There's little doubt that the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), a Congregationalist, was the most widely known preacher of his day, hugely influential in a period that stretched from before the Civil War to his death.
A noted abolitionist, his sister was Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." After he war he championed women's suffrage as well as Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, declaring it not incompatible with Christian teaching.
But his most evident legacy --- although its source is not often remembered --- is the focus on God's love rather than God's wrath that permeates much of what we call mainstream Christianity today. His was a cultural antidote to Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" approach that had sparked the first Great Awakening in the Americas and permeated much of the theology that was developed in its aftermath.
And like many popular preachers, then and now, there was a juicy sex scandal. Good looking in his younger years and distinguished as he aged, he had great charisma. So there always had been rumors that he was challenged in the fidelity department. In 1872, an account of his alleged affair with Elizabeth Richards Tilton, wife of friend and former co-worker Theodore Tilton, was published in an influential magazine. In 1874, Mr. Tilton filed charges for "criminal conversation" against him. The trial resulted in a hung jury --- and in published reports that the American public found endlessly fascinating for weeks on end.
It was against this background that the Rev. Mr. Beecher stepped off a train in Chariton on Aug. 7, 1878, prepared to address a crowd that evening. On a lecture tour, he had appeared earlier in Oskaloosa and planned a further Iowa stop in Red Oak before crossing the Plains with California the eventual destination. He was traveling with his wife and manager.
About 300 Lucas Countyans had gathered at the depot to greet him, but he fooled the curious when the train made an especially arranged stop at the Bates House crossing, west of the square, and the Beecher party detrained and walked to the hotel for refreshment and rest prior to his evening address.
The site of the lecture was the Methodist Tabernacle, a giant tent that Chariton Methodists had acquired and first erected in 1877 as a site for revival meetings and other elevating gatherings. That year, it stood for several weeks in northwest Chariton. Where it had been planted in 1878, I don't know. Admission was $1 a head and the address began at 8:30 p.m. Here's The Chariton Leader's report as published on Aug. 10.
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An audience of nearly 800 assembled in the Methodist Tabernacle on Wednesday night to greet this distinguished lecturer. The night was very warm, but the tent had been arranged to afford all the ventilation possible.
At half past eight the speaker came onto the stand, and in a few minutes began his address on the subject of "The Wastes and Burdens of Society," and for nearly two hours he held his large audience in ecstasy under the magic influences of his sensible remarks.
A lengthy review of his speech would be interesting alike to all, but lack of space prevents it, but as a whole his lecture was the embodiment of sense, wit, logic, literature and elocution. His voice is grand and seems to be adapted to addressing immense audiences, while beautiful ideas and profound thoughts flow from him with an apparent ease that makes lecturing a pleasure to him and a delight to his hearers.
We have never yet seen an audience so well pleased over a lecture, and the general expression is, a dollar well spent. For our part we think it was the best practical lecture we ever heard from any man, for while it was largely instructive, full of splendid original ideas and suggestions, it was delivered in a manner worthy of a true orator.
Mr. Beecher went from Chariton to Red Oak and will continue his journey on to California where he has been engaged to deliver ten lectures for ten thousand dollars and his expenses.
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