A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

The Conspiracy—Relations with Mr. Bowen—Disputes and Arbitration—Theodore Tilton’s Early Promise and Intimacy with Mr. Beecher—Bowen’s Ill-Will and Tilton’s Malice—Tilton discharged from Independent and Brooklyn Union—Tripartite Agreement—Moulton and Tilton conspire to Blackmail Mr. Beecher—Tilton consults Dr. Storrs.

While it will not be possible in the space of a volume such as this, nor at all desirable if it were possible, to go to any considerable extent into the details of that experience in Mr. Beecher’s life, commonly called “the Scandal,” yet no biography would be complete or truthful which ignored this period.

Therefore, while we avoid all those details likely to offend against a rational public sentiment, we shall try to give such an outline of the general facts as may be necessary for a clear understanding of this monstrous conspiracy.

To do this we must necessarily go back to the beginnings, some of which exerted a powerful influence on subsequent events. In 1856 Mr. Beecher was invited to become a contributor to the Independent, then published and controlled by Henry C. Bowen and his partner, Mr. McNamee. This was accepted, and in November of that year a contract was made between them to that effect.

This contract, with a few subsequent modifications, remained in force until the year 1860, when a new one was made by which Mr. Beecher became the editor-in-chief, Theodore Tilton, his assistant, relieving him wholly of the office routine work. Mr. Tilton was at this time a young man with the promise of a brilliant future before him. Determining upon journalism and public speaking as his profession, he sought to familiarize himself with the speeches and writings of those most prominent in his chosen field. Early in the “Fifties” he began reporting Mr. Beecher’s sermons for the Observer. This led to an acquaintance between them.

Tilton, though scarcely more than a boy, was even then very clever. His bright speeches, his boyish enthusiasm in following out the high purposes he had formed, the really manly aspirations he then felt, and, above all, his sunny disposition, soon won for him a very warm place in Mr. Beecher’s heart, which he only lost years later, when his uncontrollable egotism and vanity—the mildew of precocity—worked his destruction, wrecking his reputation, his morals, and his life.

Mr. Beecher delighted in aiding and promoting him, seeking by wise counsels to strengthen every good quality and to hold in check every malign tendency, advancing him as rapidly as possible in his profession. All this Mr. Tilton fully recognized, writing Mr. Beecher, a short time before he began his plotting:

“My Friend: From my boyhood up you have been to me what no other man has been, what no other man can be. While I was a student the influence of your mind on mine was greater than all books and all teachers. The intimacy with which you honored me for twelve years has been, next to my wife and family, the chief affection of my life. By you I was baptized; by you married; you are my minister, teacher, father, brother, friend, companion. The debt I owe you I can never pay. My religious life, my intellectual development, my open door of opportunity for labor, my public reputation—all these, my dear friend, I owe in so great a degree to your own kindness that my gratitude cannot be written in words, but must be expressed only in love.”

Early in their intimacy Tilton left the Observer and joined his fortunes to the Independent.

Through the affection and influence of his friend he was advanced steadily, until, in the fall of 1860 or early 1861, he was made assistant editor. In the spring of 1861 occurred an incident that was to produce ultimately no little trouble.

Mr. Beecher had from time to time bought, from Mr. Bowen’s dry-goods store, various articles to be sent to the Brooklyn Phalanx, a regiment largely enrolled from the youths and friends of Plymouth Church, and in which Mr. Beecher’s eldest son was an officer. These purchases were charged against Mr. Beecher’s salary account. In May, 1861, Mr. Bowen claimed that Mr. Beecher’s account had been very greatly overdrawn, by goods purchased and money drawn out. The matter was finally arbitrated, the arbitrator awarding Mr. Bowen $1,000, which was paid.

Whether it was the failure to receive all that he expected, or some other and unknown grievance, we cannot say, but from about this time began a feeling of hostility on the part of Mr. Bowen, which a few years later, after Mr. Beecher had finally left the Independent, took shape in scandalous whisperings behind Mr. Beecher’s back, but always so carefully guarded as not, at that time, to reach his ears.

In 1863 Mr. Beecher made his memorable visit to England. During his absence he arranged to have Mr. Tilton take the entire editorial charge of the Independent. In this the latter did so well, that in February, 1864, Mr. Beecher, being then in need of relief from the care and responsibility of his position, made a new arrangement with Mr. Bowen, whereby Mr. Tilton was to be retained as editor-in-chief, Mr. Beecher contributing editorially and by “Star articles” (his articles were unsigned, but marked with * at the foot, hence the name); the publication of his sermons and lecture-room talks being continued, his name remaining for a year as one of the editors. After one year Tilton was to be announced as the actual editor-in-chief.

In 1865, then, Theodore Tilton found himself at the head of one of the most influential papers in the land; for the Independent, though a religious paper, had, largely through the controversies on slavery, war, and other important topics carried on by Mr. Beecher in its columns, acquired a reputation and influence, in general public affairs, that was equalled by no other journal of its kind.

