Our unseen companions

Front matter

V x ^ cO c> o

A

N A

Contents

Chapter. Page.

The Amended Speling - - . .v.

As the Day — a Poem ... x.

Introduction

*'« And many of them said, * He hath a devil. Why hear ye him?' Others said, * These are not the words of him that hath a devil.' "-John x., 20, 21.

" Write on your doors the saying wise and old, * Be bold ! be bold !' and everywhere ' Be bold;' 4 Be not too bold !' Yet better the excess Than the defect. Better the more than less ; Better like Hector in the field to die, Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly."— Longfellow.

IT is literature of one kind and another that plays the mischief with ns all. Down in La Mancha in the olden time the knight red and re-red his books of chivalry so often thru the day, and dremt so much at night — eyes sometimes closed, sometimes open — of the golden days of the past and the golden days to come when he should lay his lance in rest and clear Spain of marauders, lhat he lost taste for the quiet pursuits which had formerly charmed him, and found no peace unto his soul until he went forth a-fighting. And if his poor cousin Sancho Quixote, master builder of castles in the same country spent the best part of a year in an insane asylum in these latter days gathering wisdom that he might easily hav found elswhere in a much plesanter manner, and if he past thru the horribl experiences narrated in this new book of chivalry and fool-hardy daring he owes it from beginning to end to bad ideas, bad literature and worse judgment.

It took a long time of preparation ; the evidences were carefully weighed again and again, for it was a risky venture ; but bad mistakes were made in the premises and Sancho suffered.

The average man or woman has very littl idea of the

XII. OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS.

influence that one mind has upon another. Ideas rule the

world. A good book lifts us up ; an evil one pulls us

down. The effect of both lasts for ever.

* * * * *

k ' Tho' losses and crosses Be lessons right severe, There's wit there, you'll get there. You'll find no other where."

Upon a certain day, a few } T ears ago, a millionaire was sitting in his office in the city of New York. He was one of the rulers of our modern world with all the power but without the trappings that his barbaric brothers of old used to throw around themselves. He was expecting a very important message, and had told his chief clerk to see to it that there was no ceremony wasted when his trusted agent appeard. Just before the time for closing the office the door opend and a sharp-looking man walkt in. "Well?" said the millionaire interrogativly. "The deal is closed, " was the smiling reply, "and the papers ar all signed." " Allow me to congratulate you," said Midas, for this was his name. "Your share will make you rich. " The fight was over, the millionaire was successful; he had acquired more power, and the two men went out the office together smiling and satisfied. Midas had not so much aslookt at the clothes or the muddy shoes of his agent.

Moral number one. — Muddy shoes don't count, if the man who wears them brings good tidings. * * * * *

You, who ar by no means a millionaire, much to your sorrow doubtless, but just an ordinary mortal selling sugar, or hides, or lumber, ar sitting like your rich frend waiting for good news. The messenger boy taps at your door and brings you in a telegram. You open it, read the contents, and you say, " Ha, ha, the game is mine : things ar coming my way at last." The boy is gone and

INTRODUCTION. Xlll. ;

you hav never so much as lookt at the shape of his cap. Moral number two: — Caps don't count if the boy who wears them carries a plesant message.

A short time after the Batl of Flodden a weary knight

rode up the streets of Edinburgh, surrounded by anxious

citizens.

" Nowc of batl 8 News of batl !

Hark ! 'Tis ringing down the street % And the archways and the pavement Bear the olang of hurrying foot. 05

" How has the day gone, Randolff Murray ? Why hav you left our sons and fathers ? Where ar they ?" But the old man rode on to meet the fathers of the city. He brot them news of fierce batl against the Southern, of great loss, of the wreck of their hopes.

The wise old men had shaken their heds when their sons had shouted for war with their ancient enemy to the south, but the yung bloods led the way and would not be gainsaid. The result was disaster. The old knight had escaped after he had fot a good fight, but it was a sad story he brot to the waiting burgers.

Moral number three : — They believd this message, becaus they knew him and trusted him.

Moral number four: — It would hav been far better if the yung bloods had listened to the counsel of those who implored them to let well enuf alone and to profit by the experience of their grandfathers.

Moral number five : — We would all be better littl men and women if we would remember what happened to the fools of old who engaged in batls that should never hav been fot.

