THE LATE W. T. STEAD

West Coast Times, 13 June 1912, Page 1

THE LATE W. T. STEAD

ESTATE PROVED AT £13,000,

[PEE PRESS ASSOCIATION. —COPYRIGHT.]

LONDON, June 10

The late W. T. Stead’s estate lids teen sworn at £13,001?. A codicil to the will is missing. THE ANGELIC REPUBLIC. ALLEGED '“INTERVIEW” WITH MR. STEAD. As was only to be expected after the “passing” of one of the foremost exponents of spiritualistic doctrines, “mediums” in all parts of the world are claiming to have received communications from the late Mr. W. T. Stead. One of the most daring and entertaining of these spirit messages has been given to the Melbourne “Herald” by Mrs Charles Bright, a medium who says she is an “automatic writer” and an old friend of Mr. Stead’s “Julia.” The message describes the Titanic disaster in a sketchy and melodramatic manner, and there follows a description of the place in which Mr. Stead found himself after death. “If the most beautiful architecture of the earth were put beside these mansions,” runs the spirit message, “ they would be dwarfed to insignificance. Here, in this homo prepared for me, were on the walls representations of everything I had done in earth life, of help to unfortunates, help in reform. The help .in spreading the great fact of immortal life Was represented more fully than anything else. Many ■ facts in my career to which I myself and the public would give the greatest importance were not represented at all, only such that had helped the growth of the soul. What impressed me most was the colossal system of Government that pervaded everywhere. Angelic beings had evidently been instructed to meet me, and every question I asked was answered by an angel (guide into whose care I was placed. I wanted to see ray dear ones on earth and swiftly was carried to my home, only to find for the moment no direct word could be given to them, no assurance that all was well. 1 The anguish, the terror on their countenances, and I powerless to do more than spread around an unseen spirit ual balm and comfort that might bo apprehended. Here are schools of learning for those who needed instrucual knowledge; here were vast enterprises that included work in glorious regions of which those in earth life and in the fog of material selfish thought can form no idea. There were vast armies, it seemed to mo, of advai ced spirits setting forth on missions to other planets than ours, as well as worlds beyond our little solar system. The whole universe alive with spiritual being all under discipline, doing the behest of some supremo director whom I have not seen, but who seems in some way I have yet to learn, an Invisible Force.”

Those familiar with Mr. Stead's writings will he disappointed to notice that tho change in his condition has added nothing to tho grace of his literary style. If the words attributed to him by Mrs Bright are his own composition it has had quite an opposite effect.