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THE SPIRITUALIST.

AN APPARITION. The following well-autheuticated account of an apparition in the ‘ Weld ’ family, referring (we believe) to a brother of the present Governor of Western Australia,, has been published in ‘ Glimpses of the Supernatural,’ by Dr. Lee ; but an old-established Catholic Journal, ‘ Ave Maria,’ from which we take it, professes to have it from one of the witnesses, Miss Katherine W. Weld; and the account is not only fuller in detail, but presumerably more authenthic. Philip Weld was the youngest son of James Weld, Esq., of Archer’s Lodge near Southampton, and a nephew of the late Cardinal Weld. In 1842 he was sent by his father to St. Edmund’s College, near Ware, in Hertfordshire, for his education. He was a well-conducted, amiabte boy, and much beloved by his masters and fellow-stu-dents. It chanced that April 16, IS4G, was a holiday at the college. On the morning of that day Phillip had been to Holy Communion at the early Mass (having just finished a retreat), and in the afternoon he went boating on the River Ware, accompanied by one of the masters and some of his companions. A row was one of the sports which he always enjoyed particularly. • After amusing themselves for some hours, the master remarked that it was time to return to the college ; but Phillip begged to have one row more. The master consented, and they rowed out to the accustomed turn-

ing-point. On arriving there, and on turning the boat, Phillip accidentally fell into the river, and notwithstanding every effort to save hipi, he was drowned.* The corpse was brought back to the college, and the Rev Dr. Cox (the President), as well as all the others, was terribly shocked and grieved to hear of the accident. He was. very fond of Phillip, and to be obliged to communicate the sad news to the boy’s parents was a most painful duty. He could scarcely make up his mind whether to write by post or to send a messenger. At last he resolved to go himself to Southampton. Dr. Cox set off on the same afternoon, passed through London and reached Southampton the next day. Thence he drove to Archer’s Lodge (the residedce of the Weld family); but before entering the grounds he saw Mr Weld, at a short distance from the gate, walking toward the town. Dr. Cox immediately stopped the carriage, alighted, and was about to address Mr Weld, when the latter prevented him by saying : ‘ You need not speak one word, for I know that Phillip is dead. Yesterday afternoon I was walking with my daughter Katherine, and we suddenly saw him. He was standing in the path on the opposite side of the turnpike road, between two persons, one of whom was a youth dressed in a black robe, My daughter was the first to perceive them, and exclaimed : * 0 papa ! did you ever see anything so like Phillip as that V ‘ Like him,’ I answered. ‘ why it is he !’ Strange to say, she thought nothing of the circumstance than that we had beheld an extraordinary likeness of her brother. We walked towards these three figures. Phillip was looking with a smiling, happy countenance at the young man in the black robe, who was shorter than himself. Suddenly they all vanished ; I saw nothing but a countryman, who I had before seen through the three figures, which gave me the impression that they were spirits. I said nothing, however, to any one, as I was fearful of alarming Mrs Weld. I looked out anxiously for’the post this morning. To my delight no letter came. I forgot that no letters from Ware came in the afternoon, and my fears were quieted, and I thought no more of the extraordinary circumstance until I saw you iu the carriage outside my gate. Then everything returned to my mind, and I could not doubt but you came to tell me of the death of my boy.’ The reader will easily imagine how inexpressibly astonished Dr. Cox was at this recital. He asked Mr Weld if he had ever before seen the young man in the black robe. The gentleman replied that he had never before seen him, but that his countenance was so indelibly impressed on his memory that he was certain he should recognise him at once anywhere. Dr. Cox then related to the afflicted father the circumstances of his son’s death, which occurred at the very hour in which he appeared to his father , and sister; and they felt much consolation on account of the placid smile Mr Wei t had remarked on the countenance of Phillip, and it seemed to indicate that he had died in the grace of God, and was consequently happy. Mr Weld went to the funeral, and on leaving the church after the sad ceremony he looked round to see if any of the religious t at all resembled the young man he had seen with Phillip; but he could not trace the slightest likeness it any of them. About four months later he and his family paid a visit to his brother, Mr George Weld, at Leagram Hall, in Lancashire. One day he walked with his daughter Katherine to the neighbouring village of Chipping, and after attending a service at the church, called to see the priest A few moments elapsed before the Rev. Father was at leisure to come to them, and while waiting they amused themselves by examining the prints hanging on the walls of the room. Suddenly Mr Weld stopped before a picture which had no name (that one could see) written under it, as the frame covered the lower part, and exclaimed : ‘ That is the person whom I saw with Phillip ; I do not know whose likeness this print is, but I am certain that it is the one I saw with Phillip.” The priest entered the room a moment later, and was immediately questioned by Mr Weld concerning the print. He replied that it was a picture of St. Stanislaus Kostka, aud supposed to be a very good likedess of the young saint. Mr Weld was much moved at hearing this ; for St. Stanislaus was a member of the Society of Jesus, and Mr Weld’s father having been a great benefactor to the Order, his family were supposed to be under the particular protec ion of the Jesuit saints. Also, Phillip had been led by various circumstances to a particular devotion to this saint. Moreover, St. Stanislaus is supposed to be the special advocate of the drowned, as is mentioned in his Life.J For circumstances, remarks Father Drummond, tend to make the objective truth of this narrative highly probable. The first is that Miss Weld saw the three figures, but without noticing the faces or dresses of the two companions of her brother, and without believing that what her father considered to be really his son’s face was anything more than a likeness. This precludes - deception arising from the ‘wish to believe.’ The second is that Mr Weld himself was delighted when no letter came to him by the morning post. This would prove that he did not voluntarily cling to a delusion.

