this community has seen. The whole town was pervaded by the influences of religion. For many weeks the work continued with unabated power, and nearly one hundred persons were added to the church on profession of their faith. This was God's work. It is not improper, however, to speak of the pastor in that revival, as he is remembered by some of the congregation, plunging through the wet streets, his trousers stuck in his muddy boot-legs, earnest, untiring, swift; with a merry heart, a glowing face, and a helpful word for every one; the whole day preaching Christ to the people where he could find them, and at night preaching still where the people were sure to find him. Some of those who have been pillars since found the Saviour in that memorable time. Nor was the awakening succeeded by an immediate relapse.

Early in the following year, at the March and April communions, the church had larger accessions. There was, indeed, a wholesome and nearly continuous growth up to the time when the first pastor resigned, to accept a call to the Plymouth Congregational Church, in Brooklyn, New York. This occurred August 24, 1847."

HIS WORK AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH.

On his removal to Brooklyn, Mr. Beecher immediately announced in Plymouth pulpit the same principles that he had followed in Indianapolis; namely, his determination to preach Christ among them, not as a bygone historical personage, but as the living Lord and God, and to bring all the ways and usages of society to the test of his standards. He announced that he considered temperance and anti-slavery a part of the gospel of Christ, and should preach them accordingly.

In the ten years of agitation preceding the civil war, Plymouth Church rose grandly to the need of the age. When Wendell Phillips found no place for free speech in New York or Brooklyn, Mr. Beecher invited him to the platform of his church, and counted the words of the great abolitionist no desecration ; for did not the Son of Man come to preach the gospel to the poor, and to set the captives free? From the hour that Wendell Phillips made his great antislavery speech in Plymouth Church, until the Emancipation Proclamation, nearly twenty years after, the Plymouth preacher became a flaming advocate for liberty of speech and action on the question of the national evil. If there was anything on earth to which he was sensitive, up to the day of his death, it was any form of denial to liberty, either in literature, politics, or religion.

A touching incident occurred early in the year of 1861, which helped to increase Mr. Beecher's reputation as the friend of the slave:

A beautiful octoroon girl, raised and owned by a prominent citizen of this country, Mr. John Churchman, attempted to make her escape North. She was arrested and brought back. Her master then determined to sell her, and found a ready purchaser in another citizen, Mr. Fred Scheffer. Mr. Scheffer proposed

to Sarah that she should go North, and raise enough money from the Abolitionists to purchase herself. This proposition she eagerly accepted, and, being furnished with means by Mrs. Scheffer to pay her fare, she started. A few days after her arrival in New York she was taken to Mr. Beecher, and on the following Sabbath evening was escorted to his pulpit in Brooklyn. She was a woman of commanding presence, winning face, and long, jet-black hair, and, of course, attracted most eager attention and interest from the large and wealthy congregation assembled. She was requested to loosen her hair, and as she did so it fell in glistening waves over her shoulders and below her waist. Robed in white, her face crimsoned and her form heaving under the excitement of the occasion, she stood in that august presence a very Venus in form and feature. For a moment Mr. Beecher remained by her side without uttering a word, until the audience was wrought up to a high pitch of curiosity and excitement. Then, in his impressive way, he related her story and her mission. Before he concluded

his pathetic recital the vast audience was a sea of commotion; and as the pastor announced that he wanted $2000 for the girl before him to redeem her promise to pay for freedom, costly jewels and trinkets and notes and specie piled in so fast that in less time than it takes to write it, enough and more was contributed than was necessary to meet the call that had been made.

In 1860 the crisis of the nation was seen to be at hand, and Plymouth's patriot preacher girded himself for the fight. With pen and voice he labored for the success of Abraham Lincoln in the campaign of 1860, urging the preservation of the Union. When, on April 12, 1861, the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter, Mr. Beecher sprang to the aid of his country. From Plymouth pulpit came ringing words of patriotism, cheering the timid, encouraging the downcast, denouncing traitors, but hopeful of the future, pointing out clearly the path of right and duty for those who loved their country. His church, prompt to answer, raised and equipped a regiment, the First Long Island, in which his eldest son was an officer. Before this regiment went into active service, Mr. Beecher often visited the camp and preached to the young soldiers, many being "my own boys," as he used to call them.

Meanwhile, besides the cares of his pastorate, he was constantly delivering speeches. At last his health began to fail. His voice gave way, and he was imperatively commanded to seek rest. To recruit his exhausted energies he sailed for Europe, little thinking that a work awaited him in England far more arduous than anything which he had yet undertaken.

SPEAKING AGAINST ENGLISH MOBS.

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On his outward voyage Mr. Beecher was urged to speak in England for the Union cause, but declined on the ground of his health. After some weeks of travel in France and Switzerland, he was met at Paris with the news of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and also with letters from friends in England saying that a small party there was supporting the side of the North against heavy odds, and again urging him to help them with his voice. At last he consented, and engagements were made for him to speak in the chief cities of England.

