Part 7
Mr. Scott sat down, and Mr. Beecher arose and was greeted with deafening applause. He stood silent and impassive, his face seemingly untouched by emotion, as he looked around upon the vast audience. As the applause died away he began to speak, but before he could make himself heard the applause was again repeated, with additional emphasis, if possible, and Mr. Beecher was obliged to wait for it to cease. Then, in a strong voice that reverberated around the hall, he recalled the previous meeting. “A long lapse of time in a man’s life,” he said, “and such lapses give solidity to a man’s opinion; they also give sagacity.”
He was not surprised at the view some people took of America; they did not know the facts. “America is the younger tree, but the acorn from which it sprang fell from the English oak. Americans are of English lineage and blood. If England is not proud of America, why, then the latter will make her so”--a remark which aroused much applause. The lecture--that one on the “Reign of the Common People,” which so many thousands of Americans have heard with pleasure (and no two audiences ever heard alike)--occupied nearly two hours in delivery, and was frequently interrupted by applause and cheers.
Mr. Beecher preached his first sermon in London on Sunday, July 4, 1886, in City Temple, whose pastor was the Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker. The congregation were admitted by ticket, church members first, then the public, to the capacity of the auditorium. Hundreds, and I may say thousands, came who had to be turned away. That week the religious and secular press teemed with praise for the great American preacher. Every daily paper in London had some kindly notice of him. It is not usual in England for the secular press to notice religious doings, especially those of dissenters, so called. Every denomination has its well-supported organ.
More generous criticism could not have been written than Mr. Beecher received at the hands of the secular and religious press. His sermon was published verbatim, with extended editorial comment.
Sunday, July 11, was an interesting day. Mr. Beecher preached in Union Chapel, Islington, London, for his old friend, the Rev. Dr. Henry Allon, the scholarly representative of the highest class of cultivated, well-educated Congregationalists. There was as great a congregation of intelligent people as I have ever seen. The usual system of first admitting members of the society by ticket was adopted exclusively up to a certain hour. Then the doors were thrown open to the public, and the large auditorium was immediately packed to its utmost capacity. As great a throng outside was unable to get in.
After service, and dinner with Dr. and Mrs. Allon, Mr. Beecher and I, by invitation of Dean Bradley, visited Westminster Abbey, where a number of clergymen of the Church of England were gathered to meet him in the parlors of the deanery. Tea was served, and the Dean invited Mr. Beecher through the various historical private rooms about the Abbey. Dean Stanley’s library and desk were just as when he died. Incidents and anecdotes of their late friend were exchanged between the Dean and Mr. Beecher. The clergymen listened to the dialogue as though fearing to lose a word. As Mr. Beecher entered the Jerusalem Chamber he said:
“I am struck with awe. No room has greater interest to me, unless it be the ‘Upper Room.’”
He recalled with remarkable rapidity and correctness the many religious events that had taken place there--the Westminster Assembly and Confession of Faith, the two revisions of the Bible, etc.--and the eminent and scholarly men brought up within the very gates of that sanctuary listened with intense interest to his eloquent exposition of what must have seemed their own peculiar province of history.
The affection and respect with which Mr. Beecher was greeted by English clergymen--those of the Establishment as well as Non-Conformists--was very marked.
The Dean of Canterbury said to Mr. Beecher himself:
“There is one thing, Mr. Beecher, for which we must all thank you, and that is for what you have taught us of the Fatherhood of God.”
When Mr. Beecher went (in 1886) through England and Scotland, he was hailed on every side by ministers who bore the most grateful testimony to the happy influence which his ministry had exercised upon their spiritual lives. Many of these men, too, had seen and heard him in America.
Dr. Howson, the dean of Chester, and joint author with Conybeare of the scholarly and famous “Life of St. Paul,” came to Plymouth Church to see the man and hear the voice whose printed words had been so much to him. I accompanied him to Plymouth Church. We went home with Mr. Beecher, and they had a delightful time together; and on his return to England he sent one of his books in return for one Mr. Beecher had given him, inscribed, “For gold I give thee brass.”
I must make a special reference to the meeting with the theological students in City Temple on Friday morning, October 15. There were about six hundred of the students to whom Mr. Beecher was to talk. The remaining seats in the Temple were set aside for ministers and clergymen of all denominations, college professors, and visitors, who were admitted on presentation of their personal cards. These were taken up at the door at my request, and I now have the cards of six hundred and eighteen ministers, who, in addition to the students and professors, thronged the meeting, notwithstanding that the rain descended in torrents.
It was estimated by the pastor, Dr. Parker, that nearly three thousand people were present.
Never was Mr. Beecher more elevated in thought, more eloquent in expression, more tender in feeling; and never did I witness a multitude of earnest men more thoroughly filled with Christian joy than on this occasion.
