his birthplace, and always
glad when one opportunity or another called him there to lecture or
preach. The New England people fully reciprocated the feeling and in
turn Mr. Beecher used to declare that "New England was the brain of the
nation." Little wonder that so many New England boys found their way to
Plymouth Church.

In a similar way he was very fond of Brooklyn as the city of homes. He
was interested in New York, with its bustle and rush, as the "work
shop," but Brooklyn was the "boarding house," and many a semi-homeless
boarder found a warm welcome in Plymouth Church. Perhaps it was these
people that he had in mind when Plymouth Church could not hold half the
people who desired to attend the services, and he appealed to the
pewholders to stay away evenings and give their pews to strangers,
inaugurating thus a custom which has continued to the present time.

While preaching upon the greatness of God's work as compared with the
works of man, he said man can tunnel mountains, build ships to cross the
sea, span the world with the telegraph, cross the continent with the
iron horse, build cathedrals and capitols, machines to fly in the air,
and explore the depths of the sea, but with all of man's greatness and
skill, "he cannot make a fly."

In a vivid description of a thunder storm illustrating some part of his
sermon he closed with a most beautiful piece of word painting in
describing the passing away of the clouds after the storm, picturing the
sun shining upon the edges of the clouds making a pathway as he said for
"Angels to walk to and fro when they came down from Heaven."

Intensely practical as he was in his conception of religion, Mr.
Beecher had a very profound sense of the future life, and there was
always a sub-stratum of that thought in his preaching. In a sermon on
the Darwinian theory he said, "I do not care where I came from; it is
where I am going to that I am interested in."

In a sermon on Heaven, he said that everyone had a right to make their
own Heaven. The one that inspired in them the greatest hope and most
beautiful thoughts and gave them the greatest happiness was their
Heaven. Speaking of the end of life, he said that when he died he would
like to pass out of life suddenly, like a cannon ball shot out of a
cannon.

_FUTURE PLYMOUTH_

What will become of Plymouth Church when Mr. Beecher passes away? was a
question often asked in the early days. The answer to that has already