Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-06-25
CAN WORK MIRACLES.
REMARKABLE POWERS ATTRIBUTED
 TO A TEXAS NEGRO GIRL.

Said to Heal the Sick and to Prophesy.
 Although Unedueated. Can Read and
 Play the Piano-worshiped by the Ne
 sroes of the Brazos.
 Down in the big BTazos bottoms, in Texas. where there are ten negroes to one white person. there IS jet black negro girl. about Is years of age, who i is turning the world in which she lives upside down.
 The negroes claim that she performs miracles every day. and white people who have seen her and witnessed her strange conduct aud manifestations come away shaking their heads and lacking words to express their astonish- ment
 No one ever noticed anything extraor- dinary about the girl until she got religion, as the negroes say, at big revival one night last winter. Then she began to prophecy, heal the sick and do other wonderful things. During this re- vival an old negro schoolteacher of more than average intelligence, who had been going on two crutehes for dozen years, put his faith in the new wonder She rubbed her hands over his rheumatic, stiffened joints, and he in- stantly arose, threw away his crHtches and went home rejoicing The girl has been going about from schoolhouse to sehoolhouse and from church to church, exhorting, prophesying and healing the sick Great crowds of negroes follow her about almost worshiping her and as afraid of her as they are of the devil l himself
 Itis positively asserted by hundreds of people who have known her from childhood that she never mastered the alphabet, and yet she now reads Us well as if she had had the benefit of col legiate education. She is living, walk ing, electric battery. No man can hold her hand for two minutes Take hold of her, and you feel as if 10, GOO needles were pricking you. She will stand on the floor of room and successfully de. fly dozen men to move her. A few days ago q half dozen hunters from Lou. isiana, who happened to hear of her, visited the cabin in which her people live. Among other wonderful things that they witnessed was this: The girl stood up and placed the palms of hel hands against the wall of the house. Three or four strong men seized her and, snspending her body in the air. they failed to pull her loose from the wall. The trouble is that in taking hold of her the average mortal receives such 8 shock, it is said, that he Is glad to lei loose
 The girl also astounds everybody by her wonderful display of musical talent. She had never seen piano or an organ in her life until after she began to man. fest her strange powers last winter. Now she will enter q parlor and seat herself at the piano and improyise the sweetest music that ever enraptured mortals. She will sit with her eyes closed and listen to performance on the piano and then take the seat and initiate to perfection all that she has heard This is not the end of her amaz. ing musical talent, for she is equally skillful in producing music on any oth- CT instrument
 All this caused the few white people in the country to take some notice oi the strange girl All agree that she pos sesses some strange, mysterious power; beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals She tells the negroes where they will find stray horses and cattle and they are ready to swear that shf never fails to find anything that ha: been lost. She is @ living barometer. Whenever she says 1t is going to rain, it rains, and whenever she says there if going to be storm the storm comes. Don't be uneasy" she said to an old lady, "your son is not lost or dead; he has been away down in hot country with dark people, who robbed him and put him in prison. He is on his road home and will be here next Sun day. !" The son came. He had been iI Mexico, where he had been arrested and suffered Imprisonment for many months. It is no wonder that the negroes regard her with grave superstition
 She went down to Houston not long ago, where she preached in the streets or rather delivered commentary on the morals of the people, which was heard by an intelligent crowd in won der and admiration. She has received some very tempting offers to enter the lecture field and show business. Just now there is shrewd fellow following her about, trying to induce her to go te Boston, and to him she seems inclined to lend a willing ear. Ask her name, and she will reply, "Ah, Shiel, Levinia Tolsen, sir, J sounding the sir" as if il were q part of her name. Though oeea- sionally mixing some very ridiculous things with the display of her remark able powers, she is not lacking in plain common sense.-St. Louis Globe Demo crat.