“Cut off, even in the blossom of its sin,Unhouselled, disappointed, unaneled;No reckoning made, but sent to its accountWith all its imperfections on its head.”
“Cut off, even in the blossom of its sin,Unhouselled, disappointed, unaneled;No reckoning made, but sent to its accountWith all its imperfections on its head.”
“Cut off, even in the blossom of its sin,Unhouselled, disappointed, unaneled;No reckoning made, but sent to its accountWith all its imperfections on its head.”
“Cut off, even in the blossom of its sin,
Unhouselled, disappointed, unaneled;
No reckoning made, but sent to its account
With all its imperfections on its head.”
It seems also to be gathered from experience, that those whose lives have been rendered wretched, “rest not in their graves;” at least, several accounts I have met with, as well as tradition, countenance this view; and this may originate in the fact that cruelty and ill-usage frequently produce very pernicious effects on the mind of the sufferer, in many instances inspiring, not resignation or a pious desire for death, but resentment, and an eager longing for a fair share of earthly enjoyment. Supposing, also, the feelings and prejudices of the earthly life to accompany this dispossessed soul—for, though the liberation from the body inducts it into certain privileges inherent in spirit, its moral qualities remain as they were (“as the tree falls, so it shall lie”)—supposing, therefore, that these feelings, and prejudices, and recollections, of its past life, are carried with it, we see at once why the discontented spirits of the heathen world could not rest till their bodies had obtained sepulture, why the buried money should torment the soul of the miser, and why the religious opinions, whatever they may have been, believed in the flesh, seem to survive with the spirit. There are two remarkable exceptions, however, and these are precisely such as might be expected. Those who, during their corporeal life, have not believed in a future state, return to warn their friends against the same error. “There is another world!” said the brother of the young lady who appeared to her in the cathedral of York, on the day he was drowned; and there are several similar instances recorded. The belief that this life “is the be-all and the end-all here,” is a mistake that death must instantly rectify. The other exception I allude to is, that that toleration, of which, unfortunately, we see much less than is desirable in this world, seems happily to prevail in the next; for, among the numerous narrations I meet with, in which the dead have returned to ask the prayers or the services of the living, they do not seem, as will be seen by-and-by, to apply by any means exclusively to members of their own church. Theattraitwhich seems to guide their selection of individuals is evidently not of a polemical nature. The pure worship of God, and the inexorable moral law, are what seem to prevail in the other world, and not the dogmatic theology which makes so much of the misery of this.
There is a fundamental truth in all religions: the real end of all is morality, however the means may be mistaken, and however corrupt, selfish, ambitious, and sectarian, the mass of their teachers may and generally do become; while the effect of prayer—in whatever form, or to whatever ideal of the Deity it may be offered, provided that offering be honestly and earnestly made—is precisely the same to the supplicant and in its results.
I have reserved the following story, which is not a fiction, but the relation of an undoubted and well-attested fact, till the present chapter, as being particularly applicable to this branch of my subject:—
Some ninety years ago, there flourished in Glasgow a club of young men, which, from the extreme profligacy of its members, and the licentiousness of their orgies, was commonly called the “Hell-Club!” Besides their nightly or weekly meetings, they held one grand annual saturnalia, in which each tried to excel the other in drunkenness and blasphemy; and on these occasions there was no star among them whose lurid light was more conspicuous than that of young Mr. Archibald B——, who, endowed with brilliant talents and a handsome person, had held out great promise in his boyhood, and raised hopes, which had been completely frustrated by his subsequent reckless dissipations.
One morning, after returning from this annual festival, Mr. Archibald B—— having retired to bed, dreamed the following dream:—
He fancied that he himself was mounted on a favorite black horse, that he always rode, and that he was proceeding toward his own house—then a country-seat embowered by trees, and situated upon a hill, now entirely built over, and forming part of the city—when a stranger, whom the darkness of night prevented his distinctly discerning, suddenly seized his horse’s rein, saying, “You must go with me!”
“And who are you?” exclaimed the young man, with a volley of oaths, while he struggled to free himself.
“That you will see by-and-by!” returned the other, in a tone that excited unaccountable terror in the youth, who, plunging his spurs into his horse, attempted to fly. But in vain: however fast the animal flew, the stranger was still beside him, till at length, in his desperate efforts to escape, the rider was thrown; but instead of being dashed to the earth, as he expected, he found himself falling—falling—falling still, as if sinking into the bowels of the earth.
At length, a period being put to this mysterious descent, he found breath to inquire of his companion, who was still beside him, whither they were going: “Where am I? where are you taking me?” he exclaimed.
“To hell!” replied the stranger, and immediately interminable echoes repeated the fearful sound, “To hell!—to hell!—to hell!”
At length a light appeared, which soon increased to a blaze; but, instead of the cries, and groans, and lamentings, which the terrified traveller expected, nothing met his ear but sounds of music, mirth, and jollity; and he found himself at the entrance of a superb building, far exceeding any he had seen constructed by human hands. Within, too, what a scene! No amusement, employment, or pursuit of man on earth, but was here being carried on with a vehemence that excited his unutterable amazement. “There the young and lovely still swam through the mazes of the giddy dance! There the panting steed still bore his brutal rider through the excitements of the goaded race! There, over the midnight bowl, the intemperate still drawled out the wanton song or maudlin blasphemy! The gambler plied for ever his endless game, and the slaves of Mammon toiled through eternity their bitter task; while all the magnificence of earth paled before that which now met his view!”
He soon perceived that he was among old acquaintances, whom he knew to be dead, and each he observed was pursuing the object, whatever it was, that had formerly engrossed him; when, finding himself relieved of the presence of his unwelcome conductor, he ventured to address his former friend Mrs. D——, whom he saw sitting, as had been her wont on earth, absorbed at loo, requesting her to rest from the game, and introduce him to the pleasures of the place, which appeared to him to be very unlike what he had expected, and, indeed, an extremely agreeable one. But, with a cry of agony, she answered that there was no rest in hell; that they must ever toil on at those very pleasures: and innumerable voices echoed through the interminable vaults, “There is no rest in hell!”—while, throwing open their vests, each disclosed in his bosom an ever-burning flame! These, they said, were the pleasures of hell: their choice on earth was now their inevitable doom! In the midst of the horror this scene inspired, his conductor returned, and at his earnest entreaty, restored him again to earth; but, as he quitted him, he said, “Remember!—in a year and a day we meet again!”
At this crisis of his dream, the sleeper awoke, feverish and ill; and, whether from the effect of his dream, or of his preceding orgies, he was so unwell as to be obliged to keep his bed for several days, during which period he had time for many serious reflections, which terminated in a resolution to abandon the club and his licentious companions altogether.
He was no sooner well, however, than they flocked around him, bent on recovering so valuable a member of their society; and having wrung from him a confession of the cause of his defection, which, as may be supposed, appeared to them eminently ridiculous, they soon contrived to make him ashamed of his good resolutions. He joined them again, resumed his former course of life, and when the annual saturnalia came round, he found himself with his glass in his hand at the table—when the president, rising to make the accustomed speech, began with saying, “Gentlemen, this being leap-year, it is a year and a day since our last anniversary,” &c., &c. The words struck upon the young man’s ear like a knell; but, ashamed to expose his weakness to the jeers of his companions, he sat out the feast, plying himself with wine even more liberally than usual, in order to drown his intrusive thoughts; till, in the gloom of a winter’s morning, he mounted his horse to ride home. Some hours afterward, the horse was found, with his saddle and bridle on, quietly grazing by the roadside, about half way between the city and Mr. B——’s house; while, a few yards off, lay the corpse of his master!
