ClassISFiM 
 Book. ■ (^ 
 
 CDEXBIGKT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 EDWARD WYNDHAM TENNANT 
 
 With Portraits in Photogravure. 
 Demy 8vo. Third Edition. 
 
 THE BODLEY HEAD 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 A VOLUME DEALING WITH SPIRIT- 
 COMMUNICATION RECEIVED IN 
 
 the fop: Qie book-tests .by 
 
 PAMELA l si CONNER WITH A 
 
 PREFACL m SIR OLIVER LODGE 
 
 'Sorrows are past and in the end is shown 
 The treasure of Immortality." 
 
 NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 
 LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
 
 MCMXXI 
 
-J)f \30 
 
 
 Copyright, 192 1, 
 By JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 
 ■9 !32! 
 
 Press of 
 
 J. J. Little & Ives Company 
 
 New York, U. S. A. 
 
 ©CI.A608812 
 
'It is decreed, the hidden word is spoken, 
 The Earthen Vessel worthy stands 
 To hold the sacred wine!' 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The notes taken at the time of the sittings 
 from which this narrative has been drawn have 
 been preserved, and are in my possession; and 
 these notes will be at the disposal of any one 
 who may care to see them in corroboration. 
 
 The failures have been recorded as well as 
 those considered successful, so that the reader 
 may come to a true understanding of the case 
 and count on an impartial rendering. 
 
 Nothing has been kept back, save when the 
 message in the Book-Test has had three or even 
 more points of contact, and some among these 
 have been considered by the recipient as being 
 of too private a nature to be published. When 
 this is so, the reader is notified of the suppression. 
 
 In Appendix I to this volume Mrs. Leonard's 
 account is given of her first introduction to Feda. 
 
 One point requires emphasis. 
 
 Our conviction that we have spoken with our 
 Son does not rest upon the evidence of these 
 Book-Tests alone. They are but so many blades 
 in a green pasture, a few clear drops in the waters 
 
viii THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 of comfort that have been, and remain, an inex- 
 haustible stream; but they have one paramount 
 claim above the forms of spirit-communication 
 more commonly known. Like the system of 
 Cross-Correspondence, they have been devised to 
 provide proof of a discarnate agency. Many 
 who long to communicate with those who have 
 gone on, dread the action of telepathy operating 
 between their own mind and the mind of the 
 medium. These Book-Tests destroy the possi- 
 bility of such telepathy, and they require of the 
 long arm of Coincidence a very long arm indeed. 
 In the best instances messages have been traced 
 and proved apposite, in books described and 
 found in houses unknown to the medium (as in 
 Book-Tests I. and II., and Book-Tests X. and 
 XL), and unknown both to medium and recipient 
 (as in Book-Tests XIII. and XIV.) . When this 
 is so, it may be conceded that they provide a 
 strong argument in favour of the continuity of 
 personality beyond the grave. 
 
 Pamela Glenconner. 
 
 Wilsford Manor, 
 Salisbury, 
 July, 1920. 
 
PREFATORY AND EXPLANATORY 
 NOTE 
 
 By Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 I AM asked to tell the readers of this book how 
 the curious phenomenon now known by the name 
 of "Book-Tests" arose, and what is its probable 
 significance. 
 
 It seems to be part of a scheme, devised by 
 those who are communicating with us from "the 
 other side," to get messages through in a way 
 that cannot be attributed to any ordinarily 
 recognised variety of subconscious activity on the 
 part of the medium, nor to telepathy or mind- 
 reading between the medium and the person who 
 is receiving the messages. This is undoubtedly 
 the appearance; and this is what I consider to 
 be the truth. 
 
 After the death in 1901 of F. W. H. Myers — 
 who was well aware of our difficulty in accepting 
 spirit-communion, or the continued mental activ- 
 ity of the dead, as an authentic or probable ex- 
 planation of the undoubted lucidity of an en- 
 tranced medium — we gradually found that as a 
 supplement to the more ordinary and simple 
 domestic communications, which have long been 
 
xii THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 known and which still continue, certain special 
 devices were being employed — most of them 
 apparently initiated by Myers — whose object it 
 clearly was to reduce the number of alternative 
 explanations, and especially to eliminate telepathy 
 from living people as a necessary element in 
 interpreting the phenomenon. 
 
 The first success in this more elaborately 
 evidential direction was met with in the system 
 of Cross-Correspondence; that is, the obtaining 
 of similar or corresponding messages, almost 
 simultaneously, through three or four different 
 amateur mediums or automatic writers, some of 
 whom lived in different countries and were 
 unacquainted with each other. These ladies 
 wrote quite independently and spontaneously, 
 and often did not understand the meaning of 
 what they were writing; but their writing told 
 them to send unintelligible script up to the 
 Central Office of the S.P.R. in London, presum- 
 ably for further study. An investigator, who 
 had the advantage of being able to collate the 
 manuscripts, then found that the disjointed sen- 
 tences, the apparently stray literary quotations, 
 exhibited unmistakable coherence and corre- 
 
PREFATORY NOTE xiii 
 
 spondence one with another, and moreover were 
 capable of significant and characteristic inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 That is the system of Cross^Correspondence 
 which, beginning simply, gradually grew very 
 elaborate, and has been reported on at consider- 
 able length, though not even yet fully, in several 
 recent volumes of the Proceedings of the S.P.R. 
 
 The next method adopted, by what is now con- 
 sidered the S.P.R. Group of Communicators on 
 the other side, was the sending of more or less 
 obscure literary allusions and the invention of 
 classical problems of such intricacy and essential 
 scholarship that they were beyond the scope of 
 the transmitting medium, and were often unin- 
 telligible at first to the people receiving and study- 
 ing them. Sometimes, indeed, they were recon- 
 dite enough to puzzle living classical scholars, 
 until some hint or clue was afforded by the osten- 
 sible framer of the problem, when the significance 
 of the whole leaped to light. 
 
 The best known instances of this kind of prob- 
 lem are the two called respectively "The Baptism 
 of Statius" and "The Ear of Dionysius," both 
 skilfully reported on by the Rt. Hon. G. W. 
 
xiv THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 Balfour. Another decidedly simpler one, of an 
 earlier date, was contained in replies given auto- 
 matically to a question about Lethe; this was re- 
 ported on in its first stage by Mr. J. G. Pidding- 
 ton, and in its second stage by myself {Proceed- 
 ings of the S.P.R., Vols. XXIV. and XXV.). 
 
 A third method has now made its appearance, 
 and has been employed at intervals during and 
 since the War, consisting in the development of 
 what are called "Book-Tests." Of these we now 
 have a large number of independent records, 
 which are being examined by Mrs. Henry Sidg- 
 wick and will in due time be critically reported 
 on by her. The evident object of this third 
 method is to send messages in such a form that 
 they shall be unintelligible, not only to the medium 
 of communication and to the person receiving 
 them, but to everybody, until the clue is followed 
 up and the message decoded, when the meaning 
 ought to be unmistakable. If tests of this kind 
 are successfully accomplished, it is plain that no 
 simple kind of mind-reading can be appealed to 
 or regarded as a rational explanation. 
 
 The method consists in specifying the number 
 of a page in a book, itself indicated only by its 
 
PREFATORY NOTE xv 
 
 numbered place on a given shelf in a bookcase 
 whose position is described, in a house to which 
 the medium need have had no access, though a 
 house presumably, or usually, well known to the 
 ostensible communicator. The idea is that a sen- 
 tence shall subsequently be found on that page by 
 any one who follows the instructions and identifies 
 the book, which sentence shall sufficiently convey 
 an intended message, or shall show a similarity in 
 thought to what has otherwise been said, or shall 
 be appropriate to the actual circumstances or past 
 connection of communicator and intended re- 
 cipient. 
 
 Chance-coincidence suggests itself as the first 
 obvious explanation; but though chance-coinci- 
 dence may serve for a few instances, the number 
 of such tests already received is by this time great 
 enough to make that explanation extremely diffi- 
 cult — and in fact almost to put it out of court. 
 Still it is one which must be seriously discussed, 
 for it will inevitably be asked — indeed the ques- 
 tion asks itself — how can such a power, the power 
 of knowing or perceiving what is on a certain 
 page of an unopened unseen and distant book, be 
 possessed by any one, whether discarnate or not? 
 
xvi THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 How can we suppose that such a power is possi- 
 ble? How can the feat be done otherwise than 
 by prearranged and deceptive ingenuity? 
 
 I have no wish to anticipate the verdict now 
 being prepared, based on a long and responsible 
 examination of the facts; but to me the question 
 is not one that can as yet be answered. Even the 
 condition suggested above as naturally to be ex- 
 pected — that the book shall be one familiar to 
 the communicator — even that seems not really 
 essential. There is evidence that sometimes, by 
 special effort, a prescribed sealed book, or a book 
 in a stranger's house, can be partially read, or 
 some details in it correctly given, by an expert 
 communicator. And it is even stated, in a re- 
 sponsible manner, that some features about the 
 first page of to-morrow's Times can be perceived, 
 provided the material has already been set up 
 in type. (See a series of articles by the Rev. C. 
 Drayton Thomas in Light during the early half 
 of 1920.) 
 
 What the bearing of this singular clairvoyante 
 power may be, and how far it affects our evidence 
 for survival, is a subject open to discussion; be- 
 cause it may be argued that if all sorts of records 
 
PREFATORY NOTE xvii 
 
 can be read by means of a clairvoyante human 
 faculty, then one proof of survival, based on the 
 supposition that some kinds of information super- 
 normally received must be traced to an extra- 
 terrene source, becomes increasingly difficult or 
 uncertain. With that argument, however, I have 
 in the present connection nothing to do. 
 
 The existence of the power of reading in a 
 closed book is not a new discovery; it had been 
 already demonstrated very clearly by that well- 
 known automatist of a past generation, Mr. 
 Stainton Moses, a Master in University College 
 School, London: the details of the test being 
 reported in his book called Spirit Teachings (p. 
 33 of the Memorial Edition). This unexpected 
 and curious power has been attributed sometimes 
 to hyperesthesia, sometimes to clairvoyance; but 
 to call the power by either of these names is no 
 explanation, any more than calling a faculty 
 "telepathy" is an explanation. 
 
 If I am pressed to say what explanation, if 
 any, begins to commend itself to me, I have to 
 confess myself in a difficulty. I can only say, 
 without prejudice and without expecting much 
 agreement, that it seems to me probable that to 
 
xviii THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 explain all these things we shall have to admit 
 access to a set of mental phenomena hitherto 
 ignored by science. It may even be found that 
 a few of the things now, and on the whole wisely, 
 relegated to the ash pit of superstition will have 
 to be disinterred and reconsidered. 
 
 We appear to be on the threshold of a position 
 somewhat analogous to that of an isolated savage 
 tribe when they first come into superficial contact 
 with visitors from countries more developed than 
 their own — people who are possessed of strange 
 and inexplicable powers. 
 
 Such incursion of higher or extraneous civilisa- 
 tion would be resented; assertions as to the exist- 
 ence of a white race would be derided; and inter- 
 course might be forbidden by the priests; but 
 ultimately, for better or for worse, the facts 
 would have to be accepted and incorportated with 
 ordinary knowledge. 
 
 Such enlargements of experience, if sudden, 
 must be fraught with danger; and those who re- 
 sist and oppose the incursion may be doing their 
 form of service by making its acceptance slow and 
 gradual. People in general are not yet called 
 upon to face such a position; it is probably un- 
 
PREFATORY NOTE xix 
 
 desirable that they should. I have stated it as a 
 hypothesis the discussion of which I see looming 
 in the future — the by no means distant future — 
 but it need not at present be regarded as a neces- 
 sary outcome from the facts. 
 
 The first thing is to make sure of the facts, 
 and to develop an explanation later. If we always 
 refused to attend to or utilise a fact until we 
 understood it, and had a theory of it, we should 
 be in the absurd position of refusing to recognise 
 the truth of the statement that unsupported ob- 
 jects move towards the centre of the earth; for in 
 the present stage of our knowledge "weight" is 
 not understood. 
 
 The simpler course is to reject the facts alto- 
 gether as manifestly impossible, but the appar- 
 ently simple is not necessarily the true ; moreover, 
 it is a stultifying attitude to set one's face against 
 facts, to refuse to learn from them, and to run 
 the risk of denying reality merely because we will 
 not take the trouble to investigate and under- 
 stand it. The facts are reputably reported, and 
 are worthy of critical examination; though critics 
 will be wise not to make up their minds hastily, 
 but to wait for the promised detailed and cautious 
 
xx THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 report. The result may be to enlarge experience 
 in some ways at present unsuspected. It was 
 thought impossible at one time chemically to 
 analyse the stars, because no particles of them 
 could be put into our test-tubes. 
 
 Truth is recognised as simple only when it is 
 adequately and fully grasped. The phenomena 
 of spectrum-analysis were a few years ago grow- 
 ing so astonishingly complex as to afflict some 
 physicists with a kind of despair; the lines in a 
 spectrum were so numerous, so oddly grouped, 
 and so artificially variable; yet now we see that 
 the outcome is going to be a beautiful simple the- 
 ory of the structure of atoms — a theory which 
 will unify every form of matter and exhibit its 
 astounding variety as the result of the ordered 
 combination of a few very simple ingredients. 
 The multifarious notes of the orchestra are blend- 
 ing into a harmonious symphony. 
 
 So it will doubtless be with these psychic facts, 
 when we understand them. We may make hy- 
 potheses, but to pretend to form any theory about 
 Book-Tests at present would be premature; they 
 evidently represent an effort at proof of the ex- 
 istence of unexpected powers, but to decide how 
 
PREFATORY NOTE xxi 
 
 those powers are exerted, and to whom, they 
 belong, we must wait until by adequate study we 
 can frame some reasonable theory which shall 
 stand the test of time and the influx of further 
 experience. 
 
 Pending that experience I pursue my own, and 
 many people's, hypothesis as to the source, though 
 not the method, of these Book-Tests. 
 
 Some of the young fellows killed in the War 
 have been very energetic and successful in getting 
 tests through of this rather difficult kind. Not 
 all of them: Raymond has not proved himself 
 skilful in this particular method, though he has 
 occasionally attempted it, with a success, how- 
 ever, in my opinion, hardly beyond chance-coinci- 
 dence. But many others have succeeded better, 
 and a few careful people have taken the trouble 
 to record and subsequently verify their messages 
 in the stringent manner required by the standards 
 of the S.P.R. These will no doubt be critically 
 dealt with in the report expected in due time from 
 Mrs. Sidgwick. 
 
 Meanwhile I am personally persuaded that 
 Lord and Lady Glenconner, among others, have 
 received a number of excellent tests of this kind, 
 
xxii THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 chiefly through the agency of their eldest son; 
 and the account of those with which they and 
 their friends have been favoured is now incor- 
 porated in the narrative which follows. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 PREFATORY AND EXPLANATORY NOTE ix 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE "CLOUDS" BOOK-TESTS, I and II . 29 
 
 (From The Letters of Lord Edward Fitz- 
 gerald; and from Lotus and Jewel, by 
 Edwin Arnold.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST III 35 
 
 ("God knows it, I am with you," from the 
 Poems of Matthew Arnold.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST IV 38 
 
 (The "Wolfgang" message, from Lewes* Life 
 of Goethe.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST V ...... 43 
 
 (The George Washington Book-Test, from 
 The Life of George Washington.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST VI 46 
 
 (The Brackett Book-Test, from The World 
 We Live In, by E. A. Brackett.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST VII 49 
 
 (The Book-Test of the title of The Story of 
 Asseneth.) 
 
xxiv CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BOOK-TEST VIII 51 
 
 (The Women in the War Book-Test, from 
 War Poetry, by X.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST IX 53 
 
 (The Book-Test Earth's Overwhelming Strife, 
 from Poems of Pleasure.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST X 54 
 
 (The message for Friends in the Battalion, 
 from the dedication of War Poetry, by X.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XI 55 
 
 (The Book-Test from She.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XII .60 
 
 (The "Beetle" Book-Test, from Trees, pub- 
 lished by Jack, of Edinburgh.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XIII 62 
 
 (From Juan de la Cruz, The Dark Night of 
 the Soul.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XIV ...... 63 
 
 (The "Valley of Decision" Book-Test, title 
 and subsidiary titles, by Edith Wharton.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XV 64 
 
 (The Agnes Weston Book-Test.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XVI 65 
 
 (The "Love Endures despite Death's sombre 
 will" Book-Test, from Windlestraw.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XVII 67 
 
 (The "Pilgrim's Vision" Book-Test, from 
 Poems, by Oliver Wendell Holmes.) 
 
