issued), 1871; "Yale Lectures on Preaching," 3 vols., 1872–74; and "A Summer Parish," 1874. In the summer of 1874 Mr. Theodore Tilton, formerly his associate, and afterwards his successor, in the editorship of the Independent, charged him with criminality with Mrs. Tilton. A committee of the Plymouth congregation reported that this charge was without any foundation; but meanwhile Mr. Tilton commenced a civil suit against Mr. Beecher, laying his damages at $100,000. The trial was protracted during six months; and at its close the jury, after being locked up for more than a week, failed to agree upon a verdict, nine being for acquittal of defendant and three for conviction. In 1878 Mr. Beecher announced that he did not believe in the eternity of punishment, believing that all punishments are cautionary and remedial, and that no greater cruelty could be imagined than the continuance of suffering eternally, after all hope of reformation is gone. He is understood to hold both to the annihilation of the miserable and the restoration of all others. In 1882 he formally withdrew from the Association of Congregational Churches on account of this change in belief.
BEECHER-STOWE, Mrs. (See Stowe.)
BEESLY, Edward Spencer, was born at Feckenham, Worcestershire, in 1831, and educated at Wadham College, Oxford. He was appointed Assistant-Master of Marlborough College in 1854, and Professor of History in University College, London, in 1860. Professor Beesly is the author of several review articles, pamphlets, &c., on historical, political, and social questions, treated from the Positivist point of view. His translation of Auguste Comte's "System of Positive Polity, or Treatise on Sociology," is in course of publication. The third volume appeared in 1876, under the title of "Social Dynamics, or the General Theory of Human Progress (Philosophy of History)." A series of lectures by Mr. Beesly on Roman history, entitled "Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius," was published in 1878.
BÉHIC, Armand, statesman, born at Paris, Jan. 15, 1809. He was appointed at an early age to the Administration of Finances, was attached to the Treasury of the Army in the expedition to Algiers, and became Inspector of Finances, in which position he made several journeys to the colonies, especially the Antilles. He quitted this department to join the Ministry of Marine, and became Secretary-General. He entered the Chamber as Deputy for Avesnes in 1846, and was charged with the examination of the law relating to the railway from Paris to Lyons. In 1849 he was named a representative of the people, and shortly afterwards entered the Council of State, in which he remained until 1851, when he undertook the superintendence of the foundries of Vierzon. In 1853 he became Inspector-General of the Maritime service of the Messageries Impériales, and afterwards Director. He took an active part in the matter of transports for the Crimean expedition, and gave great impulse to the Indo-China service, and to all the details of the administration. He has been successively a member of the council of administration for public buildings, president of the commission for the organization of colonial banks, member of the Council-General of Bouches-du-Rhône for the canton of Ciotat. He was created a Commander of the Legion of Honour, Oct. 3, 1863, and succeeded M. Rouher as Minister of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works, June 23, 1863, which office he held till Jan. 1867, when he was appointed a Senator, and received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. After the fall of the Empire he retired from public life for several
