theological course.”

Somewhere Father Beecher has described a “Saxon courtship” as “a grave
and serious thing. It is a matter of consideration. I have known a
proposal of love to be stated like a proposition, and calmly argued for
and against with far less warmth than Luther would have felt in debating
a thesis. Indeed, many courtships are like attempts at kindling fires
with green wood—a few starveling coals are heaped together, a mere spark
dances in and out upon the inhospitable charcoal, and disappears on one
side as fast as it appears on the other. But by all manner of shavings
and bits of paper—mere trinkets, as it were, and billet-doux—a slight
flame is got up, which strives, with doubtful prospect, to convert the
smoke into blaze. The bellows are called in, the fire is fairly driven
up to its work, the green sticks begin to sizzle at either end; and
though at last, when the heat triumphs, the fire is large and lasting,
the poor fellow that kindled it had to work for it.”

Now, we never could bring ourselves to asking direct questions, and we
do not suppose that we should ever have been any wiser if we had; but,
from the references sometimes made to riding through covered bridges,
from the comical look that would come to his face and the blushes that
would be sure to come to her cheeks when the raillery around the table
became hot and personal, we were led to believe that this was not their
kind.

On two leaves of his diary, written probably while at his home in Boston
in the vacation that followed his Freshman year, and during the summer
in which he had made the acquaintance of Miss Bullard, we find the
following:

“_Sept. 3, 1831, Sab. morn._—I found the correspondence of my father and
own mother this morning, and eagerly sought out _her_ letters and read
them. O my mother! I could not help kissing the letters. I looked at the
paper and thought that her hand had rested upon it while writing it. The
hand of my mother! She had formed every letter which I saw. _She_ had
_looked_ upon that paper which I now looked upon. She had folded it. She
had sent it. But I found out more of her _mind_ than I ever knew before;
more of her _feelings_, her _piety_. I should think from her writings
that she was very _amiable_, _lovely_, and _confiding_ in her
disposition, yet had much dignity. She appeared to have a mind very
clear, strong, yet not _perceptible_ till brought out by her feelings.
Her letter to father in which she treats of ‘love to _God_, whether we
should love him because he has done us good or not,’ etc., I was much
pleased with. And I could not help observing that her letters were
superior, more refined and conclusive, than the corresponding ones of
father’s. They corresponded upon _subjects_, it seems, as pride, dress,
slander, etc., etc. Her piety was doubted by herself, although no one
who reads her description of her feelings can doubt for a moment that
Christ was found within her heart.

“The letter to father in reply, apparently, to one in which he had
expressed his feelings toward her and urged for her permission to hope
for a future union, pleased me much. There was much playfulness about
it. I thought that I could see that she loved him while she was writing
it, yet she tried not exactly to show it. I should think that at the
conclusion she told her feelings frankly, from one line which I saw, but
the rest was torn off. I suspect that father did it that no one might
ever see it.”

In common with many other students of limited means, he taught a term of
eight weeks during three of the four years of his college course, using
the winter vacation, which was at first six weeks long, and borrowing
two weeks from the winter term in college.

Of his experience in Hopkinton and some other matters, especially the
fear of his friends concerning his engagement, the following letter to
his brother William gives some interesting details:

                                       “HOPKINTON, Friday eve, 1832.

”MY DEAR BROTHER:

“... I know not as you would have had a reply at all if it were not for
something said on the first page. Now, I supposed that my good friends
would find out all at once that my engagement had undermined all my
habits of study and was ruining me, nor did it surprise me to have you
write it. It is all false, as false as it can be. No term since I have
been in college have I studied so much as the last term; no year
accomplished so much as the last. I am not anxious, however, to
vindicate myself; I am ready to have you all think so, if needful, for I
expected it from the first.

“Soon after I began the school some of the boys began to be
fractious—all of them larger and stronger than myself. Their parents set
them on, and they determined to carry me out of the room. A large fellow
disobeyed me before the whole school, and persisted in it. They hoped I
would thrash him, and then they would rise. But I turned him out of the
school forthwith. He came the next day. I had previously told the
committee and asked them to take the business out of my hands. They
approved, but said that they wished I would do it. The next day I saw
that they had got another great fellow in to help them. I called two of
the committee in, and then ordered this disobedient boy out. He refused,
and I took a rule and beat him, and finally broke it over his head. He
struck at me a number of times and I parried them. The large ones then
rose. I seized a club of wood and struck the boy three times—tore the
skin each blow. The committee had to take the other fellows to keep them
off. I then dismissed the school; told the committee that I should not
keep the school where I could have them stand by and see such a scene
without doing something; that if they would see those fellows removed I
would go on, if not I would not. They said that they would do it if they
thought they had power. I settled it all very soon by saying that _I
would not keep the school_, and set my face as though I would return to
Amherst. But the next day, Saturday, it rained. The committee liked my
school, and gave me a good dismission in writing. The scholars were
pleased for the most part, and through them their parents. They wished
me much to open a private school. I waited till I found they were in
earnest, and then opened one, and now am comfortably teaching about
thirty scholars. Besides this my time is loaded. Sunday noon,
Sabbath-school; Sunday afternoon, five o’clock, I have a Bible-class of
ladies; Wednesday and Saturday evenings, meetings in the centre of town;
two other evenings in the districts, and, after this, Sunday evening in
the vestry.... May God bless and prosper you.

                                 “Your affectionate brother,
                                                          “H. W. B.”

Of his preaching at this time he says:

“My earliest remembered sermons were delivered at Northbridge, Mass.,
where I taught school for three months in 1831. I conducted conference
meetings almost every night, and a temperance address at Upton, Mass.,
where old Father Wood was pastor, and in his church. In the winter of
1832 I taught school 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 Northbridge, and made a formal sermon in a chapel over the new
store built by Messrs. Whitings.”

It was in his Sophomore year that a number of students, Henry Ward among
them, invited a college mate who had been reading up on phrenology to
deliver a lecture upon that subject. They did it for a joke, but it
ended in Henry Ward’s accepting this philosophy as the foundation of the
mental science which he used through life.

It was during his college course that he began lecturing—that mode of
communication with the people that afterwards became so popular, and in
which for so many years he was the acknowledged leader. His first formal
lecture for which he received pay was delivered in Brattleboro’, Vt. He
was paid ten dollars, and walked the whole distance, nearly fifty miles
each way, that he might have the whole sum to expend as he pleased.

Speaking of this period, he says:

“There stands before me a line of battered and worn books—English
classics. Their history is little to them, but much to me. In part it is
my own history. I wish I could lay my hand on the _first_ book that I
ever bought after the dim idea of a library began to hover in my mind!
But that book is gone. Here, however, are others whose biography I can
give. As early as 1832 I began to buy books—a few volumes, but each one
a monument of engineering. My first books, if I remember correctly, were
bought of J. S. & C. Adams, in Amherst, Mass. I used to go in there and
look wistfully at their shelves. My allowance of money was very
small—scarcely more than enough to pay my postage, when a letter cost
twelve and a half or twenty-five cents. To take a two or three-dollar
book from my five dollars of spending-money would have left me in a
state of sad impecuniosity. Therefore, for many, many months I took it
out in looking.

“As early as at _sixteen_ years of age I had begun to speak a little in
public—faint peepings, just such as I hear in young birds before they
are fully fledged. For such service the only payment was a kind patience
till I relieved them by finishing my crude efforts. But at that time—say
1832—I was sent by the college society as delegate to a temperance
convention in Pelham, or Enfield, or somewhere else. I conceived a
desire thereafter to give a temperance lecture. I have forgotten how I
ever got a chance to do it. But I remember that there came an invitation
from Brattleboro’, Vt., to lecture on the 4th of July. My expenses were
to be paid! A modest pride warmed my heart at the thought of making a
_real_ speech in public. I smothered all the fears and diffidences with
the resolute purpose that I _would_ succeed! I remember the days of
writing and anxious preparation, and the grand sense of being a man when
I had finished my manuscript! But the most generous purposes are apt to
be ruined with selfishness; and my public spirit, alas! had a financial
streak of joy in it—my expenses were to be paid!

“Well, suppose I chose to walk and save all the expenses? I should have
at least eight dollars of my own, of which I need give no account! That
would be an era indeed. But grave scruples arose. Was it honest to take
money for expenses which I had not really incurred? If I went by stage I
might lawfully charge my fare and food; but if neither of them cost me
anything, how could I honestly make a bill of expenses? I did not get
any relief in reflecting upon it. I started off on foot, went up the
Connecticut River valley, and reached Brattleboro’ by way of Greenfield.

“Every hour this question of honesty returned. My feet blistered with
walking, but I stamped on them hard in the morning, and the momentary
exquisite pain seemed to paralyze the sensibility afterwards. Whether it
was the counter irritation that relieved my brain, or whether—as I fear
that I did—I smothered conscience by saying to myself that I would
settle the matter when the time came, I do not know. But I was relieved
from even that struggle, inasmuch as not a word was said to me about
expenses, or money in any form. Yet I had a charming visit. The rising
of the moon from behind the mountain that hedges in the town on the east
powerfully excited my imagination, and led to the writing of the first
piece, I believe, that I ever printed. It was published in the _Guest_,
a college paper, issued chiefly as a rival to another college paper
whose name (alas!) has escaped me. And if anybody could send me a volume
of that _Guest_ I should be exceedingly beholden to him!

“But after reaching college again—no longer a mere student, but a public
man, one who had made speeches, one who determined to be modest and not
to allow success to puff him up—a very great and wonderful thing
happened: the post brought me a letter from Brattleboro’ containing _ten
dollars_. I could not believe my eyes. I forgot my scruples. Providence
had put it to me in such a way that I got my conscience over on the
other side, and felt that it would be a sin and shame for me to be
raising questions and scruples on such a matter! But O that bill! How it
warmed me and invigorated me! I looked at it before going to sleep; I
examined my pocket the next morning early, to be sure that I had not
dreamed it. How I pitied the _poor_ students, who had not, I well knew,
ten dollars in _their_ pockets. Still, I tried to keep down pride in its
offensive forms. I would not be lifted up. I would strive to be even
more familiar than before with the plainest of my acquaintances. ‘What
is money?’ said I to myself. ‘It is not property that makes the man; it
is—’ Well, perhaps I thought it was the ability to deliver eloquent
temperance addresses. But great is the deceitfulness of money. I felt
the pride of riches. I knew every waking moment that I had money. I was
getting purse-proud.

“I resolved to invest. There was but one thing to invest in—books. I
went to Adams’s store; I saw an edition of Burke’s works. With the ease
and air of a rich man I bought and paid for them. Adams looked at me,
and then at the bill, and then at me. I never could make up my mind
whether it was admiration or suspicion that his face expressed. But I
wanted him, and panted to have him ask me, ‘Where did you get all of
this ten-dollar bill?’

“However, I concluded that the expression was one of genuine admiration.
With my books under my arm (I never to this day could get over the
disposition to carry home my own packages) I returned to college, and
placed on my table my volumes of Burke! I tried to hide from myself that
I had a vain purpose in it, that I was waiting to see Bannister’s
surprises and to hear Howard’s exclamation, and to have it whispered in
the class-room: ‘I say! have you heard that Beecher has got a _splendid_
copy of Burke?’

“After this I was a man that owned a library! I became conservative and
frugal. Before, I had spent at least a dollar and a half a year for
knickknacks; but after I had founded a library I reformed all such
wastes, and every penny I could raise or save I compelled to transform
itself into books!

“As I look back on the influence of this struggle for books I cannot
deny that it has been salutary. I do not believe that I spent ten
dollars in all my college course for horses or amusements of any kind.
But at my graduation I owned about fifty volumes. The getting of these
volumes was not the least important element of my college education.
There are two kinds of property which tend to _moralize_ life. What they
are I will tell you some other time, if you will coax me.”

His reading, as we have said, was very largely of the old English
writers, whom he studied until the flavor of their language had been so
thoroughly appropriated that it is very plainly discernible in all his
early public writings. An old poet, Daniel, who belonged to the times of
Spenser and Shakspere, was a great favorite of his. In a sermon preached
in 1862 he quotes the poem that especially pleased him. We quote it
entire with his introduction, and venture to say that the mind that
makes choice of such a poem is sound and healthy at the core:

“I remembered a poem that I had read in my youth, and that I used to
hang over with great interest. It had a strange fascination for me then.
The writer was born in 1562, and he wrote it somewhere between that time
and 1600. It has had a good long swing, and it will go rolling down a
great many years yet:

          “‘He that of such a height hath built his mind,
          And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
          As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
          Of his resolvèd powers, nor all the wind
          Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong
          His settled peace or to disturb the same—
          What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
          The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey?

          “‘And with how free an eye doth he look down
          Upon these lower regions of turmoil!
          Where all the storms of passions mainly beat
          On flesh and blood; where honor, power, renown
          Are only gay afflictions, golden toil;
          Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet
          As frailty doth, and only great doth seem
          To little minds, who do it so esteem.