Now, as I have said in introducing this story, it is no fiction: the circumstance happened as here related. An account of it was published at the time, but the copies were bought up by the family. Two or three, however, were preserved, and the narrative has been reprinted.
The dream is evidently of a symbolical character, and accords in a very remarkable degree with the conclusions to be drawn from the sources I have above indicated. The interpretation seems to be, that the evil passions and criminal pursuits which have been indulged in here, become our curse hereafter. I do not mean to imply that the ordinary amusements of life are criminal—far from it. There is no harm in dancing, nor in playing at loo either; but if people make these things the whole business of their lives, and think of nothing else, cultivating no higher tastes, nor forming no higher aspirations, what sort of preparation are they making for another world? I can hardly imagine that anybody would wish to be doing these things to all eternity, the more especially that it is most frequentlyennuithat drives their votaries into excesses, even here; but if they have allowed their minds to be entirely absorbed in such frivolities and trivialities, surely they can not expect that God will, by a miracle, suddenly obliterate these tastes and inclinations, and inspire them with others better suited to their new condition! It was their business to do that for themselves, while here; and such a process of preparation is not in the slightest degree inconsistent with the enjoyment of all manner of harmless pleasures; on the contrary, it gives the greatest zest to them; for a life, in which there is nothing serious—in which all is play and diversion—is, beyond doubt, next to a life of active, persevering wickedness, the saddest thing under the sun! But let everybody remember that we see in nature no violent transitions; everything advances by almost insensible steps—at least everything that is to endure: and therefore to expect that because they have quitted their fleshly bodies, which they always knew were but a temporary appurtenance, doomed to perish and decay, they themselves are to undergo a sudden and miraculous conversion and purification, which is to elevate them into fit companions for the angels of heaven, and the blessed that have passed away, is surely one of the most inconsistent, unreasonable, and pernicious errors, that mankind ever indulged in!
CHAPTER XI.
Thepower, be it what it may, whether of dressing up an ethereal visible form, or of acting on the constructive imagination of the seer, which would enable a spirit to appear “in his habit as he lived,” would also enable him to present any other object to the eye of the seer, or himself in any shape, or fulfilling any function he willed; and we thus find in various instances, especially those recorded in the Seeress of Prevorst, that this is the case. We not only see changes of dress, but we see books, pens, writing materials, &c., in their hands; and we find a great variety of sounds imitated—which sounds are frequently heard, not only by those who have the faculty of “discerning of spirits,” as St. Paul says, but also by every other person on the spot, for the hearing these sounds does not seem to depend on any particular faculty on the part of the auditor, except it be in the case of speech. The hearing the speech of a spirit, on the contrary, appears in most instances to be dependent on the same conditions as the seeing it, which may possibly arise from there being, in fact, noaudiblevoice at all, but the same sort of spiritual communication which exists between a magnetizer and his patient, wherein the sense is conveyed without words.
This imitating of sounds I shall give several instances of in a future chapter. It is one way in which a death is frequently indicated. I could quote a number of examples of this description, but shall confine myself to two or three.
Mrs. D——, being one night in her kitchen, preparing to go to bed, after the house was shut up and the rest of the family retired, was startled by hearing a foot coming along the passage, which she recognised distinctly to be that of her father, who she was quite certain was not in the house. It advanced to the kitchen-door, and she waited with alarm to see if the door was to open; but it did not, and she heard nothing more. On the following day, she found that her father had died at that time; and it was from her niece I heard the circumstance.
A Mr. J—— S——, belonging to a highly respectable family, with whom I am acquainted, having been for some time in declining health, was sent abroad for change of air. During his absence, one of his sisters, having been lately confined, an old servant of the family was sitting half asleep in an arm-chair, in a room adjoining that in which the lady slept, when she was startled by hearing the foot of Mr. J—— S—— ascending the stairs. It was easily recognisable, for, owing to his constant confinement to the house, in consequence of his infirm health, his shoes were always so dry that their creaking was heard from one end of the house to the other. So far surprised out of her recollection as to forget he was not in the country, the good woman started up, and, rushing out with her candle in her hand, to light him, she followed the steps up to Mr. J—— S——’s own bed-chamber, never discovering that he was not preceding her till she reached the door. She then returned, quite amazed, and having mentioned the occurrence to her mistress, they noted the date; and it was afterward ascertained that the young man had died at Lisbon on that night.
Mrs. F—— tells me that, being one morning, at eleven o’clock, engaged in her bed-room, she suddenly heard a strange, indescribable, sweet, but unearthly sound, which apparently proceeded from a large open box which stood near her. She was seized with an awe and a horror which there seemed nothing to justify, and fled up stairs to mention the circumstance, which she could not banish from her mind. At that precise day and hour, eleven o’clock, her brother was drowned. The news reached her two days afterward.
Instances of this kind are so well known that it is unnecessary to multiply them further. With respect to the mode of producing these sounds, however, I should be glad to say something more definite if I could; but, from the circumstance of their being heard not only by one person, who might be supposed to been rapport, or whose constructive imagination might be acted upon, but by any one who happens to be within hearing, we are led to conclude that the sounds are really reverberating through the atmosphere. In the strange cases recorded in “The Seeress of Prevorst,” although the apparitions were visible only to certain persons, the sounds they made were audible to all; and the seeress says they are produced by means of the nerve-spirit, which I conclude is the spiritual body of St. Paul and the atmosphere, as we produce sound by means of ourmaterialbody and the atmosphere.
In this plastic power of the spirit to present to the eye of the seer whatever object it wills, we find the explanation of such stories as the famous one of Ficinus and Mercatus, related by Baronius in his annals. These two illustrious friends, Michael Mercatus and Marcellinus Ficinus, after a long discourse on the nature of the soul, had agreed that, if possible, whichever died first should return to visit the other. Some time afterward, while Mercatus was engaged in study at an early hour in the morning, he suddenly heard the noise of a horse galloping in the street, which presently stopped at his door, and the voice of his friend Ficinus exclaimed: “Oh, Michael! oh, Michael!vera sunt illa!—those things are true!” Whereupon Mercatus hastily opened his window and espied his friend Ficinus on a white steed. He called after him, but he galloped away out of his sight. On sending to Florence to inquire for Ficinus, he learned that he had died about that hour he called to him. From this period to that of his death, Mercatus abandoned all profane studies, and addicted himself wholly to divinity. Baronius lived in the sixteenth century; and even Dr. Ferrier and the spectral illusionists admit that the authenticity of this story can not be disputed, although they still claim it for their own.
Not very many years ago, Mr. C——, a staid citizen of Edinburgh—whose son told me the story—was one day riding gently up Corstorphine hill, in the neighborhood of the city, when he observed an intimate friend of his own, on horseback also, immediately behind him; so he slackened his pace to give him an opportunity of joining company. Finding he did not come up so quickly as he should, he looked round again, and was astonished at no longer seeing him, since there was no side road into which he could have disappeared. He returned home, perplexed at the oddness of the circumstance, when the first thing he learned was that during his absence this friend had been killed, by his horse falling, in Candlemaker’s row.
