The betrayed bride.

The following fact was related by the Gazzetta dei Teatri, of Milan, of March 14, 1860.

A young man loved a young woman to distraction, who returned his love, and whom he was about to marry, when, yielding to a lamentable infatuation, he abandoned his bride for a woman unworthy of true love. The unfortunate forsaken one entreats, weeps, but all is useless: her fickle lover remains deaf to her laments. Then, in despair, she enters his house, where, in his presence, she expires in consequence of the poison she had taken. At the sight of the corpse of her whose death he had just caused, a terrible reaction operates within him and, in his turn, he too wishes to put an end to his life. Nevertheless, he survives; his conscience, however, always reproached him with the crime. From the fatal moment, daily, at the dinner hour, he saw the door of the room open and the bride appear to him in the aspect of a menacing skeleton. However much he sought to distract himself, to change his habits, to travel, to surround himself with cheerful company, to stop the clock, he could accomplish nothing. Wherever he was, at the exact hour, the specter always presented itself. In a short time he grew thin and his health altered, to the point that the physicians despaired of saving him. A physician who was one of his friends, studying him seriously, after having uselessly tried various remedies, had the following idea: In the hope of demonstrating to him that he was the victim of an illusion, he procured a real skeleton and had it deposited in the neighboring room; then, having invited his friend to dinner, when four o'clock struck, which was the hour of the vision, he made the skeleton come by means of pulleys, arranged for that purpose. The physician thought to triumph, but his friend, seized with sudden terror, exclaimed: Alas! one is no longer enough; now there are two. And he fell dead, as if struck by lightning.

Observation. – On reading the account we publish, and giving credit to the Italian newspaper, from which we extracted it, the hallucinationists will have arguments to spare, because they will be able to say, and with reason, that there was an evident cause of cerebral overexcitement, which could produce an illusion in that vividly impressed mind. Nothing proves, indeed, the reality of the apparition, which could be attributed to a brain weakened by a violent shock. For us, who know so many indubitable analogous facts, we say that it is possible and, in any case, a deep knowledge of Spiritism would have given the physician a more efficacious means of curing his friend. The means would have been to evoke the young woman at other hours and to converse with her, whether directly, or with the aid of a medium; to ask her what he should do to be agreeable to her and to obtain her pardon; to ask the intercession of the guardian angel with her in order to appease her. And, definitively, since she loved him, she would surely have forgotten his errors, had she recognized in him a sincere repentance and regret, instead of mere terror, which was perhaps the dominant sentiment in the young man. She would have ceased to show herself under a horrible form, in order to assume the gracious form she had in life, or else she would have ceased to appear. Perhaps she would have spoken kind words to him, which would have restored to him his calm of mind. The certainty that they would never be separated, that she watched at his side and that one day they would be reunited, would have afforded him courage and resignation. It is a result that we have often been able to verify. Spirits who appear spontaneously always have a motive. The best thing, in such a case, is to ask them what they desire; if they are suffering we must pray for them and do what may be agreeable to them. If the apparition has a permanent character and one of obsession, it almost always ceases when the Spirit is satisfied. If the Spirit that manifests itself with obstinacy, whether to the sight, or by disturbing means, which could not be taken for an illusion, is evil; and, if it acts with malevolence, it is generally more tenacious, which does not prevent us from being more persevering, above all through sincere prayer made in its intention. But we must be truly convinced that there are, for this, neither sacramental words, nor cabalistic formulas, nor exorcisms that have the least influence. The worse they are, the more they laugh at the dread they inspire and at the importance attached to their presence. They are amused at being called devils or demons, which is why they gravely take the names of Asmodeus, Astaroth, Lucifer and other infernal qualifications, redoubling their malices, whereas they withdraw when they see that they are wasting their time with people who do not let themselves be deceived, and who limit themselves to imploring for them the divine mercy.