IN CONCLUSION we present one case, reported by Nea Walker in The Bridge, a Case for Survival, which encompasses many of the types of phenomena discussed in the other chapters of this book. In addition, it provides us with a sitter who later apparently becomes a communicator.

Mrs. Eleanor Sidgwick, in her review of The Bridge, says, "This important book gives an account of attempted communication and its gradual development between a Mrs. White and her deceased husband, with some further experiments after Mrs. White's own death in 1924." She adds that in this book is found "what undoubtedly is, as the title intimates, a case for survival, and a valuable one. "

Gwyther White and his wife Mary were an unusually devoted married pair who were separated by his death at the age of thirty-eight on March 16, 1920. He had suffered from a lingering illness from which he had always expected to recover. His wife, nursing him, knew the hopelessness of his condition, but kept it from him to the end.

At his death Mrs. White felt utterly bereft; and, although she did not know Sir Oliver Lodge, she appealed to him for help. Nea Walker held proxy sittings for her, which were, as Mrs. Sidgwick says, "a systematic and very successful attempt to get evidence in a form which eliminates the mind of the sitter as a possible source of knowledge shown by the communicator-knowledge of things of which both the medium and the sitter were ignorant."

Before she met Mrs. White in person, Miss Walker suggested by letter that she ask her husband to try to communicate through various mediums, bringing evidence of his identity. They would follow the usual procedure of Nea's proxy sittings; and Mrs. White could later verify the evidence received.

Mary White entered into the experiment gladly and proved a very good collaborator; a long series of sittings followed. Some of the preliminary messages were given by three clairvoyants of Cardiff, Wales, who, Nea Walker says, were alike in being of a simple, honest type. "They were certainly not in the fortunate position of Mrs. Leonard in regard to opportunities for exercising their gift under the best possible conditions. Nor was the gift of the same caliber. But sometimes the results obtained through them dovetailed with the more important results through stronger channels."

A third type of medium employed was a non-professional amateur, Damaris Walker, Nea's sister. The personalities known as the Group, who claimed to be deceased friends of the Walkers, made themselves evident as assistants to the communicator. Early contact was purportedly made with Gwyther White through all the other mediums before Mrs. Leonard was ever visited; and Mrs. White herself began experimenting with the oui'a board. A long series of cross-correspondences were received in which messages describing Gwyther's last illness, his love for his wife and their home came first through one sensitive and then another. All these were afterwards confirmed through Mrs. Leonard, and much new material was added.

Sittings with Mrs. Leonard, Nea writes, "yielded the strongest evidence for survival that was obtained, and also the best messages" from Gwyther White to his wife. Nea was cautious in her evaluation of the material. "I was out for hard facts," she says, "and was distinctly afraid of anyone romancing in any shape or form." But at the end of the series of sittings she was able to state categorically that the "glamour of romance" which was evident all through the case was true to fact.

Mrs. White was highly sentimental and intensely musical. Her husband had shared her love for music, flowers, and nature in general. She was refined, charming, and gracious. He was energetic, cheery, a great tease, with a high sense of humor; and he was never impatient with her excursions into the realm of fancy. Their neighbor, Mrs. Reese, later told Nea, "I cannot but regret that I did not know them well in their carefree days before he fell ill, for I am sure their chief characteristic then must have been a childlike, almost 'bubbling over' happiness, which I think is very rare. . . . " Perhaps the great success of Mrs. White's personal communications with her husband was due to this extremely strong link between them.

The first Leonard proxy sitting for Mrs. White was held by Nea Walker on June 2, 1921. Feda stated that some of the Group were present: Geoff, Woollev, and others. Then she said:

But there's somebody else here too, but not your usual ones. Another man. . . . He's wanting somebody else, Mrs. Nea, not you really. Somebody different.

