After looking at them he said: "That's very interesting.How much have you in the bank?"He was told the balance, less the checks given to him."But I haven't turned them in yet," he explained."Anyhow, you have enough in bank to meet the checks you have given me, and a profit besides, haven't you?"He was assured they had.
Then, taking his bank-book from a drawer, he unpinned the six checks on his desk, indorsed each thus: wrote a deposit-slip, and, handing the book to Edward, said:
For deposit (??) in Bank H.W.Beecher "Just hand that in at the bank as you go by, will you?"Edward was very young then, and Mr.Beecher's methods of financiering seemed to him quite in line with current notions of the Plymouth pastor's lack of business knowledge.But as the years rolled on the incident appeared in a new light--a striking example of the great preacher's wonderful considerateness.
Edward had offered to help Mr.Beecher with his correspondence; at the close of one afternoon, while he was with the Plymouth pastor at work, an organ-grinder and a little girl came under the study window.A cold, driving rain was pelting down.In a moment Mr.Beecher noticed the girl's bare toes sticking out of her worn shoes.
He got up, went into the hall, and called for one of his granddaughters.
"Got any good, strong rain boots?" he asked when she appeared.
"Why, yes, grandfather.Why?" was the answer.
"More than one pair?" Mr.Beecher asked.
"Yes, two or three, I think."
"Bring me your strongest pair, will you, dear?" he asked.And as the girl looked at him with surprise he said: "Just one of my notions.""Now, just bring that child into the house and put them on her feet for me, will you?" he said when the shoes came."I'll be able to work so much better."One rainy day, as Edward was coming up from Fulton Ferry with Mr.
Beecher, they met an old woman soaked with the rain."Here, you take this, my good woman," said the clergyman, putting his umbrella over her head and thrusting the handle into the astonished woman's hand."Let's get into this," he said to Edward simply, as he hailed a passing car.
"There is a good deal of fraud about beggars," he remarked as he waved a sot away from him one day; "but that doesn't apply to women and children," he added; and he never passed such mendicants without stopping.All the stories about their being tools in the hands of accomplices failed to convince him."They're women and children," he would say, and that settled it for him.
"What's the matter, son? Stuck?" he said once to a newsboy who was crying with a heavy bundle of papers under his arm.
"Come along with me, then," said Mr.Beecher, taking the boy's hand and leading him into the newspaper office a few doors up the street.
"This boy is stuck," he simply said to the man behind the counter.
"Guess The Eagle can stand it better than this boy; don't you think so?"To the grown man Mr.Beecher rarely gave charity.He believed in a return for his alms.
"Why don't you go to work?" he asked of a man who approached him one day in the street.
"Can't find any," said the man.
"Looked hard for it?" was the next question.
"I have," and the man looked Mr.Beecher in the eye.
"Want some?" asked Mr.Beecher.
"I do," said the man.
"Come with me," said the preacher.And then to Edward, as they walked along with the man following behind, he added: "That man is honest.""Let this man sweep out the church," he said to the sexton when they had reached Plymouth Church.
"But, Mr.Beecher," replied the sexton with wounded pride, "it doesn't need it.""Don't tell him so, though," said Mr.Beecher with a merry twinkle of the eye; and the sexton understood.
