The Wanderings of a Spiritualist Part 10

This is rather near murder, if they thought their rotten prayers would avail. The result was an excellent voyage, but it is the spiritual deadness of this place which gets on my nerves.'"

This was copied into every paper in Australia, but it was soon recognised that "this place" was not Australia, but Melbourne, from which the letter was dated. I have already recorded how I was treated by the leading paper in that city, and my general experience there was faithfully reflected in my remarks. Therefore, I had nothing to withdraw. My more extended experience taught me that the general level of intelligence and of spirituality in the Australasian towns is as high as in the average towns of Great Britain, though none are so far advanced as towns like Manchester or Glasgow, nor are there the same number of professional and educated men who have come forward and given testimony. The thirst for information was great, however, and that proved an open mind, which must now lead to a considerable extension of knowledge within the churches as well as without.

My remarks had been caused by the action of the _Argus_, but the _Age_, the other leading Melbourne paper, seemed to think that its honour was also touched, and had a very severe leading article upon my delinquencies, and my alleged views, which was, as usual, a wild travesty of my real ones. It began this article by the a.s.sertion that, apparently, I still thought that Australia was inhabited by the aborigines, before I ventured to bring forward such theories. Such a remark, applied to a subject which has won the a.s.sent in varying degrees of every one who has seriously examined it, and which has its foundation resting upon the labours of some of the greatest minds in the world, did not help me to recover my respect for the mentality and breadth of view of the journals of Melbourne. I answered, pointing out that David Syme, the very distinguished founder of the paper, by no means shared this contempt to Spiritualism, as is shown by two long letters included in his published Life.

This att.i.tude, and that of so many other objectors, is absolutely unintelligible to me. They must know that this cult is spreading and that many capable minds have examined and endorsed it. They must know, also, that the views we proclaim, the continuance of happy life and the practical abolition of death are, if true, the grandest advance that the human race has ever made. And yet, so often, instead of saying, "Well, here is some one who is supposed to know something about the matter. Let us see if this grand claim can possibly be established by evidence and argument," they break into insults and revilings as if something offensive had been laid before them. This att.i.tude can only arise from the sluggish conservatism of the human brain, which runs easily in certain well-worn grooves, and is horrified by the idea that something may come to cause mental exertion and readjustment.

Ill.u.s.tration: LAYING FOUNDATION STONE OF SPIRITUALIST CHURCH AT BRISBANE.

I am bound to add that the general public went out of their way to show that their Press did not represent their views. The following pa.s.sage is typical of many: "The criticism which you have so justly resented is, I am sure, not in keeping with the views of the majority of the Australian people. In my own small sphere many of my friends have been stirred deeply by your theories, and the inspiration in some cases has been so marked that the fact should afford you satisfaction. We are not all spiritually defunct. Many are quite satisfied that you are giving your best for humanity, and believe that there is a tremendous revelation coming to this weary old world."

The Spiritualists of Brisbane, greatly daring, have planned out a church which is to cost 10,000, trusting to those who work with us on the other side to see the enterprise through. The possible fallacy lies in the chance that those on the other side do not desire to see this immense movement become a separate sect, but are in favour of the peaceful penetration of all creeds by our new knowledge. It is on record that early in the movement Senator Talmadge asked two different spirit controls, in different States of the Union, what the ultimate goal of this spiritual outburst might be, and received exactly the same answer from each, namely, that it was to prove immortality and to unify the Churches. The first half has been done, so far as survival implies immortality, and the second may well come to pa.s.s, by giving such a large common platform to each Church that they will learn to disregard the smaller differences.

Be this as it may, one could not but admire the faith and energy of Mr.