* The Rev. Robert Whitty, S.J., formerly Vicar General to Cardinal Wiseman, and sometimes Principal of the Society of Jesus in England, was then a young priest at Saint Edmund’s College. He was the first to break the sad news to Dr. Cox. He says that the only other person in the boat at the time was Eustace Barron. “ While Eustace was at one end of the boat, Phillip tumbled out of the other. Eustace ran towards hnn, and shoved out an oar. Phillip made a grab at it, sank, and did not rise again. '(" Ecclesiastics it ought to be ; there were no religious at St. Edmund’s. + A striking fact with respect to the Saint’s miracles is the large number of dead persons restored to life by the power of his intercession ; and most of these had met their death by drowning. Another noticeable circumstance is that_ it was chiefly children that the Saint raised to life, although examples of grown persons are not wanting. See the excellent “ Life of St. Stanislaus,” by Edward Healy Thompson.

Again, Mr Weld’s not immediately recognising the picture of St, Stanislaus shows that he could not have known much about the Saint; for this picture, though having a special charm of its own, is easily recognisable to any one who has ever seen a representation of St. Stanislaus, The round, youthful face and the upturned eyes are unmistakeable, not to speak of the religious uniform. Pictures of St. Aloyseus and Blessed Bercbmans are very different, and these, with St. Stanislaus, are the youthful saints of the Society of Jesus. The last, we believe, is the youngest of Confessors. In all likelihood, then, Mr Weld could not have been thinking of St. Stanislaus at the time, and therefore the likeness to the picture could not be the work of his imagination. Finally, Phillip’s, second companion was not particularly observed by the father or the daughter. Supposing, for the moment, that the story was the product of ‘ unconscious cerebration/ or any other natural process, it would have been very hard to resist the tendency to explain who that second companion was. And yet no explanation is offered. Needless to add that the mere fact of Miss Weld’s having seen anything at all does away with the possibilty of a merely subjective pheno menon on the father’s part. The Rev. Mr Lee, a learned and wellknown Anglican minister, speaks of this remarkable occurrence as one of the most striking and best authenticated instances of a supernatural appearance which has ever been narrated. ‘ The various independent testimonies, dovetailing together so perfectly, centre in the leading supernatural fact—the actual apparition in the daytime of a person just departed this life by sudden death, seen not by one only, but by two people simultaneously ; and seen in company with the spirit of a very holy and renowned Saint, the chosen patron of the youth who had just been drowned. A more clear and conclusive example of the supernatural it would be impossible to obtain.’

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZMAIL18860514.2.15

Bibliographic details

New Zealand Mail, Issue 741, 14 May 1886, Page 6

Word Count
1,704

THE SPIRITUALIST. New Zealand Mail, Issue 741, 14 May 1886, Page 6

THE SPIRITUALIST. New Zealand Mail, Issue 741, 14 May 1886, Page 6

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