Adversity, if for no other reason, is of benefit, since it is sure to bring a season of sober reflection. People see clearer at such times. Storms purify the atmosphere.

His wife loyally supported him throughout the ordeal. "
Muscular and long-haired the preacher was close to a series of attractive young women but his wife Eunice the mother of his 10 children was "unloved. I would rather speak the truth to ten men than blandishments and lying to a million.

Henry Ward Beecher (June 24 1813 – March 8 1887) was a prominent Congregationalist clergyman social reformer abolitionist and speaker in the mid to late 19th century.