live above a cooper's shop, with loose planks for a floor, which wabbled as you walked over them, and through which you could see the men at work below. Her husband would abuse her and swear at her. But there was never any person in distress in the town that Mother Rice did not visit. No case of sickness occurred that she did not consecrate the

chamber with her presence. There was nobody who was discouraged and needed comfort that did not experience her kind offices. She was one of the sweetest, gentlest, and serenest of women.' By degrees, as he entered into the sympathies and confidences of the people among whom he laboured, his preaching became less irksome and more efficient. His ever-increasing knowledge of the real difficulties and trials and wants of men taught him how to preach to them a gospel of Divine condolence and love. His task was yet difficult, but there was a joy in the effort to perform it that upheld and encouraged his heart. He grew courageous, and more loving and sympathetic, and the work of the Lord prospered in his hands. Souls were saved, believers were strengthened, doubters were confirmed, infidels were convinced, sorrowing hearts were comforted, and pastor and people were knit together in mutual sympathy and affection. They dwelt together in unity and peace, reflecting upon the community the light and holiness of their common Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.

Immediately after his settlement at Lawrenceburg, Mr. Beecher was married to Miss Bullard, sister of the Rev. Dr. Bullard of St. Louis, who was killed in a railway accident at Gasconade Bridge, of Rev. Asa Bullard of Boston, and of the Rev. E. Bullard, Vermont. It was a love-marriage, and resulted in great happiness and comfort. Mrs. Beecher

remains to this day, and is noted for her common sense and practical piety. She is well-known in the States as a writer on matters relating to domestic economy, and many of her beautiful and edifying articles have been republished in England. They have had a large family of children, most of whom died while they were yet young.

In the fall of 1839 Mr. Beecher left Lawrenceburg, having accepted a call to Indianapolis, in the same State, a small town of about 4000 inhabitants. The sphere of

I

his ministry was much more extensive here, however, than at Lawrenceburg, and it was his ambition to devote himself with his whole heart to the noble work of saving souls. His great care was to improve himself as a preacher, conscious that if he were to accomplish anything in life it must be done chiefly through preaching. But how was he to preach? What was the best method? The object was grand and sublime; but how was he to reach it? Was the conventional style of preaching the true one? Let us see how he solved the problem: "I remember the first sermon I ever preached. I had preached a good many sermons before, too. But I remember the first real one. had preached a good while as I had used my gun. I used to go out hunting by myself, and I had great success in firing off my gun; and the game enjoyed it as much as I did, for I never hit them or hurt them. I fired off my gun as I see hundreds of men firing off their sermons. I loaded it, and bang!-there was a smoke, a report, but nothing fell; and so it was again and again. I recollect one day in the fields my father pointing out a little red squirrel, and said to me, 'Henry, would you like to shoot him?' I trembled all over, but I said, 'Yes.' He got down on his knee, put the gun across a rail, and said, 'Henry, keep perfectly cool, perfectly cool take aim.' And I did; and I fired, and over went the squirrel, and he did not run away either. That was the first thing I ever hit ; and I felt an inch taller, as a boy that had killed a squirrel, and knew how to aim a gun.

"I had preached two years and a half at Lawrenceburg, in Indiana (and some sporadic sermons before that), when I went to Indianapolis. While there I was much discontented. I had been discontented for two years. I had expected that there would be a general public interest, and especially in the week before the communion season. In the West we had protracted meetings, and the people would come up to a high point of feeling; but I never could get them beyond that. They would come down again, and there would be no conversions. I sent for Dr. Stowe to come down and help me; but he would not come, for he thought it better for me to bear the yoke myself. When I had lived at Indianapolis the first year, I said, 'There was a reason why when the apostles preached they

succeeded, and I will find it out if it is to be found out.' I took every single instance in the Record where I could find one of their sermons, and analysed it, and asked myself, 'What were the circumstances? who were the people? what did he do?' and I studied the sermons until I got this idea that the apostles were accustomed first to feel for a ground on which the people and they stood together; a common ground where they could meet. Then they stored up a large number of the particulars of knowledge that belonged to everybody; and when they had got that knowledge which everybody would admit placed in a proper form before their minds, then they brought it to bear upon them with all their excited heart and feeling. That was the first definite idea of taking aim that I had in my mind. 'Now,' said I, 'I will make a sermon so.' I remember it just as well as if it were yesterday. First, I sketched out the things we all know. You all know you are living in a world perishing under your feet. You all know that time is extremely uncertain; that you cannot tell whether you will live a month or a week. You all know that your destiny in the life that is to come depends upon the character you are forming in this life;' and in that way I went on with my 'you all knows,' until I had about forty of them. When I had got through that, I turned round and brought it to bear upon them with all my might; and there were seventeen men awakened under that sermon. I never felt so triumphant in my life. I cried all the way home. I said to myself, 'Now I know how to preach.' I could not make another sermon for a month that was good for anything. I had used all my powder and shot on that one. But, for the first time in my life, I had got the idea of taking aim. I soon added to it the idea of analysing the people I was preaching to, and so taking aim for specialities. Of course that came gradually and later, with growing knowledge and experience."

