It is this intense yearning to speak again with those that have left us, on the part of the bereaved, that has led to chicanery on the part of media in order to gratify it. Wherever money is to be made, unfortunately cheating will step in; but because some tradesmen will sell you bra.s.s for gold is no reason to vote all jewellers thieves. The account of the raising of Samuel by the witch of Endor is an instance that my argument is correct. The witch was evidently an impostor, for she had no expectation of seeing Samuel, and was frightened by the apparition she had evoked; but Spiritualism must be a truth, because it was Samuel himself who appeared and rebuked Saul for calling him back to this earth. What becomes, in the face of this story, of the impa.s.sable gulf between the earthly and spiritual spheres? That atheists who believe in nothing should not believe in Spiritualism is credible, natural, and consistent. But that Christians should reject the theory is tantamount to acknowledging that they found their hopes of salvation upon a lie. There is no way of getting out of it. If it be _impossible_ that the spirits of the departed can communicate with men, the Bible must be simply a collection of fabulous statements; if it be _wrong_ to speak with spirits, all the men whose histories are therein related were sinners, and the Almighty helped them to sin; and if all the spirits who have been heard and seen and touched in modern times are devils sent on earth to lure us to our destruction, how are we to distinguish between them and the Greatest Spirit of all, who walked with mortal Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. "O! yes!" I think I hear somebody cry, "but that was in the Bible;" as if the Bible were a period or a place. And did it ever strike you that there is something else recorded in the Bible? "And He did not many miracles there because of their _unbelief_." And yet Christ came to call "not the righteous but the sinners to repentance."
Surely, then, the unbelieving required the conviction of the miracles more than those who knew Him to be G.o.d. Yet there He did them not, _because_ of their unbelief, because their _scepticism_ produced a condition in which miracles could not be wrought. And yet the nineteenth century is surprised because a sceptic, whose jarring element upsets all union and harmony, is not an acceptable addition to a spiritual meeting, and that the miracles of the present--gross and feeble, compared to those of the past, because worked by grosser material though grosser agents--ceased to be manifested when his unbelief intrudes itself upon them.
CHAPTER VII.
THE STORY OF JOHN POWLES.
On the 4th of April, 1860, there died in India a young officer in the 12th Regiment M.N.I., of the name of John Powles. He was an intimate friend of my first husband for several years before his death, and had consequently become intimate with me; indeed, on several occasions he shared our house and lived with us on the terms of a brother. I was very young at that time and susceptible to influence of all sorts--extremely nervous, moreover, on the subject of "ghosts," and yet burning with curiosity to learn something of the other world--a topic which it is most difficult to induce anybody to discuss with you. People will talk of dress, or dinner, or their friend"s private affairs--of anything, in fact, sooner than Death and Immortality and the world to come which we must all inevitably enter. Even parsons--the legalized exponents of what lies beyond the grave--are no exceptions to the rule. When the bereaved sufferer goes to them for comfort, they shake their heads and "hope" and "trust," and say "G.o.d"s mercy has no limits," but they cannot give him one reasonable proof to rest upon that Death is but a name. John Powles, however, though a careless and irreligious man, liked to discuss the Unseen. We talked continually on the subject, even when he was apparently in perfect health, and he often ended our conversation by a.s.suring me that should he die first (and he always prophesied truly that he should not reach the age of thirty) he would (were such a thing possible) come back to me. I used to laugh at the absurdity of the idea, and remind him how many friends had made the same promise to each other and never fulfilled it. For though I firmly believed that such things _had_ been, I could not realize that they would ever happen to me, or that I should survive the shock if they did. John Powles" death at the last was very sudden, although the disease he died of was of long standing. He had been under the doctor"s hands for a few days when he took an unexpected turn for the worse, and my husband and myself, with other friends, were summoned to his bedside to say good-bye to him. When I entered the room he said to me, "So you see it has come at last. Don"t forget what I said to you about it." They were his last intelligible words to me, though for several hours he grasped my dress with his hand to prevent my leaving him, and became violent and unmanageable if I attempted to quit his side. During this time, in the intervals of his delirium, he kept on entreating me to sing a certain old ballad, which had always been a great favorite with him, ent.i.tled "Thou art gone from my gaze." I am sure if I sung that song once during that miserable day, I must have sung it a dozen times. At last our poor friend fell into convulsions which recurred with little intermission until his death, which took place the same evening.
