Evolution and Religion

Henry Ward Beecher served as a Congregationalist clergyman in America, and he also worked as a social reformer, editor of a journal, and public speaker. Large crowds came to his sermons and lecture tours, where he argued against slavery and backed women's right to vote. Unlike many ministers of his time, who strongly rejected it, he accepted evolutionary theory.

This second volume of Evolution and Religion, issued in 1885 two years before Beecher died, gathers lectures in which he applies evolutionary ideas to aspects of Christian belief and practice, such as love of God and love of one's neighbour.

Beecher's vigorous prose conveys the energy and warmth that drew audiences to him in his own era. For historians of nineteenth-century science, religion and society, the book offers valuable material.