The Missing Link In Modern Spiritualism Part 43

When I first moved into Ludlow Place I met, in the street, a colored woman with a brush and pail in her hand. She was very pretty and jolly, and I engaged her to help clean the house. I set her at work in the china closet, and, before she had been ten minutes there at work, she turned to me and said, "What yer got in dis yer house?"

I replied, "I don't know what you mean. Explain yourself."

She muttered awhile, and in a moment more she said, "Well, mebby yer don't know, but I feels my hankercher tied tighter every minit."

"NO BRIMSTONE YET."

It has often struck me that there was something more than mere chance in cla.s.ses of persons who would gather round the table in my circles. There would be occasions when _none_ but persons of superior intelligence and elevation of character would meet there, as though some kindred influences had prompted them thus simultaneously. When a few persons of this order began to come, I have often said to mother, "We are going to have good manifestations this evening, as a galaxy of fine heads and n.o.ble faces are gathering round the table."

Mr. Greeley has more than once remarked upon this to me, saying, "Leah, I never, in any a.s.sembly, meet so many n.o.ble heads and the same order of intelligence I meet at your receptions."

One evening there was such an a.s.semblage of some twenty-five or thirty persons, of whom none were misplaced in such good company. One young Quaker lad, of seventeen or eighteen, had accompanied his father. He was a fine, bright and gentlemanly youth. It was the practice that each person took his turn, as they sat, to address his questions to the Spirits. When the right came to him to ask his questions, he waived it in favor of his older neighbor, who, however, declined to accept it, and insisted on his using his privilege. Accordingly, he wrote his question, screening his paper with a book as he did so. His first question was, "Is my friend John here?" Three raps gave the answer _Yes_. He then asked a second question to which came the reply: "Not quite so bad as that; I haven't smelt any brimstone yet." This elicited a general laugh, and he was pressed to show his question, to which he objected, until he was overborne by his father. It proved to have been, "John, are you in h.e.l.l?"

KITCHEN WORK BY NIGHT.

We have been awakened by the most fearful sights and sounds when no human being other than ourselves was stirring in the house. On several occasions I could not rest until I called a policeman in, and had the house searched from garret to cellar.

The manifestations were sometimes calculated to excite our sympathy, at other times they have lured us by false representations. I will give an instance.

Mother and myself were in the sitting-room on the second floor alone, quite late at night (not far from midnight), when we distinctly heard walking, talking, and opening and shutting of doors. I said to mother, "Can it be possible that the girls are in the kitchen at this late hour?" She replied, "No, I saw them go up over an hour ago, and Susie said good-night to me." I then thought I noticed the odor of cooking from the kitchen. The girls had a habit of sitting up late, and I determined to go down and detect them in their tricks (on one occasion I had found them entertaining a large party, when they had supposed I was in bed and asleep). We started cautiously, listening as we went, and occasionally hearing movements, appearing to us slyly made, as if careful on their part not to be overheard. We took no light with us, as we did not expect to need any. The lower hall seemed lighted from a window opening into it from the front bas.e.m.e.nt, and a bright light shone from under the kitchen door which enabled us to see everything around.

I went cautiously to the door, opened it quickly and found utter darkness and silence. As I opened it I distinctly heard a clatter as of griddles, etc., dropping. Judge of our surprise when suddenly we were instantaneously seized and hustled about, and then both transported or lifted to the floor above by an irresistibly powerful "force." I believe that it was a device cunningly conceived by mischievous Spirits at play, to lure us down, and then frighten and bewilder us.

"SICH A GETTIN' UP STAIRS."

One evening when Margaretta and I were alone in my private room (the front room of the second story), some friends wanted a dark seance; for which purpose Katie went down with them into the bas.e.m.e.nt room.

The parlor floor was unoccupied, and at a late hour the servants extinguished the hall light, supposing all to have gone. But the dark seance in progress with Katie in the bas.e.m.e.nt continued so long past midnight, with no sign of its breaking up, that I at last sent Margaretta down to let them know the hour and put an end to it. Of course all was dark on the two lower floors, but she could easily make her way. But as she was about to knock at the lower door, she was suddenly seized by some person who hurled or shot her up, as it seemed to her, and landed her on her feet at the head of the stairs on the second floor, where her scream called me out from my room, and she related what had occurred. It was evident that there were some Spirits there who did not choose to have the seance going on below interrupted.

There is an old negro melody which tells how

"Sich a gettin' up stairs I never did see, Sich a gettin' up stairs," etc.

Margaretta had been pitched, as it were, in an instant, up the two flights of stairs. The reader may refer to the next story for a somewhat similar way of being carried up stairs which once befell mother and myself.

THE DEATH OF ISAAC T. HOPPER.

Hon. John W. Edmonds met occasionally with a private party, numbering from twelve to sixteen persons, nearly all singers of a choir belonging to a church in this city. This was my first private party formed after my settlement in New York, in 1852.

