again? It is so pleasant to feel safe under the infallible guidance of an omnipotent spirit within, that we are not surprised at those affected being loath to suspect the re-assertion of their rights by the animal and intellectual propensities. The man "has God in him! the man is God!" Archdeacon Ebel allows his more intimate followers to look upon him as a secret manifestation of the Deity, Schönherr is the Holy Ghost, Prince is "The Beloved," the Rev. Abram C. Smith claims to be inspired when he invades the once happy home of the Cragins and makes Mary Cragin his concubine before the weeping eyes of her overawed husband. We must pause a moment to notice the exceeding pathos of the last-quoted episode, described very much in the words of the actors of the tragedy. The wills of a loving couple are slowly and inextricably inwound with the coils of spiritual influence. They never cease to love one another, as human creatures ought to love; but with the husband's sad consent, the poor woman is unwillingly yielded to the arms of the representative of the divine. The only thing in literature like it is Homer's picture of the heralds, in the strength of their sacred office, leading off the lingering Briseis from Achilles' tent Η δ' ἀέκουσ' ἅμα τοισι γυνὴ κίεν κ. τ. λ. while her master sits down and weeps with his gaze fixed on the dark-blue horizon of the Egean. The situation is too harrowing for the poet to dwell on, as we here find when it is acted in real life. But it is only because we are not furnished with the details that we feel less in other instances the horrible slow torture to the affections which the preachers of spiritual matrimony do not scruple to inflict by wholesale. With one exception (a plump beauty in middle life) Mr. Dixon describes all the female inmates of the Agapemone as having a look of ill health, in spite of the favorable external physical circumstances under which they are placed. The unnatural degradation of the mind has reacted on the bodily aspect. What is meant by spiritual matrimony? Some readers may exclaim" Is not all this mere hypocrisy and lust, or vanity, taking advantage of weak intellects for its selfish gratification?" It is impossible to think so in regard to the persons whose biographies are related by Mr. Dixon. Archdeacon Ebel was from his youth up occupied wholly with religion; Mr. Prince, at Lampeter, as one of the "Praying brethren," was a daily living protest against the prevalent worldliness of the place; Noyes, Smith, Worden, and all the rest whose names come before us, were characterised by zeal, perseverance, and power in the service of God; their daily walk was convincing to their neighbours that they held a holier faith, and lived better lives, than common men. Neither will it do to set the matter aside as "mere insanity," and so end it. Often would the relations of Ebelians, Free-lovers, Princeites, have been glad to demonstrate insanity sufficient for a certificate, but cannot do it. No doubt it is a morbid condition of mind, or we should have no excuse for reviewing it in this periodical, and it also sometimes ends in insanity (as in the case of Miss Lincoln), but even then it is a cause, rather than an effect, of that condition which the law is able to recognise as incapacitating a person for self-guidance. The confession of M. L. Worden marks its position in psychical nosology. He says of the leaders of the movement, "They believed in salvation from sin; that whosoever is born of God does not sin and cannot sin, and has no disposition to sin they believed they were led by the Spirit. They rejoiced in deliverance from what they called Babylonish captivity, or the legality of the churches, and no doubt this sentiment finally affected their feelings and practice in various ways, and especially was applied to domestic and social relations." Then in nauseously pious, and tediously exculpatory language, the narrator goes on to tell how the marriage tie was discarded, and temporary comminglings of male and female souls indulged, till "the relation became so far carnal as to lay just foundations for scandal." It is clear that the aberration dates from the moment when the voice within is held to be the voice of God, and ex ri termini deserving of immediate obedience. We are quite ready to believe that when the Rev. Mr. Prince entered the room to perform the blasphemous rite by which he selected poor Miss Paterson as his concubine, with his own lawful wife standing by as an assistant, he did not know what he was going to do. Sister Ellen, who was also present, assured Mr. Dixon that from close (shall we say "jealous" ?) observation she was certain of the fact: and to all these people the mere entrance of some notion into their heads is sufficient, and indeed the only, evidence of its truth. When once a man has determined that the infection of nature has been expelled from his body, all the rest logically follows. The restraints of the higher life being thrown off, the degenerate man reverts into the promiscuous intercourse of the inferior animals, and joins a herd of "Free-lovers." The reason why revivalism leads to adultery and fornication more than to other sins is simply the universal possession of generative instincts. Mark how shrewdly John Bunyan scents out the old Adam 1 Spiritual Wives,' vol. ii, chap. xxxiii. lurking still, probably unconsciously, in the proud, spiritually led prophet. He is speaking about those salutations to which Mr. Dixon applies the German student's term of " Seraphim kisses." "Some indeed," says he, "have urged the holy kiss; but then I have asked why they made baulks, why then did they salute the most handsome, and let the ill-favoured go?" By such habitual questioning of the spirit and bringing it under the yoke of reason, "God's poor servant, John Bunyan," pestered with voices, haunted with horrible despairs, twitched by the devil while praying, terrified with visions, surrounded with persecuted enthusiasts when out of prison, and when in companioned by his own morbid thoughts, not only kept himself sane enough for all the needful purposes of life, but