own house playing cards — a horrible crime for the Calv 

 which was lying ready to revenge itself! 



5 On the 28th of October, Ansel Bourne started for the village of 

 Westerly, and was noticed by some neighbors to be walking fast, as 

 though feeling quite well. He was conscious of no unusual feelings 

 till the thought came vividly into his mind that he ought to go to 

 meeting (i. e., to church). Mentally he enquired, " Where?" The 

 inner voice replied, " To the ' Christian ' chapel." To this idea his 

 spirit rose in bitter opposition, and he said within himself, " I would 

 rather be struck deaf and dumb forever than to go there." A few 

 minutes after he felt giddy, and sat down on a stone by the wayside to 

 rest. He saw an old man in the distance approaching him with a 

 wagon, and immediately after felt as though some powerful hand drew 

 down something over his head uu>\ face and finally over his whole 

 body, depriving him of his sight, his hearing and his speech, and leav- 

 ing him perfectly helpless. Yet, he declares, he had as perfect a power 

 of thought as at any time in 1 i> life, ami th< av •' 1 ■• i<> . . he had made 

 (that he would rather be deaf and dumb forever than go to the Christ- 

 ian chapel) came with awful significance before him. His whole mind 

 was full of agonizing horror and dread of the God he thought he had 

 so irretrievably offended. He was conscious of being taken up in the 

 wagon ; of being carried into a house and placed in a chair, and then 

 of being put in bed. 



Dr. Thurston, who was summoned immediately, says that on reach- 

 ing hi< patient's bedside he "found him perfectly insensible .... 

 the pupils of his eyes quite insensible of light, widely dilated and not 

 contracting on the application of sddden and vivid light." The patient 

 himself, however, constantly maintained that he was entirely conscious. 

 "About him," he says, " all was as silent as though there were neither 

 a God, nor life, nor motion in the whole, wide universe. The silence 

 was as though the soul had been cast into a deep, bottomless and shore- 

 less sepulchre, where dismal silence was to reign eternally." He fully 

 acknowledged the justice of God and spurned from his soul the thought 

 of insulting God by asking mercy for such a 3inner. 



Powerful counter-irritants were applied, and by Friday consciousness 

 was partially restored for external things. He felt the posts of his bed- 

 stead and the window near, and was satisfied he was in his own house : 

 he felt movements on the bed and recognized the caresses of his little 

 children ; then, about 26 hours after the attack, his power of sight sud- 

 denly returned. He saw his wife and a neighbor, and made signs that 



5 From an account written under the direction of Ansel Bourne. 



