604 The American Naturalist. [July, 
This engineer, whose name was Skilton, was engaged with two other 
men in unloading a freight car. Just as he had lifted a barrel out to 
the platform he saw a “ person standing” “on his right hand clothed 
in white” “and with a bright countenance”; and “ putting his hand on 
my shoulder.” ‘He said ‘Follow me’.” A long description ensues 
of the happy and beautiful place to which this personage led him; a 
place where the inhabitants did not converse by sound but knew each 
other’s thoughts on the instant, and where he saw his mother, his sisters 
and his child. In fact the heaven it was natural for the percipient to 
to imagine, though—be it remarked not the heaven of harps and white 
nightgowns of popular theology—but such a heaven as the seer might 
naturally desire. Mr. Skilton describes the earth on his return as ap- 
pearing to be seen from a great height, trees buildings, etc., gradually 
came into sight, and finally he reached the car which he had begun to 
unload, and then the guide vanished. “I spoke then” he says (just as 
I opened my watch and found it had been just twenty-six minutes that 
I had been engaged with that mysterious one) and said I thought I 
had left this world for good. One of the men said: “ There is something 
the matter with you ever since you opened the car door; we havn't 
been able to get a word out of you” and that I had done all the work 
of taking out everything, and putting it back into the car. I told them 
where I had been and what I had seen, but they had seen noone. He 
adds: “This I count the brightest day of my life, and what I saw is 
worth a life time of hardship and toil. Being in good health, and busy 
about my work and my mind not more than ordinarily engaged on the 
great subject of eternal life, I consider this a most extraordinary 
incident.” ê 
If it be said there is no corroboration of Mr. Skilton’s statements 
neither is there any corroboration of any other similar statement; and 
if I have chosen his experience from among many others, it is simply 
to show that whatever religions (?) experiences occurred to persons in 
past times, occur in precisely the same way now. 
As an exemplification of the law that all spiritual (?) experiences are 
coloured by the prepossessions of the percipients, I may take the 
numerous cases of the alleged appearances of the Virgin Mary. The 
apparition to Bernadette Soubirons is only one amongst many, and in 
this case as in most others expectant attention is not a factor. The 
Virgin appeared to Bernadette when she was certainly not expecting to 
8 Communicated to Professor James of Harvard by Mr. Skilto 
*The exaggerations found in legendary times constitute a totally different 
branch of T 
