The observations and documentation of which we have made use thus far, in order to establish the facts, are serviceable to conquer the resistance of the incredulous. Now, however, that the credibility of the facts is well established, now that they have been verified everywhere, through mediums, with living persons, and at the bedside of the dying, we should lay aside all considerations of the objective or subjective nature of the phenomenon. Abandoning the mask of skepticism we should lend an ear to the voice of sentiment which has also the right to be heard. It is when the organs, ravaged by illness, are enfeebled, and cease to oppress the soul with the heavy weight of matter, that we all become clairvoyants. It is then that souls approach the frontier of the two worlds: telepathic communications are re-established quite naturally with the beyond: and the invisible appears to us.

We read in Annals of Psychical Science, year 1906, page 159: I take the following case from Volume III, page 32, of Proceedings of S. F. P. R. It was communicated to the Society by an Irish colonel. It being understood that the principal role of this event is held by the colonel's own wife, one may readily see why he would not desire the names to be published:

1 Extract from La Revue Spirite, January, 1912.

About sixteen years ago, Mrs. ------- said to me,

"We shall have guests during the entire next week. Do you know of any one who could sing with our daughters?" I remember that my gunsmith, Mr. X., had a daughter whose voice was charming and who studied singing with the idea of becoming a professional. I told Mrs. ------- of her, and offered to write to Mr. X., asking him kindly to permit his daughter to come and spend a week with us. This being decided upon, I wrote to the gunsmith and Miss Julia X. was our guest during the aforesaid time. I do not know whether Mrs. ------- saw her afterward. As to Miss Julia, instead of devoting herself to her art, she married Mr. Henry Webley some time later. No one of us ever had occasion to see her again. Six or seven years passed. Mrs.

-------, who had been ill for several months, was dying and expired the day following the one of which I shall speak. I was seated at her side and we were talking of certain matters which she wished very much to arrange. She seemed very calm and resigned: in full possession of her intellectual faculties. This is proved by the fact that later the wisdom of her views was attested, when the error of our lawyer's advice was recognized, he having judged useless some measure suggested by the sick woman. Suddenly she changed her conversation and said, addressing herself to me, "Do you hear those sweet voices singing?"

I answered that I heard nothing. She added, "I have heard them several times to-day; I do not doubt they are angels who are coming to welcome me into heaven: only it is strange, that among them there is one voice I am sure I know, but I cannot remember whose it is!" Suddenly she interrupted herself and said, indicating a point above my head, "Why, she is here in the room! It is Julia X. Now she is drawing near, she is bending over you, she is lifting her hands in prayer. Look, she is going." I turned about, but saw nothing. Mrs. ------- added, "Now, she has gone." I naturally felt that these affirmations were nothing less than the imaginations of a dying woman. Two days later, in looking over a number of the Times, I happened to read in the death notices the name of Julia X, wife of Mr. Webley. This impressed me so keenly that immediately after the funeral of my wife I went to -------, where I sought Mr. X, and asked him if Mrs. Julia Webley, his daughter, was really dead. He answered, "It is only too true, she died of puerperal fever. The day of her death she began to sing in the morning and sang through the day until death hushed her voice."

Against those phenomena produced during the crisis preceding death, the objection is often raised that they are subjective hallucinations. However, upon examination, this explanation seems little better than the one of an excited brain: first because these visions are beyond all that could be expected from the activity of an organ facing annihilation: finally because the elements of truth which they contain cannot be explained by hallucination, if we consider the numerous proofs of identity and premonitions furnished by these apparitions.

We have just seen Mrs.-------at the moment of the final crisis receive a visit from a person whom she had no reason to suppose dead: and Mr. Bozzano remarks on this subject that we know no analogous hallucinations, producing, under the same form, apparitions of living people. On the contrary, many cases are presented in which the dying one perceives the specter of a person whom he thought still alive, and who in this case is really dead.

Here, as in the preceding cases, we have only touched lightly upon the subject, not having treated any case thoroughly, hoping merely to arouse the curiosity of the reader by a glance over an assemblage of facts, which it is very important to bring to the popular mind. He who is interested in these questions will find a special collection of books that will enable him to answer the objections that arise to these statements. But the great book has yet to be written upon the manifestations which take place around the dying. In the Annals of Psychic Sciences, Mr. Ernest Bozzano has published a series of ascending complexities, accompanied by very scholarly commentaries. We quote from it as follows:

Dr. Paul Edwards called to the bedside of a friend, a jick person in full possession of all her faculties, reports the last words which, at the time of her death, she addressed to her husband.:1 "Now my greatest desire is to go away. ... I see several shades who are moving around me all dressed in white: I hear a delicious melody. . . . O, there is Sadie, she is near me and knows perfectly who I am." (Sadie was a little child, whom she had lost about ten years before.) "Sissy," said her husband to her.

1Annals 1906, p. 150-151, Boul. Pereire, 175 Paris.

"Sissy, do you not see that you are dreaming?" "Ah, my dear," answered the sick lady, "why did you call me back? Now I shall have more difficulty in passing to the Beyond. I felt so happy there; it was so delightful, so beautiful." After about three minutes she added, "I am going now, again: and this time I shall not come back when you call me." This scene lasted but eight minutes. We could see that the dying woman was enjoying a complete vision of two worlds at one time, because she spoke of faces that were moving about her in the Beyond, and spoke to the mortals in this world. It has never happened to me since to be present at a more solemn or more impressive death, a true passing over into another world.