ke who should infer, that, in thus busily
and energetically building up the temple, Dr. Beecher forgot the glory
of the Lord which was to dwell in it. He treated it, indeed, as a
business matter, but it was the business of immortal souls and of the
Most High God. No merely professional attachment bound him to it; there
was no contemplating it from a public and a private point of view; but
his whole inner and outer life was enlisted. Not only the religious
public, but, what is even more rare, his own family, were vitalized with
his spirit and drawn into his train. The doctrines that he preached from
the pulpit had been discussed over the woodpile in the cellar. His
public teachings had first been household words. The Epistles, death, a
preexistent state, were talked over by the fireside. Theology took
precedence even of the baby in the family letters. One breath announces
that he could not find any trout at Guilford, and the next that he has
preached his sermon on Depravity. Catharine writes, that the house needs
paper and paint very much, father's afternoon sermon perfectly
electrified her, and his last article will make all smoke again. Harriet
records, with great inward exultation, that, on their Western journey,
father preached, and gave them the Taylorite heresy on Sin and Decrees
to the highest notch, and what was amusing, he established it from the
"Confession of Faith," and so it went high and dry above all objections,
and delighted his audience, who had never heard it christened heresy. He
sets forth to attend the Synod, accompanied by his son Henry, with one
rein in the right hand, and one in the left, and an apple in each,
biting them alternately, and alternately telling Tom how to get the
harness mended, and showing Henry the true doctrine of Original Sin. His
fatherly heart yearned over his children; with voice and pen and a
constant watchful tenderness, he knew no rest till the whole eleven had
adopted the faith for which he so earnestly contended. The genius of
Napoleon elicited almost a personal affection, and he read every memoir
from St. Helena with the earnest desire of shaping out of those last
conversations some hope for his future. He mourned for Byron as for a
friend, lamenting sorely that wasted life, and was sure, that, if Byron
"could only have talked with Taylor and me, it might have got him out of
his troubles." Indeed, he evidently considered "Taylor and me," not to
say me and Taylor, the two p