Horace Greeley, famous editor of the New York
_Tribune_, wrote in his paper that the sisters had visited him in his
home and courted the fullest investigation as to "the alleged
manifestations from the spirit world." As the result of his
observations, he wrote:
"Whatever may be the origin or the cause of the 'rappings,' the
ladies in whose presence they occur do not make them. We tested
this thoroughly and to our entire satisfaction."--_Id., pp.
160, 161._
It was no mere sleight of hand that launched this cult upon the world as
the last days came. Beyond all the physical manifestations, the
religious idea in Spiritualism has leavened the religious thought of
millions. No one can deny that the basic idea is the one that the
serpent promulgated in Eden, "Ye shall not surely die."
Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten, another of the Fox sisters, says of the
discovery of 1848:
"On the night of the thirty-first of March, 1848, we found
beyond a shadow of a doubt or peradventure, that death had no
power over the spirit.... In a word, we found our so-called
dead were all living.
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