Show mysterious KNOCKINGS we have often heard of certain misi myri teri terl us knocking which have been heard beard in va blout puts of new england and the middle biales siales a aies ales the past year commencing in or near hot hoi hester heater new york but such has been the he general tone ol 01 ignorance folly trifling ding fing C superstition and doubtful representation of uhe the public journals that ax nave HAVE BO in i ng that had the appearance of candor upon uie lie subject till we met with the follow i ig from the pen of the rev mr air phelps af f sij bix atford alford conn to the N Y observer the phenomena consisted in tiie tae moving of articles of furni t are in a manner that could not bo be accounted for knives forks s spoons nails blocks of wood ac were thrown in different directions about the house they were nvere seen to move from places and directions which made it certain that no visible power existed by which the motion could be produced for days and weeks together I 1 watched these strange movements with all tile the care and caution and close attention which I 1 could bestow I 1 witnessed them hundreds and hundreds of times and I 1 know that in hundreds of instances they took place when there was no visible power by which the motion could have been produced scores of persons of tile the first standing in tile the community whose education du cation catlon general intelligence 11 candor veracity and sound judgment none will question were requested to witness the phenomena and if possible help us to a solution of tile the mystery but as yet no such solution has been obtained the tile idea that the whole was a trick of the children an idea which some of the papers have en with great zeal to promulgate mul mui fulgate gate is is to every one who is acquainted with the facts as stupid as it is false and injurious the statement too which some some c f the papers have reiterated so ofte i that the mystery was found t it is I 1 regret to say untrue IN th ith the most thorsti thorough ii s F tion tion tiou which I 1 have been able to bustow bestow upon it aided by gentie guntle men raen of the best talents intelli gence and sound judgment in this and in many neighboring towns the cause of these strange phenomena remains yet undiscovered I 1 have watched the progress of this matter with great care and have done tile the best in my power to learn what these stran strange e things mean and although I 1 have not yet been able to ascertain the tile cause I 1 am satisfied that their communications are wholly worthless they are often contradictory often prove false frequently trifling and nop nonsensical and more in character with what might be expected of a company of loafers oil on a spree than with what might be expected from spirits returned from the world of retribution to tell the secrets of their prison house such manifestations are now being made in many other parts of the country according to the in formation fer mation which I 1 suppose to be authentic they are witnessed in from to different places at the present time III in many of these places they are said to advance ideas on the llie doctrines of religion wholly at variance with the teachings of the bible and arid subversive of many essential truths which the bible reveals under an impression that whatever is communicated by a spirit must of course be true many persons are receiving these communications as the truth of god as a new revelation from the spirit world but it should be remembered that there is no proof that what purports to be a revelation from spi spirits is the work of spirits at all the most that can be said is that we do not yet know how hoir or by bv whom these communications aie are are made if they are made by spirits we have llave no proof that they are good spi spirits the presumption is that they are bad spirits ly ino aisig spirits at my house they often accused each other of lying contradicted at one orie time titue what they affirmed at another inflicted injury on property iii in the most wan t ton manner and have given throughout conclusive evidence that the discipline of hell which they profess to have experienced for several years has as yet been wholly ineffectual in improving their characters and qualifying them for the higher sphere for which many suppose that the discipline after death is a preparation I 1 cannot now say to what conclusions clu future developments may lead me but my present impression is that the whole thing so far as the transactions in this place are concerned is to beset be set down among those devices of satan by which he is promoting his work of destroying souls and my chief object in this communication to the public at this tills time is to lo caution caulion all who would avoid error against trusting to these pretended revelations I 1 have had a better opportunity than most men to witness them and to judge of their claims and I 1 have full confidence that the opinions I 1 llave have expressed will be found to be correct I 1 will merely add that for some weeks past these annoyances at my house have been subsiding and now as I 1 hope have ceased altogether very respectfully ELIAKIM PHELPS stratford june 20 |