in this country, if their operations will not be stopped by the
application of the means which are comprehended in our message of Peace.
But I did not try those spirits in circles of spiritualists, till I
received order from my leaders to do so. Opportunity was given in
Pittsburgh, Pa. by the reports published in some English and German
newspapers regarding the mediumship of Christina Beil, (as the name of
that medium of German parents is correctly written, but English
reporters wrote it Beail, although it is the German Beil, that means a
hatchet or axe)[T]. Her mediumship aroused a general attention, and
while crowds of attendants were convinced that raps by which questions
were answered, were produced by spirits, sceptics denied it, and Mrs.
Swisshelm published in her "Saturday Visitor" the results of her
investigations of spirit rappers at Christina Beil's mediumship. She
thought, that raps must have been produced by some trick of one or the
other mortal, although she was not able to discover the trick. The same
confession was made in German newspapers by a German Lutheran Pastor.
The excitement moved a skilful German chemist who was also a strong
materialist, to investigate the matter in the expectation that he might
find out the trick. But he was sincere and confessed, that raps
purporting to come from spirits, were produced by beings who understood
the questions. But under the circumstances of his investigations they
could not be produced by mortal men, and must have been produced by
invisible agents.

A few days before my reading of those reports, a rapping spirit had been
shown to me in an extraordinary manner, to relate which in this epitome
there is no room. But by that manifestation I was instructed, that I
should try the rapping spirits of Christiana Beil in the presence of
sufficient witnesses. The same German learned chemist, and a German
Pastor of the Reformed Church and other witnesses were present, when I