CONTENTS xxv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BOOK-TEST XVIII 73 
 
 (The "Circles" Book-Test, from The Mysti- 
 cism of Colour.) 
 
 PART II 
 THE DRAYTON THOMAS SERIES 
 
 BOOK-TEST XIX 79 
 
 (The Ecclesiasticus Book-Test.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XX 87 
 
 (The Eight Words Book-Test.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XXI . . . . . .go 
 
 (The Doctor Donne Book-Test, from Wal- 
 ton's Lives.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XXII 95 
 
 (The message to E. W. T.'s brothers Book- 
 Test, from Ardours and Endurances.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XXIII 103 
 
 (The Book-Test from The Memoir of 
 E. W. T.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XXIV in 
 
 (The "Caravanning" and "Reflection" Book- 
 Test.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XXV 116 
 
 (The Book-Test of the title of Paradise Lost.) 
 
 BOOK-TEST XXVI 120 
 
 (The "Triumph of Life" Book-Test.) 
 
xxvi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BOOK-TEST XXVII 122 
 
 (The "Fruit is at thy feet" Book-Test, from 
 the Poems of Shelley.) 
 
 RELIGION AND SPIRITUALISM . . 124 
 
 APPENDIX I 140 
 
 (Mrs. Leonard's account of her introduction 
 to Feda.) 
 
 APPENDIX II 144 
 
 (Excerpt from the Phaedo of Plato's "Divine 
 Dialogues.") 
 
 APPENDIX III 146 
 
 (A Poem by Emily Bronte.) 
 
 APPENDIX IV 148 
 
 (The "Times" Book-Test.) 
 
 CONCLUSION 152 
 
PART I 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 Book-Test L 
 
 Edward Wyndham Tennant 1 and George 
 Heremon Wyndham x are concerned in this test. 
 It was given through the mediumship of Mrs. 
 Leonard, controlled by Feda, on April 19 17, in 
 the drawing-room at Wilsford Manor, Salisbury. 
 
 Pamela Glenconner was taking notes; others 
 present being Mrs. Guy Baring, David Tennant, 
 Ava Bodley and Josephine Wilkinson. 
 
 Feda. "Bim has brought George again; he 
 is so glad his messages reached his Mother. They 
 have got a Book-Test for her now, so that she 
 can be quite sure it is George talking to her. 
 Have you got a book that he was connected with? 
 Dark green colour close to the book. Look on 
 page 27 if you can find this book, he says, and 
 on the left side of the page there is a message 
 from him. Or something you could take as a 
 message from him." 
 
 1 Edward Wyndham Tennant, known as Bim throughout 
 these pages, son of Lord and Lady Glenconner, and George 
 Heremon Wyndham, son of Colonel Guy Wyndham, brother 
 to Lady Glenconner. 
 
 29 
 
3 o THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 These directions were sent to George's family. 
 His father had lately come to live at Clouds x and 
 had placed the books he had brought with him 
 in shelves in the drawing-room. He first sought 
 among the books that had belonged to George, 
 but found they consisted only of a few old lesson 
 books, containing nothing applicable; he then 
 looked among the other books for one bound in 
 green. The first volume he took down was The 
 Memoirs of Lord Edward Fitzgerald (by 
 Thomas Moore, edited by Martin MacDermott, 
 Downey & Co., 12 York Street, Covent Garden, 
 1897). 
 
 This book is connected with George as the 
 writer is George's great-great-grandfather. On 
 page 27 the words opening a paragraph are as 
 follows : 
 
 "What would I not give to be with you to com- 
 fort you, dearest Mother" 
 
 "I guarantee that the narration of the above 
 facts is accurate." 
 
 (Signed) Guy Wyndham. 
 
 1 The country seat in Wiltshire, the home of the Percy 
 Wyndhams. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 31 
 
 Mrs. Leonard has never visited at Clouds, nor 
 has she been there. 
 
 Book-Test II. 
 
 Edward Wyndham Tennant and George 
 Heremon Wyndham, communicating through 
 the mediumship of Mrs. Leonard, are concerned 
 also in this second Book-Test. It was obtained 
 on the 25th July, 19 17, in the drawing-room at 
 Wilsford Manor, Salisbury, Pamela Glenconner 
 taking notes; others present being David Ten- 
 nant, Olivia Wyndham, Olive Baring and Leila 
 Piatt. 
 
 Feda (speaking through the mediumship of 
 Mrs. Leonard). 
 
 "Bim and George are going to get another 
 Book-Test through to show that the last one was 
 not chance. Bim is very clever at this. Please 
 get a pencil, he says, and take everything very 
 carefully down. 
 
 "In a home near here, in a lady's room, a 
 corner room, not quite square, he gives the letter 
 C. . . ." {Note. — Feda did not name the height 
 of the shelf, but indicated a height with her 
 hand, which David Tennant estimated at 4j4 
 feet.) "The seventh book in the shelf counting 
 
32 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 from the corner of the left-hand side of the fire- 
 place. The letter G is also given. The word 
 seventh . . . seventh ... he gives the word 
 seventh." (This was repeated, with insistence.) 
 "On page 84 — or 48 ... a page with a lot of 
 white, not much writing on it, only a very' little 
 on the page. And what is on the page may be 
 taken as a message. There is something that 
 deals with the Past and the Future, too, not 
 necessarily the immediate Past and Future." 
 
 It was thought, from the letter C being given, 
 and "a house near here" being mentioned, that 
 Clouds was again intended: a house where 
 George Heremon and Edward Wyndham Ten- 
 nant's grandmother lived. A search was made 
 in her sitting-room, which is a corner room, and 
 not quite square. 
 
 In the position indicated there are four shelves, 
 each divided into two. Colonel Wyndham first 
 took down the seventh book from the corner in 
 the first partition of the top shelf but one, but 
 found nothing applicable. He then took the 
 seventh book in the second partition, which was 
 Lotus and Jewel, by Sir Edwin Arnold. On page 
 84 he found but one quatrain, the page otherwise 
 blank; it was the last in a poem which was the 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 33 
 
 seventh of a series, entitled A Casket of Gems, 1 
 it was also in the seventh volume of the edition. 
 It read as follows : 
 
 u We shall not reach them, save with Earth as 
 
 Vessel, 
 Sky for our Sea, and for long Journey, Life — 
 But if love steers, at last our sails may nestle 
 Furled, in those Far-off Isles, past storm and 
 
 strife!' 
 
 The directions given appeared here to be ful- 
 filled, save an allusion to the Past and the Future ; 
 but in the same poem, page 83, and on subse- 
 quent pages, it was found "The Happy Isles" 
 and "Paradise" are described, and the lines occur: 
 
 "Where the wonder of 'whence] and ( why, } and 
 'whither* are shown; 
 The Past perceived, the Future sure, and 
 known" 
 
 a Kegan Paul, Trench, Tnibner & Co. 
 
34 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 "Where Death does not come, nor Change, nor 
 Hate, nor Care" 
 
 "Where we shall find delightful friends and lovers 
 And hear no word of Woe on any lip, . . /' 
 
 "Thither to sail!" 
 
 The book was uncut. 
 
 "The above statement concerning this Book- 
 Test is accurate." 
 
 {Signature) Guy Wyndham. 
 
 I include here the following letter from my 
 brother, Colonel Wyndham. He writes to Lady 
 Trowbridge, who at that time was collecting the 
 Book-Tests in the interests of the Society for 
 Psychical Research. 
 
 Clouds, 
 East Knoyle, 
 July i\th, 1918. 
 
 Dear Lady Trowbridge, 
 
 I send you all the information I can on 
 the subject. The first test is a very good one 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 35 
 
 provided one allows the book to be considered 
 connected with my son. 
 
 The second test is certainly remarkable. 
 No doubt there are discrepancies, but the main 
 fact is that the directions given were sufficient 
 for the passages to be easily found. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 Guy Wyndham. 
 
 Book-Test HI. 
 This Book-Test was given through the medium- 
 ship again of Mrs. Leonard, controlled by Feda; 
 the communicator this time being Captain Evelyn 
 Piatt of 1st Batt. of the Coldstream Guards, who 
 was killed in France on May 15th, 19 16; he was 
 sending a message to his wife, who was sitting 
 with Pamela Glenconner for communication on 
 the 25th July, 19 17, at Wilsford Manor, Salis- 
 bury. After some time of conversation through 
 trance utterances, Feda said : 
 
 u Now here is a Book-Test. It is in this house, 
 downstairs. You will find the book near the 
 door, with gold lettering on it. It is the tenth 
 book in the shelf counting from the door. The 
 letter A is prominent. Ar . . . there are two 
 
36 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 messages for her on the same page ; look on page 
 37-" 
 
 In the library downstairs, about midway from 
 the floor to the highest shelf, the tenth book 
 counting from the door was found to be the poems 
 of Matthew Arnold. 1 It is a green volume with 
 gold lettering. Turning to page 37 we found 
 the sonnet that commences : 
 
 "God knows it, I am with you. . . /' 
 
 and the concluding lines are as follows: 
 
 "If sadness at the long heart-wasting show 
 Wherein Earth! s great ones are disquieted. 
 If thoughts, not idle, while before me flow 
 The armies of the homeless and unfed — 
 // these be yours, if this is what you are, 
 Then am I yours, and what you feel, I share" 
 
 This was a Book-Test with three points of 
 contact; the other two were successfully inter- 
 preted, but being of a private character, they are 
 not given here. 
 
 Mrs. Piatt had to leave hurriedly to catch a 
 
 1 In the Canterbury Poets Series. Edited by William Sharp. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 37 
 
 train, giving me the notes, with directions. And 
 this is how it happened that, at this time, all 
 unaware of the importance attached to there being 
 a witness to the proceedings, I searched for this 
 test and found it, alone; so that as evidence it is 
 valueless; but the endorsement of the recipient is 
 willingly given. 
 
 "I recognise the source from which this Book- 
 Test is drawn, and consider it entirely applicable. 
 Especially in the final passages of the message, 
 the portions of this Book-Test that I prefer to 
 suppress, do I recognise allusions that only he 
 who purports to be communicating could have 
 known." 4 ,— ^ 
 
 Perhaps it is to the point to remark here that 
 Mrs. Leonard was not staying in the house. She 
 realises so thoroughly the significance of the 
 work that is being done through her, that she 
 understands the necessity I am under when I 
 record that she was living in another house, visit- 
 ing Wilsford only at the hours set aside for sit- 
 tings, and leaving immediately these were over. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Book-Test IV. 
 
 To understand the appositeness of the message 
 contained in the following Book-Test, I must tell 
 something of the setting, and mention particulars 
 relating to the people it concerns. 
 
 Edward Wyndham Tennant, known as Bim, 
 the sender of the message, is the eldest of four 
 brothers. When he fell in the Battle of the 
 Somme in September 191 6, his younger brother, 
 David, was fourteen years old. David's adven- 
 tures and general plan of life always appealed to 
 Bim, who took great pleasure in his childhood. 
 Their Mother remembers Bim telling her that 
 once in a noisy crowd of children, David, then a 
 little boy of six or seven, approached him, and, 
 wholly unconcerned by the rabble surrounding 
 them, said, "Bim, you know Sirius is a star of the 
 
 first magnitude. " 
 
 38 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 39 
 
 Then he returned to the game. 
 
 David knew a family of friends in the village 
 with whom he used to play. When he had fin- 
 ished lessons and required their companionship, 
 he would signal and shout for them across the 
 water meadows, standing on the lawn; and their 
 answering shout faint in the distance, and their 
 speedy appearance pouring through every hole 
 in the hedge, was one of Bim's treasured observa- 
 tions. 
 
 David conducted all his pastimes with unex- 
 pectedness and potency. The zeal with which he 
 pursued his daily avocations was equalled by his 
 absorption in the books that were read aloud in 
 the evening hours. 
 
 The Mother would tell them stories or read 
 to them tales, and she remembers Bim saying to 
 her, "All the time that you are reading aloud I 
 love to look at David listening, with his large 
 dark eyes." 
 
 The bond between these two, the older and 
 the little brother, was very strong, and long after 
 the two elder boys had gone to school the phrase 
 "Mother and Son'" was used by Bim in connec- 
 tion with David and his Mother. 
 
40 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 Station Hotel, 
 
 Crewe, 
 October 2$rd, 1917. 
 
 Feda (speaking for Bim through the medium- 
 ship of Mrs. Leonard). 
 
 "He says now he is going to send a Book- 
 Message for his brother David; he says David 
 mustn't think it to be patronising, as if he were 
 still quite a little boy. It is, nevertheless, espe- 
 cially for David. 
 
 "This is in the house in London, and it is to 
 be found in a room downstairs. The page is num- 
 ber 14, and the message is three-quarters down 
 the page. It is in the eighth book on the third 
 shelf counting from right to left. You will find 
 something round connected with the book in 
 question. 
 
 "Close to it there is a book which tells of great 
 spaces — large great spaces" (she raised her 
 hands above her head). "It is a book which 
 tells of the stars." 
 
 On my return to London I went into the library 
 at 34 Queen Anne's Gate, a room on the ground 
 floor, unknown to Mrs. Leonard. On the third 
 shelf I found the eighth book, counting from right 
 to left, to be Lewes' Life of Goethe. 1 Two 
 
 a 4th edition. Smith Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place, 1890. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 41 
 
 books from this was a volume called Astro The- 
 ology, or the Demonstration of the Attributes of 
 God, from a survey of the Heavens." 1 
 
 On the fourteenth page of the eighth book 
 (Lewes' Life of Goethe) we found the following 
 passage: 
 
 u One fine afternoon when the house was quiet, 
 Master Wolfgang, with his cup in his hand and 
 nothing to do, finds himself looking out into 
 the silent street, and telegraphing to the young 
 Ochsensteins who dwelt opposite. By way of 
 doing something he begins to fling the crockery 
 into the street, delighted with the noise it makes 
 and stimulated by the brothers Ochsenstein, who 
 chuckle at him over the way. The indulgent 
 Mother returns, and sees the mischief with house- 
 wifely horror, till melting into sympathy she 
 laughs as heartily as the child. . . . 
 
 "This Mother employed her faculties" (the 
 passage continues) i( for story-telling to his and 
 her own delight. 'To all natural phenomena,* 
 she writes, l I gave a meaning. As we thought of 
 the paths which lead from star to star, and that 
 we should one day inhabit the stars, and when we 
 
 1 Astro Theology, by W. Derham. 6th edition. Printed for 
 W. Innys at the West End of Saint Paul's, MDCCXXXI. 
 
42 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 thought of the great Spirits we should meet there, 
 I was as eager for the hours of story-telling as 
 the children themselves. There I sat } and Wolf- 
 gang held me with his large black eyes! " 
 
 The passage concludes with the words, 
 
 "What a charming glimpse of Mother and 
 Son." 
 
 This Book-Test carried such conviction to the 
 members of Bim's family, that when it was found 
 and read aloud it was met with the laughter of 
 instant recognition. Only one last direction had 
 yet to be followed, that which told "of some- 
 thing round in connection with this 'book." And 
 it was considered discovered when, turning to 
 the frontispiece, it was seen that it represented a 
 reproduction of a miniature painting set in a 
 round black frame. 
 
 To attempt to describe the happy glow in the 
 hearts of Bim's family circle when this Book- 
 Message was read would be in cold print, im- 
 possible. There are, however, moments well 
 known to all to which it may be likened: when 
 a wished-for letter arrives; when a door swings 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 43 
 
 open and a treasured presence is before one; 
 when, in short, he who has been absent is at home 
 again. Laughter runs from lip to lip, and eyes 
 speak contentment. Such a moment was theirs 
 now, they were happy; and it was Bim, as of old, 
 who had cheered them. 
 
 We guarantee that the facts of this case are as 
 above represented, and we were present at the 
 finding of the message. 
 
 (Signed) Glenconner. 
 
 David Tennant. 
 
 Book-Test V. 
 
 Station Hotel, 
 
 Crewe, 
 October 23rd, 1917. 
 
 Feda (speaking through Mrs. Leonard for 
 Edward Wyndham Tennant). u This is a Book- 
 Test, now, for his Mother. It isn't good enough, 
 
44 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 he says, it is so very ordinary, but it will do as a 
 sign that he is sending it. 
 
