Not so. Mrs. Crosby became mysterious, shook her head sagely, and declared that she knew what she knew. Mrs. Patterson, with a gaiety which she rarely indulged, continued the hoax. She pretended to go into another “trance” on the following day to inform Sarah Crosby that if she would look under the cushion of a certain chair, she would find letters from Albert. Mrs. Crosby eagerly did so, and her seriousness affected Mrs. Patterson. She had not intended to really mislead her friend, but seeing that she persisted in taking the affair seriously, Mrs. Patterson wrote her some good advice, couched in language supposedly appropriate to spirit utterance, and laid it in the secret place, as good mothers reply to the letters written the fairies. These letters Mrs. Crosby has kept and has always maintained that they came from the spirit land. Though their source was in humor, their character was not facetious; they were not harsh or misleading, subtle or filled with guile; they are gentle admonishments to right living, and cheerful encouragement to believe in the sure reward.[1]
It seems unnecessary to point out that this whilom
- ↑ Mrs. Crosby allowed these letters to be printed and the following extracts are taken from them: “Sarah, dear, be ye calm in reliance on self, amid all the changes of natural yearnings, of too keen a sense of earthly joys, of too great a struggle between the material and the spiritual. Be ye calm or you will rend your mortal being, and your experience which is needed for your spiritual progress lost, till taken up without the proper sphere and your spirit trials more severe. Child of earth, heir to immortality! love hath made intercession with wisdom for you — your request is answered. Love each other, your spirits are affined. My dear Sarah is innocent and will rejoice for every tear. The gates of paradise are opening at the tread of time; glory and the crown shall be the diadem of your earthly pilgrimage if you patiently persevere in virtue, justice, and love.”
