Letter from Mr. Roustaing, of Bordeaux

— The following letter was sent to us by Mr. Roustaing, attorney at the Imperial Court of Bordeaux, former president of the bar. The principles so loftily expressed here by a man of his standing, ranked among the most enlightened, may perhaps lead to reflection those who, believing themselves to hold the privilege of reason, classify, without ceremony, all the followers of Spiritism as imbeciles.

“My dear sir and most honored Spiritist leader, “I received the sweet influence and gathered the benefit of these words of Christ to Thomas: Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.

Profound, true, and divine words, which show the surest, the most rational way that leads to faith, according to the maxim of Saint Paul, which Spiritism has fulfilled and carries out: Rationabile sit obsequium vestrum.

(Romans 12.1)

“When I wrote to you last March, for the first time, I said: I have seen nothing, but I have read and understood; and I believe. God rewarded me greatly for having believed without having seen; afterward I saw, and saw well; I saw under profitable conditions, and the experimental part came to animate, if I may so express myself, the faith that the doctrinal part had afforded me, and, strengthening it, to impress life upon it.

“After having studied and understood, I knew the invisible world as one who has studied Paris on the map knows it. Through experience, work, and continued observation, I came to know the invisible world and its inhabitants, as one who has traveled through Paris knows it, but without having yet penetrated into all the corners of this vast capital. Nevertheless, since the beginning of the month of April, thanks to the acquaintance you procured for me with the excellent Mr. Sabò and his patriarchal family, all good and true Spiritists, I have been able to work, and I work constantly with them, every day, whether at my home, or in the presence and with the cooperation of the followers of our city, who are convinced of the truthfulness of Spiritism, although not all of them are yet, in fact and in practice, Spiritists.

“Mr. Sabò has sent you precisely the product of our labors, obtained by way of teaching through evocations or spontaneous manifestations of the superior Spirits. We experienced as much joy and surprise as confusion and humility when we received these teachings, so precious and truly sublime, from so many elevated Spirits, who came to visit us or sent us messengers to speak in their name.

“Oh! dear sir, how happy I am no longer to belong, through material worship, to the Earth, which I now know to be for our Spirits nothing but a place of exile, by way of trials or expiation! How happy I am to know and to have understood reincarnation, with all its scope and all its consequences, as a reality and not as an allegory. Reincarnation, this sublime and equitable justice of God, as my protecting guide was saying again only yesterday, so beautiful, so consoling, since it leaves the possibility of doing on the following day what we could not do the day before; which makes the creature progress toward the Creator; “this just and equitable law,” according to the expression of Joseph de Maistre, in the evocation we made of his Spirit, and which you received; reincarnation is, according to the divine word of Christ, “the long and difficult road to travel in order to reach the dwelling of God.”

“Now I understand the meaning of these words of Jesus to Nicodemus: Are you a doctor of the law and ignorant of this? Today, when God has permitted me to understand completely all the truth of the evangelical law, I ask myself how the ignorance of men, doctors of the law, could resist to such a degree the interpretation of the texts; thus producing the error and the falsehood that engendered and nourished materialism, incredulity, fanaticism, or cowardice? I ask myself how this ignorance, this error could come about when Christ had taken care to proclaim the necessity of living again, saying: One must be born anew and, thereby, reincarnation, as the only means of attaining the kingdom of God, which was already known and taught on Earth and which Nicodemus ought to have known: “Are you a doctor of the law and ignorant of this?” It is true that Christ adds at every step: “Let those who have ears, hear”; and also: “They have eyes and do not see; they have ears and do not hear and do not understand,” which also applies to those who came after him, just as to those of his time. “I had said that God, in his goodness, rewarded me for our labors up to this day, and the teachings that were transmitted to us by his divine messengers, “devoted and intelligent missionaries among their brothers — according to the expression of the Spirit Fénelon — to inspire in them the love and charity of one’s neighbor, the forgetting of injuries, and the worship of adoration owed to God.” I now understand the admirable scope of these words of the Spirit Fénelon, when he speaks of these divine messengers: “They have lived so many times that they have become our masters.”

“I thank these divine messengers with joy and humility for having come to teach us that Christ is on a mission on Earth for the propagation and the success of Spiritism, this third burst of divine goodness, in fulfillment of that final word of the Gospel: “Unum ovile et unus pastor” (Johannem 10.16), for having come to tell us: “Fear nothing! Christ — called by them the Spirit of Truth — is the first and holiest missionary of Spiritist ideas.” These words had vividly touched me, and I asked myself: “But where then is Christ on a mission on Earth?” Truth commands, according to the expression of the Spirit Marius, bishop of the early times of the Church, that phalanx of Spirits sent by God on a mission on Earth, for the propagation and the success of Spiritism.

