A Tribute to Henry Ward Beecher
Memorial tribute to the great American preacher.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1887)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 12.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/tribute-to-henry-ward-beecher/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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A Tribute to Henry Ward Beecher

New York, June 26,1887.

HENRY WARD BEECHER was born in a Puritan penitentiary, of which
his father was one of the wardens—a prison with very narrow and
closely-grated windows. Under its walls were the rayless, hopeless and
measureless dungeons of the damned, and on its roof fell the shadow of
God's eternal frown. In this prison the creed and catechism were primers
for children, and from a pure sense of duty their loving hearts were
stained and scarred with the religion of John Calvin.

In those days the home of an orthodox minister was an inquisition in
which babes were tortured for the good of their souls. Children then,
as now, rebelled against the infamous absurdities and cruelties of the
creed. No Calvinist was ever able, unless with blows, to answer the
questions of his child. Children were raised in what was called "the
nurture and admonition of the Lord"—that is to say, their wills were
broken or subdued, their natures were deformed and dwarfed, their
desires defeated or destroyed, and their development arrested or
perverted. Life was robbed of its Spring, its Summer and its Autumn.
Children stepped from the cradle into the snow. No laughter, no
sunshine, no joyous, free, unburdened days. God, an infinite detective,
watched them from above, and Satan, with malicious leer, was waiting
for their souls below. Between these monsters life was passed. Infinite
consequences were predicated of the smallest action, and a burden
greater than a God could bear was placed upon the heart and brain of
every child. To think, to ask questions, to doubt, to investigate,
were acts of rebellion. To express pity for the lost, writhing in the
dungeons below, was simply to give evidence that the enemy of souls had
been at work within their hearts.

Among all the religions of this world—from the creed of cannibals who
devoured flesh, to that of Calvinists who polluted souls—there is none,
there has been none, there will be none, more utterly heartless and
inhuman than was the orthodox Congregationalism of New England in the
year of grace 1813. It despised every natural joy, hated pictures,
abhorred statues as lewd and lustful things, execrated music, regarded
nature as fallen and corrupt, man as totally depraved and woman as
somewhat worse. The theatre was the vestibule of perdition, actors the
servants of Satan, and Shakespeare a trifling wretch whose words
were seeds of death. And yet the virtues found a welcome, cordial and
sincere; duty was done as understood; obligations were discharged; truth
was told; self-denial was practiced for the sake of others, and many
hearts were good and true in spite of book and creed.

In this atmosphere of theological miasma, in this hideous dream of
superstition, in this penitentiary, moral and austere, this babe first
saw the imprisoned gloom. The natural desires ungratified, the laughter
suppressed, the logic brow-beaten by authority, the humor frozen by
fear—of many generations—were in this child, a child destined to rend
and wreck the prison's walls.

Through the grated windows of his cell, this child, this boy, this man,
caught glimpses of the outer world, of fields and skies. New thoughts
were in his brain, new hopes within his heart. Another heaven bent above
his life. There came a revelation of the beautiful and real.

Theology grew mean and small. Nature wooed and won and saved this mighty
soul.

Her countless hands were sowing seeds within his tropic brain. All
sights and sounds—all colors, forms and fragments—were stored within
the treasury of his mind. His thoughts were moulded by the graceful
curves of streams, by winding paths in woods, the charm of quiet country
roads, and lanes grown indistinct with weeds and grass—by vines that
cling and hide with leaf and flower the crumbling wall's decay—by
cattle standing in the summer pools like statues of content.

There was within his words the subtle spirit of the season's change—of
everything that is, of everything that lies between the slumbering seeds
that, half awakened by the April rain, have dreams of heaven's blue, and
feel the amorous kisses of the sun, and that strange tomb wherein the
alchemist doth give to death's cold dust the throb and thrill of life
again. He saw with loving eyes the willows of the meadow-streams grow
red beneath the glance of Spring—the grass along the marsh's edge—the
stir of life beneath the withered leaves—the moss below the drip of
snow—the flowers that give their bosoms to the first south wind that
wooes—the sad and timid violets that only bear the gaze of love from
eyes half closed—the ferns, where fancy gives a thousand forms with but
a single plan—the green and sunny slopes enriched with daisy's silver
and the cowslip's gold.

As in the leafless woods some tree, aflame with life, stands like a rapt
poet in the heedless crowd, so stood this man among his fellow-men.

