Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-05-09
THE List SPIRITUILISTIC SENStI-
TION.

DOCK OIL SplTlLudllSlu NY 11oAly 1AIueAo, GA4o
superintendent of the public schools of that
city. The publication was the first intelli-
gence any one had received of the CONVEX
sion of Mr.. Riddle to this modern mania, and
very naturally the book has created sensa-
ton, far greater than it deserved, simply be-
cause of the position he occupies as an in
structor of the young. The book is an am
bilious one, containing communications from
some of the most noted men of every time
the apostle Peter, Shakespeare, Lafayette,
Byron, Poe, Prince Albert and many others.
1t is little singular to note, however, that
these distinguished lights of the literary
world, while on earth remarkable for their
intellectual vigor, have been so mentally de-
bilitated by contact with something in the
spiritual world that they have degenerated
into driviling idiots. 1t is enough to drive an
admirer of the immortal bard to the DEM
milton bow-wows to be asked to believe he
sent such poem as this to convince mortals
of the Immortality of the soul and its con-
slant progress towards perfection:
Reincarnation my kind hearers, you will never
find,
But in the line of fervency of mind.
For the treasures of earth
Are of heavenly birth;
And, unless you repress the long ings of flesh,
The pleasures of heaven will flow not to the
breast.
But within the depths of the basin of rest
You will find yourselves kept by hand of dis
| sension.
Which, perhaps, you may call, in your hearts
| best intention,
Incarceration, but not incarnation.
It requires great stretch of the i'm agi-
nation to believe that Byron, that master of
beautiful verse and pure diction, perpetrated
this horrible literary monstrosity Oh ''Ihe
World of Dark Spirits:''
Oh! my friends in Gods love, whose hapless
fate
It is now to feel when, alas! too late,
The sorrows that come from sinful career,
Not mine to exult; but in anguish and fear,
To gaze into that dark abyss of woe, where
They are suffering the horrors Of black despair;
While signing and mourning, and lingering
awhile,
Round the sacred ashes of funeral pile,
OH dark is the vision for them and for me;
For, alas! too plainly my spirit can see
That ray Of light is around them thrown,
All hope in the mercy of God having flown.
The communications from Lafayette, Poe,
Prince Albert and St. Peter are all apparent
ly the products of very idiotic spirits, and
prove connclusively that when the human
soul enters the better land hereafter it leaves
all intelligence behind save that which may
remain to the inmates of madhouse, or else
it proves conclusively that the pretended
communications from the spirit world are
, arrant humbugs, and the spiritualistic me-
diums either fools or knaves. One would
think that a person like Riddle, supposed t.
be possessed of ordinary intelligence-or a
. least sufficient to be instructor in the public
9 schools of a great city-would hesitate long
: before accepting such trash as the literar,
= work of men eminent in this world for men
4 tai strength, and still longer before attempt
t ing to palm the balderdash off upon an in
: te]ligent community.
l., We believe there is no law in existence t,
t prevent any man from making a fool O
: himself. Nevertheless the people of New
York are greatly exercised over the book
silly though it is, and are discussing whethe
or not it is safe to entrust the education O
IS their children to man afflicted with sue
n lunacy. What they are going to do abou
J. it remains to be seen. Riddle himself in
y sists that he is perfectly sane, but we
J. grounded doubt on the subject has been in
J. spired in the minds of all who have peruse
" the rawlings with which the pages of hi
n book overflow. The probabilities are tbs
10 he will be declared unfit for the position b
r now occupies, not in spirit of persecutio
n for opinions sake, but to prevent his excl
IS cising an injurious influence upon the min6
l. of the pupils under his care.