Part 19

The great man watched the faces of his wife and the doctor, seemed to divine the result, closed his eyes, gave the hand of his wife "a long, strong, loving, and earnest pressure. It was the realization of the inevitable. It was farewell. He never opened his eyes again. His sleep, thereafter, was constant.... From Saturday morning until the end were silence, sleep, heavy but regular breathing, and unconsciousness.... Mrs. Beecher held his hand in hers continually. When the end approached all the household were gathered.... Not one of them shed a tear or gave expression to a sob--then and there. The supreme self-control was in obedience to Mr. Beecher's often expressed hope and wish that around his bed of release no tears should fall, but the feeling should prevail as those who think of a soul gone to its crowning."

At half-past nine, Tuesday morning, March 8, 1887, the end came. He had often said, "Provide flowers for me, not crape, when I am gone;" so at once a wreath of pink and white roses were hung upon the door-knob.

Private funeral services were held at the house on Thursday, conducted by the Rev. Charles H. Hall, Rector of Trinity Church, Brooklyn, who in Mr. Beecher's time of trial, seeing him in his congregation, went down the aisle, took him by the hand, and led him to a seat within the chancel. Mr. Beecher never forgot a kind act, and wished Dr. Hall to attend at his burial.

"There was no man whom I ever heard," said Dr. Hall, "or whose works I have ever read, who inspired me so deeply with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He was a man of men, the most manly man I ever met; but he was also a man of God in the pre-eminent sense of the word."

The body was escorted to the church by Company G of the Thirteenth Regiment--"My boys," Mr. Beecher called them, as many were of Plymouth Church.

The coffin was laid in a perfect bower of flowers, lilies of the valley, maidenhair fern, and smilax entirely covering it. The organ, platform, and pulpit chair were a mass of bloom,--roses and pinks and graceful plants.

All day long, until ten at night, the throng of people, half or three-quarters of a mile in extent, passed by to look at the beloved face. On Friday, only those were admitted who had tickets. Four churches were open for services, and all were crowded. All public offices and schools were closed, and business was suspended.

Dr. Hall made the address at the funeral. Very tenderly he said of the dead preacher, "On his last Sunday evening in this place, two weeks ago, after the congregation had retired from it, the organist and one or two others were practising the hymn,--

"'I heard the voice of Jesus say, Come unto me and rest.'

"Mr. Beecher, doubtless with that tire that follows a pastor's Sunday work, remained and listened. Two street urchins were prompted to wander into the building; and one of them was standing in the position of the boy whom Raphael has immortalized, gazing up at the organ. The old man, laying his hands on the boy's head, turned his face upward and kissed him; and with his arms about the two, left the scene of his triumphs, his trials, and his successes forever.

"It was a fitting close to a grand life, the old man of genius and fame shielding the little wanderers, great in breasting traditional ways and prejudices, great also in the gesture, so like him, that recognized, as did the Master, that the humblest and poorest were his brethren, the great preacher led out into the night by the little nameless waifs."

After the services the doors were opened, and one hundred thousand people passed through the church by the coffin.

On Saturday, March 12, the body was taken to Greenwood Cemetery, and temporarily placed in a receiving vault filled with abundant flowers. Later it was buried on Dawn Path, near Hillside Avenue, on the south-easterly slope of Ocean Hill, with a simple headstone.

"When I fall," said the great preacher, "and am buried in Greenwood, let no man dare to stand over the turf and say, 'Here lies Henry Ward Beecher;' for God knows that I will not lie there. Look up! if you love me, and if you feel that I have helped you on your way home, stand with your feet on my turf and look up; for I will not hear anybody that does not speak with his mouth toward heaven."

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

On a white marble cross in Eversley churchyard, England, under a spray of the passion-flower, are the Latin words, "_Amavimus, Amamus, Amabimus_" (we have loved, we love, we shall love); and above them, around the cross, "God is love." Those were the words chosen by the famous preacher and author; and they were the key-note of the life of one who lived for his people.