          “‘He looks upon the mightiest monarch’s wars
          But only as on stately robberies;
          Where evermore the fortune that prevails
          Must be the right; the ill-succeeding mars
          The fairest and the best-fac’d enterprise.
          Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails:
          Justice, he sees (as if seduced), still
          Conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill.

          “‘He sees the face of right as manifold
          As are the passions of uncertain man,
          Who puts it in all colors, all attires,
          To serve his ends and make his courses hold.
          He sees that, let deceit work what it can,
          Plot and contrive base ways to high desires,
          That the all-guiding Providence doth yet
          All disappoint, and mocks the smoke of wit.

          “‘Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks
          Of tyrants’ threats, or with the surly brow
          Of Pow’r, that proudly sits on others’ crimes,
          Charg’d with more crying sins than those he checks.
          The storms of sad confusion that may grow
          Up in the present for the coming times,
          Appall not him, that hath no side at all
          But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

          “‘Although his heart (so near allied to earth)
          Cannot but pity the perplexèd state
          Of troublous and distressed mortality,
          That thus make way unto the ugly birth
          Of their own sorrows, and do still beget
          Affliction upon imbecility:
          Yet, seeing thus the course of things must run,
          He looks thereon not strange, but as foredone.

          “‘And whilst distraught ambition compasses,
          And is encompassed; whilst as craft deceives,
          And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man,
          And builds on blood, and rises by distress,
          And th’ inheritance of desolation leaves
          To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon
          As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye,
          And bears no venture in impiety.’”

Such is the record of Henry Ward Beecher in college. It is one of which
none need be ashamed. It may be pondered with advantage and followed
with profit by every one standing himself upon the threshold of that
eventful period in his own life. It is the record of a man who was loyal
to duty, to truth and purity. Independent in his line of thought and
study, yet obedient to the government of the college, industrious and
aspiring, his course was essentially a period of education, a drawing
out of his powers, a training-school of his whole nature, a fitting
preparation for that high place which he came ultimately to fill in the
confidence and affection of the nation and the world.

                             CHAPTER VIII.

Lane Seminary—Dr. Beecher Called—Home at Walnut Hills—Amusing
    Incidents—Family Meeting—Death of Mrs. Beecher—Extracts from
    Journal—First Mention of Preaching in the West—Experience in
    Ecclesiastical Matters—Despondency—Meeting of Synod—Influences of
    the Times—Revulsion—A Rift along the Horizon—“Full iolly Knight.”

At the close of his college course, after a two-days’ visit to Sutton
with Miss Bullard, he started for Cincinnati to begin his theological
studies at Lane Seminary, of which institution his father had been
elected president and professor of theology, and whither he had moved
with his family two years before. The Seminary, located at Walnut Hills,
two miles out of the city, had been established for the sake of
supplying preachers and pastors for the great and growing West. It was
thought that the territory traversed by the Ohio and the Mississippi was
“the valley of decision” for the great interests of our country and of
the world. To meet the emergency and take possession of this broad
domain for Christ, its rightful Lord, was felt to be the most important
work that could occupy the attention of the Christian public. It had
been decided that a theological seminary established at Cincinnati, in
the very centre of this district, afforded the most effective means for
attaining the great object in view; that the best man in the whole
country should be secured to stand at its head; and that that man, all
things considered, was Dr. Beecher. He would bring energy, enthusiasm,
and practical wisdom; would secure confidence in the work among Eastern
capitalists, and conduct the enterprise to assured success.

Out of this conviction sprang the Seminary and the call to Dr. Beecher
to be its head. He was in perfect and enthusiastic sympathy with the
object in view. He says of the project: “There was not on earth a place
_but that_ I would have opened my ears to for a moment.... But I had
felt and thought and labored a great deal about raising up ministers,
and the idea that I might be called to teach the best mode of preaching
to the young ministry of the broad West flashed through my mind like
lightning. It was the greatest thought that ever entered my soul; it
filled it, and displaced everything else.”

Coming to this definite work under the inspiration of this great
thought, from a church which had been for years in the midst of a
continuous revival, he had naturally given the Seminary a markedly
practical tone of spiritual earnestness. A strong man himself, he
attracted men of like stamp; and there had come, soon after he took
charge of the institution, “a noble class of young men, uncommonly
strong, a little uncivilized, entirely radical, and terribly in
earnest.”

Dr. Beecher’s method of instruction was peculiar and in harmony with his
spirit and purpose. It was not so much of the formal lecture order as of
the free conversational kind, in which questions were invited,
objections were answered, thought was quickened, and feeling was
awakened, with the result that the great truth which was the subject of
the lecture was likely to be not only in a large measure comprehended
but felt and appropriated by the students.

One of the professors, Calvin E. Stowe, for whom Henry Ward conceived
one of those ardent friendships which distinguished him through life,
helped him in the same direction. “He led him to an examination of the
Bible and to an analysis of its several portions, not as the parts of a
machine, formal and dead, but as of a body of truth instinct with God,
warm with all divine and human sympathies, clothed with language adapted
to their fit expression and to be understood as similar language used
for similar ends in every-day life.” And we have now in our hands a roll
of manuscript in which, in line with this idea, the young student wrote
out during his theological course a careful analysis of the miracles and
parables of the New Testament.

Without doubt this tone of the institution and method of instruction had
an important and very beneficial influence upon him at this formative
period of his professional life, giving him a genuine enthusiasm for his
work, and training him to investigate carefully and analyze clearly the
truths brought under examination.

And, that there might be lacking no element for his fittest training for
the great work that was before him, the question of slavery had arisen
among the students, creating such a disturbance that forty, under the
leadership of Theodore Weld, had withdrawn just before he appeared on
the ground.

Of the place, his coming, and some of the incidents in his life his
brother, Rev. T. K. Beecher, says:

“By and by they two, Henry and Charles, came to study theology in Lane
Seminary, a brick building in the woods of Ohio. The whistle of the
quail, the scolding squirrels, once the heavy, busky flight of wild
turkeys—my hero killed one and claimed a second—the soft thump and pat
of a rabbit, the breezy rush of wild pigeons, were here heard.

“A foot-path led through the woods, over which came three times a day
the heroes, shouting, exploding the vowel sounds, and imitating cows,
frogs, and crows—a laughing menagerie.

“The Academy of Music, two miles off down-town—Henry primo-basso,
Charles violin and tenor; and the little boy, at last an alto, permitted
to run between the heroes and sing, while eyes feasted on Charles’s
violin bow-hand, and ears were filled with Henry’s basso, are well
remembered.

“The ‘Creation’ and ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ were our winter’s work, and
Henry was off sometimes lecturing on temperance and phrenology.
Sometimes on a Saturday morning, at family prayer, there were Catharine,
George, Henry, Harriet, Isabella, Tom and Jim, Aunt Esther, and father
still praying ‘Overturn and overturn,’ and singing by all hands:

                  “‘Awake and sing the song
                    Of Moses and the Lamb;
                  Wake, every heart and every tongue,
                    To praise the Saviour’s name.
                  Sing on your heavenly way,
                    Ye ransomed sinners, sing!
                  Sing on rejoicing every day
                    In Christ the Heavenly King.’

Long, long discussions, lasting till past midnight and resumed at every
meal, of ‘free agency,’ ‘sovereignty,’ ‘natural and moral ability,’
interpretations, and such.

“Charles could whittle graceful boats with sharp knife out of thick
sticks.

“Henry had the full set of Walter Scott’s works.

“Charles took lessons on the violin of Tosso, in the city. Henry wrote
something that Editor Charles Hammond printed in the Cincinnati
_Gazette_. O wonderful Henry! They both wrote long, long letters to two
far-away beings, and the little boy sometimes took them to the
post-office and paid twenty-five cents, wondering what they could find
to write such long, long letters about.”

His brother Charles says:

“The glorious old forest lay between the Seminary and father’s house,
and we made it ring with vocal practice and musical scales and
imitations of band-music. The house father occupied was of brick, and
Henry whitewashed it with a kind of whitewash that was equal to paint,
of a sort of cream color. I can see him now, on his tall ladder, with
his spattered overalls, working away.

“One of our professors was B———, a nice, dapper, rosy little man, in the
chair of history. We naughty boys made fun of him. Henry took notes. I
would give something handsome for that note-book. B——— was fond of
quoting authors with sounding names, Bochart among others, and Henry
would have it ‘Go-cart,’ and made a hieroglyphic to that effect.

“We walked to and from the city, up and down the long hill, and attended
father’s church, Second Presbyterian, on Fourth Street. Henry had a
Bible-class of young ladies, for which he made preparation by writing.”

For three years young Beecher was again a member of the home-circle,
from which he had been so long separated. This home had apparently lost
none of that broad, open-doored hospitality and cheerful spirit that so
markedly characterized it in Litchfield. “The house was full. There was
a constant high tide of life and animation. The old carry-all was
perpetually vibrating between home and the city, and the excitement of
coming and going rendered anything like stagnation an impossibility.”
“It was an exuberant and glorious life while it lasted. The atmosphere
of the household was replete with mental oxygen, full charged with
intellectual electricity. Nowhere else have we felt anything resembling
or equalling it. It was a kind of moral heaven, the purity, vivacity,
inspiration, and enthusiasm of which only those can appreciate who have
lost it and feel that in this world there is, there can be, no place
like home.”

Of two of its members and some of their make-shifts we have this
account, copied from his journal:

_“The Economical Family._—My father was an excellent man (for no one
provided better dinners—soups, codfish, mutton-chops; even, upon great
days, he has been known to have a _turkey_). He was a man of enlarged
mind and great sagacity. He was before his age in his views, and always
before his salary in his expenses. This was from no want of calculation:
nobody ever was longer and shrewder in that. But he was aspiring, and by
nature seemed to go beyond things seen, far into the region of things
_hoped_ for.

“His sister, an antique maiden lady, differed vastly from him and could
in no sense be called enlightened. It was astonishing to see how his
example and his reasoning were thrown away upon her. To the last she
clung to those earthly, _low_ notions which seem so peculiar to this
world. She would persist in saying that no one should buy what he could
not pay for, nor pay for any new thing until old debts were settled. Nor
could she be brought to adopt an enlarged policy in respect to the
family. We were obliged to wear clothes until they were worn out—at
least out at the knees and elbows—altho’ the fashion should change a
dozen times during that period. So that it was not uncommon to find
one’s self two or three times the pink of fashion before a suit was
fairly condemned as unseaworthy. In fact, we may be said always to have
set the fashion at such times, since we were seen wearing the proper cut
before even the leading beau. But if this was comfortable it was but
little amends for the days of darkness which ensued. One day we revelled
(?) in our glory; the next every one gaped at our uncouth fashion. We
might properly be likened to a ship riding gracefully upon the water,
but suddenly left by the tide sticking in the mud, stiff and immovable.
I used to comfort myself, when laughed at, by saying, ‘Never mind; you
laugh now, before six months you’ll be imitating me.’ And so it often
proved, till I began to think I was a prophet.

“But it is of the family I write and not of myself, for be it known that
I am not under vassalage. I am free from both authority and—money; the
latter condition as no reproach. I have often noticed that these two
kinds of independence are closely allied. True independence seems always
in the lurch.”

One amusing incident that grew out of the half country-farm life which
they then lived he used often to refer to.

Living in the outskirts of the city, where the fences were poor and
straying cattle often gave them great annoyance, Henry one day, to his
immense disgust, found a cow quietly resting in the middle of the barn
floor. With the accumulated indignation aroused, by numerous chases,
which these poachers of the highway had led him, by many tramplings
across flower-beds and destruction of the garden vegetables, he drove
her out and chased her down the street. Coming in hot and tired from his
run, he threw himself upon the sofa, saying: “There, I guess I have
taught one old cow to know where she belongs!” “What do you mean?” said
the doctor, looking up apprehensively from his paper. “Why, I found
another cow in the barn, and I have turned her out and chased her clear
down the street, and I think she will stay away now.” “Well,” said Dr.
Beecher, “you have done it. I have just bought that cow, and had to wade
the Ohio River twice to get her home, and after I have got her safely
into the barn you have turned her out. You have done it, and no
mistake.” And the chasing of that cow was renewed.

His humor bubbled out at all times and in all places, finding its
occasion even in so staid a matter as chapel prayers. He roomed with
Prof. Stowe, who was the soul of punctuality, and was continually pained
at the failure of his young room-mate to be on time at morning prayers
in the Seminary chapel.

Having done his best to wake him up one morning, apparently without
success, he had gone down-stairs with many expressions of disgust. No
sooner was he out of the room than Henry sprang up, dressed himself as
only college students can, ran to the Seminary by a back way, and when
the professor entered was sitting demurely in front of the desk. The
amazement of the teacher at this unexpected appearance, rubbing his
glasses and peering at him again and again to determine whether it was
real or he only saw a vision, was always remembered by Mr. Beecher with
a chuckle of merriment.

