An account

I can assure you that neither before nor since that time have I ever had any experience of the sort. The second account is from the Rev. T. L. Williams, Vicar of Porthleven, near Helston. August 1st, 1884. (255) Some years ago (I cannot give you any date, but you may rely /f—^pn the facts), on one occasion when I was absent from home, my wife awoke one morning, and to her surprise and alarm saw my si'^w^ov standing by the bedside looking at her. In her fright she covered her face with the bedclothes, and when she ventured to look again the appearance was gone. On another occasion, when I was not absent from home, my wife went one evening to week-day evensong, and on getting to the churchyard gate, which is about 40 yards or so from the church door, she saw me, as she supposed, coming from the church in surplice and stole. I came a little way, she says, and turned round the corner of the building, when she lost sight of me. The idea suggested to her mind was that I was coming out of the church to meet a funeral at the gate. I was at the time in church in my place in the choir, where she was much surprised to see me when she entered the building. I have often endeavoured to shake my wife's belief in the reality of her having seen what she thinks she saw. In the former case I have told her, ' You were only half awake and perhaps dreaming.' But she always confidently asserts that she was broad awake, and is quite certain that she saw me. In the latter case she is equally confident. My daughter also has often told me, and now repeats the story, that one day, when living at home before her marriage, she was passing my study door which was ajar, and looked in to see if I was there. She saw me sitting in my chair, and as she caught sight of me I stretched out my arms, and drew my hands across my eyes, a familiar gesture of mine, it appears. I was not in the house at the time, but out in the village. This happened many years ago, but my wife remembers that my daughter mentioned the circumstance to her at the time. Now nothing whatever occurred at or about the times of these appearances to give any meaning to them. I was not ill, nor had anything unusual happened to me. I cannot pretend to ofier any explanation, but simply state the facts as told me by persons on whose words I can depend. There is one other thing which I may as well mention. A good many years ago there was a very devout young woman living in my parish, who used to spend much of her spare time in church in meditation and prayer. She used to assert that she frequently saw me standing at the altar, when I was certainly not there in the body. At first she was alarmed, but after seeing the appearance again and again she ceased to feel anything of terror. She is now a Sister of Mercy at Honolulu.