many languages and had a large sale even after the lapse of fifty years. The rapid and extensive defection of the Congregational Churches under the lead of Dr. Channing was the occasion of his being called to Boston to uphold the doctrines of Puritanism; which he did with such great power as to soon be regarded as unequalled among living divines for dialectic keenness. eloquence of appeal, sparkling wit, vigor of thought and concentrated power of expression. His personal magnetism was intense and his will unconquerable.'

Mansfield in his Personal Memories writes that Dr. Beecher's spells of eloquence seem to come on by fits." One hot day in summer and in the afternoon, says he, I was in church and he was going on in a sensible but rather prosy half sermon way, when all at once he began to recollect that we had just heard of the death of Lord Byron. He was an admirer of Byron's poetry, as all who admire genius must be. He raised his spectacles and began with an account of Byron, his ge ius, wonderful gifts, and then went on to is want of virtue and want of true religion and finally described a lost soul and the spirit of Byron going off and wandering in the blackness of darkness forever! It struck me as with an electric shock.

The Lane Theological Seminary having been established at Walnut Hills and the growing importance of the great West having filled the thought of the religious public at the East, a large sum of money was pledged to its support, on the condition of Dr. Beecher accepting the presidency, which he did in 1832. Then to eke out his salary for ten years he officiated as pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, in Cincinnati. One of his first acts here was to startle the Eastern orthodoxy by a tract upon the danger of Roman Catholic supremacy at the West.

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Soon after, in consequence of a tract issued by the abolition convention, at Philadelphia, the evils of slavery were discussed by the students. Many of them were from the South; an effort was made to stop the discussions and the meetings. Slave-holders went over from Kentucky and incited mob violence in Cincinnati, and at one time it seemed as though the rabble might destroy the seminary, and the houses of the professors. In the absence of Dr. Beecher, a little after, the board of trustees frightened into obeying the demands of the mob by forbidding all discussion of slavery; whereupon the students withdrew en masse. A few returned, while the seceders laid the foundations of Oberlin College.'

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Dr. Beecher in person was short and substantially built, his complexion was florid and he had such a genial, fatherly expression and withal was so very odd one could not but smile on meeting him. He was proverbially absent-minded, cared nothing for the little conventionalities of life; as likely as anything else when out taking tea with a parishioner to thrust his tea-spoon into the general preserve dish and eat direct therefrom; evidently

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unconscious of his breach of manners. many not so great, he never could remember where he put his hat. Topics of vital welfare to humanity seemed to fill his mind to the exclusion of thoughts of himself, or to what people thought of him, or where he had last put his hat. In 1846 we made his acquaintance and walking with him on Fourth street one day he described the situation at the time of the mobbing of the Philanthropist. The seminary was some three miles distant and over a road most of the way up-hill, ankle-deep in clayey, sticky mud, through which the mob to get there must of necessity flounder, even without being filled as they would undoubtedly have been with Old Bourbon. The mud was really what probably saved the theologian. I told the boys," said he, "that they had the right of self-defence, that they could arm themselves and if the mob came they could shoot," and then looking in my face and whispering with an air that was irresistibly comical, he added, "but I told them not to kill 'em, aim low, hit 'em in the legs! hit 'em in the legs!"

Those who knew the road to Walnut Hills in those days will remember it was largely a mere shelf cut out of the mud of the side hills whereupon omnibuses and single vehicles were often upset. The old divine coming down one night after dark was crowded off by some careless teamsters, and went rolling down the precipice perhaps some thirty feet, and so badly hurt he could not preach for three weeks. The stupid teamsters, attracted by his cries for help, came to the verge and peering down in the darkness, hollowed, How can we get there?" "Easy enough," he answered, I come down as I did!"

On one occasion a young minister was lamenting the dreadful increasing wickedness of mankind. "I don't know anything about that, young man," replied he in his whispering tones. I've not had anything to do with running the world the last twenty-five years. God Almighty now has it is charge.'

