The Spiritualist > No.4, December 31st 1869

A F(ECOF(D Of THE PROQREff Of THE 3GIE]MCE /.ND ETHICg OF fPI^ITUyVXHfM.
No. 4.—Yol. I LONDON : FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1869. pSceisSeepeSe!8lltly‘
THE TESTIMONY OP A SPIRIT.
Ok Friday, December 17tb, at a seance beld at tbe
Spiritual Library, and reported in another column, a
spirit gave the following communication :—
If Friends, I am a stranger among you. I was born
of religious parents—of parents really and truly religious
and good, acting up to the light which they had Re¬
ceived. I was taught that Grod chastens those whom
He loves, and I was chastened many, many times, and
each stroke of the rod I esteemed as a blessing. Gene¬
rally, I said, with my lips, ‘ Lord, I thank thee for my
chastening,’ but in the inmost recesses of my soul a
cry arose, ‘ Unjust! unjust! Why should I be punished
thus ?’ Years rolled on, and I became the wife of one
I loved and respected; we were both of us regular
attendants at a place of worship, and week by week I
I tried to draw nearer to the throne of mercy. Soon
we were blessed with a little blue-eyed daughter, whom
I loved most dearly, yet but five summers rolled over
'her pretty little head, when the angel of death called
her away. Friends counselled and prayed, but she had
gone to heaven, and they told me that ‘it was a mercy,’
that ‘ it was loving of God to call her from this sinful
world.’ Outside I was calm, but what a sea was raging
within, to hear them say so calmly and coldly, ‘ It is
loving of God to take her away! ’ My heart rebelled
though my lips were silent; I struggled against what I
thought was the devil, but which I now know to have
been my better nature. Again years rolled on, and a
son was bom. He was a wilful boy and wayward, and
as he grew up to be a young man he became worse;
he proved to be what those in earth life call ‘ a curse ’
in all his acts. His father and mother could not reclaim
him; religion had no charms for him ; he could see no
beauty in the Atonement, and said, ‘ I will trouble no
Saviour with my sins, but be responsible for my own
deeds.’ This led him into company I abhorred. Then
my husband passed away, but still it was, i Thy will be
done.’ Oh, the loneliness of the long winter months,
with no kind husband with endearing attentions and
loving words. Then I prayed, and asked for courage
and hope. My life, as I now see, was a continual war
between my inner nature and my outer. My son went
abroad, sickened, and died. The news came home.
Like a stone I sat; all life seemed to have deserted my
frame; I neither moved nor stirred ; I merely thought.
My other faculties were dead. I was pointed to my
religion and told that there I could get happiness and
hope, and should at last sit on the right hand of the
throne. . But where was my son ? Friends held back
what they would say, but the words rose in their minds
like the whisper of a hissing serpent—‘ He is gone, we
hope, to heaven; but, we fear, to hell.’ Worse, worse,
and worse. Disease came, and death changed all. I re¬
covered consciousness on the shores of the other life; I
saw my husband, daughter, and son, so bright and
glorious—the face of my son shone like a star from
heaven, and I was happy under his love. Still I could
not understand how or where I was. I asked why they
tarried on the way to God. My husband said, ‘ This is
our home.’ I said, ‘ Shall we never see the Saviour?’
He replied, 11 cannot say; I have never seen Him; I
have heard His precepts in spirit life, and I do not care
to see him, for I have His precepts, and they are as
good as His presence.’ ‘ But why is our son here ?
They told me that he had gone to perdition.’ ‘ Those
words hastened thy departure; but see, he is here ! It
is not a dream; it is real. You are a spirit—an
“ angel” so-called; all around you is real, even as you
are real.’ I replied, ‘ As God has been so good, so
loving, surely He will extend the same clemency to
all?’ My husband said, ‘ True, it is so. All will be
happy, and the fearful place the Church tells you about
has no existence beyond their fevered imaginations.
This bright and beautiful place is the inheritance of all
God’s children.’ Then, I said, with both my heart' and
my lips, ‘ Lord, be praised! ’ and from that moment I
began to worship God in spirit and in truth. I trust
that you will all be the happier for this ray of truth de¬
scending from above; I hope that the history I have
related to you will never find its parallel, and that the
way of people through life will not be so full of thorns
as mine was. Love the truth. It is the brightest
jewel in the treasury of the Deity. Friends, having
passed through the narrow influences of an earthly life,
I here tell you the truth. I find that creeds and dogmas
have little influence for good on the spirit life; it is by
actions that we know each other. Your thoughts and
actions here govern your state upon entering spirit life; if
you have been good andnoblehere, you will find the home
for the good and noble awaiting you on the other side;
if you were not good and noble, you cannot at first pass
into that state, as it would be unnatural, and it is
only by patient working that you will rise to gain
wisdom.”
In answer to questions, the spirit said that her name
was Catherine Plunkett, and that she “ died ” five years
ago, at Lee, in Kent. The wayward nature of the son
born of such quiet parents, she had recently discovered
to be hereditary; it came from his grandmother on his
mother’s side, and the conditions were such that the
nature reappeared in the boy. He had entered the
same state of life as herself, because he had been truer
to his inner nature than she had, and had not artificially
fettered himself with creeds and dogmas.
TESTIMONY OF A NON-SPIRITUALIST.
The following is an extract from a theological book,
just published, called Teachings of Experience,* an
autobiography, by the Rev. Joseph Barker :—
“ The most credible testimony in the world was
utterly powerless, so far as things spiritual were con¬
cerned. And when the parties, whose patience I tried
by my measureless incredulity, entreated me to visit
some celebrated medium, that I might see and judge
for myself, I paid not the least regard to their entreaties.
I was wiser in my own conceit than all the believers on
earth.
