DEATH OF Henry Ward Beecher.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4860, 9 March 1887, Page 3

DEATH OF Henry Ward Beecher.

♦ ■ [bEUTEK's TELEGRAMS —COPYEIGHT.] London. March 3. The death is announced of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, aged 75. He had been ailing since Saturday, when he had a severe apoplectic attack.

To-day we announce the death of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, one of America's most famous preachers, and whose name

liiis for decades been a household word among all English communities. It is only a few months since he visited England on a lecturing tour, a portion of which had to bo abandoned owing to his health "creaking down. The following is taken from Men of the Time :—

Beecher, Henry Ward, fourth son of Lyinan Boecher and Roxana Footc Beecher, bom at Litchfield, Connecticut, June 24, 1813. He studied in public Latin schools at Boston, graduated at Amherst Col'ege, Mass., 1834, and studied theology under his father at the Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati, Ohio. He first settled as a Presbyterian minister at Laurenceburg, Indinna, in 1837, removed in 1539 to Indianapolis, and became pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church at Brooklyn, New York, in 1847. His church edifice has seating capacity for nearly 3000 persons, and his church has a membership of over 2000. During his whole career he has mingled to a greater extent than almost any other preacher and pastor of his denomination in matters not directly professional. For nearly a year, during his theological course, he edited the Cincinnati Journal, a religious weekly. In Indiana he was editor of the Farmer and Gardener. In Brooklyn he was soon known as an earnest opponent of slavery, and an advocate of temperance, peace, and other reforms, and very early became prominent as a platform orator and lecturer. Hβ has always been a strong Republican, and has preached a number of political sermons from his pulpit, and has addressed a number of political meetings. From the date of the establishment of the Independent newspaper to 1858. he was a constant contributor to its columns, and from 1861 to 1863 its chief editor. In 1870 he became the editor-in-chief of the Christian Union, a weekly religious paper, a position he retained for about ten years, when he resigned it to Mr Ljinan Abbott, his associate editor. His regular weekly sermons, as taken down, by stenographic reporters, have been printed 1859. In the summer of 1874 Mr Theodore Tilton, formerly his associate, and afterwards his successor, in the editorship of the Independent, charged him with criminality with Mrs Tilton. A committee of the Plymouth congregation reported that this charge was without any foundation; but meanwhile Mr Tilton commenced a civil siiit against Mr Beecher, Laying his damages at§loo,ooo. The trial was protracted during six months ; and at its close the jury, after being locked up for moro than a week, failed to agree upon a verdict, nine being for acquittal of defendant and three for conviction. In 1878 Mr Beecher announced that he did not believe in the eternity of punisliment, believing thatall punishments are cautionary and remedial, and that no greater cruelty could be imagined than the continuance of suffering eternally, after all hope of reformation is gone. He is understood to hold both to the annihilation of the miserable and the restoration of all others. In 1882 ho foi«nally withdrew from the Association of Congregational Churches on account of this change in belief.

Every now and then we are told of such and such a change. We beg to inform our readers that Neal and Close are about to make a great change, and will dispose of their stock of drapery at ridiculous prices for. cash.