he bell, lighted the
candles and locked up after service.

Beecher remained in Lawrenceburg two years. The membership had increased
to one hundred six men and seventy women. I suppose it will not be
denied as an actual fact that women bolster the steeples so that they
stay on the churches. From the time women held the rope and let Saint
Paul down in safety from the wall in a basket, women have maintained the
faith. But Beecher was a man's preacher from first to last. He was a
bold, manly man, making his appeal to men.

Two years at Lawrenceburg and he moved to Indianapolis, the capital of
the State, his reputation having been carried thither by the member from
Posey County, who incautiously boasted that his "deestrick" had the most
powerful preacher of any town on the Ohio River.

At Indianapolis, Beecher was a success at once. He entered into the
affairs of the people with an ease and a good nature that won the hearts
of this semi-pioneer population. His "Lectures to Young Men," delivered
Sunday evenings to packed houses, still have a sale. This bringing
religion down from the lofty heights of theology and making it a matter
of every-day life was eminently Beecheresque. And the reason it was a
success was because it fitted the needs of the people. Beecher expressed
what the people were thinking. Mankind clings to the creed; we will not
burn our bridges--we want the religion of our mothers, yet we crave the
simple common-sense we can comprehend as well as the superstition we
can't. Beecher's task was to rationalize orthodoxy so as to make it
palatable to thinking minds. "I can't ride two horses at one time," once
said Robert Ingersoll to Beecher, "but possibly I'll be able to yet, for
tomorrow I am going to hear you preach." Then it was that Beecher
offered to write Ingersoll's epitaph, which he proceeded to do by
scribbling two words on the back of an envelope, thus: "Robert Burns."

But these men understood and had a thorough respect for each other. Once
at a mass-meeting at Cooper Union, Beecher introduced Ingersoll as the
"first, foremost and most gifted of all living orators."

And Ingersoll, not to be outdone, referred in his speech to Beecher as
the "one orthodox clergyman in the world who has eliminated hell from
his creed and put the devil out of church, and still stands in his
pulpit."

Six years at Indianapolis put Beecher in command of his armament. And
Brooklyn, seeking a man of power, called him thit