LIFE THOUGHTS,

GATHERED FROM THE

EXTEMPORANEOUS DISCOURSES

OF

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

BY ONE OF HIS CONGREGATION.

TWENTY-FIFTH THOUSAND.

BOSTON:

PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY.

1858.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by

PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

SOME two years since, while visiting friends in a distant city, they proposed that I should take notes for them of Mr. Beecher's sermons. Upon my return I commenced doing so, without a thought of their going beyond the little circle for whom they were first intended. But, as page after page was added to my note-book, and read occasionally to one and another, it began to be suggested that they ought not to be confined to the few, but should be published in a volume and given to the many. Thus the present book came into being.

With rare exceptions, these notes have been taken from the Sabbath sermons and Wednesday evening lectures, since the date at which they were commenced. Most of them have never been written till now; for Mr. Beecher's best thoughts are not usually those which are beforehand committed coolly to paper; they are those which spring from the inspiration of the moment, and have no record

(iii)

save in the memory of his hearers. To gather up and preserve some of the treasures thus lavishly scattered, has been the aim of this volume. It is not given to the world as the full-boughed tree; but only as some of the leaves which have fallen from it through two successive seasons.

To Robert D. Benedict, Esq., of Brooklyn, whose own notes, taken during the same time, were placed at my disposal, I desire to express my cordial thanks.

EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.

BROOKLYN, N. Y., April, 1858.

Alexandrian library, destruction of, 46. Attainments, not for ourselves, 41.