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Reader, do you not pity me? Achilles—not the Greek
hero whose wrath caused the Achaians so much
trouble, but our renowned Asmonean—is quite angry
with his poor brother of the Occident, who has
surely unwittingly offended him, by not being
willing to lend his magazine to several
correspondents who wanted to belabour the Jewish
organ in New York city.
In my September number, on
page 307, I said: “They (the friends of Dr. Wise)
communicate us certain doings of the editor of the
latter paper (the Asmonean), which we do not choose
to publish, as we mean not to interfere with our
cotemporary, for we should be taxed with wishing to
injure him for the sake of increasing our
circulation, a charge which we do not care just now
to bring on us.”
So far I of course spoke in
reference to the Asmonean. But the editor, not
satisfied with taking the part intended for himself,
supposes also the next sentence, commencing “But the
acts of baseness which, if true, ought to cover the
perpetrators with everlasting infamy,” &c., refers
to him likewise, when evidently he is not a plural,
perpetrators; and, in consequence, early in
September he demanded, in a tone of authority, what
I had meant by the first sentence, and whether the
second referred to him. He was promptly told that
the second applied to the persons spoken of in the
letter of Dr. Wise’s friends, arid the first had
allusion to the allegation that the editor had
demanded of the latter gentlemen ten dollars for
inserting an explanation, which he afterwards
declined doing, though they were willing to pay, but
berated them soundly, as will appear by a reference
to his paper.
But the Asmonean was not satisfied with my
explanation, though I told him the truth, as he very
well knows; and wanted me, in a letter dated the
25th of September, to insert something apologetic in
the October Occident. Of course his letter, reaching
me on the 27th, came too late for last month, and
now, to satisfy his point of honour, I state
publicly, that all <<422>>readers of the Occident
may know it, that the reason the Asmonean did not
print the resolutions of Dr. Wise’s friends is, that
some were libellous in their character, and could
therefore not appear on any consideration in the
Asmonean; and the others required to be modified in
their grammatical construction to make them suitable
to his taste. This is the substance of the
exposition of the Asmonean, if I understand him
correctly, and I must say that Mr. Lyon was right in
refusing to print resolutions so worded. At the same
time, I can well conceive that the people at Albany
thought that whilst they were charged a specific
sum, the editor would not have published any remarks
of his own, although he might have cause for
refusing to give the subject any farther publicity
in his paper.
My
readers may believe me that I meant to cast no
reflections on the Asmonean in the article referred
to. I had at the same time another piece on my
table, finding fault with the manner in which the
Asmonean was conducted, the writer censuring the
insertion of Dr. Twitchell’s sermon. But I cannot
consent to have a warfare with any journal, as my
space is too limited for the useful articles on
religion which hitherto have constantly presented
themselves; and then, as stated, I could not subject
myself to the charge of wishing to injure my
cotemporary in his circulation. A private
explanation, however, would not satisfy the Asmonean;—why,
I cannot tell. No one surely thought the worse of
him for anything that I have ever said, and he may
believe me, that if his paper had merited a high
encomium, I would have praised it instead of passing
it by in silence. I hope therefore that he will now
be satisfied with this public acknowledgment, at the
same time that I assure him that, if he wishes to
make war on me or my magazine he will find me more
than prepared to defend myself against any charge of
ingratitude which he alludes to in his letters to
me, which, to say the least, are written in the
worst possible taste, especially as he does not seem
willing to satisfy my inquiries on a matter of more
importance than my allusion to his connexion with
the Albany affair. |
