THE CELESTIAL MUSIC.

One day, at a family meeting, the head of the family had read a passage from The Spirits' Book concerning celestial music. One of his daughters, a good musician, began to say to herself: But there is no music in the invisible world! This seemed to her impossible; nevertheless, she did not express her thought. On the night of that same day, she spontaneously wrote the following communication:

“This morning, my child, your father read to you a passage from The Spirits' Book. It treated of music, and you learned that the music of heaven is far more beautiful than that of earth. The Spirits find it far superior to yours. All this is true; yet you were saying within yourself: How could Bellini come to give me counsel and listen to my music? It was probably some frivolous and jesting spirit. (An allusion to the counsels that the Spirit Bellini sometimes gave her about music.) You are mistaken, my child. When the Spirits take an incarnate being under their protection, the aim they pursue is to make him advance. “Thus, Bellini no longer finds his music beautiful, because he cannot compare it to that of Space; but, seeing your application and your love for that art, if he gives you counsel, it is out of sincere satisfaction. He desires that your teacher be rewarded for all his effort. Finding his own compositions very childish, in the face of the sublime harmonies of the invisible world, he appreciates your talent, which may be qualified as great there in that world. Believe, my child, that the sounds of your instruments, your most beautiful voices, could not give you the least idea of the celestial music and of its sweet harmony.” After a few moments, the young girl said: “Papa, papa, I am going to fall asleep, I am going to fall.” At once she threw herself into an armchair, exclaiming: “Oh! papa, papa, what delightful music!… Wake me, or else I shall go away.”

Those present, terrified, not knowing how to wake her, she said: “Water, water.”

Indeed, a few drops that were sprinkled on her face produced a prompt result. Dazed at first, she slowly came back to herself, without the slightest awareness of what had happened.

Still on the same night, finding himself alone, the maiden's father received from the Spirit St. Louis the following explanation:

“When you were reading to your daughter the passage from The Spirits' Book concerning celestial music, she remained in doubt; she did not understand that in the spiritual world there could be music. That is why I afterward told her that it was true. My affirmation not having been able to persuade her, God permitted that, in order to convince herself, she should fall into a somnambulic sleep. Then, freeing itself from the sleeping body, her Spirit launched out through Space and was admitted into the ethereal regions, where it remained in ecstasy produced by the impression of the celestial harmony. That is why she exclaimed: “What music! what music!” Feeling herself, however, transported to ever higher regions of the spiritual world, she asked to be awakened, indicating the means of accomplishing it: with water. “Everything is done by the will of God. Your daughter's Spirit will no longer doubt. Although, once awakened, she retains no clear remembrance of what happened, her Spirit now knows where the truth lies.

“Thank God for the favors with which He showers this child. Thank Him for deigning to make known to you ever more His omnipotence and His goodness. May His blessings be poured out upon you and upon this medium, blessed among a thousand!”

NOTE — It will perhaps be asked what conviction could have resulted for that young girl from what she was given to hear, since she remembers nothing of it. If, in the waking state, the details were erased from her memory, her Spirit remembers them. There remained with her an intuition, enough to modify her ideas; instead of opposing them, she will accept without difficulty the explanations that were given to her, because she will understand them and will intuitively recognize them as in agreement with her inner feeling. What happened in this isolated fact, over the space of a few minutes, during the brief excursion that the young girl's Spirit made through the spiritual world, is analogous to what occurs in the interval from one existence to another, when the Spirit who incarnates possesses lights upon any given subject. He appropriates without difficulty all the ideas relating to that subject, even though, as a man, he does not remember the manner in which he acquired them; on the contrary, the ideas for whose assimilation he is not yet ripe enter his brain with difficulty. Thus is explained the ease with which certain persons assimilate Spiritist ideas. In such persons, these ideas do nothing more than awaken those they already possessed. The creatures to whom we refer are Spiritists by birth, as others are poets, musicians, or mathematicians. At the very first words, they understand and have no need of material facts to convince themselves. It is, there is no doubting it, a sign of moral advancement and of spiritual development.

In the communication above one reads: “Thank God for the favors with which He showers this child; may His blessings descend upon this medium, blessed among a thousand.” One might suppose that these words indicate the granting of a favor, a preference, a privilege, whereas Spiritism teaches that, God being supremely just, none of His creatures is privileged and that He does not make the path easier for some than for others. Without any doubt the same path is open to all, but not all travel it with the same speed and with the same result; not all profit equally from the instructions they receive. The Spirit of the young girl in question, although young as an incarnate being, had certainly already lived much and progressed considerably. The good Spirits, finding her docile to their teachings, take pleasure in instructing her, as the teacher does with the pupil in whom he discovers good dispositions. It is in this sense that the medium is blessed among many others who, for their moral advancement, gather no fruit from the mediumship with which they are endowed. There is, then, in this case, neither favor nor privilege; solely a recompense. If her Spirit ceased to be worthy of it, within a short time it would have driven away from itself its good Guides and would find itself surrounded by a multitude of evil Spirits.