Year: 1874




OF the controversy between Mr. Beecher anc


Mr. Tilton The long expected thunderbol


has fallen. Mr.. Tilton submits his case to the
American people. II it were the case of twc
eager politicians anxious to determine the re-
iatlon OF one party to another. if it were the
ambition of the leaders of contending parties
struggling for power we might dismiss it with
the hasty consideration we give to questions OF
this kind as they come to us from day to day.


But IN this matter the gravest issues are to be
considered, and we have no right to pass any
Judgment until we have considered every
aspect of the case. On one side we have
Mr.. Tilton, young man of wide
promise and reasonable fulflment who
has made q reputation such ~ has
fallen to few men so young but who has
been clamorous for a long time in his entrea-
ties to the American people. He has asked
us to believe that in the course of life he has
received injury from Mr.. Beecher. The
nature of this injury was certainly sufficient
to lead Mr. Beecher to dictate letter which
is very difficult of explanation. Such letter
from a cold-blooded man of the world would
be one thing from Mr.. Boecher it is another.
for he is man of generous nature, Of ex-
nberant rhetoric, disposed to exaggeration.
The ordinary sins of a man of the world, the
venial sins which are committed and for
given every day, would in the case of q man
like MIR. Beecher, especially when he was in
mood of contrition or reproach, become the
gravest offences in the decalogue And we are
bound, therefore, to consider his declarations
in this spirit


What, then, is the expressed offence against
MIR. Tilton? Let us look at the ''letter of con-
triton" about which so much has been said
which was dictated to Mr. Moulton under
such extraordinary circumstances, and which
is really the keystone of the case. We are
letter, and to remember, as our reporters re-
cite elsewhere, that they are the hurried
soliloquies, not the measured statements, of
Henry Ward Beecher. II ask. through you
Theodore Tilton's forgiveness, and I humble
myself before him, as I do before my God"
This is strong sentence, but it reads like the
opening of the average morning prayer of
Plymouth church, and might refer to an error
in paying bill, or the repeating of some hasty
scandal that one hears in the
best governed churches. ''He would have
been better man in my circumstances than
have been" This is simply an appeal to the
mercy Of young man not free from vanity,
and, it is hoped, open to mercy. 81 can ask
nothing except that he will remember all
the other hearts that will ache" which is
only another phrase of Beecher rhetoric.
Such also, in highly exaggerated form,
are the following sentences :-'I will not
plead for myself; even wish that were
dead" At this point the letter as originally
quoted by Mr.. Tilton ended Now, we come to
the suppressed sentences, which are before us
for the first time. '.But others must live to
suffer. l will die before any one
but myself shall be inculpated. There is a
pathos in these expressions which grows
stronger and becomes painfully intelligible
when we note the delicate hints of our reporter
that no explanation of Mr.. Beecher conduct
is complete that does not involve his own home.
How naturally his thoughts pass from his own
household, from those he is bound to protect
even with his own life, to the others who would
suffer in any stain upon his fame 'All my
thoughts are running towards my friends
towards the poor child who is lying there and
praying with her folded hands" Certainly
this means a sin, or it would mean a sin or
the knowledge of sin in the minds
of both if we did not read on to this re-
markable exonerating and providential
sentence :-''She is guiltless, sinned against
bearing the transgression of another" Now,
whatever this may mean, it certainly shows
that there was no crime of adultery in the
mind Of MIR. Beecher no contrition for such a
crime. When he spoke of her innocence he
meant that there had been no violation OF the
sacred laws of marriage and home, and the
thought is strengthened by the succeeding
sentence, Her forgiveness l have" 'For-
giveness" for whit? If it was for the crime
of adultery, then it is the first time in the his
tory of language that one who thus sinned had
asked pardon from his partner in the crime


1t is very clear, then, so clear that 1t is
almost travesty of logic to follow it any fur
ther that this famous ''etter of contrition' is
in fact an exoneration from the crime of adul-
terry. Yet this is the gravamen of Mr.. Tiltons
charge. Upon what then does it rest In the
first place npon Mr.. Tiltons own statements
of verbal confessions made to him by his wife
Now, with all respect for Mr.. Tlton, he must
excuse us for saying that in matter affecting
not only the honor and virtue of o woman
who is his wife and the mother of his chill
dren, and whom he only yesterday certified to
the world as a woman of devout and blameless
but as also affecting the honor of
the first clergyman Of his generation-gray
in years and influence and dignity, illus
trious with the unstained years of
a Christian life, of no less man
than our Incompatible Henry Ward Beecher-
IN a matter lika fhio roucf boya oo,,>o<l,;,..