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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
divine mysteries than be kept awake by a practical sermon that,
among other things, set forth the duties of a Christian landlord. A
broker who has gambled on a magnificent scale all the week does
not go to church to have his practical swindlings analyzed and
measured by the ‘New Testament spirit.’ Catechism is what he
wants; doctrine is to his taste. A merchant whose last bale of
smuggled goods was safely stored on Saturday night, and his
brother-merchant who on the same day swore a false invoice
through the custom-house—they go to church to hear a sermon on
faith, on angels, on resurrection. As they have nothing invested in
those subjects, they expect the minister to be bold and orthodox.
But if he wants respectable merchants to pay ample pew-rents, let
him not vulgarize the pulpit by introducing commercial questions. A
rich Christian brother owns largely in a distillery, and is clamorous
against letting down to the vulgarity of temperance sermons.
Another man buys tax-titles and noses around all the week to see
who can be slipped out of a vacant lot. On Sunday he naturally
wants us to preach about eternity, or moral ability and inability. A
mechanic that plies his craft with the unscrupulous appliance of
every means that will win, he, too, wants “doctrine” on the Sabbath
—not these secular questions. Men wish two departments in life—
the secular and the religious. Between them a high and opaque wall
is to be built. They wish to do just what they please for six long
days. Then, stepping the other side of the wall, they wish the
minister to assuage their fears, to comfort their conscience, and
furnish them a clear ticket and insurance for heaven. By such a
shrewd management our modern financiers are determined to show
that a Christian can serve two masters, both God and Mammon, at
the same time.”
While fully alive to all the advantages of natural forces, the
Sabbath, the pulpit, and a spiritual church-membership always held
the highest place in his regard.
“It is no small thing, as it regards the education of the community,
that from their youth up they have been taught to discuss all
questions from ascertained and authoritative moral grounds....
 “The pulpit is the popular religious educator. Its object is to
stimulate and develop the religious feelings....
“When a whole community are wont to have their social life, their
secular business, their public duties taken out of their low and selfish
attitudes, and lifted up into the light of God’s countenance, and
there measured, judged, repressed, or developed, and wholly
bathed or inspired by the spirit of conscience and of love, then they
are receiving a moral education for which there is no other provision
except the Sabbath and the pulpit.
“Such are the members that make a church rich—poor in this
world’s goods, but rich toward God—rich in faith, in hope, in
meekness, in patience, in prayer, and, according to the feeble
measure of their ability, in good works. Many a church is destroyed
through an ambition of having strong and wealthy men, only rich,
not holy....
“It may be very easy to sustain a church that has great wealth
and little piety, but it is not worth sustaining. It is not a moral
power.”
He had no confidence in secret political organizations. “One might
as well study optics in the pyramids of Egypt or the subterranean
tombs of Rome, as liberty in secret conclaves controlled by hoary
knaves versed in political intrigue, who can hardly enough express
their surprise and delight to find honest men going into a wide-
spread system of secret caucuses. Honest men in such places have
the peculiar advantage that flies have in a spider’s web—the
privilege of losing their legs, of buzzing without flying, and of being
eaten up at leisure by big-bellied spiders!...
“When will men understand that simple, open integrity, an
unflinching adhesion to PRINCIPLE, is the peculiar advantage of truth
and liberty? All that the Right asks is air, light, an open enemy, and
room to strike. It is Wrong that sneaks in the dark and gains by the
stiletto. *”
From time to time he gave examination to modern spiritualism,
with this result:
“I am a stout unbeliever in the spiritual origin of this phenomenon,
either by good spirits, bad spirits, or any spirits whatever.
 “A belief in modern spiritualism seems to weaken the hold of the
Bible upon conscience, the affections, and to substitute diluted
sentimentalism and tedious platitudes instead of inspired truth.”
In 1855 Mr. Beecher published the “Plymouth Collection.” Of its
history he has spoken somewhat at length:
“Soon after I came to Brooklyn from the West the conductor of
music in this church was a Mr. Jones. He was intimately associated
with the house of Mason Bros., publishers of music in New York, and
sons of Lowell Mason, of honored and revered memory. I desired
very much to inaugurate a new day in music—that is to say, to
transfer to the great congregation on Sunday the same methods, so
far as singing was concerned, that we had already instituted in our
evening meetings, our conference meetings, and our revival
meetings—namely, that of having both the hymns and the music
before them at the same time.
“I can go back in my memory, easily, to the time when there was
no hymn-book with notes for church use. The ‘Christian Lyre,’ edited
by Joshua Leavitt, was largely used in the revivals under Dr. Finney,
and ‘Christian Songs,’ by Mr. Hastings (the sweet singer of Israel,
whose service to the church was never adequately recognized), were
also used in revivals. When these books came they brought a
progeny with them; but still there was nothing of the kind for the
great congregation. The music-books for choirs were those long,
narrow, inconvenient ones which could not well be held in the hand,
but must always needs be laid upon a shelf. These were granted to
the choir only, and the congregation had to sing from memory or not
at all. It seemed to me that it would be a step in the right direction
to put the tunes and hymns together, so that everybody who had the
one should also have the other.
“With this end in view I asked the trustees of this church to agree
to purchase a few copies of the ‘Temple Melodies,’ a small book of
hymns, the music for which was to be selected by Mr. Jones and
myself, and in which I interested the publishing house of Mason
Bros.
“Connected with this was a curious incident. Mason Bros. would
not publish the book unless we would pay for the stereotype plates;
and the trustees agreed to take a certain number of copies of the
book—enough to cover the cost of the plates—so that the publishers
should suffer no loss. When the book came to be published there
was an acknowledgment of the services of Mr. Jones, but my name
was not mentioned. Although I did not care particularly about that, I
was curious to know how it should happen that Mr. Jones, conductor
of music in my church, was personally mentioned, and I, who had
given to the work time and influence, and who had obtained means
with which to pay for the plates, was not mentioned at all. Though I
was the father of the book, everybody else got a slice of the credit,
and I was left without a crumb. I asked Jones how it was, and,
blushing up to his ears, he said (if you will pardon the adjective) that
the publishers said that they would not have the name of a d—d
abolitionist in their book.
