20 July 1761 – 26 July 1761

About one I preached at Bramley, where Jonas Rushford, about fourteen years old, gave me the following relation: "About this time last year I was desired by two of our neighbors to go with them to Mr. Crowther's at Skipton, who would not speak to them, about a man that had been missing twenty days, but bid them bring a boy twelve or thirteen years old. When we came in, he stood reading a book. "He put me into a bed, with a looking glass in my hand, and covered me all over. Then he asked me whom I had a mind to see; and I said, 'My mother.' I presently saw her with a lock of wool in her hand, standing just in the place, and the clothes she was in, as she told me afterwards. Then he bid me look again for the man that was missing, who was one of our neighbors. And I looked and saw him riding toward Idle, but he was very drunk; and he stopped at the alehouse and drank two pints more, and he pulled out a guinea to change. Two men stood by, a big man and a little man; and they went on before him, and got two hedge-stakes; and when he came up, on Windle Common, at the top of the hill, they pulled him off his horse, killed him, and threw him into a coalpit. And I saw it all as plain as if I was close to them. And if I saw the men, I should know them again. "We went back to Bradford that night; and the next day I went with our neighbors and showed them the spot where he was killed, and the pit he was thrown into; and a man went down and brought him up. And it was as I had told them; his handkerchief was tied about his mouth, and fastened behind his neck." Is it improbable only, or flatly impossible, when all the circumstances are considered, that this should all be pure fiction? They that can believe this, may believe a man's getting into a bottle.