Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-10-27

Nf--ZAJ * teachers for the pur-
Nl& pose of developing
mediums, with the
result that am an officially declared me-
dunn myself. / am now ready to tell you
past, present and future; cause speedy mar
riages, unite the separated and separate
the united; give luck, divorces, tips on the
races and Egyptian charms that will dis
solve your tall, dark, gray-eyed brunette
enemy into thin air and bring to your feet
the short, fair blue-eyed blonde whom you
love to madness without knowing how old
she was at tine last census. ! can but let
me begin at the beginning.
When during the recent national conven-
ton of spiritualists l heard Sunday school
announced, 1t seemed impossible that spir-
itualism could be taught children. 1 had
just witnessed the exhibition Of a test me-
diurI as he had chased wildly back and
forth upon the stage, then down among
his audience, now possessed by the spirit of
one burned to death, now of one drowned,
now of q suicide, crying out with real or
simulated pain as he claimed to experience
in his own body the death tortures of the
spirit that possessed him.
That this performance which draws hui
man nerves, human hearts and human
brain force to run the machinery of It's un-
canny lights and talking specters could
in any way, shape or form be produced
lieve.
still I was prepared for anything when 1
went to Sunday school last Sunday.
A Youthful Medium.
I,pushed through the outer door of Metz
erott's Hall a bit cautiously and stepped
gingerly inside, not feeling at all certain
that at any turn some grim phantom
would not call a halt on me, soaring me to
death, If 1t didn't altogether kill me. Fancy,
then, my relief to find within a real grand
ma with four or five dear little girls--all
alive-visiting together and wondering why
everybody was late. They greeted me in
the sweetest possible manner, and we sat
down to just such love feast as any
grandma and little girls would make for a
stranger who couldn't help loving them on
sight, and showing that she did. 1 told
grandma how impossible 1t had seemed to
me that spiritualsm should be taught chill
dren. why. most children are in mortal
terror Of ghosts" said. You don't mean
to tell me that you actually teach them
that the spirits Of the dead return to
earth?"
''Oh, yes" grandma answered, her dear
old face abeam with truly spiritual light;
Il have a little girl in my class-Rosa,
where is Rosa? All. here you are. This lit
tie girl Is a medium herself. Perhaps you
can go under control today, Rosa, and
show this lady how much at home the chill
dren feel with spirits Of the dead"
Rosa stood before me, thin slip Of a girl,
twelve years old, she said She was EVIDENT
ly of poor parents. Though clean, she was
not well dressed. and her small body ap-
peared insufhciently nourished. She had a
remarkably sensitive face. 1t was trans
lucent and shaped by eagerness-"carved of
fervor. as the Psyche's carved of stone"
Her skin was pale; her eyebrows and eye
lashes. very thick and black, blended into
shadows about her eyes an lent a touch of
mystery to the intense trustfulness of her
gaze
Her hands moved constantly. She talked
With breathless haste and incoherently,
every nerve vibrant with the excitement of
giving forth all there is in her.
Her Control an Indian.
Il have been a medium all my life." Rosa
told me. "As long as can remember. 1
have different controls, but most always
my control Is an Indian. Yes, 1 60 to
school, but don't think can stand it to
go much longer; the children bother ma so.
They call me crazy and witch end dew
H. and chase me on the street and throw
things at me- / give sittings az my home
in Georgetown. Oh, there's Fritzie. Fritzie
comes over and has a sitting with me every
week" Then Rosa left me to run to meet
Fritzie, whom / recognized, despite his Sun
day clothes and very much slicked-upness,
as an old man whom l had seen earning
his living on a street corner
The hall WAS rapidly filling, and I haven't
for many a day seen so much brotherly love
as was everywhere displayed. The teachers,
who were all mediums, was told, embrac-
ed one another, and embraced the children
as they came In, and the children, In their
turn embraced one another. Grandma had
class of dozen or more children about
Rosa's age, including three boys. Then
there was an infant class, where the chill
dran ranged from two and half to four
or five years. There was a class of young
people, including two boys, that ranged be-
tween grandma's class and the Bible class,
or what corresponds to the Bible class in
orthodox Sunday schcols. This Bible class
was taught by a positive old lady from
Philadelphia, and the members were me-
diums of greater or less development. In
ALL the Sunday school numbered about
seventy.
The PathOs of 1t All.
To me there was something indescribably
pathetic about these people. The older
ones, excepting grandma, were in what
Nine Blavatsky describes as "all the mai
esty of their wrinkles,''-a very sorry mai
esty, lighted as it was by uneasy eyes
through which souls peered into eternity,
discerning there no beatific vision, but dis
satisfied, earth bound, worm-eaten specters
of dead men. Even the chiidren's eyes
were uneasy in a circle of queer shadows.
Moreover the mourning garb of many pres
ent told plainly that here were gathered
pitiful souls whose religion seeks not so
much live God as dead loved one. In
the infant class sat widow with three
babies, training their tiny bodies, as well
as her own, for vehicles Of their dead
fathers return to earth.
The Order of Exercises.
The exercises of the day opened with a
transcendental invocation by medium
whose control" 1 think, must have been
in life the worthy president Of woman's
Emerson club. Following this, several good
old hymns were sung, among them the
familiar one beginning
From Greenland's icy mountains,
And midas coral strands"
On the conclusion Of the singing class
work began, the first endeavor in each
class being for every one to commit to
memory what they called words of wis
DOM" to be recited at the close of the sO3-
sion. The babies in the infant class haping
accomplished this task they were rewarded
with a story read to them by their teacher.
In grandmas class poor Rosa had a hard
time to memorlze her verse; In the Bible
class the time was taken up by a visiting
medium from Boston, who talked a great
deal more about east winds and their e.
feet on his throat than he did about any,
thing else. However, here gained my op-
portunity to join the class of developing
,,a1i no III loxl