Beecher: How goes the Battle?

Beecher inserted himself into nearly every important drama of the era - among them the antislavery and women's suffrage movements, the rise of the entertainment industry and tabloid press, and controversies ranging from Darwinian evolution to presidential politics. He was notorious for his irreverent humor and melodramatic gestures, such as auctioning slaves to freedom in his pulpit and shipping rifles - nicknamed "Beecher's Bibles"- to the antislavery resistance fighters in Kansas. Thinkers such as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and Twain befriended- and sometimes parodied- him.

The sermon entitled "How goes the Battle?" was delivered on Thanksgiving day, November 27, 1873. We obtained the text from the book Plymouth Pulpit shown here.