 "He says you will find it in the same room 
 downstairs, as the one to David, in the sixteenth 
 book counting from right to left, page 27. 
 
 "The letter S is prominent on the title-page. 
 There is a book by Merey — Meri — some name 
 like 'Merry' — close by it on the same shelf." 
 
 The book, on searching, proved to be The Life 
 of George Washington. 1 On the title-page, Sol- 
 dier and Statesman follows the name. On the 
 27th page there is an allusion to the family of 
 George Washington, six children in all, one dying 
 in infancy — which is identical with the family of 
 Edward Wyndham Tennant, who purported to 
 be giving the Book-Test; and there follows an 
 allusion to George Washington's remembrance of 
 his Father's fondness: 
 
 "And to his Mother's forming care } >} the pas- 
 sage continues, "he ascribed the origin of all to 
 which he had attained! 1 
 
 On the same shelf, three books from the one 
 
 a By James Harrison. Heroes of the Nations Series. G. P. 
 Putnam & Sons. 1906. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 45 
 
 specified, there was a volume by Merriman, The 
 Sowers. 
 
 We bear witness to the truth of the above. 
 
 (Signed) Glenconner, 
 
 David Tennant. 
 
 This room was unknown to Mrs. Leonard. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Book-Test VI. 
 
 December ijth, 1917. 
 
 Feda (speaking through Mrs. Leonard), after 
 some time given to communication through trance 
 utterances: 
 
 "Now Bim says he is sending a message; a 
 Book-Test for his Mother. He says it is in the 
 drawing-room, on the side of the book-shelf near 
 the door. You must look in the third shelf, and 
 take the fifth book counting from left to right; 
 turn to page 83. He says the passage alludes to 
 his present life and to what you feel about it. 
 He says, 'Tell her that her love for me has 
 bridged the gulf, and love has shown the way.' 
 He repeats that 'love has shown the way.' " 
 
 On my return home, when I searched among 
 
 the books, I found the fifth book on the third 
 
 shelf counting from left to right was one entitled 
 
 The World We hive In, written by Brackett and 
 
 published by Richard Badger, Boston (The 
 
 Gorham Press, 1909). 
 
 On page 83 I read: 
 
 46 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 47 
 
 "The pathway to the Unseen World 
 Is full of hope and joy untold. 
 With Love's rich bloom and fragrant air, 
 Unselfish deeds and silent prayer. 
 Who seeks to climb some other way 
 Will tarry long, will go astray, 
 For Love alone can point the way." 
 
 Now I turn to my notes again as taken at the 
 time. They continue as follows: 
 
 "On the previous page, well, not quite the 
 previous page, he says — but turning over the leaf 
 before — you will find an allusion to quite a little 
 thing you had long ago. Something you used 
 to wear; you had it when you were a girl; he 
 says you will smile when you find this, but the 
 words apply." 
 
 I looked on the 82nd page, and here I found 
 an interesting endorsement of the directions given, 
 for that page was blank. This, evidently, was 
 why Feda was told to say, "not quite the previous 
 page, but turning over the leaf before," for on 
 the reverse side of the blank page I found five 
 lines of print, the concluding paragraph of the 
 chapter. The passage reads as follows: 
 
48 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 "Spiritualism walks hand-in-hand with the 
 beauty and simplicity of Christ!* 
 
 Now among the collection of jewellery that was 
 mine before I married is a slender golden ring. 
 It is a betrothal ring from Normandy, and is 
 made in the device of clasped hands. It is a 
 triple ring on a tiny pivotal pin, which holds the 
 three rings together; it opens by the two hands 
 slipping apart, disclosing the design of two hearts 
 on the third ring. Bim knew this little object 
 well, he knew also that it was mine before I mar- 
 ried, and the plan of its fashioning is, truly, 
 "hand-in-hand." Until I returned home, how- 
 ever, and found the passage that held the allusion, 
 I had no idea to what ''little thing" he was re- 
 ferring. 
 
 Now I quote once more from my notes. 
 
 Feda. "Fifth book; close to it there is a vol- 
 ume of an historical character, not acceptedly 
 historical (and do you know, he says, you will be 
 interested to learn the spirit of an Egyptian Era 
 prevails at this time again? but this is difficult 
 to explain clearly now), and on page 103 of the 
 fifth book you will find an allusion to an epoch, 
 a period in time, rather than to a place." 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 49 
 
 On this page the passage ran as follows : 
 
 "We have a form of worship under the name 
 of Christianity that dates hack thousands of years 
 before the Christian Era." 
 
 Once more I turn to my notes. 
 
 "A book of an historical character, not ac- 
 ceptedly historical, he says." 
 
 Book-Test VII. 
 
 The fifth book, as we have seen, was that by 
 Brackett, the one next it I found to be The Story 
 of Assenethy the legendary narrative of the wife 
 of Joseph. This story is included by Vincent 
 Beauvais in his Speculum Historiale, compiled by 
 him in the Thirteenth Century, so it agrees well 
 with the description "not acceptedly historical," 
 and the fact of Bim's sudden and parenthetical 
 allusion to Egypt at this point while dealing with 
 the Book-Test is of living interest. 
 
 One can see the connection in his own mind, 
 with Egypt, and the book that he had chosen. 
 He knew the fascination his Mother felt in the 
 idea of previous lives lived in ancient Egypt. He 
 knew of a dream-story she had once dreamed, 
 the scene of which is cast in Egypt ; and he knew, 
 
50 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 also, of the saying of a friend, who, on being told 
 the dream, exclaimed: "That's not an ordinary 
 dream, that is a memory, that happened" ; but 
 interested though he knew his Mother would be 
 in what he could have told her, he put it all into 
 a parenthesis, in his own vivid and rapid manner, 
 bent on pursuing the chief matter in hand at the 
 moment, which was his Book-Test. 
 
 His own sonnet on "Re-Incarnation" shows 
 clearly how aware he was himself of the touch of 
 the Past. 
 
 "I too remember distant golden days 
 When even my soul was young; I see the sand 
 Whirl in a blinding pillar towards the band 
 Of orange sky-line 'neath a turquoise blaze — 
 (Some burnt-out sky spread o'er a glistening land) 
 — And slim brown jargoningmen in blue and gold, 
 I know it all so well, I understand 
 The ecstasy of worship, ages old. 
 Hear the first truth: the great far-seeing soul 
 Is ever in the humblest husk; I see 
 How each succeeding section takes its toll 
 In fading cycles of old memory, 
 And each new life the next life shall control, 
 Until perfection reach Eternity.' , 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Book-Test VIII. 
 
 Obtained at a sitting held in 34 Queen Anne's 
 Gate, London, May 6th, 19 18. 
 
 Feda. "Now, he says, the Book-Tests — he 
 has two — both for his Mother, and a third that 
 he would like taken as a message to all . . . all 
 of them ... (he can't get this through very 
 clearly, but he repeats, it is a message for a good 
 many people . . . that he knows . . .). 
 
 "The first one is among some books near stairs; 
 on the left-hand side of some stairs." 
 
 Now if Feda had said "steps" instead of 
 "stairs," we should have understood instantly; as 
 it was, we who were listening and taking down 
 these notes were entirely bewildered. One of us 
 said, "There are no book-shelves on the stairs. 
 What can it mean?" 
 
 Feda answered, "Bim says that room that isn't 
 used now; you know, with stairs in it." 
 
 Then we recognised my room upstairs that 
 51 
 
52 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 owing to the air-raids had been disused for some 
 time ; to enter this room you have to descend three 
 steps. A small book-shelf hangs on the wall to 
 the left of the entrance. 
 
 "Now then, he says, that you have got the 
 room, look for a book in a grey cover, one of the 
 books in the row has a bit torn off its back; take 
 the second book counting from the left, and look 
 on page 29. The words speak of the sacrifice 
 and suffering in the War; it speaks of the War. 
 Take it very literally, Bim says, or it will not be 
 correct." 
 
 The room in question was unknown to Mrs. 
 Leonard. 
 
 After the sitting we looked, and found the 
 second book on the shelf was one called War 
 Poems by X. 1 On page 29 were some verses 
 alluding to the wives and mothers in the War. 
 
 "0, don't forget it, 
 Mother's son, 
 They're soldiers, soldiers, 
 Every one. 
 
 1 Martin Seeker, No. 5, John Street, Adelphi, London. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 53 
 
 "Soldiers, loving 
 
 Them that's gone, 
 Soldiers, soldiers, 
 'Carrying on! 
 
 "Proudest regiment 
 Ever known, 
 Let us call them 
 
 'The Lord's Own! " 
 
 Three books from this one was a volume with 
 the title on a label slightly torn and damaged. 
 
 "Now the other message," Feda continued, 
 "for his Mother is in another book, the fourth 
 book in the shelf above, look on page 56." 
 
 Book-Test IX. 
 
 And this was what we found when we looked, 
 according to these directions: 
 
 "/ think man's great capacity for pain 
 
 Proves his immortal birthright, he ye sure 
 No merely human mind could hear the strain 
 Of the tremendous sorrow we endure!' 
 
54 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 "Unless our souls had root in soil divine 
 
 We could not bear Earth's overwhelming 
 strife; 
 The fiercest pain that wracks this heart of mine 
 Convinces me of Everlasting Life." 1 
 
 Now "the message for many" had to be dealt 
 with. 
 
 Feda had said: "Bim says look in the first page, 
 there are some words on the title-page of one 
 of the books he has mentioned; he has let the 
 moment pass, and he cannot get power together 
 sufficiently to send it through very clearly now . . . 
 but it is a message to all, he says." 
 
 Book-Test X. 
 
 We looked on the title-pages of the two books 
 
 he had specified, and in that of the first of the 
 
 two there was a dedication in which the author 
 
 gives his verse to those 
 
 "In the Battalion of which regiment I have many 
 friends" 
 
 Bim at this sitting said, through Feda, that he 
 wanted to be surely told if any of the messages 
 
 1 Poems of Pleasure, published by W. B. Conkey Company, 
 Chicago. 1902. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 55 
 
 in the Book-Tests could not be found, or "came 
 out wrong," as she put it, because he knows how 
 difficult it is to get things through clearly. 
 
 "He can only get flickers through, " he says, 
 "compared to all he would like to send." 
 
 And then he reiterated how happy it makes 
 him to talk with us. 
 
 "All your happiness comes back to me," he 
 says, "when a Book-Test is made out or we have 
 a good sitting like this, and the sense of nearness 
 fills me with joy. I send all my love, and bless- 
 ings, and constant thoughts. ..." 
 
 There were two other points to this test; but 
 the recipient of the messages prefers that they 
 shall not be published. 
 
 I guarantee that the directions given and the 
 finding of the books were as stated above. 
 
 (Signed) David Tennant. 
 
 Book-Test XL 
 
 Of the many Book-Tests we have received only 
 two have failed. One of these was for a brother 
 
$6 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 officer, and the person who received the message 
 was not a member of Bim's family, so possibly 
 the channel of communication was not clear. The 
 other purported to be sent by two friends of 
 Bim's, and the particulars were sent on to me. 
 Being in Scotland at the time, I was unable to 
 follow the directions, but I asked some one to 
 do it for me. They wrote saying their search 
 had been unrewarded; and I think the deduction 
 may be that Book-Tests to be successfully received 
 must be given as directly as possible. It cannot 
 be said, however, that it was entirely a failure, 
 for I kept the directions, and when I returned to 
 London went through part of the matter again. 
 On the page numbered 6 to which we were re- 
 ferred I found the index of the chapter headings, 
 and these read as follows: 
 
 "Triumph. 
 
 u The Dead and hiving meet. . . . The record 
 of one of the most wonderful and mysterious ex- 
 periences." 
 
 The book in question was She, by Rider 
 Haggard. Had I been in London at the time 
 the Book-Test was sent me, I think I should have 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 57 
 
 verified the other points as well, but the room 
 had been prepared for our arrival, and once the 
 passages in the Tests had been looked for without 
 success, no further heed had been taken. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Book-Test that I will now relate is one 
 that to Bim's family carries more conviction of 
 the identity of the sender of the message than 
 any other among the rich collection that is theirs ; 
 but truly to recognise its pertinence I must inter- 
 rupt the sequence by telling again something of 
 Bim's family life. 
 
 In pre-war days, Forestry was his Father's 
 chief interest. To educate himself more thor- 
 oughly in this, he went in the year 1901 to Ger- 
 many, to see the forests there grown under Gov- 
 ernmental supervision, and though he did not 
 import to his Scottish home the drastic regularity 
 and monotonous severity of the German system, 
 the plantations and woods at Glen are ordered 
 in consequence more carefully and intelligently 
 than the woodlands of most estates in Britain. 
 
 His eye became trained to a higher state of 
 perfection possible to growing trees than is the 
 
 58 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 59 
 
 case in most people, for often during walks 
 through the fragrant fir woods, when expressions 
 of admiration or delight in the lovely scenery 
 arose, how constantly would the depressing ver- 
 dict be uttered by the Master of the Trees, that 
 the young shoots were being ruined by "the 
 beetle.' 4 
 
 "You see all those quirks — those sudden bends 
 in the new growth? Those show the beetle has 
 got at them. You wouldn't see the damage to 
 the young trees as I do; it's the greatest pest 
 we have to deal with . . ." and much more of 
 the like in conversation. So familiar was the 
 theme to the family that Bim has been known to 
 say to his Mother, sotto voce, "See if we get 
 through this wood without hearing about the 
 beetle." If his Father was unduly pessimistic 
 about something Bim would say, "All the woods 
 have got the beetle." 
 
 Light words to look back upon, these! foam 
 on a Summer Sea; hardly, you will say worth 
 gathering; and indeed in the first bitter months 
 of bereavement little remembered. 
 
 Yet it was Bim himself who was to recall them. 
 
6o THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 Book-Test XII. 
 
 December 17th, 1917. 
 
 Feda. "Bim now wants to send a message to 
 his Father. This book is particularly for his 
 Father; underline that, he says. It is the ninth 
 book on the third shelf counting from left to right 
 in the bookcase on the right of the door in the 
 drawing-room, as you enter; take the title, and 
 look at page 37." 
 
 We found the ninth book in the shelf indicated 
 was: Trees. 1 
 
 And on page 36, quite at the bottom and lead- 
 ing on to page 37, we read: 
 
 "Sometimes you will see curious marks in the 
 wood; these are caused by a tunnelling beetle, 
 very injurious to the trees. . . ." 
 
 (Signatures of two testificators to the finding 
 and verifying of this Book-Message.) 
 
 Glenconner, 
 David Tennant. 
 
 1 Trees, by J. Harvey Kelman. In the "Shown to the 
 Children" series; published by Jack. Edinburgh. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 61 
 
 Had a chance observer been present when we 
 traced this Test, "This is no mourning family," 
 he would have said: "these are happy people." 
 
 And he would have been right. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Book-Test XIII. 
 
 March 2nd, 191 8. 
 
 Feda speaking. "This is a message for Bim's 
 Father. It is not in the room Bim generally 
 takes his Book-Tests from. This is in his 
 Father's room, third shelf from the bottom in the 
 further corner of the room; take out the ninth 
 book counting from left to right, and look on 
 page 6$. About half-way down the page, as near 
 as he can rightly judge, you will find the message. 
 He says "he knows all that his Father feels, he 
 knows how much he loves him." This message 
 will be what he wants his Father to say when he 
 remembers him and thinks of his passing over." 
 
 The book proved to be The Dark Night of the 
 Soul, by Juan de la Cruz, and the passage ends 
 as follows: 
 
 "May God be pleased to give me His Divine 
 
 Light, since it is indeed needed in so dark a night, 
 
 and in so difficult a matter." 
 
 62 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 63 
 
 "Close to this book," Feda continued, "within 
 a span's length of it, is one whose title suggests 
 the path that Bim has trodden since he passed 
 
 on." 
 
 "What is a span's length?" we asked. 
 
 Feda answered, "The Society 1 says a span's 
 length is the length of your hand when it is ex- 
 tended. Put your thumb on the book first men- 
 tioned, and then in any direction that your hand 
 turns, up or down, or on either side, the right 
 book may be found." 
 
 Book-Test XIV. 
 
 Measuring the distance specified from the ninth 
 book already mentioned, we found The Valley of 
 Decision, by Edith Wharton ; and it is interesting 
 to note that the matter of this novel is divided 
 under several sub-titles, many of which appear 
 applicable to the path Bim trod: 
 
 "Multitudes, Multitudes in the Valley of De- 
 cision/ 9 
 
 "A Gift from the Grave." 
 
