HOW HENRY WARD BEECHER BEGAN LIFE.

Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 17, 8 June 1872, Page 3

HOW HENRY WARD BEECHER BEGAN LIFE.

Hi.nky VV a ii i> Beech Kit. the popular American preacher, in a recent "lecture-room talk" on " The religious duty of Thanksgiving," gave the following account of his early experience as a minister : —" I do not believe that to-dny I feel as thankful for the comfort of my house as I did when I first began to preach, and had two rooms, and felt that they were mine, and went round among the people of the neighbourhood with the thought, ' Was there ever a man so happy as I ami'' Well, I may as well tell >ou—when J began to preach J never exp<c:ed to do much ; but I meant to do as well as I could ; 1 never expected to go anywhere. 1 was asked to cross the river from ( incinnati and preach in Covington, and J went over and began to preach there. I did not know but I was going to stay there; and I was perfectly willing to stay. But I was soon called by a woman to Lawrence berg. She was the factotum of the whole church ; and I went there and spoke to a well-nigh empty building. I was settled over a town with two distilleries and twenty devils in it. I was very poor, arid there was no patrimony coming to me, as you know. r J he moment I was out ol the seminary 1 wa-i without my father's support, and was obliged to take care ol myself. 1 had a salary, but it was a salary of only 400 dols., and 1 took half of that to go to New England to get married with ; and as the parish paid only half of it, and the other half was to come from the Missionary Society, I found myself very short of funds. i had just 18 cents in my pocket when I came back. I was taken up by a good Methodist brother for about a week, and then 1 got those two rooms to which i have alluded; they were upstairs. One was the kitchen, cellar, and sitting-room ; the other was the library, bedroom, and parlour; so that we had six rooms, calling each three; the cellar was made by putting things under the bed, and the other rooms were added by sundry devices. You who go into flash houses, furnished by your grandpapas and grandmamas, do not know anything about the joys of housekeeping. Persons ought to begin at the bottom to know what those joys are ; and I began down there. I had no idea that I could preach ; I never oxpected that I could do much ; I merely went to work with the feeling', ' 1 will do as well as I can, and will stick to it, if the Lord pleases, and light his battle the best way I know how '; and was as thankful as I could be. .Nobody ever sent me a spare-rib that I did not thank God for the kindness that was shown me. 1 recollect that when Judge gave me his cast-off clothing, I felt that I wan sumptuously elad. I wore old coats and second-hand shirts for two or three years ; and I was not above it either, although sometimes, as I was physically a somewhat, well-developed man, and the Judge was thin and his legs were slim, they were rather a. tight lit."