I was having a sitting one day in my own house with a lady friend, named Miss Clark, when a female spirit came to the table and spelt out the name "Tiny."
"Who are you?" I asked, "and for whom do you come?"
"I am a friend of Major M——" (mentioning the full name), "and I want your help."
"Are you any relation to Major M——?"
"I am the mother of his child."
"What do you wish me to do for you?"
"Tell him he must go down to Portsmouth and look after my daughter. He has not seen her for years. The old woman is dead, and the man is a drunkard. She is falling into evil courses. He must save her from them."
"What is your real name?"
"I will not give it. There is no need. He always called me 'Tiny.'"
"How old is your daughter."
"Nineteen! Her name is Emily! I want her to be married. Tell him to promise her a wedding trousseau. It may induce her to marry."
The influence divulged a great deal more on the subject which I cannot write down here. It was an account of one of those cruel acts of seduction by which a young girl had been led into trouble in order to gratify a man's selfish lust, and astonished both Miss Clark and myself, who had never heard of such a person as "Tiny" before. It was too delicate a matter for me to broach to Major M—— (who was a married man, and an intimate friend of mine), but the spirit came so many times and implored me so earnestly to save her daughter, that at last I ventured to repeat the communication to him. He was rather taken aback, but confessed it was true, and that the child, being left to his care, had been given over to the charge of some common people at Portsmouth, and he had not enquired after it for some time past. Neither had he ever heard of the death of the mother, who had subsequently married, and had a family. He instituted inquiries, however, at once, and found the statement to be quite true, and that the girl Emily, being left with no better protection than that of the drunken old man, had actually gone astray, and not long after she was had up at the police court for stabbing a soldier in a public-house—a fit ending for the unfortunate offspring of a man's selfish passions. But the strangest part of the story to the uninitiated will lie in the fact that the woman whose spirit thus manifested itself to two utter strangers, who knew neither her history nor her name, was at the timealive, and living with her husband and family, as Major M—— took pains to ascertain.
And now I have something to say on the subject of communicating with the spirits of persons still in the flesh. This will doubtless appear the most incomprehensible and fanatical assertion of all, that we wear our earthly garb so loosely, that the spirits of people still living in this world can leave the body and manifest themselves either visibly or orally to others in their normal condition. And yet it is a fact that spirits have so visited myself (as in the case I have just recorded), and given me information of which I had not the slightest previous idea. The matter has been explained to me after this fashion—that it is not really the spirit of the living person who communicates, but the spirit, or "control," that is nearest to him: in effect what the Church calls his "guardian angel," and that this guardian angel, who knows his inmost thoughts and desires better even than he knows them himself, is equally capable of speaking in his name. This idea of the matter may shift the marvel from one pair of shoulders to another, but it does not do away with it. If I can receive information of events before they occur (as I will prove that I have), I present a nut for the consideration of the public jaw, which even the scientists will find difficult to crack. It was at one time my annual custom to take my children to the sea-side, and one summer, being anxious to ascertain how far the table could be made to act without the aid of "unconscious cerebration," I arranged with my friends, Mr. Helmore and Mrs. Colnaghi, who had been in the habit of sitting with us at home, thatweshould continue to sit at the sea-side on Tuesday evenings as theretofore, andtheyshould sit in London on the Thursdays, when I would try to send them messages through "Charlie," the spirit I have already mentioned as being constantly with us.
The first Tuesday my message was, "Ask them how they are getting on without us," which was faithfully delivered at their table on the following Thursday. The return message from them which "Charlie" spelled out for us on the second Tuesday, was: "Tell her London is a desert without her," to which I emphatically, if not elegantly, answered, "Fiddle-de-dee!" A few days afterwards I received a letter from Mr. Helmore, in which he said, "I am afraid 'Charlie' is already tired of playing at postman, for to all our questions about you last Thursday, he would only rap out, 'Fiddle-de-dee.'"
The circumstance to which this little episode is but an introduction happened a few days later. Mr. Colnaghi and Mr. Helmore, sitting together as usual on Thursday evening, were discussing the possibility of summoning the spirits ofliving personsto the table, when "Charlie" rapped three times to intimate they could.
"Will you fetch some one for us, Charlie?"
"Yes."
"Whom will you bring?"
"Mrs. Ross-Church."
"How long will it take you to do so?"
"Fifteen minutes."
It was in the middle of the night when I must have been fast asleep, and the two young men told me afterwards that they waited the results of their experiment with much trepidation, wondering (I suppose) if I should be conveyed bodily into their presence and box their ears well for their impertinence. Exactly fifteen minutes afterwards, however, the table was violently shaken and the words were spelt out. "I am Mrs. Ross-Church. Howdaredyou send for me?" They were very penitent (or they said they were), but they described my manner as most arbitrary, and said I went on repeating, "Let me go back! Let me go back! There is a great danger hanging over my children! I must go back to my children!" (And here I would remarkpar parenthèse, and in contradiction of the guardian angel theory, that I have always found that whilst the spirits of the departed come and go as they feel inclined, the spirits of the living invariablybegto be sent back again or permitted to go, as if they were chained by the will of the medium.) On this occasion I was so positive that I made a great impression on my two friends, and the next day Mr. Helmore sent me a cautiously worded letter to find out if all was well with us at Charmouth, but without disclosing the reason for his curiosity.
Thefactsare, that on the morning ofFriday, the dayaftertheséancein London, my seven children and two nurses were all sitting in a small lodging-house room, when my brother-in-law, Dr. Henry Norris, came in from ball practice with the volunteers, and whilst exhibiting his rifle to my son, accidentally discharged it in the midst of them, the ball passing through the wall within two inches of my eldest daughter's head. When I wrote the account of this to Mr. Helmore, he told me of my visit to London and the words I had spelt out on the occasion. But how did I know of the occurrence thenight beforeit took place? And if I—being asleep and unconscious—didnotknow of it, "Charlie" must have done so.
