Year: 1874




phrases in his letters were his expressions of
remorse at the harm he might have done in
advising Mrs Tilton to leave her husband
and thereby contributing to destroy that do
mestic circle. Although the words seem over
wrought for the subject, commonplace people
did not care to reject that theory. 1t is cer-
tain that in our everyday why of talking we
do not give ourselves up to these sort of in
tellectual tortures for piece Of very ordinary
advice, even though it turns out to be very
bad advice but there was a common recog.
milton that it might be otherwise
with people whose professions led them
to cultivate o more than commonly deli
cate sensibility of conscience. That defence
therefore stood with some Difference paid to it
till now but it is inconsistent with Mr..
Beecher's own statement As he now shows
us, the charge that he had made improper pro-
posals to Mrs. Tilton was communicated to
him by Mr.. Moulton, December 30, 1870,
and that charge and charges of that nature
are thereafter the constant subject of the
thoughts of all these parties; and as we are
thus informed of the topic that was the staple
Of all these negotiations it cannot be be-
ieved that these violent words refer to topic
that must in 1872 or 1873 have seemed in any
mind pitiable in the comparison. When Mr.
Beecher says in 1873 that Tilton had soon
doned his wifes fault is it conceivable that
this could refer to the thought of divorce
rather than to the fact of adultery, when both
were in the record?


Certainly Mr.. Beecher presents himself
very much in the light in which Hamlet
scorned to be contemplated. He appears as q
pipe on whom Tilton and Moulton play any
stop they please. Hamlet was of course,
not preacher. His impulses were more
naturally human. He was not restrained by
the limitations Of the Christian discipline and
the assumptions of self-sacrifce and self
humiliation that are part Of the conception of
the pastoral character. In this picture the
pastor is not worldly wise-not shrewd. Nay,
be seems not commonly intelligent He steps
into the places prepared for him with facility
which he presents as the consequence of sheer
guilelessness and his enemies as the evidence
of guilt. Tilton and Moulton seem to have
the tact and skill of Mephistopheles, and
Beecher to be in their hands as the
clay in the hands of the potter. 1t
is not easy to believe this man
so wanting in ordinary perception Of
the relations of facts to one another and so
incapable of the common sense appreciation of
the possible applications of the words he freely
puts on paper. Still less does it seem con-
sistent with what we would like to believe of
him that he pays money to secure silence
He paid two thousand dollars at one time and
FIVE thousand dollars at another. If this had
been the carelessly thrown out contribution of
the millionaire, if these thousands had been
casually drawn from box in which there
were many more thousands, it might still be.
But five thousand dollars obtained by a mort
gage on ones residence is different.


1t is scarcely necessary to say that the stage
now awaits Mr.. Moulton. BE was to open his
mouth if his personal honor were assailed
Here he is distinctly presented as q black
mailer and as the confederate and colleague
of the man for whom the money was extorted.
He cannot rest under this imputation.


Mr.. Beecher has, to put the results at the
least, greatly attenuated the threads Of that
net in which the conspirators seemed to have
caught him. he has made gossamer of q
great part of the fabric-and yet even gos-
samer is something Men and women whose
faith in their pastor is resolute scarcely
needed to have even this much done to be
confident that his enemies could not tie down
their giant but the less sympathetic world
will require, before they will assent that q
preachers reputation is made perfectly clear,
that even a film Of gossamer should not
appear between it and their eyes.