Concord Register

Sandbornton, March 19, 1825.
RELIGIOUS FANATICISM

We have never witnessed a more shocking instance of the effect of superstition, and we scarcely know of an act so outrageous to the feelings of humanity amongst the followers of Juggernaut, or in the annals of Hindoo superstition, as occurred in this town last week.

The unhappy victim who fell a sacrifice in this affair, was a young woman who had lived in this town a short time with a Mr. McDaniels as his wife; and who professed to be a follower of that fanatical sect called Osgoodites. Being brought to the bed of sickness, she was allowed by her deluded leaders, who profess to have power to heal diseases, no other aid than their prayers, which were kept up with singing, &c. for about three weeks, when, despairing of working a miracle, they consented to have a Physician called in: but it was too late for her to be benefited. Her infant child was immediately laid in the grave, if a hole dug in the ground, and the child hove into it without the semblance of a coffin, could be called a grave, followed by herself in a few days, who would have shared the same fate, but for the intervention of some of the neighbors.

It is a subject of regret, that our citizens should have remained silent while this savage act of barbarity was perpetrating. We do not wish to deprive any sect of their religious notions, but it certainly would have been an act worthy of a christian people to have interfered in this case, and snatched the unhappy sufferer from the jaws of death: and we feel confident that such an act would have stood approved in the sight of Heaven.