My ærial visits to my friends, however, whilst my body was in quite another place, have been made still more palpable than this. Once, when living in the Regent's Park, I passed a very terrible and painful night. Grief and fear kept me awake most of the time, and the morning found me exhausted with the emotion I had gone through. About eleven o'clock there walked in, to my surprise, Mrs. Fitzgerald (better known as a medium under her maiden name of Bessie Williams), who lived in the Goldhawk Road, Shepherd's Bush. "I couldn't help coming to you," she commenced, "for I shall not be easy until I know how you are after the terrible scene you have passed through." I stared at her. "Whom have you seen?" I asked. "Who has told you of it?" "Yourself," she replied. "I was waked up this morning between two and three o'clock by the sound of sobbing and crying in the front garden. I got out of bed and opened the window, and then I saw you standing on the grass plat in your night-dress and crying bitterly. I asked you what was the matter, and you told me so and so, and so and so." And here followed a detailed account of all that had happened in my own house on the other side of London, with thevery wordsthat had been used, and every action that had happened. I had seen no one and spoken to no one between the occurrence and the time Mrs. Fitzgerald called upon me. If her story was untrue,whohad so minutely informed her of a circumstance which it was to the interest of all concerned to keep to themselves?
When I first joined Mr. d'Oyley Carte's "Patience" Company in the provinces, to play the part of "Lady Jane," I understood I was to have four days' rehearsal. However, the lady whom I succeeded, hearing I had arrived, took herself off, and the manager requested I would appear the same night of my arrival. This was rather an ordeal to an artist who had never sung on the operatic stage before, and who was not note perfect. However, as a matter of obligation, I consented to do my best, but I was very nervous. At the end of the second act, during the balloting scene, Lady Jane has to appear suddenly on the stage, with the word "Away!" I forget at this distance of time whether I made a mistake in pitching the note a third higher or lower. I know it was not out of harmony, but it was sufficiently wrong to send the chorus astray, and bring my heart up into my mouth. It never occurred after the first night, but I never stood at the wings again waiting for that particular entrance but I "girded my loins together," as it were, with a kind of dread lest I should repeat the error. After a while I perceived a good deal of whispering about me in the company, and I asked poor Federici (who played the colonel) the reason of it, particularly as he had previously asked me to stand as far from him as I could upon the stage, as I magnetized him so strongly that he couldn't sing if I was near him. "Well! do you know," he said to me in answer, "that a very strange thing occurs occasionally with reference to you, Miss Marryat. While you are standing on the stage sometimes, you appear seated in the stalls. Several people have seen it beside myself. I assure you it is true."
"Butwhendo you see me?" I enquired with amazement.
"It's always at the same time," he answered, "just before you run on at the end of the second act. Of course it's only an appearance, but it's very queer." I told him then of the strange feelings of distrust of myself I experienced each night at that very moment, when my spirit seems to have preceded myself upon the stage.
I had a friend many years ago in India, who (like many other friends) had permitted time and separation to come between us, and alienate us from each other. I had not seen him nor heard from him for eleven years, and to all appearance our friendship was at an end. One evening the medium I have alluded to above, Mrs. Fitzgerald, who was a personal friend of mine, was at my house, and after dinner she put her feet up on the sofa—a very unusual thing for her—and closed her eyes. She and I were quite alone in the drawing-room, and after a little while I whispered softly, "Bessie, are you asleep?" The answer came from her control "Dewdrop," a wonderfully sharp Red Indian girl. "No! she's in a trance. There's somebody coming to speak to you! I don't want him to come. He'll make the medium ill. But it's no use. I see him creeping round the corner now."
"But why should it make her ill?" I argued, believing we were about to hold an ordinaryséance.
"Because he's aliveone, he hasn't passed over yet," replied Dewdrop, "and live ones always make my medium feel sick. But it's no use. I can't keep him out. He may as well come. But don't let him stay long."
"Who is he, Dewdrop?" I demanded curiously.
"Idon't know! Guessyouwill! He's an old friend of yours, and his name is George." Whereupon Bessie Fitzgerald laid back on the sofa cushions, and Dewdrop ceased to speak. It was some time before there was any result. The medium tossed and turned, and wiped the perspiration from her forehead, and pushed back her hair, and beat up the cushions and threw herself back upon them with a sigh, and went through all the pantomime of a man trying to court sleep in a hot climate. Presently she opened her eyes and glanced languidly around her. Her unmistakable actions and the name "George" (which was that of my friend, then resident in India) had naturally aroused my suspicions as to the identity of the influence, and when Bessie opened her eyes, I asked softly, "George, is that you?" At the sound of my voice the medium started violently and sprung into a sitting posture, and then, looking all round the room in a scared manner, she exclaimed, "Where am I? Who brought me here?" Then catching sight of me, she continued, "Mrs. Ross-Church!—Florence! Is thisyourroom? O! let me go!Dolet me go!"
This was not complimentary, to say the least of it, from a friend whom I had not met for eleven years, but now that I had got him I had no intention of letting him go, until I was convinced of his identity. But the terror of the spirit at finding himself in a strange place seemed so real and uncontrollable that I had the greatest difficulty in persuading him to stay, even for a few minutes. He kept on reiterating, "Who brought me here? I did not wish to come. Do let me go back. I am so very cold" (shivering convulsively), "so very,verycold."
"Answer me a few questions," I said, "and then you shall go. Do you know who I am?"
"Yes, yes, you are Florence."
"And what is your name?" He gave it at full length. "And do you care for me still?"
"Very much. But let me go."
"In a minute. Why do you never write to me?"
"There are reasons. I am not a free agent. It is better as it is."
"I don't think so. I miss your letters very much. Shall I ever hear from you again?"
"Yes!"
"And see you?"
"Yes; but not yet. Let me go now. I don't wish to stay. You are making me very unhappy."
If I could describe the fearful manner in which, during this conversation, he glanced every moment at the door, like a man who is afraid of being discovered in a guilty action, it would carry with it to my readers, as it did to me, the most convincing proof that the medium's body was animated by a totally different influence from her own. I kept the spirit under control until I had fully convinced myself that he knew everything about our former friendship and his own present surroundings; and then I let him fly back to India, and wondered if he would wake up the next morning and imagine he had been laboring under nightmare.
