Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1885 — HENRY WARD BEECHER is evidently [ARTICLE]

HENRY WARD BEECHER is evidently

not blind to the fact that the members of bis congregation sometimes give themselves up to tired nature’s sweet restorer. Here is a good story that proves it, from his own lips. “A regiment of lumbermen, big, tall fellows, six-foot-five, from Maine, were passing through Brooklyn in ’62. There were about 1,000 in all, and I marched them up to Plymouth Church, invited them in, gave every man of them a whole seat with a cushion in it. There they all sat with their knapsacks on, and I got on the platform and began to preach. My friends, it’s the only time in my life I ever preached a whole congregation to sleep. ”