" My dear yung lady, " said an old gentlman in a pompous way to his ward who was enjoying herself in a manner that did not accord with his ideas of propriety, " I am an old man now ; I hav seen a great deal of the world. "

XIV. OUR UNSEEN COMPANIONS.

44 I beg your pardon, sir," she said interrupting him, for she knew what was coming. " But I wish to see it, too." Moral number six : — If the rising generation would only — - etc. But we insist on biting the appl for ourselvs, and we hav to spit out the ashes in the same way as our respected forefathers did.

" How is the batl going ?" was the question askt one day when Napoleon was turning things upside down. ' ' The batl is lost, but it is only four o'clock, and there is time to gain another. " was the reply.

Moral number seven, and last and best for both reader and writer of the following experiences: — We can win all our batls in the future no matter what blunders we hav made in the past if we will only accept the generalship of One who will lead us to a victory that will grow brighter and brighter as the days go by.

Let it be said at the outset, and remembered to the end, that there ar many, very many Christian Spiritualists. I think they ar making a serious mistake, but it may be said with respect to them, and also with respect to many who ar not Christians, that not a few of our nominal Christians who ar strictly orthodox in their views might easily lern something from some of the Spiritualists. They ar trying hard amid difficulties that we all feel to luv their neighbor as themselves and they ar succeeding fairly well. A pity that we don't all do as well as some of them ar doing.

There ar said to be several millions of Spiritualists in the world now. A belief that is held by so many of our fellow beings is worthy of being fot for if it is right, and worthy of being opposed if it is wrong. The truth will conquer in the end, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And now hands to the work.

Chapter I. By Permission From The New York Herald Of November

Our Angels.

Angels Came and Ministered Unto Him. — Matt, iv., xL

It is a glad surprise to the careful student of the older and the newer Scriptures that the beings whom we call angels occupy so prominent a position in the Father's dealings with His children on the erth. And it is not the least curious fact in the history of our modern religious life that the mission of these angels should be either ignored or practically discredited. We hav not been willing" to admit that God uses any secondary agencies in the accomplishment of his purposes. Asa consequence, we suffer spiritual loss, for there is great comfort to be had in, the belief that a throng of invisibl beings ar nigh at hand in our time of troubl, pitying us in our distress and lending such aid as lies in their power. How many of our* burdens ar lightened by their succoring strength, how frequently we ar enabled to resist temptation by their power [added to our own, how often holy suggestions, come from them which we attribute to our own minds and harts, no one can tell. But that they do come from heven to erth, and that our daily lives ar blest by their presence, no one who accepts the record of Christ's ministry as veritabl history can possibly doubt.

Their doings run thru the pages of the Old Testament like a golden thred in a costly fabric. The dark places in the life of the ancient Hebrews ar illumined by them, and every prof et held communion with them and receivd fromi them the mandates of the Most High. Daniel, when speaking of the straight he was in, said: "Behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. . . . And he informed me and talkt with me. " And his experience is so multiplied by others of a like nature that we ar almost startld by their constant recurrence. They shine like stars on a winter night; and to them the Hebrews were indeted for their courage and their national glory

The birth of Christ was announct by an angel ; the flight into Egypt with the Child was commanded by an angel ; when the temptation of Christ was ended He was ministered unto by angels; when the tearful women stood at the tomb it was an angel " whose raiment was white as snow," who proclaimed the resurrection. And when the mob followed the Lord and the discipls talkt of resistance by force, He rebukt them, declaring that if needful He could call on "more than twelv legions of angels."

I adduce only a few out of many instances, but they ar sufficient to establish and emphasize the fact that we ar seen tho we do not see, and that heven holds the erth in its arms as a mother her babe. No distance forms a barrier either to our longing or to their respons to it. We may not feel the hand that is placed in ours, but it is there; we do not hear with the hearing of the ear, but with the hearing of the hart ; we do not see these guardian spirits with the eye, but with our inner consciousness we ar sure that they ar close by. What a glorious relm of thot we ar exploring! What a glorious relm of fact is revealed to us ! The poor soul that is being driven along the downward path by the fury of his passions is accompanied at every step by God's messengers — the messengers of his pity and his luv — and with their supremest efforts they try to bar his way to further wretchedness. The lonely hart that has been chilldby frosty misfortune, and falls upon a desperate mood that regards even crime with indifference, is surrounded by invisibl agents who ar doing all that heven itself can suggest to make the way

OUR ANGELS. I J

smoother and the sky brighter. And the mourning soul sitting in the shadow of a great bereavment, looking upward with tear-dimd eyes — is no one near to whisper consolation? Is God unmindful or powerless to assuage this grief? The angels who represent God's sympathy ar in that darkened room, and the peace that comes to the broken hart comes from abuv.

