He lived in the atmosphere of
the supernatural; the spirit-world was to him most real.
"I have been out of the body," he said to me one day. The words were
spoken softly, and his countenance, always grave in its aspect, deepened
in its solemnity of expression as he spoke.
"How was that?" I inquired.
"It was in Texas. I was returning from a quarterly-meeting where I had
preached one Sunday morning with great liberty and with unusual effect.
The horses attached to my vehicle became frightened, and ran away. They
were wholly beyond control, plunging down the road at a fearful speed,
when, by a slight turn to one side, the wheel struck a large log. There
was a concussion, and then a blank. The next thing I knew I was floating
in the air above the road. I saw every thing as plainly as I see your
face at this moment. There lay my body in the road, there lay the log,
and there were the trees, the fence, the fields, and every thing,
perfectly natural. My motion, which had been upward, was arrested, and
as, poised in the air, I looked at my body lying there in the road so
still, I felt a strong desire to go back to it, and found myself sinking
toward it. The next thing I knew I was lying in the road where I had
been thrown out, with a number of friends about me, some holding up my
head, others chafing my hands, or looking on with pity or alarm.
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