4:62 BEECHER pastor of the Park street Congregational church, Boston, from 1826 to 1831. In the latter year he was elected president of Illinois college, Jacksonville, where he remained till 1844, when he returned to Boston as pastor of the Salem street church; and since 1856 he has been pastor of the Congregational church at Galesburg, Illinois. His works are : "Baptism, its Import and Mode" (New York, 1850); " The Conflict of Ages " (Boston, 1854) ; " The Papal Conspiracy" (New York, 1855); and "The Concord of Ages " (New York, 1860). Few works in speculative theology have at- tracted more attention than the two on the "Ages." The central idea presented in them is that man's present life upon earth is the outgrowth of a former, as well as a prelude to a future one ; that during the ages a conflict has been going on between good and evil, which will not be terminated in this life ; but that sooner or later all the long conflicts of ages will become harmonized into an everlasting concord. IV. Henry Ward, born at Litchfield, Conn., June 24, 1813. He graduated at Am- herst college in 1834, and studied theology at Lane seminary. In 1837 he became pastor of a Presbyterian church at Lawrenceburg, and in 1839 at Indianapolis, Ind. In 1847 he received a call from the Plymouth church, a new Con- gregationalist organization in Brooklyn, N. Y. Here almost from the outset he began to ac- quire that reputation as a pulpit orator which has been maintained and increased during a quarter of a century. The church and con- gregation under his charge are probably the largest in America. He has always discarded the mere conventionalities of the clerical pro- fession. In his view humor has a place in a sermon as well as argument and exhortation. He is fond of illustration, drawing his material from every sphere of human life and thought ; and his manner is highly dramatic. Though his keen sense of humor continually manifests itself, the prevailing impression given by his discourses is one of intense earnestness. The cardinal idea of his creed is that Christianity is not a series of philosophical or metaphysi- cal dogmas, but a rule of life in every phase. Hence lie has never hesitated to discuss from the pulpit the great social and political questions of the day, such as slavery, intemperance, licen- tiousness, the lust for power, and the greed for gain. He is an enthusiast in music, a connoisseur in art, a lover of flowers and animals. Apart from his purely professional labors, he is a popu- lar lecturer in lyceums, and orator at public meetings. Before beginning to preach he edited for a year (1836) a newspaper, "The Cincinnati Journal," and while pastor at Indianapolis an agricultural journal, his contributions to which were afterward published under the title, "Fruits, Flowers, and Farming." For nearly 20 years he was an editorial contributor to ' ' The Independent," a weekly journal published in New York, and from 1861 to 1863 its editor ; his contributions to this were signed with a #-, and many of them were collected and pub- ished as. "The Star Papers." Since 1870 he
- ias been editor of "The Christian Union,"
a weekly newspaper published in New York. !Iis regular weekly sermons, as taken down by stenographers, have been-printed since 1859, and now (1872) form 10 volumes under the title of "The Plymouth Pulpit." Besides these he iias published " Lectures to Young Men ; " Industry and Idleness;" "Life Thoughts," two series edited by Edna Dean Proctor and Augusta Moore ; " Sermons on Liberty and War ; " " The Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes;" "Norwood," a novel, originally published in the "New York Ledger," to which he is a constant contributor ; " Sermons, from Published and Unpublished Discourses " (2 vols., 1870); "Life of Christ" (2 vols., 1871-'2); and " Yale Lectures on Preaching " (1872). In 1863 he visited Great Britain, with a special view to disabuse the public in regard to the issues of our civil war. His speeches exerted a wide influence in changing popular sentiment, which had been strongly in favor of the southern confederacy. They were pub- lished in London, but have not been reprinted in America. T. Harriet Elizabeth (Stone), born at Litchfield, Conn., June 14, 1812. During several years she was a teacher in the school of her sister at Hartford, Conn. In 1832 she went with her family to Cincinnati, and in 1836 was married to Prof. Calvin E. Stowe of Lane sem- inary. In 1849 she published "'Mayflower, or Sketches of the Descendants of the Pilgrims," several times repnblished, with additions. In June, 1851, she commenced in the "National Era," an anti-slavery newspaper published in Washington, a serial story, which was continued till the following April. In 1852 this was is- sued in two volumes, nnder the title of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and achieved an unparalleled success. In four years there had been printed in the United States 313,000 copies, and proba- bly still more in Great Britain. As early as 1862 it had been translated into French (two or three versions), German (13 or 14), Dutch (two), Danish, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Welsh (two), Russian (two), Polish, Hungarian, (three), Wendish, Wallachian (two), Armenian, Arabic, and Romaic ; and it is said that there are also translations into the Chinese and Japa- nese. The truthfulness of the representations in " Uncle Tom " having been questioned, Mrs. Stowe in 1853 published a "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," presenting the "original facts upon which the story was founded, together with corroborative statements verifying the truth of the work." In 1853, accompanied by her husband and her brother Charles, she visited Europe, and gave the results of their observations in " Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands " (1854). Since that time Mrs. Stowe has written much, mainly in periodicals, the pa- pers being subsequently collected into volumes. Among these volumes are: "Dred, a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp" (1856; republished
