A. Leah Underhill

“ If the University is satisfied that they have exposed the humbug, why ask to bring in new proof? Is it because the ladies, instead of leaving town in twenty-four hours, have staid as many days? Is it because the public are more anxious than ever to see and learn more of these mysterious manifestations? Is it because there is more intense interest than ever elicited, the more the subject is investigated? Is it because intelligent men are giving the matter consideration? I ask, what causes so much disquietude in the minds of the professors? Have they shot off their gun too quick? ”

“ I observed a form slowly approaching amid the shower of dust and débris; and as it came nearer I recognized in it my sister Maria, dressed in deep black, and ran to meet her. She raised her hands, saying, ‘O Maggie! isn’t this dreadful?’ As we met, a leaf (as from a book) dropped at our feet. I picked up the leaf and read from it these words:
“Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the north-wind’s breath, And stars to set—but all, Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!” ”

“ As it is I am as ever a deeply interested spectator of the events as they transpire, and looking, with entire and unflagging confidence, for the time coming when the more glorious fruits of these newly developed truths will ripen for the eye best fitted to appreciate them. I think, sometimes, that this Spiritualism advances upon the world of mind as the inflowing tide of ocean floods the shore. It seems to come in waves; each succeeding one beats further upon the strand than its predecessor. ”

“ Dear Leah: I have very often thought of you since you left our goodly city, and have as often desired to communicate with you, but I hardly know where to direct a letter to find you; though I might have known that your movements would be slow, for strange, indeed, it would be if you did not find people enough, in every place you visited, interested in the remarkable phenomena that attend you, to keep you a long time. It is almost useless to say that we always rejoice whenever we hear of your prosperity, either temporally or spiritually ”

“ The hall was crowded. The lecturer was eloquent and the audience pleased. The rappings were profuse. Public opinion had changed since the first lectures on the subject. Friends rushed to the platform to congratulate us on our triumphant success.
Many good wishes for our happiness and prosperity in our great enterprise were showered upon us; and we little dreamed that we had given our last public entertainment to our true and tried friends in Rochester. We did not even imagine that we were then leaving our dear old home for a new one in a new city, when the proper time should arrive. ”

“ Dear, kind-hearted soul! she must possess an unbounded share of the milk of human-kindness. No one can, for a moment, suppose that she was solicited to expose her knees to various gentlemen of the medical profession, for they must be sufficiently acquainted with anatomy and physiology to know all the mechanism at all competent to produce those sounds. It must, therefore, have been on her part perfectly voluntary—prompted purely by a most benevolent desire to expose a humbug. But Spiritualism will still progress, and its advocates shall gloriously ride over all adversity, for God is omnipotent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We want you to come to Cleveland. We will select a house here where you will be happy and comfortable. We pity those poor wretches who are ready to persecute those who are too good to breathe the air of the same neighborhood where they reside. But never mind, you know and we know there is truth in these new revelations, and the good work is destined to lead men from darkness and doubt, into the blessed light of truth and a hope which I despaired of ever obtaining. ”

“ What sort of imagination is it that would persuade two men that a table which they sought, by main force, to prevent from moving, did move, without conceivable cause, in spite of their efforts? (p. 280.) Do people imagine ‘such a clatter in the room that one can hardly endure it’?—or that ‘every piece of furniture there was set in vibration’?—or such a pounding that the witness ‘expected every moment that the floor of the apartment would sink beneath his feet’? ”

“ Well, they pounced upon you as you might well suppose such (God forgive me!) scientific gentlemen would, conscious as they doubtless are, that their position on the pyramid of all human knowledge is nothing short of the very cap-stone itself. Not only have they, in most chivalrous manner, arrayed themselves for your disrespect, but a masterly stroke, ingeniously given, shielded the public forever against such gross trickery and imposition by an exposé of the whole thing! ”

“ How far and how deeply it has modified the old teachings of the pulpit is patent to all observant eyes; while among the priesthood in the divine temple of Science, the number and unsurpassed rank of those who, under its influence, have abandoned the materialism of their old philosophies, after exhaustive investigation of the facts and truths of Spiritualism, is such as to stamp with the disgrace of simple ignorance those who may still dare to deny and deride;—even as history has fixed the fate of those professors and priests who refused to take a look through Galileo’s telescope ”

“ Denunciation, unsparingly poured out, has been heaped upon the heads of those most immediately connected with this singular phenomenon, and an unwarrantable and unmanly meanness, which has led the writers, almost without exception, to traduce the character of the Fox family, and has taught us how easy it is for men to forget their manhood and stoop to a point at which they can lay claim to but little of the nobility of human nature. ”

“ This was continued but a short time, when the alphabet was called for, and the spelling was, ‘I breathed so when I was dying.’ Then the same sound of grating was heard, and it continued like one laboring in the last moments of life. These breathings became shorter and further between, till a seemingly ineffectual attempt, like a hiccough, closed the drama, and the death-scene was complete.
“Hereupon the alphabet was called for, and the following address was spelled: ‘Such is the end of man’s existence on the earth; but he suddenly awakes to a glorious immortality. ”

“ Greeley’s letters of this trying time, I extract the following: “Be faithful. Remember how short the time of life is. Submit to every lawful investigation. While you are being tested by the doctors, to prove you make the sounds by snapping the knee-joints, insist on having a committee of ladies appointed to hold your feet, and for ever silence the blasting charge of toe rapping, or it will cover you with a cloud of obloquy from which you may not recover in years, if ever.” ”

“ Mortified and ashamed at the tones and looks of this representative of Alma Mater and of Science, when addressed to a gentleman stranger, and a man of science, I turned silently away, and was not surprised when, shortly after, Major Rains said to me, ‘There seems no occasion for me to remain here because of any knowledge or skill which my experience in such investigations may have given me; there is no attempt, no purpose, to have an investigation of the general subject. ”

