THE SPIRIT MESSAGE.

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17586, 15 December 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

THE SPIRIT MESSAGE.

SPIRIT HAND IN HAMILTON STREET

(By " Darius.")

It is wisdom to accept nothing as fact and everything as a possibility, at least in the realm of speculation. There are things that are obvious, such as a fine day and a bad road, but it is reasonable to be, what I might be allowed to call conservative in thought about accepting things as facts and pronouncing other things as impossible of happening. Just to illustrate what I mean I shall tell you as briefly as possible of the " Hand in the Hamilton Street." However much we may scoff at Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Conan Doyle we must all confess to an hereditary or acquired belief in the supernatural, or let me rather say we would confess to it were we not afraid of the ridioule of those who accept nothing as fact, and stop at that. It Is useless to say that science knows much about anything other than 'he mafprial at present. Do not construe that into an attempt to limit the powers of science, but up to the present time it has had plenty to do in thr> field of physics and in studying the faroutreaching universe of matter. It is true that scientists do not tell us all they know immediately a discovery is made. One man said recently that the scientist likes to keep on getting knowledge until he has quite a lot and then to go for a grand slam. That- is not quite fair, because the scientist has to try, and try again, and then to prove and test results before he comes to light with his great discovery. It is great to us; wonderful, amazing, most extraordinary, but to him it is as nothing but a faint far light on the heaven of science that shall one day blaze with new suns and stars and clustered constellations. But that is not my story..

This Is, " Early to bed and early to rise" may have been a good motto for primeval man. I do not recommend it for daily application. I do not practice it. The night comes when a man may have peace to work and express himself if he choose. He may miss some of the gentle, the roseate and the tremendous dawns, but no matter.. there will be dawns enough left for him, and those eyes that have, alone, looked deep, deep into the mystery of things, they will glow like an aswering dawn, and gloom *nd darken with it, when flame-red, and saffron and purple it bursts with the weight of its own magnificence and flings the fullfledged morning over all the sky. 1 now realise that I was going " early to bed," for I remember the clock chiming the solitary hour that scarcely dares to wake the chimes to blazon its ; passing. I felt myself a very material part of the material universe and not at all in a " spooky " mood, when surdenly something happened. It happened as suddenly and silently as most great things in the universe happen, for these is no sound between the worlds. It was a chill and windless night and I was wearing a heavy overcoat. A cloudless moon shone in the sky, and with the lamps that still remained aiight there was nothing to c-ili darkness anywhere, except where the shadows crawled and deepened in alleyways and recesses. It came suddenly and as suddenly it went —a nand, a ghostly hand that impressed me with three distinct and regular taps, ami then no more. There was no one walking by my left shoulder whereon the three taps had fallen. No one ranged alongside. I turned to my left side thinking to meet the look of a face looking into mine, but there was no such face. I faced the other way and there was no person near at all; near enough to reach out a hand and touch me. Certainly there were three people, one a policeman, talking some 'distance away, but them I had passed with a late home-goer's usual "goodnight."

Uneasy Eerie Feeling."

Further to the left I turned until I was looking across the street. The street was empty, except that under the far verandahs a half-formless figure shuffled and sunk. There never seems to be a night without its prowler, and I was alone. I turned about to resume my. walk. There was no one in sight and an uneasy and an eerie feeling was upon me such as I had not felt since I was a boy hiding my head under the bed-clothes after being terrified by the recital of a ghost story. It seemed to me that a spirit had come to deliver a message; but I was at a loss to understand the meaning of the ghostly visitation, until, and I started half fearfully, a human shape came suddenly from a doorway, exploding with laughter, the usual idiotic "joker. Coming quietly up on my right hand he had reached over and tapped me upon the left shoulder and gone unobserved by nje while I turned to the left and to the left again and thought and gazed (while he took cover), wondering much and very rapidly, for thought is swifter than light. Ond now I ask you had you been tapped on the left shoulder as I had been would you not have turned to the left as I had turned, and finding vacancy, the *' spirit " having passed, would you not have felt a chill creep near to the heart In that cold and windless night in the nearempty street?

It was a Merry Ghost. And so we laughed and were merry for we thought that perhaps all ghosts must be merry and not malignant ghosts. We were healthy and hopeful and poor, but rich in a way, for we counted the few friends that we possessed had made life worth while. I j said to my friend that I would tell my J other friends of the adventure, because j an unburdening of one's self to one's friends is about the nearest to happi- ; ness that we can get. I put it to you, iis it not so? In any case had my friend ! kept hidden or gone on I should have 1 had a splendid ghost story and I should I have told it as such. Further, no matter how it failed to impress readers I I should have believed through the j whole course of my life that a spirit ; hand had patted me on the shoulder. , I should come to realise, as nothing of i ill befel me, that the tapping was not I a menace but rather, more of a caress, jas one might say with just such a I touch, " Garry on old man ! Box on 1 Slog along 1 It's a long way to Tip- ! pcrary but there are warm hearts ; there." And how do you know it was ! not a good spirit that sent my good ; idiot friend that night, and that the I message was not exactly his but delivered by proxy? To be quite truthful about it it was at that hour I wanted a friend as I never longed for one before in life, but he does not know nor will he know until he reads about the Spirit Hand in the Hamilton j ' Street. J