On the 16th of June of this year, Rebecca, the wife of my only surviving brother, left her body, and was welcomed to the evergreen shores of the summer-land, by her father, mother, our father, mother, my spirit-bride and her father, mother, and my two brothers who had long gone before.  She was a good, honest woman, a veritable help-meet to my brother, and we all gratefully cherish the memory, which is the best attained by any life, that she left the world better than she found it.

  One by one, we miss the voices which we loved so well to hear,
  One by one their kindly faces in the darkness disappear.

On the evening of the 16th of August in this year, an experience came into our lives which changed the whole current of our religious thought, and forever banished from our minds all fear of the so-called death, and all doubt as to the eternal continuity of existence.

My brother, my wife, four children and myself were recreating for a week in the woods and waters of Onset Bay, and while walking in the gloaming through the grove, listening to the music of the band, we saw a notice posted on a tree stating that the B——­ sisters would give a materializing seance in their cottage at this hour.  We were all skeptics of the most pronounced type, having seen much of the contemptible trickery and fraud of so-called mediums; but we yielded to the temptation to enter the seance room through mere curiosity.  Here we found in the “dim religious light,” about a score of intelligent looking ladies and gentlemen intently watching white-robed figures which occasionally glided from a cabinet on a slightly elevated stage and embraced people from the audience who were called to meet them.

This ghostly procession interested us but slightly, until a form whose features seemed strangely familiar, advanced to the edge of the platform and beckoned my wife to come to her.  On responding to the invitation, she was at once encircled by the arms of the visitor, kisses were exchanged, she was called distinctly “my dear sister,” informed that the lady in white was Mary, my spirit-wife, who in loving tones expressed her thanks for the kindly care that Lillian had exercised over her three children, saying that she was always with her to help.  Suddenly, the form called for me, and I went to her as one dazed.

“James,” she said, “I am Mary, your wife.”  She embraced me with many kisses as in the long ago, and continued:  “I am so glad to see you and Lillian, who has so lovingly taken my place; bless her for her goodness to our children; my time here is so short.”  Then turning; “Jot,” she whispered to my brother, “come here;” she kissed him, said:  “Rebecca, father and mother are here in the cabinet, but too weak to come out.  We give you all our love and blessing; good-bye,” and disappeared through the floor at our feet.

There was no possible shadow of doubt about this visitation from the unseen world.  We had “felt the touch of the vanished hand, we had heard the sound of the voice that is still,” and henceforth we knew that we walked hand in hand with angels.  We realized unmistakably the truth of the words of the poet Longfellow: