BROOKLYN BRIDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 247, 18 October 1893, Page 6

BROOKLYN BRIDGE.

that marvellous structure of chain and net work in iron which cros?os tho East River. Light and airy, graceful and elegant, Brooklyn Bridge is excelled in massiveneas and in length by the Forth, Tay and St. Lawrence bridges, bub io beauty and stability by noue. It baa a Bpan of 1,600 feet from water's edge to water's edge and yet can bear tho constant traffic of two ltnea of cars, two waggon roads and two footpaths. Its total longth is 5,987 feet, and its height above water 135 feet. Brooklyn city to which it loads, with a population of 806,343, is practically a suburb of Now York, in which manyof tho Now York merchants reside— which circumstance has procured ior ib the name of tho Dormitory of New York—and will probably before long be incorporated in the larger city to enable it to keep ahead of Chicago, which is threatening to dispute v/ith it the paim of precedence in sizo and importance. Brooklyn is more remarkable for its shady avenues than Now York and hence is moro enjoyable to live in during tho scorching days of pu tamer. In other respects it closely reat:aibies its sister city across tho river. From tho number of its ecclesiastical editicod it has been called 'Tho City of Churches.' Till tho other day it was the city of Henry Ward Beecher, who, alau, no more thrills the hearts of men with his oloauoncs. Lyman Abbott reigns in his ebead, 8 clergyman of no mean power but incapable of filling tho nicho left vacanb by tho mighty genius who in anti-slavery days andthroughoub tho Civil War was worth battalions to the North. Perhaps the best known minister today in Brooklyn is Taimage, but oven ho with his crowded Tabernacle, in tho walls of which are9tones from Mount Sinai and Calvary, cannob bo mentioned alongsido ot Beecher. Without disparaging tho ability of tho ono or exaggerating tho excellencies of the olhor it"may be .said that Tahnago is an actor and rhoiorician, whereas Beecher was an orator and philosopher. If Talmnge can move the masses Beechor could sway tho thinkers of the country. Beecher wae a statesman as well as prcachor ; Taimage is . distinctively a pulpiteer. Tho large debtj which rested on Tiilmngo's church he lately told his people hari been liquidated, lie did not mention blmt the wny in which thab had boon dono was such as could hardly claim the approDation of honest men. Ib was, in fact, A Nkw Way of Paying Ciiumt Debt. Tho Church had practically doclarod itself bankrupt and compounded with its creditors. Tho Now York papers of the times were particularly eoro upon the questionable morality of tho act; but so far as I can sco thoro wa>i nothing questionable about the act. Ib was wholly and sololy wrong. If thoro bo any institutions that should provide things honest in tho Bighb of all mon these aro Churches. A Church thab pays to its creditors thirty conts. in the dollar, i.e., six shillings in tho pound, should nover again bo ablo to hold up its hoad. It is to bo bopod that this inothod of discharging church obligations will novor bocomo fashionable on this Bide of tho water. Dr. Taimage and his people suroly did not stop to consider what a blow to religion their conduct would give and how much ib would do to lower thorn in tho esteem of all good men. Lob uh hopo thab thoy will yet cash up, and bo ' owe no man anything bub to lovo ono another.'