MR. BATHOLOMMEY TESTIFIES
_To Whom It May Concern:_
I am Henry Batholommey, rector of the Protestant Episcopal church at
Grimm Manor, New York State. My neighbour, Andrew McPherson, M.D., has
asked me to substantiate, so far as lies in my power, certain statements
in a paper he is preparing for the Society of Psychical Research,
concerning certain recent happenings in the house of my former
parishioner, the late Peter Grimm of this place.
I refuse.
I understand, also, that in telling the story broadcast, as he has done,
he has made free use of my name and that of my wife, as witnesses to
these happenings. Wherefore, I am daily in receipt of fully a dozen
letters of enquiry. Reporters, so-called scientists, mystics with long
hair and unclean nails, and cranks and practical jokers of every sort
and description have taken to calling at the rectory, at inconvenient
hours, to cross-question me.
For example: one disreputable man, reeking of cheap liquor, came to me
yesterday with the information that the story of Peter Grimm's return
had converted him and that (with some slight temporary financial
assistance from me) he was prepared to renounce liquor and mend his
ways. He looked like a penitent. He talked like a penitent. But he most
assuredly did not _smell_ like a penitent. And I sent him about his
business.
This was but one of many irritating interruptions upon my parish work to
which Dr. McPherson's use of my name has subjected me.
In view of all this, I deem it advisable to save myself from further
annoyance and to stop the rumour that a minister of the Gospel has
turned Spiritualist, by issuing the following brief statement:
Dr. McPherson is desirous that my wife and myself endorse his belief
that the occurrences at the home of the late Peter Grimm were of a
supernatural nature.
We shall do no such thing.
For the single reason that neither Mrs. Batholommey nor myself, after
mature reflection and dispassionate discussion, can find one atom of the
Supernatural in any of the events that transpired there. Perhaps I can
best make clear my point of view by rehearsing the case and my own very
small connection therewith.
The fact that Dr. McPherson is of a different denomination from myself
in no way biases my feelings in this case. I am an Episcopalian. And I
am of liberal views toward those who are not;--with the possible
exception of Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists,
and members of a few other denominations outside the direct Apostolic
Succession. Yet I confess I was shocked at the conversion (or
perversion) of my old neighbour, McPherson, to a cult which, for want of
a better word, I must designate as "Spiritualism."
He told me of a compact he had made with my dear friend and parishioner,
Peter Grimm, to the effect that whichever of them should first leave
this mortal life was to return and make known his presence to the other.
I told McPherson to his face that I regarded such a compact as being
even more sacrilegious than senseless. My good wife echoed my
sentiments. McPherson, who has not the admirable control over his temper
so needful to a medical man, chose to become angry at my outspoken
opinion and said several cruelly unjust things concerning my own
behaviour toward the late Peter Grimm.
I shall not stoop to denying or even repeating what he said; far less to
justify myself. Yet I should like to mention, in passing, that his
coarse gibe concerning my fawning on a rich man is the most unjust of
all his abominable assertions.
I was in the habit of bringing cases of need before Peter Grimm's
notice, it is true. And he responded right generously to every such
appeal. I enlisted his financial aid for the local poor, for the Church
Building Fund, for missions (home and foreign), and for the other worthy
and needy cases.
But for myself or for my family I have never asked for one penny, either
from Peter Grimm or from any other man. And as the gifts I have begged
were in my Master's name and solely for my Master's service, I do not
consider I have demeaned myself. Be that my sole defence. I am content
with it.
The public, of late years, has looked askance at the attitude of
clergymen toward the wealthier members of their congregation. And, in
ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, with absolutely no cause. The
Church is in need. The poor are in dire distress. Missions languish for
the few paltry thousands that would carry the Word triumphant throughout
the earth.
Who is to supply these needs? Who but the clergyman? Out of his own
scanty salary? That hardly supports him and his. Yet, in proportion, he
gives from it as never did a multimillionaire. To whom can he turn for
financial help in carrying out his Master's work? To the Rich Man. And,
in many cases, the day is past when he can do so without first winning
the personal liking of that same rich man. Yes, and often by flattering
him and smiling approvingly at his vulgar humour or soothing his equally
vulgar rages.
Shame that the deathless Church of God should have been brought to such
a pass!
Yes, and tenfold shame to those that sneer at the clergyman who
sacrifices and tortures all that is sensitive and sacred in himself, in
the effort to wheedle from the wealthy boor the money to save God's poor
and God's souls! Is it pleasant for him to fawn and to be patronised?
Others do it, I know. But for _themselves_. The clergyman must do it in
his Master's name and for no personal gain.
Let the rector refuse to lower himself thus--What happens? The rich man
goes to a church where flattery and subservience are more plentiful. The
stiff-necked rector seeks in vain for funds. For lack of money his
church runs down. It cannot keep up its charities and its other work.
