them or hear them. He
entered also so fully into the deepest meaning of what he read that the
rendering shed new light on some of the most difficult passages of the
Bible. Attention has more than once been called to his rendering of
those verses in which the Saviour speaks so strongly of the Scribes and
Pharisees. He would read them as if they were fairly afire with
indignation and wrath; then, softening his voice, read them again with
an infinite pathos, as if they were prophecy rather than condemnation,
and ask which rendering was more in accord with the nature of Jesus.

The same thing was manifest in his rendering of hymns. He was extremely
fond of poetry, and searched far and wide for the best hymns. Our first
hymn book was a little one known as Temple Melodies. Mr. Beecher could
not get along with this, and with the aid of his brother, Rev. Charles
Beecher, and the organist, John Zundel, compiled and published the
Plymouth Collection. This long held its place at the head of church
hymnals and really worked a revolution in church music.

To many the feature of the whole service was the "long prayer," as it
was called. Many who could not quite agree with all the conclusions and
statements of the sermons found these prayers of wonderful help. The
same sympathy that made his rendering of Scripture so effective became
very apparent when he took up the problems of daily life, the
perplexities, doubts, temptations, successes. Probably no preacher has
ever had such wide publication of his prayers as Mr. Beecher, and the
Book of Prayers from Plymouth Pulpit became a source of spiritual
strength to many who could not attend the services. They were taken down
in shorthand, as were his sermons, and published, appearing first in the
_Christian Union_ and then in book form.

The sermon needs no description from me--even if I could give it. It
seemed the very expression of the man, his interpretation of himself.
Mr. Beecher was to all appearance well-nigh reckless in the vigour with
which he made statements that seemed to him to be true, with little or
no regard to their relation to other truths. The result was that he was
charged with being grossly inconsistent. One day he would preach a
sermon that would have delighted the old New England divines. The next
Sunday he seemed an out-and-out Unitarian, while Quakers, Swedenborgians
and all sorts of beliefs claimed him. The explanation was that he saw
very clearly the element of