Example 2 - SZYMEL SLIZGOL.

— This man was nothing more than a poor Israelite of Vilna, who died in May 1865. For thirty years he begged with a tray in his hands.

Throughout the city that voice was well known which said: "Remember the poor, the widows, and the orphans!"

Through that long pilgrimage Slizgol had gathered 90,000 rubles, keeping, however, not a single kopeck for himself.

He relieved and cured the sick; he paid for the schooling of poor children; he distributed to the needy the food that was given to him.

The night he devoted to the preparation of snuff, which he sold in order to provide for his needs, and what was left over belonged to the poor.

He was alone in the world, and yet his burial was accompanied by a great part of the population of Vilna, whose shops closed their doors.

(SOCIETY of Paris, June 15, 1865.)

Evocation. — Exceedingly happy, having come at last to the fullness of what I most desired and for which I paid very dearly, here I am, among you, since nightfall.

Grateful for the interest that the Spirit of the poor beggar awakens in you, he will, with satisfaction, endeavor to answer your questions.

A letter from Vilna gave us knowledge of the most notable particulars of your existence, and from the sympathy which such particulars inspire in us was born the desire to communicate with you.

We thank you for your presence, and, since you wish to answer us, we will begin by assuring you that we shall be very happy if, for our guidance, we can come to know your spiritual position, as well as the causes that determined the kind of life you had in your last incarnation.

A. In the first place, grant to my Spirit, conscious of its true position, the favor of conveying to you its opinion, with respect to a thought that occurred to you concerning my personality. And I ask in advance for your counsels, in case this opinion of mine should be false.

It seems singular to you that the public manifestations should have taken on such proportions, to honor the memory of the insignificant man who knew, through his charitable Spirit, how to attract such sympathy. — I am not referring to you, dear master, nor to you, esteemed medium, nor to you others, true and sincere Spiritists; I speak, rather, for the persons indifferent to belief, — for in this there was nothing extraordinary.

The moral pressure exercised by the practice of good upon Humanity is such that, however materialized it may be, it always bows down, it venerates good, despite its tendency toward evil.

Now, the questions which, on your part, are not dictated by curiosity, but simply formulated with the aim of expanding the teaching. Since I have liberty at my disposal, I will, therefore, tell you, as laconically as possible, the determining causes of my last existence.

Many centuries ago, I lived with the title of king, or, at least, of sovereign prince. Within the sphere of my relatively limited power, in comparison with the present-day States, I was, nonetheless, the absolute master of my vassals, as of their destinies, and I governed them tyrannically, or rather — let us use the very term — as an executioner.

Endowed with an impetuous, violent character, besides being avaricious and sensual, you can gauge what must have been the lot of the poor beings subject to my dominion. Besides abusing power to oppress the weak, I subordinated offices, labors, and pains to the service of my own passions.

Thus, I imposed a tithe on the product of begging, and no one could accumulate anything without my first taking from him a large share of those leftovers that human pity let slip into the bags of misery. And more still: — so that the number of beggars among my vassals would not decrease, I forbade the unfortunate to give to their needy friends, relatives, and servants the insignificant part of what still remained to them.

In a word, I was everything that can be imagined as most cruel, in relation to the suffering and misery of others.

In the midst of horrible sufferings, I ended up losing that which you call — life, so much so that my death was pointed to as a terrifying example to all who, like me, though on a lesser scale, had the same way of thinking.

As a Spirit, I remained in erraticity for three and a half centuries, and, when at the end of that time I understood that the reason for being of reincarnation was entirely other than that followed by my coarse senses, I obtained, by dint of prayers, of resignation, and of regrets, the permission to bear materially the same sufferings that I had inflicted, and ones far more deeply felt than those I had caused.

Once the permission was obtained, God granted that by my free will I might increase the physical and moral sufferings. Thanks to the assistance of the good Spirits, I persisted in the practice of good, and I am grateful to them for having prevented me from succumbing under the burden I had taken on.

Finally, I fulfilled an existence of self-denial and charity, which by itself redeemed the faults of another, cruel and unjust one.

Born of poor parents and orphaned early, I learned to earn my bread at an age in which many consider reasoning incapable. I lived alone, without love, without affections, and from the beginning I endured the brutalities that I had exercised toward others.

It is said that the sums I gathered by begging were all destined for the relief of my fellow beings: — It is an incontestable fact, to which, without pride or emphasis, I must add that — very many times, with the sacrifice of relatively pressing privations, I increased the benefit that I was permitted to do for public charity.