“This was the first step in that direction. The success of the
undertaking was such as to satisfy me that a larger endeavor of the
same sort would be successful also; and I went to work and laid the
foundation for the ‘Plymouth Collection.’ It was to be published by
Mr. A. S. Barnes, but it was necessary that there should be a
guarantee in the form of an advance sufficiently large to pay for the
plates, that the publishers might run no risk in issuing the book. Mr.
Henry C. Bowen and Mr. James Freeland agreed to furnish the
money, with the understanding that when the income, if there was
one, from our copyright should equal the amount they had
advanced, with interest, all further profits from the copyright should
inure to the benefit of the choir of this church.
“The book has been a profitable one on the whole; but I know not
how much the choir has ever received from it. There was no written
agreement, and the memorandum lapsed. I forgot to make any
arrangement for myself. The consequence was that I was left out in
the cold, and never got a penny for my services in the matter. I do
not care for that. The object for which I was eager and earnest was
to procure for the churches a book of hymns and tunes, so that they
should have both before them at the same time.
“The book was assailed, but was defended, and it made its way.
 “Since that time there have been eight or ten books of the same
general character adopted, and they have so exactly copied the
‘Plymouth Collection’ as to size, type, and form that you may take
the eight or ten volumes and set them on a shelf, and unless a man
stood close to them he could not tell one from the other. So that the
‘Plymouth Collection’ not only has been a good book for this church,
but has been a good pattern for other churches to follow. Although it
was the first one of its kind, it was so well adapted to the want of
the community that it has not been deemed expedient to change in
the least degree its form, nor to change, except to a very small
extent, its method. It has invariably proved to be a book acceptable
and well suited to the purpose for which it was designed. It was
made on a theory of my own, or rather it was the result of my
observation and experience. I had observed what hymns appealed to
the imagination and the affections of the people; and I did not
believe that any hymn-book would ever be popular which had not in
it hymns the elements of which appealed to these faculties. I had
observed, also, what tunes the people loved. I had observed that
any music, however irregular or grotesque, that appealed to their
imagination and affection, they would adopt and make their own.
Guided by that observation, I introduced into the book a great many
melodies of a kind that were unknown in the sobriety of the old-
fashioned psalmody, but that have been developed more fully and
skilfully in subsequent books.
“With that conception of what a hymn-book should be, I was very
much shocked in a conversation with Mr. Lowell Mason, whose
services to American music cannot be over-estimated, and who has
gone to a higher choir, but who in his old age fell upon a theory that
I thought to be as vicious as it could possibly be—the theory,
namely, that all music should be of one character, and that the tune
should be the main thing. He said to me one day: ‘I think a perfect
hymn-tune is one to which you ought to be able to sing every psalm
in the whole collection.’ I considered that simply monstrous,
literalizing and Platonizing everything. His late books lost ground a
great deal because they were so insuperably flat. A man might sing
them to all eternity and not find in them anything which hooked on
to his memory or affections, or anything that had a tendency to
develop his higher nature.
“About twenty years ago Mr. Love, of Chicago—who has conferred
great benefit upon churches and schools by his compositions—and I
were riding together from Brooklyn to Boston, and we discussed this
question of music. He was under the influence of Mr. Mason, and
partook of his views on the subject, and I blew him up soundly and
told him how preposterous I thought they were. He went home
pondering what I said, and subsequently, as I afterward heard, cut
out from a newspaper the verses beginning ‘My days are gliding
swiftly by,’ and with that conversation in his mind he sat down and
wrote the ‘Shining Shore’ to go with them. Whether this tune has
justified my idea or not, it has been employed in this congregation
for many years. Moreover, it was taken by the Brooklyn Fourteenth
Regiment to the war, it was performed by their band, and whenever
they gave anything like a serenade in the army the ‘Shining Shore’
was called for. Since that time this tune has been played and sung all
over the continent. How great a favorite it has been here you know.”
This collection was vehemently attacked by one of the religious
papers of the day in the lead, several others following, and was
vigorously defended by Mr. Beecher in a series of articles in the
Independent over his well-known signature, the *. So simple a
matter as bringing out a hymn-book for the use of his own church,
and only for others so far as they chose, would hardly seem likely to
call out so strong a protest, but it shows the position that he had
already come to occupy in the public mind. With his advanced views
and strong following, everything that he did demanded examination,
must be sifted and probably marked dangerous. In the vigorous
defence of this child of his heart he discourses at length upon
hymns. We have room for only two or three extracts:
“Hymns are the exponents of the inmost piety of the Church. They
are crystalline tears, or blossoms of joy, or holy prayers, or
incarnated raptures. They are the jewels which the Church has
worn; the pearls, the diamonds, and precious stones formed into
amulets more potent against sorrow and sadness than the most
famous charms of wizard or magician. And he who knows the way
that hymns flowed knows where the blood of piety ran, and can
trace its veins and arteries to the very heart.

Henry Ward Beecher in 1850.

“Oftentimes when, in the mountain country, far from noise and

interruption, we wrought upon these hymns for our vacation tasks,
we almost forgot the living world, and were lifted up by noble lyrics
as upon mighty wings, and went back to the days when Christ sang
with His disciples, when the disciples sang too, as in our churches
they have almost ceased to do. Oh! but for one moment, even, to
have sat transfixed and to have listened to the hymn that Christ
sang and to the singing! But the olive-trees did not hear His
murmured notes more clearly than, rapt in imagination, we have
heard them!
“There, too, are the hymns of St. Ambrose and many others, that
rose up like birds in the early centuries, and have come flying and
singing all the way down to us. Their wing is untired yet, nor is the
voice less sweet now than it was a thousand years ago.
