Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1877-02-09
A Waning Power.

Henry Ward Beecher represents a waning
power. We say it with pain, with sadness,
and with great reluctance, and only because
it is a phenomenon in the sphere Of our NOR
al activities which commands attention, and
therefore demands an explanation. W. do
not base cur conclusion on the diminished
revenue from the sale of slips in Plymouth
church, nor from the smaller audiences
which have greeted him on many a lecture
platform during the winter these may be
accounted for, in part at least, from other
considerations, though they have their sig
n~i6cance when taken in connection with 9TH
er things. Under the lead Of Drs. Storrs,
Buddington, Scudder, Taylor, aud others of
equal eminence and publicity, and recognized
worth, a new association of Congregational
clergymen has been formed in Brooklya and
New York, Of those who do not endorse Mr..
Beecher, or who cannot pronounce him inno-
cent on the evidence furnished. The Chris
tian Union, Mr.. Beecher's organ of course,
undertakes to parry the force Of this new or
ganization by saying "that an association
is a ministerial club; that it possesses no
ecclesiastical powers; that it sends no del.
egates to any Of the church councils or con.
~ferences and that it does not even assume
to advise the churches on ecclesiastical qucs-
TONS" We question tho good taste and fine
sense Of the fitness of things in the Unions
saying anything about 1t. When it intlmates
that many joined with DR.. Storrs lest he
should be left 'out 10 the cold" without
sympathy, We instinctively question its verac-
ity, not Intentional but real. Dr.. Scudder
said plainly that he joined the new movement
because there was sufficient doubt to make
an intimate religious association distressful. !"
Then the fact is a patent one hat in many
social and refined circles Mr.. Beecher's
name is not mentioned, or not with that re-
spect and affection which characterized its
use in the past. OF the circulation Of the
Christian Union we have no accurate knowl-
edge we only know as all the public does
that Lyman Abbott, the eminent religious
journalist, has been secured to have the &C.
tual control Of the paper, though Mr.. Beech
or is nominally the manager. Were there
no outer sensible proofs Of this decline, the
evidences, by a subtle, potent influence, Of
such moral charges reach us through the
pores of our spiritual natures-an i~ntuitive
recognition which pcrcoives the existence Of
some things ere they become publicity mani
fest.
Recognizing the deplorable fact Of this de-
cline the important question arises, whence
does it come? The causes are not far to
seek nor difficult to discover, and they lie in
these three facts or features of his life. First,
his personal character. Having the regal
gifts Of his father aud the princely endow-
ments of his mother blended in his own ma
ture, Mr.. Beecher came years ago to feel that
he was not amenable to the laws by which
the greater proportion of good people were
governed but he was a SUi generis, a law
unto himself. Those social rules, conven-
tionalitios if you please, which others have
observed most scrupulously, he has not un-
frequently trampled under his feet half in
scorn as though he was above such things.
Consequently, with his generous impulses, his
imperial powers and his unsurpassed social
| gifts, he has been for years in the midst of
perils on every hand, aud without saying
there has been any positive guilt on his part,
he stands before the world to-day a smutchcd
man, to use DR.. Cuyler's words. lie has
been law unto himself; his moral sufi cheney
has been of himself and now his personal char
acter is injured beyond all recovery. w Q do
not say, as we cannot yet believe, there has
been direct guilt or crime, but there is a faint
as ineradicable as it is undeniable. And it
comes from this selE.suficiency in the line of
governing law, guiding counsel and ultimate
aims. When people have felt a little sh ock.
ed, or questioned his position, or silently re-
buked what they deemed some overtness, the
reply has been in fact if not in word, "Am l
not Henry Ward Bceoher ?"
Second, his preaching has been strangely
defective. lie believes, at least he teaches
men, that the divine nature is tropical that
Gods goodness and piety and patience and
forgiveness are of so luxuriant a growth that
sin is but little more than a scratch on the
bark Of a vigorously growing tree. 1t has
seemed to be the effort Of his long life to
bridge the chasm which sin has made between
God and man; to abridge somewhat the in
exorable law Of righteousness and mitigate
as far as he could the guilt of sin. That Mr..
Beecher has been of great service to this gen.
GRAFTON in rounding off the over sharp corners
and modifying the ultra statements of modern
theological theories we most heartily be-
lieve, but there was the peril, he rounded
too much not only were the excrescences
and fungoid growths removed, but the
ak, impellod by bis herculean strength,
went too deep cleavages were made in the
vital trunk itself. Mr.. Beecher's purpose in
all this no one calls in question it was his
yoarniug love for men, and, through his de-
fective logical endowments--for with all his
exuberant b%rilliancy and pathOs and elo.
quence and power logic is the least of his
gifts-his making God like unto himself-he
sought to bring his fellows into the kingdom.
That there was a conscious rcpugnanco to