Invitation to come East—Call to Plymouth Church—Friendly Misgivings—Plainly Outlining his Views—Early Success—Plymouth Burned—Preaching in the Tabernacle.

Mr. Beecher had confidently expected to have remained permanently in the West, and to have grown up with the new but rising country; but it was destined to be otherwise.

His fame had spread Eastward, and in the early winter of 1846 a tentative effort was made to call him thither. Mr. W. T. Cutler, returning from a visit at the West, wrote in December, 1846, to Mr. Beecher that Dr. Storrs had been called to the Church of the Pilgrims; that one of Dr. Cheever’s principal men, J. Hunt, had “observed to me that Dr. Cheever named you as the man for the Pilgrims, and he thinks that there will be new churches formed on the Congregational plan here and in Brooklyn, and that you are the man to build up one of them.” While in Cincinnati Mr. Cutler called on Dr. Lyman Beecher relative to his son’s going East, but “he set his face like flint against it.” He then had a long and urgent talk with the son again, in answer to which he received the following letter:

Again in February Mr. Cutler wrote, this time asking pointedly if Mr. Beecher would accept a call to Brooklyn, stating that the property formerly owned by the First Presbyterian Church—Rev. Dr. Cox—had been purchased by Henry C. Bowen, Seth B. Hunt, and David Hale; that it would be vacant in May, and that they proposed to organize in it a new church on the Congregational plan; that if he would come they would give him a salary of $1,500 per annum, and, if necessary, make it $2,000. Mr. Cutler held out many alluring inducements, but without apparent effect. Mr. Beecher would not even entertain the proposition. In the meantime Mr. Cutler shrewdly reasoned that if he would come East, even for a short time, it might be possible to make him change his mind. It was so arranged that Mr. Beecher received an invitation from the American Home Missionary Society to deliver an address, under its auspices, at what was then called the “May Anniversaries” held in New York. He accepted this invitation, intending, as he said since, “to urge young men to go West, to show what a good field the West was, and to cast some fiery arrows at men that had worked there and got tired, and slunk away, and come back. I remember that I was particularly glowing on this subject; but I came East not knowing what I did. It was a trap. Brother Cutler (who has gone to heaven), it seems, had a little plan at that very time, and I was running into a noose, though I did not suspect it. The result of that visit was the formation of this church [Plymouth]. Mr. David Hale, of the Journal of Commerce—whose son Richard is still one of our members, though he is not with us—with two or three others, desired at once to extend me an invitation to become the pastor of this church. But the church did not exist. It was like asking a young man to become the husband of an unborn girl. There was no church to be my bride. I refused to receive a call to an empty house. They therefore made haste to form a church; and I think it was early in June of the same year that some twenty-five persons covenanted together over this very ground for the church as it then stood. The main building fronted on one street, and the lecture-room on the other. Here they agreed to become a church of Christ; and then they extended to me a call to be its pastor. The call was not publicly known until the October following; but still the mischief was done.”

On Sunday evening, June 13, 1847, Plymouth Church was formally organized with a membership of twenty-one, Rev. R. S. Storrs, of the Church of the Pilgrims, preaching the sermon.

On the Monday evening following business meetings were held by both the church and society, in each of which it was unanimously voted to invite Mr. Beecher to be their pastor, with a salary of fifteen hundred dollars the first year, seventeen hundred and fifty the second year, and two thousand the third year and thereafter.

A formal call was at once sent.

For the first time the question was taken into serious consideration, and for the next two months every argument was presented that might lead to an acceptance of the call, great stress being laid on the fact that in the larger field could be accomplished a more important work and an influence might be exerted that would be felt throughout the entire country; that the West could easily be reached from New York, when it might be difficult to reach New York from the West.

