Chapter IV: The Hand of the Persecutor

The public had every reason to feel a deep sympathy with the two younger Fox sisters in the courageous attitude which they had taken.

The deadliest hatred is always to be feared, by those who abandon a faith or a system, from those who still adhere to it.

Think you, if Mahomet had turned about, forty years after the Hegira, and had boldly anathematized the religion he had established, he might not have been reviled and persecuted, even by those in whom he had first inculcated his bastard faith?

Who can doubt this who knows human nature?

Even the lies of an impostor rebel against him, when, with a repentant word, he would damn them again to all eternity.

Mrs. Jencken had ample reason to fear that the disclosures which had been made by her and her sister would redouble the hostile zeal of those who before had persecuted her. In the first account which had been published of her return to this country, it was not stated that her two boys had accompanied her. In fact, however, they had.

The pressure brought to bear to induce her to retract her denunciation of Spiritualism, and the ground of her fear for the safety of her children, are well set forth in the following, which appeared on October 11th, 1888:

FEARING THEIR ENEMIES.

THE JENCKEN BOYS WERE HERE, BUT ARE SENT AWAY.

There are signs of gathering thunder all around the spiritualistic
sky.

A leading spiritualist, a lawyer, who had read the _Herald's_ recent
articles on the subject, demanded of Mrs. Katy Fox Jencken,
immediately upon her arrival in New York on Tuesday, that she refuse
to support her sister Maggie in her expose of mediumistic fraud, and,
to use his own words, that she "throw herself upon the sympathy of
the spiritualists."

This proposition she emphatically rejected and declared that she had
done forever with Spiritualism and spiritualists. She firmly believes
that leading men and women among the latter, particularly her eldest
sister Leah, are her secret persecutors, and that it was due to their
animus that she was arrested last spring and deprived of her two
boys, to whom she is immeasurably devoted.

There is much to sustain this charge, and the inference that this
mysterious persecution, of which, as she alleges, the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children was only the instrument, was
inspired by the fear that she and Mrs. Kane, having long been
exploited for the financial benefit of others, might do the very
thing they are doing now--betray the secrets of deception, which have
from the beginning of the spiritualistic movement been so well
guarded.

As was said in the _Herald_ yesterday, Mrs. Jencken knew nothing of
the course which her sister Maggie had taken until she landed on the
wharf of the Monarch line company. The _Herald_ did not state
yesterday that Mrs. Jencken was accompanied by her two boys, whom the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children made such great
efforts to keep apart from their mother in last May. As soon as she
heard the news of Maggie's disclosures from a friend who met her at
the steamer, she was overcome with fear lest, being now aware of the
means that had been employed to secure their release and her own, the
society would again attempt to deprive her of her children. She was
advised by a lawyer who knew the real source of the hostility to her
and the motives that prompted it, to send them back at once to
England. The boys declared that they did not want to fall into the
hands of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children again.
Both of them are now strapping big fellows for their age, and are
able and willing to earn their own living. One is fourteen years old
and the other will be soon sixteen. But for a misunderstanding as to
their ages on the part of the police justice last spring there would
never have been any question of retaining them in the custody of Mr.
Gerry's over-zealous myrmidons.

Mrs. Jencken's apprehensions, however, were not to be quieted, and
early in the morning she bundled off the two lads [and they are now
safely beyond the jurisdiction of the dreaded society of which Mr. E.
T. Gerry is the chief].[2]

"This shows," said a gentleman yesterday, "how far certain wealthy
spiritualists are powerful to inspire a kind of terrorism even in New
York city among those who have left their ranks."

"Now that my boys are out of danger," said Mrs. Jencken, "I will
stand by my sister Maggie and go to the very fullest length of any
exposure that she may make. We have been the tools and victims of
others long enough. I approve and I affirm all that she has said
about the immoral practices hidden under the ridiculous cloak of
Spiritualism. The whole thing is damnable, and it should long ago
have been trampled, out as one would trample out the life of a
serpent."