On October 17, 1881, the following communication appeared on the slate:
"The blessings of the most high God and the benediction of His holy angels and spirits on you and yours. What I most desire to say to you to-day is that since our last interview here I have participated with others in a discussion relative to a recent scientific discovery in the spirit world which, when imparted to the world of embodied man, will strike the learned savants of your life with mingled feelings of awe and consternation. Our recent experiments were exceedingly satisfactory, and the questions that remain open are, when, to who and through whom shall it be given to the children of earth. The general expression of our society favored some time towards the close of the coming year as best adapted. In this view I concurred, for many reasons. My revered friend, let me say to you to-day, with great and positive emphasis, that the year 1882, earth time, will be the most marvelous year of the world's history, and will be characterized by the most stupendous events in all the circling centuries of past time. In that year and the succeeding one astounding spiritual revelations will be made to the denizens of this earth, utterly upsetting old, effete theological doctrines, and mercilessly demolishing now considered well established scientific conclusions, and your scientists' tests, self-complacent and arrogant in their pretensions, and possessed most fully of the spirit of vaulted ambition, the creation of their self-conceit, will awake to the consciousness that they have been mere pigmies in scientific research, and that on many subjects may have been so superficial as not to penetrate beyond the mere shadows and surface of things. I promise you that when the proper time arrives for this disclosure you shall not be overlooked or neglected. Bound to you in fraternal relation of a common brotherhood, embracing in grand reciprocation the inhabitants of both the mundane and supermundane worlds, I am yours, devoted for the truth,
"If we concede for the sake of argument that there really exists a literal hell, as depicted by theological teaching, and which constitutes an article of faith in most of the Christian sects, we are forced to inquire (and it is a legitimate subject of inquiry from the assumed premises), Was hell made for man, or man for hell? and this involves the question of duration of existence in point of time antecedent. Whichever way we determine, and our determination of the question from a terrestrial standpoint can only arise from speculation and conjecture, and not from proofs, one conclusion we can not escape, namely, the malevolence of the author. If hell was established prior to the time when the _fiat_ went forth bringing man into being, and was designed for his abode and accommodation, we can not reconcile the goodness of the Lord with such utterly unjust and malevolent purpose, because to concede this much admits the possession of sufficiency of power to have ordered otherwise, which precludes impotency and concludes the will and purpose to so order and arrange.