I have heard of another circumstance, which occurred some years ago in Yorkshire, where, I think, a farmer’s wife was seen to ride into a farm-yard on horseback, but could not be afterward found, or the thing accounted for, till it was ascertained that she had died at that period.
There are very extraordinary stories extant in all countries, of persons being annoyed by appearances in the shape of different animals, which one would certainly be much disposed to give over altogether to the illusionists; though, at the same time, it is very difficult to reduce some of the circumstances under that theory—especially one mentioned page 307 of my “Translation of the Seeress of Prevorst.” If they are not illusions, they are phenomena, to be attributed either to this plastic power, or to that magico-magnetic influence in which the belief in lycanthropy and other strange transformations have originated. The multitudes of unaccountable stories of this description recorded in the witch-trials, have long furnished a subject of perplexity to everybody who was sufficiently just to human nature to conclude, that there must have been some strange mystery at the bottom of an infatuation that prevailed so universally, and in which so many sensible, honest, and well-meaning persons were involved. Till of late years, when some of the arcana of animal or vital magnetism have been disclosed to us, it was impossible for us to conceive by what means such strange conceptions could prevail; but since we now know, and many of us have witnessed, that all the senses of a patient are frequently in such subjection to his magnetiser, that they may be made to convey any impressions to the brain that magnetiser wills, we can without much difficulty conceive how this belief in the power of transformation took its rise; and we also know how a magician could render himself visible or invisible at pleasure. I have seen the sight or hearing of a patient taken away, and restored by Mr. Spencer Hall in a manner that could leave no doubt on the mind of the beholder—the evident paralysis of the eye of the patient testifying to the fact. Monsieur Eusèbe Salverte, the most determined of rationalistic skeptics, admits that we have numerous testimonies to the existence of an art, which he confesses himself at some loss to explain, although the opposite quarters from which the accounts of it reach us, render it difficult to imagine that the historians have copied each other. The various transformations of the gods into eagles, bulls, &c., have been set down as mere mythological fables; but they appear to have been founded on an art, known in all quarters of the world, which enabled the magician to take on a form that was not his own, so as to deceive his nearest and dearest friends. In the history of Gengis Khan, there is mention of a city which he conquered—“in which dwelt,” says Suidas, “certain men, who possessed the secret of surrounding themselves with deceptive appearances, insomuch that they were able to represent themselves to the eyes of people quite different to what they really were.” Saxo Grammaticus, in speaking of the traditions connected with the religion of Odin, says that “the magi were very expert in the art of deceiving the eyes, being able to assume, and even to enable others to assume, the forms of various objects, and to conceal their real aspects under the most attractive appearances.”
John of Salisbury, who seems to have drawn his information from sources now lost, says that Mercury, the most expert of magicians, had the art of fascinating the eyes of men to such a degree as to render people invisible, or make them appear in forms quite different to what they really bore. We also learn from an eye-witness that Simon, the magician, possessed the secret of making another person resemble him so perfectly that every eye was deceived. Pomponius Mela affirms that the druidesses of the island of Sena could transform themselves into any animal they chose, and Proteus has become a proverb by his numerous metamorphoses.
Then, to turn to another age and another hemisphere, we find Joseph Acosta, who resided a long time in Peru, assuring us that there existed at that period magicians who had the power of assuming any form they chose. He relates that the predecessor of Montezuma, having sent to arrest a certain chief, the latter successively transformed himself into an eagle, a tiger, and an immense serpent; and so eluded the envoys, till, having consented to obey the king’s mandate, he was carried to court and instantly executed.
The same perplexing exploits are confidently attributed to the magicians of the West Indies; and there were two men eminent among the natives, the one called Gomez and the other Gonzalez, who possessed this art in an eminent degree; but both fell victims to the practice of it, being shot during the period of their apparent transformations.
It is also recorded that Nanuk, the founder of the Sikhs—who are not properly a nation, but a religious sect—was violently opposed by the Hindoo zealots; and at one period of his career, when he visited Vatala, the Yogiswaras—who were recluses, that, by means of corporeal mortifications, were supposed to have acquired command over the powers of nature—were so enraged against him, that they strove to terrify him by their enchantments, assuming the shapes of tigers and serpents. But they could not succeed, for Nanuk appears to have been a real philosopher, who taught a pure theism, and inculcated universal peace and toleration. His tenets, like the tenets of the founders of all religions, have been since corrupted by his followers. We can scarcely avoid concluding that the power by which these feats were performed is of the same nature as that by which a magnetiser persuades his patient that the water he drinks is beer, or the beer wine; and the analogy between it and that by which I have supposed a spirit to present himself, with such accompaniments as he desires, to the eye of a spectator, is evident. In those instances where female figures are seen with children in their arm, the appearance of the child we must suppose to be produced in this manner.
Spirits of darkness, however, can not, as I have before observed, appear as spirits of light; the moral nature can not be disguised. On one occasion, when Frederica Hauffe asked a spirit if he could appear in what form he pleased, he answered “No”—that if he had lived as a brute, he should appear as a brute: “as our dispositions are, so we appear to you.”
This plastic power is exhibited in those instances I have related, where the figure appeared dripping with water, indicating the kind of death that had been suffered; and also in such cases as that of Sir Robert H. E——, where the apparition showed a wound in his breast. There are a vast number of similar ones on record in all countries;—but I will here mention one which I received from the lips of a member of the family concerned, wherein one of the trivial actions of life was curiously represented.
Miss L—— lived in the country with her three brothers, to whom she was much attached, as they were to her. These young men, who amused themselves all the morning with their out-door pursuits, were in the habit of coming to her apartment most days before dinner, and conversing with her till they were summoned to the dining-room. One day, when two of them had joined her as usual, and they were chatting cheerfully over the fire, the door opened, and the third came in, crossed the room, entered an adjoining one, took off his boots, and then, instead of sitting down beside them as usual, passed again through the room, went out, leaving the door open, and they saw him ascend the stairs toward his own chamber, whither they concluded he was gone to change his dress. These proceedings had been observed by the whole party: they saw him enter—saw him take off his boots—saw him ascend the stairs,—continuing the conversation, without the slightest suspicion of anything extraordinary. Presently afterward the dinner was announced; and as this young man did not make his appearance, the servant was desired to let him know they were waiting for him. The servant answered that he had not come in yet; but, being told that he would find him in his bed-room, he went up stairs to call him. He was, however, not there nor in the house; nor were his boots to be found where he had been seen to take them off. While they were yet wondering what could have become of him, a neighbor arrived to break the news to the family that their beloved brother had been killed while hunting, and that the only wish he expressed was that he could live to see his sister once more.
I observed in a former chapter, while speaking of wraiths, now very desirable it would be to ascertain whether the phenomenon takes place before or after the dissolution of the bond between soul and body: I have since received the most entire satisfaction on that head, so far as the establishing the fact that it does sometimes occur after the dissolution. Three cases have been presented to me, from the most undoubted authority, in which the wraith was seen at intervals varying from one to three days after the decease of the person whose image it was; very much complicating the difficulty of that theory which considers these phenomena the result of an interaction, wherein the vital principle of one person is able to influence another within its sphere, and thus make the organs of that other the subjects of its will—a magical power, by the way, which far exceeds that which we possess over our own organs. There is here, however, where death has taken place, no living organism to produce the effect, and the phenomenon becomes, therefore, purely subjective—a mere spectral illusion, attended by a coincidence, or else the influence is that of the disembodied spirit; and those who will take the trouble of investigating this subject will find that the number of these coincidences would violate any theory of probabilities, to a degree that precludes the acceptance of that explanation. I do not see, therefore, on what we are to fall back, except it be the willing agency of the released spirit, unless we suppose that the operation of the will of the dying person travelled so slowly, that it did not take effect till a day or two after it was exerted—an hypothesis too extravagant to be admitted.
