Beets em­i­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca in 1886, and af­ter spend­ing some years in Kan­sas, stu­died at Cal­vin Coll­ege, Grand Rapids, Mi­chi­gan. He grad­u­at­ed in 1895, and was or­dained a min­is­ter in the Chris­tian Re­formed Church. In 1911, he re­ceived an hon­or­ary Doc­tor of Law de­gree from Mus­king­um Coll­ege (now Mus­kin­gum Un­i­ver­sity), New Concord, Ohio. He served as pas­tor of the Chris­tian Re­formed Church in Sioux Cen­ter, Io­wa (1895-99); the La­Grave Ave­nue Church, Grand Ra­pids, Mi­chi­gan (1899-1915); and in Bur­ton Heights, Mi­chi­gan (1920). In 1920, he be­came sec­re­tary and di­rect­or of miss­ions for the Chris­tian Re­formed Church. He also ed­it­ed the week­ly pub­li­ca­tion the Ban­ner and De Heid­en­wer­eld, a month­ly mis­sion­a­ry pub­li­ca­tion. His works in­clude:

• Life of Pre­si­dent Mc­Kin­ley (in Dutch), 1901
• Life and Times of Abra­ham Lin­coln (in Dutch), 1909
• Triumphs of the Cross (in Dutch), 1914
• Compendium of the Chris­tian Re­li­gion—Ex­plained, 1915, 1919 & 1924
• History of the Chris­tian Re­formed Church, Its Work and Prin­ci­ples, 1923
• Students Com­pen­di­um of the Hei­del­berg Ca­te­chism, 1925

1. Christmas An­them