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doubt to life out of doors on the Litchfield hills in his youth. He was about five feet ten inches in height, erect, with broad shoulders, a finely knit, sturdy frame, and a large chest. His hair was light brown and was usually worn long. His complexion was florid, his eyes blue, which Dr. Parker declared were as "full as Shakespeare's, as radiant as Gladstone's, as expressive as Garrick's "; he had a large mouth and throat and a full musical voice. His was a rollicking nature, a sunny, happy disposition, yet with his playfulness there was an allabsorbing earnestness. Full of vitality, he always drove at full speed as a means of working off his surplus energy. His mental vigor and alertness were due to his great physical vitality, and it was this combination that made Plymouth, next to the Old South Church, Boston, the historic church of America.

Beecher was a master of oratorical style. Every element that goes to contribute to success in oratory was possessed by him simplicity, power of statement, imagination, pathos, wrath, quiet wit and subtle humor, sarcasm, appeal, a poetic nature, and a love of the beautiful. With all these he had a supreme gift of language, emotional intensity, and physical earnestness. His eloquence was sudden and fiery, rather than premeditated and deliberate. His verbal memory was so poor that he rarely attempted quotation. He found it almost impossible to quote Scripture correctly. The drudgery of committing in his later years "stayed his mental processes," as he put it. This is why, in his published speeches, there are almost no quotations. He had no difficulty in remembering and treasuring up ideas, but it was to him a waste of energy to charge his mind with a set form of words to express those ideas, for he was never at a loss for expressive diction, and was very facile and effective in the use of illustrations. His good nature and bubbling humor made it possible for

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him to be severe without giving offense, for he says, men will let you abuse them if you will only make them laugh.”

His method of presenting his sermons was a model for students. At first he wrote his sermons and presented them from manuscript. This enabled him to think closely and concisely and to develop logical method and accurate diction. As he gained in experience and fluency he gradually relinquished the complete writing of his sermons and resorted to briefs, and for the last twenty years of his career only bare outlines of his sermons were taken into the pulpit. And although his sermons were as carefully planned as when he wrote in full, he was left free to extemporize as his feelings and imagination prompted, and was able much better to adapt himself to the occasion and the mood of his audience.

We have already referred to Plymouth as a historic church. Beecher's patriotism made it so. His pulpit was dedicated to freedom. In ante-bellum times, which so tried men's souls, it was the only place in New York where it was safe for Wendell Phillips and other abolitionists to speak. When on one occasion Beecher came into the pulpit, leading a handsome octoroon girl who was about to be carried back into slavery, and stated that she might be free if two thousand dollars were offered for her purchase, silver and gold, bracelets and rings, checks and bank notes rained down upon the platform, until more than enough was contributed for her freedom. And when the Civil War finally broke out Plymouth Church under the leadership of Beecher raised and equipped a regiment for the Union. Such was the influence upon the nation of his utterances and his life that he has been placed by some among the first statesmen of that time, for he was frequently called in counsel by President Lincoln.

Beecher's greatest service to his country was during the Civil War, in the series of speeches he made in England in

behalf of the Union. In five speeches at Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and London he changed the attitude of the English nation from one of open hostility to the American Union, to one of neutrality and even of favor. It is doubtful if there ever was a greater triumph in the history of eloquence. He braved the Briton in one of his most angry moods. When Beecher went to England there were few men there who had the courage to defend the North. He undertook to change the current of feeling and did it, until the tide flowed the other way. His five speeches were really one speech in five parts, all relating to different phases of the subject and adapted to the character of his audiences. He literally fought his way like a conquering hero from Manchester to London. It was a continual battle with his audience, who met him with hootings and catcalls. They came with missiles to hurl at him, but dropped them to applaud his sentiments. There was not once that his parries and thrusts were not effective; and such thrusts and counterthrusts! There is no sharper combat in the field of debate. Dr. Taylor of Broadway Tabernacle says, "I tell you there has not been such eloquence in the world since Demosthenes." It was a sublime achievement for Beecher to go into England, just after the Trent affair, and face hostile mobs and win them to the side of the North. "To him alone," says one who heard him, "should be attributed the credit of having turned the tide of English opinion and of laying the foundation of that better judgment which prevented the government from officially recognizing the Confederacy." Beecher himself, in speaking of the difficulties he had to overcome, says: "I had to speak extempore on subjects the most delicate and difficult as between our nations, where even the shading of 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." Justin McCarthy calls Beecher "the most dextrous and powerful platform speaker" he ever heard.

The difference in the cordiality with which he was received is shown in the fact that when he first came to London the landlord gave him a room next to the rafters, but when he returned after his triumphal march, landlord and servants in livery met him at the door, and no suite of parlors on the second floor was too good for him.

As a preacher he was the most famous and most powerful of this era, "the grandest single force," as President Barrows puts it, "ever given to the American pulpit." He became a great public force, a greater factor in politics than most of our statesmen, a fearless advocate of political, social, and religious reform. Even though his enemies defamed him and tried to ruin his character, insomuch that multitudes believed the slanderous reports, yet long before his death he had conquered the prejudice against him and regained his hold upon the affections of the masses. Wherever he spoke the crowds were limited only by the space in the halls. Such was the change of sentiment that legislatures and courts did him honor, and there was every token of increasing kindness and affection even to his death.

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA

The following selections are taken from the five great speeches for the Union, delivered in 1863 in the chief centers of Great Britain, by Henry Ward Beecher. They may be said to be five parts of one great speech on the principles involved in the American war. This is looked upon as one of the greatest triumphs in the history of oratory, for it resulted in winning England from an attitude of pronounced hostility to one of open favor.

I. PRINCIPLES OF SELF-GOVERNMENT

From the speech delivered at Manchester, England, October 9, 1863. The meeting was held in Free Trade Hall and was attended by fully six thousand people. The chairman of the evening presented an address of welcome to Mr. Beecher from the Emancipation Society. An effort was made to break up the meeting, but the lovers of fair play were in the majority and they resolved that the speaker should be heard.

Mr. Chairman, the address which you have kindly presented to me contains matters both personal and national. You have been pleased to speak of me as one connected with the great cause of civil and religious liberty. I covet no higher honor than to have my name joined to the list of that great company of noble Englishmen from whom we derived our doctrines of liberty. For although there is some opposition to what are here called American ideas, what are these American ideas? They are simply English ideas bearing fruit in America. We bring back American sheaves, but the seed corn we got in England; and if we have reared mightier harvests, every sheaf contains the grain that has made Old England rich for a hundred years.

Allusion has been made by one of the gentlemen to words or deeds of mine that might be supposed to be offensive to Englishmen. I cannot say how that may be. I am sure that I have never. thought, in the midst of this mighty struggle at home, which has taxed every power and energy of our people, whether my words spoken in truth and with fidelity to duty would be liked in this shape or in that shape by one or another person either in England or America. I have had one simple, honest purpose, which I have

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