“There are Crusaders’ hymns, that rolled forth their truths upon
the Oriental air, while a thousand horses’ hoofs kept time below and
ten thousand palm-leaves whispered and kept time above! Other
hymns, fulfilling the promise of God that His saints should mount up
with wings as eagles, have borne up the sorrows, the desires, and
the aspirations of the poor, the oppressed, and the persecuted, of
Huguenots, of Covenanters, and of Puritans, and winged them to the
bosom of God.
“In our own time, and in the familiar experiences of daily life how
are hymns mossed over and vine-clad with domestic associations!
“One hymn hath opened the morning in ten thousand families,
and dear children with sweet voices have charmed the evening in a
thousand places with the utterance of another. Nor do I know of any
steps now left on earth by which one may so soon rise above trouble
or weariness as the verses of a hymn and the notes of a tune. And if
the angels that Jacob saw sang when they appeared, then I know
that the ladder which he beheld was but the scale of divine music let
down from heaven to earth.”
We must find room for his answer to the charge of having left out
from Watts “fifteen splendid hymns,” whose first lines are
mentioned. After accounting for five of them by showing that they
were left out because others of Watts’s versions of the same Psalms,
and better ones, have been selected, he goes on to say: “Next in the
list the ——— charges that we have omitted Watts’s hymn, ‘Glory to
Thee, my God, this night.’ This evening hymn, dear to thousands of
hearts, was probably written before Watts was born, certainly before
he had written his psalms and hymns, by Bishop Ken, who was
thirty-seven years old when Watts was born, and who died when
Watts was but thirty-six years old. There is not, perhaps, another
hymn in the language which it would require such ignorance to
ascribe to Dr. Watts. To make the blunder full-orbed, it turns out that
the hymn is not omitted, after all, from ‘Plymouth Collection,’ but
may be found at page 416, hymn 1287.
“The next omission from Watts charged by the ——— is the hymn
‘While my Redeemer’s near.’ We left that hymn out from Watts
because Dr. Watts left it out himself, not thinking it honest, we
suppose, to insert a hymn before it was written, or to appropriate
another author’s labors as his own. For this hymn was written by
Mrs. Steele, I know not how many years after Watts’s death. How
dearly this critic must have loved Watts!
“We are next charged with excluding from ‘Plymouth Collection’
the hymn of Watts, ‘God is our Refuge and Defence.’ Alas! this hymn
is by Montgomery, and not by Watts at all.
“How precious Watts’s hymns must be to a man who cannot tell a
Steele or a Montgomery from a Watts! With what grief must one be
afflicted at the injury done to Watts by not ascribing to him Bishop
Ken’s hymns? Why did not the ——— go on and mention the even
more glaring omissions from Watts in the ‘Plymouth Collection,’ such
as ‘Ye Mariners of England, ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes,’ ‘To be
or not to be’—all of which are left out of Watts and the ‘Plymouth
Collection,’ and which should have attracted the learned attention of
the critic of the ———.
“It is rumored that the Psalm-Book of the New School Assembly is
to be revised. If so, the interests of the Church require that the
editor of the ——— should be put on the committee. His accuracy,
his carefulness, his profound knowledge of hymns, and especially his
intelligent admiration of Dr. Watts, cannot be spared in such a labor.”
In this discussion his adversaries found out, what to this day, we
think, is not well understood, that his action, however impulsive it
might appear, really sprang from very clearly defined principles,
which could be justified whenever, wherever, and by whom attacked,
and that, however careless he seemed, he had a habit of making
himself thoroughly acquainted with the matter in hand, and was
prepared to meet any antagonist. Mr. Beecher had great boldness
and perfect confidence in his conclusions, and was willing to stand
alone upon them, because he had thought them out and settled the
matter once for all.
From the kindly manner in which he had often spoken of the
Episcopal Church, his mother’s communion, and in his account of the
effect which the service had upon him at Stratford-on-Avon, it might
seem that he would attempt to bring some form of it into use in
Plymouth Church; but no movement in that direction was ever
made, and he appears to have been well satisfied with the
possibilities that lay in the simple forms of his own order. He has
several articles at different times upon a proposed “Congregational
Liturgy,” but advocates no change of method, only an improvement
of spirit. “Our services are barren, not from any want of common
forms of devotion, but from the want of common sympathy. A
church has a right to the gifts of every one of its members, and the
minister is set to disclose and develop them. He is not to lean upon
the strong, or avail himself alone of the services of those already
developed. It is his office to take hold of every individual man, and
to educate him, so that he may bring forth the one, or five, or ten
talents which are committed to him for the use and profit of all his
brothers. A man of books, a man of ideas, a man of sermons, is not
Christ’s idea of a minister. ‘Follow me and I will make you fishers of
men.’ A minister is a man of men. He is an inspirer and driller of
men.... But a dead church with a liturgy on top is like a sand desert
covered with artificial bouquets. It is bright for the moment. But it is
fictitious and fruitless. There are no roots to the flowers. There is no
soil for the roots. The utmost that a liturgy can do upon the chilly
bosom of an undeveloped, untrained church is to cover its
nakedness with a faint shadow of what they fain would have but
cannot get....
“As to ‘surpliced boys,’ we have them already. The whole
congregation is a choir, and our boys, bright and happy, unite and
respond with the elders; so the surplice which they wear is just that
thing which the dear mother threw over them when they left her.
“If we were disposed to use any liturgy, we know of no one which
we should sooner employ than that which expressed the earliest
religious feelings of our own mother, now in heaven. The mere fact
that she had used and loved it would for ever make it sacred to us.
We never hear it pronounced by a sincere and earnest man without
deriving profit from it ourselves; and we have no doubt that others
are benefited by its use. We do not, however, believe that its
continual use as the only vehicle of expression of the religious
feeling of the congregation would be as profitable, on the whole, as
an extemporaneous worship. If we did we should use a liturgy.
While, then, we decline to use it in public, because we think it, on
the whole, less edifying than the usage of Congregational churches,
we do it without wishing to detract from its intrinsic excellence, and
without wounding the feelings of those who delight to use it.”
