[27] This, however, he denies, but suppose it were true, why was it improper that in his own house he should choose the place where he would stand? If they knew where he was, that was sufficient.
[28] See the date in the last letter, page 39.
[29] He had said that Mr. Blaisdel’s family could not raise the Spirit any where but in their own house, as several testified.
[30] That is, that they heard the same words.
[31] There was not only this similarity in voice, but the same phrases, which she was accustomed to use, and which were peculiar to her in her life time, she uttered now, as several of her intimate acquaintances have informed me.
[32] She had come several times before, as the preceding letters show. Five months before this, Mr. Blaisdel’s son P. and his sisters, were sent by the ghost to a house where several young people were met for amusement; not for this purpose, but for terminating a difference between them and one of that company. The ghost strictly charged them to go and return in peace, and to abstain from all appearance of evil. The propriety of this small errand appears by its connections and the events which followed. But, as it stands insulated before the eyes of pride and folly, how despicable it must appear! Had such eyes looked on, when the first silk worm was formed, it would have appeared a trivial and useless contrivance. “As the heavens are higher than the earth; so are my ways higher than your ways, saith the Lord, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” It would be very strange indeed, if a messenger from heaven should have much to perform in such a world as this, and yet meet with no opposition; and equally strange, if that messenger should perform nothing but what mankind would naturally expect, especially in a period when christians themselves have not escaped the contagion of infidelity.
[33] The children, through fear, had moved their beds into the room where their parents lodged.
[34] These words were heard by eight persons.
[35] This answer she now denies; but owns she saw the apparition.
[36] These enigmatical warnings were some of the first words which the voice uttered, and they appeared strange to us all. They appeared void of instruction, impertinent and utterly inapplicable to any thing which was seen, remembered, or expected among us. None were then trifling with her; all wondered, and many were solemnized. Nor was there any remarkable contention among us. But after she had produced her strange, unexpected, unheard of message, our behaviour soon fixed the meaning of these enigmas, and rendered them like apples of gold and pictures of silver. Her speaking so much in a by-place (a cellar) separate from the common dwelling of man, like John in the wilderness, has offended us. If her paths were the Lord’s, instead of making them strait, we have made them crooked by misconception, misrepresentation, and falsehood. While the ghost was then speaking, one of the company was near eternity. Therefore “seek the Lord while he may be found.”