truth in any system, whether he agreed with
it in full or not, and in his effort to state it plainly and give due
credit to it, often left the impression that the particular statement he
made was all there was to it. One result was that the independent
forming of opinions was encouraged and helped in Plymouth Church as in
few churches. Those who imagined that Mr. Beecher dominated the thought
of his people to an extent which made them mere echoes of himself were
very far from the truth. It was an intellectual stimulus to sit under
him, not merely in the effort to keep up with his thought, which poured
forth like Niagara, but in the compulsion to form an independent
personal opinion. Men loved to hear him, not so much because they always
agreed with him as because he had the faculty of stimulating the best
there was in them, arousing their highest ambitions.

In no single service was Mr. Beecher at his best so completely as in the
communion service. It was distinctively a family gathering in which the
host was not Mr. Beecher, or Plymouth Church, but the Saviour, and to it
were welcome all who loved that Saviour, whatever their formal creed or
church connection, or even if they were without any creed or connection;
this was the impression left upon those who came from other churches,
and this was the description of it given me by a theological student,
who said that he came from a distant city to Brooklyn and timed his
visit primarily with reference to that service and especially to Mr.
Beecher's invitation as given by him from the pulpit. In these days
there is nothing very startling in that position, but in the earlier
times it was regarded as a very unsafe liberality, even if not
absolutely wrong.

As I have already said, the music of Plymouth Church has always been an
important part of the church worship. The high-priced quartet has never
been relied upon, the chorus choir being preferred, not merely for its
own singing, but because it served best in leading the congregation, and
that was the thing ever kept in mind. Mr. Beecher loved the
old-fashioned hymns, though he had also a hearty welcome for new ones,
and he was never satisfied unless he got everybody to singing. I have
often seen him jump up from his chair right in the middle of a hymn and
hold up his hand for silence. "You are not singing this hymn right," he
would say. "Sing it with more spirit, and let everybody sing." The
effect upon the congregation wo