Long and most urgent letters were sent to Dr. Lyman Beecher, begging him to withhold any adverse influence. It is very doubtful if any of the inducements or the flattering representations so strongly presented had succeeded in winning him from the field where he was then working, were it not that another influence was silently and powerfully at work. The health of his wife, who literally was giving her very life to aid and sustain him in his work, was rapidly failing under the malarial influences of the West. It became very evident that she must have rest and a change of climate. A few years in the East might restore her health, then he could return and resume his work. In August he came to a decision, and on the 12th wrote his letter of resignation, in which he set out his reasons and plans:

Having decided, he wrote at once to the committee of Plymouth Church from whom he had received the call:

While in the East, after having received the call from Plymouth Church and while the question of acceptance was still in doubt, Mr. Beecher also received a call from the Park Street Church of Boston—the same church where he had preached nine years before, when on his way back to Lawrenceburg with his young wife.

On June 10, 1847, he received a letter from the Rev. Silas Aikens, the pastor of Park Street Church, stating that they very much desired Mr. Beecher to accept a call to the position of associate pastor.

Early in July a formal call was sent by the church and society to the same effect, but was shortly afterwards declined.

The call to Brooklyn having been definitely accepted, Mr. Beecher began at once to arrange for the removal of his family. His salary was in arrears. To meet the necessities of his family he had been obliged to borrow five hundred dollars. This, with other and smaller debts, must be paid, and money must be raised wherewith to transport his family East. But how? Fortunately this difficulty had been foreseen, and as soon as it seemed probable that the call would be accepted the friends at Plymouth Church, in prophecy of that generosity which characterized them in all after-years, promptly raised by subscription one thousand dollars, and notified Mr. Beecher to draw thereupon as he might need.

About the first of October, 1847, he started Eastward, leaving Indianapolis on the first passenger-train run on the new road just built. Modern luxuries had not then been introduced, if we may rely upon his account of the ride:

“The car was no car at all, a mere extempore wood-box, used sometimes without seats for hogs, but with seats for men, of which class I (ah me miserable!) happened to be one. And so at eleven at night I arrived in Madison, not overproud in the glory of riding on the first train that ever went from Indianapolis to Madison.”

October, 1847, marked a new era in Mr. Beecher’s experience. By successive steps he had advanced from field to field with steadily increasing responsibility, from the collegian tramping twenty miles to deliver an occasional address in some adjoining town on topics affecting public morals, to the young theologian still in the seminary, trying his powers in some little hamlet—a knight-errant breaking a lance with the adversary; to the young, unknown missionary entering the lists for his first real, earnest battle against “the world, the flesh, and the devil”; to the acknowledged preacher called to the State capital, dealing stalwart blows at those evils which sap the public conscience and allure the youth into evil ways, a recognized leader not only within the limits of his Presbytery but even throughout his State.

And at last, called to the metropolitan centre, he enters a field whose limits of influence were to be bounded only by the limits of the civilized globe. With each increase of influence came corresponding responsibilities. So far he had developed resources sufficient for each increase in his burdens; but would he be sufficient for this new experience? He had fully sustained himself as a missionary and a preacher in a pioneer State, in a comparatively rude and uncultured society. He had earned a reputation that had preceded him East; could he maintain it? Could he meet the requirements of the refined, critical, and highly-cultured metropolis (for New York and Brooklyn were, to all intents, one great centre)? Many feared, and kindly volunteered the information that neither the new church nor its new pastor would last many months.

He was altogether too outspoken for his own good, said they. It was all very well for a minister to combat evil, but he must do it in the good old-fashioned, orthodox way: he should confine himself to generalities and not be too specific. There were some things he ought not to meddle with: the pulpit was no place for politics, and slavery was purely a political question. He would find that in New York the public would not tolerate those things which had been permitted to him in Indiana.

If he persisted he would soon have empty pews to preach to, even if he did not have a personal demonstration of the folly of attacking those popular sins—sins which most of his clerical brothers had had the good sense to leave alone. Endless were the similes and metaphors indulged in, of which the well-worn rocket was perhaps the most suggestive.

