ility. His vitality was infectious. He was a big, healthy,
vigorous man with the physique of an athlete, and his intellectual
fire and vigor corresponded with his physical strength. There
seemed to be no limit to his ideas, anecdotes, illustrations, and
incidents. He had a fervid imagination and wonderful power of
assimilation and reproduction and the most observant of eyes. He
was drawing material constantly from the forests, the flowers,
the gardens, and the domestic animals in the fields and in the
house, and using them most effectively in his sermons and speeches.
An intimate friend of mine, a country doctor and great admirer of
Mr. Beecher, became a subscriber to the weekly paper in which was
printed his Sunday sermon, and carefully guarded a file of them
which he made. He not only wanted to read the sermons of his
favorite preacher, but he believed him to have infinite variety,
and was constantly examining the efforts of his idol to see if
he could not find an illustration, anecdote, or idea repeated.

Mr. Beecher seemed to be teeming with ideas all the time, almost
to the point of bursting. While most orators are relying upon
their libraries and their commonplace book, and their friends for
material, he apparently found more in every twenty-four hours than
he could use. His sermons every Sunday appeared in the press.
He lectured frequently; several times a week he delivered
after-dinner speeches, and during such intervals as he had he
made popular addresses, spoke at meetings on municipal and general
reform, and on patriotic occasions. One of the most effective,
and for the time one of the most eloquent addresses I ever heard
in my life was the one he delivered at the funeral of Horace Greeley.

When the sentiment in England in favor of the the South in our
Civil War seemed to be growing to a point where Great Britain
might recognize the Southern Confederacy, Mr. Lincoln asked
Mr. Beecher to go over and present the Union side. Those speeches
of Mr. Beecher, a stranger in a strange country, to hostile
audiences, were probably as extraordinary an evidence of oratorical
power as was ever known. He captured audiences, he overcame
the hostility of persistent disturbers of the meetings, and with
his ready wit overwhelmed the heckler.

At one of the great meetings, when the sentiment was rapidly
changing from hostility to favor, a man arose and asked Mr. Beecher:
"If you people of the North are so strong