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their husbands or fathers or brothers.
    There is only one he has known for a long time, one he has watched grow from a child into a young woman, all under the tutelage of the spiritualist movement. He has always felt discomfited by the attention he paid her, but at last he sees the reasons for his lingering gazes, his wanting thoughts. From the pulpit, he says her name: Abigail Dermot.
    He says, Abigail Dermot, please step forward.
    He doesn't watch her stand, confused, doesn't watch her walk up the aisle. He averts his eyes, both from her and from the front pew, where his wife and children sit.
    The thoughts in his head, he does not want to share them with his wife.
    He turns to Franklin, but the specter is gone. What he does next, he does on his own.
     
     
    THE SEVENTEETH REVEALMENT
     
    Among you there will be a NEW MARY, one who has inherited at the outset an unusually sensitive nature, refined by suffering. To her will be revealed the true meaning of the CROSS, as the intersection of heaven and earth, as positive and negative, as both male and female. She will become a MOTHER, but in a new sense: the MARY OF A NEW DISPENSATION. She will feel a maternal feeling toward not just the NEW MOTOR but also to all individuals, who, through her instrumentality, will one day be instructed in the truth of the new philosophy.
     
    After the services are over, Spear takes Abigail into his office in the meetinghouse and motions for her to sit down before taking his own seat behind the desk. He believes she is sixteen or seventeen, but when he asks, she says, Fifteen, Reverend. She has not looked at him once since he called her up to the front of the congregation, since he told the others that she was the chosen one who would give birth to the revelation they all awaited.
    Spear says, Abigail, you are marked, by God and by his agents and by me. You are special, set apart from the others.
    He says, Abigail. Look at me.
    She raises her eyes, and he can see how scared she is of what she's been called to do. He stands and walks around the desk to kneel before her. She smells of lavender, jasmine, the first dust off a fresh blossom. His hands clasped in front of himself, he says, Can you accept what's being offered to you?
    He rises, touches her shoulder, then lifts her chin so that their faces are aligned, so that her blonde hair falls away from her eyes.
    He says, It is God that calls you, not me, and it is him you must answer.
    But Spear wonders. It is only he and her, alone, and without the Electricizers he can only trust what he himself feels in the hollows of his own imperfect heart.
     
     
    THE THIRTY-SECOND REVEALMENT
     
    The MEDIUM is rough, coarse, lacking culture and hospitality, but with the elements deemed essential for the engineering of the NEW MOTOR, for this important branch of labor. At times he must be in the objective position [not in a TRANCE] while at other times he must be erratic, must ignore his family and friends so that he might hear our many voices. Acting upon impulse, this person will be made to say and do things of an extraordinary character. He will not be held accountable for his actions during the MONTHS OF CREATION. Treading on ground so delicate, he cannot be expected to comprehend the purposes aimed at. Do not hold him as a sinner during this time, for all will be forgiven, every secret action necessarily enjoined.
    The services of many persons must be secured to the carrying forth of a work so novel, so important. The NEW MOTOR will be the BEACON-FIRE, the BLOOD-RED CROSS, the GENERAL ORDER OF THE NEW DAY. Whatever must be sacrificed must be sacrificed, whatever must be cast aside must be cast aside. Trust the MEDIUM, for through him we speak great speech.
     
    That night, Rush shows Spear the next stages of the New Motor, detailing the flywheel that will have to be cast at great cost. Spear is given ideas, designs, structures, scientific laws and principles, all of which he writes as quickly as he