Charles Kingsley, the son of a minister, was born at Holne Vicarage, Devonshire, England, June 12, 1819. Of his father, he wrote in 1865, "He was a magnificent man in body and mind, and was said to possess every talent except that of using his talents. My mother, on the contrary, had a quite extraordinary practical and administrative power; and she combines with it, even at her advanced age (seventy-nine), my father's passion for knowledge, and the sentiment and fancy of a young girl."

From his father, Charles seems to have inherited his love of art, natural history, and athletic sports; from his mother, his love of poetry and romance, and the force and originality which made him a marked character in his town and nation.

When four years of age, he used to make a pulpit in his nursery, arrange the chairs for a congregation, and preach as follows, his mother taking down the words unobserved: "It is not right to fight. Honesty has no chance against stealing. We must follow God, and not follow the Devil; for if we follow the Devil, we shall go into that everlasting fire, and if we follow God, we shall go to heaven." His poems at this time were remarkable for a child.

He studied and loved nature, and delighted in sunsets, rocks, flowers, and the wonders of the sea. At Clovelly, whither the rector had moved his family, Charles found great delight in the study of shells, and in the company of the warm-hearted fishermen. But for this early association, it is probable that the beautiful song of the "Three Fishers" would never have been written.

When the lad was twelve years old he was sent, with his brother Herbert, to a preparatory school at Clifton, under the Rev. John Knight. Here he showed an affectionate and gentle nature, only excited to anger when the servant swept away the precious shells and grasses collected in his walks on the Downs.

Afterwards he and Herbert were sent to the grammar school at Helston, which was in charge of the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Here he became the intimate friend of Richard Cowley Powles, afterwards fellow and tutor of Exeter College, Oxford.

Mr. Powles wrote of his friend later, "Of him, more than of most men who have become famous, it may be said, 'The boy was father of the man.' The vehement spirit, the adventurous courage, the love of truth, the impatience of injustice, the quick and tender sympathy, that distinguished the man's entrance on public life, were all in the boy.... For botany and geology he had an absolute enthusiasm.... He liked nothing better than to sally out, hammer in hand and his botanical tin slung round his neck, on some long expedition in quest of new plants, and to investigate the cliffs within a few miles of Helston, dear to every geologist."

"In manner," says the Rev. Mr. Coleridge, "he was strikingly courteous, and thus, with his wide and ready sympathies and bright intelligence, was popular alike with tutor, schoolfellows, and servants."

Kingsley always regretted that he did not go to school at Rugby, as he thought nothing "but a public school education would have overcome his constitutional shyness."

The Kingsley family removed to Chelsea when Charles was seventeen, and he became a day student at King's College. Two years later, in 1838, he went to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he stood first in classics and mathematics at the examinations. For his prize he selected a fine edition of Plato in eleven volumes.

In the summer of 1839, July 6, when he was twenty, he met Fanny, daughter of Pascoe Grenfell, whom he afterwards married. "That was my real wedding-day," he said years later. At that time his mind was full of religious doubt, and he was far from happy. The young lady proved a most valuable intellectual and spiritual helper; and after two months of companionship, when he returned to Cambridge, she loaned him many books and wrote him letters which proved a life-long blessing. Carlyle's "French Revolution" had a great effect upon his mind, in establishing his belief in God's righteous government of the world; also Maurice's "Kingdom of Christ," to which he said he owed more than to any book he had ever read.

Young Kingsley was at this time robust in health, able to walk from Cambridge to London, fifty-two miles, starting early and reaching the latter city at nine P.M. For many years he delighted in a country walk of twenty or twenty-five miles.

