STORY OF THE "ST. PAUL OF SPIRITUALISM"

Evening Star, Issue 15342, 17 November 1913, Page 1

STORY OF THE "ST. PAUL OF SPIRITUALISM"

THE TITANIC TRAGEDY. A biographical work that will interest a wide range of readers has just been published in the shape of a book entitled 'My Father,' by Estolle W. Stead, daughter of the late W*. T. Stead, journalist and spiritualist. About half of this is devoted to Spiritualism premonitions, ghost stories, automatic writing, and the rest. Miss Stead says her father possessed "second sight as surely as any Hebrew prophet of old. "Young man, vou are going to be the St. Paul of Spiritualism," was a prophecy made at his first seance in 1881. Reviewing his youth in after years. Stead states that his love affairs were numerous. One of tho "most useful" was with a a woman older that himself, to whom ho wrote "immense letters" three times a week:— I often adviso young people who come to me now and ask me what would be the best school in which to learn to write well—to fall in love with a clever woman a dozen years older than themselves, who lives at a distance from them, and with whom they can only communicate by writing. In tho first year of my apprenticeship, he says, my chief reading was tho ' Sporting Life,' sandwiched with novels. Passionately fond of cricket, I got the 'Sporting Life.' eagerly devouring its descriptions of the big matches. From the bat and ball columns I turned to the sporting, became familiarised with all the prize horses, and tremendously excited about the winners. If Mr Stead had been subject to visions and "premonitions" in those early Bporting days he might have made solid use of them. His first " premonition " came when lie. was still editing tho ' Northern Echo,' Darlington, and was that ho would join the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' in London within the year. So it turned out. His second "premonition," when assistant editor of the ' Pall Mall,' was that he would soon become its editor. Mr Morley was editor at the time, but Mr Stead lost no time in telling him of his vision. Mr Morley came to consult him about some change in the paper, which would affect Mr Stead's work:— Excuse me, Mr Morley, when will this new arrangement come into effect ? In May, I think, was the reply. Then you need not trouble to discuss it with me. I snail have sole charge of tho ' Pall Mall Gazette ' before that time. You will not be hero then; you will be in Parliament.. —Stead and tho Boer War.— One of the most interesting chapters tells in Mr Stead's own words of his friendship with Cecil Rhodes, and how Rhodes selected him as chief disposer of his fortune, but after eight years struck his name out of the list of executors. After the Jameson Raid, Stead told Rhodes frankly that he ought to be sent to gaol. "When Mr Rhodes came back to " face the music " he fully expected that he would be imprisoned, and had even planned out a course of reading by which he hoped to improve the enforced sojourn in a convict cell. The remarkable thing is that tho friendship survived these difficult controversies. 'When the war was at its height in April, 1900, Rhodes, "taking my hand in both or his with a tenderness quite unusual to him," said :

" Now. I want you to understand that if, in future, you should unfortunately feel yourself compelled to attack me personally as vehemently as you have attacked my policy in this war it will make no difference to our friendship. J am too grateful to you for all I have learned from yon to allow anything you may write or say to make any change in our relations." flow few public men there are who have said that! And yet men marvel that I loved him—and love him still. —A Premonition of the Titanic.— A strange coincidence may he noted with reference to his end. In lH'.lii Stead wrote a dramatic story of how a man was saved from an ieeherg. B.» gave the name Majestic to the ship, and published a portrait of the, real captain of the Majestic—Captain Smith. Twenty years later that captain and 111 <■ writer of the story shared a. common fate with hundreds more, victims of the iceberg which the Titanic struck. _M r Stead went down with the. Titanic in April of last year. Did he have, any intimation or warning of his fate before be sailed!-' Yes, says IVl.iss Stead, bill he did not realise the import of these messages or signs. During the winter months, she writes, he was constantly receiving messages bidding him put his house in order. So ho put his house in order—arranged things in office and home, often speaking of how he wished things carried on if he should he. away any length of time. From Queenstown he wrote home : Something is awaiting me (in America), some, important work, the nature of which will ho diseased in good time. But what it is, whether journalistic, spiritual, social, v>r political, I know not. I await my marching orders, being assured that He who has called me will make clear His good will and pleasure in due season. His marching orders came in midAtlantic—te> him and to many others—and one can well believe the testimony of those who saw him that he went to his death with the calm courage of what was. with all its extravagances, a noble soul.