Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 3

[376] present, it is only as genuine coin is often so ingeniously counterfeited as to make it difficult for even the money-changer himself to detect the difference; it does not touch one of a thousand cases where the parties have been above reproach and beyond suspicion. . . .

As yet, we must confess that we have never read anything, purporting to come from any distinguished person in the spirit world, that seemed to be equal to his genius and ability while here in the flesh; and this it is that makes us doubt, more than anything else (notwithstanding so many inexplicable phenomena), whether the communication actually comes from the source supposed. Cf. Lib. 22.86.

Credence—entire credence—he would gladly have lent to a communication purporting to come, through his guileless Quaker friend, Isaac Post of Rochester, N. Y., from the spirit of N. P. Rogers, who died in 1846. He first¹ heard of this from William C. Nell, a colored Bostonian² temporarily assisting Frederick Douglass with his paper. He reprinted it in May, 1852, from Friend Post's “ Voices³ from the Spirit World,” saying that, whether emanating from Rogers or not, he fully reciprocated the friendly spirit of it. In his new state of existence, Rogers was made to say—

Instead of contending with my former friends, I found they⁴ deserved all the encouragement in my power to give. I very soon became as closely united to my old friend, W. L. Garrison, as ever I had been; yes, far more. I do not wish to say he has always been faultless; but I do wish to bear my testimony that his great desire is to do his duty to God and man. My opposition, therefore, vanished like the morning dew. I have⁵ longed for the privilege of making him sensible of the change, and that it is I who have often whispered in his mental ear: “Go on, my friend, for there is more with us than against us— if not bodily, surely there is spiritually, for God and all the good are with us.”

It is one of the minor puzzling curiosities of spiritual manifestations that certain characters attach themselves to an individual inquirer, and present themselves to him through divers ‘mediums,’ both in his presence and in