For a short time near the close of his theological course he edited a
paper, and appears to have done his work with marked success; but
circumstances brought it to a speedy close. “The _Cincinnati Journal_
needed an editor. There was at that time in the middle class of Lane
Seminary a green young man of some facility of pen. He had written a
series of anonymous articles on the Catholic question in the evening
paper edited by Mr. Thomas. He was considered rather tonguey, and not
likely to back down from anything from want of hopefulness and
self-confidence. Him Dr. Brainerd called to the chair, and, on
relinquishing the editorship, recommended this beardless youth to the
proprietors of the journal as his successor. One fine morning this young
man found himself an editor upon a salary! An editor must have a coat;
and Platt Evans made a lion-skin overcoat that has never had a successor
or an equal. He must have a watch! A plain, white-faced watch soon
ticked in his pocket. Alas! evil days befell the publishers. The paper
had a new owner. He did not want the young editor; the young editor
_did_ want the watch, but could not pay for it; the seller took it back,
to the great grief of the young theologian, who went back disconsolate
to his classes at Lane Seminary, and was broken-hearted for a whole day.
The young man recovered, and has been in mischief ever since, some folks
think.”

When the pro-slavery riots broke out in Cincinnati in 1836, and James G.
Birney’s printing-office and press were destroyed by a mob headed by
Kentucky slaveholders, young Beecher volunteered and was sworn in as
special constable, and for several nights patrolled the streets
thoroughly armed to protect the negroes and their friends. He was
earnest in this matter, as in everything else that he undertook. His
sister Harriet, finding him busy running bullets, and asking him what he
was doing it for, was a good deal startled to hear him answer in a hard,
determined voice: “To kill men.”

Besides the influence of this common, every-day life, which was
afterwards reflected in his own hospitable spirit and home, two domestic
events took place during these three years that deserve more especial
notice. The first was “the Family Meeting.”

“Long before Edward came out here the doctor had tried to have a family
meeting, but did not succeed. The children were too scattered. Two were
in Connecticut, some in Massachusetts, and one in Rhode Island. But
now—just think of it!—there has been a family meeting in Ohio! When
Edward returned he brought on Mary from Hartford. William came down from
Putnam, George from Batavia, Ohio; Catharine and Harriet were here
already; Henry and Charles at home, too, besides Isabella, Thomas, and
James. These eleven! The first time they all ever met together! Mary had
never seen James, and she had seen Thomas but once. Such a time as they
had! The old doctor was almost transported with joy. The affair had been
under negotiation for some time. He returned home from Dayton late one
Saturday evening. The next morning they for the first time assembled in
the parlor. There were more tears than words. The doctor attempted to
pray, but could scarcely speak. His full heart poured itself out in a
flood of weeping. He could not go on. Edward continued, and each one in
his turn uttered some sentence of thanksgiving. They then began at the
head and related their fortunes. After special prayer all joined hands
and sang ‘Old Hundred’ in these words:

                 “‘From all that dwell below the skies
                 Let the Creator’s praise arise.’
                   *     *     *     *

“When left alone in the evening they had a general examination of all
their characters. The shafts of wit flew amain, the doctor being struck
in several places. He was, however, expert enough to hit most of them in
return. From the uproar of the general battle all must have been
wounded....

“Tuesday morning saw them together again, drawn up in a straight line
for the inspection of the king of happy men. After receiving particular
instructions they formed into a circle. The doctor made a long and
affecting speech. He felt that he stood for the last time in the midst
of all his children, and each word fell with the weight of a
patriarch’s. He embraced them once more in all the tenderness of his big
heart. Each took of all a farewell kiss. With joined hands they united
in a hymn. A prayer was offered, and finally the parting blessing was
spoken.”

The other event referred to was the death of Mrs. Beecher, which
occurred at the close of Henry’s first Seminary year. She was his
step-mother, but “she did all that she could for my good.”

“In the holy yearnings of this truly devoted mother the whole family was
included; nor could the older children perceive any less fervency in her
desires for their true welfare than for that of her own flesh and
blood.” And it was with deep and true feeling that he writes “that God
was with her in her closing days, and that the light of his countenance
cheered her passage to the tomb.”

These varied experiences of joy and sorrow in the home-life of this
period; this variety of occupation—now studying and attending lectures
in the Seminary, lecturing on temperance and phrenology, drilling in the
“Hallelujah Chorus,” painting the old family mansion, accompanying his
father in his attendance upon presbytery and synod, now a constable and
anon an editor—all contributed to give him a broad culture, had much to
do with the variety of labor which he undertook in after-life, and
fitted him for that easy, natural, and familiar mingling with all kinds
and conditions of men which was in him so marked a characteristic.

Of what he did, read, and thought at this time we are fortunate in
having another source of authentic information from his own pen. Upon
the unruled blank leaf of a letter-book, as large as a commercial ledger
and heavily bound in leather, is written in a large hand, large enough
to cover the whole page:

                                JOURNAL

                                   OF

                EVENTS, FEELINGS, THOUGHTS, PLANS, ETC.,

             JUST AS THEY HAVE MET ME, THUS GIVING IN PART

                A TRANSCRIPT OF MY INNER AND OUTER LIFE.

               BEGUN JUNE, 1835, AT LANE THEOL. SEMINARY.

On the first page, “Begun three days after birthday,” June 27. “I have
tried times without number to keep a diary or a journal of my religious
feelings. I have never succeeded.” 1. “I am not enough contemplative to
make a record of reflections and feelings very definite.” 2. “I never
could be _sincere_. The only use which I distinctly know that I have
derived from it is a knowledge of my being very averse to saying just
what my feelings were. I could not help feeling: ‘_This_ will, perhaps,
be seen.’ And why should I not so feel? One object in keeping a journal
is to look back upon your mind as it reflected itself at different
periods past, and if you _keep_ one no one can pretend to have enough of
prospective wisdom to save it from the hands of others.”

After half a page of reasons why this possibility—which has indeed been
realized—may take place, he says: “Can I conceal it all from myself, and
feign to myself that that which I am disclosing and giving form and
permanence to, my most secret feelings, none will see? And when I feel
secretly that they will be seen, is it possible to go through honestly a
narration of those emotions from the disclosure of which I shrink in my
inmost soul?”

In view of this possibility, he decides upon a modification of his
ideal:

“In this journal I do not set before me as an object to tell _all_ my
feelings, but only such as for any reason I may choose to tell. I intend
to record, too, my opinions and reflections on occurrences, on persons,
on books, and to find a resting-place, if possible, for many of those
daily thoughts which are too short and unconnected to be noted down
separately, and yet of some small value, perhaps—at least to give
variety to a journal. Then, too, being little tenacious of dates, I here
mean to record and date all changes in my life, that afterwards, when
business and multiplicity of other facts have crowded from my mind such
facts, I may here recur as to a faithful chronicle and refresh my
memory.

“Here, then, I mean to be at ease, and not molest myself with any
obligations to write so much, or so often, or so anything, but in mental
_dishabille_ I will stroll through my mind and do as I choose.”

It can well be supposed that with such an introduction facing us we feel
some delicacy, even with the _quasi_ permission which his departure from
the true ideal of a journal gives, in handling, and especially in giving
to the public, the matters which are here written. While we find no word
that a perfectly upright and honorable man need be ashamed of, we do
find private matters which we have no right to make public. Out of the
great amount of material which the journal affords we have selected such
portions as illustrate the salient features of his life, character,
work, and methods at this time.

First of all, we find him still keeping up the old habit of reading, and
after a very critical method.

“_July 1, 1835._—I finished Scott’s ‘Antiquary’ this morning, and I
propose giving some little account of my impressions. To do it I shall
be obliged to collect my general scattered feelings into a definite,
tangible form; and if I always did it after reading I should have more
numerous ideas of things and of their forms, and more correct ones.

“I think it one of Scott’s best, although my _personal taste_ gives his
novels founded on warlike customs, as ‘Ivanhoe,’ more relish. But that
does not alter the abstract merits of this, for there are grounds of
judging a work altogether aside from our taste as to the subject judged.
There are but two general considerations in estimating a novel. First,
has the author been a faithful copyist of nature, even when his effort
is of the imagination? And, second, has he made a judicious selection
and skilful combination of his material.”

After several pages of the large ledger have been devoted to this
subject, there follows this entry:

“_July 4._—The difference between Scott and Shakspere is of two kinds:
(1) the difference of dramatic and prosaic description, and (2) the
native difference of the two men. The first involves a discussion and
comparison of the two kinds of writing. The dramatic is _narrower_, more
formal and measured, and consequently more _stiff_. No one ever heard
one speak as Macbeth, as Hamlet, or as Iago, for no one ever spoke so.
Passion, or indeed nature, never marches in heroic measure. In another
respect it differs. There is a general _sameness of language_. The
imitation of nature respects _feelings_ and character, and not
_expression_, if we except some comic characters. But prose imitates
with perfect freedom, unshackled by _verse_, not only the passion,
_character_, etc., but the _expression_ and _language_.

“In this respect Scott differs from himself as a poet and novelist as
much as when a novelist he differs from Shakspere, etc....”

Similar and lengthy criticisms of Crabbe, Coleridge, Byron, Burns, and
others follow, many of them crude, but all aiming to grasp and express
the original thought of the poet, as he says after naming some rules by
which to judge a book:

“But such things are the externals of criticism. I admire the German way
of going into the motive and spirit of a poem, and discussing the
principles and source of feeling.”

We find his habit of drawing from his own experiences some moral or
spiritual lesson, and then teaching it to others, thus early formed:

“_June 27, 1835._— ... Being unwell is by no means useless. It crowds
one on to thoughts of death, and sweeps away all the mist of
forgetfulness which the frivolity of events has accumulated. One must
either wrap himself in designed forgetfulness—which is a stupid
resource—or come to some conclusion in respect to his religious
prospects. For my part, in sickness (what little I have had) I am not
agitated, but rendered serious and calmly apprehensive, and I begin to
think what God is, and Christ, and heavenly joy, and compare them with
my tastes and disposition, and see if they accord or are repulsive. I’ve
written enough for the present, so I’ll return to Scott’s ‘Legend of
Montrose.’”

We find very little, almost nothing, concerning the regulation work and
studies of the theological course, possibly because some other book
which has not come down to us contained these. He seems to have plenty
to do, and carries into his work a very decided determination to
succeed.

“_Aug. 2, 1835, Sunday._—I have for this time work enough: two courses
of lectures—one, for my Bible-class, to begin next Sunday; the other a
course of temperance lectures for Reading and elsewhere. I don’t know
how I shall succeed, but I am never self-distrustful and often feel sure
I _shall_ do VERY well, and as often see that I may fall through
entirely. Either course failing would mortify me. But here, as
elsewhere, let me start with feeling, ‘I will _persevere_, and with
every endeavor which interest and ingenuity can furnish.’ Such being
one’s constant feeling and action, hardly anything is invincible.
_Perseverance_ without corresponding exercise of ALL ONE’S MIND is but
a dogged spinning out of tedious and useless effort. _Remember when most
discouraged_ to _labor_ as though you were in the full blossom of
_Hope_, and shortly you will be.”

At this time he was singing in, and sometimes leading, the choir in his
father’s church, as he writes:

“_Nov. 14._—The medical authorities of the family, having ordered me up
for inspection, have decided that I was not sea-worthy, but have, in
view of past services, ordered me into dock to be a receiving-ship, and
there to undergo thorough repairs. I am quietly riding in the dock
without mast or rigging. They have sent aboard two sets of workmen this
morning, under the care of Messrs. Calomel and Aloes; and these are to
remove all my cargo, ballast, etc., after which I am to be new-rigged
and furnished and sent out on a new cruise. This is well. I have sailed
very dully for some time and came near to foundering once or twice.

“Will you take my place to-day and sing bass? I know of no one
possessing suitable gravity except yourself to confront the audience and
do justice to music....    Yours truly,

                                             “‘_Old Constitution_.’”

A line of tender sentiment runs through the journal, appearing whenever
any reference is made to the one to whom he was engaged. Concerning so
delicate a matter we only give extracts sufficient to show the radiant
atmosphere in which, at least at times, he walked, and the deep and
sincere affection which he cherished. They are to be read as the opening
stanzas of that beautiful idyl that closed only with his life.

“_Aug. 4, 1835._—It is a little curious, perhaps not, however, that I
very much dislike to say anything in my journal of my thoughts and
feeling for E., who is so much of my _existence_. Well, I suppose the
more and the more delicately we love the less we care and wish to say
about it. It becomes a matter of _heart_, not of _tongue_; it becomes a
_feeling_, and feeling has no language except _action_. I have sent her
a large letter, largely laden with affection....”

“_Aug. 5, 1835._—Woke up and thought of E———, M———, and G———; compared
their characters. M——— is marked by INTELLECT, G——— by lady-like
character, sweetness, and gayness. E——— has neither so _prominent_, but
both well combined and softened by strongest and sweetest
_affectionateness_. Her character is uniform, and projects, if anywhere,
in line of _affection_.”