“ At length, to please a particular friend of mine in
Philadelphia, I visited a medium, called Dr. Redman.
It was said that the proofs which he gave of the exist¬
ence and powers of departed spirits were such as no
one could resist. My friend and his family had
visited this medium, and had seen things which to
them seemed utterly unaccountable, except on the
supposition that they were the work of disembodied
spirits.
“ When I entered Dr. Redman’s room, he gave me
eight small .pieces of paper, about an inch wide and
two inches long, and told me to take them aside, where
no one could see me, and write on them the names of
such of my departed friends as I might think fit, and
then wrap them up like pellets, and bring them to him.
I took the papers, and wrote on seven of them the
names of my father and mother, my eldest and my
yokingest brothers, a "sister, a sister-in-law, and an
aunt, one name on each, and one I left blank. , I
retired to a corner to do the writing, where there was
neither glass nor window, and I was so careful not to
give anyone a chance of knowing what I wrote, that I
wrote with a short pencil, so that even the motion of the
top of my pencil could not be seen. I was, besides, en¬
tirely alone in that part of the room, with my face to
the dark wall. The bits of paper which the medium
had given me were soft, so that I had no difficulty in
rolling them into round pellets, about the size of small
peas. I rolled them up, and could no more have told
which was blank and which was written on, nor which,
among the seven I had written on, contained the name
of any one of my friends, and which the names of the
rest, than I can tell at this moment what is taking
place in the remotest orbs of heaven. Having rolled
up the papers as described, I laid them on a round
table, about three feet broad. I laid on the table at
the same time a letter, wrapped up, but not sealed,
written to my father, but with no address outside. I
also laid down a few loose leaves of note-paper. The
medium sat on one side the table, and I sat on the other;
the pellets of paper and the letter lay between us. "We
had not sat over a minute, I think, when there came
very lively raps on the table, and the medium seemed
excited. He seized a pencil, and wrote on the outside
of my letter, wrong side up, and from right to left, so
that what he wrote lay right for me to read, these
words: ‘ I came in with you, but you neither saw me
nor felt me. William Barker.’ And immediately
he seized me by the hand, and shook hands with
me.
“ This rather startled me. I felt very strange. For
William BarTcer was the name of my youngest brother,
* London: James Beveridge, Fullwood’s-rents, High Holbora, W.C.
who had died in Ohio some two or three years before.
I never named him, I believe, in Philadelphia, and I
have no reason to suppose that any one in the city was
aware that I had ever had such a brother, much less
that he was dead. I did not tell the medium that
the name that he had written was the name of a
brother of mine; but I asked, ‘ Is the name of this
person among those written in the paper pellets on the
table ? ’
“ The answer was instantly given by three loud raps,
‘ Yes.’
“ I asked, ‘ Can he select the paper containing his
name ?’
“ The answer, given as before, was | Yes.’
“ The medium then took up first one of the paper
pellets and then another, laying them down again, till
he came to the fifth, which he handed to me. I opened
it out, and it contained my brother’s name. I was
startled again, and felt very strange. I asked, ‘ Will
the person whose name is on this paper answer me
some questions?’
“ The answer was, ‘ Yes.’
“ I then took part of my note-paper, and with my left
hand on edge, and the top of my short pencil concealed,
I wrote, ‘ Where d ,’ intending to write, ‘ Where
did you dieV " But as soon as I had written ‘ Where
d ,’ the medium reached over my hand and wrote,
upside down, and backwards way, as before,—
“ ‘ Put down a number of places and I will tell
you’
“ Thus answering my question before I had had time
to ask it in writing.
“ I then wrote down a list of places, four in all, and
pointed to each separately with my pencil, expecting
raps when I touched the right one; but no raps
came.
“ The medium then said, ‘ Write down a few more.’
I then discovered that I had not, at first, written down
the place where my brother died: so I wrote down two
more places, the first of the two being the place where
he died. The list then stood thus: Salem, Leeds,
Ravenna, Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Few York.
“ The medium then took his pencil, and moved it
between the different names, till he came to Cuyahoga
Falls, which he scratched out. That was the name of
the place where he died.
“ I then wrote a number of other questions, in no case
giving the medium any chance of knowing what I
wrote by any ordinary means, and in every case he
answered the questions in writing as he had done
before; and in every case but one the answers were
such as to show, both that the answerer knew what
questions I had asked, and was acquainted with the
matters to which they had referred.
“ When I had asked some ten or a dozen questions,
the medium said, ‘ There is a female spirit wishes to
communicate with you.’
‘ Is her name among those on the table ? ’ I asked.
“ The answer, in three raps, was, ‘ Yes,’
“ | Can she select the paper containing her name ? ’ I
asked.
“ The answer again was, ‘ Yes.’
“ The medium then took up one of the paper pellets,
and put it down; then took up and put down
a second; and then took up a third and handed it
to me.
“ I was just preparing to undo it, to look for the name,
when the medium reached over as before, and wrote on
a leaf of my note paper—
“ ‘ It is my name. Elizabeth Barker.’
And the moment he had written it, he stretched out
his hand, smiling, and shook hands with me again.
Whether it really was so or not, I will not say, but his
smile seemed the smile of my mother, and the expression
of his face was the old expression of my mother’s face;
and when he shook hands with me, he drew his hand
away in the manner in which my mother had always
drawn away her hand. The tears started into my eyes,
and my flesh seemed to creep on my bones. I felt
stranger than ever. I opened the paper, and it was
my mother’s name : Elizabeth Barker. I asked a
number of questions as before, and received appropriate
answers.
But I had seen enough. I felt no desire to multi¬
ply experiments. So I came away—-sober, sad, and
thoughtful.