I had a calm death, trusting in the worth of my reparation, and I am rewarded far more than my secret aspirations could have conceived.

Today I am happy, most happy, and I can affirm to you that all who exalt themselves shall be humbled, just as all who humble themselves shall be exalted.

Have the goodness to tell us in what your expiation in the spiritual world consisted, and how long it lasted, counting from your death until the moment of its attenuation through the effect of repentance and good resolutions. Tell us also what it was that brought about the change of your ideas, in the spiritual state.

A. That question awakens in me many painful recollections! How much I suffered… But no, I do not lament: I merely remember!… You wish to know the nature of my expiation? Well, here it is in its terrible hideousness:

Executioner that I was of all good feelings, I remained for a long, a very long time, bound by the perispirit to the decomposing body. Until that decomposition was completed, I saw myself gnawed by the worms, which tortured me greatly! and when I saw myself freed from the fetters that bound me to the instrument of torment, a more cruel torment awaited me!…

After the physical suffering, the moral suffering far longer. I was placed in the presence of all my victims.

Periodically, constrained by a superior force, I was led to see again the living picture of my crimes. And I saw, physically and morally, all the pains that I had made others suffer!

Ah! my friends, how terrible is the constant sight of those to whom we have done wrong! Among you, you have only a faint example in the confrontation of the accused with his victim.

There you have, in summary, what I suffered during three and a half centuries, until God, taking pity on my pain and touched by my repentance, entreated by those who assisted me, permitted the life of expiation that you know.

Did some particular motive lead you to the choice of your last existence, subordinated to the Israelite religion?

A. I did not choose by myself alone, but I heeded the counsel of my guides.

The religion of Israel was one small humiliation more in my trial, since in certain countries the majority of the incarnate despise the Jews, and especially the begging Jews.

On Earth, at what age did you begin your work of expiation? How did the thought of acquitting yourself of the resolutions previously taken occur to you? In exercising charity so self-denyingly, did you have the intuition of the causes that predisposed you to it?

A. My parents were poor, but intelligent and avaricious. While still a youth, I was deprived of the affection and tenderness of my mother. The loss of her caused me grief all the greater and deeper inasmuch as my father, dominated by the greed for gain, abandoned me completely. As for my brothers, all older than I, they did not seem to perceive my sorrows.

It was another Jew who, moved by a feeling more selfish than charitable, took me into his house and taught me to work. What this cost him was largely compensated by my labor, which, moreover, often exceeded my strength.

Later, freed from that yoke, I worked on my own account; but everywhere, in work as in repose, I was pursued by the longing for my mother, and, as I advanced in years, the memory of that being was engraved ever more deeply in my mind, as I lamented all too much the loss of her love and her care.

It was not long before I was the only one left of my family, for death soon, within months, mowed down my whole family. Then there began to manifest itself to me the manner in which I was to pass the rest of my life.

Two of my brothers left orphans, and I, moved by the recollection of what I had suffered as an orphan, wished to preserve the poor little ones from a youth like my own. As my labor did not produce enough to support them all, I began to beg for alms, not for myself, but for others.

It did not please God that I should see the result, the consolation of my efforts, and so it was that the poor little ones too left me forever. I saw well what they lacked — it was a mother.

I resolved, then, to beg for the unfortunate widows who, unable to work for themselves and their little children, imposed upon themselves fatal privations, which ended by killing them, bequeathing to the world poor orphans abandoned and doomed to the torments that I myself had endured.

At that time I was thirty years old, and at that age, healthy and vigorous, I was seen begging for the widow and the orphan. The first steps were painful to me, having to endure more than one demeaning epithet; when, however, they became certain that I really distributed among the poor what I received; when they learned that to that distribution I still added the leftovers of my labor; then I acquired a certain reputation that was not without gratification to me.

During the sixty-some years of that earthly pilgrimage, I never ceased to attend to the task I had imposed upon myself. Nor did my conscience ever make me sense that causes prior to that existence were the motive of my conduct.

One day only, and before beginning to beg, I heard these words: "Do not do unto others what you would not wish that others do unto you."

Surprised by the general principles of morality contained in those few words, it often seemed to me that I heard them augmented with these others: "But do, on the contrary, what you would wish that others do unto you."

Having for helpers the memory of my mother and of my own sufferings, I continued to tread a path that my conscience told me was good.

I will end this long communication by saying: — Thank you!

Still imperfect, I know, nonetheless, that evil brings only evil, and once again, as I have already done, I will devote myself to good in order to attain happiness.