These experiences with the spirits of the living are certainly amongst the most curious I have obtained. On more than one occasion, when I have been unable to extract the truth of a matter from my acquaintances I have sat down alone, as soon as I believed them to be asleep, and summoned their spirits to the table and compelled them to speak out. Little have they imagined sometimes how I came to know things which they had scrupulously tried to hide from me. I have heard that the power to summons the spirits of the living is not given to all media, but I have always possessed it. I can do so when they are awake as well as when they are asleep, though it is not so easy. A gentleman oncedaredme to do this with him, and I only conceal his name because I made him look ridiculous. I waited till I knew he was engaged at a dinner-party, and then about nine o'clock in the evening I sat down and summoned him to come to me. It was some little time before he obeyed, and when he did come, he was eminently sulky. I got a piece of paper and pencil, and from his dictation I wrote down the number and names of the guests at the dinner-table, also the dishes of which he had partaken, and then in pity for his earnest entreaties I let him go again. "You are making me ridiculous," he said, "everyone is laughing at me."
"But why? What are you doing?" I urged.
"I am standing by the mantel-piece, and I have fallen fast asleep," he answered. The next morning he came pell-mell into my presence.
"What did you do to me last night?" he demanded. "I was at the Watts Philips, and after dinner I went fast asleep with my head upon my hand, standing by the mantel-piece, and they were all trying to wake me and couldn't. Have you been playing any of your tricks upon me?"
"I only made you do what you declared I couldn't," I replied. "How did you like the white soup and the turbot, and the sweetbreads, etc., etc."
He opened his eyes at my nefariously obtained knowledge, and still more when I produced the paper written from his dictation. This is not a usual custom of mine—it would not be interesting enough to pursue as a custom—but I am a dangerous person todareto do anything.
The old friend whose spirit visited me through Mrs. Fitzgerald had lost a sister to whom he was very tenderly attached before he made my acquaintance, and I knew little of her beyond her name. One evening, not many months after the interview with him which I have recorded, a spirit came to me, giving the name of my friend's sister, with this message, "My brother has returned to England, and would like to know your address. Write to him to the Club, Leamington, and tell him where to find you." I replied, "Your brother has not written to me, nor inquired after me for the last eleven years. He has lost all interest in me, and I cannot be the first to write to him, unless I am sure that he wishes it."
"He hasnotlost all interest in you," said the spirit; "he thinks of you constantly, and I hear him pray for you. He wishes to hear from you."
"That may be true," I replied, "but I cannot accept it on your authority. If your brother really wishes to renew our acquaintance, let him write and tell me so."
"He does not know your address, and I cannot get near enough to him to influence him."
"Then things must remain as they are," I replied somewhat testily. "I am a public person. He can find out my address, if he chooses to do so."
The spirit seemed to reflect for a moment; then she rapped out, "Wait, and I will fetch my brother. He shall come here himself and tell you what he thinks about it." In a short time there was a different movement of the table, and the name of my old friend was given. After we had exchanged a few words, and I had told him I required a test of his identity, he asked me to get a pencil and paper, and write from his dictation. I did as he requested, and he dictated the following sentence, "Long time, indeed, has passed since the days you call to mind, but time, however long, does not efface the past. It has never made me cease to think of and pray for you as I felt you, too, did think of and pray for me. Write to the address my sister gave you. I want to hear from you."
Notwithstanding the perspicuity and apparent genuineness of this message, it was some time before I could make up my mind to follow the directions it gave me. My pride stood in the way to prevent it.Ten days afterwards, however, having received several more visits from the sister, I did as she desired me, and sent a note to her brother to the Leamington Club. The answer came by return of post, and contained (amongst others)the identical wordshe had told me to write down. Will Mr. Stuart Cumberland, or any other clever man, explain to mewhatorwhoit was that had visited me ten days beforehand, and dictated words which could hardly have been in my correspondent's brain before he received my letter? I am ready to accept any reasonable explanation of the matter from the scientists, philosophers, chemists, or arguists of the world, and I am open to conviction, when my sense convinces me, that their reasoning is true. But my present belief is, that not a single man or woman will be found able to account on any ordinary grounds for such an extraordinary instance of "unconscious cerebration."
Being subject to "optical illusions," I naturally had several with regard to my spirit child, "Florence," and she always came to me clothed in a white dress. One night, however, when I was living alone in the Regent's Park, I saw "Florence" (as I imagined) standing in the centre of the room, dressed in a green riding habit slashed with orange color, with a cavalier hat of grey felt on her head, ornamented with a long green feather and a gold buckle. She stood with her back to me, but I could see her profile as she looked over her shoulder, with the skirt of her habit in her hand. This being a most extraordinary attire in which to see "Florence," I felt curious on the subject, and the next day I questioned her about it.
"Florence!" I said, "why did you come to me last night in a green riding habit?"
"I did not come to you last night, mother! It was my sister Eva."
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "is anything wrong with her?"
"No! she is quite well."
"How could she come to me then?"
"She did not come in reality, but her thoughts were much with you, and so you saw her spirit clairvoyantly."
My daughter Eva, who was on the stage, was at that time fulfilling a stock engagement in Glasgow, and very much employed. I had not heard from her for a fortnight, which was a most unusual occurrence, and I had begun to feel uneasy. This vision made me more so, and I wrote at once to ask her if all was as it should be. Her answer was to this effect: "I am so sorry I have had no time to write to you this week, but I have been so awfully busy. We play 'The Colleen Bawn' here next week, and I have had to get my dress ready for 'Anne Chute.' It's so effective. I wish you could see it.A green habit slashed with orange, and a grey felt hat with a long green feather and a big gold buckle.I tried it on the other night, and it looked so nice, etc., etc."
Well, my darling girl had had her wish, and Ihadseen it.
