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| Lyman Beecher (Public Domain) |
He who was father to author Harriet Beecher Stowe, to abolitionist Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and to eleven other gifted children, was also an acclaimed citizen in his own right.
During his many vigorous years as a Presbyterian minister (from the late 1700s until the mid 1800s), Lyman Beecher co-founded the American Temperance Society, served as president of Lane Theological Seminary, and led the Second Great Awakening (a United States revivalist movement).
Because Beecher had challenged some traditional Presbyterian theological stances, he was charged with heresy in 1835.
After a trial that took place within his own church, he was acquitted. Beecher had also been caught up in abolitionist turmoil when Lane became a hotbed of such activity.
Wikipedia explains that "after the slavery controversy" at Lane, Beecher and his partner Stowe "tried to revive the prosperity of the Seminary, but at last abandoned it." Beecher then sought refuge in Brooklyn, New York with his son Henry.
Soon after that, Beecher's vast "intellectual powers began to decline." In describing his 1863 "Obsequies" (funeral rites), The New York Times quoted
these excerpts from Dr. Leonard Bacon's oration:
It is not in sorrow that we are
assembled. Why should we mourn that he… had outlived
his activity, and even his cognizance of
passing events in the great world…
Although Beecher may not have been cognizant of events "in the great world," he nevertheless showed signs of being cognizant of events in the great beyond.
Bacon also noted that shortly before death, Beecher experienced a
"transfiguration." His countenance became "luminous," and he called to his wife: I have had a clear vision of Heaven… I have seen the King
in his Glory.
Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Beecher
http://www.nytimes.com/1863/01/15/news/obsequies-rev-dr-lyman-beecher-sermon-occasion-rev-dr-bacon-new-haven-immense.html?pagewanted=1
Copyright December 23, 2013 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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