J. F. MACLEAR
Lyman Beecher in Britain
The triumphant British tours of Harriet
Beecher Stowe in the 1850s
and Henry Ward Beecher in the 1860s have
long claimed the attention
of students of American literature and
Civil War diplomacy. Yet
despite the interest of intellectual and
church historians in Lyman
Beecher, the patriarch of the family, no
attention has been paid to his
earlier stay in Britain in the summer of
1846.1 It is true that Beecher
was then seventy-one years old, his
impact on American religion was
already largely made, and he could no
longer attempt that broad
ecclesiastical influence to which he had
always aspired. Even his own
distinctions were now eclipsed by those
who were carrying them
further-by Charles Grandison Finney in
revivals, Horace Bushnell in
liberal theology, and his own son Henry
in speaking to national
issues. But Lyman did not journey to
Britain on any retired gentle-
man's pleasure tour. He went as an Ohio
delegate to both the World
Temperance Convention and the great
organizing meetings of the
Evangelical Alliance, and his
contributions to both causes were of
some importance. Moreover, in this
summer's work he played his last
significant role as American
ecclesiastical statesman and in it showed
that same balance of revivalism,
nationalism, and discreet reform
which he had absorbed from Timothy
Dwight at Yale and then
perfected in his early pastorates at
Litchfield and Boston.
"President Beecher" in 1846
was nearing the end of his career as
head of Lane Seminary, having come to
Cincinnati fourteen years
earlier as part of the great campaign to
imprint New England values
on the "barbarous West." His
reputation had subsequently suffered
Dr. James F. Maclear, Professor of
History at the University of Minnesota, Duluth,
is a specialist in British and American
religious history.
1. The only scholarly biography, Stuart
C. Henry, Unvanquished Puritan: A Portrait
of Lyman Beecher (Grand Rapids, 1973), slights the summer in England.
The
discussion by Barbara M. Cross in her
introduction to The Autobiography of Lyman
Beecher, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1961) is very brief. The
treatment by Constance
Mayfield Rourke, Trumpets of Jubilee (New
York, 1927), 3-86, is similarly inadequate.
Neither sketch deals with the British
visit of 1846. The Beechers' own recollection of
their sojourn in Britain in Autobiography,
II, 390-93 is highly subjective reminiscence
and contains minor inaccuracies, e.g.,
"Patten" for "Patton," "Crown Chapel" for
"Craven Chapel," etc.
294 OHIO HISTORY |
|
from the students' famous antislavery revolt and from Old School attacks on his New Haven theology, but he was still regarded as a venerable leader in the Congregational and Presbyterian churches. The two causes which led him to abandon a lifetime's indifference to foreign travel had long been fundamental to his strategy for revitalizing Christian civilization. As a young minister he had inaugurated the temperance crusade in Connecticut. His famous Six Sermons (1825) remained among the movement's most effective tracts, and through British republication and foreign translation they gave Beecher a temperance reputation abroad. Thus the World Conference, originally planned for 1843 but rescheduled to coincide with the Evangelical Alliance, could not fail to excite his interest. The |
Lyman Beecher 295
Alliance itself touched an even deeper
emotion-Beecher's dream of
evangelical Protestant unity. Throughout
his life he had labored to
build a Christian America consistent
with older (though modernized)
Puritan ideals, and in this vision
"the American church"-for
Beecher cooperating denominations of the
Reformed tradition-had
been expected to supply vital
leadership. It is true that Beecher's
concern was more American than
international, but he had always set
the Republic in a grand providential
design as the nation divinely
created to lead the moral renovation of
the earth. Consequently, he
was not really the provincial New
England churchman he sometimes
seemed to be, and, like his mentor
Dwight, he assigned an important
though secondary role to Britain in
working out God's purposes.2
Hence the prospect of establishing a
"Protestant International" under
Anglo-American auspices inevitably
captured his imagination. "I will
go!" he exclaimed on reading
newspaper accounts of the planned
London meetings, "I will go!
