t
consumes a wire. During those days Beecher wore a garment whose warp and
woof was fiery enthusiasm, and fierce flaming patriotism. The human body
is like a cask of precious liquor. One way to drain off the treasure is
to knock out the bung-hole, and in a few minutes drain the rich
fountain dry; another way is to bore innumerable apertures, that drop by
drop the liquor may waste. And so it was with Beecher, during those
exciting days, with this difference, that sometimes it seemed as if one
great event would drain out all his life in a tumultuous flood, while at
the same time innumerable petitioners taxed his life, drawing away his
strength, drop by drop. Alarmed, the officers and friends in Plymouth
Church insisted upon rest and vacation. They determined to put the sea
between the preacher and his task, planning to lose him for a little
time that they might have him for a long time.

The popular opinion is that Beecher went to England, not openly, but
secretly as a messenger of the government. Like other myths, the fable
grew slowly, but is now well entrenched in the minds of multitudes.
There is no foundation for the story. Indeed, Mr. Beecher is on record
plainly, stating that no request, no suggestion, no hint, even, came
from Washington. At the time, his relations with the Cabinet were
strained. Seward was unfriendly. Stanton was hurt by his insistence,
through the _Independent_, upon immediate emancipation. For a time even
Lincoln classed him with Horace Greeley, as extremist. His editorials
during the spring of 1862 had one thought, "Carthago delenda est." It
was only after Lincoln came around by a gunboat into New York Harbour,
and secretly met General Winfield Scott in a friend's house, and had
another secret interview with Henry Ward Beecher, and returned (letters
exist from Secretary Hay, following an interview with him over the
records in Washington, which establish this trip to New York to see
Scott and Beecher), that Beecher changed the tone of his editorials, and
went over to Lincoln's position,--that the Union was first, and the
destruction of slavery the secondary thing. The Great Emancipator loved
and trusted Beecher, but the Cabinet was critical, and Lincoln, as he
said, "did not have much influence with the administration."

The only power and the whole power behind Beecher was that of Plymouth
Church, that gave him the money for all of his expenses, and took from
him a pledge that if he spoke at a