Henry Ward Beecher (June 24, 1813 - March 8, 1887) was an American Congregationalist pastor, social reformer and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery, his emphasis on God's love, and the trial of adultery in 1875.
Henry Ward Beecher is the son of Lyman Beecher, a Calvinist minister who became one of the best evangelists of his age. Some of his brothers and sisters became renowned educators and activists, especially Harriet Beecher Stowe, who achieved worldwide fame with his abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Henry Ward Beecher graduated from Amherst College in 1834 and Lane Theological Seminary in 1837 before serving as minister in Indianapolis and Lawrenceburg, Indiana.
In 1847, Beecher became the first pastor of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York. He soon gained fame in lecture circuits for his oratory's novel style, in which he used humor, dialect, and slang. During his ministry, Beecher developed a theology that emphasizes God's love above all else. He also grew interested in social reform, especially the abolitionist movement. In the years leading up to the Civil War, he raised money to buy slaves from captivity and sent rifles - dubbed "Beecher's Bibles" - to the abolitionists who fought in Kansas and Nebraska. He toured Europe during the Civil War talks to support the Union.
After the war, Beecher supported the causes of social reforms such as women's suffrage and simplicity. He also championed Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which stated that it was not contrary to Christian beliefs. Widely rumored to be the eye of the basket, in 1872 the Woodhull & amp; Claflin's Weekly published a story about her affair with Elizabeth Tilton, the wife of former colleague Theodore Tilton. In 1874, Tilton filed an allegation of adultery against him for the affair. The next trial, which produced a suspended jury, was one of the most widely reported US trials of the century. Long Beecher's career in the public spotlight made biographer Debby Applegate call him "The Most Famous Person in America".
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Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Henry is the eighth of thirteen children born to Lyman Beecher, a Presbyterian preacher from Boston. His brothers include writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, educators Catharine Beecher and Thomas K. Beecher, and activists Charles Beecher and Isabella Beecher Hooker; Lyman later became known as "the father of more brains than anyone in America". Beecher's mother, Roxana Foote, died when Henry was three; Lyman Beecher soon remarried to Harriet Porter, whom Henry later recalled as "severe" and subject to depression. Beecher also taught the school for some time in Whitinsville, Massachusetts. The school building then moved and became a residence that is still occupied.
Beecher's household is, one of the children then remembers, "the most bizarre and most exciting combination of fun and seriousness". The family is poor, and Lyman Beecher commissioned his children "a schedule of prayer meetings, lectures and heavy religious services" while banning theater, dancing, mostly fiction, and birthday or Christmas celebrations. Family entertainment includes telling stories and listening to Lyman playing the violin.
Henry has a childhood stutter and is considered sluggish and one of the less promising of the brilliant Beecher children. His star-less appearance earned him the punishment of being forced to sit for hours in the corner of a woman wearing a dumb hat. At the age of fourteen, he began his training at the Mount Pleasant Classical Institution, a boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he met a student, Constantine Fondolaik, a Greek Smyrna. The two students then attend Amherst College together, where they sign a "contract" that promises lifelong friendships and brotherly love. Fondolaik died of cholera after returning to Greece in 1842, and Beecher later named his third son after him.
For years in Amherst, Beecher had a public speaking appeal and, putting aside his initial dream of going overboard, decided to join the ministry. He meets his future wife, Eunice Bullard, daughter of a famous doctor, and on January 2, 1832, is engaged to her. During Amherst's years, he also developed an interest in the new pseudoscience of phrenology - an attempt to connect personality traits with features of human skulls - and befriended Orson Squire Fowler, who later became America's most famous supporter of the theory.
Beecher graduated from Amherst College in 1834 and later attended the Lane Theological Seminary outside Cincinnati, Ohio. Lane is headed by Beecher's father, who at that time became "the most famous preacher in America". Lane's student body was split in these years by the question of slavery: whether to support a gradual form of emancipation, as Lyman Beecher did, or to stand by principle and demand immediate emancipation. Henry remained clear of the controversy, sympathetic to the radical students but unwilling to oppose his father. He graduated in 1837.
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Initial service
On August 3, 1837, Beecher married Eunice Bullard, and both proceeded to a poor little town, Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where Beecher was offered a post as minister of the First Presbyterian Church. He received his first national publicity when he was involved in a gap between Presbyterianism "New School" and "Old School", which was divided into questions about original sin and the problem of slavery; Henry's father, Lyman, was a major supporter of the New School. Because of Henry's obedience to the New School position, the Old School-dominated presbytery refused to install it as a minister, and the resulting controversy split the western Presbyterian Church into a rival synod.