I thank God for such a movement."3
Though Beecher dated this impulsive
decision "early in the spring
of '46," he must have considered
the idea earlier. Since 1842
proposals for a transatlantic Protestant
confederation had been raised
in both Britain and the United States,
fellow Presbyterians had
welcomed the actual invitation in 1845,
and American religious
journals had carried news of the
preparations through the winter of
1845-1846. When the decision was made,
Beecher apparently found
difficulty in getting the seven hundred
dollars considered necessary
for the journey. His third wife, Lydia
Jackson Beecher, wrote to the
Reverend William Patton of New York, the
chief American promoter
of Anglo-American evangelical
cooperation, to inquire if the
American organizing committee had
collected any funds which might
be applied to this end. Patton answered
that no such monies were
available. Later in life Beecher liked
to recall that his major
undertakings had been begun in faith and
that financial support had
later been providentially supplied. So
it was, he alleged, in this
instance. A long-delayed subscription
for his Lane professorship of
three hundred dollars miraculously
appeared, and with its help the
Beechers were able to leave Cincinnati
for New England and Britain
2. The British perception of Beecher's
role in the American temperance movement is
described in P. T. Winskill, The
Temperance Movement and Its Workers. A Record of
Social, Moral, Religious, and
Political Progress, 4 vols. (London,
1891), I, 34-38. By
1828 Beecher's Six Sermons was
circulating in Ulster, giving rise to the Irish
temperance movement. In 1830 the
Scottish Temperance Society published the same
work. Dissemination of the Six
Sermons in Bradford in 1829-1830 by manufacturer
Henry Forbes helped launch the movement
in England. Ibid., 49, 59, 63.
3. Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, II, 390.
296 OHIO HISTORY
in June. Actually, since Beecher signed
receipts for eleven hundred
dollars in overdue salary on June 1 and
2, his needs may have been
less dramatically supplied.4
After a brief visit to New York,
Beecher and his wife hurried on to
Boston in order to embark on the
British steamer Caledonia on
Wednesday, July 1. At the last moment
his son, Edward Beecher,
minister of the Salem Street Church,
visited the vessel with a
welcome gift of an additional
seventy-five dollars for expenses.5 The
voyage of the Caledonia was
swift and uneventful. On Friday, July 3,
the ship called at Halifax; eleven days
later (July 14) it docked at
Liverpool. Beecher had improved the
Sabbath in mid-ocean by
preaching to the assembled passengers
in the saloon, speaking "in a
free, untrammeled, earnest,
affectionate, extempore, and applicatory
manner for thirty or forty
minutes."6
Liverpool did not seem greatly to have
impressed Beecher. His
sole recollection in later years was a
parochial one: its streets were
like those of Boston, "of all
widths and angles, and wedges." After a
two-day visit, the Beechers travelled
north to spend a fortnight in
Scotland. Here the veteran reformer had
his first genuine taste of the
British evangelical society in which he
was to live and work for the
next eight busy weeks. At Glasgow and
Edinburgh he called on
distinguished clergymen. He preached a
Sabbath service at the Free
Kirk in the Edinburgh suburb of Canonmills.
He visited schools and
benevolent societies and addressed the
Scottish Temperance
League.7 He also had his
first abrasive encounter with British
evangelical brethren.
4. Ibid., 390-91. Beecher reports the unexpected donor as
"Mr. Wilcox, of Ohio."
Beecher had apparently solicited funds
in 1843 since Wilcox is represented as providing
the money with the remark, "Some
three years since you called on me, stating that in
consequence of the failure of your professorship
you had to act as agent for the
seminary. At that time I did not feel
prepared to do any thing of that kind, but must say
it was a matter of regret to me that I
refused you such aid, and have now called on you
to relieve myself of that regret."
On Patton's role in Anglo-American discussions
before 1846, see R. W. Dale, ed., The
Life and Letters of John Angell James (London,
1861), 411, 418-23, 538. Patton
estimated the passage from Boston to cost $120 in the
New York Observer, March 14, 28, 1846. Beecher's receipt for arrears in
salary, dated
June 2, 1846, is in the Lane Papers,
McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago:
"Received of the Society for
Promoting Education in the West four hundred dollars on
my salary for the year ending Sept. 25th
1845 and six hundred dollars on my salary for
the year ending Sept. 25th 1846. Lyman
Beecher." Beecher's salary at the time was
$1200 per year.
5. New York Evangelist, July 2, 1846, reported the arrival of the Beechers in
New
York on Monday, June 29. Autobiography
of Lyman Beecher, II, 391.