Soon Mr. Tilton’s inordinate conceit began to manifest itself. He was to supersede, in influence, his patron. From his lofty pedestal he could look down upon his old friend and adviser, dwarfed by comparison.

Already he had begun to entertain “advanced” ideas, repudiating as old-fogy and behind the times the principles and beliefs which he had received from his former instructor. Not content with his fancied overshadowing of Mr. Beecher, he began about this time to take part in Bowen’s campaign of scandalous whisperings; but when one of his tales came to Mr. Beecher’s ears he promptly denied it and assured Mr. Beecher that he had never said anything of the kind, that it was wholly false. This denial satisfied Mr. Beecher, who thought no more of the tale.

When in 1866 Mr. Beecher wrote his “Cleveland letters,” the Independent assailed him so virulently, through its editorial columns, that he felt he could no longer be connected with it, even as a contributor, and thereupon terminated his contract and all further connection with the paper. This was a further aggravation in Mr. Bowen’s eyes, as it was likely to be a pecuniary loss to the paper, and so to him. Shortly after this Mr. Tilton began in the editorial columns of the Independent to take a decidedly “advanced” stand upon religious and ethical subjects. His views began to savor very strongly of the atheistic, and he more than intimated a belief in theories, on the subject of marriage, that seemed hardly appropriate in the columns of a religious newspaper; so that when he published his “Editorial Soliloquy” in 1867, there broke out an indignant protest both from the East and West against such a use of the columns of the Independent. Tilton’s course, together with Bowen’s retention of certain objectionable advertisements, threatened serious injury to the paper. Steps were taken to start a new religious paper in Chicago, to supersede the Independent in the West; at about the same time overtures were made to Mr. Beecher, to accept the control of a new paper to be started in New York. This alarmed Mr. Bowen, who at once promised to muzzle Tilton and prevent the publication of any more objectionable “views.” On this assurance the opposition to the Independent was suspended. The contract was a larger one, however, than Bowen had anticipated. Tilton soon began anew ventilating his theories, and in December, 1870, wrote an editorial so pronounced in its advocacy of his peculiar views, that the public patience was exhausted. The Advance was at once established in Chicago and became a formidable rival to the Independent, Dr. Edward Beecher, the elder brother of Henry Ward, being one of its promoters.

In the fall of 1869 the Christian Union was organized in New York City, and in January, 1870, Mr. Beecher took control of it. Bowen was in despair. Here were two dangerous rivals to his paper. He was afraid to discharge Tilton; he had said too much in his presence to care to offend him. He must in some way, however, get Tilton out of the editorial chair of the Independent. After some negotiation he arranged with Tilton that he should resign the editorship of the Independent, and a new contract was made by which he should take the editorship of the Brooklyn Union for five years, at five thousand dollars a year, and should be the chief contributor to the Independent, receiving a further five thousand dollars therefor. This change was effected on the 20th of December, 1870, and on the 22d his valedictory was published in the Independent. Up to the year 1870 Tilton could hardly be said to have been hostile to Mr. Beecher, certainly in no such sense as he was during the following year. At this time he looked upon him as his mental and social inferior, and not infrequently spoke of him patronizingly, as one whom he had outgrown, bestowing upon him a sort of affectionate pity because he had been cast in a mould so much smaller than his own. It is true that, in that kind of “strictest confidence” which always insures a quiet circulation, he whispered stories, from time to time, derogatory to Mr. Beecher’s reputation, but these were born of his vanity, rather than of malice. He was still able to see that his own vagaries did not meet with public favor. He felt that he was a little ahead of his times, and it might benefit him to saddle similar theories upon Mr. Beecher. He probably had no intention of doing an injury, at least at that time. With Mr. Bowen, however, it was different. Mr. Beecher’s resignation first from the editorship, and then as contributor, and withdrawing his sermons from the Independent, was an injury in his eyes for which Tilton’s appointment did not compensate, and seemed to intensify that ill-will which had its origin at the time of the pecuniary misunderstanding, already referred to. And now, to have Mr. Beecher’s brother participate in starting the Advance in Chicago, while he himself accepted the management of the Christian Union in New York—a paper that sprang at once into a very large circulation, threatening to crowd the Independent in the East as the Advance promised to do in the West—this capped the climax. Bowen’s dislike was the more intense since there seemed no way in which he could assail Mr. Beecher with any hope of success. His whisperings necessarily had to be guarded, and his confidants did not seem inclined, or able, to give him much comfort.

This hostility Mr. Beecher was aware of, though little suspecting at the time its extent, attributing it to the fact that he had been obliged to withdraw from the Independent, and take a stand squarely opposed to its apparent policy. For he wrote to a friend: “It is well known that I am in a positive antagonism with the whole general drift of the paper. Mr. Bowen will scarcely recognize me on the street, and feels bitterly my withdrawal from all part or lot in the paper.”

