324 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



sion that a new style of preaching was coming into 

 vogue, though Dr. Beecher would hardly have ac- 

 cepted this representation of his views. 



FROM MR. WADSWORTH. 



HARTFORD, February 14, 1825. 



THE influence which has so long prevailed at 



New Haven on religious subjects, has extended to Hart- 

 ford. Mr. Maffit seems to have been the original cause. 

 Mr. Beecher has been here nearly a fortnight, and preaches 

 almost every night to the most crowded audiences in one 

 or the other of our meeting-houses. I have never heard 

 him but once before, but now five times. He is certainly a 

 most uncommon man in his way. But I have not been so 

 much surprised at his power of stating in a clear manner, 

 without being tedious, his own views on religious subjects, 

 as at his entirely giving up, or sweeping away, in as unqual- 

 ified a manner as its greatest opposers could wish, the doc- 

 trine of election. He placed it exactly in the light that you 

 and I have always viewed it. He also expressed his horror 

 at the idea that Christ died only for the elect ; and declared 

 that it was blasphemy to suppose that God had called upon 

 us all to be saved (which he did) at the same time that he 

 had made it impossible for a certain number to accept 

 salvation, which he had offered to all, and they could be 

 all saved if they would. On these two points, he was so 

 entirely the reverse of what I had always supposed him, 

 and so explicit, that I take it for granted he has, like many 

 other men, grown older, and consequently found out that 

 there are some parts of the administration of the Almighty 

 with which he is not as well acquainted as he would have 

 been had his infallibility been as certain as he once believed 

 it Whether he may not at some other time absolutely 

 contradict the whole of this, I do not know. But he said 

 he made no metaphysical distinctions between will and can, 



