New-York tribune., 1876-02-07

Mr.. Henry G.. Bowen for several years past
has been sitting with his finger on his lips.
declaring that nothing should induce him to
sneak and begging the world Mt the same time
to compel him-if it could-to break his reso-
luton. BY different parties TO the controversy
which distracts the society of our sister city
across the ferry, his behavior has been com
mended as an example of Christian fortitude,
or denounced as an ingenious exercise OF
malice and business ability; while the rest OF
mankind, having no personal feeling about the
troubles of Plymouth Church, but burning with
curiosity to get at the bottom facts, have con-
Cured in regarding Mr.. Bowen as an exaspe-
rating person who could not be pardoned for
stimulating the public thirst for scandal and
then refusing to slake it out of the reservoir
of his awful secrets. Whether any OF these
diverse estimates of the Brooklyn sphinx did him
Justice we are not prepared to say without closer
inspection of the interior of Mr.. Bowen's :
breast than he seems at present disposed to
permit; probably none of the three explana-
tions will fully account for him. 1t is evident
however-it has been evident for good while
that his position is one OF advantage from
which Plymouth Church will not find 1T easy
to dislodge him.
The result of the present effort to make
Z" Mr. Bowen speak" is precisely what might
have been expected and to the dispassionate
observer it is not at all clear what Mr. White
hoped to gain by calling upon Bowen If he
knew anything against Mr. Beecher to make
il known, and if he did not know anything to
say so. Mr.. Bowen has spoken, and without
making a single tangible disclosure he has
placed his pastor IN position which, TO an
innocent man, must be well nigh intolerable.
1t would seem from this extraordinary state
ment that for years before the Tilton scandal
disturbed the community, Mr.. Bowen was in
the habit of officiating as father confessor to
the plymouth congregation, and in the
course of his ministratiOns multitude
of appalling stories were poured into
his sympathetic ear. Dear friends u
(he bare plural in this expression is tantaliz-
ingly vague) assured him that Henry Ward
Beecber had "betrayed the sanctity of home,
long before Theodore TiltOn appeared with a
similar charge and to the Essential facts
of this statement Mr.. Bowen processes his
readiness to testify "before any proper trl-
bunal," although he "never can or VIII be
I" base enough to allow a single name to be
"bruited before the world" There, stripped
of all rhetoric, is Mr. BOwen's answer; and
how, we should like to know, are Plymouth
Church and Mr.. White the better for getting
it 1t only adds another to the long list of
haf-proved accusations, Of testimony too
weak to secure conviction, too strong to be
dslegaIded which have made the Beecher
case one of the most remarkable in the annals
of any church or any court.
For of course Mr. Bowen is quite right in re-
fusing to allow any names to be bruited be-
" fore the world" If the good name OF a
family, the reputation OF an injured and per-
haps penitent woman, was Intrusted TO hl5
honor IN the sacred confidence of friendship,
he would be one of the basest of men to be-
tray it. No doubt if he received these COM
munications at all it was his duty to receive
them under a stricter and more impartial
secrecy than he seems to have thought neces-
sary. 1t will never do for father cOnfessor
to 20 about telling what he has heard against
So-and-So through the little grating, but re-
fusing to give the name OF the penitcnt who
told him. His lips must be sealed forever az to the
whole affair No hint of the crime, the criminals,
or the accOmplices must ever escape him. But
because he has broken part of the obligation
that is no reason why we should order him to
break the rest. We must be content to let
Mr.. Bowen testify to the Essential fact" that
certain indefinite persons have told him that
Mr.. Beecher is an adulterer, without compel
ling him to testify who those persons are. And
then the question will come, What does such
testimony amount TOT No court could receive
it, no church committee ought to listen to it..
1t would DO unfair to hang q dog on the