There has never been in our family, so far as I have been able to trace them, on either side, a taint of disease; from my mother's grandfather Rutan, who lived to be ninety-three years of age, and her grandfather on her father's side, John C. Smith, who was more than eighty years of age when he left this sphere of existence. The same is true of my father's father and grandfather, neither of whom were diseased. We have been singularly free from all manner of ailments so common in thousands of families. We had no taint of hereditary scrofula, were never subject to inflammatory diseases. Healthy, sound, and strong, not easily frightened, steadfast in faith, and never disposed to believe anything without evidence. I have very little interest in anything covered by the words theoretic speculations, or in self-induced conditions, in which many thousands who stand on rostrums and teach the anxious inquirers after truth that of which they themselves know little or nothing. My motto is: Live up to your highest light. Listen to the small voice within, and obey the dictates of your conscience. Do unto others as you would be done by. Follow the golden rule. Go worship where and what your conscience, not pride, leads you, and you need not fear to meet your God.
Justice as well as reverential duty has prompted my gracing the title-page with the portrait of my mother, rather than follow the customary practice of placing upon it that of the author, by way of personal introduction to the eye of the reader. Though, as has been seen, our father had but little part to play beyond that of consenting spectator in the early history of Spiritualism, yet my mother's part in it, and services to its cause, were of the highest value and importance. Her strength, moral and mental, as the central figure of our family group before the public, largely supported us in our mission, in which she always accompanied and protected us; nor, after she had once yielded her consent and acceptance of the "duty," did she ever begrudge her time and her labors thus withdrawn from the private life of domesticity, which would have been infinitely her preference.
"REPEAT THE LORD'S PRAYER"--FIRST MONEY ACCEPTED--MUSCULAR QUAKERISM--LETTER FROM GEORGE WILLETS--LETTER FROM JOHN E. ROBINSON--CAUTION AGAINST CONSULTATION OF SPIRITS ABOUT WORLDLY INTERESTS.