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When Henry Ward Beecher passed away (1813-1887), there was a universal expression of esteem, love, and affection, that sprang forth from every part of the country, every class in society, and every religious denomination. This is an indication of how wide and deep a hold he had upon the American people during the 19th Century.
No other man has exerted such a wide and profound influence on the progress of thought—moral, political and religious—in this country during the 1800's, as has Mr. Beecher. It may be claimed that other reformers have done more to change the political constitution from a pseudo-democracy governed by a slavocracy to a genuine democracy governed by its free industrial classes. Or, that other teachers have done more to promote that political enthusiasm out of which new parties are born (Republican Party) and by which they must be inspired-or die. Or, that other theological thinkers have exerted a more permanent influence on the religious thought of the pulpit, the press, and the age. However, it is easy to claim that no other man has done as much as Rev. Beecher in all three of these departments.
The contemporary of Garrison and Phillips, Chase and Seward, Parker and Hodge, they have labored only in their own field, while Mr. Beecher has ploughed and sowed and lived to see harvesting in every field. The life of such a man is the life of his epoch. The story of a successful general is the story of his successful campaigns.
Rev. Beecher on the Role of the Church
Brooklyn, NY. Sunday Morning, July 5th, 1885
(Two Years Before His Death)
What is the Church but an association of men and women, who, by direct intercourse with God, seek to develop their moral and their spiritual nature? That is the sum and substance of it. The definition given, that the Church is a body vowed together to worship God and maintain ordinances is, in a sense, true, but it is technical. A church has its radical idea based on this, that by mutual helpfulness and by the kindling of souls, together men are able to lift themselves into a higher divine life than in any other way.
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| Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Church |
Some natures are so great and fruitful that they can stand alone. There are some natures that are like the Southern pine, so full of rich, fire-loving substance that they can burn of themselves and act as a torch; but the great mass of mankind need to be treated like fuel in a fireplace, stick upon stick, many and many together, that in the common heat and the common flame they may all glow.
Is there anything nobler in the thought of man than the association of men and women in the purpose of living by their very highest nature? Not intellectual alone, not esthetically alone, not by gracefulness nor beauty alone, but by that which is deeper, integrity, worship, reverence, and love. By spirituality, as distinguished from the mere bodily life. That is the central root-idea of the Church so far as the interior is concerned.
So far as the community is concerned, the Church is a light and instructor. It is a school for society, an education in respect to things for which there is no other school or provisional educator. The Church is that body which undertakes to inspire and maintain conduct and character among men.
There are other noble associations to produce order in society, to produce ideas of education, intellectual and philosophical. There are associations to produce wealth, associations to produce pleasure, and these, in their special allotments and offices, are not to be despised; but where else is there an institution that has come down from generation to generation, having the one sole purpose of providing for the community a line of training for conduct and character?
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That is the peculiar mission of the Church, to maintain a ministry that shall form moral conduct and spiritual character in the community.
The law cannot do it, the profession of the law cannot do it. Lawyers are brought mostly in contact with the unfavorable side of human nature, and they are special in their business, and there are no institutions or methods by which they could maintain in the community this idea of conduct and character.
The family can do it in a measure, but the family itself will be unfit to do this, unless it is kindled by some higher intelligence than that which exists in the midst of the multitudes of ill-kept families.
The medical profession can give men some knowledge of morality, which is largely connected with health, but they are in no condition to become instructors at large.
The civil institutions of our land, they maintain metes and bounds, privileges and powers, but they are not instructors of this kind.
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| Front of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, Ny |
The newspapers are not fit to be the instructors of the community as to conduct and character. They are divided among themselves. They are party "organs." That is, with liberty to throw stones at everybody but their side. Or if they are "independent," they have the liberty to throw stones on either side and at everybody. But they are essentially news-vehicles, subject to sale. They are largely influenced in their holdings-forth by the marketable value of that which they teach.
This does not in the least diminish my regard for the value of newspapers, only it says that spiritual education is not their function. They carry out a great deal of knowledge, and they exert a lot of influence for good. They are among the signs of civilization and their growing excellence comes with a rising civilization.
The newspapers of my childhood were not to be compared for excellence with those that exist today but one thing is very certain, that the newspaper is not qualified at present to take charge of the conduct or the character of mankind. This is true for the religious papers as well. There are multitudes of good, sound, orthodox papers that have much merit in them. However, they carry the spirit of sectarianism, and the narrow, selfish, and oftentimes venomous spirit of religious contention into the household.
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| Full House at Plymouth Church |
There are, here and there, a very few religious papers which lay their courses on broader and more Christian lines than the secular charts allow but their very fewness emphasizes the generality of the rule. The Church, then, so far as its relation to the community is concerned, shines into every avenue of human nature; searches man not from any philosophical interest in him, but searches him for his own well-being. The Church searches for how to build him up into Christ Jesus.
It seeks to develop the family, and is in this sense a high-priest to the priest-father and to the priest-mother. It follows men into their business, if it does its duty, and into their dealings with one another. There is the same law of truth issuing from it, and the same law of justice, and the same law of benevolence in the conduct of business as there is in the household. The Church concerns itself with the civic relations of men; and now that slavery is at an end, which once was the dominating question in our land, it necessarily lays hold on other themes of the common life.
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| Plymouth Church's Pulpit & Organ |
In other words, it pours the light and the justice and truth and sympathy of the Gospel, not alone upon the individual or upon the family, or upon men in their business relations, but upon the whole community, seeking to bring the Divine influence to bear upon men in their widest combinations. It is the bosom of the whole world. It has taken for its motto “The field is the world,” and given a new glory to the old pagan declaration, “Whatever concerns man concerns me.”