Boocher, Catharine E., Hartford, Connecticut, to Archbishop John Baptist Purcell, of Cincinnati, Ohio, 1875 September 1

Since she wrote to Purcell, she has learned that he is an archbishop, and not knowing correct form of address, she begins "dear sir" until she learns how it is customary for confiding friends to address, him. She defers any very private letter until she learns from Purcell the reception of her "Reminiscences" and takes up the topic of Purcell's letter of Aug. 10. Professor Stowe is reading the work in five octaves of Professor Joseph Von Goeres, and wishes her to do likewise, to learn the views of German priests in Purcell's diocese, and to obtain German reviews of this work by Catholic writers. The author was a political writer for many years and in the controversy about the Archbishop of Cologne, he was led to examine the claims of Purcell's church and became a Roman Catholic. But he retained his respect for men such as Luther and Swedenborg and has less bitterness than is common with men who forsake the church in which they were educated for another. He was a professor of physiology and then of history in the University of Munich. He has had many opportunities for investigation and seems decided that saints or the spirits of the invisible would appear to good men and women and he does not assume that these heavenly manifestations are confined to saints of the Catholic Church. In Purcell's letter he says that he believes the evil spirits have more to do in these manifestations than the good ones, implying that good ones sometimes are thus manifested. Von Goeres is very decided that some of these spirits evoked by some mediums are good. Can Purcell obtain for Stowe the views of any German priests as to this work or any notices in Germany or America? Stowe is a medium so far as he seems to be visited by departed friends and cannot prove that they are false nor that they are true. She is at a loss to decide on the nature of any of these modern manifestations. There seems no possible mode of identification when the evil ones take the form of departed friends. Since she wrote last she has changed her address to 182 Macon Street, Brooklyn. She will stay there a week and then go to Guiford, Connecticut. She hopes Purcell will favor her with an early reply. :: II-5-f A.L.S. 3pp. 12mo.