A STRANGE TALE.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 February 1919, Page 3

A STRANGE TALE.

MYSTERIES OF A FUTURE LIFE. Among other strange tales of occultism Cleveland Mofl'att, in "MeClure's" relates the following, which was told to him by Dr. Titus Bull, a New York physician:—

"Dr. Bull was a friend of the distinguished sculptor J. Q. A. Ward, and some time before his death the latter, in the course of an intimate talk with the physician, gave earnest expression to lib views about the future life. " 'I am over seventy years old,' said the I sculptor, 'and in the natural course of things I have not long to stay here; but 1 feel so intense, so fierce a desire to achieve more, to realise my unsatisfied ambitions, to use immense powers witli|in me, that I refuse to admit the possibility that my personality or soul can perish when this enfeebled body passes 'into dissolution. I know I shall continue to exist. And as you, my friend, share this conviction, as you have for years labored as a scientist, striving to penetrate the mysteries of a, future life, ! solemnly promise that, if I die before you and the thing is at all possible, I will give you plain evidence that the soul exists after death.'

"Ward died within the next year and Dr. Bull waited expectantly for some fulfilment of the promise; but weeks passed and there was no sign or communication *from his departed friend. Then came nil Extraordinary happening. The doctor was in the living room of his home one evening with his wife and little daughter ■When suddenly the child (she was eleven years old) exclaimed:

" 'Papa, there's a man standing in the doorway. Look! He has a horse under his arm!" "The father and mother looked at the doorway, hut they could see nothing.

"'Absurd!' said the doctor. 'How could a man have a horse under his arm ?'

" 'Muriel, you'd better go to bed,' chided the mother. 'You mu9t have eaten something for supper that didn't agree with you.' "'But, mother, a man is there!' insisted the child. 'He has on a queer little skull-cap with a tassel. Don't you see him?'

"And once more, as she was starting upstairs, Muriel cried out: 'There he is again!' "Nothing more Was thought of tiys incident until a little later, when the widow of J. Q. A. Ward sent to Dr. Bull a photograph of the sculptor that he had autographed and left for his friend some time before his death. There had, however, been several months' delay in the delivery of this picture, whicli was now given a place of honor in the doctor's •apartment. "I should explain here that Muriel had never seen the sculptor. It was, therefore, with profound emotion that the doetor witnessed what happened when his I little girl first saw this photograph. She ! had just returned from school ami came running in, when she stopped abruptly as siie caught sight of the new picture. " 'Why, papa,' she exclaimed,, 'that was the man who was standing in the doorway 1' "A remarkable part of the story is that this photograph of Ward (I have seen it myself) shows the sculptor in his working clothes with blouse and tusselled cap, holding under his arm a diminutive model of a horse used in one of his equestrian statues."