 "The Old Order and the New Light." 
 
 *Mrs. Leonard was at this time working for the Society for 
 Psychical Research, so it was to this Society Feda presumably 
 alluded. 
 
64 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 "The Choice and the Reward" 
 "Upon New Banks there Floods a Newer 
 Day." 
 
 Feda continued: 
 
 "All these are quite near the ninth book. Now 
 take out the fifth book, Bim says, from left to 
 right, and look at page 16, and find a message 
 for his Mother. Quite near the top of the page. 
 Something he is trying very hard to do for her, 
 and with her" 
 
 Book-Test XV. 
 
 This book, the fifth in the shelf counting from 
 left to right, we found to be an autobiography 
 by Agnes Weston, 1 and on the top of the 16th 
 page these words occur: 
 
 "To make the children happy, and my 
 Mother. . . ." 
 
 I was present when these Book-Tests were 
 verified. 
 
 (Signed) Glenconner. 
 
 1 My Life among the Blue-jackets (James Nisbet, 1912). 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Book-Test XVL 
 
 While we were receiving communication in 
 this particular form, our happiness would not 
 have been so great had we been the only people 
 that were receiving such testimony. Others, 
 many others, beside ourselves were having Book- 
 Tests given them during their sittings with Mrs. 
 Leonard, and this chapter shall be dedicated to 
 three received by Mrs. Beadon, living at n 
 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, through whose kindness I 
 am allowed to include them here. 
 
 She writes : 
 
 "Thank you so very much for letting me see 
 these records. How glad they must be when we 
 pick up the message correctly! Your son seems 
 to be helping so many, and it is natural that it 
 should be so, seeing you are helping so many on 
 this side along the same lines of comfort; and 
 he must feel he is working with you. 
 
 " I hope he knows how grateful we are to you 
 both! 
 
 65 
 
66 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 "Here is a test I received last week, through 
 Feda; your Son was helping in it. I was told 
 to find page 39 in a certain book, the position 
 and number of which was carefully described to 
 me. I was told that on it was a message for me 
 when I get depressed. 'Say it over to yourself,' 
 I was told, 'when you feel miserable. ' 
 
 " I found on looking that the volume was your 
 book of poems, W 'Indies tr aw, 1 and on page 39 
 there occurs the one verse alone: 
 
 " Yet Love endures, for all Death's sombre will 
 Read — should you doubt it — in these chosen 
 pages, 
 
 Here shall you joy to find these lovers still 
 
 Singing their love-songs to us, down the Ages!' 
 
 " Mrs. Leonard has never been to our house, 
 nor does she know my books, or where I keep 
 them. 
 
 " It was beautiful to find such a verse,'- the 
 letter continues. " My husband did not often 
 read poetry; his reading was along lines that 
 
 1 A book of verse by Pamela Glenconner, published by the 
 Chiswick Press. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 67 
 
 would not help much to find an expressive mes- 
 sage. It seemed to me true that your son was 
 helping, as he has so often, and it was so natural 
 for him to use your words." 
 
 Yours sincerely* 
 J. E. Beadon. 
 
 Book-Test XVII. 
 
 Sept. 2()th ) 19 17. — Another Book-Test ob- 
 tained at a sitting with Mrs. Leonard. The com- 
 munication purporting to be from Colonel 
 Beadon, received by his wife, J. E. Beadon, 11 
 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. 
 
 "In a square room, books in the corner, a row 
 of books running by the wall, to the corner from 
 the window. Take the fifth book, counting from 
 right to left, page 71 or 17. (Both numbers w T ere 
 repeated several times.) Yes — 71. 
 
 "The message will not be as beautiful as he 
 would like a message to you from him to be, but 
 you will understand this is to make the test as 
 good as he can." 
 
68 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 This was a Book-Test with seven points of 
 contact. Of these six have been traced and found 
 apposite. 
 
 The directions continue as follows: 
 ( i ) It refers to a past condition. 
 
 (2) It has an application to the present. 
 
 ( 3 ) It is in answer to a thought much in your 
 mind at one time. This thought is not with 
 you now, especially since you have known Feda. 
 
 (4) On the opposite page is a reference to fire. 
 
 (5) On the opposite page is a reference to 
 light. 
 
 (6) On the opposite page there is a reference 
 to olden times. (All these have nothing to do 
 with the message, you understand, but are given 
 in order that you may be sure you have the right 
 page.) 
 
 (7) On the same page, or is it the opposite 
 page? an important word beginning with S. 
 
 Now in order to make the application of the 
 above directions evident, Mrs. Beadon allows me 
 to give the following particulars : 
 
 William Beadon was killed in action in Meso- 
 potamia. His body was buried by the Chaplain 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 69 
 
 and officers the same night of his death, where 
 he fell. The officer in charge wrote that all 
 traces of the grave had been carefully obliterated 
 to avoid desecration by the Arabs, and its locality 
 is now unknown. 
 
 In the room, and on the shelf indicated, Mrs. 
 Beadon found that the fifth book counting from 
 right to left was a volume of poems by Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes. 
 
 On page 71 she read in "The Pilgrim's Vision" : 
 
 11 The weary pilgrim slumbers , 
 
 His resting-place unknown; 
 His hands were crossed, his lids were closed, 
 
 The dust was o } er him strown. 
 The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf 
 
 Along the sod were blown; 
 His mould had melted into Earth, 
 
 His memory lives alone" 
 
 Now let us take the directions as they are given. 
 
 ( 1 ) It refers to a past condition. 
 
 This poem, "The Pilgrim's Vision," refers to 
 early days in America. 
 
 (2) It has an application to the present. 
 
 The application is to the communicator's own 
 
70 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 case, i. e. } "his body received reverent burial and 
 the resting-place is unknown." And — 
 
 (3) It is an answer to a thought much in your 
 mind at one time t that is not there now, especially 
 since you have known Feda. 
 
 Mrs. Beadon writes: "It was a question con- 
 stantly in my mind in early days after the news 
 reached me, as to whether it would be possible 
 to identify the spot, with the help of the officers 
 who had been present at the burial, and when 
 the War should be over, to mark the place with 
 a cross. I have thought very little of this lately 
 nor have I felt in the least concerned about it." * 
 
 Let us return now to the further directions, as 
 given by Feda at the sitting. 
 
 (4) On the opposite page there is a reference 
 to fire. 
 
 (5) Also a reference to light. 
 
 1 Spiritualists are happy, you will notice, in this respect of 
 graves. They do not trouble about them over-much, nor do 
 they cherish them. You do not hear them say, "So-and-so 
 was buried at Guillemont," or "He was buried where he fell." 
 They speak of the body being buried, not the person. The 
 Critos of the present day still confound Socrates with his 
 corpse. See Appendix I. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 71 
 
 Mrs. Beadon found the following verse on the 
 page opposite: 
 
 "Still shall the fiery pillar's ray 
 Along thy pathway shine } 
 To light the chosen tribe that sought 
 This Western Palestine" 
 
 (6) There is a reference to olden times. 
 This passage, giving reference to fire, light 
 
 and the journey of the Israelites, fulfils the direc- 
 tions numbered 4, 5 and 6. 
 
 (7) This last point — "the important word be- 
 ginning with S" — is the only reference in this test 
 that cannot be traced. 
 
 Now Mrs. Beadon turned to page 17 (the 
 other number in pagination given by Feda), and 
 she read: 
 
 " The Indian's shaft, the Briton's hall, 
 The sabre's thirsting edge, 
 The hot shell shattering in its fall 
 The bay one tfs bending wedge, 
 Here scattered Death; yet seek the spot 
 
 No trace thine eye can see, 
 No altar — and they need it not, 
 Who leave their children free," 
 
72 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 This stanza fulfils once more number 3 of the 
 directions given, and an interesting light is thrown 
 on Feda's hesitation between these two numbers, 
 71 and 17, both holding as they do the same 
 application. 
 
 "It is notable," writes Mrs. Beadon, "that 
 nowhere else in the volume can I find any refer- 
 ence which would at all fulfil the conditions of 
 the message." 
 
 "I guarantee that the above narration of the 
 facts is correct." 
 
 (Signed) J. E. Beadon. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Book-Test XVIII. 
 
 I have been given permission to include the 
 following Book-Test, if the names of those re- 
 ceiving it are suppressed. 
 
 The boy concerned in it was at Winchester 
 with Bim. 
 
 In a sitting with Mrs. Leonard, Feda told her 
 sitter that the boys were "putting this message 
 through together." She said: 
 
 u Bim is with * * *, helping him with this 
 Test." 
 
 Directions for the finding of the book were 
 given in the usual way, first as to the room, 
 then the book-shelf, then the number of the 
 book in the shelf, and lastly the page, followed 
 by the words which tell the gist of the message, 
 or its application; but although this procedure 
 was as usual meticulously observed, the boy's 
 Mother failed to find anything that tallied with 
 the directions given. 
 
 73 
 
74 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 I was in Scotland at the time, and she wrote 
 to me saying she hoped I would go and see her 
 when I returned to London, as perhaps I might 
 have better results. 
 
 I did so, and she gave me the notes taken at 
 the time of the sitting. The directions were as 
 follows : 
 
 "Books in a sitting-room, towards the corner 
 of the room; books in a shelf running towards 
 a window, books about waist high. . . . (No — 
 he says I must be careful — about three and a 
 half feet high.) Count left to right, and take 
 out the fifth book, and look on page 71 or 17. 
 The message is from * * * to his Mother, and 
 touches on the difference in his life now to what 
 it was before. One part deals with foreign coun- 
 tries, and one part of the book treats of circles. " 
 (Feda here caused Mrs. Leonard to describe cir- 
 cles with her finger in the air.) "Yes — circles. 
 It mentions things circular." 
 
 It occurred to me at this point that as we had 
 no success in finding anything approaching the 
 directions given in the boy's Mother's house, that 
 possibly it might be found in our own house, at 
 34 Queen Anne's Gate, seeing that she had been 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 75 
 
 told the two boys were working at this together. 
 
 So I made a search at home, taking with me 
 at her request, the notes of direction. 
 
 The library at 34 Queen Anne's Gate is not 
 a square room — it is oblong, but with a slightly 
 bowed window. The books are in the shelves 
 running between the fireplace towards the window. 
 I took the fifth book out, counting from left to 
 right, from one of the dividing partitions nearest 
 the window. It was The Mysticism of Colour, by 
 Finetta Bruce, published by Ryder, 164 Aldgate 
 Street, London. 
 
 I looked on page 17, and read: 
 
 "The two sides are as dependent one on the 
 other for their existence as a coin is to its reverse 
 and obverse. . . . What should we think of the 
 man who fancied unreal any person, place or ob- 
 ject which he could not actually see? . . . We 
 often show ourselves to be very young children 
 when we treat the Invisible as non-existent, be- 
 cause at this stage of our evolution it is hidden 
 from our sight." 
 
 Turning to the notes I saw "one part of the 
 book treats of foreign countries," and I found 
 
76 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 that an early chapter in the volume tells of Mexico 
 and of Egypt, describing the means used to convey 
 messages to a distance, and the primitive methods 
 used in ancient Egypt for the same purpose. 
 
 Looking now for the circles I turned to page 71, 
 and found that from that page on to page 75 the 
 writer treats of the arch or curved line of the 
 rainbow, which if completed must form a circle, 
 and the words occur: 
 
 "Though only half of the whole is seen by us, 
 the other half must exist" 
 
 and drawn on the page is the diagram of a circle, 
 and yet another is shown on the following page. 
 
 This Book-Message was obtained in November 
 19 1 7, and my husband was present in the library 
 when I traced it, following the directions given. 
 
 "I bear witness that the facts as stated above 
 
 Glenconner. 
 
 are correct." 
 
PART II 
 THE DRAYTON THOMAS SERIES 
 
"Greet the Unseen with a cheer." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Book-Test XIX. 
 
 During the winter of 19 17 and the early 
 spring months we had received so many messages 
 and so much consolation by my sittings with Mrs. 
 Leonard, that it occurred to me that I should 
 give up for a while having any sittings, and leave 
 the time for others, more lately bereaved. At 
 this time if anyone hoped to make an appoint- 
 ment, it was not before three months or so that 
 he could get a sitting arranged, so besieged was 
 this medium by clients, so wide was the field of 
 her work. I had sat for three months in the in- 
 terests of the S.P.R., for our communications 
 had been of so evidential a nature that the Com- 
 mittee, on taking over the services of Mrs. Leon- 
 ard, had asked me to be one of those sitters she 
 was allowed to receive. 
 
 For three months Mrs. Leonard was the sal- 
 aried servant of the Society, who wished to inves- 
 
 79 
 
80 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 tigate her remarkable powers of mediumship. She 
 was permitted to receive only such sitters as the 
 Society sent, and these were, with few exceptions, 
 anonymous to her. A representative of the So- 
 ciety invariably accompanied these sitters, in order 
 to take notes. My sittings were during the months 
 of January, February and March; after that I 
 desisted, for the reason given above. During the 
 following months, however, while I was away in 
 the country, Bim managed to get several Book- 
 Messages through to us by means of another sit- 
 ter, then a stranger to us. This was the Rev. 
 Charles Drayton Thomas, of South Hill Lodge, 
 Bromley, Kent, who was having a series of sittings 
 with Mrs. Leonard, receiving remarkable testi- 
 mony to the truth of continuity beyond the grave. 
 He will publish the results before long he tells 
 me, but these particular Book-Tests in which Bim 
 participated, he generously gives wholly to us to 
 include in our collection. In our consideration 
 they are valuable, coming as they did through one 
 unknown to us, and although in some of these 
 tests there were one or two points that we failed 
 to trace, in the main drift or central message of 
 each they did most convincingly apply. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 81 
 
 The first of this series is interesting in the fact 
 that it was linked with a dream of mine. I know 
 that in telling this I run the risk of losing the 
 sympathy of many readers. To some people it 
 is sufficient to mention an interest in dreams, and 
 they quickly estimate you as a lunatic; a mild one 
 possibly, but still a lunatic. Nevertheless, I shall 
 finish my story, remembering in all humility that 
 this path has been trodden before. 
 
 Since childhood I have had a faculty of dream- 
 ing coherently. I know what Stevenson means 
 when he writes of the Brownies giving him themes 
 for his pen. Most of us in varying degrees have 
 some outlook upon another world, and dreaming 
 is as good a window as any other. 
 
 I have had a series of dreams in which Bim is 
 with me; on waking I remember his words, and 
 I have so great a feeling of happiness and exhila- 
 ration next day that I fully believe these dreams 
 are interviews. 
 
 In this particular dream, towards the end of 
 May in 191 8, he spoke of the memoirs of his 
 own life, a book on which I was then engaged. 
 It was to me a difficult task, a labour of love more 
 piercing than any one can fathom : every day was 
 
82 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 the sword turned in the wound. Yet it had to be 
 done, for treasure must not be hidden. One thing 
 sorrow has shown to me, all that I have of good 
 in this way must be shared. 
 
 Well, in this dream Bim and I talked together. 
 He took the proofs in his hand, and I told him 
 how hard I found it, how I struggled to write, 
 and how clumsy I felt, and helpless. Writing it 
 was like bearing him over again, a moral parturi- 
 tion. Child-birth is painless, I said, compared to 
 writing memoirs of one you love. 
 
 He said: "But you have no idea how it helps 
 me to be with you. There is only one thing! 
 You are praising me too much." 
 
 I said in reply to him, "Yes, that has occurred 
 to me, and I have been wondering if I am capable 
 of drawing a true portrait. Yet I say to myself, 
 no one would ask me to sit down and count over 
 your faults. I must write as I know you, and draw 
 you as you are seen by me." 
 
 I saw the happiness in his face; but he said 
 again remonstratingly, "Nevertheless, you are 
 giving me too much praise; it is all praise of 
 me!" 
 
 And I replied in my dream: 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 83 
 
 "But look at the text I have taken as the motto 
 for the book: 
 
 "There are those that have left a name behind 
 them 
 That their praises might be reported!' 
 
 And in my dream I embraced him, saying: 
 "This book is to report your praise." 
 Then I awoke. 
 
 Now to make clear the application of the fol- 
 lowing message, I must here record that this text 
 that I had taken for the motto of the Memoir 
 is from Ecclesiasticus, Chapter xliv. 
 
