Henry Ward Beecher, 1813 - 1887
Born: 24 June 1813, Litchfield, Connecticut
Died: 8 March 1887, Brooklyn, New York
Beecher was the son of Lyman Beecher, an outspoken Calvinist clergyman, his mother Roxanna died just two years later. One of his three sisters (he also had four brothers) was Harriet Beecher Stowe. Bashful and prone to mumbling as a child, he learned oratory at Mt Pleasant Institution, a boarding school at Amherst, Massachusetts, before attending Boston Latin School. He graduated from Amherst College in 1834 and received a degree from Lane Theological Seminary at Cincinnati, Ohio, where his father was president. He became a minister at Laurenceburg, Indiana (1837 - 1839) and then was pastor at Second Presbyterian Church at Indianapolis (1839 - 1847). In 1847 he was called as the first minister at Plymouth Congregational Church, a new Congregational church at Brooklyn, New York. His sermons, often in opposition to slavery, soon established that church as a major force for social reform. The nave seated 2,500, there were often 500 to 1,000 standing as well. He was a moderate abolitionist, not wishing to go to war. Several times he called for offerings to buy slaves and set them free. He preached "Romantic Christianity", a gospel of a loving rather than a judgmental God. He was also one of the first major church leaders to comprehend that evolution was God's way of creation, not a refutation of it. He suffered a stroke in March of 1887 and died in his sleep two days later. His funeral procession was led by two men, marching arm in arm in testimony to his message: one was a black commander of the Union Army from Massachusetts, the other a former Confederate general and slaveholder from Virginia.
Biography from Wikipedia and Plymouth Church
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Henry Ward Beecher quotes:
Quotes found : 158 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 11) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
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- A book is good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity. It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - A Christian is nothing but a sinful man who has put himself to school for Christ for the honest purpose of becoming better. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - A church debt is the devil's salary. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - A forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note, torn in two and burned up, so that it can never be shown against the man. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs; jolted by every pebble in the road. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - All words are pegs to hang ideas on. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - And now we beseech of Thee that we may have every day some such sense of God's mercy and of the power of God about us, as we have of the fullness of the light of heaven before us. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - Any law that takes hold of a man's daily life cannot prevail in a community, unless the vast majority of the community are actively in favor of it. The laws that are the most operative are the laws which protect life. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - "Civil Law and the Sabbath" sermon (3 December 1882) - As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher - Beware of him who hates the laugh of a child. permalink
Henry Ward Beecher
Quotes found : 158 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 11) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
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