In the Septuagint version there is an allusion to the bee, immediately after that of the ant (Prov. vi, 8), which may be thus rendered — "Or go to the bee, and learn how industrious she is, and what a magnificent work she produces ; whose labors kings and common people use for their health. And she is desired ; nd praised by all. And though weak in strength, yet prizing wisdom, she prevails." This passage is not now found in any Hebrew copy, and Jerome informs us that it was wanting in his time. Neither is it con- tained in any other version except the Arabic. It is nevertheless quoted by many ancient writers, as Clem. Alex. Slrom. lib. i ; Origen, in Num. Horn. 27, and in ' Isai. II< m. 2; Basil, Hexameron, Horn. 8; Ambrose, v, 21; Jerome, in Ezek. iii; Theodoret, De Providtntia, Oral. 5 ; Antiochus, Abbas Sabba;, Horn. 30 ; and John Damascenus, ii, 89. It would seem that it was in the Ileb. copy used by the Greek translators. The ant and the bee are mentioned together by many writ- ers, because of their similar habits of industry and economy. For the natural history and habits of the bee, see the Penny Cyclojmdia, s. v. See Swarm.
Beecham, John, D.D., an eminent English Meth- odist minister, was born in Lincolnshire, 1787. Con- verted at an early age, he united with the Methodists, and thereby lost the patronage of some friends who designed to educate him for the ministry in the Estab- lished Church. In 1815 he entered the Wesleyan min- istry, and for sixteen years he labored in circuits with growing usefulness and esteem. His studious hab- its enabled him early to lay deep foundations in theo- logical knowledge, and his fidelity in his work was equal to the breadth of his acquirements. In 1831 he was appointed one of the general secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, and in this highly re- sponsible office he continued to labor, with the entire confidence of the Church, up to the time of his death. In administering foreign missions he combined large- ness of views with careful attention to detail ; and it is not too much to Bay that the wonderful success of the Methodist missions during the last quarter of a century is due largely to his skill and diligence. In 1855 be visited the eastern provinces of British North America, and died April "22, 1856. He wrote many of the missionary reports, and also An Essay on tin' Constitution of Wesleyan Methodism (Lond. 1850, 8vo). — Wesleyan M'nutes\ Lond. 1850), p. 30 ; Wesleyan Mag' azine, July, 1856.
Beecher, Jacob, a minister of the German Be-
BEECHER
m
BEECHER
formed Church, was born near Petersburg, Adams Co., Penn., May 2d, 1799, and studied first at an acad- emy in Hagerstown, Md., and afterward in Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Penn. ; pursued his theolog- ical studies first at Princeton Seminary, and afterward continued them, in connection with the German lan- guage, in the newly-established Theological Seminary of the German Reformed Church, then located at Car- lisle, Penn. He was licensed and ordained in 1826. lie immediately took charge of the German Reformed Church of Shepherdstown, Va., together with several affiliated congregations. His health was always fee- ble. With the hope of improving it, he spent the winter of 1830-31 in the South, in the service of the American Sunday School Union. He died July loth, 1831. Though his life and the period of his labors were brief, such were his piet}' and zeal that few min- isters are more sacredly remembered in the German Reformed Church. He preached both in the German and English languages.
Beecher, Lyman, D.D., an eminent Presbyte- rian minister, was born at New Haven, Conn., October 12th, 1775. His father, David Beecher, was a black- smith, " whose strong, positive character, whose many eccentricities, and whose great dark ej'es gave him a celebrity in all the country round. As a boy he was placed with his uncle, Lot Benton, to learn farming, but it was soon found that his bent did not lie that way, and he was sent to Yale College, where he grad- uated A.B. in 1797. During his college career ho earned no distinction by scholarly acquirements, but was early noticed as a remai'kably vigorous and orig- inal thinker and reasoner. In a debate on baptism, started among the students, he took the Baptist side, ' because,' as he said, ' no one else would take it.' He studied theology with Dr. Dwigl^t for one year, and was licensed to preach by the New Haven West As- sociation in 1798. In 1799 he was ordained, and in- stalled as pastor at East Hampton, Long Island, where he remained eleven years, at a salary of $300 a year. In 1810 he removed to Litchfield, Conn., then the seat of a famous law-school, in which many of the states- man of the last generation were trained. Here ho spent sixteen years of indefatigable pastoral labor, and here, too, he wrote his famous ' Six Sermons on In/ m/i ranee,' which were suggested by the sudden downfall of two of his most intimate friends. In 1826' he accepted a call to the Hanover Street Church, Boston, where he spent six years of immense activity and popularity, distinguished also by the boldness and success with which heoppposed Dr. Channing and grap- pled Unitarianism, which has never since been as donj- inant in Boston as before. In 1832 he accepted the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, in which service, and that of the Second Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, he remained during twenty event- ful years. In 1833 seventy students withdrew from the seminary on account of a stupid rule, adopted by the trustees in Dr. Beecher's absence, with regard to the discussion of slavery, and this secession laid the foun- dation of Oberlin College. Oddly enough, Dr. Beecher, himself an abolitionist, and the father of Abolitionists, was now the head of an institution stigmatized as ' pro- slavery.' The doctrinal views of Dr. Beecher had al- ways been moderately Calvinistic, and he was charired by some of the stronger Calvinists with heresy. A trial ensued, ending in 1835, by the adoption of resolutions to which Dr. Beecher assented ; but the controversy went on until at last the Presbyterian Church (q. v.) was rent in twain by it. In 1852 Dr. Beecher re- signed the presidency of the seminary and returned to Boston. His declining years were spent in Brooklyn, where he died Jan. 10th, 1863. He was three times married, and was the father of thirteen children, of whom several have risen to eminence : Edward, Henry Ward, Charles, and Thomas as preachers, and Catha- rine and Harriet (Mrs. Stowe, the author of " Uncle Zz