“_Sept. 14, 1835._—I wonder what people think of my warmth? Some, I
know, estimate it far too highly, because they have not _seen_ much of
such things. Others, and _most_, suppose it very _low_ and suspect very
little of it. It is in truth but _medium_ naturally. Well, in a year or
two, and then E——— will be disappointed the right way. What a noble
creature E——— is! I could have looked through ten thousand and never
have found one so every way suited to me. How dearly do I love her! I
long for the portrait.”

“_Oct. 1, 1835._—Found a packet of letters from my dearest E———. Oh, how
dear! Her _likeness_ too, which, though imperfect in some respects, has
very much the looks of the original, and if only _one_ feature were
preserved I would feel grateful. But, excepting the _mouth_, each
feature is faithfully like her own. I shall begin a letter to her
to-night. God bless and keep her! I love her more and more and say less
and less about it.

“Harriet has had E———’s portrait all day, and I have felt quite lonesome
without it. Last evening I retired to bed and very philosophically
decided to leave the portrait in my side-pocket. I lay for some
half-hour and was quite convinced that it was in the wrong place, and
removed it to my pillow. It soon underwent another migration—_where_,
one may imagine if he will recall all such doings as depicted in
novels.”

The following is his first mention of preaching in the West:

“_Aug. 9, Sunday, 1835._—Preached twice in George’s church. In morning
with great dryness and trouble, and felt much mortified—more, I think,
than _grieved_.

“Afternoon smaller audience, but had great liberty and fluency, and
produced effect; but whether superficial or permanent and saving, God
only knows. Afternoon text: ‘My ways not as your ways’; Morning: ‘For we
thus judge’ (2 Cor. v. 14, etc.)

“After preliminaries, subject, ‘The genius of Christianity is not to
produce _gloom_ or debar from pleasure; but, contrary, _earthly_
pleasures can _only_ be enjoyed by Christians, and much more
_heavenly_.’”

He begins to be conscious of unused powers.

“_Sept., 1835._—Since reading Crabbe and Scott I am possessed with the
notion of writing _characters_. I have some models which I know would be
originals.”

His love of fun evidently subjected him now and then to criticism. To
one whose remarks had touched him to the quick he writes in
self-defence:

“_Oct. 29_ [1835].—... You said last night that I was never made for a
minister. If a minister were made to wear a lachrymose face and never to
enjoy or make mirth, you said truly and I was not born to it. There are,
in fact, three classes of divines—the ascetic, the neuter, and the
sunshiny; the first conceive the chief end of man to consist in a long
face, upturned eyes, a profound sanctimonious look.... I must plead
guilty if you mean that I was not born to the rank of these worthy
personages. Far be it from me to believe that _religion_ makes
ridiculous dunces. And though I think many such are truly pious men, yet
such endowments are the deformity and misfortune, not the ornament, of
their piety. The second class I call neuter because they (like the
Chinese leaf by which character is told) quirl and roll just according
to the party with which they are.... I must confess I have too many
opinions of my own to be whirled about by every change of company. And
though it is proper and decent that one should conform to the nature of
different occasions, so as not to jest at a funeral, laugh at church, or
dance in a hospital among the sick, the dead and dying; and though one
should respect the conditions of his company, so as not to obtrude upon
age the buoyancy of youth, ... yet I am sure neither old age nor old
reflections ... shall make me disown mirth.... Now for the third class,
the glorious, sunshiny ones. I envy them, I emulate them. These are they
who think there is a time for relaxation and elegant enjoyment. Too much
is to be done to allow them long seasons of gayety.... But while they
labor hard, think and write, and preach and visit, weeping with those
who weep, they conceive by the same authority that they may unbend and
refresh the mind by laughing with those who laugh.... To be mirthful is
part of our constitution, and I believe God never gave us that which it
is a sin to exercise.... None but those who feel it can tell how hard it
is to restrain a disposition which sees everything in the most ludicrous
point of view. But God knows that if I have a good deal of mirth I
compensate for it in secret; and although now I look for different
times, yet till now I have had enough of anything but joy to make mirth
acceptable to me. You said what you did in jest, but I lay awake all
night thinking of it. God will bear me witness that I love the ministry,
and if it be necessary for me to lay aside even my constitutional gayety
that I may be more useful, I will cheerfully do it....”

From a “catalogue of books in my possession” we learn that on December
2, 1835, he had 42 volumes of theological works, 71 volumes of literary,
10 scientific, and 12 miscellaneous, making a grand total in all of 135
volumes—not a bad showing for one who had earned every book, either by
labor or severe economy, and, what is more to the point, had read and
studied them all.

We must now turn from the perusal of his journal to note other
influences than those already referred to—those of the Seminary, of home
and books—that were at work upon him at this time. There were some that
had a very important influence in shaping his ecclesiastical bearing
through life.

These were days of heresy-hunting; days when Albert Barnes was arraigned
before presbytery for unsoundness because of some kind of heterodoxy (?)
discovered in his notes upon Romans, and when the conflict between the
two parties in the Presbyterian Church was rapidly advancing to a
division of that great body into Old and New School. “Dr. Beecher,” so
writes Mrs. Stowe, “was now the central point of a great theological
battle. It was a sort of spiritual Armageddon, being the confluence of
the forces of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Calvinistic fatalism,
meeting in battle with the advancing rationalism of New England New
School theology. On one side was hard, literal interpretation of Bible
declarations and the Presbyterian standards asserting man’s utter and
absolute natural and moral inability to obey God’s commands, and on the
other side the doctrine of man’s free agency and the bringing to the
rendering of the declarations of the Scriptures and of the standards the
lights of modern modes of interpretation.” This battle soon assumed the
character of an assault upon Dr. Lyman Beecher for the purpose of his
destruction. His son knew it to be wholly without justification and as
senseless as it was wicked. He knew his father’s earnestness, devotion,
and unselfishness, the sacrifices he had made to take up this work, felt
how greatly he deserved the gratitude of all Christian men; and when he
saw that father attacked for heresy and brought before every tribunal of
the Presbyterian Church, except the highest, for trial, and all because
his construction of the Presbyterian Confession was not according to the
views of one or two of the leaders of that Church in the West, he was
not more indignant than disgusted.

He saw him triumphantly acquitted by one body after another, but still
pursued by suspicion, and knew that a conspiracy had been formed in
which some of his Eastern friends and one or more Eastern seminaries
were enlisted, with the avowed intention of crushing him, and all this
mostly by good men, under the strong bias of ecclesiastical prejudice
and in a mistaken zeal for God’s service.

We must feel his disgust as he was compelled to go scurrying through the
country, not to rescue souls from danger nor to forward any great moral
end, but to anticipate the action of some presbytery or arrange for some
meeting of synod; we must realize his indignation at seeing his father
compelled to leave the death-bed of his mother to defend himself against
these heresy-hunters, if we would understand the position which Mr.
Beecher occupied towards ecclesiastical bodies in after-years.

In a letter dated “_Canal Boat, Wednesday morning, Oct. 14, 1835_,”
Henry Ward gives an account of a meeting of Synod. After a humorous
description of the eccentricities of Dr. Beecher, for which we have no
space, he writes: “At length we are ready to start. A trunk tumbles out
of one side as Thomas tumbles in the other. I reverse the order—tumble
Tom out, the trunk in. At length all are aboard, and father drives out
of the yard, holding the reins in one hand, shaking hands with a student
with the other, giving Charles directions with his mouth—at least that
part not occupied with an apple; for since apples were plenty he has
made it a practice to drive with one rein in the right hand and the
other in the left, with an apple in each, biting them alternately, thus
raising and lowering the reins like threads on a loom. Away we go,
Charley horse on a full canter down the long hill, the carriage bouncing
and bounding over the stones, father alternately telling Tom how to get
the harness mended and showing me the true doctrine of original sin.
Hurrah! we thunder alongside the boat just in time.... Yesterday the
Synod was constituted Old School. Moderator by a majority of seven,
under his administration the system is beginning to assume form and
becomes apparent. All the committees are one way, and the whole aspect
of affairs shows you that there is a deep-laid, regular plan, and the
elders are all _drilled in_. The committee give leave of absence to all
New School men, and refuse all others, so that they may increase and we
decrease.

“It is Tuesday morning and everybody is talking, planning, plotting—all
bustle; heads together; knots at every corner; hands going up and down,
and faces approaching earnestly or drawing back in doubt; one taking
hold of the other’s coat, leading off into one corner for _a particular
argument_; elders receiving drill, some bolting the collar. Here, in my
room, are father, George, and Mr. Rankin. They are looking over the
ground, prognosticating, arranging for the onset, or for the reception
of an onset.... I never saw so many faces of clergymen, and so few of
them intellectual faces.... And the elders are just what forty or fifty
common farmers would be supposed to be—except that _for eldership_ the
_soberest men are chosen_, and, as _stupidity is usually graced with
more gravity than great good sense_, the body of elders are not quite so
acute in look as the higher class of workingmen.”

Although written in a playful mood, it is evident that he had no fancy
for such work, and as he advanced his dislike increased. The broad,
kindly, hospitable living, the strong, practical, sympathetic preaching,
and the honest dislike of all the rattle of ecclesiastical machinery,
which marked his after-life, came naturally from the training he
received on the _outside_ of Lane Seminary.

The influences of the place in which he lived as well as of the times
were powerful factors in his theological education. The great West, with
its boundless possibilities which had so moved the spirit of his father,
lay before him, and stirred his imagination as at an earlier period the
sea had done. And, as when he looked out upon the broad Atlantic from
the wharves of Boston he had felt the impulse to go forth to be a
sailor, command ships, and fight naval battles, so did the movement of
the great streams of population Westward, and the vast field that
stretched out before him like the ocean, move his spirit to go forth
upon the sea of human life and conquer for Christ.

In this period of theological study, when the most of students withdraw
themselves as much as possible from real life, he was brought to face it
in some of its most intense forms. Cincinnati was then the central and
most important city of the great West; an immense commerce was carried
on from its wharves; it was the point where gathered the multitudes that
were going out to occupy the new territory; it was still the rendezvous
for frontiersmen; more than this, it lay upon the border-land between
the free and slave States, and already felt the uneasiness and
bitterness of the irresistible conflict. Chain-gangs of slaves were
continually passing on the decks of the steamboats, to be sold down
South, and fugitives from bondage were keeping the sympathy or the
hatred of the people in continual activity. Life of high pressure and in
great variety was presented to Henry Ward Beecher there in the heart of
the great West in the years of 1834-1837; life that was very real, and
that called not so much for fine-spun theories as for practical forces;
not for dead and formal dogmas, but for living truth, for _Him_ who is
both _Life_ and _Truth_.

True, he might have measurably kept himself from it and immured himself
in the library and class-rooms of the Seminary, but he followed an
entirely opposite course; he lectured, wrote anti-slavery editorials,
joined the citizens’ body of police for the preservation of order, every
way keeping himself in sympathy with the stirring times in which he
lived, and they helped to make him the living, practical preacher he
afterwards became.

His Bible-class, to which he gave great attention, both in preparation
and in teaching the lesson, afforded him a field for the application of
the truths he had learned, and for testing the methods he had adopted.

Yet for the most of the time his mind was not settled. His ideal of the
Christian ministry was so high that he sometimes despaired of ever
attaining it, and at times he seems to have seriously contemplated
giving up his preparation for the ministry and of devoting himself to
some other pursuit. Mrs. Beecher says that through these years his
letters were very full of the discomforts and doubts that troubled him.
“... Sometimes I think I shall not succeed in anything. If, when my
course here is finished, they will not license me, suppose I go far
West, enter a homestead (?), clear the wood off, build a little log hut,
work during the week, and hunt up the settlers and hold conference and
prayer meetings—will you come to me if that is all I can offer you?”
Then, perhaps, in the next letter: “I will preach, if it is in the
by-ways and hedges; but oh! for more light to see my way clear!” “During
the last two years his letters had less of this depression. He would
preach, whether men would hear or whether they would forbear.” “But I
must preach the Gospel as it is revealed _to me_, not as it is laid down
in the schools.”

He gives his experience in these words:

“During the latter part of my stay in college my feelings were
unsettled. Sometimes they inclined one way and sometimes the other,
until I went to Lane Seminary. I was then twenty years old, and there
came a great revulsion in me from all this inchoate, unregulated,
undirected experience in religion. My mind took one tremendous spring
over into scepticism, and I said: ‘I have been a fool long enough.’ I
refused to be any longer played upon in such a way. It was bitter, it
was malignant, it was sad, it was sorrowful; but it was wholesale, and
swept away ten thousand fictions and external observances. I said: ‘I
will not stir one step further than I can see my way, and I will not
stand a moment where I cannot see the truth. I will have something that
is sure and steadfast.’ Having taken that ground, I was in that state of
mind for the larger part of two years.

