Introduction
Edward Beecher (August 27, 1803 – July 28, 1895) was a noted theologian, the son of Lyman Beecher and the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher.
Biography
Beecher was born August 27, 1803 in East Hampton, New York. He graduated from Yale College in 1822. After this he studied theology at Andover.
In 1826, he became the pastor of Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He married Isabella (Porter) Jones in 1829 and together they had eleven children. In 1830, he became the first president of Illinois College at Jacksonville, Illinois, where he remained president for 14 years. He was a close friend of Elijah P. Lovejoy and helped organize the first anti-slavery society in Illinois. (His wife, Isabella, wrote to Harriet Beecher Stowe to inspire her to write "Uncle Tom's Cabin".)
He returned to Boston in 1844, where he was the pastor of Salem Street Church until 1855, when he returned to Illinois and became the pastor of the First Congregational Church of Galesburg. In 1871 he settled in Brooklyn, New York, where from 1885 to 1889 he was pastor of the Parkville church and he died there on July 28, 1895.
He was senior editor of The Congregationalist (1849—1855), and an associate editor of the Christian Union from 1870.
Published works
- Addresses on the Kingdom of God (1827)
- Six Sermons on the Nature, Importance, and Means of Eminent Holiness throughout the Church (New York, 1835)
- History of the Alton Riots (1837)
- Statement of Anti-Slavery Principles (1837)
- Baptism, its Import and Modes (1850)
- The Conflict of Ages (1853)
- The Papal Conspiracy Exposed (1855)
- The Concord of Ages (1860)
- Secret Societies: A Discussion of their Character and Claims (1867)
- History of Opinions on the Scriptural Doctrine of Future Retribution (1878)