The Cairo bulletin. [volume] (Cairo, Ill.) 1872-1878, 1874-07-31
Beecher's Defense
Confessions and EXplana,
lions.
The Great Preachers Domestic
Troubles.

The New York Graphic publishes
the following as the defense which Mr..
Beecher proposes to offer in his com
ing detailed statement to the Ply
mouth church investigating committee:
"The document will be very pow
erful aud startling one, aud will make
some confessions which will create as
great surprise as did Tilton now IA
nous pre-. entation of his alleged per-
sonal grievances. Mr.. Beecher will
acknowledge that, since the beginning
of his ministry, he has been beset by
letters addressed him from women, ex
pressing great personal admiration
alteration, indeed-of him as a man
aud as minister. He will show that
communication of this nature are con-
stantly received by every noted man in
the community, and that it is espe.
cially the fate Of clergymen, poets and
actors, to be the recipients of these alb
| normal demonstrations from women
who are generally diseased physoiogic-
ally aud psycologicaliy.
"After this general statement OF u
we'll known fact, Mr.. Beecher will al
lude 10 the case of Mrs. Tilton, who,
it seems, conceived for him a most ex-
travagant passion. Knowing the lady
from childhood, and having married
her TO her husband, and been on terms
OF close social relationship with them
both, he was led by strange infatua'
ton to submit to her Establishments
and an intimacy was formed which
while il was not criminal, was repre-
hensib'e, or at least put him in posi-
ton which made him seem to do
great wrong TO Theodore Tilton. liz
will confess that both he and Mrs. Til
: ton were very emotional, given to ex
aggeration in sentiment; and that the
, correspondence between them wal
not that it should have beer
between n pastor and lady
that lady the wife OF hi
. friend. But the popularity of the cas-
: was, that Mrs. Tilton complained bit
h terly OF her husbands self suiiciency
II aud want of kindness to her, and pos
n sible infdelities, and she looked "a
- to Mr. Beecher to give her that atiec
ton and sympathy which she failed t
y tiud at home. Mr.. Beecher will ac
= knowledge tha, he toyed with tempta
e ton that he allowed kindness aud cx
/, pressions of a sympathetic Tenderness
for Mrs. Til,on, aud that she reciproc
y ated them TO 4 great degree SO mucI
50 that, while not actually guilty o
!, any wrong TO Theodore Tllton, he :
c far compromised himself and the lad
n as TO render necessary, as il appeare'
to his mind, the letters which he sub
sequsntly wrote to Mr.. Noulton an,
. Mr.. Tilton, humbling himself bcfor'
, the latter ~ before God for his extra
A vagrant demonstrations Of affection 70
the wife Of his friend.
i Hence, while he will declare tina
: he was guilty Of indecorum guilty
y perhaps, Of leading wife TO love hir
RS more than her husband guilty, posi-
n bly,, in the depth of his sympathy TO
u her, and in allowing his impulsiye ma
y ture to lead him away,--he will insi>
T. that his relations with Mrs. Tilton wer
le no more intimate or blamable than III
" religious Irritation with the priest in
:. dulged by Catherine Gauut, the tcti
, tiops character quoted by Mrs, Tilton
in which he will find almost u perfec
/ parallel for this case. Furthermore
d he may be expected to show that hi
IF position has been greatly embarrase
q. by the fact that malignant rumor Ia,
already been making free with hi
! name, and that owing 10 the unhapp
4 personal peculiarities of one near an,
dear TO him, whose unsrounded Jealous
was the bane aud torment of his litt
stories had been invented and crcul
&c ated which had injured his fair fam
s. and did him grieyous wrong, which
<. however, he was debarred from denvin,
n. by the fact that, in branding thos
;. ialsehoads as they deserved, he woul,
" have necessarily been forced to sacrlfic
OF one TO whom he was boun,
~ by the teuderest and most sacre,
~ ties which eau exist between man an,
20 woman. He will show that the diff
- Guilty in this whole case was due pri
I" EARLY to the extravagant jealousy o
lie this inmate OF his family, who's