Rufus King Beecher

“ Scarcely is there a Northern minister so bitterly hated at the South. The slave-traders, the border-ruffians, the purchased officials know no Higher Law; "nor Hale nor Devil can make them afraid"; yet they fear the terrible whip of Henry Ward Beecher.
The time has not come—may it long be far distant!—to analyze his talents and count up his merits and defects. But there are certain obvious excellences which account for his success and for the honor paid him.
Mr. Beecher has great strength of instinct,—of spontaneous human feeling. Many men lose this in "getting an education" ”

“ Beecher was of stout build, florid, and of strong physical constitution. He was fond of domestic and rural life; a student of nature; a lover of animals, flowers, and gems; an enthusiast in music, and a judge and patron of art. He owned a handsome residence at Peekskill on the Hudson, which he occupied during a part of every summer. In 1886 he made a lecturing tour in England, his first visit to that country after the war. ”

“ So much of good is there in the lowest of men! He allowed her to go to Washington to solicit aid from the Free-State men there, and she succeeded in obtaining $400 more. I was then applied to, to know if we would do anything to raise the remaining $500. I answered we would do nothing unless the woman could come here. After much hesitation on the part of her master she was allowed to visit New York, giving her word of honor that she would return to Richmond if the money were not raised’; and, going to the platform stairs, ‘Come up here, Sarah, and let us all see you,’ said he. ”

“ We smile, sometimes not without tears, at his childlike simplicity. We sit around the household hearth, join in the theological disputation, and share the naïve satisfaction of the whole Beecher family with themselves and each other. We see how it was that the father set them all a-spinning each in his own groove, but all bearing the unmistakable Beecher stamp. We feel his irresistible energy, his burning zeal, his magnetic force yet thrilling through the land and arousing every sluggish power to come to the help of the Lord-against the mighty. For such a life there is indeed no death. ”

“ Indeed, the first news that the country had from Stanton of one of the great victories came to Beecher's pulpit and was [Pg 236] read over his desk. Other great men, the President, secretaries, the generals, the statesmen, editors, lecturers, preachers, did their part, but high among co-workers ranks Henry Ward Beecher. God gave him a great task, and armed him for the battle. He loved the poor, he broke the shackles from the slave, he discovered to the world the love of God, and dying he flung his helmet into the thick of the enemy. ”

“ Just imagine a man being held eternally responsible for his conduct in Delaware! Mr. Beecher is a man of great genius—full of poetry and pathos. Every now and then he is driven back by the orthodox members of his congregation toward the old religion, and for the benefit of those weak disciples he will preach what is called "a doctrinal sermon;" but before he gets through with it, seeing that it is infinitely cruel, he utters a cry of horror, and protests with all the strength of his nature against the cruelty of the creed. ”

“ There is perhaps no man in America more widely known, more deeply loved, and more heartily hated than the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. This little book, fragmentary and desultory as it is, gives us a key wherewith to unlock the mystery both of the extent of his influence and the depth of the feelings which he excites. It is but a shower of petals flung down by a frolicsome May breeze; but the beauty and brilliancy of their careless profusion furnish a hint of the real strength and substance and fruitfulness of the tree from which they sprang. ”

“ From 1832 to 1842, he was President of Lane Theological Seminary, in the suburbs of Cincinnati. He then returned to Boston, where he spent most of the closing years of his long and active life. His death occurred in Brooklyn, N. Y. As a theologian, preacher, and advocate of education, temperance, and missions, Dr. Beecher occupied a very prominent place for nearly half a century. He left a large family of sons and two daughters, who are well known as among the most eminent preachers and authors in America. ”

“ THE American people are so familiar with the name and character of Henry Ward Beecher, that no explanation of what follows, is needed by the present generation. Beecher is the most gifted and noted liberalist and progressionist in America. ”

“ Beecher knew supremely well two persons—himself and the man next to him. In interesting the man next to him he interested the multitude. He had in a great degree the same qualities which made Norman McLeod the foremost preacher of his day in the Scotch pulpit. Such a man lives too much on the surface to exhaust himself. He has only to keep within the sphere of commonplace to interest people as long as he lives.... Mr. Beecher lived on the surface of things. ”

“ Mark Hopkins, in Edward W. Bok's "Memorial Volume," said of Henry Ward Beecher's forty years in Plymouth pulpit, "No such instance of prolonged, steady power at one point, in connection with other labors so extended and diversified, and magnificent in their results, has ever been known."
Dr. Thomas Armitage of the Fifth-avenue Baptist Church, New York, his life-long friend, gave Beecher [Pg 218] "the first place among the preachers of the world to-day." Dr. Robert Collyer said, "To my mind, he was the greatest preacher on this planet.... Men will be his debtors for ages to come." ”

“ One of the “nerviest” illustrations of tact is to the credit of Henry Ward Beecher. After the war, he made a lecture tour of the South and appeared at Mozart Hall, Richmond, with an address entitled, “The North and The South.” He was rather doubtful as to the reception he would have but he knew what he wanted and was determined to get it. No applause welcomed him as he appeared on the platform, but a few hisses were heard in the gallery. In the better rows of seats were some grim ex-Confederates—General [251] Fitzhugh Lee, General Rosser, ex-Governor Smith, Governor Cameron and others. ”

“ The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!" Such a piece of work was Henry Ward Beecher. He had no predecessor, and can have no successor till a similar ancestry and life; the one coeval with birth, and the other running parallel with the lusty youth of such a nation, and a similar life and death struggle, both in a conflict of moral principles fought out under a Democratic form of Government, shall combine to evolve a similar career. The course of human history does not furnish a probability of another coincidence of elements so extraordinary. ”

