With a heart full of tender feelings he parted with his people and entered into the larger work in which he first became known outside of the limits of his Presbytery. In the last week in July, 1839, he removed his family to Indianapolis, which, though it was the State capital, was hardly more than a village, having less than 4,000 inhabitants, its streets unpaved and noted for the depth and persistency of the mud. Like most of the then frontier towns, it was very malarial; chills and fever were expected as a matter of course, very rarely disappointing the expectation. The Second Presbyterian Church was an offshoot from the “First” Church, a chip struck out by the axe of controversy, then being so fiercely waged between the Old and New Schools. The new church was of course New School. Its fifteen original members, having been released from the First Church after some little ecclesiastical difficulty, organized at once, and secured the second story of the old Marion County Seminary. Their first call was to Rev. S. Holmes, of New Bedford, Mass.; he declined. They then invited Rev. John C. Young, of Danville, Ky., with like result. Their next call was to Henry Ward Beecher, who became their first pastor. He was then but twenty-six, looking still young, but fresh, rugged, and full of life. To the few survivors of that little band who knew and loved him in those early days we are largely indebted for the impression produced by his preaching in this church and in the community, and for a brief account of his life among them. “My first recollection of Mr. Beecher,” said one of his early parishioners, “was when I was a journeyman printer. A man named King came to me and, with much enthusiasm, declared he had heard the greatest preacher he had ever listened to in his life—a young fellow who was preaching at the Marion County Seminary.