Alexandria Gazette

RAISED FROM APPARENT DEATH.

To the Editors of the Evening Post.

of Mrs. Hatch, as reported in your Weekly:
I have been interested in the developments
occurred within the past twenty-four hours,
and a coincidence, so peculiarly striking, has
come under my observation, that I feel inclined to
give you the substance of it.

How are we to interpret the accounts of the resurrection in your paper of date March 26—'How
Your readers will remember the raising of Lazarus?' &c. It is with this question that
of the dead in the New Testament—that
my little story will oblige.

Living within a few miles of us, we have a
venerable dear old man, known to all the
country round. He is a Methodist preacher,
and embraces in his circuit our little village.
Some forty years since, from England he came
into Michigan, with its early settlers, and
is always going about "doing good." Father
Promfret called upon us yesterday morning,
and in the course of conversation, "Sister,"
said he, "did I ever tell you how Father Promfret lay in a trance three days and three
nights?" I heard of it, but it had seemed a
legend rather than a reality." "How was it?"
"Ah, it's a strange tale, but a true one. Some
six years since, I was ill, like unto death, and
the poor dear, my wife, sick besides in another
bed; so all was done that could be done
for one; but God thought best to take the
breath from the body, and the old man was
gone."

His language was quaint.

"Yes, sister, the breath was gone: no pulse
at the heart; limbs were stiff and cold; and
the little children went about crying, Father
Promfret is dead. So the nigh friends came
in and laid the limbs, and the grave was dug,
and the doctors came and looked at the old
man, and they said bury him, for he will
never breathe again; but the wife said let him
be—he is not dead, he is asleep; he was so in
England once before; so, then, three ministers
were called by her request, and one good
man—just a farmer, Sister, and no minister
at all—so the wife said, kneel all down
about him and pray, and he will rise if he
be not dead; and if he do not, why put him
away. So they stretched out their hands
over the body for twenty minutes. Yes, my
dear, they put their souls up for a sign—and
there it was—came a blush, and tears all sprung out just
from the crown of the head till the feet, and
the spirit came again, and I rose and said:
Friends, I am refreshed—but quickly give
me to eat; so I was made whole, for the Lord
had need of me."

A young friend was with us, and as the
good old man left, blessing us all in his farewell, we gathered around the stove and gave
expressions to our thoughts.

It was prayer," the elder said, in conclusion
—'the prayers of the righteous, sister"
—but I could not recognize this, the phenomenon must rest its case upon something more
material.

"Why," said I, "can we reconcile the
thought that the powerful magnetic sympathy of these kind neighbors and friends operated
upon the yet instinct vitality, and reassured
the dying strength?" It may be," was the
reply—'had a sign. Thus we left the effect with the
all recuperative agency in.

In the afternoon of the same day. Mrs.
Hatch's manifestations came into my hands,
and for this I have written.

Yours, &c.,
Mrs. E. S. LEGGETT.
Waterford, Oakland county, Michigan.
March 13, 1857.