Reinhold and the others who were determined to have a temple of their own. I laid the foundation stone at three in the afternoon under so tropical a sun that I felt as if the ceremony was going to have its immemorial accompaniment of a human sacrifice and even of a whole-burned offering. The crowd made matters worse, but a friendly bystander with an umbrella saved me from heat apoplexy. I felt the occasion was a solemn one, for it was certainly the first Spiritual Church in the whole of Queensland, and I doubt if we have many anywhere in Australia, for among our apostolic gifts poverty is conspicuous. It has always amazed me how Theosophists and Christian Scientists get their fine halls and libraries, while we, with our zeal and our knowledge, have some bare schoolroom or worse as our only meeting place. It reflects little credit upon the rich people who accept the comforts we bring, but share none of the burdens we bear. There is a kink in their souls.

I spoke at some length, and the people listened with patience in spite of the great heat. It was an occasion when I could, with propriety, lay emphasis upon the restraint and charity with which such a church should be run. The Brisbane paper reports me as follows: "I would emphasise three things. Mind your own business; go on quietly in your own way; you know the truth, and do not need to quarrel with other people. There are many roads to salvation. The second point I would urge is that you should live up to your knowledge. We know for certain that we live on after death, that everything we do in this world influences what comes after; therefore, we can afford to be unselfish and friendly to other religions. Some Spiritualists run down the Bible, whereas it is from cover to cover a spiritual book. I would like to see the Bible read in every Spiritualistic Church with particular attention paid to the pa.s.sages dealing with occultism. The third point I would emphasise is that you should have nothing to do with fortune-telling or anything of that kind. All fortune-telling is really a feeling out in the dark. If good things are going to happen to you be content to wait for them, and if evil is to come nothing is to be gained by attempting to antic.i.p.ate it. My sympathies are with the police in their att.i.tude to fortune-tellers, whose black magic is far removed from the services of our mediums in striving to bring comfort to those whose loved ones have gone before. If these three things are lived up to, this church will be a source of great brightness and happiness."

Our work was pleasantly broken by an invitation to lunch with Sir Matthew Nathan, at Government House. Sir Matthew impresses one as a man of character, and as he is a financial authority he is in a position to help by his advice in restoring the credit of Queensland. The matter in dispute, which has been called repudiation, does not, as it seems to me, deserve so harsh a term, as it is one of those cases where there are two sides to the question, so equally balanced that it is difficult for an outsider to p.r.o.nounce a judgment. On the one hand the great squatters who hold millions of acres in the State had received the land on considerable leases which charged them with a very low rent--almost a nominal one--on condition of their taking up and developing the country.

On the other hand, the Government say these leases were granted under very different circ.u.mstances, the lessees have already done very well out of them, the war has made it imperative that the State raise funds, and the a.s.sets upon which the funds can be raised are all in the hands of these lessees, who should consent to a revision of their agreements.

So stands the quarrel, so far as I could understand it, and the State has actually imposed the increased rates. Hence the cry that they have repudiated their own contract. The result of the squatters' grievance was that Mr. Theodore, the Premier, was unable to raise money in the London market, and returned home with the alternative of getting a voluntary loan in the Colony, or of raising a compulsory loan from those who had the money. The latter has an ugly sound, and yet the need is great, and if some may be compelled to serve with their bodies I do not see why some may not also be compelled to serve with their purses. The a.s.sets of the Colony compare very favourably, I believe, with others, for while these others have sold their lands, the Government of Queensland has still the owners.h.i.+p of the main tracts of the gloriously fertile country. Therefore, with an issue at 6-1/2 per cent., without tax, one would think that they should have no difficulty in getting any reasonable sum. I was cinemaed in the act of applying for a small share in the issue, but I think the advertis.e.m.e.nt would have been of more value to the loan, had they captured some one of greater financial stability.

