The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1857-09-24

wiz k1ICu tnAt military government manages
anersthere In my next, shall be able to
give ~ the verdict.
: MISCELLANEOUS.
llRs SrowE on SPIRIrUALIsM-In the Iade.
Perde 8 Of last week, Harriet Beecher Stowe
mos presses her sentiments upon q warmly
col tro ,erted subject:
DIRE adf1l as this dead, ipfexible silence. Could
there Sc, after the passage of the river, one
backward signal, one lest word, the heart would
De apSeased. There is always something left
1naaiS even when death has come deliberately
and gssen full warning. How much more when
t has sallen like the lightning, and the beloved
haa b<en wrenched from life without parting
look o. word" "There are those who would
have Is think that in our day there are means
which have the power to restore us to the COM
mtlnicsp of our lost ones. How many heart,
wIune and tortured with the anguish of this
fearful silence, has throbbed with strange,
vague hopes at the suggestion When we
hear sometimes, of persons of the stronge
and ssarsst minds becoming creduous votaries
OF ceeAia spiritualistic circles, let rs not won
der. if we inquire, we shall almost always
ind tSat the belief has followed some stroke of
death lit is only an indication of the despera.
ton 81 that heart hunger which in part it ap-
peasei. All, soere it true were it indeed 30
that tSe wall between the spiritual and mater.
al il growing thin, and a new dspensation
germfnating, in which communion with the de-
parted blest shall be among the privileges and
possibilities of this our mortal state All,
were Is so that when we 60 forth weeping in the
gray GAVIN, bearing spices and odors which we
long 20 pour forth for the beloved dead, we
shouts indeed find the stone rolled away, and
an angel sitting on it But for Ms, the stone
must pc rolled away by an unguestiondble an
gel, whose countenance is as the lightning, who
execu-es no doubtful juggle by pale moonlight
or starlight, but rolls back the stone in fair,
open morning, and sits on it. Then we could
bless God for bis mighty gift, and with love, and
awe, ind reverence, take up that blessed fel.
lGwshjp with another life, and weave it rever.
emily and trustingly into the web of our daily
course. But no such angel have we seen. No
| such sublime, unquestionable, glorious mani.
festation. And when we look at what is offer
ed to ns-ah, who that had friend in heaven
could wish them to return in such wise as this :?
The very instinct of q sacred sorrow seems to
| forbid that our beautiful, our glorifed ones.
should stoop lower than even to the medium of
their cast-of bodies to juggle, and rap, and
squeak, and perform mountebank tricks with
tables and chairs, to recte over in weary same
Tess harmless truisms which we were wise
enough TO say for ourselves, to triAe, and ban
Ter, End jest, or to LEAD US through endless
| fnoot shiny maEes; sadly and soberly we say,
that if this be communion with the dead, we
had rather be without it. We want something
little in advance of our present life, and not
beloV it. We have read, with some attention,
weatf pages of spiritual communication pro-
| fessiug to come from Bacon, Swedeuborg, and
othsrs, and long accounts from divers spirits of
things seen In tho spirit-land, and we can con-
aeiv, of no more appalling prospect than to
have them true. If the future life is 80 weary,
atale, Hat, and Improbable, as we might infer
from those readings, one would have reason to
dep,3re an Immortality from which no suicide
couil give outlet. To be condemned to
such eternal pressing would be worse than an.
initiation"
| a SEA-SICK LovER.-The follow letter, pur-
porting to have been found in bottle, on a
voyage from San Francisco to New York, is
supposed 70 be the last adieu of a lover at sea
to his irano...a st home:
"My D0rlin' Julia !: We are goin' down At
least 80 the fust matt Informs me, very soon :;
and that "'71 gentleman advises me to do my
little choars before the fatal stroke ends my
fatal kareer on earth. feel very queer, having
ct no breakfast, and my supper having gone the
wrong wa. The waves is rollin' mountains hi :;
and our dyin' stuard advises pork and molasses
to take my hat and 60 ashore. The captain is
very kind harted, and l am so soft-shell
stummick'd, that he is alawys orderin' me below,
and l feel constantly like comm up. Oh, if
was ashore, I'd never come to sea ag'in, never,
never.
"Just to PLACE me, they've been and sailed
all the wotter. This morning, was sick tn my
stummick, and undertuk to get a drink. o,
you've no idea how salt it was. / asked the
matt what the kause was, and he sed it was on
akkount of al the pork barrels havin' leaked.
"There, now we're goin'! heered the capin
say to large cultured gentleman: You'd better
light the lamps before you 60 down-aDd l can
feel it two. The ship is pitchin, and the sailors
is DUN up the sales tn take 'em ashore, them
kan swim-what kan do? 1 amt ust tn the
Klimate, and the VOTER is 80 damp that cum
into my bunk last mite. All you'll ever no
about me will be this ere bottel, and yu can't
rely upon ever gettin very sartin, the whales is
sow thick in this longertude.
There, we're goin' down. Now /
must seel the bot -
The rest was illegible.
SUMNER IN New ENGLAND-Rufus Choate,
In one of his speeches, introduced the following
unique picture of New England summer, to
illustrate the idea that irreguArity is not ruin:
Take the New England china in summer
you would think the world was coming to an
end. Certain recent heresies on that subject
may have had a natural origin there. Cold
to-day; hot to morrow; mercury at eighty de-
grees IN the morning, with wind at the south
west and in three hours more q sea turn, wind
at east, thick fog from the bottom of the
ocean, and fall of forty degrees of Fahrenheit
now so dry as to kill all the beans in New
Hampshire; then foods carrying off the bridges
OF the Penobscot and Connecticut; snow in
Portsmouth in July, and the next day a man
and yoke of oxen killed by lightning in Rhode
Island. You would think the world was twenty
times coming to an end. But 1 don't know
how it is-we 60 along; the early and the lat
ter rain falls, each in its season seed time and
harvest do not fail, the sixty days of hot, corn
weather are pretty sure to be measured out to
as. The Indian summer, with its bland south.
west and mitigated sunshine, brings all up
pnd on the 18th Of November, or thereabouts.
being Thursday, three millions of grateful peo.
Die, in meeting houses, or around the family
BOARD, give thanks for year of health, plenty,
snd happiness"
ENERGY OF THE BRITISH WAR DEPARTMENT
The London Times, in stating the preparations
made for the reconquest of her Indian empire,
thus effectively groups the results of what has
been done within three months
=" 1t takes long time to rise to the scale of
a grand operation. We are a long time about
1t, and still longer time knowing what we are
about. BY successive efforts of intelligence and
resolution, we are at last sending out q great
expedition to India and most of our readers