and an Indian guide, and went into the wilder-
ness for trout. When the guide saw my father’s age he
shook his head—“ Too old, too old;” but when, on the first
day’s tramp,‘the old gentleman came in at evening ahead of
all, with sturdy tramp, and with more fish than all the
rest, the Indian looked upon him almost with reverence,
and said: “ Old man all Indian.”

Mr. Beecher’s Last Moments in Plymouth Church.

The Rev. C. Hall incorporated the following touching
incident in his oration at Mr. Beecher’s funeral: ‘

On his last Sunday evening in this place, two weeks
ago, after the congregation had retired from it, the organist
and one or two others were practicing the hymn:

“ I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Come unto me and rest.” .

Mr. Beecher, doubtless with that tire that follows a
pastor’s Sunday work, remained and listened. Two street
urchins were prompted to wander into the building, and one
of them was standing in the position of the boy whom
Raphael has immortalized, gazing up at the organ. The old
man, laying his hands on the boy’s head, turned his face
upward and kissed him, and, with his arm about the two,
left this scene of his triumphs, his trials and his successes,
forever. It was a fitting close to a grand life, the old man of
genius and fame shielding the little wanderers, great in
breasting traditional ways and prejudices, great also in the
gesture, so like him, that recognized, as did the Master, that
the humblest and the poorest. were his brethren -—- the great
preacher led out into the night by the little nameless
waifs.

ANECDOTES AND LETTERS. 59

A HANDFUL OF LETTERS.

A Family Letter to an Elder Brother.

Had Henry Ward Beecher lived until the 13th of June
he would have been seventy-four years old. The Rev.
Edward Beecher 1s about eighty- three years of age, Thomas
K. is sixty-three, Charles seventy-two, and the Rev. Will-
iam H. Beecher, of Chicago, the oldest brother, was.
eighty-five last January. The younger brothers have
always turned kindly to the patriarch of the ministerial
quintet in Chicago, and shortly after his birthday last J an-
uary the Rev. William H. Beecher received from Henry
Ward Beecher this characteristic letter:

“ BROOKLYN, N. Y., January 25, 1887.

My Dear Brother:—You are ahead Of us all in years.
But we are all hard after you—Edward, Mary, Charles and
myself. To think that this coming summer I shall be
seventy- -foui years old. It 1s high time that I should leave
off all boyish ways and study giave and dignified manners.
But as I have no rheumatism, no neuralgia, no baldhead-
edness, no need of spectacles, no deafness—how could it
be expected that I should behave properly? N o. Provi-
dence meant me for a squirrel, but suddenly changed its
mind and made a man of me, and so I must, squirrel-like,
frolic on to the end.

Charles and Edward are well, Edward preaching twice
on Sunday, and walking six miles to do it. I suppose that
some one sent you a paper account of the celebration of
his sixtieth anniversary of ordination. \

Next summer I shall have been ordained fifty years,
married fifty yea1s, and settled in Brooklyn forty years.
There’s figures f01 you.

My wife has been quite sick for six weeks. She had a
compound made up of rheumatism and neuralgia, With a
substratum of dyspepsia and a touch of heart trouble—
poor thing, she did sufier. But she is better and getting
about again.

6O HENRY WARD BEECHER.

With love to all your household and to yourself, I am, -
your affectionate brother, HENRY WARD BEECHER.
The Rev. Wm. H. Beecher.

Letter to Mr. Bonner Concerning “Norwood.”

My Dear Mr; Bonner: You have herewith the last
line of “Norwood.” 'I began it reluctantly, as one who
treads an unexplored path; but as I went on I took more
kindly to my work, and now that it is ended I shall
quite miss my weekly task. - '

My dear old father, after his day of labor had closed,
used to fancy that in some way he was so connected with
me that he was still at work; and on one occasion, after a
Sabbath-morning service, some one in a congratulatory
way, said to the venerable and meek old patriarch:

“ Well, doctor, how did you like your son’s sermon ?”

“ It was good—good as I could do myself;” and then,
with an emphatic pointing of his forefinger, he added, “if
it hadn’t been for me, you’d never have had him l”

If anybody likes “Norwood,” my dear and venerable
Mr. Bonner, you can poke him your finger and say, “if it
hadn’t been for me, you would never have had it.”

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Personal Reminiscences in a Letter to Edward W. Bok, Esq. '

PEEKSKILL, N. Y., August 18, 1885.

My Dear Mr. Bola, or Boo, or Book, or Anything but
Bock Beer: The account you have kindly sent me of my
“ first sermon,” is more nearly true than most stories that
are circulated of me. .My brother George wished to be
away a Sunday, and I was requested by him to supply his
pulpit. Text, sermon and all attendant circumstances are
gone from my memory, except the greenness—no doubt
about that.

My earliest remembered address was given at Brattle-
boro, Vt., on temperance, when I was in my junior year at
Amherst College; but my earliest remembered sermons
were delivered at Northbridge, Mass, where I taught
school for three months in 1831. l I conducted conference
meeting almost every night, and a temperance address at

Upton, Mass. , where “ Old Father Wood ” was pastor, and

ANECDOTES AND LETTERS. ' 61

in ms church. In the winter of 1833 I taught scnool in
Hopkinton, Mass, and carried on revival meetings every
night and preached on Sundays. The people were plain
and simple, and liked the effusions. During the winter
of 1833 I again taught school at N orthbridge, and made a
formal sermon in a chapel over the new store built by the
Messrs. Whitins. Thence I went to Lane Seminary, near
Cincinnati, and preached in small places. When, in 1837,
I was ready to-leave the seminary, I went over to (loving-
ton, Ky., and preached in the Presbyterian Church for
several Sundays, and expected to form a church there and
remain, but a call from Lawrenceburg, Ind., was made,
and I was won settled there for two years and over; thence
to Indianapolis for eight years, and October, 1847, I came
to Brooklyn. I have been preaching over fifty years. My
next and last call and settlement will probably be in Green-
wood. Cordially yours,
, HENRY WARD BEECHER.
To Edward W. Bok, Brooklyn.

Letter to President Cleveland

URGIN G THE CANDIDATURE OF OSCAR STRAUS AS MINISTER TO
TURKEY.

BROOKLYN, N. Y., Feb. 12, 1887.
GROVER CLEVELAND —- '

Dear Mr. President: Some of our best citizens are
solicitous for the appointment of Oscar Straus as minister
to Turkey. Of his fitness there is a general consent that
he is personally, and in attainments, eminently excellent;
but I am interested in another quality ---the fact that he
is a Hebrew. Tho bitter prejudice against Jews, which
obtains in many parts of Europe, ought not to receive any
countenance in America. It is because he is a Jew that I
would urge his appointment as a fit recognition of this re-
markable people, who are becoming large contributors to
American prosperity, and whose intelligence, morality and
large liberality in all public measures for the welfare of
society, deserve and should receive from the hands of our
government some such recognition. Is it not also a duty
to set forth in this quiet but effectual method the genius
of American government, which has under its fostering
care people of all civilized nations, and which treats them

62 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

without regard to civil, religious, 01 race peculiarities as
common citizens. We send Danes to Denmark, Germans
to Germany; we reject no man because he 1s a F1enchman;
why should we not make a crowning testimony to the
genius of our people by sending a Hebrew to Turkey?
The ignorance and superstition of medieval Europe may
account for the prejudice of that dark age; but how a
Christian in our day can turn from a Jew I cannot im-
agine. Christianity itself suckled at the bosom of J uda-
'ism; our roots are in the Old Testament. We are Jews
ourselves gone to blossom and fruit. Christianity 1s J uda—
ism in evolution, and it would seem strange for the seed to
turn against the stock on which it was grown.
HENRY WARD BEEOHER.

Wanted, A T houghtatype.
A LETTER TO PROFESSOR JOHN H. RAYMOND.

AUGUST 30,1848.

My Dear Professor: If good resolutions were only let-
ters, what voluminous epistles you would have had from
me! Alas, that a thoughtatype could not be invented!
What an advance will that be when one can slip a sheet of
prepared paper into his hat, upon which the electricity of
the mind shall act as the light does upon a photOgraphic
plate, and sally forth. Upon his return—oh, joyl— —-—all
that he has thought would be found transferred to the
paper! The advantages of this new invention promise to
be so many that I hope no time will be lost 1n prosecuting
the matter to a discovery. Thus a paralytic author might
triumph over the infirmity of his hands, a mercurial head
like mine might, for once, write as fast as it thought. A
paper nightcap would give One in the morning all his
dreams, a suitable bead- book would register the most per-
fect of journals, fo1 thus all that we think would go
down, good and bad—and go down just as it happened
—a thing I suspect that 1s not always to be found in pen-
made journals. Then, too, what self— knowledge might
not this afford—should we believe 1n our own identity!
Each evening would put a new volume into our hands,
for I suppose that we all think at least one Volume 1n a
day, if all our cogitations were written. What a fiction it
would bel-alas, the strangeness of fiction and the stub

ANECDOTES 'AND LETTERS. 63

born validity of fact! For who does not throw the filmy
veil of self-esteem upon his life, through whose Witching
colors all looks changed to a heightened excellence? Who
could bear to read in a volume at evening all the somethings
and nothings, all the evil and good, all the frets and fan-
cies, all the ventursome ranges of thinking, the vain imag-
inations, the hopes, fears, suppressed angers, involuntary
opinions of men, and, above all, the critical thoughts
which one has of even the best? For who lives without
great faults? and who lives with habits of attention with-
out seeing them? Yet to see in full print that which
otherwise only glances through the brain, and whose trace
is lost— as the stream of a meteor— would be shocking.
There! was I not foreordained to be a letter-writer?
For who can spin a longer yarn than this out of such a
little lock of wool? HENRY WARD BEECHER.

An Outline of Belief.

Mr. Beecher gives an outline of his belief in a letter to

a friend:
BROOKLYN, June 13, 1885.

DEAR SIR, -- I thank you for your friendly solicitude.
I am sure that in the end you will not be disappointed,
though on some points you may not agree with me. The
foundation doctrines, as I hold them, are a personal God,
Creator and Ruler over all things; the human family uni-
versally sinful ; the need and possibility and facts 'of con-
version; the Divine agency in such a work; Jesus Christ
the manifestation of God in human conditions; His office
in redemption supreme. Ido not believe in the Calvanistic
form of stating the atonement. I do believe in the fall of
the human race in Adam, and of course I do not hold that
Christ’s work was to satisfy the law broken by Adam for
all his posterity. The race was not lost, buthas been as-
cending steadily from creation. I am in hearty accord
with revivals and revival preaching. with the educating
forces of the 'Church, and in sympathy with all ministers
who in their-several ways seek to build up men into the
image of Jesus Christ, by whose faithfulness, generosity
and love I hope to be saved and brought home to heaven.

With cordial regards, I am truly yours,
HENRY WARD BEECHER.

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Concerning Prayer.

A LETTER TO GRAND MARSHAL-GENERAL N. A. BARNUM.

Booth’s great theater was crowded at the Decoration Day
services of 1878, and Mr. Beecher was present and opened
the evening ceremonies With a most impressive prayer.
Subsequently it was decided to publish the proceedings in"
pamphlet form, and a letter was sent to Mr. Beecher re-
questing him to furnish the text of his prayer. The fol-
lowing was his characteristic reply :

“PEEKSKILL, July 11, 1878. — Gen. N. A. Barnum,
Grand-Marshal, etc.: You request me to send you my
prayer made on Decoration Day evening. If you will send
me the notes of the oriole that whisted fro'in the top of my
trees last June, or the ,iridiscent globes that came in by
millions on the last waves that rolled in on the beach yes-
terday, or a segment of the rainbow of last week, or the
perfume of the first violet that blossomed last May, I will
also send you the prayer that rose to my lips with the
occasion and left me forever. I hope it went heavenward
and was registered; in which case the only record of it will
be found in heaven. Very truly yours, .

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

SELECTIONS.

RELIGIOUS—CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST—ON DEATH AND
IMMORTALITY—ILLUSTRATIONS FROM NATURE—
ON SOCIAL QUESTIONS—POLITICS—
MISCELLANEOUS;

SELECTIONS.

RELIGIOUS.

Do the Little that You Can.

F he that gives a cup of cold water to a little child in the
- name of Christ shall not fail of his reward, how much
less he that opens springs in the desert, that strikes the
rocks in the mountains so that they gush forth, that digs
wells from which men through generations can drink. Do
the little that you can ; do more» if you can ; and when at
last you return with joy upon your head to enter in at the
gate,” there shall throng forth from it so many that you
cannot count them, of those who were refreshed in the
hours of sorrow and wearine'ss of the way by your labor,
and they shall come with rosy hand and joyful lip to greet
you and to bring you before the throne of the Saviour.
And when once you shall have beheld that loving, adorable
face, though you had suffered on the cross, though you
had wilted in the dungeon, though you had been broken
on the rack, though you had reached him through the fires
of martyrdom—one look will be more, a thousand times
more, than all the suffering. And to hear him say, “Well
done,”——not all the music that time has known, not all
the coronets that power has worn, not all the treasures of
the earth, nor all the bounties of the summer with all its
sun, can compare for one single moment with the rapture
that will thrill through the heart of one who is saved, -—
Safe, welcomed, forever and ever accepted.

The Twenty-third Psalm.

Blessed be the day on which that psalm was born. It
has charmed more griefs to rest than all the philosophy of
the world. It has remanded to their dungeon more felon

_ 67 '

68 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sorrows, than
there are sands on the sea-shore. It has comforted the
noble host of the poor. It has sung courage to the army
of the disappointed. It has poured balm and consolation
into the heart of the sick, of captives in dungeons, of
widows in their pinching griefs, of orphans in their loneli-
ness. Dying soldiers have died easier as it was read to
them; ghastly hospitals have been illumined; it has visited
the prisoner and broken his chains, and, like Peter’s angel,
led him forth in imagination, and sung him back to his
home again. It has made the dying Christian slave freer,
than his master, and consoled those whom, dying, he left
behind mourning, not so much that he was gone as because
they were left behind, and could not go too. Nor is its
work done. It will go singing to your children and my
children, and to their children, through all the generations
of time; nor will it fold its wings till the last pilgrim is
safe, and time ended; and then it shall fly back to the
bosom of God, whence it issued, and sound on, mingled
with all those sounds of celestial joy which make heaven
musical forever.

 

The Bible the Workingman’s Friend.

The Bible is on the side of the workingmen. It is on
the side of the slave. It is on the side of men that are
under hard governments. It is on the side of men that
are sick and that have failed under the harness of life. It is
on the side of men whose consciences roar out at them like
enraged lions; on the side of sinful, sufiering humanity;
and a book like that is not going to be kicked over by
ridicule, nor disposed of by angry scholarship, nor, by the
impudent superiority of men. It is the people’s book; a
book of life, that carries in its heart the veryvelement of
life fer the human race.

. The Full Heart of God.

When my blood flows like wine, when all is case and
prosperity, when the sky is blue and the birds sing, and
flowers blossom, and my life is an anthem moving in time
and tune,—then this world’s joy and affection suffice.
But when a change comes, when I am weary and disap-
pointed, when the skies lower into the sombre night, when

SELECTIONS: — RELIGIOUS. 69

there is no song of bird, and the perfume of flowers is
but their dying breath, when all is sunsetting and autumn,
then I yearn for him who sits with the summer of love in
his soul, and feel that all earthly affection is but a glow-
worm light, compared to that which blazes with such eiful-
gence in the heart of God.

A Sharp Distinction.

- There are two classes of people in the church; the re-
ligionists, who love God by trying to do right; and the
Christians, who are inspired to do right by loving God.

Goodness the True Orthodoxy.

Goodness is the only orthodoxy that God cares one par-
ticle about, and every man that is living the Christ-life is
orthodox—doctrine go to the winds. If you ask me if
some representations of truth are not more likely to pro-
duce this than others, Yes; and, therefore, it is important
that men should study to be true according to the test of
Scripture. But so long as that blazing center remains,
“I determined to know nothing but Christ, and him cru-
cified”—because he represented the God of love who suf-
fered for all the universe and all it contains—so long as
that is the grand ideal of life, it is nonsense for the man
that does not pattern after that, to pattern after the intel-
lectual elements of it, or the mere auxiliary institutions.
But if he has both he is doubly blessed.

Do not Extinguish Joy.

When God is the entertainer of his people, he thanks no
man for “dim, religious light,” or for casting forth the
flowers, and extinguishing the lamps of hope and joy in the
sanctuary. ' ’

.—————.—_——

One Meaning of Religion.

“ If any man will come after me, let him deny him-
self, and take up his cross and follow me,” This is only
one meaning of religion. If I should say of a garden, “ It

7O HENRY WARD BEECHER.

is a place fenced in,” what idea would you have of its clus-
ters of roses, and pyramids of honeysuckles, and beds of
odorous flowers, and rows of blossoming shrubs and fruits
bearing trees? If I should say of a cathedral, “ It is built
of stone, cold stone,” what idea would you have of its
wondrous carvings, and its gorgeous openings for door and.
window, and its evanescing spire? Now, if you regard re-
ligion merely as self-denial, you stop at the fence, and see
nothing of the pleasantness' of the garden; you think only
of the stone, and not of the marvelous beauty into which
it is fashioned.

Feeling Is Always Tropical.

When the church is cold and dead, those hymns which
were written by God’s saints in moments of rapture seem
extravagant, and we walk over them on dainty footsteps of
haste; but let God’s spirit come down upon our hearts,
and they are as sweetness on our tongues; nay, all too poor
and meagre for our emotions; for feeling is always trop-
ical, and seeks the most intense and fervid expression.

Eternal Melody.

Amid the discords of this life, it is blessed to think of
heaven, where God draws after him an everlasting train of
music; for all thoughts are harmonious and all feelings
vocal, and so there is round about his feet eternal melody.

Sorrow the Unchanging Order.

The sorrows of other men seem to us like clouds of rain
that empty themselves in the distance, and whose long-
traveling thunder comes to us mellowed and subdued; but
our own troubles are like a storm bursting right overhead,
and sending down its bolts upon us with direct plunge.
But there have been human hearts, ""constituted just like
ours, for six, thousand years. The same stars rise and set
upon this globe that rose upon the plains of Shinar or
along the Egyptian Nile: and the same sorrows rise and
set in every age. All that sickness can do, all that disap-
pointment can effect, all that blighted love, disappointed
ambition, thwarted hope, ever did, they do still. Not a

SELECTIONS: — RELIGIOUS. '71

tear'is wrung from eyes now, that, for the same reason,
has not been wept over and over again in long succession
since the hour that the fated pair stepped from paradise,
and gave their posterity to a world of sorrow and suffering.
The head learns new things, but the heart forevermore
practices old experiences. Therefore our life is but a new
form of the way men have” lived from the beginning.

Satisfied !

Beat on, then, 0 heart, and yearn for dying. I have
drunk at many a fountain, but thirst came again ; I have
fed at many a bounteous table, but hunger returned; I.
have seen many bright and lovely things, but while I gazed
their lustre faded. There is nothing here that can give
ripe rest, but when I behold thee, O God, I shall be satis-'

ed.

Joy in Trials.

The most affecting records of literature are those which
repeat to us the sacred joy of souls in trial—their victory,
and the causes of it. Job says, “Though he slay me, yet
will I trust in him.” Moses “Endured as seeing him who
is invisible.” Isaiah had sounded forth, “ The wilderness and
the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert Shall
rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abund-
antly, and rejoice even with .joy and Singing ; the glory of
Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel
and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the
excellency of our God. . . . And the randsomed of
the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and
everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy
and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

The Importance of a Man’s Belief. ‘

It is often said it is no matter what a man believes if he
is only sincere. This is true of all minor truths, and false
of all truths whose nature it is to fashion a man’s life. It
will make no difference in a man’s harvest whether he
think turnips have more saccharine matter than potatoes
——whether corn is better than wheat. But let the man

72 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

sincerely believe that seed planted without ploughing is as
good as with, that January is as favorable for seed sowing
as April, and that cockle seed will produce as good a har-
vest as wheat, and will it make no difference? A child
might as well think he could reverse that ponderous ma-
rine engine which, night and day, in calm and storm,
ploughs its way across the deep, by sincerely taking hold
of the paddle-wheel, as a man might think he could re-
verse the action of the elements of God’s moral govern-
ment through a misguided sincerity. They will roll over
such an one, and whelm him in endless ruin.

The Secret of True Life.

Our life begins in the senses. Men walk upon the
ground; but above it God has sprung the blue arch of
heaven, and they live by breathing the air. So it is with
our interior life. The material world is the foundation,
the grand workshop for our faculties; but if this be all——
if there hangs not above it God’s invisible realm of truth,
in which we breathe—there can be no healthy living.
That a plant may grow, we put manure into the soil; but
when the roots have taken hold upon it, and it has shot
up into stem, and leaves and flowers, we do not pour
manure into the white blossom. It holds up its cup and
says, “0 Heaven! send thy light, and drop down thy
dew.” And the light glows and the dew falls, and the
flower expands by feeding upon the air.

Made and Ruined.

We say a man is “made.” What do we mean ? That
he has got the control of his lower instincts, so that they are
only fuel to his higher feelings, giving force to his nature?
That his affections are like vines, sending out on all sides
blossoms and clustering fruits ? That his tastes are so cul-
tivated that all beautiful things speak to him, and bring
him their delights ? That his understanding is opened, so
that he walks through every hall of knowledge, and gath-
ers its treasures? That his moral feelings are so developed
and quickened, that he holds sweet commerce with heaven?
0, no !—-—none of these things. He is cold and dead in
heart, and mind, and soul. Only his passions are alive 5

SELECTIONS: — RELIGIOUS. 73

but-— he is worth five, hundred thousand dollars! And we
saya man is ruined. Are his wife and children dead? 0, no.
Have theyhad a quarrel, and are they separated from him?
0, 110. Has he lost his reputation through crime? No.
Is his reason gone? 0, no; it is as sound as ever. Is he
struck through with disease ? No. He. has lost his prop-
erty, and he is ruined. The man ruined! When shall we
learn that “ a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance
of the things which he possesseth ?

 

Christianity is Judaism Gone to Blossom and Fruit.

The ignorance and superstition of mediaeval Europe
may account for the prejudice of that dark age; but howa
Christian in our day can turn from a Jew, I cannot ime
agine. Christianity itself suckled at the bosom of Juda-
ism; our roots are in the Old Testament. We are Jews
ourselves, gone to blossom and fruit. Christianity is
Judaism in evolution, and it would seem strange for the
seed to turn against the stock on which it was groWn.

Every Day Full of Music.

There is no day born but comesylike a stroke of music
into the world, and sings itself all the way through.
There is no event that is discordant. All times and pas-
sages are full of melody, if we would but hear it; and as
in tumultuous floods and rushing falls of water, every
drop is as obedient to the laws of nature as if it lay in the
bosom of the tranquil lake, so all things in earth and in
hell, in their wildest excesses as well as in their calmest
flows are obedient to God; and his providence is in them

stately and serene, going on to its own ends and manifesta-
tions. ‘

Miserable Two-Foot Christian.

Now, when a man comes to me talking of perfection
and says, “ A perfect man must have such and such qual-
ities—must he not? He must control his passions and
appetites, and regulate his affections. He must not sin in
this thing, or that thing, or the other. Such am I. I do not
commit? this: fault, Or fall into that error. I have trained

74 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

and schooled myself. Behold me ! I am perfect! ” I can but
exclaim, “ Miserable two-foot Christian I” I have no pa-
tience with this low standard, these earthly comparisons,
this relative goodness. I must outgrow this pot of earth.
God’s eternity is in my soul, and I shall need it all, to grow
up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

 

0n the Full March.

We are on the full march; and therefore, instead of
looking back to the leeks and onions of Orthodoxy in
Egypt, the Spirit of God, the spirit of philosophy, the
spirit of wisdom, the spirit of true religion, is to forget
the things that are behind, and to press toward the mark
for the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.

Religion Defined.

Men think religion bears the same relation to life that
flowers do to trees. The tree must grow through a long
period before the blossoming time; so they think religion is
to be a blossom just before death to secure heaven. But
the Bible represents religion, not as the latest fruit of life,
but as the whole of it —— beginning, middle, and end. It
is simply right living.

Virtues in Outline.

When Allston died, he left many pictures which were
mostly sketches, yet with here and there a part finished up
with wonderful beauty. So I think Christians go to
heaven with their virtues mostly in outline, only here and
there a part completed. But “ that which is in part shall
be done away,” and God shall finish the pictures in his
own forms and colors.

Righteous Judgment.

We ought not to judge men by their absolute excel-
lence, but by the distance which they have traveled from
the point at which they started. There are some men
whom God has so royally endowed that they are like a bird
sitting on the topmost branch of the forest, and if God

SELECTIONS: —— RELIGIOUS. 75

says to it, “ Mount up,” it has nothing to do but to spring
into the air, singing as it goes toward heaven. But others
are like a bird upon the ground, that has to disentangle itself
from the bushes, and then to work its way among the
darkling boughs, before it can soar. The one may have
done better by his outward wings, but the better inward
wings of purpose and endeavor beat far stronger in the
other, and bring him quite as near to God; for God dwells
beneath the shade, as much as above the forest.

Dead Trees Will Lie Anyway.

I am suspicious of that church whose members are one
in their belief and opinions. When a tree is dead, it will
lie anyway; alive it will have its own growth.

The .Ministry of Tears.

God washes the eyes by tears until they can behold the
invisible land where tears shall come no more. 0 Love!
0 Affliction! Ye are the guides that show us the way
through the great airy space where our loved ones walked;
and, as hounds easily follow the scent before the dew be
risen, so God teaches us, while yet our sorrow is wet, to
follow on and find our dear ones in heaven.

The First Blades of Wheat.

God will accept your first attempt, not as a perfect
work, but as a beginning. The beginning is the promise
of the end. The seed always whispers “ oak,” though it
is going into the ground, acorn. I am sure that the first
little blades of wheat are just as pleasant to the farmer’s
eyes, as the whole field waving with grain.

We Need Not Die While We Live.

What if the leaves were to fall a-weeping, and say, “ It
will be so painful for us to be pulled from our stalks when
autumn comes?” Foolish fear! Summer goes, and autumn
succeeds. The glory of death is upon the leaves; and the
gentlest breeze that blows takes them softly and silently

'76 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

from the bough, and they float slowly down, like fiery
sparks, upon the moss. It is hard to die when the time is
not ripe. When it is, it will be easy. We need not die
while we are living.

The Bible as an Old Ruin.

Many people regard the Bible as an old ruin. They
think there may be some chambers in it which might be
made habitable, if it were worth the while; but they take
it as a young heir takes his estate, who says, “ I shall build
me a modern house to live in, but I’ll keep the old castle as
ruin ;” and so they have some scientific 0r literary house
to live in, and look upon the Bible only as a romantic relic

of the past.

The Greatest is Love.

Now abideth these three: Faith, by which we see the
glories of the eternal sphere; Hope, by which we mount
towards them; and Love, by which we grasp and inherit
them—therefore the greatest of these is Love.

God Over All.

All things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none
of them speak of him but in broken and imperfect words.
High above all he sits, sublimer than mountains, gran-
der than storms, sweeter than blossoms and tender fruits,
nobler than lords, truer than parents, more loving than
lovers. -

Defense of the Bible.

No matter how infidel philosophers may regard the
Bible; they may say that Genesis is awry, and that the
Psalms are more than half bitter imprecations, and the
prophecies only the fantasies of brain-bewildered men, and
the Gospels weak laudations of an impostor, and the Epis-
tles but the letters of a mad Jew, and that the whole book
has had its day; I shall cling to it until they shOW me a
better revelation. The Bible emptied, ef‘fete, worn out!
If all the wisest men of the world were placed man to man,
they could not sound the shallowest depths of the Gospel of

SELECTIONS: -—RELIGIOUS. 77

John. O philosophers! break the shell, and fly out, and
let me hear how'you can sing. Not of passion—:- I know
that already; not of worldly power—I hear that every-
where; but teach me, through your song, how to find joy
in sorrow, strength in weakness, and light in darkest days;
how to bear buffeting and scorn, how to welcome death,
and to pass through its ministration intd’the sphere of life;
and this, not for me only, but for the whole World that
groans and travails in pain; and until you can do this,
speak not to me of a better revelation.

Acorns and Graces.

Men plant prayers and endeavors, and go the next day
looking to see if they have borne graces. Now, God does
not send graces as he sends light and rain, but they are
wrought in us through long days of discipline and growth.
Acorns and graces sprout quickly, but grow long before
ripening.

All Days for Religion, one for Rest.

A week filled up with selfishness, and the Sabbath
stuffed full of religious exercises, will make a good Phari-‘
see, but a poor Christian. There are many persons who
think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins
of the week. Now, God’s altar stands from Sunday to
Sunday, and the seventh day is no more for religion than
any other. It is for rest. The whole seven are for relig-
ion, and one of them for rest.

The Business of the Church.

The business of the Church is not to use the Church as
an insurance office by which a man seeks to protect himself
against future fire. The business of the minister is to build
up men in the qualities of Jesus Christ; for that he is to
preach. All the tests, both for receiving men and advanc-
ing men in Church life, are of the disposition. As the
disposition goes unharmed through death to its glorious
croWn, so in Church life, it should be the business of every
man to build men up to the perfect man in Christ Jesus.
There are a great many administrations, a great many econ-

78 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

omies, says Paul; they are all of God, and if you will let
them alone, they will work out safely and be beneficial in
the long run. Liberty is good in the Church and in the-
ology, as everywhere else; but it is the only place where
there is no liberty of thinking.

—.——.—.—_—

Mouldy Blessings.

I think half the troubles for which men go slouching in
prayer to God are caused by their intolerable pride. Many
of our cares are but a_ morbid way of looking at our privil-
eges. We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them
curses.

The Heart Shall Wear the Crown.

I am the son of a theologian. I was baptized into the-
ology. I believe some of it; and some I do not, blessed be
God ! The days are coming when belief will have to take
a seat below love, when the head will have to do honor to
the heart. Then we can say, as the apostle said of the
Church: “ Ye are our epistles, known and read of all men.”
It is not, therefore, so much as an iconoclast that I say
these things; it is not that I scorn theology and all the
steps of knowledge. No man believes in knowledge more
than I do; but I would assign it to its proper place,'its
subordinate rank; I deny that it has a right to wear the
crown; I say that the heart is to wear the crown.

The Glorious Future.

God has planted a future that shall bear a harvest of
shouts of glory and honor and salvation to him that sitteth
on the throne, and to the Lamb. All the steps, all the in-
terpretations I do not know; but the whole universe is
moving up, yea, and without knowing it. And, methinks,
that in those innumerable multitudes of stellar hosts there
are some populated worlds, and that there are some great
moral truths that are being developed there as here; and
as we hear oftentimes in strains of music exquisite stanzas
and cadences, but by-and-by are permitted to come to a con-
cert-room were Beethoven swells in all the grandeur of his
symphonies; so there are, I believe, elements in the uni-

SELECTIONS: -— RELIGIOUS. 79

verse, here some, and there some, and by-and-by, when the
great oratorio is chanted round the throne of God we shall
see what the meaning of these movements is. Now we see
through a glass darkly, then face to face; and we shall
know as we are known. And in that great day, 0 my soul,
be not thou laggard nor broken-winged; let thy head be
love and thy wings be faith and hope; and foremost to
where my mother stands, my father, my children, and
whom I love best on earth, let me wing my way ; only amid
them all, and before greeting, I may cast myself at the feet
of him who loved me and died for me and washed me in
his own blood.

What Science Can Do.

Science is knowledge gathered by the senses from mat-
ter, and it will not go any further than matter; but faith
is the conclusions that are come to by the inward man,
through his emotions and moral intuitions. Science builds
a man clear up to the body; then a man’s own heart, eX-
perience, and his moral institutions go on and represent to
him the troubles that are higher than anything belonging
to the body; they do not disown them, they are true up to
that point; but there is something higher, more ineffable,
invisible, eternal. When death has wrecked the body, it
does not touch the soul; that lives and goes on. So long
as science insists upon it, that nothing is true except that
which the senses interpret, the soul stands a protestant
and says, “ Science has only touched the bottom, not the
top;” and out of the revelations of a man’s own experi-
ence, when he is stimulated by opening himself to the in-
fluence of God, and there is brought out of Him the
knowledge of the Holy Ghost, the inspiration that calls
upon God’s people, and upon all of them without excep-
tion, so soon as they open themselves to the light of God
and the presence of God: then there is a kingdom that
science has not yet meddled with. I believe in the pro-
gress of science, and in the elements that have been dem-
onstrated. I am an evolutionist; but I am an evolutionist
who feels that up to the present point of time there have
been evolved simply the lower factors of truth, and that
the greater truths are yet to come. God, Christ, the Holy
Ghost, redemption, revelation, sanctification, final salva-
tion as yet have not been touched—not by science; and

8O HENRY WARD BEECHER.

you know more about them, you that are sanctified, you
that are called, having a life, though in the flesh, yet a
life, as it' is, in Christ Jesus, you know more than the
proudest savant in the world.

A Good Word for Nicodemus.

When a man has been in favor of some movement, or
of some man, and the cause collapses, and the man has
gone-into disgrace; when the bubble has burst, and there
is no use any longer risking one’s own safety or convenience
by public adhesion to the offending man, how many are
there that would stand up and say: “He seems to have
come to nought, but I believe in him still, and I believe in
the cause, and if need be I will perish with it.” But Nic-
odemus, when there was nothing more to be gained; when -
the whole drama had been enacted, and the pall of death
and apparent night had come down on the prospect of this
strange Redeemer, he would not give him up when he
was dead, and exposed himself to the inspection and the
dangers that came by taking the body and giving it honor-
able burial, with all the accustomed rights of honor be-
longing to the Jews. And this is the man that is called
the timid Nicodemus? Well, what did he ”come by night
for? When would you have had him come if he wanted a
quiet conversation? In the roar of the Temple, when all
was bustle and confusion, everybody asking questions,
some trying to trap Jesus, and others asking questions
frivolous or ignorant—was that the time for ,a deep-
hearted man to bore into the very inner consciousness of
Christ, and know the truth? If a man had inward doubts,
inward longings, inward earnest aspirations; if he longed
for the truth, had long hungered for it, and there came a
man that seemed to have the power to open the heaven
above him, and to give him the things that his heart
desired above everything on earth—treasure, reputation,
standing, everything—if there was such a man as that,
what would you say, honest man, and what would I say?
“ Give me a chance where I can, have this talk with him
alone, that I can open my whole soul to him, and learn
more of this way.” It was said that when Emerson vis—
ited London, and sought out Carlyle, they two sat for
more than two hours of the evening in a darkened room

SELECTIONS: -— RELIGIOUS. . 81

by themselves, and that the chief point of conversation
was God and immortality. These great thinkers, that had
had their doubts and their perplexities, longed to sound
each other, and know what way each had made along that
great highway of God. And were they cowards because
they sought seclusion for this purpose?

Sound Doctrine.

In the Bible the word doctrine means simply teaching,
instruction. It was a moral direction, a simple maxim, or
a familiar, practical truth. It certainly was not that
thing which theologians have made doctrine to be—a
mere philosophical abstraction. The doctrines which the
schools teach are no more like those of the Bible than
the carved beams of Solomon’s temple were like God’s
cedar trees on Mount Lebanon. But men out and hew
till they have shaped their own fancies out of God’s
timber, and then they get upon them like judgment-
day thrones, and call all the world to answer at their
feet for heresies against their idols. There are few
heresies in the world more real than the very idea of an
abstract doctrine presented as God’s truth. That way of
thinking which men call metaphysics, seems not to be.
employed above. It is only a method of weakness down
belOw. It is a preparation dissected and arranged for our
microscope who have not eyes strong enough to see things
just as God made them, and just as he keeps them.

The Age of Inspiration Has Not Passed.

The age of inspiration has not perished. Its sun has
not set. All of revelation that has gone before is but as
seed for the future. A day has come when all dogmas,
doctrines, formulas, laws and governments of the church, _
must be judged by the enlightened moral consciousness of
the great assembly of Christ-like men, whether in church
bounds or out of them. God’s word will no longer be a
shackle to impede new inspirations, but wings to lift men
into that luminous atmosphere thrown up by all experiences
of good men from the beginning. There are higher and
higher stages of knowledge and experience yet before the
Christian Churches and the world—the moral conscious-

82 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

ness of Christendom, as God’s way of making himself
known. The Old Testament must be lived over again, and
the New Testament, and out of this soil of the human soul,
so fertilized, will spring new growth, new flowers, new
truths. And so the tree of knowledge blighted in. Eden
shall, in these later days, bring forth all manner of fruits,
and its very leaves shall be for the healing of the nations.
God has much to say yet to the race. The world is not
ripe. It is coming to itself in the far future.

The Secret of Valor.

A man’s strength in this life isoften greater from some
single word remembered and cherished than in arms or
‘armor. Looking over the dead on a field of battle, it was
easy to see why that young man, and he a recruit, fought
so valiantly. Hidden under his vest was a sweet face, done
up in gold; and so, through love’s heroism, he fought with
double strokes.

Rejoice Always.

Some people think black is the color'of heaven, and
that the more they can make their faces look like midnight,
the more evidence they have of grace. But‘God, who
made the sun and the flowers, never sent me to proclaim to
you such a lie as that. We are told to “rejoice in the
Lord always.” What then? “And again I say, rejoice.”

God’s Moral Attributes.

Is there not enough motive in the divine nature, and in
the disclosures of God in Jesus Christ, to affect your heart,
to change you, to inspire in you a desire of something
higher? Is there not motive enough in you to change
morality into spirituality? Do you believe that you would
be a better man if you lived right under the base of Sinai
than if you lived under the base of Calvary? There be
men whom thunder and lightning and the earthquake
alone can arouse. How coarse and torpid they must be!
Blessed be the man that, like the very chickweed in Spring,
blossoms before the frost bids the earth farewell. Blessed
be the man who is so susceptible to higher motives that

SELECTIONS: —- RELIGIOUS. . 83

they thaw him out, and begin to lead him upward and on-
ward in the way of righteousness. Fear hell if you must,
but love God, and have the fear of love, if you may. Are
not God’s moral attributes more charming than his soveré
eignty over nature? The poet, the dramatist, and the
artist, all recognize the divine hand in the sublimities of
nature; but while the artist of a true loving heart knows,
that the clouds, the rising and the setting sun, and the
tremulous sea are beautiful, he knows that his wife and
children at home are ten‘thousand times more beautiful than
anything in nature. He that finds more ravishing inspiration
in natural phenomena than the phenomena of a really de-
veloped and virtuous household, is neither artist nor prophet,
nor has he any right to be husband or father. We all
know and feel that. We do not deny that there is much
to be taught by the evolutions of nature, its mechanisms,
its results, and that the heavens do declare the glory of
God and the earth his handiwork; but we ought by this
time to understand,’also, that these are but the garments
of God, and that he is as yet hidden in the eternal sphere
of life, except so far as life itself and character in the
hearts of his people represent what is the height, the depth,
Eh}? length and the breadth of the love of God in Jesus
rist. -

Silver Arrows.

There are many trials in life which do not seem to
come from unwisdom or folly They are silver. arrows
shot from the bow of God, and fixed inextricably in the
quivering heart. They are to be borne. They were not
meant, like snow on water, to melt as soon as they strike.
But the moment an ill can be patiently borne, it is dis-
armed of its poison, though not of its pain.

How to Prove the Gospel True.

The example of a Christian soul is the only Gospel that
will ever go right home to you. And, given a man who
lives producing the graces of the Spirit, love, joy, peace,
gentleness, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, and self-
control, I should like to know who cares to demonstrate
that the glorious garden, filling the whole air with its fra-
grance, blossoming in every month of the year, luscious

84 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

fruits hanging from every bough, and every parterre ablaze
with exquisite color, who needs to sit in the gate and say:
“Come in, and let me prove that this is beautiful.” A
man would be a fool that would need any demonstration.
It carries its beauty in itself. You see it, you smell it, .
you feel it; it is there, and needs no apology or explana-

tion.

Happiness not the Endpf Life.

Happiness is not the end of life; character is. This
world is not a platform where you will hear Thalber-piano-
playing. It is a piano manufactory, where are dust and
shavings, and boards, and saws, and files, and rasps, and
sand-papers. The perfect instrument and the music will
be hereafter.

Selfishness.

One look downat our fellows as the eagle looks over the
edge of the cliff at the mice which crawl so far below him.
This is the selfishness of the moral nature. Our gifts and
attainments are not only to be light and warmth in our
own dwellings, but are as well to shine through the window,
into the dark night, to guide and cheer bewildered travel-
lers upon the road.

———————-——-——-

A Grand'March in the Universe.

When I look sometimes at the condition in which the
world is left ; when I am obliged to say that all Ethiopians
are my brothers; when I look upon the Asiatics and see
how they are all left by Providence, I am thrown into deep
dejection. It is not men that are so valuable in my sight,
but my God. When I come to look for the eternal Father,
the God of all compassion, all love, and I find that the
doctrines of the Church have spread such a veil over him,
and I cannot find him, I am like Mary in tears, and I say:
“ They have taken away my Lord, I know not where they
have laid Him.” And any seeming assault on theology is
not because 1 hate schools, not because I hate thinking, or
systematic thinking, but it is because Ilove my God and
my fellow men, and I would tear away every veil and blow
away every cloud that should prevent the full shining of
the love of God for mankind. When I look at this condi-
tion of the nations I must find some other reason than that

SELECTIONS: —— RELIGIOUS. - .85

given in the creeds why God has suffered the world to go,
on as he has. For if he has doomed mankind to eternal
destruction, except upon certain conditions, and then left
them without Sabbaths, without Bibles, without priest,
without altar, and if he continues to do it from generation
to generation, oh, I cannot worship that organized and
perpetual cruelty; I cannot worship that; and I take
refuge in the thought of Paul: we see only a fragment
here; we do not know what the remote future is; but this
is disclosed to us—that future is to be the grand develop-
ment of the sweetest and noblest days that have dawned
upon the conscience of mankind in this world. And I take
courage, and I say, there is a grand march in the universe.

The Star That Lingers Longest in the Sky.

If we dwelt more upon God’s fullness, and his desire to
make us partakers of it, our Christian character would be
richer. God never reveals himself to us as a distant, glim-
mering light. Of all stars he calls himself “the bright
and morning star”——the star that lingers longest in the
sky, and swims and glorifies an avcmt coureur of the sun,
as John the Baptist did in the rising splendor of Christ.
Many people get a wrong idea of God by thinking of him
as infinite only in justice and power; but infinite applies
to the feelings of God, as much as to the stretch of his
right hand. There is nothing in his nature which is not
measureless.

“Above All We Can Ask or Think.”

The apostle says, “Now unto Him that is able to do
excbeding abundantly, above all that we can ask or think.”
What a vision he must have had! How grandly in that
moment did the divine thought rise before his enrapt mind
when he so linked words together—joining golden word to
golden word, as if he fain would encompass it with a
chain, seeking by combinations to express what no one
word could embody! “Above all that we can ask or
think!” How much can a man ask or think? When the
deepest convictions of sin are upon him, in his hour of
dark despondency, in some perilous pass of life, when fears
come upon his- soul as storms on the Lake Galilee, consider
how much a man then asks! Or when love swells in his

86 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

soul, and makes life as full as mountains make the streams
in spring, and hope is the sun by day and the moon by
night,—in those gloriously elate hours when he seems no
longer fixed to space and time, but, mounting as if the
body were forgotten by the soul, wings his way through
the realm of aspiration and conception, consider how
much a man then thin/cs! .

.—_.——___

The Bible a Beacon Fire.

I, too, will go out and read God in the strata; I, too,
through the stars will hear the chiming of the spheres; I
will be behind none in enjoying the sweet perfume of flowers;
but when I do all this, I will remember that the Bible is
the beacon fire at which I have lighted the torch that has
guided me to this knowledge and these delights.

The Psalms Sing of Nature.

If I could not send a man among the mountains, or
through the valleys, or by the side of streams, I would
shut him up in the resounding recesses of the Old Testa-
ment. There is more loving description of nature in the
Psalms alone, than in all Greek and Roman literature.
Yet the Bible has been used so‘ unfairly, and a truckling
priesthood have drawn from it such base arguments, that
men of free and generous natures have been repelled by it,
and have gone away with the wings of literature and the
feet of science to find GOd in the great realm of nature.

Christians Outside the Church.

It is a joy to me to know that the Christians within the
communion of this church are not all the Christians to be
found in the congregation. We are richer than we appear
to be. Here are growing pear trees, apple trees, cherry
trees, and shrubs, and blossoming vines, and flowers of
every hue and odor; but I am glad that some seeds have
been blown over the wall, and that fruit trees and flowers
most pleasant to the eye are springing up there also. And
though I wish they were within the enclosure, where the
boar out of the wood could not Waste them, and the wild

SELECTIONS: —— RELIGIOUS. 87

beast of the field devour them, yet I love them, and am
glad to see them growing there. To all such I say, God
nourish and protect you, and bring you, with us, to the
garden above.

The Grandeur of the Christian Ministry.

I have great respect for all the professions, but after a
very considerable knowledge of the world outside of my
own profession I still feel, not that ministers are any better
than any other men, or that their intellectual culture or
operations are any higher than those of ordinary profes-
sional men, but this: The field in which a minister acts,
or may act, is the widest field conceivable to the human
intelligence. TWO worlds; the themes the highest; the
elements the purest and the sweetest; the adaptations
infinite. Knowledge there must be in him of the whole
constitution of the human mind so far as it has been de-
veloped. He is the father, the mother, the savior of his
people. Such men cannot afford to be rash, nor head-
strong, nor merely theoretic. We are food-givers, ad-
vancing just as fast as we can do it with the digestion of
our children. Outside of that, in book or elsewhere, a
man may go as far as he pleases, but as a minister of souls
in the congregation he is to feed them so that they will
grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Jesus
Christ.

Consecration.

Consecration is not wrapping onc’s self in a holy web in
the sanctuary, and then coming forth after prayer and
twilight meditation and saying: “ There, I am consecrated.”
Consecration is going out into the world where God
Almighty is, and using every power for his glory. It is
taking all advantages as trust fund —as confidential debts
owed to God. It is simply dedicating one’s life, in its whole
flow, to God’s service.

Heart-Knowledge True Wealth.

Heart-knowledge, through God’s teaching, is true
wealth, and they are often poorest who deem themselves
most rich. I, in the pulpit, preach with loud words to
many a humble widow and stricken man who might well

88 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

teach me. The student, spectacled and gray with Wisdom,
and stuffed With lumbered lore, may be childish and igno-
rant beside some old singing saint who carries the Wood
into his study, and who, with the lens of his own experi-
ence, brings down the orbs of truth, and beholds, through
his faith and his humility, things 'of which the White-
haired scholar never dreamed.

Communion With God.

It seems but yesterday when my face was as young and
fresh as yours. It seems but as yesterday when I began my
race. I am near the end of it; and I bear Witness that
with a heart as open, and on as many sides, to pleasure and
joy as any man’s can be here, and having been on the Whole
under favorable circumstances in life, and tasted of almost
all the lawful things that are permitted to mankind in a
respectable ambition, I testify that there is nothing in all
the earth that is not rendered more sweet and bright by
having that communion with God that lifts and refines and
strengthens the soul itself.

 

CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST.
l
The Epitome and Emblem of God.

Here was an ignoble peasant Jew, born in a race that
was then held in contempt by the civilized world;
persecuted everywhere. Here was this Galilean peasant
that was derided and rejected by the educated and religious
class of his own country; that was finally arrested, and as
a miscreant, a man disturbing the order of society, put to
death, and to a death that had on it a stigma of crimi-
nality; put to death as a vulgar criminal, on the cross.
And amidst all the glittering statutes of the gods, and all
the elements of Greek conceptions of the power and the
glory of the eternal gods, and in all that had been made
manifest in the world, Of wisdom and power and youth,
of the glory of eternal joy, came this Paul, saying, “Here
is the epitome and the emblem of God, this poor miser-
able Jewish peasant, crucified as a criminal by his own
countrymen.”

SELECTIONS: - CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST. 89

Here is Love, Here.is Lighti—This is God.

I do not count the stilling of the waves as being so very
divine, or if it is, it is the little finger of God; but when
Jesus Christ can suffer that other men might not suffer,
when he developed the idea that God’s nature was that of
one who had rather that he should himself take the bond-
age and burden, when he showed parental feeling “beyond
father and mother, that had rather suffer in the family
than that the child should suffer, then I begin to say,
“ Here is love, here is light ;” If the questions that I
would fain propose are not questions to be solved—name-
ly. How he could be GOd and yet man? I remit those
questions to theology, and to a very large extent theology
is the vast abyss into which men throw things that they can-
not deal with in any other way. To me J esusis the exposi-
tion outwardly of the inward life of God, and I follow him
everywhere on earth, and I say, “ This is God, this is God,
and this is God,” and I free from my thoughts as one frees
a weight from the soul, I free the earthly circumstances of
Christ's life. And then I say, “ This is the trait, this is
the quality, this is the divine nature,” and then I enthrone
it in- the Father, I enthrone it in the Holy Ghost, and the
whole earth doth show forth what the center of the universe
is. Yes; I believe in the divinity of Christ because I believe
in God, and because in him alone can I gain any adequate
conception of what is the sun and center of God himself.

 

.—

The Divinity of Christ.

People have asked me, “ Do you believe in the divinity
of Christ?” I do not believe in anything else; it is the sum
of my belief, it is the whole orb of my life. Without it
my anchor would part from the cable and go to the bottom
of the sea, and I should be tossed on the restless waves of
unbelief and uncertainty if you took away from me the
faith that Christ interprets God, and is God, just as far as
it is possible to clothe divinity in mortal bodies, and to
subject the Infinite to all the necessities of time and mat-
ter. But in regard to everything that is in character,
quality, like God, of God. Christ was, I might say, in
prison. When you go to a mission school or a ragged
school, you leave the best part of yourself at home. They

9O HENRY WARD BEECHER.

do not understand how you are obliged to go down to the
limit of their understanding, and eXpress the lower forms
of your own knowledge and help them along by images and
figures. And when you have had a child for a year he
does not understand you yet; you are a thousand times
higher than he is; it is because he is so low that he cannot
creep up into the realms that you are in. And God is so
infinite, and in quality so exquisite, that he could only be
known by a representation of himself, and he took out
from the bosom of his love his Son, Jesus.

Christ the Light of the Home

Christ comes to light up the house from foundation to
roof-tree with the glory of God. He knocks at the door,
and when it is opened to him he enters, and gives to
every room order and beauty, and the voice of song, and a
wondrous fragrance from his robes, which have borrowed
smell of every flower that grows in the celestial gardens.
Who will open the door? '

Christ’s Life Leavening Humanity.

Nothing in the successive stages of Christ’s administra-
tion is made very clear. Even in regard to the first one ——
his earthly life—the effect, that which was designed, and
that which took place, there is much which is obscure.
But one thing is very certain—that the impartation to
mankind of the divine knowledge, and the divine nature,
has sprung out of, and perfected itself in, the relation of
Jesus Christ to the human family. There is no other such
growing nature in history as that of stChrist Jesus. Men
may write it down; they may by philosophy undertake to
bisect it and dissect it; they may test it in this way and in
that way; but, after all, there is no other life that has had
in it such power of imparting itself to mankind as the life
of Jesus Christ. And, though it does not disdain the lower
forms Of human development, its lastingness is owing to
the fact that Christ has been inoculated upon the highest
range of minds, the highest intelligence, the highest moral
sensibility, the highest faith, imagination, and poetry. It
does not disdain the ignorant, the low, or the as yet undis-
closed and undeveloped; these receive their power from

SELECTIONS‘:—CONQERNING JESUS CHRIST. 91

Christ; but they have no transmitting power; whereas,
through generation and generation, the nature of Christ
has been taught by the highest forms. of humanity, and
has wrought such a change in men that it has been trans-
mitted from generation to generation with greater or less
luminousness, and never gone out. As clouds may eclipse
the stars for a period of days, but cannot reach them or
put them out, so heresies and doubts and infidelities have
overshadowed these higher lights; and as the clouds per-
ish, not the stars, so the life of Christ endures, and is the
yeast that is leavenin g the life of humanity. In regard to
that the facts are unquestionable.

Christ Making Known the Living God.

Christ represents God and is divine. He came forth
into this world, not merely to make declarations of truth,
but to live them; to put them into the form of conduct, so
that wherever he went men looking on him might say:
“ This is the interpretation.” He is this and a great deal
more. It is not that he is less. He is more —more ten-
der to the fallen sinner that sheds tears upon his feet, more
tender than any conception you can have. Ah, for a long
time it was a puzzle to me what Christ could mean when
Mary met him in the garden and thought that he was the
gardener, and said: “They have taken away my Lord;
tell me where-they have laid him and I will take him
away.” What dramatic force there is in what follows:
“ Jesus said unto her, Mary.” That word thrilled her soul.
It Was a word of love that she knew the meaning of, and
she said, “My Lord and my God.” “Touch me not,”
said he. Why should she not touch him? “I am not
.yet ascended to my Father and yours. I am not God; I
am a mere frame in which the divine element is. You
must not think that God is as small as I am and as imper-
fect. God is a Spirit— your thoughts must be larger than
this. When you worship me I shall have ascended, and
there, in the full glory and full outflow of my nature, no
human arm can clasp me. Do not worship me, the man-
frame, but me, the Infinite, the Eternal Love.” It was
not rebuke, it was merely saying, “I am more than you
think me. Do not begin yet. By faith lift up your
thought to the sphere of eternal being and life.” And so

92 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

when a man comes to me and says, “ Do you believe that
Christ was a member of the Divinity?” I say, “I have
no objection.” “But what do you do with this text or
that text if you do not believe it?” Then they have a sum
in arithmetic for me. Well, I say, “ I take it, and believe
it—do not cipher for me.” “Well, do you understand
it?” “ I do not understand it, and if I did not take any-
thing that I did not understand, I should be very poor in-
deed.” That is the face of Scripture, and I see no objec-
tion to it; it does not give me any trouble. But when you
come round with your mechanical god, and say, “there is
this wheel, and that wheel, and that wheel, and those
three are one, and this is the machine we are preaching
about, God in three forms, and Jesus Christ one of them.
Do you believe in that?” I say you have there the bare
bones of theology; that is not my idea either of the Father,
or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit. I do not measure
my God as you do by outwardness, but by the substance of
the inward life, by wisdom, by love, and all the fruit of
love; and if Jesus Christ is not of the nature of God, then
I have lost all conception of what that can possibly be.
He represents to me the very highest attribute of God.

Christ’s Doctrine of Self-Denial.

What a hateful idea has arisen of religion, partly from
the cats-puzzles of theology, and partly because men have
said: “If you are going to keep religion, if you are going
to give up the world, you have got to give up your natural
powers and be converted into a certain sort of other tem-
perament, a spiritual temperament. You have got to deny.
yourself. Does not Christ say, ‘ Deny thyself, take up thy
cross and follow me?’ ” Now, a Christian don’t deny him-
self any more than a student does, or an architect, or a
lawyer, or a doctor. When a boy goes to school, he would.
a great deal rather go playing; but he knows he has got to
go to school to get an education, and he has got to deny
numbers of things in order to be instructed. Every new
branch the child takes he has got to deny himself in order
to go higher. Self-denial is simply denying a thing for
the sake of the reason and 'moral sense; and when Christ
says men must deny themselves, he means not at all the
limitation of natural liberty; it is the road to liberty. The

SELECTIONS:—CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST. 93

more laws man understands and the more perfectly he un-
derstands these laws, the more pertect liberty he has. No
man. is so nearly unfree, so near captive, as the man who,
knowing laws, violates them, and is living in continual
rebellion and conflict on that account. The man that
accepts God’s great laws, whether in the material world or
the social world, or the religious world; the man that ac-
cepts the most of them rides upon the most forces, and
whoever, therefore, is ascending from the lower plane of
human life has to deny the lower for the sake of ascending
to the higher. -

The Kind of God Christ Represented.

Here is the secret of Paul’s saying, “ I determined to
know nothing among you but Christ, and him crucified.”
It was no ignoble Saviour representing a God such as the
Greeks wanted, nor such as the Jews panted for. It'was a
conception that never had entered into the heart of man,
namely, that the eternal Father and the God of the earth
was an all-spending God, reserving nothingfor himself
but the privilege of giving everything away; and all his
energy, all his wisdom, all his skill, all his administration
and all his joy, and his whole life, consisted in the in-
estimable privilege of blessing, blessing: the God over all
the earth, blessed forever, because forever blessing. That
was the representation that Christ came to make in this
world. He loved it; he was it, and declared that he was
813?, hecause he was the Son of God and co-equal with the

at er.

—-———_

Destroying the Law and the Prophets.