“It then pleased God to lift upon me such a view of Christ as one whose
nature and office it is to have infinite and exquisite pity upon the
weakness and want of sinners as I had never had before. I saw that He
had compassion upon them because they were sinners, and because He
wanted to help them out of their sins. It came to me like the bursting
forth of spring. It was as if yesterday there was not a bird to be seen
or heard, and as if to-day the woods were full of singing birds. There
rose up before me a view of Jesus as the Saviour of sinners—not of
saints, but of sinners unconverted, before they were any better—because
they were so bad and needed so much; and that view has never gone from
me. It did not at first fill the whole heaven; it came as a rift along
the horizon; gradually, little by little, the cloud rolled up. It was
three years before the whole sky was cleared so that I could see all
around, but from that hour I felt that God had a father’s heart; that
Christ loved me in my sin; that while I was a sinner He did not frown
upon me nor cast me off, but cared for me with unutterable tenderness,
and would help me out of sin; and it seemed to me that I had everything
I needed. When that vision was vouchsafed to me I felt that there was no
more for me to do but to love, trust, and adore; nor has there ever been
in my mind a doubt since that I did love, trust, and adore. There has
been an imperfect comprehension, there have been grievous sins, there
have been long defections; but never for a single moment have I doubted
the power of Christ’s love to save me, any more than I have doubted the
existence in the heaven of the sun by day and the moon by night.”

We have thus followed Henry Ward Beecher from the cradle to the moment
that he stands prepared to enter upon his life-work; have noted every
step of his course from the hills to the sea, from school to college,
from the East to the West; have marked the influences of the home, of
nature, of the city, of school, college, and seminary, of the times, of
the Word and Spirit of God; have traced his experiences, felt his
dawning strength, examined the life he lived, the dispositions he
manifested, the hopes he cherished, and the character he formed; and in
our confidence and admiration choose, as not inappropriate for him at
this time, the description of “The Patrone of true Holinesse” in the
“Faerie Queene”:

         “Full iolly knight he seemed, and faire did sitt,
         As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt;
         And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore,
         The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,
         For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,
         And dead, as living ever, Him ador’d:
         Upon his shield the like was also scor’d,
         For soveraine hope, which in His helpe he had,
         Right faithfull true he was in deede and word;
         But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad;
         Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.”

                              CHAPTER IX.

Call to Preach—License—Examination by Miami Presbytery—Refusal to
    Subscribe to Old School—Ordination by Oxford Presbytery—Visit
    East—Marriage—Housekeeping.

In the early spring of 1837 Mr. Beecher graduated from Lane Seminary. In
accordance with the practice of the Presbyterian Church, a clergyman
might be licensed to preach, even though not ordained; but such license
could only be obtained after the applicant had appeared before the
Presbytery for examination, and he was required also to read a “trial
lecture,” as it was called. Agreeably to this custom, upon graduating
from the Seminary Mr. Beecher went before the Cincinnati Presbytery, was
examined, and read his “trial lecture.” The examination and lecture seem
to have been satisfactory, for he was duly licensed to preach.

For a few weeks prior to his examination for license he preached in a
little hall at Covington, Kentucky, just across the river from
Cincinnati. He seriously contemplated settling there as soon as he
should be licensed.

“After preaching there [Covington] three or four Sundays I was called,
by Martha Sawyer, a Yankee woman, to go to Lawrenceburg and preach.
There was a church in that place, composed of about twenty members, of
which she was the factotum. She collected the money, she was the
treasurer, she was the manager, she was the trustee, she was the
everything of that church.”

At this time the pulpit of the little, struggling Presbyterian church at
Lawrenceburg, Indiana, was vacant, and one of the ladies of that church
came up to Cincinnati to see if Bishop Little could not secure for them
a pastor. The good bishop introduced her to young Henry Ward Beecher.
This led to his preaching one or two trial sermons at Lawrenceburg. The
result of the experiment seemed to be satisfactory on both sides,
although the first sermon was said to have been a lamentable failure
through the nervous apprehensions of the young preacher in facing the
unusually large audience of one hundred persons.

In May, 1837, he moved to Lawrenceburg and began preaching regularly as
a licentiate, not yet ordained.

It may not be uninteresting to read just here the brief memoranda from
the journal which he was keeping then:

“_May 4_ [1837].—Returned from Lawrenceburg. I think seriously of
settling there—a destitute place indeed....

“If I go to Lawrenceburg, remember you can gain men easily if you get
round their _prejudices_ and put truth in their minds; but _never_ if
you attack _prejudices_. Look well at this....

”_Mem._—My people must be alert to make the church agreeable, to give
_seats_ and wait on _strangers_, etc.“

”_June 15, Thursday._—To-day received call from Lawrenceburg, and a very
flattering call it was and did my heart good. Meeting called June 12,
1837; about 30 persons present. Mr. Hunt, moderator; D. S. Mayer, sec.
Vote for me unanimous. Blank filled for $250, with but one dissenting
voice (he voting for double that sum).“

”_Monday, July 10._—Sat. eve., 8th, arrived here permanently to
remain....

“I mean to write down little plans and devices for _pastoral labor_ as
they occur; I may else forget them.

“1. In different districts get men quietly to feel _themselves_
responsible for progress of temperance or Sunday-schools.

“2. Quietly to visit from house to house and secure congregations.

“3. Secure a _large congregation_. Let this be the _first_ thing. For
this—

        “1. Preach well uniformly.

        “2. Visit widely and produce a personal attachment; also wife do
        same.

        “3. Get the young to love me.

        “4. See that the church have this presented as a _definite_
        thing, and set them to this work just as _directly_ as I would
        to raising a fund, building, etc.

“4. Little girls’ societies for benevolent purposes.”

The town was small, scarce fifteen hundred inhabitants, located at the
junction of the Ohio and Miami rivers—just across the Miami from Ohio on
the east, and the Ohio River from Kentucky on the south—subject to
devastating floods from both rivers impartially.

The church was small, with meagre accommodations, the people poor. We
quote his description of the place and church:

“You can form some conception of that field when I tell you that it was
a place where they had four gigantic distilleries, from which was
carried to market a steamboat-load of liquor every day. When I went
there and entered upon my vocation of preaching, I found a church,
occupying a little brick building, with nineteen or twenty members.
There was one man, and the rest were women. With the exception of two
persons, there was not one of them who was not obliged to gain a
livelihood by the labor of the hands. So you will understand how very
poor they were. I could not, of course, obtain my living in so small a
church, and in a community that was not overblessed with wealth. I was
taken up, therefore, as a pensioner by the Home Missionary Society, and
my first two years were spent in the field as a missionary, in part
supported by the funds of this society.

“I was sexton in the church. There were no lamps there, so I went and
bought some, and filled them and lit them. I swept the church and
lighted my own fires. I did not ring the bell, because there was none. I
opened the church before every meeting, and shut and locked it after
every meeting. I took care of everything in the church.”

Here in this little frontier village, then upon the very borders of
civilization, began his real work. For twenty-four years he had been
preparing for this step. Now it must be determined whether his life
should be a success or a failure.

The year passed uneventfully, and it was not until September, 1838, when
he applied for ordination, that he got his first taste of trouble.

At this time the division between the Old School and the New School
Presbyterian churches was about to take place, and two General
Assemblies, afterwards called the Old School General Assembly and the
New School General Assembly, were, a short time later, convened in
Philadelphia. A resolution was introduced into the Oxford Presbytery
that no man should be licensed or ordained by that body who did not
connect himself with the Old School Presbyterian Church, dropping from
their care those who declined to do so.

This resolution, it was thought, was probably aimed at Mr. Beecher[3]—an
attempt to strike the father over the shoulders of his son. For the
actual division and separation of the Presbyterian Church into Old and
New School was in no small measure the result of the controversy carried
on for several years previously against Dr. Lyman Beecher. The doctor in
1832 had, as we have seen, accepted the presidency and professorship of
doctrinal theology in Lane Seminary. He had been brought up in, and had
been connected with, the Congregational Church until this time. While he
entertained no revolutionary spirit, he had some expectation that the
free spirit of New England thought, and that loving spirit of voluntary
co-operation which he had enjoyed so in his New England pastorate, might
be infused into the forms of Presbyterianism. The idea of an intimate
friendship and co-operation between the Congregational and Presbyterian
churches in the United States had always been dear to him.

-----

Footnote 3:

  “It is no inconsiderable matter in these days that Dr. Beecher has at
  least one son who, after a full and free examination before the Oxford
  Presbytery, has been pronounced to be orthodox and sound in the faith;
  and that, in order to exclude the son of the arch-heretic, a new term
  of ministerial communion had to be introduced” (Extract from letter of
  Dr. Bishop, President of Oxford College, to Mr. Beecher in 1838).

-----

But when he went to Cincinnati there had already commenced in different
quarters a movement aiming at greater stringency and the expulsion from
the Presbyterian Church of what was called the New England element, of
which Dr. Beecher was an eminent representative. His settlement at Lane
Seminary was followed by a more active demonstration of hostility.
Formal charges of heresy, slander, and hypocrisy were preferred against
him, to which reference has already been made.

These proceedings produced a very markedly unfavorable impression in the
public mind against Presbyterianism. They had only ended at about the
time his son, Henry Ward, came to Lawrenceburg.

There was a good deal of feeling in the two branches of the Presbyterian
Church, and when Mr. Beecher applied to the Oxford Presbytery, within
whose jurisdiction Lawrenceburg was located, a good deal of interest was
aroused. A son of Dr. Lyman Beecher was to be examined by a presbytery
known to be in marked hostility to him. It would be a good chance to
demonstrate the laxity and heterodoxy of Dr. Beecher. For, of course,
the young man would only reflect the father’s views.

The presbytery duly met in session in September, 1838, and Henry Ward
appeared before them. Writing to his brother George, he refers to his
examination. After telling of his family affairs he says:

“So much for family news—a quiet lake; now for public affairs—a troubled
ocean casting up mud and dirt.

“I went some sixty miles up into Preble County, near Eaton, before
Oxford Presbytery. Presented my papers. Father Craigh was appointed to
_squeak_ the questions. They examined me to their hearts’ content. I was
a model to behold, and so were they! Elders opened their mouths, gave
their noses a fresh blowing, fixed their spectacles, and hitched forward
on their seats. The ministers clinched their confessions of faith with
desperate fervor and looked unutterably orthodox, while Graham and a few
friendly ones looked a little nervous, not knowing how the youth would
stand fire. There he sat, the young candidate begotten of a heretic,
nursed at Lane; but, with such a name and parentage and education, what
remarkable modesty, extraordinary meekness, and how deferential to the
_eminently acute_ questioners who sat gazing upon the prodigy! Certainly
this was a bad beginning. Having predetermined that I should be hot and
forward and full of confidence, it was somewhat awkward, truly, to find
such gentleness and teachableness!

“Then came the examination: ‘Will the mon tell us in what relation Adam
stood to his posterity?’ ‘In the relation of a _federal head_.’ ‘What do
you mean by a federal head?’ ‘A head with whom God made a covenant for
all his posterity.’ Then questions on all the knotty points. ‘Still the
wonder grew,’ for the more the lad was examined the more incorrigibly
orthodox did he grow, until they began to fear he was a _leetle_ too
orthodox upon some points. What was to be done? The vote on receiving me
was _unanimous_! Well, they slept upon it. Next day, while settling the
_time_ of my ordination, Prof. McArthur, of Oxford, moved to postpone
the business to take up some resolutions. In the first they ‘sincerely
adhered to the Old School Pby. Assembly’; second, required that all
_licentiates_ and candidates under their care should do the same or be
no longer such. I declined acknowledging it to be the true one. Father
Craigh (whom my orthodoxy had softened) said they would give me _six
months_ to think and decide, and I might continue to preach in their
bounds. I refused, and they turned me out and gave me my papers back
again. I asked them what the duty of my church was. They replied that it
was _vacant_—just what they _had to_ say, and just what I wanted them to
say, and, moreover, just what I determined they should say. I drove home
forthwith; got back on Saturday. On Sunday recounted from the pulpit the
doings of Pby., and declared them vacant if they continued under Oxford;
appointed a meeting for Wednesday P.M. for their action. By a unanimous
vote they withdrew from Oxford and declared themselves an _Independent_
Pbyn. ch. Now for Synod. The Old School called a convention to meet two
days before Synod met; cut out a series of resolutions going for O. S.
Assembly, cutting off those who had officially joined the Constitutional
Assembly, etc., etc. After sermon by Jno. Rankin, Stowe and Coe
nominated for moderator—Stowe 47, Coe 70. The New School then determined
simply to urge on to voting. All speaking was on one side. When they had
passed the resolutions to the one cutting off all who had joined N. S.
Assembly they inserted a new one, by which _majority of Cincinnati
Presbytery_ were _ejected_! Jno. Rankin then rose and declared the body
_dissolved,_ and as moderator of last Synod would give them time to
leave the house, and would then form the true Synod. They prayed and
adjourned to Wilson’s. It was queer. ‘Synod of Cincinnati will adjourn
to meet at 7 in 1st Pby. ch.’; ‘Synod Cin. will now come to order,’ etc.
I left after this and both bodies were still in session. I stepped in a
moment Saturday morning just before leaving, and they were then passing
in _our_ Synod a resolution not to allow any _slave-holder_ in our
connection. Mills agreed to it. I did not wait to hear votes, but
presume it was nearly unanimous. Synod declared the whole ground
formerly held by Oxford Pby. to be held by the Cin. Pby. Stowe has just
written me that Graham, Thomas, Chidlow, Merril, Crothers, Dickey, and
others have formally withdrawn from the Old School Synod, but not yet
united with ours. This is a brief sketch of matters ecclesiastical. Pby.
of Cin. will begin their new authority over former territory of Oxford
Pby., by coming here to ordain me on Thurs., Nov. 8 [1838].”

