The Spiritualist newspaper > No.288, March 1st 1878

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THE SPIRITUALIST.
March 1, 1878.
itoetrg.
HYMN.
Send ns, Lord, we pray Thee, from Thy holy sphere.
Spirits bright to cheer us, midst our darkness here;
May their light illumine hearts that fear or doubt,
Bringing souls within, who linger now without.
Fill our hearts with gladness—Where is now Death’s sting?
Since to us our lost ones back Thou deign’st to bring,
Telling no of triumph in the life to come,
When, Earth’s trials oyer, Thou shalt call us home.
Let Thy Holy Spirit on all flesh be poured.
Be thou, Lord Almighty, by all hearts adored.
Hallow our affections, keep our souls from sin,
Cleanse each inmost chamber,—let Christ enter in.
And, if aught unworthy in our hearts abide,
Let the Lord’s perfection our corruption hide ;
Till He leads us upwards, to the throne above,
Where enshrined He reigneth, whose best name is Love.
Praise the Lord of Mercy ! loving ones He sends,
Perfect with imperfect, thus the Father blends.
Guard us, Lord, from evil, who Thy love confess,
Fill them, Lord, with blessing, sent our souls to bless,
But, midst all their pleasures, may the brightest be
Joy, as sight of souls, turned by them to Thee :
When, at Thy Great Harvest, heavy sheaves they bring,
And we, with them, worship thee, Lord, God, and King.
George Sutherland.
A VISION OF THE LIFE ETERNAL.
BY J. T. MARKLEY.
Through soft blue lightnings in the evening sky—
Past autumn peak-clouds in the distant west,—
Methinks I glimpsed the world of endless day,
Where coffins, tears, and cypress are unknown.
The heavens open’d to my entranced gaze,
And sweetly awful was the cloud-fring’d scene—
The midnight entrance to pure love and life,—
The realm of gods,—of church’d and unchurch’d saints,
Of heroes, martyrs; kings awaiting thrones—
The home of angel-progress evermore.
I saw no graves, or lauding epitaphs,—
No white-robed priests of books of holy law,
For death was but a memory of the past,
And praise became its own interpreter:
Each worthy soul the saviour of itself,
And God the premier spirit of the throng.
I failed to trace the marks of sin or blood,
Or find the constant agonies of earth.
No pains, no groans—no harp-strings out of tune,
No hells of conscience to disturb the peace
In that fair clime of love, sweet sounds, and truth.
The widow’s bitter wuil—the orphan’s cry,
The consecrated shame of lowly birth,—
The signals of distress by land and sea
Rent not the breasts of holy crowds aloft.
Their summer grew eternally more grand,
As through the chaste unfoldings of new song
The spirits rose to higher spheres of light
And reached a paradise of lovelier view.
* * * *
The light’ning ceased to play : the dream-life fled;
And darkness, doubt—the pains of flesh-bound man,
Returned to haunt the student in his muse.
But why despair ?—the light, the love, the flowers,
The music, goodness, beauty of the skies,
The tenderness and bliss of yon long life
Is ours for aye, by birthright and bequest.
Peterborough.
(Eorresponimtce.
[Great freedom is given to correspondents, who sometimes express op inions diametrical} y opposed
to those of this journal and its readers. Unsolicited communications cannot be returned;
copies should be kept by the writers.']
PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS.
Sir,—In such contributions as I have been able to make to the
literature of Spiritualism, I have generally confined myself to facts,
and have not cared to discuss, much less to invent, theories. The testi¬
mony of a spirit is no doubt a fact to be considered, but his account of
the mode by which he produces certain effects is not necessarily to be
accepted as true,
The spirits with whom I have become acquainted are reticent
respecting the spiritual life. They say that it is very difficult for them
to explain and for us to comprehend. But they strongly insist upon
their own independent existence, personality, and individuality, and
warmly and indignantly resent the accusation that they are the spirits
of the mediums, or are other than themselves. Our friend “Joey,” for
example, declares, speaking in his materialised form, that he is no one
hut himself, as much an individual person as you are, perfectly remem¬
bering who and what he was in this world, and perfectly knowing what
he now is—himself and no other; and he speaks with a natural human
indignation of the efforts of ingenious theorists to deprive him of his
identity, and make him out to be other than he is.
Returning to the facts which seem to me more interesting than argu¬
ments, I should like to give a few which I have lately had the oppor¬
tunity of observing. Sitting a few days ago with four persons who are
all more or less mediums around a small table, a card of three by four
inches, and a lead pencil, were laid upon it. I examined the card, and
to identify it, put a corner torn off into my waistcoat pocket. The gas
>
was then turned off, and hands joined round the table. It was
perfect darkness, which no one will object to when they read of what
was done.