His death and the manner of it caused me a great shock. He had been a true friend to my husband and myself for years, and we both mourned his loss very sincerely. That, and other troubles combined, had a serious effect upon my health, and the doctors advised my immediate return to England. When an officer dies in India, it is the custom to sell all his minor effects by auction. Before this took place, my husband asked me if there was anything belonging to John Powles that I should like to keep in remembrance of him. The choice I made was a curious one. He had possessed a dark green silk necktie, which was a favorite of his, and when it became soiled I offered to turn it for him, when it looked as good as new. Whereupon he had worn it so long that it was twice as dirty as before, so I turned it for him the second time, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the regiment. When I was asked to choose a keepsake of him, I said, "Give me the green tie," and I brought it to England with me.
The voyage home was a terrible affair. I was suffering mentally and physically, to such a degree that I cannot think of the time without a shudder. John Powles" death, of course, added to my distress, and during the many months that occupied a voyage "by long sea," I hoped and expected that his spirit would appear to me. With the very strong belief in the possibility of the return to earth of the departed--or rather, I should say, with my strong belief _in_ my belief--I lay awake night after night, thinking to see my lost friend, who had so often promised to come back to me. I even cried aloud to him to appear and tell me where he was, or what he was doing, but I never heard or saw a single thing. There was silence on every side of me. Ten days only after I landed in England I was delivered of a daughter, and when I had somewhat recovered my health and spirits--when I had lost the physical weakness and nervous excitability, to which most medical men would have attributed any mysterious sights or sounds I might have experienced before--then I commenced to _know_ and to _feel_ that John Powles was with me again. I did not see him, but I felt his presence. I used to lie awake at night, trembling under the consciousness that he was sitting at my bedside, and I had no means of penetrating the silence between us.
Often I entreated him to speak, but when a low, hissing sound came close to my ear, I would scream with terror and rush from my room. All my desire to see or communicate with my lost friend had deserted me. The very idea was a terror. I was horror-struck to think he had returned, and I would neither sleep alone nor remain alone. I was advised to try a livelier place than Winchester (where I then resided), and a house was taken for me at Sydenham. But there, the sense of the presence of John Powles was as keen as before, and so, at intervals, I continued to feel it for the s.p.a.ce of several years--until, indeed, I became an inquirer into Spiritualism as a science.
I have related in the chapter that contains an account of my first _seance_, that the only face I recognized as belonging to me was that of my friend John Powles, and how excited I became on seeing it. It was that recognition that brought back all my old longing and curiosity to communicate with the inhabitants of the Unseen World. As soon as I commenced investigations in my home circle, John Powles was the very first spirit who spoke to me through the table, and from that time until the present I have never ceased to hold communion with him. He is very shy, however, (as he was, whilst with us) of conversing before strangers, and seldom intimates his presence except I am alone. At such times, however, he will talk by the hour of all such topics as interested him during his earth life.
Soon after it became generally known that I was attending _seances_, I was introduced to Miss Showers, the daughter of General Showers of the Bombay Army. This young lady, besides being little more than a child--I think she was about sixteen when we met--was not a professional medium.
The _seances_ to which her friends were invited to witness the extraordinary manifestations that took place in her presence were strictly private. They offered therefore an enormous advantage to investigators, as the occurrences were all above suspicion, whilst Miss Showers was good enough to allow herself to be tested in every possible way. I shall have occasion to refer more particularly to Miss Showers"
mediumship further on--at present, therefore, I will confine myself to those occasions which afforded proofs of John Powles" presence.
Mrs. and Miss Showers were living in apartments when I visited them, and there was no means nor opportunity of deceiving their friends, even had they had any object in doing so. I must add also, that they knew nothing of my Indian life nor experiences, which were things of the past long before I met them. At the first sitting Miss Showers gave me for "spirit faces," she merely sat on a chair behind the window curtains, which were pinned together half-way up, so as to leave a V-shaped opening at the top. The voice of "Peter" (Miss Showers" princ.i.p.al control) kept talking to us and the medium from behind the curtains all the time, and making remarks on the faces as they appeared at the opening. Presently he said to me, "Mrs. Ross-Church, here"s a fellow says his name is Powles, and he wants to speak to you, only he doesn"t like to show himself because he"s not a bit like what he used to be." "Tell him not to mind that," I answered, "I shall know him under any circ.u.mstances." "Well! if he was anything like that, he was a beauty," exclaimed Peter; and presently a face appeared which I could not, by any stretch of imagination, decide to resemble in the slightest degree my old friend. It was hard, stiff and unlifelike. After it had disappeared, Peter said, "Powles says if you"ll come and sit with Rosie (Miss Showers) often, he"ll look quite like himself by-and-by," and of course I was only too anxious to accept the invitation.
