We told him Margaretta’s dream, well knowing that he must have sad tidings to relate to us, as he had ridden all night to get there at that hour of the morning. He wept, and sobbing aloud said: “I am the messenger of sorrowful tidings. Dear little Sanford Smith is dead.” This was sister Maria’s little son, seven years of age. David then told us how the darling child had passed away. He died of croup. They did not consider him dangerously ill at first, but hastened for the doctor. When his mother stood over him, trying to make him more comfortable, tears dropped from her eyes upon his precious face. He pulled her down and kissed her, and with his little handkerchief wiped her tears away, saying, “Ma, don’t cry so. I will be your guardian spirit, and rap just so”—making the sounds with his darling fingers on the head-board. He was a beautiful and interesting child: and it nearly broke their hearts to lay him away from their earthly sight, though conscious of his spiritual presence.
While Margaretta was dreaming that truly wonderful dream, my brother David was on his way to inform us of the child’s death.
MISTAKEN NAMES CORRECTED BY SPIRITS.
Dr. A. D. Wilson and Dr. Kirby, both men of high distinction, introduced to me by Dr. John F. Gray, and who afterward became thorough Spiritualists and my dear friends, made a bad start in their first experiences at my circles. They both went away somewhat disgusted with the wrong names which the Spirits of their relatives had attributed to themselves. Dr. Wilson’s father having given his name as “Patrick;” and Dr. Kirby’s wife having called herself “Mary Anne.” They compared notes as they went out together. Dr. Wilson said that his father was not Patrick, but Peter; and Dr. Kirby that his wife’s name was Nancy.
Soon after Dr. Wilson came across his father’s old diploma. He had graduated at Edinburgh before coming to New York, where he became a professor in (I believe) Columbia College, and there was his name recorded at full length as “Patrick.” He was not an Irishman, but a Scotchman, and did not fancy being called “Pat,” and used to sign with his initial; and somehow or other Peter got so fastened upon him that his own son never knew his real name to have been Patrick till he found it on this old diploma. Dr. Kirby complained to his mother-in-law that his wife Nancy had given her name as “Mary Anne.” “Why, did you never know that Nancy was christened Mary Anne?” was her reply. The two doctors again compared notes together to better purpose than before; and we all had a hearty laugh when they came together to tell us this curious and excellent test they had both happened to receive. They were both distinguished homœopathic physicians, as was also their intimate friend, Dr. Gray, by whom they had been introduced.
AN UNWILLING CONVERT MADE HAPPY AND GRATEFUL.
One evening (in Ludlow Place) so severe a storm was raging, and it was so bitterly cold, that I had no fear of any visitors coming in, and had settled myself for comfort in the basement room, and allowed the fire in the parlor to go out. But the bell rang, and Susie announced a party of four or five gentlemen. They had been brought by one of my good friends from the St. Nicholas Hotel. They were all Southerners; and one of them, an old gentleman, had been seduced out to go with the party to “some place of entertainment,” without knowing what or where. (He was bitterly prejudiced against Spiritualism and us.) When he got in and learned into what he had been entrapped, he was very angry, and refused to pay his dollar or to go any farther. Susie reported that he was up in the hall, and their hack had been dismissed. I sent word to invite him down to the warm room, unless he chose to remain out in the cold, for which I should be sorry. He finally came down, but sat apart in a corner of the room as distant as possible from the group of us gathered round the table near the fire. He was, as I afterward learned, an old man now left alone in the world with his wealth; a large family having been swept away from him, chiefly by yellow fever. He replied somewhat gruffly to my invitation to him to draw up to the fire, and my friend scratched a few lines to me telling me to take no notice further as he was a sceptic, and very angry at the trick they had played upon him. Before long came some raps, saying, “Father, do come to the table and get warm,” signed with the names of his wife and a number of his children: and they happened to be rather unusual names, of which I remember only Tabitha, Rebecca, and Sarah. As one after another he heard them rapped out, he turned in his seat and became evidently excited and affected, and even tears began to stream down his aged face. He came to the table, where he received such satisfaction that his long-lost dead were really there and speaking to him, that when the party broke up he expressed great gratitude; and said that though he had refused to pay his dollar, he insisted on my acceptance of the $20 bill which he laid on the table.
He afterwards wrote me a beautiful letter, from the extreme South, telling me that he had been a materialist, with no belief in the immortality of the soul; but that now all life was changed for him; that he now knew that his wife and children still lived and loved and were near to him, and that he would soon be with them again. And he gave me such grateful blessings as were a compensation for the hardships and suffering I had sometimes to encounter in the course of my career of mediumship. The friend who had done him the unwelcome service of thus entrapping him within my doors is still living, and owns a large orange plantation in Florida; and I have no objection to refer to him any reader whose prejudices may require any confirmation of the strict accuracy of this narrative of one of the pleasantest reminiscences of my life.
A SPIRIT KNOWS BETTER THAN THE POSTMASTER.
One morning we received a message, by rapping, to this effect: