第8章

At least an irrepressible curiosity was everywhere excited to know what the new "ism" would teach concerning that invisible world which it professed to have come to open to the knowledge of mankind. Everywhere men sought by what means they could come into communication with the spirit realm.

Into whatever place the news entered, circles were formed, and the number of converts outstripped the pen of the enroller. It gathered adherents from every walk of life -- from the higher classes as well as the lower;the educated, cultured, and refined, as well as the uncultivated and ignorant;from ministers lawyers, physicians, judges, Page 28 teachers, government officials, and all the professions. But the individuals thus interested, being of too diverse and independent views to agree upon any permanent basis for organization, the data for numerical statistics are difficult to procure. Various estimates, however, of their numbers have been formed. As long ago as 1876, computations of the number of Spiritualists in the United States ranged from 3,000,000 by Hepworth Dixon, to 10,000,000by the Roman Catholic council at Baltimore. Only five years from the time the first convert to Modern Spiritualism appeared, Judge Edmonds, himself an enthusiastic convert, said of their numbers: -- "Besides the undistinguished multitudes, there are many now of high standing and talent ranked among them,--doctors, lawyers, and clergymen in great numbers, a Protestant bishop, the learned and reverend president of a college, judges of our higher courts, members of Congress, foreign ambassadors, and ex-members of the United States Senate." Up to the present time, it is not probable that the number of Spiritualists has been much reduced by apostasies from the faith, if such it may be called;while the movement itself has been growing more prominent and becoming more widely known every year. The conclusion would therefore inevitably follow that its adherents must now be more numerous than ever before. Aletter addressed by the writer to the publishers of the Philosophical Journal, Chicago, on this point, received the following reply, dated Dec. 24, 1895:-- "Being unorganized, largely, no reliable figures can be given.

Many thousands are in the churches, and are counted there. It is claimed that there are about five million in the United States, and over fifty million in the world." The Christian at Work of Aug. 17, 1876, under the head of "Witches and Fools," said: -- "But we do not know how many judges, bankers, merchants, prominent men in nearly every occupation in life, there are, who make it a constant practice to visit clairvoyants, sightseers, and so-called Spiritual mediums;yet it can scarcely be doubted that their name is legion; that not only the unreligious man, but professing Christians, men and women, are in the habit of consulting spirits from the vasty deep for information concerning both the dead and the living. Many who pass for intelligent people, who would be shocked to have their Christianity called in question, are constantly engaged in this disreputable business." The following appeared some years ago, in the San Francisco Chronicle : -- "Until quite recently, science has coldly ignored the alleged phenomena of Spiritualism, and treated Andrew Jackson Davis, Home, and the Davenport brothers, as if they belonged to the common fraternity of showmen and mountebanks. But now there has come a most noteworthy change.

We learn from such high authority as the Fortnightly Review that Alfred H. Wallace, F. R. S.; William Crookes, F. R. S. and editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science; W. H. Harrison, F. R. S. and president of the British Ethnological Society, with others occupying a high position in the scientific and literary world, have been seriously investigating the phenomena of spiritism. The report which those learned gentlemen make is simply astounding. There is no fairy tale, no story of myth or miracle, that is more incredible than their narrative. They tell us in grave and sober speech, that the spirit of a girl who died a hundred years ago, appeared to them in visible form. She talked with them, gave them locks of her hair, pieces of her dress, and her autograph. They Page 30 saw her in bodily presence, felt her person, heard her voice;she entered the room in which they were, and disappeared without the opening of a door. The savants declare that they have had numerous interviews with her under conditions forbidding the idea of trickery or imposture.