We hav here a practical fact, but we hav made too littl use of it. The wonder is that we hav neglected it so long, for it is one of the most precious truths to be found within the whole range of God's providence. Not alone, never alone, but always in the companionship of ministering spirits enjoined by the Father to do us good service if we will allow them to do so.

And who ar these hevenly beings? Why not those who hav been bound to us for many years and who luv us now more than ever? Shall they who hav been so dear, but who were summoned to the other land, be sent far away while strangers do His bidding for our behoof? Our guardians ar those who hav been closest to our harts, I believ, and they ar always redy to come at our call. They hover about us, guide our wandering footsteps, avert impending danger, do what they may to encourage and cheer, and after the nightfall, when the morning comes, they will be the first to greet us and welcome us to that home where partings shall be forever unknown.

George H. Hepworth.

That sermon of the Rev. Dr. Hepworth is one of the best and most practical I hav ever red. I say most practical, and I am a fairly good judge as you will perhaps acknowledge before you finish this book. The oftener you read it, the better you see it to be. Every word of it is true with the possibl exception of the first part of the last paragraf. It is worth your while to read it over again, for it is a beutiful sermon full of glorious ideas that I know to be true. I know to be true, for as I used to read it demons were cursing around me, but langes were there to cheer and encourage me to the end of a light that was waged inch by inch with a savage intensity of ernestness and hatred that astonisht, and during the erlier stages appald me.

CHAPTER II. Making My Bow

There ar a great many strange doctrins in the world we liv in, but strange indeed must be the one that does not hav an ernest body of supporters.

There ar men who hav a firm belief in the virtues of protection, and there ar others who pin their faith to free trade. Gold, says one man, is the only proper medium for a currency, and his neighbor across 1 the street shrieks for paper and confidence and is redy to march to tha stake in support of his theory if necessary. We hav Whigs and Tories disguised under modern names, Republicans and Democrats, Shakers and anti- Shakers, Women Suffragists and those who become furious at the mention of the subject, and we hav ernest men and women who believ in miracls and others equally ernest who refuse to bow the knee. In short — for we might easily prolong the discussion until your patience was exhausted — • whenever there is a question of any kind broacht you find that thru a conception of some law on the one side, and a want of faculty to understand that law on the other men and women instantly take sides and begin to fight. They hav been fighting for thousands of years over some of the questions that agitate the human race, and they do not seem to be much nearer a settlment than when they be-

MAKING YM BOW. 19

gan. Man, with all his faults, is a patient kind of a being, and insted of looking for fruit from past effort, as he certainly should in these evolutionary days, he trots around the circl as his fathers did and tries to keep happy. Much to my surprise I hav been f orct to change sides on one of these subjects as old as the hills, and I want to take you into my confidence and tell you all about it.

But for the fact that I think my experience will do something to keep others in the narrow path this book would never have been writn. The best thing to do as a rule when you hav been foolish is just to take your punishment and say as littl as possibl — just to take your medicin, as the vernacular has it, and make up your mind to do better in the future, and, now that the sun is shining as brightly as ever, this is what I would do if I did not know that hundreds ar being trapt into the same belief as I was altho few go so far.

First of all then, largely owing to my reading on the subject in the newspapers and reviews, and principally, I think, in the proceedings of the American and English Psychical societies, I hav believd for the last seven or eight years that we ar, as the reverend Mr. Hepworth says in his admirabl sermon, surrounded by angels who ar trying to raise us up and help us. Previous to that time I did not think much about the matter, but took it all for granted. I now regret to say that I am in a position to giv the other side of the story and to state from my practical experience of many months that we ar also surrounded by fallen angels, you might call them, or demons or fiends as they ar sometimes called.

Now, here is just where our troubls begin. There ar men who believ that angels of both kinds surround us in our daily lives, and they ar so sure about it that nothing will convince them that it is not true, but there ar also irritating men and women who look rather superior and smile in a patronizing way when the fact is mentioned

2 o OUR UNS E E N C O M P A NION S.

and whisper in an aside to their neighbors that so and so has lost what littl brains he ever had. It is worth while to stop here long enuf to say that the plain teaching of the Bible is with the believers, but it counts for so littl with many who are church members that it might, so far as they are concerned, be left out of the question. It is a pity when men within the camp are fighting the batls of the enemy.

