ASPR Journal, V14 - Iapsop.com

274 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Researdt.
of good things. There is a list of these to choose from, which helps
the sender.
It was through this Organization that I came in touch with my
soldier, one of the regulars of the 1st Life Guards, who was
wounded in May, 1915, carried to Boulogne hospital, for the amputation
of a leg, notwithstanding which septic poisoning set in,
due to the long wait in the trench, where he lay wounded for 24
hours, before assistance could reach him, and he died in a military
hospital in England, the latter half of July, two months later.
Many letters had passed between us while he was still " somewhere
in France", letters whose raison d'Ctre was to cheer. give
little items of " home" news, and to let the soldier sense the kindliness
and interest you felt for him. For remember, the duties
towards him are those of a God-mother, and the more " fairy "
she be, the better will she fulfil her mission. There were daily
prayers said for his protection. In answer to my "I don't know
whether you believe in the efficiency of such things or not, but I
do", came his appreciation in the short soldier-like reply, "I do
Miss, and I thank you." On another occasion, a good lady given
to the distribution of those nicely got-up little pocket-edition Gospels
slipped into many a soldier's hand at parting, with a " God protect
you " cried out after him, had me put one into m:\' soldier's parcel,
which I was preparing to send him from England to France.
When he lay ill in hospital in England some months later, a
little booklet of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's beautiful and helpful poems
went to him. Especially marked as though by design, was that
lovely "Whatever is, is best." These were the only three occasions
when anything of a spiritual nature was touched upon.
A month after his death, the news reached me in America, where
I had come. During his two months of illness after his wound in
Flanders, prayers and hopes for his recovery, had been constantly
in my mind and heart .. A wife's and three small boys' happiness
and welfare were hanging thereupon; moreover, as one does, I had
grown very fond of my unseen soldier. That he had had to go,
after such a desperate fight for life, made me feel very sad. I felt
also, he would be worrying--even tho' the so-called "Dead "--about
his wife and the probable financial embarrassment she might find
herself in, following upon his death. Therefore, the night of the
day the news of his" passing-over" reached me (a full month after
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