That was a never-to-be-forgotten morning. The address was one of great power, suggestive, reminiscent, witty, full of wisdom and experience; but the great intellectual display came afterward, when he said he would try to answer any question put to him.
I imagine that of all people to ask uncomfortable and insoluble questions, the young theological student, freshly familiar with all the dogmatic niceties and doubts of the books, is the most troublesome, and Mr. Beecher, who always freely laid himself open by great breadth of statement, was an ideal target for their ingenuity. The first question keyed him up to the keenest enjoyment of the situation. For over half an hour he stood there, alert, excited, but never a more complete master of all his powers, and replied to the questions thrust at him from every side in rapid succession--questions of every conceivable sort, in theory, practice, and speculation. His replies were invariably brief, and they came as quickly as a flash of lightning. It seemed as if you could see his mind flash. He was witty, sarcastic, subtle, and humorous. His replies, commonly the very essence of common-sense, went to the mark like a bullet. Here is one question from the balcony that turned the laugh on the interlocutor very suddenly: “Mr. Beecher, I am a clergyman. May I beg to ask one question? I have simply to say how very grateful we should be if, as many of us are unable to hear you on Sunday morning, you could preach anywhere within our reach on Sunday evening.”
Mr. Beecher, quick as a flash: “I shall be perfectly willing to preach in St. Paul’s, or at Westminster, at any hour.”
“I mean in any chapel in London.”
Mr. Beecher replied: “I am afraid I shall have to carry out my original purpose in that regard. I have been preaching in the chapels in London some time, and should like to try some of the larger buildings.”
CLOSE OF THE SUMMER IN ENGLAND--TOUR IN DUBLIN.
I have often wondered to myself if the Dublin lecture was truly a success. Mr. Frederick Windee had agreed to pay me £80 for the lecture. Who Mr. Windee was I didn’t know, except that his references were good. He wrote me, when I made the engagement, that the “Reign of the Common People” would not do for Ireland. The subject smacked of politics, and it would not do to advertise it in Dublin. The “Institution” would risk “Wastes and Burdens of Society,” to which I knew Mr. Beecher would not object.
On our arrival at the station a little weasel-faced Irishman met us and introduced himself as Mr. Windee. He was very polite, but seemed nervous. On reaching the hotel he called me aside and told me he feared Mr. Beecher was a dangerous man for Dublin, but hoped he would not make a mistake. I assured him that there was not the slightest cause for fear.
He placed £80 in Irish bills in my hand. I asked him who was to preside. He told me that the Rev. Mr. Morrison would preside if he could be assured that the speaker would not in any way refer to religion or politics in his lecture. I had to tell Mr. Beecher what the feeling was. He smiled and said nothing. That night at Metropolitan Hall we found a large audience waiting. Mr. Beecher was introduced to the chairman, the Rev. S. G. Morrison, a somewhat patriarchal divine, who without ceremony and with great uncertainty conducted the lecturer to the platform, where he sat down to as cold a reception as I ever knew a man to receive. All was still as death. The chairman rose, stepped forward, and said:
“Ladies and gentlemen: I have the honor to introduce a distinguished orator from Yankee-land. Mr. Beecher is not on this platform in his clerical character, so we are not to be treated to any exposition of his theological sentiments. Mr. Beecher is not here as a politician, and therefore we will not hear from him any exposition of his political principles (Applause: Hear! Hear!), but Mr. Beecher is here to deliver an address of more than ordinary social importance. As a well-known philanthropist, from his own experience, from the wonderful abilities the great Master has gifted him with, and from his well-known character as one of the most distinguished orators, you may anticipate, I think, a lecture that shall not only be instructive, but delightful. I have great pleasure in introducing Mr. Beecher to your notice this evening.” (Applause.)
Mr. Beecher, on coming forward, was received with courteous but not cordial applause. He said:
“I have been very kindly introduced by the distinguished and honorable gentleman who has accompanied me. Therefore, I accept the position assigned me. I have not come to speak on theology, and you shall never know how much you have missed. (Laughter.) I have not come to speak on politics; I have enough of that in my own country. (Laughter.) And even if I knew about your politics, I should think it very inexpedient, ‘as one born abroad,’ to meddle with local affairs and local questions. I know that it is not necessary for one to know much about politics in order to make a good speaker, but nevertheless I accept the delimitation. There is nothing left of me but this--that I am a man. That is enough. ‘A man’s a man for a’ that,’ and as to other things, I give them the go-by in the hope that some twenty or thirty years hence I may revisit you and that then you may be very glad to hear my opinions about those other subjects.” (Laughter.)
Mr Beecher gave his lecture in one of his characteristic moods, caused by an attempt to confine him within certain bounds. The audience soon had reason to believe that he had in some way, perhaps unconsciously, woven a great deal of religion and politics into the lecture; at least the chairman told me after the lecture that he could see and feel it all through. The Dublin papers published the lecture entire the next morning.