By December, 1870, Tilton’s attitude had become decidedly hostile. His patronizing had now begun to change into fear. For he thought that Mr. Beecher might become a dangerous rival; and when finally he was retired from the editorship of the Independent he felt sure that it was through some intentional and malign influence of Mr. Beecher. That his own conduct and expressed opinions were responsible for the change, his vanity would not permit him to think.

As soon as it was publicly known that Tilton had been deposed from the editorial chair of the Independent, the stories of his past life began to pour in on Mr. Bowen like a flood. The latter was alarmed and began to doubt the possibility of retaining him in any capacity.

The expression of this fear to mutual friends led to an interview between the two. Tilton characteristically mounted his high horse, and imperiously demanded an investigation and that he be confronted with his accusers. In a very few moments Mr. Bowen satisfied him that he was quite fully posted, and that an investigation was the last thing that he would desire.

Tilton then struck out on a new line of operations. Knowing Mr. Bowen’s fear and dislike of Mr. Beecher, intensified daily by the steadily increasing circulation of the Christian Union, Tilton cunningly began to suggest the great danger that threatened the Independent from the Christian Union.

He struck the keynote to Bowen’s animosity, and, skilfully working on his feelings, he suggested that their mutual welfare demanded the overthrow of Mr. Beecher. Bowen was all attention. To destroy Mr. Beecher, and cripple the Christian Union, would be a wonderful stroke of good-fortune.

After referring to the injuries that Bowen had suffered at the hands of Mr. Beecher, he suggested that he, too, had a grievance against him. This was news to Bowen, who eagerly besought Tilton to tell him what it was. He then stated that Beecher had been guilty of “improper proposals” to his wife. Bowen was quick to discover the situation. This was the first tangible bit of evidence which had ever come to him against Mr. Beecher. He had never dared publicly father any of his own stories.

Now, if Tilton would attack Mr. Beecher on such a charge, he could stand by and watch the fight without becoming involved himself, but would be ready, from his safe point of vantage, to take profit by the result, whichever way it ended. If Tilton succeeded, so much the better. If he failed, he would be rid of him; and would not be responsible for the attack, which Tilton would both originate and carry on.

Mr. Bowen suggested to Tilton the writing of a letter to Mr. Beecher, which was written, calling on him to resign his pastorate, and leave Brooklyn. This Bowen was to carry to Mr. Beecher, which he did.^[8]

Mr. Tilton, returning home, reported to his friend Francis D. Moulton what he had done, and was informed that he had made “a ——— fool” of himself, that he had put himself in Bowen’s hands. At this point the conspiracy may be said to have been born. With the conspiracy proper, from this time out, Mr. Bowen seems to have had nothing to do. Both Tilton and Moulton distrusted him. While his hostility towards Mr. Beecher did not abate, and he was soon afterwards clearly recognized as a bitter enemy, yet we do not learn that he ever thereafter actively co-operated with the two arch-conspirators; for a short time after Tilton’s letter he professed to be friendly to Mr. Beecher.

The carrying of Tilton’s letter to Mr. Beecher, and the calling in of Moulton, were the starting-point of this conspiracy.

Bowen, as we shall see later, discharged Tilton from both the Independent and the Union.

The latter was in desperate straits, and then it was that he and Moulton seemed to have come to the determination to try through Mr. Beecher to better Tilton’s fortunes. At the first it is highly improbable that either had any very definite plan of operations against Mr. Beecher, and certainly not the faintest idea of the desperate step they would finally be driven to by the logic of their own falsehoods. Little by little, deeper and deeper, they worked themselves into the mud and mire, until, as a last desperate venture, they were compelled to make the final plunge in the hope of forcing through to a solid footing. With this introduction we give Mr. Beecher’s account of this trouble in his own words, as written in 1874, when the facts were all fresh in his mind; condensing it somewhat to meet the requirements of our space, and omitting details which, though necessary then, need not now be gone into. This presents the history as he saw it, and shows how Moulton by cunning treachery wormed himself into Mr. Beecher’s confidence for the purpose of destroying him:

“Four years ago Theodore Tilton fell from one of the proudest editorial chairs in America, where he represented the cause of religion, humanity, and patriotism, and in a few months thereafter became the associate and representative of Victoria Woodhull and the priest of her strange cause. By his follies he was bankrupt in reputation, in occupation, and in resources. The interior history, of which I now give a brief outline, is the history of his attempts to so employ me as to reinstate himself in business, restore his reputation, and place him again upon the eminence from which he had fallen. It is a sad history, to the full meaning of which I have but recently awaked. Entangled in a wilderness of complications, I followed until lately a false theory and a delusive hope, believing that the friend who assured me of his determination and ability to control the vagaries of Mr. Tilton, to restore his household, to rebuild his fortunes, and to vindicate me, would be equal to that promise. This self-confessed failure has made clear to me what for a long time I did not suspect—the real motive of Mr. Tilton. My narrative does not represent a single standpoint only as regards my opinion of Theodore Tilton. It begins at my cordial intimacy with him in his earlier career, and shows my lamentation and sorrowful but hopeful affection for him during the period of his initial wanderings from truth and virtue. It describes my repentance over evils befalling him of which I was made to believe myself the cause; my persevering and finally despairing efforts to save him and his family by any sacrifice of myself not absolutely dishonorable; and my growing conviction that his perpetual follies and blunders rendered his recovery impossible. I can now see that he is and has been from the beginning of this difficulty a selfish and reckless schemer, pursuing a plan of mingled greed and hatred, and weaving about me a network of suspicions, misunderstandings, plots, and lies, to which my own innocent words and acts, nay, even my thoughts of kindness toward him, have been made to contribute.