As I have alluded to what my family termed my "optical illusions," I think it as well to describe a few of them, which appeared by the context to be something more than a mere temporary disturbance of my visual organs. I will pass over such as might be traced, truly or otherwise, to physical causes, and confine myself to those which were subsequently proved to be the reflection of something that, unknown to me, had gone before. In 1875 I was much engaged in giving dramatic readings in different parts of the country, and I visited Dublin for the first time in my life, for that purpose, and put up at the largest and best-frequented hotel there. Through the hospitality of the residents and the duties of my professional business, I was engaged both day and night, and when Ididget to bed, I had every disposition to sleep, as the saying is, like a "top." But there was something in the hotel that would not let me do so. I had a charming bedroom, cheerful, bright and pretty, and replete with every comfort, and I would retire to rest "dead beat," and fall off to sleep at once, to be waked perhaps half-a-dozen times a night by that inexplicable something (or nothing) that rouses me whenever I am about to enjoy an "optical illusion," and to see figures, sometimes one, sometimes two or three, sometimes a whole group standing by my bedside and gazing at me with looks of the greatest astonishment, as much as to ask what right I had to be there. But the most remarkable part of the matter to me was, that all the figures were those of men, and military men, to whom I was too well accustomed to be able to mistake. Some were officers and others soldiers, some were in uniform, others in undress, but they all belonged to the army, and they all seemed to labor under the same feeling of intense surprise at seeingmein the hotel. These apparitions were so life-like and appeared so frequently, that I grew quite uncomfortable about them, for however much one may be used to see "optical illusions," it is not pleasant to fancy there are about twenty strangers gazing at one every night as one lies asleep. Spiritualism is, or was, a tabooed subject in Dublin, and I had been expressly cautioned not to mention it before my new acquaintances. However, I could not keep entire silence on this subject, and diningen familleone day, with a hospitable family of the name of Robinson, I related to them my nightly experiences at the hotel. Father, mother, and son exclaimed simultaneously. "Good gracious," they said, "don't you know that that hotel was built on the site of the old barracks? The house immediately behind it, which formed part of the old building, was vacated by its last tenants on account of its being haunted. Every evening at the hour the soldiers used to be marched up to bed, they heard the tramp, tramp, tramp of the feet ascending the staircase."
"That may be," I replied, "but theyknewtheir house stood on the site of the barracks, andI didn't."
My eldest daughter was spending a holiday with me once after my second marriage, and during the month of August. She had been very much overworked, and I made her lie in bed till noon. One morning I had been to her room at that hour to wake her, and on turning to leave it (in the broad daylight, remember), I encountered a man on the landing outside her door. He was dressed in a white shirt with black studs down the front, and a pair of black cloth trousers. He had dark hair and eyes, and small features; altogether, he struck me as having rather a sinister and unpleasant appearance. I stood still, with the open door in my hand, and gazed at him. He looked at me also for a minute, and then turned and walked upstairs to an upper storey where the nursery was situated, beckoning me, with a jerk of his hand, to follow him. My daughter (remarking a peculiar expression in my eyes, which I am told they assume on such occasions) said, "Mother! what do you see?"
"Only a spirit," I answered, "and he has gone upstairs."
"Now, whatisthe good of seeing them in that way," said Eva, rather impatiently (for this dear child always disliked and avoided Spiritualism), and I was fain to confess that I really didnotknow the especial good of encountering a sinister-looking gentleman in shirt and trousers, on a blazing noon in August. After which the circumstance passed from my mind, until recalled again.
A few months later I had occasion to change the children's nurse, and the woman who took her place was an Icelandic girl named Margaret Thommassen, who had only been in England for three weeks. I found that she had been educated far above the average run of domestic servants, and was well acquainted with the writings of Swedenborg and other authors. One day as I walked up the nursery stairs to visit the children in bed, I encountered the same man I had seen outside my daughter's room, standing on the upper landing, as though waiting my approach. He was dressed as before, but this time his arms were folded across his breast and his face downcast, as though he were unhappy about something. He disappeared as I reached the landing, and I mentioned the circumstance to no one. A few days later, Margaret Thommassen asked me timidly if I believed in the possibility of the spirits of the departed returning to this earth. When I replied that I did, she appeared overjoyed, and said she had never hoped to find anyone in England to whom she could speak about it. She then gave me a mass of evidence on the subject which forms a large part of the religion of the Icelanders. She told me that she felt uneasy about her eldest brother, to whom she was strongly attached. He had left Iceland a year before to become a waiter in Germany, and had promised faithfully that so long as he lived she should hear from him every month, and when he failed to write she must conclude he was dead. Margaret told me she had heard nothing from him now for three months, and each night when the nursery light was put out, someone came and sat at the foot of her bed and sighed. She then produced his photograph, and to my astonishment I recognized at once the man who had appeared to me some months before I knew that such a woman as Margaret Thommassen existed. He was taken in a shirt and trousers, just as I had seen him, and wore the same repulsive (to me) and sinister expression. I then told his sister that I had already seen him twice in that house, and she grew very excited and anxious to learn the truth. In consequence I sat with her in hopes of obtaining some news of her brother, who immediately came to the table, and told her that he was dead, with the circumstances under which he had died, and the address where she was to write to obtain particulars. And on Margaret Thommassen writing as she was directed, she obtained the practical proofs of her brother's death, without which this story would be worthless.
My sister Cecil lives with her family in Somerset, and many years ago I went down there to visit her for the first time since she had moved into a new house which I had never seen before. She put me to sleep in the guest chamber, a large, handsome room, just newly furnished by Oetzmann. But I could not sleep in it. The very first night some one walked up and down the room, groaning and sighing close to my ears, and he, she, or it especially annoyed me by continually touching the new stiff counterpane with a "scrooping" sound that set my teeth on edge, and sent my heart up into my mouth. I kept on saying, "Go away! Don't come near me!" for its proximity inspired me with a horror and repugnance which I have seldom felt under similar circumstances. I did not say anything at first to my sister, who is rather nervous on the subject of "bogies," but on the third night I could stand it no longer, and told her plainly the room was haunted, and I wished she would put me in her dressing-room, or with her servants, sooner than let me remain there, as I could get no rest. Then the truth came out, and she confessed that the last owner of the house had committed suicide in that very room, and showed me the place on the boards, underneath the carpet, where the stain of his blood still remained. A lively sort of room to sleep all alone in.
Another sister of mine, Blanche, used to live in a haunted house in Bruges, of which a description will be found in the chapter headed, "The Story of the Monk." Long, however, before the monk was heard of, I could not sleep in her house on account of the disturbances in my room, for which my sister used to laugh at me. But even when my husband, Colonel Lean, and I stayed there together, it was much the same. One night I waked him to see the figure of a woman, who had often visited me, standing at the foot of the bed. She was quaintly attired in a sort of leathern boddice or jerkin, laced up the front over a woollen petticoat of some dark color. She wore a cap of Mechlin lace, with the large flaps at the side, adopted by Flemish women to this day; her hair was combed tightly off her forehead, and she wore a profusion of gold ornaments.
