But if he be an heir, waiting for an inheritance of God, eternal in the heavens, woe be to him that dare lay a finger on him because he is a minor!
Henry Ward Beecher
The Public Record
Henry Ward Beecher was an American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery, his emphasis on God's love, and his 1875 adultery trial. His rhetorical focus on the love of Christ has influenced mainstream Christianity through the 21st century.
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We must deepen our thinkings of man, and bore for the springs of liberty far below the drainings of surface strata, down deep, Artesian, till we strike something that shall be beyond winter or summer, frost or drouth.
I do not believe that there is a doctrine of individual rights nor of civil liberty that can stand outside of Christianity.
Christ is the World's Emancipator, for he hath declared that men belong to Him; and an oppressor thus becomes a felon, a robber, and a wronger of God, in the person of every poor and wretched victim!
A Christianity that tells man what his origin is--of God; his destiny, to God again; his errand on earth, to grow toward goodness, and make the most of himself--this Christianity is rank rebellion in despotisms, and insurrection on…
In the North, it is the public sentiment of the people, that all men are born free and equal; that every man has an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, forfeited only by crime.
The North believe that personal and political liberty are not only rights of man, but their necessity, that man cannot thrive nor develop, with the true proportions of manhood, without liberty.
It is the northern sentiment that a man must be prepared for liberty, and that the act of birth is that preparation; that no creature lives which is the better for oppression, and who will not be the better for freedom, which is the…
A famished man may injure himself by over-feeding; but that is an argument not against food, but against famine.
It is the northern sentiment, and justly deduced from the Christian theory of man, that society should redeem all its own children from ignorance, should secure their growth, equip them for citizenship, make all the influences of society…
Men often are profoundly ignorant of the principles which control their policy, as a ship is unconscious of the rudder that steers her.
If he must stand by what he is, how surely must he be given over to weakness, to abuse, to oppressions.