IT CAN SEE AS WELL AS HEAR."
Words which have since become a text which Doctors, Professors, sceptics and scoffers have tried to crush out of existence—and ignominously failed, but which on the other hand have brought comfort, solace, and permanent joy to the hearts of hundreds of thousands—nay, millions surely,—of earth's weary pilgrims. Words which declared a truth since tested by every possible subtlety and sophistry which the ingenuity of man could suggest or devise, but which has stood firmly through every ordeal. Words which declare a truth that has already become the firm foundation of faith for an ever progressive Spiritual Church, made up of almost every nation of the earth, and embracing adherents from every rank of philosophic, scientific, religious and social life, which, moreover, reveals its own attributes to the child and the philosopher alike, and provides the missing link between a finite material world and a world of infinite spiritual possibilities by proving the continuity of life.
CHAPTER V.
Happily for the momentous work which the spiritual telegraphers had undertaken to initiate in this humble dwelling, the first manifestations did not appeal to the high and learned of the earth, but to the plain common-sense of an honest farmer's wife, and suggested that whatever could see, hear, and intelligently respond to relevant queries, must have in it something in common with humanity; and thus Mrs. Fox continued her investigations. Addressing the viewless rapper she said "count ten;" the raps obeyed. "How old is my daughter Margaret?" then "Kate?" Both questions were distinctly and correctly rapped out. Mrs. Fox then asked "How many children have I?" Seven, was the reply; this however proved to be wrong for she had only six living. She repeated her question and was again answered by seven raps; suddenly she cried "How many have I living?" Six raps responded. "How many dead?" a single knock; and both these answers proved correct. To the next question, "Are you a man that knocks?" there was no response; but "Are you a spirit?" elicited firm and distinctive responsive knocks.
Emboldened by her success, Mrs. Fox continued her enquiries and ascertained by raps that the messages were coming from what purported to be the Spirit of an injured man who had been murdered for his money. To the question how old he was, there came thirty-one distinct raps. He also gave them to understand that he was a married man, and had left a wife and five children; that his wife was dead, and had been dead two years. After ascertaining so much, she asked the question "Will the noise continue if I call in some neighbours?" The answer was by rapping in the affirmative.
At first they called in their nearest neighbours, who came thinking they would have a hearty laugh at the family for being frightened—but when the first neighbour came in and found that the noise, whatever it might be, could tell the age of herself as well as others, and give correct answers to questions on matters of which the family of Mr. Fox was quite ignorant, she concluded that there was something beside a subject of ridicule and laughter in these unseen but audible communications. These neighbours insisted on calling others who came, and after investigation were as much confounded as at first.
The reader must endeavour to picture to himself the scene which followed the introduction of the neighbours to this weird and most novel court of inquiry. Imagine the place to be an humble cottage in a remote and obscure hamlet; the judge and jurors, simple unsophisticated rustics; and the witness an invisible, unknown being, a denizen of a world of whose very existence mankind has been ignorant; acting by laws mysterious and inconceivable, in modes utterly beyond all human control or comprehension, and breaking through what has been deemed the dark and eternal seal of death, to reveal the long-hidden mysteries of the grave, and drag to the light secrets which not even the fabled silence of the grave could longer hide away. Those who have been accustomed to dream of death as the end of all whom its shadowy portals inclose, alone are prepared to appreciate the awful and startling reality of this strange scene, breaking apart, as it did, like a rope of sand, all the preconceived opinions of countless ages on the existence and destiny of the living dead.