Dr. Passavent, whose very philosophical work on this occult department of nature is well worth attention, considers the fact of these appearances far too well established to be disputed; and he enters into some curious disquisitions with regard to what the Germans callfar-working, or the power of acting on bodies at a distance without any sensible conductor, instancing the case of a gymnotus, which was kept alive for four months in Stockholm, and which, when urged by hunger, could kill fish at a distance without contact, adding that it rarely miscalculated the amount of the shock necessary to its purpose. These and all such effects are attributed by this school of physiologists to the supposed imponderable—the nervous ether I have elsewhere mentioned—which Dr. Passavent conceives, in cases of somnambulism, certain sicknesses, and the approach of death, to be less closely united to its material conductors, the nerves, and therefore capable of being more or less detached, and acting at a distance, especially on those with whom relationship, friendship, or love, establishes a rapport, or polarity; and he observes that intervening substances or distance can no more impede this agency than they do the agency of mineral magnetism. And he considers that we must here seek for the explanation of those curious so-called coincidences of pictures falling, and clocks and watches stopping, at the moment of a death, which we frequently find recorded.
With respect to the wraiths, he observes that the more the ether is freed, as by trance or the immediate approach of death, the more easily the soul sets itself in rapport with distant persons; and that thus it either acts magically, so that the seer perceives the real actual body of the person that is acting upon him, or else that he sees the ethereal body, which presents the perfect form of the fleshly one, and which, while the organic life proceeds, can be momentarily detached and appear elsewhere; and this ethereal body he holds to be the fundamental form, of which the external body is only the copy, or husk.
I confess, I much prefer this theory of Dr. Passavent’s, which seems to me to go very much to the root of the matter. We have here the “spiritual body” of St. Paul, and the “nerve-spirit” of the somnambulists, and their magical effects are scarcely more extraordinary, if properly considered, than their agency on our ownmaterialbodies. It is this ethereal body which obeys the intelligent spirit within, and which is the intermediate agent between the spirit and the fleshly body. We here find the explanation of wraiths, while persons are in trance, or deep sleep, or comatose, this ethereal body can be detached and appear elsewhere; and I think there can be no great difficulty for those who can follow us so far, to go a little further, and admit that this ethereal body must be indestructible, and survive the death of the material one; and that it may, therefore, not only become visible to us under given circumstances, but that it may, also, produce effects bearing some similarity to those it was formerly capable of, since, in acting on our bodies during life, it is already acting on a material substance in a manner so incomprehensible to us, that we might well apply the wordmagicalwhen speaking of it, were it not that custom has familiarized us to the marvel.
It is to be observed, that this idea of a spiritual body is one that pervaded all Christendom in the earlier and purer ages of Christianity, before priestcraft—and by priestcraft I mean the priestcraft of all denominations—had overshadowed and obscured, by its various sectarian heresies, the pure teaching of Jesus Christ.
Dr. Ennemoser mentions a curious instance of thisactio in distans, or far-working. It appears that Van Helmont having asserted that it was possible for a man to extinguish the life of an animal by the eye alone (oculis intentis), Rousseau, the naturalist, repeated the experiment, when in the East, and in this manner killed several toads; but on a subsequent occasion, while trying the same experiment at Lyons, the animal, on finding it could not escape, fixed its eyes immovably on him, so that he fell into a fainting fit, and was thought to be dead. He was restored by means of theriacum and viper powder—a truly homeopathic remedy! However, we here probably see the origin of the universal popular persuasion, that there is some mysterious property in the eye of a toad; and also of the so called, superstition of theevil eye.
A very remarkable circumstance occurred some years ago, at Kirkaldy, when a person, for whose truth and respectability I can vouch, was living in the family of a Colonel M——, at that place. The house they inhabited was at one extremity of the town, and stood in a sort of paddock. One evening when Colonel M—— had dined out, and there was nobody at home but Mrs. M——, her son (a boy about twelve years old), and Ann the maid (my informant), Mrs. M—— called the latter, and directed her attention to a soldier, who was walking backward and forward in the drying ground, behind the house, where some linen was hanging on the lines. She said she wondered what he could be doing there, and bade Ann fetch in the linen, lest he should purloin any of it. The girl, fearing he might be some ill-disposed person, felt afraid; Mrs. M——, however, promising to watch from the window, that nothing happened to her, she went; but still apprehensive of the man’s intentions, she turned her back toward him, and hastily pulling down the linen, she carried it into the house; he continuing his walk the while, as before, taking no notice of her whatever. Ere long the colonel returned, and Mrs. M—— lost no time in taking him to the window to look at the man, saying she could not conceive what he could mean by walking backward and forward there all that time; whereupon Ann added, jestingly, “I think it’s a ghost, for my part!” Colonel M—— said “he would soon see that,” and calling a large dog that was lying in the room, and accompanied by the little boy, who begged to be permitted to go also, he stepped out and approached the stranger; when, to his surprise, the dog, which was an animal of high courage, instantly flew back, and sprung through the glass-door, which the colonel had closed behind him, shivering the panes all around.
The colonel, meantime, advanced and challenged the man, repeatedly, without obtaining any answer or notice whatever, till, at length, getting irritated, he raised a weapon with which he had armed himself, telling him he “must speak or take the consequences,” when, just as he was preparing to strike, lo! there was nobody there! The soldier had disappeared, and the child sunk senseless to the ground. Colonel M—— lifted the boy in his arms, and as he brought him into the house, he said to the girl, “You are right, Ann; itwasa ghost!” He was exceedingly impressed with this circumstance, and much regretted his own behavior, and also the having taken the child with him, which he thought had probably prevented some communication that was intended. In order to repair, if possible, these errors, he went out every night, and walked on that spot for some time, in hopes the apparition would return. At length he said that he had seen and conversed with it; but the purport of the conversation he would never communicate to any human being, not even to his wife. The effect of this occurrence on his own character was perceptible to everybody that knew him. He became grave and thoughtful, and appeared like one who had passed through some strange experience. The above-named Ann H——, from whom I have the account, is now a middle-aged woman. When the circumstance occurred, she was about twenty years of age. She belongs to a highly-respectable family, and is, and always has been, a person of unimpeachable character and veracity.
In this instance, as in several others I meet with, the animal had a consciousness of the nature of the appearance, while the persons around him had no suspicion of anything unusual. In the following singular case we must conclude that attachment counteracted this instinctive apprehension. A farmer in Argyleshire lost his wife, and a few weeks after her decease, as he and his son were crossing a moor, they saw her sitting on a stone, with their house-dog lying at her feet, exactly as he used to do when she was alive. As they approached the spot the woman vanished, and supposing the dog must be equally visionary, they expected to see him vanish, also; when, to their surprise, he rose and joined them, and they found it was actually the very animal of flesh and blood. As the place was at least three miles from any house, they could not conceive what could have taken him there. It was, probably, the influence of her will.
