The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1850-06-06


wise and the creduloas and seem even 70 nav
CROPPED their way into ale Slate OF steady nap
its.p The family Of . worthy clergyman OF STRAIT
ford has been favored by mysterious visitation
probably from the legitimate descendants OF the
aSalem witches that turned the heads of the
GOOD old Massachusetts, divines, in the days Of
aud lang synen
- Our human nature kindlcs at the first intima-
ton of peep into the unseen and the future, as
the eve of dungeon-caged captive at the first
crash of his jailers key in bis lock. An individ-
nal instance may serve to illustrate the popular
feeling in general, on this subject.
oIt is passing strange said an intelligent
friend. a few months since--one who had visited
and held communion" with the "spiritsn that
shadow the footsteps of the Rochester damsels.
aI.dont really Gl;eS ip them.n sha added in
answer to some expression Of Incredibly; "but
tell you, investigation-mine, at least--can
make nothing of it. The matter is wholly mex
plicable to me-"
A young poet, who was listening to her, kim
died at the suggestion. "And why may it not
be truth ," he unused, uprising his fine eye,
with its glance perhaps, on the Past. "Wby
may not the loved and lost speak to us this side
the river of Death? We know they are with us.
Why may not these human ears hear them--per-
haps the eyes they loved behold them?"
The organ here struck up its "merry Christ
mas peal and the tf,e-a-teie Of our little party
was hushed, but not the thoughts it awakened.
Our age has, in some points, well deserved its
distinguishing title, "the unitarian "-the prac-
teal, par excellence. The Greek, in the simple
hearted credulity of his Pantheism, used to ask
pardon of the Dryad before rousing her dying
shrek in the falling oak. What thinks the lum-
herman of Maine, whistling among his crisping
SHOWS, of life in his pines, rustic they never SO
spiritually to the breath of the Northwestern 2
Who could imagine Nymph or Naiad twining
her white arms around the iron prov of the
steamship that rules her old domain? What
prairie plough thinks of turning up the men in
green" from the virgin soil of the West dew
baptized and fower-sprinkled, from Edens first
hour to this2
The world, in its infancy-like the mind In its
childhood-dista,t>d Axe sAAae-~ of ..ahss~s
into vague, supernatural unrealities. Philoso-
piers of certain school tell us, that these early
Illusions (so-called in both instances, were, and
are, bright reflections from the great ocean Of q
past existence, which we leave too far behind us
in the journey Of life. So sang that mighty in
tcrpreter of Nature, whom she has just taken to
her bosom. Wordsworth, through childhood
Of eighty years, ceased not to
uS,e the children sport upon the Shore
And hear the mighty waters roll forevsrmore !"
The theory is beautiful, but is it true2 Where
philosophers, like doctors, disagree" the unin-
tiated must await the result.
But a new race seems to be springing up from
the buried teeth of the old dragons Of mythol-
oyy and goblnology. Psychology, biology, and q
host Of mystic ologes beside have arisen in -four
ishing array. An age cannot be called altogether
practical, which threatens to exalt Mormonism
into the sovereignty Of State; which swallows
undigested, by the Wholesale, the revelations
Of Andrew Jackson Davis and his oompeers and
the ten thousand contradictions Of Clairvoysnoe
& Co., enshrining their mysteries even within
college walls, and which lifts lite ear timorously
and TREMENDOUSLY at a roguish rap in Rochester or
Stratford
"The power of strong mind over weak"
one has filled the world with mysteries enough,
before and since it sent Leonora Galignani to
the stake for sorcery. Mind is itself mystery
Life is a mystery. Whence came wei Whittier
are we going? What is our life-mission in this
strange world2 These are mysteries which the
worlds wisdom for ages has striven to fathom,
and striven vainly, whenever 1t has thrown aside
the only talisman of Truth That talisman 10
faith in the Book which bids us "believe not ev-
cry spirit, but try the spiritso
We feel that our lives have been given us at
the era Of great discoveries. We seem like a
blindfolded child in the portico Of vast temple,
whose gigantic area he measures by the empty
echoes his own shout wakes, as he gropes along
toward Its walls We are looking forward to the
solution Of yet unread problems in the volume
Of Mind, as well as Of Matter, and, perhaps, not
unreasonably. But, while voices come from the
leaf-bsrks that float on the waves Of popular ex-
citement, crying, Lo here or 10 there ~ II is
fitting TO remember that there is one guiding
Spirit, mighty in oil knowledge, ever present
with the humblest heart. We need not wander
and stumble in dark labyrinthine paths to find
Truth
We are told of ministering spirits.r BY
to doubt their mission. But they come never "a
torment or terrify-they hold no communion
with the eye or ear Of sense. In that solemn
hour when the soul hovers halfway between two
worlds, when the veil Of earthly vision grow,
transparent with the dawning light of eternity
IL may bet must be-that revealines through
that veil are sometimes given.
little girl, in family Of my acquaintance, q
AND precocious child, lost her mother at an
A m pl IN n tho
membrane. She was rail as beautiful. and 4,
the bud Of her heart unfolded, Il seemed as h
Fon by that mothers prayers 10 turn instjnctivsly
hesven!srd. The sweet, considerations anf
prayer-ovine child was the idol Of the bereaved
family. But she faded away esrlv an. Sor,S
lie upon the lap OF the friend who took = moshsrs
KIND care OF ner ane winding one wasted arm
my mammsin And when the of.so,S I ~,
had been repeated, she would ask, eoftly, GTaL
me into the parlor; want to see my mamma :,
The request was never refused and the aFao
tionate sick child would lie for hours oontentedl
gazing on her mothers portrait. But
Pale and van she grew, and weakly
Bearing al her pains 20 meeky,
That {, them she stiI grew dearer,
Az the trial-bour drew neArsrp
That hour cana at last, and the weeping neigh
bors asembled to see the little child die. Tn
uew OF death was already on the flower, as II
nie-sun was going down. The little chest heave
fAintly-spasmodically.
do you know me, darling y sobbed, close 4
her ear, the voice that was dearest bat Il awok
no answer All at once . brightness, a. II fror
tse upper world, burnt over the child's colorles
oouo'snsnce. The eyelids flashed open, the lip
little ones last impulsive effort A. shs iook !,
piercingly into the far above