HENRY WARD BEECHER.

and loving wife-the father of an interesting honorable pen to write his own biography, family, having, as he describes it, an "ideal then was it worth any cost to have a home," he speculated on social problems, and line devoted to him in the biography was led by the malign influence under which of Henry Ward Beecher. His natural bent he fell, to denounce the marriage relation as towards plots and conspiracies now fully rea remnant of effete_civilization-a clog and vealed itself, and Beecher was the object hindrance to the development of the race. of his schemes. His grand genius for atHis remedy for the evils of marriage was easy titudinizing-for Tilton is nothing if not dradivorce, leaving parties as free to dissolve the matic-began to be displayed. As in a play, relation as they were to enter into it. He denies everything was arranged with a view to that he is a free lover, but Victoria Wood- effect. Facts were nothing to him, except as hull, the apostle of free love, asks for no they could be adroitly used to serve the purgreater social freedom than this. A leader of pose of his pageant. Friends, wife, children, men must know how to construct and to and all that other men hold sacred and dear, preserve, but Theodore Tilton knew only how must be trampled down and walked over to to unsettle and destroy. The moment he as- reach the notice and applause for which he sumed a position of such prominence that he has shown himself willing to barter his imcould be studied and criticised, the glaring mortal soul. Pure women might abhor and defects of his character discovered themselves shun him, but one pure woman at least should to those who had hitherto been his dupes. go to her grave, bearing witness to his power Opposition sprang up in every quarter, and at in a blasted life and a broken heart. Here, last he was forced to realize that the founda- gentlemen, here speaks the "master passion" tion which had been reared for him, and on of this perverted man. At this very moment, which he had been placed by others more than he could realize the sad truth that he is morally by himself, was crumbling beneath his feet. dead, he would still rejoice in this post mortem The end was near. Theodore Tilton fell-investigation of his character. The decaying fell from an eminence seldom attained by men of his age-to the very bottom of the abyss, the depths of which he had attempted to sound.

if

corpse would rather be dissected than buried; but we propose, gentlemen, to dissect him first in the 'interest of truth, and to bury him afterwards in the interest of decency.

of mankind.

And now, gentlemen, with this imperfect preliminary sketch of the two leading characters in what we shall show you is the most remarkable conspiracy of modern times, perhaps you will be better prepared to comprehend the

From that abyss, he beheld afar off the man Such, gentlemen, is the plaintiff in this who had been his early friend and patron, but cause. A staunch new vessel, launched upon whom he had long regarded as his rival and an honorable voyage, sailing with prosperous inferior, standing firm and erect, his influence winds over unruffled seas, has been transformwidening and deepening, and his hold on ed into a pirate by the wickedness of her public favor becoming more and more per- commander, and wrecked by his folly, and manent and secure. A man fed by inordi- now lies a stranded and battered hulk, the nate vanity can never awake to a sane, rea-object at once of the curiosity and abhorrence sonable estimate of himself. Failure and disappointment never lead such a man to selfexamination, but excite within him only bitterness, rage and malice. With him, it is never his own folly and impotence that have impeded his advance, but some malevolent power has interfered. In the blindaess of his rage, Theodore Tilton persuaded himself that the sole and efficient cause of his overthrow was Beecher; that the one man who had prevented him from reaching the topmost summit of fame was Beecher. But one resource was left to him. If he had not power to rebuild, he still had power to destroy, and Beecher should feel that power. To be eclipsed and neglected was gall and wormwood to his soul. If he could not be famous, he could at least be infamous; and he preferred infamy to oblivion. Mr. Beecher had long been his friend, and the intimate friend of his wife. That friendship he could pervert, and make himself the author, and at the same time the central figure, of the most famous scandal of modern times. If he could not supplant Beecher in the affection of the people, he could scandalize him. If he had made it impossible for any

strange, eventful" history which I proceed to lay before you. In 1847, Mr. Beecher removed from Indianapolis and settled in Brooklyn. His success as a preacher was already established, and he immediately took rank among the foremost orators of America. His church was at once crowded, and soon came to be the largest and one of the wealthiest in the two cities. Removing to Brooklyn in 1851 or 1852, the plaintiff then a boy just from school-took his place among the young men of Plymouth Church. He was speedily taken into favor by some of the leading members and by the pastor. He was employed to report some of Mr. Beecher's sermons, and the two men came into frequent contact and formed a warm friendship. The favor in this friendship was all on one side. Mr. Beecher was a man of mature years, and, even then, almost at the height of his fame. | He had multitudes of friends-men of

MRS. ELIZABETH R. TILTON.

