“Now, what I wish to say is this: The relations in which you stand to the origin of this unbounded subject, make it highly important that your whole history should be carefully preserved. In fact, you should keep a daily journal, and record therein the progress and developments of this new (and to many) startling science—for so I deem it. The fact is that your names must form an inseparable part of the history of modern Spiritualism, and it is important that you should have that justice which the truth alone can give you. Hence, while it is fresh in the mind, your mother, yourself, or some one should carefully collect and arrange these early facts, in such a way as to secure them and place them where they belong, beyond all doubt or argument; and also, as far as is in your power, you should enter daily, if but two or three times, the distinguished names of your daily investigators, the names of the places you visit, and the thousand calls ‘to come’ from every part of the United States and from Europe. Do not neglect or deem it unimportant, for the time will come when it will be deeply regretted (if not by you) by those who come after you. Without saying more at this time, please accept my best wishes, and be assured of my co-operation and willingness to share with you all the jeers and taunts of sceptics or obstinate bigots. I much prefer the former, as there is more hope for the sceptic than the bigot. I choose to stand with a few who are in the right rather than with the many in the wrong. Smiles or frowns are alike unheeded when they come from the ignorant or self-wise.
“Most truly and respectfully your friend,
“A. Underhill.”
GEORGE LEE, M.D.
“Barré, Mass., June 30, 1851.
“Mrs. Ann L. Fish:
“Dear Madam—I address you almost as a stranger, although I had the honor of a short acquaintance at your place in Rochester, last September. I was at your house on the same day with several clergymen from Massachusetts. I was then on my way to Mt. Morris on business. A lady from Mt. Morris visited you, a Mrs. Mashon (an acquaintance of yours). While I was stopping there at her house, she informed me that yourself and sisters were about to leave home for a time, and I was much disappointed on finding you were all absent when I returned, as I was then anxious to further investigate those mysterious manifestations. I felt that I had been severely scathed in this world by the loss of all our children; and although I was educated strictly in the orthodox church and its tenets, yet I was somewhat sceptical in regard to the soul’s immortality. You cannot wonder that I should seek confirmation of the soul’s future life.
“When, therefore, I heard those mysterious sounds for the first time at your house, it produced a thrill of joy, as being the strongest evidence of a future life that I had ever met with; and though I was satisfied that there was no trick, no collusion in the sounds, yet I have not been so certain that it might not be some newly developed or newly elaborated electrical effect; yet the evidence is in favor of its Spirituality. It is the most natural solution of the whole subject, and I should regret, as much as any one, to have it prove otherwise.
“I am satisfied that the mediums are honest and unconscious of the primary cause of the phenomena. I am somewhat acquainted with Swedenborg’s writings, and very well acquainted with A. J. Davis and his writings. I consider Davis and his writings among the greatest wonders of the world. That a young man, without education, without even having read books, should have given to the world such far-reaching thought and profound philosophy, upon the most abstruse and metaphysical subjects, is a marvel indeed! The history of mankind cannot produce a parallel fact. And yet we do not suppose he has no errors. He does not claim infallibility. In ‘Nature’s Divine Revelations’ he says, ‘Let then what I am impressed to state, be received as true or rejected as false, as it addresses itself to your judgment, or according to its appeals to your reason.’
“The highest angel in the universe could not give the whole philosophy of the universe, because that Spirit does not possess a perfect knowledge of all things; and I have seen many criticisms of Mr. Davis’s writings, but they generally show that the writers of them do not comprehend him; and although some strictures may be just, the great majority of them evince a real misapprehension on the part of their authors.
“Le Roy Sunderland has made two: one upon Mr. Davis’s recent work, ‘The Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse.’ In both of Mr. Sunderland’s criticisms he shows his own want of discrimination. Dr. Gridley has another article in The Spirit World as a criticism of Davis. It darkens knowledge with words. They do not take a very comprehensive view of Davis’s philosophy. They seem to forget that Davis uses language figuratively.