obody really pities us; we only pity ourselves.

_The Things which are not Dreamed of in Our Philosophy_

The other day I received a most extraordinary spirit picture
anonymously through the post. I cannot describe this picture--it is
well-nigh indescribable. The effect is wonderful, though the means are
of the simplest. Apparently the artist had upset a bottle of ink over
a large piece of white cardboard, and then, with the aid of a sharp
penknife, cut his way across it in long narrow slashes until the effect
is that of rays of light which, seen from a distance, have the effect
of luminosity in a most extraordinary degree. In the corner there is
the figure of Christ on the Cross, to which this method has given the
most marvellous effect of light and shadow. Indeed, the whole picture
is almost uncanny in its effectiveness and in the simplicity of the
means to this end. You ask me if I believe it to be really and truly a
spirit picture? Well, honestly, I do not know. I realise the beauty
of the picture--everyone must realise this who sees it; but, whether
the artist who designed it and transmitted his idea through a human
hand be a spirit I should not like to declare, for the simple reason
that I understand so little of spiritualism--except that side of
spiritualism which _I do not believe_--that I should be foolish to be
dogmatic when all the time I realise that I am yet in ignorance. But
of the genuineness of the "medium" through whose hand the spirit
picture was transmitted I am certain. He thoroughly believed in the
phenomenon that a spirit from another world was using him to convey
messages to the inhabitants of this. You ask me why I believe in his
conviction--well, my answer would be so mundane that you might perhaps
laugh at my logic. But one at least I can give, and it is this; that,
in my experience of mediums and professional spiritualists, one always,
as it were, hears the rattle of the collection-box behind the
"messages" from another sphere--either that, or the person is so
eccentric that "mediumship" in his case has become merely another form
of mental affliction. Well, the artist who sent me this picture is,
except for this fixed idea that he is a medium between this world and
the next, as normal as you or I, and his belief not only is making him
poorer each day--the "spirit" firmly forbidding him either to sell or
exhibit his pictures--but is gently, yet inevitably, leading him
straig