My husband could describe her as vividly as I did, which proves how plainly the apparition must have shown itself. I waked on several occasions to see this woman busy (apparently) with the contents of an old carved oak armoir which stood in a corner of the room, and which, I suppose, must have had something to do with herself. My eldest son joined me at Bruges on this occasion. He was a young fellow of twenty, who had never practised, nor even enquired into Spiritualism—fresh from sea, and about as free from fear or superstitious fancies as a mortal could be. He was put to sleep in a room on the other side of the house, and I saw from the first that he was grave about it, but I did not ask him the reason, though I felt sure, from personal experience, that he would hear or see something before long. In a few days he came to me and said—
"Mother! I'm going to take my mattress into the colonel's dressing-room to-night and sleep there." I asked him why. He replied, "It's impossible to stay in that room any longer. I wouldn't mind if they'd let me sleep, but they won't. There's something walks about half the night, whispering and muttering, and touching the bed-clothes, and though I don't believe in any of your rubbishy spirits, I'll be 'jiggered' if I sleep there any longer." So he was not "jiggered" (whatever that may be), as he refused to enter the room again.
I cannot end this chapter more appropriately than by relating a very remarkable case of "optical illusion" which was seen by myself alone. It was in the month of July, 1880, and I had gone down alone to Brighton for a week's quiet. I had some important literary work to finish, and the exigencies of the London season made too many demands upon my time. So I packed up my writing materials, and took a lodging all to myself, and set hard to work. I used to write all day and walk in the evening. It was light then till eight or nine o'clock, and the Esplanade used to be crowded till a late hour. I was pushing my way, on the evening of the 9th of July, through the crowd, thinking of my work more than anything else, when I saw, as I fully thought, my step-son, Francis Lean, leaning with his back against the palings at the edge of the cliff and smiling at me. He was a handsome lad of eighteen who was supposed to have sailed in his ship for the Brazils five months before. But he had been a wild young fellow, causing his father much trouble and anxiety, and my first impression was one of great annoyance, thinking naturally that, since I saw him there, he had never sailed at all, but run away from his ship at the last moment. I hastened up to him, therefore, but as I reached his side, he turned round quite methodically, and walked quickly down a flight of steps that led to the beach. I followed him, and found myself amongst a group of ordinary seamen mending their nets, but I could see Francis nowhere. I did not know what to make of the occurrence, but it never struck me that it was not either the lad himself or some one remarkably like him. The same night, however, after I had retired to bed in a room that was unpleasantly brilliant with the moonlight streaming in at the window, I was roused from my sleep by someone turning the handle of my door, and there stood Francis in his naval uniform, with the peaked cap on his head, smiling at me as he had done upon the cliff. I started up in bed intending to speak to him, when he laid his finger on his lips and faded away. This second vision made me think something must have happened to the boy, but I determined not to say anything to my husband about it until it was verified. Shortly after my return to London, we were going, in company with my own son (also a sailor), to see his ship which was lying in the docks, when, as we were driving through Poplar, I again saw my stepson Francis standing on the pavement, and smiling at me. That time I spoke. I said to Colonel Lean, "I am sure I saw Francis standing there. Do you think it is possible he may not have sailed after all?" But Colonel Lean laughed at the idea. He believed it to be a chance likeness I had seen. Only the lad was too good-looking to have many duplicates in this world. We visited the seaside after that, and in September, whilst we were staying at Folkestone, Colonel Lean received a letter to say that his son Francis had been drowned by the upsetting of a boat in the surf of the Bay of Callao, in the Brazils,on the 9th of July—the day I had seen him twice in Brighton, two months before we heard that he was gone.
There are two classes of people who have done more harm to the cause of Spiritualism than the testimony of all the scientists has done good, and those are the enthusiasts and the sceptics. The first believe everything they see or hear. Without giving themselves the trouble to obtain proofs of the genuineness of the manifestations, they rush impetuously from one acquaintance to the other, detailing their experience with so much exaggeration and such unbounded faith, that they make the absurdity of it patent to all. They are generally people of low intellect, credulous dispositions, and weak nerves. They bow down before the influences as if they were so many little gods descended from heaven, instead of being, as in the majority of instances, spirits a shade less holy than our own, who, for their very shortcomings, are unable to rise above the atmosphere that surrounds this gross and material world. These are the sort of spiritualists whomPunchand other comic papers have very justly ridiculed. Who does not remember the picture of the afflicted widow, for whom the medium has just called up the departed Jones?
"Jones," she falters, "are you happy?"
"Much happier than I was down here," growls Jones.
"O! then youmustbe in heaven!"
"On the contrary, quite the reverse," is the reply.
Who also has not sat aséancewhere such people have not made themselves so ridiculous as to bring the cause they profess to adore into contempt and ignominy. Yet to allow the words and deeds of fools to affect one's inward and private conviction of a matter would be tantamount to giving up the pursuit of everything in which one's fellow creatures can take a part.
The second class to which I alluded—the sceptics—have not done so much injury to Spiritualism as the enthusiasts, because they are as a rule, so intensely bigoted and hard-headed, and narrow-minded, that they overdo their protestations, and render them harmless. The sceptic refuses to believeanything, because he has found outonething to be a fraud. If one medium deceives, all the mediums must deceive. If oneséanceis a failure, none can be successful. If he gains no satisfactory test of the presence of the spirits of the departed, no one has ever gained such a test. Now, such reason is neither just nor logical. Again, a sceptic fully expectshistestimony to be accepted and believed, yet he will never believe any truth on the testimony of another person. And if he is told that, given certain conditions, he can see this or hear the other, he says, "No! I will see it and hear it without any conditions, or else I will proclaim it all a fraud." In like manner, we might say to a savage, on showing him a watch, "If you will keep your eye on those hands, you will see them move round to tell the hours and minutes," and he should reply, "I must put the watch into boiling water—those are my conditions—and if it won't go then, I will not believe it can go at all."
