George Marsden: Henry Ward Beecher was a renown abolitionist. But, it turns out, he was also a philanderer.
[Mr. Marsden, the author of "Jonathan Edwards: A Life," teaches American religious history at the University of Notre Dame.]
Suppose that a man with Bill Clinton's charisma and wayward habits were the son of Billy Graham and had become the most famous liberal preacher in the country. He might be something like a contemporary equivalent of the 19th-century superstar pastor Henry Ward Beecher.
Though surpassed in fame by his sister, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" author Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher became renowned for his antislavery campaigns before the Civil War and thereafter was regarded as America's most influential cleric in an age of public piety. Then in 1875 he was tried on charges of adultery with the wife of a famous protégé. For a year he stood at the center of a bad-publicity maelstrom before the case was dismissed due to a hung jury. His charm was so great that he survived with his reputation only slightly tarnished.
Even if Beecher's life had not taken a lurid turn into the courtroom, he would remain an inherently fascinating man. His father, the Rev. Lyman Beecher, was an heir to New England Calvinism and a leading figure in keeping the Calvinist tradition a force in the revivals and reforms of the "Second Great Awakening" that turned mid-19th-century America into an evangelical stronghold.
The Beechers were a remarkable clan: A good half-dozen of the children, including Henry Ward and Harriet, had national reputations as preachers or writers and reformers. Henry Ward started out in the shadow of his father and his father's theology, but then he established a national reputation as a pastor in Brooklyn in the 1850s and gradually supplanted his father's stern teachings with more optimistic views of human nature and of the accessibility of God's love.
As an antislavery advocate, Beecher was in on the ground floor of the founding of the Republican Party and did not hesitate to campaign for its candidates from the pulpit. He also pointed up the cruelty of slavery, for his parishioners and other Northerners, by holding mock slave auctions in his massive church--and using the affairs to raise money to buy the freedom of young female slaves who would otherwise be sold into virtual prostitution. Though Beecher was not the most radical of antislavery leaders, he was one of the most effective. Aspiring politicians such as Abraham Lincoln sought him out and welcomed his aid.
In "The Most Famous Man in America," Debby Applegate does not skimp in presenting the considerable evidence of Beecher's moral failings. In her telling, it is the story of someone from a rather austere background who yields to the temptations that accompany wealth and adulation.
Beecher became the confidant of several wives of his wealthy parishioners, and already by the early 1860s rumors circulated that he might have moved beyond the bounds of pastoral counseling. The relationships had intense spiritual dimensions, and he may have persuaded the women that physical consummation was justified by a higher spirituality that transcended legalism. In one case, Ms. Applegate suspects that Beecher was the father of a neighbor's daughter, a child with whom he always maintained an especially affectionate, grandfatherly connection.
Perhaps the most astonishing thing about these stories of adultery is that the husbands, as well as an inner circle of Beecher's friends, seem to have long known or suspected what was going on. But no one would expose Beecher because, as one said, it "would tend to undermine the very foundations of the social order." As Ms. Applegate observes, one of the "inane" arguments of the era--which his defense lawyers made the most of in the trial--was that anyone who would speak publicly of sexual matters was ipso facto not to be trusted....
Read entire article at WSJ
Suppose that a man with Bill Clinton's charisma and wayward habits were the son of Billy Graham and had become the most famous liberal preacher in the country. He might be something like a contemporary equivalent of the 19th-century superstar pastor Henry Ward Beecher.
Though surpassed in fame by his sister, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" author Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher became renowned for his antislavery campaigns before the Civil War and thereafter was regarded as America's most influential cleric in an age of public piety. Then in 1875 he was tried on charges of adultery with the wife of a famous protégé. For a year he stood at the center of a bad-publicity maelstrom before the case was dismissed due to a hung jury. His charm was so great that he survived with his reputation only slightly tarnished.
Even if Beecher's life had not taken a lurid turn into the courtroom, he would remain an inherently fascinating man. His father, the Rev. Lyman Beecher, was an heir to New England Calvinism and a leading figure in keeping the Calvinist tradition a force in the revivals and reforms of the "Second Great Awakening" that turned mid-19th-century America into an evangelical stronghold.
The Beechers were a remarkable clan: A good half-dozen of the children, including Henry Ward and Harriet, had national reputations as preachers or writers and reformers. Henry Ward started out in the shadow of his father and his father's theology, but then he established a national reputation as a pastor in Brooklyn in the 1850s and gradually supplanted his father's stern teachings with more optimistic views of human nature and of the accessibility of God's love.
As an antislavery advocate, Beecher was in on the ground floor of the founding of the Republican Party and did not hesitate to campaign for its candidates from the pulpit. He also pointed up the cruelty of slavery, for his parishioners and other Northerners, by holding mock slave auctions in his massive church--and using the affairs to raise money to buy the freedom of young female slaves who would otherwise be sold into virtual prostitution. Though Beecher was not the most radical of antislavery leaders, he was one of the most effective. Aspiring politicians such as Abraham Lincoln sought him out and welcomed his aid.
In "The Most Famous Man in America," Debby Applegate does not skimp in presenting the considerable evidence of Beecher's moral failings. In her telling, it is the story of someone from a rather austere background who yields to the temptations that accompany wealth and adulation.
Beecher became the confidant of several wives of his wealthy parishioners, and already by the early 1860s rumors circulated that he might have moved beyond the bounds of pastoral counseling. The relationships had intense spiritual dimensions, and he may have persuaded the women that physical consummation was justified by a higher spirituality that transcended legalism. In one case, Ms. Applegate suspects that Beecher was the father of a neighbor's daughter, a child with whom he always maintained an especially affectionate, grandfatherly connection.
Perhaps the most astonishing thing about these stories of adultery is that the husbands, as well as an inner circle of Beecher's friends, seem to have long known or suspected what was going on. But no one would expose Beecher because, as one said, it "would tend to undermine the very foundations of the social order." As Ms. Applegate observes, one of the "inane" arguments of the era--which his defense lawyers made the most of in the trial--was that anyone who would speak publicly of sexual matters was ipso facto not to be trusted....