Chapter III: Part 3

"The American Consul who had come with us from Odessa stepped
forward and read a short address to his Imperial Highness Alexander
II, Czar of Russia, which had been prepared and signed by the
passengers. The Emperor replied to it by saying 'that he thanked us
for the address and was very much pleased to meet us, especially as
such friendly relations exist between Russia and the United
States.' The Empress further replied by saying 'that Americans were
favourites in Russia,' and she hoped her people were the same with
the Americans.

"The Emperor is tall and well-proportioned, with a mild yet firm
expression. The impression of the beholders is that he is one born
to command. He wore a white cap and a white linen suit, the coat
confined with a belt around the waist and ornamented with gilt
buttons and elaborate epaulets.

"The Empress is of medium height, fair complexion, and although
delicate looking she appears young for one of her age. A bright,
welcoming smile lit up her face. Her dress was white foulard silk,
dotted with blue and richly trimmed with blue satin. She wore a
small sleeveless jacket, a broad blue sash, and around her neck was
a tie made of swiss muslin and valenciennes lace. On her head was a
straw hat trimmed with blue velvet and black lace. Her hands were
covered with flesh-covered kid gloves, and she carried a light drab
parasol lined with blue silk.

"The Grand Duchess was attired in a dress of similar material to
that of her mother, only this was more tastefully arranged with
blue silk and fringe, a belt of the same material as the dress,
fastened by a large rosette, and a straw hat also trimmed with blue
silk.

"The Grand Duke Serge is quite young, and a well-appearing youth.
He was dressed in a scarlet blouse and white pants.

"Individual introductions followed. Several of the ladies,
including myself, had an opportunity of conversing with the
Empress. All of the Imperial family speak English very well.

"We were escorted through the buildings by the Emperor and Empress,
entering a door which was on either side a bower of flowers.
Almost all the apartments were thrown open. The floors were inlaid
and polished, and the furniture was curious and costly. The Emperor
took special pains to show us the chapel, where he and his family
worshipped. It was very handsome, and connected with the main
building.

"Every effort was made by the Imperial family to welcome us, and
really the Pilgrims seemed to act as much at home as though they
were accustomed to calling on Emperors every day.

"I could not realise that we were being entertained by a ruler of
more than eighty million people, and whose word was the supreme law
of the most powerful nation on the globe.

"At eight o'clock in the evening the anchor was lifted and we
sailed by the Czar's palace, which was brilliantly lighted, and
amid the booming of cannon, and the shooting of rockets, and a blue
light illuminating our ship we bade farewell to a scene which I
shall treasure as one of the brightest remembrances of my life."

From Yalta the steamer sailed across the Black Sea, through the Bosphorus, down the coast of Asia Minor, to the Gulf of Smyrna, anchoring in the harbour of Smyrna. A delay was made to give time to visit the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus. Passing the coast of the Isle of Cyprus the next landing place was Beirut, where several days were spent, affording the pilgrims opportunity to visit the Mountains of Lebanon, the ruins of Baalbec, and the city of Damascus. From Beirut we sailed down the coast of Palestine, passing Tyre and Sidon. The steamer anchored off the harbour of Jaffa. Three weeks were given to visit Jerusalem, Bethany, the River Jordan, the Dead Sea, Jericho, and other places in the Holy Land. At Jerusalem one of the Plymouth Church passengers, Mr. Moses Beach, purchased an olive tree at the foot of the Mount of Olives near the Garden of Gethsemane, had it cut down and transported to Jaffa, where it was placed on board the _Quaker City_, brought home, and through the generosity of Mr. Beach was made into furniture which now stands in Plymouth pulpit. The next landing place was Alexandria, Egypt, giving an opportunity to visit Cairo and the Pyramids. From Alexandria the voyage was continued homeward, stopping at Malta, Gibraltar and Bermuda.

It was a great journey, as it afforded a majestic and sublime panorama of the different nations, kindreds, and tongues of the world, and may well take its place among other great events of Plymouth Church.

_PERSONALIA_

A great deal of the power of church life, as well as of personal life, centres about personal items. Without seeking to arrange them chronologically or even to associate them topically, I wish to gather up in this chapter some of the incidents that do not well belong in the preceding chapters. Some of them it is easy to locate, others have lost their setting, as the years have gone by, and stand out with an individuality that is their own. It is no reflection on Mr. Beecher's successors, noble and true men, that he figures so prominently in them. The memory of those early days when, as a country lad, I came to Brooklyn, naturally centres around the man who from my boyhood, through early manhood and into middle age had a mighty influence upon my life.