“What sweet and pure satisfactions these Spiritist labors give, through the charity done, with the help of evocation, to the suffering Spirits! What consolation to enter into communication with those who, on Earth, were our relatives or friends; to know that they are happy, or to relieve them, should they suffer! What a vivid and brilliant light these Spiritist teachings project into our souls, which, by making us know the complete truth of the law of Christ, give us faith through our own reason and make us understand the omnipotence of the Creator, his greatness, his justice, his goodness, and his infinite mercy, thus placing us in the delightful necessity of practicing this divine law of love and of charity! What a sublime revelation they give us, teaching that these divine messengers, by making us progress, themselves progress also, going to increase the sacred phalanx of perfect Spirits! The admirable and divine harmony that shows us, at the same time, unity in God and solidarity among all creatures; that reveals these latter under the influence and the impulse of that solidarity, that sympathy, that reciprocity, called to ascend and ascending, but not without false steps and without falls, in their first attempts, this long and high Spiritist ladder, in order, after having traveled all its rungs, to arrive, from the state of original simplicity and ignorance, at intellectual and moral perfection and, through this perfection, at God. Admirable and divine harmony, which shows us this great division of inferiority and superiority, through the distinction between the worlds of exile, where all is trials or expiations, and the superior worlds, the dwelling of the good Spirits, where they have nothing to do but progress toward the good. “Well understood, reincarnation teaches men that they are here in passage, free not to return again, if for that they do what is necessary; that power, riches, dignities, science are given to them only by way of trials and as a means of progressing toward the good; that in their hands these are no more than a deposit and an instrument for the practice of the law of love and of charity; that the beggar who passes beside a great lord is his brother before God and perhaps was so before men; that, perhaps, he was rich and powerful; if he now finds himself in an obscure and miserable condition, it is for having failed in his terrible trials, thus recalling that famous saying, from the point of view of social conditions: There is but a single step from the Capitol to the Tarpeian Rock, with the difference that, through reincarnation, the Spirit rises from its fall and can, after having climbed back up to the Capitol, cast itself from its peaks into the celestial regions, the splendid dwelling of the good Spirits.

“Reincarnation, by teaching men, according to the admirable expression of Plato, that there is no one who does not descend from a shepherd, nor any shepherd who does not descend from a king, dispels all earthly vanities, frees from material worship, morally levels all social conditions; it constitutes equality, fraternity among men, as among Spirits, in God and before God, and the liberty which, without the law of love and of charity, is nothing but falsehood and utopia, as the Spirit Washington was lately telling us. As a whole, Spiritism comes to give men unity and truth in all intellectual and moral progress, a great and sublime undertaking, of which we are but humble apostles.

“Farewell, my dear sir. After three months of silence, I burden you with a very long letter. Reply when you can and when you wish. I had intended to make a trip to Paris in order to have the pleasure of knowing you personally, of shaking your hand fraternally; my health, however, opposes such an intention at the moment.

“You may make of this letter the use you judge fitting. I am honored to be loftily and publicly a Spiritist.

“Your well devoted, Roustaing, attorney.

— Like us, all will appreciate the exactness of the thoughts expressed in this letter. One sees that, although initiated recently, Mr. Roustaing has become a master in matters of appreciation. It is because he has studied seriously and profoundly, which has allowed him to grasp, with rapidity, all the consequences of this grave question of Spiritism, not stopping, contrary to many people, at the surface. He had said that he had still seen nothing, but he was convinced, because he had read and understood. He has this in common with many creatures, and we have always observed that these latter, far from being superficial, are, on the contrary, those who reflect the most. Attaching themselves more to the substance than to the form, for them the philosophical part is the principal one, the phenomena properly so called being accessory; they say that even if such phenomena did not exist, there would not for that reason cease to be a philosophy, the only one that resolves problems hitherto insoluble; the only one to give, of man’s past and future, the most rational theory. Now, they prefer a doctrine that explains to one that explains nothing, or explains badly. Whoever reflects understands perfectly that one can set aside the manifestations without the doctrine for that reason ceasing to subsist. The manifestations come to corroborate it, to confirm it, but they are not its essential basis. The discourse of Channing, which we have just cited, is proof of this, because, some twenty years before that great display of manifestations in America, reasoning alone had led him to the same consequences. There is another point by which the serious Spiritist is also recognized; by the citations that the author of this letter makes, of the thoughts contained in the communications he received, he proves that he did not limit himself to admiring them as beautiful literary passages, good to keep in an album, but that he studies them, meditates upon them, and draws profit from them. Unfortunately there are many for whom this important teaching remains a dead letter; who collect these beautiful communications as certain people collect beautiful books, but without reading them.

We must, moreover, congratulate Mr. Roustaing on the declaration with which he ends his letter. Unfortunately not all have, as he does, the courage of their own opinion, which encourages the adversaries. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that things have changed greatly in this particular, for some time now. Only two years ago, many people spoke of Spiritism only between four walls; they bought books only in secret and took great care not to leave them in evidence. Today it is quite different; they have already become familiar with the coarse epithets of the jesters and laugh at them, instead of being offended by them. They no longer have any fear of confessing themselves openly to be Spiritists, just as they do not fear to declare themselves partisans of such or such a philosophy, of magnetism, of somnambulism, etc.; they discuss the subject freely with the first comer, as they would discuss the classics and the romantics, without feeling humiliated for being in favor of one or the other. It is an immense progress, which proves two things: the progress of Spiritist ideas in general, and the little consistency of the arguments of the adversaries. It will have as a consequence the imposing of silence upon these latter, who believed themselves strong because they believed themselves more numerous; but when, on all sides, they encounter someone to speak with, we will not say that they will be converted, but they will keep reserve. We know a small town in the provinces where, a year ago, Spiritism counted but a single follower, who was pointed at with the finger as a strange creature and so regarded; and, who knows? Perhaps even disinherited by his family or dismissed from his post. Today the followers there are numerous; they gather openly, without troubling themselves about what people will say; and when, among them, were seen municipal authorities, officials, officers, engineers, attorneys, notaries, and others, who did not conceal their sympathies for Spiritism, the scoffers ceased to mock, and the local newspaper, edited by a very strong spirit, who had already hurled a few darts and was preparing to pulverize the new doctrine, fearing to find behind his back a party stronger than his own, kept a prudent silence. It is the history of many other localities, a history that will become general as the partisans of Spiritism, whose number increases daily, raise their heads and their voices. They may well wish to strike down a head that shows itself, but when there are twenty, forty, a hundred people who do not fear to speak aloud and firmly, they think twice, and that gives courage to those who do not possess it. [1]

[v.

Jean-Baptiste Roustaing.]