As I was setting out another evening to sit with Miss Showers, the thought suddenly occurred to me to put the green necktie in my pocket.
My two daughters accompanied me on that occasion, but I said nothing to them about the necktie. As soon as we had commenced, however, Peter called out, "Now, Mrs. Ross-Church, hand over that necktie. Powles is coming." "What necktie?" I asked, and he answered, "Why Powles" necktie, of course, that you"ve got in your pocket. He wants you to put it round his neck." The a.s.sembled party looked at me inquisitively as I produced the tie. The face of John Powles appeared, very different from the time before, as he had his own features and complexion, but his hair and beard (which were auburn during life) appeared phosphoric, as though made of living fire. I mounted on a chair and tied the necktie round his throat, and asked him if he would kiss me. He shook his head. Peter called out, "Give him your hand." I did so, and as he kissed it, his moustaches _burned_ me. I cannot account for it. I can only relate the fact. After which he disappeared with the necktie, which I have never seen since, though we searched the little room for it thoroughly.
The next thing I have to relate about John Powles is so startling that I dread the criticism it will evoke; but if I had not startling stories to tell, I should not consider them worth writing down. I left my house in Bayswater one Sunday evening to dine with Mr. and Mrs. George Neville in Regent"s Park Terrace, to have a _seance_ afterwards with Miss Showers.
There was a large company present, and I was placed next to Miss Showers at table. During dinner she told me complainingly that her mother had gone to Norwood to spend the night, and she (Rosie) was afraid of sleeping alone, as the spirits worried her so. In a moment it flashed across me to ask her to return to Bayswater and sleep with me, for I was most desirous of testing her powers when we were alone together. Miss Showers accepted my invitation, and we arranged that she should go home with me. After dinner, the guests sat for a _seance_, but to everybody"s surprise and disappointment, nothing occurred. It was one o"clock in the morning when Miss Showers and I entered a cab to return to Bayswater. We had hardly started when we were greeted with a loud peal of laughter close to our ears. "What"s the matter, Peter?" demanded Miss Showers.
"I can"t help laughing," he replied, "to think of their faces when no one appeared! Did you suppose I was going to let you waste all your power with them, when I knew I was going home with you and Mrs.
Ross-Church? I mean to show you what a real good _seance_ is to-night."
When we reached home I let myself in with a latchkey. The house was full, for I had seven children, four servants, and a married sister staying with me; but they were all in bed and asleep. It was cold weather, and when I took Miss Showers into my bedroom a fire was burning in the grate. My sister was occupying a room which opened into mine; but I locked her door and my own, and put the keys under my pillow. Miss Showers and I then undressed and got into bed. When we had extinguished the gas, we found the room was, comparatively speaking, light, for I had stirred the fire into a blaze, and a street lamp just opposite the window threw bars of light through the venetian blinds, right across the ceiling. As soon as Miss Showers had settled herself in bed, she said, "I wonder what Peter is going to do," and I replied, "I hope he won"t strip off the bed-clothes." We were lying under four blankets, a counterpane, and an eider-down _duvet_, and as I spoke, the whole ma.s.s rose in the air, and fell over the end of the bed, leaving us quite unprotected. We got up, lit a candle, and made the bed again, tucking the clothes well in all round, but the minute we laid down the same thing was repeated. We were rather cross the second time, and abused Peter for being so disagreeable, upon which the voice declared he wouldn"t do it any more, but we shouldn"t have provoked him to try. I said, "You had much better shew yourself to us, Peter. That is what I want you to do." He replied, "Here I am, my dear, close to you!" I turned my head, and there stood a dark figure beside the bed, whilst another could be plainly distinguished walking about the room. I said, "I can"t see your face," and he replied, "I"ll come nearer to you!" Upon this the figure rose in the air until it hung suspended, face downward, over the bed. In this position it looked like a huge bat with outspread wings. It was still indistinct, except as to substance, but Peter said we had exhausted all the phosphorus in our bodies by the long evening we had spent, and left him nothing to light himself up with. After a while he lowered himself on to the bed, and lay between Miss Showers and myself on the outside of the _duvet_. To this we greatly objected, as he was very heavy and took up a great deal of room; but it was some time before he would go away.
