"When you're sad and sometimes cry, Remember your Ida, dear, is nigh, To bless and comfort you while here, And guide you to a brighter sphere.
"And when the time comes for you to go we will meet you with our golden boat, and row you safely over the beautiful river to our home that I have helped prepare for you. Now, thanking Mrs. Green for her kindness to you and Ida, I bid you good night. All the relatives are here, and send you their Christmas greetings.
"Good night, good night, to all that's here, I leave and go to a brighter sphere.
Wishing you all success in the new year, dear pa and ma, ever hold sacred the Christmas gift I present you to-day. Good night, Mr. Green, wife and daughter. Good night, my dear pa and ma. This indeed is the happiest Christmas I have spent since I left my earthly home. I must leave, but it is hard. Your loving daughter,
"My daughter passed away on the 18th day of December, 1875, at the age of seventeen, and she was an only child. The above message from her possesses peculiar value to me, for therein are a number of valuable tests and evidences of her identity. My belief in the return of the spirits of the departed is of brief duration in point of time antecedent, and was mainly brought about, through the mediumship of Mrs. Green. I can not express the real happiness I enjoy since I have been the recipient of this new light divine and I can only say, 'God speed the good work.'
"_Dear Brother_: Oh, how happy I am to-day to be able to write you on the inner surface of a double slate with your own precious hands holding it with the medium. You did not need this as a test, for your mind is clear and your heart is in the cause, but we give it to you because others have been thus favored, and we have resolved that you shall not be neglected when the good things pertaining to spirit intercourse are being given to others. Oh, John, you do give us so much real happiness by your noble and upright conduct, and by the opportunities you give us to hold sweet communion with you. Thus our lives become interblended, and the happiness of all increased. Spirits do derive great benefit from mortals, and to that extent are dependent on them. When a child dies in the tender years of infancy unschooled in the multifarious concernments of mortal life, it is brought back into contact with human affairs that it may learn those experiences of earth which were denied it by its early and untimely departure from the form. In all the pursuits of your life each individual is constantly attended by spirits interested in the same, and in these and many other ways are spirits aided in their progress and happiness. Whenever and by whomsoever you are told differently heed it not, but rely on what I have stated. We are interested in your proper instruction, and we will not lead you astray or into error. All those near and dear to you are here, and bid me to send you their love greetings. They pray without ceasing that you may be kept steady and firm in your high resolves and noble purposes until the end, when you shall rejoice in the anthem of victory. Hold up your head, dear and precious brother; be brave and resolute in the hour of temptation. Do no harm, but all the good you can in the world. And when the blessed angel called Death shall beckon you away from the labors and vicissitudes of mortal life to the sunlit evergreen shores of the summer land, be assured that among the hosts of others who will meet and welcome you with happy and rejoicing hearts you will see and be enfolded lovingly in the arms of your loving sister,