Spontaneous communications obtained in the Society's sessions.

I.

Love one another; the whole law is summed up in this precept, the divine law by which God ceaselessly creates and governs the worlds. Love is the law of attraction for living and organized beings; attraction is the law of love for inorganic matter.

Never forget that the Spirit, whatever its degree of advancement and its situation, whether reincarnated or in erraticity, is always placed between a superior, who guides and perfects it, and an inferior, toward whom it has the same duties to fulfill.

Be charitable, then, not only with that charity which leads you to draw from your pocket the alms that you give coldly to the one who dares to ask, but go in search of hidden miseries.

Be indulgent toward the defects of your fellow beings. Instead of despising ignorance and vice, instruct and moralize them. Be gentle and benevolent toward all that is inferior to you. Be so even toward the lowliest beings of creation, and you will have obeyed the law of God.

Vincent de Paul. n Observation. – Generally the Spirits regarded by men as saints do not avail themselves of that quality; thus, Saint Vincent de Paul signs simply Vincent de Paul; Saint Louis signs Louis. Those who, on the contrary, usurp names and qualities that do not belong to them, ordinarily display false titles, doubtless thinking thereby to impose themselves more easily. Yet this mask cannot deceive whoever takes the trouble to study their language; that of truly superior Spirits bears a mark that does not allow us to be deceived. II.

(November 18, 1859. — Medium, Mr. R…)

Union makes strength; be united and you will be strong. Spiritism has germinated, it has cast deep roots; it is going to spread its beneficent branches over the Earth. You must become invulnerable to the poisoned darts of calumny and of the sad phalanx of the ignorant, the egoists, and the hypocrites. To reach this, let a reciprocal indulgence and benevolence preside over your relations; let your defects pass unnoticed and let only your qualities be observed; let the torch of holy friendship unite, enlighten, and warm your hearts, in such a way that you may resist the impotent attacks of evil, like the unshakable rock before the furious wave. Vincent de Paul.

III.

(September 23, 1859. — Medium, Mr. R…)

Until now you have considered war only from the material point of view; internal wars, wars of peoples against peoples; in it you have seen no more than conquests, slavery, blood, death, and ruins. It is time to consider it from the moralizing and progressive point of view. War sows in its passage both death and ideas. Ideas germinate and grow. The Spirit comes to make them bear fruit after having been re-tempered in the spiritual life. Do not, then, overload with your curses the diplomat who prepared the struggle, nor the captain who led his soldiers to victory. Great struggles are being prepared: struggles of good against evil, of darkness against light; struggles of the Spirit of progress against stationary ignorance. Wait with patience, for neither your curses nor your praises can modify the will of God. He will always know how to keep or remove His instruments from the theater of events, according to whether they have fulfilled their mission or abused it, in order to serve His personal views, by the power they have acquired through their success. You have the example of the modern Caesar and my own. Through several miserable and obscure existences, I had to expiate my faults, having lived for the last time on Earth under the name of Louis IX. Julius Caesar. n IV.

THE CHILD AND THE BROOK.

(PARABLE.)

(November 11, 1859. — Medium, Mr. Did…)

One day a child came upon a brook so swift that it had almost the impetuosity of a torrent. The water hurled itself down from a neighboring hill and swelled as it advanced across the plain. The child set himself to examining the torrent, then gathered all sorts of stones that he could carry in his tiny arms. He resolved to build a dam; blind presumption! Despite all his efforts and his childish anger, he did not succeed. Reflecting then more seriously — if we may employ that expression of a child — he climbed higher, abandoned the first attempt, and wished to make his dam near the very source of the brook. Unfortunately his efforts proved equally impotent. He lost heart and went away weeping. It was still the fair season and the brook was not very rapid, in comparison with its current in winter. It swelled, and the child saw its progress; the water hurled itself with uproar and fury, overturning everything in its passage; he himself would have been swallowed up by the waters had he dared to approach, as the first time.

O weak man! Child! You who wish to raise a wall, an insurmountable obstacle to the march of truth, you are no stronger than that child; your wavering will is no more vigorous than his little arms. Even should you wish to reach it at its source, be assured that truth will inevitably sweep you away.

Basil. n V.

THE THREE BLIND MEN.

(PARABLE.)

(October 7, 1859. — Medium, Mr. Did…)

A rich and generous man, which is rare, encountered on his way three unfortunate blind men, exhausted by hunger and fatigue. He offered each of them a gold coin. The first, blind from birth, embittered by misery, did not even open his hand; he said he had never seen gold offered to a beggar: the fact was impossible. The second mechanically extended his hand, but soon scorned the offer made to him. Like his friend, he considered it an illusion or a joke in bad taste; in a word, for him, the coin was false. The third, on the contrary, full of faith in God and of intelligence, in whom the fineness of touch had partially replaced the sense he lacked, took the coin, felt it, rose, blessed his benefactor, and set off for the neighboring city, in order to obtain with it what was lacking to his existence. Men are the blind men; Spiritism is the gold. Judge the tree by its fruits.

Luke. n VI.

(September 30, 1859. — Medium, Miss H…)

I asked God to let me come for an instant among you, in order to advise you never to take part in religious quarrels. I do not refer to religious wars, for today the age is too far advanced for that. But in the time in which I lived it was a general misfortune and I could not avoid it. Fatality dragged me along and I pushed others, I who should have held them back. Thus, I had my punishment, first on Earth, and for three centuries I have cruelly expiated my crime. Be gentle and patient with those whom you teach. If at first they do not give ear to you, they will do so later, when they see your abnegation and your devotion. My friends, my brothers! It would never be too much to commend to you my example, for nothing more dreadful exists than slaughter in the name of a clement God, of a holy religion, which preaches only mercy, goodness, and charity! Instead of this, we kill and massacre in order, as it is said, to force the creatures we wish to convert toward a good God. Instead of believing in your word, those who survive hasten to leave you and withdraw from you as if you were ferocious beasts. Be good, then, I repeat it to you, and above all, tolerant toward those who do not believe as you do. Charles IX. n VII (Various questions addressed to Charles IX.)

Would you have the kindness to answer a few questions that we should like to address to you?

Answer. — I shall do so willingly.

How did you expiate your faults?

Answer. — By remorse.

Did you have other corporeal existences after the one we know?

Answer. — I had one; I reincarnated as a slave of the two Americas. I suffered greatly and that hastened my purification.

What became of your mother, Catherine de' Medici?

Answer. — She too suffered. She is on another planet, where she leads a life of devotion.

Could you write the history of your reign, as Louis XI and others have done?

Answer. — I could also do so…

Will you do it through the medium who serves you as interpreter at this moment?

Answer. — Yes, this medium can serve me, but I shall not begin this evening; I did not come for that.

Nor do we ask you to begin today: we beg you to do it in moments of leisure, yours and the medium's. It will be a work of great breadth, requiring a certain lapse of time. May we count on your promise?

Answer. — I shall do it. Farewell.

[1]

[cf. Saint Vincent de Paul.]

[2] [cf.

Gaius Julius Caesar.]

[3] [cf.

Saint Basil, see notice of this communication in the Bulletin of the Session of November 11, 1859.]

[4] [cf.

Luke.]

[5] [cf.

Charles IX.]