“ I am proud as well as happy to have enjoyed such high and precious and ennobling friendships, many of which are not wholly severed even by that death which only makes our friends invisible for a time to our mortal eyes, since a thought, a wish can still bring to me those signal sounds which are as their voices. I will indulge myself here only with a page or two about two semi-angelic women, Alice and Phœbe Cary, who have now risen into the completeness of their angelhood. ”

“ We frequently talked of the change called death, and as we were both somewhat materialistic in our views as to a future state of existence, we mutually agreed that the one who should be first called to pay the debt of nature, would, if there was a possibility of Spirit return, with sufficient power to tangibly manifest his presence, surely do so; and in order that there could be no mistaking the individual identity, he would seize the one still in earth-life by the hair of his head and forcibly pull him from his bed to the floor. ”

“ During the previous, night all was in an uproar. The sounds as of broken crockery were heard, and as if heavy weights were dragged across the floor. Sawing, planing, digging, boring, groaning, and whispering close to our ears. This continued until the bright, beautiful dawn of the morning warned us that it was time to prepare for the labors of the day. We were commanded by the Spirits thus—“Go forth and do your duty, and good will come of it.” Chauncy Culver, my brother’s wife’s brother, called in, and David said: “Chauncy, you are politely invited to join us in the digging to-day.” ”

“ We have attained a period of such wonderful discoveries in science and the arts—we accomplish so many extraordinary triumphs and unaccountable enterprises in the present age—that our motto is ‘nil admirari.’ Let us see all that is to be seen as quickly as possible, before we shake off this ‘mortal coil.’ After steam and the telegraph, we are ready to believe anything. The Spirit who makes knocks for these young ladies seems to be a familiar one, for it has followed them from Rochester and knocks in every part of Barnum’s Hotel, corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane. ”

“ Your particular mention of a number of your visitors is very agreeable to me. What a pity I cannot accept your invitation, and spend a week with you. You must remember everything you see and hear, and tell me all when you come home. I am very glad you like Mr. Hopper. He is a queer fellow—when he has a mind to be. He can veil the greatest amount of fun under the most serious face, of any one I know. He carries a ‘band of music’ under that Quaker physiognomy of his. ”

“ And what with relatives, and friends on visits, and nephews and nieces of whose education we have taken charge, for the better advantages of New York, it has been one pretty full of visible inmates, as well as those who are not the less real because invisible. And these latter are ever ready to respond, with the dear familiar raps and alphabet, to our desire to communicate with them; to say nothing of occasional manifestations in other ways, of their presence with us. ”

“ Healthy, sound, and strong, not easily frightened, steadfast in faith, and never disposed to believe anything without evidence. I have very little interest in anything covered by the words theoretic speculations, or in self-induced conditions, in which many thousands who stand on rostrums and teach the anxious inquirers after truth that of which they themselves know little or nothing. My motto is: Live up to your highest light. Listen to the small voice within, and obey the dictates of your conscience. Do unto others as you would be done by. ”

“ The eye and the ear have kindred offices. They are, both of them, organs through which the soul within us takes cognizance of beauty. The magnificent stave of music which has once trembled on the tympanum, is forever prisoned in the spirit—‘a thing of beauty;’ and so each glorious form of nature on which the eye has rested, while the [146] spirit drank in its inspiration, remains ‘a joy forever.’ And this we call Memory. ”

“ It is somewhat amusing to see editors of papers, distinguished men, literary characters and others coming into the belief of Spiritualism, or mysterious knockings; eating their own words and swallowing Spirits, girls, knockers and all. We say that it is amusing—it would be amusing, were it not disgusting to see men, who pretend to possess an ordinary share of intelligence, so completely stultify themselves—as many of these characters have. ”

“ It is impossible for any mortal to sit and reiterate the letters of the alphabet as fast as they can be repeated, hour after hour, and retain in the mind the structure of the sentences and chapters communicated. I defy any one to do it. Even Theodore Parker pronounced it a quietus on [411] the Buffalo doctors. Try it yourselves, dear readers. Under the right conditions, I can sit and call the letters for hours together, and when the message is finished it will be found to be perfect and unbroken from beginning to end—in accordance with the intelligence of the Spirit, not that of the medium. ”

“ I soon discovered that I must utterly doubt the truthfulness of my senses—which, by the way, are not deficient beyond those of others—or admit that there were sounds produced in my presence, in some manner utterly unaccountable. They were considered to be produced by spiritual beings, but the bare fact that I heard noises and could not account for them, was no evidence to me that such was their origin. Some action of a (to me) hidden law of nature upon inert matter might do this; or it might, in some way, be the effect of animal magnetism. ”

“ Under Galileo’s lead we look again, aided by the telescope of moderate power, and, beyond that gathered in our first field of sight, we find another countless host of stars. Tired with the result we think and rest. Recuperating our wearied eyes, we substitute an instrument of higher power, and again peer into the realm of Infinitude. And again another congeries of stars is opened to our human vision. Repeat the process as we may, and as often as we choose, increase the penetrating power of our instrument, the same fact remains. There is no end, no limitation. ”

“ I conclude this Introduction by a brief allusion to the reasonable question which has been so often asked, Cui bono?—or what is the use of the manifestations of Spiritualism?
It is that they demonstrate the reality of the survival of man’s spirit, or inner self, after that “death” which is but birth into another stage of progressed and progressive life, in unchanged personality and identity; or, in other words, that immortality of the soul (heretofore a mere dogma of unproved and unprovable “faith”) , which is the foundation corner-stone of all religions and of all Religion. ”