This good man was wont, after preaching a powerful sermon, to relax his mind from his highly wrought state of nervous excitement, sometimes by going down into his cellar and shovelling sand from one spot to another; sometimes by taking his fiddle,' playing "Auld Lang Syne,' and dancing a double shuffle in his parlor. His very eccentricities only the more endeared him to the public. He was great every way. On a platform of a hundred divines, his was the intellect that all felt was their master. American, except Benjamin Franklin, has given utterance to so many pungent, wise sentences as Lyman Beecher. In the power of concentrated expression he has been rarely equalled, and in his more sublime solemn outbursts he was like a thunderbolt.

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Lyman Beecher was married thrice and had thirteen children; his seven grown sons all became Congregational clergymen, and his four daughters mostly gained literary and philanthropic distinction. Henry Ward, his most distinguished son, was educated at Lane

Her maiden sister Catharine's entire life was marred by a tragic event. She was betrothed to Prof. Fisher, of Yale College, who lost his life in 1822, by the wreck of the packet ship Albion off the coast of Ireland, at the age of twenty-seven years. He was a young man of extraordinary genius, thought to be akin to that of Sir Isaac Newton, and his loss was regarded as national. In the Yale Library to-day is an exquisite bust of him in marble. The face is very beautiful and refined. Evidence of his masterly power was shown by the opening article (an abstruse paper on the science of music) in the first volume of Silliman's Journal of Science, issued in 1818.

In conversation Miss Beecher was humorous, incisive and self-opinionated, but kindly. While at the head of a female seminary she became a convert to the Graham system of diet, and practised it upon herself and pupils, whereupon some of them invited her to partake of a good generous dinner at a restaur

ant. It operated to a charm, converted her, and she came to the conclusion that a rich, juicy, tender, well-cooked beefsteak, with its accompaniments, was no object for contempt with a hungry soul.

An anecdote of her we heard in our youth was that, on being introduced at a social gathering in Hartford to the poet Percival she went at him in an exciting adulatory strain upon his poetry, which had then just appeared and was eliciting general admiration. Percival, who was then a very young man, and the most shrinking of mortals, was completely overwhelmed; he could not answer a word, but as soon as possible escaped from her, and then, in his low, whispering tones, inquired of a bystander, "Is not that the young lady who was engaged to Prof. Fisher?" "Yes." "Ah!" rejoined he, "it is well he died."

No American family has so much influenced American thought as the Beechers, and none, through its genius and eccentricities, has been so interesting; and it did Ohio good that she had possession of them for twenty years. It used to be a common expression forty years ago that the United States possessed two great things, viz., the American flag and the Beechers.

ELIZA HARRIS'S ESCAPE.

Eliza Harris, of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the slave woman who crossed the Ohio river on the drifting ice, with her child in her arms, was sheltered for several days and aided to escape by Levi Coffin, he then residing at Newport, Ind.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's graphic description of this woman's experiences is almost identical with the real facts in the case.

The originals of Simeon and Rachael Halliday, the Quaker couple alluded to in her remarkable work, were Levi and Catharine Coffin.

Eliza Harris's master lived a few miles back from the Ohio river, below Ripley, Ohio. Her treatment from master and mistress was kind; but they having met with financial reverses, it was decided to sell Eliza, and she, learning of this and the probable separation of herself and child, determined to escape. That night, with her child in her arms, she started on foot for the Ohio river. She reached the river near daybreak, and instead of finding it frozen over, it was filled with large blocks of floating ice. Thinking it impossible to cross, she ventured to seek shelter in a house near by, where she was kindly received.

She hoped to find some way of crossing the next night, but during the day the ice became more broken and dangerous, making the river seemingly impassable. Evening came on when her pursuers were seen approaching the house. Made desperate through fear, she seized her infant in her arms, darted out the back door and ran toward the river, followed by her pursuers.