6. Ibid.; The [London] Times, July
15, 1846, 8.
7. Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, II, 391.
Lyman Beecher
297
The underlying theme in the encounter
was American revivalism,
and Beecher gained attention for the
issue by involving the most
revered figure in Scottish religious
life. Thomas Chalmers was then at
the height of his career, having three
years earlier led the secession
which produced the Scottish Free Church.
For three decades
Chalmers' reputation as a leading
intellectual, evangelical, and
ecclesiastical statesman had made him
the British churchman most
respected by American Protestants, and
Beecher, like countless
predecessors, paid his respects to the
Scottish leader when he arrived
in Edinburgh. Chalmers invited Beecher
to hear him preach.
Accordingly, on Sunday, July 26, the
American visitor was one of a
vast assemblage at Burke's Close-"a
mission station," as Beecher's
wife later described it, "in the
midst of a destitute population." The
sensation came at the conclusion of
Chalmers' sermon. According to
the Reverend Samuel Hanson Cox, Beecher
intervened and called on
the people to stay while he added
edifying exhortations. The throng
heard him in surprised silence as he
urged them to act at once to
obtain salvation, to "resolve here,
now, on the spot" to be reconciled
to God.8
The incident had significance beyond
Beecher's embarrassing
tactlessness, which Cox conceded
"was quite singular, if not
censurable." Beecher's address was
prompted by the conviction,
shared by most American churchmen, that
British preaching lacked
true ardor and neglected personal
appeals. It was not "home-
thrusting." Beecher apparently
trusted that his age gave him
latitude to correct the defect with
American-style "encouragements."
If so, he failed to allow for Scottish
apprehensions about American
religion. Since the 1830s British
evangelicals, friendly to earlier New
World awakenings, had become more wary
of revivals as destructive
8. For Chalmers' career, see William
Hanna, Memoir of the Life and Writings of
Thomas Chalmers, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1850-1852). Chalmers' eminence for
American
Protestants is transparent in the
religious newspapers and periodicals of the 1830s and
1840s. For typical eulogies from
American ministers, see William B. Sprague, A
Discourse commemorative of the Rev.
Thomas Chalmers (Albany, 1847);
Francis
Wayland, A Memoir of the Christian Labors ... of Thomas Chalmers (Boston, 1864);
Thomas Smyth, "The Character of the
Late Thomas Chalmers," in J. W. Flinn, ed.,
Complete Works of Rev. Thomas Smyth. D.D., 10 vols. (Columbia, S.C., 1908-1912),
111, 553-81. For indications of the
Scottish-American religious connection in the 1840s,
see G. Lewis. Impressions of America and the American
Churches (Edinburgh, 1845).
The connection has been studied by
George Shepparson in "The Free Church and
American Slavery," The Scottish Historical Review, XXX, no. 110 (October 1951),
126-43, and "Thomas Chalmers, the Free Church of Scotland, and the South," Journal
of Southern History, XVII
(November 1951), 517-37. Beecher's relation to Chalmers is
narrated in Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, II, 391-92
and Samuel Hanson Cox,
Interviews; Memorable and
Useful (London. 1853), 80 ff.,
128 ff.
298 OHIO HISTORY |
|
to doctrine. Americans, they charged, tended to regard "the revival system as the proper and natural and constant condition in which they should be." The emergence of Charles G. Finney and the prevalence of "new measures" strengthened these misgivings-a distrust which Beecher's old friend, Asahel Nettleton, had been one of the first to inspire during his visit to Glasgow in 1831. When in 1839 Finney's Lectures on Revivals appeared in Britain, warnings were sounded even by sympathetic churchmen against the book's "self- conversionism." Scottish anxieties were particularly acute in the 1840s because James Morison of Kilmarnock, himself influenced by Finney, was then leading a successful but controversial revival ac- companied by pamphlet warfare, schism, and disruption of theologi- cal academies.9
9. Cox, Interviews, 80 ff., 128 ff. For Scottish criticism of American revivalism, see letter of Ralph Wardlaw to Leonard Woods of Andover, July 16, 1834 in W. L. Alexander, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Ralph Wardlaw (Edinburgh, 1856), |
Lyman Beecher
299
Beecher's interruption annoyed Chalmers,
who complained to Cox
that now orthodox preachers of America
were sure to be accused of
"Morisonianism." After long
discussion Chalmers was mollified,
agreeing that the American's message was
"sound and good," though
his basic complaint against Beecher
persisted: "But he exhorted them
to do so much, and said not a word, from
first to last, about the Spirit
helping them-that was the great
omission." Chalmers may also have
shown vexation by departing from his
usual hospitable custom of ask-
ing the visitor to pray when Beecher
called at his home in Burntis-
land.10
Leaving these tensions behind them, the
Beechers journeyed by
train from Scotland to London on July
30, "putting up" at Fitzroy
Square where a number of Americans were
already staying. During
the next month Beecher's chief business
was the two great
conventions, but he also found time for
sightseeing and preaching.
Visiting St. Paul's he not only climbed
to the tower, but "then crept
into the ball on the summit, much to the
astonishment of the guide."
His preaching was apparently well
received. He spoke from George
Whitefield's old pulpit at The
Tabernacle to "a vast audience," and
after his sermon at Craven Chapel a
prominent Nonconformist
pleased Lydia Beecher by urging,
"My dear Madam, go home and
take care of that blessed man, for his
like is not to be found." For
twenty years Beecher's career had been
reported in British religious
magazines and travel diaries, and a
fellow-American testified that the
old reformer was "the object of
much curiosity and veneration."11
Five days after his arrival in the
capital Beecher began the week of
deliberations at the World Temperance
Convention at the London
Literary Institution. British temperance
reform was closely linked to
347. A later and more spirited attack by
the venerable Congregationalist, William Jay,
is in The Congregational Magazine (1840),
888-89. For British doubts concerning
Finney, see James' letter to Patton,
June 27, 1843, in Dale, Life of James, 420.
Nettleton's warnings against "the
new measures" in Scotland are reported in Bennet
Tyler, Memoir of the Life and
Character of Rev. A. Nettleton, D.D. (Hartford, 1845),
190-92. The Morison revival is narrated
in Harry Escott, A History of Scottish
Congregationalism (Glasgow, 1960), 116-34, and Fergus Ferguson, A
History of the
Evangelical Union, from its Origin to
the Present Time (Glasgow, 1876), 7
ff.
10. Cox, Interviews, 80 ff., 128
ff.
11. Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, II,
392. The Nonconformist admirer was a
brother of the prominent Congregational
minister of Craven Chapel, John Leifchild.
The Scottish Congregationalist, James
Massie, reported casual impressions: Beecher
was much respected, had a harsh voice,
held strong views of prophecy, expected "an
approaching season of ecclesiastical
change." J. W. Massie, The Evangelical Alliance;
its Origin and Development (London, 1847), 401. E. N. Kirk wrote home that
"Dr.
Beecher does not appear as he used to;
and yet he retains some of the old fire." David
O.Mears, Life of Edward Norris Kirk.
DD (Boston, 1878) 200
300 OHIO HISTORY
the American crusade, and Beecher was
honored as one of the fathers
of the movement. He was introduced as
such when presented before
the convention to speak on the history
of American temperance, and
thereby basis was laid for Beecher's
first brush with the anti-slavery
agitation then raging in England. Seated
in the convention hall was
William Lloyd Garrison, not a delegate
to the convention but in his
own mind the true pioneer of American
temperance. That evening in
a letter to his wife Garrison expressed
his irritation at the honor
bestowed on Beecher. Indeed, in the
afternoon Garrison, further
outraged by references to Southern Christians
and to Sabbath
observance, had risen to denounce the
speaker, the Reverend Edward
Norris Kirk of Boston, and when not
permitted to continue had
indignantly left the meeting.12 The
convention was not thereby freed
of further debate on slavery, however.
Three days later on August 7
transatlantic temperance held its great
public meeting at the Covent
Garden Theatre where Beecher shared the
platform with other
teetotal notables and delivered a speech
"full of emotion and power."
