Year: 1874

ing to give its edition place in our own train
free OF expense, not only as far as Saratoga
but also back again to New York.


The Beccher scandaI-Thc Truth Must
he Told.


The great Brooklyn scandal has assumed
phase which now demands the most rigid
scrutiny, not by a self-constituted committee
merely but by an authority able to sift evi-
dence and competent to arrive at fair and
impartial Judgment The letters embraced in
Mr.. Tilton's arraignment and the subsequent
statement OF Mrs. Tilton have created a wide
spread and almost overwhelming sentiment
against AIr. Beecher. This sentiment is not
one of condemnation SO much as of sorrow,
and there would be joy everywhere if the Ply
mouth pastor could explain away his words
and the deep cOntrition which his words i'm
ply Few men will believe that 80 much grief
could come out Of anything not in itself sim
full. Arthur Dimmesdale would not have stood
in the pillory with Hester Prynne and the
child of their sorrowful love, even in darkness
and solitude, if he had not shared in the
offence which was so sternly punished in the
woman. Henry Ward Beeoher would not have
stood in the pillory of his own choosing, side
by side with Elizabeth Tilton, when she found
her own passion idealized in Catherine Gaunt,
II he had not shared that passion, whatever it
was. Such is the phase this case has as
sumed, and it will require something more
than o mere denial, high as is Mr.. Beecher's
character for veracity, to avert the ruin that
seems impending over him.


In calamity like this, so terrible in the fate
that seems impending over more than one
household, so awful in the punishment that
awaits one or the other Of the gifted men now
at the crisis of their lives, that grand picture
Of grief and guilt and tho steadastness Of
despair which Hawthorne drew from the
weird recesses of his imagination, stands out
| in a glaring and almost garish light to illus
trate and intensity this actual tragedy. Hester
Prynne stood OH the platform of the pillory
holding her babe to her bosom with convul-
sive force. Governor Bellingham was there
authority had the sacrcdness of divine ipstitu-
tons. John Wilson, the eldest Clergyman of
Boston, great scholar and man of kind
and genial spirit, was invoking the pale,
childlike Master Dimmesdale to press the
poor creature in the pillory to denounoe her
partner in guilt. And at last the young clergy
man spoke to her, saying, 81 charge thee to
speak out the name of thy fellow sinner and
fellow sufferer. Be not silent from any mis-
taken pity and tenderness for him
for, believe me, Hester, though he were
to step down from high place
and stand there beside thee on thy
pedestal Of shame, yet better were it so than
to hide u guilty heart through life" 1t was
On awful scene-a scene that was almost
sublime in its heroism-but the woman stood
there with glazed eyes and an air of weary in
difference and opened not her mouth. And
then came the seven years of punishment for
one and Of agony for the other, till confession
and death intervened in scene so agonizng
that it is possible nowhere, let US hope, except
in the realms of romance


We would not be understood as implying
that MIR. Beecher's case is in any way nearly
akin to this; but his own words show All
affinity. "When saw you last" wrote MIR.
Beecher to Mrs. Tilton, 81 did not expect ever
to see you again or to be alive many days"
In his apology he said:-'I will die before
any one but myself shall be inculpated. All
my thoughts are running out toward my
friends and toward the poor child lying there
and praying with her folded hands. She is
guiltless, sinned against, bearing the trans
gression of another" At another time:-"I
have strong feeling upon me, and it brings
great peace, that I am spending my
last Sunday and preaching my last
sermon" These are strong, bitter, de-
spairing words, and that they have reference
to some offence which bears heavily upon his
conscience is plain even to the nature Of the
offence itself when he tells how grinding it is
to have hundreds and thousands of men
pressing him, each one with his keen suspicion
or anxiety or zeal to see the tendencies
which, if not stopped, would break out into
ruinous defence of him or when be declares
that Tilton had condoned his wife's fault,
adding that very remarkable phrase He
had enjoined upon me with the utmost ear
nestness and solemnity not to betray his wife
nor leave his children to blight These
words certainly had been strong enough for
Arthur Dimmesdale-strong enough for Ar
thur Dmmesdales crime even. We peed not
put him in Arthur D.mmesdale's place for,
fortunately, Mrs. Til ons allusion to Catherine
Gaunt explains away the grosser qualities of
Mr.. Beechers sim Though MIR. Beecher
speaks with the intensity of Dimmesdale, it
was, we are fain to believe, only the sin of
Brother Leonard. 1t was the warm affection
of hungry heart absorbing the strong pas
sion Of an emotional woman. Anything less
than this Mr.. Tilton could not have
''condoned," for anything less was in
capable of condonement Anything more has
not been proved and proof must go before