Christ certainly did come to destroy the law and the
rophets—the outside of them. He knew perfectly well,
if he had foresight, that they would be swept away as they
have largely been swept away, but he said: “That which
these externalities include in themselves, the kernel in them,
the heart of them, I came to fulfill—the law and the
prophets; to give them their full development and to bring
them to that to which they can come.” It was not the
morality and the spirituality that were to be destroyed for
the sake of which Moses and the prophets had written.
That morality and that spirituality had become pinched

94 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

and imprisoned and inexpansible by the maintenance of
the external forms in which they originallycame. Even a
crab knows enough once a year to get rid of its shell in
order to have a bigger one; but it is the sectary that does
not know it.

Christ’s Mission.

He did not come to suffei in man’s place. That falls
out of the theory of the fall and of original sin. The idea
that Christ had to suffer for men has run through about
twenty different catego1ies. The1e are about twenty sepa-
rate the01ies of atonement, and almost all of them are
theories that undertake to wrestle with a schedule of facts
and a line of history that is itself fictitious; and the con-
ception that God sent his Son into the world to suffer all
the suffering that would have been felt by an unrepentant
sinner, is simply a monst10s1ty It can be no more offen-
sive to any human being than to God himself. He did not
come to suffer in man’s place. He came to develop the
poor, miserable, broken, undeveloped, sinful, ignorant
race, and carry them up by the infusion of a new power,
of a new emblem of ideality, by a new reading of the
nature of God, and by bringing them underneath a
power of the Holy Spirit, shed abroad through the heal ts
and consciences of men. He came to complete and carry
on the unfolding and uplifting of the race, to b1ing into
the horizon such a conception of God as would bring to
an end 'all doubts as to the genius of his rule, and as to
the path of all human life and feeling. He came therefore
for just this reason, simply to make knoWn the Father.
You cannot find one word in all his own teachings that
does not turn on that. He came to make known the
supreme idea of God, the real God, the God of love.

Christ’s Work on Earth.

Well, Christ’s work on earth was not to restore, then, a
lost race, a fallen race. There was not any lost race; there
was not any fall. When the Bible speaks of men being
lost, it is simply employing the figure of a shepherd. The
sheep have wandered, and he goes out after them to b1ing
them back to the right way; “ the shepherd and bishop—-
that is, overseer, care-taker—of the flock,” he is called;

snLEc'rmst—CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST. 95'

and when the Bible speaks of a lost race it is not accord-
ing to the meaning of our theology, that the whole human
race fell in Adam ——a monstrous fiction; itis not a lost race
in any proper sense of the term, as it is taught in theol-
ogy. Christ’s work on earth was to carry forward and
upward the ignorant and sinful, the undes’erving, the
wretched.

Christ’s Descent into Life.

Amid the growth of learning, the growth of science,
and the growth of philosophies, not only is this spiritual
force—God through Christ acting on the human nature—
not losing ground by analysis, by dissection, or by any
other means,'but it is gaining ground. It never before
wasso strong as it is to-day, nor so various in its opera-
tions. Its modes of explanation change‘from age to age;
but the fact that there is a divine influence brought into
operation through Jesus Christ our Lord upon the intelli-
gence, the heart, and the faith of mankind—that great
crowning fact is not susceptible of disputation. Christ’s
descent into life, its unfolding, its end on earth so far as
personality is concerned ——- we get nearer to this, though we
are a great way off from it. The only pattern upon which
we can reason of the divine personality is the personality
that we see through our own experiences and conditions.
If we have no spirituality we cannot see at all the corre-
spondence between the qualities that are in us and the
infinite exhibition of the same qualities in the Deity. We
have gone through the mechanical ages, and through the
organizing influences of church policies; we have seen the
philosophical statements of the nature of Christ and of
his mission, and of the work that he came to do; we
have been told what the Atonement was meant to be, and
what it was in itself ; we have had instruction in all forms
of analysis and dissection;,and these things have advanced
us somewhat; but it would make the very spirits in heaven
laugh to suppose that you could put God into a catechism
or a creed, or that there ever was any language that had
the force to throw its belt around the waist of the eternal
God, and make known what are those wonderful and
subtle influences that inhere in or constitute the divine
nature. We have learned a good deal, but it is from the
outside. The richer, deeper, wider hemisphere of knowl-

 

 

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96 - HENRY WARD BEECHER.

edge we shall come to gradually through the Spirit, but
not through the interpretations of the flesh, or the flesh-
mind. Whatever we may or may not know, we know that
the efiect of Christ’s descent among men was to wake up
in them a new spirit and a new tendency. It was to the
souls of men that he came to minister. He did not
undertake to lead their bodily life. He did not open up
to them the mechanical resources of this world. He did
not reveal to them what science had yet in store. He
aimed at that which should live forever—the soul within
the body.

Christ the Revelation of God.

Christ was, and is the figure and representation of God
himself. He is called the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. In other words, some old theologies have
told us that the atonement of Christ Was an episode, intro-
duced because the law was broken, and set aside, and the
law had to be made honorable, and Christ came to make
it honorable, and. it was an episode. The appearance of
Christ and the whole mission of his ministry was a reve-
lation of the eternal God as God has been from eternity-—
just the same thing—and would be until eternity; and
Christ came to bring it into the scope of human realiza-
tion and knowledge; a new type of character, a new ideal
development of power. "

The Central School of Christ.

I do not believe that this is the only live world. I do
not believe that all the spheres which populate immensity
are lazy ones, and that out of this world alone will come
the population of the future—of the great heaven. I
hold it to be more than probable that among the multitudi-
nous worlds (as many almost as the stars that lie within
the sphere of our own vision) there are others beside our
own that will send their nascent creatures into this great
central school of Christ above. That they will be just
like us I do not believe. The infinite fertility of God has
made visible by analogy throughout the lower universe, is
that which leads me to think that he has not expended
his creative force in the making of man. . But what these
other natures will be--tell me ; I cannot tell you. That

SELECTIONS:—CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST. 97

there" should be a wider range of creation in intelligence
and feeling than that which has been exemplified in this
World does not seem to me out of analogy with the infinite
fertility of the Divine mind. And what a sublime thought
it is, that there will come a day when, along the beams of
light, as along highways, there will be seen creatures troop-
ing, flocking, beyond and above, from yonder, and when
all parts of the universe shall be sending up thither their
quotas! How glorious a thought it is, that there is a state
Where we shall be taught, and be teaching, and be intro-
ducing ourselves to the infinite variety of existences that
shall populate Christ’s kingdom above.

The Growing Influence of Christ.

From the day Christ entered into this world to this he
has been an influence among men and upon men, directly
and indirectly through men themselves; but he is to as-
cend to a much higher work for those that have been qual-
ified on earth to enter his heavenly school; and the greatest
part of Christ’s work will be ascensional work, and will
consist of that development, that completion of virtue, of
love, of purity, of society, of which men are capable, but
which they are seldom enabled to exhibit in any perfect
condition in this world. He has intimated to us, and only
intimated, that there is going on this royal disclosure in
the sphere next above our own.

How Wonderful that Christ Should Love Us.

HOW wonderful that Christ should love us! We know
how to love our children, because they are better than we;
we know how to love our friends because they are no worse
then we; but how Christ can stoop from out the circle of
blessed spirits to love us, who are begrimed with sin, and be-«
stormed With temptation, and wrestling with the lowest
parts of humanity,——that is past our finding out. He
has loved us from the foundation of the world; and because
heaven was too far away for us to see, he came down to
earth to do the things which he has always been doing
profusely above. Christ’s life on earth was not an official
mission; it was a development of his everlasting state; a dip
to bring Within our horizon those characteristics and attri-

98 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

butes which otherwise we could not comprehend; —— God’s
pilgrimage on earth as a shepherd, in search of his wolf-'
imperiled fold. And when I look into his life, I say to
myself,“ As tender as this, and yet on earth? What is he
now, then? If he was such when imprisoned in the flesh,
what is he now in the full libe1ty and la1geness of his
heavenly state? ”

Christ and the Syro- -Phcenician Woman.

Ihave always been much affected by Christ’s reply to
the Syro- -Phoenician woman, when she begged him to cast
the devil out of her daughter. If I saw the poorest child
in the street falling down in convulsions, and agonized
and distorted with pain, and it we1e in my power to re-
store her, how gladly would I go to her, and raise her up,
and bring her back to health and joy! Now, how little is
my willingness compared to Christ’s! For what in me is
one little pulsation, 1n him is the tide of the universe.
His heart went out towa1d the poor suppliant with infinite
yearning and tenderness.

Christ the Revelation of Love.

A God of love, who 1s love, knows how to suffer. The
popular conception of love is a heart strung like a ha1p,
and some beauteous creature stiiking hands of pleasure
ac1 oss the st1ings and producing music. It 18 being happy
in the presence of something that 1s beautiful and lovely.
“You love me, and I love you, and O, that will be the
blessedest thing that ever was on earth.” Well, that is
superficial love. That is the vibration at the bottom of
selfishness. Can you love what is not lovely? Can you
love though you are not loved? Can you love and suffer
for the sake of it? Can you love and make your affection
a benediction upon those that not only do not love you but
hate you, persecute you venomously, persistently? Can
you love that which deserves nothing but needs all things?
The noulishing bosom of disinterested love—can you
come to that? Christ was the manifestation of the God
that revealed that kind of love; a fatherhood that loved
without reciprocation, loved things that were in one
crude, imperfect; loved things infirm,'far away, remote;
loved things unlovely, sinful, in arms, in enmity. It was

SELECTIONSI—DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. 99

the disclosure of the power of the divine nature in love;
not as a sweet-faced deity that sat there smiling out, but
the burden-bearer of the universe; that goes out to seek
and to save; nay, more, the conception of a God that
enslaves himself.

DEATH AND IMMORTALITY.

Death the Heart’s Blossoming Time.

We have the promises of God as thick as daisies in
summer meadows, that death, which men most fear,
shall be to us the most blessed of experiences, if we trust
in him. Death is unclasping; joy breaking out in the
desert; the heart, come to its blossoming time! Do we
call it dying when the bud bursts into flower?

Immortality Beyond Proot.

Do not, then, ask me to prove this higher life, this
grander life. I cannot prove it; it is not a thing that can
be proved; but I can conceive it, in outline, in a veiled
sovereignty, dominant, final, perfect. The silence around
about us in respect to these higher and upper things we
should not confound with emptiness. The whole air may
be full, of angels flying hither and thither. All through
the universe things may be going on compared with which
revolutions, battles, the building of cities, or the tumbling
down of cities, are as nothing at all. It is a wonderful life
that we are living. It is a populous universe that We are
in. Do not let your body deceive and fool you. Do not
doubt that which is going on above this world because you
cannot see it or hear it. It is none the less there. What
if some animal, some generous dog, should undertake to sit
in judgment on courts, law libraries, and histories of insti-
tutions, and being clothed for the time with speech, shduld
say to his fellow-generous dogs, “Oh, you imagine that
such things exist ; but there is no evidence to us of their
existence! ” A book is no evidence to a dog—not half so
much evidence as a bone. For men that are living in their
lower and animal conditions it is easy to think, “ Where is

7

100 HENRY WARD B'EECHER.

your evidence? We want some facts.” That is, they
want either to drag down truth to the low puddle in which
they are living, or else they want to disbelieve that there
is anything higher than the reach and reign of their
own senses. I glory in believing that I am in the earlier
stages of this unfolding, and that, much as I can under-
stand and feel the truth as it reveals itself in matter and
in mind, as far as it is accessible to the human mind, is
only the outskirt, the far-distant trailing fringe, of the
great world where truth mainly abides, and where men,
developed and carried up, become denizens, and live in a
state so high in activities that I cannot imagine it, cannot
conceive it— not in detail.

A Child’s Grave in the Snow.

I have been called to give up dear ones, not once, nor
twice, nor thrice alone, but many times I have sent my
children on before me. Once, wading knee-deep in the
snow, I buried my earliest. It was March, and dreary
and shivering and awful; and then the doctrine that
Christ sat in an eternal summer of love, and that my child
was not buried but had gone up to One that loved it better
than I, was the only comfort I had.

Death is ’Coronation.

Death is the swelling of the seed that has lived here,
that is dried up, and that is waiting for its planting.
Death is the bursting of the bud in April that all winter
long has lain tight bound within itself, waiting for its life
of efflorescence. Death is entering on summer from the
frigid zone. When you look at it in the light of this
grander disclosure, this prophetic thought of the apostle,
the wonder is that men want to live—that they do not
hunger and thirst for dying. For death is coronation; it
is blossoming; it is stepping from bondage into liberty,
from darkness into light; it is going out of a prison-house
into the glory of the Father’s community. I know that
nature calls for a good deal. I cry when my children die ;
for a long time I cannot hear their names mentioned
Without sobs or crying; but my higher reason condemns
my lower weakness all the time. One thing I cannot bear;

SELECTIONS:-—DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. 101

I do not rebuke anybody; but I must tell the fullness of
my own feelings. When a child comes up to death, put
the symbol of joy and rejoicing round about it. When the
hero goes, do not cover him with black, nor with any of
the circumstances that related to him here. Christianity,
after a few thousand years, ought to have taught men that
thle going out of life is for honor and glory and immor-
ta ity. .

 

The Sweetness of Death.

Death is as sweet as flowers are. It is as blessed as
bird-singing in spring. I never hear of the death of any
one who is ready to die that my heart does not sing like a
harp. I am sorry for those that are left behind, but not
for those who are gone before.

——————.

 

Out of Storm Into Sunlight.

As I grow older, and come nearer to death, I look upon
it more and more with complacent joy, and out of every
longing I hear God say, “ O thirsting, hungering one, come
to me.” What the other life will bring I know not, only
that I shall awake in God’s likeness, and see him as he is.
If a child had been born and spent all his life in the Mam-
moth Cave, how impossible would it be for him to compre-
hend the upper world! His parents might tell him of its
life, and light, and beauty, and its sounds of joy; they
might heap up the sand into mounds, and try to show him
by pointing to stalactites how grass, and flowers, and trees
grow out of the ground, till at length, with laborious
thinking, the child would fancy he had gained a true idea
of the unknown land. And yet, though .he longed to
behold it, when the day came that he was to go forth, it
would be with regret for the familiar crystals, and the
rock-hewn rooms, and the quiet that reigned therein. But
when he came up, some May morning, with ten thousand.
birds singing in the trees, and the heavens bright, and
blue, and full of sunlight, and the wind blowing softly
through the young leaves, all a-glitter with dew, and the
landscape stretching away green and beautiful to the hori-
zon, with what rapture would he gaze about him, and see
how poor were all the fancyings and interpretations which
were made within the cave, of the things which grew and

102 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

lived without; and how would he wonder that he could
have regretted to leave the silence and dreary darkness of
his old abode! So, when we emerge from this cave of
earth into that land where spring growths are, and where
is summer, and not that miserable travesty which we call
summer here, how shall we wonder that we could have
clung so fondly to this dark and barren life!

“Land Ho!”

If we are Christ’s, every passing day brings us nearer
to him, and he is gathering up our treasures in heaven.
When anything falls overboard from a ship upon the sea,
it goes astern; but when anything drops into the ocean of
life, it is taken up and carried forward to wait for us.
And when that which we call death, comes, it is Christ’s
summons. He wants us to come to him. To some of us
it has been ‘a long voyage. A few more watches, and it
will be ended, and there will rise the cry of “ Land, ho!”
more rapturous than ever greeted an earthly shore. And
then may we hear, sweeter than the songs of myriad angels,
the voice of One who has longed for us, and for Whom we
have been homesick —— the voice of our Saviour — saying to
us, “Welcome, ye blessed of 'my Father. Enter ye into
the joy of your Lord.”

“The First Shall Be Last and the Last First.”

The entering into heaven will reveal many things un-
known on earth. Some whom the world thought saint-like
will barely gain admittance there, and others who went all
their lives in doubt and dread, will have angelic welcome,
and an abundant entrance into the heavenly kingdom.
“ The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” What
do the flowers say to the night? They wave their bells,
and exhale their choicest odors, as if they would bribe it
to bestow upon them some new charm. In the tender twi-
light they look wistfully at each other, and say, “ Do you
see anything on me?” and when the answer is, “I see
nothing,” they hang their heads and wait sorrowfully for
the morning, fearing that they shall bring no beauty to it.
Though there is no voice, nor sound, yet the night hears
them, and silently through the still air the dews drop down

SELECTION81—DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. 103

from the sky, and settle on every stemfiand bud, and bles-
som; and when day dawns, at the first rosy glance that the
sun sends athwart the fields, ten million jewels glitter, and
sparkle, and quiver on the notched edges of every leaf, and.
along each beaded blade and spire of grass, and spray, and
the happy flowers, stirred by the wind, nod and beckon,
and smile to each other, more resplendent in their dewy
gems than any dream of the night had imagined. So many
Christians, who in the darkness of this life have longed and
labored for graces, yet sad and fearing, will find them-
selves covered with glory when the eternal morning dawns,
and the light of God’s countenance strikes through their
earth-gained jewels!

“Eye Hath Not Seen, nor Ear Heard,”

how in the household are garments quilted, and
wrought, and curiously embroidered, and the softest things
laid aside, and the cradle prepared to greet the little pil-
grim of love when it comes from distant regions, we know
not whence. Now, no cradle for an emperor’s child was
ever prepared with such magnificence as this world has
been for man. It is God’s cradle for the race; curiously
carved and decorated, flower-strewn and star-curtained.
But because it is the cradle, and because we are yet in our
infancy, .God had not scope to give himself expression.
What is to come we know not.- “Eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the
things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”

 

Hope of the Life to Come.

Hope is the sweet eye that never looks backward, the
disposition which eternally lives on, which cures present
evil, remedies every mistake, by an eternal sunrise. Hope
doesn’t believe in sunset, nor in the rolling hours that bring
round again the sunrise; it is forever facing toward the
east and waiting for the sun to rise. It is the power to live
without bodily organization; it is that element of the spirit
.that sees all that is unrevealed by matter; it is that tem-
per that lives intthe glowing future and in the possibilities
of blossom and fruit, of an eternal summer that lies before
every man, that does not live in yesterday, that refuses to
live in ‘to-day, but that takes the eternal round of the

104 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

future for its habitation. That is hope, or a poor descrip-
tion of it. And love, that flashes glimpses even in the ani-
mal ecomony, that swells into some notes and articulations
in the very lowest of the uncivilized human races, that
begins to know how to go alone in the household, that
waxes larger and larger as the objects loved are put in our
mind against the background of immortality, and that
swallows up in itself every other evil passion or good pas-
sion, and is the man. ‘

The Face of the Lord Jesus.

As in some summer’s morning which wakes with a
ring of birds when it is clear, leagues up into the blue, and
everything is as distinctly cut as if it stood in heaven and
not on earth, when the distant mountains lie bold upon
the horizon," and the air is full of the fragrance of flowers
which the night cradled, the traveler goes forth with buoy-
ant and elastic step upon his journey, and halts not till in
the twilight shadows he reaches his goal, so may we, who
are but pilgrims, go forth beneath the smile of God upon
our homeward journey. May heaven lie upon the horizon,
luring us on; and when at last we sink to sleep, and dream
that we behold again those whom we have lost, may we
wake to find that it was not a dream, but that we are in
heaven; and may the children for whom we have yearned,
and the companions who anticipated us and gained heaven
first, come to greet us. Then, sweeter than all, may we
behold the face of the Lord‘Jesus, our Master, our life,
and cast ourselves before him, that he may raise us up with
great grace, to stand upon our feet evermore!

Three Things the Grave Cannot Extinguish.

There are three things that even the grave cannot
extinguish; three things that no chemistry in death can
change ; three things for which we are to wait till the glory
comes beyond the horizon of time—faith, hope, love. And
blessed be God for the last utterance: “The greatest of
these is love.” That is the mental constitution through
which we shall think, that is the mental constitution
through which conscience will act in the life to come. That
is the bond of connection among those that in the spirit

SELECTIONS:—DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. 105

land have by the growths of time and by the sunshine of
eternity become ripened; so that we shall then be in our
manhood and know as we are known. And without follow-
ing out the suggestion that it throws some light on the
intercourse which we have with each other in the other life,
personal identity 'will be preserved through the medium of
these untarnished qualities. The intercourse of the other
life will not be of matter, nor of sordid business, nor of
latitudes and longitudes, nor of rising or setting suns, but
in the unfolding moral consciousness of every man in him-
self and in those harmless friendships and those loves that
insphere each other with light and life. Our identity will
lie in these qualities. And there are many of you that
had better begin to establish identity before you go.

Dying is Triumphing.

_ When we comprehend the fullness of what death will
do for us, in all our outlook and forelook, dying is triumph-
ing. Nowhere is there so fair a sight, so sweet a prospect,
as when a young soul is passing away outof life and time
through the gate of death —the rosy, the royal, the
golden, the pearly gate of death.

The Sweet Waking in Heaven.

To a Christian who has lived all his life long in bondage
unto fear, not daring to believe himself a child of God, how
sweet will be the waking in heaven! With great dread
and trembling he will approach the death hour, and go
down through chilling mists and vapors to the unknown
sea. And when upon the other shore sweet strains come
to his ear, he will not understand them; but fair form
after fair form will appear to greet him, and at length,
from the impearled atmosphere, God’s whole band of gath-
erin g and reaping angels, more in number than the autumn
leaves out-streaming from the forest when there are bursts
of wind, will come forth, filling all the air with music, and
minister unto him an abundant entrance into the heavenly
kingdom! It were almost enough to make one’s heaven,
to stand and see the first wild stirring of joy in the
face, and hear the first rapturous cry, as they cross the
threshold, of thousands of timid Christians who lived weep-

106 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

ing and died sighing, but who will wake to find every tear
an orb of joy, and every sigh an inspiration of God. 0,
the wondrous joy of heaven to those who did not expect
it I

The Life to Come.

As I grow older and come nearer to death, I look upon
it more and more with complacent joy, and out of every
longing I hear God say: “0, trusting, hungering one,
come to me.” What the other life will bring I know not,
only that I shall awake in God’s likeness and see him as
he is. ~ ‘

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM NATURE.

The Mission of the Sun.

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but
for the wide world’s joy. The lonely pine on the moun-
tain top waves its sombre boughs and cries, “Thou art
my sun!” And the little meadow-violet lifts its cup of
blue, and whispers with its perfumedbreath, “ Thou art
my sun!” And the grain in a thousand fields rustles in
the wind and makes answer, “ Thou art my sun!”

Men Are Like Trees.

In. my orchards to-day there are, I think, on single
cherry-trees thousands of blossoms; and probably all but
about a hundred or two of those will drop without a cherry
having formed under them. Men are like such trees.
They breed thoughts by the millions, that result in action
only in the scores and the hundreds. How much of
thought and feeling is there, and what an incessant work
is going on Within the sensorium of the body among men!
How many angers,vhow many griefs, how many hopes, how
many wishes, how many purposes; what ranges of specula-
tion, what building of plans, some on the ground and
some in the air! What wonderful goods are being woven,
more wonderful than by the Jacquard loom, in the manu-

SELECTIONS:—-—1LLUSTRATIONS FROM NATURE. 107

factory of the head; and yet how little ever comes forth '
into the merchant’s salesroom, how little is ever visible!
We think, I suppose, a hundred times more than we ever
put into action, or put into language, into visible exponen-
tial form. The fruitfulness of the mind is something im-
mense, immeasurable. Waves of feeling rise, roll through
the mind, and leave no more effect behind them than
the waves of un'known seas that have rolled solitary for
centuries by day and by night. How much there is of
purpose that is blighted and barren! How much there is
of goodness, how much of sweetness, how much of love
that runs the circuits and touches all the shores of human
possibility, but never comes out nor shows itself.

How Streams Are Bridged.

When engineers would bridge a stream, they often
”carry over at first but a single cord. With that, next, they
stretch ‘a wire across. Then strand is added to strand
until a foundation is laid for planks; and now the bold
engineer finds safe footway, and walks from side to side.
So‘God takes from us some golden-threaded pleasure, and
stretches it"hence into heaven. Then he takes a child, and
then afriend. Thus he bridges death, and teaches the
thoughts of the most timid to find their way hither and
thither between the shores.

The World a. Great Tree.

I cast into the ground the seed of the magnolia; the
plant spreads and sends down its root, growing deeper and
deeper, the root ministering to the gradually rising stem.
But when it has grown to be a great tree, and spreads its
broad, green leaves to the air, and is covered with its mag-
nificent vases full of perfume, the topmost bloom will
never forget for one single instant that humble root which,
plunged down out of sight, is giving all its nourishment.
Cut the connection between the top and the root, the top
perishes, and the root likewise. The world is as a great
tree in which the leaves that wave nearest to the heavens
and drink in the sunshine, are after all the servants of the
lowest roots that penetrate the earth. The hidden and the.
revealed are one; the power that the sun gives to the leaves

108 ‘ HENRY WARD BEECHER.

goes down through the descending sap, and ministers to the
utmost part of the roots, just as the roots, spread out,
bring up also their offerings to minister to the top. So it
is to be among men. We are but just learning it. The
struggles go on in society, in its organizations of govern-
ment, in, its industries, all Working in the same direction,
all working toward the common welfare of men.

In an Organ Factory.

Come with me, if you please, to anorgan factory. I
will suppose that we are ignorant of it entirely, and we are
told that this is where the grandest musical instrument in
the world is manufactured. We go into the factory, and
what do we see? Slabs of seasoned timber, all sorts of me-
chanical work going on, harsh sawing, sharp filing, pound-
ing, hammering. I 'say, “ Is this the place where they have
found out music? Is this the place where they build organs,
which you say are the very royal instruments of music?”
Then we go in and see the metals being rolled out, and
shaped and hammered. The men are twisting them, as
they always do, and one pipe represents, we will say, the
flute, and another represents the ordinary fife, and so on.
They put them in one by one, and all that you hear is the
sound of a single organ-pipe. They then take the tuning-
fork to see that it is of the right pitch and the right tone,
and all day long you hear squawking and all sorts of
sounds, and they tell you they are manufacturing music;
and, heavens! what music! At last we go away, and I say
what men say about the church—it is a sham, it is a mere
pretense. But one day as I stroll by a cathedral I step in;
they have just had a new organ built, and some great in-
terpreter of Beethoven is at the key-board, and I hear that
under-roll of thunder out of which rises up all harmoniOus
and all exquisite tones that represent the birds of the air,
and every other musical instrument in the world. The
theme lifts me up, and as the sound rolls away through the
vast arches I am entranced. A man says to me, “ That is
the organ, ‘now it is complete; when you saw it building,
part by part, step by step, and pipe by pipe, it looked to you
like anything on earth but a good musical instrument; you
were fooled; you judged of the whole by parts that were in
process of development.” When God shall have given tone
to every stop of human nature, when the work of redemp-

SELECTIONS:—-ILLUSTRATIONS FROM NATURE. 109

tion shall have been completed, when all the outlying
elements shall have been brought together into their rela-
tive positions. when God himself shall sit at the key-
board, and roll forth the song of redemption, then men
will know that all their doubts and fears and disgust in this
world were both unphilosophically and miserably mistaken.
May we live to see that great redemption day, when God
harmonizes all the scattered elements of the experimental
life on this earth, and doubtless in other worlds!

Morning on Mount Washington.

When I walked one day on the top of Mount Wash-
ington,—glorious day of memory! such another day I
think I shall not experience till I stand on the battlements
of the new Jerusalem—how I was discharged of all im-
perfection! The wide far-spreading country which lay
beneath me in beauteous light, how heavenly it looked, and
chommuned with God. I had sweet tokens that he loved
me. My very being rose right up into his nature. I
walked with him, and the cities far and near of New York,
and all the cities and villages which lay between it and. me,
with their thunder, the wrangling of human passions
below me, were to me as if they were not.

The Beggar Boy and the Flowers.

The other day, in walking down the street, a little
beggar boy,—— or one who might have begged, so ragged
was he,—— having discovered that I lOved flowers, came and
put into my hand a faded little sprig which he had some-
where found. I did not look directly at the scrawny,
withered branch, but beheld it through the medium of
the boy’s heart, seeing what he would havegiven, not
what he gave; and so looking, the shriveled stem was
laden with blossoms of beauty and odor. And if I, who
am cold, and selfish, and ignorant, receive so graciously the
offering of a poor child, with what tenderejoy must our
heavenly father receive the sincere tributes of his creatures
when he looks through the medium of his infinite love and
compassion! Christ does not say, “ Take the noblest things
of life, and bring them perfect to me, and I will receive
them.” He says, “ Take the lowest and most disagreeable

1‘10 HENRY WA RD BEECHER.

thing; and if you bring it cheerfully, for my sake, it
shall be to me a flower of remembrance, and I will press
it in the book of life, and keep it'forever.” Go, then,
search for flowers to bring to Christ; and if you can-
not find even road-side or pasture weeds,——if there are
but nettles and briars, and you are willing for his sake
to thrust your hand into the thorn bush, and bring a
branch from thence, he will take it 10vingly, and cherish
it evermore. -

Looking Through Tears.

Astronomers have built telescopes which can show myr-
iads of stars unseen before; but when a man looks through
a tear in his own eye, that is a lens which opens reaches
in the unknown, and reveals orbs which no telescope,
however skillfully constructed, could do; nay, which brings
to View even the throne of God.

The Silent Flowers.

Flowers are more life-like than many animals. We
converse with them; we often go to them if we are sorry
or glad. What a pity flowers can utter no sound! A
singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honey-
suckle. Oh! what a rare and exquisite miracle would
that be. But flowers are always silent; they speak to us,
but it is as the eye speaks, by vibrations of light and
not of air.

The Nightingale’s Nest.

Three natural philosophers go out into the forest and
find a nightingale’s nest, and forthwitlrthey begin to dis- _
cuss the habits of the bird, its size, its color, and the num-
ber of eggs it lays; and one pulls out of his pocket a
treatise of Buffon, and another of Cuvier, and another of
Audubon, and they read and dispute till at length the
quarrel runs so high over the empty nest, that they tear
each other’s leaves, and get red in the face, and the
woods ring with the conflict; when, 10! out of the green
shade of a neighboring thicket, the bird itself, rested, and
disturbed by these side noises, begins to sing. At first its
song is soft and low, and then it rises and swells, and

SELECTIONS:—ILLUSTRATIONS FROM NATURE. 111

waves of melody float up over the trees, and fill the air
with tremulous music, and all the forest doth hush; and
the entranced philosophers, subdued and ashamed of their
quarrel, shut their books and walk home without a word.
So men who around the empty sepulchre of Christ have
wrangled about the forms of religion, about creeds, and
doctrines, and ordinances, when Christ himself, disturbed
by their discords, sings to them, out of heaven, of love.
and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, are ashamed of
their conflicts, and go quietly and meekly to their duties.

——.——_—

The Perfume of the Orange Tree.

A man ought‘to carry himself in the world as an orange
tree would if it could walk up and down in the garden ——
swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up to
the air.

Migration of Birds.

7 Is it because seeds have failed in the south that birds
begin to flock north? Is it because summer has ceased
to warm the fields that they are flying hither ? Near the
time appointed by God for their migration the birds begin
with their peculiar instinct to yearn and long, and they
abstain from their wonted food, till, by and by, at a given
signal, they lift themselves up, and move in throngs through
the air toward the land where there is new summer. Now
God breathed a spiritual, migratory instinct into the hearts
of men. Not because they are not well off here, not
because they would be unclothcd; but because beyond and
above them there is something better and nobler than this
life, they long for perfectness.

—————-r—.‘

The Garden of the Lord.

How wretched a spectacle is a garden into which the
cloven footed beasts have entered! That which yesterday
was fragrant, and shone all over with crowded beauty, is
to-day rooted, despoiled, trampled, and utterly devoured,
and all over the ground you shall find but the rejected cuds
of flowers and leaves, and forms that have been chamned

112 HENRY WARD BEECHER. -

for their juices and then rejected. Such to me is the Bible
when the pragmatic prophecy-monger and the swinish util-
itarian have toothed its fruits and craunched its blossoms.
0 garden of the Lord! whose seeds dropped down from
heaven, and to whom angels bear watering dews night by
night! 0 flowers and plants of righteousness! 0 sweet and
holy fruits! We walk among you and gaze with loving eyes,
and rest under your odorous shadows; nor will we with
sacrilegious hand tear you, that we may search the secret
of your roots; nor spoil you, that we may know how such
wondrous grace and goodness are evolved within you!

Flowers Always Fragrant.

As flewers never put on their best clothes for Sunday,
but wear their spotless raiment and exhale their odor every
day, so let your Christian life, free from stain, ever give
forth the fragrance of the love of God.

Singing in Spite of Sneers.

What would the nightingale care if the toad despised
his singing? He would sing on, and leave the cold toad to
his dank shadows. And what care I for the sneers of men
who grovel upon earth? I will still sing on into the ear
and bosom of God.

Eating Green Apples.

He that sits at the foot of a tree in April and May to
eat green apples that fall down can afford to rail at Pomol-
ogy. That is what the old church has always been doing—
eating green apples, and worm-bitten ones at that! But when
the rounding seasons have ripened the fruit, and every bough
hangs low for the hand of the hungry to pluck from, men
will not rail at the acerb fruit, or its bitter rind. And the
View of those unexplained processes that have been going
on from creation up to the present time now grows
brighter and brighter with every age; and in the perfec-
tion of them we shall see that brute force has been con-
verted at last by gradual transitions and transfusions into
the bounty and blessing of the eternal God. All creation

SELECTIONS:—-—ILLUSTRATIONS FROM NATURE. 113

shall be a benefaction and a joy. Groans shall be turned
into chants and all longings into inefiable rejoicings.
Then, how worthily shall we join in the declaration, “God
hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and
things under the earth,”— all creation rising to rejoice in
the victorious issue of this sublime experiment in time.

The Cricket’s Cry.

We are apt to believe in Providence so long as we have
our own way; but if things go awry, then we think, if
there is a God, he is in heaven, and not on earth. The
cricket in the spring builds his little house in the meadow,
and chirps for joy because all is going so well with him.
But when he hears the sound of the plough a few furrows off,
and the thunder of the oxen’s tread, then the skies begin
to look dark, and his heart fails him. The plough comes
craunching along, and turns his dwelling bottom side up,
and as he goes rolling over and over without a home, he
says: “ O, the foundations of the world are destroyed, and
everything is going to ruin!” But the husbandman who
walks behind the plough, singing and whistling as he
goes, does he think the foundations of the world are break-
ing up? Why, he does not so much as know there was any
house or cricket there. He thinks of the harvest which is
to follow the track of the plough; and the cricket, too,
if he ‘will but wait, will find a thousand blades of grass.
where there wasbut one before. We are like the crickets. .
If anything happens to overthrow our plans, we think all
is going to ruin.

Spring Flowers Among. Men.

Our children that die young are like those spring bulbs
which have their flowers prepared beforehand, and have
nothing to do but to break ground, and blossom, and pass
away. Thank God for spring flowers among men, as well
as among the grasses of the field.

114 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

SOCIAL QUESTIONS.

Socialism.

Socialism is askin disease, and nothing but anarchy
disguised. Its aim is to accomplish everything through
the Government, wheleas American institutions teach
that everything should be attained through individual
exertion with the help of the Government. Many are at
present filled with fea1 and doubt because the newspapers
are filled with accounts of labor troubles, of strikes, and
the streets crowded with idle men. These people are not
able to distinguish between the surface trouble and the
disease of the body politic. Absolute individualism is one
great thing to be desired, because it begets intelligence
and forms the basis of society. That space between
society which now exists is daily becoming smaller, not
because the high classes are being lowered, but because the
lower classes are being lifted up. It is an inspiration from
God. Only tyrants believe that it comes from the devil.
At present the labor movement is adulterated with ele-
ments which are no part of it, and which it will reject in
time. Socialists and Anarchists, who have no excuse for
existing, rush to eve1y party which they expect to profit
by. I do not know whether the Anarchists are responsi-
ble. If we could only imprison them all it would be a
good thing, for they are as much out of the pale of society '
as the wolf, and it would be no more culpable to extermi-
nate them than it would be to stamp out the copperheads,
adders and other vipers. Socialism is absolutely the worst
form of monarchy. The believers in that doctrine reason
that five should be treated as ten, which is rather peculiar
arithmetic. Then there are people who ask the Govern-
ment to supply them with everything. They want their .
clothes made and their bread baked by the Government.
Give the Government these privileges and you give it all
powel. Let it do this, that and the other thing, and
place a crown on it all, and you have a tsar. The most
active men of the labor party are fmeigners, educated in
other countries, and have not yet abandoned their home
ideas. The foreign brand has not been ground out of
them yet. It is not standing for universal labor, but

SELECTIONS:——SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 115

fighting corporate labor. While they stick to that, I shall
not criticise them, because corporations are bad, and any
fight in that direction might benefit the workingman.
The labor troubles are somewhat like the complaints of
children, and should be watched the same. While chil-
dren must have measles and whooping-cough, yet theydo
not kill as a rule, and one attack prevents a recurrence of
the disease.

Feastings and Fooleries of the Night.

These dancings and feastings and fooleries at night,
besides being wicked on the ground of the waste of time,
are utterly unpardonable as being a sin against health and
against the functions of life for which men were created
of God. Did he create man to be a thistle-down? Were
women born to be butterflies? Were human beings made
to be mere triflers? Is there nothing for themselves,
nothing for mankind, nothing for the glory of God, that
is to try and task their energies in this life? If they arc-a
so using themselves, or prostituting themselves, as to turn
day into night and night into day, there will be a burning
account for them to render by and by. There is many
and many a dissipated one that will suffer retribution, not
only for indulgence in disallowable things, but for indul-
gence in allowable things in disallowable hours.

The Hard but Kind Bosom of Poverty.

I heard a man who had failed in business, and whose
furniture was sold at auction, say that when the cradle,
and the crib, and the piano went, tears would come, and,
he had to leave the house to be a man. Now there are
thousands of men who have lost their pianos, but who have
found better music, in the sound of their children’s voices
and footsteps going cheerfully down with them to poverty,
than any harmony of chorded instruments. 0, how blessed-
is bankruptcy when it saves a man’s children! I see many
men who are bringing up their children as I should bring
up mine, if when they were ten years old, I should lay them
011 a dissecting table and cut the s‘inews of their arms and
legs, so that. they could neither walk nor use their hands, but
only sit still and be fed. Thus rich men put the knife of
indolence and luxury to their children’s energies, and they

116 , HENRY WARD BEECHER.

grow up fatted, lazy calves, fitted for nothing, at twenty-
five, but to drink deep and squander wide; and the father
must be a slave all his life, in order to make beasts of his
children. How blessed, then, is the stroke of disaster
which sets the children free, and gives them over to the
hard but kind bosom of Poverty, who says to them,
“ Work!” and working makes them men!

Abstemious Youth.

I rejoice to say that I was brought up from my youth
to abstain from tobacco. It is unhealthy; it is filthy from-
beginning to end. In rare cases, where there is already
Some unhealthy or morbid tendency in the system, it is
possible that it may be used with some benefit; but ordi-
narily it is unhealthy. I believe that the day will come
when a young man will be proud of not being addicted to
the use of stimulants of any kind. I believe that the day
will come when not to drink, not to use tobacco, not to
waste one’s strength in the secret indulgence of passion,
but to be true to one’s nature, true to God’s law, to be
soundfrobust, cheerful, and to be conscious that these ele-
ments of health and strength are derived from the reverent
obedience of the commandments of God, will be a matter
of ambition and endeavor among men.

 

Fashion too Strong for the Pulpit.

It will be all in vain for the pulpit to inveigh against
fashion with any hope of suppressing it. It may be cor-
rected, educated, but never suppressed. Neither ridicule
nor reasoning will prevent the flow of that stream, whose
fountains are deep and organic. Newspaper essays, sermons,
lampoons, epigrams, fall upon fashion as dew upon a sleep-
ing lion. Fashion springs from a necessity of being attract-
ive, in part, also, but far less, from a relish of the beauti-
ful and‘yfrom the imitative faculty and the love of change
and novelty. These forces constitute, if not the deepest
and strongest, yet the most excitable and active of the
forces of the mind. Fasnion is an efflorescence of taste,
of sympathy, of the love of pleasing and the hunger for
admiration. It is not a mere surface peculiarity. One
may destroy this particular fashion, but not fashion itself.

SELECTIOst—SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 117

The great need, then, is not moral discourse,but education in
taste. Little by little the aesthetic education is becoming
part of our schools and seminaries. The general influence
of art cannot fail to limit oscillations of fashion in costume,
to repress violent contrasts Whether in form or color, and
to reduce the sphere in which extravagances are apt to
prevail.

Turning Night into Day.

I also protest against the use of night for social pleas-
ures to the extent which,-in cities and fashionable circles
especially, it is prostituted. Pleasures even within moral
bounds are not wholesome in the untimely hours of night.
The turning of night into day, thecreation of artificial
lights; the use of the day again, amidst all its din and
glare of excitements, for sleep—these things are not
wholesome. They are not wholesome either to the body
or the soul. ' .

You Must Fly High to Escape the Dust.

Dust, by its own nature, can rise only so far above
the road; and birds which fly higher never have it upon
their wings. So the heart that knows how to fly high
enough escapes those little cares and vexations which brood
upon the earth, but cannot rise above it into that purer air.

Heroes Down Staii's.

Then there are those who have capacity and sensibility
in this life, but are out of their sphere here. How many are
subordinates, but ought to be principals; as, on the other
hand, there are a great many principals that ought to be
subordinates. I do not say it in any sneering way, but do
you not know that servants are often vastly superior to their
masters and mistresses? Have you never seen a case where
the lady of the house'was in the kitchen? Have you never
seen a case where the mistress was arid as a desert, and the
servant full of all heroisms and generosities? Fortunately
it does not happen every day; but I still think that to a
very large extent we see true heroism amon the self-deny-
ing servants. I read with admiration of he millions of
Wages saved by the Irish. I am not a blarneying admirer

118 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

of the Irish. We cannot live without them, and we some-
times think that we cannot live with them. When I see
the way they treat the Chinaman I feel a good deal more
like using the shillelah than blarney. Nevertheless, I am
filled with admiration when I see that there is a golden
stream flowing steadily across the ocean from servants
poorly paid, who save it and husband it for their old
fathers and mothers in Ireland, or to bring over a brother,
and then a sister, and then another brother or sister.
They labor patiently night and day for it, but-not to
expend it for self-garniture, or for their pleasure; and
when I see that I say, “Our heroes are all down-stairs.
What do I, comparable to that?”

A Grand Call to Labor.

. Go forth to your labor, and what thing can you see
that hath not its message? The ground is full of sympa-
thy. The flowers have been printed with teachings. The
trees, that only seem to shake their leaves in sport, are
framing divine sentences. The birds tell of heaven with
their love-warblings in the green twilight. The sparrow
is a preacher of truth. The hen clucks and broods her
chickens, unconscious that to the end of the world she is
part and parcel of a revelation of God to man. The sheep
that bleat from the pastures, the hungry wolves that blink
in the forest, the serpent that glides noiselessly in the
grass, the raven that flies heavily across the field, the lily
over which his shadow passes, the plough, the sickle, the
wain, the barn, the flail, the threshing floor, all of them
are consecrated priests, unrobed teachers, revelators that
see no vision themselves, but that bring to us thoughts of
truth, contentment, hope and love. All are ministers of
God. The whole earth doth praise him and show forth
his glory.

Children a Part of Our Education.

 

Every child walks into existence through the golden
gate of love, else it would seem wonderful that the helpless
thing should be born. Yet children are not playthings, as
we too often seem to think they are — mere gifts of God
to fill up the hours with cheer. They were surely meant
to be a pleasure to us, but that is not the final end. Nor

SELECTIONS:-—SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 119

were they meant to be cares and burdens alone. To speak
of them as if they were shackles and fetters upon our free-
dom; always in the way; “ children, children, every-
where,” is a shame and a sin. They are to be regarded as
a part of our education. Men cannot be developed perfect-
1y who have not been compelled to bring children up to
manhood. You might as well say that a tree is a perfect
tree without leaf or blossom, as to say that a man is a man
who has gone through life without experiencing the influ-
ences that come from bending down, and giving one’s self
up to those who are helpless and little.

 

.—

The Mother’s Anchor.

A babe is a mother’s anchor. She cannot swing far
from her moorings. And yet a true mother never lives so
little in the present as when by the side of the cradle.
Her thoughts follow the imagined future of her child.
That babe is the boldest of pilots, and guides her fearless
thoughts down through scenes of coming years. The old
ark never made such voyage as the cradle daily makes.

How To Make Infidels.

There are many persons who have heard so much of
family government that they think there cannot be too much
of it. They imprison their children in stiff rooms, where a
fly is a band of music in the empty silence, and govern at
morning, and govern at night, and the child goes all day
long like a shuttle in the loom, back and forward, hit at
both ends. Children subjected to such treatment are apt to
grow up infidels, through mere disgust.

Work in the Morning.

I think the judgments formed at night are never so
solid and fresh as judgments formed in the morning. If
in the morning a man is without charity, if he is despond-
ent, if he is dull, if he is unnerved, you may be sure that
he is living wrong. For the order of nature is that a man
should rise from his bed in the morning as birds rise, sing-
ing, and in perfect health. ‘A man rises buoyant, and has

120 . HENRY WARD BEECHFER.

his best hours in the early day. For although perhaps the
fancy may not be so brilliant in the early day, the judg-
ment is better. The conclusions and determinations
which a man forms in the early day are apt to be safer and
sounder than those which he forms at night. Fancy for
the night, judgment for the day. And I would say to
every young person it concerns, form, if it is a possible
thing, the habit of doing your studying in the daytime,
and reserve your nights for lighter tasks, and keep early
hours with your bed. You do not profit (I do not care who
‘1 our exemplar is) by departing from the great influences
1111d laws of nature. There 1s many and many a man that
11 cars out prematurely, because, without one single unvii-
tuous or vicious habit, he grinds his life out with night
w01.k

 

God Does with Us as We with Children Do.

As, when our infant children are garnered in our
bosoms, we do not bless them according to their capacity
of asking, but according to the wealth of affection that is
in our hearts for them, so does God, lifting us up and
looking in our faces, bless us, not so much by what we
need to receive, as by what he hath to give. Clouds never
send down to ask the grass and plants belOw how much
they need, they rain for the relief of their own full bosoms.

Where does Fashion come from?

Fashion comes from no one knows where. Who invents
and who propagates? This ,is an unsolved mystery.
Where is the nest out of which come these flocks of forms,
colors, combinations? It is certain that in colors, fashion
is far nearer to a correct standard than in lines and combi-
nation of forms. Fine lines and simple forms are rare, but
the discords of color are rarer yet! And yet antiquity
gives us enduring examples of beauty and symmetry of'form;
but almost nothing of color! If it were not for the charm
of color, fashion would become hideous. The human form
is hardly considered as worthy of consideration. N ow
fashion pufi’s out behind, then swings around to the front
with swathing bandages suggestive of anything but beauty.
It iejoices in lumps; it swells out the long main—useless
and, in the circumstances in which it must needs be used,

SELECTIONS: —SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 121

absurd to ridiculousness— 011 the plea of the beauty of
flowing lines, and then it breaks up the next hour all sim-
ple lines by ruffles, flounces and dropsical bandages. We
may not hope, we may not desire even that fashion shall
become precise and repetitious. We may even wish that
it may enlarge the sphere of men’s dresses, both in colors
and forms. A well dressed man is to-day a plaster of white
on a background of black. There is no copiousness, no
range of color, no grace of fullness and elasticity. Color
is banished, grace and mutable forms are unknown. A
well-dressed man is scarcely more than a Sleek crow with a
white bib on his breast. Clergymen, gentlemen, and wait-
ers, come forth with the insignificant cockade of a cravat
on their necks — no scarfs, no flowery gowns, no richness
of color. If women’s fashions are borrowed from the glow
of sunrise, men’s are cut from the loom of midnight and
topped off with the clumsy, graceless and useless hat.

_——.__——_—_.

The Salamanders of Society.

The old fables say that there were creatures—salaman-
ders—that could live in the fire. I believe it. For I
have seen persons, ‘men and women, that lived in a
round of parties nearly every night for ten, fifteen, twenty,
thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years until they were perfectly
drained, perfectly used up, and had to go to Saratoga
or Newport to get over pleasure. Thgy had enjoyed
themselves so much that they were all run down. Their
energies were all wasted. Their vitality was all gone.
Their nerves were unstrung. Their digestion was impaired.
Their whole system was marked for disease.

Fickle Fashion.

Fashion is fickle, fantastic, changeable, and often.
destructive of taste or beauty. But these are the imper-
fections of fashion. It is in itself rooted in some of the
strongest elements of human nature. The sense of the
beautiful is stronger in woman than in man. The desire of
being attractive, the quick sense of what will be attractive,
are especially influential. It is true that the world’s great
artists have been men and not women. It is not any the less
true that women are, more than men, influenced by the

122 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

sense of the beautiful. In woman it follows her genius for
domesticity. It creates order and good taste in homes, it
refines conducttit blossoms in apparel, regulates etiquette,
and everywhere in the realms of home seeks to secure
elements of the beautiful.

“Midnight Oil ” the Worst Oil.

Do your work in the daytime; do not turn yourself into
a student at night. The practice has some charms, be-
cause we read in history and in literature about the mid-
night oil. I remember saying in a sermon once, and
which I now here repeat, that the worst oil that a man
ever burned was midnight oil. It wastes society. It not
only induces artificial excitement during that late hour
preceding sleep, which makes sleep less wholesome, less
nutritious, but in every way deranges a man’s habits.

 

 

_—

How to Deal with Boys.

The true method is to bring up every child under a
sense of responsibility, by one motive or another; to put a
pressure upon every child; and, if it be needful, to throw

im out into the world and compelohim to look after his
own welfare. Boys are taught to swim, sometimes, by
being pitched overboard and made to swim for their life;
they learn very quickly; so many a man, having brought his
child up to the threshold of life either intentionally or of
necessity, sends that child adrift.

Equality.

A man of talent could not be likened to one without.
Classes are going to exist, and there is going to be top,
bottom, and middle, and labor organization cannot break
that down. This idea of men wanting an equal number of
working hours to prevail among all is preposterous. I
don’t believe such a plan exists. If a man puts his own
clothes on his six-weeks old infant, does that make the
child his equal? The workingman’s position is better in
this country than it is in any other or ever was before.
The reason so many of them are suffering is because of the
immorality of industry. They want the enjoyment to-day,

SELECTIONS: —SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 123

and are not willing to look to the future. There is more
food squandered in their kitchens in a day than would be
wasted in the household of a good housekeeper for a week.
Domestic economy Should be practiced by them. Some
time ago I visited a nail manufactory, and was told that
some of the employés earned from $40 to $80 per week.
I at once remarked that the men must be nicely situated,
but to my surprise was told that but few of them were sit-
uated in that manner. An explanation proved that their
money was spent in gambling and drinking. These men
were making $80 a week and spending it recklessly, and
then they talk of their labor grievances. -

Eight Hours, a. Day.

Were our forefathers of New England satisfied with
eight hours a day? Time was the only capital those men
had, and the good uses they made of it laid the founda-
tions for our Government. When I hear of men asking
the Government for eight hours, with more pay, I cannot
bear it. I have no sympathy with eight-hour men who
have fourteen-hour wives. I want equality for everybody.
There are men in New York crying for land. These men
do not want land. It is the only thing they don’t want.
I favor organization for the workingmen because it tends
to educate them, but I do not think the labor problem can
be solved on the basis adopted by workingmen who seek
equality in labor.

The Child and the Man.

The way to become a man is to stop being a child—to
grow out of it, to grow beyond it, to grow larger than it.
This is the keynote, the philosophy of all growths and de-
velopments in human society. DeTocqueville, somewhere
in his “ History of France and the Revolution,” says that
all true growth will be found to be an unfolding of some-
thing that went before. All laws come from less perfect
ones; all institutions from partial ones. All improvements
are but a bettering, enlarging, emancipating of things
which were relatively smaller, and had to be because men
were smaller and could take but just so much at the times
when these laws, customs and manners were formed. _A
person, when he is a child, is measured for a child’s clothes

124 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

and is suited, and when he becomes a man is measured for
a man’s form; and nobody ever supposes that laying aside
the measure of a child’s clothes Would make him with-
out clohtes. They are adapted,‘and his measure follows
his growth; and all laws and all customs are but the
clothes which the internal morality or the internal spirit-
uality clothes itself with. And as the view enlarges the
clothes must enlarge, or else there will be extinction, suffo-
cation, some trouble or other.

—.—_.

Sad Faces of the Passing Crowd.

I sometimes go musing along the street to see how few
people there are Whose faces look as though any joy had
come down and sung in their souls. I can see lines of
thought, and of care, and of fear—money lines, shrewd,
grasping lines—but how few happy lines! The rarest feel-
ing that ever lights the human face is the contentment of
a loving soul. Sit for an hour on the steps of the Exchange
in Wall street, and you will behold a drama which is better
than a thousand theatres, for all the actors are real.

The 'Wear and Waste of the City.

The men that are wearing out are city men. It seldom
happens that city men breed strong men. For the city,
like the grindstone, takes off the edge and the very
steel from the sword, and the country has to send in its
new men all the time. N 0 city could perpetuate its power
and maintain its influence if it were not for the continual
recuperation of its population by the transmission of
country—bred men, who have kept right hours and observed
wholesome natural laws. They come in to make up for
the waste and consumption that arises from city practices.

What is the Use of Care and Worry;

What is the use of care and worry? Just so far as they
are necessary to stimulate activity they are beneficial; but
the moment they go beyond that they are actual hindrances.
I suppose that more than one-half of all the suffering of
humanity is sufiering on account of things that, never

SELECTIONS: —— POLITICS. 125

happen. I think if you will ‘look back and go over your
life, and winnow it, when you take out all the fret and
worry that really made you unhappy, and deprived you of
bright gleaming joy, you will find that it was the things
which never happened that you worried about. I think
you would find, on the other hand, that half of the good
things that have really befallen you were things that you
never dreamed of. It was the unexpected that came with-
out your anxiety; and the things which you were fretting
and worrying and twisting about incessantly, and which
you allowed to take away your peace of mind, and often-
times to take away your nerve, and unfit you for the battle
of life, were things that did not come near you. You
never learned from one day to another in that matter. You
fretted on Monday just as you did on Sunday, and on,
Tuesday just as you did on Monday, and on Wednesday
just as you did on Tuesday, and So on year after year.
You never learn anything about that. A man who at-
tempted to mend a kettle would learn in an hour that
every time he put a hot iron to it he made a bigger hole
than he mended, and after a few trials he would give that
up. But men go on making the same mistakes in the
whole conduct and economy of their life-work.

POLITICS.

 

Building the Waste Places.

In Texas I told the people that their State was large
enough for three, and they held up their hands in horror,
and said, “No; only one State!” I said, “Gentlemen,
there are at least six citizens who will want to be senators
of the United States, and they will be more powerful than
your desire, to keep the State in its present form.” Texas
is the *marvel of the world in its magnitude and its
resources. No man can form any idea of land until he has
traveled in Texas. The forests are few; and that is the
only mistake in'its makewup. An incredible pupulation is
pouring into Texas, and it is destined to be an empire. In
Texas, as in every one of the Southern States where I
lectured, I was received with more than hospitality— with

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cordiality, and the managers of the lecture tour had no
reason to complain. I do not desire to go among a people
more friendly. I spoke in every one of the Southern States
through which I passed, and I had not the most remote
conception that I should be so well received. I lectured in
New Orleans, Montgomery, Atlanta, Macon, Augusta,
Savannah and Charleston. There are a great many foolish
people in the South, as there are in the North, with old
prejudices. But I was surprised and delighted to see how
all the more intelligent and active cf the Southern people
had survived an evil sectional feeling. The war and all its
issues are substantially forgotten, and men are busy in
building up again what had been wasted and destroyed.
On the whole the material wealth in the South has been
recuperated, and is on a thousand times more secure a
basis than it was before the war. ‘

American Aristocrats.

In our land men have classified themselves. We have
aristocrats, but God made them; and there never will be a
time when mightiness of soul shall not overshadow little-
ness of soul. ._ It was designed that some .should be high,
some intermediate, and some low, as trees are some forty,
some a hundred, and some, the giant pines (how solitary
their tops must be!), three hundred feet in height. But,
however high their tops may reach, their roots rest in the
same soil; as men, though they can grow and tower aloft
as much as they pleaSe, still stand on a common level.

 

Phillips an Aristocrat.

It was at the beginning of an Egyptian era in America
that the young aristocrat of Boston appeared. His blood
came through the best colonial families. He was an aris-
tocrat by descent and by nature—a noble one, but a thor-
o‘ugh aristocrat. All his life and power assumed that
guise. He was noble, he was full of, kindness to inferiors,
he was willing to be and do and suffer for them; but he
was never of them, nor did he everequal himself to them.
He was always above them; and his giftsof love were
always the gifts of a prince to his subjects. All his life
long he resented every attack on his person and on his

SELECTIONS: — POLITICS. 127

honor as a noble aristocrat would. When they poured the
filth of their imaginations upon him, he cared no mo1e for
it than the eagle cares what the fly 1s thinking about him
away down under the cloud. All the miserable traffickers,
all the scribblers and all the aristocratic boobies of Boston
were no more to him than mosquitoes are to the behemoth
01' to the lion. He was aristocratic in his pride, and lived
higher than most men lived. He was called of God as
truly as ever Moses and the prophets were: not exactly for
the same great ends, but in consonance with those great
ends.