During this manifestation, the other spirit, whom Peter called the "Pope," kept walking about and touching everything in the room, which was full of ornaments; and Peter called out several times, "Take care, Pope! take care! Don"t break Mrs. Ross-Church"s things." The two made so much noise that they waked my sister in the adjoining room, and she knocked at the door, asking in an alarmed voice, "Florence! _whom_ have you there? You will wake the whole house." When I replied, "Never mind, it"s only spirits," she gave one fell shriek and dived under her bed-clothes. She maintains to this day that she fully believed the steps and voices to be human. At last the manifestations became so rapid, as many as eight and ten hands touching us at once, that I asked Miss Showers if she would mind my tying hers together. She was very amiable and consented willingly. I therefore got out of bed again, and having securely fastened her hands in the sleeves of the nightdress she wore, I sewed them with needle and thread to the mattress. Miss Showers then said she felt sleepy, and with her back to me--a position she was obliged to maintain on account of her hands being sewn down--she apparently dropt off to sleep, though I knew subsequently she was in a trance.
For some time afterwards nothing occurred, the figures had disappeared, the voices ceased, and I thought the _seance_ was over. Presently, however, I felt a hand laid on my head and the fingers began to gently stroke and pull the short curls upon my forehead. I whispered, "Who is this?" and the answer came back, "Don"t you know me? I am Powles! At last--at last--after a silence of ten years I see you and speak with you again, face to face." "How can I tell this is _your_ hand?" I said.
"Peter might be materializing a hand in order to deceive me." The hand immediately left my head and the _back_ of it pa.s.sed over my mouth, when I felt it was covered with short hair. I then remembered how hairy John Powles" hands had become from exposure to the Indian sun whilst shooting, and how I had nicknamed him "Esau" in consequence. I recollected also that he had dislocated the left wrist with a cricket ball. "Let me feel your wrist," I said, and my hand was at once placed on the enlarged bone. "I want to trace your hand to where it springs from," I next suggested; and on receiving permission I felt from the fingers and wrist to the elbow and shoulder, where it terminated _in the middle of Miss Showers" back_. Still I was not quite satisfied, for I used to find it very hard to believe in the ident.i.ty of a person I had cared for. I was so terribly afraid of being deceived. "I want to see your face," I continued. "I cannot show you my face to-night," the voice replied, "but you shall feel it;" and the face, with beard and moustaches, was laid for a moment against my own. Then the hand was replaced on my hair, and whilst it kept on pulling and stroking my curls, John Powles" own voice spoke to me of everything that had occurred of importance when he and I were friends on earth. Fancy, two people who were intimately a.s.sociated for years, meeting alone after a long and painful separation, think of all the private things they would talk about together, and you will understand why I cannot write down the conversation that took place between us that night here. In order to convince me of his ident.i.ty, John Powles spoke of all the troubles I had pa.s.sed through and was then enduring--he mentioned scenes, both sad and merry, which we had witnessed together; he recalled incidents which had slipped my memory, and named places and people known only to ourselves.
Had I been a disbeliever in Spiritualism, that night must have made a convert of me. Whilst the voice, in the well-remembered tones of my old friend, was speaking, and his hand wandered through my hair, Miss Showers continued to sleep, or to appear to sleep, with her back towards me, and her hands sewn into her nightdress sleeves, and the sleeves sewn down to the bed. But had she been wide awake and with both hands free, she could not have spoken to me in John Powles" unforgotten voice of things that had occurred when she was an infant and thousands of miles away. And I affirm that the voice spoke to me of things that no one but John Powles could possibly have known. He did not fail to remind me of the promise he had made, and the many times he had tried to fulfil it before, and he a.s.sured me he should be constantly with me from that time. It was daylight before the voice ceased speaking, and then both Miss Showers and I were so exhausted, we could hardly raise our heads from the pillows. I must not forget to add that when we _did_ open our eyes again upon this work-a-day world, we found there was hardly an article in the room that had not changed places. The pictures were all turned with their faces to the wall--the crockery from the washstand was piled in the fender--the ornaments from the mantel-piece were on the dressing-table--in fact, the whole room was topsy-turvy.