“That I was blind so long to the real nature of the intrigue going on around me was due partly to my own overwhelming public engagements, partly to my complete surrender of this affair and all papers and questions connected with it into the hands of Mr. Moulton, who was intensely confident that he could manage it successfully. I suffered much, but I inquired little. Mr. Moulton was chary to me of Mr. Tilton’s confidences to him, reporting to me occasionally in a general way Mr. Tilton’s moods and outbreaks of passion only as elements of trouble which he was able to control, and as additional proofs of the wisdom of leaving it to him. His comment of the situation seemed to me, at the time, complete, immersed as I was in incessant cares and duties, and only too glad to be relieved from considering the details of such wretched complications, the origin and the fact of which remain, in spite of all friendly intervention, a perpetual burden to my soul. I would not read in the papers about it; I would not talk about it. I made Moulton for a long period my confidant and my only channel of information.

“From time to time suspicions were aroused in me by indications that Mr. Tilton was acting the part of an enemy; but these suspicions were repeatedly allayed by his own behavior towards me in other moods, and by the assurances of Mr. Moulton, who ascribed the circumstances to misunderstanding or to malice on the part of others. It is plain to me now that it was not until Mr. Tilton had fallen into disgrace and lost his salary that he thought it necessary to assail me with charges which he pretended to have had in mind for six months. The domestic offence which he alleged was very quickly and easily put aside, but yet in such a way as to keep my feelings stirred up, in order that I might, through my friends, be used to extract from Mr. Bowen $7,000, the amount of a claim in dispute between them. The check for that sum in hand, Mr. Tilton signed an agreement of peace and concord—not made by me, but accepted by me as sincere. The Golden Age had been started. He had the capital to carry it on for a while. He was sure that he was to lead a great social revolution. With returning prosperity he had apparently no griefs which could not be covered by his signature to the articles of peace.^[9] Yet the changes in that covenant, made by him before signing it, and represented to me as necessary merely to relieve him from the imputation of having originated and circulated certain old and shameless slanders about me, were really made, as now appears, to leave him free for future operations upon me and against me.

“So long as he was, or thought he was, on the road to a new success, his conduct toward me was as friendly as he knew how to make it. His assumption of superiority and magnanimity, and his patronizing manner, were trifles at which I could afford to smile, and which I bore with the greater humility since I still retained the profound impression made upon me as explained in the following narrative—that I had been a cause of overwhelming disaster to him, and that his complete restoration to public standing and household happiness was a reparation justly required of me, and the only one which I could make.

“But, with a peculiar genius for blunders, he fell almost at every step into new complications and difficulties, and in every such instance it was his policy to bring coercion to bear upon my honor, my conscience, and my affections, for the purpose of procuring his extrication at my expense. Theodore Tilton knew me well. He has said again and again to his friends that if they wished to gain influence over me they must work upon the sympathetic side of my nature. To this he has addressed himself steadily for four years, using as a lever, without scruple, my attachment to my friends, to my family, to his own household, and even my old affection for himself.

“Not blind to his faults, but resolved to look on him as favorably and hopefully as possible, and ignorant of his deeper malice, I labored earnestly, even desperately, for his salvation. For four years I have been trying to feed his insatiable egotism, to make the man as great as he conceived himself to be, to restore to popularity and public confidence one who, in the midst of my efforts in his behalf, patronized disreputable people and doctrines, refused when I besought him to separate himself from them, and ascribed to my agency the increasing ruin which he was persistently bringing upon himself, and which I was doing my utmost to avert. It was hard to do anything for such a man. I might as well have tried to fill a sieve with water. In the latter part of the history he actually incited and created difficulties, apparently for no other purpose than to drive me to fresh exertions. I refused to endorse his wild views and associates. The best I could do was to speak well of him, mention those good qualities and abilities which I believed him to possess in his higher moods, and keeping silent concerning the evil things which, I was assured and believed, had been greatly exaggerated by public report. I could not think him so bad as my friends did. I trusted to the germs of good which I thought still lived in him, to Mr. Moulton’s apparent power over him, and to the power of my persistent self-sacrifice.

