News from the invisible world; a collection of remarkable narratives on the certainty of supernatural visitations from the dead to the living / Impartially compiled from the works of Baxter, Wesley, Simpson, etc.

Ottway, T.

Date:: 1844

Credit: News from the invisible world; a collection of remarkable narratives on the certainty of supernatural visitations from the dead to the living / Impartially compiled from the works of Baxter, Wesley, Simpson, etc. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Some years after, while these circumstances were fresh in the recollection of every one, an old wo- man, who had for many years been employed as a nurse, and who bore an excellent character, being at the point of death, sent for the clergyman of the parish, and gave him the following relation ;—“ I can- not,” said she, “die contentedly without informing you of some particulars respecting the death of Mr. — , wliich may throw some light on the story. I have hitherto concealed them, because my own negli- ’ eence was the cause of his extraordinary appearance. I was left with him the night on which he died ; and finding him very faint, I stepped out to a neighbour- ing shop to get something for him, leaving him alone. When I returned, having been detained longer than I expected, I found him gone, and was for some time considerably alarmed. Presently I heard the street door open, and Mr. came up stairs in a very ex- hausted state, threw him on the bed, and in a short time after expired. I have no doubt but that it was Mr. himself who took the vacant seat at the club, and not his apparition, as was generally supposed ; but I feared to give this account before, as I should have been considered the cause of his death, and should have lost all my employment in the town.” Thus was this most extraordinary affair at once brought to light. Mr. knew it was the club night, and in the delirium occasioned by his fever, set off, regardless of his situation, to fill a post which he had so often filled with satisfaction to himself and his com- panions ; and it was supposed that the night air through which he passed caused his immediate death. A\'e leave our readers to make their own reflections on the possibility of Mr. Bonnell’s doing the same. At least it proves tliat many circumstances, which daily pass around us, and wliich have an appearance ei^ually out of the course of nature, for aught we know, might be explained in the same way ; and sliould lead us not to fonn a hasty judgment of events like these ;$