In 1841, after the struggle through which most persons pass before deciding upon a life-work, he gave himself to the ministry, rather than to the law, for which his name had been entered at Lincoln's Inn. He wrote to Fanny, June 12,--

"My birth-night. I have been for the last hour on the seashore, not dreaming, but thinking deeply and strongly, and forming determinations which are to affect my destiny through time and through eternity. Before the sleeping earth, and the sleepless sea and stars, I have devoted myself to God; a vow never (if He gives me the faith I pray for) to be recalled."

After taking honors at Cambridge, and reading for Holy Orders, he began to write the life of his ideal saint, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, for his intended wife, if, indeed, he should ever win her.

The curacy of Eversley was offered him, and he accepted it at twenty-three. The fir-trees on the rectory lawn were a great comfort. He wrote to Fanny, "Those delicious self-sown firs! Every step I wander they whisper to me of you, the delicious past melting into the more delicious future."

But from the opposition of friends the correspondence was broken, and for a year the hard parish work was carried on alone. In his parting letter to her he says, urging her to practise music, "Music is such a vent for the feelings.... Study medicine.... I am studying it.... Make yourself thoroughly acquainted with the wages, wants, and habits and prevalent diseases of the poor, wherever you go....

"I have since nine this morning cut wood for an hour; spent an hour and more in prayer and humiliation ... written six or seven pages of a difficult part of my essay; taught in the school; thought over many things while walking; gone round two-thirds of the parish visiting and doctoring, and written all this." ...

The young curate lived in a thatched cottage, and found a remedy for his loneliness in hard work. The church services had been neglected, and the ale-houses were preferred on Sunday to the house of worship. There were no schools for the children worthy of the name, and the minister had to be teacher as well as preacher.

Finally the long silence was broken, and Kingsley wrote again to his Fanny, "I have been making a fool of myself for the last ten minutes, according to the world's notion of folly; for there have been some strolling fiddlers under the window, and I have been listening and crying like a child. Some quick music is so inexpressively mournful. It seems just like one's own feelings,--exultation and action, with the remembrance of past sorrow wailing up.... Let us never despise the wandering minstrel!... And who knows what tender thoughts his own sweet music stirs within him, though he eat in pot-houses and sleep in barns!"

Again he wrote, looking forward to the home they would some time have together, "We will hunt out all the texts in the Bible about masters and servants, to form rules upon them.... Our work must be done by praying for our people, by preaching to them, ... and by setting them an example,--an example in every look, word, and motion; in the paying of a bill, the hiring of a servant, the reproving of a child."

He carried out his Christian principles in his relations with his employees. At his death all the servants in his house had lived with him from seventeen to twenty-six years.

Early in 1844 Kingsley, then twenty-five, was married to the woman he loved, and the curate became the rector at Eversley. The house was damp, from the rain flooding the rooms on the ground floor, and the land required much drainage. But the happy husband was full of energy, and set to work to make the place habitable and attractive.

At once the young preacher established among the laborers a shoe-club, coal-club, loan-fund, and lending-library. A school for adults was held at the rectory three nights a week all through the winter; a class in music; a Sunday-school met there every Sunday morning and afternoon; and in the outlying districts weekly lectures were held at the cottages for the aged and feeble. None of the grown-up men and women among the laborers could read or write, and the minister became their devoted teacher. He taught them to love the nature he loved,--the flowers, trees, birds, and ever-changing sky. He visited the poor, the sick, and the dying, and soon became the idol of his people. He fed their minds as well as their souls; he knew, as so few really know, the all-important work which the pastor has committed to his hands. No wonder that London and England, and America finally, heard of this model preacher, and came to love him.

The year after his marriage, 1845, was saddened by the death of his brother, Lieut. Gerald Kingsley, in Torres Straits, on board Her Majesty's ship Royalist. All the officers and half the crew died of fever. His brother Herbert had died of heart-disease in 1834, when they were boys together at school.

