part of them did so; and the result was a speedy and hopeless
alienation, followed by years of strife and bitter controversy at law,
and a final separation; though by far the larger part of the church and
congregation, if I do not mistake, upheld him to the last, and adhered
to him through good report and through evil report,--Deacon Samuel May,
a host in himself, being of their number.

During this protracted and sorrowful controversy, he became a
phrenologist,--a believer in phrenology,--at any rate, following the
lead of Spurzheim; and after many years, a Spiritualist,--in which faith
he died,--one of his last, if not the very last, of his appearances
before the public being as President of a convention held by the leading
Spiritualists of the land at Philadelphia.

He could not be a materialist; and having faith in the evidence of his
own senses, and being as truly conscientious a man as ever breathed, and
accustomed to the closest reasoning, what was he to do? There were the
_facts_. They were not to be controverted; they could not be explained;
they could not be reconciled to any hypothesis in physics. If he was
given over to delusion, to be buffeted by Satan, whose fault was it?
That he was by nature somewhat credulous, and, though patient enough in
his investigations, rather too fond of the marvellous, may be
acknowledged; but what then? His conclusions might be wrong, his
inferences faulty, though honest; but how were they to be counteracted?
That he sometimes took too much for granted, I believe, nay, more, _I
know_; because I myself have seen him grossly imposed on by a woman he
took me to see, whose impersonations were thought most wonderful. But
then he was a devout man, a close observer, an admirable logician,
accustomed to the "competition of opposite analogies" and to weighing
evidence; and if he misunderstood the _facts_, or misinterpreted them,