There is much given here that helps to identify Gwyther White; then the following:
 

FEDA
He built up the letter B; and B, I, e. Couldn't get it as he wanted it.	Her pet name for him was "B" or "Bea." Nea did not know this.
M M is almost as important as B.	Mary or "Missus" which he sometimes called her.
G has something to do with him too.	Gwyther.
He says, "I spelt roses to her."	This is an example of a cross - correspondence. "Roses" had been frequently spelled out for Mrs. White on the ouija board.
He says, "You know they are always symbolical to her and to me, they aren't just roses."	Roses were her wedding bouquet. The flowers used when Gwyther was buried. The garden was full of them.
He can't smell them.	He could not smell well normally.
She used to do something funny at breakfast that B used to remark upon, and laugh about. . . . He laughed at hcr, teased her, but she insisted on doing it. . . . Some particular method she employed about the breakfast.	She would stir the tea-leaves in the teapot. It always amused him.
From the sitting of June 13: He's showing what Feda thinks is a garden that he's awfully fond of. And he keepstaking me down a path, but not a side path; it's like a center path, with green each side. Not all flowers, but green ...	Quite correct. From the rose portion of the garden a central path leads to the top of the garden; it has a grass border on each side.
It seems trees. She called his attention to them lately, to the bloom on the trees down there. He says, two kinds, two colors. She thought they were beautiful and asked him to look at them. She was worried about something down there, saying, "What a pity." Yes . . .	The Australian flowering cherries (pink) and laburnum (yellow) trees had lately been in bloom. She had said to him: "Aren't they beautiful, B?" and then, "What a pity the others have died!"
Now wait a minute, he's trying to think. What? He says: "Now weeks and days are so difficult! I think not last week, but the end of the previous week, she and I looked at a sunset together." He says, "I think it was about nine or ten days ago, she will remember. We looked at it together. She looked at it for some time, not just for a moment, and thought of all kinds of things connected with me, with us, our lives here. And she was lifted right above the earthly conditions. She knew we were there."	Mrs. White kept a diary of her psychic experiences. Exactly nine days before she had written in it: "I watched the gold-red sunsct over the hills and I thought of the many sunsets we had watched, especially those over the heather . . . the little cottage where we tucked ourselves away for the night. She had written:  "And now I go out to you, darling, to the islands of the sunset, and rest in that tender, peaceful green, just for a little while..."

On June 17 Nea went to stay with Mary White at her home in Wales to help her in dealing with the material so far obtained. She was there until June 29: this was her only visit to Mrs. White's home. While she was away her sister Damaris received an accurate description of the two women in their surroundings. On September 2, Mrs. White came to stay with the Walkers for several weeks.

Nea had a proxy sitting with Mrs. Leonard on September 7. At that time Feda said:
 

You know, don't you, that B is fond of music? Oh, how funny! Mrs. Nea, you know the piano, you taps on his teeth, the one with the big white teeth?...	Gwyther often called Mary's piano "the animal with the big white teeth."
B. calls her "B's lady."	"My lady" was a favorite phrase of Gwyther's.

On November 19, Mrs. White had her first personal sitting with Mrs. Leonard. It was anonymous, as all her subsequent sittings were. Mrs. White, dressed in a grey suit, did not look like a widow; and there was presumably no way for Mrs. Leonard to have known who she was. No hint was given of any connection with Nea Walker or her group of communicators, who by now were well-known to Feda, but who were never discussed with Mrs. Leonard in her normal state. Yet as soon as the sitting began, Woolley, a member of the Group, said: "It's all right, Feda. We all know her, she knows us all. "
 