“ Beecher served his apprenticeship in the pulpit at Lawrenceburg and Indianapolis, whence in 1847 he was called to the new Brooklyn congregation of Plymouth Church. The liberal movement of his thought paralleled his geographical wanderings from the region of orthodoxy, through the region of culture, to the practical West, and back to the metropolitan East. He had had his fill of dogmatic theology in youth, and never took much further interest in it. He became more and more a minister, looking rather to the needs of humanity than to the theory of divinity. ”

“ He whom the "Times" attacks, he whom "Punch" caricatures, is a power in the land. We may be very sure, that, if an American is the aim of their pensioned garroters and hired vitriol-throwers, he is an object of fear as well as of hatred, and that the assault proves his ability as well as his love of freedom and zeal for the nation to which he belongs.
Mr. Beecher's European story is a short one in time, but a long one in events. He went out a lamb, a tired clergyman in need of travel; and as such he did not strive nor cry, nor did any man hear his voice in the streets. ”

“ HENRY WARD BEECHER. Perhaps no American minister has ever become so well known to the whole body of the people as Henry Ward Beecher. He has been bitterly criticised and opposed even by members of his own denomination, but has triumphed over every attack, and won a proud place among preachers. He has even become a power in the political world, and his devotion to the cause of liberty has endeared him to thousands who might otherwise have never heard his name. ”

“ I met Henry Ward Beecher in Brooklyn, and with his usual whole-souled way of dropping his own work to give other people a lift when he gets a chance, he said: “Now, here, you are one of the talented men of the age—nobody is going to deny that—but in matters of business I don't suppose you know more than enough to come in when it rains. ”

“ As it is, however, we think that every one who reads a page in the book will learn to honor the faculty that presents them. It is not because Mr. Beecher reproves hatred, false-witness, lust, envy, and covetousness, that he is so successful in his office. We all do this, and dislike sin in our neighbors; but it is his power of directly reproving these evils in each one of us that gives his words so great weight. ”

“ No man lived more in the public eye and for the public than Mr. Beecher. In his speeches and sermons and writings he took the public into his confidence with a freedom that was characteristic and natural in him, but which would have been extraordinary in any other man. He could not pass through the street without universal recognition, and no man in the two cities was so well known to everybody as he. At public meetings and at dinners where he was to speak, he came late amid smiling and expectant applause, and with the air of saying, "Where MacGregor sits, there is the head of the table." ”

“ Beecher was the all-round man of genius. His great speech in England began with an exordium at Manchester; he stated the arguments at Edinburgh, Glasgow and Liverpool; he pronounced the peroration at Exeter Hall, in London, and no such peroration and eloquence has been heard since Demosthenes' [Pg 305] philippic against the tyrant of Macedon. But Beecher's criticisms of Lincoln in the New York Independent during April and May of 1862 led Lincoln to exclaim after reading one of them, "Is Thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" ”

“ Beecher was one of those men who regard the chance persons they meet with in life just as they would accidental spots where they halt when on a journey,—little localities to be enjoyed at the time, and never, in all likelihood, revisited. ”

“ Beecher might have disappeared after the manner of Romulus, and never have come to light, except in the saintly fashion of relics,—such as white finger-rings and breastpins, like those which some devotees of the Southern mode of worship are said to have been fond of wearing.
From these dangers, which he faced like a man, we welcome him back to a country which is proud of his courage and ability and grateful for his services. The highest and lowest classes of England cannot be in sympathy with the free North. ”

“ Mr. Beecher looked at Edward and sighed. “Hear about it,” he said.
“I don’t think I understand you,” was the reply.
“No, I don’t think you do,” he said. “I mean, you will some day hear about that suit. And I don’t know,” then he hesitated, “but—but you might as well get it straight. You say you were twelve then,” he mused. “What were you doing when you were twelve?”
“Going to school,” was the reply.
“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Beecher. “Well,” he continued, turning on his haunches so that his back rested against the box, “I am going to tell you the story of that suit, and then you’ll know it.” ”

“ You 'll give them such a hoist in the air as they never expected!”
“How you read every line of me!” exclaimed Beecher, in ecstasy.
“And I 'll tell you more; there's not another man breathing knows you but myself. They 've always seen you in petty scrapes and little difficulties, pulling the devil by the last joint of his tail, as Jack Bush says; but let them wait till you come out for a cup race,—the Two Thousand Guinea Stakes,—then I'm not Kit Davis if you won't be one of the first men in England.” ”

“ The key did answer. The drawer opened, and the errand-boy's eyes sparkled with pleasure as they rested on the box. He snatched it, hastily relocked the drawer, and went up the stairs two at a time. He had the key of his attic room in his pocket. With this he opened the door of the chamber, and, entering triumphantly, displayed to Rufus the tin box.
"I've got it!" he ejaculated.
Rufus sprang to his feet, and hurried up to him.
"You're a trump!" he said. "How did you get hold of it?"
"I haven't time to tell you now. We must be goin', or Mr. Smith may come back and stop us." ”

“ Beecher is interesting just in proportion that he is not orthodox, and he is altogether more interesting when talking against his creed. He delivered a sermon the other day in Chicago, in which he takes the ground that Christianity is kindness, and that, consequently, no one could be an infidel. ”

“ He had five cents which had just been given him out of charity at the door of the Academy, and, though the fare on the horse-cars was one cent more, he thought he might make it do. Accordingly he got into the car after Rufus.
"I couldn't bear to leave such agreeable company," he said, with a leer. "Horse-cars are free, I believe."
"I believe they are," said Rufus.
"I wonder how much money he's got," thought our hero. "I guess I can drain him after a while."
The conductor came along, and Rufus paid for Miss Manning and Rose, as well as himself. Martin was hanging on a strap near by. ”