The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1876-05-08
world-subduing contrition of the psalmist
abide with US in perennial youth and

world-subduing contrition of the psalmist
abide with US in perennial youth and
strength.
Even in our times, we forget the cups
and revelries Of Hamilton and Webster
in the dignity and ferver of their patriot.
| ism. Society, indeed, is proverbially tol.
Grant of the ecentricities and infrmities
OF its heroes. 1t recognizes and responds
to the staying power of genius, itsgrows
blind to ITS shortcomings and misadven.
lures. 1t lets 90 its clinging hold only
after hope is dead. So long as shred OF
manliness remains, SO longas fibre OF
character shows vitality, the hero keeps
and holds sway. Only when the heart
stops beating and the grave chill sets IN
do we bind up and bury our deadl And
this is what has beiallen Henry Ward
Beecherl
Time was when courage, truth, peni-
tence and humility could have stayed the
plague and spared us national shame
and grief; and he might have faded out
of sight into q sorrowful but not alto.
gether ignoble obscurity, waiting IN the
patience of hope for the gentler judg-
ment oil coming generations. But Mr.
Beecher has been pitiless toward himself
and his own memory! In the ireenZy of
his nameless transgressions he has perpe-
trated self-immolation
1t is not strange that there are yet
found men and women WIN, blinded by
grief or the glamour of his wonderful
presence, remain unconscious of the pro-
found tragedy that entombs him. The
heart is stronger than the head, and con-
dones and loves to the last. But the
people know and feel that great pres
ence has gone out from them, that the
great evangelist is no more. To them,
the posthumous utterances ofthe violated
and desecrated pulpit on Plymouth
Heights are, OF all conceivable things,
most terrible and ghsstly.
AID what further does this autopsy
disclose concerning Henry Ward
Beecher? Very briefly and only this
That in him dwelt, as in every lavishly
endowed nature, the animal and spiritu-
at forces in great potency; and that the
lower life, at the last subjugates and de-
bases the higher life. This Is the sum of
it Such lifelong guantlet of bewilder-
ing tiattery, adulation and prosperity has
slain multitudes as strong and great.
Surely ane fatally constitutional SEN
suousness and carnality came TO sutfuse
his whole aesthetic and intellectual de-
velopment. He despised and So neglect
cd that culture and refinement which,
first esoteric and spiritual, works out to
the circumference of life until it comes to
clothe. rs the robes of the saints, the
whole manhood in visible purity and
beauty and strength.
So all far-seeing artists in the deliber-
ate study and professional analysis OF
Mr.. Beecher saw an ungainiy satyr leer-
ing over the shoulders of their sitter.
Then, the furry ears OF Doaatello
would peep out under the locks of the
evangelist. So true was tins in life that
even his private talk became smeared
with repulsive uncleanness, and his lat
ter-day utterances from the pulpit are
strained through and through with the
unconcious crimson of sheer animalism
In the ultimate and unerring analysis of
character, words, alas, become chrystal-
lied into facts and things, bearing their
intrinsic quality and essence forever. The
crisis was the logical and necessary out
growth of the man and life, just rs the
ruin found him-corrupt, faithless, de-
praved.
Providence and Nemesis are one, and
the wages of sin Is death.