The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-03-21
Bah Is NOT 4 SPIRITUALIST.

Bah Is NOT 4 SPIRITUALIST.
Then. what do you or | know about
spiritualiSm? How can we decide what
there is in it for truth, or of untruth?
Everybody knows there have been char
latans innumerabe. but are there not
charlatans in medicine. in law, in theo-
logy, and even in newspaper work? l am
not making "A plea for Spiritualism; |
know nothing about it. My own expert
ence in it frightened me so that l have
never permitted myself to even attempt
to know anything more. But who can
deny that there are more things in this
world than are dreamed of in an ordinary
thinker? History tells of the wonderful
things that were shown in glass of cellar
water to Marie Antoinette by Cagliostro.
History tells of wonderful apparitions.
and only the other day it was announced
that a Bishops wife had met the ghost
Of Charles l.! 1t hasn't been so very
long ago since hypnotism was believed
in exclusively by the so-called charla-
tans. And yet who. among the scientists,
can deny the wonderful force of the hui
man will to-day? Poets, dramatists,
scientists scientists-on the
other side of the water. are trying to
solve the question as to the possibility of
those who are dead coming back to this
world. / wonder if we will ever be able
even to explain what we call condolences?
You think of some one all during the
day. You cannot get that some one out
of your mind. Tomorrow she either ap-
pears, or you get a letter from her. And
in the letter she says: Tvu nave peen
an my mind oil day" How often does
that happen to you? How do you explain
it? You are sitting entirely alone, yet
you have curious consciousness of an
other presence in the room with you. You
are restless; you drop your book, your
pen, or your work; you do not know what
it is, but you feel sure that there is
some one with you-how do you explain
this? You go into a strange city, a place
you have never in this life been before,
and yet the very house in which you stay
is old to you,you seem to know your way
about the streets, and nothing, so far as
the town goes, is strange to you Doctors
will tell you that there is some special
action ON one-half of the brain-that
it photographs more quickly than the
other-but that doesn't explain it salts
factorily to you or to me. How often
when you are reading a book, do you
seem to know, before you turn the page,
exactly how the next few lines will be
worded, and how often do you say: '"This
man is writing exactly as l have always
thought" Little things all of them, but
they are the strange little events in life,
that make one wonder, and which,
firmly believe, would, if dwelt upon to
no
Personally, / have always remembered
what good old priest said to me, 1 ask
ed him: Gather, what do you think of
Spiritualism He answered: "My dear,
in my church there have been innumer-
able histories of apparitions, but if you,
whom I believe to be a truthful woman,
came to me and said that you had seen
boy walking on his head on the iron
fence around the church, the posts Of
which are pointed, l should not think
that you told me an untruth; but l should
believe that you thought you saw it.
And, to keep my mind easy, would
investigate no further" And that is the
safest way. Don't let us be the tools Of
ignorant charlatans; but don't let us de-
ny the possibility of anything. The man
who, yesterday, heard Gladstone's voice
through a graphaphone, would have de-
MED this as an impossibility Is years
ago. There is nothing that is impossible,
if God wills it. There was nothing finer
in all the history of the world than that
message which Morse sent flying over the
wires that his knowledge Of electricity
controlled: What hath God wrought"
Bah.