At this time he takes pains to contradict the report that he had
spoken slightingly of the Episcopalian forms in saying that “he would
as soon go a-courting with his father’s old love-letters as to go to
church and carry a book to pray out of”:
“So far from its being true that the remark in this story was
applied to the Episcopal or any other liturgy, it was applied to what
are called extemporaneous prayers in Congregational and
Presbyterian prayer-meetings. We were reprehending the practice of
praying without sincerity or real religious feeling. We said that when
men began to lead in public prayer they should be simple, truthful,
and strictly individual, expressing their own wants or feelings with
child-like truthfulness. We commented upon the undeniable fact that
men too often borrowed their prayers, copying the elder or deacon
or minister, not to express real feelings, but as forms. Thus
extemporaneous prayers became hereditary. And it was in reference
to these unwritten forms of prayer, in our own Congregational
churches, that the remark imputed to us was made. It was not a
fling at the Episcopal service. We never indulge in such remarks at
the expense of other denominations, and never intend to do it. We
regard the whole practice of railing at other sects or their religious
usages, from the pulpit, as not only unchristian but discourteous and
ungentlemanly.”
The year 1857 was one of great commercial trouble through the
country. Many of his people were involved and became bankrupt.
This gave him much uneasiness from his sympathy with them, and
to some extent affected his health, which he alludes to in a letter to
his brother later in the year:
“I do not think it safe for me to undertake so much work this
winter. My head is already suffering from overwork and anxiety
induced by commercial troubles among my people. God will in the
end make it a greater blessing than their prosperity.”
A family affliction which he felt very keenly, both in his personal
affection and in sympathy with those who were bereaved, added to
his burden. In a letter to the Independent, July 16, 1857, he says:
“The writer has been called by the stroke of violence to part with
three nephews within two weeks—two of them of one age—dying,
one in New Hampshire, and the others in Ohio.
“Two sons of Dr. Talbot Bullard, of Indianapolis, Ind.—Henry, aged
thirteen, and Frank, aged eighteen—were thrown with the cars over
an embankment, and died the same day.
“Nobler, truer, more gentle, and more amiable natures never were.
Just a moment before the accident one of them said to a gentleman
by their side: ‘In a few moments we shall be at home.’ They were
indeed nearer home than they thought.
“Henry E. B. Stowe was the eldest son of his father’s family. On
the 9th of July, while bathing in the Connecticut River, he was
drowned. But we sorrow not as those without hope: his race was
quickly run.”
We are not surprised, therefore, that we detect in most of the
letters of this year a tinge of sadness accompanied with increased
spiritual tenderness, as if he were finding the sources of consolation
for himself, that he might lead others to them.
Lenox was found to be so far from Brooklyn that it was given up
as a summer home, and this year, 1857, he spends his vacation at
Matteawan, on the Hudson. His first letter gives us this bit of
characteristic description:
“We are living in a pleasant old house, around which fruit-trees
have grown in which birds have bred and lived unmolested from
year to year. It is but a dozen wing-beats from the trees to the
mountain woods. Nothing can please a meditative bird better than to
have domestic scenes on one side and the seclusion of the
wilderness on the other. A bird loves a kind of shy familiarity. Here
we have a garden, a door-yard, an orchard, and a barn grouped
together; and they on the other side have the young forests of
scooped mountain-side. So the birds come down here for fun and go
up there for reflection. This is their world; that is their cathedral.”

“In the Mountain and the Closet” he is speaking out of his own
experience:
“The influences which brood upon the soul in such a covert as the
closet are not like the coarse stimulants of earthly thought. The soul
rises to its highest nature and meets the influences that rest upon it
from above. What are its depths of calmness, what is the vision of
faith, what is the rapture, the ecstasy of love, the closet knows more
grandly than all other places of human experience.”
It is not all sadness even in this year of the minor key. In August
we have a long article upon “Hours of Exaltation,” in which he gives
us some of those higher experiences which were common to him:
“... We are filled with the very affluence of peacefulness and joy.
There is neither sorrow, nor want, nor madness, nor trouble in the
wide world. The glory of the Lord, that at other times hangs upon
the horizon like embattled clouds full gorgeous with the sun, on such
days as we have described descends and fills the whole earth. The
impassioned language of the psalmists and prophets, which on other
days is lifted up so high above our imaginations that we can scarcely
hear it, now comes down and sounds all its grandeur in our ears.
The mountains do praise the Lord; the trees clap their hands. The
clouds are His chariot and bear Him through the air, leaving
brightness and joy along their path. The birds know their King. The
flowers lift up their hands, and with the silent tongue of perfume
praise God with choice odors. The whole earth doth praise Thee.”
In September of this year he visits Litchfield with his father—the
latter for the first time since he had moved to Boston—and writes a
letter upon “An Aged Pastor’s Return”:
“A man past eighty going through the streets, to visit all the
fathers and mothers in Israel that had been young in his ministry
there, was a scene not a little memorable. One patriarch in his
ninety-ninth year, when his former pastor came into the room, spoke
not a word, but rose up and, putting his trembling arms around his
neck, burst into tears....”
“The particular errand that brought us hither was a lecture. A new
organ was to be bought. All Litchfield boys were permitted to help.
Our contribution was asked in the shape of a lecture. My part was
soon done. Then the aged pastor came forward. A crowd of old and
young gathered at the pulpit-stairs to greet the hand that had
baptized them or had broken to them the bread of life. It was a
scene of few words. One woman gave her name, but was not
recognized in her married name. She then mentioned her maiden
name. That touched a hidden spring. Both burst into tears, but
spoke no words. The history came up instantly before both, but
silently, which had occasioned the preaching of those sermons upon
intemperance whose influence for good will never cease.”
And now he points to one of the dangers which he has learned to
avoid, and opens to us some of the lessons which he has himself
learned from the experiences of this year:
“Many troubles in life cease when we cease to nurse them.
“Many troubles are but the strain which we endure when God
would carry us the right way and we insist upon going the wrong.
Troubles come to us like mire and filth, but when well mingled they
change to flower and fruit.
