Henry Ward Beecher
(1813 – 87)

"The less pain, the less life-capacity. The less pain-power, the less life-power."
Henry Ward Beecher (1872)

Beecher was a proponent of women's suffrage. He defended the theory of evolution. He was a vehement opponent of slavery. Yet Beecher was also a vitalist - and not the sort of abolitionist who seeks to eradicate earthly pain.

Beecher's later years were darkened by scandal after he was accused of adultery with a parishioner's wife.