Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

ather than any course marked out for
him. He made a careful study of Eng-
lish literature, submitted to a very thorough
training in elocution, took hold of
phrenology and temperance, and partici-
pated in prayer meetings and religious
labors in neighboring country towns with
fervor. His father, an intense and polemical
evangelistic divine for his time, was
liberal, taking an active part in theological
controversies as against the old school or
extreme Calvinistic party in the orthodox
church, laying stress on human liberty
and responsibility, and also as against the
Unitarian denomination, urging the doc-
trine of Jesus Christ, the vicarious atone-
ment, regeneration, and the inspiration
and authority of the Scriptures. On these
doctrines, Henry Ward Beecher was
reared, and he never to the day of his
death lost the impression they made upon
his character and method of thought. But
at a very early period they passed with
him from a dogma to a vital spiritual ex-
perience in which, through a conscious
realization of Christ as the manifestation
of a God of infinite mercy, coming into
the world not to judge, but to redeem and
educate, Mr. Beecher himself entered into
a new spiritual consciousness, in which
love took the place of duty in the law of
life, and the place of justice in the inter-
pretation of God.
Upon graduating from Amherst Col-
lege, he entered Lane Theological Seminary
(Cincinnati), where his father was
professor of systematic theology, and pur-
sued his studies there, receiving proba-
bly quite as much from the spiritual life
and keen dialectic conversation at home
as from the instructions of the seminary.
He also served as a Bible class teacher,
and in journalistic work in connection
with a Cincinnati paper, in which he took
an active part as an ardent Abolitionist.
His first parish was the Presbyterian
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
8
church at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, a small
settlement on the Ohio river. Twenty
persons, nineteen women and one man,
constituted the entire church. He was
both sexton and preacher, lighted the
lamps, swept the church, rang the bell,
and took general charge of the edifice.
After a year or two he was called to a
Presbyterian church in Indianapolis, the
capital of the State. His remarkable gifts
as an orator gave him almost from the
first a crowded church. His influence was
felt throughout the State in intellectual
and moral impulses given to members of
the Legislature and to public men, who,
attracted by his originality, earnestness,
practicality and courage, came in great
numbers to hear him. His pulpit did not,
however, absorb either his thought or his
time. He preached throughout the State
in itinerant revival labors ; lectured fre-
quently, generally without compensation,
for impecunious charities; and edited
weekly the agricultural department of the
"Indiana Journal."
After eight years of increasingly successful
ministry in Indiana, Mr Beecher
accepted a call to the then newly organized
Plymouth Church of Brooklyn, New
York, entering upon the duties of his pastorate
October 10, 1847, and remaining
until his death, March 8, 1887. The his-
tory of these forty years is the history of
the theological and polemical progress of
this country during that time. There was
no theological question in which he did
not take an interest, no problem having
any recognized bearing on the moral well-
being of the country which he did not
study, and upon the practical aspects of
which he did not express himself, and no
moral or political reform in which he did
not take an active part. His fertility of
thought was amazing. He rarely exchanged
; he preached twice every Sab-
bath, usually to houses crowded to over-