ivorous, when the
infant who has lived for a single day has killed an infinitely greater
number of human beings than the longest life would suffice to murder by
design? Or, if we sacrifice either our lives or our comforts by
scrupulously denying ourselves the use of animal food, can we derive much
consolation from considering that we spare a few scores of beings, when we
involuntarily, but knowingly, are every moment massacreing more than the
longest life-time would suffice to enumerate?' . . . A REFERENCE to the
case of '_Rachael Baker, the American Somnambulist_,' in a late London
Magazine, has recalled that remarkable phenomenon very forcibly to our
mind. RACHAEL BAKER resided within four miles of 'the house where we were
born;' and the first exhibitions of her religious exercises during sleep
took place alternately at the homestead and the residence of a relation in
its near vicinity. We remember as it were but yesterday the solemnity
which sat upon the faces of the assembled neighbors, as they awaited the
signal-groan from an adjoining apartment, to which, at about seven P. M.,
the Somnambulist usually retired for the night. When the door was opened
the crowd pressed in. The sleeper, dressed in white muslin, lay straight
and motionless in bed; her eyes closed, her face white and inflexible as
marble; and her fingers with livid marks beneath the nails, clasped meekly
upon her bosom. Flecks of foam were visible at the corners of her mouth,
and her lips moved 'as if they would address themselves to speech,' for
some seconds before any audible sound came from them. At length, however,
in a clear silvery voice she opened with prayer; a prayer fervent,
devotional, and evidently direct from the heart. When this was concluded,
and after the lapse of a brief space, she began an exhortation, in
language pure, beautiful, often eloquent, and occasionally rising to a
noble sublimity; and then closed with prayer. If interrupted with a
question, as she frequently was, by clergymen, medical gentlemen, and
others, she answered it with readiness, and with a felicity of language
surpassing belief. 'RACHAEL,' said a clergyman to her in our hearing one
evening, while in the midst of her discourse, 'why do you engage in these
exercises? and why----' She interrupted the speaker with words to this
effect: 'I, even I, a worm of the dust, am but a feeble instrument in the
hands of HIM who hath declared, 'I will pour out of my spirit upon you;