MY MISSION.

Question (to the Truth). — Good Spirit, I should like to know what you think of the mission that certain Spirits have assigned to me. Tell me, I beg of you, whether it is a trial for my self-love. I have, as you know, the greatest desire to contribute to the propagation of the truth, but, from the role of a simple worker to that of missionary-in-chief, the distance is great, and I do not perceive what could justify in me such a grace, in preference to so many others who possess talent and qualities that I do not have.

Answer. — I confirm what was told you, but I recommend to you much discretion, if you wish to succeed. You will later come to know things that will explain to you what now surprises you. Do not forget that you may triumph, just as you may fail. In this latter case, another would replace you, for the designs of God do not rest upon the head of one man. Never, then, speak of your mission; that would be the way to make it miscarry. It can be justified only by the work accomplished, and you have as yet done nothing. If you fulfill it, men will know how to recognize it, sooner or later, since it is by the fruits that the quality of the tree is verified.

Q. — I assuredly have no desire to glory in a mission in which I scarcely believe. If I am destined to serve as an instrument to the designs of Providence, let it dispose of me. In that case, I claim your assistance and that of the good Spirits, that they may help and uphold me in my task.

A. — Our assistance will not fail you, but it will be useless if, on your part, you do not do what is necessary. You have your free will, of which you may make use as you understand best. No man is constrained to do anything whatever.

Q. — What causes could determine my failure? Would it be the insufficiency of my capacities?

A. — No; but the mission of reformers is fraught with reefs and dangers. I forewarn you that yours is harsh, for it is a matter of shaking and transforming the whole world. Do not suppose that it is enough for you to publish a book, two books, ten books, and then to remain tranquilly at home thereafter. You must expose your person. You will stir up against yourself terrible hatreds; relentless enemies will conspire for your ruin; you will find yourself grappling with malevolence, with calumny, with the betrayal even of those who will seem to you the most devoted; your best instructions will be despised and falsified; more than once you will succumb under the weight of fatigue; in a word: you will have to sustain an almost continual struggle, with the sacrifice of your repose, of your tranquility, of your health, and even of your life, for, without this, you would live much longer. Well then! not a few draw back when, instead of a flowery road, they see beneath their steps only heaths, sharp stones, and serpents. For such missions, intelligence does not suffice. There is needed, first of all, in order to please God, humility, modesty, and disinterestedness, since He abases the proud, the presumptuous, and the ambitious. To struggle against men, courage, perseverance, and unshakable firmness are indispensable. Prudence and tact are also necessary, in order to conduct matters in a fitting manner and not to compromise their success by untimely words or measures. Required, finally, are devotion, abnegation, and a disposition to all sacrifices. You see, then, that your mission is subordinated to conditions that depend upon you.

Spirit Truth.

Myself. — Spirit Truth, I thank you for your wise counsels. I accept everything, without restriction and without preconceived idea.

Lord! since You have deigned to cast Your eyes upon me for the fulfillment of Your designs, may Your will be done! My life is in Your hands; dispose of Your servant. I recognize my weakness before so great a task; my good will shall not falter, but my strength, perhaps, may betray me. Supply for my deficiency; give me the physical and moral strengths that may be necessary to me. Uphold me in the difficult moments and, with Your aid and that of Your celestial messengers, I shall make every effort to correspond to Your designs.

NOTE. — I write this note on the 1st of January 1867, ten years and a half after the above communication was given to me, and I attest that it was realized in every point, for I experienced all the vicissitudes that were predicted to me. I have struggled with the hatred of relentless enemies, with insult, calumny, envy, and jealousy; infamous libels were published against me; my best instructions were falsified; those in whom I placed the most confidence betrayed me, and those to whom I rendered services repaid me with ingratitude. The Society of Paris constituted itself a focus of continual intrigues woven against me by those very ones who declared themselves in my favor and who, with a friendly face in my presence, struck me behind my back. They said that those who remained faithful to me were in my pay and that I paid them with the money I earned from Spiritism. Never again was it given to me to know what repose is; more than once I succumbed to the excess of work, my health was shaken and my existence compromised. Thanks, however, to the protection and assistance of the good Spirits, who incessantly gave me manifest proofs of solicitude, I have the happiness of recognizing that I never felt the least faltering or discouragement, and that I continued, always with the same ardor, in the discharge of my task, without concerning myself with the malice of which I was the object. According to the communication of the Spirit of Truth, I had to count upon all this, and all was verified.

But also, alongside those vicissitudes, what satisfactions I experienced, seeing the work grow in so prodigious a manner! With what delicious compensations were my tribulations repaid! What blessings and what proofs of real sympathy I received on the part of many afflicted ones whom the Doctrine consoled! This result was not announced to me by the Spirit of Truth, who, no doubt intentionally, had shown me only the difficulties of the road. What, then, would be my ingratitude, were I to complain! Were I to say that there is a compensation between the good and the evil, I should not be telling the truth, for the good, I refer to the moral satisfactions, far outweighed the evil. When a disappointment, any contrariety whatever, came upon me, I raised myself in thought above Humanity and placed myself beforehand in the region of the Spirits, and from that culminating point, whence I descried the place of my arrival, the miseries of life glided over me without reaching me. So habitual had this manner of proceeding become to me, that the cries of the wicked never disturbed me.