“It should be borne in mind and thought of with thankfulness that
although a heavy pecuniary pressure has been resting on the
community, nothing perishes. No ships will rot, as under embargo;
stores will not go down; not a wheel will rust, but only rest; the
railroads, whose creation has cost us so much, are created, and will
not go back but thunder on. Not an acre will go again to the forest;
not a seed will rot.
“We shall hold the substantial elements gained, losing no art, no
science, no ideas, no habits, no skill, no industry, nothing but a little
temporary comfort; and for that we shall receive back steadiness,
safety, reality, and consolation worth a thousand-fold.”
That there had been no diminution of the prosperity of the church
appears from an announcement in one of the New York papers of
the annual pew-renting, which took place January 7 of the following
year:
“The membership of Plymouth Church was never so large as at
present, and the size of the congregation is undiminished. The
building admits of an audience of about three thousand persons, and
it is not an uncommon occurrence on a pleasant Sunday evening for
fully as great a number as this to go away from the church-doors,
unable to get even standing-room within the walls.”
If the year 1857 was one of sadness, that of 1858 was one of
rejoicing. The sowing with tears was followed by the reaping with
joy. Never in the history of our country were revivals of religion so
frequent, so deep and wide-spread, as in the year that followed the
great financial disasters of 1857. The shattering of men’s hopes of
wealth, the disturbance and destruction of their confidence in
material things, was followed by a very general turning to those
things that endure. From a little book entitled “The Revival in
Plymouth Church,” published anonymously, from the testimony of
those who were active at that time, and from letters and sermons
besides, we get a very clear idea of the part which Mr. Beecher took
in this great work and the methods he pursued. Near the close of
the year preceding he had received a letter from a young man in
New York, who described himself as slowly but surely sinking
beneath the temptations which he could not escape, and who
implored help from the destruction that hung over him. He said,
“Preach to me the terrors of the law, anything to arouse me from
this fearful lethargy.” Mr. Beecher read the appeal to his audience,
and answered it by preaching on the love of God in Jesus Christ as
the only remedy for man’s sin and the only power for his salvation,
and said: “If this remedy fails I know of no other. If love will not
save you, fear will be of no avail.” He then led the congregation in a
most earnest and tender prayer for that young man and for the
great multitude which he represented.
It was by such means as this, enlisting the feeling of his audience
in specific cases, awakening and directing the sympathies of the
church, that the work began. He disclaimed any confidence in a
revival, born of mere excitement, carefully explained God’s methods
in saving men, and threw the whole responsibility for success upon
Christians. If their hearts were filled with the love of God the
influence would be felt with power by those around them.
On the last Sabbath in February he preached upon the
reasonableness, usefulness, and Scriptural nature of revivals,
combated objections against them, and finally brought it home to
the conscience of his people: “Ought you not to have a revival?”
On the next Sabbath, at the communion season, he preached
upon the words, “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you
abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ,” holding up before his people with great clearness and
tenderness the privileges and the infinite rewards of patient,
Christian following and labor. The father, who assisted at the service
which followed, expressed the feeling of many hearts when, in his
prayer, he said: “Lord, we thank Thee for the opening out of Thy
word this morning; we have been brought very near heaven; we see
not how we can be any nearer till we stand within the very gates.”
On the Wednesday evening following, at the usual weekly lecture,
he spoke to a crowded audience upon the conversion of the
Philippian jailer. It was a service of confession of the lack of faith in
the ever-present grace of God, of instruction concerning the spirit
and methods of the apostles, and of guidance to any who were
seeking light and peace. A prayer-meeting followed, at which any
who desired prayers for themselves or others were given opportunity
to make their desire known, and the work was begun.
“Morning meetings were opened daily, and were attended by ever-
increasing numbers, while so many remained afterward for
instruction that the pastor’s work was rarely over before eleven or
twelve o’clock. He called in lieutenants of both sexes, who helped
him in the work. No one who attended on those occasions can ever
forget the fascinating mixture of tenderness, earnestness, pathos,
dry humor, quick wit, and sound common sense that ran through all
the instruction of those meetings. One would be told to pray;
another, whose knees were almost worn out and whose mind was
diseased with useless anxiety, was told in the next breath to stop
praying and go to sweeping; the many timid and shrinking ones
were encouraged into freedom, while one or two, who thought that
all the angels were anxiously awaiting the news of their conversion
before the business of heaven could proceed, were taken down by a
little quiet humor that cured yet did not wound; and all alike were
brought into the one fold. Under such influences and instructions
three hundred and thirty-five persons united with the church this
season.
“The morning prayer-meeting has been in Plymouth Church
emphatically a ‘love-feast,’ the attractive influences being love to
Christ, to the pastor, and to one another in full and lively exercise.
No better description of these meetings can be given than that of a
happy and united family gathering together, under the guidance of a
beloved and honored father, for morning worship. No wonder that
men as they passed along the street, though unused to a prayer-
meeting, could not resist the voice of song which fell on their ear
daily in the sweet morning hour; and no wonder that, once having
entered, they should be fascinated by the scene which met their eye
and warmed by the atmosphere of love which they breathed, and
should return saying: ‘Surely God is in this place, though we knew it
not; this is indeed the house of God, and this is none other than the
gate of heaven.’ There was no such feeling as that smiles, or even
an honest laugh, were sinful; smiles and tears mingled in curious
proximity, without any attempt at restraint; in short, everything was
natural.
“At the close of a meeting, when, owing to the quaintness of
speech of some of the brethren, especially the newly-awakened
ones, in the relation of their varied experiences, we had laughed and
cried alternately, the one as heartily as the other, Mr. Beecher said: ‘I
call you to witness whether this has not been a good meeting,
whether there has not been a tender spirit among us, and whether
the influence of the Holy Ghost has not been here? I say this
because, as you know, many persons entertain the opinion that
laughing is quite inexpedient on such occasions as these and a sure
means of grieving away the Spirit. Bear this meeting in mind, and let
it be your answer to the charge of irreverence whenever it may be
brought against us on this score.’”
