A Spirit's error of language.

We received the following letter, concerning the fact of direct writing, related in our issue of the Spiritist Review of the month of May.

Sir, Only today did I read your May issue, and in it I find the account of an experiment of direct writing, made in my presence, at the home of Miss Huet. For me it is a pleasure to confirm the account, with the exception of a small error, which escaped the narrator. It is not God loves you, but God love you, that we find on the paper, that is, the verb love, without the letter s, was not in the third person of the present indicative. Thus, one could not translate it as Deus vos ama (God loves you), unless one understands the word that and gives the sentence a form of imperative or subjunctive. The observation was made at the following session to the Spirit of Channing (if indeed it was the Spirit of Channing, for you know me and I ask your permission to retain my doubts about the absolute identity of Spirits); and the Spirit of Channing, I say, did not explain himself very categorically regarding this s, omitted on purpose or by inadvertence; he himself reproached us a little, if I have a good memory, for attaching importance to a letter more or less in an experiment so remarkable. Despite that friendly reproach, made by the Spirit of Channing, I judged it well to communicate to you my observation about the manner in which the word love was actually written. The honorable Mr. E. B…, who kept the paper, was able to show it and will show it to many persons; and among these there may be found some who have knowledge of your last issue. Now, it matters – and I am persuaded that you too think as I do – that the greatest fidelity be found in the account of facts so strange and so marvelous as those we obtain.

Accept, etc.

Mathieu.

We had perfectly noted the fault pointed out by Mr. Mathieu and took it upon ourselves to correct it, although knowing, from experience, that Spirits attach very little importance to these sorts of peccadilloes, about which the most enlightened have no scruple whatever. Thus, we were not at all surprised by Channing's observation, in the presence, as he said, of a fact of minor importance. Accuracy in the reproduction of facts is, without doubt, an essential thing; but the importance of these facts is relative, and we confess that if we always had to follow, for the French language, the spelling of the Invisibles, the grammarians would have cheese and knife in hand, treating them as cooks, even if the medium had been approved in those matters. We have one, male or female, in the Society, favored with all those diplomas, and whose communications, though written very slowly, contain numerous errors of that kind. The Spirits have always told us: “Attach yourselves to the substance and not to the form; for us, thought is everything, form, nothing. Correct the form, then, if you wish. We leave that care to you.” If, therefore, the form is defective, we do not preserve it except when it can serve as instruction. Now, such was not the case, in our opinion, in the fact above, for the meaning was quite evident.