The drama of "St. Elizabeth" was now finished; and in 1847 the young preacher started for London, on a serious mission,--to find a publisher. He read the poem to his noble friend, Mr. Maurice, who wrote a preface for it; and to Coleridge, who gave him a commendatory letter to a publisher. The poem met the usual fate,--declined with thanks.

He wrote his wife, "I am now going to Parker's in the Strand. I am at once very happy, very lonely, and very anxious. How absence increases love! It is positively good sometimes to be parted, that one's affection may become conscious of itself, and proud and humble and thankful accordingly." ...

Later he wrote to Mr. Powles, "'St. Elizabeth' is in the press, having been taken off my hands by the heroic magnanimity of Mr. J. Parker, West Strand, who, though a burnt child, does not dread the fire. No one else would have it."

Having earned a little money by extra Sunday services at Pennington, he took his wife and his two small children, Rose and Maurice, for a six weeks' holiday to the seaside, near the edge of the New Forest. Here, revelling in the scenery, he wrote several ballads.

When the drama "The Saints' Tragedy" was published, it was fiercely attacked by the High Church party at Oxford. In Germany it was read and liked, and Chevalier Bunsen wrote heartily in praise of it.

When Kingsley, now twenty-nine, went for a few weeks to Oxford, to visit his friend, Mr. Powles, Fellow of Exeter, he received much attention on account of his book. He wrote to his wife, "They got up a meeting for me, and the club was crowded with men merely to see poor me, so I found out afterwards: very lucky that I did not know it during the process of being trotted out. It is very funny and new.... Froude gets more and more interesting. We had such a conversation this morning!--the crust is breaking, and the _man_ coming through that cold, polished shell. My darling babies! kiss them very much for me."

The parish work at Eversley increased month by month. A writing-class for girls was held in the empty coach-house, and a cottage school for infants was begun. He wrote his first article for _Fraser's Magazine_ on Popery. He preached to his congregation on the topics of the day,--emigration, and the political and social disturbances of the time. He was, in fact, what a preacher should be,--a leader of the people.

He accepted the professorship of English literature and composition at Queen's College, Harley Street, of which Mr. Maurice was president, and went up to London once a week to lecture. He became the devoted friend of Thomas Hughes, author of "School Days at Rugby;" of Bishop Stanley of Norwich and his distinguished son, Dean Stanley, and of many others.

During this year, 1847-48, on account of great distress among the people, there were riots in London and in other large cities. The troops were called out under Wellington to disperse the Chartists, who demanded a "People's Charter" from Parliament, with more rights for the laborers.

Kingsley threw himself heartily into the conflict. He wrote a conciliatory letter to the "Workmen of England," which was posted up in London.

"You say that you are wronged. Many of you are wronged, and many besides yourselves know it. Almost all men who have heads and hearts know it--above all, the working clergy know it. They go into your houses; they see the shameful filth and darkness in which you are forced to live crowded together; they see your children growing up in ignorance and temptation, for want of fit education; they see intelligent and well-read men among you, shut out from a freeman's just right of voting; and they see, too, the noble patience and self-control with which you have as yet borne these evils. They see it, and God sees it."

And then he urges them "to turn back from the precipice of riot, which ends in the gulf of universal distrust, stagnation, starvation.... Workers of England, be wise, and then you _must_ be free; for you will be _fit_ to be free."

For four years, 1848-52, he wrote for three periodicals, _Politics for the People_, _The Christian Socialist_, and the _Journal of Association_.

Many friends and relations begged him to desist from fighting the battles of the people, as such sympathy "was likely to spoil his prospects in life." But he wrote his wife in reference to this matter, "I will not be a liar. I will speak in season and out of season. I will not shun to declare the whole counsel of God.... My path is clear, and I will follow in it. He who died for me, and who gave me you, shall I not trust Him through whatsoever new and strange paths He may lead me?"

He always felt "that the party-walls of rank and fashion and money were but a paper prison of our own making, which we might break through any moment by a single hearty and kindly feeling."

