THE NEW GENERATION.

The Earth quivers with joy; the day of the Lord draws near, all those among us who are at the forefront contend earnestly to enter the lists. Already the Spirit of some valiant incarnate souls agitates their bodies almost to the point of shattering them. The forbidden flesh does not know what to think, an unknown fire devours it. They will be set free, because the times have come. An eternity is about to expire, a glorious eternity will soon dawn, and God counts his children. The reign of gold will yield place to a purer reign; thought will soon be sovereign, and the choice Spirits, who have come since remote ages to illuminate the centuries in which they lived and to serve as landmarks for the centuries to come, will incarnate among you. What do I say? Many are already incarnate. Their wise word will be a destroying flame, which will cause irreparable devastations within the old abuses. How many ancient prejudices are going to crumble en masse, when the Spirit, like a double-edged axe, comes to cut them down at the foundations. Yes, the fathers of the progress of the human spirit have left, some, their radiant dwellings; others, great labors, in which happiness is joined to the pleasure of instructing themselves, to take up again the pilgrim's staff, which they had but just laid down at the threshold of the temple of Science, and, before long, from the four corners of the globe, the official savants will hear, terrified, beardless youths retorting to them, in a profound language, to the arguments they deemed irrefutable. The mocking smile will no longer constitute a shield of any worth, and, under penalty of demoralization, it will be necessary to answer. Then, the vicious circle in which the masters of vain philosophy entangle themselves will show itself completely, inasmuch as the new champions carry with them not only a torch, which is intelligence freed from the coarse veils, but also many among them will enjoy that particular state, which is the privilege of great souls, such as Jesus, and which gives the power to heal and to work those marvels called miracles. Before material facts, in which the Spirit shows itself so superior to matter, how can one deny the Spirits? Materialism will be struck down in its discourses by a word more eloquent than its own and by the fact patent, positive, and ascertained by all, since great and small, new Thomases, will be able to touch it with their finger. The old worm-eaten world is cracking everywhere; the old world is ending, and with it all those old dogmas, which still gleam only by the gilding that covers them. Valiant Spirits, it falls to you the task of scraping off that false gold. Back, you who vainly wish to prop up the old idol. Struck on all sides, it is going to topple and will drag you down in its fall.

Back, all you deniers of progress; back, with your beliefs of an epoch that is gone. Why do you deny progress and strive to halt it? It is that, desiring to surpass, to surpass still and always, you condensed your thought into articles of faith, crying out to Humanity: “You will always be a child, and we, who have the illumination from on high, are destined to lead you.”

But you have already seen the leading-strings of childhood remain in your hands; and the child leaps ahead of you, and still you deny that it can walk by itself! Will it be by whipping it with the leading-strings destined to support it that you will prove the authority of your arguments? No, and you well feel it; but it is so agreeable, to one who calls himself infallible, to believe that others still place their faith in that infallibility, in which not even you yourselves believe! Ah! what groans are not loosed in the sanctuary! It is there that, lending an attentive ear, one hears the doleful whisperings. What do you say, then, poor obstinate ones? That the hand of God comes down upon his Church? That everywhere the free press attacks you and pulverizes your arguments? Where will be the new Chrysostom, whose powerful word will reduce to nothing that deluge of reasoners? In vain you await him; your most vigorous and most esteemed pens can do nothing more. They obstinately cling to the past that is departing, while the new generation, in an irresistible impulse that propels it forward, exclaims: No, no past; to us the future; a new dawn rises, and it is thither that our aspirations tend! Forward! it says, widen the road, the brothers follow us. Go with the wave that carries us along; we need movement, which is life, whereas you present us immobility, which is death. Your holy martyrs are by no means dead, that you should immobilize their present. They glimpsed our epoch and cast themselves into death as into the road that was to lead them there. To each epoch its genius. We wish to cast ourselves into life, inasmuch as the centuries to come, which we descry, have a horror of death. There you have, my friends, what the valiant Spirits who are presently incarnating are going to make comprehensible. This century will not end without many ruins littering the ground. Murderous and fratricidal war will soon disappear before discussion; the spirit will replace brute force. After all these generous souls have fought, they will return to your spiritual world, to receive the conqueror's crown.

There is the goal, my friends. The champions are too battle-hardened for the success to be doubtful. God has chosen the cream of his combatants, and the victory is attained for Humanity.

Rejoice, then, all you who aspire to happiness and who wish that your brothers may share in it, as you yourselves do: the day has come! The Earth trembles with joy, for it is going to witness the beginning of the reign of peace that the Christ, the divine Master, promised, a reign whose foundations he descended to lay.

A Spirit.