EDITOR'S TABLE. 



269 



we should expect that with the growth 

 of intelligence they would disappear. 

 But this process is very slow. The 

 superstitions became the nucleus of or- 

 ganized religions, and are contained in 

 a thousand theologies. Yet these be- 

 liefs at length lose their grosser forms ; 

 many of them are dissipated, others mod- 

 ified. They influence men's conduct less 

 and less, and are finally held as mere 

 empty traditional beliefs. Just in pro- 

 portion to the increase of men's knowl- 

 edge of nature, superstition has relaxed 

 its stringency. As science grows, and 

 the exploration and cultivation of this 

 world become more absorbing, there is 

 necessarily less attention given to the 

 other world. This is deplored by many 

 as a decline of faith. They raise loud 

 lamentations over the decay of religion, 

 the apathy of churches, the spread of 

 materialism, and the extension and 

 deepening of scientific influence. As a 

 consequence, we now and then find men 

 brooding over this state of things until 

 the restraints of reason and common 

 sense give way, and they announce them- 

 selves as divinely called upon to per- 

 form some great work that shall startle 

 a faithless age, and kindle anew the old 

 fervor of spiritualistic belief. Two such , 

 relapses into rank primeval superstition 

 have recently occurred. 



Charles F. Freeman, of Cape Cod, 

 the other day piously sacrificed the life 

 of his little daughter, in obedience to 

 what he supposed to be a spiritual man- 

 date from the other world. He was a 

 Second Adventist, and full of intense 

 belief in the miraculous coming of Christ 

 to rescue the world from unbelief. 

 Whether he attended the great Second 

 Advent Convention that was held in 

 New York last year we do not know, 

 but he evidently laid to heart its incul- 

 cation of the duty of literally interpret- 

 ing the Scriptures. He is reported as 

 an assiduous Bible student, who quotes 

 Scripture with great fluency, and is 

 ready with an apposite text for every 

 doctrine that he maintains. The old 



Hebrews indulged in the same sangui- 

 nary practices as other barbaric tribes. 

 In their books there are records of one 

 father sacrificing his daughter, and of 

 another father preparing to immolate 

 his only son. Freeman had, no doubt, 

 often heard these transactions discussed 

 in the pulpit, and Abraham applauded 

 for the strength of his faith. If such a 

 test was ever necessary, he thought it 

 a thousand times more necessary in this 

 faithless age than ever before; so he 

 killed his child, at what he claims to be 

 the peremptory requirement of the De- 

 ity he worshiped, that a miracle might 

 be performed, and his faith displayed 

 before an unbelieving generation. The 

 whole ghastly affair is simply an in- 

 stance of survival of one of the spirit- 

 ual usages of savagery, when blood- 

 thirsty devils were regular objects of 

 worship. 



Another case of falling back into 

 the mental condition of barbarism has 

 been recently atforded by the Superin- 

 tendent of Schools of the City of New 

 York, Mr. Henry Kiddle. Yielding to 

 that morbid craving after the marvel- 

 ous, which is a distinctive mark of 

 undeveloped or retrograded natures, 

 he had been exploiting mediums, and 

 comes forward with what he calls a 

 revelation from the spiritual sphere. 

 Two members of his family have been 

 for some time talking to him the iaost 

 demented drivel, which he accepts as 

 spiritual communications, or messages 

 from the ghostly inhabitants of another 

 world ; all of which he has minutely 

 written down and published in a book. 

 Kiddle, like Freeman, as the newspa- 

 pers avouch, is "very conscientious," 

 " thoroughly sincere," " profoundly in 

 earnest," etc., and there is no doubt of 

 the genuineness of his credulity. We 

 have looked over his book, and found 

 it to consist of the merest rubbish. Mr. 

 Kiddle says of these communications, in 

 his preface, that he " hioics they are not 

 the offspring of imposture or delusion. 

 They come from the world of spirits. 