The more one examines this alleged "repudiation" the less reason appears in the charge, and as it has a.s.suredly injured Queensland's credit, it is well that an impartial traveller should touch upon it. The squatters are the richer folk and in a position to influence the public opinion of the world, and in their anxiety to exploit their own grievance they seem to have had little regard for the reputation of their country. It is like a man burning down his house in the hope of roasting some other inmate of whom he disapproves. A conservative paper (the _Producer's Review_, January 10th, 1921), says: "No living man can say how much Queensland has been damaged by the foolish partisan statements that have been uttered and published." The article proceeds to show in very convincing style, with chapter and verse, that the Government has always been well within its rights, and that a Conservative Government on a previous occasion did the same thing, framing a Bill on identical lines.

On January 12th my kinsman, Dr. Doyle, with his charming wife, took us out into the bush for a billy tea--that is, to drink tea which is prepared as the bushmen prepare it in their tin cans. It was certainly excellent, and we enjoyed the drive and the whole experience, though uninvited guests of the mosquito tribe made things rather lively for us. I prayed that my face would be spared, as I did not wish to turn up at my lecture as if I had been having a round with Dr. Cosh, and I react in a most whole-hearted way to any attentions from an insect. The result was certainly remarkable, be it coincidence or not, for though my hands were like boxing-gloves, and my neck all swollen, there was not a mark upon my face. I fancy that the hardened inhabitants hardly realise what new chums endure after they are bitten by these pests. It means to me not only disfigurement, but often a sleepless night. My wife and the children seem to escape more lightly. I found many objects of interest in the bush--among others a spider's web so strong that full-sized dragon flies were enmeshed in it. I could not see the creature itself, but it must have been as big as a tarantula. Our host was a large landowner as well as a specialist, and he talked seriously of leaving the country, so embittered was he by the land-policy of the Government.

At the same time, the fact that he could sell his estate at a fair price seemed to imply that others took a less grave view of the situation.

Many of the richer cla.s.ses think that Labour is adopting a policy of deliberate petty irritation in order to drive them out of the country, but perhaps they are over-sensitive.

So full was our life in Brisbane that there was hardly a day that we had not some memorable experience, even when I had to lecture in the evening. Often we were going fourteen and fifteen hours a day, and a tropical day at that. On January 14th we were taken to see the largest bee-farm in Australia, run by Mr. H. L. Jones. Ever since I consigned Mr. Sherlock Holmes to a bee farm for his old age, I have been supposed to know something of the subject, but really I am so ignorant that when a woman wrote to me and said she would be a suitable housekeeper to the retired detective because she could "segregate the queen," I did not know what she meant. On this occasion I saw the operation and many other wonderful things which make me appreciate Maeterlinck's prose-poem upon the subject. There is little poetry about Mr. Jones however, and he is severely practical. He has numbers of little boxes with a store of bee-food compressed into one end of them. Into each he thrusts a queen with eight attendants to look after her. The food is enough to last two months, so he simply puts on a postage stamp and sends it off to any one in California or South Africa who is starting an apiary. Several hives were opened for our inspection with the precaution of blowing in some smoke to pacify the bees. We were told that this sudden inrush of smoke gives the bees the idea that some great cataclysm has occurred, and their first action is to lay in a store of honey, each of them, as a man might seize provisions in an earthquake so as to be ready for whatever the future might bring. He showed us that the queen, fed with some special food by the workers, can lay twice her own weight of eggs in a day, and that if we could find something similar for hens we could hope for an unbroken stream of eggs. Clever as the bee is it is clearly an instinctive hereditary cleverness, for man has been able to make many improvements in its methods, making artificial comb which is better than the original, in that it has cells for more workers and fewer drones.

Altogether it was a wonderful demonstration, which could be viewed with comfort under a veil with one's hands in one's pockets, for though we were a.s.sured they would not sting if they knew we would not hurt them, a misunderstanding was possible. One lady spectator seemed to have a sudden ambition to break the standing jump record, and we found that she had received two stings, but Mr. Jones and his a.s.sistants covered their hands with the creatures and were quite immune. A half-wild wallaby appeared during our visit, and after some coyness yielded to the fascination which my wife exercises over all animals, and fed out of her hand. We were a.s.sured that this had never before occurred in the case of any visitor.

