BEECHER, Lyman, American theologian: b. New Haven, Conn., 12 Oct. 1775; d. Brook lyn, N. Y., 10 Jan. 1863. He was a blacksmith's son and himself a blacksmith's helper and farmer's lad in boyhood. Entering Yale Col lege at 18, he graduated in 1797, studying also theology under President Dwight till 1798, when he became supply at East Hampton, L. I. and was ordained there 1799, remaining till 1810. His remarkable pulpit oratory gained national repute from a sermon in 1804 on Alex ander Hamilton's death at Burr's hands — an occasion which made more than one reputation, all utterances being eagerly scanned from the excitement and party feeling. In 1810 he was called to Litchfield, Conn., the seat of a cele brated law school and other educational insti tutions, at a time when New England was the intellectual autocrat of the country and towns were few and small; and soon became recog nized not only as the foremost man in the Congregational body, but one of the greatest of American preachers. About 1814 a half dozen sermons of his against intemperance, then a common vice among even the clergy, were not only widely read in America and Eng land, but were translated into several foreign languages. He also took a foremost part in organizing Bible and missionary societies, etc.; and his courage, power and energy made many look to him for guidance and succor in trouble. This came in a flood during the next decade, when the Unitarian movement, under Channing and its other great early leaders, was sweeping the Congregational churches around Boston off their feet, and Mr. Beecher, in 1826, at the urgency of influential clergymen, accepted a call to the Hanover Street Church in Boston to stem the tide, which his polemic ardor per haps aided in doing. In 1832 he accepted the presidency of Lane (Theological) Seminary near Cincinnati, Ohio, which had been endowed on the express condition of his taking charge of it, to strengthen Calvinism in the rapidly growing West; he remained there till 1852, holding also the chair of sacred theology, and was its titular president till death. He was also pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati 1832-42. In 1833 the famous phi lanthropist, Arthur Tappan, the chief founder of Lane, sent the students a report of the pro ceedings of the Philadelphia abolition conven tion of that year; the students, partly South ern, at once fell into disputes on the subject of slavery. The trustees vainly tried to check the
meetings and discussions; Kentucky slavehold ers came over and urged violent suppression of these meetings and threatened the destruction of the seminary. The trustees iti terror for bade all further discussion of slavery and therefore all the students deserted in a body. The most of the anti-slavery wing refused to return, and their supporters founded Oberlin College; a few came back, and Mr. Beecher and his son-in-law, Calvin E. Stowe, tried for many years to build up the seminary again but in vain. Shortly after this, in 1835, he was tried as a heretic and hypocrite, first before his own church and then before the Presbyterian synod, for his ((moderate Calvinism'"; he was acquit ted, but the Old School and New School con troversy finally split the church in 1838, Mr. Beecher adhering to the New School party. In 1852 he resigned the presidency of Lane and returned to Boston to prepare his works for publication, but was stricken with a slow sis of the brain, which enfeebled his mind for many years before his death. Despite the im pressions of the extreme orthodox party, he was of the firmest doctrinal faith, though his theology was of his own make, and his humor ous audacities of speech often shocked digni fied propriety. His boundless energy, boldness, unconquerable will and personal magnetism were those of a natural leader of men; while his unsurpassed logical power, his intense and compact expression and, above all, his entire sincerity and spirituality of purpose, winged with his racy and picturesque wit, set him above every other American clergyman of his time in popular influence. Consult his (Autobiog raphy and Correspondence,' edited by his son, Charles Beecher (New York 1863) ; Works' (3 vols., Boston 1852) ; Hayward, E. F., (Lyman Beecher' (Boston 1904) ; White, J. C., 'Personal Reminiscences of Lyman Beecher' (New York 1882).