EVENTS.

Society in general, or, to put it better, the assembly of beings, both incarnate and disincarnate, that make up the floating population of a world, in a word — Humanity —, is nothing other than a great collective child which, like every being endowed with life, passes through all the phases that succeed one another in each individual, from birth to the most advanced age. Just as the development of the individual is accompanied by certain physical and intellectual disturbances peculiar, in particular, to certain periods of life, so too Humanity has its growth crises, its moral and intellectual upheavals. You are passing through one of those great epochs which close one period and give beginning to another. Sharing simultaneously in the things of the past and those of the future, in the systems that are crumbling and the truths that are being founded, take care, my friends, to place yourselves on the side of solidity, of progressiveness, and of logic, if you do not wish to be swept away at the mercy of the waves; take care to abandon palaces sumptuous in appearance but tottering on their foundations, which will not be slow to bury in their ruins the unfortunate ones who senselessly refuse to leave them, despite the warnings of every kind that are lavished upon them. All brows grow clouded, and the apparent calm you enjoy serves only to accumulate a greater quantity of destructive elements.

Sometimes, before the storm that destroys the fruits of a year's sweat, there appear forerunners that allow the precautions necessary to avoid, as far as possible, the devastation, to be taken. This time it will not be so. It will seem that the sky, after being overcast, is clearing; the clouds will flee; then, suddenly, all the furies, long pent up, will be unleashed with unheard-of violence.

Woe to those who have not prepared a shelter for themselves! Woe to the braggarts who go to meet the danger with arm unarmed and breast bared! Woe to those who confront the danger with goblet in hand! What a terrible disappointment awaits them! The goblet they hold will not reach their lips before they are struck down!

To work, then, Spiritists, and do not forget that you must all have prudence and foresight. You have a shield; know how to make use of it. You have an anchor of salvation; do not despise it.