Arizona republican., 1903-03-11
Henry Ward Beecher.

Sunday, the Sth, was the sixteenth anniversary of the death of Henry Ward 5Beeeher, and it was a fitting occasion for the formal initiation of the move ment for an. adequate memorial to the great preacher and reformer. Our dis patches Monday described the Brook ,lyn gathering as a monster meeting" in numbers, and the enthusiasm exhib- .ited was in marked contrast to the lack of Interest generally shown when memorial to an American long dead is undertaken. Cynics are in the habit of .remarking that when an eminent man dies in this country the suggestion goes up, from every section that Che must have a monument but within six months after the funeral it is inlpos- sible to arouse any interest in any kind of monument. When, therefore, six teen years. after mans death there is such an outpouring of people anxious to do honor to his memory that hun- dreds are unable. to gain admittance to such hall as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it is. indeed remarkable tribute
 Although the great meeting of Sunday might be regarded as tardy recogni- tion of Beeeher's services to his coun- try, it was in fact timely-eminently SO Sufficient time had elapsed to permit the people to form a just estimate of the greatest preacher America has pro duced. And at no time in the past has the influence of Beecher upon the though of the masses been more sharp ly marked than now. As the years have gone by it has been recognized more and more that he was one of the worlds few great leaders in religious thought His bold. pronouncement against the literal hell of fire and birthstone" of our forefathers did more to break the shackles Of religious su- perstition than all which had been said by human teachers since the dark ages It is not too much to say that by his courageous utterances upon this sub ject he liberated millions of people from a mental slavery which was more frightful than any physical servitude that humanity had known. In addition to this, he preached with force which was marvellous a religion which ap- nealed to the human heart and the hui mar. understanding-the warm-heartcd religion of the Carpenter of Nazareth But it was not aDne as a preacher that Beecher was great. He was not less great as a refornler.- In the troub- lousi times which preceded the civil war, and during the dark days of that period, he was almost re-eminent as a leader Discussing this period of his career, the current number of the Out looktruthfully says that
 5"Other men in that epoch QS4t 1SS7) WeFe2as brave, as outspoken and as de- voted to liberty as he; other men sur passed him in particular qualities; but we doubt whether any man equaled liitn. in. distinctively prophetic gift. IT 1850, when the compromise measure was first proposed in Congress, in that famous editorial in the New York In uepenGenI ne ldlQ OOWn~ the IunQdrnen- tai principles for the solution of thu slavery problem-loyalty to the consti- tuition and the union. frank recognition of the rights of the states, coupled with firm resolve against the extension o slavery to new states and territories six years before the republican party was formed to advocate those princi- pies. and ten years before Abraham Lincoln was elected as their representa- tive In 1861, when war was threat ened, and many men who voted for MT % Lincoln were ready to retreat, anS union-savers were busy hunting for { basis of compromise, and radical aboli tionists were counseling that the errins sisters should be allowed to depart il peace, he preached that ever-memor able sermon on the text, Go Forward, pointing out that secession, if acqui esced in, meant perpetual war, anC compromise, if effected, meant aban donment by the nation of free labor