I cannot
explain this to you; I can only affirm it."
The Altrurian spoke very solemnly, and a reverent hush fell upon the
assembly. It was broken by the voice of a woman wailing out: "Oh, do you
suppose, if we lived so, we should feel so, too? That I should know my
little girl was living?"
"Why not?" asked the Altrurian.
To my vast astonishment, the manufacturer, who sat the farthest from me in
the same line with Mrs. Makely, the professor, and the banker, rose and
asked, tremulously: "And have--have you had any direct communication with
the other world? Has any disembodied spirit returned to testify of the
life beyond the grave?"
The professor nodded significantly across Mrs. Makely to me, and then
frowned and shook his head. I asked her if she knew what he meant. "Why,
didn't you know that spiritualism was that poor man's foible? He lost his
son in a railroad accident, and ever since--"
She stopped and gave her attention to the Altrurian, who was replying to
the manufacturer's question.
"We do not need any such testimony. Our life here makes us sure of the
life there. At any rate, no externation of the supernatural, no objective
miracle, has been wrought in our behalf.
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