Who is to blame? The rector, of course. Let us get an up-to-date man in
his place. And the clergyman who refused to cringe finds himself not
only without a church but with a record that bars him from getting
another one. I do not say this state of affairs is universal. But I _do_
say, from bitter experience, that it is far too prevalent. Forgive my
digression. I will get back to my statement with all speed.
I have told of the "compact" between Peter Grimm and Andrew McPherson.
Mr. Grimm died. Kathrien had promised him to marry his nephew, Frederik.
She did not love him. She did love James Hartmann. She has admitted both
those facts to me.
As the time for the wedding drew near, she was more and more loath to
carry out her promise. McPherson attributes that distaste to the
spiritual promptings of Peter Grimm. Can any normal woman (who has been
forced to marry one man while loving another) see the remotest hint of
the Supernatural in it? No!
Willem, a boy of epileptic tendencies--as McPherson himself admits--had
taken his benefactor's death terribly to heart, and had brooded over it
day and night. Is there any reason to doubt that in such an unbalanced
nature, this brooding, coupled by fever, should have produced a delirium
in which he believed he heard Peter Grimm speaking to him?
He also believed, Kathrien tells me, that he heard the circus parade
pass the house ten days after it had left town. Is one belief entitled
to greater credence than the other? Or did the ghost of a circus parade
meander through our Main street at night, accompanied by a Spook brass
band? Each idea is quite as probable as the other.
And, from the boy's own statement, Peter Grimm said to him nothing
original or even betokening a mind more developed than a child's. Willem
knew Kathrien was going to marry Frederik. He knew she did not want to
and that he himself disliked and feared Frederik. What more likely than
that he should imagine he heard Peter forbid the match?
What more likely, in his own fevered unhappiness, than that he should
think Peter Grimm said "I am very unhappy"? Would a man of Peter Grimm's
strength and shrewdness come back to earth and tell the child nothing of
greater importance than Willem says he told? And, if he could make
Willem understand such phrases as "I am very unhappy" and "Kathrien must
not marry Frederik," could he not have made the boy understand anything
else?
As to Frederik Grimm:--Frederik, we know, was nervous and overwrought.
His uncle's death had been a shock--if not a grief. He had the added
worry of knowing Kathrien did not really love him. He was in constant
fear lest Anne Marie, on hearing of Peter's death, might communicate
with her mother and lest the secret of his own relations with the poor
girl be exposed. This suspense added to his nervousness.
The sight of her picture and the reading of her pathetic letter stirred
his conscience. He forced himself to destroy both bits of evidence. And
the action strongly brought before his nerve-racked senses the thought
of what honourable old Peter Grimm would have said of such conduct. So
strongly, in fact, that in the dark he fancied he saw Grimm's eyes
glaring at him. The phenomenon is by no means uncommon and has been
explained by scientists upon perfectly natural grounds.
As to Willem's sudden remembrance of half-forgotten facts concerning his
own childhood, there is no parent living who cannot cite instances of
newly awakened memory, in his or her own child, that are quite as
remarkable. The seeing of his mother's photograph brought before Willem
the recollection of scenes in which she had played a part; scenes that
had been crowded from his mind by later events.
Frederik had just spoken harshly to him. And that recalled harsh words
Frederik had spoken to the woman in the picture. And thus, quite simply,
his memory supplied the one needful link. What is remarkable in all the
foregoing? In fact, Shakespeare's Horatio says:
"There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave, to tell us
this!"
So much for Dr. McPherson's efforts to surround a series of normal
occurrences with a halo of the Supernatural! Now, let me add a word on
my own account, and I am done.
The Dead do not return to the scene of their toil and pain and tears.
Would a freed convict sneak back to his prison house or the ex-galley
slave to his oar? The convalescent does not crawl into the contagion
ward again of his free choice. Nor, I believe, would the Lord permit the
return of the Dead; even to bear a warning to those left behind.
Glance at the sixteenth chapter of St. Luke for confirmation of my
belief;--at the parable of the "certain rich man who was clothed in
purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day"; and who, in
torment, after death, called to Abraham to send Lazarus from Heaven to
visit the Tortured One's five brethren:
"_That he may testify unto men, lest they also come into this place of
torment._
"_Abraham said to him: 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear
them.'_
"_And he said: 'Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the
dead they would repent.'_
"_And he said unto him: 'If they hear not Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded through one rise from the dead.'_"
No, the whole idea is preposterous. It is far outside of God's justice
and infinitely farther beyond His boundless mercy.
"He giveth His Beloved _sleep_";--not weary, hopeless wanderings upon
the face of the earth.
Peter Grimm did not return. And this is the only comment I care to make
upon Andrew McPherson's amazing theory.