One event I recall, in the very first year of my new life. In itself it was no more significant or important than many others, but it meant much to me, opening up as it did a broader vision of world-wide interest, and particularly of the close connection between things called secular and religious. The slavery question had a profound religious bearing, and touched the very core of Plymouth Church life, yet even that does not stand out more vividly in my memory than the scene when Louis Kossuth landed at the Battery from an American man-of-war, and rode up Broadway escorted by a hundred or more prominent citizens. We boys knew little about him, but none the less eagerly we hurried along, barely escaping the horses' feet, and none the less lustily we joined in the shout. Later, through Mr. Beecher's references to him and his work, and by seeing him in Plymouth Church, we came to know that the fight for liberty was the same, whether in the South or in Europe, and whether it was for black men that we knew or for Hungarians of whom we knew nothing, scarcely even the name. Another lesson that we learned was that the whole world is kin, and that even far-off lands cannot suffer oppression and wrong without other lands suffering with them. So Plymouth pulpit became a platform for the presentation of every form of appeal to the best Christian consciousness of the church and through the church of the nation.

Another scene, after I had grown to manhood, illustrates the same chivalry that was bound to assert the claims of any person or any class. Mr. Beecher was always an advocate of women's rights. He could never see why women should be debarred from so many of the privileges, or duties, of social life. During the first Lincoln campaign there appeared upon the lecture platform a woman who brought a woman's plea for the cause of liberty and human rights. No one who ever heard Anna Dickinson speak could forget her, or failed to be moved by her eloquence. Of course Mr. Beecher was her friend, and welcomed her assistance in the contest that was growing more and more severe. She drew great crowds whenever she spoke.

I was then president of the Central Republican Club, and we engaged Miss Dickinson to speak in the Academy of Music, where we were then holding meetings. Some days before the meeting was to take place the secretary of the board of directors of the Academy called at my office with a notice that the directors could not allow Miss Dickinson to speak in that building.

I did not know what to do. The meeting had been extensively advertised. I finally decided to go and see Mr. Beecher. As I recited the facts to him I could see the expression of indignation and the colour come to his face. He thought a moment and said, "Wait until next Sunday morning."

The next Sunday the church was packed. When Mr. Beecher gave the notices and came to Miss Dickinson's lecture, he called the board of directors to account for this action in refusing to allow a woman to speak in the Academy of Music. One of the directors, who was present, being ignorant of the situation, took it up and denied the action of the directors. Then said Mr. Beecher, "I take back all that I have said." I was there in the west gallery, and at once decided not to allow a misrepresentation like that to pass, and, mounted on the backs of two pews, I recited to the audience all of the facts and the official notice which I had from the directors, that the Academy could not be used for this woman to speak in.

When I had finished, the congregation broke into great applause. Mr. Beecher then went on with his remarks, scoring the directors of the Academy, and created such a sentiment in the community that the directors rescinded their action, and the great mass meeting, with Miss Dickinson as speaker, took place.

Since then, not only the Academy of Music, but other public buildings throughout the country have been open for women to speak in, upon any subject.

Stories of Mr. Beecher's sayings might be gathered by the thousand, indeed they have been, and published in a book for the use of ministers, teachers, and public speakers. Fortunately or unfortunately the reporter was not quite so ubiquitous then, especially in the earlier days, as now, but still there was a sufficient amount of newspaper enterprise, and I often wish I had kept a record of the incidents and trenchant remarks that were gathered up. A good many, however, never got into the papers. Whether or not the following did I cannot say. Certainly I did not get them from the press.

One day the evening papers announced that a terrible accident had happened to Mrs. Beecher, that she had been thrown out of her carriage in lower Fulton Street, been dashed against the steps of the Long Island Bank, and so seriously injured that she was not expected to live, and some said that she had been killed. That evening at the prayer meeting no one expected to see Mr. Beecher. He came as usual and the people crowded around him asking about Mrs. Beecher, as she had been reported killed. He seemed quite disturbed by the persistent inquiries of those around him. In a half impatient manner he said, "It would have been serious with any other woman."

