Example 1 - MARCEL, the boy of bed no. 4.

— In a provincial hospital there was a boy of 8 to 10 years, whose condition was difficult to specify. They referred to him by no. 4.

Totally contorted, both by his innate deformity and by the disease, his legs twisted up so as to brush against his neck, in such a state of emaciation that they were skin over bones. His body was one wound; his sufferings, atrocious.

He came from a Jewish family. The illness had dominated that organism for eight long years already, and yet the sick child displayed a remarkable intelligence, besides an edifying candor, patience, and resignation.

The physician who attended him, full of compassion for the poor child, somewhat abandoned since his relatives seldom visited him, took a certain interest in him. And he found something attractive in his intellectual precocity.

Thus he not only treated him with kindness, but read to him when his duties allowed, marveling at his judgment in appreciating things which to his mind were superior to the discernment proper to his age.

One day the boy said to him: — “Doctor, be so kind as to give me once more those pills you recently prescribed. — What for, my child? the physician replied, since I have already administered enough to you, and a larger quantity may do you harm. — It is because I suffer so much that I can hardly pray to God to give me strength, for I do not wish to disturb the other sick people who are here. Those pills make me sleep, and at least when I sleep, I disturb no one.”

Here is enough to demonstrate the greatness of that soul enclosed in a shapeless body. Where could this child have gone to draw such sentiments?

Certainly not in the environment in which he was raised; moreover, at the age when he began to suffer, he did not even possess reason; such sentiments were innate in him; but then, why was he condemned to suffering, granting that God had concurrently created a soul so noble and that wretched body — instrument of such cruel torments?

Yes, one must either deny the goodness of God, or admit a prior cause; that is, the pre-existence of the soul and the plurality of existences.

This child died, and his last thoughts were for God and for the charitable physician who pitied him.

Some time later, his Spirit was evoked at the SOCIETY of Paris, where it gave the following communication .

“At your call, I have come to let my voice extend beyond this circle, touching all hearts. May its echo make itself heard in solitude, reminding them that the agonies of Earth have for their premises the joys of Heaven; that martyrdom is no more than the rind of a delicious fruit, giving courage and resignation.

It will tell them that upon the pallet of misery are the envoys of the Lord, whose mission consists in exemplifying that there is no insuperable pain, provided we have the help of the Almighty and of His good Spirits.

It will make them hear lamentations mingled with prayers, that they may understand their pious harmony, quite different from that of choruses of lamentations mingled with blasphemies.

“One of your good Spirits, a great apostle of Spiritism, yielded me his place this night; in my turn, it also falls to me to say something about the progress of your Doctrine, which must assist in their mission those who among you incarnate to learn to suffer.

Spiritism will be the touchstone; the suffering will have the example and the word, and then imprecations will be transformed into cries of joy and tears of contentment.”

Q. From what you affirm, it seems your sufferings were not the expiation of prior faults?

A. They would not be a direct expiation, but I assure you that all suffering has a just cause.

He whom you knew so wretched was beautiful, great, rich, and flattered. I had had thurifers and courtiers; I had been frivolous and proud.

Earlier I was quite guilty; I denied God, I harmed my fellow man, but I expiated cruelly, first in the spiritual world and then on Earth.

My sufferings of only a few years, in this last incarnation, I bore earlier throughout an entire existence that reached extreme old age.

By my repentance I reconquered the grace of the Lord, who entrusted me with many missions, including the last, which you well know. And it was I who requested them, in order to complete my purification.

Farewell, friends; I shall return sometimes. My mission is to console, not to instruct. There are, however, many persons here whose wounds lie hidden, and these will take pleasure in my presence.

Marcel.

— Instructions of the medium's guide.

Poor little sufferer, wasted away, ulcerous, and deformed! In that asylum of miseries and tears, how many groans were exhaled! And how resigned he was… and how his soul already then glimpsed the end of his sufferings, despite his tender age!

Beyond the tomb, he foresaw the recompense of so many stifled groans, and he waited! And how he also prayed for those who had no resignation in suffering, for those who exchanged prayers for blasphemies!

His agony was slow, but the hour of his passing was not terrible for him; certainly, the convulsed limbs writhed, offering the bystanders the spectacle of a deformed body revolting against its lot, in that law of the flesh which at all cost wishes to live; but a good angel hovered over the deathbed and healed his heart; 4 then that angel carried off on its white wings that soul so beautiful, escaping from so horrifying a body, and these were the words pronounced: “Glory to You, Lord, my God!”

And that soul rose to the Almighty, happy, and exclaimed: “Here I am, Lord; You gave me as my mission to exemplify suffering… will I have borne the trial worthily?”

Today, the Spirit of the poor child stands out, hovers in Space, goes from the weak to the humble, and says to all: — Hope and courage.

Free from all the impurities of matter, there he is beside you, speaking to you, telling you no longer with that weak and pitiful voice, but now firm: “All who observed me saw that the child did not murmur; they drew from that example calm for their own ills, and their hearts were strengthened in gentle trust in God, for no other was the purpose of my brief passage through Earth. Saint Augustine.

[1] Saint Augustine, through the medium with whom he habitually communicates at the Society.