The rules of the party were to meet at precisely eight and close at ten o'clock. Judge Edmonds came and went as he pleased, often to the annoyance of the party through the interruptions thus produced. He came in one evening about nine o'clock and took his seat in silence. The party were singing their sweet anthems, and all seemed drawn together in harmony. At the close of the singing our attention was suddenly called to a peculiar sound in the extreme corner of the room. Mr. Bostwick was secretary of the circle. I have his minutes of it, which differ materially from Judge Edmonds' account, written from memory by Dr.

Dexter, and published in his book.

I here give it exactly as it occurred.

This singular sound signaled the alphabet, which I called, and the following message was given to us all:

"MY DEAR FRIENDS: I am free from all suffering and anxiety. I am re-united with the beloved partner of my youthful days.

"ISAAC T. HOPPER."

Judge Edmonds exclaimed, "Gracious Heavens! can this be true? I have been with him from noon until seven o'clock this evening; and when I left him he seemed likely to live a month." Then, taking a small pamphlet from his pocket, he said, "I read this to him; he listened attentively and expressed his opinion upon it favorably." He then said, "Mrs. Brown, can't you send one of your girls around to see if this is true?" I said "No, Judge; I could not send my girls out at this hour of night." The party all cried out, "No, Judge; go yourself. We will await your return." He went, and was gone about an hour.

When the door-bell rang we sat in breathless silence. The Judge paused in the door-way a moment, then solemnly, and with trembling lips, said, "When I got there he had been dead an hour."

WILLIAM M. THACKERAY.

Mr. Thackeray during his stay in New York visited my public seances, but never asked questions in a crowd. His course of investigation was unlike those of all others. The first visit he made he sat and listened to the sounds; and when his turn came to ask questions, he politely asked me to accept his arm and walk with him through the parlors (fifteen minutes were allotted to each visitor) and he said, "You must be weary by this time. Do your investigators always tax you as they have this evening?"

I told him I considered this party very little trouble in comparison to most others. The raps followed us as we walked, and were heard by all in the room. He apparently paid little attention to the sounds as we walked. Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the room, and said to me: "I have read much of your family, and the persecution you have been subjected to; and the various expositions of the wise ones; but they have not been able to convict you."

The rappings became tremendous, and the floor trembled beneath our feet.

They were made all about the room and on the furniture. I invited him to call during my private hours, which he subsequently did, and conversed with the Spirits freely.

When he bade me good-by for the last time, he expressed pleasure at having met us, and thanked me for my kindness in permitting him to visit us during our private hours. He expressed himself delighted with his visit, and said he was thoroughly convinced that no earthly power could make the sounds as he had heard them: and he laughed heartily at Dr.

Flint's theory of the knee-joints. Though compelled to restrain the public expression of it in the _Cornhill Magazine_, of which he became editor, it is certain that Mr. Thackeray was a full Spiritualist, even though not one of those bolder Spirits among men who feel, and live up to, the duty of proclaiming to the world, cost what it may, the divine and regenerating truth which has been received into their own souls.

But great difficulties, it must be confessed, stood in his way. The bigotries of his country and times made it impossible for him, under the necessities of a profession wholly dependent on the favor of public opinion, to go further than he did, while it is certain that he was too n.o.ble and true a man ever to cater to those bigotries by a word of depreciation of Spiritualism.

"WITCH STORIES."

I.

Amy Emmet, a well-known character in Rockland County, N. Y., was reputed a witch. And I have been told by a perfectly reliable gentleman of many strange things which occurred in the case of an own sister of his, who is still living. She (his sister) would roll over the floor, like a hoop, for a long time; and, when relieved from such terrible control, would lie helpless and nearly exhausted.

My parents and grand-parents knew her and believed her to be possessed by evil powers.

II.

Mary Treadway was a little girl; a playmate of my mother. She suffered greatly under the power of some evil influence. She would scream and say, in terror, "See her! See her!--Now she's pinching me." Then, apparently for saying so, she would be stoned nearly to death. She would be black and blue all over after being pinched, covered with bruises, and often hit in the face with stones tied up in rags. Her mother made a deep pasteboard sun-bonnet, hoping that the poor child might be relieved by wearing it; but the stones would hit her in the face just the same, even when she would bend her face down near the ground to avoid them. Mother saw the stones strike her, apparently coming from the mirror. After having been troubled in every possible way, she suddenly became completely covered with a living ma.s.s of vermin.

Her parents were well-to-do, respectable, cleanly people. Her tormentor died, and she recovered.

GEORGE THOMPSON.

"MRS. A. L. UNDERHILL:

"DEAR FRIEND--Having learned that you are about to publish a somewhat detailed account of your experience in connection with the phenomena of Spiritualism, and fearing that you might not remember an occurrence which took place at your house on Troup Street, in the city of Rochester, N. Y.--I think in 1849, when George Thompson (the English abolitionist) came to this country to lecture against slavery--I take the liberty of referring to it.

"While lecturing in Rochester, he expressed a desire to witness something of what he had heard so much about.

"Mrs. Kedzie and myself, with a few other friends called on you. After being seated around a table, the rapping indicated that many Spirits were glad to manifest to him.