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Southland Times, Issue 1550, 12 March 1872, Page 3

A Spiritualist's Funeral. — One of the most remarkable ceremonies ever witnessed in Victoria is described in the Pleasant Greek News. The ceremony in. question was the funeral of a Mr Wakeham, a spiritualist, who was interred one Suuday lately with spiritualistic rites : — The order of procession was — Oddfellows, Progressive Spiritualists, and about 1,500 on foot, including tradesmen and miners ; . also a large number of crowded carriages. In all there were from 2,000 to 3,000 persons present. On the coffin being laidon the top of the vault, Mr James M'Lean, president of the Stawell branch of the Progressive Spiritualists, addressed the assemblage as follows : — ' Friends, I think it a commendable custom that, as to funeral ceremonies, the wishes of the departed on that Bubject should, as far as possible, be carried out when those wishes are known. Our departed brother during his last hours of earth life, and while perfectly conscious, urgently requested that the friends connected with the religious body to which he belonged — viz., the progressive spiritualists — should perform his burial service.* Mr M'Lean engaged in prayer, commencing as follows : — ' Come ye holy spirits who have been purged from the sins and from the follies of life, come, and by your sacred presence dispel the shadows that linger around human hearts. Come and say to the mother that has yielded up her own jewel, "It is well with the child — it is well !" ' After singing a hymn commencing with ' Death is the fading of a cloud,' the coffin was lowered into the vault, while Mr M'Lean spoke as follows : — ' Forasmuch as it hath pleased God of his great mercies to call our dear brother from earth life, we therefore commit his material body to the earth, in the sure and certain hope that he still lives.' A large number of choice flowers were thrown on the coffin, and Mr M'Lean delivered an address rejoicing that a spirit was born again."