The daily republic. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1853-1853, 1853-08-08

tallty examines the walls which separate the Unite
from the infinite with the scrutiny of an imprison
ed captive. Ii has explored the many avenues
which apparently led to the object of their solic-
tude but like the devious paths ola labyrinth they
have ever returned to the nonotonous
prison. Thought has added no cubt to the alti
tude of man 3 perceptions, nor has it heightened
by moment the term of his allotted existence.
1t has neither ghtened the burden of instructive
care, nor softened the pangs of inevitable NOR
tally. Every age has had its vain device to
modify these memorable decrces-to wrest from
the grasp of God the key of destiny, or to win by
supplication the secret of our being, yet we know
no more than He, in the plentude ofhis mercy, has
chosen to reveal.
The priests of Isis and of Ephesus, not salts
fled withimposing their mysticism upon mankind,
deceived themselves with the studies of magic.
Science at later day attempted the impious inn
possibility of building tower Of refuge from the
laws of fate. 1t would have prolonged human
life indefinitely by an alchemic elixir, and thus
have escaped future punishment; it employed the
abstrusc formula of astrology to obtain the attri-
butte Of prescience, and it sought in the dreams of
metallurgy the qualification of those unholy de-
sres that vice, ambition, and avarice have engen-
dered. The superstition of the world punished
with death those who pretended to penetrate
the mysteries of moral nature, and con-
founded with them even the practical dis
coveres of material philosophy Yet error is as
immortal as truth. The present age has the
insane aspirations. 1t proposes to establish d.
rect communication between the living intelli-
gence of this world and the spiritual inhabitants
of eternity. Notwithstanding, that reason has
failed to explain the connection between mind and
matter, notwithstanding that science has watched
with straining eyes the relation between volition
and physical action--the moment when inert mat
ter awakens to existence or-its mysterious sepa-
ration from the organism which it had animated
still neither reason nor experiment can
g. wrench from death
Aught that can make or shake or can confirm a
faith
Yet when the robed hierophant of the Nile or
of Corinth, the Chaldean or Persian Magi, the
astrological Albumazais, with the garnered learn
ing of the past, or the alchymists with the capri
cious experiments of science, the philosopher
with the legitimate deductions of natural reason
have utterly failed to achieve; when they have
expiated their folly in chains, poverty, madness,
and death; when more intellectual giants, who
would have scaled Heaven itself in the audacity
of their designs have been hurled headlong down
the steep they aspired to climb; when the whole
world had SO far advanced in true wisdom as to
feed in humble contentment upon that sacred Cos
pei which not only assured them of their inexora-
BILE mortality, but taught that, so far from seek
ing to avoid its law their happiness can only COM
mence with its fulflment-all that divines, magi-
nd h,vo Ca lad H.
reserved for the Misses Fox, of Rochester, New
York. These enterprsing damsels, availing them
selves of certain mysterious attributes, have esta
blished an intelligence Office where, for not much
more than the Stygian ferriage, one may commu-
nicate with those who have passed from existence
to eternity.
In this enterprise there is nothing very remarka-
Bile. Persons influenced by insanity or knavery have
attempted to impose upon mankind even grosser
frauds; but it would be strange if with the histo-
ry of the past and the knowledge of. the present
any respectable number of people should be
brought to believe that disemboded spirits could
reopen correspondence with the things of earth,
and employ the Fox express to communicate with
their friends, as if they had gone on journey and
forgotten to leave their keys. With the awe with
which all rational minds regard the subject, the me-
dia now claiming to be the sole conductors of the
spiritual fluid are not precisely the class we should
have expected to have been entrusted with the
exclusive duty. We should have supposed it
would have been committed to priests, whose
lives are sacred to the duties of interpreting the
word or impressing the precepts of God, or to
philosophers, who were devoted to the abstract
and wholly Indifferent to the material But the
ladies seem to be the preferred vehicles of the
spiritual conrersa=ion; and misses in their teens
standing upon that momentous line which sepa-
rates the boarding school from the ballroom,
seem to be preferred.
We do not of course wonder at the good taste off
the spirits; but we must say that since all teach
ngs had induced us to believe in the intellectual
improvement of the disembodied spirit, we are
somewhat disa ppointed in the apparent decline
which men, distinguished for their eoquence or
wisdom whilst ON earth, seem to have undergone
But we ask pardon of Professor Page, to whose
valuable little book upon this subjects our readers
are indebted for this essay He, with Professor
Faraday and Silman, have rendered the world
great service by their able exposures of the rdic
ulous pretensions of the pretended science. He
has given the particulars Of an extended interview
with Madame and the M lies Fox, and convicts
those fairspirts of system of imposture too him-
sy, we should have thought, to have deceived any
one The Professor thinks the M lies Fox produce
the rappings by sort of mechanism concealed
within their millinery; with this they operate
somewhat like those swapping bugs that our read
ers must have seen, and SO tick out spiritual
message with all the punctualty of Morse or
O'Riley.
is 80 MT at he
transparent imposition that he seems to have been
almost tempted to invade that sanctity of apparel
which should ever protect the fairer sex. For, as
''an Englishman's house is his castle, so is the
pettcoat very Gibraltar even against inquiries,
although demanded by the good of society and of
science. So the Professor walked around the