r to do for girls, she raised several thousand dollars and
built the Hartford Female Seminary. Her brothers had college doors
opened to them; why, she reasoned, should not women have equal
opportunities? Society wondered of what possible use Latin and moral
philosophy could be to girls, but they admired Miss Beecher, and
let her do as she pleased. Students poured in, and the seminary soon
overflowed. My own school life in that beloved institution, years
afterward, I shall never forget.

And now the little twelve-year-old Harriet came down from Litchfield
to attend Catharine's school, and soon become a pupil-teacher, that
the burden of support might not fall too heavily upon the father.
Other children had come into the Beecher home, and with a salary of
eight hundred dollars, poverty could not be other than a constant
attendant. Once when the family were greatly straitened for money,
while Henry and Charles were in college, the new mother went to bed
weeping, but the father said, "Well, the Lord always has taken care of
me, and I am sure He always will," and was soon fast asleep. The next
morning, Sunday, a letter was handed in at the door, containing a $100
bill, and no name. It was a thank-offering for the conversion of a
child.

Mr. Beecher, with all his poverty, could not help being generous. His
wife, by close economy, had saved twenty-five dollars to buy a new
overcoat for him. Handing him the roll of bills, he started out to
purchase the garment, but stopped on the way to attend a missionary
meeting. His heart warmed as he stayed, and when the contribution-box
was passed, he put in the roll of bills for the Sandwich Islanders,
and went home with his threadbare coat!

Three years later, Mr. Beecher, who had now become widely known as
a revivalist and brilliant preacher, was called to Boston, where he
remained for six years. His six sermons on intemperance had stirred
the whole country.

Though he loved Boston, his heart often turned toward the great West,
and he longed to help save her young men. When, therefore, he was
asked to go to Ohio and become the president of Lane Theological
Seminary at Cincinnati, he accepted. Singularly dependent upon his
family, Catharine and Harriet must needs go with him to the new home.
The journey was a toilsome one, over the corduroy roads and across the
mountains by stagecoach. Finally they were settled in a pleasant
house on Walnut Hills, one of the suburbs of the city, and