Understand who may! Are these only analogies? One does not know what to think. Another difficult thing to understand is the "weakness" which the spirits complain that they feel, especially towards the end of the sittings. George Pelham actually says that we must not demand from spirits just what they have not got, namely, strength. If the spirits mean that the medium's "light" grows weak and no longer provides them with the unknown something that they require in order to communicate, why do they not express themselves more clearly? It will perhaps be thought that I have dwelt a little too long on what I have called the philosophy of George Pelham. I have thought it best to do so, and there is no harm done so long as I leave it to my readers to believe as much as they like. FOOTNOTES: [63] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 301. [64] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiv. p. 18. [65] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xvi. p. 315. [66] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 301. [67] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiv. p. 36. [68] In another sitting W. S. Moses says that, as he held this view very strongly in life, he felt sure that he had been told it by his spirit-guides. [69] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. pp. 305, 306. [70] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 362. [71] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. pp. 362, 363. [72] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 434. [73] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 301. CHAPTER XII William Stainton Moses--What George Pelham thinks of him--How Imperator and his assistants have replaced Phinuit. For those of my readers who are unacquainted with spiritualist literature, and in order to facilitate the understanding of what follows, I must give a short sketch of the life of the English medium, William Stainton Moses. He was born in 1839, and died in 1892. He studied at Oxford, and was then curate at Maughold, near Ramsey, in the Isle of Man. His great kindness made him beloved by all his parishioners there. When an epidemic of smallpox drove even the doctors away, he remained faithfully at his post, caring for bodies and comforting souls. But he had precarious health, and was overworked at Maughold. He obtained another curacy, where there was less work, at Saint George's, Douglas, also in the Isle of Man. It was at Douglas that the friendship, broken only by death, was formed between him and Dr Stanhope Speer. A throat-affection soon after prevented his preaching, and he left the service of the Church to give himself up to teaching. He went to London, where he became tutor to the son of Dr Stanhope Speer, who was living there. Finally, at the beginning of 1871, he obtained a mastership in University College School, and there he remained till 1889. Till 1872 William Stainton Moses knew nothing of spiritualism. If he had vaguely heard of it, he had no doubt hastened to condemn the new superstition which carried off sheep from his flock.