We found in Brisbane, as in every other town, that the question of domestic service, the most important of all questions to a householder, was very acute. Ladies who occupied leading positions in the town a.s.sured us that it was impossible to keep maids, and that they were compelled now to give it up in despair, and to do all their own house work with such casual daily a.s.sistance as they could get. A pound a week is a common wage for very inefficient service. It is a serious matter and no solution is in sight. English maids are, I am sorry to say, looked upon as the worst of all, for to all the other faults they add constant criticism of their employers, whom they p.r.o.nounce to be "no ladies" because they are forced to do many things which are not done at home. Inefficiency plus sn.o.bbishness is a dreadful mixture. Altogether the lot of the Australian lady is not an easy one, and we admired the brave spirit with which they rose above their troubles.

This servant question bears very directly upon the Imperial puzzle of the northern territory. A white man may live and even work there, but a white woman cannot possibly run a household unless domestic labour is plentiful. In that climate it simply means absolute breakdown in a year.

Therefore it is a mad policy which at present excludes so rigorously the Chinese, Indians or others who alone can make white households possible.

White labour a.s.sumes a dog in the manger policy, for it will not, or cannot, do the work itself, and yet it shuts out those who could do it.

It is an impossible position and must be changed. How severe and unreasonable are the coloured immigrant laws is shown by the fact that the experienced and popular Commander of the _Naldera_, Captain Lewellin, was fined at Sydney a large sum of money because three Goa Indians deserted from his s.h.i.+p. There is a great demand for Indian camel drivers in the north, and this no doubt was the reason for the desertion, but what a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the law which comes between the demand and the supply, besides punis.h.i.+ng an innocent victim.

As usual a large number of psychic confidences reached us, some of which were very interesting. One lady is a clairaudient, and on the occasion of her mother falling ill she heard the words "Wednesday--the fifteenth." Death seemed a matter of hours, and the date far distant, but the patient, to the surprise of the doctors, still lingered. Then came the audible message "She will tell you where she is going." The mother had lain for two days helpless and comatose. Suddenly she opened her eyes and said in a clear strong voice, "I have seen the mansions in my father's house. My husband and children await me there. I could not have imagined anything so exquisitely lovely." Then she breathed her last, the date being the 15th.

We were entertained to dinner on the last evening by the Hon. John Fihilly, acting Premier of the Colony, and his wife. He is an Irish labour leader with a remarkable resemblance to Dan O'Connell in his younger days. I was pleased to see that the toast of the King was given though it was not called for at a private dinner. Fihilly is a member of the Government, and I tackled him upon the question of British emigrants being enticed out by specious promises on the part of Colonial Agents in London, only to find that no work awaited them. Some deplorable cases had come within my own observation, one, an old Lancas.h.i.+re Fusilier, having walked the streets for six months. He a.s.sured me that the arrangements were now in perfect order, and that emigrants were held back in the old country until they could be sure that there was a place for them. There are so many out of work in Australia that one feels some sympathy with those labour men who are against fresh arrivals.

And there lies the great problem which we have not, with all our experience, managed to master. On the one side illimitable land calling for work. On the other innumerable workers calling for land. And yet the two cannot be joined. I remember how it jarred me when I saw Edmonton, in Western Canada, filled with out-of-workers while the great land lay uninhabited. The same strange paradox meets one here. It is just the connecting link that is missing, and that link lies in wise prevision.

The helpless newcomer can do nothing if he and his family are dumped down upon a hundred acres of gum trees. Put yourself in their position.

How can they hope with their feeble hands to clear the ground? All this early work must be done for them by the State, the owner repaying after he has made good. Let the emigrant move straight on to a cleared farm, with a shack-house already prepared, and clear instructions as to the best crops, and how to get them. Then it seems to me that emigration would bring no want of employment in its train. But the State must blaze the trail and the public follow after. Such arrangements may even now exist, but if so they need expansion and improvement, for they do not seem to work.

