A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Scoville Samuel
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least and taught most—the nature of God, the purposes of God, the scheme of divine government, not those parts which are transcendently important, namely, the elements of justice, truth, and morality commingled; that God from all eternity foreknew; that, foreknowing, he predestinated; that by predestination things were fixed, made certain; that so many as he fore-ordained to be saved would be saved, do what they would or come what might—my mind greedily seized on these, not merely as undoubted facts, as they were to me, but as having special reference to myself.
“I recollect being sometimes, as it were, behind the entrenchments of such a doctrine, and wishing I could get over them, and feeling that I would give everything in the world if I only knew that I was one of the elect, and praying that God would in some way let me know whether I was or not.
“At other times it would come in this shape: I had probably been reprimanded for a misdemeanor or a delinquency, or something of that sort. I used to be melancholy and to sit in judgment upon myself; and I remember thinking, ‘Well, it is no use for me to try to be a good boy’—not a saintly boy; that sort did not abound where I was born, and I was certainly no exception to the average run. I don’t think there are many of that kind outside of Sunday-school books. Judged by the ordinary standard, I was a very good boy. I had no vices, and no objectionable tendencies except those which sprang from robust health, buoyant spirits, and immense nerve resources. But I thought I was a base sinner. The pulpit represented all men as being sinners, and I accepted it absolutely and literally. I thought I was an awful transgressor; every little fault seemed to make a dreadful sin; and I would say to myself, ‘There! I am probably one of the reprobate. I have tried to be good, but I am going down. The probability is, I am not one of the elect; and what is the use of my trying? If I am not fore-ordained to be saved there is no chance for me, and I may as well go by the wholesale as by the retail.’ So sometimes on the one side and sometimes on the other these thoughts wrought upon me. Not once or twice merely, but many times, they passed through my mind. They were the sub-base, as it were, of my life. I think it was a period of fifteen or twenty years before I got relief from that undertone. It had some advantages and not a few disadvantages.
“If I had had the influence of a discreet, sympathetic Christian person to brood over and help and encourage me, I should have been a Christian child from my mother’s lap, I am persuaded; but I had no such influence. The influences of a Christian family were about me, to be sure, but they were generic; and I revolved in these speculative experiences, my strong religious habitudes taking the form of speculation all through my childhood. I recollect that from the time that I was about ten years old I began to have periods when my susceptibilities were so profoundly impressed that the outward manifestations of my nature were changed. I remember that when my brother George—who was next older than I, and who was beginning to be my helpful companion, to whom I looked up—became a Christian, being awakened and converted in college, it seemed as though a gulf had come between us, and as though he was a saint on one side of it while I was a little reprobate on the other side. It was awful to me. If there had been a total eclipse of the sun I should not have been in more profound darkness outwardly than I was inwardly. I did not know whom to go to; I did not dare to go to my father; I had no mother that I ever went to at such a time; I did not feel like going to my brother; and I did not go to anybody. I felt that I must try to wrestle out my own salvation.
“Once, on coming home, I heard the bell toll, and I learned that it was for the funeral of one of my companions with whom I had been accustomed to play, and with whom I had grown up. I did not know that he had been sick, but he had dropped into eternity; and the ringing, swinging, booming of that bell, if it had been the sound of an angel trumpet of the last day, would not have seemed to me more awful. I went into an ecstasy of anguish. At intervals, for days and weeks, I cried and prayed. There was scarcely a retired place in the garden, in the wood-house, in the carriage-house, or in the barn that was not a scene of my crying and praying. It was piteous that I should be in such a state of mind, and that there should be nobody to help me and lead me out into the light. I do not recollect that to that day one word had been said to me, or one syllable had been uttered in the pulpit, that led me to think there was any mercy in the heart of God for a sinner like me. For a sinner that had repented it was thought there was pardon; but how to repent was the very thing I did not know. A converted sinner might be saved, but for a poor, miserable, faulty boy, that pouted, and got mad at his brothers and sisters, and did a great many naughty things, there was no salvation so far as I had learned. My innumerable shortcomings and misdemeanors were to my mind so many pimples that marked my terrible depravity; and I never had the remotest idea of God except that he was a Sovereign who sat with a sceptre in his hand and had his eye on me, and said: ‘I see you, and I am after you.’ So I used to live in perpetual fear and dread, and often I wished myself dead. I tried to submit and lay down the weapons of my rebellion, I tried to surrender everything; but it did not seem to do any good, and I thought it was because I did not do it right. I tried to consecrate myself to God, but all to no purpose. I did everything, so far as I could, that others did who professed to be Christians, but I did not feel any better. I passed through two or three revivals. I remember, when Mr. Nettleton was preaching in Litchfield, going to carry a note to him from father; and for a sensitive, bashful boy like me it was a severe ordeal. I went to the room where he was speaking, with the note in my trembling hand, and had to lay it on the desk beside him. Before I got half-way across the floor I was dazed and everything seemed to swim around me; but I made out to get the note to him, and he said: ‘That’s enough; go away, boy,’ and I sort of backed and stumbled toward the door (I was always stumbling and blundering in company), and sat down. He was preaching in those whispered tones which always seem louder than thunder to the conscience, although they are only whispers in the ear. He had not uttered more than three sentences before my feelings were excited, and the more I listened the more awful I felt; and I said to myself: ‘I will stay to the inquiry meeting.’ I heard Mr. Nettleton talk about souls writhing under conviction, and I thought my soul was writhing under conviction. I had heard father say that after persons had writhed under conviction a week or two they began to come out, and I said: ‘Perhaps I will get out’; and that thought produced in me a sort of half-exhilaration of joy. I stayed to the inquiry meeting, felt better, and trotted home with the hope that I was on the way toward conversion. I went through this revival with that hope strengthened; but it did not last long.”
It is evident from this chapter that if we would understand Henry Ward Beecher and the influences that went to the formation of his character and to the success of his life, other things than parentage, home, school, or nature must be taken into the account. The vast things of the invisible realm have begun to speak to him, and his nature has proved to be peculiarly sensitive to their influence.
He is thus early groping, unresting, and unsatisfied; but it is among mountains, and not in marshes or quicksands. Some day these mountain truths, among which he now wanders in darkness, shall be radiant in his sight with the Divine Compassion and his gloom shall give place to abiding love, joy, and peace.
CHAPTER V.
Boston—Home Atmosphere—Various Experiences—Ethics rubbed in by a six-pound Shot—Discontent—Makes up his mind to go to Sea—To Study Navigation—Picture of his Life in Boston.
In the spring of 1826 Dr. Lyman Beecher moved with his family to Boston. Henry Ward was thirteen years old the following June, “a green, healthy country lad,” “with a round, full, red-cheeked face.” Here a new world opened to him and a new set of influences was brought to bear upon him.
The same home life was around him, and, if possible, more intense than ever; for Dr. Beecher had come to Boston to be the champion “of the Faith once delivered to the saints,” and he threw himself into the work with all the zeal and enthusiasm of an intensely ardent nature.
He had watched with intense interest every step of that reaction in Massachusetts from the strict theocracy of the Puritans, called the “Unitarian Controversy.” He thoroughly understood and heartily condemned the process, employed by the wealthy and literary classes, of taking away from the church, composed presumably of regenerate persons, the power