The last lecture of the tour had been delivered; there was much handshaking; the people had got as thoroughly warmed as they dared. Mr. Beecher was jolly and happy as he extended his hand to the hesitating people gathered around him, seemingly wishing and hoping, but scarcely venturing, to approach him. “Come right along,” he said; “this is my good-by shake. I am glad to see you.”
We rode back to our hotel. To-morrow we would be on our way to America. Mrs. Beecher had supper waiting, and we had our small jokes and enjoyed ourselves. Never were three people more happy. Mr. Beecher reminded me that this was not the first time we had knocked off, a day at a time, a long lecture tour.
Between the 4th of July and the 21st of October, fifteen and a half weeks, Mr. Beecher had preached seventeen times, delivered nine public addresses and fifty-eight lectures. For the fifty-eight lectures he cleared the sum of $11,600 net of all expenses for himself and Mrs. Beecher from the day they sailed from New York, June 19, to the day they arrived at their home in Brooklyn, October 31. This was his summer vacation.
His health was always a wonder to me. He never knew what illness meant excepting at sea. He seldom, if ever, showed anger. When attacked in open debate or argument, or when aroused, his eyes twinkled, and then look out--a murderous broadside was about to sink the enemy’s ship.
LAST DAYS AND DEATH.
I find the following entries in my diary of 1887:
Saturday, March 5--In Washington, for Mr. Beecher. In the afternoon received telegram from Col. H. B. Beecher: “Father very ill; apoplexy; suffering no pain. Come home.”
Left my business and started for Brooklyn 10 P.M. The Associated Press publishes the sad news. It is the talk on the cars, and by everybody. Henry Ward Beecher’s name on everybody’s lips.
Sunday, March 6.--Arrived in Brooklyn 7 o’clock, Mr. Beecher’s house. Found a grief-stricken home. Mrs Beecher cannot be comforted. His two sons, the Colonel and Will, and their families, are by the dying bedside of their dear father. I see my dearly beloved--paralyzed, unconscious, never again to know any of those he loves. Dr. Searle, the faithful family physician, with him, and tells us there is no hope. Still, the family ask for another consultation. I went for Dr. Hammond, who tells us that Mr. Beecher will never speak again--that it is only a question of a few hours. It can hardly seem real. This great life is suddenly ebbing. He breathes on. Mrs. Beecher asks me not to go away. Dr. Searle and I waited and watched all night.
Monday, March 7.--Mr. Beecher seems in a deep sleep, as I have seen him sleep many times when very tired. His left side is paralyzed. He can move his right arm. He seems to be addressing audiences, and gestures very earnestly. From 11 o’clock to past midnight I sat by his side, and held his right hand. I believe he is conscious of my presence, for I ask him to give my hand two grips if he knows me, and he immediately responds. His breathing is harder, and at midnight there is a rattle in his throat. Dr. Searle and I keep the watch again. Mrs. Beecher has not laid down nor slept since he was stricken. She is heroic and brave.
Tuesday, March 8.--Dr. Searle awoke me at 4, saying: “Mr. Beecher is failing fast.” I was on the lounge in the parlor, and could hear him breathe distinctly in the room above. Everybody in the house was called, and was soon by his bedside. Mrs. Beecher, Colonel Beecher and family, Rev. Samuel Scoville and family, William C. Beecher and family. Respiration, 56 to 60; pulse, 120. The great life is surely going--no hope! He rallies, and raises the right arm. We again disperse; then we are summoned again. Daylight reveals its sad scene. His breath is shorter. Bulletins are sent out every fifteen minutes telling that Mr. Beecher is dying. Dr. Searle holds his pulse. The family are weeping about the dying bed. It is 9:40 A.M. Dr. Searle whispers to me: “His pulse has stopped. He is breathing his last. He is gone!” Dr. Searle lays the lifeless hand by his side, bends over, and is the first to kiss the cheek of his departed friend, and amid a flood of tears and pitiful sobs, walks away and announces to the waiting multitude outside that all is over. Henry Ward Beecher is dead!
Good-by, my best beloved friend. I shall never have another like you.
Mr. Beecher died of apoplexy at his residence in Brooklyn on Tuesday, March 8, 1887, at 9:40 A.M. The private funeral was held at 9:30 A.M. on the following Thursday at his late home, where none but the members of the family were present. The public funeral took place at Plymouth Church at 10:30 A.M. on Friday, the 11th. In accordance with the request so often repeated by Mr. Beecher, the funeral services were entirely under the direction of his friend, the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall, of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, who conducted the simple and impressive ceremonies at the house of mourning, and also at the church in which the world-renowned preacher and orator had earned fame and universal love. Dr. Hall’s public address was a model of simplicity, dignity, and manly pathos. He rose to the height of the occasion, and without a sign of exaggerated rhetoric impressed every mind with the greatness of the man who had departed, and comforted every loving heart under his firm yet tender touch. Mr. Beecher’s ideas of the fitness of things were never more signally confirmed than by his choice of Dr. Hall, “to bury, not to praise him.”