 He gave one of his own experiences:
“You know that my usual frame of mind is hopefulness. I am apt
to look at the bright side of things and take cheerful views of life. On
this very account an occasional experience of sadness is an
inexpressible luxury to me. Last night, I know not why, but I could
not sleep for some hours. I lay restlessly, turning from side to side,
till this morning between one and two. No sooner was I asleep than
it seemed to me I was in an Episcopal church, robed in black, where
a clergyman was celebrating the Lent service. By and by he
ascended the pulpit and began to speak. There was no eloquence in
his language, nor anything particularly striking in his mode of dealing
with his subject, but his heart was evidently in it. He was setting
forth in simple language the sufferings of Jesus, and as I listened
there seemed to rise up before me a vivid conception of the Saviour
in His last agony on Calvary. I gazed till the tears gushed from my
eyes, and I awoke to find my pillow soaking wet. I composed myself
again to sleep, and my imagination took up the stitch just where I
had dropped it, and knitted on. I beheld the same vision, and again
the tears flowed. I gazed and wept until it seemed to me as if my
very soul would dissolve and the fountain of tears be itself
exhausted. Again I awoke, and, again falling asleep, the vision was
for the third time repeated, and I seemed to weep my very life away.
I know not when I had before such a sweet, rich experience of the
love of my Saviour; and when I awoke finally this morning, it was
with a tenderness of soul I cannot well describe. I was thankful I did
not sleep sooner, and that when I did sleep I made such good use of
my time.”
Opportunity was given at these meetings to any who wished to
ask the brethren to pray for themselves or for others, and was
largely used. A little before the close of the meeting Mr. Beecher
would rise, and, taking the slips of paper that covered his table, read
from them aloud. After reading these he would ask, “Are there any
here who desire to make requests on behalf of their friends?” And
then when these had all been made he would say, “Are there any
who desire to ask on their own account?” Then having caught the
eye of each as they arose, and acknowledged the request by a slight
inclination of the head, in token of recognition, until they ceased
rising, “in a low, soft tone would come the words, ‘Let us unite in
prayer,’ and instantly every head was bowed. The prayers which
followed these scenes were the most precious opportunities of
communion with the Lord Jesus Christ which we were ever permitted
to enjoy. We believe that he who uttered them was taught of the
Holy Ghost, and that he spake as the Spirit gave him utterance.
There was an exuberance of faith and love in these utterances not
usually found in prayer; a gladness on the part of the speaker, and a
recognized consciousness of gladness on the part of Christ. They
were the breathings of love into a loving ear.” “We always concluded
with a hymn, for Mr. Beecher was wont to say that he liked to send
us away with a full tide of song, and for a long time our choice for
concluding hymns lay between ‘Shining Shore’ and ‘Homeward
Bound.’”
March 27, 1858, Mr. Beecher gave a twenty-minute address in
Burton’s old theatre in Chambers Street at the noon prayer-meeting.
“I wish to leave the impression that the matter of salvation is a
matter between your own heart and the Lord Jesus Christ; that
there is between you a sympathy so plain that there is no need of
any interference. You may become a Christian now, and go home to
your household and be enabled to ask a blessing at your table to-
day.”
Letters are frequent this year upon subjects like this, “Trust in
God”:
“We ought not to forget that an affectionate, confiding, tender
faith, habitually exercised, would save us half the annoyances of life,
for it would lift us above the reach of them. If an eagle were to fly
low along the ground every man might aim a dart at it; but when it
soars into the clouds it is above every arrow’s reach. And they that
trust in God ‘shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and
not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.’”
About this time he answers a criticism that appeared in several
papers upon the extravagant income of Plymouth Church:
“It is easy to stand off and rail. Will any one suggest a plan by
which five thousand men can be put into a church that can hold only
three thousand?
“The poor should be held in lively remembrance. But ought we to
provide for the poor in a way that shall punish those who are not
poor?...
“In closing we will only say that from the beginning no church
ever more conscientiously endeavored to give the Gospel to all
classes, rich and poor, resident or strangers. For ten years the
members of this society have cheerfully submitted to an
inconvenience, for the sake of the poor and of strangers, such as
has rarely had a parallel. Gentlemen have paid hundreds of dollars
for pews which were, with the exception of a single Sabbath in the
year, more or less filled with the poor.
“Every Sabbath day families who have paid hundreds of dollars for
a pew, coming to church, find it pre-occupied by the poor and the
stranger, and it is a rare exception that in such cases there is any
irritation.
“Generally the owner, distributing his family as best he can, takes
a seat in the aisle or stands in the entry. And this is not an
occasional thing. It is the regular experience of the congregation,
year after year.”
The year 1859 opens with some very characteristic letters from Mr.
Beecher. He had been charged with having held the doctrine of total
depravity up to ridicule in a lecture which he delivered in Boston.
This brings from him a letter, two or three passages of which we
here transcribe:
“But although we did not employ the phrase total depravity in any
opprobrious sense at the time mentioned, we do not hesitate to say
that we regard it as one of the most unfortunate and misleading
terms that ever afflicted theology....
“On the other hand, we do believe, with continual sorrow of heart
and daily overflowing evidence, in the deep sinfulness of universal
man.... We heartily hate the phrase total depravity, and never feel
inclined to use it except when reading the ethics of ——— or the
religious editorials of ———.”
He was shortly after this attacked for lecturing in a “Fraternity
Course” in the same city. This calls out a long answer upon “Working
with Errorists,” in which he says:
“I have long ago been convinced that it was better to love men
than to hate them, that one would be more likely to convince them
of wrong belief by showing a cordial sympathy with their welfare
than by nipping and pinching them with logic. And although I do not
disdain but honor philosophy applied to religion, I think that the
world just now needs the Christian heart more than anything else.
And even if the only and greatest question were the propagation of
the right theology, I am confident that right speculative views will
grow up faster and firmer in the summer of true Christian loving
than in the rigorous winter of solid, congealed orthodoxy or the
blustering March of controversy....
