come out unscathed, as I know you will, for I know you You have stood fiery trials before, and have al

are true.

ways triumphed."

After having met the several investigating committees, and submitted to all the requirements of the public at large, amidst a host of friends who came to the Phelps House to bid us farewell, with many who accompanied us to the departing train, we left them with mutual feelings of regret, but amid their congratulations and prayers for our future prosperity.

We had come to Buffalo for a visit of a fortnight. In a financial point of view, we had never met with an equal success. Not a few of the principal gentlemen of the city sent us parting gifts of congratulation on a noble scale of munificence, as tributes of sympathy for what we had had to bear, and of gratitude for the demonstrative proofs of immortality it had been ours to bring to their experimental knowledge.

The day appointed for our departure our hotel apartments proved insufficient to entertain our friendly visitors who came to bid us adieu. The public parlors, being kindly assigned to us for the purpose by the proprietor, were filled to overflowing. Never can I forget that day, nor those dear and noble friends.

And thus ended the short-lived apparent triumph of "the Buffalo Doctors."

CHAPTER XIV.

BUFFALO (Continued.)

LETTERS FROM JOHN E. ROBINSON AND WELCOME WHITTAKER.

DURING the progress of all this, our Buffalo Campaign, it is scarcely worth while to say that I received no end of letters of sympathy and encouragement. The number must have counted by thousands who had by this time witnessed for themselves, not merely the comparatively small sounds of the ordinary rapping near our persons, but sometimes great knockings, as by powerful arms and heavy hammers, on all parts of rooms and even outside of them; together with ringing of bells, moving and lifting of tables, etc.; to say nothing of the intelligent communications which identified their Spirit friends, etc. All such persons therefore knew that the Buffalo doctoral theory of kneejoints was impossible and absurd, and felt no uneasiness about the result of any real investigations. But many of them naturally sympathized with us under the harassing annoyance in which we were placed by the promulgation of even such a ridiculous theory, under such highsounding "scientific" authority.

From these letters I select the following.

LETTER FROM JOHN E. ROBINSON.

"DEAR LEAH:

ROCHESTER, February 26, 1851.

"I received this evening your note (of rather diminutive proportions), written day before yesterday. Having been on the lookout for a letter for several days, it was very

acceptable. It is written in a hopeful and encouraging vein, and, so far as what is expressed relates to myself, I can take no exceptions to its language. I should think it dictated in some intervening hour of quiet; one of the few which pass above and tranquillize for the time the unresting surface of your daily life. Such hours, let them be passed when they may, come and go with all of us; and the dial finger that marks their exit, registers also the blessings which they leave upon the heart. Impulsive as you are; accustomed as you are to excitement, and possessing (as you do) a woman's fondness for the glare of the world's gilded exterior; there is a part of your nature better than the rest, which would often shut out from the chamber of its occupancy those noisy and obtrusive influences which corrode its brightness and rob it of its

rest.

"That is the part of your being (the Leah) whom I would oftenest wish to have audience with; and in such hours as I speak of I would consider it a luxury equal to 'Wenham ice' in the torrid zone, or a shower of vertical sunbeams on an Arctic traveller-to knock at the door of that inner chamber, and finding entrance, to sit down at the table of your heart and commune with you face to face. I have turned down the leaves in my memory whereon the records of such brief communings have been made, and it is no small pleasure to refer to them, as I often do, during these days of denial. So seldom it is now-a-days when the Spirit I would talk to answers my signal with the words at home.'

"We (your friends here) want you and the Spirits-who seem to think their bread-and-butter depends on their paying court (in especial) to you and yours-to come to us once in a while-like the chance sunlight that struggles through the bars of the prisoner's window to reveal the

gladness of the upper world-and rub the rust from our chains.

if

"You ought to come home next week, at any rate, even

you are determined on going West again. And really, I think you ought to visit Cleveland and Cincinnati before long. You would find many good people in both places, who would rejoice to see you and Margaretta, and who are looking out for your advent there with no little anxiety.

"Mrs. Bush read to me last evening a portion of a letter from her brother, resident, I believe, in the latter city, in which he urges her to come there and speaks of things connected with Spiritualism somewhat in detail. I observe Mr. Cogshall's book is noticed very fairly in the National Era (of Washington, D. C.), a journal of high character for literary attainments. I will copy the notice as follows: 'We have read this book, and have been pleased with its style, and impressed with the sincerity of its author. Still we do not believe. Nothing short of sight and hearing can convince us that the souls of the departed are really rapping in such an audible and startling manner on the wall which divides us from the Spiritual world-really moving chairs and tables and ringing bells, and otherwise disturbing domestic order and quiet. Yet, according to this little history, some Spirits justify themselves for their sudden incursions into our territory, by giving comfort to the mourner and sweet assurances of a love which could not die.'

"If all be an imposture, who can measure the depth of that depravity which trifles thus with the holiest affections, aspirations, and sorrows? Greeley in a late Tribune has a rich joke. He says: Some brainless editor out in Milwaukee not long since published the fact that he had an interview with the Spirit of Captain West, of the steamer, who reported that the noble steamer struck an iceberg and

went to the bottom of the ocean with all on board.' Milwaukee is a great place! Our George (Willets) thinks that Spirit took some trouble to spread the news.' It is presumable that it was one of the Auburn Apostolic brethren. What a pity that Spirits (some of them) are not less given to lying. However, if they are capable of falsehood (as we well know some of them are), it is better they should show their hands, else their communications might work much evil. The good shines out with a more glorious brightness in contrast with the darkness of its opposite.

"Enough is known already to warrant the immense interest which this subject is now creating, and I think that there is in the future (not very distant) a glad day approaching. I am sometimes disposed to be depressed. I have very little from Spirits, such as I would most wish to get communications from, and you can hardly realize the sense of neglect-so to speak-which I feel. I hope, when you return, some of my kindred Spirits-that delicate, pure-souled sister of mine, in particular (a lock of whose hair I took from among my papers yesterday and found it as lustrous as when first taken from her perishing form), may have some message to deliver to one whose love for her is immortal. Leah, I want to whisper in your ear. Turn from the table and the sceptics who sit by, and lend me your ears. Last night, when my internal senses were playing their pranks, I had a dream of you. You were at your home, and my solicitude for the kingdom had led my steps to the capital of the New Jerusalem. My best bow had been made to the Spirits, the last words to you had been said, and I was about going out of the gate, when I remembered an important omission; and turning just as you were closing the front door, I cried, Leah! Leah!' and awoke with your name on my lips; pronouncing it once audibly after I awoke-just to see if you could come and