A most remarkable instance of criminal fanaticism is re- ported
from Massachusetts. Charles Freeman, a small farmer, residing at Pocasset, and a member of the Congregation of Second Adventists, declared a week since that he had received a divine command to sacrifice his daughter Edith, a child of five years. Accordingly, he and his wife knelt down in prayer, and then rising, the man transfixed the child on a wooden table, killing her, and sprinkling her blood on the "altar." He then called a meeting of the Adventists, to whom he related his story, and showed the body of his child. He was arrested next clay, and is said to be mad, but his wife entirely agreed with him as to the sacrifice, and his fellow- worshippers appear not to have condemned him. It should be added that both Freeman and his wife, both before and after the murder, expected the child to rise again on the third day, and barricaded the house against the police, not in self-defence, but to compel them to wait till Sunday. Religious mania is common enough, but it does not often affect two people at once in pre- cisely the same way, and with the same result. Indeed, the people of Boston seem to believe that many in the congregation were accessories, and they are to be arrested.
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