The power ofwillis a phenomenon that has been observed in all ages of the world, though of late years much less than at an earlier period; and, as it was then more frequently exerted for evil than good, it was looked upon as a branch of the art of black magic, while the philosophy of it being unknown, the devil was supposed to be the real agent, and the witch, or wizard, only his instrument. The profound belief in the existence of this art is testified by the twelve tables of Rome, as well as by the books of Moses, and those of Plato, &c. It is extremely absurd to suppose that all these statutes were enacted to suppress a crime which never existed: and, with regard to these witches and wizards, we must remember, as Dr. Ennemoser justly remarks, that the force of will has no relation to the strength or weakness of the body: witness the extraordinary feats occasionally performed by feeble persons under excitement, &c.; and, although these witches and wizards were frequently weak, decrepit people, they either believed in their own arts, or else that they had a friend or coadjutor in the devil, who was able and willing to aid them. They, therefore, did not doubt their own power, and they had the one great requisite,faith. Towill and to believe, was the explanation given by the Marquis de Puységur of the cures he performed; and this unconsciously becomes the recipe of all such men as Greatrix, the Shepherd of Dresden, and many other wonder-workers, and hence we see why it is usually the humble, the simple and the child-like, the solitary, the recluse, nay, the ignorant, who exhibit traces of these occult faculties; for he who can not believe can notwill, and the skepticism of the intellect disables the magician; and hence we say, also, wherefore, in certain parts of the world and in certain periods of its history, these powers and practices have prevailed. They were believed in because they existed; and they existed because they were believed in. There was a continued interaction of cause and effect—of faith and works. People who look superficially at these things, delight in saying that the more the witches were persecuted the more they abounded; and that when the persecution ceased we heard no more of them. Naturally, the more they were persecuted the more they believed in witchcraft and in themselves; when persecution ceased, and men in authority declared that there was no such thing as witchcraft or witches, they lost their faith, and with it that little sovereignty over nature that that faith had conquered.
Here we also see an explanation of the power attributed to blessings and curses. The Word of God is creative, and man is the child of God, made in his image; who never outgrows his childhood, and is often most a child when he thinks himself the wisest, for “the wisdom of this world,” we can not too often repeat, “is foolishness before God”—and being a child, his faculties are feeble in proportion; but though limited in amount, they are divine in kind, and are latent in all of us; still shooting up here and there, to amaze and perplex the wise, and make merry the foolish, who have nearly all alike forgotten their origin, and disowned their birthright.
CHAPTER XII.
A verycurious circumstance, illustrative of the power of will, was lately narrated to me by a Greek gentleman, to whose uncle it occurred. His uncle, Mr. M——, was some years ago travelling in Magnesia with a friend, when they arrived one evening at a caravanserai, where they found themselves unprovided with anything to eat. It was therefore agreed that one should go forth and endeavor to procure food; and the friend offering to undertake the office, Mr. M—— stretched himself on the floor to repose. Some time had elapsed, and his friend had not yet returned, when his attention was attracted by a whispering in the room. He looked up, but saw nobody, though still the whispering continued, seeming to go round by the wall. At length it approached him; but though he felt a burning sensation on his cheek, and heard the whispering distinctly, he could not catch the words. Presently he heard the footsteps of his friend, and thought he was returning; but though they appeared to come quite close to him, and it was perfectly light, he still saw nobody. Then he felt a strange sensation—an irresistible impulse to rise: he felt himselfdrawn up, across the room, out of the door, down the stairs—he must go, he could not help it—to the gate of the caravanserai, a little farther; and there he found the dead body of his friend, who had been suddenly assailed and cut down by robbers, unhappily too plenty in the neighborhood at that period.
We here see the desire of the spirit to communicate his fate to the survivor; the imperfection of the rapport, or the receptivity, which prevented a more direct intercourse; and the exertion of a magnetic influence, which Mr. M—— could not resist, precisely similar to that of a living magnetizer over his patient.
There is a story extant in various English collections, the circumstances of which are said to have occurred about the middle of the last century, and which I shall here mention, on account of its similarity to the one that follows it.
Dr. Bretton, who was, late in life, appointed rector of Ludgate, lived previously in Herefordshire, where he married the daughter of Dr. Santer, a woman of great piety and virtue. This lady died; and one day, as a former servant of hers—to whom she had been attached, and who had since married—was nursing her child in her own cottage, the door opened, and a lady entered so exactly resembling the late Mrs. Bretton in dress and appearance, that she exclaimed: “If my mistress were not dead, I should think you were she!” Whereupon the apparition told her that she was, and requested her to go with her, as she had business of importance to communicate. Alice objected, being very much frightened, and entreated her to address herself rather to Dr. Bretton; but Mrs. B. answered thatshe had endeavored to do so, and had been several times in his room for that purpose, but he was still asleep, and she had no power to do more toward awakening him than once uncover his feet. Alice then pleaded that she had nobody to leave with her child; but Mrs. B. promising that the child should sleep till her return, she at length obeyed the summons; and having accompanied the apparition into a large field, the latter bade her observe how much she measured off with her feet, and, having taken a considerable compass, she bade her go and tell her brother that all that portion had been wrongfully taken from the poor by their father, and that he must restore it to them, adding that she was the more concerned about it, since her name had been used in the transaction. Alice then asking how she should satisfy the gentleman of the truth of her mission, Mrs. B. mentioned to her some circumstance known only to herself and this brother; she then entered into much discourse with the woman, and gave her a great deal of good advice, remaining till, hearing the sound of horse-bells, she said: “Alice, I must be seen by none but yourself,” and then disappeared. Whereupon Alice proceeded to Dr. Bretton, who admitted that he had actually heard some one walking about his room, in a way he could not account for. On mentioning the thing to the brother, he laughed heartily, till Alice communicated the secret which constituted her credentials, upon which he changed his tone, and declared himself ready to make the required restitution.
Dr. Bretton seems to have made no secret of this story, but to have related it to various persons; and I think it is somewhat in its favor, that it exhibits a remarkable instance of the various degrees of receptivity of different individuals, where there was no suspicion of the cause, nor any attempt made to explain why Mrs. Bretton could not communicate her wishes to her husband as easily as to Alice. The promising that the child should sleep, was promising no more than many a magnetiser could fulfil. There are several curious stories extant, of lame and suffering persons suddenly recovering, who attributed their restoration to the visit of an apparition which had stroked their limbs, &c.; and these are the more curious from the fact that they occurred before Mesmer’s time, when people in general knew nothing of vital magnetism. Dr. Binns quotes the case of a person named Jacob Olaffson, a resident in some small island subject to Denmark, who, after lying very ill for a fortnight, was found quite well, which he accounted for by saying that a person in shining clothes had come to him in the night and stroked him with his hand, whereupon he was presently healed. But the stroking is not always necessary, since we know that the eye and the will can produce the same effect.
The other case to which I alluded, as similar to that of Mrs. Bretton, occurred in Germany, and is related by Dr. Kerner.