On this occasion the euphoria was
shattered by the eloquent ex-slave,
Frederick Douglass, who seized the
opportunity to speak for
"three millions of the American
population by slavery and prejudice
placed entirely beyond the pale of
American temperance societies."13
It is likely that these abolitionist
eruptions significantly influenced
Beecher's role in the single controversy
which split the convention,
the debate on the "Long
Pledge" which occupied the final meeting on
August 8. In contrast to the "Short
Pledge," the more radical "Long
Pledge" required all teetotalers to
abstain from giving as well as
taking spiritous liquors. It had long been accepted in the
American
temperance movement, but in England its
advocacy in the 1830s had
led to controversy, division, and loss
of some aristocratic and
middle-class support. Ironically, in the
debate Beecher opposed
12. Proceedings of the World's
Temperance Convention Held in London, August
4th, and Four Following Days, with
the Papers Laid before the Convention, Letters
and Statistics and General
Information Presented, &c., &c. (London,
1846), 10-11.
[Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis
Jackson Garrison,] William Lloyd Garrison
1805-1879. The Story of His Life, 4 vols. (New York, 1889), 111, 156-58. The
Liberator,
September 11, 18, 1846.
13. [Frederick Douglass,] Life and
Times of Frederick Douglass (Hartford, 1881),
250-54. Philip S. Foner, ed., The
Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, 4 vols. (New
York, 1950), I, 189-99. John Marsh, Temperance
Recollections, Labors, Defeats,
Triumphs (New York, 1866), 152, 157-58. John A. Krout, The
Origins of Prohibition
(New York, 1925,) 217. New York
Evangelist, September 10, 1846. New York
Observer, September 12, 1846. The Liberator, November 20,
27, 1846. Documents of
the Cox-Douglass controversy were
published as Correspondence between the Rev.
Samuel H. Cox, D.D., of Brooklyn,
L.I. and Frederick Douglass, a Fugitive Slave
(New York. 1846).
Lyman Beecher
301
adoption of the "Long Pledge,"
even though he did not deal with the
substantive issue in the controversy at
all. Instead he argued that the
world convention had no competence to
legislate policy for the
several national societies in the world.
While personally devoted to
the "Long Pledge," Beecher
warned that "the American delegates
could not hold themselves bound by any
decision which might be
arrived at on this point." Britain
and America "should do all that was
practicable in their several
circumstances." It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that Beecher was already
anticipating anti-slavery action
in the forthcoming Evangelical Alliance and
was seeking to establish
the principle and precedent of separate
national policies. If so,
Beecher's speech may have been the first
public declaration of an
American strategy already being shaped
in confidential sessions
among the leading American divines in
London.14
Beecher had only a Sabbath rest after
the conclusion of the
Temperance Convention before throwing
himself into preparations for
the Evangelical Alliance on Monday.
Lydia Beecher recorded that he
"met a committee to confer upon
arrangements for the 'Alliance' "
and then consulted with friends about
abolitionism.15 The two
subjects were certainly related.
American delegates were fearful that
the Alliance, dominated by British
evangelicals, would exclude
slaveholders from membership, thus
affronting American Christianity
and destroying the prospects of the
Alliance in the American
churches. There were sound reasons for
their anxiety. British
churches had long been deeply committed
to the world anti-slavery
crusade. They had promoted abolition in
the British colonies,
successful in 1833, and then turned to
remonstrate with American
brethren for their national sin. Among
the British delegates were
many churchmen who had assumed prominent
roles in the
anti-slavery struggle, including such
influential preachers as Baptist
Noel in the Established Church; John
Angell James, John Morison,
and Ralph Wardlaw among the
Congregationalists; and John Howard
14. Proceedings of World's Temperance
Convention, 52-55. American influence had
generally supported extremist tendencies
in the British temperance movement. For the
history of the British movement, see
Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians: The
Temperance Question in England
1815-1872 (London, 1971). The Long
Pledge issue
had begun in Britain about 1837. Account
of the controversy is provided in Winskill.
Temperance Movement, II, 140ff.. and Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, 140-45.
15. Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, II, 392. See letter of Robert
Baird mentioning
these preparatory meetings in New
York Evangelist, September 10, 1846; see also Ibid.,
November 12, 1846.
