Mrs. Mary Jane Sherman, Spiritualist of Talent, Oregon
Undated newspaper clipping
[probably 1926 when Mrs.
Sherman died]
by Charles W. Sherman
Mrs. Mary J Sherman, who passed away in
Ashland, Oregon February 25, was quite a remarkable woman.
She had an agreement with a friend,
Mrs. Elizabeth Breeze of Talent, OR that each should write an article
and that the survivor should read that article at the other’s
funeral.
Mrs. Breeze, being the survivor, read
the article written by Mrs. Sherman at the undertaking parlors, Feb
28.
Written in the year 1903, it is in
part as follows:
“ I am seventy one years of age. I
feel my health failing. As a believer in Spiritualism I think
funerals should be a time of rejoicing, and not of sorrow. And I do
not believe in funeral sermons; such are my instructions.
I remember that the happiest time of
my life was in early childhood.
My parents were Scotch
Presbyterians, and believed in the doctrine of the Elect: that only
certain ones were chosen to be saved; the rest of mankind to suffer
eternal punishment.
In my girlhood I used to ask my
parents many questions about religion, for I was of an inquiring
mind. They informed me that I was sinful and wicked, not one of the
elect. I suffered great torment, thinking I was among those to be
damned.
Later in life I fond the Free Will
people; people who believed that persons could be saved simply by
professing faith of their own free will. This greatly relieved me and
I joined the Methodist church.
Again later in life, after I was
married, and was the mother of children, I still remained
dissatisfied and as before I pondered many questions. Among them I
wondered; could a mother who was in heaven be happy with the
knowledge that her children were suffering eternal punishment? Could
a loving and just God, who possessed pre-knowledge, create a world
with millions of people made in his own image, and punish these
people through eternity because in the exceedingly brief span of
their life they had performed certain sins?
The more I thought about it the
more restless I became, the less content with the creed of the
churches.
Finally in my investigations and
search for truth I came to the study of the philosophy of Modern
Spiritualism. I found that Spiritualism, like the churches, believed
in eternal life, but more than that, in the eternal progress of life,
also; hence, differing from the churches, it did not believe in
eternal punishment. It believed that every person who realized that
he had done wrong in this life or the life to come, might make right
this wrong, and could continue to grow and expand in Spirituality.
The philosophy of Spiritualism satisfied my soul. The feeling that I
had found a great truth caused a sensation of tranquility to permeate
my being. It increased my love for God and Man together.
I believe in a great First Cause
called God. He is manifested to us through Eternal Law. The Laws of
God and the Laws of Nature are one and the same thing, which only
Man, is his limitations, has not fully comprehended: science in time,
will reveal God. As yet Man is finite; life is a struggle for
individuality and separate identity; but eternity offers no limits to
Man’s possibilities.
I believe that I should have the
privilege to think for myself and work out my individual destiny; and
I insist that others should be granted the same privilege. Therefore
I believed In Free Thought and the great principal of Universal
Mental Liberty.
I believe that in our search for
truth our minds should be unbiased, and that we should accept this
truth wherever it may lead us.
I do not like the creeds and dogmas
of the churches. They hamper in the search for truth, lead to
bigotry, and in past ages have caused much persecution and suffering.
Many have been burned at the stake because of creeds and dogmas of
the churches.
I have my regrets in life. I regret
that I have not done more for children. As the poet says the child is
the father of the man; to benefit the man we should begin with the
child. I regret that I have not done more for the cause of Woman. Men
can not be free until their mothers have proper conditions in which
to bear them. To improve human life commence with the children and
mothers.
I welcome Death, because I believe
Death is only a door to a new world, and with it ends the physical
suffering of this world. I welcome Death because I believe that with
it comes the grand opportunity to complete the work begun here.
I welcome Death because I believe
that it relieves me of the limitations of earth life and will permit
me to continue the search for truth and to grow and expand in the
Realm of the eternal mind. It will enable me to acquire knowledge
and Power that are impossible in this life.”
Following the above
article another written
by Charles Albert Roberts
Entirely aside from her ideas and
opinions I shall always think of my grandmother as the head of a
family, the institution which it is claimed nowadays is disappearing
so rapidly. She it was who gave the diverse individualities of us
cousins unity. She was the Matriarch.
When I was a boy I used to lie near
her on the carpet for hours, listening to her stories of our
relatives distinguished for one thing or another. Since boyishly I
found most interest in heroes, the majority of her tales were of the
Indian fighters. There was Brady, the scout and pioneer. On one
occasion, being tracked by blood-thirsty redskins, he put his
moccasins on backward to deceive them into thinking he had gone in
the opposite direction. Andy Jackson was a cousin several times
removed – how many, a discreetly refrained from asking. One
ancestor had crossed the Delaware with Washington. There were many
others.
Always sympathetic and interested in
the ideas of her grandchildren, she liked to hear me talk of my work,
the curious life of the shops. Although at first they gave her a
shock she thought the pagan modern customs of talk and dress
splendid. It was perhaps a reaction in accord with her views in
religion from the narrow barbarism of the church of her day. Anyway
my modernism and her opinions got along famously.
My brother says that one of the
happiest times in his life was the short time he lived with
grandmother. And my one sorrow and regret, on leaving Oregon at the
ate of twelve, was at parting with “Grandma”
