“A little girl came to me on a certain occasion and said to me, ‘Please go and see my mother and tell her I am not dead.’ ‘Where does your mother live?’ I inquired. After giving me the necessary directions where and how to find her, I said: ‘But your mother is a stranger to me, and perhaps if I go to her on an errand of that kind she will drive me from her door.’ ‘No she won’t,’ interposed the little pleader, ‘she will be glad to learn that I am not under the cold ground but alive.’ I marshaled the courage to go, yet I greatly feared the result. I was met at the door by the one I desired to see, and without giving sufficient time to explain the object of my call, I was cordially welcomed indoors. After being seated, and after the usual courtesies had passed, I opened the subject by saying, ‘You have a little girl that has gone to the other world?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, falling into tears, ‘she was a dear, darling child, and I have had no rest since she left me. She was the idol of my heart, and it seems that I can never become reconciled to her death. Really, at times, I can scarcely realize that she is dead.’ Here a pause ensued, and her grief was so intense that the waters of sympathetic sorrow involuntarily flowed down my own cheeks. Rallying, however, as quickly as I could, I said: ‘My good woman, your Mary is not dead. She stands there by your side and wants me to say to you, ‘Mother, I am not dead; do not weep for me, for I am still with you.’ ‘How! What does this mean?’ exclaimed the mother in apparent bewilderment, ‘I saw her poor little precious body consigned to the cold and cheerless grave.’ ‘Yes,’ I interrupted, ‘but her spirit—the immortal and only valuable part of herself—was not buried beneath the ground. Hold, she wishes me to describe her, and further, to prove her identity. She is a bright, blue-eyed girl of eleven or twelve summers, light auburn hair naturally inclined to curl, and falls in beautiful ringlets around her neck, forehead of the Grecian mold, face even and rounded, with a mark resembling a raspberry under her right eye, and she died from scarlatina.’ ‘Why, did you know Mary when she was living?’ was immediately asked. I assured her I did not. ‘Does the description fit her?’ I inquired. ‘Perfectly,’ was the reply; ‘who told you about her,’ she added. I answered: ‘My good woman, believe me, until to-day I did not know you were in existence. The facts I have stated to you I obtained from your Mary without the slightest knowledge of either your or her history.’ After further conversation on the subject, and after describing other spirits, whom she readily recognized, the interview terminated, with a pressing invitation to return, and the assurances that she had derived from my visit inexpressible joy and happiness. In a few days thereafter I was unexpectedly called away from St. Louis and have never returned. Letters from friends who were cognizant of the circumstance as related by herself, inform me that Mrs. Collins is happy in the knowledge of spiritualism, has become reconciled to the temporary absence as to physical form of her child, and sends me her benedictions.
“In 1869 while holding a circle at Aurora, Ind., composed of a few intimate friends and neighbors, a gentleman—a stranger to all of us—applied for admission, stating that he had been left by the east bound train, and not being able to resume his journey until the following morning, and hearing of my mediumship, he desired, if agreeable, to have a sitting, or be allowed to join the circle for that occasion. My husband cordially assented. Our stranger friend had been seated but a short time when I saw a spirit forming by his side. I watched the process, and to my utter astonishment, which I at once made known, the spirit had a rope around his neck and presented a frightful appearance. I observed, ‘I see a spirit with a rope around his neck, with tongue protruding,’ etc. ‘Describe him, madam, if you please,’ spoke the stranger. I did so; the spirit for the purpose changing his appearance to that of his natural condition. The stranger became very much excited, arose, seized his hat, and nervously remarked, ‘This is a great test to me. Several years ago I was sheriff of an interior county in Indiana, and that man, Jim Roberts, was sentenced to be hanged for the murder of his father-in-law, and I am the one who executed the sentence of the court.’ When in the act of taking his departure, he suddenly turned around, and plaintively inquired: ‘Has Jim got any thing against me? I only did my duty as an officer of the law.’ On being assured that no ill feeling was entertained by the spirit against him, but that he appeared as he did more for the purpose of a test than any thing else, he took his departure. I have never seen him since. He gave me, however, considerable notoriety in the community by relating his wonderful experience with a spiritual medium, and advised every one to shun mediums unless they were prepared and willing to have every thing connected with their past lives revealed and made known. Perhaps this abused spiritualism may yet become the instrumentality of compelling people to walk uprightly in their dealings with their fellowmen.
“These are a few among hundreds of such instances that I might relate, but the space allotted will not permit. I wish now briefly to refer to another phase of my mediumship. At various intervals I have had prophetic warning, and prophetic revelations have also been given me. I have also had what might be appropriately termed panoramic visions of past events of those both in and out of the body, and of events to transpire in the future of earth life. These visions, especially those prognostic of the future, have been truly wonderful. It is an oft quoted saying that ‘coming events cast their shadows before,’ and there remains no doubt in my mind but what spirits—whether all, I am not prepared to say—can sufficiently forecast the future as to reveal events and actions concealed from mortal discernment in the bosom of coming time. Let me mention a few instances in my own experience as evidence of the existence of this power.