When Mr. William Fletcher gave his first lecture in England, in the Steinway Hall, my husband, Colonel Lean, and I, went to hear him. We had never seen Mr. Fletcher before, nor any of his family, nor did he know we were amongst the audience. Our first view of him was when he stepped upon the platform, and we were seated quite in the body of the hall, which was full. It was Mr. Fletcher"s custom, after his lecture was concluded, to describe such visions as were presented to him, and he only asked in return that if the people and places were recognized, those who recognized them would be brave enough to say so, for the sake of the audience and himself. I can understand that strangers who went there and heard nothing that concerned themselves would be very apt to imagine it was all humbug, and that those who claimed a knowledge of the visions were simply confederates of Mr. Fletcher. But there is nothing more true than that circ.u.mstances alter cases. I entered Steinway Hall as a perfect stranger, and as a press-writer, quite prepared to expose trickery if I detected it. And this is what I heard. After Mr. Fletcher had described several persons and scenes unknown to me, he took out a handkerchief and began to wipe his face, as though he were very warm.
"I am no longer in England, now," he said. "The scene has quite changed, and I am taken over the sea, thousands of miles away, and I am in a chamber with all the doors and windows open. Oh! how hot it is! I think I am somewhere in the tropics. O! I see why I have been brought here! It is to see a young man die! This is a death chamber. He is lying on a bed. He looks very pale, and he is very near death, but he has only been ill a short time. His hair is a kind of golden chestnut color, and he has blue eyes. He is an Englishman, and I can see the letter "P" above his head. He has not been happy on earth, and he is quite content to die. He pushes all the influences that are round his bed away from him.
Now I see a lady come and sit down beside him. He holds her hand, and appears to ask her to do something, and I hear a strain of sweet music.
It is a song he has heard in happier times, and on the breath of it his spirit pa.s.ses away. It is to this lady he seems to come now. She is sitting on my left about half way down the hall. A little girl, with her hands full of blue flowers, points her out to me. The little girl holds up the flowers, and I see they are woven into a resemblance of the letter F. She tells me that is the initial letter of her mother"s name and her own. And I see this message written.
""To my dearest friend, for such you ever were to me from the beginning.
I have been with you through all your time of trial and sorrow, and I am rejoiced to see that a happier era is beginning for you. I am always near you. The darkness is fast rolling away, and happiness will succeed it. Pray for me, and I shall be near you in your prayers. I pray G.o.d to bless you and to bless me, and to bring us together again in the summer land."
"And I see the spirit pointing with his hand far away, as though to intimate that the happiness he speaks of is only the beginning of some that will extend to a long distance of time. I see this scene more plainly than any I have ever seen before."
These words were written down at the time they were spoken. Colonel Lean and I were sitting in the very spot indicated by Mr. Fletcher, and the little girl with the blue flowers was my spirit child, "Florence," whose history I shall give in the next chapter. But my communications with John Powles, though very extraordinary, were not satisfactory to me. I am the "Thomas, surnamed Didymus," of the spiritualistic world, who wants to see and touch and handle before I can altogether believe. I wanted to meet John Powles and talk with him face to face, and it seemed such an impossibility for him to materialize in the light that, after his two failures with Miss Showers, he refused to try. I was always worrying him to tell me if we should meet in the body before I left this world, and his answer was always, "Yes! but not just yet!" I had no idea then that I should have to cross the Atlantic before I saw my dear old friend again.
CHAPTER VIII.
MY SPIRIT CHILD.