“If tears could wash away from Mr. Parker’s eyes the hindrances,
that he might behold Christ as I behold and adore Him, I would shed
them without reserve. If prayers could bring to him this vision of
glory, beyond sight of philosophy, I would for him besiege the
audience-chamber of heaven with an endless procession of prayers,
until another voice, sounding forth from another light brighter than
the noonday sun, should cast down another blinded man, to be lifted
up an apostle with inspired vision.
“But since I may not hope so to prevail, I at least will carry him in
my heart; I will cordially work with him when I can, and be heartily
sorry when I cannot.
“While we yet write word comes that Mr. Parker, broken down by
over-labor, seeks rest and restoration in a warmer climate. Should
these lines reach his eyes let him know that one heart at least
remembers his fidelity to man in great public exigencies, when so
many swerved of whom we had a right to expect better things. God
shield him from the ocean, the storm, the pestilence, and heal him
of lurking disease! And there shall be one Christian who will daily
speak his name to the heart of God in earnest prayer, that with
health of body he may receive upon his soul the greatest gift of God
—faith in Jesus Christ as the Divine Saviour of the world.”
Another incident calls forth a similar response:
“At the recent celebration of Tom Paine’s birthday at Cincinnati the
infidels present toasted: ‘The heretic clergy, Parker, Emerson,
Conway, Chapin, Beecher, and all who love man above all creeds,
and sects, and rituals, and observances, who regard man as the
highest and holiest and most sacred of all in the universe—may their
motto be: Ever onward, greater freedom, and clearer light.’” Having
disclaimed any distinction as one who loves man more than creeds,
since this is “true of all Christians when they are in their most
Christian disposition,” and having accepted their motto as being in
line with sundry passages of Scripture, he gives his true and honest
feeling towards them in these words:
“Let no man think that we despise the sympathy and well-wishing
of a convention of infidels. We thank them for their kind feelings.
Like our Master, we had rather discourse with publicans and sinners
than dine with the most select and eminent Pharisee. But we love a
true Christian better than either. But, infidel or Pharisee, all need the
grace of God, and all, by repentance of sin and faith in Christ, the
Saviour of sinners, may yet meet in heaven.
“Gentlemen of the Cincinnati convention of infidels! we should be
ashamed to be less kind and courteous than you have been, and in
concluding we take leave of you kindly, saying, in the words of
Inspired Writ:
“‘Now may the God of peace, that brought again from the dead
our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood
of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to
do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight,
through Jesus Christ. To whom be glory for ever and ever.’ *”
The setting up of a new organ in Plymouth Church this winter is
thus duly announced:
“The organ long expected has arrived, been unpacked, set up, and
glorified over. It has piped, fluted, trumpeted, brayed, thundered. It
has played so loud that everybody was deafened, and so softly that
nobody could hear.”
After speaking of the characteristics of the many organists who
have tried it, and of one who was an especially brilliant player, he
says: “But he was not a Christian man, and the organ was not to
him a Christian instrument, but simply a grand Gothic instrument, to
be studied just as a mere Protestant would study a cathedral, in the
mere spirit of architecture and not at all in sympathy with its
religious signification or uses. And before long he went abroad to
perfect himself in his musical studies, but not till a most ludicrous
event befell him. On a Christmas day a great performance was to be
given. The church was full; all were musically expectant. It had been
given out that something might be expected. And surely something
was had a little more than was expected. For when every stop was
drawn, that the opening might be with a grand choral effect, the
down-pressing of his hands brought forth not only the full expected
chord, but also a cat that by some strange chance had got into the
organ. She went up over the top as if gunpowder had helped her.
Down she plunged into the choir, to the track around the front
bulwark of the gallery, until opposite the pulpit, when she dashed
down one of the supporting columns, made for the broad aisle,
when a little dog joined in the affray, and both went down toward
the street-door at an astonishing pace. Our organist, who, on the
first appearance of this element in his piece, snatched back his
hands, had forgotten to relax his muscles, and was to be seen
following the cat with his eyes, with his head turned, while his
astonished hands stood straight out before him, rigid as marble!”
In the spring of this year he purchased a farm in Peekskill, and
explains his object as follows:
“I knew that the place was good for grass, for grain, and for fruits,
of all which I talked a good deal during the preliminary approaches
to a purchase, but for which I cared about as much as I should
whether the inside of my boots were red or yellow.
“If the thing must be told—and I mention it to you, Mr. Bonner,
confidentially—it was the remarkable aptitude of the place for eye-
crops that caught my fancy. It was not so much what grew upon the
place, as what you could see off from it, that won me. It is a great
stand for the eye. If a man can get rich by looking, I am on the royal
road to wealth. And, indeed, it is true wealth that the eye gets, and
the ear and all the finer senses; riches that cannot be hoarded or
squandered; that all may have in common; that come without
meanness and abide without corrupting. So long as it remains true
that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth His
handiwork, so long will men find both heart wealth and strength by
a reverent admiration of the one and a sympathetic familiarity with
the other.”
In a letter to his daughter he describes the new home:
“... Farm—I wrote so far at home, but being interrupted have
brought it up to the green hills. You will be quite ashamed to think
that Matteawan ever seemed beautiful to you when you shall have
seen this place. It has no wild or romantic features, but it is full of
soft, nice, beautiful views. No barren fields are seen, no brown
pasture-lands, no rugged hills—the very mountains in the horizon
are carved into round and graceful shapes. The near hills are round,
gentle, smooth, and verduous to the very top. Only one summit is
rugged and wild, and we keep that in the distant foreground as a
contrast to all the other graceful shapes. The river in the distance is
like a lake, except the fleets of sloops and schooners give it a sense
of navigation. From the top hill of the farm you can see almost as
wide a prospect as from Bald Mountain in Salisbury—on the north
and east, wild, mountainous, solitary; but all the rest beautiful and
cultivated, with the Hudson rolling along the west. I have traced a
rude diagram[6] on the opposite page, but it will be only just better
than nothing, though you must confess that it is exceedingly well
drawn for me!