Although Lawrenceburg's Henry Beecher declared his independence from the Synod to defend him as his pastor, the poverty that followed Panic 1837 caused him to seek new positions. Banker Samuel Merrill invited Beecher to visit Indianapolis in 1839, and he was offered the ministry of the Second Presbyterian Church there on May 13, 1839. Unusually for a speaker of his time, Beecher would use humor and informal language including dialect and slang as he was preached. His preaching was a great success, building the Second Presbyterian to the largest church in town, and he also led a successful revival meeting in nearby Terre Haute. However, the mounting debt caused Beecher to seek a new position again in 1847, and he accepted the invitation of businessman Henry Bowen to head the new Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York. Beecher's national fame continues to grow, and he takes to the lecture circuit, becoming one of the most popular speakers in the country and charging very high fees.
In his preaching, Henry Ward Beecher came to reject his father Lyman theology, which "combines the old belief that 'the destiny of men has been destined by God's plan' by faith in the capacity of rational men and women to rid society of sinful ways". On the contrary, Henry preaches the "Gospel of Love" which emphasizes God's absolute love over human sin, and doubts the existence of Hell. He also rejected his father's ban on various recreational activities as an interruption of the holy life, stating that "Man is made for pleasure".
Social and political activism
Abolitionism
Henry Ward Beecher became involved in many social issues of his day, especially the abolition. Although Beecher hates slavery early in life, his views are generally more moderate than slavery like William Lloyd Garrison, who advocates the breakup of the Unity if it also means the end of slavery. A personal turning point for Beecher came in October 1848 when he learned of two young slave girls who fled; their father has been offered the opportunity to redeem them from captivity, and plead with Beecher to help raise funds. Beecher collected more than two thousand dollars to guarantee the freedom of the girls. On June 1, 1856, he held another artificial slave auction to buy the freedom of a young woman named Sarah.
In his much-reprinted "Shall We Compromise", Beecher attacked the Compromise of 1850, a compromise between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces mediated by Whig Senator Henry Clay. The compromise prohibits slavery from California and slave trade from Washington, D.C. at the expense of the stronger Fugitive Bullet Act; Beecher objected to the latter provision in particular, arguing that it was the duty of Christians to feed and protect escaped slaves. Slavery and freedom are essentially unsuitable, Beecher argues, making compromise impossible: "One or the other must die". In 1856, Beecher campaigned for the abolitionist John C. Frà © Ã… © mont, the first Republican presidential candidate; despite Beecher's help, FrÃÆ'  © mont lost to Democrat James Buchanan. During the pre-Civil War conflict in the Kansas Territory, known as "Bloody Kansas", Beecher raised funds to send Sharps rifles to abolitionist forces, declaring that weapons would do better than "a hundred bible". The press then dubbed the "Beecher's Bibles" weapon. Beecher became very hated in South America for his abandonment and received many death threats.
In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln sent Beecher on a tour talking about Europe to build support for Union goals. Beecher's speech helped change Europe's popular sentiment towards the Confederate states of the rebels and prevent its recognition by foreign powers. At the end of the war in April 1865, Beecher was invited to speak in Fort Sumter, South Carolina, where the first shots of the war had been dismissed; Lincoln once again personally chose him, stating, "We should send Beecher down to deliver the address on the occasion of raising the flag because if it were not for Beecher there would be no flag to be raised."
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Beecher advocated a movement of simplicity throughout his career and was a strict teetotaler. After the Civil War, he also became a leader in the women's suffrage movement. In 1867 he campaigned for failure to become a delegate to the New York Constitution Convention of 1867-1868 on the platform of suffrage, and in 1869, unanimously elected as the first president of the American Woman Suffrage Association.
In the Reconstruction Era, Beecher sided with President Andrew Johnson's plan for the rapid recovery of the Southern states to the Union. He believed that industry leaders should be community leaders and support the ideas of Social Darwinists. During the Great Strike Strike of 1877, he preached vigorously against strikers whose wages were cut, stating, "Man can not live on bread alone but a man who can not live by bread and water is not worthy to live," and "If you are reduced, down bravely into poverty ". His remark was so unpopular that there was a cry of "Hang Beecher!" become common at labor meetings, and plainclothes detectives protect their churches.
Influenced by the English writer Herbert Spencer, Beecher embraced Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in the 1880s, identifying it as a "friendly Christian evolutionist". He argues that the theory is consistent with what Applegate calls "inevitable progress", sees a steady march towards perfection as part of God's plan. In 1885, he wrote Evolution and Religion to explain these views. His sermons and writings help to accept theories in America.
Beecher was a leading advocate of allowing Chinese immigration to proceed to the United States, helping to delay the passage of the Chinese Exception Act until 1882. He argues that as other Americans, like Ireland, have seen a gradual increase in their social status, new people asked to do "what we call grunt work", and that the Chinese, "by reason of their training, with the customs of a thousand years, were adapted to do the job."
Personal life
Wedding
Beecher married Eunice Bullard in 1837 after a five-year engagement. Their marriage is not fun; as Applegate writes, "within a year of their marriage, they embarked on a classic marriage cycle of neglect and nagging", marked by the prolonged absence of Henry from home. The couple also suffered the deaths of four of their eight children.