“Mr. Moulton came to me at first as the schoolmate and friend of Mr. Tilton, determined to reinstate him, I at first suspected, without regard to my interests, but on further acquaintance with me he undertook and promised to serve his friend without doing wrong to me. He said he saw clearly how this was to be done, so as to restore peace and harmony to Mr. Tilton’s home, and bring a happy end to all misunderstandings. Many things which he counselled I absolutely refused, but I never doubted his professed friendship for me, after friendship had grown up between us; and whatever he wished me to do I did, unless it seemed to me wrong.

“My confidence in him was the only element that seemed secure in that confusion of tormenting perplexities. To him I wrote freely in that troublous time, when I felt that secret machinations were going on around me, and echoes of the vilest slander concerning me were heard of in unexpected quarters; when some of my near relatives were set against me, and the tattle of a crowd of malicious women, hostile to me on other grounds, was borne to my ears; when I had lost the last remnant of faith in Mr. Tilton or hope for him; when I heard with unspeakable remorse that everything I had done to stay his destruction had made matters worse and worse; that my attempt to keep him from a public trial (involving such a flood of scandal as has now been let loose) had been used by him to bring up new troubles; that his unhappy wife was, under his dictation, signing papers and recantations, and I knew not what; that, in short, everything was breaking up, and the destruction from which I had sought to save the family was likely to be emptied on other families, the church, the community, with infinite horrors of woe for me; that my own innocence was buried under heaps and heaps of rubbish, and nobody but my professed friend (if even he) could save us. To his assurances that he could still do so I gave at least so much faith as to maintain under these terrible trials the silence which he enjoined. Not until Mr. Tilton, having attempted, through Frank Carpenter, to raise money from my friends, openly assailed me in his letter to Dr. Bacon, did I break that silence, save my simple denial of the slanderous rumors against me a year before.

“On the appearance of the first open attack from Mr. Tilton I immediately, without consulting Mr. Moulton, called for a thorough investigation with a committee of my church. I am not responsible for the delay, the publicity, or the details of that investigation. All the harm which I have so long dreaded and have so earnestly striven to avoid has come to pass. I could not have further prevented it without a full surrender of honor and truth. The time has arrived when I can freely speak in vindication of myself. I labor under great disadvantages in making a statement. My memory of states of the mind is clear and tenacious, better than my memory of dates and details. During four troubled years, in all of which I have been singularly burdened with public labor, having established and conducted the Christian Union, delivered courses of lectures, preaching before the Theological Seminary of Yale College, written the first volume of the ‘Life of Christ,’ delivered each winter Lyceum lectures in all the North and West—all these duties, with the care of the great church and its outlying schools and chapels, and the miscellaneous business which falls upon a clergyman more than upon any other public man, I have kept in regard, and now, with the necessity of explaining actions and letters resulting from complex influences apparent at the time, I find myself in a position where I know my innocence without being able to prove it with detailed explanation. I am one upon whom trouble works inwardly, making me outwardly silent but reverberating in the chambers of my soul; and when at length I do speak it is a pent-up flood and pours without measure or moderation. I inherit a tendency to sadness, the remains in me of positive hypochondria in my father and grandfather, and in certain moods of reaction the world becomes black and I see very despairingly.

“If I were, in such moods, to speak as I feel, I should give false colors and exaggerated proportions of everything. This manifestation is in such contrast to the hopefulness and courage which I experience in ordinary times that none but those intimate with me would suspect one so full of overflowing spirit and eager gladsomeness to have within him a cave of gloom and despondency. Some of my letters to Mr. Moulton reflect this morbid feeling. He understood it, and at times reproved me for indulging in it. With this preliminary review I proceed to my narrative.

“Mr. Tilton was first known to me as a reporter of my sermons. He was then a youth just from school and working on the New York Observer. From this paper he passed to the Independent, and became a great favorite with Mr. Bowen. When, about 1861, Drs. Bacon, Storrs, and Thompson resigned their places, I became editor of the Independent, to which I had been from its start a contributor. One of the inducements held out to me was that Mr. Tilton should be my assistant and relieve me wholly from routine office work. In this relation I became very much attached to him. We used to stroll the galleries and print-shops and dine often together. His mind was opening freshly and with enthusiasm upon all questions. I used to pour out my ideas of civil affairs, public policy, religion, and philanthropy. Of this he often spoke with grateful appreciation, and mourned at a later day over its cessation.

