Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1876-02-03
This morning the BODY was br0npht 1

said that Erickson was single man, and
that on the day of the murder had $1O(
with him.
A man by the name OF Linquist has
besn arrested on suspicion. He is now
In the lookup. Linquist denies the
charge, but says he can tell who
the parties are that did the deed. Mike
Hoy has the picture of tho murdered man.
and up to this he has been identified by
a great many.
The man arrested confesscs, but says
the other man did the deed. lie says
Erickson threatened to kill the man who
murdered him, and that the murderer
came all the way from Hastings with the
knife to kill him with.
1t now appears that there was nc
money in the case, but a woman. The
deceased was keeping company with a
woman on the cast side, and tho murder.
ers were jealous Of him. They on their
way to see the woman at about eight way
O'Clock on Tuesday cvcning-whcn the
murder was committed.
Van Cott's Letter.
The following is the letter of Judge
Van Cott, which Bcccher so violently as.
saulted at his Friday evening prayer
meeting:
BROOKLYN, Jan. 20, 1876.
MY DEAR Mrs. MoULroN: My painful
domestic anxietics have prevented an
earlier reply to your note of the 18th OF
January. 1t has seemed to me that what
1 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 Ell.
lightencd public would deal wisely with
the facts. Tho 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 bt
cvaded by saying: "Sec what mischief
was done by composing the council Of
local churches and excluding distan,
churches" But you know that We did
not desire to constitute the council o
local churches and exclude distan,
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 a 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 persisting in its claim to exclude
four local delegates out of the whole mum.
bcr of fifty delegates to be invited to con.
stitute the council. 1 remind you that
Plymouth Church, 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.
grcgational polity, one great aim of which
is to confine local troubles to their own
locality, and to settle them in the neigh.
borhood, by the aid of neighboring
without spreading the tale Of
local dissensions over the whole land"
But Plymouth Church has genius for
being illogical.
l had not overlooked the pastors
sneering reference to yon, and his intima.
tion 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.
It is such as she that reuews a waning
faith in womanhood." And that in his
letter dated July l3, 1873, he says:
''For a thousand encouragements, for
services that no one can appreciate who
has not been IS sore.hearted as have
been, for your honorable delicacy, for
confidence and affection, owe you so
much that l can neither express nor pay
it. Not that the least has been the great.
hearted kindness and trust which your
noble wife has shown, and which has lift
ed me out Of dependencies often, though
her clear truthfulncss has laid
me pretty fat" I had also remembered
that between the dates of these two let.
tcrs the interview occurred at which, as
you testified, he had not only explicitly
confessed his guilt, but avowcd 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,
it confidentially to your
most intimate friend, Mrs. Eddy, and to
your uncle, Mr.. Jeremiah P. Robinson.
am not able to reconcile what the pastor
said at the church meeting with what he
wrote in those two letters, and, as I am
bound to believe what he wrote, am
compelled to believe what he said. Now,
what had caused his ''waning faith in wo.
And how did you dare, in
your childlikeness, to show him "a great
hearted kindness and trust" to ''lift him
out of dependencies oftep," and by your
"dear truthfulness to lay me (him) pretty
ffat?' What was that ''dear truthful.
ness" that ''laid him pretty fiat" unless
it was the advice you testified you gave
him 1T that interview occurring between
the letters that he should confess his Of
fensc to the church?
If anything can mitigate the coarseness
Of the pastors speech at the church meet.
ing it was the incxorable 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.
cilablc things and to make the false seem
to be the true.
cannot think it is your duty to go
further, certainly not just now. You
had, with the boldness Of innocence and
truth, courted inquiry, while Plymouth
Church from the beginning has sought
to evade and cover up, and has again sue.
ceeded in evading. though not in covering
up. 1fPlymouth Church can have an in.
vestigation by Investigators exclusively
selected By itself, as it did in 1874, and
can have its case judged solely BY what
its committee pleases to produce on its
own side, let it. Such On investigation
cannot settle anything, and will leave I
distrusting and portentous public opinion
where it stands to-day. Plymouth
Church will not produce Mrs. Tilton Is I
! witness, if any doubling delegate may