The Gospel Truth that Breaks Shackles. _

When I came to Brooklyn I was exhorted not to meddle
with so unpopular a subject. “What is the use?” was
said to me by a venerable master in Israel; “ why should
you lose your influence? Why don’t you go on and preach
the Gospel?” to which I replied, “ I don’t know any Gospel
of that kind. My Gospel has 1n it the breaking of piison
bars and shackles, ythe b1inging forth of prisoners, and if I
can’t p1each that I won’t pieach at all.” The very first
sermon that I ever preached before this congregation ——or
rather, the congregation that met me —- was the declaration
of my principles on temperance, on peace and war, and,
above all, on— the subject of slavery.

Slavery an Accident.

At the beginning, 1n the history of this people, slavery
was the accident: it was introduced at a time before the
world’s seyes had been opened; it came in, indeed, under
the cover of benevolence; it had not attained a very great
estate for many years; and yet, in the days of its infancy,
it so conflicted with the fundamental ideas on which our
institutions and laws were based, that the Northern States
got rid of it. Because the climate and husbandly were
not favorable to it 1n the Northern States, they we1e helped
to do it; but the spi1it of 11be1ty had taken on the moral
element 111 New England, in New Yor,k and in Pennsyl-
vania; and so itrwas soon extinguished. In the South it
became a very important industrial element. Rice, sugar,
cotton we1e the trinity that dominated the industry of the
South, and slave labor was favorable to this simple indus-

128 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

try. It became, therefore, a pecuniary interest to the
South, as it never Was in the North. After a time (the
industry became so important that, although throughout
all the South in the earlier days men recognized slavery as
a sin, and its existence'as a great misfortune, and always
hoped that the day would speedily come for emancipation;
yet all those hopes and expectations were met and resisted
and overthrown by the fact that slavery became a political
interest. It became the center which united every South-
ern State with every other, and gave unity to the party of
the South; so that political reasons, rooted in pecuniary.
reasons, gave great strength to slavery and its propagand-
ism in the South; The North emancipated; the South
fortified.

Liberty.

Liberty is the soul’s right to breathe, and when it can-
not take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight. With-
out liberty man is in a syncope. -

 

The Status of the Negro.»

As regards the negro I have received testimony most
welcome. The general impression I received was, that the
colored people are increasing. The mixture of races has
declined through the South; the white folk are white and
the black folk are black. We are not going to have as
much mixture as we used to. Education is going on, and
the Southern people of good sense and feeling are desirous
of having the black people educated. In the cities they
are being admirably educated, and they are everywhere
eager to learn. The American Missionary Association is
doing an especially good work. 'When the colored people
own land they prosper. The white people object to selling
it to them, and for the same reason that people in New
York and Brooklyn do not like to sell land to be occupied
by an objectionable class. The younger negroes are rather
disposed to be indolent, and the most prosperous are the
former slaves. I was asked as to my views about social
equality. I replied that the theory of religion was that all
men were equal, but that practice indicated that social
equality should not be forced, but that men should grow
into relationships that are necessary. Schools should not

SELECTIONS: —— POLITICS. 129

be forced to have both black and white children. Time
will settle the matter, and the future will take care of
itself. The civil rights decision was much discussed, but
I told those who asked me that it would work good to the
colored people. Their rights would be gradually allowed,
not as a matter of law but of courtesy. The road of the
colored people up to equality is by intelligence, virtue and
religion, and they are traveling on that road. I believe
that they have achieved liberty, responsibility, and as much
social equality as is good for them till they have earned
more.

Would I Help a Slave to Gain His Freedom?

Do you ask me whether I would help a slave to gain his
freedom ? I answer, I would help him with heart and hand
and voice. I would do for him what I shall wish I had done,
when, having lost his dusky skin and blossomed into the
light of eternity, he and I shall stand before our Master,
who will say, “Inasmuch as ye did it unto him, slave as he
was, ye did it unto me.”

Estimate of Wendell Phillips.

The power to discern right amid all the wrappings of
interest and all the seductions of ambition was singularly
his. To choose the lowly for their sake: to abandon all
favor, all power, all comfort, all ambition, all greatness—
that was his genius and glory. I-Ie confronted the spirit of
the nation and of the age. I had almost said, he set himself
against nature, as if he had been a decree of God over-
riding all these other insuperable obstacles. That was his
function. Mr. Phillips was not called to be a universal
orator, any more than he was a universal thinker. In
literature and in history he was widely read; in person
most elegant; in manners most accomplished; gentle as
a babe; sweet as a new-blown rose; in voice, clear and
silvery. He was not a man of tempests; he was not
an orchestra of a hundred instruments; he was not an
organ, mighty and complex. The nation slept, and God
wanted a trumpet, sharp, far-sounding, narrow and in-
tense; and that was Mr. Phillips. The long roll is not
particularly agreeable in music or in times of peace, but it
is better than flutes or harps when men are in a great

9

130 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

battle, or are on the point of it. His eloquence was pene-
trating and alarming. He did not flow as a mighty gulf
stream; he did not dash upon the continent as the ocean
does; he was not a mighty rushing river. His eloquence was
a flight of arrows, sentence after sentence, polished, and
most of them burning. He shot them one after the other,
and where they struck they slew; always elegant, always
awful. I think scorn in him was as fine as I ever knew it
in any human being. He had that sublime sanctuary in
his pride that made him almost insensitive to what would by
other men be considered obloquy. It was as if he said
every day, in himself, “ I am not what they are firing at;
I am not there, and I am not that. It is not against me.
I am infinitely superior to what they think me to be. They
do not know me.” It was quiet and unpretentious, but it
was there. Conscience and. pride were the two concurrent
elements of his nature.

He lived to see the slave emancipated, but not by moral
means. He lived to see the sword cut the fetter. After
this had taken place he was too young to retire, though too
old to gather laurels of literature or to seek professional
honors. The impulse of humanity was not at all abated.
His soul still flowed on for the great under masses of man-
kindhthough like the Nile it split up into diverse mouths,
and not all of them were navigable.

After a long and stormy life his sun went down in
glory. All the English-speaking people on the globe have
written among the names that shall never die, the name
of that scoffed, detested, mob-beaten Wendell Phillips.
Boston, that persecuted and would have slain him, is now
exceedingly busy in building his tomb and rearing his
statue. The men that would not defile their lips with his
name are to-day thanking God that he lived.

He has taught a lesson that the young will do well to
take heed to—the lesson that the most splendid gifts and
opportunities and ambitions may be best used for the dumb.
and the lowly. His whole life is a rebuke to the idea that
we are to climb to greatness by climbing up on the backs
of great men; that we are to gain strength by running
with the currents of life; that we can from without add
anything to the great within that constitutes. man. He
poured out the precious ointment of his soul upon the feet
ofthat diffusive Jesus who suffers here in his poor and
despised ones. He has taught the young ambitions too —

SELECTIONS: ——.. POLITICS. 131

that the way to glory is the way, oftentimes, of adhesion
simply to principle; and that popularity and unpopularity
are not things to be known or considered. Do right and
rejoice. If to do right will bring you into trouble, rejoice
that you are counted worthy to suffer with God and the
providences of God in this world.

He belongs to the race of giants, not simply because he
was in and of himself a great soul, but because he bathed
in the providence of God, and came forth scarcely less than
a god; because he gave himself to the work of God upon
earth, and inherited thereby, or had reflected upon him,
some of the majesty of his master. When pigmies are all
dead, the noble countenance of Wendell Phillips will still
look forth, radiant as a rising sun—a sun that will never
set. He has become to us a lesson, his death an example,
his whole history an encouragement to manhood ——to
heroic manhood.

Remedy for Mormonism.

Well, what is the remedy? Let them alone; receive
them into the Union; withdraw your soldiers; let them
have their church; let them be open to all the influences
that are affecting the public sentiment of every other state
in the Union; send there your intelligent teachers; establish
schools among them as you do among the heathen; send in
there those who can preach a better Gospel. Do you be-
lieve that while we may convert the people of Asia and
Africa, there is nothing in the Gospel that can touch Utah?
Take persecution off from them; Go back absolutely to
moral influences. Take away from them the feeling that
they are singled out from all the peOple on this continent,
and held in, and denied their civil rights, and are abused
on account of their religion. Take away all that, substi-
tute kindness and patient teaching and preaching of the
Gospel with more piety and fervor than‘ it is now preached
to them, and wait for time. It is not likely that they are
going to take possession of all the United States. If there
be any such thing as the superiority of intelligence over
ignorance; if therevbe any such thing as the‘ triumph of
divine power or pure faith over an abject superstitious
faith; if there. be any truth in the claim that liberty eman-
cipates men; if it be true that the Gospel of Jesus Christ
is adequate to all the emergencies of depravity and wicked-

132 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

ness, in‘ high places and in low, it would seem to me that
the way of the future must be the way of religion in all the
days that have gone by. It is an odious thing to have such
a stink pot right in the midst of the nation; we loathe the
mere thought of polygamy; and yet I don’t see any other
way to eradicate it. So far as I can see at present there
are but two courses: one is by the sword of the govern-
ment, and the other is by the word of the Lord; and of the
two it seems to me that I would a little rather trust to the
sword of the Lord than to the sword of Gideon.

The Mormon Creed.

As a general thing, the Mormon people believe in Mor-
monism. If our people believed as earnestly in Christian-
ity as these people do in Mormonism, we should see the
world revolutionized. We are to take into account also
the strong use made by their teachers of the promise of
heaven or the threat of hell. Every one of them believes
in hell, and in heaven, and the hope or the fear in regard
to the future is—certainly so far as the women are con-
cerned —the key-note of polygamy. It is not in the nature
of woman to desire to have a multitude of companion-
wives, but if the safety of her soul demands it, as the Mor-
mon doctrine teaches—for the sake of the salvation of her
soul, she may agree to curtail her marital rights on this
earth, and it is the promise of life everlasting, onrwhat they
consider the direct testimony of God, which leads them to
submit to this unwarrantable condition. Not half of the
Mormons are polygamists, but all believe in polygamy as a
divine institution. '

Mormon Statistics.

This people are increasing and buying all the land they
can cultivate by irrigation in all the adjoining States and
‘Territories and are constantly spreading. At the Mor-
mon Conference held in Salt Lake in October, 1884, the
Apostle Cannon presented statistics of the church, showing
the membership in Utah to be 127,290; the number of
families, 23,000; new members admitted, 23,000; the
church organization—mark this, how thoroughly they
are governed, and how many men there are that
have an interest in, the maintenance of this system——

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. 133

the church organization embraces, first, the president;
thcn twelve apostles; then fifty-eight patriarchs, 3,885
sentinels, 3,153 high priests, 11,000 choirs, 1,500 bishops,
and 4,000 deacons. Pretty well officeredl In Arizona
there is a membership of 2,262; in Idaho, twice as many.
Eighty-one missionaries were appointed last year to go on
missions to Europe and the United States. Eighteen of
this number were set apart for missions to the Southern
States, where the church is meeting considerable suc-
cess in increasing its membership. The Southern converts
are being colonized mainly in Colorado. That is the con-
dition of things as near as I could judge.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Why God Made the World.

God made the world to relieve an over-full creative
thought; as musicians sing, as we talk, as artists sketch
when full of suggestions. What profusion is there in his
work! When trees blossom there is not a single breastpin,
but a whole bosom full of gems; and of leaves they have
so many suits that they can throw them away to the winds
all summer long. What unnumbered cathedrals has He
reared in the forest shades, vast and grand, full of curious
carvings, and haunted evermore by tremulous music; and
in the heavens above, how do stars seem to have flown out
of his hand, faster than sparks out of a mighty forge!

 

Two Things tmDelight the Soul.

There are two things that delight my very soul. First,
I delight to see a hard-working and honest laboring man,
especially if he has some dirty calling like that, for in-
stance, of a butcher, a tallow-chandler, or a dealer in fish
or oil —I delight to see such a man get rich, by fair and
open methods, and then go and build him a house in the
best neighborhood in the place, and build it so that every-
body says, “ He has got a fine house, and it is in good taste
too.” It does me good, it makes me fat to the very mar-

134 ' HENRY WARD BEECHER.

row to see him do that. And, next, when he prospers, I
delight to see him, after he has built his house so as to
adapt it to all the purposes of a household, employ his
wealth with such judicious taste, and manifest such an
appreciation of things fine and beautiful, that it shall say'to
the world, with silent words louder than any vocalization,
“ A man may be a’workingman and follow a menial call-
ing, and yet carry within him a noble soul and have a
cultivated and refined nature.” I like to see men that
have been chrysalids break their covering and come out
with all the beautiful colors of the butterfly.

The Busy are the Happy.

Happiness, according to the laws of nature and of God,
inheres in voluntary and pleasurable activities; and
activity increases happiness in proportion as it is diffusive.
No man can be so happy as he who is engaged in a regular
business that tasks the greatest part of his mind. I had
almost said that it is the beau ideal of happiness for a man
to be so busy that he does not know whether he is or is not
happy; who has not time to think about himself at all.
The man who rises early in” the morning, joyful and happy,
with an appetite for business as well as for breakfast; who
has a love for his work, and runs eagerly to it as a child
to its play; who finds himself refreshed by it in every part
of his day, and rests after it as from a wholesOme and
delightful fatigue,— has one great and very essential
element of happiness.

Concerning Modern Literature.

It is both a shame and an amazing wonder that the lit-
erature of a Christian nation should reek with a filth which
Pagan antiquity could scarcely endure; that the ministers
of Christ should have left floating in the pool of oifensive
writings much that would have brought blood to the cheek
of a Roman priest, and have shamed an actor of the
school of Aristophanes. Literature is, in turn, both the
cause and effect of the spirit of the age. Its eifect upon
this age has been to create a lively relish for exquisitely
artful licentiousness, and disgust only for vulgarity. A
witty, brilliant, suggestive indecency is tolerated for the

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. 135

sake of its genius. An age which translates and floods the
community with French novels (inspired by Venus and
Bacchus), which reprints in popular forms Byron and Bul-
.wer and Moore and Fielding, proposes to revise Shake-
speare and expurgate the Bible! Men who, at home, allow
Don Juan to lie within reach of every reader, will not allow
a minister of the Gospel to expose the evil of such a litera-
ture. To read authors whose lines drop with the very gall
of death; to vault in elegant dress as near the edge of
indecency as is possible without treading over; to express
the utmost possible impurity so dexterously that not a vul-
gar word is used, but rosy, glowing, suggestive language
—-this, with many, is refinement. But to expose the
prevalent vice, to meet its glittering literature with the
plain and manly language of truth, to say nothing except
what one desires to say plainly —this, it seems, is vulgar-
ity!

Interaction.

He who enters upon the theme of the interaction of the
human mind and the divine mind, launches upon a wide and
solemn sea, fathomless, shoreless, and dark, as yet. Better
than Columbus sailing westward, will come Jesus to quell
the waves, illumine the darkness, and reveal the shore.
The human mind is the kernel; the material world is but
the shell or rind. As yet science has chiefly concerned
itself with the shell. The unexplored soul is yet to be
found out.

Be Jealous of Your Word.

Be very careful about your word. Be very shy of giv-
ing it; but, once uttered, let it change to adamant. Be
as careful of it as if you were fully conscious that the eye
of the living God was upon you, for it is upon you. Once
having given it, never allow yourself to take it up and
weigh it. The moment a man begins to think about a dis-
honesty, he has half committed it; the moment a man
begins to think about a lie,‘ he has half told it; the
moment a man begins to pull out his word or his promise
to examine it, you may be sure he will break it; as when,
in an affray, a soldier begins to pull his sword from its
sheath, you know that there is blood going to be spilt some-
where. When a man, after having given his word, begins

136 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

to say, “ I do not mean to break my promise, but if I did
there would be good cause. Is there not some flaw in it ?
can I not interpret it thus and so ?”— that moment his
word, and with it his honor, is good for nothing. Never
deliberate on your word, but let it go as the arrow goes to
the target— let it strike and stand.

The Law of Preferment.

Do the best you can where you are; and when that is
accomplished, God will open a door for you, and a voice
will call, “ Come up hither into a higher sphere.” '

Butterfly Life.

We are not sent into life as a butterfly is sent into sum-
mer, gorgeously hovering over the flowers, as if the interior
spirits of the rainbow had come down to greet these kisses
of the season upon the ground; but to labor for the world’s
advancement, and to mould our characters into God’s like-
ness, and so, through toil and achievement, to gain happi-
ness. . I would rather break stones upon the road, if it
were not for the disgrace of being in a chain gang, than to
be one of those’ contemptible joy-mongers, who are so rich
and so empty that they are. continually going about to find
something to make them happy. ‘

 

Drinking Habits of Society.

Our government is an equal government, as such. We
have cast our lot with this great principle of popular gov-
ernment, and we must go up with it, or go down with it.
It is for us to maintain our institutions, if they are main-
tained at all; and, unless we can teach individuals and the
masses self-respect and self-control, we are utterly ruined. "
It is a mere matter of time. There is no salvation for in-
stitutions like ours except in the principle of self-control.
And there is no single evil, social or political, that strikes
more at the foundation of such institutions than the drink-
ing habits of society. If you corrupt the working-class by
drink; if you corrupt the great middle class by drink; if
you corrupt the literary and wealthy classes by drink, you
have destroyed the commonwealth beyond your power to

SELECTIONS: -— MISCELLANEOUS. 137

save it. And we are makin battle for the preservation of
this moral principle. It ist e great patriotic movement of
the day. Therefore, we must have clear heads; we must
have right consciences; we must have all the manhood that
is in men, or the good that is in society will not be a match
for the evil that is continually pulling it down.

The Passion For Stealing.

The terrible passion for stealing rarely grows upon the
young, except through the necessities of their idle pleasures.
Business is first neglected for amusement, and amusement
soon becomes the only business. The appetite for vicious
pleasure outruns the means of procuring it. The theater,
the circus, the card-table, the midnight carouse, demand
money. When scanty earnings are gone, the young man
pilfers from the till. First, because he hopes to repay, and
next, because he despairs of paying; for the disgrace of
stealing. ten dollars or a thousand will be the same, but not
their respective pleasures. Next, he will gamble, since it
is only another form of stealing. Gradually excluded from
reputable society, the vagrant takes all the badges of vice,
and is familiar with her paths, and through them enters
the broad road of crime. Society precipitates its lazy mem-
bers, as water does its filth, and they form at the bottom a
pestilent sediment, stirred up by every breeze of evil into
riots, robberies, and murders.

God and the Flowers in Council.

What if God should command the flowers to appear
before him, and the sunflower should come bending low
with shame because it was not a violet, and the violet
should come striving to lift itself up to be like a sunflower,
and the lily should seek to gain the bloom ofthe rose, and
the rose the whiteness of the lily; and so, each one, dis-
daining itself, should seek to grow into the likeness of the
other. God would say, “Stop, foolish flowers! I gave
you your own forms, and hues, and odors, and I wish you
to bring What you .have received. 0 sunflower, come as a
sunflower; and you, sweet violet, come as a violet; and let
the rose bring the rose’s bloom, and the lily the lily’s
whiteness.” Perceiving their folly, and ceasing to long

138 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

for what they had not, violet and rose, lily and geranium,
mignonette and anemone, and all the floral train, would
come, each in its own loveliness, to send up its fragrance
as incense, and all to wreathe themselves in a garland of
beauty about the throne of God.

The “ Madonna de San Siste.”

Have you ever stood in Dresden to watch that matchless
picture of Raphael’s, the “Madonna de San Siste? ” Engrav-
ings of it are all through the world; 'but no engraving has
ever reproduced the mother’s face. The infant Christ
that she holds is far more nearly represented than the
mother. In her face there is a mist. It is wonder, it is
love, it is adoration, it is awe; it is all these mingled, as
if she held in her hands her babe, and yet it was God!
That picture means nothing to me as it does to the Roman
Church; but it means everything to me, because I believe
that every mother shOuld love the God that is in her child,
and. that every mother’s heart should be watching to dis-
cern and see in the child, which is more than flesh and
blood, something that takes hold of immortality and glory.

Saturday Evening.

Every Saturday evening has to my ear a gentle knell.
The week tolls itself away; the first second, third, fourth,
fifth, sixth, and the perfect seventh, and I can almost hear
them beating a melodious measure as they recede.

All Great Hopes Rest on a Belief in Immortality.

The general doctrine that we live again, and that the
other life makes up for the inequalities of this, is a doc-
trine, I think, that underlies all hope. If you should
destroy the doctrine of immortality, I believe that in two
hundred years you could not maintain liberty on earth.
The materialism which destroys the future life or the
hope of it, and bids the soul to go out like a bubble,
expanding and bursting, would lead to the most disastrous
moral results. It would feed selfishness, arrogant pride,
abuse of power, from which men have endured enough
already. The hope of the poor, the hope of the desolate,

SELECTIONS: —— MISCELLANEOUS. 139

the hope of refinement, the hope of everything that is
noblest in civilization, turns on this belief in immortality.
The race believe in it. Why does philosophy want to take
away that which has been the hope and desire of mankind
through many dreary ages? Why dash out the light of
heaven, that is almost our only guide and our only hope?
In this life flesh has been the strongest. In the other life
the spiritual element will be strongest; and there will be
final victory.

Pride.

Pride sl-ays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil
out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is sel-
dom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much
as he deserves. When any mercy falls, he says, “ Yes but
it ought to be more. It is only manna as large as a cor-
iander seed, whereas it ought to be like a baker’s loaf.”
Howl base a pool God’s mercies fall into, when they
plash down into such a heart as that! If one should
give me a dish of sand, and tell me there were par-
ticles of iron in it, I might look for them with my eyes,
and search for them with my clumsy fingers, and be
unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and
sweep through it, and how would it draw to itself the
almost invisible particles, by the mere power of attraction!
The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, dis-
covers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep
through the day, and as the magnet finds the iron, so it
will find in every hour some heavenly blessings; only the
iron in God’s sand is gold.

Professor Swing and Dr. Thomas.

Was there ever a sweeter nature than that of Dr. Thomas
of Chicago? But he differed in some respects from his
Methodist brethren; and when they came together to dis-
cuss it, they gnashed their teeth upon him because he held
views contrary to Methodism. He was Christ-like, he was
sweet-minded and pure-lived, but they cast him out. Was
there ever a man whose simplicity of life and perpetual
aim in sweetness, in knowledge, and in light surpassed that
of Professor Swing? His piety was universally recognized
and his disposition. Yet Presbyterianism could not con-

140 HENRY WARD B’EECHER.

tain him within its bounds, because his thoughts traversed
the lines of Presbyterianism. But a bird has the right to
fly just as high as its wings will carry it. A mole has a
right to go just where its nature carries it. If birds were
subject to the control of worms and moles, what a time
there would be! Wings would be at a discount, and he
would not be othodox that did not creep and crawl. The
liberty of intelligence, of purity, and of love surpassing, is
absolute and universal. ,

A Five-Story Competency.

Many men want wealth —- not a competence alone, but a
five-story competence. Every thing subserves this; and
religion they would like as a sort of lightning rod to their
houses, to ward off, by and by, the bolts of divine wrath.

God Will Take Care of the Universe.

Meanwhile, if you believe in God, do not fret and worry.
God is going to take care of the universe. I know there
are multitudes of men who think they are sent into the
world as God’s vicegerents. They tell God in their prayers
a good many things he never knew before, and he smiles at
their advice in many other relations. But one thought ought
to steady every man’s heart. It is that God is perfectly
wise and perfectly good, and is unfolding this earth indi-
vidually and collectively in the ages. Let us accept God
and rest in him. Let us not worry 'nor fret ourselves at
what men do, nor churches nor nations, nor any other
thing, but “trust in the Lord and do good.” Write that
over your desks. Write that over your cradles. Carry it
in your mind day by day. It is astonishing what peace you
will get out of it.

A Glorious Age.

Do not be discouraged, then, when men cry out that
we are coming into an age of indifference and an age of
infidelity. There never was a time when men were so lit-
tle indifferent as they are to-day. There never was a time
when father and mother cared so much how their children
were brought up as to-day. There never was a time when
churches were soanxious that the salt of salvation should

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. ' 141

be strewn over the whole community as to-day. The very
Willingness of men to try new views or new ways springs
from the developed desire for the renovation of human
nature. There never was so much sympathy; there never
was so much philanthropy; there never was so much active
benevolence, self-denial. and consecration of wealth as
there is to-day. All these things, while they are the fruit
of divine inspiration, are lifting the standard of human
existence higher and higher, and rendering men capable of
nobler thoughts, more perfect sanctification and more
glorious achievements.

The Law of Force in Matter.

The law of force in matter is universal, and in regard
to inorganic matter imperative. In regard to organic
matter in the lower forms, as in the vegetable kingdom,
and in regard to the lower forms of animal life, the law of
force is supreme. The grand laws to which nature wit-
nesses, is that the strong prevail everywhere. In all the
underkingdom of organic life, vegetable or animal, the
weak go to-the wall. And there has been pointed out a
certain benevolence in that, inasmuch as the tendency isin
all the lower forms of life to extinguish the weak and leave
only the strong, the full developed, the vigorous, the
healthy, to propagate their species. And yet, if that law
were carriedrstraight on through, as partially as it has been
in society since man has been developed, it would be to the
end, as it has been, a law of cruelty against which it would
seem to be almost impossible to develop Christian experi-
ence and faith.

A Poor Bargain.

Suppose a man should buy the best paintings of the,
old masters, and the choicest pieces of the new artists, to
fill his gallery, and should give one ray of eyesight for
every new picture, so that when he had finished his collec-
tlon he was as blind as a bat—what good would these
pictures do him? Suppose a man should buy provision,
and heap his barn full, and fill his stalls with fine steeds
and cattle, and fill his bins with grain, and should pay for
these numerous treasures by giving up one part after
another of his house, so that when he got his barn well

142 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

stored he should have no house to live in—howmuch
would he enjoy the abundance of his winter’s provisions?
And yet, are not men doing that which is as foolish as this
would be? Are they not paying for money by sacrificing
their conscience? Many of them are saying, “It is not
possible for us to prosper in business if we stop to meddle
with taste. We cannot now attend to sentimentality. In
the conflicts of life and in the rivalries of business, if men
are going to succeed they must push right ahead, and not
stand for trifles.” For success, do not men pay their sen-
sibility? do they not pay their household enjoyments? do
they not pay Wholesome pleasures? And when they have
at last attained success, have they not given up the best
part of their being, and are they not utterly unfitted to
enjoy that success?

Love Makes Summer in the Soul.

What trees are in summer, covered with leaves and
blossoms, exhaling perfume, and filled with merry birds
that sing out of their hidden choirs, are conscience, ven-
eration, fear even, when they are shined upon by love;
but without love, any of these faculties is like that tree in
winter, through which the wind whistles and the storm—
gaunt, leafless, bloodless.

Self-Government.

Now, the administration of one’s wealth, or of one’s
affairs, in a close, careful and successful way, is morally
beneficial, inasmuch as it means self-denial, forethought,
arrangement with a purpose, followed by a definite action
of the will. All these things are self-governing elements.
Self-government may begin with pecuniary matters as well
as with other affairs. Thousands of men take their first
step in moral life through the drill which economy
requires. And no young man, whatever his situation in
life may be, has a right to despise economy, or has a right
to be careless or profuse in the expenditure of his means.
No matter if a man’s hands are in mines of wealth, he has
no right to make a wasteful use of that wealth. N 0 man
- has a right to go from youth to manhood without having
formed rigid habits of economy. If you are poor, then the
way out of poverty into wealth is through economy; if you

SELECTIONS: -— MISCELLANEOUS. 143

are rich, then you should administer your riches so that
your example shall be a blessing and not a curse .to the
community. You are God’s steward, and you have no
right to recklessly spend money that you did not earn—
though young men seem mostly to think that they have a
right to scatter all the money that they can lay their
hands on!

Mozart and Raphael.

Mozart and Raphael! As long as the winds make the
air give forth sounds, and the sun paints the earth with
colors, so long shall the world not let these names die.

Shorten Your Line.

When I used to fish in mountain streams, if I had a
short line and rod, I could direct it easily, and throw it
into this or that pool as I pleased; but if I let out my line
till it was twenty or thirty feet long, I could not direct it,
but I was the victim of every floating stick, and jutting
rock, and overhanging bough. So I have seen men wad-
ing down the stream of life, jumping from stone to stone,
slipping on this rock, and falling into that pool, because
their line was so long they could do nothing with it—a
line that reached down forty years, sometimes. Now, if
you would avoid these difficulties, shorten your line .’ Let
it reach over one day only; for “sufficient unto the day is
the evil thereof.” To the man who is living weeks or
years in advance of the present, God says, “Go back, go
back to your duties. Work while the day lasts, and take
no thought for the morrow. I am master down here.” ,

The Grandest Ideal of Manhood.

The Bible gives the only grand ideal of manhood known
to literature. Great qualities have been praised by pagans,
but there has never been in any literature that I know of any-
thing more than dashes at the truth. From the remotest
and darkest periods, there has come to us through the Bible
the truth that love is the organizing center of human
character, the only quality to which all other elements
of the mind will submit; the natural, organic force, which

144 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

develops order and harmony. It is more than a descant on
the beauty and sweetness of personal affection. The Bible
reveals Love as the Universal Law of Humanity. Nor has
this been without its commentary, in the fact that within
the last two thousand years men have been. growing up into
the stature and spirit of Jesus Christ, approximately real-
izing this otherwise ideal conception of what man may
become. _

Ships for Sailing more than for Beauty.

It is not enough for a man to build a ship so that it
looks beautiful as it stands on the stocks. What though a
man build his vessel so trim and graceful that all admire it,
if when she comes to be launched she is not fit for the sea,
if she cannot stand stormy weather, if she is a slow
sailer and a poor carrier, if she is liable to founder
on the voyage? A ship, however pretty she may be, is
not good for anything unless she can battle with the
deep. That is the place to test her. All her fine lines
and grace and beautyare of no account if she fails there.
It makes no difference how splendidly you build so far as
this world is concerned, your life is a failure unless you
build so that you can go out into the great future on the
eternal sea of life. We are to live on. We are not to live
again, but we are to live without break. Death is not an
end. It is a new impulse.

The Cynic.

The cynicis one who never sees a good quality in a
man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human
owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for
vermin, and never seeing noble game. The cynic puts all
human actions into only two classes—openly bad, and
secretly bad. All virtue and generosity and disinterested-
ness are merely the appearance of good, but selfish at
the bottom. He holds that no man does a good thing
except for profit. The effect of his conversation upon your
feelings is to chill and sear them, to send you away
sore and morose. His criticisms end in innuendoes, fall
indiscriminately upon every lovely thing, like frost upon
flowers. If a man is said to be pure and chaste, he will

SELECTIONS: —— MISCELLANEOUS. 145

answer, Yes, in the. daytime. If a woman is pronounced
virtuous, he will reply, Yes, as el. Mr. A. is a religious
man: Yes, on Sundays. Mr. B as just joined the church:
Certainly; the elections are coming on. The minister of
the Gospel is called an example of diligence: It is his
trade. Such a man is generous: 0f- other men’s money.
This man is obliging: To lnll suspicion and cheat you].
That man is upright: Because he is green. Thus his eye
strains out every good quality and takes in only the bad.
To him religion is hypocrisy, honesty a preparation for
fraud,virtue only a want of opportunity.

No Bible in the Slave’s Cabin.

The Bible Society is sending its Shiploads of. Bibles all
over the world—to Greenland and the Morea, to Arabia
and Egypt; but it dares not send them to our own people.
The colporteur who Should leave a Bible in a slave’s cabin
would go to heaven from the lowest limb of the first tree.
It was hell, among the ancients, that was guarded by a
hundred-headed dog; in this country, it is heaven that has
the Cerberus. -

On Communion Day.

My friends, my heart is large to-day. I am like a tree
upon which rains have fallen till every leaf is covered with
drops of dew; and no wind goes through the boughs but I
hear the pattering of some thought of joy and gratitude.
I love you all more than ever before. You are crystalline
to me. Your faces are radiant; and I look through your
eyes as through windows into heaven. I behold in each of
you an imprisoned angel, that is yet to burst forth, and to
love and shine in the better sphere. ‘

The Earthquakes of Commerce.

Every few years commerce has its earthquakes, and the
tall and toppling warehouses which haste ran up are first
shaken down. The hearts of men fail them for fear; and
the suddenly rich, made more suddenly poor, fill the land
with their loud laments. But nothing strange has hap-
pened. When the whole story of commercial disasters is

146 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

told, it is only found out that they who slowly amassed the
gains of useful industry built upon a rock, and they who
flung together the imaginary millions of. commercial
speculations built upon the sand. When times grew dark
and the winds came, and the floods descended and beat
upon them both, the rock sustained the one, and the shift-
ing sand let down the other. If a young man has no
higher- ambition in life than riches, industry—plain,
rugged, brownfaced, homely-clad, old-fashioned industry
-—must be courted. Young men are pressed with a most
unprofitable haste. They wish to reap before they have
ploughed or sown. Everything is driving at such a rate
that they have become giddy. Laborious occupations are
avoided. Money is to be earned in genteel leisure, with
the help of fine clothes, and by the soft seductions of
smooth hair and luxuriant whiskers.

Religious Vulgarity.

There is a great deal of religious vulgarity. If I were
to put out upon my house the sign, ‘f The only refined
Family on this Street,” I should not exactly have the
good-will of every other family. If I should declare that
I was the most gentlemanly man in our ward, because I
had received the gift of refinement in a straight line clear
back to the days of the apostles, it would not help me one
singlewhit, not even if I should historically prove it. If
I were to strut before my fellow-men in any way by self-
assertion and by assuming superiority over them, I should
be set down at once as vulgar, and I should be vulgar.

Worth of Moral Character.

Your moral character is worth more to you than every-
thing else, in all your relationships in life. Not only for
religious reasons, but even for the commonest secular
reasons, this is so. It is very desirable that you should
have information; it is very desirable that you should have
a skillful and nimble hand for the pursuit in which you are
engaged; it is very desirable that you should understand
business and men and life; but it is still more desirable that
you should be a man of integrity —of strict, untemptable, or
at least unbreakable integrity —— even for civil and secular

SELECTIONS: —— MISCELLANEOUS. ' 147

reasons. For nothing is so much in demand as simple un-
temptability in men; nothing is in so much demand as men
who are held, by the fear of God and by the love of recti-
tude, to that which is right. Their price is above rubies.
More than wedges of gold are they worth; and nowhere
else are they worth so much as in cities and marts like this,
where so much must be put at stake upon the fidelity of
agents.

The Chariot of Liberty.

The abettors of slavery are weaving the thread in the
loom, but God is adjusting the pattern. They are asses
harnessed to the chariot of Liberty, and, whether they
will or no, must draw it on.

What Temperance Brings.

I love to see young men with a noble carriage, and
with blooming health. I can not bear to see young men,
that have every reason for building up a noble manhood,
walking with a discolored face and an unwholesome skin,
which are Signs of intemperance. Perhaps there is nothing
more disreputable than for a young man to present himself
a miserable wreck of what he might have been, and a bur-
den to the state and to the age in which he lives; and
perhaps there is nothing more creditable to a young man
than to present himself to the state and to the age in
which he lives a monument of health and vigor and true
manliness. Temperance brings you to this higher and
pobler condition of manhood, and intemperance takes you

rom it. ‘

Colts Never Get Drunk.

Men are accustomed to look upon the excesses of youth
as something that belongs to that time. They say that of
course the young, like colts unbridled, will disport them-
selves. There is no harm in colts disporting themselves,
but a colt never gets drunk. I do not object to any
amount of gayety or vivacity that lies within the bounds
of reason or of health; but I do reject and abhor, as worthy
to be stigmatized as dishonorable and unmanly, every such
course in youth as takes away strength, vigor and purity

148 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

from old age. I do not believe that any man should take the
candle of his old age and light it by the vices of his youth.
Every man that transcends nature’s laws in youth is taking
beforehand those treasures that are stored up for his old
age; he is taking the food that should have been his sus-
tenance in old age, and exhausting it in riotous living in
his youth. Mere gayety and exhilaration are wholesome;
they violate no law, moral or physical.

My Mother.

My mother I have not the language to- speak of. I
know that she is born largely of my imagination, but I in-
herited that from her. I know that she is born very largely
of my heart. Where did my heart come from? She gave
me to the world that I might be a larger self of hers, to do
in the world the work she would have done, but never had
the opportunity. She has been to me an ideal in the air
which has kept me from sin more than any other agent.
She has kept me from degradation, vulgarity, narrowness
and meanness; from envy and jealousy, more than any
other influence.

Liberty and Equality.

God has given to men the great truths of liberty and
equality, which are like mothers’ breasts, carrying food for
ages. Let us not fear that in our land they shall be over-
thrown or destroyed. Though we may go through dark
times,—rocking times, when we are seasick,——yet the
day shall come when there shall be no more oppression,
but when, all over the world, there shall be a common peo-
ple, sitting in a commonwealth, having a common Bible,

a common God, and common peace and joy in a common
brotherhood !

 

Eighty Years of Life.

Every man belongs to an economy in which he has a
right to calculate, or his friends for him, on eighty years as
a .fair term of life. His body is placed in a world adapted
to nourish and protect it. Nature is congenial. There are
elements enough of mischief in it, if a man pleases to find
them out. A' man. can wear his body out as quickly as

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. 1'49

. he pleases, destroy it if he will; but, after all, the great
laws of nature are nourishing laws, and, comprehensively
regarded, nature is the universal nurse, the universal phy-
sician of our race, guarding us against evil, warning us of
it by incipient pains, setting up signals of danger—not
outwardly, but inwardly—and cautioning us by sorrroWs
and by pains for our benefit. Every immoderate draft
which is made by the appetites and passions is so much
sent forward to be cashed in old age. We may sin at one
end, but God takes it off at the other. Everyman has
stored up for him some eighty years, if he knows how to
keep them, and those eighty years, like a bank of deposit,
are full of treasures; but youth, through ignorance or
through immoderate passions, is wont continually to draw
checks on old age. Men do not suppose that they are doing
it, although told that the wicked shall not live out half
their days.

“School is Out! It is Time to Go Home!”

No one cries when children, long absent from their
parents, go home. Vacation morning is a jubilee. But
death is the Christian’s vacation morning. School is out.
' It is time to go home. It is surprising that one should
wish life here, who may have life in heaven. And when
friends have gone out from us joyously, I think we should
go with them to the grave, not singing mournful psalms,
but scattering flowers. Christians are wont to walk in
black, and sprinkle the ground with tears at the very time
when they should walk in white, and illumine the way by
smiles and radiant hope. The disciples found angels at
the grave of Him they loved; and we should alwaysfind
them too, but that our eyes are too full of tears for
seeing.

How Much a Mechanic Can Do.

Among the finest pictures in the Boston Atheneeum,
and the finest part of the library of the Massachusetts His-
torical Collection, you will find those pictures and books
which were collected and bound during the life-time, and
donated at the death of a man who spent his days in the
active practice of a mechanical employment. He was a
leather-dresser. He bought the best books and read them.

150 HENRY WARD BEECHER-

and then secured for them the very best dress—for a good
book deserves a good dress— and at his death he gave
them to these public institutions; and they. are valuable
beyond what they would bring in market as so much treas-
ure. I never look at those books in the Massachusetts His-
torical Collection, and at those pictures in the Boston
Athenaeum, without thinking how much a mechanic can do.

Conceited Men.

Conceited men often seem a harmless kind of men,
who, by an overweening self-respect, relieve others from
the duty of respecting them at al . ~

Mountains and Clouds.

The mountains lift their crests so high, that weary
clouds, which have no rest in the sky, love to come to
them, and, wrapping about their tOps, distill their moisture
upon them. Thus mountains hold commerce with God’s
invisible ocean, and, like good men, draw supplies from
the unseen; So, in times of drought below, the rocks are
always wet, the mountain moss is always green, the seams
and crevices are always dripping, and veins are throbbing a
full pulse, while all the summer down in the plains faints
for want of moisture.

Beethoven’s Symphonies and the Seventy-third Psalm.

The seventy-third psalm reminds me of some of Beetho-
ven’s symphonies; and these, again, always make me think
of the tumult of the forest, when the wind roars and swells
and surges with wild discord among the trees; when the
branches creak and crash against each other, and every
bough has a separate wail. By and by the wind lulls;
and when twilight is beneath, and all the forest is quiet,
or only so much noiseful' as the insects make it, then some
bird on a tree-top sings out clear and sweet, and his song
goes floating away over the wood, the very soul of peaceful
joy. And it seems to me that the symphonies of Beethoven
——that Milton of musicians— reproduce in themselves the
sounds of the forest. In the opening passages, the half-
concordant discards clash upon one another; there is moan-

SELECTIONS: —— MISCELLANEOUS. 151

ing, and strife, and war of sound; but, at length, out of
the jar and the conflict is evolved a clear-flowing melody,
as sweet as the song of the bird, and as gentle as the
twilight rustle of the leaves. Now, this psalm is like the
symphonies, for its opening verses clash upon each other,
and are full of tumult and yearning.

“ But, as for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps
had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are
no bands in their death, but their strength is firm. They
are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued
like other men. * * * Verily, -I have cleansed my heart
in vain, and washed my hands 1n innocency. For all the
day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morn-
in 9)

But when this strain is ended, then rises the sweet and
joyful descant, “ Nevertheless, I am continually with thee;
thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide
me by thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon
earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart
faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my
portiori foreve1.’

You Can Learn Something Everywhere.

You can learn something everywhere. Everybody can
tell you something. Ask for knowledge, if you desire it.
If you were hungry, I do not believe you would starve. I
think you would ask for food before you would die. I
think you would work for bread before you would perish.
And you ought to be ten times as hungry for knowledge as
for food for the body.

Popular Intelligence.

Popular intelligence is the world’s sap. The moment
the sap begins to 1ise under the warmth of the spring sun,
that moment the t1ee begins to feel that it has got to do
something. The bud wakes up, and the leaves are getting
ready, and the very twigs themselves are empurpled and
changing color , and this popular intelligence, this grow-
ing knowledge of the common people, which Is promoted
by schools all oven the world, by the faculty of books and

152 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

literature, by the intercourse of man with man, through
commerce, through war, through everything—the devel-
opment of the thought-power and the will-power of the
great mass of 'men at the bottom of society, is the sap that
is bringing spring and summer to the human race. And
since the sun of righteousness will not go down, and will
still shine, you cannot stop it, you cannot force it.

False Notions About the Waste of Time.

The aster has not wasted spring and summer because
it has not blossomed. It has been all the time preparing
for what is to follow, and in autumn it is the glory of the
field, and only the frost lays it low. So there are many
people who must live forty or fifty years, and have the
crude sap of their'natural dispositions changed and sweet-
ened before the blossoming time can come; but their life
has not been wasted.

Youth and Years.

Old age has the foundation of its joy or its sor1ow laid
in youth. Eve1 y stone laid in the foundation takes hold
of every stone in the wall up to the very eaves of the
building; and every deed, right or wrong, that transpires
in youth reaches forward, and has a relation to all the
afterpart of man’s life. 'A man’s life is not like the con-
tiguous cells in a bee’s honey-comb; it is more like the
separate parts of a plant which unfolds out of itself, every
part bearing relation to all that antecede. That which
one does in youth 1s the root, and all the afterparts, mid-
dle age and old ago, me the b1 anches and the fruits, whose ._
character the root will determine.

Learning Latin.

How does one begin to learn Latin? Not cha1 med with
the numbers of Virgil, but stumbling over the grammar,
digging at roots of verbs. As it is with study so it is with
religion. > N 0 one should be disappointed if the early
experiences of his Christian life involve many doubts and
fears. A new life, like a new river, has to pick its way
and find its channel. The waters will gather in pools and

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. 153

seem to cease to flow. Rising over the brim, they will
Shoot through some rugged pass’, and be swirled by a
thousand jagged rocks, but by and by, when the channel
is secured, and side streams begin to add their stores, the
river will neither stop nor grow dry. There is no power
on earth that can hold back the river from the ocean, or
the Christian life from heaven.

Onward ! Upward!

The more thorough a man’s education is, the more he
yearns for and is pushed forward to new achievement.
The bettera man is in this world, the better he is com-
pelled to be. That bold youth who climbed up the Natural
Bridge in Virginia, and carved his name higher than any
other,‘ found, when he had done so, that it was impossible
for him to descend, and that his only alternative was to
go on and scale the height, and find safety at the top.
Thus it is with all climbing in this life. There is no going
down. It is climbing or falling. Every upward step
makes another needful; and so we must go on until we
reach heaven, the summit of the aspirations of time.

Seekers After Gold.

AVARICE seeks gold, not to build or buy therewith,
not to clothe or feed itself, not to make it an instrument
of wisdom, of skill, of friendship, or religion. Avarice
seeks it to heap it up; to walk around the pile and gloat
upon it; to fondle and court, to kiss and hug the darling
stuff to the end of life with the homage of idolatry.

PRIDE seeks it; for it gives power and place and titles,
and exalts its possessor above his fellows. To be a thread
in the fabric of life, just like any other thread, hoisted up
and down by the treadle, played across by the shuttle, and
woven tightly into the piece,-—this may suit humility,
but not pride.

VANITY seeks it; what else can give it costly clothing
and rare ornaments and stately dwellings and showy equi-
page, and attract admiring eyes to its gaudy colors and
costly jewels?

TASTE seeks it; because by it may be had whatever is
beautiful refining or instructive. What leisure has poverty

154 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

for study, and how can it collect books, manuscripts,
pictures, statues, coins, or curiosities?
LOVE seeks it, to build a home full of delights for
father, wife, or child: and, wisest of all, .
RELIGION seeks it, to make it the messenger and serv-
ant of benevolence to want, to suffering, and to ignorance.

Sacred Music.

This concert, I perceive by the notice, is to be “partly
sacred and partly instrumental;” that is to say, one part
is to be just as sacred as the other; for all good music is
sacred, if it is heard sacredly, and all poor music is
execrably unsacred.

Germany and Bismarck.

In Germany we do not know exactly what is to take
place. We know two things—that God reigns in heaven
and Bismarck on earth. When Bismarck dies I don’t
know what the Lord will do—something very different I
think, though. But there is so much intelligence, and
there is such a dawning sense of civil liberty; there is such
an expansible force there, that though there may be a
good deal of dislocation and ground healing, yet I think
that Germany, the Germanic stock, out of which has come
most of our freest institutions, laws, customs, will assert
itself; long smothered and held under, after a suitable
time it will come to supremacy.

Children of the Rich.

The children of rich parents are apt to be reared in
indolence. The ordinary motives to industry are want-
ing, and the temptations to sloth are multiplied. Other '
men labor to provide a support, to amass wealth, to secure
homage, to obtain power, to multiply the elegant products
of art. The child of affluence inherits these things. Why
should he labor who may command universal service,
whose money subsidizes the inventions of art, exhausts the
luxuries of society, and makes rarities common by their
abundance? Only the blind would not see that riches and
ruin run in one channel to prodigal children. The most

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. 155

rigorous regimen, the most confirmed industry and stead-
fast morality can alone disarm inherited wealth, and
reduce it to a blessing. The profligate wretch who fondly
watches his father’s advancing decrepitude, and secretly
curses the lingerlng steps of death (seldom too slow except
to hungry heirs), at last is overblessed in the tidings that
the loitering work is done, and the estate his. When the
golden shower has fallen, he rules as a prince in a court of
expectant parasites. All the sluices by which pleasurable
vice drains an estate are opened wide. A few years com-
plete the ruin. The hopeful heir, avoided by all whom
he has helped, ignorant of useful labor, and scorning
a knowledge of it, fired with an incurable appetite for
vicious excitement,‘ sinks steadily down—a profligate, a
wretch, a villain-scoundrel, a convicted felon. Let parents
who hate their offspring rear them to hate labor, and to in-
herit riches, and before long they will be stung by every
vice, racked by its poison, and damned by its penalty.

Greatness.

Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using
of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it only
serves to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary
glory. 'He is greatest whose strength carries up the most
hearts by the attraction of his own.

.—-—.—_

Good Luck and Bad Luck.

There are men who, supposing Providence to have an
implacable spite against them, bemoan in the poverty of
‘a wretched old age the misfortunes of their lives. Luck
forever ran against them, and for others. One, with a
good profession, lost his luck in the river, where he idled
away his time a-fishing when he should have been in the
office. Another, with a good trade, perpetually burnt up
his luck by his hot temper, which provoked all his custom-
ers to leave him. Another, with a lucrative business, lost
his luck by amazing diligence at everything but his busi-
ness. Another, who steadily followed his trade, as steadily
followed his bottle. Another, who was honest and con-/
stant to his work, erred by perpetual misjudgments—he
lacked discretion. Hundreds lose their luck by indorsing,

156 . HENRY WARD BEECHER.

by sanguine speculations, by trusting fraudulent men, and
by dishonest gains. A man never has good luck who has
a bad wife. I never knew an early-rising, hard-working,
prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest,
who complained of bad luck. A good character, good
habits and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of
all the ill luck that fools ever dreamed of. But when I
see a tatterdemalion creeping out of a grocery late in the
forenoon, with his hands stuck into his pockets, the rim of
his hat turned up, and the crown knocked in, I know he
has had bad luck; for the worst of all luck is to be a
sluggard, a knave, or a tippler.

Little Virtues.

Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues.
God made a million spears of grass where he made one
tree. The earth is fringed and carpeted, not with for-
ests, but with grasses. Only have enough of little virtues
and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because
you are neither a hero nor a saint.

Between Two Dead Seas.

There are some who stand on a narrow strip of land
between two dead seas, and drink their waters alternately.
The past is filled with bitter regrets, and. ghosts which
will not be laid, but walk still to haunt them; and the
future is filled with shadowy shapes, which beckon them
forward to new suffering. There is a purgatory and it is
this: it is the point where good, despaired of, touches
evils remembered.

How a University Lost a Library.

Mr. Dowse, of Cambridge, never was ashamed to be a
tanner and currier. I believe he never moved out of the
humble cottage where he began his career. He never was
ashamed of his skins. He amassed his property quietly,
filled his house with books, and collected rare works of art,
exercising superior taste in selection. And he lived in
that town a gentleman and a true man. It is said that a

portion of the students of the neighboring university insulted

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. 157

him very grossly on account of his trade, and that in con-
sequence he withheld from the institution a munificent
gift which it was his purpose to bestow upon it. One
thing is certain, that the Whole library, which he intended
to leave to the university, was presented to the Boston
Historical Society, with some property besides. The men
who insulted him were vulgar, although they were students
of the university, and no matter if they were sons of the
first families in the land.

Prohibition and Limitation.

Now, if you cannot carry out a law of prohibition you
can carry out a law of limitation; and if‘ by State enact-
ment there should be only one house to a given number of
population, that of itself would very much limit the area
of temptation. Though this would be a feeble law, it
could be executed; and I think we should move yet further
than that by following the matter up with instruction, and
plying men with knowledge on the subject. Thus by-and-
by the law might be made still more preservative of the
welfare of the common people.

 

Seasickness.

Nothing can be more unreasonable than continuous
seasickness. The absolute remedies are so many, the many‘
voiced witnesses are so grave, that any one who persists in
being sick after the third day is simply obdurate, and I
above all men.

Captain Knight was something of a doctor, and he
could bring round, in a day or two, by water-cure treat-
ment. He succeeded on the first day that I put my feet
on shore! Remedies: ,

Go on board with a full stomach of plain but nourish-
ing food; do not have anything on your stomach when you
embark! Keep on deck; do not go out of your stateroom,
but lie quietly on your back. Take champagne or claret,
or brandy or whisky, or gruel or oatmeal porridge, or bits
of salt codfish scorched upon living coals. Then have an
iceberg along your spine; a light belt should be worn
below the waist; use homeopathic remedies freely—it
makes little difference of what kind; blue pills and Con-

158 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

gress water are as good as anything. But the best of all
things is to kick the doctor out of your stateroom, lie still
in your berth, and wait for land. This is a sure cure!

There are many alleviations of this condition—the
smell of bilge water, if on a ship; of grease, if on a steam-
er; the smell of dinner, if your stateroom opens on the
dining-saloon; the rattle of the knives, and the jolly roar
of merry men at their abhorrent meals. For variety a
friend visits you, and narrates his experience, and recom-
mends new torments. '

Should all the histories of seasick experience be written,
it would rear up a conception of purgatory more loathesome
and frightful than has ever been produced by superstition.
How great was my joy in 1850, when I felt a firm earth
under my feet and a soft and fleecy cloud over my head in
England! A new sense was developed in me. The sun
had never before been so mildly radiant, nor the air so
fragrant, nor the birds so tuneful, nor the grass, the leaves,
and the flowers so beautiful. For a few weeks I lived in a
blessed dream. I wrote ecstatic letters to home friends;
and when now, after nearly forty years, I read the record of
that visit to England, I could wish that I might have
another such trance!

A Man in Old Age.

A man in old age is like a sword in a shop windbw
Men that look upon the perfect blade do not imagine the
process by which it was completed. Man is a sword.
Daily life is the workshop, and God is the artificer, and
those cares which beat him upon the anvil, and file his
edge, and eat in, acid-like, the inscription upon his hilt, -—
these are the very things that fashion the man.

Laws Dependent on Intelligence;

Laws depend upon human intelligence for their
achievements. In their wildest state natural laws are only
half fruitful. Winds have roamed like wild giants over
the globe, roaring hither and thither, before there was a
human population; but now they grind the food of man
by turning windmills, or swell the 'sails that carry men
for all their purposes round and round the world. The
wild wind that knew no master is apprenticed to ten.

SELECTIONS : —— MISCELLANEOUS. . 159

thousand masters to-day. Human reason has taken pos-
session of it and made it work for its living. Water
floated in the clouds or stormed on the sea, or rushed forth in
useless rivers. It, too. has been reduced to service, every-
where turning wheels, everywhere replenishing the supplies
or society through the medium of manufactories; and
even in the desert, by irrigation, making the wilderness to
bud and blossom as the rose. Water had never done that
of itself; water inspired by human will does it.

No Starlight in the Mammoth Cave.

There never was a ray of starlight in the Mammoth
Cave of Kentucky; only the red glare of torches ever lights
its walls. So there are many men whose minds are Mam-
moth Caves, all underground and unlighted save by the
torches of selfishness and passion.

Hunting H eathenism.

Already, war, with its bloody hand, raps at the gate of
empire in India and in China. England presses upon
them. Russia is steadily moving through craunching
snows to the southward. The great nations, like lions
roused from their lairs, are roaring and springing upon
the prey, and the little nations, like packs of hungry
wolves, are standing by licking their jaws and waiting for
their, share of the spoils. The world is out hunting—-
what? Heathenism. And it will be caught; it will be
unearthed. A little while and there will be no den so
deep, or forest so dark, or island so remote, that it can
find refuge. ‘

The Fashionable Idler.

He has a fine form and manly beauty, and the chief
end of life is to display them. With notable diligence he
ransacks the market for rare and curious fabrics, for costly
seals and chains and rings. A coat poorly fitted is the
unpardonable sin of his creed. He meditates upon cra-
vats, employs a profound discrimination in selecting a hat
or a vest, and adopts his conclusions upon the tastefulness
of a button or a collar with the deliberation of a statesman.

 

 
       
  

 
 
    

  

 
 
 

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160 . . HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Thus caparisoned, he saunters in fashionable galleries, or
flaunts in stylish equipage, or parades the streets with sim-
pering belles, or delights their itching ears with compli-
ments of flattery, or with choicely culled scandal. He is a
reader of fictions, if they be not too substantial, a writer
of cards and billet-dome, and is especially conspicuous in
albums. Gay and frivolous, rich and useless, polished till
the enamel is worn off; his whole life serves only to make
him an animated puppet of pleasure. He is as corrupt in
imagination as he is refined in manners; he is as selfish in
private as he is generous in public; and even what he gives
to another is given for his own sake. He worships Where
fashion worships: to-day at the theatre, to-morrow at the
church, as either exhibits the whitest hand or the most
polished actor. '

Caring for the Grass.

When we think of the labor required to rear the few
that are in our households—the weariness, the anxiety the
burden of life—how wonderful seems God’s work! for he
carries heaven, and earth, and all realms in his bosom.
Many think that God takes no thought for anything less
than a star or a mountain, and is unmindful of the little
things of life; but when I go abroad, the first thing which
I see is the grass beneath my feet, and, nestling in that,
flowers smaller yet, and, lower still, the mosses with their
inconspicuous blooms which beneath the microscope glow
with beauty. And if God so cares for “ the grass of the
field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven,”
shall he not much more care for the minutest things of
your life, “ 0, ye of little faith?” .

The Living Dead.

Moses was not half living when he was alive. His real
life has been since he died. The prophets seemed almost
useless in their time. They did little for themselves or for
the church of that day; but when you look at the life they
have lived since, you shall find they have been God’s pilots,
guiding the church through all perils. From their black
bosoms they sent forth the blast of his lightning and the
roar of his thunder; and, today, if the church needs
rebuke and denunciation, it is they who must hurl it.

