On the other hand was her pastor, the most powerful and magnetic preacher and orator not only in Brooklyn but in the nation. When he spoke on Sunday to his congregation of 3,000 people, there was not a man present but felt that he could get strength by touching even the hem of his garment. If his power were such over men, by the law of nature it must have been infinitely greater over women. Since it was thus irresistible in public, how transcendent must it have been in the close and intimate companionship of private life!
The house of the Tiltons was the second home of Mr. Beecher, and scarcely a day passed that he did not visit it. He found here the brightness, congeniality, sympathy and loving trust which every human being longs for. The choicest new literature was sent hither for the delicate appreciation it was sure to receive. When he came in from his Peekskill country place with great baskets of flowers, the most beautiful always found their way to this household. Miss Anthony recalls one occasion when Mrs. Tilton, slipping her hand through her arm, drew her to the mantelpiece over which hung a lovely water color of the trailing arbutus, and said, "My pastor brought that to me this morning." At another time, when she went on Saturday evening to stay over Sunday, Mrs. Tilton said, as she dropped into a low chair: "Mr. Beecher sat here all the morning writing his sermon. He says there is no place in the world where he can get such inspiration as at Theodore's desk, while I sit beside him in this little chair darning the children's stockings."
In all of these and many similar occurrences Miss Anthony saw nothing but a warm and sincere friendship. To Mr. Tilton Mr. Beecher was as a father or an elder brother. He had placed the ambitious and talented youth where he could achieve both fame and fortune, had introduced him into the highest social circles and shown to the world that he regarded him as his dearest confidential friend, and for years the two men had enjoyed the closest and strongest intimacy. Mrs. Tilton had been born into Plymouth church, baptized by Mr. Beecher, had taught in his Sunday school, visited at his home. He loved her as his own, and she adored him as a very Christ. To these two great intellectual and spiritual magnets, first to one, then to the other, she was irresistibly and uncontrollably drawn. When troubles arose and the two became bitterly hostile, her situation was most pitiable. After matters had culminated and the battle was on, Beecher still spoke of her as "the beloved Christian woman," and Tilton, as "the whitest-souled woman who ever lived." Weak she may have been through her emotions, never wilfully wicked, and far less sinning than sinned against. She was wholly dominated by two powerful influences. Between the upper and the nether millstone her life was crushed.
[78] For full report see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 715.
[79] This has been accomplished (1897) in four States, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho.
[80] The W.C.T.U. did not recognize this fact at the time of their organization but in 1881 they established a franchise department and many of them now advocate suffrage.
[81] Not far from three times as many were at Miss Anthony's lecture as gathered to hear Senator Chandler.—Jackson Patriot.
One of the largest audiences ever in the opera house gathered last evening on the occasion of the lecture of Miss Susan B. Anthony.—Adrian Times and Expositor.
Probably the largest audience ever assembled in Clinton Hall convened to hear-Miss Susan B. Anthony, the celebrated expounder of the rights of women.—Pontiac Gazette.
Since the great Children's Jubilee there has not been so large an audience in the Academy of Music as that assembled to hear Miss Anthony's lecture.—East Saginaw Daily Republican.