"medium" was the only
refuge left her from the cruel pursuit of poverty and want.

But her stay in the "Spiritual Mansion" was short. She had thought that
the quiet existence afforded her there would be preferable to the daily
and distasteful practice of public "mediumship," which she must have
resorted to at once, had she not accepted the proposition of Mr. Seybert.
But the hypocrisy unconsciously required of her by him, while of a more
fantastic description, was altogether too much for her to endure. Her
intense hatred of her profession as a "medium" appeared in a strong light
to those who were then in her confidence.

Mrs. Kane, at the "Spiritual Mansion," not only produced pretended
messages from the departed friends of her patron, but also from nearly
every martyr and saint in the Protestant calendar, and from the famous
sages and rulers of old. But her imposture stopped short of actual
sacrilege. Beyond that line she never has gone.

When it came to transmitting messages demanded by the living of the
apostles and fathers of the church, she revolted against this mania for
the supernatural and the impossible, and she refused to continue longer
the instrument of pure religious insanity.

She declined to produce "spirit rappings," as emanating from St. Paul, St.
Peter, Elijah and the angel Gabriel.

It has often been said that Henry Seybert had an undoubted vein of madness
in his brain. Mrs. Kane herself so declares. I believe the same is true of
every person (not a knave at heart) who persistently, after reason and
conscientious research have demonstrated the truth of the charges against
Spiritualism, still refuses to be convinced.

There was, however, a method in the madness of Seybert. Mrs. Kane has
always been most careful not to make any positive asseveration of the
claims of Spiritualism. Her guarded and, in some measure, candid course,
no doubt tended very far towards influencing him to desire an honest and
thorough investigation of the so-called spiritualistic phenomena, to be
conducted according to the most rigid scientific methods. In his will, he
left provision for the founding of a chair of philosophy in the University
of Pennsylvania, with the careful stipulation that a certain portion of
the income to be derived from the foundation should be devoted to the
investigation of "all systems of morals, religion or philosophy which
assume to represent the truth; and particularly of modern Spiritualism."