It is this intense yearning to speak again with those that have left us, on the part of the bereaved, that has led to chicanery on the part of media in order to gratify it. Wherever money is to be made, unfortunately cheating will step in; but because some tradesmen will sell you brass for gold is no reason to vote all jewellers thieves. The account of the raising of Samuel by the witch of Endor is an instance that my argument is correct. The witch was evidently an impostor, for she had no expectation of seeing Samuel, and was frightened by the apparition she had evoked; but Spiritualism must be a truth, because it was Samuel himself who appeared and rebuked Saul for calling him back to this earth. What becomes, in the face of this story, of the impassable gulf between the earthly and spiritual spheres? That atheists who believe in nothing should not believe in Spiritualism is credible, natural, and consistent. But that Christians should reject the theory is tantamount to acknowledging that they found their hopes of salvation upon a lie. There is no way of getting out of it. If it be impossible that the spirits of the departed can communicate with men, the Bible must be simply a collection of fabulous statements; if it be wrong to speak with spirits, all the men whose histories are therein related were sinners, and the Almighty helped them to sin; and if all the spirits who have been heard and seen and touched in modern times are devils sent on earth to lure us to our destruction, how are we to distinguish between them and the Greatest Spirit of all, who walked with mortal Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. "O! yes!" I think I hear somebody cry, "but that was in the Bible;" as if the Bible were a period or a place. And did it ever strike you that there is something else recorded in the Bible? "And He did not many miracles there because of their unbelief." And yet Christ came to call "not the righteous but the sinners to repentance." Surely, then, the unbelieving required the conviction of the miracles more than those who knew Him to be God. Yet there He did them not, because of their unbelief, because their scepticism produced a condition in which miracles could not be wrought. And yet the nineteenth century is surprised because a sceptic, whose jarring element upsets all union and harmony, is not an acceptable addition to a spiritual meeting, and that the miracles of the present—gross and feeble, compared to those of the past, because worked by grosser material though grosser agents—ceased to be manifested when his unbelief intrudes itself upon them.
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE STORY OF JOHN POWLES.
On the 4th of April, 1860, there died in India a young officer in the 12th Regiment M.N.I., of the name of John Powles. He was an intimate friend of my first husband for several years before his death, and had consequently become intimate with me; indeed, on several occasions he shared our house and lived with us on the terms of a brother. I was very young at that time and susceptible to influence of all sorts—extremely nervous, moreover, on the subject of "ghosts," and yet burning with curiosity to learn something of the other world—a topic which it is most difficult to induce anybody to discuss with you. People will talk of dress, or dinner, or their friend's private affairs—of anything, in fact, sooner than Death and Immortality and the world to come which we must all inevitably enter. Even parsons—the legalized exponents of what lies beyond the grave—are no exceptions to the rule. When the bereaved sufferer goes to them for comfort, they shake their heads and "hope" and "trust," and say "God's mercy has no limits," but they cannot give him one reasonable proof to rest upon that Death is but a name. John Powles, however, though a careless and irreligious man, liked to discuss the Unseen. We talked continually on the subject, even when he was apparently in perfect health, and he often ended our conversation by assuring me that should he die first (and he always prophesied truly that he should not reach the age of thirty) he would (were such a thing possible) come back to me. I used to laugh at the absurdity of the idea, and remind him how many friends had made the same promise to each other and never fulfilled it. For though I firmly believed that such things had been, I could not realize that they would ever happen to me, or that I should survive the shock if they did. John Powles' death at the last was very sudden, although the disease he died of was of long standing. He had been under the doctor's hands for a few days when he took an unexpected turn for the worse, and my husband and myself, with other friends, were summoned to his bedside to say good-bye to him. When I entered the room he said to me, "So you see it has come at last. Don't forget what I said to you about it." They were his last intelligible words to me, though for several hours he grasped my dress with his hand to prevent my leaving him, and became violent and unmanageable if I attempted to quit his side. During this time, in the intervals of his delirium, he kept on entreating me to sing a certain old ballad, which had always been a great favorite with him, entitled "Thou art gone from my gaze." I am sure if I sung that song once during that miserable day, I must have sung it a dozen times. At last our poor friend fell into convulsions which recurred with little intermission until his death, which took place the same evening.
His death and the manner of it caused me a great shock. He had been a true friend to my husband and myself for years, and we both mourned his loss very sincerely. That, and other troubles combined, had a serious effect upon my health, and the doctors advised my immediate return to England. When an officer dies in India, it is the custom to sell all his minor effects by auction. Before this took place, my husband asked me if there was anything belonging to John Powles that I should like to keep in remembrance of him. The choice I made was a curious one. He had possessed a dark green silk necktie, which was a favorite of his, and when it became soiled I offered to turn it for him, when it looked as good as new. Whereupon he had worn it so long that it was twice as dirty as before, so I turned it for him the second time, much to the amusement of the regiment. When I was asked to choose a keepsake of him, I said, "Give me the green tie," and I brought it to England with me.