The same year that John Powles died, 1860, I pa.s.sed through the greatest trouble of my life. It is quite unnecessary to my narrative to relate what that trouble was, nor how it affected me, but I suffered terribly both in mind and body, and it was chiefly for this reason that the medical men advised my return to England, which I reached on the 14th of December, and on the 30th of the same month a daughter was born to me, who survived her birth for only ten days. The child was born with a most peculiar blemish, which it is necessary for the purpose of my argument to describe. On the left side of the upper lip was a mark as though a semi-circular piece of flesh had been cut out by a bullet-mould, which exposed part of the gum. The swallow also had been submerged in the gullet, so that she had for the short period of her earthly existence to be fed by artificial means, and the jaw itself had been so twisted that could she have lived to cut her teeth, the double ones would have been in front. This blemish was considered to be of so remarkable a type that Dr. Frederick Butler of Winchester, who attended me, invited several other medical men, from Southampton and other places, to examine the infant with him, and they all agreed that _a similar case had never come under their notice before_. This is a very important factor in my narrative. I was closely catechized as to whether I had suffered any physical or mental shock, that should account for the injury to my child, and it was decided that the trouble I had experienced was sufficient to produce it. The case, under feigned names, was fully reported in the _Lancet_ as something quite out of the common way. My little child, who was baptized by the name of "Florence," lingered until the 10th of January, 1861, and then pa.s.sed quietly away, and when my first natural disappointment was over I ceased to think of her except as of something which "might have been," but never would be again. In this world of misery, the loss of an infant is soon swallowed up in more active trouble. Still I never quite forgot my poor baby, perhaps because at that time she was happily the "one dead lamb" of my little flock. In recounting the events of my first _seance_ with Mrs. Holmes, I have mentioned how a young girl much m.u.f.fled up about the mouth and chin appeared, and intimated that she came for me, although I could not recognize her. I was so ignorant of the life beyond the grave at that period, that it never struck me that the baby who had left me at ten days old had been growing since our separation, until she had reached the age of ten years. I could not interpret Longfellow (whom I consider one of the sublimest spiritualists of the age) as I can now.
"Day after day we think what she is doing, In those bright realms of air: Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, Behold her grown more fair.
"Not as a child shall we again behold her: For when, with rapture wild, In our embraces we again enfold her, She will not be a child; But a fair maiden in her father"s mansion, Clothed with celestial grace.
And beautiful with all the soul"s expansion, Shall we behold her face!"
The first _seance_ made such an impression on my mind that two nights afterwards I again presented myself (this time alone) at Mrs. Holmes"
rooms to attend another. It was a very different circle on the second occasion. There were about thirty people present, all strangers to each other, and the manifestations were proportionately ordinary. Another professional medium, a Mrs. Davenport, was present, as one of her controls, whom she called "Bell," had promised, if possible, to show her face to her. As soon, therefore, as the first spirit face appeared (which was that of the same little girl that I had seen before), Mrs.
Davenport exclaimed, "There"s "Bell,"" "Why!" I said, "that"s the little nun we saw on Monday." "O! no! that"s my "Bell,"" persisted Mrs.
Davenport. But Mrs. Holmes took my side, and was positive the spirit came for me. She told me she had been trying to communicate with her since the previous _seance_. "I know she is nearly connected with you,"
she said. "Have you never lost a relation of her age?" "_Never!_" I replied; and at that declaration the little spirit moved away, sorrowfully as before.
A few weeks after I received an invitation from Mr. Henry Dunphy (the gentleman who had introduced me to Mrs. Holmes) to attend a private _seance_, given at his own house in Upper Gloucester Place, by the well-known medium Florence Cook. The double drawing-rooms were divided by velvet curtains, behind which Miss Cook was seated in an arm-chair, the curtains being pinned together half-way up, leaving a large aperture in the shape of a V. Being a complete stranger to Miss Cook, I was surprised to hear the voice of her control direct that _I_ should stand by the curtains and hold the lower parts together whilst the forms appeared above, lest the pins should give way, and necessarily from my position I could hear every word that pa.s.sed between Miss Cook and her guide. The first face that showed itself was that of a man unknown to me; then ensued a kind of frightened colloquy between the medium and her control. "Take it away. Go away! I don"t like you. Don"t touch me--you frighten me! Go away!" I heard Miss Cook exclaim, and then her guide"s voice interposed itself, "Don"t be silly, Florrie. Don"t be unkind. It won"t hurt you," etc., and immediately afterwards the same little girl I had seen at Mrs. Holmes" rose to view at the aperture of the curtains, m.u.f.fled up as before, but smiling with her eyes at me. I directed the attention of the company to her, calling her again my "little nun." I was surprised, however, at the evident distaste Miss Cook had displayed towards the spirit, and when the _seance_ was concluded and she had regained her normal condition, I asked her if she could recall the faces she saw under trance. "Sometimes," she replied. I told her of the "little nun," and demanded the reason of her apparent dread of her. "I can hardly tell you," said Miss Cook; "I don"t know anything about her.