The New School Presbytery met in Cincinnati, and before this body Mr.
Beecher applied for ordination, the minutes of which record that it
ordained and installed him November 9, 1838, over the independent church
at Lawrenceburg, Dr. Lyman Beecher presiding, Dr. Blanchard charging the
pastor, and Dr. Calvin E. Stowe, his brother-in-law, charging the
people.

Mr. Beecher felt that the division in the Church was wholly uncalled
for, but naturally was unwilling to desert the school to which he was
attached by its more liberal and democratic policy, by the associations
of his education, and the ties of filial love and admiration. The
bitterness of this controversy in the body of the Church, and the utter
folly of a great Church, organized for the work of saving men’s souls,
wasting its strength in harsh recriminations and angry feuds over
matters which seemed to him of minor importance, and finally splitting
the Church into two hostile bodies, produced a profound impression upon
Mr. Beecher’s mind, and developed rapidly that trait, doubtless then
latent, which has so markedly characterized his preaching since then—a
disregard of mere forms, provided he could secure the substance. And so
he grew to look upon all denominations as his brethren, wholly
disregarding the formal differences that existed, rejoicing heartily in
all their successes, and wishing them God-speed, seeing only the objects
for which all labored—the enlightenment of the world, the saving of
mankind. He was always willing to co-operate. He never withheld his hand
or voice, when there was a chance to help a struggling church, because
it was of a different denomination from his own.

He gave another account of these experiences and their effect upon his
mind, in some remarks at one of his Friday-night meetings, suggested by
the meeting, in the spring of 1869, of the Assemblies of the Old and New
Schools, and their reunion as one body at that time:

“My whole life has more or less taken its color from the controversy
which led to the division of the Old School and the New School
Presbyterians. I was brought up in New England, a minister’s son, the
son of a minister who was doctrinally inclined and whose warmest friends
were great doctrinarians. My father’s household was substantially a
debating society. As early as I can remember I knew enough to discuss
foreordination, and I could do it as well as my betters. I could go just
as far as they could, could run against snags at the same spots that
they did, and could not get off any better than they could. All those
great doctrines which tend powerfully to enlarge the imagination and to
sharpen the reason without feeding them were, I had almost said, matters
of daily conversation in my father’s family. When I went to college I
fell under the influence of a young minister who became an Old School
Presbyterian. He was a man of large brain and marked ability. He had a
naturally philosophic mind. He was noble-hearted and genial. I remember
that my poetic temperament, alongside of his rigorous, logical
temperament, used to seem to me mean and contemptible. I thought he was
like a big oak-tree, while I was more like a willow, half-grown and
pliant, yielding to every force that was exerted upon it. At any rate,
he had a powerful influence upon my development. But as I came to the
possession of myself more and more I took on the logical methods in the
exercise of the reasoning faculty which God had implanted in me, and
they came near wrecking me; for I became sceptical, not malignantly but
honestly, and it was to me a matter of great distress and anguish. It
continued for years, and no logic ever relieved me. My brother Charles
went through the same process, and he came back in the same way that I
did, through the instrumentality of a living Saviour. An abstract,
philosophical statement of the truth never met my wants, but when there
arose over the horizon a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ as a living
Friend, who had the profoundest personal interest in me, I embraced that
view and was lifted up. My heart did for me then what my head had failed
to do. This was an experience which has constituted one of the greatest
affirmative forces that have acted on my mind in preaching. All my life
long I have had a strong disposition to so preach the truth as to meet
the wants of men who stand not only outside of the churches but outside
of belief. I suppose that as long as I live I shall think of the truth,
not as it looks to those that are within the Church, but as it looks to
those that are outside of the Church and outside of belief itself.

“This has given to my preaching an element of naturalism. It has led me
to seek for a ground on which I could stand and bring men to a knowledge
of the love of Christ. I have gone far from the usual narrow
ecclesiastical and theological rules to broader social methods by which
men that are doubters can be reached.

“My first settlement as a pastor was at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where I
was two years in the Presbyterian Church. When I left Lane Seminary I
went down there to preach, and I thought nothing about Church
connection. My business, as I supposed, was to preach what little I knew
and to lead men to the Saviour; but I soon felt, for the first time, the
authority of the Church. I had not been ground; I was nothing but corn,
and I had to be run through a mill. This Lawrenceburg church was in the
territory of the Miami Presbytery. The Presbytery was not only a body of
Presbyterians, but was composed of _Old School_ Presbyterians; not only
were they Old School Presbyterians, but they were _Scotch-Irish_
Presbyterians; and not only were they straight, but they bent like a
hoop the other way. I had received an ordination license at the
Cincinnati Presbytery—where my father belonged at that time—in about
1837; but it was necessary that I should undergo another examination.
The Assemblies had not then divided; there was only the one Church; but
there were two parties—the Old School and the New School. There was the
one great body, but there were these two sections. There were
presbyteries and synods of the New School, and there were presbyteries
and synods of the Old School; but they were under the same authority.

“I went on horseback from Lawrenceburg to Oxford, where the Presbytery
was in session. And, by the way, I came near losing my life in crossing
the river. The water was high, and I was thrown into it; but I got out
and dried off, and started again, and reached my destination without any
further mishap, and went through my examination.

“At that time, under the instruction which I had had in my father’s
family, under the college drill that I had gone through, and under the
training to which I was subjected in Lane Seminary, I had become so
familiar with the doctrines of theology that it was difficult for any
one to put me down in a discussion of them. I could state them very
glibly. I was ready with an explanation of every single point connected
with them. I knew all their proofs, all their dodging cuts, all their
ins and outs. Therefore I had no trouble in standing my ground with the
men who examined me. They knew they had Dr. Beecher’s son before them;
the questions came like hail, and I was very willing. Somehow I have
always had a certain sympathy with human nature which has led me
invariably, in my better moods, to see instinctively, or to perceive by
intuition, how to touch the right chord in people, how to reach the
living principle in them; and that faculty was fully awakened in me on
this occasion. I recollect that the presiding clergyman at that
Presbytery was a man that I had seen at my father’s house and that I had
taken a sort of fancy to. He was probably fifty or sixty years of age.
He was tall, and was thin in the face, and he had a shrill, ringing
voice. I felt that he was like a file; but still I liked him. Well, he
put questions to me. Some of them I answered directly, some ingeniously,
some intelligently, and others somewhat obscurely. The examination
extended over two or three hours; and I thought I perceived a warming
and melting influence among those men. I was quite indifferent as to
whether or not I came out with their endorsement, and I have a
recollection of feeling very fine. They questioned, and questioned, and
questioned; and it happened that the points on which they were very
particular were man’s sinfulness, the influence of the Holy Ghost, its
necessity, its work, the thoroughness of it, and so on.

“Now, I was always immensely orthodox—thunderingly so; and when they
thought they were going to get heresy they got a perfect avalanche of
orthodoxy. This man whom I had seen at father’s was quite carried away
with me; he shielded me and helped me over some rough places; and the
Presbytery, without a dissenting voice, voted that I was orthodox—to
their amazement and mine!

“I thought then that the bitterness of death was past, when lo! a
professor from Oxford University, Miami, introduced a resolution, which
was passed, that that Presbytery would not license nor ordain any
candidate who would not give in his adhesion to the Old School
Presbyterian General Assembly. It was on that point that the Old and New
Schools divided, and I, being my father’s son, spurned the idea of going
over to the Old School; I felt as big as forty men; and when that
resolution passed I simply said: ‘Well, brethren, I have nothing to do
but to go back to my father’s house.’ They were kind to me; they seemed
to have conceived an affection for the young man; they took the greatest
pains to conciliate me; they endeavored to smooth the way for me, and
tried to persuade me to comply with their wish; but I was determined,
and said, ‘I won’t.’ I always had the knack of saying that and sticking
to it!

“So I turned my back on the Oxford Presbytery, and rode to Lawrenceburg
again; and the next Sunday morning I announced to my congregation the
result of my week’s pilgrimage, told them of the vote which declared
their church vacant, and said to them: ‘Now, brethren, one of two things
is necessary: you must get somebody else to preach for you, or you must
declare yourselves independent of the Presbyterian Church.’ It was no
sooner said than done. Before sundown on that day they declared
themselves an independent church, and I decided to stay with them. I was
then ordained by the New School Presbytery in Cincinnati, after which I
went on with my work regularly.

“Preceding all this, you should recollect that during the three years
that I was in the Seminary the controversy between the Old and New
School Presbyterians ran very high on questions of theology and on
questions of Church authority. I had been stuffed with these things. I
had eaten and drank them. I had chopped and hewed them. I had built up
from them every sort of argument. I had had them _ad nauseam_.

“When I went out into the field I found all the little churches ready to
divide, such was the state of feeling throughout the whole West. Going
into my work in the midst of that state of affairs, I made up my mind
distinctly that, with the help of God, I would never engage in any
religious contention. I remember riding through the woods for long,
dreary days, and I recollect at one time coming out into an open place
where the sun shone down through to the bank of the river, and where I
had such a sense of the love of Christ, of the nature of His work on
earth, of its beauty and its grandeur, and such a sense of the
miserableness of Christian men quarrelling and seeking to build up
antagonistic churches—in other words, the kingdom of Christ rose up
before my mind with such supreme loveliness and majesty—that I sat in my
saddle, I do not know how long (many, many minutes; perhaps half an
hour), and there, all alone, in a great forest of Indiana, probably
twenty miles from any house, prayed for that kingdom, saying audibly, ‘I
will never be a sectary.’ I remember promising Christ that if He would
strengthen me and teach me how to work I would all my life long preach
for His kingdom and endeavor to love everybody who was doing that work.
Not that I would accept others’ belief, not that I would embrace their
theology, not that I would endorse their ecclesiastical organizations;
but whatever their instruments might be, if they were sincerely working
for the kingdom of Christ I would never put a straw in their way and
never strike a blow to their harm. By the grace of God I have kept that
resolution to this day. There was _so_ much good that came from the
discussions and quarrels of the Old and New Schools by which at that
period of my ministry I was surrounded. So much for the influence on my
mind of those early scenes and experiences, which were more, in some
respects, a theological school to me than Lane Seminary itself was.”

[Illustration: Mr. Beecher at the Time of his Marriage.]

Such was the beginning of his ministry.

We may now retrace our steps a little to take a look at the beginning of
his domestic life.

For seven years, like Jacob of old, he had labored, waiting for the time
when he could claim his wife. Of course, until he was settled somewhere
with some definite income, it was folly to think of marrying. But when
he began preaching on trial at Lawrenceburg, and it seemed probable that
he might be called there, his mind ran forward to when, having a
definite home, he might go East for his bride. In his journal we find
one of his written reveries:

[Illustration: Mrs. Beecher at the Time of her Marriage.]

“SPRING, _March 1, 1837_.—The winter has gone. Spring has come—the time
of the singing of birds. How vividly does that little expression call up
the whole scene—the bright sun, the mild air, the heaven full of sweet
influences, and the green sprouting grass among patches of snow, and the
swelling buds! Every voice echoes in the air, and all sounds are mellow.
The falling of a plank, the pound of a hammer or beetle, the rumble of a
wagon, all, this morning, sound like joyful music. But I have one
thought sweeter than any of these, which _makes_ these sweet: it is that
now only spring and summer are to fly before I meet my dear wife, not
again to be parted, except by death!”

In July, 1837, having been formally called, though before his
ordination—it then being apparent that he was to be definitely settled
at Lawrenceburg—he wrote to Miss Bullard, suggesting that their marriage
be celebrated shortly after his ordination, which was then expected to
be in the following September. He had no sooner written and mailed the
letter when he said to himself, as he explained to his wife later: “Why
should I wait for my ordination? Why not have _my wife_ present at it?
And I started that very afternoon.”

His letter reached Miss Bullard in the morning of Saturday, July 29, and
he himself appeared in the evening of the same day, to the great
surprise of all. His plan was explained, and after a hasty discussion
August 3 was fixed on for the wedding, and three o’clock in the
afternoon the hour.

“I was expected to be ready to leave in the afternoon of August 3,”
writes Mrs. Beecher. “The wedding-dress and wedding-cake were to be
made—for what New England damsel could be married without wedding-cake?
At _one_ o’clock Monday morning I began my work, sewing until the family
were up. After the breakfast was over the materials for the wedding-cake
were brought from the village store, and _Henry and I_ began the work
for _the cake_. He picked over and stoned the raisins—taking abundant
_toll_ while doing it—beating the eggs, and in every way made himself
useful, and kept the whole family in good spirits and cheerful, when,
but for him, in such hurried preparations we might have felt the great
exertion severely. But the work was done, and the 3d of August dawned
bright and rosy.

