Transcriber's Note
Every effort has been made to replicate this text asfaithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and otherinconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an obvious erroris noted at the end of this ebook.
The Eighth Lecture of the Course before the Anti-Slavery Society, wasdelivered, January 14, 1855, at the Tabernacle, New York, by the Rev.Henry Ward Beecher. The subject, at the present time, is one ofpeculiar interest, as touching the questions of Slavery andKnow-Nothingism, and, together with the popularity of the lecturer,drew together a house-full of auditors.
There were a number of gentlemen of distinction, occupying seats onthe rostrum—among whom were the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, James Mott,of Philadelphia, and Mr. Dudley, of Buffalo.
Mr. Beecher was introduced to the audience by Mr. Oliver Johnson, whosaid:
Ladies and Gentlemen: The speaker who occupied this platform onTuesday evening last, in the course of his remarks upon the widedegeneracy of the American Clergy on the Slavery Question, reminded usthat there was in a Brooklyn pulpit, a man. We thought you would beglad to see and hear such a rara avis, and therefore have besoughthim to come hither to-night to instruct us by his wisdom and move usby his eloquence. I trust that, whatever you may think of some otherparts of the lecture of Wendell Phillips, you will, when thisevening's performance is over, be ready at least to confess that inwhat he said of the Brooklyn preacher he was not more eulogistic thantruthful.
Mr. Beecher, on presenting himself, was received with loud and heartyapplause. He spoke as follows:
The questions which have provoked discussion among us for fifty yearspast have not been questions of fundamental principles, but of theapplication of principles already ascertained. Our debates have beenbetween one way of doing a thing and another way of doing it—betweenliving well and living better; and so through, it has been a questionbetween good and better. We have discussed policies, not principles.In Europe, on the other hand, life-questions have agitated men. Thequestions of human rights, of the nature and true foundations ofGovernment, are to-day, in Europe, where they were with our fathers in1630.
In this respect, there is a moral dignity, and even grandeur, in thestruggles, secretly or openly going on in Italy, Austria, Germany, andFrance, which never can belong to the mere questions of mode andmanner which occupy us—boundary questions, banks, tariffs, internalimprovements, currency; all very necessary but secondary topics. Theytouch nothing deeper than the pocket. In this respect, there would bea marked contrast between the subjects which occupy us, and thegrander life-themes that dignify European thought, were it not for onesubject—Slavery. That is the ...