Semi-weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1852-1853, 1853-05-14
Do WE EVER FoRGETa
EeoM THE GERMAN OF .sEYGUERN.

had apparently been long forgotten. In many IN
stances we can explain this by the law OF assocla-
ton; but not unrequently tbs recollection nashes
without warning upon the mind. It Is as though
which, lighted up all at once by sudden 1ash'
should become a theatre upon which the minutest
events of our past life are re-enacted.
> phenomena of this kind more or less distinctly
marked. occur in the experience of every individ-
uaI. in his ordinary and normal states But here,
as in many other cases, great light is thrown upon
the latent capacities of the mind by its action when
physical disease has induced changes in the condi-
tons which regulate its manifestation. The bodi-
Iy organs, in the healthy state, seem to act as
checks and limitations upon the operations OF the
mind, somewhat as the balance-wheel OF watch
checks and regulates the uncoiling of the spring.
We do not know rapidly the wheels may be
impelled until this check is taken OFT. The balance
wheel makes the watch move in time ; and it may
he the limitation of the bodily organs only which
compel the mind to act in reference to time. A
disembodied spirit may have as little to do with
time as with space. To all spirits, in their degree,
as we'll as to the Supreme Sprint one day may IN
the most literal acceptation of the words, be rs
thousand years, and thousand years as one day;
so that in the future life we may continually live
over again every portion of our past existence not
piecemeaI and fragmentarily, but as an undivided
whole just as the eye takes in at single glance
the whole prospect before it, no matter though it
be bounded only by the remotest distance from
which the farthest ray of light has come which
has been coasting earthward since creation.
Something of this sort has been remarked by
those few who have nearly overpassed the boun-
diaries between the present and the future life, that
they have won glimpse into that undiscovered
country from whose bourne" the greatest dramat-
ist assumes, falsely perhaps, mo traveller returns
De Quincy, the English opiumeater, relates
an Incident of this kind of friend who was once
at the point of death by drowning. At the mo-
ment when she was on the verge of death, she
her whole life, down to its minute and apparently
most trivial incident arrayed before her, as if i'll
mirror; and at the same time she felt within her
self the sudden development of a faculty for COM
pretending the whole and every part. And he
intimates that the possibility of this mighty de-
velopment is confirmed by experiences of his
during that abnormal relation between his spritu-
al and physical nature which had been induced by
the use of opium. Abercrombie relates the case
of a bov who, at the age of four years, rend-
cred insensible by some violence, which fractured
his skull. In this state he underwent the operation
of trepanning. After his recovery he retained no
recollection of the operation of the accident
which occasioned it. More than ten years after,
he was seized with violent fever, during which
he became delirous And now the faint traces
made so long ago upon his conscousness-traces
so faint there reason to suspect their exist
ence-were brought out under the fierce alchemy
ofdsease with the utmost distnctness, and he rela
ted the occurrence with the utmost minutencss.
One of the most common phenomena in respect
to old age the re-awkening of the dormant recol
lections of childhood. Many cases are on record
of emigrants who have left our German fatherland,
and have sought new home in America, a: SO
early an age as to have forgotten their native Ian
guage but when, often in the EXTREMIST age, they
lay upon the bed of death, those long forgotten
words came back to their recollection, and their
latest prayers were breathed in that language in
which their cradle-hJInns were sung. One of the
most affecting and truthful deneations in modern
fiction is that in the beautiful English novel; Ma
~ Barton" where the aged peasant woman, when
passing the boundaries of the better land lives
over again the days of her childhood.
Carsten Niebuhr, the oriental traveller father of
our beloved historian and statesman, furnishes a
striking example of the revived recollection of the
scenes and events long past When old and blind,
and so feeble that he had barely strength to be
borne from his bed to his chair, the dim rememb-
RANGES of his early adventures thronged before his
memory with such vvidness, that they painted
Themselves as pictures upon his sightless eyebalIs
As he lay upon his bed, pictures of the gorgeous
Orient flashed upon his darkness as distinctly as
though he had just closed his eyes to shut them
out for an instant. The cloudess blue of the Eas-
tern heavens bending by day over the broad des-
erts, and studded by night with southern constel-
lations, shone as wildly before him. after the lapse
of half century, as they did upon the first Chal-
dean shepherds whom they won to the worship of
the hosts of Heaven; and he discoursed with
strange and thrilling eloquence upon those scenes
which thus in the hours of stiffness and darkness
were reflected upon his lamented soul.
The case of Tennent, a we'll known American
clergyman of the last century, opens up many in
teresting trains of thought; but none more worthy
of consideration than this of the sudden revival of
recollection He attacked by dangerous i'll
ness, oceasoned, apparently, by severe and pro-
tracted study. One morning, after his life had
been despaired Of while conversng in Latin with
his brother, he suddenly became insensbe, and,
to all appearance, dead. His funeral was appoint
ed after the usual interval. But his physician,
who was an intimate friend, refused to believe
that he could be dead whose conviction was some
what supported by the averment of one of the per-
sons who assisted in laying out the body, that he
thought he had perceived slight warmth in the
region of the heart. So earnest was the physician
that the funeral was postponed the time was again
appointed, and again and again the friend pleaded
for little delay-hrst an hour, then half an hour
then quarter-but still no signs of life appear
ed, and it was determined that the ceremony
should proceed. But just at the supreme moment
the sunken eyeids were raised for an instant. and
the body became once more an apparent corpse.
An hour passed away, and another groan was heard.
and again the body sunk into apparent death.
Another hour, and there was another groan. fol-
lowed now by slight tokens of returning life The