Here, then, is where the fight begins. On the one side we hav those who accept the New Testament doctrin of demoniac possession, and on the other we hav those who profess their belief in it when they join a christian church but who smile at the idea. Those outside the fold who scout at such a thing ar, at least, not playing hypocrit.

The unfortunates who know something about possession, and hear voices from our unseen companions ar assured by the materialists that these voices ar imaginary and come only thru a derangement of the nervous system. The doctors ar partly right — they do come thru a derangement of the nervs, but they ar real. To hold this belief and to maintain it in the face of the experts, as other unfortunates maintain their delusions is to convict one's self of being insane. When hallucinations become so persistently imprest on the mind, says a good authority, as to induce absolute belief in their reality as facts, and the subject acts in conformity with such belief, his mental condition comes within the scope of delusion, which is legal unsoundness of mind. These be brave words, but I never set much store by that view when I studied the subject from a theoretical standpoint, and I set less than ever now that I hav added reality to theory.

The doctors work from the outside. An ounce of fact is worth a pound of theory.

"Write your experience," the voices I herd told me time and again, "and perhaps others will tell of theirs and men and women will come to understand that the old idea

MAKING MY BOW. 21

of possession is right." I herd these voices ringing in my ears all day and every minute of the night that I was awake. If they were imaginary then so ar the voices you hear for the sound is the same.

While I was under the torture there w T as but littl relief except when our good angels spoke to me. It was a cold blooded, merciless persecution, and had it not been for the frendly voices bearing me up and encouraging me thru the horrors I could never hav come out of it.

Knowing the theory of the doctors as I did, I tried hard to believ in the face of all my previous reading that the voices were imaginary, and even when listening against my will to their lafter at the medical authorities, to their jeering and their cursing, I stoutly maintained that I was mistaken and that the lerned men were right, but I had to give it up after a time and get back to common sens. The only way I could revenge myself was by remembering that the physicians of Austria had tried to prevent the running of railway trains erly in the century on the theory that they would cut off the breth of the passengers owing to the rapid motion and land them at the wrong destination. I remembered, too, that they had denied the circulation of the blood, half boiled men for fevers and otherwise made such terribl fools of themselves that the wiser among them now ar modest enuf to declare that medicin does not possess half the virtues that the ancient quacks used to attribute to it. This is what a good many of us hav been suspecting for a long while, but we were half afraid to speak before the college bred men gave the nod.

It would fill a book to tell of their lerned nonsens, and firmly believing th'at they hav something to lern on the subject of insanity, I intend, humbly enuf, to set forth my views, to give my reasons for believing that voices ar real, that Mahomet and Joan of Arc, to quot two well known exampls, herd them, that thousands of men and women hear them to-day, many of them to their sorrow, that

2 2 OUK UNSEEN COMPANION-.

many hav escaped by the skin of the teeth, and that every one who has not herd them as much as I did should fall on his knees and thank God no matter what his surroundings ar.

For those who cling to the gospel and the old theory of possession my story may be interesting and profitabl; for those who cannot believ in any other than the orthodox theory it will be as the story of a madman, and therefore interesting enuf in a mesure as a revelation of the workings of the human brain under abnormal conditions.

CHAPTER III. About the Occult World

Macaulay in describing the Puritans says: "They were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. The difference between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish when compared with the boundless interval which separated the hole race from Him on whom their eyes were constantly fixt. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terribl importance belonged — on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness lookt with anxious interest. He was half maddened by glorious or terribl illusions. He herd the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. "

That is what the Puritans thot about it, and before I had studied the occult world I often smiled on the sly at our grim friends and their beliefs. But they were rather a strong kind of men too. Bishop Spalding says well, —

ABOUT THE OCCULT WORLD. 2$

16 I look around me and I do not know where to find their match to-day." For a good many years I hav believd like them that we ar encompast round about with angels, but somehow or other I made the almost fatal mistake of thinking that mine were all drest in white. I forgot altogether about the black batallions, and they ar very industrious and very much in ernest. In our modern frase they mean business, and they work with a passionate desire to drag us down to their level, and make our lives a burden almost too hevy to bear.

