Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1853-04-30
IMPosTUREs AND DELUsIoNs.


periods Of the Hunnist Eruption and the grand sys-
tmatic attempt to reconvert the world to Plagiarism,
has there been such tendency of the human mind
t. break out into new and strange schisms and here
SEES as in the present boosted era of civilization and
mental illumination wherein it is the popular argu-
nent that error cannot exist undetected in this nine
tenth century.
1t is within the memory of most of us, that, in
The great and intelligent city of New York, a
centre of arts and learning, a vulgar, ignorant,
ineducated adventurer succeeded in passing him
self off to number Of persons, men and women far
above the average standard of culture and under
standing as Jehovah himself, created considera-
bic sect, and actually deluded his votaries into the
unheard-of madness of forcing their wives to his
the impostor's bed, in the blasphemous hope that
some one of them might become the mother OF
Messiah
The imposture of the insane mllennialist, Miller,
is Of too recent occurrence to have been forgotten
by any of us, with its miserable dupes numbering
literally their hundreds of thousands.
The spread of Mormonism, that gross imposition,
has been more rapid than the early growth of Maho
mechanism, and wider perhaps than ever would have
been that of the Arabian imposture had the latter
not called in .L~ --rnrd aid it's propagation 1t Is
already of the facts Of an age pregnant with won
ders; and what shall be its results, where the ter
minus of its extension, is yet in the womb of time
| Close on the heels of these travelled host OF
new decisions, or old heresies revamped under new
titles mesmerism phrenomagnetisnl, claircoyance,
and, last not least, the arch imposure of the day.
spirituslism all differing in degree between them
selves, but all having general object and ten
dency, more or less openly avowed-that of sub
verting and abolishing the authority of the Bible,
overthrowing the whole Christian system, and erect
ing in its place phantasm of natural religion
At this last heresy it is useless now to laugh, or
to treat with levity, even contempt deluson
which, however absurd and despicable it may ap-
pear to men of sound reason and resoute conyic-
tons, is spreading itself like pestilence through
our borders, carrying with it the madness of inf
deity of sensuous materialism, if not actual athe
ism, and dstracting the minds of the nervous, the
feeble-witted, and the timid into actual insanity.
1t IS not our purpose to inquire, at present. into
the nature of this delusion; whether it be unac-
countable or no; whether it be in all cases mere
mposture; or whether, as is perhaps more proba-
bly, the case, 1t shall turn out to be natural phe-
nomenon, arising from diseased and highly excit-
ed nervous diathess, analogous to that form of ma
MA which afflicted the energumeno, or possessed
of the Scriptures and the many various sufferers of
the middle ages lycanthropists, vampires and spirit
ual fanatics of many denominations, not forgetting
the victims of the Salem witchcraft in our own
country
That there was something of fact, something of
tangible reality, mixed up with all those delusions
is not now doubted; though the fact was not that
the persons, tormented by these strange and highly
contagious disorders of the imagination and the
nervous system, were capable Of changing them
selves INTO wolves, or were actually possessed by
the spirit of evil, any more than that the assumed
sprualists of the present day are capable of hold
ing communications with departed souls, or with
any disembodied spirits whatever In many Of the
frantic fanaticlsms, some of them celebrstad With
horrible and obscene orgies and saturnalia of impe-
~ and madness, il was found necessary, especially
on the continent of Europe towards the close of the
dark ages to call in the aid of the law and to resort
even TO wholesale punshments of the utmost seyeri
", not excepting the infection of DEATH in order to
check their penlous and demoralizing propagation.
And IN the present century, during which SO
much light has been thrown by science on the va
rious and almost inexpcable possessions of the hu
man mind, under various conditions of disease. md
their apparently supernatural and really sitnormal
effects on material bodies it has been effecvelv uraeJ
by "a luminous scientific writer, thu. atbonpb The
Salem hangings were cruel, useless. and lecitimate
as punishments for crime-r.ore particularly for
crime which did not exist., communication with the
demon-they might yet have been necessary in order
70 cut snort tDc growth Of horrible and contagious
species 9. monomania and that there may yet
arse, at future periods, similar or analogous dsor-
ders Of the popular mind, invading and corruptng
the whole body polite which it may in like manner
become necessary to suppress by the strong hand Of
the law. Indeed we might point, az already com
ing within this category, the Rochester knockinrs
with their kindred train Of rascaties and abomina
tons
1t IS rerilous thing in any body polite to in
woke the powers of the State in relation TO matters
appertaining to religion, and involving Tho recogni
ton or maintenance of peculiar sects or churches :
and to the policy Of the United States it is particu
larry foreign and averse, the utmost jealousy pre-
yailing concerning any thing that seems to SAVIOR Of
a connection between Church and State.
The probability, however, is, that in the case of
Mormonism, some Of the practices of which, po-
lygamy in particular, are directly at variance with
moral law, and with the statute laws Of the several
States, or later some legislative action will
be taken, and coercive measures adopted, either to
restrain the practices sanctioned and enjoined by
that so-csled religion or, in default of that to sup
press and prohibit the religion itself with which such
criminal malpractices co-exist.
In like manner it is the general opinion Of well
informed and deep-thinkng persons, that it is al
Il, IL II e al.