Editing Henry Ward Beecher (section)

==Early ministry==
On August 3, 1837, Beecher married Eunice Bullard, and the two proceeded to the small, impoverished town of [[Lawrenceburg, Indiana]], where Beecher had been offered a post as a minister of the First Presbyterian Church.{{sfn|Applegate|2006|pp=141–150}} He received his first national publicity when he became involved in the break between "New School" and "Old School" Presbyterianism, which were split over questions of [[original sin]] and the slavery issue; Henry's father Lyman was a leading proponent of the New School.{{sfn|Applegate|2006|pp=121–22}} Because of Henry's adherence to the New School position, the Old School-dominated presbytery declined to install him as the pastor, and the resulting controversy split the western Presbyterian Church into rival synods.{{sfn|Applegate|2006|pp=154–56}}

[[File:Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, New York.jpg|thumb|right|Plymouth Church in 1866]]
Though Henry Beecher's Lawrenceburg church declared its independence from the Synod to retain him as its pastor, the poverty that followed the [[Panic of 1837]] caused him to look for a new position.{{sfn|Applegate|2006|p=157}} Banker [[Samuel Merrill (Indiana politician)|Samuel Merrill]] invited Beecher to visit [[Indianapolis]] in 1839, and he was offered the ministry of the [[Second Presbyterian Church (Indianapolis, Indiana)|Second Presbyterian Church]] there on May 13, 1839.{{sfn|Applegate|2006|pp=160–61}} Unusually for a speaker of his era, Beecher would use humor and informal language including dialect and slang as he preached.{{sfn|Applegate|2006|p=173}} His preaching was a major success, building Second Presbyterian into the largest church in the city, and he also led a successful [[revival meeting]] in nearby [[Terre Haute]].{{sfn|Applegate|2006|pp=166, 174–76, 179}} However, mounting debt led to Beecher again seeking a new position in 1847, and he accepted the invitation of businessman [[Henry Chandler Bowen|Henry Bowen]] to head a new [[Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims|Plymouth Congregational Church]] in [[Brooklyn, New York]].{{sfn|Applegate|2006|pp=193–96}} Beecher's national fame continued to grow, and he took to the lecture circuit, becoming one of the most popular speakers in the country and charging correspondingly high fees.{{sfn|Applegate|2006|p=218}}

In the course of his preaching, Henry Ward Beecher came to reject his father Lyman's theology, which "combined the old belief that 'human fate was preordained by God's plan' with a faith in the capacity of rational men and women to purge society of its sinful ways".<ref name=Kazin /> Henry instead preached a "Gospel of Love" that emphasized God's absolute love rather than human sinfulness, and doubted the existence of [[Hell]].<ref name=CEE/>{{sfn|Benfey|2008|p=68}}  He also rejected his father's prohibitions against various leisure activities as distractions from a holy life, stating instead that "Man was made for enjoyment".<ref name=Kazin />