I don't mind a man being a sceptic in Spiritualism. I don't see how he can help (considering the belief in which we are reared) being a sceptic, until he has proved so strange a matter for himself. But Idoobject to a man or a woman taking part in aséancewith the sole intention of detecting deceit, notwhenit has happened, but before it has happened—of bringing an argumentative, disputatious mind, full of the idea that it is going to be tricked and humbugged into (perhaps) a private circle who are sitting (like Rosa Dartle) "simply for information," and scattering all the harmony and good-will about him broadcast. He couldn't do it to a human assembly without breaking up the party. Why should he expect to be more kindly welcomed by a spiritual one? I have seen an immense deal of courtesy shown under such circumstances to men whom I should have liked to see kicked downstairs. I have seen them enter a lady's private drawing-room, by invitation, to witness manifestations which were never, under any circumstances, made a means of gain, and have heard them argue, and doubt, and contradict, until they have given their hostess and her friends the lie to their faces. And the world in general would be quite ready to side with these (so-called) gentlemen, not because their word or their wisdom was better worth than that of their fellow guests, but because they protested against the truth of a thing which it had made up its mind to be impossible. I don't mind a sceptic myself, as I said before, but he must be unbiassed, which few sceptics are. As a rule, they have decided the question at issue for themselves before they commence to investigate it.
I find that few people outside the pale of Spiritualism have heard of the Dialectical Society, which was a scientific society assembled a few years ago for the sole purpose of enquiring into the truth of the matter. It was composed of forty members,—ten lawyers, ten scientists, ten clergymen, and ten chemists (I think that was the arrangement), and they held fortyséances, and the published report at the close of them was, that not one of these men of learning and repute could find any natural cause for the wonders he had witnessed. I know that there are a thousand obstacles in the way of belief. The extraordinarily contradictory manner in which Protestants are brought up, to believe in one and the same breath that spirits were common visitants to earth at the periods of which the Bible treats, but that it is impossible they can return to it now, although the Lord is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The conditions of darkness for the creation of materialized spirits, and the resemblance they sometimes bear to the medium, are two fearful stumbling-blocks. Yet one must know thatallthings are created in the dark, and that even a seed cannot sprout if you let the light in upon it, while as for the resemblance between the spirit and the medium, from whom it takes the material being that enables it to appear, if investigators would only persevere with their enquiries, they would find, as I have, that that is a disappointment which has its remedy in Time. When people call on me to explain such things, I can only say that I know no more how they come than they do, or that I know howIcame, a living, sentient creature, into the world. Besides (as I have said before), I write these pages to tell onlywhat I have seen, and not to argue how it came to pass that I saw it.
I have a little story to tell here which powerfully illustrates the foregoing remarks. The lines,
"A woman convinced against her willIs of the same opinion still,"
"A woman convinced against her willIs of the same opinion still,"
"A woman convinced against her will
Is of the same opinion still,"
might have been penned with as much truth of sceptics. Men who are sceptical,i.e., so thoroughly wrapt up in conceit of their powers of judgment and determination that it becomes impossible for them to believe themselves mistaken, will deny the evidence of all their senses sooner than confess they may be in the wrong. Such an one may be a clever scientist or a shrewd man of business, but he can never be a genius. For genius is invariably humble of its own powers, and, therefore, open to conviction. But the lesser minds, who are only equal to grasping such details as may have been drummed into them by sheer force of study, appear to have no capability of stretching beyond a certain limit. They are hedged in and cramped by the opinions in which they have been reared, or that they have built up for themselves out of the petty material their brain affords them, and have lost their powers of elasticity. "Thus far shalt thou go and no further," seems to be the fiat pronounced on too many men's reasoning faculties. Instead of believing the power of God and the resources of nature to be illimitable, they want to keep them within the little circle that encompasses their own brains. "I can't see it, and therefore it cannot be." There was a time when I used to take the trouble to try and convince such men, but I have long ceased to do so. It is quite indifferent to me what they believe or don't believe. And with such minds, even if theywereconvinced of its possibility, they would probably make no good use of spiritual intercourse. For there is no doubt it can be turned to evil uses as well as to good.
Some years ago I was on friendly terms with a man of this sort. He was a doctor, accounted clever in his profession, and I knew him to be an able arguist, and thought he had common sense enough not to eat his own words, but the sequel proved that I was mistaken. We had several conversations together on Spiritualism, and as Dr. H—— was a complete disbeliever in the existence of a God and a future life, I was naturally not surprised to find that he did not place any credence in the account I gave him of my spiritualistic experiences. Many medical men attribute such experiences entirely to a diseased condition of mind or body.
But when I asked Dr. H—— what he should think if he saw them with his own eyes, I confess I was startled to hear him answer that he should say his eyes deceived him. "But if you heard them speak?" I continued.
"I should disbelieve my ears."
"And if you touched and handled them?"
"I should mistrust my sense of feeling."
"Then by what means," I argued, "do you know that I am Florence Marryat? You can only see me and hear me and touch me! What is there to prevent your senses misleading you at the present moment?"
But to this argument Dr. H—— only returned a pitying smile, professing to think me, on this point at least, too feeble-minded to be worthy of reply, but in reality not knowing what on earth to say. He often, however, recurred to the subject of Spiritualism, and on several occasions told me that if I could procure him the opportunity of submitting a test which he might himself suggest, he should be very much obliged to me. It was about this time that a young medium named William Haxby, now passed away, went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Olive in Ainger Terrace, and we were invited to attend aséancegiven by him. Mrs. Olive, when giving the invitation, informed me that Mr. Haxby had been very successful in procuring direct writing in sealed boxes, and she asked me, if I wished to try the experiment, to take a secured box, with writing materials in it, to theséance, and see what would happen to it.
Here was, I thought, an excellent opportunity for Dr. H——'s test, and I sent for him and told him what had been proposed. I urged him to prepare the test entirely by himself, and to accompany me to theséanceand see what occurred,—to all of which he readily consented. Indeed, he became quite excited on the subject, being certain it would prove a failure; and in my presence he made the following preparations:—
I. Half a sheet of ordinary cream-laid note-paper and half a cedar-wood black lead pencil were placed in a jeweller's cardwood box.
