Hydesville, The Story of the Rochester Knockings Chapter 4/8

CHAPTER IV.

The day had been cold and stormy, with snow on the ground. In the course of the afternoon, David,

a son of Mr. and Mrs. Fox, came to visit his parents from his farm about three miles distant. Mrs. Fox

then first recounted to him the particulars of the annoyances they had endured; for until now they had

been little disposed to communicate these to any one. He listened to her with a smiling face. “Well

mother,” he said, “I advise you not to say a word about it to the neighbours. When you find it out it

will be one of the simplest things in the world.” And in that belief he returned to his own home.

Wearied out by a succession of sleepless nights and of fruitless attempts to penetrate the mystery,

the Fox family retired on that Friday evening very early to rest, hoping for a respite from the

disturbances that harassed them. But they were doomed to disappointment. The parents had had the

children’s beds removed into their own bedroom, and strictly enjoined them not to talk of the noises

even if they heard them. But scarcely had the mother seen them safely in bed, and was retiring to rest

herself, when the children cried out “Here they are again.” The mother chid them and lay down, but as

though in rebuke of her apparent indifference, they were on this occasion louder and more

pertinacious than ever. Rest was impossible. The children kept up a continuous chatter, sitting up in

bed to listen to the sounds. Mr. Fox tried the windows and doors, to discover, if possible, the source

of the annoyance. The night being windy it suggested itself to him that it might be the sashes rattling,

but all in vain; the raps continued and were evidently answering the noise occasioned by the father

shaking the windows, as if in mockery.

At length the youngest child, Kate—who in her guileless innocence had become familiar with the

invisible knocker, until she was more amused than alarmed at its presence—merrily exclaimed:

“Here, Mr. Split-foot, do as I do.” The effect was instantaneous: the invisible rapper responded by

imitating the number of her movements. She then made a given number of motions with her finger and

thumb in the air, but without noise, and her astonishment was re-doubled to find that these movements

were seen by the invisible rapper, for a corresponding number of knocks were immediately given to

her noiseless motions, whilst from her lips as though but in childish jest and transport at her new

discovery there sprang to life the words which revealed the sublimest Spiritual Truth of modern

times: “Only look mother

IT CAN SEE AS WELLAS HEAR.”

Words which have since become a text which Doctors, Professors, sceptics and scoffers have tried to

crush out of existence—and ignominously failed, but which on the other hand have brought comfort,

solace, and permanent joy to the hearts of hundreds of thousands—nay, millions surely,—of earth’s

weary pilgrims. Words which declared a truth since tested by every possible subtlety and sophistry

which the ingenuity of man could suggest or devise, but which has stood firmly through every ordeal.

Words which declare a truth that has already become the firm foundation of faith for an ever

progressive Spiritual Church, made up of almost every nation of the earth, and embracing adherents

from every rank of philosophic, scientific, religious and social life, which, moreover, reveals its own

attributes to the child and the philosopher alike, and provides the missing link between a finite

material world and a world of infinite spiritual possibilities by proving the continuity of life.