Beecher's residence that it was quite impracticable for him to visit the house often. Still, at the earnest solicitation of Mr. Tilton, as we have said, he began his visits to the housc in Oxford street; and it was during these visits-quite infrequent, as the plaintiff tells you, and made at his earnest request-that Mr. Beecher first became acquainted with Mrs. Tilton in the relations of wife and mother.

MRS. ELIZABETH R. TILTON.

And now, gentlemen, I ask you to consider for a moment that Mrs. Tilton is the true de fendant in this cause-she whose lips are sealed and whose hands are tied, while the battle is waging over her body. She can make no outcry, and strike no blow in her own defense. She can only weep and pray, as she has done so often already, looking for her deliverance to Almighty God and to the spirit of justice which He inspires in the hearts of men.

wealth, of learning, of high reputation-and
could derive nothing from the mere lad whom
he thus took into the circle of his friends,
except the pleasure which a great and generous
nature feels in imparting knowledge to an
opening mind, and in helping forward a
struggling aspirant. The pastor was led to
take an additional interest in this young man
by the fact of his marriage to a young girl
whom Mr. Beecher had known and loved
from her childhood. In the following year,
Tilton, through Mr. Beecher's friendly inter-
est, was taken upon the editorial staff of The
Independent, a paper mainly owned by one
of Mr. Beecher's congregation, and to which
Mr. Beecher was himself a regular and valued
contributor. From this time the relations of
the two grew more and more intimate. Til-
ton visited frequently at Mr. Beecher's house
and took an active part in the work of
the church; and when, in 1861, Mr.
Beecher was invited to the editorial chair of
The Independent, his affection for Mr. Tilton
was so well known that one of the chief in-sition, this lady is of a nature deeply rever-
ducements held out to him to accept that po-
sition was, that Mr. Tilton should be associa-
ted with him as assistant editor. It is true
that there had been some indications of envy
and conscious rivalry on the part of young
Tilton, even at this early day, and some of Mr.
Beecher's oldest friends suspected and criti-
cised the motives of the young man; but
Mr. Beecher himself was entirely free from
suspicion, and put the most innocent interpre-
tation upon every act of his new friend.

At this time, gentlemen, Mr. Beecher had a summer residence in the country, to which it was the habit of his family to repair, about the last of May or the first of June, and to return again in October, or sometimes as late as November. But a portion of the time, while his family were thus residing in the country, and prior to the beginning of his summer vacation, in the city-he spent in working at his own house, taking his meals with some of the families of his church during the time that he was in the city. This habit was well known to Mr. Tilton, and early in 1861 or 1862 he urged Mr. Beecher to make his house also a place of frequent resort. He spoke often to his pastor of his wife's great affection for him, and requested him to call and make himself at home in the family. Mr. Beecher had known Mrs. Tilton prior to his acquaintance with Mr. Tilton, but only as a young girl, a member of the church; and the acquaintance had practically ceased after her marriage, until it was renewed, as I have stated, at the request of Mr. Tilfon-ceased, I mean, so far as his visits to their house were concerned; for in the early years of their marriage they were boarding, and when they began to keep house they commenced in Oxford street, so far from the place of Mr.

Small in stature, and of a childlike dispo

ential and filled with an exalted religious enthusiasm. The plaintiff himself declares that, had she lived in former days and belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, she would have been recognized as one of those illustrious women whose names shine with the halo of saintliness. She was devoted to her home, entertained views of the sacredness of motherhood almost romantic (if that were possible), and gave her own life, under God, absolutely to her husband and children, without a murmur as to her own self-sacrifice. Gifted, sensitive, pure, self-depreciating, idolizing her home, and worshipping with all the intensity of her nature the husband of her early love, her very existence was so blended with his, that their union fulfilled Lord Coke's definition of marriage, "two souls united in one person. From the time when Theodore Tilton placed the wedding ring upon the finger of Elizabeth, until that hour when, driven by his persecution, she was compelled to tear herself from her home and from him forever, there had been but one person who in all things dominated that household, and that one was Theodore Tilton. His wish was to her a command; whatever he willed, she did. Relieving him from every household care incident to the rearing of a young and numerous family, she was content to toil and suffer that he might win the distinction he coveted so much.

