Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-08-15

sion to me that she had stated. under any cir
cumstances, to her husband so wicked false
hood, was the GROWING blow of all. 1t SEEM
ed to me as if she was going to die; that her
mind was overthrown, and that was in some
dreadful way mixed up in it, and might be left
by her death. with this terrible accusation
hanging over me. 1, like one in a dream,
went to Mr.. Moulton's house, where l said
very little. and soon went home. 1t has been
said that confessed guilt and expressed re-
morse. This is utterly false. Is it likely that
with Mrs. Tilton's retraction in my pocket, l
should have thus stultified myself?
On the next day at evening, Mr.. Moulton
called at my house and came up into my bed
room. He said that Mrs. Tilton on her hus-
bands return to her after her interview had
informed him what she had done and that
had her retraction. Moulton expostulated
with me; he said retraction uuder circum-
stances would not mend matters, but only ava
ken fresh discord between husband and WIFE
and do great injury to Mrs. Tilton without
helping me. Mrs. Titon, he said. had already
recanted in writing the retraction made to me-
and Of course there might be no end to these
contradictions. Meanwhile Tilton had de-
stroyed his wife's first letter acknowledging
the confession, and Mr.. Moulton claimed that
l had taken a mean advantage, and made a
that should visit her in obtaining from her a
written contradiction to a document not in
existence. He said that all the difficulties
could be settled without any such papers, and
that ought to give them up. He was under
great excitement. He made no verbal threat,
but he opened his Overcoat, and with some
emphatic gestures showed pistol, which he
afterward took cut and laid on bureau near
which he stood. l gave the paper to him and
after few minutes talk he left. Within a
day or two after this Mr.. Moulton made me
the third visit, and this time repaired to my
study in the third story of my house.
Before speaking of this interview, it is with
regret that l should allude to the suffering
through which had gone during the previous
days, the cause of which was the strange
change in Mrs. Titon. Nothing had seemed
to me more certain during all my acquain-
lance with her, than that she was singularly
simple, truthful and honorable. Deceit
seemed absolutely foreign to her nature, and
yet she had stated to her husband those strange
and awful falsehoods. She had not, when
daily l called and prayed with her, given the
slightest hint, will not say of such accusa-
tons, but even that there was any serious
family difficulties. She had suddenly, in De-
cember, called me and my wife to consul
tation is to a possible separation from her
husband, still leaving me ignorant that she
had just put into his hands a weapon against
me. | was bewildered with double con.
seriousness of a sanity woman communicating
a very needless treachery to her friend and
pastor.
My distress was boundless. | did not for a
a moment feel however, that she was to
blame entirely, as would ordinarily be
thought, but supposed that she had been over
borne by sickness and shattered in mind, un-
til she scarcely knew what she did, and was
no longer responsible for her acts. My soul
went out to her in pity. l blamed myself for
want of prudence and foresight, for thought
that all this had been the result of her undue
affection for me. l had profoupd feeling
that l would bear any blame and take any
punishment if that poor child could only
emerge from this cloud and be put back into
the happiness from which l had been,
Withdrawing her. If my own daughter had
been in a similar case my grief at her calami.
ty could scarcely have been more.
l apprehended that this charge made by
Tilton and supported by the accusations of his
wife, was to be at once publicly pressed
against me, and if it was l had nothing but
my simple word of denial to interpose against
it. In my morbid condition of mind,
thought that this charge, although entirely I'M
true, might result in great disaster, if not in
absolute ruin. The great interests which
were entirely dependent on me, the church
which had built up, the book which l was
writing, my own immediate family; my bro
Tiers name, now engaged in the ministry; my
sisters name, which l had hoped might live
after me, and be of some slight degree a
source of strength to those who should sue
coed me, and above all the cause for which
hov Aovnfod 1ifa aoonod m orillaA
seemed that my life work was to end abrupt
ly and in disaster. My earnest desire to avoid
a public accusation. and the evils which must
necessarily flow from it, and which now have
resulted from it, have been one of the leading
motives that must explain my action during
these three or four years with reference to
this matter.
twas in such a sore and distressing condi-
ton that MIR. Moulton found me; his manner
was kind and conciliatory; he seemed, how
ever, to be convinced that had been seeking
Tlton's downfall that l had leagued with
Mr.. Bowen against him, and that had by my
advice come near destroying his family.
did not need any argument or persuasion to
induce me to do and say anything which
would remedy the injury of which then be-
lieved had certainly been the occasion, If not
the active cause. But Mr.. Moulton urged
that the wrong meant his means of support
suddenly taken away, his reputation gone, his
family destroyed, and that had done it. He
assured me of his own knowledge that the
stories which had heard of Mr. Tilton's i'm.
prophecies Of life, and which had believed
and repeated to Mr.. Bowen, were all false,
and that Mr.. Tilton had always been faithful
to his wife. was persuaded into belief OF
what he said, and felt convicted Of Islander in
the meanest form. He drew the picture Of
Mr.. Tilton, wronged in reputation, in posi-
ton, in purse, shattered in his family, where
he otherwise would have found refuge, and
at the same time looking upon me out of his
distress, while l abounded in friends, most
popular and with ample means. He drew that
picture, my prosperity OVERLOOKING and
Astounding, and Tilton's utter degradation.
was most intensely excited, indeed felt that
my mind was in danger Of giving way. walked
up and down the room, pouring forth my heart in
the most unrestrained grief and bitterness of self
accusation, telling what my ideas were of the obli
CATION of friendship, and of the sacredness of the
household, denying, however, an intentional wrong
saying that if had been the cause, however re-
motely, of that which l then beheld, never could
forgive myself, and heaped all the blame on my
head. The case, as it then appeared to my eyes
was strongly against me- My old and fellow worker
had been dlspossessed of his eminent place and in
fuence, and had counseIed it. His family had