“August was my vacation month, but my family repaired to my farm in June and July, and remained there during September and October. My labors confining me to the city, I took my meals in the families of friends, and from year to year I became so familiar with their children and homes that I went in and out daily almost as in my own house. Mr. Tilton often alluded to this habit, and urged me to do the same by his house. He used to often speak in extravagant terms of his wife’s esteem and affection for me. After I began to visit his house he sought to make it attractive. He urged me to bring my papers down there and use his study to do my writing in, as it was not pleasant to write in the office of the Independent. When I went to England in 1863 Mr. Tilton took temporary charge of the Independent. On my return I paved the way for him to take sole charge of it, my name remaining for a year, and then he becoming the responsible editor. Friendly relations continued until 1866, when the violent assaults made upon me by Mr. Tilton in the Independent, on account of my Cleveland letter, and the temporary discontinuation of the publication of my sermons in that paper, broke off my connection with it. Although Mr. Tilton and I remained personally on good terms, yet there was a coolness between us in all matters of politics. During this whole period I never received from Mr. Tilton or any member of his family the slightest hint that there was any dissatisfaction with my familiar relations to his household. As late, I think, as the winter of 1869, when going upon an extended lecturing tour, he said: ‘I wish you would look in after, and see that Libby is not lonesome or does not want anything,’ or words to that effect. Never by sign or word did Mr. Tilton complain of my visits to his family until he began to fear that the Independent would be taken from him, nor did he break out into violence until on the eve of dispossession from both the papers—the Independent and the Brooklyn Union—owned by Mr. Bowen.

“In the latter part of July, 1870, Mrs. Tilton was sick, and at her request I visited her. She seemed much depressed, but gave me no hint of any trouble having reference to me. I cheered her as best I could, and prayed with her just before leaving. This was our last interview before trouble broke out in the family. I describe it because it was the last, and its character has a bearing upon a later part of my story. Concerning all my visits it is sufficient to say that at no interview which ever took place between Mrs. Tilton and myself did anything occur which might not have occurred with perfect propriety between a brother and sister, between a father and child, or between a man of honor and the wife of his dearest friend; nor did anything ever happen which she or I sought to conceal from her husband.

“Some years before any open trouble between Mr. Tilton and myself, his doctrines, as set forth in the leaders of the Independent, aroused a storm of indignation among the representative Congregationalists in the West; and as the paper was still very largely supposed to be my organ, I was written to on the subject. In reply I indignantly disclaimed all responsibility for the views expressed by Mr. Tilton. It was understood that Mr. Bowen agreed, in consequence of proceedings arising out of this remonstrance, to remove Mr. Tilton or suppress his peculiar views, but instead of that he seemed firmer in the saddle than before, and his loose notions of marriage and divorce began to be shadowed editorially. This led to the starting of the Advance in Chicago, to supersede the Independent in the Northwest, and Mr. Bowen was made to feel that Mr. Tilton’s management was seriously injuring the business, and Mr. Tilton may have felt that his position was being undermined by opponents of his views with whom he subsequently pretended to believe I was in league. Vague intimations of his ‘feeling hard’ toward me I ascribed to this misconception. I had in reality taken no step to harm him.

“After Mr. Tilton’s return from the West in December, 1870, a young girl whom Mrs. Tilton had taken into the family, educated, and treated like an own child was sent to me with an urgent request that I would visit Mrs. Tilton at her mother’s. She said that Mrs. Tilton had left her home and gone to her mother’s in consequence of ill-treatment of her husband. She then gave an account of what she had seen of cruelty and abuse on the part of the husband that shocked me; I immediately visited Mrs. Tilton at her mother’s, and received an account of her home life, and of the despotism of her husband, and of the management of a woman whom he had made housekeeper, which seemed like a nightmare dream. The question was whether she should go back or separate for ever from her husband. I asked permission to bring my wife to see them, whose judgment in all domestic relations I thought better than my own; and accordingly a second visit was made. The result of the interview was that my wife was extremely indignant toward Mr. Tilton, and declared that no consideration on earth would induce her to remain an hour with a man who had treated her with a hundredth part of such insult and cruelty. I felt as strongly as she did, but hesitated, as I always do, at giving advice in favor of a separation. It was agreed that my wife should give her final advice at another visit. The next day, when ready to go, she wished a final word; but there was company, and the children were present, and so I wrote on a scrap of paper, ‘I incline to think that your view is right, and that a separation and a settlement of support will be wisest, and that in his present desperate state her presence near him is far more likely to produce hatred than her absence.’

“Mrs. Tilton did not tell me that my presence had anything to do with this trouble, nor did she let me know that on the July previous he had extorted from her a confession of excessive affection for me.

“On the evening of December 27, 1870, Mr. Bowen, on his way home, called at my house and handed me a letter from Mr. Tilton. It was, as nearly as I can remember, in the following terms:

“‘Henry Ward Beecher: For reasons which you explicitly know, and which I forbear to state, I demand that you withdraw from the pulpit and quit Brooklyn as a residence.