SELECTIONS: —— MISCELLANEOUS. 161

Martin Luther was mighty when he lived, but the shadowy
Luther is mightier than a regiment of fleshly Luthers.
When he was on earth, he in some sense asked the pope
leave to be, and the emperor and the elector leave to be;
he asked‘the stream and the wheat to give him sustenance
for a day; but now that his body is dead—now that that
rubbish is out of the way—he asks no leave of pope, or
elector, or emperor, but is the monarch of thought, and
the noblest defender of the faith to the end of time.

A Vulgar Whipster.

When I see a young whipster treat with contempt or
neglect an old man who is infirm and clad in a poor garb,
not offering to render him any service, and not caring
what becomes of him, I do not care who his father is, that
boy is vulgar. , When I see a young man in the street cars,
and there comes in a poorly clad woman who has suffered,
and who seems to have been privileged to suffer, looking
wearily about for a seat, and I see him, young, vigorous,
happy, respectable, bearing an honored name, sit still and
let her stand, I say that he is vulgar.

Two Sides of Vulgarity.

He who despises riches gained by honorable courses is
vulgar; but he who, having riches, however they may have
been gained, is impertinent and domineering and conceited
and unmanly, is vulgar.

Happy Toilers.

The poor man with industry is happier than the rich
man in idleness; for labor makes the one more manly, and
riches unmans the other. The slave is often happier than
the master, who is nearer undone by license than his vassal
by toil. Luxurious couches, plushy carpets from Oriental
looms, pillows of eider-down, carriages contrived with
cushions and springs to make motion imperceptible—is
the indolent master of these as happy as the slave that
wove the carpet, the Indian who hunted the northern flock,
or the servant who drives the pampered steeds? Let those
who envy the gay revels of city idlers, and pine for their

11

162 HENRY WARD BEECHER. -

masquerades, their routs, and their operas, experience for
a week the lassitude of their satiety, the unarousable tor-
por of their life when not under a fiery stimulus, their des-
perate ennui and restless somnolency, and they would
gladly flee from their haunts as from a land of cursed
enchantment.

The Mental Garden.

God meant that there should be in the garden of the
human soul a great many beds, and a great many kinds of
flowers. There are some thirty or forty individual facul-
ties in the human make-up, and the fullest enjoyment
requires the consentaneous activity of them all. But to
put on foot such a general cerebral energy as that would
involve, would be exhausting. Therefore the action of
men’s minds changes, and in turn every part of them, if
they are normally active, should be exercised between sleep
and sleep. Each day there should be something of every-
thing.

All Physical Joy's Brief.

A great many religious men are not happy, and a great
many irreligious men are happy. To say that a man can
enjoy more in a religious life than he can in a lower life
is to say the truth, although it is not everybody that finds
it out. My impression is that, in a general way, that part
of our nature which comes in contact with the physical,
and controls it,'has the most sudden and the most sharp
exhilaration of pleasure, but the briefest. The flavor
passes from the tongue, and is gone. All physical pleas-
ures are momentary, however intense they may be, and
there is very little memory of them. And although these
very pleasures are real, they are shallow and unstable.

Power of the Imagination.

The imagination is closely related to the passions, and
fires them with its heat. The day-dreams of indolent
youth glow each hour with warmer colors and bolder advent-
ures. The imagination fashions scenes of enchantment
in which the passions revel, and it leads them out, in
shadow at first, to .deeds which soon they will seek in ear-

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. 163

nest. The brilliant colors of far-away clouds are but the
colors of the storm; the salacious day-dreams of indolent
men, rosy at first and distant, deepen every day darker and
darker to the color of actual evil. Then follows the blight
of every habit. Indolence promises without redeeming the
pledge; a mist of forgetfulness rises up and obscures the
memory of vows and oaths. The negligence of laziness
breeds more falsehoods than the cunning of the 'sharper.‘
As poverty waits upon the steps of indolence, so upon such
poverty brood equivocations, subterfuges, lying denials.-
Falsehood becomes the instrument of every plan. Negli-
gence of truth, next occasional falsehood, then wanton
mendacity—these three strides traverse the whole road of
lies.

Buoyant Spirits.

Buoyant spirits are an element of happiness, and
activity produces them; but they fly away from sluggish-
ness, as fixed air from open wine. Men’s spirits are like
water, which sparkles when it runs, but stagnates in still
pools, and is mantled with green, and breeds corruption
and filth. The applause of conscience, the self-respect of
pride, the consciousness of independence, a manly joy of
usefulness, the consent of every faculty of the mind to
one’s occupation, and their gratification in it—these con-
stitute a happiness superior to the fever-flashes of vice in
its brightest moments. After an experience of ages, which
has taught nothing different from this, men should have
learned that satisfaction is not the product of excess, or of
indolence, or of riches, but of industry, temperance and
usefulness. .

Be Kind to Your Stomach.

There is scarcely one man in a hundred who supposes
that he must ask leave of his stomach to be a happy man.
In many cases the difference between happy men and
unhappy men is caused by their digestion.. Oftentimes
the difference between hopeful men and melancholy men is
simply the difference of their digestion. There is much
that is called spiritual ailment that is nothing but stom-
achic ailment. I have, during my experience as a religious
teacher, had persons call upon me with that hollow cheek,
that emaciated face, and that peculiar look which indicates

164 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

the existence of this cerebral and stomachic difficulty, to
tell me about their trials and temptations; and, whatever
I may have said to them, my inward thought has been,
“There is very little help that can be afforded you till
your health is established.” The foundation of all earthly
happiness is physical health; and yet men scarcely ever
value it till they have lost it.

Wall Street a Commentary.

80 men that will at all hazards and at any rate, be rich,
give up honor, faith, conscience, love, refinement, friend-
ship, and sacred trust, and having given all these up, God
blesses and blasts them—blesses, for they are rich, and
that is what they call blessing—blasts, because it is not in
the nature of God himself, without an absolute change of
the laws by which he works to make a man happy who has,
for the sake of gaining wealth, divested himself of those
elements in which happiness consists. Wall Street is my
commentary— Broadway ismy commentary!

Wisdom.

What we call wisdom is the result, not the residuum,
of all the wisdom of past ages. Our best institutions are
like young trees growing upon the roots of the old trunks
that have crumbled away.

Sailing the Wrong Way.

The voyage of life should be right across the ocean,
whose waters never shrink, and where the keel never rubs
the bottom. But men are afraid to venture, and hang
upon the coast, and ex lore lagoons, or swing at anchor in
wind-sheltered bays. gome men put their keel into riches,
some into sensuous pleasure, some into friendship, and all
these are shallow for any thing that draws as deep as the
human soul does. God’s work in each age, indicated by
the great movements of his providence, is the only thing
deep enough for the heart. We Ought to begin life as at
the source. of a river, growing deeper every league to the
sea; whereas, in fact, thousands are like men who enter
the mouths of rivers and sail upwards.

SELECTIONS: -— MISCELLA ignous. 165

Only the Dead Rest.

, Men often think an institution to be good because it
has done good; but institutions are often only another kind
of national school book, whose object it is to help the scholar
to pass on and leave it behind. Neither boys nor society
are to be kept forever in the hornbook. There must be,
in any healthful society, a process of absorption, or of
reconstruction of its organizations. Principles never
change. Their incarnations continually do. A society
whose institutions are unchanging is itself ungrowing.
The living body alters. Only the dead Irest. That is a
brave and good institution which speedily digs its own
grave.

Good Health.

Health is the platform on which all happiness must be
built. Good appetite, good digestion and good sleep are
the elements of health, and industry confers them. As
use polishes metals, so labor the faculties, until the body
performs its unimpeded. functions with elastic cheerfulness
and hearty enjoyment.

Nature’s Music.

To the infidel, Nature’s voices are but a Babel din.
Trees rustle, and brooks babble, and winds blow; but
there is no meaning in their sound. To the Christian,
all speak of God; and if it were not for the dimness of the
natural eye, he might see his hosts of angels at their min-
istry. The tree stretches out its arm, laden with fruit,
like the arm of God. The morning sprinkles him with,
dew, as with holy water; and he is sung to sleep, at even-
ing, with songs like the lullaby of earthly parents to their
children.

French Novels.

Novels of the French school and of English imitators
are the common sewers of society, into which drain the
concentrated filth of the worst passions, of the worst creat-
ures, of the worst cities. Such novels come to us impu-
dently pretending to be reformers of morals and liberalizers
of religion; they propose to instruct our laws, and teach a

166 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

discreet humanity justice. The Ten Plagues have vis-
ited our literature; water is turned to blood; frogs and
lice creep and hop over our most familiar things—the
couch, the cradle, and the bread-trough; locusts, murrain,
and fire are smiting every green thing. I am ashamed and
outraged when I think that wretches could be found to
open these foreign seals and let out their plagues upon us;
that any Satanic pilgrim should voyage to France to dip
from the dead sea of her abomination a baptism for our
sons. .

Don’t Whine.

Never whine over what you may suppose to be the loss
of early opportunities. A great many men have good
early opportunities who never improve them; and many
have lost their early opportunities without losing much.
Every man may educate himself that wishes to. It is the
will that makes the way. Many a slave that wanted
knowledge has listened while his master’s children were
saying their letters and putting them together to form easy
words, and thus caught the first elements of spelling; and
then, lying flat on his belly before the raked-up coals and
embers, with a stolen book, has learned to read and write.
If a man has such a thirst for knowledge as that, I do not
care where you put him, he will become an educated man.

The Decay of Heathenism.

All the might of the world is now on the side of Chris-
tianity. Those barbarous, inchoate poWers which still
cling to heathenism, are already trembling before the
advancing strides of the Christian nations; Christian just
enough to rouse all their energies, and to make them
intensely ambitious and on the alert to increase their own
dominion, Without having learned Christianity’s highest
lesson, the lesson of love. Even that heathenism which
seems to have some power is only waiting for its time of
decay. In vast, undisturbed forests, whose intertwining
boughs exclude the light, moisture is generated, and rills,
fed by marshes and quiet pools, unite to form running
rivers. But let the trees be cut down, and the ground be
laid open to the sun, and. the swamps will dry up, and the
rivers run no more.

SELECTIONS: —- MISCELLANEOUS. 167

Poor, F ledgeless Hope.

There are many Christians who, all their life long,
carry their hope as a boy carries a bird’s nest containing an
unfledged bird that can scarcely peep, much less sing—a
poor, fledgeless hope.

Suffering Well Borne.

Suffering ‘well borne is better than suffering removed.
Suffering did not slip in, as theologians make so many
things to have done, at the fall; but it is a part of God’s
original method. I know enough of gardening to under-
stand that if I would have a tree grow upon its south side
I must cut off the branches there. Then all its forces go
to repairing the injury, and twenty buds shoot out where
otherwise there would have been but one. When we reach
the garden above, we shall find that out of those very
wounds over which we sighed and groaned on earth, have
sprung verdant branches, bearing precious fruit, a thousand
fold.

Mean Fears.

Men are afraid of slight outward acts which will injure
them in the eyes of others, while they are heedless of the
damnation which throbs in their souls in hatreds, and
jealousies, and revenges.

The Bones of Religion.

The gospel of philosophy is very much preached. It is
generally called theology, There is a great difference
between theology and religion. A man may have ever so
much theology and no religion, and a 'man may have ever
so much religion and very little theology. And yet we are
not to despise theology. We want both -— personal religion
and intellectual perception of the connection between fact
and fact, dogma and dogma. Theology may be said to be
the bones of the system of religion. Well, if a man was
courting he would not like to court a set of bones; he
would like to have some flesh on them, some bloom. And
men, when they are drawn to life, are not drawn by the
bones, but by that which clothes them, by thatwhioh is

168 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

supported by them. I find no fault with theology except
that it is made up of abstractions. I find no fault with
dogmas except that there are so many of them that are lies.
I find on fault with difficult systems except that they seem
to have been the means of provocation and quarrelsomeness
and divisions and all sorts of contests in this world. I find
no fault with these things, because they have been wrongly
used. There is a right way of using things and there is a
wrong way, and in the history 'of the church the gospel of
theology has been the occasion of endless divisions and sep-
arations and quarrels and warfare and cruelty and every
work of the devil.

Our Irresistible Race.

Our people, nomadic as the Arabs, impetuous as the
Goths and Huns, pour themselves along our Western
border, carrying with them all their wealth and all their
institutions. They drive schools along with them as
shepherds drive sheep,’ and troops of colleges go lowing
over the Western plains, like Jacob’s kine.

The Mellowing Power of Time.

Take a sharp-cut young saint, just crystallized, as many-
ointed and as clear as a diamond, and how good he is!
ow decided for the right, and how abhorrent of wrong!

He abhors evil rather than loves good. He has not yet
attained to the meekness and gentleness of Christ. But
years will teach him that love is more just than justice;
that compassion will cure more sins than condemnation;
and that summer will do more with silent warmth, to
redeem the earth from barrenness, than winter can, with
all the majesty of storms and the irresistible power of her
icy hand.

How Happiness Comes.

If one-half of the branches of a tree bear fruit and the
other half are barren, it is a poor tree. A tree that bears
every other year is better than none; but it is only half as
good as one that bears every year. A musical instrument,
only every other string of which emits sound when struck
-—-What is that? Even Beethoven could not bring out a

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. 169

symphony on an instrument where every other note was
omitted. The human soul is a complex thing. One part
works into another, and stimulates it or rests on it.
There is an order and arrangement in the human mind by
which, if men retain the full possession of every part of
their interior selves, and exert every part in succession, or
consentaneously, they touch true happiness, and happiness
of the largest kind and the most enduring.

An Anthem of Praise.

Amid our imperfect utterances, let uS comfort our-
selves with the thought of that realm where thought shall
Speak without the need of a tongue, and feeling Shall
Speak, and the whole life Shall be an anthem of praise.

All Men Should Be Educated.

Do you suppose a man has no right to an education
unless he is going to be a doctor, a minister, a lawyer, or
some kind of a public man? I affirm the right of every
man in the community to an education. A man should
educate himself for his own sake, even if his education
Should benefit no one else in the world. Every man’s edu-
cation does, however, benefit others besides himself. There
is no calling, except that of Slave-catching, for Christian
governments, that is not made better by brains. No mat-
ter what a man’s work iS, he iS a better man for having
had a thorough mind-drilling. If you are to be a farmer,
go to college or to the academy, first. If you are to be a
mechanic, and you have an opportunity of getting an edu-
cation, get that first. If you mean to follow the lowest
calling—one of those callings termed “menial ”— do not
be ignorant; have knowledge. A man can do without
luxuries and wealth and public honors, but not without
knowledge. Poverty is not disreputable, but ignorance is.

The Word “ Garden.”

To the end of the world the word garden Shall be
sweeter than flower or fruit could make it; for the Son of
God, the fairest thing that ever grew, was planted there,
and sprang from thence in celestial bloom and glory.

 

170 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

God’s Love-Letter to the World.

I never knew my mother. She died when I was three
years old that she might be an angel to me all my life.
But one day, in after years, turning over a pile of old let-
ters in my father’s study, I found a package of her letters
to him, beginning with her first acquaintance with him,
and coming down into her married life; and as I read those
pages, at last I knew my mother. What these letters were
to her life, that are the four Gospels to the life of Christ.
But I remember that there was one letter in which she
first spoke freely and frankly of her love. That, to me,
is the Gospel of John. It is God’s love-letter to the
world.

What is Youth Like?

Men have an impression that youth is very much like
wine, crude and insipid until it has fermented; but when
it has fermented, and thrown down the lees, and the scum
has been drawn off, the great body between is sound, and
Wholesome, and beautiful. I am not one that thinks so.
I think that youth is the beginning of the plant life, and
that every wart or excrescence is so much enfeeblement of
its fruit-bearing power.

The Pursuit of Happiness.

To say that one should live for his own greatest happiness
is to have a right or a wrong impression, according to
what is meant. If you take it in a very narrow and ordi-
nary sense, there can be no greater wrong pronounced.
If you take it in a large sense, it is the assertion of a very
important truth. If by “seeking our greatest happiness”
we mean present self-indulgence, pungent physical pleas-
ures, low forms of enjoyment, partial, earthly, without
the element of reflection, without continuity, without
spiritual harmony—then to seek happiness as the chief
end of our existence is a very foolish, a very base, and a
very wicked thing. Pleasure, used in a strict sense, signi-
fies the gratification of the senses in sOme way; and to
live for pleasure in that sense is indeed base. But if one
regards happiness as the product of the right action of his
whole nature; if the truest happiness implies the develop-

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. 171

ment, the education, of the social and the spiritual, as
well as the physical elements of our being; if it includes
benevolence, and takes on the here and the hereafter as
well; if, in other words, our conception of happiness is
one which requires the development of our entire nature
for time and for eternity—then to say that a man should
seek his own greatest happiness is to declare a good and a
noble thing. It is right to live for one’s greatest happi-
ness if he have a true interpretation of what that is. Not
only is it right, but it is a duty.

Original Sin Can Be Spared.

We need not be afraid of getting rid of original sin, be-
cause we can get all the actual transgression that the
world needs to take its place. The eternity of conscious
suffering, in connection with that extraordinary and in-
comprehensible apparent waste that has been going on in
the human family from the ea1liest day, must go. You
must eithe1 take away the fatherhood from God, or you
must take away that hor11ble doctrine from theology.

Suffering.

Suffering, in this world, is both remedial and penal.
When it is rightly received it is remedial. When it is
resisted, it becomes penal to him who resists, and admoni-
tory to the spectator.

Suffering 1s the jarring of the faculties of the mind one
upon another and it neve1 will cease till they are all tuned
to ha1mony

The Force of Example.

A man cannot help being influenced by the example of
those who occupy elevated positions in society. If a man
is rich, and lives 111 splendor, his example will surely influ-
ence those by whom he 1s surrounded. And it 1s the duty
of all that are endowed with the power of benefiting or
injuring others by their example, to see that that example
is beneficial, and not injurious. Those who are at the top
of society are largely responsible for the ideas of those who
are at the bottom. And if God has advanced you among

172 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

men, it is not to give you more license, but to make you
more careful of your example before others. No man has
a right to let his example work mischief upon those in the
midst of whom he moves. And the unfeeling indifference
of men (and more, perhaps, in this matter of drinking than
in any other) as to the welfare of their neighbors shows
that their hearts have become seared by prosperity, and
degraded by the things which should, in the providence
of God, have made them more tender and considerate.

Newspapers.

Remember, too, in respect to this matter of education,
that you are a citizen, and that you are bound to have that
information which shall qualify you for an honest partici-
pation in public affairs. You are also bound to have a
knowledge of current events, which no man can have who
does not read the newspapers. Newspapers are the school-
masters of the common people. The newspaper is one of
the things that we may felicitate ourselves upon. That
endless book, the newspaper, is our national glory.

HaveYour House on the Hill-Top.

A man’s house should be on the hill-top of cheerfulness
and serenity, so high that no shadows rest upon it, and
where the morning comes so early, and the evening tarries
so late, that the day has twice as many golden hours as
those of other men. He is to be pitied whose house is in
some valley of grief between the hills, with the longest
night and the shortest day. Home should be the center
of joy, equatorial and tropical.

Better to Lie Down than to Break.

When God shakes man as dust from under the summer
threshing-floor, the right hand of a man’s strength is as
powerless as the left hand of a man’s weakness, and his
wisdom is as folly. What avails the wisdom of the apple
to make it cling to the bough when it is ripe in autumn
time? or the wisdom of the leaf to hold it fast to the stem
when the tempest calls? or the wisdom of the tree to make

SELECTIONS: — MISCELLANEOUS. 173

it stand secure when a rock from the cliff comes crashing
down through its piny branches? When God sends storms
upon men, they must imitate the humble grass, which
saves itself by lying down. It is better to lie down than
to break down. Therefore it is said, “ Humble yourselves
before the mighty hand of God, that in due season he may
raise you up.”

Grandeur of Prophecy.

I am profoundly affected by the grandeur of prophecy.
God unveils the frescoed wall of the future, not so much
that we may count the figures, and measure the robes, and
analyze the pigments, but that, gazing upon it, our imag-
inations may be enkindled, and hope be inspired.

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION.

OR many years Mr. Beecher was a diligent student of

the teachings of Herbert Spencer— one of the great-
est minds of this, or indeed of any century. Of the lofty
estimate in Which the Plymouth pastor held the English
philosopher we may judge by a single sentence in which he
says: “Spencer will be found to have given the world
more truth in one lifetime than any other man that has
lived in the schools of philosophy.” The influence of
Herbert Spencer on Mr. Beecher’s mind is very discernible
in all the work of the last ten years of his life.. He
startled many timid souls a few years ago by boldly pro-
claiming himself an Evolutionist. Ignorant and bigoted
people who have taken no pains to study the subject,
suppose that evolution means infidelity, or agnosticism at
the least. It was for Mr. Beecher to prove to the world
that it was possible to be a Christian Evolutionist. Onthe
17th of May, 1885, he began a series of discourses on Evolu-
tion and Religion, in which he discussed the bearings of
the Evolutionary Philosophy on the fundamental doctrines
of Evangelical Christianity. That the spread of this phi-
losophy would work many changes he did not doubt, and
that these changes would involve the disturbance of. much
that was regarded as permanently settled, he foresaw.
But he had no fear. Amid all mutations he knew that
the foundations of eternal truth were secure. He had
heard the voice that the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews had heard centuries before: “Yet once more
I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this
word yet once. more, signifieth the removing of those

things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that
174

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. 175

those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” Mr.
Beecher was not afraid for the Ark of God, and there-
fore he boldly pursucd his investigations. And we
have no hesitation in saying that in these discourses on
Evolution and Religion he has left behind him one of
the grandest legacies a man could leave. It was a good
thing for the church. And for the world, it will be
a good thing for thoughtful men for many years to come,
that he was permitted to do this grand service, “according
to the will of God,” before he “fell on sleep.” The import-
ance of this subject has suggested the propriety of devot-
ing considerable space to Mr. Beecher’s utterances on this
question. Apart from the sermons preached in 1885, Mr.
Beecher delivered a lecture containing a summary of the
whole matter, which we here present. '

LECTURE ON EVOLUTION AND RELIGION.-

A greater change has taken place within the last
thirty years, probably, than ever took place in any
former period of five hundred consecutive years. It has
been a revolution ; and yet the revolutionary tendencies of
the doctrine of evolution are more in seeming than in fact,
and, though extremely radical, are radical in the right di-
rection, and are of the right kind. As contradistinguished
from the old notion of creation by the instantaneous obe-
dience of matter to the divine command, it is the teaching
of the divine method of creation as gradual, and as the
result of steadily acting natural laws through long peri-
ods of time— periods so long that not even the imag-
ination can stretch to the borderland of their far off
horiZon. We have been brought up largely to found
our notions of creation upon the poetic expressions of
sacred Scripture. The command “ God said, Let there
be light; and there was light,” is sublime poetry. We
felt as if God came to the fore-front on the creating
day, and said, “ Let there be light,” and.instantly there
was light. This was the almost universally prevalent im-

176 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

pression. But it has now been sufficiently demonstrated
that the divine method of creation was utterly different
from this ; that it was a creation beginning with the very
smallest elements—elements inconceivably small—and
then, gradually, through the force of divinely ordained
natural laws, unfolding little by little the whole terraque-
ous globe. This, in short, is the theory of evolution.

While there are many divergencies among scientific
men as to details, there is absolutely no difference of opin-
ion as to the general application of this doctrine to the
formation of the globe, of the vegetable kingdom, and
of the. animal kingdom—until you come up to man.
When. we come to that point, were it not for the fear
which good men entertain of the effect of such a doctrine,
I suppose that it would be thought that man himself has
been unfolded from the lower forms into the human form,
and with human intelligence.

If this conception of his origin were to throw out the
idea of divine creation from it, it would be repugnant.
But it does not involve any such consequences. There are
three classes of evolutionists, when you look at them in ref-
erence to moral questions —the atheistic, of which class
Mr. Haeckel, of Germany, is a very able exponent ; the
agnostic, to which class most of the eminent English phy-
sicists belong; and the theistic, or Christian evolutionists.
There is a difference among them as to what were those
influences which determined the variations, and that dis-
cussion, though tending to a closure, is not yet entirely
settled. But when we come to man, the Christian philoss
opher takes his stand, and says that there were superadded
to natural forces certain direct influences that conduced to
the formation of the human mind, .

The doctrine of evolution, in these various forms, is
the philosophy by which ninety-nine per cent of the scien-
tific investigators of our time are working. It is gradu-
ally spreading to all departments of effort. Its nomencla-
ture and its thought are getting into the schools and the
newspapers. The attempt to suppress it will fail. The old
folly of throwing the Bible at it ought not in our day to be
repeated. They threw the Bible at the sun and the moon
once, and it came back on their heads, and astronOmy
stands. They threw the Bible at geology, and geology
stands. Let not the folly be repeated of throwing the
Bible at the origin of man- I am not prepared to say

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. 177

that I believe man came from the lower animals, but I am
prepared to say that if he did it will afford explanation of
many difficulties for which I can find no solution anywhere
else. As yet it is a hypothesis, and the process of procedure
with a hypothesis is to see if it will give a solution of all
difficulties, and give a better solution of them than any
other theory. That is what I think evolution does.

Look, for a moment, at the relation which it sustains
to the almost universal belief in the existence and agency
of a supreme intelligence. There are many who say that
this notion Of Evolution is the product Of atheism, and
that it will lead to atheism. I need not say that I
believe in the existence and the agency of a divine,
omnipotent, omnipresent God. With all my heart, and
all my soul, and all my mind, and all my strength, I
believe in him. The scientific man tells me that it is not
possible to prove the existence of God. And I say the.
same—but on the same ground that I should say to a
man who should bring me a pair Of scales and ask me to
weigh the smell of the rose, “ Not by these scales can I
weigh it.” There are other methods by which I could in-
dicate the existence of the perfume. The hypothesis of the
existence of God leads a man through fewer difficulties
and solves more questions than atheism ever did or ever
could. But the highest proof of the existence of God is
moral intuition. A thousand men may go past a magnifi-
cent picture and yet think there is nothing in the color. An
artist comes past and it blazes with suppressed color to
him. These men turn and say to him, “ Well, prove the
color. We are as good as you are. We don’t see it.”
“Don’t you wish you did? It is there, and I see it and
thrill with the feeling of it. If you say you don’t, that
merely characterizes where you stand.” Now, it is given
to highly organized moral natures to have a sense, a lu-
minousincoming conviction, of the existence Of God; to feel
it as plainly as one feels the balmy spring air and knows
that it is spring, and not winter, without his almanac-
A man may be an atheist and be an evolutionist; but a
man may be an evolutionist and believe in God with all.‘
his heart and strength and soul. The agnostic says:
“ We don’t know it.” But they mean by that, they don’t
know it as they know inferior facts. We know it as we
know the highest and noblest truths of human life. The
interpreting power of the highest development Of human

178 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

conscience is far greater than most men have ever
dreamed. ‘

- Many men say, “Admit that there is an atheistic
ground on which we can stand ; what is going to be the
influence of this doctrine of evolution upon sacred Script-
ures P” Very beneficial. It is going to correct the absurd
uses to which that book has been for so many ages 0011-,
demned. The Bible itself is a most wonderful evolution.
What other book ever was there that it took probably more
than ten thousand years to write ? Mr. Ingersoll’s Whole
pivotal power is the fact, that among so large a number of
men, there has been an impression that everything in the
Bible has been derived directly from God. .

What is the Bible? The Bible is an encyclopaedia of
history, describing what has been the course of progress
down to the present time ; and to pick out here and there
an absurdity, and then say, “There is your God telling
folks to do so and so ”-— how foolish, how wicked it is,
except as an answer to men that believe in plenary and
verbal inspiration. But there is no other such record on
the face of the earth, nor has any other nation, except the
Israelite nation and the sequent nations, down to the pres-
ent day, had any such history or any such unfolding of
the process by which men rose from the lowest stages of
animalism and came to the effulgence of modern civiliza-
tion.

And remember that from the beginning to the end of
this book you cannot find one single, solitary syllable in
favor of oppression. All of the oldest of the‘Old Testa-
mentis in favor of the workingman. There is no more
humanity than that in the institutes of Moses. One would
be astonished to see how far in many respects it is ahead of
the practical morality of our day. All the way down
through the singers and prophets of the Old Testament,
the Bible is a thunderbolt of denunciation against wrong. '
There never has been a modern nation that was oppressed
by creeds, driven out from home, wronged by priestcraft
and civil tyranny, that did not take refuge in the Old
Testament, because the whole spirit of it, with trumpet
tones, was marshalled like a man-of-war against all evil
and all oppression of humanity and for kindness and. love.
And you come down to the New Testament, and you find
there the very charter of the rights of the weak and of
those liable to be despoiled, as nowhere else you can. For

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION , 179

look at one single passage Of-the Master in the pictorial
parable in which he gathers all nations Of the earth to
judgment. To one he said, “ Come,” and to the other,
“ Depart,” and the law that determined that was the law
of love. He says tO them, “ I was sick, I was oppressed, I
was hungry, thirsty, naked, and a stranger, andye came
.and ministered to me ; ” and they with wonderful surprise
say to him, “ When did we ever see this man naked, for-
saken, or in prison, and came to him?” The crowd
around him was made up of lepers, thieves, lazzaroni, har-
lots, poor miserable creatures, and he said, “ Inasmuch as ye
have done it to one of the least Of these, ye have done it to
me.” When God would testify what his sense of the value
of humanity is he does not take the advanced and
learned; he does not take the man nursed in regal power ;
he does not take the one foremost in statesmanship; he
goes down so low that there is nothing below it, and takes
the poorest and meanest; not that he is good, but bad as
he is there are a sacredness and sanctity in him thatno
man should dare to harm or even to neglect him. And if
that is the value that is put upon humanity, the poor, the
oppressed, the laboring, are the last men that should suffer
the torch to be thrown into the temple of their faith in
regard to the sanctity Of the Word of God ; it is the poor
man’s shield; the poor man’s port Of refuge. It places
him at his highest value, by the judgment Of him who
judges man not by what he is in this world, but by what
he is to become in a better soil and a finer clime, when he
will have another chance for development.

This doctrine of the descent of man from an inferior
race throws light on the question of the origin Of sin and
evil. The lion is not guilty Of murder when he kills. He
violates no restraint, because that is what he was made
for. Look at his claws. The wolf was made to be a wolf,
and a fox a fox. You might as well find fault with gran-
ite for being hard, or with clay for being soft, as with the
animal creation for having the qualities Of their nature.
To them was given no reason, no moral sense, no sense Of
beauty, of taste, of imagination— nothing but to feed
themselves, to propagate their species, and then die. NOW,
man in his early history was an animal, but superinduced
upon his animal nature was the moral sense. Here is the
line between instinct and moral consciousness. The
moment that came in, then the question was, Which shall

180 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

rule —the animal sense or the higher sense ? That strug- '
gle is going on to-day with every man. There is not a man
anywhere who does not feel day by day, in the battle of
life, that his purposes are better than his acts. It is a
conflict between the upper man and the under man that
constitutes the great bulk of sinfulness; and there you
have a theory that throws light upon a whole field that
has hitherto been shrouded not merely in twilight but in
impenetrable darkness. Of course, beyond this point there
are a great many nice questions as to the nature of sin —
the voluntary doing of that which a man knows to be
wrong. These are questions of profound importance but
do not belong exactly to the topic of the lecture this
evening.

Men say, “ If this doctrine be true, what light will it
throw on the struggling questions of to-day; on the endless
strife and endeavor to equalize the conditions of men ?.”
Evolution throws light on that also. There are various
schemes for the reorganization of society—to equalize
weakness and strength. That is not nature, and nature
will not tolerate it. We cannot equalize weakness and
strength of brain. If man has a little brain he must be
a little man; such a partnership as that the strong shall
care for'the weak is an ideal which is Christian and beau-
tiful. But you can’t make an unthinking man equal to a
thinking man. You can’t make a spendthrift equal to an
economical man. Men are essentially different in their
composition, and nature sifts and riddles everything from
the lowest to the highest, and always in the direction of
increasing strength, sacrificing the relative imperfection,
throwing it away, and from generation to generation
advancing, that by and by the average strength may be
vastly increased. You can never baffle that great law of
nature that makes two twice as much as one; that makes
four twice as much as two; that makes a. man all through
five times as great as a man that is only half a man. With
all your schemes of benevolence—they are very benevo-
lent, and ofttimes very noble and effecting great good——
you cannot touch bottom until you get to this law; that
the human mind determines the condition of a man and
his worth everywhere. He who is strong, not in physical
strength, but in mind and moral strength, is the highest;
and if there are many of them that class is the highest, and
you cannot by any boosting, or byany method of screws

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. 181

or adjustment, make the under equal to the upper under
such circumstances; and the way out from poverty and
insignificance and all the miserable experiences of under-
cast men is: Go up yourself, and your afiairs Will come up
after you; development, education, more brain, better
brain. The elevation of mankind in moral and intellect; .
ual culture is the only way to cure the evils of society. ,

Men say, “Well, if the doctrine of evolution is true, ,
your churches are all cut up by the roots.” I beg your
pardon; theology is going to be—no doubt about that..
I shall not mourn it. All my early days were spent in the
west, in that State populous with trees, Indiana, and there
we never could raise a good crop fit for human food until
we had cut the trees off. Theology looks to me like a
thicket in the forest, and as soon as we can get a good deal
of it open to the air we will plant better theology and have
better crops. But it does not touch the question of
churches. The churches are a manifold organization. All
claims to be inheritors of the whole authority of God, of
course, will gradually pass away. It is not necessary for
me to go back to the Apostles to find out that I was ‘
ordained to preach; I found that out when I preached and
found folks wanted to hear me. The churches are schools
of moral culture. They are authoritative, apostolic and
divine when they succeed in producing moral culture; and,
the great majority Of the churches of all denominations are
doing it, for they generally leave off their theology. They
have to run into the block-house as the Old settlers did,
when their theology is attacked. Then they have to go
in and fight for it. What are the churches doing ? They
are going after families; teaching men how to bring up
their children; organizing for benevolence; endeavoring to .
carry out the basic principles of the doctrines of Christ and
to introduce them in all matters, manners and customs in \
the whole community. That is their business. It is a
grand business. I would not have one church less; I would
multiply the whole. And as to the question of ordinance,
Well, let every one have such ordinance as he wants. One
man wants to sharpen his scythe on a grindstone; another
wants to sharpen his on a Whetstone; and they have a
quarrel, and one says the divine way of sharpening a scythe"
is with a Whetstone, and the other says no, it is with a
grindstone. I say it doesn’t make any difference if the
scythe is sharp. The churches that mollify the manners,

182 ' HENRY WARD BEECHER.

cure the prejudices, extract the poison of hatred and bring
men together, and not separate them, produce concord,
sympathy, mutual love and helpfulness, are divine institu-
tions. Their works are divine not because they have, any of
them, any charter, or any of them any linkor title which goes
up out of sight and then, they say, is hitched on to‘the train
of one of the Apostles. Many a ship throws over its deck-
load in order to reach the harbor. Many churches will get
along better if they don’t undertake to meddle with creeds
and the current theologies of the time.

The whole theory of morals is to be profoundly advan-
taged, I think, by the question of evolution. Of course
just now there is a great deal of thinking, and more or less
comparison of thought, on the principle of an amicable ad-
justment of controversies as respects the origin of morals;
but one thing is very certain, and that is that the human race
is unfolding in the direction of reason and moral sense and
affectionate sense. The essential truths of God run down
and throw their roots into the great natural laws. . For
every great precept, every essential, practical doctrine, it is
better for the world that we should be able to say that it
stands, not on the authority of the priest, nor even on the
authority of experience, but that it stands rooted in nature
itself. If we cast 01f intolerable superstitions, year after
year, influences will work with the very seasons in favor of
virtue and of a true religion. I thank God, therefore, for
the growing light and power of the great doctrine of Chris-
tian Evolution.

MR. .BEEOHER’S ATTITUDE ON THE QUESTION
OF EVOLUTION.

In commencing the series of sermons on Evolution and
Religion, Mr. Beecher explained his position in the fol-
lowing terms :

The universal physical fact of evolution, which a widely
accepted philosophy of our day postulates as a theory of
the divine method of creation, is one which so naturally
and simply fits many a puzzling lock, that it is gratefully
seized by many who seem to themselves to have been shut
out from hope and from the truth.

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. , 183

For myself, while finding no need. of changing my idea
of the divine personality because of new light upon his
mode of working, I have hailed the evolutionary philosophy
with joy. Some of the applications of its principles to the
line of development I have to reject; others, though not
proven— and in the present state of scientific knowledge
perhaps not even provable -— I accept as probable; but the
underlying truth, as a law of nature, that is, a regular
method of the divine action, I accept and use, and thank~
God for it! .

Slowly, and through a whole fifty years, I have been
under the influence, first obscurely, imperfectly, of the great
doctrine of Evolution. In my earliest preaching I dis.-
cerned that the kingdom of heaven is a leaven, not only in
the individual soul, but in the world; the kingdom is as a.
grain of mustard—seed; I was accustomed to call my crude
notion a seminal theory of the kingdom of God in this
world. Later I began to feel that science had struck a
larger view, and that this unfolding of seed and blade and
ear in spiritual things was but one application of a great
cosmic doctrine, which underlay God’s methods in univer-
sal creation, and was notably to be seen in the whole devel-
opment of human society and human thought. That great
truth —— through patient accumulations of fact, and marve-
lous intuitions of reason, and luminous expositions of phil-
osophic relation, by men trained in observation, in think- .
ing, and in expression --has now become accepted through-
out the scientific world. Certain parts of it yet are in dis-
pute, but substantially it is the doctrine of the scientific
world. And that it will furnish ——nay, is already bringing
—to the aid of religious truth as set forth in the life and
teachings of Jesus Christ a new and powerful aid, fully in
line with other marked developments of God’s providence
in this his world, I fervently believe. '

The relations of this great truth to Evangelical Chris-
tianity, so as to show that the substantial points of execu-
tive doctrine are helped and not hindered by this new as-
pect in which we are called to view them, offer the field in
which I hope to do some work during the closing period of
my life.

It is a familiar thought that the unbelief of 'to-day is the
faith of to-morrow: and yet to-day always condemns the

remature to-morrow. The skepticism of honest men un-
folds the truth, and becomes the conviction of the after-

184 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

time. The theology that is rising upon the horizon will
still rise. I cannot hope that it will be the perfect theol-
ogy, but it will be a regenerated one; and I think far more .

owerful than the Old; a theology of hope, and of love,
which shall cast out fear. Nay more, it isvto be a theology
that will run nearer to the spirit and form Of Christ’s own
teachings, he who found the tenderness Of Divine Provi-
dence in the opening lilies of the field, and the mighty
power 'Of God’s kingdom in the unfolding of germ and leaf
and fruit. '

DO you suppose that now, after fifty years in the Chris-
tian ministry, I could attend the funeral Of religion cheer-
fully and joyfully, with every hereditary necessity on me,
with the whole education of my youth, with all my asso-
ciations, all the endearments of my past life in my mem-
ory, and with vivid and living sympathy with men; do you
suppose that I could stand here to advocate any truth that
would destroy the substance, or in any degree materially
injure even the forms, Of religion? I would die sooner!
DO you suppose from my nature and my whole example, I
could go into the course of sermons that I have preached,
and into the course of sermons that, God willing, I will
preach yet, for any other reason than that ,I believe that
the new view is to give to religion a power, and a scope,
and a character such as has never yet been taken and
known in the world at large?

EXCERPTS FROM SERMONS ON EVOLUTION
AND RELIGION. '

Some Definitions of Evolution.

First, then, what is Evolution, and what does it reveal?
The theory Of Evolution teaches that the creation of this
earth was not accomplished in six days of twenty-four
hours; that the divine method occupied ages and ages of
immense duration; that nothing, of all the treasures of
the globe as they now stand, was created at first in its pres-
ent perfectness; that everything has grown through the
lapse of ages into its present condition; that the whole
earth, with their development in it, was, as it were, an
egg, a germ, a seed ; that the forests, the fields, the shrubs,

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. 185

the vineyards, all grasses and flowers, all insects, fishes,
and birds, all mammals Of every gradation, have had a long
history, and that they have come to the position in which
they now stand thiough ages and ages Of gradual change
and unfolding. Also that the earth itself went through a
period Of long preparation, passing from ether by conden-
sation to a visible cloud form with increasing solidity, to
such a condition as now prevails in the sun ; that it con-
densed and became solid; that cold congealed its vapor;
that by chemical action and by mechanical grinding of its
surface by ice a soil was prepared fit for vegetation, long
before it was fit for animal life; that plants simple and
coarse came first and developed through all stages Of com-
plexity to the present conditions of the vegetable kingdom;
that aquatic, invertebrate animals were the earliest Of
animals, according to the testimony of fossils in the earth.
Fishes came next in order, then amphibians, then reptiles.
“ All these tribes were represented by species before the
earliest of the mammals appeared. The existence of birds
before the earliest mammal is not proved, though believed
by some paleontologists upon probable evidence. The
early mammals were marsupial, like the Opossum and the
kangaroo, and lived in the same era called by Agassiz the
reptilian period. True mammals came into geologic his-
tory in the tertiary era. Very long after the appearance
Of the first bird came man, the last and grandest of the ‘
series, it is doubtful whether 1n the tertiary period or im-
mediately sequent. It Is not established whether his bones
or relics occur as far back as the tertiary era.’

This Is a very brief statement, not my own, but that Of
Professor Dana, of renown. No man is more trusted,
more careful, more cautious than he, and this brief history
of the unfolding series I have taken bodily from his writ-
in s.

gAs thus set forth, it may be said that Evolution is ac-
cepted as the met/10d Of creation by the whole scientific
world, and that the period of cOntroversy is passed and
closed. A few venerable men yet live with many doubts;
but it may be said that ninety-nine per cent— as has been
declared by an eminent physicist—ninety- nine per cent
Of scientific men and working scientists Of the world are
using this theory without any doubt of its validity. While
the scientific world 1s at agreement upon this order of OO-
currence, it has been much divided as to the causes which

186 EVOLUTION AND RELIGION.

have operated to bring about these results. There is a
diversity of opinion still, but with every decade scientific
men are drawing together to a common ground of belief.
The theory of Evolution is the working theory of every
department of physical science all over the world. With-
draw this theory, and every department of physical research
would fall back into heaps of hopelessly dislocated facts,
with no order or reason or philosophy.

_—

The Changes Evolutioh Will Affect.

That Evolution applied will greatly change the reading
and the construction of the earlier periods of the Scripture
history cannot be doubted. The Bible itself is one of the
most remarkable monuments of the truth of the evolu-
tionary process. There has been an immense amount of
modern ignorance imported into the Bible. Again, the
Lord is turning out the money—changers, and those who
sell oxen and doves, from the temple. But that Operation
of old, left the temple cleansed and pure for religious uses.
With many thoughtful Christian men, large tracts of the
Bible lie uncultivated and unused. They do not use the
whole; yet if any should take out a single text, there
would be screams of fear. There is not one Christian man
in a hundred, nor in' a thousand, that thinks that the
whole Bible is necessary to his spiritual development and
growth. Men pick'and choose, and in a sort of uncon-
scious way, reject portions constantly. We must save
them from throwing it all over. For the growth of
knowledge, and of intelligence, will not permit men any
longer to hold it as a talisman, an idol ; and unless guided
by a wiser teaching they will reject the Sacred Scriptures
not only as false in science, but as a guide to conduct and
to character. We of this age have come to the mountain-
top ; yet we can only see the promised land of the future.
Our children shall go over to the land flowing with milk
and honey. Great has been the past ; the future shall be
yet greater. Instead of doubts and dread of ill-omened
prophecies, and railings and murmurings, the Church
should write upon her banner, in this day of the orient,
“Rise, shine; Thy light has come. The glory of the
Lord is risen upon thee.” '

HENRY WARD BEECHER 187

A Grand Declaration of Faith.

The last years of my life I dedicate to this work of re-
ligion, to this purpose of God, to this development, on a
grander scale, of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ. I
believe in God. I believe in immortality. I believe in
Jesus Christ as the incarnated representative of the spirit
of God. I believe in all the essential truths that go to
make up morality and spiritual religion. I am neither an
infidel, nor anagnostic, nor an atheist ; but if I am any-
thing, by the grace of God, I am a lover of Jesus Christ,
as the manifestation of God under the limitations of space
and matter; and in no part of my life has my ministry
seemed to me so solemn, so earnest, s0 fruitful, as this last
decade will seem if I shall succeed in uncovering to the
faith of this people the great truths of the two revela-
tions—God’s building revelation of the material globe,
and God’s building revelation in the unfolding of the
human mind. May God d11 ect me in your instruction!

Petty Criticisms of the Bible.

In this View let me say next, that the petty criticisms
which peck at God’s word, and are amazingly contempt-
ible 1n the presence of this orient light which arose in twi-
light but waxed brighter and brighter toward the perfect
day, ought to be the marvel and the wonder of men. What
if there be anachronisms in the Bible? What does that
amount to? What if there should be mistakes in dates,
stumblings of good men, worn out and wasted customs
still embalmed? What if there should be impe1fect laws
permitted? What if the dust and detritus of wretched
peoples and co1rupt ages should still be found here and
there 1n the Bible? They are but fleeting elements, and
have their use in maiking the stages of development by
which the human intelligence rose from darkness into
relative light, and the conscience from being soiled into
relative purity, and a higher faith was being developed.
The Bible is not a book written as John Milton wrote
“ Paradise Lost,” nor is it a book written as a man writes
a history. It is not a book; it is a series of books, with
intervals of hundreds of years between. It is the record
of the progress of the human race in their development

188 EVOLUTION AND RELIGION.

into the divine idea through the medium of right-living.
It is the serial history of the construction Of the noblest
elements that belong to human consciousness.

Should I, if I had stood upon the Acropolis, and dis-
covered that there were spiders in the great temple, or
that there was a leak in the roof, or that there was dust
settled upon the cornices, blow up the building because I
saw these specks in it? Yet there are men who deride this
grandest collection of the evolutions of human conscious-
ness towards the highest ideal. They have no conception
of the grandeur of this movement, nor of the grandeur of
its results. God, that fills the whole heaven, and irradi-
ates the air, and his power which fills the globe, and the
steps by which he brought the majesty of his being to the
consciousness of the human family— all that is nothing!
A lighthouse that stands upon some jutting point to
throw cheer and guidance afar out over the stormed waters
—is it nothing that it guides fleet after fleet safely past
the peril and into the harbor? What if there is a crack
in the walls,'or some scratch on the. glass, or if there is
some other defect in the structure itself? These are petty,
miserable, ungenerous, unphilosophical Objections to the
Word of God.

Divine Providence.

The reality of the Divine Providence has been the
strength of men in every age Of the world. God governs ;
affairs are not haphazard ; alfairs are not even the machine
Operation Of a well-devised mechanical world. In the
initial stages of science, when .men began to find out that
God interpreted his thoughts to them by natural laws, or
rather, that natural laws were the constant expressions of
the divine thought and purpose, the religious-minded
feared that such a view would overthrow the doctrine Of
Special Providence. But through a changed conception
of the nature of God, and of what are the expressions Of
the divine will, men are coming back to a belief in a gen-
eral Divine Providence, and I think they will come back
much nearer than that, although with manifold explana-
tion. The doctrine of Providence stands, but men’s ideas
Of its method and meaning will change along the line of
experience, and Of further divine manifestation in the
world.

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. 189

Change in the Churches.

That there IS a great change going on, every man that
is past forty yea1s of age has at least a vague idea. Things
are not as they were Any church in any denomination
that lives in the great thoroughfares of life is not What it
was thirty, forty or fifty years ago. If it is so, it must be
some church placed aWay in the mountains or off in the
remote valleys, some kind of catacomb church, some
church as well preserved as the mummies in Egypt. But
the churches that live out- doors, and have a free sun and
free circulation of air,—it is preposterous to say that they
are not changed and changing. Men are greatly alarmed
about this,— just men, good men, conscientious men. Nor
are We to trifle with their alarm. Yet I rejoice at that
which they grieve over, and I grieve over that which they
rejoice in.

The Old Theory of Sin.

The old theory of sin, then, —which will be extermi-
nated, I think, by the new light thrown upon the origin
of man and the conditions by which the race has been
developed, —-is repulsive, unreasonable, immoral, and de-
moralizing. I hate it. I hate it because I love the truth,
because I love God, and because I love my fellow-men.
The idea that God created the race, and that two of them
Without experience were put under the temptation of the
arch-fiend (or whatever the “creature ” was), and that
they fell into disobedience to what they did not understand
anything about, and that God not only thrust them out of
the Garden of Eden, as no parent would ever treat a child
in his own household, but that he then transmitted the
corruption that was the result of disobedience through the
countless ages, and spread it out and out and out, and kept
on through the system of nature, mingling damnation on
the right and on the left, befo1e and behind—I hate it,
because I love God. l I abhor it, because I love justice and
truth}. People say to me, “ It is generally understood that
you are not a Calvinist.” John Calvin can take care of
himself. But I am a teacher of righteousness. ‘I am a
lover of mankind. It is my business to make the truth,
the path 111 which men’s thoughts travel, just as plain as I
can, and take out all the obstructions that tend to unbelief.
Among the mischievious things of this kind 1s this whole

190 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

theory of sin and its origin, that lie at the base of the great
evangelical systems of Christianity. I say, it is hideous,
it is horrible, it is turning creation into a shamble and
God into a slaughterer, and the human race into a condi-
tion worse a thousand-fold than that of beasts. The lion
is never blamed for being a lion, nor the bear for being a
bear, or for being no more than a lion or a bear; nor the
horse, nor the swallow, nor the eagle, for not increasing
the stature of their being. But man is made to start and
not to stop; to go on, and on, and up, and onward, steadily
emerging from the controlling power of the physical and
animal conditions in which he was born and which enthrall
him during his struggle upward, but ever touching higher
elements of possibility, and ending in the glorious liberty
of the sons of God.

Nursing Our Cares.

Men do not avail themselves of the riches of God’s grace.
They love to nurse their cares, and seem as uneasy Without
some fret, as an old friar would be without his hair girdle.

_.—___——._

Paley’s Illustration of the Watch.

You are all familiar with the famous illustration of Dr.
Paley, where a man finds a watch, and infers irresistibly that
that watch was made by some skillful, thoughtful watch-
maker. Suppose that a man, having found a watch, should
say to himself, “Somebody thought this out, and some-
body‘created this; it is evidently constructed and adapt-
ed exactly to the end in view—the keeping of time.” Sup-
pose, then, that some one should take him to Waltham,
and introduce him into that vast watch-factory, where
watches are created in hundreds of thousands by machinery;
and suppose the question should be put to him, “ What do
you think, then, about the man who created this machin-
ery, which of itself goes on cutting out wheels, and springs, ,
and pinions, and everything that belongs to making a
watch? If it be an argument of design that a man could
make one watch, is it not a sublimer argument of design
that there is a man existing who could create a manufac-
tory turning out millions of watches, and by machinery
too, so that the human hand has little to do but to
adjust the parts already created by machines?” If it'be

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. 191

evidence of design in creation that God adopted one single
flower to its place and functions, is it not greater evidence
if there is a system of such adaptations going on from
eternity to eternity? Is out the creator of a system a
more sublime designer than the creator of any single-act?

Natural Laws Decrees of God.

The great natural laws of the world are decrees of God.
Men are absolutely subject to them, and they cannot escape
from them. These decrees are at once their body-guard
and defense, or their judgments, sentences, and punish-
ment. No man can with impunity transgress natural law,
even although there is a sliding scale by which any natural
law adapts itself to the constitution of individuals, so that
that which in a slenderly-made man would be a Violation of
law, in a stronger and more robust man is not a violation.
That is, though great natural laws take hold of men’s bod—
ies with a kind of sliding-scale, adapted to their nature and
structure, yet substantially, all laws are universal, take
hold of every man, and are bound to be obeyed. They are
not the laws of nature only; they are just as much the laws
of God as were the sentences issued from Mount Sinai. A
natural law is a moral law. In their long operation and
in their full effects upon the individual and upon human
society, natural physical laws are moral laws; that is, they
«work out moral results as well as material and physical re-
sults. In one ,way they are imperious and irresistible over
all men, but in another, way they are the very means of lib-
erty, of power, and of divinity in men. Whoever resists
them is crushed; whoever accepts them is ennobled and
empowered. ‘

Systematic Theology.

For a long time speculative theology ruled man’s beliefs.
Character and conduct, which are the great ends of God in
the creation of man, were supposed to be the product chiefly
of right systematic and scholastic beliefs. It is not to be
denied that right beliefs have much to do with conduct
and with character, but it is false to suppose that conduct
and character can always and easily be derived from system-
atic theological beliefs. A system grew up which has been
filled with confusion and has had the effect of confusing

192 ' HENRY WARD BEECHER.

mankind; and it has come to pass that theology stands in
about this state: those who think they understand it dis-
pute incessantly among themselves, and those who do not
wish to quarrel do not try to understand it. Systematic
theology includes in a general way, to be sure, a sound
morality, an imperfect mental philosophy, an analysis of
God’s nature and government, in which good and evil,
truth and fiction, are blended, as in Daniel’s vision; and
this vision is an admirable description of the present con-
dition of theology. The image’s head was of fine gold,
his breast and arms were of silver, his belly and thighs of
brass, his legs of iron, his feet part iron and part clay.
So stands theology to-day.

I Worship 3. God of Love.

While I never could bow down before a crystal God
seated on a marble throne, white and cold as the marble
itself, that suns himself and bids the revolving stars sweep
on, every one of their censers casting out incense for his
supreme and royal delectation; while I cannot worship
universal selfishness, nor crystalline conceit, nor power,
when I look up and behold the throne blazing with that
whose sparks made mother love in the world, and when I
behold that throne, sitting thereon one who cares and
loves and longs, and through infinite ages with infinite
patience, waits for the unfolding of the low, bringing
them up in sections and ages higher and" higher until the
world blossoms and the consummation of the millenial
day is at hand, I cannot withhold adoration, and I join
with those that cry out “Thou art worthy to reign.”
Love, always; love, universal; love that suffers for those
whom it loves, and having loved, loves them unto the end;
so that I can and I do bow my understanding, my heart
and my conscience.

The Bible Untouched by Sceptical Science.

What has the outward revelation of God’s method of
unfolding creation in it that can touch the inward life of
the sacred Scriptures? What if miracles be set aside (as I
do not think they need be): what if there be anachron-
isms found (as I think unquestionably there are); what if

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. 193

dates do conflict; what if the early notions of astronomy
are proved to-be erroneous. (as they are); what if six literal
days of creation be no longer tenable (and they are not,
except by an unconsciously dishonest twisting of men’s
intellectual faculties); what if the poem of Eden be
proved but a poem, and the legend of our first parents be
shown to be but the imagination of a child-like age: how
will all the divine developments recorded in this book and
proceeding from its influence be changed by these things?
God will be the same, and humanity will be the same.
These are facts exterior to the Scriptures. The needs of
man will be the same and the supply provided will be the
same. All that which the Bible has gained and set forth
to the world is untouched by any sceptical science; and
true science, the science of real knowledge, in the hands
of honest men, so far from setting aside the word of God,
step by step corroborates that which is its interior light
and its real power. .

Plenary and Verbal Inspiration.

The theory of plenary and verbal inspiration is a mod-
ern theory, which has come to its ascendancy since the Ref-
ormation. It is a theory which carries confusion into the
Bible, sets part against part, gives sanction to puerilities,
brings in contradictions, makes the early and nascent ex-
periences of the human race of equal value with the latest
ripened truths, and subjects the Sacred Book to ridicule
and contempt. Indeed, for the most part, the infidelity
of our age springs from a theory of inspiration which has
no warrant in the Bible itself, and is contrary to the
known history and structure of the Book. The logical
outcome Of the theory of verbal and plenary inspiration is
superstition on the one hand, and infidelity on the other.

Natural Laws in Conflict.

Natural laws are constantly checked, constantly con-
tradicted and made inoperative. They are set in conflict
one against the other. The laws of chemical affinity are
perpetually thwarted in the laboratory. The acid cannot
have its way when it meets with an alkali, or the alkali
when it meets an acid; they make a compromise. I n me-

.13

194 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

chanics the law of gravity cannot pull down the stone which
you put an iron pillar under to support. In its wildness
and untouched condition every weight mustfall to the
ground, but you say to the law of gravity, “ You shall not
pull that stone down.” You have propped it up and made
it resist the operation of gravity. Everywhere through-
out the world you can put law against law, and you can
make .a compromise not only, but you can make laws
do, by the infusion of human reason and human will, that
which they would never do of themselves. That is the
root and fundamental quality of civilization, that at last
large communities have gained such a knowledge of natur-
al laws that they have harnessed them and drive them for
all work everywhere.

The Real Atonement.

The atonement confounded with the fable of Adam’s
fall will give place to a more glorious development of
the outcoming of God’s nature in the fullness of time,
and the moral power that streams from the face of God in
Christ Jesus.

