een conducted upon the ancient model, and chiefly in
the ancient phraseology; but from the moment when Mr. Beecher swings
free from the moorings of his text, and gets fairly under way, his
sermon is modern. No matter how fervently he may have been praying
supernaturalism, he preaches pure cause and effect. His text may savor
of old Palestine; but his sermon is inspired by New York and Brooklyn;
and nearly all that he says, when he is most himself, finds an
approving response in the mind of every well-disposed person, whether
orthodox or heterodox in his creed.

What is religion? That, of course, is the great question. Mr. Beecher
says: Religion is the slow, laborious, self-conducted EDUCATION of the
whole man, from grossness to refinement, from sickliness to health,
from ignorance to knowledge, from selfishness to justice, from justice
to nobleness, from cowardice to valor. In treating this topic,
whatever he may pray or read or assent to, he _preaches_ cause and
effect, and nothing else. Regeneration he does not represent to be
some mysterious, miraculous influence exerted upon a man from without,
but the man's own act, wholly and always, and in every stage of its
progress. His general way of discoursing upon this subject would
satisfy the most rationalized mind; and yet it does not appear to
offend the most orthodox.

This apparent contradiction between the spirit of his preaching and
the facts of his position is a severe puzzle to some of our
thorough-going friends. They ask, How can a man demonstrate that the
fall of rain is so governed by unchanging laws that the shower of
yesterday dates back in its causes to the origin of things, and,
having proved this to the comprehension of every soul present, finish
by _praying_ for an immediate outpouring upon the thirsty fields? We
confess that, to our modern way of thinking, there is a contradiction
here, but there is none at all to an heir of the Puritans. We reply to
our impatient young friends, that Henry Ward Beecher at once
represents and assists the American Christian of the present time,
just because of this seeming contradiction. He is a bridge over which
we are passing from the creed-enslaved past to the perfect freedom of
the future. Mr. Lecky, in his 'History of the Spirit of Rationalism,'
has shown the process by which truth is advanced. Old errors, he says,
do not die because they are refuted, but _fade out_ because they are
neglected. One hundred and fifty