on a leaf of my note paper--

"IT IS MY NAME. ELIZABETH BARKER."

And the moment he had written it, he stretched out his hand, smiling,
and shook hands with me again. Whether it really was so or not, I will
not say, but his smile seemed the smile of my mother, and the expression
of his face was the old expression of my mother's face; and when he
shook hands with me, he drew his hand away in the manner in which my
mother had always drawn away her hand. The tears started into my eyes,
and my flesh seemed to creep on my bones. I felt stranger than ever. I
opened the paper, and it was my mother's name: ELIZABETH BARKER. I asked
a number of questions as before, and received appropriate answers.

But I had seen enough. I felt no desire to multiply experiments. So I
came away--sober, sad, and thoughtful.

I had a particular friend in Philadelphia, an old unbeliever, called
Thomas Illman. He was born at Thetford, England, and educated, I was
told, for the ministry in the Established Church. He was remarkably well
informed. I never met with a skeptic who had read more or knew more on
historical or religious subjects, or who was better acquainted with
things in general, except Theodore Parker. He was the leader of the
Philadelphia Freethinkers, and was many years president of the Sunday
Institute of that city. He told me, many months before I paid my visit
to Dr. Redman, that _he_ once paid him a visit, and that he had seen
what was utterly beyond his comprehension,--what seemed quite at
variance with the notion that there was no spiritual world,--and what
compelled him to regard with charity and forbearance the views of
Christians on that subject. At the time he told me of these things, I
had become rather uncharitable towards the Spiritualists, and very
distrustful of their statements, and the consequence was, that his
account of what he had witnessed, and of the effect it had had on his
mind, made but little impression on me. But when I saw things resembling
what my friend had seen, his statements came back to my mind with great
power, and helped to increase my astonishment. But my friend was now
dead, and I had no longer an opportunity of conversing with him about
what we had seen. This Mr. Illman was the gentleman mentioned on a
former page, whom I attended on his bed of death.

The result of my visit to Dr. Redman was, that I never afterwards felt
the same impatience with Spiritualists, or the same inclination to
prono