In presenting to the public the first volume of the TERRIFIC REGISTER, it appears necessary to submit a few thoughts after the fashion of a preface, not for the purpose of bespeaking a good opinion, for of that we have indubitable proofs. Were the approbation that has crowned our exertions to be exchanged for censure, we might lament the circumstance, but the recollection of past patronage would place regret où account of the undertaking totally out of our power. Such a supposition we beg to be understood as purely hypothetical, for of any mutation in feeling towards us, we are under no apprehension; on the contrary, convinced that like causes will be followed by like consequences, we calculate to a moral certainty that public favour will be as unequivocally displayed in the ensuing, as it has been in the past year. But as we should be sorry to have it supposed that we had no motive superior to the exciting of curiosity, or the enlisting of the passions for mere scifish purposes, we shall point out the moral tendency of the work, to these, if there be any such,) to whom it is not apparent. Satisfied that the real welfare of mankind ought to be the object of all our labours; we were persuaded that by selecting from the histories of individuals and of empires, instances of suffering, induced by human folly, and of crime, perpetrated by human depravity, we should excite that sympathy, and arouse that indignation which are essential to the end we had in view. For this purpose, we ransacked the various sources of information open to us, and have brought into a focus a vast body of matter that lay scattered and even concealed from public inspection; and this matter it is impossible to peruse without the most intense interest. Who can, unmoved, contemplate the resolves and decrees of bloody-minded men or those awful calamities by which the fiat of Heaven frequently overwhelm us? As meditation is necessarily salutary, we have invited man to scrutinize his fellow in his worst estate, and have accordingly laid before him accounts of barbarities inflicted by savage hordes; cruel punish ments with which crime has been visited; barbarous murders; atrocious assassinations and diabolical cruelties; bloody duels and sanguinary conflicts; daring villanies, frauds, plots, conspiracies, and rebellions; remarkable robberies, piracies, executions, and persecutions for conscience sake. We have also furnished him with well-authenticated stories of apparitions and strange and fearful superstitions; disastrous accidents, perilous enterprises, and miraculous escapes by sea and land; awful visitations and singular interpositions; accounts of plague, famine, fire, earthquake, and other special chastisements of Providence. From the former class of facts we are led to distrust our own natures; for whether the human heart be impressed with erroneous notions of religious duties, inflamed by feelings of resentment, inflated with pride, intoxicated with power, enervated by indolence, or debased by profligacy; we find it betrayed into the commission of crimes, which appal, from their enormity, even the perpetrator himself. When an ancient Israelite solicited a seer of his day to hold the mirror of futurity before him, he saw himself marked out to perform. one of the most unjust, cruel, and outrageous of characters:..Ignorant of his own nature, he shuddering, exclaimed, Am I a.dog, that I should do these things." He was shortly elevated to the seat of power, and the predictions of the prophet were verified to the very letter. Such a circumstance teaches the wise man not to be solicitous of distinction. But if the post of honour which is indeed the post of danger, be unavoidable, the good man incessantly petitions the strengthener of minds, and the purifier of hearts, to shed his benign influence around him, lest in the hour of temptation be "Play such fantastic tricks, before high Heaven, As make the angels weep." Nor can we fail of deriving a moral advantage from the contemplation of those tremendous visitations, which, in the mysterious dispensations of Providence, are sometimes destined to level in one common ruin the cottage of the peasant and the palace of the prince; to sweep with one fell swoop whole generations to their grave. By such displays of power, the weakness of man and the might of Omnipotence are so visible and striking, that hardihood must be cowed and pride humbled. Their suddenness teaches us to be prepared, and their irresistibility to be resigned. The instances we have given of the surprising discoveries of crime, even after a long lapse of years, teaches the depraved that there is no safety in their pursuits. It is in vain for the sake of security that they reject confederacy, or veil their villanies in the blackness of night. There is one always in their council, whose scrutinizing eye penetrates the darkest dens of sin, and who in his own good time makes known those hidden mysteries, which "appal the guilty and make mad the free." This fact is particularly striking in cases of murder, and from the narratives we have given, we come to this deduction, that however the deed may be surrounded by mystic circumvolutions, it "will out and speak with most miraculous organ.' Another important fact to be gathered from our work, is, that guilt and misery are inseparable. We do not submit this as a dis-covery, but as a mere reiteration of a trite moral axiom, which we have illustrated by: variety of instances. From them we find that remorse is no respecter of persons. That the ermined scoundrel, or titled villain, who stalks to his golden dungeon for repose, is not more happy or less miserable than the tattered, wandering, and reckless ruffian, who, protected by the clouds of night, yet "fearing each bush an officer," lurks to his leafy lair for broken slumbers. That costly couches lull not a perturbed spirit, nor is it in the power of spangled robes to conceal from their possessor his moral deformity. That you may pavilion the sinner in sensuality; you may administer to his palate savoury viands, to his eye delightful visions; you may gratify his nostrils with incense, and regale his ears with harmony; but all this will not pluck from his bosom "The perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart." Beside which the sword of Damocles is ever over the head of the one, as the gibbet is before the face of the other. Here also we find that deviations from virtue, if ever so trifling must be guarded against, for many of the most important events of our lives have turned upon minute and almost imperceptible pivots. The highwayman at first was but a pilferer, and the murderer a mere impaler of insects: had our bad habits in their infancy been resisted, we had not committed those acts which ultimately covered us with shame, ignominy, and death; here then is the advantage of such a work; we see the progress of crime from embryo to maturity, and are thus prepared to guard against taking the first false step; and looking at men too as the children of one common parent, the mere recital of a cruel state, stimulates the feeling heart to denounce the oppressor, and compassionate the oppressed; and thus, out of the very abuse of power, and the wreck of happiness, are good dispositions cherished, and good habits formed. It is not the least advantage of such a work that it is likely to generate a feeling of content. The greater portion of the misfortunes which it recounts, are by a happy union of cicumstances far removed from us. Treading a highly cultivated soil; the incursions and depredations of wild animals and men still more ferocious than they are to us unknown and unregarded. Enjoying a full toleration in matters of conscience, the inquisition has no horrors for us, and guarded by laws whose letter and spirit secure liberty we are under no apprehension of being reduced to dust by the iron mace of a capricious tyrant. The stories, giving an account of supernatural appearances, are surprisingly authenticated, and we have therefore thought it our duty to submit them. We are aware that a persuasion in the existence and interposition of such intelligences, may be made instrumental in terrifying the weak; but we are also aware that such a belief might have a high moral tendency; for not only would it help the cause of virtue, by giving an additional earnest of a future state, but a persuasion that our conduct was watched by the etherial essence of some pious ancestor, must have a restraining and favourable influence upon many of our actions. Whether the spirits of human beings, after casting the slough of the flesh are permitted to "revisit the glimpses of the moon,"-whether the personifications of humanity, which men have seen or thought they have seen, have been an external phantasma offered to the organs of sense, or nothing more than the exhalation of an over-heated imagination, we do not think it our province to determine. All that we shall say is, "That though all reasoning be against it, yet all belief is for it." |