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GLIMPSES OF THE SUPERNATURAL.




  The Other World;

  OR, GLIMPSES OF THE SUPERNATURAL.

  BEING FACTS, RECORDS, AND TRADITIONS


  RELATING TO DREAMS, OMENS, MIRACULOUS OCCURRENCES,
  APPARITIONS, WRAITHS, WARNINGS, SECOND-SIGHT,
  WITCHCRAFT, NECROMANCY, ETC.


  EDITED BY
  THE REV. FREDERICK GEORGE LEE, D.C.L.
  _Vicar of All Saints', Lambeth._


  IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I.


  HENRY S. KING AND CO., LONDON.
  1875.




(_All rights reserved._)




  TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
  AUGUSTA,
  COUNTESS OF STRADBROKE,
  OF HENHAM HALL, IN THE COUNTY OF SUFFOLK,
  THESE VOLUMES
  ARE,
  BY HER LADYSHIP'S KIND PERMISSION,
  VERY RESPECTFULLY
  Dedicated.




"It is often asked--Do you believe in Prophecies and Miracles? Yes and no,
one may answer; that depends. In general, yes; doubtless we believe in
them, and are not of the number of those who 'pique themselves,' as
Fenelon said, 'on rejecting as fables, without examination, all the
wonders that God works.' But if you come to the particular, and say--Do
you believe in such a revelation, such an apparition, such a cure?--here
it is that it behoves us not to forget the rules of Christian prudence,
nor the warnings of Holy Writ, nor the teaching of Theologians and Saints,
nor, finally, the decrees of Councils, and the motives of those decrees.
Has the proper Authority spoken? If it has spoken, let us bow with all the
respect due to grave and mature ecclesiastical judgments, even where they
are not clothed with infallible authority; if it has not spoken, let us
not be of those who reject everything in a partizan spirit, and want to
impose this unbelief upon everybody; nor of those who admit everything
lightly, and want alike to impose their belief; let us be careful in
discussing a particular fact, not to reject the very principle of the
Supernatural, but neither let us shut our eyes to the evidence of
testimony; let us be prudent, even to the most careful scrutiny--the
subject-matter requires it, the Scriptures recommend it--but let us not be
sceptics; let us be sincere, but not fanatical: that is the true mean. And
let us not forget that most often the safest way in these matters is not
to hurry one's judgment, not to decide sharply and affirm absolutely--in a
word, not to anticipate, in one sense or the other, the judgment of those
whose place and mission it is to examine herein; but to await, in the
simplicity of faith and of Christian wisdom, a decision which marks out a
wise rule, although not always with absolute certainty."--Dupanloup,
Bishop of Orleans, "On Contemporary Prophecies."




PREFACE.


These volumes have been compiled from the standing-point of a hearty and
reverent believer in Historical Christianity. No one can be more fully
aware of their imperfections and incompleteness than the Editor; for the
subjects under consideration occupy such a broad field, that their
treatment at greater length would have largely increased the bulk of the
volumes, and indefinitely postponed their publication.

The facts and records set forth (and throughout, the Editor has dealt with
facts, rather than with theories) have been gathered from time to time
during the past twenty years, as well from ordinary historical narrations
as from the personal information of several friends and acquaintances
interested in the subject-matter of the book. The materials thus brought
together from so many quarters have been carefully sifted, and those only
made use of as would best assist in the arranged method of the volume, and
suffice for its suitable illustration.

The Editor regrets that, in the publication of so many recent examples of
the Supernatural (about fifty), set forth for the first time in the
following pages, the names of the persons to whom those examples occurred,
and