Mr. Beecher is generally regarded as an extemporaneous preacher. This is a mistake. He prepared most of his discourses carefully, and full one-half of many of them were written out. Among these written passages he interjected bursts of impromptu thoughts; and these were generally the most effective passages in the sermon. While he repeated himself often—especially on his favorite topic of God's love—yet it was always in fresh language and with new illustrations. Abraham Lincoln said to me, "The most marvelous thing about Mr. Beecher is his inexhaustible fertility."
During the Civil War he was at the acme of his power. He was then the peerless orator of Christendom. It was his intention (as he once told me) to resign his pastorate at the age of sixty and to devote the remainder of his life to a ministry at large. But the tempest of troubles which struck him about that time forbade his cherished design, and he continued at his post until the touch of death silenced the magic tongue. Nearly thirty years have elapsed since I sat by him on the crowning evening of his career, at his "silver anniversary," in 1873. As to his later utterances in theology, and on some questions of ethics, I dissented from my old friend conscientiously, and I expressed to him my dissent very candidly,—as becometh brethren. I am convinced that if there were more fraternal frankness between the living, there would be less hypocrisy over the departed.
Charles G. Finney was the acknowledged king of American evangelists until Dwight L. Moody came on the stage of action. They resembled each other in untiring industry, unflinching courage, unswerving devotion to the marrow of the Gospel, and unreserved consecration to the service of Christ. The secret of Finney's power was the fearless manner with which he drove God's word into the consciences of sinners—high or humble—and his perpetual reliance on the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit in his own soul. Emptied of self, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. His sermons were chain lightning, flashing conviction into the hearts of the stoutest sceptics, and the links of his logic were so compact that they defied resistance. Probably no minister in America ever numbered among his converts so many lawyers and men of intellectual culture.
Soon after commencing his law practice he was brought under the most intense conviction of sin; and the narrative of his conversion—as given in his autobiography—equals any chapter in John Bunyan's "Grace Abounding." After light and peace broke into his agonized soul, he burst into tears of joy, and exclaimed: "I am so happy that I cannot live," He began at once to converse with his neighbors about their souls. When a certain Deacon B. came into his office and reminded him that his cause was to be tried at ten o'clock that morning, Mr. Finney replied, "Deacon B., I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead His cause, and cannot plead yours." The deacon was thunderstruck, and went off and settled his suit with his antagonist immediately.
From that time a law office was no place for the fervid spirit of
Charles G. Finney, and he resolved at once to prepare for the ministry.
Revivals followed his red-hot discourses wherever he went. At Auburn he declares that he had—during prayer in his own room—a wonderful vision in which God drew so near to him that his flesh trembled on his bones, and he shook from head to foot as if amid the thunderings of Sinai! He felt an assurance that God would sustain him against all his enemies; and then there came a "great lifting up," and a sweet calm followed after the agitation. Such extraordinary spiritual experiences occurred quite often during his career as a revivalist, and they remind one strikingly of similar experiences of John Bunyan—to whom Finney bore a certain degree of resemblance. At Rochester many of the leading lawyers were attracted by his bold and logical style of speech; and among his converts there was the distinguished jurist, Addison Gardner. It was during his ministry in New York that he delivered his celebrated "Lectures on Revivals," which were reprinted abroad and translated into several foreign languages. Of all Mr. Finney's published productions, these lectures are the most characteristic. Often extravagant in their rhetoric, and sometimes rather reckless in theological statements, they contain a mine of pungent truth which every young minister ought to possess and to peruse very often. I shall never cease to thank God for the inspiration they have imparted to my own humble ministry; and they have had a place in my library close beside the "Pilgrim's Progress," and the biographies of Payson and McCheyne, and the soul-quickening sermons of Bushnell, Addison Alexander and Dr. McLaren.
After his extended evangelistic labors in various cities, Mr. Finney was appointed to a theological chair in the newly organized college at Oberlin, Ohio. From this post, his irrepressible desire to kindle revivals and to save souls often called him away, and he conducted two famous evangelistic campaigns in Great Britain. He was the first man to introduce American revivalistic methods into England and Scotland; but his labors were never as wide, as influential, and generally acceptable there as the subsequent labors of Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Forty years of his busy and heaven-blessed life were spent at Oberlin, where he impressed his powerful personality on a multitude of students of both sexes; few religious teachers in America have ever moulded so many lives, or had their opinions echoed from so many pulpits.
With all my admiration of President Finney's character, I could not—as a loyal Princetonian—subscribe to some of his peculiar opinions. It was, therefore, with great surprise that I received from him a letter in 1873 (two years before his death) which contained the startling proposal that I should be his successor in the college pulpit at Oberlin! He wrote to me: "I think that there is no more important field of ministerial labor in the world. I know that you have a great congregation in Brooklyn, and are mightily prospered in your labors, but your flock does not contain a thousand students pursuing the higher branches of education from year to year. Surely your field in Brooklyn is not more important than mine was at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York, nor can your people be more attached to you than mine were to me." This letter—although its kind overture was promptly declined—was a gratifying proof that the once bitter controversies between "old school" and "new school" had become quite obsolete. When I mentioned this letter to my beloved Princeton instructor, Dr. Charles Hodge, a few weeks before his death, he simply remarked that "his Brother Finney had become very sweet and mellow in his later years." And long before this time the two great antagonistic theologians may have clasped hands in heaven.
The closing years of President Finney's useful life were indeed mellow and most lovable. In the days of his prime he had a commanding form, a striking face and a clear, incisive style of speech. Simple as a child in his utterances, he sometimes startled his hearers by his unique prayers. For example, he was one day driven from his study at Oberlin by a refractory stovepipe which persisted in tumbling down. At family worship in the evening he said "Oh, Lord! thou knowest how the temper of Thy servant has been tried to-day by that stovepipe!" Several other expressions, quite as quaint and as piquant, might be quoted, if the limits of this brief sketch would permit. What would be deemed irreverent if spoken by some lips never sounded irreverent when uttered by such a natural, fearless and yet devout a spirit as Charles G. Finney. He retained his erect, manly form, his fresh enthusiasm and intellectual vigor, to the ripe old age of eighty-three. On a calm Sabbath evening—in August, 1875—he walked in his garden and listened to the music from a neighboring church. Retiring to his chamber, the messenger from his Master met him in the midnight hours, and before the morning dawned his glorified spirit was before the throne! His is the crown of one who turned many to righteousness.
While I am writing this chapter of ministerial reminiscences, I receive the sorrowful tidings that my dear old friend, Dr. Benjamin M. Palmer, of New Orleans—the prince of Southern preachers—has closed his illustrious career. To the last his splendid powers were unabated,—and last year (although past eighty-three) he delivered one of his greatest sermons before the University of Georgia! His massive discourses, based on God's word, were a solid pile of concinnate argument, illuminated with the divine light, and glowing with the divine love shed abroad in his heart. In the spring of 1887, Mrs. Cuyler and myself visited New Orleans, and I cared more to see Dr. Palmer than all the city besides. He cordially welcomed me to the hospitalities of his house, and of that pulpit which had so long been his throne. I do not wonder that the people of New Orleans—of all classes and creeds—regarded him not only with pride, but with an affection that greeted him at every step through the city of which he was the foremost citizen.