——.———.—-—_

The Church Not So Awful as it Once Was.

For example, everybody notices that Sunday is not kept
as it used to be; whether for better or for worse—a little
of both I think. "The cords are not so tight. We do not
begin Sunday on Saturday night any more. We do not
absolutely forbid all cheerful converse on the Sabbath
morning. We more than smile, we are not afraid to lay
forth our hand, nor to walk forth in the communion of
nature in field or garden. In various ways the Sabbath
has been “popularized,” as it is said; and over that some
grieve. But whatever may be the change, there is: this
change: the church is not so awful as it used to be. It
is larger, freer; it is more cheerful. Children are not pet-
rified as they used to be. I used to love to go to church
because I did enjoy walking down the half-mile of
street and hearing birds, hearing the winds in the trees;
but when I got into church I didn’t'dare to stir; and so I
went to sleep, chiefly,—with an occasional rap of grace on
my head. But the church was always cold and unsvm-
pathetic to my young nature.

HENRY WARD BEECHER ' 195

Pedestal or Pillory.

Labor also is undergoing great struggle and agitation.
It is the struggle of extrication. The rich and the poor
are coming into affinities that scarcely were recognized
hitherto. To-day the rich are about to learn, if they have
not yet learned it, that they cannot separate themselves
from the welfare of the whole great laboring multitude.
The spirit of the ancient day still holds men to that en-
deavor, but the spirit of the new coming days is very soon
to dissipate that condition of things. No man will stand
long in any security in his riches, or with any great com-
fort in his luxuries, who does not make his riches serve the
wants of common humanity. Men are not to be heroic,
even in the court of Mammon, by the magnitude of their
riches, but by the uses of them. Men are not to be laur-
eled and crowned by their profligate expenditure, by their
wanton exhibition of what their wealth will enable them to
do, by their attempting to gild and garnish and glorify all
the lower, all the more sensuous elements in human life,
because they have the money. Men who are to have large
properties are coming rapidly under the responsibility of
using them for the public welfare, and not alone for their
own selfishness. The man that stands to-day on a pedes-
tal simply because he is rich will in another fifty years stand
in. the pillory if he does not make his riches serve mankind.

Immortality.

The question of immortality, also. has come up for con-
sideration as it never came before. It relates to conduct
and character in this life, and to destiny. There never
was a time when it needed more investigation. There
never was a time when it was having more investigation
in every degree of wisdom, of doubt, or of skepticism.
There is no theme about which, I suppose, the human con~
science is or ought to be more concerned than about this.
Am I but an animal? Is the cold house in the grave my
whole house? Is there no existence after death? Is the
fruit of this life thrown away and sacrificed? Is' there
another existence? If there is, how many can gain it, and
what is the way of gaining it? Is the major part of the
whole human family going to be destroyed? Is death the

196 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

hideous altar on which the great proportion of the human
family are to be sacrificed? is there hope for the imper-
fect ? Is there hope for men that are sinful— that is, for
all men ? for all are sinful, from the very best to the very
lowest. If so, what are the conditions of it P These ques-
tions are undergoing investigation. The immediate and
first fruit will be the shocking of the faith of a great
many; but the next result is going to be a larger, purer,
and more stimulating view of the reality of the fact of
immortality.

Man the Consummation of Nature.

Man is the consummation of nature, and when man ap-
pears and begins to develop his characteristic agency, the
law of force is no longer wanton and universal. It is con-
strained and restrained and made to walk in cerebral
paths. Brainless nature follows power exclusively, and
power despises weakness universally. But so soon as men
appear, there comes in, feebly at first, but increasingly, a re-
straint upon force. The conversion of destructive force to
protection begins to develop itself- Before the advent of man
the world was a mighty engine of force, merely; the world
went on grinding and clashing and destroying. Winds
waxed mighty; the light blazed everywhere, but in vain;
gravitation pulled down whatever lost its hold; heat and
cold, all electric forces filled the earth with aimless energy,
and the great law was, the weak must go to the wall,
and the strong must surpass and survive. Slowly, steadily,
continuously, man subdued the elements of force. He
studied the laws of the world. He could not destroy the
winds, but he could harness them. Chemistry brought
into its laboratory the subtle elements of nature and com-
pelled them to declare their secrets to mankind. The tel-
escope on the one side, and the microscope on the other,
have revealed the infinite depths and distances. The human
brain began to match itself with the wild and ungovernable
and material forces 0f nature. As man pursues upon the
pampas of the South the wild steeds, and thus also. brings
one and another and subdues them with bit and saddle,
mounts and rides them, giving all their strength and ‘speed
to 'his own loins, so man is pursuing the forces and the
laws of nature; and all nature, as represented by this ter-
raqueous globe is now following the weakness of the human

EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. ‘ 19‘?

thought. Against the mighty energies that seem omnipo-
tent, the silent forces of the brain are acting. Thought,
noiselessly, gently —gentle as the light, as the falling dew,
walks forth, revealing and subduing the mighty forces of
nature that, at first, terrified, crushed and annihilated
man.

Obstructions to the Progress of Truth.

There are two Obstructions to the progress Of truth.
One is the natural Obscurity Of the teacher’s own mind, his,
moral condition; the other is the condition of those to
whom he brings it. It _ is oftentimes true that truth is a
lie—~truth in your mouth and a lie in the ears of your
congregation. They do not understand it; they misun-
derstand it; they are not prepared for it. In school we
bring children up through the primitive branches, little by
little, that by-and-by they may take hold of higher truths,
which are at first to be adumbrated ; and it is eminently so
in all moral instruction. There are two considerations;
one is the clarity or the elevation Of the man himself;
and the other is the condition of mind of the community
to which he ministers. It is a perpetual, practical compro-
mise. It is a perpetual unfolding of the truth to the
teacher, and through him to his people, little by little as
they digest it, bringing them at last to that condition in
which they shall be fed, not any longer with milk, but with
meat, because they are full-grown. All these practical
elements are involved in the Pauline history. They break
out and show themselves here and there all the way through
the writings, especially of the Apostle Paul, the great
organizer of antiquity.

Self-Control.

That word “temperance,” in the Fifth of Galatians,
the closing words of that cluster or crown of graces men-
tioned there— “temperance” is the word, but the true
meaning is ser-control, the power of doing that success-
fully which one has a mind to, and putting down one part
and putting up another part, having perfect control over
all the man’s own nature. I think the days that precede
millennial glory will have some other way than rote teach-.

198 HENRY WARD BEECHER. .

ing, or the mere stuffing of a child with knowledge in
some departments, leaving life really to be his great edu-
cator ; for when a man goes out now into life too sensitive,
he very soon is ready, in the shop or in his profession, to
repress the sensibility that he has in over-measure; or
he is too blunt and loses customers until he begins to smile
and become courteous; he learns it behind the counter,
this looking upon everybody as if each was unlike every-
body else, until by diversity of experience he finds out how
different men are. The road to the front door of a man
lies in a very different direction, in different individuals.
Some men have got no door but a back door, and some
men have got a side door, and some a front door. Some
men have got only a scuttle in the roof; you have to go
down that to get into them ; and there is no instruction
provided for in our courses, in our schools, on these funda-
mental differences among mankind. Men are left to pick
them up ; the stupid never do, and the bright do, and use
them to their own advantage, selfishly. Do you suppose
the human race is to go on forever and forever in that way,
and a man’s internal structure be an enigma, and the
method of training it lag far behind the training that the
athlete gives to the bodily organs ? N o ; the day will come
when men will understand the inside just as well as the
outside.

Remedies For Poverty.

Intelligence and virtue are remedies for poverty.
Schools and churches are good instruments ; they are the
fountains out of which go knowledge and virtue, and there
is a reason in political economy why churches and schools
should be everywhere multiplied. N 0 class of people in
the world are so much interested as the poor in the devel-
opment of these institutions, provided they represent the
genius of the Gospel, compassion for the poor. There is
no class so much interested in them as the poor, as the
day laborer, as, what are called among us the common
people. The remarkable people of this world are useful
in their way, but the common people after all represent the
nation, the age and the civilization. Go into any town or
city ; do not ask who lives in that splendid house ; do not
say, “ This is a fine town ; here are streets of houses with
gardens and yards, and everything that is beautiful the

EVOLUTION AND . RELIGION. 199

whole way through.” Go into the lanes, go into the back
streets, go where the mechanic lives; go where the day-
laborer lives. See what is the condition of the streets
there. See what they do with the poor, with the helpless
and the mean. If the top of society bends perpetually
over the bottom with tenderness, if the rich and strong
are the best friends of the poor and needy, that is a civ-
ilized and a Christian community ; but if the rich and the
wise are the cream, and the great bulk of the population
skim-milk, that is not a prosperous community.

The Mainspring Wanting.

In all theories of organized society the mainspring is
wanting. There is no want of desire, no want of emotion,
no want of philosophy. All thinking men of our age are
agog on this subject. Everybody wants to have the world
happier than it is; all the world wants to have more jus-
tice; all the world wants more prosperity. But men have
not yet been taught, either by nature or by revelation, what
is the secret of prosperity; that power is the servant of
weakness; that the ends, as indicated by the providence of
God, the great ends of power in the development of the
human race, are to assist those that are uppermostto draw
up those that are below them; to assist those that are
feeble, by giving them the aegis and protection of those
that are mighty. The mainspring, therefore, of reform is
wanting, the old word: “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God, and thy neighbor as thyself; ” there youhave it. As
the subjugation of rude force springs more from the in-
stincts of life than from the sentiments of love, so all final
great reforms in the organization of human society at large
must spring from that same central element: “ Thou shalt
love thy neighbor.” The world don’t believe in that yet;
has not come within sight of it. .

Spiritualism.

Consider, for a moment, what there is in the teachings
of the Word of God which transcends human experience.
Spirit-life must be incomprehensibly different from life in
the body; and yet you will take notice that whenever
spirit-life is interpreted to us by spiritual teachers it is

200 EVOLUTION AND RELIGION.

done by bringing back to us human forms, human thought
and human action. The whole literature and lore of what
is called “ Spiritualism,” in our day, is a confession that
men cannot understand spirit. It frees man from bodily
conditions, and throws him into a higher sphere by imag-
ination ; but then he is just the same that he was, only he
seems to be made up Of cloud instead of good honest flesh
and bones ; and he thinks, and hears, and feels, and talks,
and walks just as he did before.

Rights and Liberties of Man.

The rights and liberties of man are, however, negative
and positive. When we speak Of a man’s rights, we are
very apt to think of them simply in their primitive form.
“I have a right to think, to speak and to do;” but you
have the other right, tOO; you have a right to hold your
tongue. You are not bound to speak whenever you have
a mind to. You have a right to think and to investigate ;
and you have a right to form a Christian judgment
whether in your age, in your conditions, it is best for you
to speak your thought. This is particularly so in the case
of all men who stand in a pastoral or teaching relation.
There are a great many men in the world who cannot un-
derstand this. I sometimes think they have so few ideas
Of their own that whenever they get one they cannot help
firing it Off, just like a child with a Chinese cracker.
What is it good for unless they fire it Off? There are men
who have an idea, and they do not know What is the mat-
ter with them, and they make it known everywhere, and
they ride it, and ride it to death. It is not large; it has
no connections one side or the other; but it is a little dif-
ferent; and it may and it may not be a little better than
has been held before; and so they proclaim it. LOoking
upon those whose business it is tO advance the cause of
truth, and who are supposed tO have had some advanced
views, they say, “ Why don’t these men speak out? Why
don’t the pulpits, all of them, utter their views? These men
have knowledge and don’t let it out. They believe a good
deal further ahead than they preach, and they are not
sincere.” They think every man is to put a trumpet to
his mouth, and every moment he has a new idea, rush to
proclaim it without waiting for the truth to ripen, or
'without thinking of what the effect will be.

HENRY WARD BEECHER. 201*

Time and Eternity.

Now what is timeto men is not time to God. As we
have but threescore and ten or fourscore of years to live,
and as we have much to do, and as what we accomplish
must be crowded into those years, we are in a hurry; but
God dwells in Eternity! He has time enough, he never
needs to hurry; and that which, because we are in physi-
cal conditions, seems to us delay, is not delay to the Divine
mind. In the vast scheme according to which he works, a
million years, or ten million years, do not seem long to
him; nor will they seem long to us when we are on the
other side. The trouble with us is that we are bringing
time-measures and flesh-measures to bear on themes to
which only spirit-measures are adapted. It matters not if
the race have been here twenty or thirty thousand years,
provided they are going forward on a system which will
in the end bring all things in heaven and on earth into
one in Christ Jesus. This thought takes out of human
life that bitter element which otherwise carries poiSon
through it from end to end. The sense of divine universal
justice, confidence in God, the feeling which enables one
to say, “Wait, Lord, as long as thou wilt: if a thousand
years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and
as a watch in the night, then let a thousand years measure
the period of human ascendency; only, in the far future,
when the world that has groaned and travailed in pain so
long shall have forgotten the cries of sorrow and sighing,
and learned the notes of gladness and joy, and at last the
ransomed of the Lord shall have returned and come to
Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, then
let every sentient creature, in heaven, on earth and under
the earth, join the shining crowd, and lift up his voice,
and help to swell the triumphant chorus that shall fill the
infinite space of heaven!” That confidence illuminates, for
me, the m stery of the slow and long-delayed operations of
this mortalflife.

A Word to Young Men.

Young men that wait upon my ministry, I do not say
to you, lay aside the dangerous books of modern thought ;
I say, read them. Do not be afraid of them, do not be
afraid of change. But do not make haste ; do not be
misguided by false lights. I am for liberty of knowl-

202 EVOLUTION AND RELIGION.

edge, for liberty in philosophy, in spite of organization
and precedents and of all that IS past. Go on from 1gno1-
ance to twilight, and f1om twilight to sunrise, and from
sunrise to mid- day. But be sum of one thing—what-
ever philosophy has taught or is teaching you are a
sinful and impeifect man, and that is the root- t1 11th for
you. And again: God is abroad in the wo1ld to give i11-
spiration and help to you, and to lift you 11p out of you1
animal life into spiritual. These tWO t1uths me to be
held as you hold your very birthlight of life itself. You
are sinners; and God, through Jesus Christ, has come
into the world to save sinners. Be lifted theri into com-
munion and intercourse and likeness with God. Read on;
fill your mind with facts and ideas, but do not be in haste
to give 11p the covenants of your fathers. Do not be skep-
tical of the reality of piety. Is there no mother that rises
from the horizon of your memory to tell you that her
religion was true—not its doctrines, but its substance? Is
there no venerable patriarch remembered as your father,
whose justice and charity and truth were such that you
can say, “If ever there Was a Christian he was one”?
You have seen what religion is in actual disposition and
in actual life. Hold on to that substance.

MR. BEECHER’S ORATION IN EXETER
HALL, LONDON.

HE last of Mr. Beecher’s historic speeches in England

was delivered in Exeter Hall, and is here presented
mainly because it contains a summary of the Whole discus-
sion. Exeter Hall was crowded to its uttermost. The
Chamberlain of London presided and was supported by a
large array of clergymen of all denominations, and of
many distinguished Englishmen :

As this is my last public address upon the American
question in England, I may be permitted to glance briefly
at my course here. At Manchester I attempted to give a
history of the external political movement for fifty years
past, so far as it was necessary to illustrate the fact that
the present American war was only an overt and warlike
form ofa contest between liberty and slavery that had
been going on politically for half a century. At Glasgow
I undertook to show the condition of work or labor neces-
sitated by any profitable system of slavery, demonstrating
that it brought it into contempt, affixing to it the badge of
degradation, and that a struggle to extend servile labor
across the American continent interests every free working-
man on the globe. For my sincere belief is that the
Southern cause is the natural enemy of free labor and the
laborer all the world over. In Edinburgh I endeavored to
sketch how, out of separate colonies and states intensely
jealous of their individual sovereignty, there grew up and
wasfinally established a nation, and how in that Nation of
United States, two distinct and antagonistic systems were
developed and strove for the guidance of the national
policy, which struggle at length passed and the North
gained the control. Thereupon the South abandoned the
Union simply and solely because the Government was in
future to be administered by men who would give their
whole influence to freedom. In Liverpool I labored under

203

204 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

difficulties— to show that slavery in the long run was as
hostile to commerce and to manufacturers all the world
over, as it was to free interests in human society—that a
slave nation must be a poor customer, buying the fewest
and poorest goods, and the least profitable to the producers
—that it was the interest of every manufacturing country
to promote freedom, intelligence, and wealth among all
nations—that this attempt to cover the fairest portion of
the earth with a slave population that buys next to nothing
should array against it every true political economist and
every thOughtful and far-seeing manufacturer, as tending
to strike at the vital want of commerce— which is not
cotton, but rich customers. I have endeaVored to enlist
against this flagitious wickedness, and the great civil war
which it has kindled, the judgment, conscience and
interests of the British people. I am aware that a popular
address before an excited audience more or less affected by
party sympathies is not the most favorable method of
doing justice to these momentous topics ; and there have
been some other circumstances which made it yet more
difficult to present a careful or evenly balanced statement ;
but I shall do the best I can to leave no vestige of doubt
that slavery was the cause—the only cause—the whole
cause—of this gigantic and cruel war. I have tried to
show that sympathy for the South, however covered by
excuses or softened by sophistry, is simply sympathy with
an audacious attempt to build up a slave empire pure and
simple. I have tried to show that in this contest the North
were contending for the preservation of their Government
and their own territory, and those popular institutions on
which the well-being of the nation depended. So far I
have spoken to the English from an English point of View.
'I‘o-night I ask you"'to look at this struggle from an Amer-
ican point of view, and in its moral aspects. That is, I
wish you to take our stand-point for a little while, and to
look at our actions and motives, not from What the enemy
say, but from what we say. When two men have disagreed,
you seldom promote peace between them by attempting to
prove that either of them is all right or either of them is
all wrong. Now there has been some disagreement of
feeling between America and 'Great Britain. I don’t want
to argue the question to-night which is right and which is
wrong, but if some kind neighbor will persuade two people
that are at disagreement to consider each other’s position

ORATION IN EXETER HALL, LONDON. 205"

and circumstances, it may not lead either to adopting the
other’s judgment, but it may lead them to say of each
other, “ I think he is honest and means well, even if he be
mistaken.” You may not thus get a settlement of the
dzficulty, but you will get a settlement of the quarrel. I
merely ask you to put yourselves in our track for one hour,
and look at the objects as we look at them — after that, form
your judgment as you please. The first and earliest form
in which the conflict took place between North and South
was purely moral. It was a conflict simply of opinion and
of truths by argument ; and by appeal to the moral sense
it was sought to persuade the slaveholder to adopt some
plan of emancipation. When this seemed to the Southern
sensitiveness unjust and insultin , it led many in the
North to silence, especially as the South seemed to apolo-
gize for slavery rather than defend it against argument.
It was said, “ The evil is upon us ; we cannot help it. We
are sullied, but it is a misfortune rather than a fault. It
is not right for the North to meddle with that which is
made worse by being meddled with, even by argument or
appeal.” , That was the earlier portion of the conflict. ' A
great many men Were deceived by it. I never myself
yielded to the fallacy. As a minister of the gospel
preaching to sinful men, I thought it my duty not to give
in to this doctrine ; their sins were on them, and I thought
it my duty not to soothe them, but rather to expose them.
The next stage of the conflict was purely political. The
South was attempting to extend their slave system into the
Territories, and to prevent free States from covering the
continent, by bringing into the Union a slave State for
every free State. It was also the design and endeavor of
the South not simply to hold and employ-t‘he enormous
power and influence of the Central Executive, but also to
engraft into the whole Federal Government a slave State
policy. They meant to fill all offices at home and abroad
with men loyal to slavery—to shut up the road to political
preferment against men who had aspirations for freedom,
and to corrupt the young and ambitious by obliging them
to swear fealty to slavery as the condition of success. I
am saying what I know. I have seen the progressive cor-
ruption of men naturally noble, educated in the doctrine
of liberty, who, being bribed by political offices, at last
bowed the knee to Moloch. The south pursued a uniform
system of bribing and corrupting ambitious men of north-

206 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

ern consciences. A far more dangerous part of its policy
was to change the Constitution, not overtly, not by exter—
nal aggression—worse, to fill the courts with Southern
judges, until, first by laws of Congress passed through
Southern influence, secondly, by the construction and adju-
dication of the courts, the Constitution having become
more and more tied up to Southern principles, the North
would have to submit to slavery, or else to oppose it by
violating the law and Constitution as construed by servile
judges. They were, in short, little by little, injecting the
laws, Constitution and policy of the country with the poi-
son and blood of slavery. '

Now, take notice first, that the North, hating slavery,
having rid itself of it at its own cost, and longing for
its extinction throughout America, was unable until this
war to touch slavery directly. The North could only
contend against slave policy—not directly against slavery.
Why ? Because slavery was not the creature of national
law, and therefore not subject to national jurisprudence,
but of State law and subject only to State jurisdiction. A
direct act on the part of the North to abolish slavery
would have been revolutionary. (A voice: “We do not
understand you.”) You will understand me before I have
done with you to-night. Such an attack would have been a
violation of the fundamental principle of State independ-
ence. This peculiar structure of our Government is not so
unintelligible to Englishmen as you may think. It is only
taking an English idea on a larger scale. We have borrowed
it from you. A great many do not understand how it is
that there should be State independence under a National
Government. Now I am not closely acquainted with your
affairs, but the Chamberlain can tell you if I am Wrong,
when I say, that there belong to the old city of London
certain private rights that Parliament cannot meddle with.
Yet there are elements in which Parliament—that is, the
will of the nation— is as supreme over London as over any
town or city of the realm. Now, if there are some things
which London has kept for her own judgment and will,
and yet others which she has given up to the national will,
you have herein the principle of the American govern-
ment by which local matters belong exclusively to the local
jurisdiction, and certain general matters to the National
Government. I will give you another illustration that
will bring it home to you. There is not a street in Lon-

ORATION IN EXETER HALL, LONDON. 207

don, but, as soon as a man is inside his house he may say,
his house is his castle. There is no law in the realm
which can lay down to that man how many members shall
compose his family—how he shall dress his children—-
when they shall get up and when they shall go to bed—-
how many meals he shall have a day, and of what those
meals shall be constituted. The interior economy of the
house belongs to the members of the house, yet there are
many respects in which every householder is held in check
by common rights. They have their own interior and do-
mestic economy, yet they share in other things which are
national and. governmental. It may be very wrong to give
children opium, but all the doctors in London cannot say to
a man that he shall not drug his child. It is his business,
and if it is wrong it cannot be interfered with. I will give

on another illustration. Five men form a partnership-

usiness. Now, that partnership represents the National
Government of the United States; but it has relation only to.
certain great commercial interests common to them all. But
each of these five men has another sphere — his family—
and in that sphere the man may be a drunkard, a gambler,
a lecherous and indecent man, but the firm cannot meddle
with his. morals. It cannot touch anything but business
interests that belong to the firm. Now, our States came
together on this doctrine —that each State, in respect to
those rights and institutions that were local and peculiar
to it, was to have undivided sovereignty over its own
affairs; but that all those powers, such as taxes, wars,
treaties of peace, which belong to oneState and are com-
mon to all States went into the General Government. The
General Government never had the power—the power was
never delegated to it—to meddle with the interior and
domestic economy of the States, and it never could be
done You will ask what are we doing it for now ? I will
tell you in due time. Have I made that point plain ? It
was only that part of slavery which escaped from the State
jurisdiction and which entered into the national sphere
which formed the subject of controversy. We could not
justly touch the constitution of the States, but only the
policy of the National Government that came out beyond
the State and appeared in Congress and in the Territories.
We are bound to abide by ourfundamental law. Honor,
fidelity, integrity, as well as patriotism, required us 'to
abide by that law. The great conflict between the South

208' HENRY WARD BEECHER.

and North, until this war began, was, which should control
the Federal or Central G0vernment and what we call the
Territories; that is, lands which are the property of the
Union, and have not yet received State rights. That was
the conflict. It was not “ Emancipation ” or “ No Eman--
cipation;” Government had no business with that ques-
tion. Before this war, the only thing on which politically
the free people of the North and South took their respect-
ive sides was, “ Shall the National policy be free or slave.”
And I call you to witness that forbearance, though not a
showy virtue—fidelity, though not a shining quality—
are fundamental to manly integrity.

During a period of eighty years, the North, whose
wrongs I have just read out to you, not from her own
lips, but from the lips of her enemy, has stood faithfully
to her word. With scrupulous honor she has respected
legal rights, even when they were merely civil and not
moral rights. The fidelity of the North to the great
doctrine of State rights, which was born of her—her for-
bearance under wrong, insult, and provocation—her con-
scientious and honorable refusal to meddle with the evil
which she hated, and which she saw to be aiming at the
life of Government, and at her own life—her determi-
nation to hold fast pact and constitution, and gain her
victories by giving the people a new National policy—will
yet be deemed worthy of something better than a con-
temptuous sneer, or the allegation of an “enormous
national vanity.” The Northern forbearance is one of
those themes of which we may be justly prOud—a product
of virtue, a fruit of liberty, an inspiration of that Christian
faith, which is the mother at once of truth and of liberty.
I am proud to think that there is such a record of national
fidelity as that which the North has written for herself by
the pen of one of her worst enemies. Now that is the
reason why the North did not at first go to war to enforce
emancipation. She went to war to save the national.
institutions—to save the Territories; to sustain those laws
which would first circumscribe, then suffocate, and finally
destroy slavery. That is the reason why that most true,
honest, just, and'conscientiOus magistrate, Mr. Lincoln—
(the announcement of Mr. Lincoln’s name was received
with loud and continued cheering. The whole audience
rose and cheered for some time, and it was a few minutes
before Mr. Beecher could proceed.) From having spoken

ORATION IN EXETER HALL, LONDON. 209

much at tumultuous assemblies I had at times a fear that
when I came here this evening my voice would fail from
too much speaking. But that fear is now changed to
one that your voices will fail from too much cheering.
How then did the North pass from a conflict with the
South and a slave policy, to a direct attack upon the
institutions of slavery itself? Because, according to the
foreshadowing of that wisest man of the South, Mr.
Stephens, they beleaguered the National Government and
the national life with the institution of slavery—obliged a
sworn President, who was put under oath not to invade
that institution, to take his choice between the safety and
life of the Government itself, or the slavery by which it
was beleaguered. If any man lays an obstruction on the
street, and blocks up the street, it is not the fault of the
people if they walk over it. As the fundamental right 0f
individual self-defense cannot be withdrawn without im-
morality; so the first element of national life is to defend
life. As no man attacked on the highway violates law,
but obeys the laW of self— defense—a law inside of the
laws—by knocking down his assailant; so, when a nation
is assaulted it is a right and duty, in the exercise of self-
defense, to destroy the enemy, by which otherwise it will
be destroyed. As long as the South allowed it to be a
moral and political conflict of policy, we Were content to
meet the issue as one of policy. But when they threw
down the gauntlet of war, and said that by it slavery was
to be adjudicated, we could do nothing else than take up
the challenge. The police have no right to enter your
house as long as you keep within the law, but when you
defy the laws and endanger the peace and safety of the
neighborhood they have a right to enter. So in constitu-
tional governments ; it has no power to touch slavery while
slavery remains a State institution. But when it lifts itself
up out of its State humility and becomes banded to attack
the nation, it becomes a national enemy, and has no longer
exemption. But it is said, “The President issued his
proclamation after all for political effect, not for human-
ity.” Of course the right of issuing a proclamation of
emancipation was political, but the disposition to do it was
personal. M1 Lincoln 1s an officer of the State, and 1n the

residential chair has no more right than your judge on
the bench to follow his private feelings. He 1s bound to
ask, “What IS the law ?”——not, “ What IS my sympathy ?”

210 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

And when a judge sees that a rigid execution or interpre-
tation of the law goes along with primitive justice, with
humanity, and with pity, he is all the more glad because
his private feelings go with his public office. Perhaps in
the next house to a kind. and benevolent surgeon is a boy
who fills the night with groans, because he has a cancerous
and diseased leg. The surgeon would fain go in and ampu-
tate that limb and save that life; but he is not called in
and therefore he has no business to go in, though he ever
so much wish it. But at last the father says to him, “ In
the name of God, come in and save my child ;” and he
goes in professionally and cuts off his leg and saves his
life, to the infinite disgust of a neighbor over the way, that
says, “ Oh, he would not go in from neighborly feeling and
cut his leg off.” I should like to know how any man has
a right to cut your leg or mine 01f except professionally,
and so a man must often wait for official leave to perform
the noblest offices of justice and humanity. Here then is
the great stone of stumbling. At first the President could
not touch slavery, because in time of peace it was a legal
institution. How then can he do it now ? Because in time
of war it has stepped beyond its former sphere, and is no
longer a local institution, but a national and public
enemy. Now I promised to make that clear; have I
done it?

It is said, “Why not let the South go? Since they
won’t be at peace with you, why do you not let them sepa-
rate from you? ” Because they would be still less peaceable
when separalecl. Oh, if the Southerners only would go!
They are determined to stay—that is the trouble. We
would furnish free passage to all of them if they would go.
But we say the land is ours. Let them go, and leave to
the'nation its land, and they will have our unanimous con-
sent. But I wish to discuss this more carefully. It is the
very marrow of the matter. I ask you to stand in our
place for a little time, and see this question as we see it, .
afterward make up your judgment. And first, this war
began by the act of the South firing at the old flag that
had covered both sections with glory and protection. The
attack made upon us was under circumstances which in-
flicted immediate severe humiliation, and threatened us
with final subjugation. The Southerners held all the
keys of the country. They had robbed our arsenals.
They had made our treasury bankrupt. They had pos-

ORATION IN EXETER HALL, LONDON. 211

session of the most important offices in the army and navy.
They had the vantage of having long anticipated and pre-
pared for the conflict. We knew not Whom to trust. One
man failed and another man failed. Men, pensioned by
the government, lived on the salary of the government
only to have better opportunity to stab and betray it.
There was not merely one Judas, there were a thousand in
our country. And for the North to have lain down like a
spaniel—to have given up the land that every child in
America is taught, as every child in Britain is taught, to
regard as his sacred right and his trust—to have giVen up
the mouths of our own rivers and our mountain citadel
without a blow, would have marked the North in all
future history as craven and mean. Secondly, the honor
and safety of that grand experiment, self-government by
free institutions, demanded that so flagitious a violation of
the first principles of legality should not carry off impunity
and reward, thereafter enabling the minority in every
party conflict to turn and say to the majority, “If you.
don’t give us our way we will make war.”_ Oh, English-
men, would you let a minority dictate in such a way to
you? (Loud cries of “ No, no, never!” and cheers.)
Three thousand miles off don’t make any difference,
then? The principle thus introduced would'literally have
no end— would carry the nation back to its original ele-
ments of isolated States. If every treaty may be over:
thrown by which States have been settled into a nation,
what form of political union may not on like grounds be
severedP, There is the same force in the doctrine of seces-
sion in the application to counties as in the application to
States, and if it be right for a State or a county to secede, it
is equally right for a town or city. This doctrine of seces-
sion is a huge revolving millstone that grinds the national
life to powder. ‘ It is anarchy in velvet, and national de-
struction clothed in soft phrases and periphrastic ex-
pressions. But we have fought with that devil “ Slavery,”
and understand him better than you do. N 0 people with
patriotism and honor will giVe up territory without a
struggle for it. Would you give it up? It is said that the
States are owners of their territory! It is theirs to use,
not theirs to run away with. We. have equal right with
them to enter it. 'Let me inform you when those States
first sat in convention to form a union, a resolution was
introduced by the delegates from South Carolina and Vir-

212 HENRY WA RD BEECHER.

ginia, “That we noiwr proceed to form a National Gov-
ernment.” The delegate from Connecticut objected. The
New Englanders were State-right men, and the South, in
the first instance, seemed altogether for a national govern-
ment. Connecticut objected, and a debate took place
whether it should be a constitution for a mere confederacy
of States, or for a nation formed out of those States.
(A voice: “When was that?”) It was in the conven-
tion of 1787. He wants to help me. I like such inter-
ruptions. I am here a friend among friends. Nothing
will please 'me better than any question asked in cour-
tesy and in earnest to elucidate this subject. I am not
afraid of being interrupted by questions which are to the
point. At this convention the resolution of the New
England delegates that they should form a confederacy
instead of a nation was voted down,‘and never came up
again. The first draft of the preamble contained these
words: “ We the people of the United States, for the pur-
pose of forming a nation;” but as there was a good deal of
feeling among the North and South on the subject, when
the draft came to the committee for revision,,and they had
simply to put in the proper phraseology, they put it “ for
the purpose of forming a Union.” But when the ques-
tion whether the States were to hold their autocracy came
up in South Carolina—which was called the Carolina
heresy—it was put down and never lifted its head up
again until this secession, when it was galvanized to justify
that which has no other pretense to justice. I would
like to ask those English gentlemen who hold that it is
right for a State to secede when it pleases, how they would
like it if the county of Kent would try the experiment.
The men who cry out for secession of the Southern States
in America would say, “Kent seceding? Ah, circum-
stances alter cases.” The Mississippi, which is our South-
ern door and hall to come in and go out, runs right
through the territory which they tried to rend from us.
The South magnanimously offered to let us use it; but
what would you say, if, on going home, you found a squad
of gypsies seated in your hall, who refused to be ejected,
saying, “ But look here, we will let you go in and out on
equitable and easy terms.” But there was another ques-
tion involved—the question of national honor. If you
take up and look at the map that delineates the mountain-
ous features of that continent, you will find the peculiar

ORATION IN EXETER HALL, LONDON. 213

structure of the Alleghany ridge, beginning in New Hamp-
shire, running across the New England States, through
Pennsylvania and West Virginia, stopping in the northern
part of Georgia. Now, all the world over, men that live
in mountainous regions have been men for liberty; and
from the first hour to this hour the majority of the pop-
ulation‘of western Virginia, which is in this mountainous
region, a majority of the population of eastern Ten-°
nessee, of western Carolina, and of north Georgia, have
been true to the Union, and were urgent not to go
out. They called to the national government, “ We
claim that, in fulfillment of the compact of the con-
stitution, "you defend our rights, and retain us in the
Union.” We would not suffer a line of fire to be estab-
lished one thousand five hundred miles along our southern
border out of which, in a cominghour, there might shoot
out wars and disturbances with such a people as the South,
that never kept faith in the Union, and would never keep
faith out of it. They have disturbed the land as old Ahab
of accursed memory did; and when Elijah found this
Ahab in the way, Ahab said, “It is Elijah that has dis-
turbed Israel.” Now we know the nature of this people.
We know that if we entered into a truce with them they
would. renew their plots and violences, and take possession
of the continent in the name of the Devil and slavery.
One more reason why we will not let this people go is
because we do not want to become a military people.

A great many say America is becoming too strong ; she
is dangerous to the peace of the world. But if you permit
or favor this division, the South becomes a military nation,
and the North is compelled. to become a military nation.
Along a line of 1,500 miles she must have forts, and men
to garrison them.. These 250,000 soldiers will constitute
the national standing army of the North. Now any nation
that has a large standing army is in great danger of losing.
its liberties. Before this war the legal size of the national
army was 25,000. That. was all; the actual number was
18,000, and those were all the soldiers we wanted. The
Tribune and other papers repeatedly said that these men
were useless in our nation. But if the country were di-
vided, then we should have two great military nations tak-
ing its place, and instead of a paltry 18,000 soldiers, there.
would be 250,000 on one side and 100,000 or 200,000 on
the other. And if America, by this ill-advised disruption,

214 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

is forced to have a standing army, like a boy with a knife
she will always want to Whittle with it. It is the interest
then of the world that the nation should be united, and
that it should be under the control of that part of America
that has always been for peace, that it should be wrested
from the control and policy of that part of thenation that
has always been for'more territory, for filibustering, for
insulting foreign nations. But this is not all. The relig-
ious-minded among our people feel that in the territory
committed to us there is a high and solemn trust—a na-
tional trust. We are taught that in some sense the world
itself is a field, and every Christian nation acknowledges a
certain responsibility for the moral condition of the globe.
But how much nearer does it come when it is one’s own
country! And the church of America is coming to feel
more and more that God gave us this country, not merely
for material aggrandizement, but for a glorious triumph of
the Church of Christ. Therefore we undertook to rid the
territory of slavery. Since slavery divested itself of its
municipal protection, and has become a declared public
enemy, it is our duty to strike down the slavery which
would blight this far Western territory. When I stand
and look out upon that immense territory as a man, as a
citizen, as a Christian minister, I feel myself asked, “ Will
you permit that vast country to be overclouded by this
curse ? Will you permit the cries of bondmen to issue from
that fair territory, and do nothing for their liberty ?”
What are we doing ? Sending our ships round the globe,
carrying missionaries to the Sandwich Islands, to the is-
lands of the‘Pacific, to Asia, to all Africa. And yet, when
this work of redeeming our continent from the heathen-
dom of slavery lies before us, there are men who counsel
us to give it up to the devil, and not try to do anything
with it. Ah ! independent of pounds and pence, indepen-
dent of national honor, independent of all merely material
considerations, there is pressing on every conscientious
N ortherner’s mind this highest of all considerations—our
duty to God to save that continent from the blast and blight
of slavery. Yet how many are there who up, down, and over
all England are saying, “ Let slavery go—let slavery go ?”
It_ is recorded, I think, in the biography of one of the most
noble of your own countrymen, Sir T. Fowell Buxton—
that on one occasion a huge favorite dog was seized with
hydrophobia. With wonderful courage he seized the crea-

ORATION IN EXETER HALL, LONDON. 215

ture by the neck and collar, and against the animals might-
iest efforts, dashing hither and thither against wall and
fence, held him until help could be got. If there had been
Englishmen there of the stripe of the Times, they would
have said to Fowell Buxton, “ Let him go ; ” but is there
one here who does not feel the moral nobleness of that man,
who rather than let the animal go down to the street bit-
ing children and women and men, risked his life and pre-'
vented the dog from doing evil ? Shall we allow that hell-
hound of slavery, mad, mad as it is, to go biting millions
in the future P We will peril life and limb and all we have
first. These truths are not exaggerated — they are dimin-
ished rather than magnified in my statement; and you
cannot tell how powerfully they are influencing us unless
you were standing in our midst in America; you cannot
understand how firm that national feeling is which God
has bred in the North on this subject. It is deeper than
the sea; it is firmer than the hills; it is as serene, as the
sky over our heads where God dwells. But it is said,
_“ What a ruthless business this war of extermination is l ”
I have heard it stated that a fellow from America, purport~
ing to be a minister of the gospel of peace, had come over ‘
to England, and that that fellow had said he was in favor
of a war of extermination. Well, if he said so he will stick
to it, but not in a way in which enemies put these words.
Listen to the way in which I put them, for if I am to beal
the responsibility, it is only fair that I should state them
in my own way. We believe that the war is a test of cm
institutions; that it is a life-and-death struggle between
the two principles of liberty and slavery that it is the cause
of the common people all the world over. We believe that
every struggling nationality on the globe will be stronger
if we conquer this odious oligarchy of slavery, and that
every oppressed people 'in the world will be weaker if we
fail. The sober American regards the war as part of that
awful yet glorious struggle which has been going on fer
hundreds of years in every nation between right and wrong
between virtue and vice, between liberty and despotism,
between freedom and bondage. It carries with it the
whole future of our vast continentr—its laws, its policy
its fate. And standing in view of these tremendous reali.
ties we have consecrated all that we have—our children,
our wealth, our national strength—and we lay them all
on the altar and say, “It is better that they should all

216 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

perish than that the North should falter and betray this
trust of God, this hope of the oppressed, this Western civ-
ilization.” If we say this of ourselves, shall we say less of
the slaveholders? If we are willing to do these things,
shall we say, “ Stop the war for their sakes ’3 ? If we say
this of ourselves, shall we have more pity for the rebel-
lious, for slavery seeking to blacken a continent with its
awful evil, desecrating the social phrase, “National Inde-
pendence” by seeking only an independence that shall en-
able them to treat four millions as chattels? Shall we be
tenderer over them than over ourselves P Standing by my
cradle, standing by my hearth, standing by the altar of
the Church, standing by all the places that mark the name
and memory of heroic men that poured out their blood
and lives for principle, I declare that in ten or twenty
years of war we will sacrifice everything wehave for prin-
ciple. If the love of popular liberty is dead in Great
Britain you will not understand us; but if the love of lib-
erty lives as it once lived, and has worthy successors of
those renowned men that were our ancestors as much as
yours, and whose example and principles We inherit as so
much seed-corn in a new and fertile land—then you will
understand our firm, invincible determination to fight this
war through at all hazards and at every cost. (Immense
cheering.) I am obliged for this diversion ; it rests me.
Against this statement of facts and principles no public
man and no party could stand up for one moment in
England if it were permitted to rest upon its own merits.
It is therefore sought to darken the light of these truths
and to falsify facts. I will not mention names, but I will
say this, that there have been important organs in Great
Britain that have deliberately and knowingly spoken what
is not the truth. It is declared that the North has no
sincerity. It declares that the North treats the blacks
Worse than the South does. A monstrous lie from begin-
ning to end. It is declared that emancipation is a mere
political trick—not a moral sentiment. It is declared
that this is the cruel, unphilanthropic squabble of men
gone mad with national vanity. Oh, what a pity that a
man should “fall nine times the space that measures day
and night” to make an apostasy which dishonors his clos-
ing days, and to wipe out the testimony for liberty that he
gave in his youth! But even if all this monstrous lie
about the North—this needless slander—were true, still

ORATION IN EXETER HALL, LONDON. 217

it would not alter the fact that Northern success will carry
liberty— Southern success, slavery. For when society
dashes against society, the results are not what the indi?
vidual motives of the members of society would make them
—the results are .what the institutions of society make
them. When your army stood at Waterloo, they did not
know what were the vast moral consequences that depended
on that battle. It was not what the individual soldier
meant or thought, but what the British empire—the na-
tional life behind, and the genius of that renowned king-
dom which sent that army to victory — meant and thought.
And even if the President were false —if every Northern
man were a juggling hypocrite ——that does not change the
Constitution ; and it does not change the fact that if the
North prevails, she carries Northern ideas and Northern
institutions with her. But I hear a loud protest against
war. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman—there is a
small band in our country and in yours—I wish their
number were quadrupled—who have borne a solemn and
painful testimony against all wars, under all circumstances ;
and although Idiffer with them on the subject of defensive
warfare, yet when men that rebuked their own land, and
all lands, now rebuke us, though I cannot accept their
judgment, I bow with profound respect to their consist-
ency. But excepting them, I regard this British horror of
the American. war as something wonderful. Why, it is a
phenomenon in itself I On what shores has not the prow
of your ships dashed! What land is there with a name
and a people, where your banner has not led your soldiers ?
'And when the great resurrection réveille shall sound, it
will muster British soldiers from every clime and people
under the whole heaven. Ah ! but it is said this is a war
against your own blood. How long is it since you poured
soldiers into Canada, and let all your yards work night and
day to avenge the taking of two men out of the Trent?
Old England shocked at a war of principle ! She gained
her glories in such wars. Old England ashamed of a war
of principle I Her national ensign symbolizes her history,
the cross in a field of blood. And will you tell us, who
inherit your blood, your ideas, and your high- spirits that
we must not fight? The child must heed the parents,
until the parents get old and tell the child not to do the
thing that in early life they whipped him for not doing.
And then the child says, “ Father and mother are getting

218 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

too old ; they had better be taken away from their present
home and come to live with us.” Perhaps you think that
the old island will do a little longer. Perhaps you think
there is coal enough. Perhaps you think the stock is not
quite run out yet; but whenever England comes to that
state that she does not go to war for principle, she had
better emigrate, and we will give her room. I have been
very much perplexed what to think about the attitude of
GreatBritain in respect to the South. I must, I suppose,
look to the opinion of the majority of the English people.
I don’t believe in the Times. You cut my poor sentence
in two, and all the blood runs out of it. I was just going
to say that, like most of you, I don’t believe in the
Times, but I always read it. Every Englishman tells me
that the Times is no exponent of English opinion, and yet
I have taken notice that when they talk of men, somehow
or other their last argument is the last thing that was in
the Times. I think it was the Times or Post that said that
America was sore, because she had not the moral sympathy
of Great Britain, and that the moral sympathy of Great
Britain had gone for the South. Well, let me tell you,
that those who are represented in the newspapers as favor-
able to the South are like men who have arrows and bows
strong enough to send the shafts 3,000 miles; and those
who feel sympathy for the North are like men who have
shafts, but have no bows that could shoot them far enough.
The English sentiment that has made itself felt on our
shores is the part that slandered the North and took part
with the South; and if you think we are sensitive, you
must take into account that the part of English sentiment
carried over is the part that gives its aidto slavery and
against liberty. I shall have a different story to tell when
I get back. (The assembly rose, and for a few moments
hats and handkerchiefs were waved enthusiastically amid
loud cheering.) A voice: “What about the Russians?”
A gentleman asks me to say a word about the Russians in
New York harbor. As this is a little private, confidential
meeting—(laughter)-—I will tell you the fact about them.
The fact is this—it is a little piece of coquetry. Don’t
you know that when a woman thinks her suitor is not
quite attentive enough, she takes another beau, and flirts
with him in the face of the old one? New York is flirt-
ing with Russia, but she has got her eye on England.
.Well, I hear men say this is a piece of national folly that

ORATION IN EXETER HALL, LONDON. 219

is not becoming on the part of people reputed wise, and in
such solemn and important circumstances. It is said that
when Russia is now engaged in suppressing the liberty of
Poland it is an indecent thing for America to flirt with
her. I think so to. Now you know what we felt when
you were flirting with Mr. Mason at your Lord Mayor’s
banquet. Ladies and gentlemen, it did not dO‘us any
hurt to have you Englishmen tell us our faults. I hope it
don’t do you Britishers any hurt to have us tell you some
of yours. Let me tell you my honest sentiments.
England, because she is a Christian nation, because
she has the guardianship of the dearest principles of civil
and religious liberty, ought to be friendly with every nation
and with every tongue. But when England looks out for
an ally she ought to seek for her own blood, her own lan-
guage, her own children. ' And I stand here to declare that
America is the proper and natural ally of Great Britain. I
declare that all sorts of alliances with Continental nations
as against America are monstrous, and that all flirtations
of America with pandered and whiskered foreigners are
monstrous, and that in the great conflicts of the future,
when civilization is to be extended, when commerce is to
be free round the globe, and to carry with it religion and
civilization, then two flags should be flying from every
man-of—war and every ship, and they should be the‘ flag
with the cross of St. George, and the flag with the stars
of promise and of hope. Now, ladies and gentlemen, when
anybody tells you that Mr. Beecher is in favor of war,
you may ask, “ In what way is he in favor of war?” And if
any man says he seeks to sow discord between father and son
and mother and daughter, you- will be able to say, “ Show
us how he is sowing discord ?” If I had anything grievous
to say of England I would sooner say it before her face
than behind her back. I would denounce Englishmen, if
they were maintainers of the monstrous policy of the South.
However, since I have come over to this country you have
told me the truth, and I shall be able to bear back an as?
surance to our people of the enthusiasm you feel for the
cause of the North. And then there is the very significant
act of your Government— the seizure of the rams in Liv-
erpool. Then there are the weighty words spoken by Lord
Russell at Glasgow, and the words spoken by the Attorney-
General. These acts and declarations of policy, coupled
with all thatI have seen, and the feeling of enthusiasm of

220 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

this Englisn people, will warm the hearts of the Americans
in the North. If we are one in civilization, one in relig-
ion, one substantially in faith, let us be one in national
policy, one in every enterprise for the furtherance of the
gospel and for the happiness of mankind. I thank you for
your long patience with me. (“Go on i”) Ah! when I
was a boy they used to tell me never to eat enough, but
always to get up being a little hungry. I would ratherlet
you go away wishing I had spoken longer than go away
saying, “ What a tedious fellow he was!” And therefore
if you will not permit me to close and go, I beg you to
recollect that this is the fifth speech of more than two
hours’ length that I have spoken, on some occasions under
deficulties, within seven or eight days, and I am so ex-
hausted that I ask you to permit me to stop.

Professor Newman then rose and moved the following
resolution, which was supported by the Rev. Newman Hall,
LL.B., and George Thompson, Esq., and carried with
the most pronounced enthusiasm : “Resolved, That this
meeting presents its most cordial thanks to the Rev. Henry
Ward Beecher for the admirable address which he has de-
livered this evening, and expresses. its hearty sympathy
with his reprobation of the slaveholders’ rebellion, his vin-
dication of the rights of a free Government, and his aspir-
ations for peace and friendship between the English people
and their American brethren; and as this meeting recog-
nizes in Mr. Beecher one of the early pioneers of negro
emancipation, as .well as one of the most eloquent and suc-
cessful of the champions of that great cause, it rejoices in
this opportunity of congratulating him on the triumphs
with which the labors of himself and his associates have
been crowned in the anti-slavery policy of Presdient Lin-
coln and his Cabinet.”

BEECHERISMS. '

0 man ever had a happier faculty of compressing

great truths into brief sentences than Henry Ward
Beecher. It was impossible to listen to him for an hour
without carrying away expressions or sentences that would
cling without any effort to the memory. N o thoughtful
man ever went to Plymouth Church without coming away
richer‘ by the power of some sacred emotion, or by some
gem of thought set in a few beautiful or burning words.
And this was no trick of rhetoric on the part of the great
preacher. All was perfectly natural. He opened his
mouth and these sentences freighted with so much wis-
dom, and tenderness, and love, flowed forth—

“ As effortless as woodland nooks
Send violets up and paint them blue.”

It would be an easy task to compile a volume of a thousand
pages of these wonderful “ Beecherisms,” but we are con-
tent to present our readers with a few examples — a hand-
full of this seed—corn of thought.

 

 

Silence always speaks of God.
The mother’s heart is the child’s school-room

Death is the dropping of the flower that the fruit may
swell.

Hardness of the heart is apt to end in softening of the
brain.

When you are fighting the devil, shoot him with any-
thing. ‘ ‘

The Twenty-third psalm is the nightingale of. the
psalms.
221.

222 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

I would not weaken a single sinew in the sturdy arm of
Bismarck.

All knowledge that does not lead you to God is- vain
knowledge.

Though a man declares himself an atheist, it in no way
alters his obligations.

Medicine is only for once in a while, and the greater
the while, the better.

In this world our joys are only the tender shadoWs
which our sorrows cast.

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but
for the wide world’s joy.

God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into
everlasting forgetfulness.

In this world, it is not what we take up, but What we
give up, that makes us rich.

Intemperance is the fertile source of crime. Have
you done anything about it ?

Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made,
and forgot to put a soul into.

If laughing is a sin, I don’t see what the Lord let so
many funny things happen for. a

A man in this world is a boy spelling in short syllables,
but he will combine them in the next.

Nature becomes to the soul a perpetual letter from God,
freshly written every day and each hour.

Trust, rest in the Lord, is the token by which men are
to know that you are thechildren of the light.

Men have come to think that tears are more sacred than
smiles. No ! Laughing is as divine as crying.

Great powers and natural gifts do not bring privileges
to their possessor, so much as they bring duties.

Success is full of promise till men get it ; and then it is
a last year’s nest, from which the bird has flown.

‘ We are all building a soul-house for eternity ; yet with
What different architecture and what various care 1 .

BEECHERISMS. 223

See to it that each hour’s feelings, and thoughts, and
actions are pure and true ; then will your life be such.

I esteem the awfulness that is attached to Sunday, and
church, and pulpit, the greatest mistake of Christendom.

Seek for food and raiment, seek for manhood, and be
sure that in getting that you are getting everything else.

Our sweetest eXperiences of affection are meant to be
suggestions of that realm which is the home of the heart.

There are many men good for organization, but when
they get the organization they don’t know what to do with
it.

Humor usually tends toward good nature, and every-
thing that tends toward good nature tends toward good
grace.

The superfluous blossoms on a fruit tree are meant to
symbolize the large way in which God loves to do pleasant
things.

Don’t mope. Be young as long as you live. Laugh a
good deal. Frolic every day. A‘ low tone of mind is un-
healthy.

He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the
loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten
its cause.

We need a sovereign power which shall bring men to
that new birth in which we shall rise regent above all other
faculties.

Of all the American novelists who have passed away, the
author of “The House of the Seven Gables” seems to me
the greatest.

The call to religion is not a call to be better than your
fellows, but to be better than yourself. Religion is relative
to the individual.

How many hopes nave quivered fo1 11s in past years-—
have flashed like harmless lightnings in summer nights,
and died forever!

God raised up a Cromwell to wrest Liberty from the
king’s hands and set it firmly upon its feet before the na-
tions of the earth.

224 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Grover Cleveland, like Washington, has the great
faculty of maintaining his own personality and enlarging
his own knowledge.

Having wit and buoyancy of spirits let them flash out
in service of religion. Don’t consider it necessary to rake
them up and hide them.

A helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch
on a railroad track —but one inch between wreck and
smooth-rolling prosperity.

A lawyer who works ten months in the year and then
for two solid months amuses himself will last twice as long
as if he took no recreation.

Memory can glean, but can never renew. It brings us
joys faint as is the perfume of the flowers, faded and dried,
of the summer that is gone.

A man in the right with God on his side, is in the ma-
jority, though never alone, for God is multitudinous above
all populations of the earth.

The poorest and meanest of men are worth saving, and
it is our business to lift them up. The noble and the rich
ones can care for themselves.

John Brown’s name will travel through the ages as an
illustrious example of what a man may do who is willing
to suffer for a great principle.

A mother’s heart does more in the bringing up of chil-
dren, a million times, than a mother’s hand, though the
hand is sometimes quite busy.

Laws and institutions are constantly tending to gravi-
tate. Like clocks, they must be occasionally cleansed,
and wound up and set to true time.

We sleep, but the loom of life never stops; and the
pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is
weaving when it comes up to-morrow. "

It is very impressive to stand upon a radiant Sabbath
morning, and feel the hush and solitude of a great motion-
less city. Silence always speaks of God.

Theologies are well in their place ; but repentance and
leve must come before all other experiences. First a cure
for your sin-sick soul, and then theologies. -

BEECHERISMS. 225

The very trees rustling their leaves, are prophesying to
our ears of the trees of life, and all the birds and flying
insects are witnesses of God’s guardianship.

There are many troubles which you cannot cure by the
Bible and the Hymn Book, but which you can cure by a
good perspiration and a breath of fresh air.

The prevalent idea of keeping the Sabbath is that it is a
day on which certain-things must not be done. To the
majority of people Sunday is a day full of nots.

When the people pass wise and needful laws, but leave
them without public sentiment, it is as if a child were
born into an exhausted receiver instead of a cradle.

Thinking is creating, with God, as thinking is writing,
with the ready writer; and worlds are only leaves turned
over in the process of composition, about his throne.

If, every time conscience was wronged, it sighed, and
every time reason was perverted it uttered complaints, no
one could live for the moaning which would fill his soul.

I never turn from the quiet of the underbrush or the
solitude of the fields, or the rustling of the forests, with-
out a certain sadness, as if I were going away from friends.

Though slow, Abraham Lincoln was sure. A thousand
men could not make him plant his foot before he was
ready ; ten thousand could not move it after he had set it
down.

Men sit around a tool-chest quarreling about saws and
planes and chisels. They are not building anything, they
are debating about tools. They are fit to be a theological
seminary. -

N 0 man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning
to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He
is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to
what he has.

You that live long enough will see women vote, and
when you see women voting you will see less lying, less
brutality and more public spirit, heroism and romance in
public affairs.

Grant had the patience of Fate and the force of Thor.
He has left no memory only such weaknesses as connect

226 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

him with humanity and isuch virtues as will-rank him
among heroes.

It is a noble thing to see a man so in sympathy with
his time and, work as Tennyson is, that even with expiring
strength he still tries to chant the truth of Goa to the age
in which he lives. ‘

It takes only one good, thorough frost to cut all the
flowers out of the garden—no thanks to the second ; so
one thoroughly-detected dissimulation in love, and honey
is vinegar, and love is gall.

No man need fear that he will exhaust his substance of
thought, if he will only draw his inspiration from actual
human life. There the inexhaustible God pours depths
and endless variety of truth.

The strength of a man consists in finding out the way
in which God is going, and going in that way too. For
God goes before and ploughs, and. we can but follow after
and plant our seed in his furrow.

A man might frame and let loose a star to roll in its
Orbif, and yet not have done so memorable a thing before
God as he who lets go a golden-orbed thought to roll
through the generations of time.

A Christian had better go to the theater than to go
home whining because he can’t go. If it is worth while to
do anything for Christ, it is worth while to do it with your
head up, and with your whole heart.

I say when a person becomes a Christian that he loses
nothing that he should not be afraid to keep. If ever you
are going to be a Christian don’t set out to be a gloomy-
eyed, twilight-faced, bat-like Christian.

The way to avoid evil is not by maiming our passions,
but by compelling them to yield their vigor to our moral
nature. Thus they become, as in the ancient fable, the
harnessed steeds which bear the chariot of the sun. .

