New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-07-24

legged utterances. The denial we printed yes
terday, and this cleared away a great por-
ton of the nOisome vapors with which this
matter has been surrounded. In case where
the word of Mr.. Tilton is opposed by the word
of Mr.. Beecher, it is a mere waste OF ume
to call other witnesses. The case Is closed, so
far as that class of assertions Is concerned
AS to tho letters bearing his name, Mr..
Beecher promises full explanation OF them to
the Committee of his church now investl-
eating this affair. We are sure we only echo
the sentiments of the vast ajority of decent
people, in expressing the confident hope that
the explanations fOreshadOwed in MIR. Becchers
card of yesterday will be such as TO justify
HIM in sight of his church and of public
opinion.
The attack against Mrs. TiltOn was, perhaps,
more brutaly savage than that aimed at the
great preacher We exact of ministers of
religion feminine propriety, but we do not
attribute to them q feminine delicacy or
capacity for suffering The statement OF Mrs.
TiltOn, published this morning, shows how
deep sense of wrong she labors under, and
how energetically she repels the terrible
charges made against her. Her testimony,
following aud completing that of Mr. Beecher,
cannot but produce decisive effect upon
the public judgment. The spectacle OF an I'M
happy wife and mother fighting for her
good name against a husband who wishes to
destroy it, is one which appeals powerfully
to the sympathies of every one. In this case,
the sober judgment will be apt to agree with
the aroused sympathics. The statement is a
Al III ftl Of
excited feeling, careless of effect, and only
bent upon repellDg the hideous charges which
are evidently hateful and revolving to her
very nature. 1t is full of touching and UNI
consciously dramatic details, which give it at
once the stamp of sincerity and the appear
ance of truth. Most readers will be likely to
accept it as true, and in that case, the whole
structure of scandalOus insinuation, which has
slowly grown up before our eyes during the
last few years, will disappear like poisonous
exhaatiOn.
If this elaborate coinage of a morbidly ac-
tive brain shall be shown, as there is now
every reason for believing, to be pure false
hood mingled with the distorted differences OF
hatred and jealousy, what a startling lesson it
will teach of the duties of human beings to
cynical gospel of selfshness, which would
wither the moral nature and dry up the foun-
tains of public duty and private benevolencc.
But we must repeat what once before we said
in regard to this deplorable business. the lesson
it teaches is that of Discretion. From the be-
ginning to the end of it, every blunder and
every wrong in it was committed through that
singular compound of selislness and
vanity which throws men and women
into more disasters, through mere
indiscretion, than vice can ever cause.
The inordinate interest in the affairs of others;
morbid analysis of their feelings and pas
sons weak and endless dribble of gossip
and confidence; a restless and feyerlsh as
sumption of heroic postures; flux of noble
sentiments and mean acts; sense OF being
better than other people by virtue of having
unclean secrets too precious to keep-these
are the features of this case which meet us at
every turn. A slight dose of that worldly
wisdom 80 much decried by certain school
of moralists, would have prevented all this
complication, which has exposed the greatest
preacher of the age to infamous calumny, the
Christian Church to widespread scandal, and
more than one family where domestic peace
had right to reign, to ruin and desolatiOn.