Spiritualist National Convention.
By Editor
THE National Convention of Spiritualists just held in Chicago is reported to have ended in—smoke. We apprehend the greatest trouble the Devil has with his forces in these last days, is insubordination, and an ungovernable opposition to all restraint and discipline. The Detroit Tribune thus speaks of it: "The National Convention of Spiritualists recently in session at Chicago had a good time. Seventeen States were represented at its sessions, and the numerous delegates, no two of whom seemed to agree on any point, were busy promulgating the 'harmonial' philosophy. Upon electing officers and enrolling the names of delegates Mrs. E. A. Welch of Wisconsin announced her desire to 'represent high Heaven in the organization.' A committee of one from each State was appointed on national organization; after which the appointment of a committee on resolutions created considerable heated debate. A committee of five on the state of the nation was also named, which reported a series, condemning the rebellion, supporting the administration and declaring in favor of the re-election of Mr. Lincoln." The Chicago Tribune closes its report of the Convention with the following remarks: "The Convention has adjourned; the only wonder is that it ever met. Such a mass of heterogeneity surely never was gathered before; probably never will be again. It would be about as difficult to make a combination out of those elements as to manufacture a rope of sand. The difficulty is that each one wants to be chief. Not one of all that motley throng but thinks him or herself the one commissioned by the spirits to turn the world (of tables) upside down and bring about the proselytization of the race to the grand harmonical philosophy. "The inharmonialists have, we fear, found a hard row to hoe. They have been saved from disruption during the past week, only by a hair-breadth. The Convention certainly was a witty one, if we accept the definition of wit usually recognized—'a union of the congruous with the incongruous.' Some of the people there assembled appeared to be sensible; the great majority otherwise, and it is difficult to account for the exceeding patience with which the vagaries of the fools have been received by the more intelligent. But the Convention is dead; we would not speak ill of it. May the whole flock of spiritualists, harmonialists, spirits, bloomers, strong-minded women and weak-minded men continue elsewhere and ever, and as in this their recent Convention in this city, to supply the best correctives to their vagaries by the absurdities and follies which overload their few grains of reason and common sense."