Men have different spheres. It is for some to evolve
great moral truths, as the heavens evolve stars, to guide
the sailor on the sea and the traveler on the desert ; and it
is for some, like the sailor and the traveler, simply to be
guided. '

BEECHERISMS. 227

If the life that has gone out has been like music, full of
concords, full of sweetness, richness, delicacy, then there
are two ways to look at it. One is to say : “I have not lost
it 1” Another is to say 3 “ Blessed be God that I have had
it so long I”

When a man’s pride is thoroughly subdued, it is like
the sides of Mount Etna. It was terrible while the erup-
tion lasted and the lava flowed ; but when that is past, and
the lava is turned into soil, it grows vineyards and olive
trees up to the very top.

Robert Burns — a true poet, made not by the schools,
brought up with no external culture or assistance. He
came as a flower comes in spring. We say that he was a
man of the people. He was ordained to be an interpreter
of God to his kind then and forevermore. ,

COMMUNTON SUNDAY AT PLYMOUTH
CHURCH.

MONGST the most sacred memories of the members
of Plymouth Church are those Sabbaths set apart for
the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and for the public
reception of candidates to the fellowship of the church.
These were days of glad and solemn festival. On these
occasions Mr. Beecher was almost always under the con-
trol of the tenderer and more emotional part of his nature.
It was an especial joy to him to see bands of~ young people
consecrating themselves to the service of Christ, and the
words spoken on these occasions were full of pathos, full
of encouragement, full of hope. Tears of joy would fall
from his eyes, and words of tenderness from his lips as he
congratulated young men and maidens on starting out in
life with God for their guide and refuge, and Jesus of
Nazareth for their daily' companion and friend. What
pictures he would draw of the joys that would be sure to
spring up like fountains of sweet water all along their
path I What assurances he would give them of the grace
that would be near and sufficient in every hour of need!
And with what fatherly tenderness he would commend
them in prayer to Him who was “ able to keep them from
falling, and present them faultless before the presence of
the Father’s glory with exceeding great joy!” These
Communion Sabbaths will never be forgotten by those
who shared their hallowed privileges. Nothing could be
more appropriate than to give as far as possible some
impression of one of these days of sacred festival.
On the first Sabbath in May three years ago, occurred
228

COMMUNION SUNDAY AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 229

one of these memorable scenes. It was as bright and
beautiful a May Sabbath as ever dawned. Plymouth
Church was crowded to its utmost capacity. Great masses
of rare and beautiful flowers covered the pulpit and plat-
form, filling that plain but immense building with beauty
and perfume. Th'e hymn sung just before the reception
of the candidates was most appropriate. It took the form
of

A Vow of Consecration.

People of the living God,
I have sought the world around;

Paths of sin and sorrow trod,
Peace and comfort nowhere found.

Now to you my spirit turns,
Turns—a fugitive unblest;

Brethren! where your altar burns
0 receive me into rest.

Lonely I no longer roam,
Like the cloud, the wind, the wave—
Where you dwell shall be my home,
Where you die shall be my grave.

Mine the God whom you adore,
Your Redeemer shall be mine;

Earth can fill my soul no more,
Every idol I resign.

'On this happy Sabbath there were eighty-three candi-
dates gathered around the altar of Plymouth Church.
Looking round upon them Mr. Beecher said with a voice
tremulous with joy : “ God has been very gracious to us,
and while there has been no widespreading stir and no
excitement whatever, yet in all our missions and schools,
and in our families at home, there has been a quickening
and development of Christ’s life in the soul. It has been
usual for many to unite with us at this season. This year
there is a multitude.” The solemn covenant was then
entered into between the candidates and the church, then.
came the following sermon :

230 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

THE SHEPHERD AND HIS SHEEP.

Text: “For ye were as sheep going astray, but now are ye re-
turned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your Souls."—1 Peter, 75?). 25.

The Israelites were a pastoral people. For although in
the time of the Apostle the pastoral life had largely given
way to the agricultural, yet all their history, all those ele-
ments which excited their imagination and rejoiced their
patriotism were of the pastoral character. It went into
their poetry, and the agricultural and pastoral figures ex-
ceed in number and certainly equal in exquisite beauty any
thatare to be found in the whole range of—I will not say
of the Bible, but of universal literature. For the Israel-
ites, more than any other people that have recorded their
sensations and their thoughts, connected the phenomena
of Nature with the idea of an overruling God and a Su-
preme Providence. The Greek literature contains hardly
any endearing epithet with regard to mountain, hill,
stream, tree, beast, or anything of the kind. You Shall
find them speaking in Rome of the whole wide country as
something horrible, and banishment into it from the great,
noisy, crowded city was a purgatory to them. But among
the Hebrews there was a love of the sun and of the stars,
of the hills, of the mountains, of the fountains, of the
trees, the vineyards, of the grasses, of the birds, and of
insects even. This is eminently seen in the Old Testa-
ment, but the New Testament is not without a trace of
such a feeling; and when in the New Testament Christ
was represented under the figure of a Shepherd, it was not
only in perfect consonance and harmony with the Old Tes-
tament representations of God, but eminently in conso-
nance with His own teaching. He delighted to call
Himself a shepherd, and He carried out the figure in vari-
ous ways, and recurred to it again and again. Not only
was He fond of it, but it was to them meant to be a type
of Divine nature and Divine government. It has almost
been suppressed by the abominations of a Pagan theory
that crept in, until now, among the best men and in the
best churches there is a veil and a shadow thrown over the
feelings and disposition of God and His relations to man-
kind, and men have to break through the church theology
to get at the real beauty and attractiveness of the Divine
nature. Here we are called wanderers. Men that are
converted are the men that have wandered away from the

COMMUNION SUNDAY AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 2-31

right ideals of life, and have been brought back again;
they were wanderers. You shall hear after that the whole
race is totally depraved. You shall hear that men are
utterly lost, and the whole race is lost. That is not the
technology of the Scripture. There is none of it there
It is absolutely imported into it by the theologian. N oth-
ing there is allied to it. It is absolutely falsifying Scrip-
ture. We are represented as going astray from right dis-
positions, and from right actions, and from right direc-
tions. Our aims, our conduct, and our character are mal-_
formed. Not on account of anything that has come down
to us from some great fountain of iniquity; not because
mildew and blight have settled down on the faculties of
mankind, but having right endowment and a nature de-
signed according to the law of God, men have not been
learned to use their faculties or natures aright; and per-
verting themselves in this way they have wandered from
the ideal of manhood, and when God calls them and they
hear they are wanderers from rectitude—restored—
brought back again.

There is no such thing, therefore, as native depravity
and native sinfulness. There is no doubt that by trans-
mission from parent to child there may be a morbid consti-
tution of mind, but those are in special instances, and it
is not the way to characterize the human race. There is
no part of a man’s body or of his soul that in its own
primitive and original nature is not right. Take the body,
for instance, as an illustration. There are a great many
men born feeble, a great many that are born scrofulous or
with consumptive tendencies. These are specials. But
taking the humanrace together it may be declared that
there is not a single organ of the body superfluous, or in its
own nature and proper functions perverted. The brain,
the lungs, the heart,‘the stomach, the circulatory system,
or the special organs—the eye, the ear, the mouth, or the
complex organs, the hand, the foot—they are all right.
They are just as right in the murderer as they are in the
philanthropist. The uses are not the same in the two
cases. They are just right in their normal condition in
'the- man that is utterly broken up in his health. It was
not that there was any organ that was too much.

It is true there may be a disproportion, and the sense of
the parents, as in the drunkard’s case, may be transmitted
to their children, and they may be born with certain ten—

232 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

dencies, but these are cases of abnormality—special—
whereas taking mankind at large no surgeon would say
there is anything to be excised, no member ought to be
cut off ; no organ in the body ought to be taken out. They
are all right, if they are used right, and what we call
health in the body is a fair analogical interpretation of
what we call religion.

Religion in the soul is what the man’s organs are to the
body. When all the organs of a man’s body are carried on
according to the laws of nature, you have got health.
What is health ? Simply the name for the right action of
the whole physical frame, and when a man’s intellect, and
disposition, and soul, each part and faculty, the reason,
imagination, the affections, and all the appetites and. pas-
sions underneath them are held in subordination to each
other in harmony, there is health of the soul; and we call
that religion. It is the Wholesome action in the right pro-
portions of the whole of a man’s inward nature, as health
is the right action in proportion of a man’s hysical nature.

So when a man has gone astray he has ost nothing ex-
cept the right use of himself. He has not lost will power;
he has not lost intellectual power. And when a man is re-
called from wandering and it is said he is born again ——a
generic term that stumbled Nicodemus and has a great
many theologians since that day — all we mean is that from
his wrong way of himself he turns toward the right use of
himself. Going in the wrong direction, he changes his
direction; using his moral sensibilities in the wrong way,
they are changed too. He is brought to recognize a high-
er. standard of living— body, mind, and soul, and enters
upon that better understanding. Then we say he has been
recalled by his Shepherd; he has returned. He was in the
wrong pasture; he was in peril; he has heard the voice and
been called, and is now restored to the Shepherd and
Bishop of his soul. ' ‘
. Every organ, therefore of the body is in itself and ac-
cording to the design of God, in nature good. It is wrong
use that produces evil. 'Every faculty of the human mind
and soul is right and needful to the body and soul, social
relations, and universal truth. But the wrong use of right
things is sinfulness. It may be in a single act, or in a con-
tinuity of acts until they become habits; then it is charac-
ter, and the character is nothing but an automatic practice
of wrong use induced by individual acts of sin. Now when

COMMUNION SUNDAY AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 233

a man is called of God, here is the one grand ideal: “ Love
is the fulfilling of the law.” He who carries his whole na-
ture obediently to the grand law of love has been restored
to himself and in so far to his God. Sinfulness is volun-
tary wrongdoing.

The phrase that mankind are lost is inappropriate.
The word lost, as used in theology, is absolutely difierent
from the word in the Bible. It is a shepherd phrase in
the Bible. Men are lost just as a flock is when the sheep
have wandered away. They are good sheep until they have
wandered. Mankind is never spoken of in the Bible as
being lost in consequence of Adam’s sin, or any other fun-
gus on theology. The only phrases that have application
to moral character and conduct in the Bible are those bor-
rowed from shepherd-life; and the men that have strayed
from right living are said to be lost, just as the sheep are
lost. Yen will find in the Psalms Where he speaks of the
people of God having gone astray like lost sheep. In J ere-
miah; “ My people have been lost sheep.” In Ezekiel: “I
will seek that which was lost and bring it again” ——that is,
bring it again to the shepherd and the pasture. In Mat thew:
“ Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, was
the ordination of the Apostle. “ I come to save that which
was lost,” Christ says. Men’s natures are right if used right.
It is the wrong use that is bad. Every faculty of a man’s
nature, if it is brought into activity and acts along the lines
of integrity, is born again. It amounts substantially to
such a change in the man that it may be said that he is
another man since he began to use himself right.

So when men have been wrong in their understanding,
wrong in their conscience, wrong in their loves, wrong in
all their passions and appetites, and there comes some Di-
vine inspiration, some succor from the sympathy of help-
ing men around about them, and they little by little begin
to crook and bend the things so that the low shall go high,
and thehigh shall go low, and the crooked things shall be
made straight, and they have been put to the proof, and af- ‘
ter a year or so men see them so and say: “Why he is
born again; he isn’t the same creature.” Now, that don’t
mean that he entered into his mother’s womb to be born
again, as Nicodemus thought Christ meant, but it’s such a
change that the sum total of the man’s nature is so difier-
ent from what it was before that he might well be called
another man acting there in his skin.

234 ' HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Conversion then is the beginning, under inspiration,
teaching an example of the reconstruction of a man’s vol-
untary life. It is the beginning of rebuilding character
and conduct on the basis of love. It is the beginning, it
is no more than the beginning. Of course all the morality
counts; all that he has received from the morality of re-
flex Christianity; all that comes down to him through the
hereditary influences of his parents and ancestors; all that
counts —that is to say, he begins on a higher level, higher
and higher. But in every individual instance the love of
God is the supreme motive of life; the love of our fellow-
men, that is the foundation and a man that has been liv-
ing’on any other foundation than that, when he is con-
verted comes back to that as the rule and law of his life.
He is a beginner, or as newspapers often say, “ anew be-
ginner,” as if there could be an old beginner, as if begin-
ning was not new always.

Now, I am not urging these matters on the ground of
rectifying theology, but because it is, in my judgment, of
such practical importance. It is of great importance for
men to be aware of their relationship to the church and
the apostolic ministry, to all ordinances, to baptism, to the
Lord’s Supper. While they are helps, they are only helps,
and a man may belong to the church—the oldest,-or in-
termediate, or any other church—and fulfill church
duties, and if it goes no deeper than that he is not a
Christian man. To be a Christian means inside work as
deep as the conscience and as the heart, and the man that,
beginning to be a Christian, is just as ugly as he was
before, and just as proud as he was before, and just as
mean as he was before, though he had a thousand altars
and a thousand priests and maintained every economy of
the church it would do him not good but enhance his dam-
nation. It is not anything that you get from the church
—it is what the church enables you to get and rectify
within yourself that determines the question whether you-
are salvable or not.

Righteousness is the one word, the battle-cry of the
Old Testament. Righteousness is the battle-cry of the
New Testament, and the only question as between Paul
and the other apostles and the Jews was, What is the way
to enable a man to be righteous? The Old Testament
says sacrifices, ritual laws, and obedience. The new Test-
ament says no, these have failed; human nature was too

COMMUNION SUNDAY AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 235

mighty for it. Now, a living, a loving faith in the power
of God present to every man a faith that is the founda-
tion of righteousness in the New Testament. But the
old Bible and the new Bible, both of them, have precisely
the same conception.

Religion means the righteousness of every part of a
man, body and soul, and if you can do it better by the
instrument of the church, do it that way, but the expe-
rience of mankind is the Holy Ghost or the brooding soul
of God, giving light and fire to the man’s own soul—that
is the thing that will enable a man to come from wrong to
right living easier. “

Oh! how many, how many a child—firm, and obsti-
nate, and proud—has refused confession or concession,
and the father’s authority and scowl might silence him,
but only to wake in him the fires of hell. But a mother’s
tears and tremulous words and lips, breaking down, “ Oh!
my son!” brought tears in a moment from him and he
throws himself into her arms. Love could conquer what
authority could not, nor a threat. And the love of God
in Christ Jesus is the salvation of the world, because it is
adapted exactly to that nature in man that can be per-
suaded but cannot be driven.

The church is not, then, an assembly of saints. It is
a school with all manner of instruments that are designed
to help men; merely being in the church does not save
men. A man is saved because, by the power of God
working in him coincident with his own will, he has been
brought into that state of mind in which he can associate
with God. He is like Him. In elements and essence he
is becoming like Him, and therefore can be in affiliation
with him. Otherwise he would be in opposition perpetu-
ally. The church is not then an assemby of saints. It is
an assembly of men beginning mostly, and certainly the
incoming into any church is of men that have been lost,
wandered, gone out of the pasture, gone away, and they-
are called back again. “Gone out to seek and save the
lost,” is the definition of the Shepherd, Jesus. And in
the Apostle Peter’s case and in our text it is declared: “ Ye
were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the
shepherd and bishop of your souls.”

The life, dearly beloved, on which you have entered is
not One of eminent vision, not necessarily. Some may
have it and some will not. It is not a life of exalted joy

236 ' HENRY WARD BEECHER.

necessarily. There may be more or less of joy. Some
have the art of being joyful. Some always take the sugar
out of everything they eat ; they taste it. Some have the
art of being unhappy. They extract the acid out of every-
thing they touch. A man may be a religious person and
yet not have the art of joy. It is one of the attainments
to some, it lies very near to the nature of others. When I
hear brethren rejoicing in' conference meetings I am glad
of it—until I have reason to suppose that those are mere
banners thrown up, just as we put flags out on any great
celebration. A man may be an old hunk, a not-care-a—
snap for his country, but if everybody is putting up flags
on a National occasion he is going to put them up too.
So it may be in religion. Where a man has great joy, and
has vocal power and delivers it, and his life conforms to
it, it is a beautiful thing, it is a grand testimony. But
because he has it men say that he is a saint, he has got
religion. . '

The way for a man to have joy is to have harmony, to
have obedience in himself to the known laws of good and
the known laws of his own nature. When a man has come
into this harmony, it does not necessarily follow that the
harmony shall be an outburst of triumphant music in the
soul. It may be a common choral—almost a monotone.
Every variety is conceivable. But the point that I would
make is, that a man coming into the Christian church is
coming into right conditions in which he may learn how
to rectify the aberrations of his conduct, and so far as his
nature has been positively made morbid, rectify his nature.
You have been put in possession of wonderful endowments
and you have perverted them all. They have been held
under the law of selfishness. When a man sees the false-
ness of this way and means to go right he begins. Let a
man take a single precept of the Gospel : “ Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself; pray for your enemiesK’ He is
gone out a week and comes back, and you say: “How
are you getting on?” “I never thought it was so hard.
I have tried, but I don’t seem to myself to have succeeded.
I don’t believe it is possible for anybody to do it.” Well,
go on right through the verse. What you are to feel to-
ward those that persecute you ——that hate you. Have you
attained to that state of mind by which you can love them
and bless them, and set them an example? “ Oh! my,
heavens no; I can’t do it. I don’t believe anybody ever

COMMUNION SUNDAY AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 237

did it.” If you want to know whether you are sinful or
not, just take any of these characteristic commands of
Christ and try it on. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ as a
garment; put on the element of love; put on the saving
and helping of men. A person should come into the
church joyfully, not so much on account of attainments,
but because he has put himself in the way of attaining and
Ilnaydhope to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the
or .

What more fitting could there be than to read that out-
burst of exquisite experience and exquisite poetry which
our Lord in his youth read often and often, and which
fed in him that habit of calling himself the Shepherd,
which has made the New Testament so beautiful : “ The
Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not want. He maketh me to
lie down in green pastures ; He leadeth me beside the still
waters; He restoreth my soul; He leadeth me in the
paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff
they comfort me.” May every one of you give thanks,
even in your dying hour, that it pleased God to bring you
unto the Shepherd’s house.

The Covenant of Plymouth Church.

Do you now avouch the Lord Jehovah to be your God,
Jesus Christ to be your Saviour, the Holy Spirit to be your
Sanctifier? Renouncing the dominion of this world over
you, do you consecrate your whole soul and body to the
service of God? Do you receive his word as the rule of
your life, and by his grace assisting you will you persevere
in this consecration unto the end? '

THE SERVICE OF PRAISEAT
PLYMOUTH CHURCH. ‘

ISITORS to Plymouth Church are always greatly im-
pressed by the hearty and earnest manner in which
the whole congregation unites in the service of praise.
That great volume of melody filling the spacious sanctuary
seems a joyous response to the Psalmist’s cry : “Let the
people praise Thee, O God; let all the people praise Thee.”
“ Young men and maidens, old men and children, praise
ye the name of the Lord.” In the matter of congregation-
al singing Mr. Beecher was an enthusiast, and to the last
days of his life the songs of the sanctuary were a joy and
comfort to his heart and mind. But Mr. Beecher shall
speak for himself : '

I believe Plymouth Church was the first in Amer-
ica that ever had in the building a suite of parlors, as I
think it is also the first church in America that ever had flow-
ers every Sunday on the platform ; and the first church that
ever had a hymn-book that gave to the people all the tunes
as well as all the hymns that were to be sung. There are
multitudes of such books now, but I believe “Plymouth Col-
lection ” was the pioneer. And, taking the churches up
and down through the land, more provision is made for
social life and enjoyment, even for amusement. The
whole region of Sunday-school life is raised many, many,
many degrees above anything that was known in my child-
hood. It really is a comely and beautiful sight now to go
into a Sunday-school and see how happy the children are ;
to see and enjoy the various festivals that are provided for
them.

People often wonder why folks come to Plymouth
Church so much. Iwill tell you; it is the singing that
brings them there. It is the atmosphere there is in the

238

THE SERVICE or PRAISE AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 239

loving, cheerful, hopeful, courage of that congregation in
the singing. They get a sermon, too; but then it is more
the singing, I think, that accounts for the throng. It
comforts their souls. I have seen men come into that con-
gregation—and there are at least twenty-five hundred out
of the twenty-seven hundred there that sing ——I have seen
them come into that congregation exactly as they would go to
Barnum’s; because, you know, it is the trick of the pa-
pers to represent it as a kind of theatre, or what-not.
They would sit down and look all around, watching to see
what was going to be done next. When I arose, they
would stare as though they really thought I was going to
throw a somersault. I would give out a hymn, and they
would still be watching for something that had not come
yet, but was coming. The organ would give out the tune,
and the congregation begin to sing. These men would
rise, and stand in their places, and when the great volume
of sound, like the voice of many waters, would break on
them, I have seen them first in a kind of bewilderment,
looking all around, up in the galleries, on a sea of books
opened, and everybody busy singing. And when they
heard such a sound as there was rolling down upon them,
or rolling up towards God, I have seen them stand, and,
by the second verse, away would go the tears down their
checks. The hymn fairly overcame them. Better than a
sermon, better than any exhortation— why should it not
affect them thus ?

The whole church ought to sing, because the whole
church ought to worship, and there is no other worship
provided in our churches but this. To listen to the
prayer of him that is most gifted is certainly a help, and a
long way toward worshiping; but, after all, no man wor-
ships in spirit and in truth who does not takea voluntary
and personal part, such as is necessary in singing. I do not
believe it is possible for a person to sing our hymns and
not worship. I will read you a single hymn. I would
like to see the man that could sing this hymn and not feel
that he had worshiped. I will call your attention to
another thing. A want of proper culture has permitted
such irreverence to grow up, that, in the singing or the
reading of such a hymn as this, one will be tucking his
hat under the seat, or fixing his cane, or placing his um-
brella in the corner ; or the mother will be arranging the
neglected curls or pulling at the collar of her little one,

240 HENRY WA RD BEECHER.

or the sexton will be running around and whispering to"
this or that deacon to know whether he had better open
this window a little more. or shut that one a little more.
This is all‘wrong. Hymns are worship and should be
respected as such.

This hymn is one of the closest, most endearing, cling-
ing, yearning prayers to Christ :—

Thou, O my Jesus, Thou didst me
Upon the cross embrace ;

For me didst bear the nails and spear,
And manifold disgrace,

And griefs and torments numberless,
And sweats of agony—

Yea, death itself, and all for one
Who was Thine enemy.

Then why, 0 blessed Jesus Christ,
Should I not love Thee well ?

Not for the hope of winning heaven,
Nor of escaping hell ;

Not with the hope of gaining aught,
Nor seeking a reward ;
But as Thyself hast loved me,
O ever-loving Lord !

E’en so I love Thee, and will love,
And in Thy praise will sing;

Solely because Thou art‘my God,
And my eternal King.

Now, if you can sing that, and not cry— I am sorry for
your eyes. .

I like to see people sing when they have to stop in the
middle of the verse and crya little. I like such unwritten
rests and pauses in the music. When hymns come to the
house of God all redolent of home associations, then sing-
ing will be what it ought to be—social Christian worship.

Let me say one thing more : You never will have congre-
gational singing as long as you have no congregational feeling.
Congregational singing will certainly break down the stiff-
ness, the formality, and the exclusive habits of your people

THE SERVICE OF PRAISE AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 241

or else the stiffness and the coldness, and the exclusive habits
of your people will prevent or destroy congregational singing.
You cannot sing throughout the church and not develop,
subtly, that element of fellowship that gives elasticity and
freedom in social intercourse. Now, a congregation that
has been trained to go into church and sit down and not
look at one another, to go home and not speak to one an-
other, I don’t believe can be trained to congregational sing-
ing, unless by an extraordinary pressure and process. Fel-
lowship and song are but different developments of the
same spirit ; and therefore, Where you have quarrels un-
reconciled, and persons Who do not care for each other,
people sitting apart separately, you never will make them
sing together, they never will pray together, they never
will mingle in any way. And, mark my word, if you wish
to make congregational singing easy, everything that you
do to bring people together socially, genially, in Christian
sympathy, will facilitate it. And if you wish to bring peo-
ple together genially and socially, teach them to sing, and
that will facilitate your purpose. Thus singing and social-
ity act and react upon each other, in a mutual relation of
cause and effect. .

You never can have congregational singing, if that is all
you have. Unless you have singing in the family and sing—
ing in the house, singing in the shop and singing in the
street, singing everywhere, until it becomes a habit, you
never can have congregational singing. It will be like the
cold drops, half water, half ice, which drip in March from
some cleft of a rock, one drop here and another there;
whereas it should be like the August shower, which comes
ten million drops at once, and roars on the roof.

The following were amongst Mr. Beecher’s favorite
hymns.

The Awakening of the Nations.

We are living, we are dwelling,
In a grand and awful time,
In an age on ages telling,
, To be living is sublime.
Hark l the waking up of nations;
Gog and Magog to the fray,

242

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Hark ! what soundeth ? is creation
Groaning for its latter day ? ‘

Will ye play then, will ye dally,
With your‘music and your wine?
Up ! it is Jehovah’s rally !
God’s own arm hath need of thine.
Hark ! the onset! will ye fold your
Faith-clad arms in lazy lock ?
Up, 0 up, thou drowsy soldier;
World’s are charging to the shock.

World’s are charging—heaven beholding 3
Thou hast but an hour to fight ;

Now the blazoned cross unfolding,
On—right onward, for the right,

0n ! let all the soul within you
For the truth’s sake go abroad !

Strike ! let every nerve and sineW
Tell on ages—tell for God !

Alone, Yet Not Alone.

Gales from heaven, if God so will,
Sweeter melodies can wake,
On the lonely mountain rill,
Than the meeting waters make,
Who hath the Father and the Son,
May be left but not alone.

Sick or healthful, slave or free,
Wealthy or despised and poor-—
What is that to him or thee,
So his love to Christ endure?
When the shore is won at last,
Who will count the billows past?

Only since our souls will shrink
At the touch of natural grief,
When our earthly, loved ones sink,
Lend us, Lord, Thy sure relief ;
Patient hearts their pain to see,
And Thy Grace to follow Thee.

THE SERVICE OF PRAISE AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 24:3

Mary’s Tears.

Were not the sinful Mary’s tears
An oflering worthy heaven,

When o’er the faults of former years
She wept and was forgiven?

When, bringing every balmy sweet
Her day of luxury stored,

She o’er her Saviour’s hallowed feet
The precious-ointment poured.

Were not those sweets thus humbly shed,
That hair, those weeping eyes,

And the sunk heart that inly bled
Heaven’s noblest sacrifice?

Thou that hast slept in error’s sleep
0, wouldst thou wake to heaven?

Like Mary kneel, like Mary weep,
“ Love much,” and be forgiven!

Tarry With Me.

Tarry with me, O my Saviour,
For the day is passing by;

See ! the shades of evening gather,
And the night is drawing nigh.

Many friends were gathered round me
In the bright days of the past;

But the grave has closed above them,
And I linger here at last.

Deeper, deeper grow the shadows,
Paler now the glowing west;

Swift the night of death advances;
Shall it be the night of rest ?

Feeble, trembling, fainting, dying,
Lord, I cast myself on Thee;

Tarry with me through the darkness,
While I sleep, still watch by me.

244

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Tarry With me, O my Saviour,
Lay my head upon Thy breast
Till the morning; then awake me—
Morning of eternal rest.

 

Son of the Carpenter.

Son of the carpenter ! receive
This humble work of mine,
,Worth to my meanest labor give

By joining it to Thine.

Servant of all, to toil for man

Thou would’st not, Lord, refuse;
Thy majesty did not disdain

To be employed for us.

Thy bright example I pursue,
To Thee in all things rise ;
And all I think, or speak, or do,

Is but one sacrifice.

Careless, through outward cares I go,
From all destruction free ;

My hands are but engaged below
My heart is still with Thee

Oh! when wilt Thou, my Life, appear!
How gladly would I cry —

“ ’Tis done, the work Thou gave’st me
’Tis finished, Lord ! ” and fly.

In the Hour of Sickness.

0, how soft that bed must be,

Made in sickness, Lord by Thee;
And that rest, how calm, how sweet,
Where Jesus and the sufferer meet.

THE SERVICE OF PRAISE AT PLYMOUTH CHURCIEI. 245

It was the good Physician now,

Soothed thy cheek and chafed thy brow,
Whispering, as he raised thy head—
“It is I I be not afraid.”

God of Glory, God of Grace,

Hear from heaven, Thy dwelling-place ;
Hear in mercy, and forgive,

Bid Thy child believe and live.

Bless me, and I shall be blest,
Soothe me, and I shall have rest ;
Fix my heart, my hopes above, ,
Love me, Lord, for Thou art love.

Mary at the Cross.

Jews were wrought to cruel madness,

Christians fled in fear and sadness,
Mary stood the cross beside

At its foot, her foot she planted,

By the dreadful scene undaunted
Till the gentle suif’rer died.

Poets oft have sung her story

Painters decked her brow with glory
Priests her name" have deified.

But no worship, song or glory
Touches like the simple story
Mary stood the cross beside!
And when under fierce oppression
‘ Goodness suffers like transgression
Christ again is crucified.
But iflove be there,.true-hearted,
By no grief or terror parted,
Mary stands the cross beside.

A Song of the Morning.

Soil not thy plumage gentle dove,
With sublunary things—

Till in the fount of light and love
Thou shalt have bathed thy wings.

24—6

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Shall nature from her couch arise
And rise for thee in vain ?

While heaven, and earth, and seas, and skies
Such types of truth contain.

See where the Sun of Righteousness
Unfolds the gates of day ;

Go—meet Him in His glorious dress
And quaff the orient ray !

There where ten thousand seraphs stand,
To crown the circling hours-—

Soar thou —-and from that blissful land
Bring down unfading flowers.

Some Rose of Sharon, dyed in blood,
Some spice of Gilead’s balm,

Some lily washed in Calvary’s flood,
Some branch of heavenly palm.

And let the drops of sparkling dew
From Siloa’s spring be shed

To form a fragrance fresh and new
A halo round thy head.

Spread then thy plumes of faith and prayer
Nor fear to wend away ;

And let a glow of heavenly air
Grild every earthly day.

A Vesper Chime. _

God of the sunlight hours, how sad

Would evening shadows be;

Or night in deeper shadows clad

If aught were dark to Thee!

Howmournfully that golden gleam

Would touch the thoughtful heart,

If with its soft retiring beam

We saw Thy light depart!

THE SERVICE OF PRAISE AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 247

But though the sunset hours may hide
These gentle rays awhile;

And deep through ocean’s caves may glide
The slumber of their smile

Enough, while these dull heavens may lower,
If hero thy presence be;

Then midnight shall be morning hour,
And darkness light to me

Through the deep gloom of mortal things,
Thy light of love can throw

That ray which gilds an angel’s wings
To soothe a pilgrim’s woe.

Come, 0 My Comfort and Delight!

Come, 0 thou universal good I

Balm of the wounded conscience, come!
Haven to take the shipwrecked in,

My everlasting rest from sin !

Come, 0 my comfort and delight !

My strength, and health, and shield, and sun,
My boast, my confidence and might,

My joy, my glory, and my crown !

If I Should Die To-Night.

The following poem was an especial favorite with Mr. Beecher, who was
for atime credited with its authorship.

If I should die to-night,
My friends would look upon my quiet face
Before they laid it in its resting-place,
And deem that death had left it almost fair;
And laying snow-white flowers against my hair,
Would smooth it down with tearful tenderness,
And fold my hands with. lingering caress,

Poor hands, so empty, and so cold to-night !

248 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

If I should die to-night,
My friends would call to mind with loving thought,
Some kindly deeds the icy hands had wrought;
Some gentle words the frozen lips had said,
Errands on which the willing feet had sped;
The memory of my selfishness and pride,
My hasty words, would all be put aside,

And so I should be loved and mourned to-night.

If I should die to-night,

E’en hearts estranged would turn once more to me,

Recalling other days remorsefully.

The eyes that chill me with averted glance

Would look upon me as of yore, perchance,

.And soften in the old familiar way;

For who could war with dumb, unconscious clay P
So I might rest forgiven of all to-night.

Oh friends, I pray to-night,
Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow. .
The way is lonely, let me feel them now.
Think gently of me; I am travel-worn;
My faltering feet are pierced by many a thorn.
Forgive, oh, hearts estranged, forgive, I plead!
When dreamless rest is mine I shall not need
The tenderness for which I long to-night.

MR. BEECHER’S PUBLIC PRAYERS.

IGHTY as Mr. Beecher was in public discourse, he

was still mightier in the conduct of public prayer.

It is true that many thousands have been cheered and in-
spired by his Sermons, it is also true that many thousands
have been comforted by his prayers. There is no more
delicate and sacred part of public worship than the task of
leading the prayers of the congregation. By its very sa-
credness prayer seems to be lifted above the region of criti-
cism, and yet the whole tone and power of a religious ser-
vice depends very largely on the character of its distinctly
devotional exercises. The use of set forms of prayer exclu-
sively may have some advantages. But every day has its
own experiences, and out of these varying experiences come
the inspiration to prayers running over with thankfulness,
or petitions for guidance, or pleas for pardon. Mr. Beecher
was eminently a man of prayer. By which we do not
mean that he was “gifted in prayer,” in the common
sense of that phrase. Mere smartness in prayer is as vul-
gar as it is profane. As Oliver Wendell Holmes says:
“Above all things a man should be a gentleman in his
prayers.” There was a strength born of gentleness, and a
gentleness that grew out of strength; a simplicity and
a pathos about Mr. Beecher’s prayers, that those who
were accustomed to hear him pray will never forget.
There was the humility and unquestioning faith of a little
child in all these devout exercises; and as he stood before
God and the people, offering thanksgiving, or pleading
for guidance or pardon, with a voice tremulous with emo-

tion, the great congregation was bowed in silence, and the
249

250 : HENRY WARD BEECHER.

fire burned bright and pure upon the altars of a thousand
hearts. There were times when the prayer so filled the
heart and mind, that there was little room left for the
sermon that followed.

It was a grand thing to hear Mr. Beecher preach, it was
a gracious thing to be led by him in prayer. The follow-
ing selections from his public prayers will serve to show
how wide, how comprehensive, and how tender his inter~
cessions were. He pleaded with the great Father and
Friend of all men, for all men. For the sinful and the
sad; for the prosperous and the despairing; for old men
and little children ; for the church and the home ; for, the
school and the nation ; and for all men everywhere l And
so it was his joy '

“ To bind
In golden chains of prayer
The whole round world
About the feet of God.”

Sabbath Morning Prayer.

0 Lord, our God, in our helplessness, help thou us.
For thou art all-seeing, and we scarcely discern at all the
greater things of life. In our aspiration we fly but a very
little way, and toward the Infinite are powerless.

Descend then to us, since we cannot reach thee. And
grant unto us not all knowledge, but so much knowledge
of thyself as that we may love thee, and have kindled in
our hearts thetidings most joyful that thou dost love us,
and art our nourishing Father, the servant of men in love,
that we may have all fear dissolved, and all confidence and
hope established, and that our lives may be in thee.

And so give us the sense of thy all-presence on every
hand, discerned by every sense and by every faculty, that
our life may be hid in thine. For in thee indeed we live,
and move and have our being.

And we beseech of thee, 0 God, that thou wilt accept
the thanks, this morning, which most feebly we utter.
Accept the thanks for special mercies, for personal kind-
nesses and providences ; for things escaped which we
feared; for things obtained which we scarcely dared to hope

MR. Bnncnnn’s PUBLIC PRAYERS. 251

for; for all joy and love, and for the benefaction of reason
and its continuance, and for the privileges of life, and,
above all, for the knowledge which thou art giving us of
thine own self, by which time itself is vanquished, and all
the fears are driven away; by which we believe in immor-
tality and are crowned by faith with joy.

Accept our thanks for the tidings of salvation thiough
Jesus Christ, and for the revelation of the Godhead by
him; and for all the beneficent influences that have dis-
tilled thus through the ages upon the world; and bring us
into sweet submission and slavery of the heart. Deliver
us from the pride of the understanding. Deliver us from
all outward auxiliaries. May we not worship the things
that are immediate. And give to us that ineffable life
——give to us that certainty of ‘the soul, that brings us
into thy presence and makes us communioants of thy

race

Be pleased to look upon all those that are assembled
this morning here with va1ious wants; with trials, with
worryings, with feebleness, with sickness, with desires un-
obtained, with aspiratiOns blighted, under yokes, under
burdens ; those that are in sorrow, those that sit darkly in
the twilight of grief ; those that are full of fear, and look
out from the day into the night ; all that are tempted, all
that have fallen in temptation and are in anguish of remorse,
all that seem to themselves to have lost life and spent it
uselessly, all those that have lost hope. Be pleased to look
upon this great congregation of throbbing hearts, and thou
that art the physician, heal the sick, strengthen the weak,
exalt those that am humble, give power to the powerless, and
bring home the glory of thy salvation by faith and love to
every single wounded heart.

And we pray thee that thou wouldst bless the whole
community which 1s around about us he1e; and especially
we ask that thy blessing may lest upon the seminary of
lea1n1ng which 1s here established. We thank thee for all
the benefits which ah eady have been derived from it, and
we pray that its past may be but as the twilight of the
m01n1ng, compa1 ed with the mid- day prosperity of its years
to come. May all that teach be men of God ,may they
dwell 111 the wisdom of a true lov;e may they be humble,
prayerful men, nourishing those committed to their charge
with parental love. And we pray that those that come
hither to increase their knowledge may have as the foun-

252 HENRY WA RD BEECHER.

dation of all knowledge, the beginning of knowledge, the
fear of the Lord, and the end of all knowledge, the love of
God. And may their numbers increase, and as they go
forth may they bear the preciousness of the highest wisdom,
and the highest truth, into all the community. ‘And we
pray, O Lord, our God, that thou Wilt bless those that have
been benefactors ; and grant that while they yet live they
may rejoice in their labor and see the fruit thereof.

Bless, we pray thee, all those that are dwelling in this
land, among every class, and of every nationality. Bring
men together; turn away those causes of offense which
separate men ; grant that selfishness may grow weaker, as
benevolence grows stronger; and may the things which
make for peace abound in all our land. And as we are
entering upon the year of 'great excitement, grant that
men may learn to bear with each other, and may go with
a wisdom unclouded by hateful passions into their various
conflicts.

And be pleased to raise up for us in the chief magis-
tracy of this nation, a man fearing God, and loving the
people ; wise and prudent in all things.

Be pleased to bless the President of the United States
now established, and all that are joined with himin author-
ity. Give them wisdom, direction and strength from on
hi h.

gAnd we pray not only for them, but for all that govern;
for magistrates, and judges, and for the whole people of
this great nation. ’

We beseech of thee that thou wilt be pleased also to
bless the nations adjoining us, and the nations across the
deep ; and all of them. Especially be pleased to bless the
Queen of Great Britain, the land of our forefathers ; of
civilization, and light, and knowledge. And may all the
mercies which we implore for ourselves belong to her, and
to ”her people. And may the nations of the earth that are
now studying war, and living encamped over against each
other, learn the great arts of peace, and dwell together in a
blessed unity. May all joys animal perish more and more,
and the joys of the Spirit more and more abound. Let
thy kingdom come ; let thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven.

And we will give the praise to the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit. Amen. '

MR. BEECHER’S PUBLIC PRAYERS. 253

Gratitude for Parental Influences.

We thank thee that we have had the lessons and the
examples of our parents, of which we thought but
little then. Looking back, how much of our life has
been fortified by them. How much of wisdom havewe de-
rived from their experience, how much of joy from the
memory of them. 0 Lord, we beseech of thee that thou
wouldst grant unto us the faith and consolation of those who
have gone before. Grant unto us the communion of the
saints, not alone of those who are on earth, but also the tri-
umphant ones of the heavenly house. Grant that we may
live by faith and not by sight. Make us strong against ad-
versity, not to turn it away but to endure it. May we not
live by fear, but by hope and by courage. May we not
count ourselves better than our leaders. If thou didst suf-
fer who art the Captain of our salvation, shall we shrink ?
Yea, if thou wert led forth unto death, shall any extremity
surprise us ? The servant is not greater than his master,
nor he who is. sent greater than he who sent him. May we,
too, covet the crown— of thorns. May we, too, rejoice in
the cross. If it be needful that rebuke shall chastise us,
grant, we beseech of thee, that thy hand be not held back;
for if we suffer with thee here, we shall reign with thee
hereafter. Grant that we may strive to drink of Christ’s
cup, and be baptized with Christ’s baptism that we may
become like unto him, and find our rest and glory when
he shall call us to his heavenly house.

Thankfulness for the Forethought of Love.

We thank thee, our heavenly Father, that thy fore-
thought of love and thy mercy have left us almost without
occasion of petition. Thou hast commanded thy angels
to take care of us, and they have in love been faithful to
their charge, and have watched over us by night and by
day, have delivered us from evils that we did not suspect,
and have brought us in life, in health, in comfort, and
with sustained reason to this hour. We know not how to
thank thee. Our hearts are prone to selfishness and ingrat-
itude. We receive with such greediness, with such avarice
all prosperities ; and though they are the gifts of God, we

254 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

think them the fruit of our own skill and our own knowl—
edge. Yet in the midst of the mighty laws that govern
the earth, and among which we wander ignorantly to so
large an extent, how easily are we crushed and overthrown.
Thy sparing mercy, and thine all-guiding providence bear
us safely through. For all special mercies recognized we
give thee thanks, and for the cloud of thy tender mercies
which we do not discern one by one we render thee thanks.
We commit ourselves to the divine wisdom and the divine
goodness ; praying that thou wouldst do for us exceeding
abundantly, more than all we ask or think. In the pride
of life, in all its successes, grant, we beseech of thee, that
we may not be led away by vanity or folly. Grant that
we may not feel that our life consists in the abundance of
the things that we possess, that we may never for a
moment believe that this is our home, that we may never
forget to be homesick for our Father’s house. .. How
many there are who long for us more than we long for
them. How many there are who hang as a cloud of wit-
nesses over us to behold our conflict with evil, and the
achievement of whatever good we may gain. And thou !
Redeemer, Lord, dost more than all long for us, that where
thou art, there we may be also. Grant that we may live as
seeing the invisible, and grant that the greater truths of
life, unseen and unformulated, may be more to us than
the truths that are visible, that we can touch with our
hands or discern with our senses. .

A Plea for Many Mercies.

Our Father, if we should ”attempt to make known all
our wants, time and strength would fail us. All that
our pride asks, and our vanity; all that we desire for the
body; all that we seek for the understanding; all that
we would have for conscience and for love; all that we
crave for the outward life and for the inward, we should
not be able to remember. 0 Lord, our God, we thank
thee that thou knowest what things we have need' of 'be-
fore we ask ; and that thou givest liberally, and upbraidest
not those that solicit thee. Look, then, upon us this
morning, as upon thy beloved. . Though we are yet defiled;
though we are not such as the heavenly host ; though we
are imperfect in every direction, and often soiled exceed-

MR. BEECHER’S PUBLIC PRAYERS. 255

ingly, yet we are thine, and thy all-comprehending love
regards our necessities, and by thy Spirit thou art ever-
more calling us to life and to kno.vledge, to virtue and to
lor . ’
g gmile upon us. May we know that thou art gracious.
May those ugly fears that have tormented us, may all our
visions of darkness, may all the sense which we have of help-
lessness, may everything that brings to us despondency, if
not despair, be driven away by the bright shining of the
morning; and let all the birds of darkness flee, and the
songful birds come forth to rejoice in thy light and in thy
life.

What more, then, shall we need ? We have the bread
that sustains our life ; we have the strength which gives us
power; we have thy guidance ; and what more do we need?
Grant unto every one this manifestation of thyself, of thy
bounty, of thy glory, of thy sin-forgiving nature, of thy
long-suffering kindness. We beseech of thee that we may
comfort ourselves in our God, and not in any conceit of
our own excellence. We are sick, and in every way infirm.
We need both nurse and physician. We need to be borne
by a superior power, patiently. O Lord, our God, we be-
seech of thee that we may have a consciousness of our im-
perfection, and over against it, a consciousness of the glory
of thy magnanimous love, and of thy wonderful goodness.
Grant that we may eat thee and drink thee. Grant that
we may take of the holy loaf. Grant, we pray thee, that
we may have in our consciousness of thy love and power
all that we can desire. May we be able to say, with some
fullness of experience, The will of the Lord be done.

A Morning Prayer.

This morning, 0 Lord, help us, through care and
through the dust and din of life, to reach up and enter
into that abode of peace where thou dwellest. Give us, to-
day, we beseech of thee, a realization of. what .we are to
thee, and what thou art to us, and fill us with sacred rest
and overflowing joy. Why should we ask thee to forget
our sins when thy thoughts of mercy are more than the
drops of the sea, and when daily thou art washing them
away and passing them by ? Why should we beseech thee
for gifts which are as free as the. morning light? We

256 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

make mention of our transgressions; we are ashamed of.
them ; our infirmities are more than we can number ; our
sins are multitudinous : and we thank thee for that eifac-
ing love, for that tender patience which attends upon us,
and waits to be gracious. And now we pray, O Lord, that
day by day, we may strive to do that which is right in
God’s sight, and reap the fruit of righteousness therein.

Pleading with the All in All.

Grant unto us, 0 Lord our God, that light of faith by
which we shall discern thee in everything. Art not thou
the tree of life to us P Dost thou not give shadows, as the
trees do ? But when winter comes, then thou art not the
tree that with shadow brings chill. Thou art the very
sun. Thou art our warmth and our light. Thou art, 0
Lord, our food. When we are faint, thou art the water
of life to comfort us. Thou art our star, shining in the
darkness, and telling us the way when we are lost. Though
we cannot see what it is, we follow its light without ques-
tioning, and are rescued. Thou art our rest and our home.
Thou art all in all.

A Devout Resolve.

Since thou hast called us children, and put the arms of
thy providence about us, nourished us, and comforted us
in times of trouble, we will trust in thee, and live in that
faith far beyond our understanding of thy ways.

 

Prayer for Refuge from Fear.

We thank thee, our Father, that thou hast not clothed
thyself with terror ; that thou dest not fill the future with
fear. We draw near to thee by him who is called Saviour,
Friend, Redeemer; and when we are taken by his hand
and presented to thee, we behold thy name. It is Father;
we are taught to call thee by this endearing name. i In
thee is refuge and rescue to those that are outside of thee,
tossed with fear and with dread. We take refuge as chil-
dren in our Father’s house. We run to thee in every time
of fear, that we may be saved. And we rejoice.

MR. BEECHER’S PUBLIC PRAYERS. 257

Prayer for the Bereaved.

We pray, O Lord! If there be those now in thy pres-
ence who are in sorrow or bereavement, who are in manifold
affliction, that they may find the communion of the spirit,
refreshing and comforting to their souls. For thou art the
consoler. Thou art the comforter. Ten thousand hast thou
comforted in prison, on the scaffold, in the wilderness, on
beds of sickness, in solitary places. Thou art the com-
forter still. Not as one man is comforter to another art
thou; but thy comforting influence is spread all abroad
through the heaven and the earth, among all the sorrow-
ing. Thou dost love with. divine and sacred energy, and
dost grant consolation to all that are in trouble.

A Prayer for Meekness.

Teach us how to have the power of meekness; how to
have the force of gentleness; how to have the persuasion
of sympathy; how to gain all by renouncing all; how to
save our life by yielding it ; how to get glory by humility ;
how to stand at the bottom that we may be at the top of all
things in life. And while men dispute of the outward
word, and tear it and wound it, and cast it back and forth
at each other, may we enter into thy word as meditating
men in the solitude of summer go within the great forests,
not to hew them nor to cast them down, but to hear the
murmur of the bird and of the leaf, to feel the glory and
beauty of silence, so may we walk through all thy arbored
word, and may there come from it to us in our silence, in
our inward life, those sweet voices and all that influence
that shall bringrus into accord with the hearts of those who
indited it, and into the purpose and mystery of thy Spirit.

We beseech of thee that thou wouldst thus grant that we
may come into that mood and sphere where thou canst
make thyself known to us, and grant that God may be in
us and abide in us because the atmosphere of love is there ;
and may we rejoice, not so much that we can discern the
outward nature in all the forms of government and influ-
ence whichthou hast imposed upon time and the world,
but that we may rejoice that we understand thee, and are
brought into that alliance with thee that casts out all fear
--- fear of providence ; fear of What men can do unto us 5

17

258 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

fear that we may lose all, or that something may befall;
fear of sickness, infirmity, ago, and death itself. May we
have that love of thee that shall lift us above all weakness
and all fear, and send us with a song of triumph from day
to day, until our joy shall ~mingle with the music of the
heavenly host.

Prayer for the Poor and Needy.

Bless, we pray thee, the poor, the needy and the uned-
ucated. Look upon the child of the forest. Bless those in-
struments that are bringing us to habits of industry. Dark
as life is in this world to man, grant that the light of the
other and better world may dawn upon his understanding,
that he may be prepared both for this world and for the
life which is to come. Grant that every nation which
sends hither its children may, while their hearts yearn for
those children, strangers in a strange land, feel the benefi-
cent influence of the Gospel of Christ.

Prayer for the Light of God’s Face.

Teach us to walk as seeing thee who art invisible. 0
face of light! 0 face of love! 0 face of joy! Shine
upon us by day and by night, that, looking upon thee, we
may be able to hide in the blessed light all things we do
not Wish to ‘look upen, and that we may live above the
world while living in it, and live in sympathy with its men
and its duties and its wants.

Prayer for the Sanctification of Sorrow.

Every heart knows its own joy and its own sorrow.
Sanctify the joy, or yet more abundantly the sorrow.
Grant that those who are chastened may hear the voice of
God saying, “ Whom I love I chasten, and I scourge every
son whom I receive.” May every one turn to thee, not so
much to escape pain and sorrow, but to emerge out of it
with a nobler experience and a better manhood. Give
patience to those that are long tried. Give strength to
those that sit in weakness and in trouble. May they think
0f thy longsuffering with them, and be willing to suffer
long by themselves.

MR. BEECHER’S PUBLIC PRAYERS. 259

Prayer for Heroism.

We thank thee that thou hast made all thought and all
feeling sacred through the suffering of thy Son, our Sav-‘
iour, and through the revelations of suffering in his apos-
tles and servants ; and we thank thee that there are many
of thy people and saints upon earth whose sufferings are
comforted, and that the voice of victory in the midst of
suffering goes forth to them that are as yet speechless in
their trouble. Grant to each of us the heroism of a true
Christian sympathy in love, in suffering, in fidelity, in all
pain, in everything.

Prayer for Patience.

Do any feel that life is too hard for themto bear? May
they understand that the sei‘vant is not greater than the
Master. May they look unto their crowned Saviour, whose
crowns were thorns, who deserved all good, and had all ill;
and may they be patient, waiting for the fulfillment of his
providence, and the interpretations of his‘ dealings with
them.

 

Witnessing to God’s F aithfulness.

It is good for us to come unto thee, where we know
there is wealth, compassion and sympathy. We rejoice
that the High Priest set forth for us can have compassion
upon those who are out of" the way, and are compassed
with infirmities, so that they may come boldly to the
throne of grace to obtain mercy and help in every time of
need. Our fathers trusted in thee, and we are witnesses
of how firmly they walked, sustained by their faith, and
how through hope and through years of clear light, they
went down to the valley of the shadow of death. And
they have left us the testimony that it is not in vain that
we serve the Lord. We have always been brought up in
the love and faith of God ; and we are witnesses that thy
faithfulness has never failed even when we have gone away
from thee. Thou hast not departed from us when we have
sought to come to thee. Thou hast not been hard and
unfeeling ; but thou hast pitied us. Thou hast lifted us
in condescension and in great mercy. Thou didst never
break a promise to us, though we have broken many to

260 HENRY WARD BEECHER.’

thee. In times of great tribulation and distress thou hast
rescued us, and we have promised to serve thee all the
days of our lives; and behold, when deliverance was at
hand; and prosperity shone again upon us, we easily forgot
our pledges, and went the way of selfishness and worldli-
ness. When sickness has overtaken us, and we have tossed
on beds of pain, by day and by night, and thou hast
snatched us out of the hand of death, and we have given
our life unto thee as our deliverer, and thou hast vouch-
safed to us thy mercy, and blown away the dark cloud that
hovered over us, all our renewed strength and all our re-
freshed powers we have dedicated again to selfishness and to
the world, and so have cheated thee, and deserved nothing at
thy hand; and thou hast not been grieved away, but thou
hast turned again with infinite tenderness, and called, and
called us; and we are monuments of thy grace. We are
alive, not through our own wisdom, nor skill, nor strength,
but through the saving mercies of God. Make us ashamed,
we beseech of thee, that we should lift up the darkness of
such lives as ours against the radiance of thy love. By
thy mercies may we be drawn to thee. May the meek-
ness and gentleness that are in Christ bring us to his
service. And as thou hast planted all that is noblest in
the way of Christ, so may we sink ourselves in submission
to him. -

Confession of Sin.

0, look with compassion upon our poor and despoiled
estate. We admit our sin. We admit that in many things
we offend entirely; that we transgress against our experi-
ence even; against all knowledge; yea, against all pur-
pose. We admit our transgression, and our sin is ever be-
fore us; but, Lord, beside that, what infirmities come in
upon us often as the very sea comes! How are we, by
weakness and by ignorance, thralled and misled! How
often are we threwn into desponden ey ! The things that we
would we do not ; and the things that we would not we do.
Lord, have compassion upon us. Thou art a High Priest,
and thou art ordained as a High Priest, because thou canst
have compassion upon the ignorant, and upon those that
are out of the way. Have compassion upon us, not to per-
mit us to go on in things known to be wrong with impun-
ity. Chastise us. By no means clear the guilt that is in
us. Make us to feel the sinfulness of sin 3 but yet have

MR. BEECHER’S PUBLIC PRAYERS. 261

compassion, and chastise, because thou lovest us, and be-
cause we are sons ; ' and forget not .thy supreme work.
Work out in us a mind like thine own. Grant unto us the
same feeling that is in thine heart. May our love know
how to suffer; how to be patient; how to be long suffering;
how to endure for others and those that deserve nothing;
yea, for those that are our enemies, and that despoil us,
and despitefully use us. Bring us into the experience of
thy nature, and then into the joy of thy salvation. Both
save us from evil, and defend us in all good. But so great
is this work, so subtle, so many are its adversaries, such are
the temptations that come in upon us, that we cannot with-
out thy help obtain the victory. Lord, help us. If we
have faith thou wilt ; but if we have not, Lord help our
faith, that we may receive thy succor, which is for all—the
Divine succor.

Gratitude for Tears.

We have not shed one tear too many, nor had one af-
fliction too many. The burden has never been too heavy.
The cross has never been cruel to us. Thou hast done
wisely with us. The very digging that seemed to be rend-
ing us was the digging of the wells of the soul in our expe-
rience. The very things that we protested against and
strove against have been overruled for our good: and we
bear witness that though for the present, affliction has not
been joyous to us, but grievous, afterwards it has worked
the peaceable fruit of righteousness, in that we have been
exercised thereby; and we commit ourselves to thee for the
future.

A Prayer for America.

Take care of this great land. As this is the refuge of
the poor and needy, so continue, we beseech thee, thoughts
of the sacredness of men. Continue those foundations on
which our fathers stood to build this great fabric, which is
worthy of the name of the refuge of the poor and desolate.
Hold back, we pray thee, all sinister influences. Give
great power to all beneficent influences. May colleges and
seminaries, academies and schools, of every name, prosper.
More and more may intelligence prevail among the people.
Grant that all sources of knowledge, all papers and books,
all influences that tend to feed the hunger of the soul,

262 HENRY WARD BE-ECHER.

may be cleansed, purified, multiplied, and made more and
more powerful. We pray that thou wilt cleanse all admin-
istrations of our national affairs. We commend to thee
the President of the United States, and those that are
joined with him in authority. We pray that thou wilt
open their eyes to the ways of truth and purity, and help
them to walk in righteousness. Remember all governors
and legislators, all judges and magistrates. Grant that
the whole framework of society may be maintained in
integrity, and in true virtue.

Prayer for Enduring Riches.

We beseech of thee, our Father, thou that art the
life of all that live, thou that art the thought of all that
is thought or thinks, grant unto us this morning the
cleansing and stimulating influence of thine own soul ; for
though we help one another, our help is as the taper that
burns within. Thy help is the sun, illuminating all with-
out. When thou art consciously upon us, it is daylight to
the soul. When thou art forgotten or hidden, it is mid-
night and we grope, and so stumblingly travel; but we
walk in a plain path when we are in sympathy with thee,
and conscious of thy presence around about us.

0 grant that we may become rich in the things that
are not visible; rich in faith, in belief, in the ministration
of thy servants—the angels that minister to the heirs of
salvation. May we become rich in the thought of thy
presence always, everywhere, in things the least, in things
remote, in things the nearest, in all things.

A Prayer for Wisdom.

