BEECHER. 



pendent," and founded the " Christian Union." 

 with which he remained connected as editor- 

 in-chief, until 1881, when the pressure of other 

 public duties and an increasing disinclination 

 to the slow process of the pen led him to 

 withdraw, and devote his energies exclusively 

 to the pulpit and the platform. The catho- 

 licity, that in its birth, he imparted to the 

 "Christian Union," was then wholly unknown 

 in religious journalism. Jt was supposed to 

 be necessary, to have a special church con- 

 stituency behind each religious organ. Even 

 the great reviews represented each a religions 

 school, and such monthly symposia as the 

 " Nineteenth Century," and the " Contempo- 

 rary," in which atheists and Roman Catholic 

 churchmen sic down at the same table, were 

 not dreamed of in the public mind. 



Mr. Beecher's work as a moral reformer and 

 political instructor has been even more promi- 

 nent than his work as either a theological 

 thinker or a preacher. Living in the most ex- 

 citing period of American history, he threw 

 himself with ardor into the anti-slavery con- 

 flict, and from the day of his first occupancy 

 of Plymouth pulpit took a front rank on a 

 platform that abounded with orators, and in 

 an epoch that evoked oratory such as has been 

 heard in America at no other time in Ameri- 

 can history. No other single voice did more 

 than his to arouse the North against the en- 

 croachments of the slave power, and the va- 

 rious devices under which its campaign was 

 carried on. Against the abolition of the Mis- 

 souri compromise, against " squatter sovereign- 

 ty," against the fugitive slave law and the 

 compromise measures of which it was a part, 

 against the doctrine of secession and all yield- 

 ing to it, against slavery itself, from which all 

 these proceeded, his voice was heard in elo- 

 quent, indignant, continuous protest in pulpit 

 and press and on the platform. Yet in this 

 indignation, he never lost mental balance or a 

 certain moral composure and self-restraint. 

 Believing with the abolitionists that slavery 

 was a crime against humanity and against 

 God, he yet never joined them in either per- 

 sonal execration of the slaveholder or in con- 

 demnation of the Constitution or the union 

 of the States, which that Constitution cemented 

 and secured. He took an active part in sev- 

 eral of the great presidential elections. In that 

 in which Mr. Lincoln was elected for the sec- 

 ond time (1864) he took an active part upon 

 the stump, and his voice exerted a powerful 

 influence in securing the election of Mr. Cleve- 

 land in the presidential canv.-iss of 1884. But 

 by far the most retnarknble of his political ad- 

 dresses were those delivered by him in Great 

 Britain in 1863 in Manchester, Glasgow, 

 Liverpool, and London, each address distinct, 

 and prepared with special reference to the 

 audience there gathered. The great danger to 

 the national cause in our civil war was from in- 

 tervention of European powers, England, espe- 

 cially. To these four addresses, more than to any 



other one cause, America owes it that the pub- 

 lic sentiment of the common people in England 

 was changed from one of apathy or hostility 

 to one of sympathy; and it is not too much to 

 say that Mr. Beecher, by at once instructing 

 and giving voice to the silent moral sentiment 

 of the democracy of Great Britain, not only 

 prevented all danger of intervention, but ce- 

 mented an alliance between England and 

 America which has gained in strength from 

 that day to this. Subsequent to the civil war 

 and the consequent recession of the great 

 moral issues, Mr. Beecher added to the work 

 of the pulpit that of a popular lecturer; al- 

 ways, however, speaking on serious subjects, 

 and for a serious purpose. His lecture agent 

 is reported as saying, that, as the result of 

 fourteen years of lecturing, he was paid $240,- 

 000 over and above his traveling expenses, 

 an indication not indeed of his moral power 

 as an orator, but of his popularity. 



A man so active, so intense, and so out- 

 spoken, in times of heated debate, could not 

 but make many and bitter enemies. Through- 

 out his half-century of public life Mr. Beecher 

 was a target of innumerable attacks from men 

 who either from self-interest feared, or from 

 conservative considerations dreaded, the effect 

 of his teaching. Of these attacks one only 

 cast any shadow upon his name. He was ac- 

 cused of immoral relations with the wife of 

 one of his church-members. The accusation 

 at first was allowed to drift into the public 

 press by piecemeal, but rumor at length re- 

 sulted in definite charges, and finally in a pub- 

 lic trial, in which the only evidence offered 

 against him was that of alleged confessions, 

 which he, under oath, explicitly denied, and 

 of letters that were ambiguous in their mean- 

 ing, to which he, under oath, gave an innocent 

 construction. The jury disagreed ; standing 

 nine for Mr. Beecher, against one for the 

 plaintiff, while two voted variously on differ- 

 ent ballots. This suit was never tried again ; 

 a second suit involving the same issues was 

 brought, but when pushed to trial by Mr. 

 Beecher's counsel, was discontinued, the plain- 

 tiff paying all costs. The largest Congrega- 

 tional council ever convened, which included 

 representative men from all sections of the 

 country, and all schools of thought, after a 

 week spent in thorough scrutinizing inquiry, in 

 the course of which Mr. Beecher was himself 

 submitted to a searching cross-fire of questions 

 from the members of the council in an open 

 session, extended to him, without a dissenting 

 voice, the Christian fellowship and sympathy 

 of the churches, and expressed the confidence 

 of the entire council in his integrity. What 

 is known as the great scandal has already 

 drifted with other scandals into the past, and 

 in the future will be no more remembered 

 against the memory of Mr. Beecher than the 

 somewhat analogous episode in the history of 

 John Wesley. 



In the spring of 1887, Mr. Beecher was 