 On July 2nd I received a letter from Mr. Dray- 
 ton Thomas. He was then unknown to me. He 
 wrote that he was having a series of sittings with 
 Mrs. Leonard, and that his excuse for introducing 
 himself must be that he had twice been asked by 
 some one purporting to be my son to write to me 
 and send on a message. This message, he had 
 been told, would be in a Book-Test, and the di- 
 rections to find the same were dictated. The 
 volume would be found among his own books in 
 
84 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 his library, and finally, with many messages of 
 love, he had been commissioned to say: "Tell 
 her she will understand the reference. " 
 
 "I have looked out the test," the letter con- 
 tinued. "Needless to say, the reference has no 
 application to myself. I hope it may mean some- 
 thing to you. May I ask you to write and tell me 
 if you find in it any application?" 
 
 Mr. Drayton Thomas had looked among his 
 books following the directions given, and on the 
 appointed page, in the volume specified, he found 
 a treatise on Ecclesiasticus, mentioning the forty- 
 fourth chapter. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Apart from the central application, the fore- 
 going Book-Test has other aspects that are inter- 
 esting. The chapter from which the text was 
 taken (Chapter xliv.) was well known to Bim 
 from the opening lines: 
 
 "Let us now praise famous men 
 And our Fathers that begat us/' 
 
 to the end. I remember a conversation with him 
 about it, in which he said: "I set this at the very 
 head of English prose." He had, moreover, his 
 own humorous application of verse 6, and would 
 say that it belonged particularly to his Father. 
 I recall an occasion when the family were all about 
 to start one Sunday for Kirk. Bim was asked 
 to go and see if his Father was ready, and he re- 
 turned saying: "He has no intention of going to 
 Kirk to-day. He is seated in his library, furnished 
 with ability, living peaceably in his habitation." 
 
 85 
 
86 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 During this spring of 191 8, when we were hav- 
 ing no sittings with Mrs. Leonard, I remember 
 saying, "He will get a message to us in some form 
 or other." And as his birthday approached, we 
 often spoke of him, and I felt confident he would 
 give us some sign of his presence ; so when I had 
 the dream of which I have written, I felt that it 
 sufficed, and was content. But now listen to this: 
 Mr. Drayton Thomas tells us that he was twice 
 asked at his sittings with Mrs. Leonard to write 
 to us, and that it was only his being a stranger 
 that had deterred him from doing so. He posted 
 the letter when the request was repeated with in- 
 sistence. We received it on the day following 
 Bim's birthday — the 2nd July. 
 
 Now apart from the message, is it fanciful to 
 see an allusion in the opening verse to a day of 
 nativity? 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Book-Test XX. 
 
 I now turn to Mr. Drayton Thomas' letters, 
 in case my reader may desire them in corrobora- 
 tion of the facts. 
 
 He wrote as follows: 
 
 South Hill Lodge, 
 
 Bromley, 
 
 Kent. 
 
 Dear Lady Glenconner, 
 
 As you are familiar with Mrs. Leonard 
 and the nature of her sittings, I may dispense 
 with explanations otherwise necessary. Feda has 
 expressed a wish that I should verify by referring 
 to you the directions given by the Book-Test. 
 
 If you do not happen 
 
 to have the volume I shall be pleased to leave 
 a copy at your house. It is Vol. II. of the 
 Encyclopedia Biblica, edited by Profs. Cheyne 
 and Black, published by Black & Adam in 1901. 
 The page indicated by Feda for the test seems 
 to be 1 177, and deals with Ecclesiasticus. 
 Out of the four further refer- 
 ences to this book three have been accurate. I 
 
 87 
 
88 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 should be greatly interested if you can find time 
 to let me hear your opinion. Feda gives the 
 number 21, and you will find the matter of the 
 book is given under numbered paragraphs. 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 C. Drayton Thomas. 
 
 I replied; and Mr. Drayton Thomas wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 ". . . I am deeply interested in your letter 
 following my enquiry, and herewith comes the 
 volume in question. Feda says: 'The whole 
 book has something to do with them, it is linked 
 up with them in some way,' so I am leaving the 
 volume at your house to-day, after the Lecture, 
 that you may inspect the passages at your leisure. 
 "Very faithfully yours, 
 "C. Drayton Thomas." 
 
 He left the volume, as he promised, on the 
 hall table at 34 Queen Anne's Gate, on the eve- 
 ning of July 4th. The Lecture that had taken 
 place on that particular date was a paper on 
 "Symbolism" which I had been preparing some 
 weeks previously. This I had read aloud to an 
 audience in the picture-gallery at 34, and when 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 89 
 
 the last among the company had left the house, 
 I went downstairs to the library. 
 
 In passing through the hall I saw the book of 
 which Mr. Drayton Thomas had written. Eagerly 
 I took it with me to turn to the passages myself, 
 to see if any further allusion became apparent. 
 I had no number of the page to guide me, as 
 Feda's words had been more vague than usual 
 in this respect, so I opened the volume at random, 
 looking at the first pages of the book, and there 
 I found a list of words in which no less than 
 eight of the symbols were enumerated, which 
 figure in the paper that I had just read to an 
 audience in the Gallery: Eagle } Easter f East, 
 West, North, South, Death and Interpretation. 
 
 We felt that in this test Bim could not have 
 given more convincing evidence of his being aware 
 of our doings and occupations. These particular 
 Book-Tests were given to Mr. Drayton Thomas 
 on the 30th May, synchronising exactly with the 
 time that I was reading a book on Symbolism, 
 and doing research work in this line of thought; 
 a fact of which he and Mrs. Leonard were in 
 ignorance. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Book-Test XXL 
 
 This is an extract from Mr. Drayton Thomas' 
 letter written on the 24th August, 19 18, and re- 
 ceived by me at Glen, in Peeblesshire, Scotland. 
 
 Bromley, 
 
 Kent. 
 
 "I was pleasantly surprised to receive the en- 
 closed message for you at my sitting yesterday. 
 Needless to say, I know nothing of the facts herein 
 stated, and I shall be glad to hear if it proves in- 
 telligible to you. 
 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 "C. Drayton Thomas. " 
 
 (From a sitting of the Rev. C. Drayton Thomas 
 held with Mrs. Leonard on the 23rd August at 
 Datchet.) 
 
 Feda. u Bim was pleased about the message 
 he got through in July — it was near a birthday, 
 and the test referred also to studies in which they 
 
 90 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 91 
 
 had just been engaged. It helped his Father very 
 much, and he is very pleased about it. Now here 
 is another for them, this time in Scotland. The 
 room is upon what one can only call the ground 
 floor, and it is on the right, and not quite square.'' 
 
 (This is interesting, as there are no family liv- 
 ing-rooms at Glen strictly on the ground floor, all 
 the rooms are on a floor nine steps up out of the 
 front hall, the servants' rooms being ten steps 
 down from it, on the north side, into a basement.) 
 
 Feda continues: 
 
 "As you enter the room, the books are on the 
 wall to the right, a height from three to three 
 and a half feet from the ground. 
 
 "Tell them to take the fourth volume from the 
 left and open it at page 74. There is a passage 
 there that Bim chooses to send as a message from 
 him." 
 
 These directions being followed, entering the 
 room by the drawing-room, 1 - (for there are two 
 
 a This room has since been considerably altered. When the 
 Book-Test was given there was only one glazed cupboard with 
 books in it, to the right as you enter from the drawing-room, 
 
92 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 doors) the volume selected proved to be Walton 1 s 
 Livet, and page 74 held the following passage, 
 referring to the life of Doctor Donne: 
 
 "The next thing is that he went usually once a 
 year, if not oftener to the beloved Octon (his 
 home), where he would say he found both the 
 cure for all cares, by the company which he called 
 ( the living furniture 7 of the place, and a restora- 
 tive by the naturalness of that which he called 
 his genial (native) air. . . . The summer before 
 his death he changed for a journey to Winchester 
 College, to which school he had been sent, 1 and 
 'I find this time/ he wrote, 'that at my now being 
 in that very place where I sat when I was a boy, 
 I was (am?) occasioned to remember those very 
 thoughts of my youth which possessed me. . . /' 
 
 The passage continues: 
 
 "When his better part, that part which cannot 
 
 which, containing valuable books, was always kept locked. 
 These were the only volumes in the room except a small book- 
 case standing on the floor that contained a few old disused 
 lesson books. There are now two other large glazed cup- 
 boards recessed in the wall, so the directions given in the 
 Book-Test no longer apply. 
 
 1 Edward Wyndham Tennant was at school at Winchester. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 93 
 
 die, put off mortality, with as much content and 
 cheerfulness as human frailty is capable of, the 
 circle of his life was completed; he, dying in a 
 manner worthy of his name and family, worthy of 
 the trust committed to him, for the service of his 
 Prince and of his Country." 
 
 It is here I must draw attention to a clear 
 light that would be observable only to Bim's fam- 
 ily. It lies in the phrase, li the living furniture of 
 the place" This was one of Bim's terms, "furni- 
 ture"; and he would use it for people; it was one 
 of his words. 
 
 A glance at the paper giving instructions sent 
 to us by Mr. Drayton Thomas, showed us that 
 a further point of contact was yet to be found: 
 
 "Bim says, now at the beginning of this book 
 on the first page, there is a message for his 
 Mother." 
 
 All this time I had been engaged in preparing 
 the Memoir of my son (which has been published 
 since at the Bodley Head) ; and I think it was 
 to this he was referring, and to the constant com- 
 
94 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 munication I have held with him since he died. 
 At least to us the application appeared instant 
 when we looked on the first page and read : 
 
 "It was a work worthy undertaking, for be- 
 twixt the two there was so mutual a knowledge 
 and such friendship, contracted in his youth, as 
 nothing but Death could force a separation; and 
 though their bodies were divided, their affections 
 were not, for Love followed the friends' fame be- 
 yond Death, and the forgetful grave" 
 
 "I have heard Divines say," the passage con- 
 tinues, "that those virtues that were but sparks 
 upon Earth, became great and glorious flames in 
 Heaven." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Book-Test XXII. 
 
 While we were at Glen that autumn, Bim 
 sent a message to his brothers, again through the 
 kind agency of Mr. Drayton Thomas. 
 
 "First," Feda said, "he wants to assure them 
 that he takes an interest in all they do, that he 
 knows all about their movements, that he can 
 be with them in all that they are doing. He 
 wants you to look for this message in the same 
 room, the same shelf as the other message was 
 found in, only at the extreme right of the shelf. 
 The last book in the row, page 8." 
 
 We looked as directed, and the last book in 
 the row, the one touching the wall, was A-hUurs 
 and Endurances, by Nichols. 1 On page 8 there is 
 a poem entitled "Farewell to Place of Comfort," 
 in which, choosing those that appeared applicable, 
 the following lines occur : 
 
 ^hatto and Windus, MCMXVIL, London. 
 95 
 
96 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 "They shall not say I went with heavy heart; 
 I love them all, but now I must depart 
 As one who goes to try a Mystery. . . . 
 
 "And now tears are not mine; I have release 
 
 From all the former and the later pain; 
 Like the mid-sea, I rock in boundless peace 
 Soothed by the charity of the deep sea 
 rain. ..." 
 
 and then follow some lines that vividly portray 
 the immediate scenery of "his home, the beloved 
 Octon," Glen, in Peeblesshire: 
 
 "0 bronzen pines, evenings of gold and blue, 
 Steep mellow slope, brimmed twilit pools below, 
 Hushed trees, still vale dissolving in the 
 dew. . . ." 
 
 We have been happy. . ... 
 
 Happy now, I go" 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 At the close of the sitting from which were 
 derived these beautiful messages, Mr. Drayton 
 Thomas asked if Bim were present, giving them 
 himself? 
 
 Feda replied: "He isn't here now; he was 
 here while I was giving you his directions, and 
 he sent his very best thanks to you for taking 
 his messages. He is so particularly glad, be- 
 cause these Book-Tests have especially helped his 
 Father." 
 
 At this point I will give the endorsement of the 
 witness, which I held over from the close of the 
 previous chapter. 
 
 "I bear witness to the truth of the foregoing 
 narration; I was present at the search for the 
 books. Their place on the shelf, and the numbers 
 on the pages on which the messages were found, 
 accord precisely with the directions given." 
 
 (Signed) Glenconner. 
 
 97 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 During the winter months of the year 191 8 
 I was 
 
 "Still nursing the unconquerable hope, 
 Still clutching the inviolable shade," 
 
 investigating along other lines of spiritualistic 
 activity, and obtaining quite as remarkable testi- 
 mony in these directions as I have received in the 
 foregoing Book-Tests. This however would fill 
 a volume by itself, and I am not going to include 
 it here, tempted as I am to do so by the interest 
 of showing how in this direction also the dream- 
 interviews were fulfilled. 
 
 Some day the complete nature of sleep will be 
 recognised, and it will be found to be not only 
 a provision of nature designed to rest the body, 
 but primarily a way of escape for the soul. All 
 mortals drink at this clear spring and are refreshed 
 by it, but only some remember on waking. And 
 what is the nature of the draught? An under- 
 standing of the reason of suffering, comprehension 
 
 98 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 99 
 
 of Divine Law, and reunion with those we call 
 the Dead. Consolation. 
 
 This is the reason why there is no separation 
 for the risen. Those who have died are not sep- 
 arated from us as we are from them. There is 
 no bereavement in Paradise, and this is because 
 sleep is a psychic condition, and they can reach 
 us then; but we have not trained ourselves to 
 bring back the memory. 
 
 There are many instances, among the poets and 
 the saints, of inspiration obtained during the still 
 hours of sleep. 
 
 One of the most beautiful of the hymns written 
 by Cowper was obtained in this way. He writes 
 in one of his incomparable letters: 
 
 "I began to compose lines yesterday morning 
 before daybreak, but fell asleep at the end of the 
 first two verses. When I wakened again, the 
 third and fourth were whispered to my heart in 
 a way which I have often experienced." 
 
 And Vaughan writes : 
 "And as the angels in some brighter dreams 
 Speak to the soul of man while he doth sleep, 
 So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted 
 themes 
 And into glory peep." 
 
ioo THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 If this thought is pursued it will be seen that 
 with the particular flavour of the personality, the 
 character of the spiritual intercourse will accord. 
 Cowper, a gentle suffering soul, as blameless as 
 a flower and aspiring ceaselessly to the sublime, 
 will in these hours receive the benefit arising from 
 the expression of a poignant contrition, with all 
 its renovating and sustaining joy. 
 
 Vaughan "communes with angels," receiving 
 those strange thoughts that so "transcend his 
 wonted themes" as to cause him to cry: 
 
 "O Father of Eternal Life and all 
 Created glories under Thee, 
 Resume Thy Spirit from this world of thrall 
 Into true liberty." 
 
 And Coleridge built stately pleasure domes and 
 heard dulcimers, and drank the milk of Paradise. 
 So each goes to his own place in sleep, as in death, 
 for the one is but the likeness of the other, provid- 
 ing identically, release. 
 
 Sleep and Death, the Twin Brothers, bore 
 away the form of the god-like Sarpedon. 
 
 "I wish," said my Uncle Toby, "I wish I were 
 asleep" It was his sole and sufficient comment 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 101 
 
 on hearing the heart-racking story of Lefevre. 
 The exclamation of one seeking escape from pain. 
 A way out. 
 
 And this gate opens nightly, for the weary and 
 the sorrowful. Perhaps the words in the Bible 
 should read : 
 
 "God giveth to His beloved in sleep. " 
 
 "His beloved" being the soul of man. 1 
 
 After the first week that I knew my loss in 
 19 1 6, three times I saw Bim, once with my wak- 
 ing eyes — with the mud of the battlefield still 
 upon his uniform — but of this I will not write — 
 and after that a series of dreams took me to him. 
 It was as if I were away with him, and invariably 
 happy. These dreams left an abiding impression 
 on waking, rather than one of remembered words. 
 I walked with him, I held his arm, he bent to- 
 wards me talking eagerly in just his own way; or 
 
 1 "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come with Me." This 
 is not the Saviour speaking to a Church (has He other temple 
 than the human heart?), nor is it plainly an Oriental love-song. 
 It is the voice of Christ speaking to Man's soul. 
 
102 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 we would be sitting together in an atmosphere 
 of infinite content and leisure. 
 
 So great was the sense of consolation after one 
 of these dreams, that the fact of his having died 
 would on waking seem almost negligible ; for hours 
 after I was lapped in a sustaining sense of joy. 
 
 But these dreams are again different in nature 
 to the story-dreams. Some day I must collect 
 them all. 
 
