St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-12-11

certain: faithful clergyman is exempt
from none of the annoyances which are
incidental to the common lot He is the
most bothered and hardestworked man
among us. He earns every penny of
his small salary, which too often is flung
in bis face like bone to dog. He
merits the honest respect of the many
who misunderstood him..
SCIENCE VS.. SUPERSTITION.
In country village down in the
southern part of the state, near the
Iowa line. is Catholic church, the de-
vOtional center of the countryside.
Some time since some one thought he
discovered in one of the window panes
the outlines of human face. 1t may
have been due to those irreg ularities so
common in glass, aided by a fervent i'm
agination; it may have been purely
imaginative. Others have protested to
see IT.; still others see nothing. Of
course there was no face there. But the
fact that some one or more said they
saw it, in connection with the place
where they saw it, appealed to
that belief in the supernatural which
centuries of increasing familiarity
with nature have not yet wholly
eliminated from the human mind.
The word spread rapidly through
the country, and the story grew as it
spread. The little church became the
object of the visits of the superstitious.
People came from far and near. The
lame, the halt and the blind came to say
their prayers beneath the window. IRi-
aginatiye complaints yielded to the i'm
aginatiye cure. The sick were healed;
the lame threw away their clutches and
walked unaided; the blind saw. 1t was
miracle. In vain the good bishop of
the diocese protested; to no avail he
closed the church. Still the daily train
brought its load of pilgrims. Mean
while, the merchants, the vendors of
food and shelter, the tradesmen of the
village. thrived on the trade the vision
brought them. They were too human
to discourage that which brought them
increase of store. 1t is surmised that
they aided the imaginative scribe who
RECALLED the press with glowing accounts
of the miracle and its cures.
In this country and in the nations Of
Europe are societies of psychical re-
search. The members are patiently in
veStigating those uncanny occurrences
whicn men have attributed to supernat-
ural causes. They publish we'll au-
thenticated instances of the marvellous.
They show that persons dying at dis
tant places have appeared to their rel
atives; messages are received through
mediums who are ignorant of the send
erS or receivers or of the facts com :
municated. That mysterious power
called hypnotiSm, which some persons
have over others, is considered a phe-
nomenon worthy of scientific search.
Thought transference, mind reading,
Spiritism, are all conceded to have
some basis of fact, and the search is be-
ing made for the yet unknown forces
which cause them. The societies deal
with the supernatural denying that it is
such. They would demonstrate that all
that men deem above nature is but an
misunderstood manifestation of nature.
In the efforts of these societies we
find the cure for the superstition which
draws the crowd of deluded people
from near and far to see the face in the
window i'll the little church down in
Canton. Instead of passing by the man
ifestations of some force which we do
not yet understand the workings of as
unworthy of serious investigation; in
stead of treating them as illusions of
diseased minds, they proceed to investl-
gate, gather facts, sift them, collate
them, analyze and classify them, conf
dent that in this search into natures
secrets, as in other fields of science. the
law of causation will sooner or later be
discovered and the marvellous will be
the commonplace.