Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-01-19
THE APPRECIATION OF HENRY
WARD BEECHER IN
THE SOUTH.
A Flash of Southern Sentiment.

44C 0OO4As
4 Flash of Southern Sentiment.
The Richmond Examiner, Of the -
dwells upon Mr.. Beecher with extreme
u~nctiou. We extract the following choice
passage;
Mr.. Henry Ward Beecher has been be-
friending us he has been pstting us on
the back and calling US good little boys;
he has been commencing u pluck and
going into ecstacies over our manly pa
| thence and fortitude; he has even been
making us promises of eloquent import,
namely, that he will come down to see US,
and deliver us one of his lectures, and
further asseverates that if we continue to
be good little boys and girls as now, he
has no doubt that when we die we shall
go straight to-Massachusetts.
God forgive US! we had rather have
most mems blame than Henry Ward
Beecher's praiseI There is something in
the idea of it that breeds within our veins
a sneaking horror lest we have uncon-
sciously been guilty of something mean
and vile. Faughl Our gorge rises, in
spite of equanimity three fold deepl
Many things are tolerable, but busy-bodies
are not tolerable, and Henry Ward
Beecher Is Ominently a meddier and a
busy-body. He has that genuine Yankee
trait in the utmost perfection. He has an
incurable propensity for raking in the
cutters, and then shrieking out, al smell
a stinkl" He has the itch himself, and
wants to scrape everybody else's back.
He is the type of a class so fond of inter-
fering in everything, that, if they could
carry their characters beyond the grave,
they would make the angels uneasy on
their thrones, aid drive the devil himself
out of PandemoH m.
Human society has to endure many
evils. Smallpox is bad war is very bad;
taxes are dreadful but of all the curses
we know, a Yankee preacher a meddle-
some Yankee preacher a nasaltoned
nigger-sufrage Yankee preachers a Yam
kee preacher who upholds that 1--WE are the
people, and wisdom shall die with us p
is the direst infection that poor human ma
ture has to bear up against.
When Mr.. Beecher's lecture comes of,
we shall send a reporter to annetate it for
the delectation of our readers. Mean
while, we will present them beforehand
with a brief anticipation of that lectures
style and substance. Mr.. Beecher's style
is quite sal generis; it possesses a life, vigor
and ecLat Of its own, and now and then
Hbabbles O green fields" or flashes out cleo
tricaIly with quite a genuine effectiveness.
But for all that the Brooklyn apostle
speaks a Babylonish dialect. Its habit is
vicious; its dress pie-bald and ~parti-color-
ed. He may know what good taste is, but
he invariably sacrifices it for effect, as
the clown wears motley to create a laugh.
The points of his style are Away StGccato;
its pungenry is derived from capsicum;
its brilliancy is blue-light. It is a
false style, without genuineness, without
smoothness, without harmony, and con-
s~eqnently without beauty. 1t aims al
ways to s~tartle, and hence perpetually
resorts to clap-trap. 1t embraces quite as
much twaddle as sparkle. 1t combines
Emer3on and Elder Knapp, A Lincoln
and Parson Brownlow; It probes the
dung-hiIl and enjoys the soap-factory; it
flies from rotten sheep to t~ranscendental-
ism; it couples in one sentence the mango
and the seven Heavens it sails from the
dack-pond to the Pacific; it goes with a
skip from oil wells to C~himborazo; in
short, it is that indescribsble compound of
the sublimely ridiculous: Beecher style.
The only political proposition to which
Beecher has been uniformly consistent is
this May the horn of the Beeehers be er-
ALTA. This includes every thing. This
provides an universal solventfor all knotty
questions. This is adequate to damn
Democrats and adjust the yoke to Repub-
lican necks. This is the Ethicd Prinati-
ca that goes deeper than all casuistry.
This condemns "Jef Davis to hemp,
and awards the laurel crown to Greeley.
Who indeed but Beecher would have ven
tured upon the audacious project of wad-
ding down a Shapes rifle bullet with a
page torn from the sermon on the Mount?
Who but he would have evolved the doc
trine of "No Compromise with Traitors"
from the history of the Woman taken in
Adultery? Men may say of his faith as
Samuel Butler said Of Squire Ralpho's;
"'Tis a dark lantern of the spirit,
Which none see by bnt those who bear it."
but nobody can deny it the merit Of being
exceedingly COMPLEMENTARY, even to
mongrelism. Its catholicity is indeed
wonderful. It ranks the late Presidents
too delicate jests with the Psalms of
it finds elements of sanctity in
Ben. Butler; it seats John Brown higher
than Stephen, and classes the Emancipa-
ton Proclamation with the Lords Prayer.
To be sure it detected the Iscariot in
Stonewall Jackson's stern Presbyterian
ism but its otherwise all-embracing char
ity detects the religion in Lucy Stones
sweetness, in Abbey Fosters ~cantankerous
rawlings, in Grants high old swearing, in
Schurz' Red Republicanism it does
not deny the true faith to Parson Brown
prayers, nor to Mr.. Stewards tergiv-
ersations; it finds a missionary in Ben.
and the spirit of prophecy in Jim.
Lane.
But we have said enough about Mr..
Beecher, and we are sure our people will
attend his lecture when he comes among
Us. Why not2 We all 90 to the circus.