A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Scoville Samuel

pay for, nor pay for any new thing until old debts were settled. Nor could she be brought to adopt an enlarged policy in respect to the family. We were obliged to wear clothes until they were worn out—at least out at the knees and elbows—altho’ the fashion should change a dozen times during that period. So that it was not uncommon to find one’s self two or three times the pink of fashion before a suit was fairly condemned as unseaworthy. In fact, we may be said always to have set the fashion at such times, since we were seen wearing the proper cut before even the leading beau. But if this was comfortable it was but little amends for the days of darkness which ensued. One day we revelled (?) in our glory; the next every one gaped at our uncouth fashion. We might properly be likened to a ship riding gracefully upon the water, but suddenly left by the tide sticking in the mud, stiff and immovable. I used to comfort myself, when laughed at, by saying, ‘Never mind; you laugh now, before six months you’ll be imitating me.’ And so it often proved, till I began to think I was a prophet.

      “But it is of the family I write and not of myself, for be it known that I am not under vassalage. I am free from both authority and—money; the latter condition as no reproach. I have often noticed that these two kinds of independence are closely allied. True independence seems always in the lurch.”

      One amusing incident that grew out of the half country-farm life which they then lived he used often to refer to.

      Living in the outskirts of the city, where the fences were poor and straying cattle often gave them great annoyance, Henry one day, to his immense disgust, found a cow quietly resting in the middle of the barn floor. With the accumulated indignation aroused, by numerous chases, which these poachers of the highway had led him, by many tramplings across flower-beds and destruction of the garden vegetables, he drove her out and chased her down the street. Coming in hot and tired from his run, he threw himself upon the sofa, saying: “There, I guess I have taught one old cow to know where she belongs!” “What do you mean?” said the doctor, looking up apprehensively from his paper. “Why, I found another cow in the barn, and I have turned her out and chased her clear down the street, and I think she will stay away now.” “Well,” said Dr. Beecher, “you have done it. I have just bought that cow, and had to wade the Ohio River twice to get her home, and after I have got her safely into the barn you have turned her out. You have done it, and no mistake.” And the chasing of that cow was renewed.

      His humor bubbled out at all times and in all places, finding its occasion even in so staid a matter as chapel prayers. He roomed with Prof. Stowe, who was the soul of punctuality, and was continually pained at the failure of his young room-mate to be on time at morning prayers in the Seminary chapel.

      Having done his best to wake him up one morning, apparently without success, he had gone down-stairs with many expressions of disgust. No sooner was he out of the room than Henry sprang up, dressed himself as only college students can, ran to the Seminary by a back way, and when the professor entered was sitting demurely in front of the desk. The amazement of the teacher at this unexpected appearance, rubbing his glasses and peering at him again and again to determine whether it was real or he only saw a vision, was always remembered by Mr. Beecher with a chuckle of merriment.

      For a short time near the close of his theological course he edited a paper, and appears to have done his work with marked success; but circumstances brought it to a speedy close. “The Cincinnati Journal needed an editor. There was at that time in the middle class of Lane Seminary a green young man of some facility of pen. He had written a series of anonymous articles on the Catholic question in the evening paper edited by Mr. Thomas. He was considered rather tonguey, and not likely to back down from anything from want of hopefulness and self-confidence. Him Dr. Brainerd called to the chair, and, on relinquishing the editorship, recommended this beardless youth to the proprietors of the journal as his successor. One fine morning this young man found himself an editor upon a salary! An editor must have a coat; and Platt Evans made a lion-skin overcoat that has never had a successor or an equal. He must have a watch! A plain, white-faced watch soon ticked in his pocket. Alas! evil days befell the publishers. The paper had a new owner. He did not want the young editor; the young editor did want the watch, but could not pay for it; the seller took it back, to the great grief of the young theologian, who went back disconsolate to his classes at Lane Seminary, and was broken-hearted for a whole day. The young man recovered, and has been in mischief ever since, some folks think.”

      When the pro-slavery riots broke out in Cincinnati in 1836, and James G. Birney’s printing-office and press were destroyed by a mob headed by Kentucky slaveholders, young Beecher volunteered and was sworn in as special constable, and for several nights patrolled the streets thoroughly armed to protect the negroes and their friends. He was earnest in this matter, as in everything else that he undertook. His sister Harriet, finding him busy running bullets, and asking him what he was doing it for, was a good deal startled to hear him answer in a hard, determined voice: “To kill men.”

      Besides the influence of this common, every-day life, which was afterwards reflected in his own hospitable spirit and home, two domestic events took place during these three years that deserve more especial notice. The first was “the Family Meeting.”

      “Long before Edward came out here the doctor had tried to have a family meeting, but did not succeed. The children were too scattered. Two were in Connecticut, some in Massachusetts, and one in Rhode Island. But now—just think of it!—there has been a family meeting in Ohio! When Edward returned he brought on Mary from Hartford. William came down from Putnam, George from Batavia, Ohio; Catharine and Harriet were here already; Henry and Charles at home, too, besides Isabella, Thomas, and James. These eleven! The first time they all ever met together! Mary had never seen James, and she had seen Thomas but once. Such a time as they had! The old doctor was almost transported with joy. The affair had been under negotiation for some time. He returned home from Dayton late one Saturday evening. The next morning they for the first time assembled in the parlor. There were more tears than words. The doctor attempted to pray, but could scarcely speak. His full heart poured itself out in a flood of weeping. He could not go on. Edward continued, and each one in his turn uttered some sentence of thanksgiving. They then began at the head and related their fortunes. After special prayer all joined hands and sang ‘Old Hundred’ in these words:

      “ ‘From all that dwell below the skies

      Let the Creator’s praise arise.’

      * * * *

      “When left alone in the evening they had a general examination of all their characters. The shafts of wit flew amain, the doctor being struck in several places. He was, however, expert enough to hit most of them in return. From the uproar of the general battle all must have been wounded. …

      “Tuesday morning saw them together again, drawn up in a straight line for the inspection of the king of happy men. After receiving particular instructions they formed into a circle. The doctor made a long and affecting speech. He felt that he stood for the last time in the midst of all his children, and each word fell with the weight of a patriarch’s. He embraced them once more in all the tenderness of his big heart. Each took of all a farewell kiss. With joined hands they united in a hymn. A prayer was offered, and finally the parting blessing was spoken.”

      The other event referred to was the death of Mrs. Beecher, which occurred at the close of Henry’s first Seminary year. She was his step-mother, but “she did all that she could for my good.”

      “In the holy yearnings of this truly devoted mother the whole family was included; nor could the older children perceive any less fervency in her desires for their true welfare than for that of her own flesh and blood.” And it was with deep and true feeling that he writes “that God was with her in her closing days, and that the light of his countenance cheered her passage to the tomb.”

      These varied experiences of joy and sorrow in the home-life of this period; this variety of occupation—now studying and attending lectures in the Seminary, lecturing on temperance and phrenology, drilling in the “Hallelujah Chorus,” painting the old family mansion, accompanying his father in his attendance upon presbytery and synod, now a constable and anon an editor—all contributed to give him a broad culture, had much to do with the variety of labor which he undertook in after-life,