All there is of leaf and bud, of flower and fruit, of painted insect
life, and all the winged and happy children of the air that Summer holds
beneath her dome of blue, were known and loved by him. He loved the
yellow Autumn fields, the golden stacks, the happy homes of men, the
orchard's bending boughs, the sumach's flags of flame, the maples
with transfigured leaves, the tender yellow of the beech, the wondrous
harmonies of brown and gold—the vines where hang the clustered spheres
of wit and mirth. He loved the winter days, the whirl and drift of
snow—all forms of frost—the rage and fury of the storm, when in the
forest, desolate and stripped, the brave old pine towers green and
grand—a prophecy of Spring. He heard the rhythmic sounds of Nature's
busy strife, the hum of bees, the songs of birds, the eagle's cry, the
murmur of the streams, the sighs and lamentations of the winds, and all
the voices of the sea. He loved the shores, the vales, the crags and
cliffs, the city's busy streets, the introspective, silent plain, the
solemn splendors of the night, the silver sea of dawn, and evening's
clouds of molten gold. The love of nature freed this loving man.

One by one the fetters fell; the gratings disappeared, the sunshine
smote the roof, and on the floors of stone, light streamed from open
doors. He realized the darkness and despair, the cruelty and hate, the
starless blackness of the old, malignant creed. The flower of pity grew
and blossomed in his heart. The selfish "consolation" filled his eyes
with tears. He saw that what is called the Christian's hope is, that,
among the countless billions wrecked and lost, a meagre few perhaps
may reach the eternal shore—a hope that, like the desert rain, gives
neither leaf nor bud—a hope that gives no joy, no peace, to any great
and loving soul. It is the dust on which the serpent feeds that coils in
heartless breasts.

Day by day the wrath and vengeance faded from the sky—the Jewish God
grew vague and dint—the threats of torture and eternal pain grew vulgar
and absurd, and all the miracles seemed strangely out of place. They
clad the Infinite in motley garb, and gave to aureoled heads the cap and
bells.

Touched by the pathos of all human life, knowing the shadows that fall
on every heart—the thorns in every path, the sighs, the sorrows, and
the tears that lie between a mother's arms and death's embrace—this
great and gifted man denounced, denied, and damned with all his heart
the fanged and frightful dogma that souls were made to feed the eternal
hunger—ravenous as famine—of a God's revenge.

Take out this fearful, fiendish, heartless lie—compared with which all
other lies are true—and the great arch of orthodox religion crumbling
falls.

To the average man the Christian hell and heaven are only words. He has
no scope of thought. He lives but in a dim, impoverished now. To him the
past is dead—the future still unborn. He occupies with downcast eyes
that narrow line of barren, shifting sand that lies between the flowing
seas. But Genius knows all time. For him the dead all live and breathe,
and act their countless parts again. All human life is in his now, and
every moment feels the thrill of all to be.

No one can overestimate the good accomplished by this marvelous,
many-sided man. He helped to slay the heart-devouring monster of the
Christian world. He tried to civilize the church, to humanize the
creeds, to soften pious breasts of stone, to take the fear from mothers'
hearts, the chains of creed from every brain, to put the star of hope
in every sky and over every grave. Attacked on every side, maligned
by those who preached the law of love, he wavered not, but fought
whole-hearted to the end.

Obstruction is but virtue's foil. From thwarted light leaps color's
flame. The stream impeded has a song.

He passed from harsh and cruel creeds to that serene philosophy that has
no place for pride or hate, that threatens no revenge, that looks on sin
as stumblings of the blind and pities those who fall, knowing that in
the souls of all there is a sacred yearning for the light. He ceased
to think of man as something thrust upon the world—an exile from
some other sphere. He felt at last that men are part of Nature's
self—kindred of all life—the gradual growth of countless years; that
all the sacred books were helps until outgrown, and all religions rough
and devious paths that man has worn with weary feet in sad and painful
search for truth and peace. To him these paths were wrong, and yet all
gave the promise of success. He knew that all the streams, no matter how
they wander, turn and curve amid the hills or rocks, or linger in the
lakes and pools, must some time reach the sea. These views enlarged his
soul and made him patient with the world, and while the wintry snows of
age were falling on his head, Spring, with all her wealth of bloom, was
in his heart.

The memory of this ample man is now a part of Nature's wealth. He
battled for the rights of men. His heart was with the slave. He stood
against the selfish greed of millions banded to protect the pirate's
trade. His voice was for the right when freedom's friends were few. He
taught the church to think and doubt. He did not fear to stand
alone. His brain took counsel of his heart. To every foe he offered
reconciliation's hand. He loved this land of ours, and added to its
glory through the world. He was the greatest orator that stood within
the pulpit's narrow curve. He loved the liberty of speech. There was no
trace of bigot in his blood. He was a brave and generous man.

With reverent hands, I place this tribute on his tomb.
