"You further admit the occurrence, though only in Christ's day, of Spiritual intercourse. But a dispassionate survey of the economy of the universe tends to the conviction that no great law of action ever shows itself, for a brief season, thereafter to disappear forever. And Scripture, instead of thus restricting Spiritual phenomena, intimates (Mark xvi. 17, 18) their continuance. "Guided by such general views, I published 'Footfalls.' Its prompt sale and its favorable reception have been my least rewards. Tokens of sympathy and of gratitude contain the greater. A mother, deprived by death of her favorite child, and refusing to be comforted because he was not, confesses that she has been indebted to its pages for healthy and hopeful views of death, renovated spirits, courage to labor and to wait. A sceptic into whose hands the volume fell a few weeks before his decease, requests that, after he is gone, I may be informed that to that volume, and especially to its chapter on the 'Change at Death,' he owed the revolution of a life's opinions, and the first consolatory conviction which had ever reached him that there was a fairer and a better world toward which he was fast hastening. "'By their fruits ye shall know them,' said the great Author of our religion. Do not fruits like these indicate a good tree? And if the chief narratives contained in my book may be trusted, what are their teachings? That not an effort to store our minds or school our hearts, made here in time, but has its result and its reward hereafter in eternity. But what motive to exertion in good can be proposed to man more powerful than such an assurance? "These are my reasons for still believing, notwithstanding your opinion of my work, that it is of wholesome tendency. "Time, the great teacher, will decide between us. Ten years--probably less--will see the question determined whether the Spiritual hypothesis is destined to grow in favor and assume station as a reality, or to sink into discredit, as a mere figment of the brain. I am content to bide the event. "Meanwhile, following my convictions of the useful, I propose next year (unless ere then I pass to another phase of existence where much that is now obscure will doubtless be made plain) to follow up my first work by another; and therein I purpose to examine what I have not yet touched upon; namely, the progress and character of what go by the name of 'Spiritual manifestations.' I purpose to investigate first their verity, then their influence; to inquire under what aspects they have proved injurious, and under what beneficial to mankind; how far they may be usefully prosecuted, and at what point they become prejudicial or unsafe.