Year: 1874

to reflect and are likely to create the belief


that the war cloud SO many see iE the Euro


pean sky is not looming.


The Religious Press ON Other Phases


OF tho Brooklyn Trouble.


The religious press, realizing that topics of


interest in these hot summer days are rare,


and having caught one Of uncommon interest,


they hold on to it as drowning man is said


to cling to straw. There have been SO many


and varied developments of this strange scan


dal the religious press of city or country can


hardy afford to keep silence concerning it,


even for one week at time. Hence the


Golden Age taking the latest phase of the in
vestigation, concludes that the committee are
trying Mr.. Tilton instead of MI. Beecher, and
are sparing no pains to break the force Of his
statement and cover his name with obloquy.
They have done their utmost it says, to save
the accused by crushing the accuser; and this
has been SO conspicuous in some respects as
to excite general comment and lead MI. Tilton
to refuse further intercourse with the commit
tee. The Age is certain that mo report the
Investigating Committee can possibly make
exonerating Mr. Beecher will restore him to
public confidence or dissipate the terrible
suspicion Of his guilt from the public mind"


The Examiner and Chronicle thinks that the
most formidable witness against MI. Beecher


is Mr.. Beecher himself Six of his letters, the


genuineness of which has not been denied,


express the same anguish Of remorse. Dis


pose of this testimony against him, says the


Examiner, and the essential thing is done for


the suppression of daily instalment of nast-
ness and for Mr.. Beecher's acquittal in public


Judgment. Too much stress, says the editor


cannot be given to the fact that the man on
trial is Mr. Beecher, and not Mr.. Tilton, and
that the trial is before the bar of public
opinion-in the end the most exacting and
just of human tribunals. What it waits for
and will have is not the decision which the
Plymouth committee may reach. 1t demands
with imperative emphasis, that cause be
shown why Mr.. Beechers own words are not
to be accepted as confessing grievous moral
offence of some kind on his part in connec-
ton with this scandal


The Baptis Weekly, commenting on the
case, says :-"Mr. Beecher is on trial by the
whole country. The jurors are in every edi-
torial room, every railway train, every hotel,
every shop and every home in the land. The
ordeal is one Of the most severe that man
could possibly be subjected to. With SO
much of prejudice and passion and PARTISAN
ship to encounter calm and candid judg-
ment of the facts involved will be exceedingly
difficult. And yet an evident disposition
exists to exercise the largest charity that the
circumstances of the case will admit and the
public pulse generally beats strongly in Mr..
Beechers favor"


DR.. Fulton, in the midst of glowing eulogy
of Mr. Beecher in the Christian in the World.
says 1.-THE best people deplore that he has
ever mixed with the Philistines. They shud-
dered in the past when he spoke of Paul as
not being infallible authority on the woman
question, and when he became law to him
SELF They now see that he made more than
o mistake. Paul was authority, and the
women and the men who fattered him and
who made him their leader now turn and rend
him." The Doctor thinks that Mr. Tilton's
published cross-examination reveals him as
outdoing Spanish inquisitor in the cruelties
be inflicted upon his patient wife. eff Brook
yn were not Christian city," adds DR.. Full
ION, "an exasperated popuIace would drive
from their midst such o monster of heartless-
ness, if they did not visit upon him more
condign punishment He may thank the
humane and Christianizing influence of the |
very man whom he has been moving earth |
and hell to ruin irretrevably that he is not
gibbeted during the next twenty-four hours"


The Christian Union, whose editor is the
most interested party in this unfortunate con-
troversy has not yet given the least inkling of
the revelations made or anticipated in this
case. But perhaps this was unnecessary since
It's readers have been SO thoroughly posted by
other journals The Union takes hold this
week of new subject-"The New America
Of which it predicts that "the Americans of
the future are to be very different people
from the Americans of the past" And this it
predicates upon the changes now taking place
in our population, and the tenacity with which
foreigners cling to their national habits and
prejudices instead of assimilating themselves
10 American habits.


The balance of our religious exchanges deal
With topics either of purely religious and
1octrlnal character or touch upon something