“In 1869, myself and husband were holding a seance alone, at Aurora, Ind. We were living in the lower part of the city, near the river bank. Aurora is situated on the banks of the Ohio river, twenty-five miles below Cincinnati, Ohio. A little above the center of the city fronting the river a small stream, called Hogan creek, empties into the Ohio. Three or four hundred yards above the junction of the two streams and on the banks of the aforementioned creek, is located the mammoth distillery, owned by Messrs. T. & J. W. Gaff & Co. It has been consumed three times by fire and as often rebuilt. At the time of which I am speaking, we put blankets up to the windows in the room to be used for our dark circle, and by this means effectually excluded all external light. After extinguishing our lamp light, we sat patiently, awaiting manifestations. In the course of a half hour I saw and said, ‘I see a large brick building on fire. The light from its ascending flames is flooding the river in front of the city. There, I see a poor man burning up in the fire. I see its majestic walls crumbling to pieces and falling into a huge mass of ruins.’ At this juncture, we heard out doors the cry of fire! fire! and soon the bells of the quiet little city began to announce to its citizens that the insatiate fire-fiend was engaged in his terrible work of devastation and ruin. We hastened to the door only to behold, true to the vision previously given, the bosom of the river as brilliantly lighted up as though illuminated by the rays of the sun at his meridian height. T. & J. W. Gaff & Co.’s distillery was on fire and burned to ruins, and another concomitant of the vision was too sadly verified—a man was literally burned to ashes.
“Soon after this occurrence, a very dear lady friend called to see me. She contemplated a trip to Indianapolis, and intended to start on the morrow train. I said to her, ‘Do not start to-morrow. Defer it until the succeeding day. I see an accident on the road, and I see written in the air these words, “Within twenty-four hours.” I prevailed on her to postpone the trip in accordance with the warning of the vision. She had no occasion to regret it for the train on which she intended to be a passenger jumped the track before it reached its destination, and while no one was very seriously injured, yet it might have been otherwise had my friend been on board. She might not have escaped so luckily.
“The shocking casualty of the collision between the United States mail steamers America and the United States, on the Ohio river, between Cincinnati and Louisville, will be well remembered, especially by the people along the line of that route. The night of the painful occurrence I was a member of a circle held at the residence of Mr. Lewis Shirley, of Jeffersonville, Ind. I saw the collision, the boats on fire, etc., at an hour antedating by several hours the time when the unfortunate event transpired. So thoroughly was I convinced that the verification of the vision was close at hand that I prevailed on a son of Mr. Shirley to meet the carrier-boy at the ferry landing early the following morning to procure a copy of a Louisville daily paper. When the boy returned with the paper I was not surprised to find in its columns an account of the disaster, which I had plainly and vividly seen a number of hours prior to its actual occurrence.
“On another occasion I saw a fire raging. I saw it was a two-story brick house. I saw men rolling barrels out of the burning structure, and from the rapidity of their movements and the ease and facility with which the barrels seemed to be handled and propelled along, I concluded they were empty and so expressed myself. My husband inquired, ‘Where is the fire at?’ I placed myself in as passive a state as possible, but could get no answer. The questions were then asked: ‘Is it Louisville?’ ‘No.’ ‘Is it Jeffersonville?’ ‘No.’ ‘New Albany?’ ‘No.’ ‘Indianapolis?’ ‘Yes.’ These answers respectively I saw written in the air or what appeared so to me. On that night, as we learned by the papers subsequently, a large barrel factory at Indianapolis was destroyed by fire.
“I will now relate one of a more startling nature and of more recent occurrence. The ill-fated steamer Pat Rogers was at the time of her destruction in the mail line service, and plied between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky. She left port Louisville for Cincinnati at 2 P. M. At 4 o’clock, same afternoon, and two hours after her departure from Louisville, and nine or ten hours before the terrible casualty, I saw written in the air, ‘Steamboat disaster to-night.’ My husband remarked: ‘See if you can not get the name of the boat.’ Presently I saw plainly the name Pat Rogers, which was immediately followed by presenting the whole vision, the conflagration, and passengers struggling for life amid the angry and turbulent waves.
“I might narrate many more instances of this kind that belong to my individual experience, and volumes might be written if similar experiences of others should be included.
“I come now to speak of my present powers and their development. When my husband had entered upon his second term as Mayor of the city of Aurora, he built us a home in a high altitude on a hillside overlooking the beautiful city in the valley below. Here in the purer atmosphere with quiet surroundings were my present powers brought forth by a noble and trusty band of spirits whom I shall never cease to love for their fidelity to me and to truth, and for their ability and unceasing and intelligent efforts to advance the great and blessed cause of spiritualism. My dear spirit sister, Alice Vernette Winesburgh nee Shirley, who, in her day, was a marvelous physical medium, has been and still is the active controlling spirit of my band, with others great and good, who sustain and aid her. She always signs her name simply Nettie, by which she was called and known in earth life. She has clung to me with the true devotion of a sister, and has sustained herself in the position assigned her by the band with signal fidelity and ability. I shall speak more of this band toward the close.