Wilmington Daily Commercial

Mr. Beecher at Home.

HE IS CORDIALLY WELCOMED AT HIS FRIDAY NIGHT PRAYER MEETING.

At the Friday night prayer-meeting last evening in the lecture-room of Plymouth Church Brooklyn, Mr. Beecher resumed his pastoral relations with his church after the long Summer vacation. The house was crowded with people from platform to doors before 7 o'clock, and many persons came who could not get in. On the stand beside the pastor's chair there was a large basket of maple leaves, colored crimson by the frosts, with bits of heliotrope scattered among them.

Mr. Beecher came in with Mrs. Beecher leaning on his arm at a quarter past 7 o'clock. He looked hale and well, and his face and hands were sunburned. As he took his seat on the platform a burst of welcoming applause came from the assemblage. Mr. Beecher began the meeting in the old familiar way by saying "Six hundred and eighty-one" the number of one of the hymns of the Plymouth Collection. The hymn was sung with vigor. Mr. Beecher then prayed; another hymn was sung: Charles Morton, the resident minister of the Plymouth Bethel, prayed; there was more singing, and then Mr. Beecher began the evening's "talk." He first spoke of his vacation, how he had spent it; and assured his people, "so that he need not tell them individually I sleep well, I eat well, I digest well, I am well," and every one present smiled. He "proposed no glorious irregularities of measure" in the coming year, but trusted to have "a deeper insight into spiritual things." The talk was only 18 minutes long, a less time than Mr. Beecher has usually occupied.