From the Cortland Standard of Cortland, NY
Thursday, December 12, 1878

   Theodore Tilton must have been in a condition of anything but 'heart's ease' when he reached Cortland on Tuesday evening last, to deliver his lecture on that subject. The sweeping away of a bridge on the Midland had prevented the running of the regular afternoon train from DeRuyter to Cortland, and had compelled him to make a journey of twelve miles or more on a hand-car in a driving rain. It was after 8:30 when he appeared on the platform at Taylor Hall and began his lecture before a meagre audience.

   The evening was so stormy, and the uncertainty as to whether the lecturer would arrive was so great, that many persons who had secured reserved seats did not attend, and very few general admission tickets were sold. The lecture was not, as the title might suggest, of the sentimental or romantic order, but practical and suited to the times. It began with a reference to the hard times, which were declared to be making the country 'a rich man's purgatory and a poor man's hell.'

   How the hard times were to be improved, Mr. Tilton did not undertake today. Almost every one has a different theory. What the nation needs is 'heart's ease' till the times grow better. The functions of the heart in the human frame were described, the labor which it performs and the manner in which it is overtaxed in broken down. Some rather startling facts and figures were given to show how intemperance, violent athletic exercise, and over-work in ordinary business tell upon this important organ.

   "Hurry, flurry and worry," Mr. Tilton declared are the three sculptors who are chiseling out a typical American face - long, sharp-chinned, flat-cheeked, cadaverous and anxious. America is the country where everything must be done in twenty minutes. To counteract this driving, worrying tendency, he would have the people cultivate a courage or pluck which rises as fortune declines. He would have them strive to attain cheerfulness and content, to cheris those affections which find their fullest development in the home, to acquire that intellectual culture which makes books a source of never-failing consolation, and to cultivate those religious feelings which find their richest nourishment in the Bible and in the Christianity which it teaches, and which can bring peace and happiness in poverty as well as in riches.

   The relations between labor and capital were also touched upon, and the two events which had done most to destroy confidence and continue hard times were declared to be the Pittsburgh riots and the failure of the Glasgow bank; and the rioters and the bank directors were placed on the same plane of guilt. The lecture was one of deep interest, and was very effectively delivered.

NOTE : According to the Dictionary of American Biography (1936 edition) Vol. 18, Pages 551-553, Theodore Tilton (Oct. 2, 1835 - May 25, 1907) was a well known journalist and reporter for the New York Tribune. One of his regular assignments was to take down in short hand the sermons of Henry Ward Beecher, a noted Brooklyn, NY preacher and brother of author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Tilton's lecture was quite prophetic. Nothing has changed other the names and faces.