FEDA. Good morning! A spirit comes who has been before. They push him forward. B, B. They is determined he shall come today. They get him in front of everyone here. He came with you.... Never mind about the roses, he knew you couldn't get them today. You often bring him roses. Roses have grown to be a symbol....	Damaris had wanted to get a red rose for Mrs. White to take with her, not knowing, but somehow sensing, that she always gave B a red rose.
Something about the time of roses, the time, the time. The season is an important one for you and him in the future and in the past.	Their wedding day. Also one of the Welsh raediums had said: "Your husband says, 'So near and yet so far! We shall be united sooner than you think, the time of the roses!'"
A prophecy, he says. Roses are a prophecy. A strange thing to say to you. He comes and takes hold of you, puts his arms around you and lifts you up to him. A prophecy of our being together again. You know how he's wanted it. But he's had to work to help you to stay- something you have to do. But it won't be long. It's strange to say this to you. I have told you so many times, he says. He hasn't to wait until you get old. (Feda. But he mustn't tell you too much!)	This is an instance of precognition. Mrs. White was soon to die-in July, 1924. She had had hints of it through the Welsh mediums, through her ouija board, and through Damaris.
He gives B ... (spells) B, i, d, d, y. He points to you. You. He does not let anyone else use it. He spells B, c, e. (just then Feda broke off altogether and was silent. In that silence Mrs. White heard Gwyther's voice say: "B does love you so." The voice was full of yearning, and there was a pause, tense with emotion.)	His name for her, never used by anyone else was Biddy.    Her name for him.       Direct voice.
B has been impressing you to arrange things ready for you to pass over. He thinks it will be sudden. And it might spoil things on our honeymoon if you hadn't done all you wanted to first.	Precognition. Her death was sudden, although after a long illness.
(The medium's voice now deepened and became much more impressive, and her speech slower. It seemed to be a case of at least partial control by Gwyther.)	Personal control.
He said: I shall always, always be with you, as long as you are here. And that won't be very long. . . . Remember you are coming to me, you are coming to me.

Mary White had several Leonard sittings, and each time material similar to the above was received. Her last sitting was May 20, 1922. A week later she fell ill. She died July 12, 1924, at the time of the roses.

At a proxy sitting Nea Walker held with Mrs. Leonard on September 12, 1924, two months after Mrs. White's death, Feda said, "B wants to send his love rather specially too, he says he's got such a lot to talk about." Then she went on to say for B that "both of them" would do lots of work in the Group. "Which both?" Feda asked him, obviously puzzled. B went on talking through Feda about how happy he was now that "she" was with him, and even while repeating this Feda said, "Don't understand, B," and "You are saying some funny things today, B!" It became obvious to Nea that Feda did not know about Mrs. White's death. She said, "Tell Feda, please, B" and he did. Feda later explained that Mrs. White had been outside the circle of power so that she could not see her at first. Later in the sitting suddenly Feda exclaimed, "is that her? It's her, Mrs. Nea! Only she looked different when Feda seed her! She hasn't got ugly old coats-skirts on. " Feda said that now Mrs. White wore a lovely white dress.

As time went on both Mr. and Mrs. White came to be among the most active members of the Group, and Nea Walker's second book, Through a Stranger's Hands, reports many proxy sittings in which they were said to be involved.

Before she died, Mrs. White left a statement to be published in The Bridge: "I would like here to mention especially my appreciation of Mrs. Leonard's mediurnship. Not only did my sittings with her yield much of evidential value, but they were always full of atmosphere to me. Gwyther was essentially himself, and as distinct from others as when [he was] here. The sittings gave me great pleasure and comfort, and I wish thus to thank her publicly . . . "

Psychical researchers have also frequently been known to express their appreciation to Mrs. Leonard, with praise more restrained, perhaps, but with gratitude no less sincere. The long and diligent studies made of her mediumship have added greatly to the store of knowledge about trance personalities, and have accumulated quantities of material of high quality which attests to the survival of the human spirit. Whether the material is accepted as evidence of survival or not, its consideration opens new doors of speculation.

"This is not a subject," said Sir Oliver Lodge, "on which one comes lightly and easily to a conclusion, nor can the evidence be explained except to those who will give to it time and careful study; but clearly the conclusion is either folly and self-deception, or it is a truth of the utmost importance to humanity."