The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1864-01-28
THE PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
Beecher's Travels in the Old
World Summarized.
Beecher's Reception nj Plymouth Church
His Address to the Congregation.

49, h~aF AN NheARHr NACAA
5000 persons were present. In response to u
general call, Mr.. Beecher made the following off
haud remarks to his congregation:
Even If It had been expected Of me, I could
not make u speech tonight: for there are many
occasions IN which the only expression one can
give ~ that of silence. 1t is nearly six months
: since | stood here, and / can truly say that there
has nOs been Il day, / might almost say not an
hour, in which | have not received accessions to
the pleasure of foreign travel and various expert
cnce by backward-running thoughts for L have
carried you with me, and have been borne up
everywhere by this recollection and by that alice
ton which never dies L know not how 1t might
: have been in years, because time wears away at
: last the very stones but certainly in SO short a
timo as six months, | not only have lost no quick
ening affection, but have gained and although
have had uninterrupted prosperity, scarcely Il
clouded day upon the shore, although in England,
France aud Switzerland, Northern Italy, Germany
and Belgium, where it pleased God TO carry my
feet, in all those places-though l have had pros
perity day by day and night by night have
not stood in a city, nor on a InOuntain-top, nor
= any gallery of pictures, nor in any loveliest
landscape, that | was not homesick.
Not for one single moment have l thought
backward without the old yearning, longing to
be back again. l say the truth. | lie not, L love
this place, this people and this work beyond all
other places under the sun. / shall not feel that
I am entirely at home until | am privileged
again to break to you the bread of life for
tIJuCl Il NV yOu anu III I'LL
collectively, it is in my special relation to you as
q minister of Christ Jesus that l feel that | love
you, and again to be permitted to preach here is
the highest joy that l anticipate on earth.
have been called in the providence of God to
labor outside of the accustomed field of church
labor and | have occasion to ask your thanks,
mingling with mine to God, that / have been
preserved in all the arduous labor TO which |
have been called but | feel that these ure really
foreign things, required by the exigencies of our
..l = 1911 -. 1881 g. ~
version Of men and for the edifcation of Christ's
children is, after all, my work-to which | was
dedicated, TO which | give myself again and |
come back among you to be your elder brother
and Instructor in Christ Jesus. and in the sim
plicity of the Gospel and in the work of the
Gospel, which for eighteen hundred years and
raore has been administered in the world by so
many thousand faithful pastors. In that work /
desire still to and my only, rs find my constant
pleasure. Pray for me, then, dear Christian
brethren, friends all, not so much that / may
have strength for continued work rs that L may
not De seduced from it-that l may love nothing
better than the work of the Christian ministry.
So ! give you all good greeting. | thank you all
for your sympathy and your kindness to me, for
those yemembrances which without your uttering
I know have accompanied me, and for your kind
and glad reception of me tonight.
My first experience of foreign travel was in Old
England. We can all adopt. ] think, the words
of Cowper, and none 50 much as those that have
been there:
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.
Applause Nothing was more charming to me
On leaving that arid ocean-which ONE insane
persons are pleased TO praise-and nothing struck
me so much as the green fields, green trees, and
exquisite lawns and plantations of England and
i wandered up and down through the midland
counties, passing from east to west as far as L had
leisure and opportunity, with pleasure that knew
no Abatement, but that grew with the hours.
Thence l went into France by way of Havre,
Rouen, and Paris, seeing, of course, the country,
looking at the people, for L was denied any other
privilege of intercourse than that laughter
studying what could be studied by a superficial
glance glad to see Paris, gladder yet to leave it.
| tmversed the beautiful vine-clad country be-
tween Paris and Strasbourg and Lucerne, that
sits like a jewel in the bosom of the loveliest val
ley in Switzerland; and then that glorious three
weeks experienced in those ordained mountains
ON which God has laid his hand, and they are
pure and white for evermore-three such memoir
able weeks in Switzerland, The best wish [ can
give to you for mere physical or worldly things
IS, that you may live IL go to Switzerland, where
ali good Americans should 90. daughter. And
then out of Switzerland-where nature is so
transcendentally beautiful and men SO wrctched
for of all wretehed creatures | think | never
saw any more so than the Swiss; for although
there are parts of Switzerland where men are
men, there arc valleys and regions through which
the traveller Is called to pass where human life
seems to me 10 be imprisonment and II drudgcry
where disease devastates the understanding
where toll makes people prenaturely old-where
children are born Il hundred years old, but not
altogether in the Scripture meaning of the term
where it is sad 10 sec u maiden, because close
behind her, closer than her own shadow, is that
of decrepid womanhood that is dishOnored and
looks SO wretched from Switzerland, so glorious
in physical things, and with NV experience 50
sad in human things, | passed over TO rejuvenat-
ing Italy.
1 was happier the moment | was ON the further
side of the Simplon pass. There is n glorious
future for Italy. There IL Il splendid people.
They have n grand stock there is 4 stamina
there, and they need only education religion and
liberty to make them one of the peoples of the
world. And | said ut every league, - All hail,
Italy" Applause. And so | passed on from
waking and living Northern Italy, through Pied
mont, till l struck the Austrian dominions, and
then slumber fell upon that fair land and, in
Venice, the city dreamed of in the past and
despaired OF in the future-and L was as one in
= dreim-fuli of glorious memories and full of 4
wretched present. Thence L retraced my steps,
turning north into Tyrol, with a Catholic popu-
iatiOn yet simple and patriarchal, presenting
many OF the most interesting spectacles that L
beheld in all my foreign travels and rapidly
through Germany touching principally the
capitals and cities. that I might see the creations
of art to Belgium and back to England. And
let me say that when 1T last | struck the shore of
England again-although 1 had reason of dis
summer-I breathed freer. and said /. After all,
thank God for England" [Appause.l For
there. with their rugged faults, with their wrong
headaches, with the many things that just at
this time offend us, that is, in the national
cbaracter-Bot that which Is, as among the
French, and many continental people, proposes
ing and polished-but there is, after all, a found
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