“No, no!” cried Mason. “I tried in my poor way to guide a darkened soul. Let us leave it at that. But that is exactly what we are here for now, and what these dear people do every week of their lives. It was from Mr. Mailey here that I learned how to attempt it.”
“Well, certainly we have plenty of practice,” said Mailey. “You have seen enough of it, Mason, to know that.”
“But I can’t get the focus of this at all!” cried Malone. “Could you clear my mind a little on the point? I accept, for the moment, your hypothesis that we are surrounded by material earth-bound spirits who find themselves under strange conditions which they don’t understand, and who want counsel and guidance. That more or less expresses it, does it not?”
The Maileys both nodded their agreement.
“Well, their dead friends and relatives are presumably on the other side and cognizant of their benighted condition They know the truth. Could they not minister to the wants of these afflicted ones far better than we can?”
“It is a most natural question,” Mailey answered. “Of course we put that objection to them and we can only accept their answer. They appear to be actually anchored to the surface of this earth, too heavy and gross to rise. The others are, presumably, on a spiritual level and far separated from them. They explain that they are much nearer to us and that they are cognizant of us, but not of anything higher. Therefore it is we who can reach them best.”
“There was one poor dear dark soul —”
“My wife loves everybody and everything,” Mailey explained. “She is capable of talking of the poor dear devil.”
“Well, surely they are to be pitied and loved!” cried the lady. “This poor fellow was nursed along by us, week by week. He had really come from the depths. Then one day he cried in rapture, ‘My mother has come! My mother is here!’ We naturally said, ‘But why did she not come before?’ ‘How could she’, said he, ‘when I was in so dark a place that she could not see me?’”
“That’s very well,” said Malone, “but so far as I can follow your methods it is some guide or control or higher Spirit who regulates the whole matter and brings the sufferer to you. If he can be cognizant, one would think other higher spirits could also be.”
“No, for it is his particular mission.” said Mailey. “To show how marked the divisions are I can remember one occasion when we had a dark soul here. Our own people came through and did not know he was there until we called their attention to it. When we said to the dark soul, ‘Don’t you see our friends beside you?’ he answered, ‘I can see a light but nothing else’.”
At this point the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Mr. John Terbane from Victoria Station, where his mundane duties lay. He was dressed now in civil garb and appeared as a pale, sad-faced, clean-shaven, plump-featured man with dreamy, thoughtful eyes, but no other indication of the remarkable uses to which he was put.
“Have you my record?” was his first question.
Mrs. Mailey, smiling, handed him an envelope. “We kept it all ready for you but you can read it at home. You see,” she explained, “poor Mr. Terbane is in trance and knows nothing of the wonderful work of which he is the instrument, so after each sitting my husband and I draw up an account for him.”
“Very much astonished I am when I read it,” said Terbane.
“And very proud, I should think,” added Mason.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Terbane answered humbly. “I don’t see that the tool need to be proud because the worker happens to use it. Yet it is a privilege, of course.”
“Good old Terbane!” said Mailey, laying his hand affectionately on the railwayman’s shoulder. “The better the medium the more unselfish. That is my experience. The whole conception of a medium is one who gives himself up for the use of others, and that is incompatible with selfishness. Well, I suppose we had better get to work or Mr. Chang will scold us.”
“Who is he?” asked Malone.
“Oh, you will soon make the acquaintance of Mr. Chang! We need not sit round the table. A semi-circle round the fire does very well. Lights half-down. That is all right. You’ll make yourself comfortable, Terbane. Snuggle among the cushions.”
The medium was in the corner of a comfortable sofa, and had fallen at once into a doze. Both Mailey and Malone at with notebooks upon their knees awaiting developments.
They were not long in coming. Terbane suddenly sat up, his dreamy self transformed into a very alert and masterful individuality. A subtle change had passed over his ace. An ambiguous smile fluttered upon his lips, his eye seemed more oblique and less open, his face projected. The two hands were thrust into the sleeves of his blue lounge jacket.
“Good evening,” said he, speaking crisply and in short staccato sentences. “New faces! Who these?”
“Good evening, Chang,” said the master of the house.
“You know Mr. Mason. This is Mr. Malone who studies our subject. This is Lord Roxton who has helped me today.”
As each name was mentioned, Terbane made a sweeping Oriental gesture of greeting, bringing his hand down from his forehead. His whole bearing was superbly dignified and very different from the humble little man who had sat down a few minutes before.
“Lord Roxton!” he repeated. “An English milord! I knew Lord — Lord Macart No — I— I cannot say it. Alas I I called him ‘foreign devil’ then. Chang, too, had much to learn.”
“He is speaking of Lord Macartney. That would be over a hundred years ago. Chang was a great living philosopher then,” Mailey explained.
“Not lose time!” cried the control. “Much to do today. Crowd waiting. Some new, some old. I gather strange folk in my net. Now I go.” He sank back among the cushions. A minute elapsed, then he suddenly sat up.
“I want to thank you,” he said, speaking perfect English. “I came two weeks ago. I have thought over all you said. The path is lighter.”
“Were you the spirit who did not believe in God?”
“Yes, yes! I said so in my anger. I was so weary — so weary. Oh, the time, the endless time, the grey mist, the heavy weight of remorse! Hopeless! Hopeless! And you brought me comfort, you and this great Chinese spirit. You gave me the first kind words I have had since I died.”
“When was it that you died?”
“Oh! It seems an eternity. We do not measure as you do. It is a long, horrible dream without change or break.”
“Who was king in England?”
“Victoria was queen. I had attuned my mind to matter and so it clung to matter. I did not believe in a future life. Now I know that I was all wrong, but I could not adapt my mind to new conditions.”
“Is it bad where you are?”
“It is all — all grey. That is the awful part of it. One’s surroundings are so horrible.”
“But there are many more. You are not alone.”
“No, but they know no more than I. They, too, scoff and doubt and are miserable.”
“You will soon get out.”
“For God’s sake, help me to do so!”
“Poor soul!” said Mrs. Mailey in her sweet, caressing voice, a voice which could bring every animal to her side. “You have suffered much. But do not think of yourself. Think of these others. Try to bring one of them up and so you will best kelp yourself.”
“Thank you, lady, I will. There is one here whom I brought. He has heard you. We will go on together. Perhaps some day we may find the light.”
“Do