PROGRESS OF INFIDELITY IN THE UNITED STATES.

(From the New York Herald, June11.)

We publish two remarkable documents to-day, from two distant organs of infidel parties in the United States. The first article is taken from a small paper published in Springfield, Massachusetts, issued to prove the reality of spiritual communications with the inhabitants of the earth, and is the composition of Andrew Jackson Davis, who originally made his appearance, under the auspices of Mr. Fishbough, at Poughkeepsie, as a clairvoyant author. This man Davis has gone on, step by step, till he has at last produced this Declaration of Independence, as the platform for a new society of infidels, to be called the Harmonial Brotherhood. Tho second article is from the Tribune of this city, the organ of socialism and infidelity—the vehicle of Andrew Jackson Davis's thoughts at various times, and the promoter of the system of impostures known as Rochester knockings, and every ridiculous ism of the day, besides. It is a description, written with rare relish, of the Nauvoo settlement of M. Cabet, the Icarian philosopher, who has transplanted, from the mass of socialists and infidels in France, this colony of strange communists, who are seeking, under their deluded guides, a social system upon earth without a God—without a religion—without an eternity—without an hereafter, or any idea beyond that on a level with the beasts of the field.

Now these two documents cannot be carefully read, without satisfying any person of ordinary judgment that there is danger to the young and ardent imaginations of both sexes from the promulgation of such socialistic and infidel theories— theories which appeal to the sense strongly, and which teach insubordinations to the restraints of society and religion. The Nauvoo settlement, and the proposed Harmonial Brotherhood of the man Davis, are based on identically the same philosophical principles. Whatever may be the casuistical distinctions—whatever may be the kind of deism advocated—or of the atheism inculcated—one thing is certain, that the precepts and practices of Christianity are repudiated as worthless—as the source of all the evils of society, and utterly fit only to be condemned by the superior faith in man and woman, which is to banish all creeds that recognise God and the revelations of the gospel. Men are taught to isolate themselves from the great currents of eternity, to overturn the laws which regulate the legitimacy of offspring, and to change their affections at will, to suit their own spirit of licentiousness. In fact, the utmost latitude proposed by Fourier is recommended ; and if these evil spirits of reform are permitted to proceed with their projects, we may have again springing up around us, more of those Fourierite phalansteries, which eight years ago were established to the number of twenty. Of those first communities only one now exists—that in new Jersey, which struggles on by means of subscriptions and donations and which, left to ordinary consequences, would share the fate of that of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and the others in various places in New England.

Ordinarily, institutions so repugnant to the delicacy of the softer sex, and so at at variance with man's love of his own offspring, as well as opposed to those equitable rewards of labour which form the true enjoyment of life—would be scoffed at by persons of the slightest intelligence. Allurements, however, to dispositions of an erratic kind, and for characters in the process of formation, are held up by the interested and selfish leaders of these communities—who eventually retire with a fortune, when the lands and tenements are sold out—and these promising inducements swell the number of proselytes. The infection is always spreading ; and the fact that at Springfield, Massachusetts, a newspaper devoted to reporting spiritual knockings is supported, shows that New England contains a large number of those who are opposed to Christianity, and in favour of any delusion, however absurd. Look at the ideas of the man Davis in his Declaration of Independence. Was there ever a more preposterous system proposed for the government of mortals than that which he now sets up ? He has concentrated all the vapors and dreams of the pagan philosophers into his system of political harmonies, in the hope to draw capital enough to his aid to establish himself as perpetual dictator of the Harmonial Brotherhood. Like every other impostor, he professes to receive revelations from mesmeric power, and to be superior to, and purer than those around him. He walks the earth a self elected god in his own esteem, or, if not in his own esteem, with a desire to be so reputed by others. And, singularly enough, there are persons so ignorant as to rely upon the matter which he has filtered from the works of the heathen philosophers—from Plato, and Solan, and Epicurus—and from the modern dreamers, Swedenborg, Fourier, Mesmer, and the whole catalogue of authors of the French revolution of the last century and of that of 1848, together with Miss Martineau and other English atheists, who acknowledge no God but nature—no nature but universal licentiousness.

It is not the least remarkable fact accompanying the presence of these avowals of infidelity—of these attempts to return to the phallic system, in practice, of primeval races—that those who propound and propose such disgusting principles are bred under the very caves of the many churches which mark every locality in New England. In Springfield the people are intelligent, reputable, and religious ; yet there we find a nest of philosophers whose souls are devoted to the knees and toes of a set of rapping impostors, who wickedly avow that they are media between heaven and earth—between the spirits of the dead and those of the living. The tendency of all this is towards infidelity. True religion has no part in it, but rank imposture has everything to do with it. It is the beginning, middle, and end of the whole system; and while such papers as the Tribune can be found to support such mockery and delusion, young minds will be carried away from the paths of decency, morality, and Christianity. In fact it is now understood that, like anti-masonry, infidel socialism is to form a portion of the political platforms of parties. The man Davis is of the anti-slavery party, according to his own avowal, and will give his support to that faction. Where will all this folly terminate ?

Empire 26 September 1851,