Some amiable critics even went so far as to intimate that his success in the West was due more to the surreptitious use of the father’s old sermons than any inherent ability in the son, and he was generously given just one year to run through the barrelful of such sermons supposed to have been brought on with him. The barrel, like the widow’s oil-cruse, seems to have had a miraculous power of refilling.

Many friends advised him against the change: the risk was too great, his experience too little. He said of this time:

“In coming to Brooklyn I had but one single thought—that of zeal for Christ. I came under all manner of warnings and cautions. Many good brethren told me how men got puffed up in the city, what temptations I would encounter, and how I would very likely be conservative, and forget my zeal, and so on; and I was obliged at last to say even to my father: ‘Father, do you understand, then, that God’s grace only extends to the country, and that He cannot protect anybody in the city?’”

On the other hand, some counselled self-interest: “It is not necessary that you should settle in Brooklyn; with your talent you will make more show in New York.” “I didn’t come to make a show,” he replied. “I came to preach what I understand to be the Gospel of Jesus Christ to men, and this is the first opening, and I take it.”

He did not propose to have any misunderstanding on the part of his new church as to the course he should pursue. He intended to make that very plain and at the outset. If they wanted him they would have to take him with their eyes open—wide open.

October 10, the first Sunday after his arrival, he preached in the new church, both morning and evening.

“My first sermon, I think, was directed to the Source of all true religion—the Lord Jesus Christ and His power. In my second sermon—on the evening of the first Sunday—I recollect that I lifted up the banner and blew the trumpet in the application of Christianity to intemperance, to slavery, and to all other great national sins. I said to those who were present: ‘If you come into this church and congregation I want you to understand distinctly that I will wear no fetters; that I will be bound by no precedent; that I will preach the Gospel as I apprehend it, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, and that I will apply it without stint, and sharply and strongly, to the overthrow of every evil and to the upbuilding of all that is good.’”

Well-meaning but timid friends took alarm at this bold declaration. It was not customary; it was not what they were used to; they came to him to “counsel him for his own good,” they said. “Save yourself, anyway; don’t ally yourself to unpopular men nor unpopular causes. There is no need of it. You can have your own notions about abolition; what is the use of preaching anti-slavery sermons?” To their great distress their counsels had just the opposite effect intended: “I despised them all, and preached like thunder on those subjects, especially before pew-renting. For a period of more than ten years I never let a month elapse before pew-renting that I did not come out with the whole strength of my nature on the abominations of American slavery. I remember saying, with some discourtesy and with language that I should not use now: ‘If you don’t want to hear such doctrines, don’t take a pew here next time.’ It had something of youthful eagerness in it, but I am proud that it pleased God to ally me to causes that were weak but right. It has ever been a cause of great gratification to me that I have not lost that spirit, and that I ally myself to that which I think to be right; and I do not care what man says to me, provided only I can believe that God likes it, and that I have the testimony of His approval in myself.”

To have remained silent in the presence of such great evils was to have shared the responsibility of their existence.

We quote here his views on this subject, uttered from his pulpit many years later:

“In every reform from intemperance, from vice, from crime, each individual citizen is responsible to the degree of influence which he has, and if he does not exert it he is responsible for a neglect of duty—a binding duty. He is bound to create a public sentiment that shall work for virtue. He is bound to drain the community of all those evils that run together and form a channel for vice and crime. It is not a matter of election, it is a matter of obligation; and because there are the most respectable classes in the community that don’t do it, you are not set free. Because the men of riches and the men of power and the men of standing in society don’t do it, the poorest laboring man in the community, if he does not, under the direction of his reason and conscience, labor for the purification of the commonwealth, is responsible to God. He is bound to do it. If his individuality on the one side has shielded him against aggression, it brings with it also certain obligations, and he is bound to meet them. All parties hold their members only subject to the corrected judgment and moral sense of the individual. If they go with their party on the general ground that it is going right and is doing right, as far as the limitations of human ignorance and human power are concerned, travelling in the right direction also with many imperfect steps and many imperfect elements, he may justly go on with it; but if he is committed, as were the parties of slavery, to so atrocious a wrong as that which violated the fundamental rights of the whole human family, a man is bound to fight the party, in and out of it: in it by correction, out of it by protest and opposition. And merely because he can say, ‘The party did it, I did not,’ he is not relieved of responsibility. Inasmuch as you knew what was right and did not do it, so much you are involved in the guilt; and there was a great deal of guilt. The Church itself was involved in the same—dumb pulpits, uncirculated Bibles, a corrupt and vicious public sentiment.