 Shortly before Christmas in the year 19 17 Bim 
 told me through Feda I was going to have some 
 help in a way she could not explain. u Some 
 pleasant happening." He added: "it would be at 
 Glen." 
 
 On the night of December 27, I had an en- 
 lightening and interesting dream, and on my re- 
 turn to London in January, Bim made to it, 
 through Feda, a recognisable allusion. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Book-Test XXIII. 
 After some winter months in London, we were 
 once again at Wilsford in May 1919; but before 
 leaving London, I had a sitting with Mrs. Leon- 
 ard, at one point in which Bim spoke particularly 
 of the Memoir of his life that I was then engaged 
 upon, showing clear knowledge of the stage I 
 had reached in my work. One point appealed 
 to me as being especially characteristic. I quote 
 from my notes taken at the time of the sitting, 
 February 28th. 
 
 Feda said: "There is something he would like 
 to say about another man; he is a little puzzled 
 at this. Somehow he gives me the impression of 
 two men. I don't know what they have to do 
 with it — but it is as if they each might have to 
 do with it, and have you given it to the one he 
 didn't know? Because there was one man he 
 knew, he says, in some way, and he thought you 
 would have given it to him. Some one who was 
 
 103 
 
io 4 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 so friendly; at least Bim says he felt friendly 
 towards him, although — funny thing — he'd never 
 seen him, he says. Still he goes on saying he 
 thought you would have given the book to him." 
 
 Now to understand this, I must explain Mr. 
 Blackwell of Oxford had published Bim's book of 
 verse, Worple Flit, and a series of letters had 
 passed between the two over this little volume; 
 letters of an unusual nature in such a connection. 
 Like all that Bim set his hand to, they are vivid, 
 cordial, personal, and wholly removed from the 
 dusty line of business, first, because of Bim's warm 
 heart, and secondly, because of the intense de- 
 light and enjoyment he derived from the prepara- 
 tion of this little book. (He revised the proof- 
 sheets on the eve of the Battle of the Somme, 
 and one of his letters tells of having read some 
 of his poetry to his friends among the officers 
 of the Battalion, and of the pleasure he had re- 
 ceived because of their approval.) He wrote of 
 the interest Mr. Blackwell was showing in his 
 poems, and constantly, as the letters that I have 
 by me show, he asked his opinion in matters to 
 do with the production of the book. 
 
 Now knowing all this, it seems to me entirely 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 105 
 
 fitting and characteristic that Bim should be sur- 
 prised at the MS. of the Memoir having been 
 given to Mr. John Lane for publication. 
 
 This is a very good instance of the profit and 
 convenience that is derived from spirit communi- 
 cation, apart from the healing source of consola- 
 tion it may be. Little things can be set right, 
 slight perplexities removed, and the trifling give 
 and take, and the ripple and flow in the familiar 
 current of home-life, may be maintained and con- 
 tinued. 
 
 I said to Feda in reply: "I understand; tell 
 him I would have offered the book to his friend 
 — Mr. Blackwell — but seeing the poem Green 
 Gardens in Laventie in The Times, Mr. John 
 Lane had written to me, asking, in the event of 
 my writing any biography, would I give it to him ; 
 and feeling that this request was a tribute to Bim, 
 I agreed." 
 
 Feda. "It's all right. He's quite satisfied; 
 he knew there was some good reason, he says, only 
 he wanted to know about it fully; he is going 
 to give you a Book-Test from it now, he says, 
 after he has talked to you about it. He likes the 
 cover, he's quite satisfied about that, and the bind- 
 ing. The title was wrong at first, it was out of 
 
106 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 place, and all squashed up together; he says I 
 mustn't say that, but the letters were too big, 
 wrongly arranged." 
 
 (This was so. When the sample of the cover 
 was submitted to us, the letters in the name were 
 crushed together, owing to too much having been 
 placed in one line. His brother Christopher re- 
 wrote the title words for me, placing the name on 
 one line, and the name of the regiment on the 
 line beneath it, thus freeing the style, and reliev- 
 ing the cramped appearance.) 
 
 Feda continued: "He is so pleased about the 
 dedication! The very last few words of this are 
 what he likes. He likes that very much, he says, 
 but why did you change it at the end? It made 
 him so happy." 
 
 The words of the dedication are as follows: 
 "Emboldened by the thought of Bim's spirit of 
 Good-Fellowship, and recalling that his first 
 thought is ever to share his own, I dedicate this 
 book to all those Mothers who have suffered the 
 same loss. They will forgive its imperfection, 
 and all I have found good to tell of my son here, 
 they will feel to be most true of theirs. May the 
 Light of Comfort shine on them. >} 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 107 
 
 Now notice this point. When I first wrote the 
 dedication, the last sentence stood "May the 
 Light of Comfort shine on them, as it has on 
 me." 
 
 I subsequently struck out the words "as it has 
 on me," on the ground of it being always weak 
 and generally irrelevant to mention oneself in con- 
 versation or in writing. By the Light of Comfort 
 I meant Spiritualism, and my desire was that 
 others might be consoled as much as I have been, 
 but nevertheless I struck out the last five words. 
 Now here you have Bim saying: 
 
 "Why did you change it at the end? It made 
 him so happy." 
 
 Yes — because in those five words Bim read an 
 open avowal of our having been comforted, how 
 greatly through his own unfailing love, he knows. 
 
 I again quote from my record : 
 
 "Something on page 5 is particularly pleasing 
 to him, he says. A laugh between you and him. 
 Well, you can take it as a whole, but there is an 
 especial bit on page 5, he says, for you to look 
 at, and to remember." 
 
108 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 I said at this point, "But the proofs are away 
 at the publishers now, and what figured as page 
 5 when last I had them to correct will be marked 
 so no longer, owing to the interpolations that 
 change the pagination." 
 
 "That's why he particularly gives you this 
 Book-Test, because you can't verify it till you 
 get the proofs again. When they come back, 
 look out page 5." 
 
 The notes of a sitting are always read aloud to 
 the family on my return, and the days of waiting 
 passed quite slowly for all, we were so eager to 
 see the reference. 
 
 When the proofs returned, I found on that 
 page a description of an evening party Bim had 
 given. (I had, myself, heard him on this occasion 
 at the telephone in the Cavendish Hotel, Jermyn 
 Street, not only inviting but adjuring absent guests 
 to come. 
 
 "Now do ! Every one that I like is here ! You 
 must come!" 
 
 "Never mind — get up and dress again, and 
 come on — do I" 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 109 
 
 "Splendid ... all right. . . ." 
 
 a * * * * » 
 
 He rose from the telephone, and said to me: 
 "She said she'd gone to bed, but she's going to 
 get up again." 
 
 We laughed together. 
 
 I said: "What tribute to your success as a 
 host! to leave one's bed to go to a Ball . . ." and 
 his happy face answered me, as he took his way 
 again among the throng.) 1 
 
 When the proofs returned I looked on page 5, 
 and read as follows : 
 
 "These social gatherings were arranged with 
 a characteristic precipitancy sometimes owing to 
 the exigency of time, invitation being carried out 
 by telephone , while the earlier invited guests were 
 
 already streaming through the door 
 
 . . . People have been known to rise from their 
 beds to which they had already repaired, dress 
 anew and hasten gladly, if late, to the festive 
 scene." 
 
 1 Edward Wyndham Tennant, \th Gren. Guards. By Pamela 
 Glenconner. Published by John Lane. 
 
no THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 "And" adds one of these, "he was the best 
 and dearest of companions!" 
 
 We can bear witness to the verification of the 
 Book-Test as described above. 
 
 (Signed) D. F. T., 
 
 Glenconner. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Book-Test XXIV. 
 
 In the spring of the year 19 19 we were once 
 more established at Wilsford, and on the 31st 
 of May I received the following from the Rev. 
 Drayton Thomas : 
 
 South Hill Lodge, 
 
 Bromley, 
 Kent. 
 May $ist. 
 
 Dear Lady Glenconner, 
 
 I have again the pleasure of sending you 
 a message received yesterday. 
 
 I believe these Book-Tests will go far to dis- 
 credit the hypothesis of telepathy as a sufficient 
 explanation of trance mediumship. 
 
 I hope this one will prove accurate in many 
 points if not in all. 
 
 If successful, and of not too private a nature, I 
 should be very glad to have your account of the 
 findings. 
 
 Most sincerely yours, 
 C. Drayton Thomas. 
 hi 
 
ii2 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 This was a Book-Test with six points of con- 
 tact, four of which we traced. 
 I quote from the directions. 
 
 ( i ) "This test is from the same room at Wils- 
 ford as before; look to the right as you go in 
 through the door. Third shelf up, take the fourth 
 book from the left, page 33, and read rather 
 more than half-way up the page, and you will 
 find 'How my Mother's thoughts appear now, 
 to me' " 
 
 Following these directions, we found the book, 
 and the passage that appeared applicable read as 
 follows : 
 
 "Neither Thayer nor any other writer attrib- 
 utes sufficient importance to reflection. . . . For 
 this reason I deal with reflection at considerable 
 length." 
 
 Now there are, it appears to me, two kinds of 
 Book-Tests; sometimes the characteristic being 
 an atmosphere of allusion, a general trend of 
 meaning, in the gist of a given page or in the en- 
 tire book, rather than any one recognised point or 
 saying. The above seems to me a Book-Test of 
 this nature, seeing that the whole chapter deals 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 113 
 
 with the description of life as lived in one element, 
 and how it appears to the denizens of another; 
 it shows how the conditions of their surroundings 
 may render the life, say in water, practically in- 
 visible. 1 In such a case as this, the general in- 
 tention of the message appears sufficiently evident. 
 
 (2) u Within a span of this book is one whose 
 title expresses something connected with David, 
 and what Bim was helping him with, a little while 
 ago. . . ." 
 
 The book that was readily found in connection 
 with these directions was within a span of the 
 book first named; it is entitled Caravanning and 
 Camping Out: Experiences in the Open Air, by 
 Herbert Stone, published by Herbert Jennings. 
 David is a devotee of caravanning, and his bed 
 is in the garden the summer through. 
 
 The directions continue: 
 
 (3) "As you stand facing these books you will 
 notice a small white figure." 
 
 This is so. On the oak panel to the right of 
 
 1 Marvels of Fish Life, by Francis Ward. Published by 
 Cassell & Co. 1912. 
 
ii4 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 these books there hangs a photograph of a child 
 of four years old, dressed in white. 
 
 The directions continue: 
 
 (4) "Bim says, on the writing-table in this 
 room, standing on the top of it, is something 
 connected with him." 
 
 On the writing-table in this room stands a large 
 framed photograph taken of him in 19 15, but 
 placed there eighteen months subsequently. 
 
 The photograph of the child in white was hung 
 here some months before this Book-Test was 
 given, and more than eighteen months after Mrs. 
 Leonard's visit. 
 
 During this spring we received other Book- 
 Tests through Mr. Drayton Thomas, 1 but I will 
 close the series now, not because they decline in 
 excellence, but because I am anxious to avoid 
 the long and detailed reports that characterise 
 most books of psychological interest. 
 
 I believe the light of spirit-communication burns 
 so dimly largely owing to the mass of debris its 
 votaries heap upon its slender flame. It reaches 
 
 1 From Shelley, Browning and Burns. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 115 
 
 us already far too clogged by the superfluities and 
 illiteracies of the control, and it is further con- 
 fused with the but-partially-swept-aside-identity 
 of the medium. How little, then, do we need the 
 final and generally destructive touch of its expo- 
 nent, which but too often of its vital flame leaves 
 only 
 
 U A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest." 
 
 So I will avoid weighting this book with a mass 
 of material, giving but two more messages that 
 we received that summer, through the same chan- 
 nel, and from the same source, though chrono- 
 logically they should have had previous place. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Book-Test XXV. 
 
 South Hill Lodge, 
 Bromley, 
 Kent. 
 May 6th, 1919. 
 
 Dear Lady Glenconner, 
 
 The enclosed explains itself. I shall be 
 most interested to learn how many out of the 
 six items are successful. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 C. Drayton Thomas. 
 
 From notes of a sitting with Mrs. Leonard, on 
 May 2nd, 19 19. 
 
 Feda. (1) "Now Bim's test is in the study 
 at Wilsford. It is to the right as you go in. 
 The shelf is about three feet up, and the book 
 is third from the left. Look on page 29. It 
 has a summary of events in which Bim was in- 
 terested. 
 
 (2) "Within a span of the above is a book 
 
 whose title suggests 'tumbling down.' 
 
 116 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 117 
 
 (3) U A new photograph is near these books. 
 It was not there previously. 
 
 (4) "An important piece of furniture in the 
 room has been moved recently right round to the 
 opposite side. 
 
 (5) "The view from the window is other than 
 it used to be. The view is different. Feda is 
 puzzled how a view can be different, but he says : 
 'Something is changed, and it makes the view look 
 different, but he says it is only the people who live 
 in the house who would know of it." 
 
 One point of contact in this test we could not 
 verify. I will take the items now separately, com- 
 mencing with the last. 
 
 (5) "The view from the window is changed in 
 some way; it is diff event to, what it used to be." 
 
 This is so. A large mulberry tree that stands 
 on the lawn lost three of its limbs recently. The 
 first one fell in the summer of 19 18, and another 
 came down in the following summer. A great 
 portion of dead wood was then cut out from the 
 tree, to lighten its constitution, and preserve 
 what was still alive. This did not, however, pre- 
 vent a further bough falling, with the result that, 
 
n8 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 when this Book-Test was given, a great opening in 
 the tree had been effected, revealing the water 
 meadows to the right beyond the river, and caus- 
 ing a marked change in the view. The excellence 
 of this point in the test is evident, if you notice 
 the attention drawn to the fact that only "the 
 people in the house would know of it" ; and this 
 is so, for the mulberry tree still stands ; only those 
 would see the difference who can recall it as it 
 was formerly. 
 
 (4) "An Important piece of furniture in the 
 room has been removed right round to the oppo- 
 site side." 
 
 The week before this Book-Test was received 
 the grand piano had been shifted the reverse 
 way to that in which it had stood for years, the 
 keyboard facing the opposite direction; but a dis- 
 crepancy is here in that Feda said "An important 
 piece of furniture in the room has been removed," 
 implying in the same room as that in which the 
 Book-Test was to be sought for. The piano, how- 
 ever, was in another room to this. 
 
 (3) "A new photograph is near these books; 
 it was not there previously" 
 
 This is correct. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 119 
 
 (2) "Within a span is a book whose title sug- 
 gests Humbling down! " 
 
 This proved to be an allusion to the Fall of 
 Man, in the large copy of Paradise Lost; opposite 
 page 201 is Blake's illustration of the "Fall of 
 Lucifer" : he is shown, with all his angels, falling 
 headlong. 
 
 (1) "Third book counting from the left in the 
 Wilsford study, page 29. A summary of events 
 that Bim was interested in! y 
 
 The book proved to be Volume III. of Shelley* s 
 Poetical Works, edited by Shepherd, and pub- 
 lished by Chatto, Windus & Co. in 1888; a large 
 paper edition limited to a hundred copies. On 
 page 29 we read The Triumph of Life. 
 
 On that page, and onward to the conclusion 
 of the poem, I found the lines that follow. 
 
 I ought to make clear that in this passage, ac- 
 cording to our custom, only the applicable lines 
 are taken. Those discarded are represented by 
 dotted lines, which, for one thing, respects the 
 metre of the poem, and at the same time shows 
 openly that we take only such lines as appear those 
 intended. This seems to us to be legitimate, but 
 in this particular instance something beyond mu- 
 
120 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 tilation and selection has occurred. Isn't it re- 
 markable, following this plan of elimination, that 
 so beautiful and so complete a passage as the one 
 given here should emerge, the outcome of the 
 Test? 
 
 It is certainly not as Shelley wrote it; but 
 doesn't it appear to have acquired an intention of 
 its own? 
 
 Book-Test XXVI. 
 From THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 
 
 u 
 
 ; so on my sight 
 
 Burst a new vision, never seen before; 
 
 And the fair shape waned in the coming light. 
 As veil by veil the silent splendour drops 
 From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite 
 
 Of Sun-rise, e'er it tinge the mountain tops. 
 And as the presence of that fairest planet 
 Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes 
 
 That his day y s path may end as he began it 
 In that star's smile, whose light is like the scent 
 Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it, 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 121 
 
 So knew I, in that Light's severe excess 
 The presence of that shape which on the stream 
 Moved, as I moved along the wilderness 
 
 More dimly than a day-appearing dream; 
 
 A light of heaven 
 
 The new Vision, 
 
 and the cold bright car 
 
 With solemn speed and stunning music crost 
 
 The forest, .... from some dread War 
 Triumphantly returning 
 
 Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme 
 
 Of one who from the lowest depths of hell, 
 
 Through every Paradise, and through all glory 
 
 Love led serene, and who returned to, tell 
 
 the wondrous story, 
 
 How all things are transfigured except Love!' 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Book-Test XXVII. 
 