302 OHIO HISTORY
Hinton among the Baptists.16 With
only few exceptions (of whom the
most notable was the Boston Adventist
Joshua V. Himes), the
American delegates determined to resist
the expected attack on
America's "Christian
slaveholders." According to South Carolinians
Thomas Smyth and John B. Adger, the
Americans were generalled by
the New York Presbyterians, Samuel
Hanson Cox of Brooklyn and
Sidney Morse, editor of the Old School New
York Observer, but
Beecher was also praised for placing
"patriotism" above all
sectionalism. Even before the official
convening of the Alliance on
August 19, the Americans were holding
morning strategy sessions to
coordinate their defense.17
In the first week of the sessions at
Freemasons' Hall Beecher made
modest but characteristic
contributions. When controversy erupted
over the American attempt to add an
article on eternal punishment of
the wicked to the basis of union,
Beecher warned British opponents
that Universalism, a blight on American
religion, would soon trouble
their peace as well. When a resolution
recommended restraint and
charity in the religious press, the old
polemicist expressed misgivings:
"Let controversy, for man's sake,
and for God's sake, go on as long
as it is needful." Then on Friday,
August 28, the slavery question,
long expected and long dreaded, was
dropped into the deliberations.
John Howard Hinton, the Baptist editor
of the Anti-Slavery Reporter
in the early 1840s, moved an amendment
to the plan of organization
whereby only "those persons not
being Slaveholders" were to be-
come eligible for membership in the
Alliance.18 Beecher's role in the
ensuing struggle should not be
exaggerated. He did not argue the
American case effectively on the floor
of the convention, nor did he
orchestrate the American opposition as
he might have done in
younger days. Yet he played a part in
each new development of the
16. British evangelicals' crusade
against American slavery in the 1830s has been
studied by Thomas F. Harwood,
"British Evangelical Abolitionism and American
Churches in the 1830's," Journal
of Southern History, XXVIII (August 1962), 287-306.
Scottish connection with the slavery
issue is analyzed in Shepparson, Scottish
Historical Review, XXX, no. 110 (October 1951), 126-43. For Noel, Morison,
and
Hinton, see Dictionary of National
Biography. Anti-slavery activities of James and
Wardlaw are related in the standard
biographies, Dale, Life of James, and Alexander,
Memoirs of Wardlaw. Both men are frequently mentioned in The Liberator.
17. On Himes, Cox, and Morse, see Dictionary
of American Biography. Louisa
Cheves Stoney, ed., Autobiographical
Notes, Letters, and Reflections, by Thomas
Smyth, D.D. (Charleston, 1914), 359 ff. John Bailey Adger, My
Life and Times
(Richmond, 1899), 134.
18. Evangelical Alliance. Report of
the Proceedings of the Conference Held at
Freemasons' Hall, London, from August
19th to September 2nd Inclusive, 1846
(London, 1847), 109-10, 219, 290.
Lyman Beecher 303
crisis, and in the end his favored
"solution" to the impasse was unen-
thusiastically adopted by the Alliance.
For four days Freemasons' Hall was
racked by the debate, and the
Alliance nearly collapsed. At the end
of the first day the delegates
abandoned the effort to reach agreement
in session and appointed a
committee, of which Beecher was one, to
seek a solution. On the
committee the Americans were under
great pressure to agree to a
compromise which would save the
alliance, but Beecher by his own
account was one of the intransigents.
Earlier in the convention he had
suggested to some members "that we
should have, not a General
Alliance, but an Independent Alliance
in each country whose
representatives might meet from time to
time." The same plan he
promoted again in committee. When at
length a compromise formula
was accepted by most of the Americans
on the committee, Beecher
voted against it. The agreement,
joyfully reported to the convention,
made the delegates deplore slavery and
"express their confidence,
that no Branch will admit to Membership
slaveholders, who, by their
own fault, continue in that
position." Despite the agreement, Beecher
and other Americans also signed a
protest, written by Sidney Morse,
against the introduction of the slavery
question into the Alliance.
