The San Francisco call., 1897-10-03
0AKLAND'S FAIR APOSTLE OF SPIRIJUALISN

asked her opinion on stage qualifications
spiritual communion, social inequalities,
the character of the Patriarch Abraham
or the prospects Of the questioner, she
never loses the fraction of second in con-
sidering her answer. 1t pours from her
in a torrent of graphic, piquant phrase.
The most trivial query makes a good text
for the exposition of her views.
And the views of Madame, or rather of
the WE she introduces SO quantity. are by
no means commonplace; rather they are
calculated to make the hair of the ortho-
dox stand on end. mo, WE do not con-
slider Abraham model character cries
the speaker. and forthwith follows an
analysis of the patriarch which would
petrify the ordinary Sunday school
teacher. mo, we do not wear the cross
as religious symbol, but as an EN- BILE m
of the forces OF the universe" is the pre-
liminary to a discourse on electricity
But whatever the views expressed by
Madame when in the plural state they are
invariably directed toward integrity of
life, nobility OF aspiration, development
OF the higher self. Naught but what is re-
fining and purifying is to be learned from
the active, excitable figure, with its eager
gesture and lmpassioned words; while
now and again comes flash of keen hu-
NOR, as when it is said of the written
American constitution that its most elo-
quently suggestive items were its blanks.
And OF the woman herself, the unas-
suming, winsome woman off the platform
who is no longer WE, what shall / say
Eirct and fnra hot ha kat fa;t
which, according to George Eliot. is the
true mountain-remover- in herself.
Madame firmly believes in her mission;
she walks the earth as one "encompassed
with cloud of Witnesses; she Is nev yer
alone, never Tree from spiritual compan-
ionship. From earliest childhood she has
heard voices" From earliest childhood
she has spoken words that seemed to be
dictated by an outer, not an inner con-
sciousness. And now. when she ascends
the platform, whether TO lecture or an
swer questions, she never troubles over
the manner or the matter of her speech !;
but she is the instrument through which
some higher influence breathes its mes.
sage.
Yet Madame, splritualist pure and sim
pie though she claims 10 be. talks theoso-
ply, as Monsieur Jourdain talked prose,
unawares. True, she prates neither of
Devachan nor Nirvans. Yet. when she
tells you that her "infiuences" are not
drawn down to her, but that she rises up
to them, when she believes that something
of herself passes out of her when under
influence, that while preserving her own
individual consciousness, she becomes two
or three personalities, moving in various
spheres, bethink me that a theosophist
would surely open his textb ook and,
pointing to certain noriental-looking words,
claim Madame as fellow disciple.
Shakespeare mentioned, a little while
ago, that there are more things in heaven
and earth than our philosophy dreams OF,
Despite the progress of science we have
not vet contrived to improve upon Shake
speare's dictum. Science, despite itself,
works for immateTialism; all its provings
reveal the existence of unsupported, i'm
palpable forcee on which depend universal
life, forces whose very strength lie in their
inherent delicacy. When natures like
Nine. Montague claim to have come in
undefnable contact with some of these
forces we cannot oppose the argument of
our own less delicately organized sy ystems.
Till proof to the contrary be shown we
can but suppose that to certain finely bal
anced supersenses it is given to catch
glimpses behind the veil."
ROSE DE BoHEME.