MISCELLANIES. RACHEL-BAKERISM. I SHALL always believe, that people may be in the body, and out of the body, during the same moment of time. I am firmly persuaded, that the soul frequently quits the tenement to which it is assigned, and goes a-visiting other souls. Yes, and some times, it does not return. Under this theory, I account for the different characters and qualities of what are called strength of mind, genius, idiocy, and lunacy. When half a dozen good souls unite, and take up their lodging in one corpus, provided only the family regulations are discreet and are wisely administered, the union is strength, and the external man is esteemed a casket of intellect. If, however, too many, or too boisterous, or discordant spirits should hive upon one cranium, or if the domestic duties are not strictly enforced-Heaven pity the man-he is incurably mad. I need not add, that when the soul totally vacates the premises, Perditus is esteemed a fool, and the devil institutes proceedings against him forthwith, under the absent and absconding debtor act. Short excursions, such as amorous exaltations, poetic flights, and all the variety of ruralizations, are the mere walks that the soul takes for exercise. These are the ordinary occupation, the daily going forth and incoming of the divine afflatus upon its peculiar and proper busi ness. But what a glorious exercise of divinity, what a blending of reality and imagination, of existence and annihilation, is VOL. II.-8 that power of the soul, which mingles the past, the present, and the future! which makes even the gross body live back in the young merriment of childhood, and taste by anticipation the happiness of the far future! which makes the miserable happy, the dumb eloquent, the sinner a saint! and is the power controlled by circumstances? What have facts and things to do with it? Rachel Baker had no education, but when her body was asleep, her soul and her soul's friends discoursed sacred music. What is a dream? a frolic, say you of young Fancy, after old Judgment has gone to bed. The substitute of imagination for fact-what is fact? How do you determine any thing to be a fact? Do you not sometimes doubt whether you are not dreaming? Are you always certain, when you dream? Have you not sometimes dreamed you were dreaming? Metaphysicians and learned doctors have discussed these matters with profound and ingenious ability. But I must confess that I am not much enlightened upon the subject, after all; the many freaks of Alma have led them all up and down and through the bogs and quagmires of their art, just as did Trinculo the magic tabor of Ariel. I have had myself a little experience in flights and absences, and my irregular Jack-a-lanthorn spirit has beguiled me more than once into a scrape. Of all these, hear one instance, ye wise ones, ye custom house officers of reason,-ye measurers and inspectors of the soul's exports and imports, and if there be a philosophical explanation for it, pronounce, expound. In the year 18- on the fourth of July, I left the burning patriotism of my fellow citizens, and went a fishing upon the classic waters of Communipaw. We watched in the distance the "tall spire and glittering roof and battlement, and banners floating in the sunny air, and heard until nightfall, |