In order to fully comprehend the situation, it is necessary to recall the state of feeling in England at that time. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote after Mr

Beecher's return: "The devil had got the start of the clergyman, as he very often does, after all. The wretches who had been for three years pouring their leprous distillment into the ears of Great Britain had preoccupied the ground and were determined to silence the minister if they could. For this purpose they looked to the heathen populace of the nominally Christian British cities. They covered the walls with blood-red placards, they stimulated the mob by inflammatory appeals, they filled the air with threats of riot and murder. It was in the midst of scenes like these that the single, solitary American opened his lips to speak in behalf of his country."

But Mr. Beecher braved the British lion in his most angry mood. His great speeches in Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and London were magnificent as specimens of natural oratory, but they were sublime and heroic as the utterances of one who loved his country, who believed his country to be in the right, and dared to say so in the face of all the world.

Mr. Beecher had a firmly knit, vigorous physical frame, come down from generations of yeomen renowned for strength, and it stood him in good service now. In giving an account afterward he said: “I had to speak extempore on subjects the most delicate and difficult as between our two nations, where even the shading of my words was of importance, and yet I had to outscream a mob and drown the roar of a multitude. It was like driving a team of runaway horses and making love to a lady at the same time."

The printed record of this speech, as it came from England, has constant parentheses of wild uproars, hootings, howls, cat-calls, clamorous denials and interruptions; but by cheerfulness, perfect, fearless good-humor, intense perseverance, and a powerful voice, Mr. Beecher said all he had to say, in spite of the

uproar.

The following description of the great meeting in London is from the pen of a gentleman who was present:—

It was my privilege to hear him when he addressed an audience of Englishmen in Exeter Hall, London, on the then all-absorbing topic of the American war. Never shall I forget the scene. The masses of the English people had already taken sides in favor of the Southern Confederacy, and only a few, such, for instance, as Rev. Newman Hall, Baptist Noel, Francis Newman, and a few other nonconformist clergymen of the same stamp, had the courage to defend the North, and this at the hazard of mob violence, when Mr. Beecher suddenly appeared, and, fighting his way from Manchester to London, dared to face the howling mobs who assailed him, and by his indomitable courage succeeded in gaining at least a respectful hearing, which at Exeter Hall culminated in a grand triumph for liberty and justice. On that occasion his grand eloquence carried his audience until burst after burst of deafening cheers greeted every period; and the scene at the close of his address can never be fully realized, except by those who were eye-witnesses of this grand event. To him alone should be attributed the credit of having turned the tide of English opinion, and of having succeeded in laying the foundation of that better judgment which prevented the government from officially recognizing the Confederacy."

Soon after his return the war closed, and he went to Charleston to deliver the address at Fort Sumter upon the occasion of the rehoisting of the flag of the United States over that work. The news of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln met him upon his return to Brooklyn, and drew from him one of his most memorable sermons. At the close of hostilities, he preached a sermon to his congregation, urging forgiveness and conciliation toward the South as the policy of the hour, saying truly that that crisis was a rare opportunity, which would never come again if spurned. The sermon was unpopular, and caused him some trouble even in his own congregation.

During the years after the war Mr. Beecher was busy with voice and pen, in the pulpit, on the lecture platform, and in the press. His reputation and influence as a preacher were immense; and Plymouth Church became the centre of what may properly be called a permanent revival of religion. Suddenly, in the midst of this busy, happy, and useful life, came the great trouble known as the Beecher-Tilton scandal, which, though bravely met and finally conquered, cast such a dreadful shadow over Mr. Beecher's life.

THE BEECHER-TILTON TRIAL.

"This most distressing episode in Mr. Beecher's life," says an account which appeared at the time of his death, "occurred when his fame and influence were at their zenith. At a time when the most cultured classes of the country accepted him as their guide, when the first place as a preacher and an orator was accorded to him on all hands, and when his writings were eagerly read from one end of the land to the other, a formidable assault was made upon his reputation. At first vague hints were circulated reflecting upon him; then a direct charge appeared in print; finally, in an action at law, brought by Theodore Tilton against Mr. Beecher, with a claim for $100,000 damages, the whole case was disclosed, and for six months the morbid appetites of the sensual and the malice of scoffers at Christianity were gratified by the terrible accusation against the pastor of Plymouth Church.

"Three times did Mr. Beecher meet his accusers, and three times the charge was investigated. First it was heard by a committee of the church, appointed at Mr. Beecher's request, and the committee pronounced the pastor innocent. Afterward it was tried in court, when the jury disagreed; and thirdly, by a council of Congregational ministers. Undoubtedly the scandal was a cause of reproach not only to Mr. Beecher, but to religion. That it would be so if it were made public, whatever the issue might be, Mr. Beecher and his friends had foreseen from the first, and, unhappily, in attempting to prevent its coming to trial, they prejudiced the case; their efforts to keep it from the public were regarded as an admission of guilt. It was a noteworthy fact that Theodore Tilton, who brought the charge, was a protégé of Mr. Beecher's, a man possessing undoubted talent, a sphere for the exercise of which had been provided by Mr. Beecher."

The unwavering fidelity of Plymouth Church to its pastor during this fierce ordeal, the love and sympathy of his wife, and the unfaltering allegiance of a host of friends in this country and in Europe, encouraged and supported him, and enabled him to continue his pastorate and public work. But the damage to the cause of religion was incalculable; and nothing but the cheerful and steadfast faith which had become a part of his being could have enabled him to recover from this awful trial.