XXXVII] SPIRITUALISTIC EXPERIENCES 343 



It was handed to him. In this way a dozen or more of the 

 chance visitors received messages which were always intel- 

 h'gible to them and often strikingly appropriate. I will give 

 some of the messages I thus received myself. 



On my second visit a very sceptical friend went with us, 

 and seeing the writing-pad on the piano marked several of 

 the sheets with his initials. The medium was very angry 

 and said it would spoil the stance. However, he was calmed 

 by his friends. When it came to the writing the pad was 

 given to me over the top of the curtain to hold. I held it 

 just above the medium's shoulder, when a hand and pencil 

 came through the curtain ^ and wrote on the pad as I held it. 

 It is a bold scrawl and hard to read, but the first words seem 

 to be, " Friends were here to write, but only this one could. 

 ... A, W." Another evening, with the same medium, I 

 received a paper with this message, " I am William Martin, 

 and I come for Mr. William Wallace, who could not write 

 this time after all. He wishes to say to you that you shall 

 be sustained by coming results in the position you have 

 taken in the Ross case. It was a most foul misrepresenta- 

 tion." 



This, and other writing I had afterwards, are to me striking 

 tests in the name William Martin. I never knew him, but 

 he was an early friend of my brother who was for some 

 time with Martin's father to learn practical building, the 

 latter being then engaged in erecting King's College. When 

 I was with my brother learning surveying, etc., he used often 

 to speak of his friend Martin, but for the last forty-five years 

 I had never thought of the name and was greatly surprised 

 when it appeared. About a month later I had the following 

 message from the elder Martin, written in a different 

 hand : — 



"Mr. Wallace, 



"Your father was an esteemed friend, and I 

 like to come to you for his sake. We are often together. 

 How strange it seems to us here that the masses can so long 

 exist in ignorance. Console yourself with the thought that 



