THE HAND OF THE PERSECUTOR
The public had every reason to feel a deep sympathy with the two younger Fox sisters in the courageous attitude which they had taken.
The deadliest hatred is always to be feared, by those who abandon a faith or a system, from those who still adhere to it.
Think you, if Mahomet had turned about, forty years after the Hegira, and had boldly anathematized the religion he had established, he might not have been reviled and persecuted, even by those in whom he had first inculcated his bastard faith?
Who can doubt this who knows human nature?
Even the lies of an impostor rebel against him, when, with a repentant word, he would damn them again to all eternity.
Mrs. Jencken had ample reason to fear that the disclosures which had been made by her and her sister would redouble the hostile zeal of those who before had persecuted her. In the first account which had been published of her return to this country, it was not stated that her two boys had accompanied her. In fact, however, they had.
The pressure brought to bear to induce her to retract her denunciation of Spiritualism, and the ground of her fear for the safety of her children, are well set forth in the following, which appeared on October 11th, 1888:
THE JENCKEN BOYS WERE HERE, BUT ARE SENT AWAY.