Fearing death less than separation from her babe, she clasped it to her bosom and sprang on the first cake of ice, and from that to another, and then to another, and so on. Sometimes the ice would sink beneath her; then she would slide her child on to the next cake, and pull herself on with her hands. Wet to the waist, her hands benumbed with cold, she approached the Ohio shore nearly exhausted. A man, who had been standing on the bank watching her in amazement, assisted her to the shore. After recovering her strength, she was directed to a house on

a hill in the outskirts of Ripley, which is that shown on page 336 of the "Ohio Historical Collection," this edition. Here she was cared for, and after being provided with food and dry clothing, was forwarded from station to station on the Underground Railroad until she reached the home of Levi Coffin. Here she remained several days until she and her child, with other fugitives, were forwarded via the Greenville branch of the Underground Railroad to Sandusky, and from thence to Chatham, Canada West, where she finally settled, and where years after Mr. Coffin met her.

THE MARGARET GARNER CASE.

One of the most remarkable of the cases that occurred under the Fugitive Slave law, and one which aroused deep sympathy and widespread interest during the latter part of January, 1856, was that of Margaret Garner, the slave mother who killed her child rather than see it taken back to slavery.

She was one of a party of seventeen who, though closely pursued, had escaped to Cincinnati. The party had separated at this point for greater safety, and Margaret with her four children and husband Robert, together with Robert's parents, Simon and Mary, had sought shelter at a house below Mill creek, the home of a free colored man named Kite, who had formerly been a slave in their neighborhood.

Kite did not consider his house a safe place for the fugitives and had gone to consult Levi Coffin as to measures for their removal along the Underground Railroad and was returning, when he found the house surrounded by the masters of the slaves, with officers and a posse of men.

The doors and windows were barred, but a window was soon battered down, and, although the slaves made a brave resistance, several shots being fired and slaves and officers wounded, the fugitives were soon overcome and dragged from the house. At this moment Margaret, seeing that escape was hopeless, seized a butcher-knife that lay on a table and with one stroke cut the throat of her little daughter, whom she probably loved best. She then attempted to kill herself

and the other children, but was overpowered. The whole party was then arrested and lodged in jail.

The trial lasted two weeks, during which time the court-room was crowded. Colonel Chambers, of Cincinnati, and Messrs. Wall & Tinnell, of Covington, appeared for the claimants; Messrs. Joliffe & Getchell for the slaves. The counsel for the defence proved that Margaret had been brought to Cincinnati by her owners, a number of years before, and, according to the law which liberated slaves who were brought into free States with the consent of their masters, she had been free from that time, and her children, all of whom had been born since, were likewise free. The Commissioner, however, decided that a voluntary return from a free to a slave State reattached the conditions of slavery.

A futile attempt was made to try Margaret for murder and the others as accessories, and State warrants were issued. Lawyer Jolliffe pressed the motion to have them served, for said he, "The fugitives have all assured me that they will go singing to the gallows rather than be returned to slavery.

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They were finally indicted for murder, but owing to the provisions of the law of 1850 they could not be tried on that charge while in their owner's custody.

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Margaret was a bright-eyed, intelligentlooking mulatto, about twenty-two years of She had a high forehead, arched eyebrows, but the thick lips and broad nose of the African. On the left side of her face were two scars. When asked what caused them she said: "White man struck me.' That was all, but it betrays a story of cruelty and degradation and perhaps gives the keynote of her resolve rather to die than go back to slavery.

During the trial her bearing was one of extreme sadness and despondency. The case seemed to stir every heart that was alive to the emotions of humanity. The interest manifested by all classes was not so much for the legal principles involved as for the mute instincts that mould every human heart-the undying love of freedom that is planted in every breast-the resolve to die rather than to submit to a life of degradation and bondage.

After the trial the slaves were returned to Kentucky.

It was reported that Margaret while being transported down the Ohio river had jumped off the boat with her babe in her arms, that the deck hands rescued her, but the child was drowned. Her subsequent fate is wrapped in obscurity.