II. The lid of the box was carefully glued down all round to the bottom part.
III. The box was wrapt in white writing paper, which was gummed over it.
IV. It was tied eight times with a peculiar kind of silk made for tying up arteries, and the eight knots were knots known to (as Dr. H—— informed me) medical men only.
V. Each of the eight knots was sealed with sealing-wax, and impressed with Dr. H——'s crest seal, which he always wore on his watch-chain.
VI. The packet was again folded in brown paper, and sealed and tied to preserve the inside from injury.
When Dr. H—— had finished it, he said to me, "If the spirits (or anybody) can write on that paper without cutting the silk,I will believe whatever you wish." I asked, "Are youquitesure that the packet could not be undone without your detecting it?" His answer was—"That silk is not to be procured except from a medical man; it is manufactured expressly for the tying of arteries; and the knots I have made are known only to medical men. They are the knots we use in tying arteries. The seal is my own crest, which never leaves my watch-chain, and I defy anyone to undo those knots without cutting them, or to tie them again, if cut. I repeat—if your friends can make, or cause to be made, the smallest mark on that paper, and return me the box in the condition it now is,I will believe anything you choose." And I confess I was very dubious of the result myself, and almost sorry that I had subjected the doctor's incredulity to so severe a test.
On the evening appointed we attended theséance, Dr. H—— taking the prepared packet with him. He was directed to place it under his chair, but he tied a string to it and put it under his foot, retaining the other end of the string in his hand. The meeting was not one for favorably impressing an unbeliever in Spiritualism. There were too many people present, and too many strangers. The ordinary manifestations, to my mind, are worse than useless, unless they have been preceded by extraordinary ones; so that the doctor returned home more sceptical than before, and I repented that I had taken him there. One thing had occurred, however, that he could not account for. The packet which he had kept, as he thought, under his foot the whole time, was found, at the close of the meeting, to have disappeared. Another gentleman had brought a sealed box, with paper and pencil in it, to theséance; and at the close it was opened in the presence of all assembled, and found to contain a closely written letter from his deceased wife. But the doctor's box had evaporated, and was nowhere to be found. The door of the room had been locked all the time, and we searched the room thoroughly, but without success. Dr. H—— was naturally triumphant.
"They couldn't undomyknots andmyseals," he said, exulting over me, "and so they wisely did not return the packet. Both packets were of course taken from the room during the sitting by some confederate of the medium. The other one was easily managed, and put back again—mineproved unmanageable, and so they have retained it. Iknewit would be so!"
And he twinkled his eyes at me as much as to say, "I have shutyouup. You will not venture to describe any of the marvels you have seen to me after this." Of course the failure did not discompose me, nor shake my belief. I never believed spiritual beings to be omnipotent, omnipresent, nor omniscient. They had failed before, and doubtless they would fail again. But if an acrobatic performer fails to turn a double somersault on to another man's head two or three times, it does not falsify the fact that he succeeds on the fourth occasion. I was sorry that the test had been a failure, for Dr. H——'s sake, but I did not despair of seeing the box again. And at the end of a fortnight it was left at my house by Mr. Olive, with a note to say that it had been found that morning on the mantel-piece in Mr. Haxby's bedroom, and he lost no time in returning it to me. It was wrapt in the brown paper, tied and sealed, apparently just as we had carried it to theséancein Ainger Terrace; and I wrote at once to Dr. H—— announcing its return, and asking him to come over and open it in my presence. He came, took the packet in his hand, and having stripped off the outer wrapper, examined it carefully. There were four tests, it may be remembered, applied to the packet.
I. The arterial silk, procurable only from a medical man.
II. The knots to be tied only by medical men.
III. Dr. H——'s own crest, always kept on his watch chain, as a seal.
IV. The lid of the cardboard box, glued all round to the bottom part.
As the doctor scrutinized the silk, the knots, and the seals, I watched him narrowly.
"Are youquite sure," I asked, "that it is the same paper in which you wrapt it?"
"I amquite sure."
"And the same silk?"
"Quite sure."
"Your knots have not been untied?"
"I am positive that they have not."
"Nor your seal been tampered with?"
"Certainly not! It is just as I sealed it."
"Be careful, Dr. H——," I continued. "Remember I shall write down all you say."
"I am willing to swear to it in a court of justice," he replied.
"Then will you open the packet?"
Dr. H—— took the scissors and cut the silk at each seal and knot, then tore off the gummed white writing paper (which was as fresh as when he had put it on), and tried to pull open the card-board box. But as he could not do this in consequence of the lid being glued down, he took out his penknife and cut it all round. As he did so, he looked at me and said, "Mark my words. There will be nothing written on the paper. It is impossible!"
He lifted the lid, and beholdthe box was empty! The half sheet of notepaper and the half cedar wood pencil had bothentirely disappeared. Not a crumb of lead, nor a shred of paper remained behind. I looked at the doctor, and the doctor looked completely bewildered.
"Well!" I said, interrogatively.
He shifted about—grew red—and began to bluster.
"What do you make of it?" I asked. "How do you account for it?"
"In the easiest way in the world," he replied, trying to brave it out. "It's the most transparent deception I ever saw. They've kept the thing a fortnight and had time to do anything with it. A child could see through this. Surely your bright wits can want no help to an explanation."
"I am not so bright as you give me credit for," I answered. "Will you explain your meaning to me?"
"With pleasure. They have evidently made an invisible slit in the joining of the box cover, and with a pair of fine forceps drawn the paper through it, bit by bit. For the pencil, they drew that by the same means to the slit and then pared it, little by little, with a lancet, till they could shake out the fragments."
"That must have required very careful manipulation," I observed.
"Naturally. But they've taken a fortnight to do it in."
"But how about the arterial silk?" I said.
"They must have procured some from a surgeon."
"And your famous knots?"
"They got some surgeon to tie them!"
"But your crest and seal?"
"Oh! they must have taken a facsimile of that in order to reproduce it. It is very cleverly done, but quite explicable!"
"But you told me before you opened the packet that you would take your oath in a court of justice it had not been tampered with."
"I was evidently deceived."