“When I came into Plymouth Church as its pastor there was probably hardly a single church in the bounds of New York or Brooklyn of any note that dared to say a word for the liberty of the abject slave. Was I wrong in protesting against it, with the knowledge that I had? With the conscience that I had, had I been silent I should have been doomed justly to the stroke of God’s righteous judgment; and the want of moral courage under such circumstances is a very great sin everywhere. You are not right to stand still in any great party, moving in any direction, doing wrong, without deliberately taking account with yourself. Am I striving to correct the evil by all the influence I can wield? On finding that to be impossible, do I free myself from all imputation of partnership in any such guilt, one way or the other?”

Now it is easy enough to express such sentiments: it is popular; it is in the line of public sentiment. Then it was a very different matter, and the living up to them still more difficult.

Recalling the early history of Plymouth Church, he said:

“It was formed in the midst of the development of the greatest work of the modern century—the emancipation of the slaves in America, by which the industry of the Continent was also emancipated, and by which the Church and religion itself were saved from a worse than Babylonian captivity.

“When I came here you could get no great Missionary Society, Bible Society, or Tract Society to say one solitary word for the slave. Such were the interests of the mercantile classes of the South that it was extremely difficult to exert there any anti-slavery influence. As the merchants largely held the funds, as the great societies needed support, and as churches were built by respectable men whose prosperity depended mainly upon the peace and order of the South, the position that this church took was a bold and unpopular one. Those who did not live then can have no conception of what it was to form a church that should stand right out in the intense light of the time, and declare for universal liberty and for the right of the slave to the Bible, and to full religious freedom. This church grew up right against a flinty way of bitterness and opposition.”

Such was the beginning, and such the times!

Although he began preaching in Plymouth Church, October 10, 1847, Mr. Beecher was not formally installed until the 11th of November following. On that day an ecclesiastical council was convened “by letters from the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, in the State of New York, at their lecture-room, ... for the purpose of installing (if the way should be found clear) the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher as their pastor,” etc.

“After an extended and thorough examination of the pastor-elect respecting his views of the doctrine of natural and revealed religion, his experience of renewing and sanctifying grace, and his object in entering on the work of the Christian ministry, the council unanimously pronounced the examination sustained and voted to proceed to installation.”

The invocation and reading of the Scriptures was by the Rev. Dr. Humphrey, of Pittsfield, Mass.; the sermon by Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher, of the Salem Church of Boston, an older brother of the new pastor; the installing prayer by Rev. Dr. Hewitt, of the Second Congregational Church of Bridgeport; the charge to the pastor by Rev. Dr. Lansing, of the Second Congregational Church of New York; the fellowship of the churches by Rev. R. S. Storrs, Jr., of the Church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn; address to the people by Rev. J. P. Thompson, of the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, and the concluding prayer by Rev. Dr. Bushnell, of the North Church of Hartford.

As soon as he was fairly installed the pastor set himself vigorously to work to build up the young church, and to fill it with new converts.

The audience-room of the church began to fill rapidly, in the morning being generally three-fourths full, and in the evening entirely full. Early in 1848 difficulty was found in accommodating those who wished to attend, the building being crowded from that time on, both night and morning.

In the spring, daily morning prayer-meetings were held, under the conduct of the pastor. Soon revivals broke out in the church, which, though singularly free from undue excitement, produced a deep and wide-spread influence. More than seventy persons were converted, most of them joining Plymouth Church, the rest uniting with other evangelical churches.