Beecher enjoys being with women, and rumors of extramarital affairs circulate as early as Indiana, when he is believed to have had an affair with a young member of his congregation. In 1858, Brooklyn Eagle wrote a story accusing her of having an affair with another young church member who later became a prostitute. The protective wife and editor of Beecher, Henry Bowen, confessed on her deathbed to her husband having an affair with Beecher; Bowen hid the incident during his lifetime.
Some members of Beecher's circle report that Beecher had an affair with Edna Dean Proctor, a writer who collaborated with him in a book of his preaching. The couple's first encounter was the subject of a dispute: Beecher reportedly told friends that it was a conspiracy, while Proctor reportedly told Henry Bowen that Beecher had raped her. Regardless of the initial state, Beecher and Proctor allegedly then resume their affairs for more than a year. According to historian Barry Werth, "it was the standard rumor that Beecher preached to seven or eight concubines every Sunday night."
"The Beecher-Tilton Scandal Case" (1875)
In a published scandal, Beecher is on trial for allegedly committing adultery with the wife of a friend, Elizabeth Tilton. In 1870, Elizabeth confessed to her husband, Theodore Tilton, that she had a relationship with Beecher. The charge became public when Theodore told Elizabeth Cady Stanton about his wife's confession. Stanton repeated the story to women's rights leaders Victoria Woodhull and Isabella Beecher Hooker.
Henry Ward Beecher has publicly condemned Woodhull's advocacy of free love. Angry at what he saw as his hypocrisy, he published a story titled "The Case of the Beecher-Tilton Scandal" in his paper Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly on November 2, 1872; The article makes a detailed allegation that the most famous pastor in America is secretly practicing the free-willed doctrine that he despises from the pulpit. This story creates a national sensation. At Beecher's insistence, Woodhull was arrested in New York City and imprisoned for sending indecent material in the mail. The scandal separated the Beecher brothers; Harriet and the others support Henry, while Isabella openly supports Woodhull.
Subsequent trials and hearings, in the words of Walter A. McDougall, "encouraged Reconstruction from the front page for two and a half years" and became "the most sensational" he said, he said 'in American history'. The first trial belonged to Woodhull, who was released technically. The Plymouth Church held a board of inquiry and freed Beecher, but ostracized Theodore Tilton in 1873. Tilton then sued Beecher for alleged adultery crime. The trial began in January 1875, and ended in July when the jury negotiated for six days but could not reach the verdict. Beecher then summoned the church of Congregation to hold a final hearing to liberate him, which he did.
Stanton was furious by the repeated freedom of Beecher, calling the scandal a "holocaust of womanhood". The French writer, George Sand, planned a novel about the affair, but died the following year before it could be written.
Later life and heritage
Next life
In 1871, Yale University founded "The Lyman Beecher Lectureship", in which Henry taught the first three courses. After the high cost of the trial, Beecher started a lecture tour in the West that returned him to solvency. In 1884 he infuriated many of his Republican allies when he supported Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland for the presidency, arguing that Cleveland should be forgiven for having fathered an illegitimate child. He made another English lecture tour in 1886.
On March 6, 1887, Beecher suffered a stroke and died in his sleep on 8 March. Still a very popular figure, he mourned in newspapers and sermons throughout the country. Henry Ward Beecher was interred in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
Legacy
In assessing Beecher's legacy, Applegate declared it
Best of all, Beecher represents what remains America's most popular and popular culture: incurable optimism; enthusiasm that can be done; and open, open-minded pragmatism... His reputation has been defeated by his own success. Mainstream Christianity is so deeply infused with Christ's love rhetoric that most Americans can not imagine others, and have no appreciation or recollection of the revolution that Beecher and his friends made.
Henry Ward Beecher's monument made by sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward was inaugurated on June 24, 1891 at Borough Hall Park, Brooklyn and then moved to Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn in 1959.
Limerick written about Beecher by poet Oliver Herford became famous in the United States:
A great preacher of the church said
For a chicken, "You are a beautiful creature." And chicken, just for that, Put an egg on his hat, And so the Hen gave Beecher a gift.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. offering his own jokes in Beecher:
Pendeta Henry Ward Beecher
Called chicken as the most elegant creature Chicken, happy with it, Lay the egg on his hat, And so is the reward of Beecher's chicken.
Christopher J Barry, songwriter published by Canada, offers this witty pantun may be more accurate:
Pendeta Henry Ward Beecher
The word chicken: "some are elegant creatures".
Of the chickens are happy with it, Some lay the eggs on his lap.
What judgment day will hunt for the preacher?
- Christopher Joseph Barry
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Henry Ward Beecher is a prolific writer and speaker. His public writing began in Indiana, where he edited the agricultural journal, The Farmer and Gardener . He was one of the founders and for nearly twenty years an independent editorial editor of New York Independent, the Congregationalist newspaper, and from 1861 to 1863 was his editor. His contributions to this were signed with an asterisk, and many of them were later collected and published in 1855 as "Star Papers, or, Experience of Arts and Nature".
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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