Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-04-08
Practiced What He Preached.

GShiSCd FNuut ttC
We commend the following TO our
readers as uplifting in any walk of
life, or viewed from any angle. For
what would it have profited this man
to have made display of his human
passions and instincts. 1t is copied
from the Utica On. W Press:
Now and then there are exhibitions
of real religion and true Christianity
which stand out and compel attention
and respect, in part because CT their
environment. A notable instance of it
has been chronicled in these columns
within the last few days. Newspaper
readers have stood aghast at the de-
tails of the wanton and wicked muir
der of Miss Beecher, the school teach
err at Poland. She was brutally killed
when engaged in what she intended TO
be ali errand of mercy, an honest eff
fort to lend helping hand to boy
whose brief career had shown its
need The father, pastor of church
in the little village of Sonnet, was
summoned by the news that his
daughter was injured and came to find
her dead, cruelty killed by the hand
of an assassin. The circumstances
of the case were such as to rouse all
the Indignation, passion and hatred
of which the human breast is capable.
The villagers who knew and loved
the girl were almost prompted to take
the law into their own hands, and In
the heat and anger of the occasion
said so in no uncertain tones. There
was grave and gross provocation, and
if there ever were justification. they
naturally thought 1t had been present.
ed there and then. When Mr.. Beech
er heard them he counseled to the
contrary, stopping in the street to
tell the ugly throng that two wrongs
can never make right. With heart
bowed down and bearing a burden of
grief whose magnitude can scarce be
measured, the one who above all 9TH
ers had the right TO be resentful,
preached the gospel Of law and order.
This demeanor the good man pre-
served all through the trying ordeal.
There was no lack of sorrow, deep
seated and sincere. He was heavy
with the woe of the terrible affiiction
so suddenly thrust upon him, but new
er once did he lose the calmness and
the kindness which is the essence of
Christianity. No lily considered word,
no expression of Representatives, pass
ed his lips. Mr.. Beecher saw and
shook hands with the slayer of his
daughter. Even when face to face
with the ASA ssin of his beloved he
said naught that would have been out
of place if uttered in the pulpit of his
little church. In all his walk and
talk near the scene of the murder and
when bearing away to her last resting
place in the cemetery at home the re-
mains of his child, no harsh or unkind
word was spoken. His must be
lovely character. He practices as we'll
as breaches, and most folks find the
former much more difficult and also
it is met with much less frequently.
1t is not hard to tell others what TO
do. Anybody can do that. There must
be something very substantial about
the faith and the religion which will
enable a man 10 control himself in the
face of such. facts as confronted that
country clergyman. 1t was a notable
and 4 noble exhibition that not one
in 10000 could have given. Yet what
the man has done, man can do. All
who stop to think can but admire and
dDDl1uu VITAL ILLS diu, e1hN AAOAN
particularly what he did not do.
The heroes Of the world did not all
gain glory on the battlefields, the
martyrs were not all burned at the
stake and not all the great Americans
figure largely and at length IN the
public prints. The everyday occur
rences, the everyday sorrows and
tragedies bring out the stuff of which
men are made. A great misery that
would have broken down weak per-
son or made him lose self-control I'M
der circumstances that would have
made almost any attitude pardonable,
was met in the manifest fashion by
this minister who before 1t all and
under it all manifested and put in evil
dence at a most crucial time all the
precepts and principles Of the Chris
tan religion. There are not many here
in central New York who a week ago
ever heard of Rev. w. A. Beecher OF
Sonnet, but there are tens of thous-
ands here today who now respect him
and praise his wonderful and almost
example of practicing
what he breaches.