nse was met by a generous subscription.
Mr. Beecher's letters were remarkable productions for any man other than
Beecher to pen, and the explanation of them so that the jury-men, and
men generally, could comprehend them was the task of his counsel. Mr.
Tilton is now in Europe, and Mrs. Tilton is in this country. Mr. Beecher
passed through the ordeal of his life in safety, and since the trial he
has been watched as no man ever has been before or since.

He was unquestionably one of the most able, if not the ablest, preacher
the world ever knew, and it is not strange that the country should be
startled at the announcement of his sudden death on march 7th, 1887, at
his home in Brooklyn.

Henry Ward Beecher is already as historical a character as Patrick
Henry; with this exception, that whereas there are multitudes living who
have seen and heard Mr. Beecher, and many who knew him personally; there
are few, if any, who can remember Patrick Henry. Mr. Beecher was the
most versatile and ready orator this country has ever produced,--a kind
of Gladstone in the pulpit. He was a master of every style; could be as
deliberate and imposing as Webster; as chaste and self-contained as
Phillips; as witty and irregular as Thomas Corwin; as grandiloquent as
Charles Sumner; as dramatic as father Taylor, and as melo-dramatic as
Gough.

To attempt to analyze the sources of his power is like exhibiting the
human features separately, in the hope of giving the effect of a
composite whole; for whether he moved his finger, elevated his brow,
smiled, frowned, whispered or vociferated, each act or expression
derived its power from the fact that it was the act and expression of
Henry Ward Beecher. His oratory was marked by the entire absence of
trammels, of rhetoric gesture or even grammar. Not that his style was
not ordinarily grammatical and rhetorical, but that he would never allow
any rules to impede the expression of his thought and especially of his
feelings, nor was he restrained by theological forms, and always
appeared independent and courageous. He believed in the absolute
necessity of conversion and a thorough change of heart; he taught the
beauty of living a religious life, for the nobleness of the deeds rather
than for the purpose of escaping a future punishment, and his sayings in
this connection were often misconstrued.

He stimulated the intellect by wit; he united the heart and mind by
humor; he melted the heart by un-mixed path