In the autumn of 1848, while writing "Yeast," a novel which was first published in _Fraser's Magazine_, doing the work at night, when his other duties were finished and the house was still, he broke down, and for months was unable to do more than walk along the seashore and gather shells, even conversation being too exhausting for him.

Friends came to show their sympathy and fondness for the great-hearted man--among them Mr. Froude, who met Charlotte, the sister of Mrs. Kingsley, and married her.

Returning to the work at Eversley, where a low fever had broken out among the people, and where it was almost impossible to obtain nurses, Kingsley cared for the sick, watching all night with a laborer's wife, the mother of a large family, that she might receive nourishment every half-hour, and soon broke down again, and was obliged to go to Devonshire.

On his return to Eversley, cholera had once more appeared in England, and early and late he carried on a crusade against dirt and bad drainage.

As his means were limited, he usually took two or more pupils to fit them for the ministry; and now began his "Alton Locke," the autobiography of a tailor and a poet, in the interest of workingmen. "God grant," he says in the preface, "that the workmen of the South of England may bestir themselves ere it be too late, and discover that the only defence against want is self-restraint." He urges that they "organize among themselves associations for buying and selling the necessaries of life, which may enable them to weather the dark season of high prices and stagnation, which is certain, sooner or later, to follow in the footsteps of war."

To write this book, he got up at five every morning and worked till breakfast, devoting the rest of the day to his sermons, his pupils, and the various schools and societies of his parish. "His habit," says his wife, in her life of Kingsley, "was thoroughly to master his subject, whether book or sermon, always out in the open air,--in his garden, on the moor, or by the side of a lonely trout stream; and never to put pen to paper till the ideas were clothed in words.... For many years his writing was all done by his wife, from his dictation, while he paced up and down the room."

When "Alton Locke" was finished, the old difficulty of finding a publisher began. Messrs. Parker, who had brought out "Yeast," which had caused much theological discussion, refused to take another book. Finally, through the influence of Carlyle, Messrs. Chapman & Hall were induced to bring it out.

The press, as in the case of "Yeast," was severe on "Alton Locke;" but brave Thomas Carlyle wrote Kingsley to "pay no attention at all to the foolish clamor of reviewers, whether laudatory or condemnatory."

Kingsley's correspondence increased day by day. One person wrote about going over to the Romish Church; another about his atheistic doubts; another desired to reform his life; and others asked advice on almost numberless matters.

To an atheist, who was later converted under Kingsley, he wrote, "As for helping you to Christ, I do not believe I can one inch. I see no hope but in prayer, in going to Him yourself, in saying, Lord, if Thou art there, if Thou art at all, if this all be not a lie, fulfil Thy reputed promises, and give me peace and a sense of forgiveness."

Kingsley would say to his wife, as a letter was answered, or another chapter of a book finished, "Thank God, one more thing done!--and oh, how blessed it will be when it is all over, to lie down in that dear churchyard!" The work of the great world, with all its sorrows, had tired Kingsley at thirty-two.

"Hypatia," one of the novels which will last for centuries, was begun in 1851. He writes to the Rev. Mr. Maurice in January, "If I do not use my pen to the uttermost in earning my daily bread, I shall not get through this year.... My available income is less than £400. I cannot reduce my charities, and I am driven either to give up my curate or to write; and either of these alternatives, with the increased parish work, for I have got either lectures or night school every night in the week, and three services on Sunday, will demand my whole time."

As to "Hypatia," he writes, "My idea in the romance is to set forth Christianity as the only really democratic creed, and philosophy, above all, spiritualism, as the most exclusively aristocratic creed."

In October he writes to a friend, "'Hypatia' grows, little darling, and I am getting very fond of her."

When the book was published in 1853, two years after it was begun, it aroused most bitter criticism from a portion of the English Church. But no adverse criticism could prevent its being read and loved by the people of two continents. Thirty years later it had gone through thirteen editions.