RELIGIOUS INSANITY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 41, 8 June 1876, Page 2

RELIGIOUS INSANITY.

[From the " Hew York Herald," March 22.] Tlie powerful exhortations and zealous and fervid appeals of Messrs. Moody and Sankey have had ail effect outside of evangelism that is not generally known in tlie community. The fact is that there has been since the beginning of the revivals at the Hippodrome an increase in the number of people who annually loose their reason from outward excitement, or from some peculiar frenzy or monomania that may take possession of them for a time, to the exclusion of all other ideas; At some of the up-town station-houses it has been noticed within the last thirty days that, coming 011 to the hour of midnight, men, and in a few cases women, have been brought into the station-house charged with drunkenness and disorderly conduct ivhose appearance would be an absolute denial of tlie charge. These respectablelooking, well-dressed people were discharged, of course, as the station-house .calmed them instantly, and extricated them from their religious frenzy, which was the cause of their arrest and-seeming drunkenness. Sensitively-organised people are of delicate iibre, and their constitutions are easily overpowered by the tremendous appeals made nightly by Mr. Moody, and there have been many cases of religious mania, resulting from the revivals, within the last three weeks ; bixt in nearly every case the friends of, the unfortunate subjects of religio-mania have hurried them out of sight, either to give them private 01* close family care, or to have them sent to one of the many private lunatic asylums of the State. Tiie most violent case yet made public is that of the coloured boy Edward Williams, who was arrested L-y the police while making a charge on Henry Bergh's office with a rusty revolutionary cavalry sabre, as he charged in, waving his sabre over his head with a frightful energy, and shouting at the top of his voice, " Git out quick ! lam God ! Mr. Moody has sent me from Jesus ! Look out for your skulls!" Edward Williams was secured after a hard struggle and taken to Bullevue Hospital, where he was strapped do.-. 11 oil an iron bed in a cell. He became less violent. Here Edward stated lie saw 100,001 angels standing around tlie Lamb, and that good Lli-. Moody was the odd angel." "Oh, God !" said Edward, who is a handsomelooking mulatto lad of nineteen years of age, with an intelligent face, "If I had only had a celestial banjo for to kind ajusfc get in one thrum alongside of the divine Mr. Sankey, wouldn't that be heaven, eh ?" Here the poor boy frothed at his mouth, and tried to tear his face and strangle himself. This is as sacl a case as could be known. Young Williams was a porcer in the employment of the Domestic Sewing Machine Company, at the corner of Fourtecnth-street and Broadway, and was universally liked, and noted for -his honesty and fidelity. . He became an attendant at the Moody and Sankey meetings, and after visiting there a few evenings he'came home to his mother's house in Fifty-third-street, completely crazy and frothing at the mouth from sheer madness caused by the excitement of the several meetings. A few days since the poor lad was taken from Bellevue Hospital to the lunatic asylum, 011 Blackwell's Island, and while on the boat going over he had a lucid interval, but on his arrival at the asylum he became more crazy than ever, and had to. be tied up, in which state he now makes night and day mournful with his heart-piercing cries.

tion if ever before he had heard man laugli. If Goss had gone at him with a club, he would have, understood that kind of conduct, and would have fought it out, and got the best of it, too. But to have a man face him with uproarious laughter so utterly confounded his bear logic that lie took to his heels and fled, leaving Goss to finish his laugh by himself, and leaving Harrison to finish* climbing the tree. The adventure was too laughable not to tell to his neigliboxu's, and Goss told it everywhere, much to Harrison's chagrin and the aimisement of his acquaintances. He rarely ventured to brag again after that. If at any time he began in the old strain, telling what he would do, somebody was sure to call out: " Goss, Goss, climb a tree as I do !" and the boaster was immediately extinguished in a roar of laughter.—"Youths' Companion.."