Those who believed in the supernatural, or whose hearts of grief kept them near the “region and shadow of death,” or whose caste of temperament made them super-sentimental, or who, by some constitutional or cultivated peculiarity, easily take up with every wild fancy and foolish vagary that produces a new and novel sensation; and many others, too, who had credit for intelligence, refinement and piety—and as for that, some of the most gifted minds of the State—were led away by it, and became its deceived disciples, in one form or another, without suspecting its deceitful moral tendencies. Lecturers came into the cities and traversed the State, circles were formed, mediums constituted, spirits rapped and wrote, tables moved and turned, and men, women and children forgot their meals, and stood in superstitious awe within the enchanted circles. Thousands of people lost their relish for the Word of God and forsook his altars of worship. Men neglected their fields, women their homes and children their schools, and for whole days and nights hung with bated breath upon the supposed communications from departed spirits, made often through the most ignorant mediums. Not only in the cities full, but throughout the vast populations of the rural districts, all classes seemed more or less affected by and interested in it. In thousands of homes in Missouri the midnight lamp shone upon tables surrounded by groups and circles of people so intent upon the unintelligible incantations and messages of spiritualism, so-called, that sleep was banished from swollen eyes and pillows brought no rest to aching heads. By it many were disqualified alike for secular, domestic and religious duties. A peculiarity of spiritualism was that night and darkness were necessary to evoke the spirits. They would rarely communicate to mortals in the day time, or perform any very remarkable feats, such as playing on musical instruments, untying mediums, singing in the air, etc., except in total darkness. Evil spirits, like evil men, “love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.” This modern spiritualism—neither the history nor philosophy of which it is necessary here to discuss—organized itself into bands, circles and societies of men and women in the larger cities, had their places of secret nocturnal meetings, rented halls for public Sabbath exercises, had their rituals and creeds, their priests and prophets, their altars, incantations and genuflexions, which answered to some sort of public worship. The first female lecturers and public speakers were spiritualists, and in the spiritualists’ church, so-called, women are the high priests and the scriptural teachings in regard to the relation of men and women and their duties in the church are reversed.