Notwithstanding the many doleful prophecies that greeted its early beginnings, and the “dangerous stand” taken by its pastor which alarmed so many conservative minds, the church was just perverse enough to prosper and grow rapidly—a perversity which characterized it for the next forty years. In a little over two years from its birth it had an enrolled membership of four hundred and four, of whom fifty-six joined in 1847; one hundred and fifty-two in 1848; one hundred and thirty-six in 1849 (the year of the fire), and sixty in the first part of 1850.

On the 13th of January, 1849, occurred one of those fortunate mishaps which proved to be a blessing in disguise. For some time previous, the congregation had been greatly disproportioned to the capacity of the church; the necessity of rebuilding began to be seriously discussed, when occurred a fire that abruptly terminated the discussion. The building was so badly damaged that it was unanimously determined to rebuild rather than repair.

The kindly sympathy of neighboring churches, in volunteering the use of their buildings for the houseless congregation, was gratefully accepted for a short time.

It soon became apparent that this unsettled and migratory condition was harmful to the church. It was therefore determined to erect a temporary structure upon ground in Pierrepont Street, kindly offered by Mr. Lewis Tappan. In thirty days a building, one hundred by eighty feet, was put up, and in this the church made its home until the first Sunday in January, 1850.

The whole expense of this “Tabernacle,” as it was called, was twenty-eight hundred dollars. The subsequent sale of the building, together with the weekly collections, more than repaid this outlay, while the pew-rents were amply sufficient to meet the current expenses.

As soon as possible after the fire, steps were taken to put up the new building, which was to be constructed on a much larger scale than the old one.

On May 29, 1849, the corner-stone was laid, and on the first Sunday in January, 1850, the congregation worshipped in their new church.

The new structure was built on Orange Street, and ran through to Pineapple. It was really two buildings under one roof, the church proper being one hundred and five feet long by eighty broad. Adjoining and opening into this, from the rear, was a lecture-room of two stories, eighty by fifty feet, the second story being the Sunday-school.

The entire cost of the new church was about $36,000, of which $31,127 was raised upon scrip, bearing interest, payable in pew-rents. To provide for the balance, and a mortgage of $10,500 on the old property, the new building was mortgaged for $16,000. The entire indebtedness and all encumbrances were paid off by 1867, at which time the church was entirely free from debt.

The cost of the lecture-room and Sabbath-school was about $13,000, of which $10,800 were donated, the rest being paid partly by festivals and fairs held for the purpose, and partly from the general fund of the church.

The Sabbath-school at this time consisted of two hundred and fifty scholars and thirty teachers.

The seating capacity of the pews and choir-gallery of the church was about twenty-one hundred persons. This was thought at first, by some, to be a very extravagant allowance. But in 1857 the seating capacity could not supply the demand, and folding-seats were placed in the aisles, fixed to the end of each pew, and so constructed as to fold up against the pew-side when not in use; while benches were set along the walls all around the galleries, and in the vacant space in front of the pulpit. These accommodated about eight hundred more, while the standing space, almost always occupied during the last twenty-five years, permitted about three hundred more to be present.

As his last year at Indianapolis had been consecrated by the loss of his little boy, so in like manner were the first in his new pastorate. Scarce had a month passed when the death of his little girl “Caty” became the means of closer communion between pastor and people through the bonds of sympathy and kind service. He wrote to his sister:

“When Caty sickened and began her quiet march toward the once opened gate, to rejoin the brother (cherub pair), we found our house full of friends. Many of the truest, deepest hearts asked no bidding, but, with instinctive heart taught right, lived with us almost literally; and when her form was to go forth from us, they embowered her in flowers, winter though it seemed, and every thought and remembrance of her is sweet in itself and sweet in its suggestions.

“What had I to bear up against? I was held up by increasing love and sympathy on every side. Of this world I had more than heart could wish; of friends, never so many or so worth having; and the effect, as might be supposed, has answered to the cause. I find now that it is with me as with mountains in spring-time—every fissure is growing to a rill, every patch of soil is starting its flowers, every shrub has its insect and every tree its bird.”