Before proceeding further I desire at this point to insert in this volume an interesting letter, addressed to the Rochester _Daily Advertiser_, by our friend Mr. John E. Robinson, also, like Mr. Willets, a well-known and distinguished member of the Society of Friends.
The controversy on the rapping and the general spiritual manifestations after the public investigation could no longer be suppressed. It became a subject which elicited much comment in the public prints; but in relation to which the Spiritualists had nothing to fear. Their opponents, generally, wrote without ever having examined it; and graded the vehemence of their opposition by the strength of their fealty to the teachings of their leaders. One of these acknowledged leaders was Chester Dewey, D.D., of the Rochester Collegiate Institute, who, without seeking to investigate the subject, claimed to recognize it as a fraud in its inception and wicked in its designs; and thus recorded his opinion in the public press at Rochester. His letters to the Rochester _Daily Advertiser_, at the time, drew forth the following rejoinder by Mr. Robinson, of that city, which was published in the columns of that paper:
"MESSRS. EDITORS: There has been a vast deal of ink shed upon the above-named subject, and much of it to but little purpose, except to demonstrate the willingness of individuals to show up before the world the least attractive features of their intellectual and moral characters. Far the greater number of paragraphists who have essayed to enlighten the world on this subject, and protect this community in particular from _humbug_, as they are pleased to term it, have made up their various articles of exceedingly cheap material. Ridicule, the fool's argument, has formed the chief staple of their lucubrations. Denunciation, unsparingly poured out, has been heaped upon the heads of those most immediately connected with this singular phenomenon, and an unwarrantable and unmanly meanness, which has led the writers, almost without exception, to traduce the character of the Fox family, and has taught us how easy it is for men to forget their manhood and stoop to a point at which they can lay claim to but little of the nobility of human nature.