Although Mr. Beecher is a resident of Brooklyn, and although Plymouth Church is located in that city, yet the great preacher is sufficiently bound to New York by business and socialities to make him a part of the great metropolis.

He was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on the 24th of June, 1813, and is now in his fifty-ninth year, though he looks very much younger. He was the eighth child of Dr. Lyman Beecher, and was regarded as the dunce of the family, and, according to his own account, had the usual unpleasant experience of ministers’ children. Being of a naturally strong, vigorous constitution, his body far outran his mind, and the little fellow lagged behind until nature asserted her rights. The forcing process accomplished very little with him. He was quick-witted, however, and fond of fun. The gloomy doctrines of his learned father made him shudder, and he came to the conclusion that Sunday was a day of penance, and the Catechism a species of torture invented for the punishment of dull boys. At the age of ten, he was sent to a boarding-school in Bethlehem, where he studied by shouldering his gun and going after partridges. Then his sister, Catharine, took him in hand, but he spent his time in teazing the girls of her school, and she was compelled to give him up as a hopeless case. The boy of ten could not be made a mental prodigy, do what they would. The result is that the man of fifty-nine is as fresh and vigorous in body and mind as most others are at thirty-five.

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

When he was twelve years old, his father removed to Boston, and there Henry began to show his true powers. He learned rapidly, and was soon sent to the Mount Pleasant Institute, at Amherst, from which he passed to Amherst College, where he graduated with distinction in 1834. While at Mount Pleasant, he formed the resolution of entering the ministry, and all his studies were thenceforward shaped to that end. In 1832, his father had removed to Cincinnati, to assume the presidency of the Lane Theological Seminary, and, after leaving Amherst, Henry followed him to the West, and completed his theological course at the Lane Seminary in 1836. In that year he was admitted to the ministry of the Presbyterian Church.

Immediately after his ordination, Mr. Beecher married, and accepted a call to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on the Ohio River, twenty miles below Cincinnati. He did not stay there long, but passed to the charge of a church in Indianapolis, where he spent eight years—eight valuable years to him, for he says he learned how to preach there. In the summer of 1847, he received and accepted a call to the pastorate of Plymouth Church, in Brooklyn, which had just been founded, and on the 11th of November, 1847, he was publicly installed in the position which he has since held.

Few persons of education and taste ever come to New York without hearing the great preacher. Plymouth Church is a familiar place to them. It is located in Orange street, between Hicks and Henry streets, Brooklyn. It is a plain structure of red brick. The interior is as simple as the exterior. It is a plain, square room, with a large gallery extending entirely around it. At the upper end is a platform on which stands the pulpit—an exquisitely carved little stand of wood from the Garden of Gethsemane. In the gallery, back of the pulpit, is the organ, one of the grandest instruments in the country. The seats are arranged in semicircles. By placing chairs in the aisles, the house will seat with comfort twenty five hundred people. The congregation usually numbers about three thousand, every available place being crowded. The upholstering is in crimson, and contrasts well with the prevailing white color of the interior.

The singing is congregational, and is magnificent. One never hears such singing outside of Plymouth Church.

The gem of the whole service, however, is the sermon; and these sermons are characteristic of the man. They come warm and fresh from his heart, and they go home to the hearer, giving him food for thought for days afterward. Mr. Beecher talks to his people of what they have been thinking of during the week, of trials that have perplexed them, and of joys which have blessed them. He takes the merchant and the clerk to task for their conduct in the walks of business, and warns them of the snares and pitfalls which lie along their paths. He strips the thin guise of honesty from the questionable transactions of Wall street, and holds them up to public scorn. His dramatic power is extraordinary. He can hardly be responsible for it, since it breaks forth almost without his will. He moves his audience to tears, or brings a mirthful smile to their lips, with a power that is irresistible. His illustrations and figures are drawn chiefly from nature, and are fresh and striking. He can startle his hearers with the terrors of the law, but he prefers to preach the gospel of love. His sermons are printed weekly in the Plymouth Pulpit, and are read by thousands.

His literary labors, apart from his ministerial duties, have been constant. He has published several books, has edited The Independent and The Christian Union, and has contributed regularly to the New York Ledger and other papers. He has been almost constantly in the lecture field, and has spoken frequently before public assemblies on the various questions of the day.

Mr. Beecher is young-looking and vigorous. He has the face of a great orator, and one that is well worth studying. He dresses plainly, with something of the farmer in his air, and lives simply. He is blessed with robust health, and, like his father, is fond of vigorous exercise. He has a fine farm on the Hudson, to which he repairs in the summers. Here he can indulge his love of nature without restraint. He is said to be a capital farmer, though he complains that he does not find the pursuit any more remunerative than does his friend, Mr. Greeley.