“I read it over twice, and turned to Bowen and said: ‘This man is crazy; this is sheer insanity,’ and other like words. Mr. Bowen professed to be ignorant of the contents, and I handed him the letter to read. We at once fell into a conversation about Mr. Tilton. He gave me some account of the reasons why he had reduced him from the editorship of the Independent to the subordinate position of contributor—namely, that Mr. Tilton’s religious and social views were ruining the paper. But he said as soon as it was known that he had so far broken with Mr. Tilton, there came pouring in upon him so many stories of Mr. Tilton’s private life and habits that he was overwhelmed, and that he was now considering whether he could consistently retain him on the Brooklyn Union or as chief contributor to the Independent. We conversed for some time, Mr. Bowen wishing my opinion. It was frankly given. I did not see how he could maintain his relations with Mr. Tilton. The substance of the conversation was that Tilton’s inordinate vanity, his fatal facility for blundering (for which he had a genius), and ostentatious independence in his own opinions, and general impracticableness, would keep the Union at disagreement with the political party for whose service it was published; and now, added to all this, these revelations of these promiscuous immoralities would make his connection with either paper fatal to its interests. I spoke strongly and emphatically under the great provocation of his threatening letter to me and the revelation I had just had concerning his domestic affairs.

“Mr. Bowen derided this letter of Tilton’s which he had brought to me, and said earnestly that if trouble came out of it I might rely upon his friendship. I learned afterwards that in the further quarrel, ending in Tilton’s peremptory expulsion from Bowen’s service, this conversation was repeated to Mr. Tilton. Although I have no doubt that Mr. Tilton would have lost his place at any rate, I have also no doubt that my influence was decisive and precipitated his final overthrow. When I came to think it all over, I felt very unhappy at the contemplation of Mr. Tilton’s impending disaster. I had loved him much, and at one time he had seemed like a son to me.

“But now all looked dark; he was to be cast forth from his eminent position, and his affairs at home did not promise that sympathy and strength which make one’s house, as mine has been, in times of adversity, a refuge from the storm and a tower of defence.

“It now appears that on the 29th of December, 1870, Mr. Tilton, having learned that I had replied to his threatening letter, by expressing such an opinion of him as to set Mr. Bowen finally against him, and bring him face to face with immediate ruin, extorted from his wife, then suffering under a severe illness, a document incriminating me, and prepared an elaborate attack upon me.

“In my then morbid condition of mind I thought that this charge, although entirely untrue, might result in great disaster, if not absolute ruin. The great interests which were entirely dependent on me, the church which I had built up, the book which I was writing, my own immediate family, my brother’s name, now engaged in the ministry, my sisters, the name which I had hoped might live after me and be in some slight degree a source of strength and encouragement to those who should succeed me, and, above all, the cause for which I had devoted my life, seemed imperilled. It seemed to me that my life-work was to end abruptly and in disaster. My earnest desire to avoid a public accusation, and the evils which must necessarily flow from it, and which now have resulted from it, has been one of the leading motives that must explain my action during these four years with reference to this matter.

“It was in such a sore and distressing condition that Mr. Moulton found me. His manner was kind and conciliatory; he seemed, however, to be convinced that I had been seeking Tilton’s downfall, that I had leagued with Mr. Bowen against him, and that I had by my advice come near destroying his family. I did not need any argument or persuasion to induce me to do, and say, anything which would remedy the injury, of which I then believed, I had certainly been the occasion if not the active cause. But Mr. Moulton urged that, having wronged so, the wrong meant his means of support taken away, his reputation gone, his family destroyed, and that I had done it. He assured me of his own knowledge that the stories which I had heard against Mr. Tilton, and which I had believed and repeated to Mr. Bowen, were all false. I was persuaded into the belief of what he had said, and felt convicted of slander in its meanest form. He drew the picture of Mr. Tilton wronged in reputation, in position, wronged in purse, shattered in his family where he would otherwise have found a refuge, and at the same time looking upon me out of his deep distress, while I was abounding in friends, most popular, and with ample means; he drew that picture—my prosperity overflowing and abounding, and Tilton’s utter degradation. I was most intensely excited. Indeed, I felt that my mind was in danger of giving way. I walked up and down the room, pouring forth my heart in the most unrestrained grief and bitterness of self-accusation, telling what my ideas were of the obligation of friendship and of the sacredness of the household; denying, however, an intentional wrong, saying that if I had been the cause, however remotely, of that which I then beheld, I never could forgive myself, and heaping all the blame on my own head. The case, as it then appeared to my eyes, was strongly against me. My old fellow-worker had been dispossessed of his eminent place and influence, and I had counselled it. His family had well-nigh been broken up, and I had advised it; his wife had been long sick and broken in health and body, and I, as I fully believed it, had been the cause of all this wreck by continuing that blind heedlessness and friendship which had beguiled her heart and had roused her husband into a fury of jealousy, although not caused by any intentional act of mine. And should I coldly defend myself? Should I pour indignation upon this lady? Should I hold her up to contempt as having thrust her affections upon me unsought? Should I tread upon the man and his household in their great adversity? I gave vent to my feelings without measure. I disclaimed with the greatest earnestness all intent to harm Theodore in his home or his business, and with inexplicable sorrow I both blamed and defended Mrs. Tilton in one breath.