“Very few guests were invited outside of the brothers and sisters, with
their families, who were near enough to the old home to reach us. Both
my sisters were married in a storm, and I had always said _I would not
be_. Three o’clock was the hour appointed for the wedding. About two a
heavy thunder-shower came on, and it began to rain, thunder, and
lighten. At three o’clock we were summoned, but I said: ‘Wait until the
storm passes,’ and, in spite of their remonstrance, they did wait. At
four o’clock the clouds broke away and the sun appeared, and we were
ushered into the parlor, Henry and I together. Just as we were entering
the door (it was very warm, and door and windows all open) a _rainbow_,
the most brilliant I ever saw, and so remarked by all in the room,
seemed through the open window to span the parlor, and the spectators
said we walked under its arch to our places. In his prayer the clergyman
spoke of the ‘bow of peace and promise,’ which he hoped was the
beautiful symbol of what our lives were to be.

“We rode to Worcester after the long farewells were said, not expecting
to meet the home friends again for years.”

A few days later Mr. Beecher wrote from New York to his sister, Mrs.
Stowe:

“MY VERY DEAR SISTER:

“Before this gets to you, you will have begun to look for us and wonder
that we do not write or come. This is to certify that we are alive,
safely and thoroughly married. Coming, and _came_ as far as New York.
Now, this damsel, my most comely wife, longing for the leeks and
cucumbers of Boston, did freely eat thereof, and these, as in duty
bound, did most freely hurt her. Three days she bore it, but on arriving
at New York they had come well-nigh to the cholera morbus; and thus we
are detained for a few days. The doctor’s prescriptions have acted like
a charm. She is relieved, and rapidly grows better. Nevertheless, it
being now Thursday, we shall tarry until Monday for her to gain
strength, and then, God willing, we shall set our faces westward and
travel like the wind. We were married on Thursday afternoon, at four
o’clock, August the third. We went immediately to Worcester, to Mr.
Barton’s. Nothing could surpass his delicate kindness to us.

“I preached a preparatory lecture to the three churches on Friday P.M.,
and preached twice for Mr. Peabody on Sunday. Monday left for Boston.
Stayed until Tuesday of the week ensuing. Preached in Bowdoin church in
the morning of Sunday, and at Park Street in the P.M. Was invited to
preach _all_ day at Bowdoin, and also all day at Odeon, but preferred my
course. Left for New York on Tuesday noon; arrived next morning. Am at
Rev. Mr. Jones’s (Mrs. Beecher’s brother-in-law), and very pleasantly
situated. Lucy Ann is a dear, sweet sister, and Mr. Jones a most amiable
and well-read, gentlemanly man. Probably I shall preach here on the
Sabbath, but nothing has yet been definitely said.

“Shall return by Pittsburgh, leaving this place on Monday next, if God
wills. At that rate you may calculate upon seeing us somewhere about the
middle of the week ensuing.

“Ah! Harriet, how I long to see you and Calvin. I shall soon show you my
dear, dear wife. I grow more and more proud of her every day....

“Love to _all_—for I love you all, even to the little homely kitten—and
love to all _our_ folks, Margaret Hastings and all.

                   “Yours most affectionately, dear Harriet,
                                                          “H. W. B.”

Leaving New York, they started westward, partly by rail, partly by
steamer, and not a little by the slow method of the canal; travelled day
and night, until they finally reached Cincinnati the last of August.

From Mrs. Beecher’s memory we obtain her impressions of their first
pastorate:

“We remained a few days at Walnut Hills, and then took the little
steamer with a free pass to Lawrenceburg. We were to board for the
present, as we did not think that eighteen cents in pocket and three
hundred dollars a year prospective salary would enable us to begin
housekeeping. Lawrenceburg was a small place on the Miami.

“Mr. Beecher was obliged to take charge of that part of the building in
which he was to preach. Together we went every Saturday afternoon, swept
and dusted the room, filled the lard-oil lamps, and laid the wood and
kindlings ready for him to start the fire the next morning before
service, when needed; for the members of the church were all, except a
few families, poor laboring people, with all they could attend to at
home.

“But curiosity to hear the young preacher filled the room the first
Sabbath, and from that time it continued to be filled—crowded. The
Methodist church had always been the fashionable church, where the
wealthy and more refined part of the population worshipped. This little
Presbyterian church had almost died out, and, when first requested to
preach there, neither Mr. Beecher nor the people had any thought of his
coming for more than that one Sabbath. But his manner of preaching was
so very different from what they had been accustomed to—so original—that
they wanted to hear him again, and after that they gave him a call to
settle there. The Home Missionary Society were to give $150, and the
little band who composed the church thought they could manage to raise
$150—in all $300—and the call was accepted, notwithstanding the
remonstrance of friends in Cincinnati. They were more ambitious for him
than he was for himself, knowing that he could doubtless, in a short
time, get a better settlement. They knew, also, he intended to marry as
soon as his theological course was finished, and thought him wild to
think of bringing a wife out West and expect to be able to live on three
hundred dollars a year. But from the first he acted up to the advice he
always gave in after-years to young graduates from theological
seminaries: ‘_Don’t hang_ round idle, waiting for a _good offer_. Enter
the first field God opens for you. If He needs you in a larger one He
will open the gate for you to enter.’ _And so_ he _did_.

“From his first sermon[4] in Lawrenceburg that little room was crowded.
He did not extemporize so entirely, at first, as in later years—at least
he wrote more copious notes—but those who knew him can well imagine that
when warmed up by his subject his notes did not hold him very closely.

-----

Footnote 4:

  “See Appendix A.”

-----

“How vividly I recall that first Sabbath! How young, how boyish he did
look! And how indignant I felt, when some of the ‘_higher classes_’ came
in out of simple curiosity, to see the surprised, almost scornful looks
that were interchanged!

“He read the first hymn, and read it well—as they had never heard their
own ministers (often illiterate, uneducated men) read hymns. I watched
the expression change on their faces. Then the first prayer! It was a
revelation to them, and when he began the sermon the critical expression
had vanished, and they evidently settled themselves to _hear_ in
earnest.

“The next Sunday the interest was still more strongly marked. His
preaching was to them something unusual. It was evident the hearers were
not quite at ease. He _woke_ them up, and they were not quite prepared
to decide whether they were anxious to be so thoroughly aroused. They
were not exactly comfortable, and some went away, after the services
were over, a little irritated and half-decided never to hear him again.

“The next Sabbath they concluded it would not hurt them to go just this
one time more, and from that time were constant attendants. The
satisfaction with this young preacher increased, and many from all sects
came regularly.”

On his return from the East with his young wife, not feeling that they
could afford to undertake housekeeping, he accepted the hospitality of
one of his elders, who had offered him a room in his house. There they
lived for some little time, when the sudden death of a member of the
family and the necessity of a change in the good elder’s domestic
arrangements required the use of this room.

At this time Mr. Beecher was attending a synodical meeting at
Cincinnati. Mrs. Beecher set to work at once to get board elsewhere.
Failing in this, she sought to hire rooms. After hunting until nearly
exhausted she secured the refusal of two rooms over a stable down by the
banks of the Miami, which had been occupied by the hostler, rental forty
dollars per annum.

She immediately took the boat to Cincinnati, and then, being too poor to
hire a wagon, she walked to Walnut Hills, four miles from
Cincinnati—which was then the home of the Beecher family—to report on
the state of affairs to her husband. A hasty examination of his finances
showed just sixty-eight cents. As they had no household furniture of any
kind, the prospect was not alluring. But an ability to get along somehow
was a characteristic of those days. Friends, though not over-rich
themselves, were able each to furnish something. One supplied half of an
old carpet, another some knives and forks, a third a few sheets and
pillow-cases, then a bedstead, a stove; and little by little, before
they returned home that night, there was gathered together enough to
meet the absolute requirements of living. Later the sale of Mrs.
Beecher’s cloak realized thirty dollars. The salary, though nominally
$500 per annum, was in fact but $300, of which one-half was paid by the
Home Missionary Society, and neither half paid with great regularity.
Any industrious day-laborer of modern times would have been ill-content
with either income or home possessions.

Returning from Walnut Hills, the next thing was to cleanse the rooms and
settle down. Mrs. Beecher gives a graphic account of their first
housekeeping: “When we reached our former boarding-house we found our
good friends with whom we had boarded very blue because their pastor and
wife could find no better rooms; but the lady was a true New England
woman and knew how soon a little hard labor would change the looks of
the rooms. Old Toby, their colored man, brought round, the next morning,
two pails and scrub-brushes and plenty of soap, and Henry and I went to
work with great energy. Think of father with sleeves rolled up, a big
apron on, scrubbing the floors! But I confess I never had known anything
so hard to clean. Tobacco-stains and all manner of dirt that might have
been looked for from the former occupants was so soaked into the floor
that it seemed impossible to remove the stains. I asked the landlord if
we might get some paint and paint the floors. ‘_Oh! no. That would
injure the wood!_’

“In a day or two the rooms were as clean as faithful, hard work could
make them, and after our last breakfast with our kind friends we bade
them good-morning, with thanks and a blessing, and went to get our
furniture, which the good captain of the steamboat had stored until we
were ready. With it came some groceries, wash-tubs, and a nice painted
dining-table, and a _husk_ mattress, and _husk_ pillows.

“‘Where did these last things come from?’ said your father.

“‘Part of my cloak,’ I replied, ‘but not all of it.’

“The kitchen-window looked out on a large back-yard that could be made a
fine one with a little care, but among the rubbish I espied an old
three-legged table and something that looked like the remains of small
hanging shelves. I ran down stairs and asked the landlady if they had
been thrown aside as worthless. ‘Oh! yes. They are good for nothing.’
‘Then may I have them?’ ‘Certainly. But on examination you will find
them of no use.’

“I washed and cleaned them well, and called to Henry to take them
up-stairs to our rooms. By the table I found the broken leg. With very
little trouble the table was repaired, the hanging shelves put up, and
both varnished. They proved to be mahogany, and when the varnish was dry
they looked quite nice. Among your father’s very scanty wardrobe was an
old coat past any mending. I took the skirt, cleaned it, and put it on
the top of the table, and fastened the sides and ends with some strips
of kid that I had brought from home. It did look quite fine, and you can
hardly imagine how much pride and pleasure your father had with his
writing-table.

“The long boxes made in Amherst expressly to pack his books in when he
came West were well made of planed boards. These we set one atop of the
other, open side out, and filled with books bought by his own labors
while in college, teaching school, and making speeches. These made quite
a fine addition to the room which was to be the parlor, study, and our
bed-room all in one.

“In the back room was a cook-stove given by brother George, and the old
three-quarter bedstead that your father used at Lane Seminary, now all
nice and clean, curtained with some four-cent calico Mrs. Judge Burnet
gave us. Henry made the upright posts and ran a large wire round it on
which the curtain was hung, with a wide tape all round the top on which
our clothes were pinned. Crosswise from the door to the chimney a piece
of four-cent calico curtained the corner where wash-benches and tubs,
flour-barrel and sugar-barrel (the two last sent in by good friends)
were placed, and over the door leading to the loft in the adjoining
store your father had nailed some large pieces to hold saddle, bridle,
and buffalo-robe. On the other side of the range was a good dish-closet,
and in front a sink.

“So these two small rooms, at first so repulsive, were becoming quite a
pleasant home. The house was situated very near the boat-landing on the
wharf of the Miami River—too near for comfort when freshets swept down
in _that direction_, but a pleasant outlook across on to the Kentucky
hills; the river sometimes so low that your father has walked across and
gathered flowers in Kentucky, then again rising so as to sweep
everything before it as it did two years ago, utterly obliterating all
that portion of Lawrenceburg where we lived.”

We are indebted to the Rev. John H. Thomas, the present pastor of Mr.
Beecher’s old church in Lawrenceburg, for the impressions of his
ministry there, as gathered from the reminiscences of his surviving
parishioners:

“Mr. Beecher made his mark immediately. His youthful appearance—he was
but twenty-three—and his careless dress may have raised doubts as to his
ability when his hearers first saw him, but they disappeared as soon as
he began to speak. The characteristics of his later oratory were all
present from the first—fluency, glowing rhetoric, abundance of
illustrations, witty points, brilliant ideas. From the first he filled
the church. Merchants told their customers of the talented young
preacher, and they would come miles to hear him. He was annoyed at
interruptions, and when late-comers appeared he would stop speaking till
they were seated.

“His personal habits were as original and effective as his pulpit
efforts. He was not what would be called a good pastor. An old pastor of
the Methodist Episcopal church in Lawrenceburg said to me: ‘Mr. Beecher
could outpreach me, but I could out-visit him, and visiting builds up a
church more than preaching.’ The records of the church during his
pastorate are yet in our hands, though in one of the great floods here
the volume floated out of the submerged study of the pastor, and was
found, by chance, embedded in the yellow deposit of the Ohio. It is
accurately and neatly kept, in the beautiful hand of Mr. Beecher, each
entry signed with his well-known autograph. The additions to the church
were about on the average of other pastors.

