elieve I was very happy
during my eight years out there. I liked the people. There was a hearty
frankness, a simplicity in their mode of life, an unselfish intimacy in
their social relations that attracted me. They were new
people--unharrowed and uncultured like the land they lived on--but they
were earnest and honest and strong. But the ague shook us out of the
State. My wife's health gave out and we were forced to come East."

From this it would seem that chills and fever were the means used by
Providence for bringing Henry Ward Beecher and Plymouth Church together.
The church came into existence on the 8th of May, 1847, when six
gentlemen met in Brooklyn at the house of one of their number, Mr.
Henry C. Bowen, the present proprietor of the _Independent_, and formed
themselves into a company of trustees of a new Congregational Church,
the services of which they decided to begin holding at once in an
edifice on Cranberry street, purchased from the Presbyterians. The
following week Mr. Beecher happened to speak in New York, at the
anniversary of the Home Missionary Society. He had already attracted
some attention by his anti-slavery utterances, and the fearless manner
in which he had preached against certain popular vices.

The founders of the new congregation invited him to deliver the opening
sermon on the 16th. A great audience was present, and shortly afterwards
the young preacher was asked to become the first pastor of the
organization. He accepted, and on the 10th of the following October he
entered upon the term of service which lasted until the day of his
death. And what a pastorate that was! The congregation readily grew in
numbers and influence until Plymouth Church and Henry Ward Beecher
became household words all over the land, and a trip to Brooklyn to hear
the great preacher grew to be an almost indispensable part of a
stranger's visit to New York.

At the opening of the civil war, in 1861, Mr. Beecher undertook the
editorship of the _Independent_ which, like the church under his
administration, speedily became a power in the country. In addition to
all this work he was continually delivering speeches; for from the
firing of the first gun on Fort Sumpter on April 12th, Plymouth's
pastor was all alive to the needs of the nation. With voice and pen he
pointed out the path of duty in that dark and trying hour, and his own
church promptly responded to the call by organizing and equipping
the First Long Isla