Over the Sabbath recess the Americans
concluded that they had
yielded too much, re-established their
solidarity, and on Monday
morning threw the convention into
turmoil by renouncing the recent
compromise. In his speech to the
convention Beecher was frank in
enlisting political argument. "If
you go on upon this basis," he told
the brethren, "the result . . . will
simply be, that you make it
altogether an Abolition movement in
America.... I assert, without
hesitation, that, in the present state
of things, three-fourths of our
Churches cannot go with it." Then
Beecher presented his favorite
suggestion: "Better for us to
attempt forming independent Alliances,
in England and in other Countries, and
to have a Union once in three
or seven years. In this way you would
avoid all these difficulties." In
the end Beecher's alternative did
prevail. The controversy, sent back
to committee, was ended by a new
recommendation that members of
the Alliance "adopt such
organization in their several Countries, as,
in their judgement, may be most in
accordance with their peculiar
circumstances." In contrast to many
delegates who spoke sadly of
the "dissevering" of the
Alliance, Beecher was elated and indulged in
characteristic rhetoric:
We have got our independence-as
independent as the air; and we have got
our union-as strong as the arm of
Omnipotence. The Lord Jesus Christ has
got us marshalled for this simple
business; there is one brigade here under
304 OHIO HISTORY
orders, another there; and now
let us go, under His guidance and providence,
against the universal enemy.19
The great contention was over, but in
the closing session of the
Alliance a curious scene took place
which allowed members to relieve
their pent-up emotions. The Reverend
Mollison Madison Clark, a
black minister from Washington, tardily
arrived in London and
presented himself at Freemasons' Hall.
Clark had set out from
America to attend the Alliance but his
ship had turned back to New
York after an accident at sea. The warm
welcome which British
evangelicals gave to this symbol of
American slavery was exceeded
only by the emotional determination of
the Americans to demonstrate
their charity toward a black brother.
Beecher joined with the rest,
crying out, "I invite him to my
house, to my table, to my pulpit."20
The Alliance closed on August 29, and
the Beechers prepared to
take ship for New York after a final
fortnight in England. The
preceding weeks had been filled with
the excitement of meeting
famous men, addressing great rallies,
and manipulating ecclesiastical
politics. Beecher had loved it all, but
one final drama was still
reserved for him on his homeward
journey.
On September 12 Lyman and Lydia Beecher
sailed from Liverpool
on the Great Western. The
steamship was considered one of the most
splendid in transatlantic service, and
the passenger list included
several who had been active in the late
conventions-the temperance
reformer John Marsh, Professor Samuel
Schmucker of Gettysburg,
and the Charleston Presbyterian
minister Thomas Smyth. For eight
days the voyage proceeded peacefully,
but on the evening of
Saturday, September 19, the vessel
sailed into a hurricane. Within a
few hours the masts were carried away,
and many of the lifeboats
broke free of securings and were lost.
While waves washed over the
bow, sending terrible shocks through
the steamer, weeping
passengers gathered below and awaited
the end. On Sunday, at the
height of the storm, an emotional
religious service was held in the
main saloon. Marsh read scripture,
Schmucker prayed, and Beecher
delivered "solemn remarks."
At the conclusion of worship he
became prophetic. "I have seen
Christ," he told the distressed
passengers, "and have the
assurance that not one of us will be lost."
"It is worthy of record,"
Lydia Beecher reported, that after this
service "the 'wrecking' ceased,
though the wind increased." On the
19. Ibid., 395-97, 429-30,
450-51. The slavery issue prevented the establishment of an
effective Evangelical Alliance in the
United States until 1867.
20. Ibid., 485-91. Clark
subsequently undertook a lecture tour in Britain and was
attacked by Garrisonians as "an
apologist for American slaveholders." The Liberator,
October 30, November 20, 1846.
Lyman Beecher 305
following Tuesday, when the storm had
slackened, Beecher again led
an assembly of passengers in a
thanksgiving service for their deliver-
ance. But on this occasion, in true
reformist style, a committee was
appointed, of which Beecher was one, to
prepare two appropriate
resolutions which were adopted three
days later. The first resolve
commended the captain, officers, and
crew for their valiant seaman-
ship during the tempest. The second
accompanied a purse of six
hundred dollars, the nucleus of a
"Great Western Fund" established
to assist widows and orphans of those
lost at sea.21 Beecher had
helped found his last benevolent
society.
The Great Western docked in New
York on the following Sabbath,
September 27, and Beecher, after a
brief stay in the east, returned to
Ohio to resume his duties at Lane.22
For four more years the old man
remained at the post, but in 1850,
forgetful and exhausted, he
resigned and removed to the Brooklyn
home of his son, Henry Ward
Beecher. The British summer had been
the last significant
contribution of Beecher's career, and
while observers noted that he
seemed a mere shadow of his former
self, that shadow was a true one.