The same cool, imperturbable bearing so often manifest in his experiences in England came out again and again during the stirring scenes in this country. When the Civil War broke out and the riots in New York took place for several days the city was almost in the hands of the mob. It was given out that Plymouth Church was to be attacked the next Sunday evening. Crowds of rough-looking men came over the ferry and mixed with the congregation. John Folk, superintendent of the police force of Brooklyn, with forty of his men was in the lecture room and back of the organ to protect Mr. Beecher, in case of an attempt to reach him, amid the intense excitement of the audience. Mr. Beecher came upon the platform calm and cool and proceeded with the services as usual. During the sermon a stone crashed through the upper windows from the outside. Mr. Beecher stopped, looked up to the windows, and then to the great congregation, and said "Miscreant," and calmly went on with his sermon.

He was always glad when he could be, so to speak, off duty, and be free to do whatever occurred to him to do, whether anybody else would ever have thought of it or not. One Sunday evening when his pulpit was occupied by some other pastor he was seen sitting in the third gallery. When asked why he was up there, he replied "that he wanted to see how the preacher looked from that point of view."

The boys on the Heights all knew Mr. Beecher and liked to meet him because he always had a word with them. In coming to church one day he met a group of boys. They hailed him in this fashion: "There goes Mr. Beecher, he is a screecher." When he reached the church it seemed to please him to tell the story to the congregation.

Whenever Mr. Beecher crossed the ocean he was very sea-sick, and after landing he would say that those whom God abhorred He sent to sea. This was probably the reason why at the last moment he decided not to to take the trip in the _Quaker City_, referred to in a previous chapter. The expedition would never have been organised but for Mr. Beecher, and yet it had to go without him.

While in a very real sense Mr. Beecher was a true cosmopolitan, and a genuine citizen of the United States, he was specially fond of New England, was grateful that that section was his birthplace, and always glad when one opportunity or another called him there to lecture or preach. The New England people fully reciprocated the feeling and in turn Mr. Beecher used to declare that "New England was the brain of the nation." Little wonder that so many New England boys found their way to Plymouth Church.

In a similar way he was very fond of Brooklyn as the city of homes. He was interested in New York, with its bustle and rush, as the "work shop," but Brooklyn was the "boarding house," and many a semi-homeless boarder found a warm welcome in Plymouth Church. Perhaps it was these people that he had in mind when Plymouth Church could not hold half the people who desired to attend the services, and he appealed to the pewholders to stay away evenings and give their pews to strangers, inaugurating thus a custom which has continued to the present time.

While preaching upon the greatness of God's work as compared with the works of man, he said man can tunnel mountains, build ships to cross the sea, span the world with the telegraph, cross the continent with the iron horse, build cathedrals and capitols, machines to fly in the air, and explore the depths of the sea, but with all of man's greatness and skill, "he cannot make a fly."

In a vivid description of a thunder storm illustrating some part of his sermon he closed with a most beautiful piece of word painting in describing the passing away of the clouds after the storm, picturing the sun shining upon the edges of the clouds making a pathway as he said for "Angels to walk to and fro when they came down from Heaven."

Intensely practical as he was in his conception of religion, Mr. Beecher had a very profound sense of the future life, and there was always a sub-stratum of that thought in his preaching. In a sermon on the Darwinian theory he said, "I do not care where I came from; it is where I am going to that I am interested in."

In a sermon on Heaven, he said that everyone had a right to make their own Heaven. The one that inspired in them the greatest hope and most beautiful thoughts and gave them the greatest happiness was their Heaven. Speaking of the end of life, he said that when he died he would like to pass out of life suddenly, like a cannon ball shot out of a cannon.

_FUTURE PLYMOUTH_

What will become of Plymouth Church when Mr. Beecher passes away? was a question often asked in the early days. The answer to that has already been given. It was a severe test to which the church was put, but it stood it nobly. Again when Dr. Abbott was pastor the same question was asked. Ten years of successful life is the sufficient answer to that. Now again the question comes up under the pastoral care of Dr. Hillis.

My answer to this last question as to the others is, that the life of Plymouth Church does not depend upon any one man, however great he may be. It would be difficult to find three men more different, each from the other, than the three who have filled Plymouth pulpit. Yet after all the general type of the church life has not changed, nor has its attitude toward the surrounding city and the wider national life taken on a different character. The emphasis now, as always, is on Christian living, in the assurance that out of that living will come Christian thinking. Each in his own way, but each with the same purpose and the same result, has preached the gospel of life. The form of that life has varied, but the variation has been occasioned by the need of adaptation to the general type of church life, as illustrated on every hand. Plymouth has simply shown its ability to meet new conditions in itself.

