Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 7, 15 February 1906, Page 18

Notes

Greatheart and the Spiritists

A few days ago an old Protestant friend of ours in the South— let us call him John P. Greatheart — passed out through one of the thousand doors of death. A big, quaint old Wexford man was he, with a veneration ,for ' the Old Church ' (as he called her), although he never got within her portals. In religion he remained to the last an eclectic. And, gifted with a whimsical wit, he loved his joke to the end. One other thing this big John Littlejohn also loved : 1o nail to the counter the spurious coins of religious pretence. Once, in an intermittent search for light, he attended a series of spiritistic seances given by a ' meejum ' of some local repute. He ' saw things '— but they were things that shook his faith in the bona fides of the man who professed to call spirits from the \asty deep. One evening the following scene took place at a seance (we tell the story as nearly as we can recall it in Greathcart's words, but with altered personnames) :—: — 'I'd like,' said Greatheart, 'to speak to the spirit of Billy McNessa, of Crumwell.' After the customary ' business,' the ' spirit ' was announced. ' Are you happy ? ' said Greatheart. ' Yes, yes,' .said a sepulchral voice, ' reasonably happy.' ' How's the climate down there ? ' ' Oh, climate's pretty good, an' I'm happy, quite happy.' ' How 'd you like the tombstone the people of Crumwell put over you '! ' ' It's a very nice tombstone indeed, an' it was very good of the people of Cromwell to put it over me.' ' Well, Mac,' said Greatheart, ' you were a liar livin', an' you're a liar dead. I was in Crumwell .last week, an' the dickens a tombstone is over you at all, at all. 1 Greathcart's place in Olago knows him no more. He ' fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long.' And there are friends a-many that will find the world less bright that he has left it.