6. The Publishers regret that the diagram could not be given.

”... I heard from H——— yesterday. He is well and lively, and

wrote me quite a sprightly and witty letter. W——— is round, rosy,
curly, and loving as usual. B———, the rogue, is fairly recovering
from a double charge of scarlet-fever and whooping-cough, and is
becoming most healthfully saucy.“
Early in the autumn they returned from the country and began life
again in the city. We give copies of several letters written to his
daughter:
”Brooklyn, Sept. 4, 1859.
 “... In the beginning let me say, my dear child, that I heartily
approve of all that you have done. I am not a superstitious observer
of the Sabbath, nor do I hold to the rigor either of the Jewish or the
Puritan Sabbath. But I do believe that one-seventh part of our time
was originally appointed for rest, for home-society, and for religious
culture....
“When I was myself in Paris I acted just as I do in Brooklyn. I took
no more liberties, and was quite as observant of my home
proprieties. And I must say that I do not relish the idea of our young
countrymen going to Europe to learn how to get rid of religious
habits. Foreign travel should improve our manners, increase our
information, enlarge our experience of men, enrich our imagination,
cultivate our tastes, but not enervate our conscience....
“Everything is going well at the farm. I have bought a yoke of
cattle, white with mottled necks and red heads; also two Ayrshire
calves, and a little bull calf of the same breed. Your mother is driving
away at her cheeses in the most housewifely style. She has already
made, eaten, and given away two or three, and she has four or five
on hand, good large ones, which are to grow old for city use.
Already I imagine myself a nimble little maggot making the cheese
fly. The pet ponies do bravely, the pigs are fat and flourishing, the
chickens comely, and the ducks noisy but drawing very near to doom
and dinner.
“I would not advise you to use wine unless you are weak and it is
recommended by judicious advisers for real reasons of health; and
then I should take it frankly and without hesitation. But while you do
not use it, you are not bound to take it on any occasion for others’
sake. If the occasion comes, call for a glass of water and calmly lift
that to your lips. But more of this by and by. I have no objection to
your learning to dance as a part of physical education.”
The home life in Brooklyn ran undisturbed through the autumn,
until, early in 1860, a serious accident befell Mrs. Beecher, which Mr.
Beecher describes in the following letter:

“February 11, 1860.

”My dear Child H———:
 “I suppose you will not scold me if I relieve your mother of letter-
writing this steamer; it is, I think, the first time she has missed. But
she is too lame to write to-day, having had an accident that ought to
have killed her, and that would have killed anybody else. And that
your fears may not magnify the matter, I shall go back and describe
it all to you.
“On Wednesday last, February 8, she took the horse and chaise (a
two-wheeled chaise, which we have bought of Mr. M———), and
started to go to New York and meet and bring me home from the
New Haven depot. Eliza and Bertie were taken in, the former to go
over to the Hudson River Railroad for milk, and Bertie for the ride.
The horse was spirited and soon got under way beyond control, but
did not run till, turning into Hicks Street from Orange, she dashed off
like lightning, ran to Fulton Street and right across it, up on to the
pavement and headlong on to the Brooklyn Bank steps. The carriage
was broken and turned over, and all, of course, heaped up together
—horse, chaise, and people. Men sprang to the horse, held and
detached her; others succored the party. Bertie had a smart thump
on his right eye, or above it, which has done him no harm, and he
has not been kept in from his play, though made a little homelier
than he was before. Eliza was thrown against the stone and a smart
slit cut in her head, which bled profusely, and though she has kept
her bed by the doctor’s orders, she expects to be about to-day. Your
mother, as usual, took everybody’s share on herself. She was shot
out apparently head-first, and fell upon the right side of her head,
neck, and shoulder, bruising her, but breaking nothing. She was
insensible when taken into the drug-store close by. I know not how
H——— was notified so soon, but he seems to have been on the
spot within five minutes, and manifested as much self-possession
and decisive wisdom as would have done credit to a much older
head. He gave orders to have his mother taken home, sent for Dr.
Adams to come to the drug-store, sent another messenger to the
stableman to look after the carriage and horse (who, confound her
homely self! was but little hurt), and then took a hack to meet me at
the New Haven depot and bring me home.
 “I reached the house very nearly as soon as your mother did.
Found Mrs. E——— B———, Mrs. L———, Mrs. B———, Mrs. E
———, and one or two strange ladies present, the doctor, a
policeman or two, and scores of people running to and fro; yet, in
the main, there was order and good sense.
”... The doctors regard her as out of danger, but she will be a
sufferer for a week or more. Everything is going on regularly in the
house, except that I am at home all the time, which is very irregular
in my habits.
“... And so when you read this you must remember that though it
seems to you as if it had just happened, it will have been all past,
and your mother doubtless, while you read, will be marching forth in
full authority. Everybody who saw the scene speaks in admiration of
her courage and skill. She guided the horse to the last, though she
could not control her, and was game to the end. But that we should
all expect. Nor does her courage flinch yet. Some one said to her
yesterday: ‘Well, I suppose you will never drive that horse again.’
‘Yes, I shall too,’ said she; and she shall. We are very grateful for her
safety and merciful deliverance, and although she will suffer from
twinges, yet, as there are no internal injuries, no bones fractured, it
is only a matter of patience.... Slept very well and has the beginning
of an appetite, although I am constrained to say that when I
mentioned the little luxury of gruel as something appetizing and
excellent for her, she turned up her nose (I could not be mistaken)
at the suggestion, so that she is evidently not quite settled yet in her
mind. She can walk slowly, takes her bath, submits to packs, and
has refreshed herself once or twice with a hand-glass, looking at the
recent improvements about her countenance.
”... Love to all. I shall keep you faithfully apprised of her health,
and you need not fear that anything is a bit worse than I say. I shall
tell the truth. Good-by.
“May God have you in His care!
“Your affectionate father,
H. W. Beecher.”

“February 14.
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