Henry Ward Beecher

Henry Ward Beecher was the American Congregationalist minister who made Plymouth Church in Brooklyn the most famous pulpit in the country through the 1850s and 1860s, packing it with thousands of listeners who came for his oratory on abolition, women's suffrage, and the practical theology of everyday life. Born in Litchfield, Connecticut in 1813, the son of Lyman Beecher and the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, he inherited a gift for words and a talent for controversy. His abolitionist sermons drew national attention; his trial for adultery in 1875 drew more. He survived both. His aphorisms have the directness of a preacher who knew his audience did not have time for abstraction: troubles are the tools by which God fashions us for better things; a man who does nothing never has time to do anything.