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Received by:James Padgett
Washington D.C.
I am here, Ben Robinson:
Let me write. I am very unhappy. I want help.
So listen to me for a while.
I am a man who lived a life of sin on earth. I was a sailor and
visited every country on earth, and joined in all the vice that
I could find in the seaports of these countries. I drank and gambled
and visited the women and did everything that was bad. Since I have
become a spirit I have seen that my life was very sinful and am
suffering so very much, and have to sail through these seas of darkness
with never a port to land in. I am always sailing and never coming
to anchor, and my ship is nothing but my spirit body. How funny
that I don't need any sails, or rudder or compass, but I sail and
go where I want to and never miss my bearings. All I do is think
of where I want to go and I sail there without any trouble or mistake.
But these seas are all blackness; and there are no stars to guide
us and no winds to tell us that it is storming or calm; but the
blackness is here all the time.
I have companions or mates who sail with me at times, and we talk
of the strangeness of the seas and the blackness of the heavens,
and the want of stars and winds, and of our torture. Why I sometimes
think that I must be in the seas of hell, only there is no light
which would naturally come from fires, if there were any.
I have my recollections of what I did on earth and they seem to
burn me and cause my sufferings. So do my mates suffer from the
same cause, they say.
I want to get into port and find some relief from these long, never-ending
voyages in which I suffer torment. So will you tell me where I can
find a port of landing where I may see the light and the stars and
get rid of my tortures.
My mates can't help me, and I don't know the course that will land
me. I am without any hope of ever dropping anchor again, and I tell
you the thought that I have got to sail these dark seas forever
makes me wish that I had never entered on the voyage of life.
I have never seen any spirits who are different from myself or
who could help me out of my troubles. I never believed in God or
religious things and lived only the pleasures of the sea and ports,
as I have told you.My name is Ben Robinson, and my land home was
Yarmouth. Me, I died in 1878, at sea.
I should like to meet such a mate.
Well, I have found him and he says he will show me the way to port.
I am going with him and will listen to his yarn.
So with all my heart, I say good night.
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