We pray, O Lord our God, that thou wouldst grant us
the wisdom to look back and discern the things that are
past, for thanksgiving and for mercies. May we, in look-
ing back upon the past, give God thanks for convoyance
and guidance. May we rejoice that so much of the past is
gone—so many struggles that need not be renewed; so
many sorrows that have ended; so many fires that are
quenched. May we rejoice to believe, also, that there are
man sins that have expired. May we look upon all the
croo ed ways of our crooked lives, and be ashamed of so

MR. BEECHER’S PUBLIC PRAYERS. ' 263

much that we fain would have rolled up and cast into the
abyss forever. And while we give thanks for the past, may
we humble ourselves before God also for its sad recollec-
tions; and out of it may there come a salutary influence,
that as we step from one year into another we may go
lightened; go with fewer burdens; go, only freighted with
holier purposes, to carry on the life of God in our' soul
with more zeal and more discretion, under thy divine
guidance.

Thankfulness for Loved Ones at Rest.

And we are glad for heaven, and for them that are
dwelling therein ; and it is sweet and comforting to us to
think that the same voices that we taught to speak are
now praising God in heaven in strains unknown to us. Nor
are we envious that our children have out-run their parents,
while we are glad for that rest which remaineth for us.

Prayer for the City and the Nation.

Bless, we pray thee, the city in which we dwell. Grant
that it may be favored of God. It has been favored of
him ; and it shall be. Come thou, then, to purge away all
evil, to strengthen us in all that is good in the sight of
God and of man ; and abide with us, that it may be a city
of the Most High. We pray that thou wilt bless our land. 7
Bless those who in various ways and in various spheres are
seeking its uplifting, its fuller development, its power and
its usefulness. May it shine with the beauty of holiness.
All over the earth may its light begin to be diffused
throughout darkness; and though the darkness compre-
hend it not, may it be rolled back until on every island,
in every continent, and around the whole world, men shall

be found strong in reason, in conscience, and in love, as the
chlldren of God. ' '

Sabbath Invocation.

We thank thee that we have come together again this
morning, after the labor of the week and its weariness.
Grant that we may have a settled peace—that peace of
God that passeth all understanding. May we yield our-
selves up to him implicitly. May we rejoice that his will

264 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

is better than ours. And amidst thwartings, and castings
down, and disappointments, let us not feel that our life is
lost, or that we are losing it. May we be able to say, in'all
events, The will of the Lord be done. If we are weakened
by excess of sorrow, or if our eyes are dim that we cannot
see, or if we have lost the way and know not how to find it,
0 Lord God of our salvation, be merciful to us and look
upon our weakness, and in thine infinite compassion revive
us again, and put us upon our feet, and let us hear the
voice, though it be in darkness, saying, “This is the way,
walk ye in it.”

A Prayer to the Dearly Beloved.

With those that rejoice round about thee, O dearly
beloved of men and angels, our Father, we this morning
rejoice likewise, according to the measure of our light, and
according to the measure in which thou has wrought in
us to will and to do of thy good pleasure. In thy joyful-
ness, which is as the light going over all the heaven and
throughout creation, everything has light and joy. What
thou art, that canst bring joy out of sorrow, we cannot
Conceive. Thou that dost sanctify suffering in thyself,
and bear the burden of the universe, and yet art most
blest and joyful of all—how shall we rise to the concep-
tion of such an One? Thy virtues take thee away out of
the reach of our thought; for we are selfish; we are low-
minded and earthly; we grope among things, and can
scarcely rise to: the higher range even of our own souls;
but thou art a spirit, unconfined, universal, rejoicing in
what men detest, we seeking to rid ourselves of burdens,
and thou multiplying them perpetually; we occupied with
the things that concern ourselves, and thou with the
things that concern all other creatures but thyself; we per-
petually asking to be served, and thou eternally serving.
Who of us shall mount up and think of thee? Thou art
not what thou art by the power of thy right hand. It is
not because thou hast wisdom, and art everywhere, and art
mightier than the mightiest, and art the cause of all
things that are happening, that thou art God. This is
but thine outward garment. The palace of thy soul, the
march eternally therein of those grander emotions, and
the wonderful outflow and expanse of thy love, who of us
can. conceive of these things? Who of us can find any-

MR. BEECHER’S PUBLIC PRAYERS. 265

where the- hint, or type, or suggestion of such a nature as
thine, in its loftiness? And thou sayest well to us, “As
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
thoughts.” Yet afar off, as we discern the light of stars
that we cannot assail nor reach unto—afar off we behold
thee, as the rising sun to some, as the shining of the moon
to others, as the star that overhung the Babe to others, as
light to all. We behold thee and rejoice in thee; and as
men seeking liberty from bondage through the night,
steer themselves by the star of the north, so we seek our-
selves and our larger liberty following thee, though we do
not know all that thou art. We are sure that we are in
the right way when we follow hard after thee.

A Prayer for Thanksgiving Day.

With all that have lived and are gathered into thine
heavenly kingdom unto the community of the blessed, with
all that dwell upon the earth and recognize thy benignan’t
hand, we desire to join in blessing thy name, and in bear-
ing witness to thy kindness, and to the service of ten thou-
sand ministers of thine in the air, on the earth, upon the
land, upon the sea, and from time immemorial. We de-
sire, O Lord our God, to recognize thy service to us. No
parent can be so tender to his children as thou hast been
to thy children. We rejoice that in all those ways in which
men find their true strength and dignity thou art found
rewarding them step by step. We rejoice that darkness
leads to light, that chastisement leads to joy, and that sor-
rows become pleasures. We know that they are ministered
by thee ; and that thy ways though not easily to be inter-
preted by our fear, or by the flesh, are made manifest in
the spirit ; and that all things shall work together for good
to them that love thee.

Accept our thanksgiving this morning. We are gath-'
ered together at the call of our magistrates—this whole
people, scattered abroad upon the bosom of this mighty
continent. where the seasons are the almoners of thy
bounty, where the sea and the land have served them,
where the mountains and the mountain-sides alike have
ministered unto them, where thou hast in this year very
graciously held back raging diseases and pestilences, where
thou hast tempered the season to health, where thou hast

266 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

brought forth abundantly from the earth, where thou hast
made the heart of the poor to rejoice in abundance, where
strangers have found themselves at home, and where all
the people have dwelt together in growing unity and
eace. -

p O Lord our God, when we look upon the years, and re-
member the multitude of thy mercies, our hearts are drawn
out to thee in thanksgiving. We rejoice that nature,
which is but the expression of thy will, that its laws, which
are thy decrees, and that whatsoever thou doest, in laying
with regularity and continuity the paths on which we walk,
shall be stable. May we learn how to do thy will ; and may
we obey all laws that are of thee, that are ministered by
thee, that are sustained by thee, and that are working for
thee. We rejoice that through ten thousand veins thou
art distributing thy mercies to those that need.

We adore thee, though we cannot compass thee with
our thought, that we know the direction in which thou art
loving ; that we know the effulgence of thy love; that we
know what are the plenitude and richness of thy mercies ;
and what are the influences which, beginning in love, end
in mereles.

Prayer for Endurance.

We pray that thou wilt make us strong in the day‘of
adversity, and able to bear. May we be clad in all the armor
of God, both offensive and defensive, and be prepared to
meet every exigency, and yet not be overthrown; to be
found still standing when the battle is over, and able to
stand. '

 

Prayer for Consolation.

Our heavenly Father, we beseech of thee that thou wilt
grant the light of consolation, and-joy, and comfort to all
those, thy followers, that are seeking, through the twilight
and through the darkness, to find thee. How great is that
darkness to some I How many are there that say, “All
thy waves have gone over me. My God, my God! dost,
thou care for me?” Thou dost care for the poor and
struggling soul. Thou knowest how hard the conflict is
with those that are, by sickness and poverty, and ten thou-
sand grating influences of life, made wretched. Thou art
sorry for them, and thou art sending them sweet angelic

MR. BEECHER’s PUBLIC PRAYERS. 267

influences; and if they will, thou wilt carry them through
the desert, and they shall even see the promised land.
Great is thepower of thy grace over against our weakness
and want.

Prayer for Light and Joy.

Thou who art thelover of the sparrow, and art grieved
to see it fall, are we not better than many sparrows ? Fold
us to thy heart and grant that we may have communicated
to us the consciousness of it. Oh, how poor we are in our- ..
selves! Oh, how rich we might be in thee! Rain down
upon us the light of God. Pour from thyself streams of
light, and life, and joy in the Holy Ghost ; and bring us
at last, amid tears, beyond sighing and sorrow, beyond
sinning, into the land of rest

Prayer on Behalf of the Children.‘

Bless the dear children. Sorrows are awaiting them;
temptations shall beset them ; tears shall be wrung from
them. And yet, 0 God 1 Thou art strOnger than sorrow;
and thou canst carry them through crying and
through tribulation, and save them yet to great joy
here, and to immortality hereafter. We' cannot ask
that sorrows, which prophesy themselves already, shall not
come. Since thou hast been made perfect through suffer-
ing, why should we not be made perfect through suffering ?
But we commend them, in this stormy world, with its
temptatiOns and sins, to thy fatherly thought, and care,
and guidance. Oh, take care of them, that they may not
stumble with fatal downfall.

Prayer for Mourners.

We pray that thou wilt grant that where there are
those who sit in darkness, mourning their beloved, there
may arise to them a light; a revelation of God through
Jesus Christ; a comfort which the world cannot give, and
which the world cannot take away. Bless all that mourn,
from what reason soever. May broken hopes lead men to
look up to him who was broken on the cross, and through
whose death life comes. May they build again who are
cast down ; and may they find joy whose days are filled with

268 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

pain and sorrow. Stand thou over against every creature
that is in want, 0 blessed Saviour, to lead him out of his
trouble, to redeem him from his captivity, to guide him as
a shepherd guides his flock, and so to bring him into the
royalty of thine own strength. Be thou manifest in their
weakness, and may they, bearing their burdens with pa-
tience in difficult ways, more and more be led upward from
the animal toward the spiritual.

Plea. for Deliverance from Care.

We pray that thou wilt take away from us the over-
mastering power of care. Grant that we may love suffer-
ing if suffering loves us. Grant that we may be cleansed
by it, and that we may be lifted above the ordinary sources
of consolation ; that we may live more and more by reason
of finding this world out before we leave it ; and that we
may, by reason of finding it out, live in the other and
higher life. Make this life as the very verge of the
great life beyond ; and though in the stillest hour we
can hear nothing, 0 grant that by faith we may see and
hear much. As men that live far away from the sea hear
the roar of the waves upon the shore, so may we hear the
praise that beats upon the shores of the other life, where
thou hast gathered multitudes that no man can number ;
where their joy mounts higher than our summer; where
everything blooms and everything rejoices. As we hear it,
we may rejoice that we are drawing nearer to it, and be
ashamed that our voices are so poorly constituted to join
in that praise with which thou art surrounded. May we
be able to transmute the words of thy servants of old, and
fill our heaven with our own conceptions of companionship.
Education, conduct, occupation,- blessedness—more and
more may 'we be able to make the whole of that, a vocab
ulary to our thought of thee, and of the joy of thy people.
May there spring up in our hearts and out-of our imagina-
tions living realizations of thee that our God may be to us
as endless and various as he is in himself.

We pray that thus the world itself may become better
under our dominion. As thy disciples were to sit upon
thrones, judging, so may we be able to sit upon the
thrones of our own souls judging all things, measuring all
things, governing all things, as the sons of God, until our
time is spent—until the rollingworld hath measured out

MR. BEECHER’S PUBLIC PRAYERS. 269

the longest thread to any of us. Then with unspeakable
gladness may we drop the life that is, and the body; which
having helped, is only now become an encumbrance, and
go flying and singing to that rest which remaineth for the
people of God.

And to thy name, Father, Son and Spirit, shall be
praises everlasting. Amen.

Prayer for All Nations.

Bless our neighbor-nations. Knit us together with
them, not by the rude bonds of selfishness, but by the
sweeter cords of love and sympathy. We pray for thy
blessing upon all nations. Remember the peoples that
are struggling up slowly, and seeking stability in justice
and knowledge. ' Grant that they may be prospered by
thee. May all the diverse influences throughout the globe
be clad in the armor of righteousness; and may all the
elements which tend to beauty and virtue find thee giving
them light in darkness, and strength in weakness. Let
thy kingdom come, let thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven. ‘ -

Prayer Concerning Old Age.

We beseech of thee that thou wouldst grant unto
every one of us, every day as the years go on, not
sorrow because weakness is coming, not looking back wist-
fully and regretting the departed years of youth, but give
to us the nobler mind, that we may thank God that so few
steps remain, that we are so near to the morning, that the
day dawn is showing itself in the East. When at last the
final hour of darkness is ripening into twilight, and ’we be-
hold the glowing East, then to our eyes may the Sun of
Righteousness arise, and may we stand in the full light
and glory of thy presence in the heavenly day.

DISCOURSE ON ABRAHAM
LINCOLN.

THE MARTYR PRESIDENT.

N the 15th of April 1865, Henry Ward Beecher deliv-
ered the following discourse in Plymouth church,
Brooklyn.

“ And Moses went up from the plains of Moab, unto the'mountain
of N ebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho ; and the
Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali,
and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah,
unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of
Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar. And the Lord said unto
him, this is the land which I swear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and
unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed ; I have caused thee
to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So
Moses, the servant of the lord, died there in the land of Moab, ac-
cording to the word of the Lord.”—Deut. 34 : 1—5 .

There is no historic figure more noble than that of the
Jewish lawgiver. After so many thousands of years, the
figure of Moses is not diminished, but stands up against
the background of early days, distinct and individual as if
he had lived but yesterday. There is scarcely another
event in history more touching than his death. He had
borne the great burdens of state for forty years, shaped
the Jews to a nation, filled out their civil and religious
polity, administered their laws, guided their steps, or
dwelt with them in all their journeyings in the wilder-
ness, had mourned in their punishment, kept step with
their march, and led them in wars until the end of their
labors drew nigh. The last stage was reached. Jordan
only lay between them and the promised land. The
promised land l—oh, what yearnings had heaved his
breast for that divinely promised place ! He had dreamed
of it by night, and mused by day. It was holy and en-
deared as God’s favorite spot. It was to be the cradle of
an illustrious history. All his long, laborious, and now
weary life, he had aimed at this as the consummation of
every desire, the reward of every toil and pain. Then

270

SERMON 0N ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 271

came the word of the Lord to him, “Thou mayest not go
over: Get thee up into the mountain, look upon it. and
die.”

- From that silent summit, the hoary leader gazed to
the north, to the south, to the west, with hungry eyes.
The dim outlines rose up. The hazy recesses spoke of
quiet valleys between the hills. With eager longing, with
sad resignation, he looked upon the promised land. It
was now to him a forbidden land. It was a moment’s
anguish. He forgot all his personal wants, and drank in
the vision of his people’s home. His work was done.
There lay God’s promise fulfilled. There was the seat of
coming Jerusalem; there the city of J udah’s King; the
sphere of judges and prophets; the mount of sorrow and
salvation ; the nest whence were to fly blessings innumer-
able to all mankind. Joy chased sadness from every fea-
ture, and the prophet laid him. down and died. ,

Again a great leader of the people has passed through

toil, sorrow, battle, and war, and come near to the prom-
ised land of peace, into which he might not pass over.
Who shall recount our martyr’s sufferings for this people?
Since the November of 1860, his horizon has been black
with storms. By day and by night he trod a way of
danger and darkness. On his shoulders rested a govern-
ment dearer to him than his own life. At its integrity
millions of men were striking home. Upon this govern-
ment foreign eyes lowered. It stood like a lone island
in a sea full of storms, and every tide and wave seemed
eager to devour it. Upon thousands of hearts great sor-
rows and anxieties have rested, but not on one such, and
in such measure, as upon that simple, truthful, noble soul,
our faithful and sainted Lincoln. Never rising to the en-
thusiasm of more impassioned natures in hours of hope,
and never sinking with the mercurial in hours of defeat
to the depths of despondency, he held on with unmovable
patience and fortitude, putting caution against hope, that
it, might not be premature, and hope against caution, that
it might not yleld to dread and danger. He wrestled
ceaselessly, through four black and dreadful purgatorial
yeags, wherein God was cleansing the sin of his people as
b re. . ‘ '

y At last, the watcher beheld the gray dawn for the
country. The mountains began to give forth their forms
from out the darkness; and the East came rushing toward

2'72 - ' HENRY WARD BEECHER.

us with arms full of joy for all our sorrows. Then it was
for him to be glad exceedingly, that had sorrowed immeas-
urably. Peace could bring to no other heart such joy,"
such rest, such honor, such trust, such gratitude. But he
looked upon it as Moses looked upon the promised land.
Then the wail of a nation proclaimed that he had gone
from among us. Not thine the sorrow, but ours, sainted
soul. Thou hast indeed entered the promised land, while
we are yet on the march. To us remains the rocking of
the deep, the storm upon the land, days of duty and
nights of watching; but thou art sphered high above all
darkness and fear, beyond all sorrow and weariness. Rest,
O weary heart ! Rejoice exceedingly, thou that hast
suffered enough! Thou hast beheld Him who invisibly
led thee in this great wilderness. Thou standest among
the elect. Around thee are royal men that have ennobled
human life in every age. Kingly art thou, with glory on-
thy brow as a diadem. ' And joy is upon thee for ever-
more. Over all this land, over all the little cloud of years
that now from thine infinite horizon moves back as a
speck, thou art lifted up as high as ,the star is above the
clouds that hide us but never reach it. In the goodly com-
pany of Mount Zion thou shalt find that rest which thou
hast sorrowing sought in vain ; and thy name, an everlast-
ing name in heaven, shall flourish in fragrance and beauty
as long as men shall last upon the earth, or hearts remain,
to revere truth, fidelity, and goodness.

Never did two such orbs of experience meet in one hem-
isphere, as the joy and the sorrow of the same week in this
land. The joy was as sudden as if no man had expected
it, and as entrancing as if it had fallen a sphere from
heaven. It rose up over sobriety and swept business from
its moorings, and ran down through the land in irresistible
course. Men embraced each other in brotherhood that
were strangers in the flesh. They sang, or prayed, or,
deeper yet, many could only think thanksgiving and weep
gladness. That peace was sure ; that government was firmer
than ever; that the land was cleansed of plague ; that the
ages were opening to our footsteps, and we were to begin
a march of blessings ; that blood was stanched, and
scowling enmities were sinking like storms beneath the hor-
izon ; that the dear fatherland, nothing lost, much gained,
was to rise up in unexam led honor among the nations of
the earth—these thouglits, and that undistinguishable

SERMON ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 273

throng of fancies and hopes and desires, and yearnings,
that filled the soul with tremblings like the heated air of
midsummer days—all these kindled up such a surge of joy
as no words may describe.

In one hour joy lay without a pulse, without a gleam, or
breath. A sorrow came that swept through the land as
huge storms sweep through the forest and field, rolling
thunder along the sky, disheveling the flowers, daunting
every singer in thicket or forest, and pouring blackness and
darkness across the land and up the mountains. Did ever
so many hearts, in so brief a time, touch two such bound-
less feelings? It was the uttermost of joy; it. ‘was the
uttermost of sorrow—noon and midnight, without'a space
between. '

The blow brought not a sharp pang. It was so terrible
that at first it stunned sensibility. Citizens were like men
awakened at midnight by an earthquake, and bewildered
.to find everything that they were accustomed to trust wav-
ering and falling. The very earth was no longer solid.
The first” feeling was the least. Men waited to get straight
to feel. They wandered in the streets as if groping after
some impending dread, or undeveloped sorrow, or some one
to tell them what ailed them. They met each other as if
each would ask the other, “ Am I awake, or do I dream. ?”
There was a piteous helplessness. Strong men bowed
down and wept. Other and common griefs belonged to
some one in chief ; this belonged to all. It was each and
every man’s. Every virtuous household in the land felt as
if its first-born were gone. Men were bereaved, and walked
for days as if a corpse lay unburied in their dwellings.
There was nothing else to think of. They could speak of
nothing else but that; and yet, of that they could speak
only falteringly. All business was laid aside. Pleasure
forgot to smile. The city for nearly a week ceased to roar.
The great Leviathan lay down and was still. Even avarice
stood still, and greed was strangely moved to generous
sympathy and universal sorrow. Rear to his name monu-
ments, found charitable institutions, and write his name
above their lintels ; but no monument Will'ever equal the
universal, spontaneous, and sublime sorrow that in a mo-
ment swept down lines and parties, and covered up animos-
ities, and in an hour brought a divided people into unity of
grief and indivisible fellowship of anguish.

For myself, 1 cannot yet command that quietness of

18

2’74 H may, WARD BEECHER.

spirit needed for a just and temperate delineation of aman
whom goodness has made great. Leaving that, if it please
God, to some other occasion, I pass to some considerations,
aside from the martyr President’s character, which may be
fit for this hour’s instruction.

1. Let us not mourn that his departure was so sudden,
nor fill our imagination with horror at its method. Men,
long eluding and evading sorrow, when at last they are
overtaken by it, seem enchanted, and seek to make their
sorrow sorrowful to the very uttermost, and to bring out
every drop of suffering which they possibly can.- This is
not Christian, though it may be natural. When good men
pray for deliverance from sudden death, it is only that they
may not be plunged without preparation, all disrobed into
the presence of their Judge. When one is ready to de-
part, suddenness of death is a blessing. It is a painful
sight to see a tree overthrown bya tornado, wrenched from
its foundations, and broken down like a weed ; but it is yet
more painful to see a vastand venerable tree lingering with
vain strife against decay, which age and infirmity have
marked for destruction. The process by which strength
wastes, and the mind is obscured, and the tabernacle is
taken down, is humiliating and painful ; and it is good and,
grand whena man departs to his rest from out of the midst
of duty, full-armed and strong, with pulse beating time.
For such an one to go suddenly, if he be prepared to go, is
but to terminate a most noble life in its most noble man-
ner. Mark the words of the Master : "

“ Let your loins be girded about, .and your lights burn-
ing; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their
lord, when he will return from the wedding ; that when he
cometh and knocketh they may open unto him immedi-
ately. Blessed are those servants whom the lord when he
cometh shall find watching.”

Not they that go in a stupor, but they that go with all
their powers about them, and wide awake, to meet their
Master, as to a wedding are blessed. He died watching.
He died with his armor on. In the midst of hours of
labors, in the very heart of patriotic consultations, just re-
turned from camps and councils, he was stricken down.
No fever dried his blood. No slow waste consumed him.
All at once, in full strength and manhood, with his girdle
tight about him, he departed, and walks with God.

Nor was the manner of his death more shocking, if we

SERMON oN ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 275

divest it of the malignity of the motives which caused it.
The mere instrument itself is not one that we should
shrink from contemplating. Have not thousands of sold-
iers fallen on the field of battle by the bullets of the
enemy ? Is being killed in battle counted to be a dreadful
mode of dying? It was as if he had died in battle. Do
not all soldiers that must fall ask to depart in the hour of
battle and Victory ? He went in the hour of victory.

There has not been a poor drummer boy in all this war
that has fallen for whom the great heart of Lincoln would
not have bled ; there has not been one private soldier,
without note or name, slain among thousands, and hid in
the pit among hundreds, without even the memorial of a
separate burial, for whom the President would not have
wept. He was a man from the common people, that never
forgot his kind. And now that he who might not bear
the march, and toil, and battles with these humble citi-
zens has been called to die by the bullet, as they were, do
you not feel that there was a peculiar fitness to his nature
and life, that he should in death be joined with them, in a
final common experience, to Whom he had been joined in
all his sympathies.

For myself, when any event is susceptible of a higher and
nobler garnishing, I know not what that disposition is that
would 'seek to drag it down to the depths of gloom, and write
it all over with the scrawls of horror or fear. I let the
light of nobler thoughts fall upon his departure, and bless
God that there is some argument of consolation in the
matter and manner of his going, as there was in the mat-
ter and manner of his staying.

2. This blow was but the expiring rebellion. As a
miniature gives all the form and features of its subject, so,
epitomized in this foul act, we find the whole nature and
disposition of slavery. It begins in a wanton destruction
of all human rights, and in a desecration of all the sanc-
tities of heart and home ; and it is the universal enemy of
mankind, and of God, who made man. It can be main-
tained only at the sacrifice of every right and moral feeling
in its abettors and upholders. I deride the man that
points me to any man bred amid slavery, believing in it,
and willingly practicing it, and tells me that he is a man.
I shall find saints in perdition sooner than I shall find true
manhood under the influences of so accursed a system as
this. It is a two-edged sword, cutting both ways, violent~

2.76 HENRY WARD BEEC'HER.

ly destroying manhood in the oppressed, and insidiously
destroying manhood in the oppressor. The problem is
solved, the demonstration is completed, in our land.
Slavery wastes its victimsp and it destroys the masters.
It destroys public morality and the possibility of it. It
corrupts manhood in its very center and elements.
Communities in which it exist are not to be trusted. They
are rotten. Nor can you find timber grown in this ac-
cursed soil of iniquity that is fit to build our ship of state,
or lay the foundation of our households. The patriotism
that grows up under this blight, when put to proof, is
selfish and brittle ; and he that leans upon it shall be
pierced. The honor that grows up in the midst of slavery
is- not honor, but a bastard quality that usurps the place of
its better, only to disgrace the name of honor. And, as
long as there is conscience, or reason, or Christianity, the
honor that slavery begets will be a by-word and a hissing.
The whole moral nature of men reared to familiarity and
connivance with slavery is death—smitten. The needless
rebellion; the treachery of its leaders to oaths and solemn
trusts; their violation of the commonest principles of fidel-
ity, sitting in senates, in councils, in places of public con-
fidence, only to betray and to destroy; thelong, general, and
unparalleled cruelty to prisoners, without provocation,
and utterly without excuse: the unreasoning malignity
and fierceness—these all mark the symptoms of that dis-
ease of slavery which is a deadly poison to soul and body.

1. I do not say that there are not single natures, here
and there, scattered through the vast wilderness which is
covered with this poisonous vine, who escape the poison.
There are, but they are not to be found among the men
that believe in it, and that have been moulded by it.
They are the exceptions. Slavery is itself barbarity.
That nation which cherishes it is barbarous ; and no out-
ward tinsel or glitter can redeem it from the charge of
barbarism. And it was fit that its expiring blow should
be such as to take away from men the last forbearance, the
last pity, and fire the soul with an invincible determina-
tion that the breeding ground of such mischiefs and mon-
sters shall be utterly and forever destroyed.

2. We needed not that he should put on paper that he
believed in slavery, who, with treason, with murder, with
cruelty infernal, hovered around that majestic man to
destroy his life. He was himself but the long sting with

SERMON 0N ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ' 2’77

which slavery struck at liberty ; and he carried the poison
that belonged to slavery. And as long as this nation lasts
it will never be forgotten that we have had one mar-
tyred President—never! Never, while time lasts, while
heaven lasts, while hell rocks and groans, will it be forgot-
ten that slavery, by its minions, slew him, and, in slaying
him, made manifest its whole nature and tendency.

3. This blow was aimed at the life of the Government
and of the nation. Lincoln was slain : America was
meant. The man was cast down ; _ the Government was
smitten at. The President was killed ; it was national
life, breathing freedom, and mean benificence, that
was sought. He, the man of Illinois, the private man,
divested of robes and the insignia of authority, represent-
ing nothing but his personal self, might have been hated ;
but it was not that that ever would have called forth the
murderer’s blow. It was because he stood in the place of
goVernment, representing government, and a government
that represented right and liberty that he was singled out.
' This, then, isa crime against universal government.
It is not a blow at the foundations of our government,
more than at the foundations of the English government, of
the French government, of every compacted and well-
organized government. It was a crime against mankind.
The whole world will repudiate and stigmatize it as a deed
without a shade of redeeming light- For this was not the
oppressed, goaded to extremity, turning on his oppressor.
Not the shadow of a cloud, even, has rested on the South,
of wrong; and they knew it right well.

In a council held in the City of Charleston, just pre-
ceding to the attack on Fort Sumter, two commissions
were appointed to go to Washington; one on the part of
the army from Fort Sumter, and one on the part of
the Confederates. The lieutenant that was designated to go
for us said it seemed to him that it would be of little use
for him to go, as his opinion was immovably fixed in favor
of maintaining the government in whose service he was
employed. Then Gov. Pickens took him aside, detaining,
for an hour and a half the railroad train that was to con-
vey them on their errand. He opened to him the whole
IElan and secret of the Southern conspiracy; and said to

im, distinctly and repeatedly (for it was needful, he said,
to lay aside disguises) that the South had never been
wronged, and that all their pretences of grievances in the

278 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

matter of tariffs, or anything else, were invalid. “But,”
said he, “ we must carry the people with us; and we allege
these things, as all statesmen do many things that they do
not believe, because they are the only instruments by which
the people can be managed.” He then and there declared
that the two sections of country were so antagonistic in
ideas and policies that they could not live together, that it
was foreordained that Northern and Southern men must
keep apart on account of differences in ideas and policies,
and that all the pretences of the South about wrongs suf-
fered were but pretences, as they very well knew. This is
testimony which was given by one of the leaders in the
Rebellion, and which will, probably, ere long, be given
under hand and seal to the public. So the South has never
had wrong visited upon it except by that which was in-
herent in it.

This was not, then, the avenging hand of one goaded
by tyranny. It was not a despot turned on by his victim.
It was the venemous hatred of liberty wielded by an avowed
advocate of slavery. And, though there may have been
cases of murder in which there were shades of palliation,
yet this murder was without provocation, without tempta~
tion, without reason, sprung from the fury of a heart
cankered to all that was just and good, and corrupted by
all that was wicked and foul. '

4. The blow has signally failed. The cause is not
stricken; it is strengthened. This nation has dissolved—
but in tears only. It stands four-square, more solid, to-
day, than any pyramid in Egypt. This people are neither
wasted, nor daunted, nor disordered. Men hate slavery
and love liberty with stronger hate and love to-day than
ever before. The government is not weakened, it is made
stronger. How naturally and easily were the ranks closed!
Another steps forward, in the hour that the one fell, to
take his place and his mantle; and I avow my belief that
he will be found a man true to every instinct of liberty;
true to the whole trust that is reposed in him; vigilant of
the Constitution; careful of the laws; wise for liberty, in
that he himself, through his life, has known what it was
to suffer from the stings of slavery, and to prize liberty
from bitter personal experiences.

Where could the head of government in any monarchy
be smitten down by the hand of an assassin, and the funds
not quiver or fall one-half of one per cent? After a long

SERMON ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 279

period of national disturbance, after four years of drastic
war, after tremendous drafts on the resources of the country
in the height and top of our burdens, the heart of this
people is such that now, when the head of the government
is stricken down, the public funds do not waver, but stand
as the granite ribs in our mountains.

Republican institutions have been vindicated in this ex-
perience as they never were before; and the whole history
of the last four years, rounded up by this cruel stroke,
seems, in the providence of God, to have been clothed,
now, with an illustration, with a sympathy, with an apt-
ness, and with a significance, such as we never could have
expected nor imagined. God, I think, has said, by the
voice of this event, to all nations of the earth, “ Republican
liberty, based upon true Christianity, is firm as the founda-
tion of the globe.”

5. Even he who now sleeps has, by this event, been
clothed with new influence. Dead, he speaks to men who
now willingly hear what before they refused. to listen to.
N ow his simple and weighty words will be gathered like
those of Washington, and your children and your children’s
children, shall be taught to ponder the simplicity and deep
wisdom of utterances which, in their time, passed, in party
heat, as idle words. Men will receive a new impulse of
patriotism for his sake,_and will guard with zeal the whole
country which he loved so ‘Well. I swear you, on the altar
of his memory, to be more faithful to the country for
which he has perished. They will, as they follow his
hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery against which he
warred, and which, in vanquishing him, has made him a
martyr and a conqueror. I swear you, by the memory of
this martyr, to hate slavery with an unappeasable hatred.
They will admire and imitate the firmness of this man, his
inflexible conscience for the right; and yet his gentleness,
as tender as a woman’s; his moderation of spirit, which,
not all the heat of party could inflame, nor all the jars and
disturbances of his country shake out of its place. I swear
you to an emulation of his justice, his moderation, and his
mercy. .

You I can comfort; but how can I speak to that twi-
light million to Whom his name was as the name of an an-
gel of God? There will be wailing in places which no min-
ister shall be able to reach. When, in hovel and in cot, in
wood and in wilderness, in the field throughout the South,

280 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

the dusky children, who looked upon him as that M0ses
whom God sent before them to lead them out of the land
of bondage, learn that he has fallen, who shall comfort
them? 0, thou Shepherd of Israel, that didst comfort thy
people of old, to thy care we commit the helpless, the long-
wronged, and grieved.

And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march,
mightier than when alive. The nation rises up at every
stage of his coming. Cities and states are his pall-bearers,
and the cannon beats the hours with solemn progression?
Dead, dead, dead, he yet speakethl Is Washington dead.
ls Hampden dead? Is David dead? Is any man that ever
was fit to live dead? Disenthralled of flesh, and risen in
the unobstructed sphere where passion never comes, he be-
gins his illimitable work. His life now is grafted upon the
infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be.
Pass on, thou that hast overcome! Your sorrows, oh people,
are his peace! Your bells, and bands, and muffled drums,
sound triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here ; God made
it echo joy and triumph there. Pass on!

4 Four years ago, oh, Illinois, we took from your midst
an untried man, and from among the people. We return
him to you a mighty conquerer. Not thine any more, but
the nation’s ; not ours, but the world’s. Give him place,
oh, ye prairies! In the midst of, this great continent his
dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pil-
grim to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriot-
ism. Ye winds that move over the mighty places of the
‘West, chant his requiem I Ye people, behold a martyr
whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fideli-
ty, for law, for liberty I

MR. BEECHER’S LAST SERMON AND
PRAYER

IN PLYMOUTH CHURCH, SUNDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY
27TH, 1887.

Text: “ I am resolved what to do.” Luke xvi. 4.

’ - READ in your hearing this narrative, this parable of
our Lord. .The unjust steward had been accused, and
rightfully, of betraying his trust and wasting that com-
mitted to him. His master called him to an account, and
he was satisfied that the end had come; and he communed
with himself, and as the result of that, and looking over all
the circumstances, he said: “I am resolved what to do.”

What he resolved to do was not very honest, but it was
very shrewd. He resolved to make friends of all the deb-
tors of his lord. He called them up and settled with them
in such a way as to lay them under obligations — gratitude
to him. And so, although he and they cheated the master,
he made his own nest warm and the master praised him—
not Jesus, but the man that owned the property is the one.
When he heard of it he said to himself : “ Well, that is
shrewd ; that is cunning ; that is wise,” and the comment
on it is : Children of this world are wiser than the children
of light; that is to say, men who are acting in worldly
ways, for worldly reasons, are very much wiser than the
men becoming good from the highest moral considera-
tions. ‘

What, then, is the nature of a resolution — what is the'
scope of it, the potency? And what are the drawbacks?
The self-consideration of these questions may throw light
upon the path of many of us. Now, our long effort of
making up our mind is equivalent to forming a purpose.
When a man resolves, he means, or should mean, to do
something; and all resolutions carry, or should carry, not
simply the end sought, but also the capable and necessary
means by which the end is sought. I am resolved to cross

281

282 11123111 11:11:11 1153111311.

that 1ivor ,by the bridge, by boat or by swimming. To
stand on one side and resolve to be 011 the other, without
any intermedlate means of doing it, would be folly indeed.
I am resolved to-morrow to go to market. All the inter-
mediate and implied steps by which that resolution could
be carried out are included in the resolution itself. A res-
olution is a purpose in so far as simple things, uncom-
pounded, incomplex, a1econce1ned A resolution may be
executed immediately without loss of time , indeed, the
greatest numbe1 of resolutions are those which, like the
stroke of the hammer or the explosion of the gun, are al-
most without any appreciable interlapse of time. “ I am
resolved what to do.” Natural resolutions : At the cry of
fire the man instantly looks out to see what to do ; at the
call of a man to step to the door and see a stranger or a
friend, he resolVes to do it, although the 1esolution is
latent in such a sense by repetition that me is not conscious
of making up his mind.

In regard to a g1 eat many of the acts of a man’s life,
cerebration ——tl1at 1s to say, the action of the brain- --- has
become so common that it takes place without any appre-
ciable appearance of taking place. A multitude of things
-——if one gets in a crowd, and a man would strike him, his
defense is not the result of reflection, and yet it was in him
as a result of experience to protect himself ; and, if it be a
shadow, it is just the same, for a shadow seems like a sub-
stance, and he puts himself in a ludicrous attitude of de-
fense; he smiles, and he goes 011, but the action of the
mind, the unconscious cerebration, is there. As, for i11-
stance, in things that apply to the now, that a1e uncom-
pounded and simple, a man resolVes and executes almost at
the same moment. The child calls f1 om above, “ Father,”
and incidentally there is no thought whether he shall or
shall not answer. yet the train goes on with him and he
replies, “My son, what?” Or the call has come to him
for help, and instantly, before the last echo of the sound
dies out of his ear, he is on his feet, on his way. But
these are very simple things, they are the primary forms,
which afterwards, becoming more and more complicated,
running through longer periods of time, imply a great
many intermediate steps. For a man can 1esolve that he
will go to bed —it doesn’t take long either —he resolves
that to- momon morning he will get 11p and go “cruising, ’
but to— morrow is daik and stormy, and the resolutiono is

LAST SERMON AND PRAYER. 283

not half so strong when he wakes up as it was When he
went to bed. There are a great many considerations that
come. Or the man resolves that to-morrow he will go to
market; neighbors come in; he waits; it is noon, and
then the time is too little to go and come again. And
he puts it off until the next morning. So between the
resolution and the night—for one takes hold upon the
other—there is a delay and the intermediate history.

Now, as you go on in life, as society itself becomes
more complex—civilization is growth in complexity —-as
the things that you resolve to do or not to do, are largely
in their times, and are clustered together by cause and
effect, resolutions, spreading over so long spaces and so
much intermediatism, are somewhat different from the first
resolve.

. Resolution, then, means a purpose, the will itself ; and
it includes in it; also, all indispensable intermediate steps;
and Some resolutions execute themselves immediately;
some with some delay; some with long delay; some through
many subordinate resolutions that carry out°the primary
one. And a man may resolve at a critical moment, that
which will determine the whole career of his life ; yea, he
may determine in any one single, final moment, that
which will take the whole of his life to carry into effect.
This is the case of ten thousand men. When my father
was young, a lad (he was brought up by, substantially, an
uncle), he had in him all that was necessary to make him
what he was in his professional life. But he did not do it;
he was careless; he was heedless; he was forgetful of things
external; and so Uncle Lot Benton one morning, going
out, found that being out late with the horses the night
before, visiting some young company, the bridle was
placed over the water-trough, and the saddle was thrown
down behind the stable door, and the horses turned in
without a halter, and he said, “Oh, well, Lyman will
never makea farmer; he is not fitted for it.” And so,
talking in the orchard with him one day, he says:
“Lyman, how would you like to go to college ?” No an-
swer. They went on working all day. Next day, about
the same hour, as they were working together in" the
orchard, Lyman says: “I would like to go sir.” That
settled it. In that beginning was a purpose that shaped
differently his whole life; it never gave out; it branched
in every direction; he would have made a miserable far?“

284 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

mer; he made a tolerably good minister and a tolerably
good father. '

So, then, a man may form a resolution without noise,
without parade, that holds infinite sequences in its
development. It may include in itself a short process and
an intermediate; it may include in itself a longer process;
it may include in itself the whole scope of a man’s life,
and thrice ten thousand resolutions will be formed suc-
cessively to carry out the great primary resolution which a
man makes. Thus, if a man is to be a lawyer he is not
going to be a blacksmith, nor a sailor, nor a soldier, so
that there is the resolution of exclusion; it turns him away
from those things inconsistent with the first element. If
he is to be a lawyer there must be the question of educa-
tion, and a professional education, and all the conditions
which are prerequisite to the presenting himself to the
court and his license to plead and the beginnings of prac-
tice. All of those are wrapped up in the first determina-
tion, “I will be a lawyer;” but that determination don’t
make him one; it starts him on a long train of events that
are necessary to make him a lawyer. And so in regard to
morality, a young man may stand on the threshold of life;
he may resolve that he will see the world; and theman that
means to see everything in the world will probably see a
good deal under the world, by and by, that he won’t care
about seeing. A man who resolves, on the other hand,
“I believe in honesty; it is the best principle;” (but it is
better than nothing to say) that is the best policy; it is
good policy; all good policy is a principle; all good prin-
ciples carry with them a policy. And a young man
says, “I am determined to be an honest and upright
man ;” that at once spreads to other men; he won’t asso-
ciate with certain ones, he will associate with certain
others; he won’t follow certain things; he will seek other
paths; the resolution sifts life for him out of its discipline,
and another resolution is a growing, crude thing. N ow,
there are a good many people who don’t seem ever to have
a resolution; they are like sieves, all their thoughts run
through and are wasted; there is a great deal of difiidence
about them; there are some men whose thoughts are like
the ratchet—wheel, the wheel that has, notch by notch, to
hold what it has got; and there are a great many whose
thoughts are like thistle downs that are going everywhere,
and don’t know that they are going anywhere, and are

LAST SERMON ‘AND PRAYER. 285

subject to the mutations of the wind. There is a great
deal of difierence—need be ———to win men to form resolu-
tions, sometimes, of a strong nature and a sterling strong
purpose; when once they have resolved never to flinch,
they have never known in any hour a downsliding; the
may be less active at one time than another, but they don’t
turn back. Once having put their hand to the plough
they don’t look back again. But then there are those that
have the same policy resolution, but they are made of dif-
ferent stuff; it slides away; they forget it; they are not
stiff enough to stand up against the wind, it may be, that
shall come upon them.

The general qualities of the resolutions which men
make are of every grade; even a frail woman walking in
the boisterous March wind, may find that with all the sail
she carries she cannot make headway against it, and sup-
ports herself by a fence that is stiff enough to hold her
until the wind lulls. And as it is in the community, so it
is in regard to individuals—there are many persons who,
left to themselves, waver; they do so sometimes from good
reasons, sometimes from those not so good, sometimes
because the purposes were formed in a moment of excite-
ment and have nothing left of them when the excitement
cools. There is instability also arising from disability of
organization; that is to say, a man may be susceptible
while one class of effects is being produced, and in that
mood he may form a resolution, but to-morrow some other
blessed, beautiful thing may come up, and he is just as
susceptible of that, and the secondary state of mind oblit-
erates the first. A man is under the influence of music,
and all his purposes run under that power or influence,
but, by and by, the outbreak of politics brings up patri-
otism, as it is called, and his moods change, and those
early sensations at first are no longer operative upon him;
another powerful influence causes digression. There are
many men who have such ancillary elements brought to
bear upon their wills and upon their temperaments that
they are almost persuaded to be Christians, and think they
will be, but, going home in a hurry, fall in with company,
and the day following business instincts and interests. It
is like another scene that day. So that there is this
changeableness in men. Then the decrease of the power
came from the nature of the mind. There is this idea,
however, not to be neglected—the distinction between the

'286 HENRY WARD BEECHER.‘ ~

man’s willing and his wishing. A great many people
think that a wish is a resolution. Oh, it has gone into a
proverb. “If wishes were horses, then beggars might
ride.” A man wishes he were rich, but he is too lazy, and
he never will be; a man wishes that he knew more; prob-
ably never will; he is lazy; a man wishes that he could
have entrance into certain circles in society, but the steps
requisite he never will have patience or wisdom to take.
You might just as well carry a candle around the field
and think it is agriculture, because it is light shining on
the crops. Thousands of people think they wish to be
Christians; they don’t. That is the interpretation given
much of the instruction of Jesus, Men came to him and
said: “Lord, we will follow Thee whithersoever Thou
goest.” “No, you won’t; you don’t know that I am des-
tined to suffering, poverty, persecution, death; you think
that I am going to be a royal personage and shower honors
and gold.” “Ah,” says one, “I will follow Thee, but
suffer me first.” Ah, there is that “if” and “but” in
life. Ten thousand people say, “I would like to be a
Christian if,” and that settles it. “I want to be a
Christian,‘*but”— yes, that settles it again. And so Christ
was surrounded by swarms of persons, following him
around, wishing and wishing, with various degrees of ex-
citability in them, and he put them all off ; he would have
nothing to do with them. “Let him take up his cross
and follow me, whosoever would be my disciple.” There
is something to do, something to prove, and to wish.
There is .a great distinction between wishing, then, and
willing; for when a man wills the purpose carries with it
the instrument to effect itself. *You wish to be a Christian;
do you will to be one? Your wishing is tantalization if
willing does not accompany wishing.

Now, Christian life is the only reasonable one, whether
you regard it as a duty or as a means of the greatest satis-
faction ; that is to say, we were made to be Christians, and
being a Christian is simply putting yourself in those rela-
tions to yourself, to your fellow-men and to your God for
which you were created. Did you ever undertake to take
apart a watch ? That is very easy. Did you ever undertake
to put it together again? That is not so easy. YOu don’t
know which screw goes into which hole; you don’t know
exactly which wheel goes in first ; but one thing is perfect—
ly certain, and that is that nothing else will fit together

LAST SERMON AND PRAYER. 287

but that of which the watch was made, and each wheel was'
destined to one place and to one avocation, and if you can
bring them together, according to the intent of the maker,
it will perform, and otherwise it will not. Now, a man
was built with a great deal more care than ever a watch
was. He has definite relations to himself. A man
was made to live with men, and there is only one way and
one principle on which men can live together—kindness,
love. Justice means love; justice is not something else;
and we have a test, an example, a revelation in Jesus, in
the Old Testament as well as in the New, but in the New
with clearer [emphasis and larger light, seeing there how
we have got to live toward our fellow-men, what are the
interlacing relations and what is the predominant spirit in
which we are to treat them. “ Thou shalt love thy neigh-
bor as thyself.” Self-love is made to be the very model and
type of that affection which you are to give to all people.
Then we know perfectly well that we are affianced to yet
higher beings than man, and to the invisible cosmos as well
as to the visible ; and we can not live when we are out of
joint with any of these relations in ourselves and to our
neighbors and to our God. N 0W, I say it is reasonable that
We should endeavor to live after this type upon which we
were created. This is reasonable. A great many men can;
but, to the weak, Christianity is nothing but priestcraft,
and it is not reasonable for a man to be damned because
he could not believe, and, especially, because he could not
gulp and swallow all the dogmas and all the forms. But
that is Wide of the mark.

True Christianity means living in those relations for
which we were created — harmonization of ourselves, har-
monization of our relations to our fellow-men, harmoniza-
tion of our relation to the invisible future. And I say
that is reasonable ; I say more than that, that it has in it
the inherent, the greatest amount of happiness. For
although, for temporary» reasons, a man may defer to his
passions, taking the average and the Whole life, he loses
rather than gains; he is loser now but suffers then. A
man may think, because he runs through a dissipated per-
iod, and then reforms, that the dissipation is all over. No,
no, no; the causes sink under and run subterraneously,
as it were ; and there is many a man that has grumbled at
forty-five years of age from the misconduct of twenty
years. . You know that there are the seventeen-year locusts;

288 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

they lay their eggs, and those eggs lie incubating in the
ground for seventeen years ; then they hatch and come
forth. A man may by evil deeds lay the eggs that will
hatch twenty years after that, and as a general truth I
think it is demonstrable by actual observation and experi-
ence that the true happiness of a man lies in that self-
control, in that virtue, in that integrity, in that love-
power, which is the substance of religion itself. It is not
learning your catechism, it is not learning your verses of
faith, it is not going through ecclesiastical achievements.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as
thyself.” Therefore, you must lift yourself, and he that
lifts himself shows, not by partiality toward the lower and
worst features in himself, but towards his whole self — the
regent understanding, the moral power and elements and
spiritual in him. Now, when a man has this presented to
him, and he is urged to enter upon a Christian life as the
only honorable one, the only one that has the greatest sat-
isfaction in it, the only one that carries in it the idea of
duty and gratitude towards God, how thoughtlessly men
heed that. To-night how many are there of you that say
in thus looking over the sphere of life—life to come : “ I
am resolved what to do.” Bearing in mind what a resolu-
tion means and what it includes, how many men can say
to-night, “ Yes, I am resolved what to do.” There are
very few of you that would say, “I am resolved not to be
a Christian.” That is a very hazardous thing, which“ very
few men care to resolve. Men may say, on the other hand,
“ I hope some time to be a Christian ; I feel sometimes as
if I would like to be one; I wish I was one ;” just as a
lazy man wishes he had the products of industry. But
how many men are there here to-night that can say, “ I
am resolved what to do,” “ I am resolved what to do.”
Are you then resolved at once to become a Christian ?
Can I be a Christian at once ? In one sense, no ; in
another sense, yes. Nobody ever learned a trade at a blow, .
but he can begin this day 3 no man ever became a scholar
by a resolution, but he never can become one without a
resolution ; it is a complex one and a constantly repeating
one, ancillary resolutions upholding the main one. Are
you resolved to be a Christian to this extent —I will begin
to-night P “ I am resolved as far as I have light and as far
as I know my way, I am determined, God- knows I am
determined to square my life hereafter on Christian princ-

LAST SERMON AND PRAYER. '289

ciples. I am resolved to be a Christian man.” Now, this
may include churches. I may be-a Roman Catholic and
resolve it, or a Protestant and stay out of that church, and
stay out of any other church. This resolution doesn’t
meanI will be a Christian like to this scheme or that
scheme, according to this church or that church ;
it simply means in its simplest form, its primary
condition, “I will regulate my life, both inside and out,
according to the principles laid down for me by the Lord
Jesus Christ.” Is not that a very simple thing‘? But what
does it carry with it ? It carries, in the first place, this :
“I will therefore begin by excluding everything that I
know will hinder this resolution; from a consciously
wicked way, I will begin as a part of the fulfill-
ment of this resolution, I will stop.” That is the
meaning of the repentance John began and Christ
took up. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand, that is to say, I will get over every known
wrong that is inconsistent with this purpose that I have
formed ; I am going to live as a Christian man, as a Chris-
tian woman; and if there be that which I know to be
fundamentally wrong I shall carry out my resolution by
repenting or turning away from that. And then, in the
next place, a resolution to be a Christian applies immed-
iately ; it is not that I will be a Christian next year, or by
and by, or a long time— death, but it is going on, begin-
ning at once to live, as far as I know how, righteous. Do
you mean, then, to take the steps that are necessary ? Are
you ready to begin your attempt to live a Christian life by
saying in sincerity, “God show me the way ; give me thy
help P” Are you Willing ? Not to say your prayers ; there
are a great many prayers said; a great many, too few
prayers that are felt and not true. Is there sincerity in
you? I would to God that you have spiritual refilling
and the sustaining power of the whole spirit, that you
have the certainty that he was working in me to will and
to do his good pleasure. Are you ready to begin your
Christian life then by opening the word of God and read:
ing, not achapter nor a verse or two every day, but to make
it the line of your counsel ? When any great combination
scheme is being formed in New York—any syndicate—
there is always the lawyer, and they will never take a
single step until they consult him, and he is about all the
While ; he is the man,of their counsel ; it is a complicated
19

2-790 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

thing and a great deal depends upon it, and they can not
afford to go wrong. Are you willing to take the New Tes-
tament as the line of your counsel ? See what it says about
lusts, about appetites, what it says about crime and envy
and jealousy, and all ill will and evil speaking, and all sel-
fishness in its grasping moods.

Are you willing to look through the New Testament to
see what the law of the Lord is? Not by discussion. God
will take care of his own defense and doesn’t thank you for
any help; nor has he any occasion to thank anybody. Are
you willing to take the Bible just as a shipmaster takes the
chart ? When he leaves the last shore light and takes his
direction he never says “Read me a direction or two of
the sailing directions and then read me the draughtings
inside again and then again.” They have no relation at
all to his course, to his actual sailing: but he is not going
to read so many parts of his chart and of his sailing direc-
tions. Why, no; he lays out his voyage from the begin-
ning, and every day he takes observations, and then he
checks down on the chart just where he is. At noon to-mor-
row he takes another observation; not because there is
any need of reading his chart, in reading any book on nav-
igation; not because he is studying astronomy for the sake
of anything that is in astronomy. He has got a definite
purpose in life; after which he sells his astronomy, and
after which he sells his books, or those which lay his
course. Are you willing to begin a Christian course and
voyage by going to the word of God to ascertain exactly
what is expected of you, both what you are to reject and
what you are to adopt ? That is sensible, that is right
resolving, according to a practical basis and resolution.
Or, on the other hand, are you, while you are weighing,
that is, in yourself, are you saying to yourself. “ My other
people of God got on the best way. There is my father
and mother. If there were ever any Christians they were
such. I believe they were real Christians ?” Now, a
man’s mother is infinitely more to him than the Virgin
Mary is to any devout Catholic.

You come into the church because you find sympathy
* there and kindly help there. Are you willing to take ad-
vantage of all these kindly'helps, so that you may be able
to keep your purpose and your will? Are you willing to
begin it now ? You don’t need any more knowledge.
You. have been brought up in Christian knowledge from

LAST SERMON AND PRAYER. 291

the very cradle; you have no bad associations; you have
necessarily none by the average, but what Christian life
was and Christian duty, is — there is not a man here that
needs to have additional instruction; he knows that he is
bound to live obediently to God and in love with Jesus
Christ. But can a man come into a state of emotion?
Can a man by simply saying I will, feel ? No; no; but by
saying I will feel he can take the steps to feel. A man
shivers and says, “Chills and fever are not agreeable; I
am determined to get over them.” Well, you cannot get
over them by determining it, but if you will take quinine
enough you can. Now, let your purpose be not simply
this, “I am resolved to be a Christian,” but “I am re-
solved so unostentatiously. I am going to feel myself for
all the help I can, and all the Christian institutions that
are necessary for my weal.” Now, ‘that is practical, and
that is common sense as well as moral sense. Or, are you
going to say, “Well, I will see about it.” N 0, you won’t;
you know it. And that thing we have in our times, when
a loath debtor, he has given anote for the sake of paying
a debt—but fog the sake of getting rid of paying it they
put it off for four months, and then they give another
note. It is the greenback business, in which they pay one
note by giving another. There are multitudes of people
that form a resolution for the sake of not fulfilling a duty,
and a man says, “Well, I have made up my mind I am
going to be a Christian as soon as I get ready.” When
are you going. to get ready ? It has clouded your conscience
and clouded your reason now by promising to do that, by.
and by, when the convenient time comes; and the devil
will see to it that it never comes. It is a resolution that
simply means the feeling of having done your duty. And
I think the most scandalous meannesses and dishonorable-
ness that can very well be imagined, when the parties con-
cerned are regarded, is that resolution that people form to
be a Christian when they have wasted themselves in the
service of selfishness, and when they have come into old
age and lie on their death-bed. I should think myself
very mean if, in the summer time, I should gather a peck
of peas and shell out the peas, and send the pods over to
my neighbor as a present. That is what men mean to do
with God; they mean to live in youth after their passions;
they mean to live in middle age after their ambition; they
mean to live in old age after their ease, and before they die

292 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

they hope to whip on the right side and get into heaven.
When you come to examine such conduct in its relations to
men,there is not a savage that would not feel that was infam-
ous ——to repay protection, divine benediction, the ministra-
tion of God through all the channels of nature, and the
kindness of God through Jesus Christ for the ministration
of the gospel; and the man deliberately says, we will seek
all the money out of these things and all the rest that is in
life, and when we are no longer of use to ourselves we will
repent so as to get into heaven. Two Dutch elders had
been warm friends, and yet one day they fell out with each
other and, the fire grew fiercer until they came positively
to hate each other, and one Sunday morning the dominie
going behind one of the elders heard him mutter ,to him-
self, “Van Alstyne is a hypocrite; he will go to hell, he
will go to hell.” The old dominie spoke up to him and
said: “ Oh, oh, my brother, he won’t go to hell.” “ Yes,
he will go to hell.” “ Well, but, my dear fellow, he may
repent.” “N o—well, he is just mean enough to do it.”
But this is—it is, candidly—1the condition in which some
of you are. You mean to live hatefully, disobediently,
dishonorably, and yet in the last estate you mean to whip
up and get into heaven—you are “just mean enough to
do it.” .

Now, on the other hand, blessed be God, he is long suf-
fering, and he isgpatient, and as we would pay a debt, by
installments, little by little, showing all the time that we
endeavor to do it, he respects your endeavor to live, to
repent and to live a Christian life, by installments.