The voyage home was a terrible affair. I was suffering mentally and physically, to such a degree that I cannot think of the time without a shudder. John Powles' death, of course, added to my distress, and during the many months that occupied a voyage "by long sea," I hoped and expected that his spirit would appear to me. With the very strong belief in the possibility of the return to earth of the departed—or rather, I should say, with my strong belief in my belief—I lay awake night after night, thinking to see my lost friend, who had so often promised to come back to me. I even cried aloud to him to appear and tell me where he was, or what he was doing, but I never heard or saw a single thing. There was silence on every side of me. Ten days only after I landed in England I was delivered of a daughter, and when I had somewhat recovered my health and spirits—when I had lost the physical weakness and nervous excitability, to which most medical men would have attributed any mysterious sights or sounds I might have experienced before—then I commenced to know and to feel that John Powles was with me again. I did not see him, but I felt his presence. I used to lie awake at night, trembling under the consciousness that he was sitting at my bedside, and I had no means of penetrating the silence between us. Often I entreated him to speak, but when a low, hissing sound came close to my ear, I would scream with terror and rush from my room. All my desire to see or communicate with my lost friend had deserted me. The very idea was a terror. I was horror-struck to think he had returned, and I would neither sleep alone nor remain alone. I was advised to try a livelier place than Winchester (where I then resided), and a house was taken for me at Sydenham. But there, the sense of the presence of John Powles was as keen as before, and so, at intervals, I continued to feel it for the space of several years—until, indeed, I became an inquirer into Spiritualism as a science.
I have related in the chapter that contains an account of my first séance, that the only face I recognized as belonging to me was that of my friend John Powles, and how excited I became on seeing it. It was that recognition that brought back all my old longing and curiosity to communicate with the inhabitants of the Unseen World. As soon as I commenced investigations in my home circle, John Powles was the very first spirit who spoke to me through the table, and from that time until the present I have never ceased to hold communion with him. He is very shy, however, (as he was, whilst with us) of conversing before strangers, and seldom intimates his presence except I am alone. At such times, however, he will talk by the hour of all such topics as interested him during his earth life.
Soon after it became generally known that I was attending séances, I was introduced to Miss Showers, the daughter of General Showers of the Bombay Army. This young lady, besides being little more than a child—I think she was about sixteen when we met—was not a professional medium. The séances to which her friends were invited to witness the extraordinary manifestations that took place in her presence were strictly private. They offered therefore an enormous advantage to investigators, as the occurrences were all above suspicion, whilst Miss Showers was good enough to allow herself to be tested in every possible way. I shall have occasion to refer more particularly to Miss Showers' mediumship further on—at present, therefore, I will confine myself to those occasions which afforded proofs of John Powles' presence.
Mrs. and Miss Showers were living in apartments when I visited them, and there was no means nor opportunity of deceiving their friends, even had they had any object in doing so. I must add also, that they knew nothing of my Indian life nor experiences, which were things of the past long before I met them. At the first sitting Miss Showers gave me for "spirit faces," she merely sat on a chair behind the window curtains, which were pinned together half-way up, so as to leave a V-shaped opening at the top. The voice of "Peter" (Miss Showers' principal control) kept talking to us and the medium from behind the curtains all the time, and making remarks on the faces as they appeared at the opening. Presently he said to me, "Mrs. Ross-Church, here's a fellow says his name is Powles, and he wants to speak to you, only he doesn't like to show himself because he's not a bit like what he used to be." "Tell him not to mind that," I answered, "I shall know him under any circumstances." "Well! if he was anything like that, he was a beauty," exclaimed Peter; and presently a face appeared which I could not, by any stretch of imagination, decide to resemble in the slightest degree my old friend. It was hard, stiff and unlifelike. After it had disappeared, Peter said, "Powles says if you'll come and sit with Rosie (Miss Showers) often, he'll look quite like himself by-and-by," and of course I was only too anxious to accept the invitation.
As I was setting out another evening to sit with Miss Showers, the thought suddenly occurred to me to put the green necktie in my pocket. My two daughters accompanied me on that occasion, but I said nothing to them about the necktie. As soon as we had commenced, however, Peter called out, "Now, Mrs. Ross-Church, hand over that necktie. Powles is coming." "What necktie?" I asked, and he answered, "Why Powles' necktie, of course, that you've got in your pocket. He wants you to put it round his neck." The assembled party looked at me inquisitively as I produced the tie. The face of John Powles appeared, very different from the time before, as he had his own features and complexion, but his hair and beard (which were auburn during life) appeared phosphoric, as though made of living fire. I mounted on a chair and tied the necktie round his throat, and asked him if he would kiss me. He shook his head. Peter called out, "Give him your hand." I did so, and as he kissed it, his moustaches burned me. I cannot account for it. I can only relate the fact. After which he disappeared with the necktie, which I have never seen since, though we searched the little room for it thoroughly.