The Grange advance., 1876-02-02

or planting of forests, and TO report upon the
same to the Secretary Of the Interior, to he by
him transmitted to Congress.
SEC. 8. That the heads OF the executive de-
partments be and they are hereby directed to
cause to be rendered all necessary and practi.
cable aid to the said commissioner by access to
the public records and otherwise, in the pros
ecution of the investigations and inquiries
aforesaid.
Van Colts Letter.
The following is the letter of Judge
Van Cott, which Beecher so violently as.
saulted at his Friday evening prayer
meeting:
BROOKLYN, Jan. 20, 1876.
MY DEAR Mrs. MouLrox: My painful
domestic anxieties have prevented an
earlier reply to your note Of the 18th of
January. 1t has seemed to me that what
l had written to the committee of Ply
mouth Church, and what Mr.. Bcecher
said at the church meeting you refer to,
was under the public eye, and that an en-
lightened public would deal wisely with
the facts. The point of President Ed
wards case was the abuse and mischief
of the device of excluding churches either
party might desire to select. That point
was not answered, but was sought to be
cvaded by saying: ''See what mischief
was done by composing the council of
local churches ard excluding distant
churches" But you know that we did
not desire to constitute the council Of
local churches and exclude distant
churches. On the contrary, We agreed
upon forty church delegates. of whom
thirty-four were out Of the locality, and
ten individual delegates, all Of whom
were at distance. If Plymouth Church
had in good faith carried out the agree.
ment on which we started, there would
have been no exclusion, within or with
cut the locality. Plymouth Church
broke down the arrangement for a coun-
Gil by persist;ng in it's claim to exclude
four local delegates out of the whole num-
ber of fifty delegates to be invited to con.
stitute the council. l remind you that
Plymouth Churcl, sent its solemn protest
to the great representative council OF
1874, complaining that the assembly of
delegates from distant churches was di.
rectly in opposition to the genius of Con-
gregational polity, one great aim of which
is to contine local troubles to their own
locality, and to settle them in the neigh
borhood, by the aid of neighboring
churches, without spreading the tale OF
local dissensions over the whole land. -
But Plymouth Church has a genius for
being illogical.
l had not overlooked the pastor s
sneering reference to yon, and his intima-
tlon that he had regarded and treated you
almost as he would treat little child.
But had read his two letters to your
husband, proved on the trial and ad.
mitted to be genuine, and noticed that in
his letter dated Sunday morning, June l,
1873, he said: ''Your noble wife, too;
has been to me one of Gods comforters,
1t is such as she that reuews waning
faith in womanhood.' And that in his
letter dated July l3, 1873, he says:
''For thousand encouragements, for
services that no one can appreciate who
has not been as sore.hearted as have
been, for your honorable delicacy, for
confidence and affection, I owe YOU so
much that can neither express nor pay
it. Not that the least has been the great
hearted kindpess and trust which your
ncblc wife has shown, and which has lift
ed me out of dependencies often, though
sometimes her clear truthfulness has laid
me pretty fat" had also remembered
that between the dates of these two let
ters the interview occurred at which, as
you testified, he had not only explicitly
confessed his guilt, but avowed his pur-
pose OF self destruction; and that it was
your purpose to prove to the council, that
on the very day to which you attribute
that confession. you, in great distress,
communicated it confdentially to your
most intimate friend, Mrs. Eddy, and to
your uncle, Mr.. jeremiah P. Robinson. I
am not abe to reconcile what the pastor
said at the church meeting with what he
wrote IN those two letters. and, as am
bound to believe what he wrote, I am
compelled to believe what he said. Now,
what had caused his ''waning faith in wo.
manheod?'' And how did you dare, in
your childlikeness, to show him "a great
hearted kindness and trust,'' to 'shfI him
out of dependencies oftep,,:' and by your
"dear truthfalness to lay me (him) pretty
ttat!' What was that ''dear truthful.
ness" that ''laid him pretty fat unless
it was the advice you testified you gave
him at that interview occurring between
the letters that he should confess his of.
fensc to the churche
If anything can mitigate the coarseness
Of the pastors speech at the church meet
ing it was the inexorable necessity of his
situation. 1t was not necessary that he
should be consistent; he could not safely
be consistent. His efforts from the be-
ginning have been to reconcile irrecon.
cilable things and to make the false seem
to be the true.
l cannot think it is your duty to go
further, certainly not just now. You