If you make up your mind honestly to do it, he will
bear with your incompetence and your ignorance and your
endearments ; he will bear patiently with you, and help
you from day to day, and from month to month, and from
year to year, “ growing brighter and brighter unto the per-
fect day.” Is there any man here that can say in regard to
the past, I am resolved that I will cut loose from everything
that has been a detriment to me, dishonorable to God ? Is
there any man that will say in regard to the future, “I am
resolved what to do ? I am resolved to take a higher life,
the nobler ideal; I am determined, by the help of God,
that I will live in such a way that I should live.” And if
there is, don’t wait until to-morrow morning ; readjust
your life to-night ; go home and tell God of it; go home
and tell your wife of it. That is the very thing you don’t

LAST SERMON AND PRAYER. , 293

dare to do, because when a man has once committed nim-
self he is ashamed to go back ; and if you are ashamed to
tell «anybody “I have made up my mind to live like a
Christian man,” it is because you have not made up your
mind. When a man has determined that he will live a
Christian life he will be willing to show to all that are
around about him. “I am going to try. I have made up
my mind to try.” If you have, mind you will enter upon
your journey. “ The time is past in which I have served
the will of the flesh, and now, to-night I have determined
that I will begin, with the help of God, to live a Christian
life.” Are there any of you that are willing to make that
resolve? God help you. For a little while it will be a
troublesome thing, for a little while; but then easier and
easier, with remuneration, and exhiliaration, and joy, and
final victory.

HENRY WARD BEECHER’S LAST PRAYER IN
PLYMOUTH CHURCH. ‘

 

We'thank thee for the day, for the light that has shone,
for that brighter light that we have felt. We thank thee
for the consciousness that has been in us that we have been
accepted of thee, and that our souls are endeavoring to
walk in thy way. We thank thee for the quiet of our
home, and that thou hast among any of us brought the
twilight hour within the midnight, as it were. We thank
thee for the sustaining grace and for the kindling up before
us of a brighter future interpreted by hope ; and we thank
thee that thou hast taught us that all things shall work
together fon good to them that love thee. We have learned
largely and yet are poor scholars. We believe that in
looking back upon life we have discerned the fulfillment of
thy declarations. ' The things that once wet us with tears
we now see to have been mercy ; the things that we sought
for'and mourned because we had them not we rejoice that
they were denied us. Our children are perpetually getting
from us refusals ; we rejoice that thou art not less tender
of us than we are of our children. And so we submit
ourselves to thy providence and rejoice in it, and not alone

2'94 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

because thou hast declared, but because thou hast fulfilled
in our experience thy words. We praise thee and rejoice
in thy will made known to us in the unfolding processes of
our lives. Now we beseech of thee that thou wilt in love
chastise us; arouse us from stupor; suffer us not to
lose ground as a slumberous man; we pray thee that we
may be guided by thy truth and by thy providence. We
beseech of thee that thou wouldst grant unto every one of
us, day by day, the consciousness that we are walking
under the guide of thyself. Sanctify to us the dealings of
thy providence, whether they are painful or joyful; make
them all joyful, and grant unto us that power by which we
can forego temptations; grant unto us that will by which
we can hold our own will in subjection; and grant unto
us the power to hold our will in union with all that is right
and good, and work in us to will and to do of thy good
pleasure. We beseech thee that thou wouldst grant thy
blessing according to the several necessities of life. To all
that are gathered here— are we not all yet acknowledging
ourselves to be Christ’s in purpose or in disposition? But
yet thou makest thy sun to rise upon the good and the evil;
thou sendest rain upon the just and upon the unjust, and
so are we not the children of thy benefaction? Grant thy
blessing upon us all; make our hearts tender to thy truth;
cleanse our lives; help us to search what things are indi-
vidually for advantage; accept our thanks for so many
mercies and bounties and grant that they may not make
us vain; take not away from us the hunger and the thirst
after righteousness. Let thy kingdom come in us, and
thy will be done as it is in heaven. We ask it in the
Redeemer’s name. Amen.

FUNERAL ORATION.

THE REV. DR. CHARLES H. HALL’S FUNERAL
‘ORATION ON HENRY WARD BEECHER.

PRONOUNCED IN PLYMOUTH CHURCH, FRIDAY, MARCH
11TH, 1887.

HE hand that rests so still. yonder laid aside the pen
over a page of the unfinished “ Life of Christ.” Pos-
sibly the last flash of thought, as the conviction drew upon
him of the probable end of life, was that his work was to
be left unfinished—that he had not told men all that he
would have them know of that precious reV‘elation. Po’ssi-
bly, as the spirit fled away to be with Christ, whom he had
been serving, the full knowledge came to him of that shore-
less ocean of eternal life, which is “ to know ‘God and Jesus
Chrlst whom He hath sent ”— that is the beatific vision,
the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. We dwell on
one tiny bay of it here and dream about it. The departed
Saints of God have already put out on its immeasurable
spaces, and learned that the life of Christ is never finished.
It is the one word of God which is ever being spoken, echo-
ing again and again, on and on with ceaseless reverbera-
tions, down the centuries. If there was one thing that
stirred the heart that now rests from its labors, more than
any other, that has marked his life and makes his memory
precious to us now, it was his many-sided utterances of a
Christ living, as going about among men, a master who
first and last asks us to believe in Him, rather than to be-
lieve what others say about him. The radical question of.
this age has been: “ Is there a faculty of illuminated reason
to recognize a living Christ who can talk to us, and by the
great communication of His mind and spirit directly lead
us into all truths?” As monarchies and hereditary institu-
295

296 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

tions, and at last African slavery, have fallen to the dust, .
the question gathers voice and insists upon an answer. It
will not be put off by any compromises with past orders
and institutions, but renews itself at every turn, echoes in
every advance in science or art, comes up in every develop-
ment of literature and social progress. “ Is there a faith
in a Christ behind a consciousness of the individual that
can be to him the very word of God— the illuminated,
mandatory conscience?” In a country that dreams as yet
of a government of the people, by the people and for the
people, that question is inevitable, and even if it should
send the sword among us for awhile in the effort of peace, it.
must be answered. It is not an accident, then, altogether
that the man whose life has been molded by that question
and its possible answers should have paused on the unfin-
ished volume of the “ Life of Christ.” He has been a man
of the people, Christward. We remind you'that, though
the English speaking race to-day mourns his fall and recog-~
nizes his loss, Americans feel that he has been a great
leader or adviser in the guidance of all. manner of substan-
tial interests; though the Legislature of the State has paid
him an unusual honor of adjourning as his right; though
the press and divinesand orators of all degrees are trying
to compass the mighty theme in glowing Words, in words—
of exulting grief that we have had him with us so long,
and have lost him, yet that as he lies there so quiet, we
may look at him as one who has been through all and in
all things, an apostle of one supreme thought, a preacher
of'the. everlasting gospel of the ever-living Christ. You
Who knew him best, you Who have listened to him here in
this church, know Well that first, laSt, and always, in no
barren or dreaming sense, his life has been absorbed in this
work, and hid with Christ in God. In the prayers which
he breathed out here for forty years so simply you have
been hearing an inner echo, as if it had come out of the
heart of J ésus. In his ordinary teaching, in lectures and
sermons, the one thought in them has been to lead you to
believe, not something about Christ, but to believe himself.
In his intellect, his heart, his common life,.wherever we,
his neighbors, have felt him, he has been a witness to the
presence of a word of God, the ideal man, the “light that
lightens every man that cometh into th’s American world,”
that cometh into this Brooklyn life, that cometh within
reach of the testimonies of this platform. Perhaps some

FUNERAL ORATION. 297

would have wished him to have shown tender care of the
withes that bound him, as with Ninebark, but God has
sent on him the fire that burned them and it was not for
him to stay its power. Men talk occasionally of his lack of
a theological system, of quotations and learned references
and courtesies to the authoritative erudition of past ages.
But the living Christ is always greater than divinities or
creeds. .The cry is as old as Christianity. “ If we let this
man thus alone, the Romans will come and destroy our
city.” Jesus to the Pharisees, had never learned letters,
and yet the common people heard him gladly. As in his
war on’ slavery there were few persuasive authorities, indi-
vidual or ecclesiastical, to go back to and set in array, and
he could only fall back of a living Christ as Samuel did on
a “ higher law,” so the undertone of this life here has been
a faith in Christ, a faith filled with New England sap and
silicates, a faith freed by the tonic airs of wild prairies, and
vigorously set to work here on every department of human
life in which the Creator may be imagined to take an inter-
est. Please note that we are here to bury him, not to
praise him. My opinion may be indulged that the one fact
about him, which endures in that life into which he has
now gone, was his fidelity to the great law of faith, which,
in its last analysis, means that he has taken‘his part in mak-
ing the life of Christ a reality. He would be the first to
allow that in this work there is a law that reverses to the
eye all wordly modes of comparison. “ The last shall be
first and the first last”— the poorest serving’girl that has
'cau ht the meaning of his preaching and hid her hard life
in hrist’s wondrous love, and now meets her spiritual
teacher in Paradise, finds him gladly confessing his wonder
at their surroundings, as being like her, “a sinner saved
by grace.” »

If “The life of Christ” is never finished, then we may
consent to go to all manner of teachers for instruction
about it, and wade through all manner of learned wisdom,
and accept for trial all manner of hereditary experiments
so as to know all that we may about Him—-but then to
cast them all aside in His presence, when that light that
shone on Saul of Tarsus, comes ”blinding down on us, and
to ask, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” This is
my thought of him to-day. This single chaplet I would
put upon his coffin. He lived, moved and had his being
in the word of God, on its cisatlantic side and spoken in

298‘ HENRY WARD BEECHER.

its American accent. The children of the poor, the
oppressed and the afflicted, the slaves, the publicans and
sinners, have had a gospel preached unto them here by a
preacher who had little apparent anxiety about the serried
files of systematic divinities, in imitation of One who
somehow seemed to value more a voice that came to him at
times out of the blue sky, “This is my beloved son,” or
again, saying, when his soul was troubled, “I have glorified
and will glorify again.” The poor weary souls who have
accepted this gospel at his hands have rejoiced with the
peace which the world does not give, and, thank God,
cannot take away. Is the “Life of Christ” ever finished?
Is not always the last volume lying in sheets, wanting the
last touch, always receiving the newest revelations of its
oldest meanings? Give a glance at his history. St. Luke,
the most scholarly of the evangelists, supposed that he
had finished it once, but now we hear from him: “The
former treatise, O Theophilus! of all that Jesus began both
to do and teach ”— began, not finished. There was a new
power in the world coming to the surface. There was a
mystical Christ, entering into the weary heart of humanity
and continuing both to do and to teach. St. Luke tells
us of an eloquent Hellenistic youth who plead with radi—
ant face against the blindness of hereditary traditions, and
saw “the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right
hand of God.” At his word the scholar of Gamaliel rides
forth to crush the new heresy that threatens to break down
the old traditidns and is smitten to the earth with the splen-
dors of the new Shechinah in the temple of the individual
heart, and starts on a new career. Or again Paul goes back
to the old temple of his fathers and, Jesus confronts him
there and bids him depart and go far hence to the Gentiles.
Men became possessed with an inspiration that changes all
things with a royal regeneration, and it is Jesus always
who continues to do and to teach. Miracle passes into
law, and the evangelist has only begun again the story of
the unending life, and left its final volume unwritten.

St. John, the divine, once thought that a gospel of his
had told the wondrous story of that sacred life; but again,
on a holy evening as he mused, lo! the high priest stood
before him in the great temple of the universe and gath-
ered the splendors of the sunset clouds as his garments,
and took on the sound of many waters as his voice, and
royally served the little churches of Asia, in what men

FUNERAL GRATION. 299

now call the progress of events. His message was “I am
he that liveth and was dead ;. and behold I am alive for-
ever more, Amen, and have the keys of death and Hades.”
So John tried to give utterance to the grander sides of
Jesus. Before in his gospel he, has posed him as meek and
lowly, sitting languid with the summer heat and dusty
with the way, as he wrote it sitting thus on the wall. Now
he shows him as still on the earth —the High Priest making
intercession—the knightly rider—the throned lamb of
'(i‘rod—the King of kings and Lord of lords. Did his life,
end With the Apocalypse? Let the sufferings and triumphs
of the Christ that remained answer. So again when the
Northern barbarians crushed the fair and seemly defenses
of Roman civilization, in which the Church was. tempted
to rest, then the great Bishop of Hippo revealed to his age
the city of God, the spiritual organization of the myStical
Christ and his kingl y reign began. Again when the brutal
ages ensued of fierce contests with iron mailed kings
and savage lords, the great Hilderbrand roused the faithful
to a new obedience to organized spiritual forces as supreme,
and founded the papal throne as the visible sacrament 'of
an invisible monarch. The crosier testified again to a
higher conception of the great High Priest, who went
forth with every poor missionary, monk, 0r hermit, and
thrilled all Europe with new life. When that rule became
in time corrupt and tyrannical other men of renown arose
to recall their ages to the Christ who bade every soul find
1ts justification in faith and accept from him directly its
election as the everlasting decree of the ageless Creator.
But to come at once to our American soil. Every advance
that the world has made has been toward the rights of all
men, to a free conscience, to equality ‘of privilege, man
with man, and to the solemn duty of faith in a Christ,
who comes to all directly in the might of the spirit and
mind of Jesus. Forty years ago that question of a living
Christ, in whom to live and believe, was knocking at the
doors of men’s consciences, on the side of orthodox tradi-
tions. On its intellectual side it was bound to disturb the
whole Christian life of this country. That question was.
predestined to produce some man or some men who would
be driven to reinvestigate the platform which had sufficed
for a humbler past. Whether this man has done it well
or ill we leave to the verdict of the future. He has cer-
tainly compelled all men to think of it and recognize it.-

300 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

He has left a broad mark upon the Christian life Of his
age—rather a stimulus in its heart to earnest and devout
effort to make the Christ a true presence, to honor daily
life as capable of a genuine transubstantiation, so that a
plain man may say now as an earnest man once said, “I
am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I,
but Christ, liveth in me ; and the life that I now live in
the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me.” Making no pretense to being
a theologian or scholar, my faith rests in the possibility of
an illuminated conscience. My gratitude goes forth to
him who lies here, that.he has enunciated that creed with
body, soul and spirit. He loved all things, and his elo-
quence has adorned and beautified all in subservience to
that belief. If the Christ indeed now feeds the oil to the
golden lamps of special churches and lives on as truly God
with us as he ever was, our brother comprehends that his
last symbol of earthly work was properly the unfinished
volume of his “Life of Christ.” Let us follow him as he
followed Chtrist.

Let us turn away to another thought. Abraham was
to the Israelite, in some things, what Jesus is to us —the
type of a covenant system. We refer now to him in a
single point. The Lord came to the old Hebrew of his
own divine will, as he saw him somewhat resting in earthly
happiness, and tried him to the quick, deliberately
shocked him into those days of awful agony, with his very
faith on the totter. Then, as the angelic vision held back
his hand, the patriarch found in his trial the ideal of the
cross. He “saw the day of Christ and was glad.” Paul,
in the same line, tells us of a desire in his heart “ to know
the power of the resurrection and the fellowship of His
sufferings, being made conformable to His death; if by
any means he might attain unto the resurrection of the
dead.” Jesus also means much the same when He bids us
take up our crosses and follow Him. Whenever He sees
us too full of earthly wishes or cares or success, and in
danger from prosperity, He does for us What He did for
Abraham and Job and Paul—and what He did for our
brother. He sends a cloud over prosperity to win us by
wholesome discipline, if by any means we can attain unto
the mysteries of the resurrection. A brave and weary
heart is here at rest ; brave of old to dare brutal force and
defy the violence of mobs and rufiians in speaking for the

FUNERAL ORATION. 301

slave; brave to accept the murmurs and doubts of his
political friends when conscience prompted to part from
them ; bravest to wrestle along with a great sorrow, when
he could find no earthly help. We honor him for the
courage of his former acts; we love him' and wonder at
him for the calm, sweet, gentle resignation of these last
years. God, I'believe, has led him, step by step, to spend
his last days among us with a wisdom gained from the
cross ; a tender, gentle, soberer wisdom which helped him
to see the Captain of our Salvation, who was made perfect
through suffering that we may all be of one, and the Great
Sufierer not ashamed to call us brethren.

EULOGIES.

DR. DE 'WITT TALMAGE.

At one of the overflow services held in the First Baptist church
in Brooklyn on the occasion of the funeral of Mr. Beecher, Dr. Tal-
mage pronounced the following eulogy :

THERE will be two ears that to-day will not hear one
word of appreciation, and there will be two eyes that
will not read one word of complimentary journalism—the
eyes, the ears of the mighty man for whose obsequies we
are convoked. We commit his immortal spirit to the
bosom of a living God. But how much we shall miss our
friend I Great charities will present themselves upon our
platforms, but his voice will not be heard to plead for them.
Times of national crisis will come, but he will not be
here to champion the right. The great conflict between the
forces of God and the forces of sin seems gathering for an
Armageddon, but his battle-axe will not gleam in the fight.
Yet “ God is our, refuge and strength, a very present help
in time of trouble.”

As our departed friend can gain nothing from all the
utterances of to-day, I ask myself, What can be learned
for the living ?——-Three lessons. One for the ministers of re-‘
ligion; one for all toilers with the brain; one for every-
body- Lesson for the ministers of religion : The power of
similitude. Of all the metaphysical discourses you ever
heard Mr. Beecher make, you remember nothing ; but .his
illustrations live and will live with you as long as your
memory continues.

The grandest effects produced by Mr. Beecher were.
wrought by his illustrations, and he ransacked the universe
for them, and he poured them forth in floods, and he tim-
bered sermonic literature from dry and dull didactics into
a marvelous resiliency. He began the war which I hope
will be carried on until everything like humdrum shall be

302

EULOGIES. 303

driven from all the pulpits of Christendom. From the
day that Mr. Beecher came from Indianapolis until his last
sermon in Plymouth pulpit, it'was a victory of simil’itude.
Let all ministers of religion, especially all young ministers,
learn the lesson.

' The second lesson is for all toilers with the brain, and
that is the danger of overwork. After Mr. Beecher’s brain,
like a swift courser, had dashed along for nearly seventy-
four miles, 10 I it is hitched to half a dozen new loads, any
one of which might be enough to break down a fresh brain.
After fifty years of incessant and exciting work, Oisatlantic
and Transatlantic, he allows himself to be harnessed to a
syndicate of letters, to a Life of Christ, to an Autobiography,
and to a'half dozen other enterprises. At a time he had
a right to slow up, the throttle-valve is pulled for new
velocities. With health and strength enough to have kept
him in active pastorate for at least ten years more, crash,
goes the whole mental and physical machinery ! ‘ '

The third lesson is for everybody: The importance
of perpetual readiness for quick transit from world to
world, a lesson we learn every day and forget as soon as we.
learn it. The most powerful sermon Mr. Beecher ever
preached he is preaching to-day from "the text, “ Be ye also
ready, for in such a day and in such an hour as ye think
not the Son of Man cometh.” So often, as in Mr. Beech-
er’s case, the last sickness is a time of unconsciousness, it
behooves us while in health and strength to get ready for
the next world. Do not wait until you see the flambeau 0f
the Bridegroom coming through the darkness before you
begin to trim your lamps. You may wait for your last
moment, but when your last moment comes it will not wait
for you. And now farewell, illustrious brother, departed.
Carry him gently out along the streets with which he has so
long been familiar. For the first time he passes without
smile or cheerful recognition. Take him out to the silent
city Where sleep so many to Whom he once" ministered.
They will not greet him now, but on resurrection mom
will rise near him. Toll long and loud the bell at the gate.
Put him to rest under the early crocus of the spring, for
he must be very tired. His right hand closed, for there
are no more genial words for him to write; his lips shut,
for there are no more encouraging words for him to speak.

304 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

PROFESSOR DAVID SWING.

Mr. Beecher’s greatest years were only twenty in num-
ber, lying between 1845 and 1865. That group of twenty
years was made tremendous by the great ideas which
lay beneath them. These great years would have been
thirty had not his large themes died from fulfillment.
We cannot find fault with good dreams which suddenly
end by coming true. His mind and body were equal to a
longer service, but England needed no longer any instruc-
tion as to America ; Kansas needed no more intercession ;
the slaves needed no more of the eloquence of abolition.
The cathedral of liberty had been completed and the ar-
chitect had only «to go inside and become a worshiper. For
twenty years this wonderful man worked for the human
race, then he wrought twenty more years for his parish,
this last score of summers being also full of power, but not
to be compared with the time when the toil was for the
Nation, and the tasks the greatest upon earth. In the
greater period he seemed under the employ of the people
to plead their cause in politics and religion. His pulpit
moved around in the daily press, and was on thebanks of
the Ohio and the Missouri, while, as the old Scottish clans
sprang forth from the bushes when their Chieftain gave a
blast on his trumpet, the audiences of this evangelist issued
at his call from all the hills of the East and the waving
grass of the West. In times of deep distress the slaves’
souls cried out with the Scotch poet : '

“ Oh, for a blast of that dread horn,
On Fontarabian echoes borne.”

The public services of Daniel Webster did not cover so
widea space.in time ; nor did the great career of Abraham
Lincoln take in so many circles of the sun. To Mr. Beech-
er must be given the fame and gratitude for a battle long
fought, and well fought to the final perfect triumph.

The philosophy of his history was about of this out-
line. He was an inborn, vast genius, 'so sensitive that he
became Americanized easily and deeply. As Angelo under
Italy and the Medici became colored by art, as Goethe ab-
sorbed all the sweet odors and bewildering fancy of Ger-‘
many, as Shakspeare caught all of his age in his wide men-

EULOGIES. 305

tal drag-net, thus Henry Ward Beecher became American-
ized, and from his brain came forth an American politics
and an American religion. These two structures arose at
the same time, whether side by side or one within the
other cannot be affirmed. You may if you choose say the
new politics was the external temple, the new religion a”
golden altar within. It will matter little what form of
figure the thought may assume, the truth remains that
under the hand of this one workman there sprang up a new
form of both politics and religion. The rationalism and
humanity which led slaves up out of bondage could not do
otherwise than lead God’s children out of old Puritanism
with its election, reprobation, and literal and eternal fire.
For twenty years without intermission rolled forth this
eloquence about justice as between man and man, and as
between God and man.

DR. LYMAN ABBOTT.

He has been foremost in the workings of our time,
but still his genius will go doWn to the grave with him.
If the necessity of life is a creed Mr. Beecher has made a
great mistake and his theological teachings were all wrong.
The departure from the narrow theology to the broad hu-
manity which he led has been great. He believed in the
progression and unfolding of the revelations. To Mr.
Beecher, books were only a means to an end; he did not
stop at them as some men do at the cobwebs on the win-
dow, and so men called him unbelieving. There was not
a phenomenon of nature that he did not study in the hope
of finding a trace of God in it, and he has left that faith
to you as a legacy. He flung his doors wide open to every
person of serious thinking. He has been called a mystic.
He was not a mystic, for he never hesitated to put his wit-
nesses of thought on the stand and submit them to every
questioning. He had no fear of what any philosophy could
‘say of him. He could not think that God was a dead God,
in a sealed and musty book, but looked upon him asa liv-
ing and loving being. He believed in the awfulness‘ of
sin, but he did not believe in a punishment without reason,

80

306 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

and the future will not believe it. He believed in atone-
ment, but not in a Saviour who appeased the wrath of an-
other. Those who believe that religion is a creed, that
God finished his speaking to the world 1,800 years ago, did
well to antagonize Mr. Beecher, and will do well to antag-
onize his teachings in coming years; but those who believe
that God is of to—day can never do dishonor to the man we
loved on earth. But no one can ever take out of the brain
what Mr. Beecher put into it, or take from the American
heart the hope that Mr. Beecher planted there.

JUDGE ALBION W. TOURGEE.

’He hated shams above all things, but he believed in the
true and the real, because he saw God in everything and
everthing in its relation to God. With Carlyle he would
tolerate the toad for the sake of the jewel, and like Ruskin
he was inclined to the existence of the jewel because of
the toad, but unlike both he felt that toad and jewel were
both divine and that somewhere and somehow there was
discoverable between them an essential harmony. He
could not conceive of any toad without a jewel ,- of human-
ity unrelated to deity ; of a nature that did not reveal the
mind of a creator. He has been called a Christian pan-
theist. Nothing could be wider of the truth. He did not
worship God as a divine man, but looked upon man with
a peculiar and universal reverence as the clearest expon-
ent—the nearest analogy of the divine. This idea 0f
the holiness and divinity of beauty, he impressed not
only on our religious thought, but on our literature and
even on our politics. The tender, exalted, and truthful
religious, patriotic, and artistic ideals of the generations
which have listened to the teachings owe to him the fus-
ing, intensifying, and enlargement of the thought of his
great contemporaries. He was pre-eminently the Christian
interpreter of nature. He has pointed out more of the
pleasant by-ways “from nature up to nature‘s God "' than
any other man has ever noted. If Darwin saw in nature
the evidence of an inflexible lawof development, operating
through myriads of millions of years, Beecher saw in that

EULOGIES. 307

law and inthe all but illimitable period of existence it
required, new evidence of the beauty and grandeur, com-

assion and glory of One Divine. He stamped upon the

uman consciousness as no one else had done before the
divinity of beauty—the divinity of its origin and the
divinity of its mission to humanity. As a Christian
humanitarian he was not perhaps without his equals, but
as a Christian lover and interpreter of nature he is without
a peer. Of the pleasant facts of nature others have taught
us even more than he ; butof nature as an inspired oracle
no one has given such wondrous expositions. He has
traced better than any other the divine harmony between
God and nature and humanity ——the unity that pervades,
assimilates, and exacts.

REV. DR. MCGLYNN.

None other so well as he taught the men and land .of
his time to exalt the essential of religion, pure and unde-
filed, in which we all agree, and to minimize the differ-
ences that seem to separate us. To him was given to see
with clearer vision, to reveal the unequaled genius, and
with tireless energy to make common among men the
meaning of Him who taught of old on the Mount, and by
the seashore, the core of all religion, the brotherhood of
man.

I cheerfully confess that from Mr. Beecher I learned
from the first days of my ministry a new tenderness and
fullness of meaning in the “ Our Father ;” and I am glad
to be able here to state that the theology of the Old Church
agrees with him in this, that the essence of religion is in
the communion with God through the love of Him, for
His own sake, and loving all men with the zest with which
we love ourselves, and that while sacrifice and sacrament,
creed and ritual, prayer and sermon, and song may be,
and are, powerful helps and necessary manifestations of
this religion, which is love, without it they are but a mock-
ery and a blasphemy. I thankfully count him among the
masters from whom I have learned a fuller meaning of the
prayer “ Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."’.,

308 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

RABBI ALEXANDER KOHUT.

In Henry Ward Beecher we meet a man who, like Mo-.
ses, overtowered his fellow-men, and, like him, too, ap-
peared among the people, with his face uncovered, as one
of them. Henry Ward Beecher was a humanitarian. In
his love for man, of all creeds and all denominations, he
showed in practical deeds the greatness of his mind. If he
had never said more of the Jews than that “On the Jews
the whole world rub their tongues and feet,” and the elo-
quent plea he made at that time for our people, if this had
been all, Judaism defended by such a great American owed
him much gratitude. But this was only once of the many
times that he pleaded for us and responded to our need for
sympathy. The Talmud says, “Every righteous man has
a share in the future salvation.” Henry Ward Beecher
not only will live in the other world, but in the hearts of
those among whom he lived, by whom he was loved. He
will live here on earth forever!

 

COLONEL R. G. INGERSOLL.

Speaking of Mr. Beecher in 1880, after a great polit-
ical gathering at Brooklyn, Colonel Ingersoll said: ‘-‘ I
regard him as the greatest man in any pulpit of the world.
He treated me with a generosity that nothing can exceed.
He rose grandly above the prejudices supposed to belong
to his class and acted only as a man could act without a
chain upon his brain and only kindness in his heart.

“I told him that night that I. congratulated the world
that it had a minister with an intellectual horizon broad
enough and a mental sky studded with stars ’of genius
enough to hold all creeds in scorn that shocked the heart
of man. I think that Mr. Beecher has liberalized the Eng-
lish-speaking people of the world. I do not think he
agrees with me. He helds to many thingsvthat I most pas-
sionately deny. But in common we believe in the liberty
of thought.

EULOGIES. » 309

“My principal objections to orthodox religion are two
-—s1avery here and hell hereafter. I do not, believe that
Mr. Beecher on these two points can disagree with me.
The real difference between us is, he says God, I say na-
ture. The real agreement between us is, we both say lib-
erty. He is a man of a wonderfully poetic temperament.
In pursuing any course of thought his mind is like a stream
flowing through the scenery of fairyland. The stream mur-
murs and laughs, while the banks grow green and the vines
blossom. His brain is controlled by his heart. He thinks
in pictures. With him logic means mental melody. The
discordant is the absurd. He is a great thinker, a marvel-
ous orator, and, in my judgment, greater and grander than
any creed or church. Besides all this, he treated me like
aking. Manhood is his forte, and I expect to live and- die
his friend.” .

ASSEMBLYMAN JOHN B. LON GLEY.

Tht Legislative Assembly at leany adopted by a ris-
ing vote a resolution of respect to the memory of Henry
Ward Beecher, on the motion of Assemblyman McCann,
and then adjourned. In supporting the resolution Assem-
blyman Longley said: .

The city in which I live seems lonely and desolate now,
since its great preacher has departed. The emblems of
mourning that drape its public buildings are typicalof
the great sorrow that broods in the hearts of all its people
—-hearts that cannot be comforted, for he whom they
have so long and so dearly loved has gone out from their
midst, to return no more, forever. Brooklyn without
Beecher is more than a moonless night—it is like the
world without a sun! His theology followed no paths that,
were beaten, beyond the point where his own convictions
led; but, heedless of the road to which the finger of ortho-
doxy pointed as he passed the many guide-boards on the
way, be pressed bravely and confidently on toward that
Celestial City which he had ever in view—that city which
he as plainly saw as did the enraptured John in his Apoca-
lyptic vision. A city that had “no need of the sun,
neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God

310 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

did lighten it, andthe Lamb is the light thereof.” And
so, when at last stricken down by a sudden and unexpected
blow, while seemingly in the full flush of health and
strength, may we not believe, in view of his long and
eventful life, that could he have given utterance to the
yearnings and promptings of his inner heart, he would
have exclaimed:

“ I am kneelin at the threshold, weary, faint and sore;

Waiting for t e dawning, for the opening of the door;

Waiting till the Master shall bid me rise and come
To the glory of His presence, to the gladness of His home.”

Assemblyman Bacon, General Curtiss and Mr. Baker,
of Steuben County, also spoke to the resolutions. «

GRATEFUL AND TOUCHING RESOLUTIONS
or A CONVENTION OF COLORED CHURCHES IN BROOKLYN.

In sacred memoi‘}i of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.

America’s most distinguished divine, the friend of the
oppressed, and especially such to the colored people of
this country in the days of slavery, is dead. Having
passed from labor to reward on the 8th day of March,
A. D. 11587, he is now with Jesus, whose immeasurable
love he proclaimed from Sabbath to Sabbath with burning
words and matchless eloquence.

In common with the nation we mourn the nation’s loss;
in common with. the citizens Of Brooklyn we mourn the
loss of Brooklyn’s most celebrated citizen; and, in com-
mon with the Christian church and its ministry, we
mourn; but, in addition to all this, we mourn as repre-
sentatives of the colored people of this country, for whose,
emancipation the great Henry Ward Beecher did so much,
and for whose mental, moral and social elevation since
emancipation he has done so much bold speaking, forcible
writing and liberal giving. ,

TIIEREFORE, We, the undersigned clergymen of the city
of Brooklyn, for ourselves and for those whom we repre-.
sent in this ministerial conference, do adopt the following:

Resolved, That while we reverently bow to the will of

EULOG—IES. . 311

God in all things, believing that all things work together
for good to them that love him, ,yet, nevertheless, in the
death of Henry Ward Beecher our race has lost a stanch
friend and champion, one who was always found ready to
plead the cause of the slave and to aid in the work of his
education, and that we are passively moved and made. to.
feel the abundance of gratitude we owe him, and that this
heartfelt gratitude kindles within us a deep sympathy with
his bereaved family and condolence with his weeping
church. - '

(Signed) J. L. H. Sweres, William T. Dixon, Amos
N. Freeman, J. W. Stevenson, Ebenezer Bird, William H.
Dickerson, William F. Johnson, W. H. Thomas, W. V.
Tunnel], William H. Ferguson, J. B. Murray, Rufus L.
Perry.

—_

Servant of God! well done!
Rest from thy loved employ;

The battle fought— the vict’ry won,—
Enter thy Master’s joy.

The voice at midnight came,
He started up to war;

A mortal arrow pierced his frame,
He fell — but felt no fear.

The pains of death are past;
Labor and sorrow cease;

And, life’s long warfare closed at last,
His soul is found in peace.

Soldier of Christ! well done!
Praise be thy new employ ;

And, while eternal ages run,
Rest 1n thy Saviour’s joy!

PLYMOUTH CHURCH
MEMORIAL TO MR. BEECHER.

T the regular "Friday night meeting in Plymouth

Church, May 6, 1887, the following minute was pre-

sented by Professor Rossiter W. Raymond, and unani-

mously adopted and ordered placed on the minutes of the
church: ‘

The members of Plymouth Church, in grateful remembrance of
the life and character of their late beloved pastor, the Rev. Henry
Ward Beecher, unanimously direct the following minute to be entered
upon the records of the church, as a testimony, however inadequate.
at once of his virtue and achievements, of their love and sorrow, and
of their thanks to God for the blessing so long vouchsafed to them:

Mr. Beecher was thirty-four years old when he became the first
pastor of Plymouth Church. For the work he thus undertook he
had been divinely prepared, by an illustrious Christian parentage, a
,varied, intense, and deep spiritual experience, a collegiate and theo-'
logical education, and ten years of missionary, pastoral, and literary
labor in the West. He brought to this work a sound and Vigorous
body, a mind well stored with the results of communion with nature,-
with books, With men, and with God, unequaled eloquence, indomit-
able couraO'e, all-embracing benevolence, quick sympathy, genial
humor, ant untiring activity, all consecrated in absolute devotlon to
the one great purpose of impressing, both'upon individuals and upon
society, the influence of Jesus Christ. As he himself declared, so we
bear witness from our intimate knowledge of him, that in all the many
spheres in which he made his powers felt, the love of Christ, and of
men for Christ’s sake, was the motive of his life. Perhaps no clergy-
man hasever so completely identified himself with men of all occupa-
tions; yet none has more constantly borne in mind his sacred mission.
Under all his freedom and mirthfulness, his disregard of formal con-
ventionalities and his repudiation of restrictions, Whether of dogma
or of ecclesiastical government, there was an unquenched and un-
quenchable zeal for the glory of God in the salvation of men.

For nearly forty years he preached and lived the Gospel of Christ
in the midst of this people. During that time he modified in some
particulars the form of his teaching, in accordance with the new light
thrown by modern investigation upon many important points both of
Biblical criticism and of human history and philosophy. But thelight
of the central truth never wavered and was never obscured. Jesus

312

PLYMOUTH CHURCH MEMORIAL. 313

Christ, the Divine Redeemer of the world, crucified, risen, immortal
and omnipotent, was as clearly declared at the end as at the begin-
ning, and his forgiving and restoring love was made known to the
last with an eloquence undiminished in power, nay, augmented by all
the force of accumulated experience and wisdom.

. Mr. Beecher was not professedly a theologian; but he had a theol-
ogy which has made a deeper impress upon the faith of the Christian
world than that of all the technical theologians of. his time. It was
the theology of Paul, when, disheartened by his comparative failure
at Athens, he went to the Corinthians, determined to know nothing
among them except Jesus Christ, and not even him except as crucified.
Christ, the suffering Savior; Christ, the loving Savior; Christ sacri-
ficing himself for selfishand unthankful men; Christ dying for those
who were even yet his enemies; Christ rising again, only to'complete
the work of mercy; Christ himself, quite regardless of any theories
about him or facts outside of him, was the beginning and the end of
this theology; to the modern as well as to the ancient legalists a stum-
bling-block, and, to all who value theories more than souls, foolish-
ness; but to us the wisdom of God and the. power of God. _,

Less and less, as years rolled on, did our pastor feel called upon
to predict what Christ will do when he shall come again; more and
more he concentrated all the energy of his soul upon declaring what
Christ is doing now.

It would be vain to attempt even to outline the variety and range
of the instruction which he imparted to us in the light of this central
truth. What clear guidance in doubt, what strong support in ad-
versity, what inSpiration to manly achievement and endurance, what
tender consolation in sorrow, the Divine Spirit has conveyed through
his lips to thousands of human hearts, only eternity can reveal. But‘
we cannot forbe'ar to make special note of the blessed effect of his
ministry in bringing God and heaven near to us and destroying in us
the fear of death. From the sepulchres of our beloved the hand of
this‘augel of the Lord has rolled away the stone, and his voice has
said to us, “They are not here; they are risen!” Through him we
have learned the gladness and the glory of death, no. less than the
digniItIy, power, and sacredness of life.

e was the first to prepare a hymn-book giving upon the same
page both hymns and tunes arranged in such manner as to make con-
gregational singing natural and practicable, and in this way he did more
to revive and elevate that form of worship than any other man of his
time. The example thus set has been followed in many admirable
collections of later date, which have the advantage of beautiful
hymns and noble tunes not existing When the Plymouth Collection
-Was formed, many of them, indeed, owing their very existence to the
new impulse given to congregational singing by that work. But
that collection will always remain memorable, not only for the reason
already stated, but also because it was the first, since the days of
Wesley, to avail itself of all Christian hymns, including those writ-
ten by devout Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and Friends, as freely
as those of orthodox poets ; an example of broad Christianity which,
like nearly every other forward step taken by our pastor, excited
much adverse. criticism at the time, only to receive shortly afterward
the best form of flattery, universal imitation. To us the Plymouth
Hymn-book is doubly dear, not only as a treasury of sublime and

314 HENRY WARD BEECHER.

tender religious lyrics, but also because he who made it for us has
stamped every pa e of it with memories of himself. .

What Henry g’Vard Beecher accomplished as a reformer, philan~
thropist and patriot is part of the history of his age. We rejoice
that his labors were not confined to this church alone, though abun-
dant and fruitful here, but, overflowin ' all limitations, extended
throughout the nation and the world. e lent him gladly for such
service, recognizing that his great genius was a divine gift to mankind,
the blessings of which it was our happy privilege to share with others,
and the glory and inspiration of which were reflected upon us. We
are glad to remember that for forty years the hospitality of this
church has been freely extended to strangers; that the sermons and
prayers of its pastor have through the press comforted and exalted
many thousands who could not hear his voice; that in his warfare
against slavery, and his eloquent support at home and abroad of the
unity of the nation, this people stood with unbroken unanimity by;
his side; and that, through all the conflicts of every kind which he
and we have been called upon to meet, the liberty of this church has
been maintained without disturbance of its inward peace. ' ‘

Th‘at Plymouth Church was unshaken in its faith by the false accu-
sations which were at one time heaped upon its pastor’s head, it is need-
less to say. We can claim little credit for that. We knew the man; we
had known him for a lifetime. Yet even to us who knew him best,
.that fiery trial revealed an unexpected nobility of soul in him—a
magnanimity of patience and forgiveness, a heroic strength of endu-
rance, a steadfast trust in God, a wondrous exaltation of spirit,
which illustrates to us beyond all descriptions or exhortations the
higher life—the life hid in .. Christ. We can never forget the days
when he, who might have been expected to need consolatiOn from
us, still poured forth, from the height of a victorious peace, comfort,
instruction and inspiration for others.

This church, which was so dear to him, and to which he was so
dear, can never lose the impress of his teachings and example. In
every impulse of noble aspiration, in every enterprise of Christian.
endeavor, in every act of worship, in every hour of prayer, we shall
feel his influenc . -

Mr. Beecher has said, in recent words of unconscious prophecy:
‘v‘ If the life that has gone out has been like music, full of sweetneSS,
richness, delicacy, truth, then there are two ways to look at it. One
is to say, “I have not lost it!” Another is 'to say, “ Blessed be God
that I have had it so long i” ‘

, Both these consolations are ours. We should indeed be unworthy
of the great treasure we have enjoyed if we could permit our sorrow
in this bereavement to surpass our thanksgiving and triumph and
hope. We would transmute both grief and gratitude into holy zeal;
and we pledge ourselves, in memory of Henry Ward Beecher, that
we will go forward with the work he began, in the spirit which is
his richest legacy to us, looking for support to that Divine Savior
whcl)1 inspired, sustained and guided him, and has promised to abide
wit us. ' ’ * '

INDEX.

PAGE.

Biographical Sketch of Henry
Beecher:

The True Estimate of Life...
Too Near the Grave for Impar-
tial Judgment ................
Birth of Mr Beecher ...........
Early Years ....................
Anxious to Become a Sailor.
Enters Mount. Pleasant Insti-
tute, Amherst ................
~Studies Mathematics and E10-
cution
Resolved to be a Christian .....
Joins His Father’s Church at
Boston ........................
Determines to Preach .........
First 8'Pastorate — Lawrence-

.........................

. bu ...........................
Poor, 8but Very Happy ........
Removes to Indianapolis ......
Famous “Lectures to Young
Men” ........................
Commences Pastorate of Ply-
mouth Church ................
Public Affaiis in 1847 ...........
Free-Soil Speakers M obbed
Lovejoy M a1 ty red ..............
The “J 1m Crow ” Car ..........
Dr. Meade, of Virginia .........
The Meaning of the Term“Abo-
litionist” .....................
The Octoroon Girl 1n Plymouth
hurch
The Lincoln Campaign of 1860.
Fi1st Shot of the Civil War”
M1. Beecher Bioken Down in
Health
The Terrible English Campaign
Ram ant Bigotry
Mir. eecher a Friend of Eng-
Great Speeches in Manchester.
Glasgow Edinburgh Liver-
pool and London .............
Testimony of One Who Heard
the London Speech ...........
Address to Stupdents at Man-
cheste1 ........................
The Anguish of that English
Campaign ....................
Home Again, and to Work”
A Cloud ed Sk ..................
Fidelity of Plymouth Church
Personal I'Appearance of Mr.
On the Platf01 1n of His Church
Analysis of His Pulpit Methods

......................

........................

.............

9

The Preacher at Work .........
The Friday Evening Prayer-
Meeting . ......................
The Popular Lecturer .........
Majo1 Pond Tells a Stor ......
Mr. Beecher s Literary asks“
Some of his Favorite Authors.
His Literar Work ............
His Love 0 Natuie
His Last Tour Through Eng-
an
Address in Memorial Hall .....
Mr. Beecher a Patriotic Ameri-
can ............................
ngking Back Over Forty
The New Year Found Him Bus-
ier than Eve1 .................
The “ Golden Bowl” is Broken
A Pathetic Scene ...............
Scenes at the Funeral .........
The Victm y of Death .........
Th1 ee Great Funerals ..........
“ Lay on His Coflin a Sword ”. .

...........................

Anecdotes:

Lastu Moments in Plymouth

M1. Beecher and the Child1 en.
General Grant ................
Heibert Spencer.... .........
Tells a Fish Story.
TléedPrayer 011 the Mountain
1 e ..........................

A Handful of Letters:

A Family Letter to an Elder
Brother ......................
An Outline of Belief ...........

, Concerning a Decoration-day

Prayer .......................
Letter to Mr. Bonner Concern-
ing “ Norwood” ............
Letter to Edward W. Bok,

Esq.: —— Personal Reminis-
‘ cences .....................
Letter to President Cleveland
Urging the Candidature of
Oscar Straus ..................
Wanted, a Thoughtatype ......

Religious:

“ Above all We can Ask or
Think” .....................
Acorns and Grac cse .............
Allllt Days 101 Religion, One for
est ..... . ...... . ..... . .......

PAGE.
35

3b
38
38
39

39
40
41

43
43

44

6

1

62

85

7

PI

4

7
7

316 INDEX.

PAG PAGE.
A Grand March' 1n the Universe 84 Christ’s Work on Earth ........
A Sharp Distinction ........... 69 Destroying the Law and the
Christians Outside the Church. 86 Prophets .....................
Christianity is Judaism gone to How Wonderful that Christ
Blossom and Fruit ........... 73 Should Love Us .............. .1
Communion with God .......... 88 The Central School of Christ.. 96
Consec1ation ................ 87 The Epitome and Emblem of
Dead Trees will Lie Anyway. 75 God .......................... 88
Defense of the Bible ........... 76 The 1‘iGrowing Influence of
Do not Extinguish Joy ........ 69 ........................ 97
Do the Little that You Can” 67 The Kind of God Christ Repre-
Eternal Melody ................. 70 sented .......................
Evel y Day Fulyl of Music ...... 3

7
Feeling is Always Tropical” ”72 Death and Immortality:

God OverA ll .................. a - 9 , -
Goodness the Two Orthodoxy 69 teifiisse%§%:.zéiei‘?fi.89.???:: 133
Happiness not the End Of Life 84 Death is Triumphing ......... 105

Heart- knowledge True Wealth 87

11512113 is {3038' Here is Light! 89 113111118 the is??? 91.959771???
IS IS 0 ................... to

How to Prove the Gospel True 83 Eye Hath Not Seen, nor Ear

Heard” ....................... 103
Joy in Trials ................... Z]. Hope of the Ilife to Come . 103
Made and RUined ...... :. .. ..... ‘2 Immortality Bey 0nd Proof: 99
Mlsel‘able TWO-f0“ Chrlstlans- Z3 “Land Ho! .................... 1 2
MOIdy BIGSSlng‘S. .li ............. 18 Out of Storm Illto Su‘llight” 101
on the Full Marc ............. ‘4 The Face of the L0] d Jesus 104
One Meaning of Religion ...... 69 “The F11 st Shall Be Last and
Religion Defined ............... 74 the Last Fllst 11 . p . 102
Righteous Judgment --------- 74 The Life to Come .............. 106
satlSfied! ........................ 71 The S‘veetness of Death ....... 101
Selfishness ...................... 84

83 The Sweet Waking 111 Heaven. 105

Silver Al‘ I'OVVS .................. Three Things the GI‘EHG Can_

Sorrow the Unchanging Orde1 70

¥Ee gigie a Beagolg fiire ....... 8?) not Exting uish .............. 101
e 1 e as an uin ...... 7 ' - .
The Bible the W orki 11 gm an s Illustrations from Nature.

Friend ........................ 68 Eating Green Apples -- - 112
The Divinity of Christ ......... 89 HOW Streams ale Bridged ----- 107
The First Blades of Wheat ..... 75 In an 0mm Factmy ----------- 108
The Full Heart of God ......... 68 Looking thl'ouOh Tears ........ 110
The Gloribus Future ........... 78 Men Are [Bike Tleos ------------ 106
The Grandeur of the Christian Immigration of B11 ds ...... .. . .. 111

Ministry .................... 87 Morning on Mount Washing-
The Greatest is Love ___________ 76 ton ............................ 102
The Heart Shall Wear a Crown 73 Singing in Spite of Sneers ..... 11
The Importance of a Man s S‘pring Flowers Among Men“ 113

Belief ....................... 71 'lhe 881398 hr BOY and the NOW-
The Ministry of Tears .......... 75 ------- ,- ------------------- 10,9
The Psalms Sillg of Nature” 86 The SCI'iCliet S CI'y ............. 11:;
The Secret 01 True Life ........ 73 The GE.“ den of the L01d ----- 111,
The Star that Ling-€18 Longest The MTSSIQH Of “’10 SUI] ........ 10‘.)

in the Sky ..................... 85 The N 1ght1ngale S Nest -------- 110
The Twenty thild Psalm ....... 67 The P91 fume 01' the 0181188
V'iltues in Outline. ......... 74 Threee Silent'Elowers ------------- %1(1)
W e need not Dle while We Live 75 The World a Glea t Tree ...... 107

Concerning Jesus Christ: . .
Christ and the Syro-Phoenician Scalal Questions:

Woman ....................... 98 Abstemious Youth ............. 116
Christ’s Descent into Life ...... 95 A Gland Call to Labor ......... 118
(‘ hrist’s Doctline ot Self-denial 92 Childlen a Palt 01 Our Educa-
Christ’s Life Leavening Hu- ........................

manity ...................... 90 Eight Houls a Day ............. 123
Christ Making Known the Liv- Equalit ........................

ing God ....................... 91 Fashion too Strong f01 the Pul-
Chi ist’s Mission ................. 94

Chlist the Light of the Home” 90 Feastings and Foole1ies of the
Chlist the Revelation of God” 96 Ni ghtc ........................
ChiiSt the Revelation of Lov e. 98 Fickgle Fashion . ... .......... 121

INDEX. 31'?

PAGE
God Does with Us as We with

Children Do ................ 120
Heroes Down Stairs ............ 117
How to Deal with Boys ........ 122

How to make Infidels ......... 117
“ Midnight Oil” The Worst Oil 122
Sad Faces of the Passing

Crowd ........................ 124
Socialism. ...................... 114
The Child and the Man ......... 123
The Hard but Kind Bosom of

Poverty ...................... 115
The Mothei’s Anchor ......... 119

The Salamanders of Society. 121
The Wear and Waste of the

City ............................ 124
Turning Night into Day ....... 117
What is the Use of Cam and

Worry? ...................... 124
Where Does Fashion come

from? ......................... 120
Work in the Morning .......... 119
You must fly high to escape

the dust ....................... 117

Politics:
Amer ican Aristocrats .......... 126
Building the Waste Places ..... 125

Estimate of Wendell Phillips“ 129
Liberty .........................

Mormon Statistics .............. 132

Phillips an A1 istocrat ........ .126
Remedy for Mormonism ....... 131
Slavery an Accident ............ 127

The Gospel Truth that Breaks
Shackles .................... .127

The Mormon Creed. ......... 132
The Status of the Negro ..... 128
Would I Help a Slave to Gain
his Freedom? ................ 129
Miscellaneous:
A Glorious Age ................. 140
A Five Story Competency ..... 140
A Man in OldA ge ............. 158
A Poor Bargain ............... 141
A Vulgar Whipster ............ 161
All Great Hopes Best on a Re-
lief in Immortalit ........... 138
All Men Should be ducated..169
All Physical Joys Brief ........ 162
An Anthem of Praise .......... 169

Be Kind to You1 Stomach ..... 163
Beethoven s Symphonies and

the Seventy- third Psalm ..... 150
Between Two Dead Seas ....... 156
Better to Lie Down than to

Break ........................ 172
Buoy ant Spi1 its ................. 163
Butterfly Life ................. 136
Be Jealous of Your Word ..... 135
0111' mg for the Grass ............ 160
Children of the Rich ........... 154
Colts Never Get Drunk ........ 147
Conceited Men .................. 150
Concei ning Modern Literature 134
Don’tW hine .................... 166

Drinking Habits of Society. .136
Eighty Years of Life. . . . . . . . .. 148

PAG

False Notions about the Waste

of Time ....................... 152
French Novels .................. 165
Germany and Bismarck ........ 154
God and the Flowers in Council 137
God will Take Care of the Uni-

verse .......................... 140
God’s Love-letter to the World 170
Good Health 165

....................

Good Luck and Bad Luck ...... 155
Grandeur of Prophecy ......... 173
Greatness ..................... 155
Happy Toiiers ................. 161

Have Your House on the Hill- 172

to
How a University Lost a Li-

brary .......................... 156
How Hap iness Comes ......... 168
How Muc a Mechanic can do. 149
Hunting Heathenism .......... 159
Intei action .................... 135
Laws Dependent on Intelli-

gence. .................. 158
Leaining Latin ................. 152
Libei ty and Equality .......... 148
Little Virtues .................. 156
Love Makes Summer in the

$01.11 ......................... 4H
Mean Tears ................... .167
Mountains and Clouds .......... 150
Mozart and Raphael ............ 143
My Mothei ...................... 148
Natures Music .................. 165
Newspapers ..................... 172

N 0 Bible in the Slave’ 3 Cabin” 145
No Starlight in the Mammoth

Cav ...........................
Only Vthe Dead Rest ............. 165
Onward! Up ward! ............. 153
Original Sinp can be Spared ..... 171
On Communion Day ............ 145
Our I1 resistible Race ........... 168
Popular Intelligence ........... 151
Poor, Fledgeless Hope ........ 167
Power of the Imagination ..... 162
Pride ........................... 139
Professor Swing and Dr

Thomas ..................... 139
P1 ohibition and Limitation. .157
Religious Vulgarity ............ 146
Saturday Evening ............. 138
Sacred Music ................... 154
Sailing the Wrong Way ........ 164
“School is Out! It is Time to

go Home! '” ................... 149
Seasickness ...................... 157
Seekers after Gold ............. 153
Self Government .............. 142
Ships for Sailing more than for

Beauty . ..................... 144
Shorten Your Line. ........... 143
Suffering ........................ 171
Suffering Well Borne .......... 167'
The Bones of Religion ......... 167
The Busy me the Happy ....... 134
The Chariot of Liberty ......... 147
The Cynic ..................... 144
The Decay of Heathenism ..... 166

The Earthquakes of Commerce 145
The Fashionable Idler..... . 159

318

IN DEX.

PAGE PAGE
The Force of Example ....... 171 Come, 0 My Comfort and De-
The G1 andest Ideal of Manhood 143 light ......................... 247
The Law of Force in Matter” .141 Hymn to Christ ................ 240
The Law of Preferment ........ 136 If I Should Die To- night ...... 247
The Living Dead ............... 160 In the Hour of Sickness ....... 244
“ The Madonna de San Siste ”. . .138 M211 y at the Cross .............. 245
The Mental Garden ........... 16‘ Mary’s Teais . ............... 243
The Mellowing Power of Time. 168 Son of the Car1pente1 .......... 244
The Passion for Stealing ....... 137 Tam With Me ...............
The Pursuit of Happiness ..... 170 The Awakening of the Nations 241
The Word “ Garden ” ........... 169

Two Sides of Vulgarity. ...... 161
Two Thin gs to Delight the Soul 133
Wall Sheet :1 Commentary. 146

What is Youth Like2 ............ 170
What Tempeianee Brings ...... 147
Why God Made the World ..... 133
Wisdom ......................... 164

Worth of Moral Character ..... 146

You Can Learn Something
Eve1y where .................. 151
Youth and Y ears ............... 152

Evolution and Religion:
Lecture 011 Evolution and
Religion ...................... 175
Mr. Beecher s Attitude 011 Evo-
lution and Religion ......... 2
A Grand Declaration of Faith. 187

A Word to Young Men ........ 201
Change in the Churches ........ 189
Divine PioVidence ............. 188
Immor talitv .................... 195
1 Worship a God of Love ...... 192
Man the Consummation of
Natuie ....................... 19 6
Natural Laws Dee1ees of (1011.191
N atu1 al Laws 111 Conflict ....... 193
Nursing 0111 Cares ............ 190
Obsti motion to the P1 ogiess of
Truth ....................... 19

a c
Pedestal or Pillm y ............. 195
Petty Criticisms of the Bible. 187
Plenai y and Verbal Inspiiation 193

-Remedies for Poverty ......... 198
Rights and Liberties ........... 200
Self Cont1 ol .................. 197
Some Definitions of Evolution. 184
Spir itualism .................... 199

Shstematic Theology ........... 191

he Bible Untouched by Scep-
tical Science. 1
The Changes Evolution will

...............

Effect ....................... 186
The Church not so Awful as It

Once was ..................... 194
The Mainspring Wanting ...... 199
The Old The01y of Sin ....... .189
The Real Atonement ........... 194
Time and Eternity ............ 201

Service of Praise—Favorite
Hymns:

Alone, yet not Alone .......... 242
A Song of the Morning ........ 245
A VeSper Chime ............... . 246

Mr. Beecher s Public Prayers:

A Devout Resolx e .............. 256
A 11101 n1no1 Pray e11 ............. 255
A Plea for Many Mercies ...... 254
Concer1ni11g Old Age ........... 269
Confession of Sin .............. 260
Giatitude for Paiental Influ-
ences ........................ 253
Gratitude i‘oi tears ............ 261
Last Pr ary er in Plymouth
Chu1 ch ..... '. .................. 293
On Behalf of Children .......... 267
Plea ioi Deliv e1 anee from Caie 268
Pleading with the All in All” .21'
Pr1aye1 for America ............ 261
All Nations .................. 269
Consolation ................... 266
Endurance .................. 266
Entluiing Riches ............. 262
Heroism ...................... 259
Light and Joy ................ 267
Meekness .................... 256
Mourners ..................... 267
Patience ...................... 259
Refuge from Fear ............ 256
The Bereaved ............... 257
The City and the Nation ..... 263
The Light of God’ 8 Face ..... 258
The P0011 and Needy ......... 258

The Sanctification of Sorrow 258
Pray e11 to the Dearly Beloved. 264

Sabbath Im oeation ............ 263
Sabbath Morning Prayer ...... 250
Thanksgh 111g Day ........... 265
Thankfulness for Loved Ones
at Rest ....................... 263
Thanktulness 1'01 the F01 e-
thought of L01 e ............ 253
Wisdom ..................... 262
Thankfulmness f01 God 5 Faith-
fulness ....................... 259
Eulogies:
Abbott Dr. Lym man ........... 305
111g1eisoll Colonel R. G ........ 308
Kohut Rabbi Alexander ...... 308
Ltl13ngley, Assemblyman John 09
McGlynn, Rev. Dr ............. 307
Resolutions of Com ention of
Colored Churches ............ 310
Swing, Professor David ........ 305
Talmag e, Dr. DeWitt .......... 302

Tom gee, Judge Albion W ..... 306
The Memorial of Plymouth
Church 31

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