a little girl who addressed the unseen author of the
noises as “Old Splithoof.” It had a rapid run of pop
ularity, and judges, ddtors, lawyers and ministers and
hundreds of thousands of others speedily became its
votaries, until its friends and its enemies claimed that
its adherents numbered over ten millions. Believing
in the consciousness of the dead, ignorant of the Scriot-
ure teaching on the subject of death and of their proE-
bition from holding communion with “mediums;” and
very generally disbelieving in evil spirits, it is not am-
prising that intelligent men and women, having proved
to’their own satisfaction that supernatural powers were
in their midst, as manifested by the rappings, tippings,
slate-writings, answers to questions through mediums,
clairvoyances, etc., should believe these invisible pow-
ers, which desire to converse with them, to be what
they profess,-their deceased friends. Even allowing
that there are certain tricks of legerdemain, and cer-
tain frauds along similar lines, we cannot wonder that
intelligent people would believe their own senses in
respect to instances which they had personally investi-
gated.
As a result, for a time many of God’s people were
in great danger, because of their failure to take heed
to the sure Word of God’s testimony (the Bible) on
this subject. Indeed, the personating spirits seem at
first to have been very careful in all their references to
the Bible, sometimes advising the religious ones who
attended seances to do more reading of the Bible, more praying, etc. But this was only to allay their suspi-
cions and fears and to get them more fully under their
influence. Gradually the teachings became more and