“It then pleased God to lift upon me such a view of Christ as one whose nature and office it is to have infinite and exquisite pity upon the weakness and want of sinners as I had never had before. I saw that He had compassion upon them because they were sinners, and because He wanted to help them out of their sins. It came to me like the bursting forth of spring. It was as if yesterday there was not a bird to be seen or heard, and as if to-day the woods were full of singing birds. There rose up before me a view of Jesus as the Saviour of sinners—not of saints, but of sinners unconverted, before they were any better—because they were so bad and needed so much; and that view has never gone from me. It did not at first fill the whole heaven; it came as a rift along the horizon; gradually, little by little, the cloud rolled up. It was three years before the whole sky was cleared so that I could see all around, but from that hour I felt that God had a father’s heart; that Christ loved me in my sin; that while I was a sinner He did not frown upon me nor cast me off, but cared for me with unutterable tenderness, and would help me out of sin; and it seemed to me that I had everything I needed. When that vision was vouchsafed to me I felt that there was no more for me to do but to love, trust, and adore; nor has there ever been in my mind a doubt since that I did love, trust, and adore. There has been an imperfect comprehension, there have been grievous sins, there have been long defections; but never for a single moment have I doubted the power of Christ’s love to save me, any more than I have doubted the existence in the heaven of the sun by day and the moon by night.” We have thus followed Henry Ward Beecher from the cradle to the moment that he stands prepared to enter upon his life-work; have noted every step of his course from the hills to the sea, from school to college, from the East to the West; have marked the influences of the home, of nature, of the city, of school, college, and seminary, of the times, of the Word and Spirit of God; have traced his experiences, felt his dawning strength, examined the life he lived, the dispositions he manifested, the hopes he cherished, and the character he formed; and in our confidence and admiration choose, as not inappropriate for him at this time, the description of “The Patrone of true Holinesse” in the “Faerie Queene”: