{
Private.
Click to add citation to My Citations.
Elmira, July 31.
‸E. P. Ackerman, Esq‸
1
Dear Sir:
My friend Beecher has sent me your note (inquiring into the trustworthiness of my account of his proposed church) & asks me to answer it.—which I do in this wise: In got the first place I heard Mr. Beecher, months ago, describe ‸(from his pulpit)‸ the sort of church he desired to have built—& he mentioned every particular that is mentioned in my article, as nearly as I remember, baths & all. Here lately I got from an old personal friend (a member of the building committee,) the details of the projected edifice stri exactly as they are set forth in my article.2
If I ‸erred‸ anywhere, it was in stating positively that the church would be built on that plan, when perhaps I ought not to have gone so far. As close ‸near‸ as I can come to ‸at‸ it, I did not utter a falsity, in so speaking, but divulged too much, considering the fact that building committees’ ‸& pastors’‸ powers are not absolute, & that their determinations are best kept to themselves till they are irrevocably compacted into brick & mortar. ‸However, the plan for the church is not likely to be altered.‸
Very Repy Yours
Samℓ. L. Clemens.
Explanatory Notes
Click to add citation to My Citations. 1
Edward P. Ackerman of Brooklyn, New York, edited the Cherub, a magazine published by J. Latham and
Company, patent medicine manufacturers (Wilson 1871, 24; Mott 1957, 39 n. 54; “Mark Twain on
the New Beecher Church,” Buffalo Courier, 16 Sept 71, Supplement, 1).
Many members of all congregations have no good
bathing facilities, and are not able to pay for them at the
barber-shops without feeling the expense; and yet a luxurious bath
is a thing that all civilized beings greatly enjoy and derive
healthful benefit from. . . . In speaking of this bath room project,
I have revealed a state secret—but I never could keep one
of any kind, state or otherwise. Even the congregation were not to
know of this matter; the building committee were to leave it
unmentioned in their report, but I got hold of it—and
from a member of that committee, too—and I had rather
part with one of my hind legs than keep still about it. The
bath-rooms are unquestionably to be built, and so why not tell it?
(SLC 1871) Ackerman probably published Clemens’s letter
in the Cherub. It was published in full in the
Buffalo Courier and in part in the Hartford Courant, both on 16 September 1871
(“Mark Twain on the New Beecher Church,”
Supplement, 1; “Odds and Ends,” 2). On 6 December
1871, Beecher wrote to Olivia Clemens in appreciation of the attention
Clemens’s article had drawn “to the quiet devices
of a country parson. . . . I might have preached & printed to
no effect, but that Clemens published. Look at him gratefully, therefore
& say—well done” (CU-MARK).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 2
Ackerman’s letter to Thomas K. Beecher has not been
found. In “A New Beecher Church,” in the July American Publisher, Clemens described
Beecher’s innovations, among them “six bath-rooms!—hot and cold
water—free tickets issued to any applicant among the unclean
of the congregation.” The idea was “sound and
sensible”:
Source text(s):MS, in Edward P. Ackerman’s autograph album, The New York Public
Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (NN).
Previous publication:
L4, 439–440; “Mark Twain on the New Beecher
Church,” Buffalo Courier, 16 Sept 71,
Supplement, 1, with omissions; “Odds and Ends,”
Hartford Courant, 16 Sept 71, 2, excerpt.