 We have had so many messages sent in this 
 way through Book-Tests, that I have even been 
 careless in keeping them with their directions to- 
 gether, so that some are at this moment not avail- 
 able; but there is one of these that I would like 
 to include here, in recognition of the pleasure it 
 brought with it, although I cannot give the par- 
 ticulars, for I have not the notes by me. 
 
 It brought proof of how closely those who love 
 us on the Other Side are able to follow us, and 
 how surely they are aware of our thoughts and 
 our activities. To make this meaning clear, I 
 must say that the book that I had been working 
 upon was at last nearing completion. I had cor- 
 rected the final proofs, and returned them to the 
 printer, saying to myself, "At last — that is done." 
 Thoughts and heart lightened, I was at peace. 
 
 That week I received a Book-Test through Mr. 
 
 122 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 123 
 
 Drayton Thomas, and the passage in Shelley's 
 poems that the directions led me to, reads as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 " The toil which stole from thee so many an hour 
 Is ended, and the fruit is at thy feet; 
 No longer, where the woods to frame a bower 
 With interlaced branches mix and meet, 
 Or where, with sound like many voices sweet 
 Waterfalls leap among wild islands green, 
 Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat 
 Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen — 
 But beside thee, where still my heart has ever 
 been." 
 
 This last message, and another that I have no 
 space for now, chimed so perfectly with our 
 thoughts when we received them, that we have 
 no slightest doubt that it was Bim's intention to 
 intimate to us conclusively that he dwells among 
 us, and that our feelings and our thoughts are 
 known to him. 
 
 When such communication can be established 
 the Grave is robbed of Victory, and the heart 
 hears with renewed understanding the words: 
 
 "I will not leave you comfortless." 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 "Who goes there?" 
 "Friend." 
 
 "Give the Pass-Word." 
 "Service." 
 
 "Pass, Friend, all's well." 
 
 I marvel that the Church should look on the 
 activities of Spiritualism as antagonistic to her 
 teaching. In its central attack upon materialistic 
 thought it should be recognised as a valuable ally. 
 For Spiritualism identifies the material with the 
 spiritual universe. Here and now, it says, are we 
 spiritual beings; here and now in the material 
 world does the spiritual world stand revealed 
 before us, and within ourselves powers lie hidden 
 such as are believed to belong only to angels and 
 demi-gods. 
 
 This world, as we with limited vision perceive 
 it, is not complete, nor is it set apart from the 
 rest of the universe. In all ages, and in all re- 
 ligions, there have been some who have known 
 
 124 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 125 
 
 this, and who have dwelt in conscious communion 
 with other states of being. Equally true is it 
 that these have constantly had to face or flee the 
 hostility of the ignorant. 
 
 Those of us who have the new revelation at 
 heart feel grateful that at the Lambeth Confer- 
 ence, held lately, the subject of Spiritualism was 
 given prominence, and it is well that it was so. 
 The Church cannot afford to overlook or deny 
 the Spiritualism of the present day, because it is 
 a living thing, and has brought the living Word 
 to many. 
 
 I am not alluding now to the physical phenom- 
 ena, significant though this is, but I mean the 
 teaching behind the cult of Spiritualism. And 
 what is its teaching? It is the renewal of the. 
 Divine Promise, "Thou shalt not die but live" 
 
 "But is not this the message the Church gives 
 her people?" you will say. "Why turn away to 
 hear it from others ?" Well, let us consider this 
 point. Is it the message the Church has been 
 delivering? Has she not, in the past, insisted 
 rather on the resurrection of the body than on 
 the immortality of the soul? In Holy Scriptures 
 we are nowhere told our physical forms shall rise 
 
126 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 again. Where texts appear teaching this clumsy 
 misunderstanding of truth they have been mis- 
 translated, either accidentally or by intent. Take 
 the familiar instance of the nineteenth chapter 
 of Job. The correct translation is : "Though after 
 my skin this body be destroyed, yet without my 
 flesh I shall see God." Yet we never hear it read 
 like this. The old error is perpetuated. 
 
 I do not mean that the Church still believes 
 in the resurrection of the body, no one now thinks 
 dissection to be inimical to the Resurrection Morn- 
 ing; (and yet — can it be believed? — this was the 
 reason why for years dissection was illegal, and 
 the progress of medical science seriously retarded, 
 while in its interest the odious practice of body- 
 snatching prevailed;) but I do mean that it would 
 infinitely increase the Church's influence were she 
 to recast some of the forms of worship, correct- 
 ing misstatements, and reanimating her great ma- 
 chinery by a fresh influx of this truth. It is not 
 good for people's souls to keep saying what they 
 know is not true, and it is quite as dishonest as 
 some of the charges brought against Spiritualism. 
 
 The crux of the difficulty felt by some minds 
 is that Spiritualism is often spoken of as a religion, 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 127 
 
 as if, in itself, survival were a religious fact; but 
 Spiritualism is in no sense a religion. It is not 
 more divine to survive Death than it is to live a 
 span of earthly existence. What one may truly 
 say of Spiritualism is that if the survival of Death 
 be scientifically established and accepted, it makes 
 belief in a Divine Order far easier, and a spiritual 
 life, therefore, easier to find. 
 
 The Church is shackled by mediaeval doctrine, 
 and many of her rites and the character of hymns 
 chosen are totally out of key with the trend of 
 thought of the people. And yet sometimes it 
 would almost seem as if the doctrine of the Res- 
 urrection of the Body had even to-day its adher- 
 ents. Would there have been the bitter outcry 
 we have heard as to the graveyards in France 
 and the form of headpieces had the Church teach- 
 ing been clearer on this point? Would so great 
 a desire have been shown to bring the bodies 
 back from where they fell so honourably? The 
 mourners stand looking down into the pit, and 
 there is a great sound of weeping. And this is 
 where Spiritualism may be most beneficent. It 
 comes forward with the shining words, "Why seek 
 
128 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 the living with the dead bodies?" Surely we often 
 forget the import of these words? 
 
 I have received pressed flowers, strands of 
 grass, photographs, even a pencil drawing of the 
 grave where lies the body of my son. These offer- 
 ings are sent with the utmost tenderness, and are 
 received by me with gratitude, but they seem 
 strangely irrelevant. I look upon that particular 
 patch of soil in France as I might regard any 
 wardrobe at one of the schools he had once fre- 
 quented that had at one time held his clothes. 
 It seems almost laughable to connect him with 
 the grave. Yet one cannot expect to correct this 
 easily. Herd-thought centres on cemeteries. The 
 Human Race has always hugged its Mortality; 
 the one thing it was sure of, you see. 
 
 And yet such great movements as Christian 
 Science and the Universal Church, the Order of 
 the Christian Mystics, and the followers of the 
 New Thought, are signs that many people have 
 outgrown the archaic teaching. Look at the bap- 
 tismal service in the order of Common Prayer. 
 It is full of the monkish ignorance of the Middle 
 Ages, dark with the threats of a God of Wrath. 
 
 Or consider the Lent rites, the service on Good 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 129 
 
 Friday as it is usually observed. How materialistic 
 is the trend of thought, how heavily is the bodily 
 side of Christ's death dwelt on, how strongly the 
 Crucifixion is emphasised. Here is grave-worship 
 again. Or is it the relic of a belief in the Great 
 Sacrifice that is to placate the God of Wrath 
 towards Man, His creature? if so, Spiritualism 
 may again act beneficently if recognised, for her 
 teaching is that it is the Life of Christ that is 
 to save us, not His crucifixion. 
 
 The character of the Lent service is unwhole- 
 some; steeped in a blind mood of solemn misery. 
 Just as "prettiness" is the bane of Art, so "so- 
 lemnity" has been the bane of Religion. So much 
 is considered "secular" by the Church mind, 
 whereas the New Dispensation reveals there is 
 nothing secular except sin. 
 
 I am not overlooking the Easter Service, but 
 here again the stress, surely, is laid upon a false 
 assumption; for the Church preaches the Resur- 
 rection of Christ as a divine and unique act, while 
 we know that it is not in His Resurrection that we 
 witness Divinity. It is because in Life He showed 
 us what we all may be, and in Death, what we 
 
130 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 are all doing f that He claims forever our worship 
 and our love. 
 
 "The people that lay in darkness have seen a 
 great light." 
 
 There are, however, signs of a change in the 
 rigid attitude of the Church, and that she should 
 change is not only to her own welfare, it is im- 
 portant to the well-being of Spiritualism. We 
 need her sympathy. Spiritualists are led astray 
 if they think their wind-blown taper will shine 
 to preservation unless the noble structure of the 
 Church is set as a lantern about it; but to the 
 Church herself, an open mind toward the growth 
 of this subject is imperative. Let her overcome 
 her prejudice, and "try this Spirit, whether it be 
 of God." To try the Spirit, however, means that 
 Churchmen should read the best books on the sub- 
 ject, attaching themselves to the Society of Psychi- 
 cal Research, and themselves should hold a circle 
 of investigation, and this with an impartial mind, 
 for at least three years before coming to a de- 
 cision. 
 
 They should read a course of Theosophy, and 
 when they have become enlightened as to the 
 psychic constitution of Man they will find them- 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 131 
 
 selves fitted to serve and help souls on both sides 
 of the grave, for there are many on the further 
 side in need of ministration. 
 
 Accepted religion teaches the Communion of 
 Saints, and we tell of the communication of souls. 
 Is there any difference save in degree? Mortals 
 must be souls first before they are saints, the fruit 
 must ripen. The harvest before it is in the barn 
 is in the blade, and Christ demonstrated in His 
 own example that after death it is good to meet 
 and speak with our friends. 
 
 Here someone will say: "That is quite differ- 
 ent, what we object to is the medium." 
 
 This is a remark you may hear constantly; it 
 stands for great fastidiousness, refinement, an 
 impeccable taste. "If I must die, I must die; 
 but don't touch my top-knot, says the Peacock" — 
 and so true is this, that you might pervert the 
 text and say that with these people "Perfect taste 
 casteth out Love," for they infinitely prefer 
 neither to hear of nor from "precious friends hid 
 in death's dateless night" rather than jar their 
 own feelings. 
 
 They would like communication, but they do 
 not want it in this way; but in making their 
 
132 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 protest against a medium they are on a par with 
 one who might say, "I like a picnic, but must 
 there be a hamper?" or "Music is a great solace, 
 certainly, but I object to the instrument." 
 
 Unfortunately progress in regard to this mat- 
 ter was retarded by hundreds of years through 
 the wholesale slaughter in the Middle Ages of 
 those with psychic power called witches ; * and in 
 the present stage of development the services of 
 a medium, for spirit communication, are usually 
 essential. 
 
 But here is a point wherein Spiritualists should 
 show discernment. Let them be circumspect in 
 the character of those whom they select, and hav- 
 ing found a medium whom they respect, let them 
 be content and constant, for the channel deepens 
 and the current strengthens, with regularity and 
 use. 
 
 One change the Church has made of im- 
 portance. Before the Reformation, the day fol- 
 lowing All Saints' Day was observed as one on 
 
 ^he inhabitants of the Hebrides, and other outlying parts 
 of Europe, are richer in second-sight and clair-audience than 
 people elsewhere, because the witch-hunt was not pushed so far. 
 They were unmolested. 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 133 
 
 which to remember and pray for the human 
 failures, the wanderers, who had passed from 
 earth unawakened, the mystic Christ within them 
 still unborn. After the Reformation, when the 
 narrow-minded heresy decreed that physical death 
 fixed for ever the condition of the individual, 
 All Souls' Day was obliterated from the calendar. 
 
 Now All Souls' Day has been replaced, and 
 although this has been done chiefly through a 
 desire on the part of the clergy to prevent their 
 congregations flocking to mediums in order to 
 establish communication with the dead, yet it is 
 a tacit recognition by the Church of the truth of 
 one of the main teachings of Spiritualism. 
 
 The fundamental mistake that is commonly 
 made lies in believing those we love are in any 
 sense changed through having experienced the 
 incident of death. By the shedding of the ma- 
 terial body, their individuality is neither dimin- 
 ished nor enhanced. If they desire to communi- 
 cate with those they love, and have the knowledge 
 that this is possible, they will do so just as 
 naturally as they would have used the telephone 
 or sent a telegram in previous days. 
 
 Sometimes you hear the objection advanced 
 
134 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 that the means of communication are so paltry; 
 but when my son was in France, he took a pen 
 with which to communicate with his Mother; he 
 did not think it too trivial an instrument. It 
 served. And it is the same now: he takes what 
 he finds serviceable to this end, and there is 
 nothing sacrilegious or astonishing in the matter. 
 
 In the Scriptures, how many instances are there 
 not recorded of God speaking to His people 
 through various manifestations of the Spirit, 
 taking to His use even tables of stone? Is it 
 contrary to a conception of His inalienable mercy 
 that we should believe that to-day He speaks to 
 us in the spirit of those we love ? 
 
 But with all this said, let us see to it that we, 
 who wish the truth established, may be diligent 
 in the sorting of the false from the true. Let 
 us choose the more admirable from among the 
 less worthy expressions of spiritual activities. 
 There is great need for this. Let it be disen- 
 tangled from the fortune-telling, the fraud, the 
 foolish jocosities and vulgarities with which this 
 subject has been too long enmeshed. 
 
 It is this odious confusion which has done so 
 much to depreciate the truth; it has left the sub- 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 135 
 
 ject open to the rightly strong and just denuncia- 
 tion of the Church on the one hand, while on the 
 other it is delivered over to the Press, which treats 
 it with inexcusable levity. Happily the conditions 
 now existing have brought about a change in this 
 direction. The widespread suffering and the in- 
 fluence of grief have ennobled Spiritualism. It 
 has been cleansed from many impurities, and 
 greatly rid of the defects that characterised it 
 before the War. If you stay to think of it, you 
 will see that it could not have been otherwise; 
 for on the one side you have the prevailing spirit 
 of exalted sorrow, and upon the other the great 
 crowd of witnesses. There are so many hands 
 thrust back to clasp our own here, so many hearts 
 eager to tell us that they are yet near us and 
 alive, that there is no room for charlatanry, even 
 were people inclined to be fraudulent. "There is 
 no room for death" x 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne observes somewhere, that 
 the Banner of Truth would never trail in the 
 dust were it not for the standard-bearer, and I 
 have great apprehension lest I should jeopardise 
 
 1 This poem is given in full in Appendix III. 
 
136 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 in any degree by my own inadequacy what I hold 
 to be true. It is certain that no subject suffers 
 so richly at the hands of its adherents as this 
 matter of Spiritualism, and I think the chief fault 
 lies in the direction of confusing it with religion. 
 Spiritualism, I must repeat, is in no sense a re- 
 ligion. From my earliest years I was educated in 
 this line of thought and given literature on the 
 subject, but never was I led for a moment to think 
 that it should stand in the place of religion. It 
 was given rather as a light of knowledge in which 
 to view the teaching of Christianity, and in this 
 light to comprehend the amazing narrative of the 
 New Testament; and the study of the phenomena 
 of Spiritualism supports rather than conflicts with 
 these narratives of the life of Christ; there is 
 good reason to believe that some of the miracles 
 wrought by Him were effected through knowledge 
 of the very laws that govern the phenomena of 
 the present day. And when we consider this, 
 is not the attitude of pious people towards this 
 subject deplorable? Consider their ignorance of 
 its teaching, their suspicion, their contempt; yet 
 such as are able to bring toward it an unbiased 
 mind, surely these will become aware of a like- 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 137 
 
 ness between its phenomena and the experiences 
 of the disciples of the Lord? 
 
 In looking back on my early years I recall one 
 experience with especial gratitude. It was my 
 privilege to sit in a fully developed and private 
 circle, a circle distinguished for its authority and 
 high standing, and notable as providing Frederic 
 Myers with much material that appeared as evi- 
 dence in his great book, Human Personality after 
 Death. I can sum up quite briefly the outcome 
 of this; I learned that death is an incident in life,, 
 and life is continuous; that communication with 
 those we call the dead, under certain conditions, 
 is possible; that the conditions under which those 
 we call the dead exist are not greatly dissimilar 
 to those of earthly life. I learned that the Spir- 
 itual World is immanent, and that it lies with our- 
 selves how far and how clearly we perceive this; 
 and finally I learned that it is by the life of Jesus 
 that we shall be "saved," and not by His death, 
 and this only so far as we follow, in our own lives, 
 His divine example. 
 
