CURIOUS EXPERIENCES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 129, 24 July 1911, Page 5

CURIOUS EXPERIENCES.

, Some curious experiences have been , related by Correspondents in tho columns of the “Spectator” under the heading “Phantasms of the Living.’' The correspondence was started by a Mr Alfred Church, who stated that one Sunday in March last, he was surprised to sec iu the chancel of tho church at which ho worshipped, the figuro of tho old verger, who, ho understood, .was at, that moment lying ill. He found out afterwards that the N dld man really was ill, and in the infirmary; nine days later he died. The story is not. very convincing, for Mr Church admitted that he caught only one glimpse of the verger, and church light is deceptive. A much more remarkable experience was ,iplated by a lady, who said that a fe w years before she had awakened cue afternoon to see her-son, a boy rf thirteen, by her side. She said: Why, Tom, why have you come home?” She thought he answered, “I did so want to come home, mother; I feel so ill.’’ His form then gradually .became -fainter, and vanished. The boy was at a boarding school some distance away, and the phantasm' so impressed his mother that she immediately wrote asking him if he was quite well. Ho replied that on the day in question ho had suffered from a sick headache,/ and had.lnm down and gone to sleep in his dormitory. ! As he had gone upst urn to lie down, he wished ho were with his mother. A master wrote to tell of two similar experiences—of having seen in the school playing;,, grounds a boy who, he' afte£warns ascertained, had been ill in bed at .the tame. Another correspondent told how, many years before, when he was a boy, bo had stayed in' the house of a hoy friend.' ' Ohe afternoon bis friend went off’for a ride, and lie lay down on A sofa in the hall, to rend. When he had been reading for twenty minutes, there were -sounds of a horse’s hoofs outside, and his friend entered, smiled at hinT, and ran upstairs. An hour later the boy returned again, much to the astonishment of bis friend, who had not seen him go out. Jt was explained that the rider had »ot returned when he was supposed to have had.been riding all tho time. Our readers may amuse themselves thinking of natural explanations of these happenings.