n on his nocturnal travels as an unpleasant spot,
isolated from the beautiful country which surrounds it.

DR. FUNK SEES THE SPIRIT OF BEECHER

(New York _Herald_, April 4, 1903)

While he will not admit that he is a believer in spiritualism, the Rev.
Dr. Isaac Funk, head of the publishing house of Funk & Wagnalls, is so
impressed with manifestations he has received from the spirit of Henry
Ward Beecher that he has laid the entire matter before the Boston
Society for Psychical Research, and is anxiously awaiting a solution or
explanation of what appears to him, after twenty-five years' study of
the subject, the most remarkable test of the merit of the claims of
spiritualists that has ever come within his observation.

Although he has resorted to every means within his power to discover any
fraud that may have been practiced upon him, he has been unable to
explain away not only messages to him from the great minister, but the
actual appearance to him of Mr. Beecher in the flesh.

Dr. Funk and Mr. Beecher were intimate friends, and it would be
difficult to practice deception as to Mr. Beecher's appearance. When the
apparition appeared to Dr. Funk at a seance a short time ago Dr. Funk
was less than three feet distant from it, and had plenty of opportunity
to detect a fraud if it was being perpetrated, he believes.

"Every feature stood out distinctly," Dr. Funk said yesterday, in
describing his experience, "even to the hair and eyes, the color of the
skin and the expression of the mouth.[1] lines of the body, but it was
still light enough to make the face plainly visible. I had a short
conversation with the embodied spirit, and then it appeared to sink to
the floor and fade away."

MYSTERY OF THE COINS

Dr. Funk was especially anxious to have an opportunity to see and talk
with Mr. Beecher, in the hope that light would be thrown on the mystery
which surrounds a previous manifestation. Through the spirit of one
"Jack" Rakestraw, who says he used to lead the choir in one of Mr.
Beecher's churches, but frankly admits that he cannot remember exactly
where the church was located--even spirits have a way of forgetting
things, spiritualists declare--Dr. Funk was informed that Mr. Beecher
was troubled because the publisher had failed to return a coin, known as
the "widow's mite," which he had borrowed some years ago, from the late
Professor Charles E. West, a well known numismatist, to make a cut to
illustrate a dicti