The late Mr. L—— St. ——, he says, quitted this world with an excellent reputation, being at the time superintendent of an institution for the relief of the poor in B——. His son inherited his property, and, in acknowledgment of the faithful services of his father’s old housekeeper, he took her into his family and established her in a country-house, a few miles from B——, which formed part of his inheritance. She had been settled there but a short time, when she was awakened in the night, she knew not how, and saw a tall, haggard-looking man in her room, who was rendered visible to her by a light that seemed to issue from himself. She drew the bed-clothes over her head; but, as this apparition appeared to her repeatedly, she became so much alarmed that she mentioned it to her master, begging permission to resign her situation. He however laughed at her—told her it must be all imagination—and promised to sleep in the adjoining apartment, in order that she might call him whenever this terror seized her. He did so; but, when the spectre returned, she was so much oppressed with horror that she found it impossible to raise her voice. Her master then advised her to inquire the motive of its visits. This she did: whereupon, it beckoned her to follow, which, after some struggles, she summoned resolution to do. It then led the way down some steps to a passage, where it pointed out to her a concealed closet, which it signified to her, by signs, she should open. She represented that she had no key: whereupon, it described to her, in sufficiently articulate words, where she would find one. She procured the key, and, on opening the closet, found a small parcel, which the spirit desired her to remit to the governor of the institution for the poor, at B——, with the injunction that the contents should be applied to the benefit of the inmates,—this restitution being the only means whereby he could obtain rest and peace in the other world. Having mentioned these circumstances to her master, who bade her do what she had been desired, she took the parcel to the governor and delivered it, without communicating by what means it had come into her hands. Her name was entered in their books and she was dismissed; but, after she was gone, they discovered to their surprise that the packet contained an order for thirty thousand florins, of which the late Mr. St. —— had defrauded the institution and converted to his own use.
Mr. St. ——, jr., was now called upon to pay the money, which he refusing to do, the affair was at length referred to the authorities; and the housekeeper being arrested, he and she were confronted in the court, where she detailed the circumstances by which the parcel had come into her possession. Mr. St. —— denied the possibility of the thing, declaring the whole must be, for some purpose or other, an invention of her own. Suddenly, while making this defence, he felt a blow upon his shoulder, which caused him to start and look round, and at the same moment the housekeeper exclaimed: “See! there he stands, now—there is the ghost!” None perceived the figure excepting the woman herself and Mr. St. ——; but everybody present heard the following words: “My son, repair the injustice I have committed, that I may be at peace!” The money was paid; and Mr. St. —— was so much affected by this painful event, that he was seized with a severe illness, from which he with difficulty recovered.
Dr. Kerner says that these circumstances occurred in the year 1816, and created a considerable sensation at the time, though, at the earnest request of the family of Mr. St. ——, there was an attempt made to hush them up; adding, that in the month of October, 1819, he was himself assured by a very respectable citizen of B——, that it was universally known in the town that the ghost of the late superintendent had appeared to the housekeeper, and pointed out to her where she would find the packet; that she had consulted the minister of her parish, who bade her deliver it as directed; that she had been subsequently arrested, and the affair brought before the authorities, where, while making his defence, Mr. St. —— had received a blow from an invisible hand; and that Mr. St. —— was so much affected by these circumstances, which got abroad in spite of the efforts to suppress them, that he did not long survive the event.
Grose, the antiquary, makes himself very merry with the observation that ghosts do not go about their business like other people; and that in cases of murder, instead of going to the nearest justice of peace, or to the nearest relation of the deceased, a ghost addresses itself to somebody who had nothing to do with the matter, or hovers about the grave where its body is deposited. “The same circuitous mode is pursued,” he says, “with respect to redressing injured orphans or widows; where it seems as if the shortest and most certain way would be to go and haunt the person guilty of the injustice, till he were terrified into restitution.” We find the same sort of strictures made on the story of the ghost of Sir George Villiers, which—instead of going directly to his son, the duke of Buckingham, to warn him of his danger—addressed himself to an inferior person; while the warning was, after all, inefficacious, as the duke would not take counsel;—but surely such strictures are as absurd as the conduct of the ghost: at least I think there can be nothing more absurd than pretending to prescribe laws to nature, and judging of what we know so little about.
The proceedings of the ghost in the following case will doubtless be equally displeasing to the critics. The account is extracted verbatim from a work published by the Bannatyne Club, and is entitled, “Authentic Account of the Appearance of a Ghost in Queen Ann’s County, Maryland, United States of North America, proved in the following remarkable trial, from attested notes taken in court at the time by one of the counsel.”
It appears that Thomas Harris had made some alteration in the disposal of his property, immediately previous to his death; and that the family disputed the will and raised up difficulties likely to be injurious to his children.
“William Brigs said, that he was forty-three years of age; that Thomas Harris died in September, in the year 1790. In the March following he was riding near the place where Thomas Harris was buried, on a horse formerly belonging to Thomas Harris. After crossing a small branch, his horse began to walk on very fast. It was between the hours of eight and nine o’clock in the morning. He was alone: it was a clear day. He entered a lane adjoining to the field where Thomas Harris was buried. His horse suddenly wheeled in a panel of the fence, looked over the fence into the field where Thomas Harris was buried, and neighed very loud. Witness then saw Thomas Harris coming toward him, in the same apparel he had last seen him in in his lifetime; he had on a sky-blue coat. Just before he came to the fence, he varied to the right and vanished; his horse immediately took the road. Thomas Harris came within two panels of the fence to him; he did not see his features, nor speak to him. He was acquainted with Thomas Harris when a boy, and there had always been a great intimacy between them. He thinks the horse knew Thomas Harris, because of his neighing, pricking up his ears, and looking over the fence.
“About the first of June following, he was ploughing in his own field, about three miles from where Thomas Harris was buried. About dusk Thomas Harris came alongside of him, and walked with him about two hundred yards. He was dressed as when first seen. He made a halt about two steps from him. J. Bailey who was ploughing along with him, came driving up, and he lost sight of the ghost. He was much alarmed: not a word was spoken. The young man Bailey did not see him; he did not tell Bailey of it. There was no motion of any particular part: he vanished. It preyed upon his mind so as to affect his health. He was with Thomas Harris when he died, but had no particular conversation with him. Some time after, he was lying in bed, about eleven and twelve o’clock at night, when he heard Thomas Harris groan; it was like the groan he gave a few minutes before he expired: Mrs. Brigs, his wife, heard the groan. She got up and searched the house: he did not, because he knew the groan to be from Thomas Harris. Some time after, when in bed, and a great fire-light in the room, he saw a shadow on the wall, and at the same time he felt a great weight upon him. Some time after, when in bed and asleep, he felt a stroke between his eyes, which blackened them both: his wife was in bed with him, and two young men were in the room. The blow awaked him, and all in the room were asleep; is certain no one in the room struck him: the blow swelled his nose. About the middle of August he was alone, coming from Hickey Collins’s, after dark, about one hour in the night, when Thomas Harris appeared, dressed as he had seen him when going down to the meeting-house branch, three miles and a half from the graveyard of Thomas Harris. It was starlight. He extended his arms over his shoulders. Does not know how long he remained in this situation. He was much alarmed. Thomas Harris disappeared. Nothing was said. He felt no weight on his shoulders. He went back to Collins’s, and got a young man to go with him. After he got home he mentioned it to the young man. He had, before this, told James Harris he had seen his brother’s ghost.