She is quite a stranger to me, but her face is not fully developed, I think. There is _something wrong about her mouth_. She frightens me."
This remark, though made with the utmost carelessness, set me thinking, and after I had returned home, I wrote to Miss Cook, asking her to inquire of her guides _who_ the little spirit was.
She replied as follows:
"Dear Mrs. Ross-Church, I have asked "Katie King," but she cannot tell me anything further about the spirit that came through me the other evening than that she is a young girl closely connected with yourself."
I was not, however, yet convinced of the spirit"s ident.i.ty, although "John Powles" constantly a.s.sured me that it _was_ my child. I tried hard to communicate with her at home, but without success. I find in the memoranda I kept of our private _seances_ at that period several messages from "Powles" referring to "Florence." In one he says, "Your child"s want of power to communicate with you is not because she is too pure, but because she is too weak. She will speak to you some day. She is _not_ in heaven." This last a.s.sertion, knowing so little as I did of a future state, both puzzled and grieved me. I could not believe that an innocent infant was not in the Beatific Presence--yet I could not understand what motive my friend could have in leading me astray. I had yet to learn that once received into Heaven no spirit could return to earth, and that a spirit may have a training to undergo, even though it has never committed a mortal sin. A further proof, however, that my dead child had never died was to reach me from a quarter where I least expected it. I was editor of the magazine _London Society_ at that time, and amongst my contributors was Dr. Keningale Cook, who had married Mabel Collins, the now well-known writer of spiritualistic novels. One day Dr. Cook brought me an invitation from his wife (whom I had never met) to spend Sat.u.r.day to Monday with them in their cottage at Redhill, and I accepted it, knowing nothing of the proclivities of either of them, and they knowing as little of my private history as I did of theirs. And I must take this opportunity to observe that, at this period, I had never made my lost child the subject of conversation even with my most intimate friends. The memory of her life and death, and the troubles that caused it, was not a happy one, and of no interest to any but myself. So little, therefore, had it been discussed amongst us that until "Florence" reappeared to revive the topic, my _elder children were ignorant_ that their sister had been marked in any way differently from themselves. It may, therefore, be supposed how unlikely it was that utter strangers and public media should have gained any inkling of the matter. I went down to Redhill, and as I was sitting with the Keningale Cooks after dinner, the subject of Spiritualism came on the _tapis_, and I was informed that the wife was a powerful trance medium, which much interested me, as I had not, at that period, had any experience of her particular cla.s.s of mediumship. In the evening we "sat" together, and Mrs. Cook having become entranced, her husband took shorthand notes of her utterances. Several old friends of their family spoke through her, and I was listening to them in the listless manner in which we hear the conversation of strangers, when my attention was aroused by the medium suddenly leaving her seat, and falling on her knees before me, kissing my hands and face, and sobbing violently the while. I waited in expectation of hearing who this might be, when the manifestations as suddenly ceased, the medium returned to her seat, and the voice of one of her guides said that the spirit was unable to speak through excess of emotion, but would try again later in the evening. I had almost forgotten the circ.u.mstance in listening to other communications, when I was startled by hearing the word "_Mother!_" sighed rather than spoken.
I was about to make some excited reply, when the medium raised her hand to enjoin silence, and the following communication was taken down by Mr.
Cook as she p.r.o.nounced the words. The sentences in parentheses are my replies to her.
"Mother! I am "Florence." I must be very quiet. I want to feel I have a mother still. I am so lonely. Why should I be so? I cannot speak well. I want to be like one of you. I want to feel I have a mother and sisters.
I am so far away from you all now."
("But I always think of you, my dear dead baby.")
"That"s just it--your _baby_. But I"m not a baby now. I shall get nearer. They tell me I shall. I do not know if I can come when you are alone. It"s all so dark. I know you are there, but _so dimly_. I"ve grown _all by myself_. I"m not really unhappy, but I want to get nearer you. I know you think of me, but you think of me as a baby. You don"t know me as I _am_. You"ve seen me, because in my love I have forced myself upon you. I"ve not been amongst the flowers yet, but I shall be, very soon now; but I want _my mother_ to take me there. All has been given me that can be given me, but I cannot receive it, except in so far----"