Throughout his overseas visit Beecher
had sought to advance his
characteristic brand of Protestant
activism in personal reform,
benevolent crusades, and denominational
coordination, yet without
sacrificing national interests or
social stability. The autumnal quality
of this effort in 1846 marked more than
Beecher's personal career. An
American reform era was passing. The
earlier evangelical confidence
in a progressive advance, through
revivals, benevolence, and foreign
missions, to a Protestant world and the
ultimate "renovation of the
earth," was flagging. Already the
great question of slavery had
divided the major churches of America
into sectional denominations,
and although Northern and Southern
churchmen had stood together
in London, they had done so at the
expense of the Anglo-American
unity deemed essential to the triumph
of liberty and religion
throughout the world. Indeed, other
themes were ascendant. The
moderation and prudence which had
marked Beecher's career were
giving way to the "ultraism"
and passion he deplored. The year after
his retirement his daughter, Harriet,
would sweep both America and
Britain with her narrative indictment
of slavery, and in five years
more his son, Henry Ward, would be
preaching up arms for Kansas.
21. Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, II, 393.
A detailed account of the voyage
appeared in God in the Storm: A
Narrative by the Rev. L. P. Balch, An Address by
Rev. Lyman Beecher, D.D. and a Sermon by the Rev. Thomas Smyth, D.D.
Prepared
on Board the Great Western, after the Storm Encountered
on Her Recent Voyage
(New York, 1846), reprinted in Complete
Works of Rev. Thomas Smyth, V. 495-527.
22. Beecher lectured on his English
experiences at the Salem Street Church. Boston,
on October 7, 1846. New York Evangelist, October
15. 1846.
J. F. MACLEAR
Lyman Beecher in Britain
The triumphant British tours of Harriet
Beecher Stowe in the 1850s
and Henry Ward Beecher in the 1860s have
long claimed the attention
of students of American literature and
Civil War diplomacy. Yet
despite the interest of intellectual and
church historians in Lyman
Beecher, the patriarch of the family, no
attention has been paid to his
earlier stay in Britain in the summer of
1846.1 It is true that Beecher
was then seventy-one years old, his
impact on American religion was
already largely made, and he could no
longer attempt that broad
ecclesiastical influence to which he had
always aspired. Even his own
distinctions were now eclipsed by those
who were carrying them
further-by Charles Grandison Finney in
revivals, Horace Bushnell in
liberal theology, and his own son Henry
in speaking to national
issues. But Lyman did not journey to
Britain on any retired gentle-
man's pleasure tour. He went as an Ohio
delegate to both the World
Temperance Convention and the great
organizing meetings of the
Evangelical Alliance, and his
contributions to both causes were of
some importance. Moreover, in this
summer's work he played his last
significant role as American
ecclesiastical statesman and in it showed
that same balance of revivalism,
nationalism, and discreet reform
which he had absorbed from Timothy
Dwight at Yale and then
perfected in his early pastorates at
Litchfield and Boston.
"President Beecher" in 1846
was nearing the end of his career as
head of Lane Seminary, having come to
Cincinnati fourteen years
earlier as part of the great campaign to
imprint New England values
on the "barbarous West." His
reputation had subsequently suffered
Dr. James F. Maclear, Professor of
History at the University of Minnesota, Duluth,
is a specialist in British and American
religious history.
1. The only scholarly biography, Stuart
C. Henry, Unvanquished Puritan: A Portrait
of Lyman Beecher (Grand Rapids, 1973), slights the summer in England.
The
discussion by Barbara M. Cross in her
introduction to The Autobiography of Lyman
Beecher, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1961) is very brief. The
treatment by Constance
Mayfield Rourke, Trumpets of Jubilee (New
York, 1927), 3-86, is similarly inadequate.
Neither sketch deals with the British
visit of 1846. The Beechers' own recollection of
their sojourn in Britain in Autobiography,
II, 390-93 is highly subjective reminiscence
and contains minor inaccuracies, e.g.,
"Patten" for "Patton," "Crown Chapel" for
"Craven Chapel," etc.