HENRY WARD BEECHER THE REIGN OF THE COMMON PEOPLE [Lecture by Henry Ward Beecher (born in Litchfield, Conn., June 24, 1813; died in Brooklyn, N. Y., March 8, 1887), delivered first in Exeter Hall, London, August 19, 1886, when making his last tour of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The chairman on the occasion, Mr. Benjamin Scott, Lord Chamberlain of the City of London, was the same gentleman who presided when Mr. Beecher spoke in the same hall at the close of his previous visit to Great Britain in 1863, in the height of the American Civil War. Upon taking the chair Mr. Scott recalled the meeting in this place twenty-three years before, and remarked that he had never regretted the part he took in it; he was present to act in a similar capacity now, as then, in response to Mr. Beecher's request. The audience was distinguished by the presence of a number of eminent English clergymen.] LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:-The noise [referring to the applause and cheers with which he was greeted, the audience standing during the demonstration] very vividly recalls twenty-three years ago, although it is of a very different kind to what it was then. Twenty-three years in a man's life corrects a great many hasty impressions, gives more solidity and more sagacity of judgment. When I look back upon all the things that happened at and before the time that I was here, I can scarcely reproach the English people for their misjudgment of the meaning of that great issue which God was trying by the arbitrament of the sword. It is not strange. At that time the thought, the feeling, the institutions, the tendency, the genius of the American people were very little known abroad; they are better understood now; and notwithstanding the temporary and not unnatural irritation which prevailed when England was neutral, to say the least, with the passing away of that cloud Copyright, 1887, by J. B. Pond. a better feeling prevails everywhere. The pride of heritage comes to every generous American bosom; we are a younger oak than you are, but you bore the acorns which were planted for us, and we are of your lineage and of your blood, and if you are not proud of us we will make you so before we have done. It has been the effect of modern investigation to throw light without illumination upon the most interesting period of human history. When the old chronology prevailed, and it was thought that this world was built about six thousand years ago, men had of necessity one way of looking at things; but now it is agreed upon all hands that we cannot count the chronology of this world by thousands, more likely by millions, of years. Nor was the system of immediation in creation which prevailed at the time favorable to the discovery of truth. God who dwells in eternity has time enough to build worlds which require millions of years; and whatever may be the cause of the origin of the human race, and I have my own opinion on that subject-confidential, however I think it may be said that the earliest appearance of man upon earth was in the savage condition. He began as low down as he could and be a man rather than an animal, and the question of profound interest is one that can probably never be answered except by guess-and guess is not philosophy altogether-How did man emerge from that savage condition? There were then no schools, no churches, no prophets, no priests, no books, presses—nothing. Wild tribes in the wild wilderness, how did they come toward civilization? You say that the first industries were those that supplied appetite-food, shelter, clothing. That is doubtless true, although we only infer it. But how did the brain, which is the organ of the man, begin to unfoldnot the simple knowledge that lay close in the neighborhood of every man, but how did it come to build institutions, found communities, and develop them, till now the human race in civilized countries are as far removed from their ancestors as their ancestors were from the animals below them? It is on this broad field that light falls, but not illumination. But later down, supposing that industries were educators, supposing that men were educated |