We wished to have the subject carefully scrutinized by honest committees, and have them report to the public the result of their investigations. Mr. Capron stated emphatically that if he could not explain what it was, he certainly knew what it was not.
It was also announced to the audience that no ordinary minds would be accepted on the committees. We had, at that early day, discovered that the greater the intelligence, the more satisfactory were the manifestations. At this lecture the audience listened with very respectful attention. The editor of a Second Advent paper also delivered his little speech, telling the audience that the sounds were spiritual, he had no doubt; but it was the spirit of the devil, and that the persons in whose presence the sounds were heard should be cast into prison. He said his "little say," and we never heard of him afterward.
When this episode had closed, the following gentlemen were named as a Committee of Investigation, and requested to report the next evening, viz., A. J. Coombs, Daniel Marsh, Nathaniel Clark, A. Judson, and Edwin Jones.
Thus the first great step was taken, in order to lay the facts of Modern Spiritualism before the world. It was now to be tried in a way by which no guilty person could hope to escape detection. Any one guilty of fraud as great as this would have been, had it consisted of simulation on our part, must certainly have met with swift exposure, and been stripped of all power or opportunity for further mischief. In fact, could it be rationally apprehended that we, or any one, would have dared to face an adverse public, of a thronged city, and the entire sentiment of a world against us, as we had been directed to do, with nothing but a damning falsehood at our backs to lean upon?
The appointment of an intelligent committee was readily agreed upon by the audience; and they--most of them perhaps--felt confident that the supposed fraud would now be probed to the bottom. So sure seemed the editors of the _Rochester Democrat_ that this was "the last of the rappings," that they wrote a long article on the "humbug" which had deceived so many, rejoicing that the end was near.
But when, on the following evening, the Committee made their report, the newspaper men were obliged to substitute something else in place of the anticipated detection and exposure, as the result of their examination did not verify the theory of these newspaper quasi-leaders and instructors of public thought. The following was the report of the Committee: