2.  Spiritualism answers accurately to the prophecy in the exhibition of great signs and wonders.  Among its many achievements, these may be mentioned:  Various articles have been transported from place to place by spirits alone.  Beautiful music has been produced, independent of human agency, with and without the aid of visible instruments.  Many well-attested cases of healing have been presented.  Persons have been carried through the air by the spirits in the presence of many others.  Tables have been suspended in the air with several persons upon them.  And, finally, spirits have represented themselves in bodily form and talked with an audible voice.  A writer in the Spiritual Clarion speaks as follows of the manner in which spiritualism has arisen, and the astounding progress it has made:—­

“This revelation has been with a power, a might, that if divested of its almost universal benevolence, had been a terror to the very soul; the hair of the very bravest had stood on end, and his chilled blood had crept back upon his heart at the sights and sounds of its inexplicable phenomena.  It comes with foretokening, with warning.  It has been, from the very first, its own best prophet, and step by step it has foretold the progress it would make.  It comes, too, most triumphant.  No faith before it ever took so victorious a stand in its infancy.  It has swept like a hurricane of fire through the land, compelling faith from the baffled scoffer and the most determined doubter.”

3.  Spiritualism answers to the prophecy in that it had its origin in our own country, thus connecting its wonders with the work of the two-horned beast.  Commencing in Hydesville, N.Y., in the family of Mr. John D. Fox, in the latter part of March, 1848, it spread with incredible rapidity through all the States.  The estimates of the number of spiritualists in this country at the present time, only twenty-six short years from its commencement, though differing somewhat from each other, are nevertheless such as to show that the progress of spiritualism has been without a parallel.  Thus, Judge Edmonds puts the number at five or six millions (5,000,000 or 6,000,000); Hepworth Dixon, three millions (3,000,000); A.J.  Davis, four millions, two hundred and thirty thousand (4,230,000); Warren Chase, eight millions (8,000,000); and the Roman Catholic Council at Baltimore, between ten and eleven millions (10,000,000 to 11,000,000).  Of those who have become its devotees, Judge Edmonds said as long ago as 1853:—­

“Besides the undistinguished multitude, there are many now of high standing and talent ranked among them—­doctors, lawyers, and clergymen, in great numbers, a Protestant bishop, the learned and reverend president of a college, judges of our higher courts, members of Congress, foreign ambassadors, and ex-members of the United States Senate.”

This statement was written more than twenty years since; and from that time to this, the work of the spirits has been steadily progressing, and spreading among all classes of people.