It was a grand discovery. To know how to preach well and effective, so as to touch and move the hearts of men, and make them work for truth and righteousness, is indeed to be a second Christ on the earth. But it is not a knowledge that can be easily acquired. "It is easier to study law and

become a successful practitioner, it is easier to study medicine and become a successful practitioner, than it is to study the human soul all through—to know its living forms, and to know the way of talking to it and coming into sympathy with it." What a mistake to imagine that anybody, however scanty his endowments, may become a minister. The ministry is unquestionably the most difficult of all the professions. Blessed, therefore, thrice blessed is he who knows how to preach.

Mr. Beecher's first real sermon, he tells us, was the means of awakening seventeen persons there and then; but that was by no means the measure of its true efficiency. Its mission did not stop with its delivery, but went on, no doubt, through weeks and months and possibly years, doing glorious work for the Master, both by working spiritual transformations in the hearts and consciences and lives of many of those who heard it, and by sweetening the spirit and strengthening the courage of the preacher himself. He was quite another man after that day. He still had to toil and labour as hard and as earnestly as before, but his joyousness of spirit was increased tenfold. He was in partnership with the Almighty. He was a steward of Jesus Christ. His vocation was to sacrifice himself on the altar of agonising vicarious suffering. He was not his own. The love of the crucified Christ shed abroad in his heart constrained him to make himself all things to all men, that thereby he might win some to the higher life of faith, hope, and love. Here is a case in point, but only one out of a hundred that might be cited: "I had a man in my parish in Indiana who was a very ugly fellow. He had a wife and daughter who were awakened during the revival which was then working, and, while visiting others who needed instruction, I went to see and talk with them. He heard that I had been in his house, and shortly afterwards I passed down the street in which he lived. He was sitting on the fence; and of all the filth that was ever emptied on a young minister's head, I received my share. He threw it

out, right and left, up and down, and said everything that was calculated to harrow my pride. I was very wholesomely indignant for a young man. I said to myself, 'Look here,

I will be revenged on you yet.' He told me I should never darken his door again, to which I responded that I never would until I had his invitation to do so. Things went on for some time. I met him on the street, bowed to him, spoke well of him, and never repeated his treatment of me to any one. We constantly crossed each other's paths, and often visited the same people. I always spoke kindly of him. Very soon he ran for the office of sheriff,

and then I went out into the field and worked for him. I canvassed for votes; I used my personal influence. It was a pretty close election, but he was elected. When he knew I was working for him, I never saw a man so utterly perplexed as he was. He did not know what to make of it. He came to me one day, awkward and stumbling, and undertook to 'make up,' as the saying is. He said he would be very glad to have me call and see him. I congratulated him on his election, and of course accepted his overtures; and from that time forth I never had a faster friend in the world than he was. Now, I might have thrown stones at him from the topmost cliffs of Mount Sinai, and hit him every time, but that would not have done him any good. Kindness killed him. I won his con

fidence."

It was while in Indianapolis that he first took part in a revival. It was the most important event in his life, and the one that made the deepest, most lasting impression upon his mind. Dr. Jewett, a brother minister at Terre Haute, a town on the east bank of the river Wabash, some seventyeight miles west-south-west of Indianapolis, sent for him to help in a work of unusual interest which had been started in his church. At first Mr. Beecher hesitated, persuading himself to believe that he could not go. He felt helpless and extremely wretched.

He had never laboured in a revival before, and had not seen one since he was a little boy. He had no effective sermons. Although by nature impulsive, ardent, fiery, and eager, burning to be employed in some exciting work, he was now as weak and as helpless as a sucking babe. The Lord had never called him to such a work. At length, however, the urgency of the invitation, the kind but earnest pleading of his office-bearers, and the