FANATICISM. Alchymists may doubt The shining gold their crucible gives out; To some fond falsehood, hugs it to the last.-Moore. THE great misfortune of fanatics has been, in all ages of the world, to embrace falsehood rather than truth; sophistry rather than sound logic; some new revelation of man, rather than that of divine authority. With charity and mercy, they hold no communion; forgiveness is no part of their creed; persecution is their Moloch. They have shed rivers of blood under the pretence of serving God, and under the banner of the cross. The Crusades were an illustration of the awful consequences of fanaticism. They were six in number, undertaken for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Mahometans. The first was undertaken in 1096, and was excited by Peter the Hermit, and Walter the Moneyless. All Europe was in commotion, and seemed determined to exterminate the Turks at one bold stroke. An army of over one million marched to Jerusalem, took it by storm, and spared neither sex or age. Notwithstanding this victory, most of this immense army found a premature grave in Asia, and the remnant that returned, brought with them the pestilence, leprosy, and smallpox. A second crusade was undertaken in 1145, by Lewis VII. of France; a third, by Richard I. of England, in 1190; a fourth, by Philip II. of France, in 1204; a fifth, by Lewis IX. of France, against Egypt, in 1248; and the sixth, by the same king, against Tunis, in 1270, where he was killed. The loss of life, in these crusades, is variously estimated by different historians, but by none, less than thirty millions-a sad commentary upon human nature, a solemn warning against blind zeal and infatuating fanaticism. Fanatics are inexorable to all entreaties for mercy; all who are not with them, they treat as enemies; considering all heterodox, who do not embrace their dogmas. Fanaticism arrays father against son, mother against daughter; disregards all the ties of consanguinity, all the bonds of former friendship, and all whom it cannot control, endeavors to destroy. Each set of fanatics are right in their own conceit, and detest all who think differently. The intelligence of the present day has stopped the effusion of blood among Christian nations by fanatics, and dispelled, much of the darkness of fanaticism-but among the nations who still sit in gross darkness, it has lost none of its original features. The Turk would consider the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina polluted, was a Christian to step his foot in either. The Tartar believes the lama to be immortal, and to eat certain parts of him, heaven is secured. The inhabitants of Mount Bata believe, the eating of a roasted cuckoo makes a saint; and all these would sacrifice those who believe differently, if in their power. The Mormons and Millerites of our time and country, have drunk largely at the fountain of fanaticism, and most of our religious sects have a slight tincture of it-enough to sometimes ridicule what they conceive to be error in others, instead of preaching nothing but Christ, and him crucified. As pure and undefiled religion increases, when charity shall become the crown ing glory of every Christian-when the gospel of peace, in its native loveliness, primitive purity, and Bible simplicity; shall shed its glorious rays over the nations of the earth; fanaticism will recede, until it shall be finally lost in the flood of light, that shall radiate from the sun of righteousness. Let Christians banish all prejudices against sects, and warm their hearts in the melting sunbeams of charity-this will sooner make them of one heart and mind. FASHION. Loveliness Needs not the aid of foreign ornaments, But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.-Thompson. WE profess to be a Christian people, and are contributing, very sparingly to be sure, to the laudable enterprise of sending the gospel to those nations that are enveloped in the darkness of idolatry; and yet we have an idol in our midst, worshipped with a zeal worthy of a Hindoo priest. No heathen god or goddess, has ever had more zealous devotees than FASHION, or a more absurd and humiliating ritual, or more mortifying and cruel penances. Her laws, like those of the Medes and Persians, must be implicitly obeyed, but unlike them, change, as certainly as the moon. They are rarely founded in reason, usually violate common sense, sometimes common decency, and uniformly common comfort. FASHION, unlike Custom, never looks at the past, as a precedent for the present or future. She imposes unanticipated burdens, without regard to the strength or means of her hood-winked followers, cheating them out of time, fortune, and happiness; repaying them with the consolation of being ridiculed by the wise, endangering health, and wasting means; a kind of remuneration rather paradoxical, but most graciously received. Semblance and shade are among her attributes. It is of more importance for her worshippers to appear happy, than to be so. She makes Folly originator and conductor of ceremonies, all based on the rickety foundation of vain show; each routine of which must be passively adhered to, until the fickle goddess shakes her kaleidoscope again, and then, O Jupiter! what a bustle-not the Simon Pure variety bustle-but such a scampering to obey the mandate of the tyrant:-It could not be eclipsed by ten score of rats, should ferret, weasel, and puss, all pounce upon them at once. The least murmuring or halting on the part of a recusant, is punished with instant excommunication, and the ridicule of the fashionable community. If she requires oblations from the four quarters of the globe, they must be had, if wealth, health, and happiness are the price. If she fancies comparative nakedness for winter, or five thicknesses of woollen for dog days she speaks, and it is done. If she orders the purple current of life, and the organs of respiration to be retarded by steel, whalebone, buckram, drill, and cords, it is done. Disease laughs, and death grins at the folly of the goddess, and the zeal of the worshippers. If she orders a bag full of notions on the hips, a Chinese shoe on the foot, a short cut, a trail, a hoop, or balloon sleeve, or no sleeve, for a dress; and a grain fan bonnet, or fool's cap for the head, she is obsequiously obeyed by the exquisitely fashionable ladies, and lauded by their beaux. If she orders her male subjects to produce a crop of corns on their feet with tight boots, contract their muscles with straps at both ends, and their chests with steel springs, and hemp cords suitable for a hangman, and to play all the monkey shines of a coxcomb, with chains dangling, rattan flourishing, and soaplocks streaming in the breeze, they are quite as tractable and docile as the feminine exquisites. Fashion taxes without reason, and collects without mercy. She first infatuates the court and aristocracy. and then ridicules the poor if they do not follow in the wake, although they die in the ditch. This was exemplified in the reign of Richard III., who was humpbacked. Monkey-like, his court, at the dictum of fashion, all mounted a bustle on their backs, and as this was not an expensive adjunct, the whole nation became hump backed--emphatically a crooked generation—– from the peasant to the king, all were humped. When looking at the frivolity of fashion, I often think of the boy, who traced the fashions from the country to Philadelphia; from thence to New York; thence to Boston; thence to Paris, and from thence to the devil; when he exclaimed, "I thought they came from him, for they make folks look just like a picture of him in one of my books." If this tyrannical huzzy would be content with seducing the rich from the path of common sense, only for a short time, and would leave them something for old age, when she can no longer receive their adulation, she might have some claims to generosity; but no, she not only often strips them as clear from feathers as a turkey on a spit, but searches the cellar and the garret -the cottage and the hovel, for victims. She takes fools by storm, the wise by deception and bribery, and |