So also with regard to the broader relation to public life. It is now, as it always has been, the natural and the expected thing that every great cause, for righteousness and peace, should send its advocates to Brooklyn and that they should have a welcome in Plymouth pulpit. A significant illustration of this occurred but recently at the opening of the great Peace Congress. The two churches that were identified with it more than any others were Plymouth and Broadway Tabernacle. Probably no pastor in the country is more widely known for his practical interest in public affairs than is Dr. Hillis, and wherever he goes from the Atlantic to the Pacific he is welcomed both for himself and as the pastor of Plymouth Church. The simple fact is it is the same old Plymouth. It has grown up with the country, has had its share in the making of the country, whether in the strife of war or in the urgency for peace, and has made for itself a name that will stand, like Faneuil Hall in Boston, or Independence Hall in Philadelphia, for all time to come.

This permanency, however, will be as its strength has been in the wise management of the church in its various departments. The problem of a city church located as Plymouth is must be to-day very different from that which faced its founders. Brooklyn has gone 'way beyond the Heights, and while strangers still find it easy to reach, the permanent membership extends over a wide territory and must of necessity be more or less transitory. This uncertainty brings to view the necessity of permanence of financial basis. They are wise, strong men who are in charge, as is shown by the fact that notwithstanding the changes that are inevitable, the church is free from debt and is accumulating permanent funds which will be of great value. Running expenses of all kinds, pastors' salaries, music, etc., are met from current income from pew rents, leaving the church free to put additional sums into permanent form. Then there is a Beecher endowment fund of almost fifty thousand dollars, and a Beecher memorial fund of the same amount. Constantly sums of money are coming into the church treasury from legacies or special gifts, and these are either invested or applied to improvements such as it is judged will increase the effectiveness of the church work. Among these is a Beecher memorial building soon to be erected adjoining the church. The alteration of the front entrance is contemplated, and other work which will prove advantageous to the society. Memorial stained glass windows are to be put in, contributed by members.

Perhaps still more important is the development of the church activities. In Mr. Beecher's time the great feature of church life was the sermon. To-day it is church organisation. Some seem to think that the preaching of to-day is inferior to that of a generation ago. While it may be true that no single man stands out as did Mr. Beecher, Dr. R. S. Storrs, or Dr. William M. Taylor, it seems to me that the average of preaching is higher. Dr. Hillis is not Mr. Beecher, but he is Dr. Hillis, and Plymouth people never go from Plymouth Church without the thought of a good and great presentation of truth. However that may be, one thing is very noticeable: the growth in Plymouth, as elsewhere, of church societies. The women have their societies for Home and Foreign Missions, there is a Young Woman's Guild, and a Henry Ward Beecher Missionary Circle, a Young Men's Club, and an organisation of older men known as Plymouth Men. The year that Mr. Beecher died The Plymouth League was formed and had a successful career until a few years ago, when it was dropped.

So Plymouth has kept abreast of the times, using any means that seemed to promise usefulness, ever ready to change where change was adjudged wise, ready to drop anything that in the shifting conditions had outlived its usefulness, loyal to its past, yet realising that the highest loyalty is to a future ideal rather than a past achievement. Mr. Beecher was no iconoclast, and at the same time, the past, however great and grand, as such, had no attraction for him. His eye was set on the future, a future that included the individual life and the corporate life. Present-day socialism had scarcely dawned during his day, but were he living now he would be found in line with the broadest and the freest conceptions of society, and true to his belief that the church should lead. This not because it is an organisation, including wise men, or divinely ordered, but because it expresses in the fullest and best way the divine principles that must govern society. That this idea of his so dominated the church in its early life and has continued to control it to the present day is the true basis for confidence as to its future.

Plymouth Church will stand just so long as it represents this ideal, and applies it to all classes and conditions of men, without regard to race or creed. To-day, as of old, men of every form of belief or no belief find a welcome and find help, and many go forth with old ideas changed, new ambitions stirred, a clearer vision of what it means to live a Christian life. If the time ever comes when that is not true, then Plymouth Church will be a relic of the past, a curiosity, to be visited by strangers as Plymouth Rock or Westminster Abbey. That that time will ever come I do not believe. However much the centres of population may change, the needs of men never change, and even if other churches should follow their constituencies to other sections, Plymouth will remain, a living monument to the truth and the life that has been from its origin its power.

* * * * *

THE END