Surging crowds thronged the neighboring thoroughfares. Business was suspended by proclamation of the mayor of Brooklyn. The streets in all directions were filled with the sorrowing multitude, who stood in line for hours with a hope of viewing once more the face of their departed friend. When the funeral pageant entered Plymouth Church the interior of the great structure was blooming like an immense bower of flowers and living things. Evergreens and roses, smilax and blossoming vines, greeted those who entered. It seemed, indeed, the ushering of the dead into the realm of life. Lying in state during an entire day, the body was viewed by thousands. The crush to gain one glimpse of the remains was terrible, although the interior arrangements were perfect to secure an orderly passing of the long lines of people. The Thirteenth Regiment were the guard of honor; and hour after hour, from 10 in the morning until 10 in the evening, while the great organ gave forth subdued and solemn music, the people entered, looked, and passed. It was estimated that in this slow but constantly moving stream over fifty thousand persons--men, women, and children--had come to see his face for the last time.
On Saturday, March 12, 1887, Henry Ward Beecher’s body was buried in Greenwood. His hearse was followed not only by his comrades of the Thirteenth Regiment, his family, friends, parishioners, and fellow Brooklynites, but in sympathy and honor by millions of his countrymen. Not in this generation, at least, has there been a funeral so nobly significant. In the stately procession walked the viewless forms of principles, of governments, of nations, and of races; the guardian spirit of the slave whom he helped to liberate; the fair, sad genius of the Green Isle, for which he so often and so eloquently pleaded; the dusky representative of the Chinese Empire, in behalf of whose sons he again and again _and again_ demanded justice; the fair form of modern science with the radiance of the morning sun on her queenly brow; the benign angel of charity, clothed in the whiteness of that purity which renders sin invisible; Democracy, with her free step, flowing hair and cap of many hues; Columbia, full of matronly grace and as benign as the atmosphere of June; and Christianity, calm, motherly, and forgiving--these were the pallbearers by whom the body of our hero was borne to its resting-place.
The Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott was introduced to me by Henry Ward Beecher in his library one morning in 1877 as the editor of _The Christian Union_, then known as “Henry Ward Beecher’s paper.” We were about leaving for a long lecture tour in the West, and the doctor had called to consult and advise with his chief before leaving. I don’t know when I was ever more favorably impressed with a gentleman than I was with Dr. Abbott as I listened to his conversation and the general outline he was submitting for work ahead. Turning to me, Dr. Abbott said:
“Major Pond, we are anxious to secure from Mr. Beecher full accounts of his Western tour, as editorial correspondence, and I want to ask your help. You know how valuable such material must be, as all his friends are anxious to read every word he writes.”
This is the spirit that Dr. Abbott always manifested as associate editor with Mr. Beecher up to the end of that partnership, and Mr. Beecher’s love and appreciation of his friend was equally steadfast.
Mr. Beecher’s interest in _The Christian Union_ never diminished, even after he left it, he insisting that now he was out of it Dr. Abbott would feel much more freedom in carrying out his own ideas. Dr. Abbott was a man of remarkable resources, could work easily, and grasp the right and the fitness of things, and he was also a man of great originality of thought, with a mind as clear as crystal, and was progressive. Mr. Beecher said he wished Dr. Abbott had a body equal to his head, but, he added, “he works easily and makes no false motions or superfluous exertion. Every faculty counts.”
While on the tour just referred to _The Christian Union_ was regularly forwarded to Mr. Beecher, and as he was reading it one time, he turned to me and said: “I wish I could write like Abbott. He is the clearest writer we have.” Then he would read aloud Dr. Abbott’s editorials and comment on them as of the finest and soundest.
On another occasion Mr. Beecher told me that in profane history he considered that Dr. Richard S. Storrs was one of the most notable scholars of the day, while in Old Testament history his own brother, Edward Beecher, was the best versed man he ever knew; he seldom had to refer to the book, but could quote literally almost any passage, and could give the names and views of commentators and authorities that seemed almost endless. But the most accomplished, all-round Bible scholar, he believed, was Lyman Abbott.
Once, when speaking of the future of Plymouth Church, I said: “Mr. Beecher, what is to be the future of Plymouth Church? Certainly, there is no one to take your place there.”
“If I thought that, I would go out at once,” he replied. “That church has been too well brought up to be dependent on any one man for its cohesiveness. I have no fear on that score. _Lyman Abbott_ only needs a Columbus.”