The Brookhaven ledger. (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1876-05-18
De the Brookhaven Etdger

little crooked. 1t is very evident thai
the world is balanced on the back OF 9
huge tortoise, because-well, because
it stands to reason. The sun, moon and
stars were created to give light, and
pay homage to this great world Of ours
and still greater We. Therefore, who
soever says that this world is as round
as an apple and eircumravigates empty
space without wings or fins, "let him
be Anathema Marenthea." The fact
is, whatever does not agree with the
catechism is not true, and that's m end
ont.
We are told Of a young man who,
once upon q time, owned a ing, who, in
the course OF human events, fell heir to
his fathers jug, and who, feeling his re-
sources increased by the acquisition,
felt justified in taking both to the still
house to get them filled. When pre-
pairing to start home he put both jngs
in one end of the bag and a stone in the
| other end to balance them, at which
the man at the still house suggested the
propriety of putting a jug in each end
to balance each other; to which he re-
piled with an air of offended dignity:
"Who ever heard of such q thing? My
father ALWAYS balanced his Jug with a
stone"
We laugh at the crude philosophy of
our country swain, while we ourselves
are coolly slowing both our jugs in the
same end Of the bag and looking about
for a big stone to make them balance.
We have a strange veneration for
| things and ideas hallowed by time and
sanctifed by custom. Like Professor
Marsh, we brave the t%omahawk Of the
savage and the wrath of Government
thieves to dig up a few bones OF extinct
animals, while the whole domain of civ
ilization teens with animals instinct
with life and perfect in form and beau
ty. Perhaps there is no peculiarly OF
our nature more antagonistict to intel
~lectual progress than our blind venera-
ton for fossil remains. We turn away
from the attachments of modern genius
and things of living beauty, and linger
with strange affection about the graves
of defunct theories and obsolete ideas,
merely because they have the sanction
of great names and are covered with the
dust and overgrown with the moss of al
tiouity. We meet almost every day
men who have stood unmoved and un-
dismayed amidst the thunders and car
mage of the battlefield, who have not the
moral courage to examine with fairness,
or yield to the convictions of a new
idea.
Within the past three months, three
prominent ministers of the gospel OF
three different denominations took oc.
casion in the course Of their rmo to
belabor Spiritualism with a might and
will which no doubt made His Colored
Majesty tremb,e in his boots and feel
serious ap~prehensions for the stability
of his throne: but he was soon relieved
by hearing them proclaim with an elo-
auent pathos that would have been tru-
ly refreshing to Brother Watson or
Judge Edmonds and have made the
Witch of Endor dance with Joy, the
characteristic doctrines of Spiritualism,
with only this difference: that, whereas,
the spirits of the departed, according to
the preachers, who lowered about the
habitations of the living, We're invisi
BILE and spoke to the loved one in whis-
pers, while the spirits of Brother Wat
son stood forth revealed to the eye, like
Moses and Elias on the holy mount, or
the spirit of the martyr who talked with
the exile of Patmos in visible form and
in audible words.
When we remember the hard things
that have been said about our holy re-
ligion and holy men from the founda-
ton of the Church; the SANDERS utter
ed and believed in high places against
the primitive Christians, the malicious
charges of fraud, falsehoOd and duplic-
ity often made against holy men in our
day, we are not surprised that a system
so new and startling in it's phenomenal
developments as spiritualism should be
traduced by the unthinking multitude;
but hat men of education, thought and
mental discipline should condemn, with
out mercy, men and opinions as wise
and good as themselves, is not only SUI
prising, it is amazing. And yet, many
of the great problems in philosophy and
science have been solved by the light
of the latter-day glory, have passed a
similar ordeal-not because of the rev.
elation of new facts, but because of the
dissipation of old theories.
am tempted to repeat the old aphor-
ism, Consistency, thou art a jewel"
IsHMAEL.