“I had not then the light that I now have. There was much then that weighed heavily upon my heart and conscience which now weighs only on my heart. I had not the light which analyzes and discriminates things. By one blow there opened before me a revelation full of anguish: an agonized family, whose inmates had been my friends, greatly beloved; the husband ruined in worldly prospects, the household crumbling to pieces, the woman, by long sickness and suffering, either corrupted to deceit, as her husband alleged, or so broken in mind as to be irresponsible; and either way it was her enthusiasm for her pastor, as I was made to believe, that was the germ and beginning of the trouble. It was for me to have forestalled and prevented that mischief. My age and experience in the world should have put me more on my guard. I could not at that time tell what was true, and what was not true, of all the considerations urged upon me by Mr. Tilton and Moulton. There was a gulf before me in which lay those who had been warm friends, and they alleged that I had helped to plunge them therein. That seemed enough to fill my soul with sorrow and anguish. No mother who has lost a child but will understand the wild self-accusation that grief produced, against all reason, blaming herself for what things she did do, and for what she neglected to do, and charging upon herself, her neglect or heedlessness, the death of her child, while ordinarily every one knows that she had worn herself out with her assiduities.

“Mr. Moulton and Mr. Tilton both strove to obliterate from my mind all belief in the rumors that had been circulated about Mr. Tilton. There was much going on in silencing, explaining, arranging, etc., that I did not understand as well then as now. But of one thing I was then convinced, viz., that Mr. Tilton had never strayed from the path of virtue. I was glad to believe it true, and felt how hard it was that he should be made to suffer by evil and slanderous foes. I could not explain some testimony which had been laid before me; but, I said, there is undoubtedly some misunderstanding, and if I knew the whole I should find Theodore, though with obvious faults, at heart sound and good. These views I often expressed to intimate friends in spite of their manifest incredulity, and what, in the light of the facts, I must now call their well-deserved ridicule. Mr. Moulton lost no occasion of presenting to me the kindest view of Mr. Tilton’s character and conduct. On the other hand, he complained that Mrs. Tilton did not trust her husband or him, and did not assist him in his effort to help Theodore. I knew that she distrusted Mr. Moulton, and felt bitterly hurt by the treatment of her husband. I was urged to use my influence with her to inspire confidence in Moulton and to lead her to take a kinder view of Theodore. Accordingly, at the instance of Mr. Moulton, on February 7, 1871, I wrote a letter to her of that date, designed for the purpose of giving her confidence in Mr. Moulton.

“In my letter to Mrs. Tilton I alluded to the fact that I did not expect, when I saw her last, to be alive many days. That statement stands connected with a series of symptoms which I first experienced in 1856. I went through the Fremont campaign, speaking in the open air three hours at a time, three days in the week. On renewing my literary labors I felt I must have given way; I very seriously thought that I was going to have apoplexy or paralysis, or something of the kind. On two or three occasions, while preaching, I should have fallen in the pulpit if I had not held on to the table. Very often I came near falling in the streets. During the last fifteen years I have gone into the pulpit, I suppose a hundred times, with a very strong impression that I should never come out of it alive. I have preached more sermons than any human being would believe, when I felt all the while, that whatever I had got to say to my people I must say then, or I never would have another chance to say it. If I had consulted a physician, his first advice would have been, ‘You must stop work.’ But I was in such a situation that I could not stop work. I read the best medical books on symptoms of nervous prostration, and overwork, and paralysis, and formed my own judgment of my case. The three points I marked were: I must have good digestion, good sleep, and I must go on working. These three things were to be reconciled; and in regard to my diet, stimulants, and medicines I made the most thorough and searching trial, and, as the result, managed my body so that I could get the most work out of it without essentially impairing it. If I had said a word about this to my family, it would have brought such distress and anxiety on the part of my wife, as I could not have borne. I have for many years so steadily taxed my mind to the utmost that there have been periods when I could not afford to have people express even sympathy with me. To have my wife or friends anxious about my health, and showing it to me, would be just the drop too much.

“In 1863 I came again into the same condition just before going to England, and that was one of the reasons why I wished to go. The war was at its height. I carried my country in my heart. I had the Independent in charge, and was working, preaching, and lecturing continually. I knew I was likely to be prostrated again.

“In December, 1870, the sudden shock of these troubles brought on again these symptoms in a more violent form. I was very much depressed in mind, and all the more, because it was one of those things that I could not say anything about; I was silent with everybody. During the last four years these symptoms had been repeatedly brought on by my intense work, carried forward on the underlying basis of so much sorrow and trouble.

“My friends will bear witness, that in the pulpit, I have very frequently alluded to my expectation of sudden death. I feel that I have more than once, already, been near a stroke that would have killed or paralyzed me, and I carry with me now, as I have so often carried, in years before this trouble began, the daily thought of death, as a door which might open for me, at any moment, out of all cares and labors into most welcome rest.^[10]