It is no wonder that no kind, considerate friend was found to take these poor Fox girls by the hand, and attempt to rescue them from their dangerous state. The great mass of those who could have done so, either paid no attention at all to the mysterious phenomena asserted, or looked upon the whole matter as mere humbug. It was easier to crack a joke at the expense of spirit-rappers, than it was to investigate the facts alleged, or to offer the true and proper explanation. I had foreseen that it would be so, or at least, had foreseen that they, whose duty it is to watch over the interests of religion and morals, were unprepared to meet the phenomena with success; that they would at first deny and laugh, and then vituperate and denounce, but would hardly understand and explain till too late, or till immense mischief had been done. Even now the first stage is hardly passed, and the movement I commenced by a present of flowers to these simple girls has extended over the whole Union, invaded Great Britain, penetrated France in all directions, carried captive all Scandinavia and a large part of Germany, and is finding its way into the Italian Peninsula. There are some three hundred circles or clubs in the city of Philadelphia alone, and the Spiritualists, as they call themselves, count nearly a million of believers in our own country. Table-turning, necromancy, divination becomes a religion with some, and an amusement with others. The infection seizes all classes, ministers of religion, lawyers, physicians, judges, comedians, rich and poor, learned and unlearned. The movement has its quarterly, monthly, and weekly journals, some of them conducted with great ability, and the spirits, through the writing mediums, have already furnished it a very considerable library,—yet hardly a serious effort has as yet been made in this country to comprehend or arrest it. It is making sad havoc with religion, breaking up churches, taking its victims from all denominations, with stern impartiality; and yet the great body of those not under its influence merely deny, laugh, or cry out, “humbug!” “delusion!” Delusion it is. I know it now, but not in their sense. The public never suspected me of having had any hand in producing the Rappo-Mania; and the Fox girls, even to this day, suspect no connection between the flowers I gave them and the mysterious knockings which they heard; and nobody has supposed Andrew Jackson Davis, the most distinguished of the American _mediums_, of having any relations with me. He does not suspect it himself, yet he has been more than once magnetized by me, and it has been in obedience to my will that he has made his revelations. The public have never connected my name with the movement, and even Priscilla has never known my full share in it. I have had my instruments, blind instruments, in all civilized countries, with whom I have worked, and yet but few of them have known me, or seen me.