"And you really believe, then, that an uneducated lad like Mr. Haxby would take the trouble to take impressions of seals and to procure arterial silk and the services of a surgeon, in order, not to mystify or convertyou, but to gratifyme, whose box he believes it to be."
"I am sure he has done so!"
"But just now you were equally sure he hadnotdone so. Why should you trust your senses in one case more than in the other? And if Mr. Haxby has played a trick on me, as you suppose, why did you not discover the slit when you examined the box, before opening?"
"Because my eyes misled me!"
"Then after all," I concluded, "the best thing you can say of yourself is that you—a man of reputed science, skill, and sense, and with a strong belief in your own powers—are unable to devise a test in which you shall not be outwitted by a person so inferior to yourself in age, intellect and education as young Haxby. But I will give you another chance. Make up another packet in any way you like. Apply to it the severest tests which your ingenuity can devise, or other men of genius can suggest to you, and let me give it to Haxby and see if the contents can be extracted, or tampered with a second time."
"It would be useless," said Dr. H——. "If they were extracted through the iron panels of a fireproof safe, I would not believe it was done by any but natural means."
"Because you do notwishto believe," I argued.
"You are right," he confessed, "I donotwish to believe. If you convinced me of the truth of Spiritualism, you would upset all the theories I have held for the best part of my life. I don't believe in a God, nor a soul, nor a future existence, and I would rather not believe in them. We have quite enough trouble, in my opinion, in this life, without looking forward to another, and I would rather cling to my belief that when we die we have done with it once and for ever."
So there ended my attempt to convince Dr. H——, and I have often thought since that he was but a type of the genus sceptic. In this world, we mostly believe what we want to believe, and the thought of a future troubles us in proportion to the lives we lead here. It must often strike spiritualists (who mostly look forward to the day of their departure for another world, as a schoolboy looks forward to the commencement of the holidays) as a very strange thing, that people, as a rule, evince so little curiosity on the subject of Spiritualism. The idea of the spirits of the departed returning to this world to hold communication with their friends may be a new and startling one to them, but the very wonder of it would make one expect to see them evince a little interest in a matter which concerns us all. Yet the generality of Carlyle's British millions either pooh-pooh the notion as too utterly ridiculous for their exalted minds to entertain, or inform you, with superior wisdom, that if Spiritualism is true, they cannot see the use of it, and have no craving for any further knowledge. If these same people expected to go to Canada or Australia in a few months' time, how eagerly they would ask questions concerning their future home, and procure the best information on what to do, whilst they remained in England, in order to fit themselves for the journey and the change.
But a journey to the other world—to the many worlds which perhaps await us—a certain proof that we shall live again (or rather, that we shall never die but need only time and patience and well-living here to reunite us to the dear one gone before)—thatis a subject not worthy of our trying to believe—of not sufficient importance for us to take the trouble of ascertaining. I pity from my soul the men and women who have no dead darling buried in their hearts whom theyknowthey shall meet in a home of God's own choosing when this life ends.
The old, cold faiths have melted away beneath the sun of Progress. We can no longer be made to believe, like little children, in a shadowy indefinite Heaven where the saints sit on damp clouds with harps in their hands forever singing psalms and hymns and heavenly songs. That sort of existence could be a Heaven to none, and to most it would be a Hell. We do not accept it now, any more than we do the other place, with its typical fire and brimstone, and pitch-forking devils with horns and tails. But what has Religion given us instead? Those whose common-sense will not permit them to believe in the parson's Heaven and Hell generally believe (like Dr. H——) in nothing at all. But Spiritualism, earnestly and faithfully followed, leaves us in no doubt. Spiritualists know where they are going to. The spheres are almost as familiar to them as this earth—it is not too much to say that many live in them as much as they do here, and often they seem the more real, as they are the more lasting of the two. Spiritualists are in no manner of doubtwhotheir eyes will see when opening on another phase of life.Theydo not expect to be carried straight up into Abraham's bosom, and lie snugly there, whilst revengeful demons are torturing those who were, perhaps, nearest and dearest to them down below. They have a better and more substantial religion than that—a revelation that teaches them that the works we do in the flesh must bear their fruit in the spirit, and that no tardy deathbed repentance, no crying out for mercy because Justice is upon us, like an unruly child howling as soon as the stick is produced for chastisement—will avail to wipe off the sins we have indulged in upon earth. They know their expiation will be a bitter one, yet not without Hope, and that they will be helped, as well as help others, in the upward path that leads to ultimate perfection. The teaching of Spiritualism is such as largely to increase belief in our Divine Father's love, our Saviour's pity, and the angels' ministering help. But it does more than this, more than any religion has done before. It affords theproof—the only proof we have ever received, and our finite natures can accept—of a future existence. The majority of Christianshopeandtrust, and say theybelieve. It is the Spiritualist only thatknows.
I think that the marvellous indifference displayed by the crowd to ascertain these truths for themselves must be due, in a large number of instances, to the unnatural but universal fear which is entertained of Death and all things connected with it. The same people who loudly declaim again the possibility of seeing a "ghost," shudder at the idea of doing so. The creature whom they have adored and waited on with tenderest devotion passes away, and they are afraid to enter the room where his body lies. That which they clung to and wept over yesterday, they fear to look at or touch to-day, and the idea that he would return and speak to them would inspire them with horror. But why afraid of an impossibility? Their very fears should teach them that there is a cause. From numerous notes made on the subject I have invariably found that those who have had the opportunity of testing the reality of Spiritualism, and either rejected or denied it, have been selfish, worldly, and cold-hearted people who neither care, nor are cared for, by those who have passed on to another sphere. Plenty of love is sure to bring you plenty of proof. The mourners, who have lost sight of what is dearest to them, and would give all they possess for one more look at the face they loved so much, or one more tone of the voice that was music to their ears, are only too eager and grateful to hear of a way by which their longings may be gratified, and would take any trouble and go to any expense to accomplish what they desire.
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 brass 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 impassable 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 beimpossiblethat the spirits of the departed can communicate with men, the Bible must be simply a collection of fabulous statements; if it bewrongto 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 theirunbelief." 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 God. Yet there He did them not,becauseof their unbelief, because theirscepticismproduced 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.