Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

flowing; he lectured through the week, so
that there is scarcely any city and few
towns of any considerable size and any
pretension to literary character in the
country in which he has not spoken. He
also wrote profusely as a contributor of
occasional articles, or as an editor, at one
time of the New York "Independent," and
subsequently of the "Christian Union,"
which he founded, and of which he was
editor-in-chief until within a few years of
his death. A career such as his could not
be passed without arousing bitter enmities,
but of all the numerous assaults upon
his memory, only one was sufficiently
significant to pass into history, and that
has already, for the most part, faded from
men's minds, leaving his name unsullied.
It is safe to say that no man, unless it be
George Washington or Abraham Lincoln,
has ever died in America more widely
honored, more deeply loved, or more uni-
versally regretted.
Mr. Beecher's great work in life was
that of a pulpit and platform orator, yet
he wrote enough to prove himself master
of the pen as well as of the voice. His
principal works, apart from his published
sermons, are his "Lectures to Young
Men," delivered during his Indiana ministry
; "Yale Lectures on Preaching," deliv-
ered on the Henry Ward Beecher founda-
"Nor-
1
tion at Yale Theological Seminary ;
wood :
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i superior,
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
a Tale of New England Life," a
novel, first published in Serial form in the
New York "Ledger;" "Star Papers," and
"Flowers, Fruits and Farming" (one
volume each), made up from occasional
contributions to various journals ; and the
"Life of Jesus Christ," left unfinished at
his death, but subsequently completed by
his son, with extracts from sermons. As
an orator Mr. Beecher has had no
if any equal, in the American
pulpit, and probably none in the history
of the Christian church. His themes were
extraordinarily varied, everything that
concerned the moral wellbeing of men
being treated by him as legitimate sub-
jects for the pulpit. He had all the quali-
ties which art endeavors to cultivate in
the orator—a fine physique, rich and full
blood currents, that overmastering nerv-
ous fire which we call magnetism, a voice
equally remarkable for its fervorand flexibility—a
true organ of speech, with many
and varied stops—and a natural gift of
mimicry in action, tongue, and facial expression.
Training would have made him
one of the first actors of dramatic history,
yet he was not an actor, for he never
simulated the passion he did not feel.
Genuineness and simplicity were the
foundations upon which he built his ora-
torical success, and he never hesitated to
disappoint an expectant audience by
speaking colloquially, and even tamely, if
the passion was not in him.
His five great orations delivered in Eng-
land during the Civil War in 1863. in be-
half of the Union, were, in the difficulties
he encountered, his self-poise and self-
control, his abundant and varied resources,
his final victory, and the imme-
diate results produced, unparalleled in the
world's history of oratory. There is no
space in so brief a notice as this for any
critical analysis of either the man or his
teaching. More than any man of his time,
he led the church and the community
from a religion of obedience under ex-
ternal law, to a life of spontaneous spirituality
; from a religion which feared God
as a moral governor, to one which loves
Him as a father; from one which regarded
atonement and regeneration as an
inexorable, but too frequently dreaded
necessity, to one that welcomes them as
the incoming of God in the soul ; from one
which yielded a blind intellectual sub-
mission to the Bible as a book of divine
decrees, to one which accepts it in a spirit