In a minute and a half, by estimate, I heard a sound of a pencil on
paper, and supposed a message was being written on the card. In less
than half a minute there were raps for light. When the gas was lighted,
we found upon the card a very beautiful portrait of a lady, which I
doubt if the cleverest artist in England could have drawn in the best
light in ten minutes, and which it would be utterly impossible for any
one to draw in the dark. I know that when the light was extinguished,
there was no mark upon the card. I know that it was the same card,
for I accurately fitted the torn edge with the corner in my pocket. I
believe that all hands were joined, and that, in the perfect darkness I
heard the drawing being made. The microscope will show that it was
made with a pencil. For those who were present there could scarcely
be a more perfect test.
Possibly a better one for some of the persons present was given under
precisely similar circumstances a few days before, when I laid upon the
table a sheet of note paper marked with my initials. In perfect dark¬
ness we heard the sound as of writing, and, on getting a light, found
written across the paper in four directions four distinct messages, in four
different handwritings, each quite peculiar, and each perfectly recog¬
nised by persons present as the handwriting of individuals they had
known. I see no flaw in this, and no possibility of deception. The
notepaper and the card are pasted in my album, and I could prove what
I have stated in regard to them in any court of justice by the oaths of
five unimpeachable witnesses.
I had never until quite lately had any personal experience of the
production of flowers, and have suspected deception in some cases I have
read of. They came to us unexpectedly. We were sitting in a small
room, with its doors and windows securely fastened, in the dark. The
musical boxes had been wound up, started, stopped, and whirled about
while playing in all parts of the room, from floor to ceiling, while all
hands were, I have reason to believe, clasped in each other around the
table. Then came a breeze of the most delicious perfume. Then fresh
ferns and flowers of five or six sorts, fell upon our hands, as they were
joined around the table. They were cool and moist with dew. The
same night, at eleven o’clock, as I was about to get into bed, on turning
down the clothes, I found just below my pillow a handful of violets.
The stems were not wet, but the dew in each calyx had left a damp spot
on the sheet. There were no violets in or about the house, and no one
had entered it; nor is there the least probability that they were brought
by any mortal hand. I do not give this as a test, for it is not absolute.
One cannot prove a negative in such a case.
But here is an instance of slate writing which I give at'second-hand.
A gentleman fastened together two small clean slates, with a bit of
pencil between them, wrapped them in strong paper, and securely sealed
them. He brought the packet to Willie Eglinton, one of the mediums
in the test cases given above; and laid it on the table, where it lay in
his sight, and was not removed from it for one instant. He took the
slates away securely sealed as he had brought them, and on breaking
the seals and opening them at home, found the insides covered with
writing in several languages. Being a man of science, and a member of
various learned societies, he went to a popular Materialist, to show him
what he had got. “ I wouldn’t believe my own father,” said the savant,
“if he told me such a story as that.”
And, indeed, how can a man settled in, and committed to, materialism,
in a dozen learned volumes, be expected to believe a fact which reduces
to rubbish the labours of his life, and destroys the reputation that gives
life its value. If only one of the million facts of spiritual manifestations
is true, what would become of our philosophers ?
In this view of the case, I cannot but wonder at the sneers at
“ Spiritism ” of Mr. Mivart in his criticisms of the hypotheses of Mr.
Darwin. One fact would be worth more to most people than all his
logic, and if the fact were diabolic, it would not be one whit less
valuable. An evil spirit disproves materialism just as well as a good
spirit. If one were to raise the devil in the Hall of Science, Mr.
Bradlaugh would be confuted all the same.
I have no experience of evil spirits that I am aware of. On one
occasion in twenty years I have witnessed the operations of what seemed
to me disorderly and, to say the least, impolitic ones. In a dark seance
the hearth-rug was rolled up and placed upon the table, and a large
fender put upon the arms of some of the sitters ; my chair, and that of
Mr. Eglinton, whose hand I was holding, were in the same moment
pulled from under us, and again, a moment after, in the full light,
instantaneously and with great force. “ Joey ” explained that these
things were done by some unruly fellows, who had come with one of
the sitters, who had been admitted for the first time, and that he
(“ Joey ”) had not been able to control them.
I have spoken of the amount of force often exerted. A heavy table
is frequently suspended in the air for twenty seconds. I have seen one
lifted with a man sitting on it. Several times Willie Eglinton, while I
have held his hand, has been lifted so high in the air that I have had to
rise from my chair to keep hold of him, and his head must have nearly
touched the ceiling, while his feet were above my head. Not only was
his weight sustained, but a strong pull was made to draw me up after
him.
I think I cannot be wrong in thinking that facts of this kind are
worthy of the attention of men of science and philosophers.
T. L. Nichols, M.D.
32, Fopstone-roacl, Earl’s Court, S.W.
TWO CRITICS OF THEOSOPHY.
Sir,—In my experience of controversial caricatures of misunderstood
opinions, I think I never met with such a farrago of misconceptions as
the three or four columns of your last number, over the signatures of