The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1858-12-31
AND EXPOSURE or THE

DECLINE ! AND EXPOSURE OF THE
|ssi-4zk SPIRITUAL HUMBUG.
7 There is remarkable similarity in the his.
tory,ofall popular delusions. On the prin.
cipIe that every dog must have his day, they
run d shorter or longer course, in proportion
'to@the cleverness Of their originators. and
then nrs heard Of no mo-e. If we 90 back
10 the days of Joanna Southcote, frightening
crowds of British Doors, or the magnificent
Law stock gambling with duchesses and car.
dinnls in the Rue Quincnmpoix, to the Count
Cagliostro will, his colossal swindes, or TO a
more rnodern humbug, Nesmer, we shall find
That the crop OF fools always wthered as
rapidly ms IL had been raised. So, too, with
the deusicns of to-day. Ten years ago the
speedy ending of thefmateral world was pre-.
dcted by one Miler,a and thousands of thrifty
Yrusc~e- Land prepared tiiais
ascension robes foras immediate journey to
heaven. Mormonisin came likewise; c;and al
tlough through the opposition which its
practices naturally excited, its existence has
been somewhat more protracted than il would
have been had the Saints been let none se-
verely, yet it may be safely alleged that the
palmy days of Brigham Young and his coad-
tutors are over.
But the most gigantic deuson Of recent
date has been that of Spiritualism. In lii
tie more than year after the Foxes CON-
menced their operations at Rochester, spirits
Of all sorts aud at all prices were rapping,
kicking, writing, tipping and knocking furni-
ture about all over the land. The sauants
were brothered; grave college'professors in
vesiigated the phenomena, and, with owl.ike,
sagacity, came to the conclusion that they
knew nothing about ii. Judgesand Senators
gave in their adhesion 10 the new doctrines,
and consulted the spirits or knotty points in
law or politics. Every second young woman
was medium, and was "longing or thirsting"
for some impossible thing, as i, Appeared
When the medium found an "ailinity" of The
opposite sex, the spirits would frequently in
terlere in the marital relations of the parties,
aud in the most mpertinent way order them
to the aims of some other medium or affinity;
and thus arose the Free Love exctement-
The philosophers of the Tribune, who had
used up all the other isms-abolitonism,
fonrierism, socialism, agrarianism, and so on
--eagerly seized upon the new delusion, and
advocated it in miles of turgd common
PLACES. Itinerant mediums wandered over
the country, gathering money from the in
quistiye, the weak and the creduous. One
mightreally have imagined that, so far as
public enlightenment was concerned, we
were in the ninth ceatpH, ins.eea Of The
nineteenth. n 7s----, l..-'-.
But Spi,tualsm has had its day. Not even
strong adn,iXture of sensualism could keep
it up. Some of its more distinguished advo-
Gates have quietly abandoned the faith
Others, like the strong'mnded Mrs. Cove
Nichols, and the Youngest of the Foxes
Miss Nlnrgaretta--hnve made open rccanta-
ton and sought for pardon from the Roman
Catholic Church. Judge Edmonds, It is said,
wavers in his belief. The Tribune phioso-
piers, like all other rats. We're early in desert.
ing the sinking ship, and there is every indi.
cation that the spirits will rap without custo-
mers before many moons have waned.
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NASHVILLE AND CHATTANOOGA RAILROAD.
The Murlreesboro Telegraph of yesterday.
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