Before leaving Brisbane my attention was drawn to the fact that the State photographer, when he took the scene of the opening of the loan, had produced to all appearance a psychic effect. The Brisbane papers recorded it as follows: --

"'It is a remarkable result, and I cannot offer any opinion as to what caused it. It is absolutely mystifying.' Such was the declaration made yesterday by the Government photographer, Mr. W. Mobsby, in regard to the unique effect a.s.sociated with a photograph he took on Thursday last of Sir A. Conan Doyle. Mr. Mobsby, who has been connected with photography since boyhood, explained that he was instructed to take an official photograph of the function at which Sir A. Conan Doyle handed over his subscription to the State Loan organiser. When he arrived, the entrance to the building was thronged by a large crowd, and he had to mount a stepladder, which was being used by the _Daily Mail_ photographer, in order to get a good view of the proceedings. Mr. Mobsby took only one picture, just at the moment Sir A. Conan Doyle was mounting the steps at the Government Tourist Bureau to meet the Acting Premier, Mr. J. Fihilly. Mr. Mobsby developed the film himself, and was amazed to find that while all the other figures in the picture were distinct the form of Sir A. Conan Doyle appeared enveloped in mist and could only be dimly seen. The photograph was taken on an ordinary film with a No. 3a Kodak, and careful examination does not in any way indicate the cause of the sensational result." I have had so many personal proofs of the intervention of supernormal agencies during the time that I have been engaged upon this task that I am prepared to accept the appearance of this aura as being an a.s.surance of the presence of those great forces for whom I act as a humble interpreter. At the same time, the sceptic is very welcome to explain it as a flawed film and a coincidence.

Ill.u.s.tration: CURIOUS PHOTOGRAPHIC EFFECT REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT.

Taken by the Official Photographer, Brisbane, "Absolutely mystifying" is his description.

We returned from Brisbane to Sydney in the Orient Liner "Orsova," which is a delightful alternative to the stuffy train. The sea has always been a nursing mother to me, and I suppose I have spent a clear two years of my life upon the waves. We had a restful Sunday aboard the boat, disturbed only by the Sunday service, which left its usual effect upon my mind. The Psalms were set to some unhappy tune, very different from the grand Gregorian rhythm, so that with its sudden rise to a higher level it sounded more like the neighing of horses than the singing of mortals. The words must surely offend anyone who considers what it is that he is saying--a mixture of most unmanly wailing and spiteful threats. How such literature has been perpetuated three thousand years, and how it can ever have been sacred, is very strange. Altogether from first to last there was nothing, save only the Lord's Prayer, which could have any spiritual effect. These old observances are like an iron ball tied to the leg of humanity, for ever hampering spiritual progress.

If now, after the warning of the great war, we have not the mental energy and the moral courage to get back to realities, we shall deserve what is coming to us.

On January 17th we were back, tired but contented, in the Medlow Bath Hotel in the heart of the Blue Mountains--an establishment which I can heartily recommend to any who desire a change from the summer heats of Sydney.

CHAPTER XI

Medlow Bath.--Jenolan Caves.--Giant skeleton.--Mrs. Foster Turner's mediums.h.i.+p.--A wonderful prophecy.--Final results.--Third sitting with Bailey.--Failure of State Control.--Retrospection.--Melbourne presentation.--Crooks.--Lecture at Perth.--West Australia.--Rabbits, sparrows and sharks.

We recuperated after our Brisbane tour by spending the next week at Medlow Bath, that little earthly paradise, which is the most restful spot we have found in our wanderings. It was built originally by Mr.

