| Edward Beecher (1803-1895) was the third child and second son in the illustrious brood sired by Connecticut clergyman Lyman Beecher, a family which included among its seven siblings educator Catharine Beecher, author Harriet Beecher Stowe, and clergyman Henry Ward Beecher. Although most famous today for his brief antislavery tract, Narrative of Riots at Alton (1838), in his own time Beecher was known primarily as a leader of the New School wing of the evangelical establishment, pressing a generally conservative social and political philosophy throughout the pre-civil war period. In this, as well as in his moderate views on the slavery issue, Beecher was representative of by far the widest body of clerical opinion among those subscribing to the New Haven Theology of Nathaniel William Taylor, as distinct from the more radical faction centering around Charles Finney and the Tappan brothers.;In one sense at least, Edward Beecher is important precisely for his character as a representative churchman, for those institutional aspects of his life which were least distinctive. Yet, no member of the Beecher family could ever be understood solely as a representative of his age. Edward Beecher's extraordinarily complex inner life gave him an individual interest beyond the average clergyman of his day. For, following a series of divine revelations which began in 1822 and climaxed in 1827, Beecher embarked on a course of heretical theological speculation intended to provide a more rational and appealing basis on which to rest the structure of evangelical conversionism. For obvious reasons, Beecher did not make his true beliefs until relatively late in his career, although he tested them on his siblings from the first. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI.;Beecher's career itself was paradigmatic of the upper reaches of the antebellum clerical elite, beginning with the headmastership of the Hartford Grammar School, a term as tutor at Yale, and an influential Boston pastorate and extending to a college presidency in Illinois, editorial positions on two widely circulated religious periodicals, and other pastoral charges east and west. A strong supporter of the various enterprises of the Benevolent Empire, Beecher was party to the founding of a major charitable organization, the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West. Throughout his career, Beecher was also deeply involved in ecclesiastical politics, championing the New School cause under the disintegrating Plan of Union of 1801 and later remaining active in Congregational affairs. |