“In October, about twilight in the morning, he saw Thomas Harris about one hundred yards from the house of the witness; his head was leaned to one side; same apparel as before; his face was toward him; he walked fast and disappeared: there was nothing between them to obstruct the view; he was about fifty yards from him, and alone; he had no conception why Thomas Harris appeared to him. On the same day, about eight o’clock in the morning, he was handing up blades to John Bailey, who was stacking them; he saw Thomas Harris come along the garden fence, dressed as before; he vanished, and always to the east; was within fifteen feet of him; Bailey did not see him. An hour and a half afterward, in the same place, he again appeared, coming as before; came up to the fence; leaned on it within ten feet of the witness, who called to Bailey to look there (pointing toward Thomas Harris). Bailey asked what was there. Don’t you see Harris? Does not recollect what Bailey said. Witness advanced toward Harris. One or the other spoke as witness got over the fence on the same panel that Thomas Harris was leaning on. They walked off together about five hundred yards; a conversation took place as they walked; he has not the conversation on his memory. He could not understand Thomas Harris, his voice was so low. He asked Thomas Harris a question, and he forbid him. Witness then asked, ‘Why not go to your brother, instead of me?’ Thomas Harris said, ‘Ask me no questions.’ Witness told him his will was doubted. Thomas Harris told him to ask his brother if he did not remember the conversation which passed between them on the east side of the wheat-stacks, the day he was taken with his death-sickness; that he then declared that he wished all his property kept together by James Harris, until his children arrived at age, then the whole should be sold and divided among his children; and, should it be immediately sold, as expressed in his will, that the property would be most wanting to his children while minors, therefore he had changed his will, and said that witness should see him again. He then told witness to turn, and disappeared. He did not speak to him with the same voice as in his lifetime. He was not daunted while with Thomas Harris, but much afterward. Witness then went to James Harris and told him that he had seen his brother three times that day. Related the conversation he had with him. Asked James Harris if he remembered the conversation between him and his brother, at the wheat-stack; he said he did; then told him what had passed. Said he would fulfil his brother’s will. He was satisfied that witness had seen his brother, for that no other person knew the conversation. On the same evening, returning home about an hour before sunset, Thomas Harris appeared to him, and came alongside of him. Witness told him that his brother said he would fulfil his will. No more conversation on this subject. He disappeared. He had further conversation with Thomas Harris, but not on this subject. He was always dressed in the same manner. He had never related to any person the last conversation, and never would.
“Bailey, who was sworn in the cause, declared that as he and Brigs were stacking blades, as related by Brigs, he called to witness and said, ‘Look there! Do you not see Thomas Harris?’ Witness said, ‘No.’ Brigs got over the fence, and walked some distance—appeared by his action to be in deep conversation with some person. Witness saw no one.
“The counsel was extremely anxious to hear from Mr. Brigs the whole of the conversation of the ghost, and on his cross-examination took every means, without effect, to obtain it. They represented to him, as a religious man, he was bound to disclose the whole truth. He appeared agitated when applied to, declaring nothing short of life should make him reveal the whole conversation, and, claiming the protection of the court, that he had declared all he knew relative to the case.
“The court overruled the question of the counsel. Hon. James Tilgman, judge.
“His excellency Robert Wright, late governor of Maryland, and the Hon. Joseph H. Nicholson, afterward judge of one of the courts in Maryland, were the counsel for the plaintiff.
“John Scott and Richard T. Earl, Esqs., were counsel for the defendant.”
Here, as in the case of Col. M——, mentioned in a former chapter, and some others I have met with, we find disclosures made that were held sacred.
Dr. Kerner relates the following singular story, which he declares himself to have received from the most satisfactory authority. Agnes B——, being at the time eighteen years of age, was living as servant in a small inn at Undenheim, her native place. The host and hostess were quiet old people, who generally went to bed about eight o’clock, while she and the boy, the only other servant, were expected to sit up till ten, when they had to shut up the house and retire to bed also. One evening, as the host was sitting on a bench before the door, there came a beggar, requesting a night’s lodging. The host, however, refused, and bade him seek what he wanted in the village; whereon the man went away.
At the usual hour the old people went to bed; and the two servants, having closed the shutters, and indulged in a little gossip with the watchman, were about to follow their example, when the beggar came round the corner of the neighboring street, and earnestly entreated them to give him a lodging for the night, since he could find nobody that would take him in. At first the young people refused, saying they dared not, without their master’s leave; but at length the entreaties of the man prevailed, and they consented to let him sleep in the barn, on condition that, when they called him in the morning, he would immediately depart. At three o’clock they rose, and when the boy entered the barn, to his dismay, he found that the old man had expired in the night. They were now much perplexed with the apprehension of their master’s displeasure; so, after some consultation, they agreed that the lad should convey the body out of the barn, and lay it in a dry ditch that was near at hand, where it would be found by the laborers, and excite no question, as they would naturally conclude he had laid himself down there to die.
This was done, the man was discovered and buried, and they thought themselves well rid of the whole affair; but, on the following night, the girl was awakened by the beggar, whom she saw standing at her bedside. He looked at her, and then quitted the room by the door. “Glad was I,” she says, “when the day broke; but I was scarcely out of my room when the boy came to me, trembling and pale, and, before I could say a word to him of what I had seen, he told me that the beggar had been to his room in the night, had looked at him, and then gone away. He said he was dressed as when we had seen him alive, only he looked blacker, which I also had observed.”
Still afraid of incurring blame, they told nobody, although the apparition returned to them every night; and although they found removing to the other bed-chambers did not relieve them from his visits. But the effects of this persecution became so visible on both, that much curiosity was awakened in the village with respect to the cause of the alteration observed in them; and at length the boy’s mother went to the minister, requesting him to interrogate her son, and endeavor to discover what was preying on his mind. To him the boy disclosed their secret; and this minister, who was a protestant, having listened with attention to the story, advised him, when next he went to Mayence, to market, to call on Father Joseph, of the Franciscan convent, and relate the circumstance to him. This advice was followed; and Father Joseph, assuring the lad that the ghost could do him no harm, recommended him to ask him, in the name of God, what he desired. The boy did so; whereupon the apparition answered, “Ye are children of mercy, but I am a child of evil; in the barn, under the straw, you will find my money. Take it; it is yours.” In the morning, the boy found the money accordingly, in an old stocking hid under the straw; but having a natural horror of it, they took it to their minister, who advised them to divide it into three parts, giving one to the Franciscan convent at Mayence, another to the reformed church in the village, and the other third to that to which they themselves belonged, which was of the Lutheran persuasion. This they did, and were no more troubled with the beggar. With respect to the minister who gave them this good advice, I can only say, all honor be to him! I wish there were many more such! The circumstance occurred in the year 1750, and is related by the daughter of Agnes B——, who declared that she had frequently heard it from her mother.
The circumstance of this apparition looking darker than the man had done when alive, is significant of his condition, and confirms what I have said above, namely, that the moral state of the disembodied soul can no longer be concealed as it was in the flesh, but that as he is, he must necessarily appear.
There is an old saying, that we should never lie down to rest at enmity with any human being; and the story of the ghost of the Princess Anna of Saxony, who appeared to Duke Christian of Saxe-Eisenburg, is strongly confirmatory of the wisdom of this axiom.
Duke Christian was sitting one morning in his study, when he was surprised by a knock at his door—an unusual circumstance, since the guards as well as the people in waiting were always in the ante-room. He, however, cried, “Come in!” when there entered, to his amazement, a lady in an ancient costume, who, in answer to his inquiries, told him that she was no evil spirit, and would do him no harm; but that she was one of his ancestors, and had been the wife of Duke John Casimer, of Saxe-Coburg. She then related that she and her husband had not been on good terms at the period of their deaths, and that, although she had sought a reconciliation, he had been inexorable; pursuing her with unmitigated hatred, and injuring her by unjust suspicions; and that, consequently, althoughshewas happy,hewas still wandering in cold and darkness, between time and eternity. She had, however, long known that one of their descendants was destined to effect this reconciliation for them, and they were rejoiced to find the time for it had at length arrived. She then gave the duke eight days to consider if he were willing to perform this good office, and disappeared; whereupon he consulted a clergyman, in whom he had great confidence, who, after finding the ghost’s communication verified, by a reference to the annals of the family, advised him to comply with her request.
As the duke had yet some difficulty in believing it was really a ghost he had seen, he took care to have his door well watched; she, however, entered at the appointed time, unseen by the attendants, and, having received the duke’s promise, she told him she would return with her husband on the following night; for that, though she could come by day, he could not; that then, having heard the circumstances, the duke must arbitrate between them, and then unite their hands, and bless them. The door was still watched, but nevertheless the apparitions both came, the Duke Casimer in full royal costume, but of a livid paleness; and when the wife had told her story, he told his. Duke Christian decided for the lady, in which judgment Duke Casimer fully acquiesced. Christian then took the ice-cold hand of Casimer and laid it in that of his wife, which felt of a natural heat. They then prayed and sang together, and the apparitions disappeared, having foretold that Duke Christian would ere long be with them. The family records showed that these people had lived about one hundred years before Duke Christian’s time, who himself died in 1707, two years after these visits of his ancestors. He desired to be buried in quicklime—it is supposed from an idea that it might prevent his ghost walking the earth.
The costume in which they appeared was precisely that they had worn when alive, as was ascertained by a reference to their portraits.
The expression that her husband waswandering in cold and darkness, between time and eternity, is here very worthy of observation, as are the circumstances that his hand was cold, while hers was warm; and also, the greater privilege she seemed to enjoy. The hands of the unhappy spirits appear, I think, invariably to communicate a sensation of cold.
I have heard of three instances of persons now alive, who declare that they hold continual intercourse with their deceased partners. One of these is a naval officer, whom the author of a book lately published, called “The Unseen World,” appears to be acquainted with. The second is a professor in a college in America, a man of eminence and learning, and full of activity and energy—yet he assured a friend of mine that he receives constant visits from his departed wife, which afford him great satisfaction. The third example is a lady in this country. She is united to a second husband, has been extremely happy in both marriages, and declares that she receives frequent visits from her first. Oberlin, the good pastor ofBan de la Roche, asserted the same thing of himself. His wife came to him frequently after her death; was seen by the rest of his household, as well as himself; and warned him beforehand of many events that occurred.
Mrs. Mathews relates in the memoirs of her husband, that he was one night in bed and unable to sleep, from the excitement that continues some time after acting, when, hearing a rustling by the side of the bed, he looked out, and saw his first wife, who was then dead, standing by the bedside, dressed as when alive. She smiled, and bent forward as if to take his hand; but in his alarm he threw himself out on the floor to avoid the contact, and was found by the landlord in a fit. On the same night, and at the same hour, the present Mrs. Mathews, who was far away from him, received a similar visit from her predecessor, whom she had known when alive. She was quite awake, and in her terror seized the bell-rope to summon assistance, which gave way, and she fell with it in her hand to the ground.
Professor Barthe, who visited Oberlin in 1824, says, that while he spoke of his intercourse with the spiritual world as familiarly as of the daily visits of his parishioners, he was at the same time perfectly free from fanaticism, and eagerly alive to all the concerns of this earthly existence. He asserted, what I find many somnambules and deceased persons also assert, that everything on earth is but a copy, of which the antitype is to be found in the other.
He said to his visiter, that he might as well attempt to persuade him that that was not a table before them, as that he did not hold communication with the other world. “I give you credit for being honest when you assure me that you never saw anything of the kind,” said he; “give me the same credit when I assure you that I do.”
With respect to the faculty of ghost-seeing, he said, it depends on several circumstances, external and internal. People who live in the bustle and glare of the world seldom see them, while those who live in still, solitary, thinly-inhabited places, like the mountainous districts of various countries, do. So if I go into the forest by night, I see the phosphoric light of a piece of rotten wood; but if I go by day I can not see it; yet it is still there. Again, there must be a rapport. A tender mother is awakened by the faintest cry of her infant, while the maid slumbers on and never hears it; and if I thrust a needle among a parcel of wood-shavings, and hold a magnet over them, the needle is stirred while the shavings are quite unmoved. There must be a particular aptitude; what it consists in I do not know; for of my people, many of whom are ghost-seers, some are weak and sickly, others vigorous and strong. Here are several pieces of flint: I can see no difference in them; yet some have so much iron in them that they easily become magnetic; others have little or none. So it is with the faculty of ghost-seeing. People may laugh as they will, but the thing is a fact, nevertheless.
The visits of his wife continued for nine years after her death, and then ceased.
At length she sent him a message, through another deceased person, to say that she was now elevated to a higher state, and could therefore no longer revisit the earth.
Never was there a purer spirit, nor a more beloved human being, than Oberlin. When first he was appointed to the curé of Ban de la Roche, and found his people talking so familiarly of the reappearance of the dead, he reproved them and preached against the superstition; nor was he convinced, till after the death of his wife. She had, however, previously received a visit from her deceased sister, the wife of Professor Oberlin, of Strasburg, who had warned her of her approaching death, for which she immediately set about preparing, making extra clothing for her children, and even laying in provision for the funeral feast. She then took leave of her husband and family, and went quietly to bed. On the following morning she died; and Oberlin never heard of the warning she had received, till she disclosed it to him in her spectral visitations.
In narrating the following story, I am not permitted to give the names of the place or parties, nor the number of the regiment, with all of which, however, I am acquainted. The account was taken down by one of the officers, with whose family I am also acquainted; and the circumstance occurred within the last ten years.
“About the month of August,” says Captain E——, “my attention was requested by the schoolmaster-sergeant, a man of considerable worth, and highly esteemed by the whole corps, to an event which had occurred in the garrison hospital. Having heard his recital, which, from the serious earnestness with which he made it, challenged attention, I resolved to investigate the matter; and, having communicated the circumstances to a friend, we both repaired to the hospital for the purpose of inquiry.
“There were two patients to be examined—both men of good character, and neither of them suffering from any disorder affecting the brain; the one was under treatment for consumptive symptoms, and the other for an ulcerated leg: and they were both in the prime of life.
“Having received a confirmation of the schoolmaster’s statement from the hospital-sergeant, also a very respectable and trustworthy man, I sent for the patient principally concerned, and desired him to state what he had seen and heard, warning him, at the same time, that it was my intention to take down his deposition, and that it behooved him to be very careful, as possibly serious steps might be taken for the purpose of discovering whether an imposition had been practised in the wards of the hospital—a crime for which, he was well aware, a very severe penalty would be inflicted. He then proceeded to relate the circumstances, which I took down in the presence of Mr. B—— and the hospital-sergeant, as follows:—