The Brazos Flood

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 9, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 32.

The portion of Texas affected by the Brazos flood is reported to be in a deplorable condition. In some sections forty-two inches of rain fell in sixty hours, resulting in the most disastrous flood the State of Texas has ever experienced. Many thousand acres of tilled land are under water, and the crops growing thereon have mostly been swept away. Fowls and great numbers of domestic animals were drowned, and buildings of all kinds totally wrecked, or carried away with the flood. The inundated section is said to have a population of 100,000, great numbers of whom have been rendered helpless. State aid has been rendered the sufferers, and an urgent appeal was sent to the Secretary of War for boats, launches, and steamers to assist in the work of providing for the victims of the flood the necessaries of life. The number of lives lost has not yet been accurately reported, but many are known to have perished.

The great French astronomer, Flammarion, has not, after all, as has been stated, renounced Spiritualism. What he doubts is the mediums. In a recent interview he declared: "Spiritualism is far from being a mental absurdity, but all experiments made through mediums are unreliable. . . . But most manifestations are conscious impostures. To this kind of Spiritualism I apply Tindall's remark, 'It is the basest delusion that ever obtained dominion over the weak mind of man.'"

"I am a firm believer in the spirit world. Space is peopled with spirits. It is not a necessity that mediums communicate with them."

"Mediums have degraded Spiritualism in France by their frauds. The well-known medium, Eusapia Palladino, is an arch deceiver."

"Communication with spirits is certain. A physical force is put into action. There is nothing supernatural or even preternatural about it. Its movements account for many phenomena. Certain unknown forces are capable of counteracting the action of gravity."

"The alleged spirit of Galileo deceived me as to the satellites of Jupiter. I say alleged spirit because, on reflection, I conclude the real spirit of the great astronomer, who suffered persecution for the sacred cause of science, would not attempt deception. It must have been a spirit of darkness."

And that is what all are that claim to be the spirits of the dead.