HomeCharles DickensAll The Year Round

All The Year Round. Charles Dickens

DISRESPECTFUL CONDUCT OF MR. HOME′S AUNT NEVERTHELESS

"In her uncontrollable anger she seized a chair and threw it at me."

3. PUNISHMENT OF MR. HOME′S AUNT

"Upon one occasion as the table was being thus moved about of itself, my aunt brought the family Bible, and placing it on the table, said, ′There, that will soon drive the devils away′; but to her astonishment the table only moved in a more lively manner, as if pleased to bear such a burden." (We believe this is constantly observed in pulpits and church reading desks, which are invariably lively.) "Seeing this she was greatly incensed, and determined to stop it, she angrily placed her whole weight on the table, and was actually lifted up with it bodily from the floor."

4. TRIUMPHANT EFFECT OF THIS DISCIPLINE ON MR. HOME′S AUNT

"And she felt it a duty that I should leave her house, and which I did."

5. MR. HOME′S MISSION

It was communicated to him by the spirit of his mother, in the following terms: "Daniel, fear not, my child, God is with you, and who shall be against you? Seek to do good: be truthful and truth- loving, and you will prosper, my child. Yours is a glorious mission—you will convince the infidel, cure the sick, and console the weeping." It is a coincidence that another eminent man, with several missions, heard a voice from the Heavens blessing him, when he also was a youth, and saying, "You will be rewarded, my son, in time". This Medium was the celebrated Baron Munchausen, who relates the experience in the opening of the second chapter of the incidents in HIS life.

6. MODEST SUCCESS OF MR. HOME′S MISSION

"Certainly these phenomena, whether from God or from the devil, have in ten years caused more converts to the great truths of immortality and angel communion, with all that flows from these great facts, than all the sects in Christendom have made during the same period."

7. WHAT THE FIRST COMPOSERS SAY OF THE SPIRIT-MUSIC, TO MR. HOME

"As to the music, it has been my good fortune to be on intimate terms with some of the first composers of the day, and more than one of them have said of such as they have heard, that it is such music as only angels could make, and no man could write it."

These "first composers" are not more particularly named. We shall therefore be happy to receive and file at the office of this Journal, the testimonials in the foregoing terms of Dr. Sterndale Bennett, Mr. Balfe, Mr. Macfarren, Mr. Benedict, Mr. Vincent Wallace, Signor Costa, M. Auber, M. Gounod, Signor Rossini, and Signor Verdi. We shall also feel obliged to Mr. Alfred Mellon, who is no doubt constantly studying this wonderful music, under the Medium′s auspices, if he will note on paper, from memory, say a single sheet of the same. Signor Giulio Regondi will then perform it, as correctly as a mere mortal can, on the Accordion, at the next ensuing concert of the Philharmonic Society; on which occasion the before-mentioned testimonials will be conspicuously displayed in the front of the orchestra.

8. MR. HOME′S MIRACULOUS INFANT

"On the 26th April, old style, or 8th May, according to our style, at seven in the evening, and as the snow was fast falling, our little boy was born at the town house, situate on the Gagarines Quay, in St. Petersburg, where we were still staying.

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