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REALITY
It takes actual experience to bring realization of many things that we thought we knew before. This is the way one of the passengers of the illfated steamship Republic (January 23, 1909) speaks of her experience:
“I have read sea stories,” she said, “and have read time and again of the command, ‘to the boats; women first,’ but, let me tell you, I knew what it meant last Saturday morning for the first time. Out of the fog-hidden night it came; I could not trace the speaker at first, as we all huddled on the deck. Out of the dark it came, straight and true and strong, and with all the chivalry of man at his highest behind it. ‘Women and children will enter the boat first.’ I think more of bravery now that I know what it means; I think more of manhood. I am glad I heard that command, as Captain Sealby hurled it at us through his megaphone.”
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Reality Exprest in a Dream—See [Christ in the Congregation].
REALITY VERSUS ILLUSION
We should steer clear of a credulity that accepts ghosts and visions because some good people testify about them.
A whole ship’s company was thrown into the utmost consternation by the apparition of the cook who had died a few days before. He was distinctly seen walking ahead of the ship, with a peculiar gait by which he was distinguished when alive, through having one of his legs shorter than the other. On steering the ship toward the object, it was found to be a piece of floating wreck.
It is not surprizing, therefore, that there are apparently well-authenticated stories of ghosts who have been seen under different circumstances by people, and, moreover, by people of unquestioned mental ability, people of strong mentality concerning whose integrity and reliability there can be no question.—Edwin J. Houston, “The Wonder Book of Light.”