in the other
world. It is far from uncommon to hear of conversions to faith in
Spiritualism wrought by these remarkable proofs of Spiritual power. At
this hour, in many a loving home, responses to letters, thus sealed and
answered through these Mediums, are treasured as tenderest, completest
proofs that love survives the grave and still encircles the living and
the dead.

Recognizing in this phase of Mediumship a department of Spiritualism
capable of plain, matter-of-fact investigation, which could be conducted
in writing and demanding no special powers of observation, the duty of
investigation devolved mainly upon the Acting Chairman.

There are only four of these special Mediums whose advertisements I have
seen in Spiritual papers. He who has probably the widest reputation is
Dr. James V. Mansfield, Boston. A second is Mr. R.W. Flint, New York
City. A third is Mrs. Dr. Eleanor Martin, Columbus, Ohio; and lastly,
also of the same name, Mrs. Eliza A. Martin, of Oxford, Massachusetts.

Through the Mediumship of the first, I have seen it stated that upward
of a hundred thousand securely sealed letters have been answered; and
the names of men high in our business and financial world have been
cited to me as of those who had received proofs of his power which could
not be questioned, nor explained on any other ground than that of
clairvoyance, or of Spirit communication. To him, therefore, I concluded
to apply first.

The choice of a subject whereon to communicate with a denizen of the
other world is not easy. To follow in the well-trodden path and ask
after the welfare of departed friends would only end, I well knew, in
turning on that stream of generalities, not glittering, but very dull,
in which a large experience had taught me that disembodied Spirits
chiefly delight when expatiating on the conditions of their changed
existence. Furthermore, it was desirable that from the investigation
should be eliminated all elements of thought-transference or of
mind-reading. I must select a subject on which my own mind was a blank,
and where the responses would have to be definite and unambiguous, and
withal quite within the scope of Spiritual knowledge.

At last, as fulfilling, in all honesty and sincerity, the requisite
conditions, a skull in my possession was fixed on.

This skull is a relic, interesting from its dramatic associations. It
has been used for fifty or sixty years as a 'property' at the Walnut
Street Theatre