The Perrysburg journal. [volume], June 23, 1855, Page 43, Image 3

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43
Phrenology in the Pulpit.
TESTIMONY OF REV. HENRY WARD BEECIIER.
It is very hard for a minister of the gospel,
standing before a promiscuous audience, to
deal with the facts of their minds, and their
inward lives. It is a melancholy fact, that
men know le6S about that which is the very
element of their being, than about anything
else in the world. I suppose if I were to go
among the intelligent men in my congrega
tion, I could get every variety of informa
tion on subjects connected with the daily
business affairs of life upon questions ol
political economy, upon various questions of
commerce, facts concerning the structure of
ships, steam engines I could collect any
amount of information on all these, and a
thousand othpr kindred subjects. But when
I ask them what is inside of themselves, they
can tell me of a great manufactory, and ex
plain to me the operation and use of all the
machinery in it; but upon the question of
the machinery of 1 heir own minds, they
cannot say a word. In regard to commer
cial matters, they know all about them ;
they have examined them, they have com
pared their ideas on these subjects, and have
classified them. They believe themselves to
be immortal creatures, that they have throb
bing within them a soul that shall live
as long as God himself shall live; yet, when
1 ask them any questions in regard to their
inward nature, their only reply is, "I don't
know, I don't know." They do not know
what their reason is ; they do not know what
is the nature of their moral powers; they
do not definitely understand the nature of
operation of any one faculty of their minds!
They understand the nature of the soil or
the earth ; they know what it is capable of
producing; they know the use of the plough,
and all the implements of agriculture ; they
know what to do with a plant that is not
thriving, they are skillful to impart to it a
fresh lite, and make it flourish. But if any
plant that ought to grow in the mind is
Btunted and does not thrive, they cannot
tell how to make that grow. They don't
know what to do to bring it forth.
It is difficult for a minister of the gospel
to 6et forth the truth intelligibly in respect
to its relation to the human mind. I think
it is partly because men have not been curi
ous in respect to themselves, and partly on
account of the many bewildering systems of
mental philosophy that are in vogue in our
day. For if there were none of these sys
tems except the old rchools of metaphysical
philosophy, I would defy any man to obtain
by means of them any clear idea about the
60ul, for at best they are of but little more
value than so many cobwebs. Men rr.ay
study them, however, if they have a taste
for them ; if a man loves logic and discus
sion, let him take one of the old metaphysi
cal mental philosophies, and he will have
means of busying his mind until he grows
tired of such business. But if a man wishes
to know practically what he is made up of,
if a man wishes a knowledge of human na
ture for definite practical pirposes, there is
no system which will aid him in acquiring
that knowledge like the system of Phrenolo
gy ; not interpreted too narrowly or techni
cally, but in its relations to physiology and
the structure of the whole body. And I may
cay here what I have never said before in the
pulpit, that the views of the human mind,
as they are revealed by Phrenology, are those
views which have underlayed my whole
ministry ; and if I have had any success in
bringing the truths of the gospel to bear
practically upon the minds of men, any suc
cess in the vigorous application of truths to
the wants of the. human soul, where they are
most needed, I owe it to the clearness which
I have gamed from this science. And I
could not ask for the members of my family,
nor of a church, any better preparation
for religious indoctrination, than to put
them in possession of such a practical
knowledge of the human soul as is given by
Phrenology.
I have avoided the use of the nomencla
ture of Phrenology in the pulpit as far as
possible, because I did not wish to seem to
be a mere teacher of a philosophical system,
while I was a minister of the truth as it is
in Christ ; but I have now been so long with
you, that lam justified in making this state
ment. I' may 6ay, in regard to the objections
sometimes urged against Phrenology, its
tendency to materialism and fatalism, that
the same objections may be made to any oth
er system of mental philosophy. I do not
think that such objections belong to Phre
nology any more than to any system of in
tellectual science which you can possibly
construct. Men's mere logical and specula
tive reason will always strand them upon
the sands of fatalism or materialism ; and it
is the practical sense, the consciousness of
actual liberty, that redeems us from a belief
of the one or the other. Such doctrines
dwell in the head, but never in the hands.
Phrenological Journal.
The London Times. The principal wri
ters on the London Times at present,
(under Mr. D-lane,) are the Rev. Thomas
Mosley ; Mr. Sampson, who succeeded Mr.
Alsager as writer of the city articles; Mr.
Robert Law, the M. P. from Kidderminster,
who has charge of the colonial subject; Mr.
Thornton, who writes the parlimentary sum
mary; Tyas, "much renowned for Greek;"
Macdonald, (who was sent to Constantino
ple with the funds for the sick;) Ward, a
" quarterly reviewer ;" John Oxenford, the
dramatic critic ; Davison, the musical critic;
and Dr. Richardson. The manager of the
Times, now for several years past and
rpally more of the editor than Mr. Dlane
himself is Mr. Mowbray Morris, a barrister-.
The Union declares with fearless fierce-'
ness and typographical emphasis, that " in
the whole range of monarchical nations, there
is not one paper or one man that dares to
defend the principles of the American peo
ple." This is a deplorable state of things,
no doubt, and very unfortunate for the mo
narchical nations ; but on the other hand, it
is equally true that in more than a dozen
states of this great country, there is not one
paper or one man that dares to defend the
principles of the American Declaration of
Independlnce. Why will not the Union re
strain its wrath at the monarchs and aristo
crats of Europe for a while, and thunder a
little at the greater oppressors of the United
Slates. N. Y. Tribune.
Niagara Bridge Business. A writer in
the Buffalo Republic says that the business
at the Suspension bridge is immense. The
goods passing over the Suspension bridge for
the month ending the 5th of May inst., were
valued by custom rules at ten millions of
dollars! Forty-five trains of cars, for pas
sengers and freight, arrive at the bridge daily
upon the different roads. On the 23d, for
instance, to show you the travel over the
roads, seventy-one loaded pissenger cars ar
rived at the bridge. The departures were
about the same.
Sentence of the Male Thief in Petti
coats. Most readers will remember the ac
count published some months ago of a scoun
drel of the masculine gender, who was car
rying on an extensive business in thieving
while in Schoharie county, New York, dress
ed in female attire, working around as a
house servant. This individual, who calls
himself Elizabeth Ann Coleman, was tried
at Schoharie last week. The prisoner was
found guilty of grand larceny, and was sen
tenced to two years' imprisonment in the
state prison at Clinton.
The Rutland Herald says there are seven
hundred men constantly employed quarrying
marble in Rutland county, Vermont ; and
there will be raised during the present year
not less than 1,100,000 feet of marble.
Arrison likely to get Clear. Arrison,
the torpedo man, lately convicted of murder
at Cincinnati, is likely after all to escape
the penalty of the law. The matter, accord
ing to the Cincinnati Times, stands thus:
Arrison has had one trial. Counsel for
defence took exception to certain part of
the charge of the court, and made applica
tion for a writ of error. It was allowed,
and taken before the district court, where it
has been pending for months until yesterday,
when a final decision was given, the writ of
error sustained, and Arrison pronounced en
titled to a new trial. But as the criminal
court has been abolished by act of legislature,
the case could not of course be remanded
back, as is usual to the court before which it
was first tried, and so it remained to thfc
court of common pleas which has the dispo
sal of criminal cases. Here then is the
difficulty.
The legislature, in its haste to' abolish
Judge Flinn and his court, neglected to pro
vide for such unfinished cases as might be
remanded back by the higher courts for a
new trial. The proper way undoubtedly
would have been to transfer the adjudication
of such cases to the court of common pleas,
but no provision of that kind was made.
As the matter now stands, it is, to speak
mildly, exceedingly doubtful whether there
is a court in Christendom competent to ad
judicate upon Arrison's case. This being
so, counsel for prisoner, .who are no wise
lacking in ingenuity, have only to avail
themselves of a favorable opportunity to
make application for a writ of habeas cor-
pus, requiring the autohrities to show cause
why he is detained, and no court upon earth
can refuse to discharge him. At least this
is the opinion of many legal gentlemen,
with whom we have conversed upon the
subject.
The late foreign news has been generally
published in all the papers. A great battle
was fought before Sevastopol, in which the
Russians lost six or eight thousand and the
French two or three thousand. The French
were victorious, and the town was more
closely invested. The rest of the war news
is thus summed up :
Successes of the Allies.
The New York Post thus sums up the re
cent successes of the allies : " A new sta
tion formed by the besieged has been attack
ed and carried with great loss to the troops
of the Caar ; the posts on the river Tcher
naya have been attacked by the allies and
precipitately abandoned by the Russians;
the sea of Azoff has been entered by the
French and English naval forces, where they
have now fourteen steamers afloat, and the
port and fortifications of Kertsch have fall
en into their hands. The forts of Arabat,
on that sea, have been bombarded and de
stroyed. At Yenikale, the quarantine sta
tion for the sea of Azoff a port well known
to the commercial, world for its exportation
of corn the allies have established a garri
son. The. capture of Kertsch has been at
tended with serious losses to the Russians
a foundry of cannon destroyed by the enemy,
war steamers and merchant ships burned,
powder magazines blown up, and stores of
corn thrown into the sea by the Russians
themselves, to say nothing of the spoil won
by the allied forces. The expedition to
Kertsch appears to be the consummation of
the mysterious movement made not long be
fore from Kamiesch.
" The Russian forces are now annihilated
by 6ea, and the narrow entrance by land to
the Crimea will be henceforth commanded
by the allies. They can either shut up the
Russian troops in the peninsula without
supplies of provisions and ammunition, or
force them to seek an engagement in the
open field, where the contending forces will
meet on terms of equal advantage."
Newark, N. J. has a population of upwards
of 57,000.