Henry Ward Beecher in the Pulpit, (1886) is one collection of his sermons, and we notice a minor theme, called by an editor a "homely" turn:
" I have a cat in the country," he says, " that knowing there is a rat in the drain will lie crouched in the grass for six hours together, waiting for that rat to come out. And I know people [ who will wait for for Christians that way, to see if they make a mistake].
Mostly Beecher was doing things. Certainly his sermons were widely distributed. Beecher, a powerful orator who spoke against slavery, and for women's suffrage, also felt that discontented laborers had no case to make for higher wages. His view of God emphasized the deity's love and forgiveness. Of which Beecher himself had some need, if stories about his adultery were accurate.
Another sermon, quoted in Life and work of Henry Ward Beecher, listing Thomas Wallace Knox as author, (1887) mentions:
When the absent are spoken of, some will speak gold of them, some silver, some iron, some lead, and some always speak dirt, for they have a natural attraction toward what is evil, and think it shows penetration in them. As a cat watching for mice does not look up though an elephant goes by, so they are so busy mousing for defects that they let great excellences pass them unnoticed. I will not say it is not Christian to make beads of others' faults, and tell them over every day; I say it is infernal. If you want to know how the devil feels, you do know if you are such an one.
Beecher is such a good writer. And we all know the kind of person of whom he speaks, and they are not lovely. Still, there seems to be a rodentine squeak in such quotes.
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