turned his sorrows into an everlasting treasury of charming allegory for all ages and nations. And herein lies the moral we would draw: let those who confide to us their delusions be taught that they can and ought to restrain themselves by their own free will; that the free will grows by exercise; and that if they judiciously exert it, no one need ever know anything about the morbid conditions of their minds till they publish an autobiography. It is remarkable what an effect a single lesson of this kind will have sometimes. We once went to live for a few months with a lunatic of no great compass of mind, and rather spoiled by an idle dilettante life, but still with the feelings of a man of honour. He was haunted with the conviction that all meat brought to table was human flesh, and had other equally nauseous impressions regarding most articles of food. The first day at dinner he exhibited his delusions, and we then told him positively that he could restrain himself, if he liked, from such disgusting thoughts, and that a repetition of them would lead to a breach of our engagement, and that therefore such repetition would be not the conduct of a gentleman. During three months' companionship there was not only no display to us of the special delusions, but all others much abated. If every one will act thus as his own keeper from the first, lunatic asylums will be needed in much fewer numbers; let a man once yield to a morbid impression, say he cannot help it, or place his will under the dominion of another's, and the most serious step of all has been taken in the direction of a madhouse. REVIEW VI. 1. Epidemic Meningitis, or Cerebro-spinal Meningitis. By ALFRED STILLÉ, M.D., Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, &c. Philadelphia, 1867. 2. Eighth Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, 1865. London, 1866. 3. A Biennial Retrospect of Medicine and Surgery for 1865-6. (New Sydenham Society, 1867.) 4. Report of the Proceedings of the Medical Society of the King and Queen's College of Physicians of Ireland. (In 'Medicai Press and Circular,' 1867.) 5. Klinische Beobachtungen über Meningitis Cerebro-spinalis epidemica. Von Prof. ZIEMSSEN und FRIEDRICH HESS, in Erlangen. Clinical Observations on Epidemic Cerebro-spinal Meningitis. By Professors ZIEMSSEN and FRIEDRICH HESS, of Erlangen. From the Deutscher Archiv für Klinische Medicin,' 1866. Bd. I, pp. 72 et seq., and pp. 346 et seq. (German Archives of Clinical Medicine.') 6. Four Cases of Cerebro-spinal Meningitis in Shorncliffe Camp. 'Medical Times and Gazette,' April 4th, 1868. 7. A System of Medicine. Edited by J. RUSSELL REYNOLDS, M.D., &c. London, 1868. Art. Epidemic Cerebro-spinal Meningitis. By J. N. RADCLIFFE, M.D. 8. Zur Pathologie der Epidemischen Meningitis. Von Dr. KLEBS, in Berlin. Virchow's Archiv,' 1865. Band XXXIV, pp. 327 et seq. On the Pathology of Epidemic Meningitis. By Dr. KLEBS, of Berlin. 9. Publications of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Vol. II, No. 1. Spotted Fever, or Cerebro-spinal Meningitis in the State of Massachusetts. Report, &c. Boston, 1867. 10. Proceedings of the Pathological Society of London. Vol. XVIII. 1867. 11. A Report upon Epidemic Cerebro-spinal Fever. By ED. W. COLLINS, M.D., &c. Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science,' August, 1868. Dr. Stillé speaks of epidemic meningitis as having ravaged the United States for the last ten or eleven years, and as now appearing to approach the end of its career (1867). One hundred and twenty cases were treated in the Philadelphia Hospital in the first quarter of that year. He regards the disease as distinct from typhus fever, and as presenting "a surprising variety of morbid phenomenon by virtue of its double character as a blood disease, and an inflammation of the cerebro-spinal membranes." He considers that morbid anatomy has of late enabled us to distinguish the disease from forms of fever, with which in the last and in previous centuries it was confounded. It was not recognised as a distinct affection until the beginning of the present century. Unconnected with animal or other putrefaction, Dr. Stillé says it is pandemic, and uninfluenced by any "miasmatic, cryptogamic, or analogous agent." Nor is it due "to a special poison like cholera, small-pox, or measles. "Its outbreaks have occurred almost simultaneously in regions as widely separated as Europe is from America, and annually it has made a mid-winter attack upon towns and rural districts, the salubrious and unhealthy alike, completing the cycle of its progress in a period varying between ten and fifteen years. Three such periods, at least, have occurred during the present century. The first of eleven years began in 1805, and terminated in 1816; the second, of thirteen years, occurred between 1837 and 1850; and the third extends from 1856 to the present time, and has already lasted for eleven years, during which the disease has been almost constantly present in Europe, but absent during four years from the United States." Vieusseux described epidemic meningitis in 1805 as a disease new to himself and his colleagues; a petechial eruption and engorgement of the brain marked the course of this "malignant non-contagious fever." Mathey in one of the fatal cases found a gelatinous exudation on the convex surface of the brain, and a yellow puriform matter upon its posterior aspect, upon the optic commissure, the inferior surface of the cerebellum, and the medulla oblongata. Prussia, Holland, Rhenish Germany, Bavaria, or the east of France, had the disease prevalent each year from 1805 until 1816. It prevailed in America from 1806 to 1816. In 1822 it appeared in France, in 1823 in Connecticut, in 1828 in Ohio. Sunderland, in England, was visited in 1830, and Naples in 1833. From 1837 to 1850 it visited France, Italy, Algeria, Gibraltar, England, Ireland, Denmark. America was again visited from 1842 until 1850. Between 1850 and 1854 we did not hear of the disease; in the latter year, however, it broke out violently in Sweden, where it continued till 1860. Sporadic cases now 84-XLII. 24 |