In the language of the Puritan Recorder, "The worst of the evil is the soul-hardening familiarity they produce with the most awful subjects ever offered for human contemplation. We know of nothing in human experience so fatally destructive of all that reverence for the spiritual, that awe of the unseen, that tender emotion, as well as solemn interest, which connect themselves with the idea of the other life. Who, that has a Christian heart, would not prefer the silence of the grave to the thought of the dear departed one in the midst of such imaginings, and such scenic associations as are usually connected with the performances of the spirit rappers? 'They are not dead, but _sleep_.' 'They enter into _peace_,' says the prophet. And then the precious and consoling addition--'They sleep in Jesus;' meaning, beyond all doubt, a state of rest, of calmness, of security, of undisturbed and beatific vision--far removed from all resemblance to this bustling life--a state in all respects the opposite of that which fancy pictures as belonging to the scenes presented in the manifestations of spiritual rappings, and spiritual table liftings and all those spiritual pantomimes, which seem to be becoming more and more extravagant and grotesque in proportion to the infidel credulity with which they are received." Should any think, by reading what we have offered upon this subject in the preceding pages, that we have imputed guilt and deception to mediums, who are believed to be, many of them, above such trickery, we would merely refer such to page 29 of the Reply of Veriphilos Credens to the communications supposed to have been written by Dr. Enoch Pond, professor in the Bangor Seminary, as published in the columns of the Puritan Recorder. The reviewer says, "To suppose that mediums could practise deception on men of shrewdness and caution implies a greater credulity than does a faith in the most startling of their performances." "There is not the slightest degree of evidence," says this writer, "that such a case has ever occurred;" and yet on the selfsame page he says, "_There is no doubt that some mediums, when the sounds and motions have failed to come in the usual mysterious way, have counterfeited them by some sly motions of their feet and hands. I have seen such things done, in some instances!_" The same author says, page 63, "I have not attempted to justify any reliance on disclosures made to us in the way of rappings. I think it _altogether_ unsafe to do so, for the declaration has already come to us, from what purports to be the spirits themselves, that _all these manifestations are of a low order_, and are produced by the _lowest grade of spirits_."