We are fully conscious of the imperfect manner in which we have woven these quotations into our story; the ordinary writer who attempts to connect with his words those glowing sentences white-hot with his fiery indignation against slavery, or his eloquent appeal to the English public for fair-dealing, or the brilliant play of wit and fancy in his more humorous utterances, can hope, at the most, to give but a respectable background that may aid by contrast. We have sought to make this book a truthful history from the beginnings of his life, through boyhood, manhood, and ripened age, to the end, omitting no important period, though passing innumerable incidents. A man loving peace, he reached peace only through war. From his early manhood he was called to meet in deadly combat the great sins of the nation. Through his life, at different times, he met and overcame bitter and deadly assaults made upon him. In our narration of these events we have had no revenge to gratify nor theory to maintain. We have tried to give only facts, omitting deductions or conclusions, leaving each reader to draw his own inferences. If parts of our narrative bear hardly on any, it is only the pressure of the facts which cannot be suppressed in any fearless, truthful portrayal of our father’s life. We do not make them; we merely state them. We would acknowledge our indebtedness to the many friends who have kindly furnished letters and reminiscences, but especially to our mother, whose memory, running back along the paths they travelled for so many years together, has given to us much that never would otherwise have been known. If our readers get from a perusal of these pages a tithe of the comfort and inspiration which we have obtained from their preparation, we shall feel that our work has not been in vain. If they can see something of the fearlessness for right, the patience under unjust suffering, the inextinguishable love for fellow-men, and the abiding faith in God, that has been revealed by a study of his life even to us, who knew him best, we shall be satisfied. W. C. BEECHER, SAMUEL SCOVILLE. BROOKLYN, March 12, 1888. CHAPTER I. Ancestry—Beecher—Ward—Foote—The Anvil—The Oak—Courtship and Marriage of Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote—Home at East Hampton, Long Island—Removal to Litchfield, Connecticut. Henry Ward Beecher used to say that the first thing for a man to do, if he would succeed in life, is to “choose a good father and mother to be born of.” He himself was eminently wise, or fortunate, as the case may be, in this matter.