In a married life which would have made most women wretched, for ten long years of absolute self-sacrifice, Elizabeth Tilton fan cied herself happy. Month by month, she watched the gradual unfolding of her husband, under the guidance and companionship of his friend and pastor. She saw him rising step by step to that proud eminence which had been the ruling ambition of his life, and

the companionship and corrupting influence
of those "whose feet take hold on hell"
this pure-minded and saintly woman, in her
very effort to save her husband, fell herself!
Fell into the very sins against which, for so
many anxious years, she had been warning her
husband "with strong crying and with tears!"
Nay, more, that the very religion—the relig-
ion which she had cherished all her life, and
which was confessedly so conspicuous in that
life, furnished the motives for her fall! Still
more, that so infatuated and unintelligent
was her hold upon that faith that, having
sinned, she solemnly denied this conscientious
crime and invented a tissue of lies to support
that denial; that, still further moved by an
inspiration she believed Divine, she aban-

she was happy. But she at last came to real-
ize that every new success brought to him
new dangers. She saw with pain the charac-
ter of the associates with whom, in the reck-
lessness of vanity and the intoxication of first
success, he surrounded himself. And with
unspeakable anguish she witnessed the
change that, day by day, was going on in his
religious convictions. Slowly but certainly
he was sliding away from the views of mar-
riage and of social duty which he once adop-
ted, and becoming the advocate of theories
which seemed to her to have been propounded
only by those who were unwilling that the
principles they professed should be better
than the lives they lived. The spell of the
flatterer was upon him. To rescue him from
all that she deemed false in religion and per-doned all the responsibilities and loves of
nicious in morals was, as it seemed to her,
the one great duty of life. To accomplish
this, no sacrifice was too great. She would
patiently if not willingly accept humiliation,
reproach, accusation; nay, the most sacred
feelings of wife and mother might be out-
raged and trampled upon; and still she would
hide her sufferings and conceal her wounds,
if only the object of her solicitude and pray-
ers might be saved.

There was but one person on earth to whom she could make known her sorrow, and that one was their friend and pastor. Boundless was her faith in God and the efficacy of prayer, but she was not a mere enthusiast; she believed in a wise and faithful application of appropriate means. How natural, then, that she should appeal in this emergency to him who had been the friend of her husband's youth, the counsellor and guide of his maturer manhood. This pastor sympathized with her suffering and promised help. How faithfully and how tenderly he counseled the plaintiff we have seen by the beautiful letter, as wise as it is beautiful, which the defendant wrote to the plaintiff in 1867. If Tilton could have but heeded that advice how different would have been the scene from what we this day witness! There would have been no bleeding heart, no deserted hearth-stone, no wife with broken heart and blasted life, no children with a blight resting upon their young and innocent lives; but a home happy and harmonious, a family bound together by the ties of love and respect, a household altar undesecrated, as in those early days of simple piety of which he is now so much ashamed.

But, blinded by his egotism and drunk with the intoxication of flattery, he refused to break away from his evil associates. Neither the voice of friendship nor the appeals of affection had power to save him. And now, gentlemen, they ask us to believe that, at this time, when all of a wife's faith, a woman's devotion and a mother's love, was being exerted to save Theodore Tilton from

life, and clave to a spiritual guide, himself
all leprous and loathsome with adultery and
perjury-and that (anti-climax of abomina
tions!) she is "a pure and white-souled
woman
"' still! Gentlemen, you are men
full grown; you have the wisdom that comes
from the experience of life, the observation
of human nature, the knowledge of affairs.
Is there one among you that can so discredit
all that experience and observation as to
entertain for a moment a suggestion so un-
utterably absurd, so absolutely monstrous?
MR. TILTON'S TRIUMPHANT CAREER.

In June, 1863, Mr. Beecher, feeling exhausted by his labors, visited Europe for a few months, leaving Mr. Tilton in charge of The Independent during his absence; and, on his return, finding from experience that the burden was too great for him, he privately relinquished the entire charge of the paper to Mr. Tilton. He consented, however, that his own name should remain as ostensible editor for a year longer, and, at the end of that time, Mr. Tilton openly assumed the charge of the paper. The prize Tilton had so earnestly struggled for was now won ; and, at the age of thirty years, he found himself the successor of Henry Ward Beecher, the occupant of one of the proudest editorial chairs in America. For this position he was indebted to the friendship of Henry Ward Beecher.

The nature of the friendship which I have thus briefly described, and its value to Mr. Tilton, can be portrayed in no language of mine more effective than that in which he has done it himself, in a letter which he wrote under a stress of conscience, the very year that he became editor, and a few days after he had, over his wine, made direct and wicked insinuations against his loving pastor and best friend. In this letter he tells, under an impulse of gratitude which was all too brief, something of the obligations which he was under to the man whom he had just

MR. TILTON'S TRIUMPHANT CAREER.