“This performance lasted about fifteen minutes. The box was examined, and Mr. Post procured from the earth it contained several quite large granules of phosphorus, the purity of which was beyond question, and which he preserved, and caused to be chemically examined and tested.
“Mrs. B. was then taken in charge by the ladies, and reconducted to the dressing-room, clothed in her own attire, and returned to the sitting-room. There was a wish expressed, on the part of all present, to get communications from their ‘Spirit friends;’ and, although there seemed to be a perfect willingness on the part of the medium, the controlling Spirits deemed it advisable that there should be no further manifestations on that night, and said, through raps, ‘It would be wrong to permit different classes of Spirits to manifest under existing circumstances. I will bring about another meeting soon.
‘Benjamin Franklin.’”
Mr. Underhill and I were married on the second day of November, 1858, at No. 35 Nineteenth Street, New York City. My father had taken the house of Mr. Horace Greeley, who made it his home with my parents when he was in the city. We were married by the Rev. John Pierpont. Mr. U. purchased the house we now live in, and we moved into it immediately on our return from a western excursion. It was agreed upon that his friends should be mine, and my friends should be his, but that I should never again sit in public circles.
He thought I had done my duty faithfully, and that it was time for me to retire from public séances. The announcement fell like a thunderbolt upon nearly all of my investigators. Many argued that it was a duty I owed to the public, and to my God, to continue to labor in the cause of Spiritualism; that I had been chosen, by higher authorities, to do a work that rested on me and my family. Some of my friends thought differently, and as they knew the man who had so generously acquitted me of all blame or suspicion, and who so nobly sustained me through the difficulties with which I was destined to contend, my true friends congratulated me and rejoiced at my good fortune.
ANOTHER STATEMENT FROM D. UNDERHILL.
“Sunday Night, August 1, 1859.
“We retired about eleven o’clock. I had locked the door opening from the hall into the front room, also the door leading from the same hall into the bath-room. The door leading from the hall to the bed-room was locked on the inside by Leah; but after retiring she was in doubt as to whether she had locked it; whereupon I arose and went to the door, tried the lock, and found it fast. I then returned to bed. In a few moments we were startled by the springing of the bolt of the lock of that door. Leah exclaimed, ‘What’s that?’ I replied, ‘It’s nothing but the springing of the bolt of the lock;’ supposing that when I turned the knob the bolt had failed to spring into its proper place. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it is something more than that.’ Very soon we heard sounds, as if Spirits were on their knees on the floor patting the carpet with their hands. I commenced asking questions, and received responses by the same sounds.
“It was soon evident that one or more Spirits were around our bed. My questions were answered by a hand patting me on the head. Soon something was passed over our faces, just touching us, after which lights appeared over us. They passed to my side of the bed, and a cloth was placed upon my right shoulder and pressed heavily—at times as with two hands; also on the arm. When the pressure left my arm the light again appeared on or over us, waving about us, as if to gather force from the atmosphere. During all this time hands were distinctly visible holding the cloth with a bright phosphorescent light upon it. Then the sheet with which I was covered was drawn down and the cloth was placed upon my stomach and chest. On feeling it with my hands, I found it was a coarse towel. Repeated pressures were made in this way for some time, after which there was an alarm of fire in the neighborhood. I dressed myself, and went out, returning in about half an hour. On my return I again locked the door and extinguished the light, and went to bed.