Those first manifestations at Hydesville varied in no way
from many of which we have record in the past, but the result
arising from them differed very much, because, for the first
time, it occurred to a human being not merely to listen to
inexplicable sounds, and to fear them or marvel at them, but to
establish communication with them. John Wesley's father
might have done the same more than a century before had the
thought occurred to him when he was a witness of the
manifestations at Epworth in 1726. It was only when the young
Fox girl struck her hands together and cried "Do as I do" that
there was instant compliance, and consequent proof of the
presence of an INTELLIGENT invisible force, thus differing
from all other forces of which we know. The circumstances were
humble, and even rather sordid, upon both sides of the veil,
human and spirit, yet it was, as time will more and more clearly
show, one of the turning points of the world's history, greater
far than the fall of thrones or the rout of armies. Some artist
of the future will draw the scene--the sitting-room of the
wooden, shack-like house, the circle of half-awed and half-
critical neighbours, the child clapping her hands with upturned
laughing face, the dark corner shadows where these strange new
forces seem to lurk--forces often apparent, and now come to stay
and to effect the complete revolution of human thought. We may
well ask why should such great results arise from such petty
sources? So argued the highbrowed philosophers of Greece and
Rome when the outspoken Paul, with the fisherman Peter and his
half-educated disciples, traversed all their learned theories,
and with the help of women, slaves, and schismatic Jews,
subverted their ancient creeds. One can but answer that
Providence has its own way of attaining its, results, and that it