 I look back on all this and see its solid value, 
 and the people concerned in the movement who 
 visited my parents' home — Edward Maitland, 
 
138 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 Gerald Massey, Gurney, Myers, Crookes, Mount 
 Temple, Wilberforce — these I heard of, or heard 
 converse, and their books lay on our tables — let 
 me take this opportunity to greet them, and salute 
 their names anew. 
 
 I record this merely to make clear that when 
 the time came to need the comfort proffered by 
 Spiritualism, I turned to it as naturally as leaves 
 turn to the light. And in no flight of an emo- 
 tional nature nor in a credulous dependence, but 
 I did it in just as common-sense and practical a 
 manner as I would have gone about to book a 
 passage or to send a cable to New Zealand, had 
 it so chanced that my son had gone to that quarter 
 of the globe. 
 
 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is not 
 death, for death is a means of progression. The 
 last enemy that shall be swallowed up is the 
 separation of death, for this is the outcome of 
 materialism, and anything that obstructs instead 
 of revealing, wars against God. Will not the 
 Church then recognise the higher Spiritualism, 
 thereby rekindling the fires upon her altars, and 
 regaining evidence of those activities of Spirit 
 which illumined the early years of the Christian 
 
THE EARTHEN VESSEL 139 
 
 faith? Its evidences are but the shadow of God, 
 yet some testimony of His nearness to the exiled 
 souls of men. 
 
 "For where will God be absent? In His Face 
 Is light, but in His Shadow healing too. 
 Let Guido touch the Shadow and be healed." 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 Mrs. Leonard's Account of her Meeting 
 with Feda. 
 
 "Commonplace minds usually condemn 
 everything that is beyond the scope of 
 their understanding." — Rochefoucauld. 
 
 In December 19x0, I met two sisters, to whom 
 I was introduced when I was out visiting some 
 friends. After exchanging a few words with me, 
 one of them asked me if I was a Spiritualist? 
 I replied that I was very interested in the subject, 
 and finding they were of the same mind we de- 
 cided to sit together for development . They came 
 to my house on an appointed day and we selected 
 a small table in bamboo, and we sat round it with 
 our hands resting on its surface, but for quite a 
 considerable number of sittings, without any re- 
 sult. At the twenty-seventh sitting one of the 
 sisters became very impatient, and taking her 
 hands off the table walked away and sat reading 
 a book at the further end of the room. Within 
 two or three minutes the table began to move. 
 We received messages from several friends, spelt 
 out by means of tilting the table ; my Mother com- 
 municated, and several others, then a long name 
 
 140 
 
APPENDIX I 141 
 
 was spelt out beginning with F. We could not 
 pronounce it, so we asked if we might select a 
 few of the letters, and make use of those as a 
 name? The answer "yes" was given, so we 
 picked out F.E.D.A., and this is how my ac- 
 quaintance with Feda originated. 
 
 Feda told us she was my great-great-grand- 
 mother, a Hindoo by birth, that she was brought 
 up by a Scottish family, and that she had died 
 very soon after her marriage, at the age of thir- 
 teen. I remembered that my Mother had told 
 me of this Hindoo ancestress. Feda then told 
 us that she was going to control me as "she had 
 work to do through me, because something was 
 going to happen on the Earth plane in a great 
 way and my services would be wanted." 
 
 I was not pleased with this, as I wanted to 
 develop normal clairvoyance, but Feda said, "No, 
 you must be controlled, because otherwise your 
 own mind would interfere with everything we 
 wish to give, through you." So I began to think 
 seriously about it, although I did not want to be 
 entranced. 
 
 We continued our table-sittings, to which Feda 
 came regularly. She was so helpful and com- 
 forting that I became quite fond of her, and 
 many of the messages were of evidential value, as 
 we were told things that we did not know, and 
 only afterwards proved them to be true; she 
 would tell us of occurrences happening at a dis- 
 
142 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 tance which we subsequently found correct. We 
 went on like this for several months, and I began 
 to feel that perhaps I was wrong in refusing to 
 allow her to work through me. She was de- 
 lighted when I told her so, but although we sat 
 regularly for eighteen months, she did not suc- 
 ceed, indeed it was only when I gave up trying 
 and was getting rather bored by the proceedings 
 that she was able to succeed. One evening, feel- 
 ing very tired of what was happening, I thought 
 I fell asleep for a few moments. When I awoke 
 I was surprised to see my friends bending over 
 me, in great interest. They told me I had been 
 in a trance for an hour and a half, that Feda had 
 spoken through me, bringing many messages 
 from friends on the Other Side. She had re- 
 peated that a dark time was coming in which she 
 had work to do, and that I would be needed as a 
 medium through whom she would be able to bring 
 assurance of a life after death. 
 
 We had many sittings; they did not affect my 
 health disastrously. I am much better and 
 stronger in health since I developed than I was 
 before. 
 
 At first it was not easy for Feda to concentrate 
 on what was serious or advisable. She had to 
 train herself to the service ; sometimes it was diffi- 
 cult to get her to attend to what we wished. It 
 took eighteen months before she was proficient. 
 When she became able to do what we wanted 
 she said I must take up the work professionally. 
 I was very diffident about it, as I did not think 
 
APPENDIX I 143 
 
 I could do this work to order, but Feda promised 
 that she would look after me from the commence- 
 ment. 
 
 I started first by holding circles in Western 
 London; from the first moment they paid my 
 expenses. After that the War broke out, and in 
 a few months' time people were coming to me 
 wanting test messages about those who had 
 passed on. Feda then asked me to give up my 
 public sittings, as the conditions, she said, were 
 not always good. She told me that at a circle on 
 a previous day a boy who had been killed in the 
 War had been most anxious to speak to his 
 Mother in the circle, but could not get through 
 to her because two people present caused a frivol- 
 ous and uncongenial condition. 
 
 So I gave up my public circles, and commenced 
 private sittings, and very soon I had far more 
 people wanting to sit than I could accommodate. 
 
 Feda has told us that the benefit of her work 
 with me is twofold. It is a period of service 
 that is required of her, and while she ministers 
 to others she makes spiritual progress in her 
 own soul. She had so short a term of earthly 
 life that probably in this work she acquires some- 
 thing of the training and knowledge that is de- 
 rived from a span of earthly existence. 
 
 Ever since the moment of her first speaking 
 through me till now, she has been working — to 
 use her own words — "as just a messenger." 
 
 Gladys Osborne Leonard. 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 From Plato's "Divine Dialogues." 
 
 "We shall do our utmost, Socrates/' replies 
 Crito, "to obey you. But how will you be 
 buried?" 
 
 "Just as you please," says Socrates, "if I do 
 not slip from you. At the same time," looking 
 upon us with a gentle smile, "I cannot," says 
 he, "attain my end in persuading Crito that this 
 is Socrates who discourses with you, and 
 methodises all the parts of this discourse; and 
 still he fancies that Socrates is the thing that shall 
 shortly see death. He confounds me with my 
 corpse; and in that view, asks me how I will be 
 buried. And all this after the long discourse 
 that I have made to you lately, in order to show 
 that as soon as I shall have taken the poison, I 
 shall stay no longer with you, but shall depart 
 from hence, and go to enjoy the felicity of the 
 blessed; in a word, all that I have said for your 
 consolation and mine, is to no purpose, but is all 
 lost with reference to him. I beg that you will 
 bail for me to Crito, but after a contrary manner 
 to that in which he offered to bail me to my 
 
 144 
 
APPENDIX II 145 
 
 judges; for he engaged that I would not be gone. 
 Pray engage for me, that I shall no sooner be 
 dead, than I shall be gone, to the end that poor 
 Crito may bear my death more steadily, and that 
 when he sees my body burned or interred, he may 
 not despair, as if I suffered great misery, and 
 say at my funeral that Socrates is laid out, Socra- 
 tes is carried out ; Socrates is interred. For you 
 must know, my dear Crito," says he, turning to 
 him, "that speaking amiss of death is not only a 
 fault in the way of discourse, hut likewise 
 wounds the soul. You should have known that 
 my body is to be buried; and that you are at lib- 
 erty to inter it as you please, and in the manner 
 that is most conformable to our laws and cus- 
 toms." 
 
 From The Phado: a Dialogue on the Immor- 
 tality of the Soul. 
 
APPENDIX III 
 
 No coward soul is mine, 
 
 No trembler in the world's storm-troubled 
 sphere ; 
 I see Heaven's glories shine, 
 
 And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. 
 
 O God, within my breast, 
 
 Almighty ever-present Deity, 
 Life, that in me has rest, 
 
 As I — undying life — have power in thee. 
 
 Vain are the thousand creeds 
 
 That move men's hearts: unutterably vain, 
 Worthless as withered weeds, 
 
 Or idlest froth amid the boundless main 
 
 To waken doubt in one 
 
 Holding so fast by thine infinity, 
 So surely anchored on 
 
 The steadfast rock of Immortality. 
 
 With wide-embracing love 
 
 Thy spirit animates eternal years, 
 Pervades and broods above, 
 
 Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears. 
 146 
 
APPENDIX III 147 
 
 Though earth and man were gone, 
 And suns and universes ceased to be, 
 
 And Thou wert left alone, 
 
 Every existence would exist in Thee. 
 
 There is no room for Death, 
 
 Nor atom that his might could render void; 
 Thou — Thou art Being and Breath, 
 
 And what Thou art may never be destroyed. 
 
 Emily Bronte. 
 
APPENDIX IV 
 
 "Recognised Intelligence." 
 
 During the Autumn of 1920, while this book 
 was being prepared for publication, I had a sitting 
 with Mrs. Leonard, in the course of which a 
 Book-Test of the very latest development was 
 given me. It is a scheme planned to obviate still 
 further the possibility of the operation of 
 telepathy, or the action of subconscious memory; 
 and to compass this, the Test is devised to be 
 found on the front page of the issue of "The 
 Times" newspaper, for the following day. 
 
 The father of the Rev. Charles Drayton 
 Thomas is said to have been the inventor of this 
 form of Book-Test; and a certain number have 
 already been received. It is peculiarly valuable, 
 as it meets the objection of the sceptic in spirit- 
 communication, who holds that we may retain in 
 the subliminal memory the contents of all the 
 books that we have ever read, even to the num- 
 bers on the pages, and who consequently discounts 
 the validity of the more usual form. 
 
 It is placed among the Appendices here as this 
 book was already too far advanced in production 
 for it to be included in the text. 
 
 148 
 
APPENDIX IV 149 
 
 BOOK-TEST, October iith, 1920. 
 
 (Directions.) 
 
 1. "Now in 'The Times' of to-morrow, on the 
 front page, in the second column about half-way 
 down, you will find Stephen's name" 
 
 (Tracing of the above.) 
 
 In the second column of "The Times" of Oc- 
 tober 1 2th, halfway down the page, was the name 
 Stefano. 
 
 (Continuation of directions.) 
 
 2. "Now close to it is a name 'suggesting' a 
 place that Bim knew very well, and liked tre- 
 mendously when he was on the Earth Plane." 
 
 (Tracing of the above.) 
 
 An inch lower than this name Stefano, we 
 found the name Freda, the name of a friend who 
 used to ask him to Bournemouth, Fontmel Priory. 
 When a child he loved this place so much that 
 he called it "The House of Wish." 
 
 (See Memoir of E. W. T. by his Mother.) 
 
 (Continuation of directions.) 
 
 "Now, in the first column, near the top, are 
 the names of two people, names in the family, 
 both of whom have passed on and are with Bim 
 
150 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 on the Other Side. One has often been men- 
 tioned in sittings." 
 
 (Tracing of the above.) 
 
 In the first column, near the top, the two names 
 Harold and Pamela occur. Both are names in 
 the family, both people having these names are 
 on the Other Side, and one of them (Pamela) 
 has been mentioned often during Bim's sittings. 
 
 (Continuation of directions.) 
 
 "Now in the third column, he thinks within 
 two inches of the top (of the paper?), are words 
 that may form a message for Bim, a message that 
 he says 'he would have liked to have said to you 
 on the 22nd f x and don't forget, he says — it's only 
 a few words, because some other words close to 
 it would spoil it." 
 
 (Tracing of the above.) 
 
 In the third column, within two inches of the 
 top — of the paper — are the words: 
 
 "My Love Always" 
 
 The words immediately preceding this are, 
 "make a point of seeing T's fiancee: to your ad- 
 vantage to do so," thus entirely endorsing the 
 warning that "other words close to his message 
 
 ^he 22nd of September (1916) was the date of Bim's 
 passing. 
 
APPENDIX IV 151 
 
 would spoil it" — "only a few words: My love 
 always." 
 
 (Continuation of directions.) 
 
 "Going back to the first column, there is the 
 Lord's name, lower part of the first column, and 
 the name of a close relation of his who has passed 
 over. Both names are close together, within half 
 an inch." 
 
 N.B. — Feda always alludes to Bim's father as 
 the Lord. 
 
 (Tracing of the above.) 
 
 In the first column towards the lower part, 
 the name Edward appears, and had Feda said 
 "connection" instead of "relation" the test would 
 have been complete, for close to the name 
 Edward is the name Alexander, one representing 
 a close connection with the Tennant family. 
 
 Thus in a Book-Test with six points of contact, 
 all with one slight inexactitude, have been traced 
 satisfactorily. 
 
 Pamela Glenconner. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 And now my work draws to a close. 
 
 It will be good if it may cause people to think 
 that there is something that is not evil in Spirit- 
 ualism. 
 
 In the beauty and gentleness of the power 
 behind these quotations, in the healing consola- 
 tion they bring, in the Divine Source of sympathy 
 of which they tell, surely readers of this book 
 will be able to recognise something of the writer 
 of those simple words? 
 
 "Eternal Love — 
 
 from Bim." 
 
 Those who are discarnate have the fuller life, 
 theirs is "an ampler ether, a diviner air," and 
 if they love us, their wish is to share it with us, 
 and the more they can do this, the greater is their 
 happiness and ours. 
 
 To those who would question, "Is it wise or 
 152 
 
CONCLUSION 153 
 
 right to bring them down to us; ought we to 
 keep them within our earthly conditions?" I would 
 answer that you cannot bring back that which has 
 never departed, and in regard to the possible 
 detriment of their life through our earthly con- 
 ditions, I would reply that you do not limit or 
 cramp a Spring day by opening a window. There 
 is sufficient fullness of warmth and air outside to 
 fill a room with light and beauty, and yet the day 
 itself to be no whit diminished. 
 
 Often I desire that the truth of this possibility 
 of communicating with those we love who have 
 gone on, may be the knowledge of all; but it 
 seems as if to so many the need of evidence is 
 too great — it blocks the way. They wait on the 
 threshold of what might be a supreme joy to 
 them, actuated more by mistrust, and a hundred 
 other feelings, than by love. The thought of 
 this is painful; it is like closing a door in the 
 face of those who would minister to us; an un- 
 gracious act. 
 
 It is largely true that the quality of the com- 
 munication we receive depends greatly on our 
 capacity for appreciating what is given, for the 
 gold is mixed so deeply and so lamentably with 
 
154 THE EARTHEN VESSEL 
 
 dross, that you must sift and sift unceasingly; 
 but if we have an open mind and a loving heart 
 we receive proof as well as comfort in greater 
 abundance than one can tell. Those who do not 
 care for it will not have the knowledge thrust 
 upon them, and those others who, as we read in 
 the Bible, "do hold to the side of Death, do find 
 if ; but for all such as are ready to investigate 
 this matter with fair-mindedness and patience 
 there awaits 
 
 "A morn, no heart imagine th." 
 
 Death is a gateless barrier, and those on either 
 side of it who know this, pass through; and 
 "sorrow and sighing flee away." 
 
Here's not also human life? 
 Have not we, unthinking creatures. 
 Slaves of folly, fear, and strife, 
 Voices of two different natures? 
 
 Have not we too? — yes, we have — > 
 Echoes from we know not whence, 
 Voices from beyond the grave, 
 Recognised intelligence. 
 
 Such rebounds the inward ear 
 Catches sometimes from afar; 
 Listen, ponder, hold them dear, 
 For of God, of God they are. 
 
 i5S 
 
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