What future awaits this child remains to be seen. The house of his parents used for a time to be overrun by people of rank too high to be (in that country) refused admittance, who wanted to see some specimens of his mediumistic manifestations; until his parents wisely determined to break it all off, and not allow any exercise of his powers in that line to be indulged in, till he shall have reached the age of adult physical development in health and strength.
The child is now about ten years of age, and, I rejoice to say, healthy, active, and bright, as well as beautiful;—and further that his parents have kept him entirely aloof from mediumship—to which course I strongly advised them.
OUR MOTHER AND FATHER.
Our dear mother (who passed from this life to the next on the 3d August, 1865) was a woman of sound intellect, gentle disposition, very charitable, and just to every one. She had great power of discrimination, and seldom failed in her estimate of character. Her portrait looks down upon me from our parlor wall; and when I look up into her blessed face, my first impulse is to fall upon my knees and thank my God that I have had such a mother.
Robert Dale Owen was one day sitting in the back parlor, engaged in writing. He remained with us three months, at my husband’s invitation, while writing his “Foot-falls on the Boundary of Another World.” He sat at equal distance from mother and her portrait, alternately looking from one to the other. As I stepped in the door, he turned to me and said, “Mrs. Underhill, if that were the portrait of my mother, and she were living, as yours now is, and could sit for another every day, I would not take a thousand dollars for it. I never saw a portrait so perfectly correct in my life, and I doubt if you could ever get another so perfect.”
Our father was not as well known to the public. Situated as we were, our parents concluded that, as we were compelled to travel and submit to all investigations necessary to establish a new truth (for new it was, to us), or to submit to, or rest under the condemnation of the world at large, we must of necessity have suitable companions. Therefore it was decided that mother and Calvin should go wherever we went.
Our father was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was a class leader at the time of his death (on the 10th January, 1865). One Sunday morning he was ready to go to church and stood in the library, waiting for my husband, who was going with him. I stood beside him when suddenly the signal for the alphabet was given. I repeated the letters, and the Spirit said, “My dear son, it is a pleasure to me to attend you to the church. I always go with you there.”
His chest heaved, and with tears in his eyes he said, “Are you the Spirit of my dear mother now speaking to me?” The answer was, “Yes, I am your mother Catharine.” He then asked, “Is my father here too?” Answer, “Yes, my dear son. I bless you this morning. We shall all be together in Heaven soon. “David.”
I asked him, “Do you think the Methodists would approve of this if you were to read it to them?” He replied, “It would matter little to me whether they did or not. I not only believe it but I know it is true, and the time will come when they will all believe it.”
Mr. Underhill then went with him to church, and when they returned he said to me (holding up the little message in his hand), “This, to me, is far stronger proof of a glorious immortality than all the preachers on earth could give me.”