Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made

by James Dabney McCabe

Captain Duncan related two amusing anecdotes to illustrate the right way and the wrong way of introducing religious conversation. In his office there was sitting one day a sort of lay preacher, who was noted for lugging in his favorite topic in the most forbidding and abrupt manner. A sea captain came in, who was introduced to this individual.

"Captain Porter," said he, with awful solemnity, "are you a captain in Israel?"

The honest sailor was so abashed and confounded at this novel salutation, that he could only stammer out an incoherent reply; and he was evidently disposed to give the tactless zealot a piece of his mind, expressed in the language of the quarter-deck. When the solemn man took his leave, the disgusted captain said, "If ever I should be coming to your office again, and that man should be here, I wish you would send me word, and I'll stay away."

A few days after another clergyman chanced to be in the office, no other than Mr. Beecher himself, and another captain came in, a roistering, swearing, good-hearted fellow. The conversation fell upon sea-sickness, a malady to which Mr. Beecher is peculiarly liable. The captain also was one of the few sailors who are always sea-sick in going to sea, and gave a moving account of his sufferings from that cause. Mr. Beecher, after listening attentively to his tale, said, "Captain Duncan, if I was a preacher to such sailors as your friend here, I should represent hell as an eternal voyage, with every man on board in the agonies of sea-sickness, the crisis always imminent, but never coming."

This ludicrous and most unprofessional picture amused the old salt exceedingly, and won his entire good will toward the author of it; so that after Mr. Beecher left, he said, "That's a good fellow, Captain Duncan. I like him, and I'd like to hear him talk more."

Captain Duncan contended that this free and easy way of address was just the thing for such characters. Mr. Beecher had shown him, to his great surprise, that a man could be a decent and comfortable human being although he was a minister, and had so gained his confidence and good will that he could say any thing to him at their next interview. Captain Duncan finished his remarks by a decided expression of his disapproval of the canting regulation phrases so frequently employed by religious people, which are perfectly nauseous to men of the world.

This interesting conversation lasted about three-quarters of an hour, and ended, not because the theme seemed exhausted, but because the time was up. We have only given enough of it to convey some little idea of its spirit. The company again broke into one of their cheerful hymns, and the meeting was dismissed in the usual manner.

During the late war, Mr. Beecher took an active and energetic part in support of the cause of the Union. His labors were so severe that his health was considerably impaired, and his voice began to fail him. His physicians ordered him to seek rest and recreation in a tour through Europe, and he reluctantly obeyed them. He was much benefited by his visit to the Continent, but on his return to England, on his way home, being solicited to speak in that country in behalf of the Union, he delivered a series of powerful appeals, which exhausted the greater part of the strength he had gained on the Continent, and caused him to return home almost as ill as when he went abroad.

Soon after his return the war closed, and he went to Charleston to deliver the address at Fort Sumter upon the occasion of the rehoisting of the flag of the United States over that work. The news of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln met him upon his return to Brooklyn, and drew from him one of his most memorable sermons. At the close of hostilities, he preached a sermon to his congregation, urging forgiveness and conciliation toward the South as the policy of the hour, saying truly that that crisis was a rare opportunity which would never come again, if spurned. The sermon was unpopular, and caused him some trouble even in his own congregation.

Mr. Beecher is now fifty-seven years old, but is still in the flush of his intellectual vigor. His eye is as bright, his step as firm and elastic, and his voice as clear and ringing as when he preached his first sermon. His powers have grown with his work, and every year he seems to rise higher in his intellectual supremacy. As a pulpit orator, he has no superior, and certainly there is no man in all this round earth whose eloquence has been productive of greater good to the cause he serves. He is a stout, stocky man in appearance, with a large square face and heavy features. It is the face of a great orator and a genial, warm-hearted man. He is careful and temperate in all his habits—except that he will work too hard—and enjoys robust health. He lives plainly and dresses simply. He impresses one at once with his immense energy, and you would recognize him immediately as a man of unusual power in his community. Said a friend not long since, "I was standing by Beecher in a book-store to-day. He was perfectly still, as he was waiting for a parcel to be done up, but he reminded me of a big locomotive full of steam and fire, and ready to display its immense force at any moment."