Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1879-06-05
THE POCASSET SACRIFICE.
What an English Paper Has 10
Say About IL.
London News. |

The terrible story of a human sacri-
fee offered in Pocasset, Massachusetts,,
has not unnaturally caused great stir
in America. There is in POcasset sect
Of religious persons who call themselves
the Church of the Second Advent. Amer
lea, which is like Russia in many re-
spects, resembles the Scalvonic country
in the number and strangeness of its re-
hgiOus sects. Followers of N. Taine
might plausibly argue that similar phys
ical causes, and an almost identical en-
vironment, have produced or stimulated
similar instructions of religious fervor.
If the crime had been perpetrated in a
remote and newly settled Western State,
instead of the most cultivated and set
tied of the New England States, it would
have been less extraordinary. In the
far Western States, as in Russia, the
plains and pine forests stretch endlessly
Offering always the same depressing
landscape. Here and there is a clearing,
with its air of untidiness, and every few
score Of miles comes town, so new that
1t seems absolutely raw. Multitudes of
half-6nished houses stand about streets
deep in mud or dust, and seemed with
wheel-ruts worn foot deep. In winter
there is montonous waste of snow,
mud and pine trees; in spring the roads
can scarcely be used by wheeled vehicles:
it is what the Russians call 'the season
Of evil ways" in summer the monotony
Of binding sunlight beats on the arid
clearings, and on the white split wood Of
the pines. In this uniformity of land
scape, and in the lonely shanties and
towns where amusement is out of the
question, men and women must have ex-
element and in Russia, as in some parts
Of the Western States, excitement is
found in religion. Strange sects are
founded, like that of The Skoptsi, who i'm
itate the horrid fanatieism of the an
cient priests of Cybele. The Russian
rGskolniks have SO often been prosecuted
by Government that they naturally seek
the deepest forests and loneliest dwell
ings among the swamps. Here and there,
it is probable they have adopted the
heathenish practices which survive
among the Finnish tribes in distant re-
cesses of the unwieldly Empire. The
American religionists, not being op-
pressed by authority, find a more harm
less safety-valve in huge "camp-meet-
ings" and "revivals." A modern novel
ist has drawn a very humorous picture
Of these exciting scenes. which have Lit.
tie effect. he says, ON the moral conduct
of the devotees. A farmer who tries to
sell horse at a hundred dollars above
its worth before the camp-meeting is not
unlikely to add another fifty after join
ing in ecstatic hymns, and listening TO
many sermons. 1t has been observed,
too, in England as well as in America,
that the sudden strain of passionate
mental excitement in persons otherwise
accustomed to give the brain an entire
rest, has broken down the equilibrium
By some such sudden spasm of insanity
we must explain the crime of Charles
Freeman, of Pocasset. He has done
what it is whispered that the wild tribes
by the Volga sometimes do-he has killed
his little daughter by way of formal
sacrifice and Precipitation of heaven.
For some days before doing this dread
full deed, Freeman went about declaring
that he had received wonderful revela-
tion. If he had been living among sane
and sensible people he would have been
watched, and the doctor would have been
called in. Adose or two of medicine
or the letting Of little blood, would
have prevented a terrible crime, and
saved a society of harmless and relig-
ious, if not very well educated or ration
al people from. cruel imputation.
There seems to have been no one save
his wife in the house with him when he
declared that DO must immediate his lit