“But outside of strictly pastoral work Mr. Beecher’s influence was felt
widely and beneficially. He was universally popular. He was kindly,
genial, and free with all classes. He would hunt and fish with men not
used to the society of clergymen, and spent much time on the river,
especially in catching drift-wood brought down in every rise. Once he
called to a poor German emigrant woman that if she would bring him her
clothes-line he would show her how to get her winter’s supply of fuel.
She brought it, and he tied a stone to one end, and, flinging it out
from the shore over logs, would draw them in. In a little while their
combined efforts had brought in a dray-load.

“He was fond of talking with all sorts and conditions of men. There was
an old shoemaker in the town of pronounced infidel views. Mr. Beecher
would spend hours in the room where he worked, discussing with him.

“There is no evidence that he lowered in any degree his character as a
Gospel minister, but plenty that his influence was felt by the neglected
classes, and even by the rough elements. And in this did he not follow
the example of his divine Master, of whom it was said: ‘This man
receiveth sinners and eateth with them’?

“He was not unscholarly, but is remembered as a reader rather than as a
student. He studied men even more than books. A Baptist minister with
whom he had a discussion one Sunday is yet living here, and has told me
that at the close of the discussion, in which the Baptist minister
thought he had the best of it, Mr. Beecher waved his hand and said to
the audience: ‘Well, I don’t care if you all go down to the river and
get immersed.’

“His going away was esteemed a great loss. ‘Cords of people,’ says an
old lady graphically, ‘were about to come into the Church.’ But
Indianapolis, then with only 2,500 people, was the State capital, and
was rapidly outstripping the little town on the river. It was a louder
call.

“Mr. Beecher’s relations with the other ministers were happy, although
he outshone them completely. He established a popular union
Sunday-school, notwithstanding there was one in each church, and he
often spoke in other churches.”

Mr. Beecher described his preaching there as follows:

“I preached some theology. I had just come out of the Seminary, and
retained some portions of systematic theology, which I used when I had
nothing else; and as a man chops straw and mixes it with Indian meal in
order to distend the stomach of the ox that eats it, so I chopped a
little of the regular orthodox theology, that I might sprinkle it with
the meal of the Lord Jesus Christ. But my horizon grew larger and larger
in that one idea of Christ. It seems to me that first I saw Christ as
the Star of Bethlehem, but afterward He seemed to expand, and I saw
about a quarter of the horizon filled with His light, and through years
it came around so that I saw about one-half in that light; and it was
not until after I had gone through two or three revivals of religion
that, when I looked around, He was _all_ and in all. And my whole
ministry sprang out of that.”

At another time he said:

“I had no idea that I could preach. I never expected that I could
accomplish much. I merely went to work with the feeling: ‘I will do as
well as I can, and I will stick to it, if the Lord pleases, and fight
His battle the best way I know how.’ And I was thankful as I could be.
Nobody ever sent me a spare-rib that I did not thank God for the
kindness which was shown me. I recollect when Judge ——— gave me his
cast-off clothing I felt that I was sumptuously clothed. I wore old
coats and second-hand shirts for two or three years, and I was not above
it either, although sometimes, as I was physically a somewhat
well-developed man, and the judge was thin and his legs were slim, they
were rather a tight fit.

“There was a humorous side to this, but I could easily have put a
dolorous side to it. I could have said: ‘Humph! pretty business! Son of
Lyman Beecher, president of a theological seminary, in this miserable
hole, where there is no church, and where there are no elders and no men
to make them out of! This is not according to my deserts. I could do
better. I ought not to waste my talents in such a place.’ But I was
delivered from any such feeling. I felt that it was an unspeakable
privilege to be anywhere and speak of Christ. I had very little
theology—that is to say, it slipped away from me. I knew it, but it did
not do me any good. It was like an armor which had lost its buckles and
would not stick on. But I had one vivid point—the realization of the
love of God in Christ Jesus. And I tried to work that up in every
possible shape for my people. And it was the secret of all the little
success which I had in the early part of my ministry. I remember that I
used to ride out in the neighborhood and preach to the destitute, and
that my predominant feeling was thanksgiving that God had permitted me
to preach the unsearchable riches of His grace. I think I can say that
during the first ten years of my ministerial life I was in that spirit.”

Here he began a habit which he followed during the first ten years of
his ministry—that of keeping a record of every sermon preached, stating
the date, text, an outline of the sermon, and then the reasons why he
preached that particular sermon, “as giving a kind of guide to my course
by a perusal of what I have done, also to avoid repetition and to show
_why_ I made given sermons”; thus forming the habit of preparing his
sermons with a view to reaching some specific object. This record, with
his daily journal in which he jotted down such thoughts on religious
subjects as came to his mind day by day, are now before us, and show an
immense amount of painstaking care. His habit of careful analysis was of
incalculable value to him later, giving a logical method to his
reasoning. It was not until after he came to Brooklyn that, under the
increased pressure of this larger field of work, he abandoned this
habit.

The last recorded sermons we find were those preached on the morning and
evening of January 5, 1848.

During the second year of his Lawrenceburg pastorate he received a call
to the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, at a salary of $600
per year. Though this opened up a much larger and more effective field
of labor, with the means of living much more comfortably, yet, feeling
that he was doing effective work where he was, he refused the call. He
was always opposed to short pastorates and frequent changes: he had no
faith in rolling stones.

After a short time the call was repeated and again declined. He was then
urged to reconsider his refusal, and strong representations were made to
him that it was his duty to accept the larger and more important field.
At last, perplexed, he agreed to lay the matter before the Synod and
abide by their recommendation The Synod advised that he accept the call.

Aside from the strong aversion which he felt for restless changes, and
the feeling that, no matter how humble the field might be, he ought to
labor there so long as there was work for the Master to engage him, he
also felt a great unwillingness to leave the people to whom he was
becoming strongly attached. The life there, though rude and simple, had
been very happy. There his first child had been born. There for the
first time he really had begun to live and work in the field he had
chosen. But as he felt constrained to be guided by the advice which he
had sought, on the Synod’s recommendation he accepted the call.

On the afternoon of July 28, 1839, he preached his farewell sermon at
Lawrenceburg from the text: “These are the words which I spake unto you
while I was yet with you.”

                               CHAPTER X.

The New Field—Growth of Influence—Social Life—The Secret of Effective
    Preaching—Editorial Labors—Lectures to Young Men—Call to
    Brooklyn—Departure.

With a heart full of tender feelings he parted with his people and
entered into the larger work in which he first became known outside of
the limits of his Presbytery.

In the last week in July, 1839, he removed his family to Indianapolis,
which, though it was the State capital, was hardly more than a village,
having less than 4,000 inhabitants, its streets unpaved and noted for
the depth and persistency of the mud. Like most of the then frontier
towns, it was very malarial; chills and fever were expected as a matter
of course, very rarely disappointing the expectation.

The Second Presbyterian Church was an offshoot from the “First” Church,
a chip struck out by the axe of controversy, then being so fiercely
waged between the Old and New Schools. The new church was of course New
School. Its fifteen original members, having been released from the
First Church after some little ecclesiastical difficulty, organized at
once, and secured the second story of the old Marion County Seminary.

Their first call was to Rev. S. Holmes, of New Bedford, Mass.; he
declined. They then invited Rev. John C. Young, of Danville, Ky., with
like result. Their next call was to Henry Ward Beecher, who became their
first pastor. He was then but twenty-six, looking still young, but
fresh, rugged, and full of life.

To the few survivors of that little band who knew and loved him in those
early days we are largely indebted for the impression produced by his
preaching in this church and in the community, and for a brief account
of his life among them.

“My first recollection of Mr. Beecher,” said one of his early
parishioners, “was when I was a journeyman printer. A man named King
came to me and, with much enthusiasm, declared he had heard the greatest
preacher he had ever listened to in his life—a young fellow who was
preaching at the Marion County Seminary.

“I went there and heard him for the first time in the spring of 1840, I
suppose it was. I was, like everybody else, perfectly carried away with
him. I soon formed his acquaintance, and, after he got to the new church
on the Circle, became a member in the great revival of 1842. I was a
printer when he delivered those lectures to young men, and in the course
of printing them (I was at work in the shop where they were published) I
was much in contact with him. They were published by the old jobbing
house of E. Chamberlain, who was afterwards a bookseller here. The
_Indiana Farmer_ was printed in the office where I worked, published by
a Quaker named Willis. Mr. Beecher was really the life and soul of
it—wrote all the articles in it that were good for anything. I
frequently assisted him in reading proofs. He had no practical
experience as an agriculturist, except that he was thoroughly alive to
every new thing. He took great pride in raising flowers, and his garden
was full of plants that had never been seen here before. During his
revival meetings—I think as much to test my sincerity and earnestness as
anything else—he invited me to come to his house at five o’clock in the
morning and breakfast with him. It was a winter morning and before
daylight. Mrs. Beecher and the children were up, everything in perfect
order, and breakfast ready. He called his wife and children together for
family worship, and spoke and prayed in simple words. It seemed to me
the most beautiful and touching thing I ever saw in my life. Mr.
Beecher, I thought, was even then broad in his ideas and the most
industrious man I ever knew. For a time he lived in one side of a little
one-story house in the alley half a square north of Washington Street,
between East and New Jersey Streets, in the rear of where the Jewish
Synagogue now stands. I think there were three rooms. At another time he
occupied a house that stood near the southeast corner of Pennsylvania
and New York Streets. He has told me that during a malarial season he
preached when he could hardly stand up, and, making his way home, would,
on entering his door, fall from exhaustion.”

[Illustration: The Church at Indianapolis.]

Another writing to us says:

“I remember well the occasion of his advent here (from Lawrenceburg).
Almost immediately his ministry attracted a strong following—quite too
numerous and influential for the limited seating capacity of one hundred
and fifty the chapel could accommodate, and a church was erected for him
on the corner of Market and Circle Streets. That was probably in 1840.
The building was regarded as a colossal edifice, and, while what would
now be considered primitive in the extreme, was in the main comfortable
and inviting. It was the first departure from the orthodox style of high
pulpits, and contained a low desk and platform. From the first his
preaching and precept were of the beauty of holiness and praise,
gladness and thanksgiving, and to this end he added the attraction of
music to the service of lesson and prayer. In those days his choir was
considered magnificent, and what the organ might lack in volume was more
than made up in melody and soul-reaching timbre. He was especially happy
in the selection of music that seemed to be an accompaniment to his
discourse. He was also the first clergyman, out of the Episcopal Church,
to introduce chants in the service.

“Upon the opposite side of _The Circle_ from his church, facing west,
was located the First Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Phineas D. Gurley,
pastor. I have often heard them spoken of as the ‘two distinguished
divines’ who were ‘the wheel-horses among theologians.’ They were both
leaders. I think that if there was one impression more than another
conveyed by Mr. Beecher’s appearance it was that of reserve force. The
steam up, he was capable and eager for the work in hand. Indeed, he
seemed the very personification of energy. I recall, however, that he
was always neatly dressed, usually in black, and that he was the first
clergyman in this part of the country to wear a soft hat. I am not sure
if he did not wear the first straw hat in those days of clerical
conventionality. He was certainly devoted to comfort, if in no manner
given to taking his ease. I doubt if he knew what it was to be idle.
When apparently indulging in recreation his active mind was storing food
for thought and spiritual teaching. The lightest romance which caught
his fancy (for he was an omnivorous reader) furnished material for
practical application.

“In form he was compactly built, with just enough flesh to give grace to
his lithe and active movements. His step was particularly elastic and
yet firm. All vigor and animation, there was the rosy tint of health in
his complexion, and his eyes were as clear and bright as a child’s. His
disposition was sunny, and the kindly grasp of his hand confirmed the
charm of his genial presence. It followed that he was fond of young
people and frequently participated in their romps and sports. I remember
in a game of copenhagen at a church picnic he was in no way disconcerted
by being rolled over and over down the hill when entangled in the rope.

“When need be he could be determined enough. At one time a younger
brother was an inmate of his family, and was a classmate of mine at the
University. In the boy’s judgment ‘all work and no play made Jack a dull
boy,’ and he went fishing and was gone two days. Instead of whetting his
appetite for study the diversion had the opposite effect, and he openly
declared he would go to school no more. Mr. Beecher did not waste words
on the matter, but seized him and took him by main force. As they drew
near the University the lad broke loose and took to his heels, Mr.
Beecher after him. The mud in our streets at that day was something
phenomenal, and there was a tussle in it, when the two closed, that sent
the ‘soft impeachment’ in every direction. For a little while the air
was filled with mud; arms and legs were scarcely distinguishable. The
authority of elder brother prevailed, carrying its point—and the younger
brother, too—and handed him over to the tender mercies of the principal,
Mr. Kemper, who was a rigid disciplinarian, and proverbial for observing