“Your Uncle John is on his way, and will be here to-morrow morning.”
He was then on a visit to my sister at Consecon, Canada West. We dearly loved Uncle John, and were delighted at this announcement; and as we had never been deceived by anything thus volunteered by our Spirit friends, we made all preparations for his arrival, and told several friends that he was coming. Morning came, but no Uncle John. We went to the boat-landing from across the lake (“Hanford’s landing,” then about a couple of miles from Rochester, though the city has now pretty well grown down to it); but no one knew anything about him. We then went to Amy Post, and told her how we had been deceived and disappointed by the Spirits. Mrs. Post was seriously affected by the false prophecy, or announcement, and could not be reconciled to the situation without some further explanation from those who had deceived us. All we got from them was this: “Go to the post-office and you will find a letter which will explain.” On doing so we were told that there was none in our box. We (Mrs. Post, Miss Coles, Sister Kate, and myself), after a little talk over it, asked the Spirits why they persisted in such falsehoods, with more questions which I cannot distinctly remember. We received the reply (by rappings): “Go back and say you have just been told there was a letter there. Tell them to look among the promiscuous letters, and it will be found.” (Spirits can emphasize by the strength of their raps as well as we can by italics.) Of course we did accordingly, and the clerk returned with a large letter, asking if my name was Leah A. Fish; which, of course, it was, with a variation in the order of Christian names, and probably I had asked for the name of A. L. Fish, perhaps omitting the full name of “Leah.”
The clerk had made a plain mistake. The Spirit had been right.
The letter explained everything. Uncle had started from Consecon, but had been overtaken at Coburg by a subpœna to attend an important trial, in which he was the principal witness.
Spirits are but disembodied men and women, and are not much more omniscient after their disembodiment than they had been before it. They had given their message truly before he had been overtaken at Coburg with the subpœna. They had followed or accompanied Uncle John, but had no cognizance of outside circumstances which had occurred subsequently to their announcement, and then quitted him. There is instruction in this, as well as a curious interest.
OPENING OF A COMBINATION LOCK.
Professor Mapes had a friend who knew that he was investigating Spiritualism, and told him that he (the friend) had a test which none of his mediums or Spirits could meet, but that he would give the mediums $600 if they could do so; that being a sum he had unexpectedly come into and would gladly give if it could be done. The Professor brought him to me, and he pulled out his $600 and produced a combination padlock, which he had set to a certain word, and he offered me the $600, to which I was welcome if I could open it. I told him that neither the Spirits nor I would do anything for money, and I refused to attempt it unless he put back his money into his pocket. This he had to do, but he continued to sit in the public circle, for which he paid the regular admission fee of one dollar. Nothing came for him till, just as the party was breaking up, there were rapped out the letters, l-o-o-n, followed with the sentence “Open your lock,” which nobody understood till some person, repeating them aloud, said, “That spells loon,” which Mapes’s friend heard, and, starting up excitedly and with an oath, cried out, “Why, that is my word!” The lock was at once opened at the word. He again threw the $600 to me, saying that I was heartily welcome to it. But he at last was compelled to put back his money. As he bade me good-night he left in my hand a $10 gold piece, which I could not refuse to accept as a token of his gratitude and his feelings. He came frequently afterwards and became a thorough and hearty Spiritualist. Prof. Mapes, in introducing him, said he was a whole-souled man, though a positive and rough one, and somewhat addicted to oaths, which rather displeased me.
A VISITOR MAGNETIZED INTO A MEDIUM HIMSELF.
Judge Haskell, of Leroy, a distinguished man and a member of Congress, was one of my old Rochester converts and earnest supporters. He used to say that we acted on him like magnets, and magnetized him unconsciously, so that after an evening with us he found himself receiving raps himself, an influence upon him which would last several days, sometimes as long as a week, and that he used to talk freely with the Spirits in his own bed, receiving the raps on the headboard. He evidently had in himself the basic conditions for the mysterious gift of mediumship, and might have gone far if he had chosen to cultivate and develop it. Indeed, he often found himself, in his speeches, departing widely from what he had intended to say, and even speaking against his opinions, under an influence controlling him against his own mind.