Mark Foy, a successful draper of Sydney, and he is certainly a man of taste, for he has adorned it with a collection of prints and of paintings--hundreds of each--which would attract attention in any city, but which on a mountain top amid the wildest scenery give one the idea of an Arabian Nights palace. There was a pa.s.sage some hundreds of yards long, which one has to traverse on the way to each meal, and there was a certain series of French prints, representing events of Byzantine history, which I found it difficult to pa.s.s, so that I was often a late comer. A very fair library is among the other attractions of this remarkable place.

Before leaving we spent one long day at the famous Jenolan Caves, which are distant about forty-five miles. As the said miles are very up-and-down, and as the cave exploration involves several hours of climbing, it makes a fairly hard day's work. We started all seven in a motor, as depicted by the wayside photographers, but Baby got sick and had to be left with Jakeman at the half-way house, where we picked her up, quite recovered, on our return. It was as well, for the walk would have been quite beyond her, and yet having once started there is no return, so we should have ended by carrying her through all the subterranean labyrinths. The road is a remarkably good one, and represents a considerable engineering feat. It pa.s.ses at last through an enormous archway of rock which marks the entrance to the cave formations. These caves are hollowed out of what was once a coral reef in a tropical sea, but is now sixty miles inland with a mountain upon the top of it--such changes this old world has seen. If the world were formed only that man might play his drama upon it, then mankind must be in the very earliest days of his history, for who would build so elaborate a stage if the play were to be so short and insignificant?

Ill.u.s.tration: OUR PARTY EN ROUTE TO THE JENOLAN CAVES, JANUARY 20TH, 1921, IN FRONT OF OLD COURT HOUSE IN WHICH BUSHRANGERS WERE TRIED.

The caves are truly prodigious. They were discovered first in the pursuit of some poor devil of a bushranger who must have been hard put to it before he took up his residence in this damp and dreary retreat. A brave man, Wilson, did most of the actual exploring, lowering himself by a thin rope into noisome abysses of unknown depth and charting out the whole of this devil's warren. It is so vast that many weeks would be needed to go through it, and it is usual at one visit to take only a single sample. On this occasion it was the River Cave, so named because after many wanderings you come on a river about twenty feet across and forty-five feet deep which has to be navigated for some distance in a punt. The stalact.i.te effects, though very wonderful, are not, I think, superior to those which I have seen in Derbys.h.i.+re, and the caves have none of that historical glamour which is needed in order to link some large natural object to our own comprehension. I can remember in Derbys.h.i.+re how my imagination and sympathy were stirred by a Roman lady's brooch which had been found among the rubble. Either a wild beast or a bandit knew best how it got there. Jenolan has few visible links with the past, but one of them is a tremendous one. It is the complete, though fractured, skeleton of a very large man--seven foot four said the guide, but he may have put it on a little--who was found partly imbedded in the lime. Many ages ago he seems to have fallen through the roof of the cavern, and the bones of a wallaby hard by give some indication that he was hunting at the time, and that his quarry shared his fate. He was of the Black fellow type, with a low-cla.s.s cranium. It is remarkable the proportion of very tall men who are dug up in ancient tombs. Again and again the bogs of Ireland have yielded skeletons of seven and eight feet. Some years ago a Scythian chief was dug up on the Southern Steppes of Russia who was eight feet six. What a figure of a man with his winged helmet and his battle axe! All over the world one comes upon these giants of old, and one wonders whether they represented some race, further back still, who were all gigantic. The Babylonian tradition in our Bible says: "And there were giants in those days." The big primeval kangaroo has grown down to the smaller modern one, the wombat, which was an animal as big as a tapir, is now as small as a badger, the great saurians have become little lizards, and so it would seem not unreasonable to suppose that man may have run to great size at some unexplored period in his evolution.

We all emerged rather exhausted from the bowels of the earth, dazed with the endless succession of strange gypsum formations which we had seen, minarets, thrones, shawls, coronets, some of them so made that one could imagine that the old kobolds had employed their leisure hours in fas.h.i.+oning their freakish outlines. It was a memorable drive home in the evening. Once as a bird flew above my head, the slanting ray of the declining sun struck it and turned it suddenly to a vivid scarlet and green. It was the first of many parrots. Once also a couple of kangaroos bounded across the road, amid wild cries of delight from the children.

Once, too, a long snake writhed across and was caught by one of the wheels of the motor. Rabbits, I am sorry to say, abounded. If they would confine themselves to these primeval woods, Australia would be content.

This was the last of our pleasant Australian excursions, and we left Medlow Bath refreshed not only by its charming atmosphere, but by feeling that we had gained new friends. We made our way on January 26th to Sydney, where all business had to be settled up and preparations made for our homeward voyage.

Whilst in Sydney I had an opportunity of examining several phases of mediums.h.i.+p which will be of interest to the psychic reader. I called upon Mrs. Foster Turner, who is perhaps the greatest all-round medium with the highest general level of any sensitive in Australia. I found a middle-aged lady of commanding and pleasing appearance with a dignified manner and a beautifully modulated voice, which must be invaluable to her in platform work. Her gifts are so many that it must have been difficult for her to know which to cultivate, but she finally settled upon medical diagnosis, in which she has, I understand, done good work.

Her practice is considerable, and her help is not despised by some of the leading pract.i.tioners. This gift is, as I have explained previously in the case of Mr. Bloomfield, a form of clairvoyance, and Mrs. Foster Turner enjoys all the other phases of that wonderful power, including psychometry, with its application to detective work, the discerning of spirits, and to a very marked degree the gift of prophecy, which she has carried upon certain occasions to a length which I have never known equalled in any reliable record of the past.

Here is an example for which, I am told, a hundred witnesses could be cited. At a meeting at the Little Theatre, Castlereagh Street, Sydney, on a Sunday evening of February, 1914, Mrs. Turner addressed the audience under an inspiration which claimed to be W. T. Stead. He ended his address by saying that in order to prove that he spoke with a power beyond mortal, he would, on the next Sunday, give a prophecy as to the future of the world.

Next Sunday some 900 people a.s.sembled, when Mrs. Turner, once more under control, spoke as follows. I quote from notes taken at the time. "Now, although there is not at present a whisper of a great European war at hand, yet I want to warn you that before this year, 1914, has run its course, Europe will be deluged in blood. Great Britain, our beloved nation, will be drawn into the most awful war the world has ever known.

Germany will be the great antagonist, and will draw other nations in her train. Austria will totter to its ruin. Kings and kingdoms will fall.

Millions of precious lives will be slaughtered, but Britain will finally triumph and emerge victorious. During the year, also, the Pope of Rome will pa.s.s away, and a bomb will be placed in St. Paul's Church, but will be discovered in time and removed before damage is done."

Can any prophecy be more accurate or better authenticated than that? The only equally exact prophecy on public events which I can recall is when Emma Hardinge Britten, having been refused permission in 1860 to deliver a lecture on Spiritualism in the Town Hall of Atlanta, declared that, before many years had pa.s.sed, that very Town Hall would be choked up with the dead and the dying, drawn from the State which persecuted her.

This came literally true in the Civil War a few years later, when Sherman's army pa.s.sed that way.

Mrs. Foster Turner's gift of psychometry is one which will be freely used by the community when we become more civilised and less ignorant.

As an example of how it works, some years ago a Melbourne man named Cutler disappeared, and there was a considerable debate as to his fate.

His wife, without giving a name, brought Cutler's boot to Mrs. Turner.

She placed it near her forehead and at once got _en rapport_ with the missing man. She described how he left his home, how he kissed his wife good-bye, all the succession of his movements during that morning, and finally how he had fallen or jumped over a bridge into the river, where he had been caught under some snag. A search at the place named revealed the dead body. If this case be compared with that of Mr. Foxhall, already quoted, one can clearly see that the same law underlies each.

But what an ally for our C.I.D.!

There was one pleasant incident in connection with my visit to Mrs.