The officer of the Crimea.

— L’Indépendance belge, which cannot be accused of excessive benevolence with regard to Spiritist beliefs, reported the following fact, reproduced by several newspapers, and which we in turn transcribe with all reservations, for we have not had the opportunity to verify its reality.

“Whether because our imagination invents and peoples a world of souls beside and above us; or whether because the world in which we are, live, and act really exists, it is beyond doubt, at least for me, that inexplicable accidents occur, which provoke Science and defy reason.

“In the war of the Crimea, during one of those sad and slow nights that lend themselves marvelously to melancholy, to nightmare, and to all the nostalgias of Heaven and Earth, a young officer suddenly rises and leaves his tent, in order to seek out one of his comrades to tell him:

— I have just received a visit from my cousin, Mademoiselle de T…

— You dreamed it.

— No. She entered, pale, smiling, barely brushing the ground too hard and coarse for her delicate feet. She looked at me, after having suddenly awakened me with her sweet voice, and said to me: “You are taking too long! Take care! Sometimes one dies in war without going to war.” I wished to speak to her, to rise, to run to her. But she drew back and, placing her finger upon her lips, said: “Silence! Have courage and patience, we shall see each other again.” Ah! my friend, she was very pale; I am sure that she is ill, that she is calling me. — You are dreaming awake; you are mad, the friend retorted.

— It is possible. But, then, what is this agitation in my heart, which evokes her and makes me see her?

“The two young men conversed and, at dawn, the friend accompanied the visionary officer to his tent, when the latter suddenly shuddered and said:

— There she is, my friend; there she is, before my tent… She makes signs to me, saying that I have neither faith nor confidence. “Naturally the friend saw nothing. He did, however, the best he could to reassure his comrade. The day broke and, with it, the occupations too serious to leave room for the phantoms of the night. But, by a perfectly understandable precaution, the next day a letter departed for France, requesting urgent news of Mademoiselle T… Some days later they answered that Mademoiselle T… was gravely ill and that if the young officer could obtain a leave, perhaps his visit might produce a salutary effect upon her. “To request a leave at the moment of the harshest struggles, probably on the eve of a decisive assault, alleging sentimental fears, was a thing that could not be thought of. Nevertheless, I believe I recall that the leave was requested and obtained and that the officer was already about to depart for France when he had one more vision. This one was dreadful. Pale and mute, Mademoiselle T… glided one night into the interior of his tent and showed him the long white dress that she trailed behind her. The young officer did not doubt for a single instant that his betrothed was dead. He stretched out his hand, seized one of his pistols, and blew out his brains. “Indeed, on that very night, at the same hour, Mademoiselle T… had breathed her last sigh.

“Would this vision result from magnetism? I do not know. Would it be madness? I hope so. But it was something that escaped the mockeries of the ignorant and the even more improper mockeries of men of learning.

“As for the authenticity of this fact, I can guarantee it. Question the officers who passed this long winter in the Crimea, and not a few of them will recount to you phenomena of presentiment, of vision, of mirage of the homeland and of relatives, analogous to this one which I have just recounted.

“What is to be concluded from all this? Nothing. Unless it be that I should end my correspondence in a very lugubrious manner, and that perhaps I might know how to put one to sleep without knowing how to magnetize.”

Thécel.

— As we said at the outset, we cannot verify the authenticity of the fact. But what we can guarantee is its possibility. The verified examples, ancient and recent, of warnings from beyond the grave are so numerous that this one has nothing more extraordinary about it than others, witnessed by so many persons worthy of faith. They could seem supernatural in other times; but today, when their cause is known and they are psychologically explained, thanks to the Spiritist theory, they have nothing that removes them from the laws of Nature. We will add only one observation: if that officer had known Spiritism, he would have known that the means of reuniting himself with his betrothed would not be by committing suicide, for the act may separate them for a far longer time than that which he would have lived on Earth. Moreover, Spiritism would have told him that a glorious death, on the field of battle, would have been more profitable to him than the one he permitted himself voluntarily, through an act of weakness.

— Here is another fact of warning from beyond the grave, reported by the Gazette d’Arad (Hungary), of the month of November 1858:

“Two Israelite brothers from Gyek, Hungary, had gone to Grosswardein, to take their two daughters of 14 years to a boarding school. During the night that followed their departure, another daughter of one of them, 10 years of age and who had remained at home, rose with a start and, weeping, told her mother that she had seen in a dream her father and her uncle surrounded by several peasants who wished to do them harm.

“At first the mother attached no importance to these words; but, seeing that she could not calm the child, she took her to the house of the local prefect, where the girl recounted the dream again, adding that she had recognized among the peasants two of their neighbors, and that the event had taken place at the edge of a forest.

“Immediately the prefect ordered a search to be made at the home of the two peasants, who were in fact absent. Then, to assure himself of the truth, he dispatched other emissaries in the indicated direction, who found five corpses on the confines of a wood. They were the two fathers with the daughters and the coachman who had driven them. The corpses had been thrown upon a brazier so as to become unrecognizable. The police soon began to make their inquiries. They arrested the two designated peasants, at the moment when they were seeking to exchange several banknotes stained with blood. Once in prison they confessed the crime, saying that they recognized the finger of God in the prompt discovery of the offense.”