The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-11-02
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
How He Has Confessed His Sins and Chosen
the Stump as His PiIlOry.

the Stump His Pi1lOry.
"Gath's" New York Letter.
L was thinking to-day over Beechers speech in
Jersey City, where he said that there was a ma
iority of two hundred thousand adulterers
among the voters of New York State; that if all
the men who had not broken the seventh COM
mandment were to vote on one side there
would be two hundred thousand majority on the
other 1t occurred to me as curious coinci-
dence that when Nathaniel Hawthorne de-
scribes, in his story of ''The Scarlet Letter." a
woman seduced by clergyman, he makes the
clergyman so at midnight on the pillory where
the woman had stood, and still later at the crisis
of the story, he climbs on that pillory in the
middle of the town square, tears open his vest
ments, shows the bloody letter "a"
tattooed upon his breast and confesses his
sin before the astonished crowd. The man
whose wife he had seduced had resolved that
the preacher should never confess, but should
suffer inward torture When he hears him make
the confession in the pillory and sees the tat
tooed letter on his breast cut with his own nails
the husband cries: There was no place in this
world where thou couldst escape me, but there.
So, when Mr. Beecher chose the political stump
as his pillory to confess we may all say: WAS
there any other place he could have confessed
but therep For when he affirmed that the adul-
terers were 200, 900 in majority in New York
State it was apparently in extenuation of him
self, for he now claims to be on that majority
side. He is with the 200 900 majority. If that
is not confession it is as near to it fox will
ever get. When published my story called THE
Entailed Hat" some time ago took the liberty,
Notwithstanding my probable unpopularity with
the Beechers, to send it to Mrs. Stowe, whose
novel Of uncle Toms Cabin" read when it
first came out, and it was the first novel l ever
read through. 1 remember hearing my father
chuckling over it. When crept up to ask him
what was the matter, he was reading that part OF
the first chapter which said Eyes, Mr.. Harris;
religion in a niger is valleyable article" Mrs.
Stowe replied, hardly month ago: II and my
husband have taken eager turns in reading your
graphic and striking pictures. 1t increases my
thankfulness to the Prince of Peace that such
horrors no longer exist. Your work is intensely
interesting, and if L did not know that such
horrors no longer were possible l
could not well bear them" Such pleasant
bits of intercourse have been rudely dis
PEELED by Mr. Beecher again coming
on the ground where he was not wanted, and
where he is doing Cleveland more harm than
a regiment Of Republicans. The silly gossip
which he says he got at Mr.. joys table, of itself
unimportant as a mere rumor, merely indicates
Beecher man who uses the clerical Office 20
go into houses and then retail the dinner talk.
Then when JOY replied to telegraph dispatch
and dismissed the subject not true, Beecher
called him continental liar, supposing that
ne Wouid not return 10 Jle Onlteu otateS SoOn
JOY took ship and stepped ashore just week
ago and published his surprise that Mr. Beecher
should either relate this gossip or so falsely re-
member it. Beecher them like a man hit with
cannon bal, sprang into an attitude took posses
sion of the day of Judgment, and cited Mr..
Joy to meet him there.
l was intensely reminded of Mrs. Morse's re-
mark during the Beecher trial, when letter of
hers came out to Beecher. Mrs. Morse was Mrs.
Tiltons mother. She said:
when 1 think of the misery you have brought
on this family, and see you standing up there
in that pulpit, and cracking your Jokes every
Sunday, l am almost tempted to say there is no
God.
The old man seems to have come to that con
clusion, for he abolished hell just after the
Beecher trial. and now he has restored the judy
ment day for Mr.. Joy, only without any hell to
be its PENALTY