EXTRAORDINARY RELIGIOUS FANATICISM.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 289, 15 May 1875, Page 2

EXTRAORDINARY RELIGIOUS FANATICISM.

Writing from Honesdale, Penn., lately, a correspondent of the New York Herald says :—" Crissy Hacker, an. intelligent and beautiful young lady, living at White's Valley, sixteen miles west of this place, deliberately burned herself to death yesterday while under the influence of extraordinary religious fanaticism. She was the daughter of William Hacker, a wealthy and prominent farmer of the country. For some five or six years past she has at times been subject to temporary insanity, during which lapses she imagined that she had committed sins against 'her Immanuel,' which could oidy be absolved by the making of burnt offerings. While labouring under this mental hallucination she would erect altars in the fields of. her father's farm, and sacrifice lambs to appease the wrath of her offended deity, and also burn clothing and household articles of different kinds. Her father, a widower, fearing that she might, during one of these intervals, do herself bodily harm, kept a strict watch on her movements. Yesterday Mr Hacker had occasion to go to a neighbouring village, and, as his daughter manifested signs of the recurrence, of one of her insane intervals, he charged his hired man to watch her during his absence. At noon the man went to his dinner, leaving the young lady in the kitchen reading the Bible. For some reason he did not return to the house until Mr Hacker came back, which was about 2 o'clock. When the latter entered his kitchen he was paralysed with horror at the sight which confronted him. On the coals and ashes of what had evidently been one of Miss Hacker's altars, lay the body of his daughter, literally burnt to a crisp. The face was the only part not burned. Notwithstanding the intense agony that she must have endured, her features were not distorted in the least, but wore an expression calm and peaceful, her lips being parted in a smile, as if she died believing that through that fiery ordeal she was to pass into a joyful eternity. It appears that while the hired man was absent Miss Hacker formed out of a set of quilting frames a pyre

or altar. On this she had spread some carpet, and made herself a pillow. "When found, she lay on her right side, with her cheek resting on her hand. Everything seemed to indicate that this was the position she had taken at first, and from which she had not moved. At one side of the altar she had piled up a quantity of combustible wood, and when all was in readiness had fired it, from which the flames spread and enveloped the altar. In the family Bible, which was found open at the Book of Job, was the following note, found in the handwriting of the deceased:—' Dear Father My Immanuel appeared to me to-day. He reveals to me the fact that I have committed the unpardonable sin, which I can only obtain forgiveness for by passing through the cleansing of fire. I will intercede for you, my dear father. You will find my purified body in the north-east corner of the house. I wish to have my ashes buried in my Immanuel's ground, at the north-west corner of the house. Good bye. Meet me on Eternal ground.— Crissy.' Mr Hacker went to the corner of the house indicated in the note as the spot where the remains were to be buried, and found that his daughter had staked out there a space for her grave. The coroner summoned a jury and held an inquest on the remains. A verdict in accordance with the above facts was rendered."