“All that may be very true, Mr. Cotton, but much of it comes with no good grace from a Puritan who has allowed himself the freedom of his own judgment in religious matters. It is not long since your fathers forsook their fathers’ God, and hewed out cisterns for themselves; whether broken cisterns or not, it is not for me to say; certainly they departed from the old ways, followed the new wisdom of their times, and you honor them for it. Perhaps posterity will in like manner honor me and my associates for daring to follow the new wisdom of our times, and to incur reproach for my adhesion to the work of human emancipation. I am enlarging the boundaries of human knowledge, laying open to view the invisible world, and proving that, under the old doctrine of the communion of saints, there is a great and glorious truth, cheering and consoling to us in this life of labor and sorrow. I am freeing the world from the monster, superstition, and delivering the people from their gloomy fears and terrible apprehensions. They shall no longer start and tremble at ghosts and hobgoblins, or be obliged, with the Papists, to cross themselves, or with our New England youth, to whistle Yankee Doodle to keep their courage up, when, after dark, they go by a graveyard. What torture did not my superstitious fears cause me in my childhood! I never have known what it was to fear any living thing. I have been tried, and have always found my courage and self-possession equal to the occasion, and I could alone face an armed host without trembling; but even now I cannot open the door into a dark room without trepidation, without starting back till reason comes to my aid. I never sit alone in my room reading till twelve o’clock at night, without having a mysterious awe creep over me. I am oppressed by the presence of the invisible, and my very lamp seems to burn blue. All is the sad effect of the frights I received in my childhood, occasioned by the ghost and witch stories which old people would meet together and tell of a long winter’s evening. I, a lad, listened with ears erect, and hair standing on end. My blood seemed to freeze in my veins, and I dared not look around me lest I should see the invisible. I was ready to shriek with agony when sent to bed in the dark, and unless watched would throw myself into bed without taking off my clothes, and cover up my head and face in the bed blanket. How terrible was the dark! The impression wears not out with time, and will remain till death. Now I would free the mind from all these idle fears, and save the people, especially children, from these terrible sufferings. It is a good work, and none but white spirits will aid me in it.”