I ask myself often, What is the use of saying anything about it? The torture is over, and others ar more inclined to laf or joke over what is a dedly serious matter than to keep away from it themselves and do their best to help their neighbors from falling into the pit. I need never have past thru the depths, for there was evidence enuf in the world, outside of the Bible altogether, for even a fool. But we hav become so devout in our worship of ''science" that we must hav evidence for ourselves — we will not believ unless we see the nail prints and put our hand in His side. We will not belie v Moses and the profets, and neither will we believ even if one should rise from the ded. This saying has a new meaning for me now-a-days.

In these days when so many ar telling us wonderful stories of the occult world and the glories therof, it may be worth while for me to lift up my voice like one crying in the wilderness and tell what I found. We ar all willing to listen to the story of the man who succeeds, but it is well when occasion servs to lend an ear to him who fails. The knights of old fot many a hard batl, and it must hav been rather plesant for the victors to ride around the lists amid the plaudits of the spectators, but somewhere there were other knights who had bit the dust and broken harts by their failures, and to-day when we ar fighting on other batl grounds some of the gallant gentlmeri bear off the colors, and we clap our hands and make merry and forget all about the muddl heeled creatures who have fallen by the wayside of remember them only to speak of their folly, and to hug* ourselves as we think that we ar not as they were.

The successful occultists ar like the doctors — they ar wedded to idols, so that I am between two contending hosts neither of them over wise. I shall tell the successful explorers of the occult of my journey into the hidden relm and its direful consequences. As the motto on the book cover says, I went out for wool and came back shorn. Surely the men who ar teling us of their triumfs can hav patience enuf to listen to the story of one failure, or if they told the whole truth would some of them not hav to say too, as I hav, that we should be content to leave things as God has fixt them? They ar, according to my views, in a very bad business, but we ar free-will agents on this erth and I hav to deal only with my own folly.

It came about in this way. I had red of gosts flying everywhere, tabl tapping and tipping, wonderful messages thru clairaudience, uncanny sights thru clairvoyance, telepathy, seances and all the various ways in which our unseen companions make known their presence to us. I had been especially charmed with the statement that all that was necessary to turn a clown into a fllosof er was simply to connect him with the hidden relm, get him to concentrate his thots, and nature herself would attend to the rest by turning on the current and pouring whatever knowledge he needed on his brain. This, I say, charmed me, and lookt rather reasonabl to one who believd in evolution. Just to keep the clever, practical reader from smiling, I might as well say before I go further that I found the statement to be true, but I found something connected with the process that I did not quite expect. I still retain my old beliefs with respect to a good many of the truths I had imbibed, but I now believ that the hole

ABOUT THE OCCULT WORLD. 25

of the occult craze that is sweeping over the erth comes from Satan and belongs to him. I believ furthermore that those who attend seances and carry on their investigations thru mediums ar doing their best to. further the progress of his kingdom. Of late years I had doubted whether there was such a being, but I am now in the habit of painting him as black as possibl.

Singularly enuf, altho deeply interested in spiritism, as I now call it, I had never been at a seance. I had seen only two mesmeric exhibitions during my life. The first I attended as a schoolboy, the last as a fool among other fools. I had attended only three meetings of Spiritists, more out of curiosity than anything els, for I did not believ much was to be lernt among them even while holding to many of their theories. At one of these meetings I remember smiling as I herd the medium say that the spirit of Mary Jane was in the audience anxious to communicate with her unci Richard Roe. Was he present? Of cours, I did not doubt that the medium herd the voice, but it was one thing to read of it and another to be in the hall where it was going on. The medium lookt at me and said, "I w r ant no more of that smiling. This is a serious matter." I found afterwards when in the toils listening to the irritating question, ' ' Do you now believ that it is a serious matter, Sancho Quixote? Well, they all get a warning before they enter the occult and you got yours," that it was indeed a serious enuf matter for me. There is a good deal of fraud in connection with spiritism, but many good peopl do not understand that there is a good deal of truth too. Satan directs the machinery, and he likes a good basis for his work. Sometimes he tells the truth for a purpose. For a few years previous to my troubl I had ceast to believ in the divinity of Christ, and lookt upon the various occult beliefs as a part of the evolutionary struggl that was to lead us to Mount Olympus. It is comparativly easy for those who do not read. or even think of the strange beliefs, the strange revelations of science that ar pouring in upon us from all quarters to retain an unwavering faith in the New Testament, but a man does not need to be a professor to doubt many things once firmly belie vd. I glided into the new faith almost insensibly, but many a man and many a woman has suffered agonies for years over the great question.