A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Scoville Samuel
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Sabbath. The serious feelings I had were well-nigh gone, and I was beginning to feel quite jolly again, and I did not know what to do. I went home, however, and let them take me into the Church. A kind of pride and shamefacedness kept me from saying I did not think I was a Christian, and so I was made a church-member.”
In an editorial in the Independent, written in 1862, upon the disbanding of this old church, the Bowdoin Street—originally Hanover Street—Church, Boston, he describes this event:
“If somebody will look in the old records of Hanover Street church about 1829 they will find a name there of a boy about fifteen years old who was brought into the Church on a sympathetic wave, and who well remembers how cold and almost paralyzed he felt while the committee questioned him about his ‘hope’ and ‘evidences,’ which, upon review, amounted to this: that the son of such a father ought to be a good and pious boy. Being tender-hearted and quick to respond to moral sympathy, he had been caught and inflamed in a school excitement, but was just getting over it when summoned to Boston to join the church! On the morning of the day he went to church without seeing anything he looked at. He heard his name called from the pulpit among many others, and trembled; rose up with every emotion petrified; counted the spots on the carpet; looked piteously up at the cornice; heard the fans creak in the pews near him; felt thankful to a fly that lit on his face, as if something familiar at last had come to break an awful trance; heard faintly a reading of the Articles of Faith; wondered whether he should be struck dead for not feeling more—whether he should go to hell for touching the bread and wine, that he did not dare to take nor to refuse; spent the morning service uncertain whether dreaming, or out of the body, or in a trance; and at last walked home crying, and wishing he knew what, now that he was a Christian, he should do, and how he was to do it. Ah! well, there is a world of things in children’s minds that grown-up people do not imagine, though they too once were young.”
Unsatisfactory in many respects as was his religious experience, it seems to have been powerful enough to change his whole ideal of life. We hear no more of his becoming a sailor. He appears to have yielded to the inevitable, and henceforth studies with the ministry in view.
That there was awakened in him a strong sense of duty and a deep earnestness of purpose appears from a letter written from the school to his brother Edward:
“Mount Pleasant, July 11, 1829.
”Dear Brother:
“I have been expecting a letter from you all the time; but I suppose you have too much to do to write letters. Mr. Newton has set up a Bible-class on Sabbath morning for the larger boys, and a Sabbath-school on Sabbath afternoon for the smaller boys. The Bible-classes are very interesting indeed. He first began with the 73d Psalm; then he commenced the New Testament and is going through it in course. The boys generally are very much pleased with the lecture.
“On Wednesday evenings he is a-going to deliver doctrinal sermons. All with whom I have conversed on the subject are very desirous that he should commence them.
“There has been a boy named Forsyth who has since the revival been very active in the cause of religion, and promised to be a man of great usefulness; he is a boy of great influence, and he has gone back. He does not oppose religion, but wishes that he had it. His going back has caused a great deal of sorrow here among the boys who profess to be pious.
“I room with Homes at present; he is, I think, very amiable and pious. We have prayers together every evening. Then he has an hour in the morning and I an hour in the evening for private devotions. I find that if I neglect prayer even once that I do not desire to pray again as much as I did before, and the more I pray the more I love to do it.
“At present I am comparing the Evangelists together, and looking up the passages in the Old which are referred to in the New Testament.
“Charles and I correspond regularly. In order to make it profitable as well as interesting, we have in every letter some difficult passage for one another to explain. I like the plan very much.
“Our examination is over, and exhibition also. I send you one of our papers (published at the institution), which has a scheme of the exhibition. I got through my examinations very well. I hope that you will find time to answer this soon. Give my best love to any of the family who may be in Boston, and Aunt Homes’s family.
“Your affec. brother,
“H. W. Beecher.“
In another one to the same, dated August, 1829, he says:
”My dear Brother:
“I received your letter Sabbath eve. I expect father received a letter from me about the same time that you did this one, in which I asked him to explain some things from the Bible to me. … While I think of it, Mr. Newton explains the Bible twice a week now instead of once. He presses the boys to the study of the Bible and to prayer more than any minister I ever knew, and I believe it to be not without effect. I, for one, have read my Bible more and studied it more. Father recommended me to keep a little book in which I should put all my loose thoughts. I got one about a month since and have filled a good deal of it already. My studies go pretty well. At present I am studying Cicero and the Greek reader. I expect next term (in about five weeks) to take up the Greek Testament, and Virgil, and mathematics. I intend to stay here another year, almost for no other purpose than to learn mathematics, it is taught so well here! I exercise three hours in a day. One of the questions which I wished to ask you is this, Matthew ii. 23: ‘That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets: He shall be called a Nazarene.’Nazarene.’ Mr. Newton gave one explanation, but it did not satisfy me. I have been and am still reading Dr. Gregory’s letters on the evidences, doctrines, and duties of the Christian religion.
“I intend to spend a part of my vacation (which will commence soon) in Hartford. I do not exactly understand the doctrine of predestination, and several boys have been to me and asked me to explain it to them, but I could never do it to my own satisfaction. I am paying a considerable attention to elocution, reading, etc.
“I wish to ask you concerning novel-reading. I know that to read much of any such thing is bad, but do you think that it would injure me to read now and then those of Scott and Cooper? Write soon as possible.
Your affec. brother,
“Henry.“
The following letter, written near the close of his school-life, affords a view of some of his troubles, and is given entire:
”Mount Pleasant, Mar. 1, 1830.
“My dear Sister:
“I received your letter yesterday and have got up about an hour earlier this morning in order that I may have time to answer it. My studies are growing more and more difficult, for I am preparing for examination, and most of the Greek which I am reviewing I have never been over, and I have to learn something like ten pages. Sometimes I feel almost discouraged, and if I was studying for myself alone I should have given up long ago; but when I think that I am preparing myself to bear the commands of Him who is my Master, I can go with renewed strength from day to day. A little time spent here in performing our duty, and then our toil and trouble will be rewarded with double and eternal happiness. I feel just as you do while writing or thinking of these things—I feel drawn up toward heaven, my home, and am enabled to look upon the earth as a place of pilgrimage and not an abiding city. Those are moments of true happiness, which the world knows not; but when I mix with the boys I forget these things, and do talk and act unworthy of a disciple of Christ. I find this to need much watchfulness and prayer, for I believe that I take to light trifling more than people generally do. I find much trouble with pride. I am afraid every day that I shall get into some difficulty with my instructors. I feel more at liberty when I write to you than any other of my sisters; not because I do not love them, but because you are nearer my age. I notice many things in reading your letter which struck me as exactly like my own feelings. I feel when in meeting, or when reading any book, as if I should never cease serving Christ, and could run with patience the race which is set before me. Oh! then I have such thoughts, such views of God, and of His love and mercy, that my heart would burst through the corrupt body of this world and