Letter from Mr. Jobard on the Spiritists of Metz.

— Brussels, August 18, 1861.

My dear master, I have just visited the Spiritists of Metz, as you visited those of Lyon last year. But, instead of poor workers, simple and unlettered, they are counts, barons, colonels, engineer officers, former students of the Polytechnic School, scholars known for works of great merit. They too offered me a banquet, but a pagan banquet, which had nothing in common with the modest agapes of the first Christians. The Spirit Lamennais admonished them in these terms:

“Poor Humanity! You always gather the debris of the environment in which you live; you materialize everything, proof that the mire still stains your being. I do not censure you, I merely make an observation.

Your object being adorned with excellent intentions, the paths that lead to it are not condemnable. If, beside an almost animal satisfaction, you place the desire to sanctify it, to ennoble it, certainly the purity of your pleasures will increase it a hundredfold. Apart from the good words that will draw your friendship closer, beside the memory of this good day, in which Spiritism has a large share, do not leave the table without having thought that the good Spirits, who are the teachers of your gatherings, are entitled to a thought of gratitude.”

May this serve as a lesson to the Parisian Luculluses, the Trimalchios, who devour at one dinner the food of a hundred families, claiming that God gave them the goods of the Earth to enjoy them. To enjoy, so be it; but not to abuse, to the point of impairing the health of the body and of the Spirit. Of what use, I ask, are those double, triple, and quadruple courses; that growing superfluity of the most delicate wines, from which God seems to have removed the savor by a miracle inverse to that of the wedding at Cana and which transmutes into poison for those who lose their reason, to the point of becoming insensible to the warnings of their animal instinct? Even if Spiritism, propagated among the elevated classes of society, had no other effect than to place a curb upon the gluttony and the orgies of the table of the rich, it would be rendering society an immense service, which official medicine could not provide, since the physicians themselves share with much pleasure in these excesses, which furnish them more patients, more stomachs to unclog, more spleens to deobstruct, more gout-sufferers to console, because they do not know how to cure them. I will tell you, dear master, that I found in Metz houses of the ancient nobility, very religious, whose grandmothers, mothers, daughters and grandsons and even their ecclesiastical directors obtain through typtology magnificent dictations, although of an order inferior to that of the learned mediums of the Society of which I speak to you.

Having asked some Spirits what they thought of a certain book, one told us that he had read and meditated upon it, paying it the highest praise; the other confessed that he had not read it, but that he had heard it very well spoken of; another, again, found it good, but reproached it with a certain obscurity. Exactly as one judges on Earth.

Another Spirit set forth to us one of the most seductive cosmogonies, offered to us as pure truth; and as he entered into the secrets of God concerning the future, I asked him whether he might not be God himself and whether his theory was not merely a fine hypothesis on his part. He stammered and acknowledged that he had gone too far, but that, for him, it was a matter of conviction. So much the better!

In a few days you will receive the first publication of the Spiritists of Metz, of which I was the sponsor, at their request and through their courtesy. You will be pleased, for it is good. There you will find two discourses by Lamennais on prayer, which a priest read during the sermon, declaring that it could not be the work of a man. Madame de Girardin visits them, as she does you, and you will recognize her spirit, her sentiment and her style.

The circle of Metz asked me to put it in contact with the Belgian circle, composed only of two mediums, of whom one is French and the other English. The Belgians are infinitely more reasonable; they lament with all their heart that a man of intelligence as vast as mine, especially in the sciences and matters connected with industry, should give himself to that folly of believing in the existence of the soul and, as if that were not enough, in its immortality. They turn away from me with pity, saying: “What will become of us?!” That is what happened to me last evening, upon reading them our Review, which I thought ought to interest them, and which they take as a collection of false news to amuse the…

Jobard.

Observation. – We had long known that the city of Metz marches with great strides along the path of Spiritist progress and that the gentlemen officers are not the last to follow it. We feel happy to have confirmation of this, through our distinguished colleague Mr. Jobard [Jean-Baptiste-Ambroise-Marcellin Jobard]. Thus, we shall be pleased to give information about the work of this circle, which is being established upon truly serious bases. It will not fail to exercise a great influence by the social position of its members. We shall soon speak of that of Bordeaux, which is being founded under the auspices of the Society of Paris, already with numerous elements and in conditions that will permit it to occupy the first place.

We know well enough the principles of Mr. Jobard to be certain that, in enumerating the titles and qualities of the Spiritists of Metz, beside the modest workers whom we visited in Lyon last year, he did not wish to make any injurious comparison; his object was solely to ascertain that Spiritism counts adherents in all social strata. It is a well-known fact that, by a providential design, it first recruited them in the enlightened classes, in order to prove to its adversaries that it is not the privilege of fools and the ignorant and, further, in order to reach the masses only after having been purified and freed of every superstitious idea. Only recently has Spiritism penetrated among the laborers; but there, too, it has made rapid progress, for it brings supreme consolations to material sufferings, which it teaches them to bear with resignation and courage. Mr. Jobard is mistaken if he thinks that in Lyon we found Spiritists only among the workers; high industry, great commerce, the arts and sciences, there as elsewhere, furnish their contingent. It is true that in that city the workers are the majority, by circumstances peculiar to the place. If those workers are poor, as Mr. Jobard says, it is one more reason to extend our hand to them. But they are full of sentiment, of zeal and of devotion; if they have but a piece of bread, they know how to share it with their brothers; they are simple, also it is true, that is, they have neither pride nor the presumption of knowledge. Are they unlettered? Yes, relatively, but not in an absolute sense. Lacking science, they have reasoning and good sense enough to appreciate what is just and to distinguish, in what is taught them, the rational from the absurd. This is what we were able to judge for ourselves. For this reason we take the occasion to do them justice. The letter that we publish below, by which they invite us to visit them again this year, testifies to the happy influence exercised by Spiritist ideas and the results that are to be expected, when they shall become general.

— Lyon, August 20, 1861.

My good Mr. Allan Kardec, If I remained so long without writing to you, do not believe there was any indifference on my part. It is that, knowing the voluminous correspondence you receive, I write to you only when I have something important to relate. I come, then, to say that we are counting on you this year and to ask that you inform us of the time, as precise as possible, of your arrival, as well as the place where you will alight, for the number of Spiritists has greatly increased this year, especially in the working classes. All wish to see you, to hear you, and, although knowing perfectly well that it was the Spirits who dictated your works, they desire to see the man chosen by God for this beautiful mission. They wish to tell you how happy they feel in reading you and to make you judge of the moral progress they have drawn from your instructions, for they strive to become gentle, patient and resigned in their misery, which is so great in Lyon, principally in the silk industry and commerce. Those who murmur, those who still complain, are the beginners. The more instructed say to them: Courage! our sorrows and sufferings are trials, or the consequence of our previous lives; God, who is good and just, will make us happier and will reward us in new reincarnations. Allan Kardec told us so and proves it in his writings. We have chosen a larger place than that of the last time, because we shall be more than a hundred. Our banquet will be modest, for the contributions will be small; it will be rather the pleasure of the gathering. I arrange it so that there are Spiritists of all classes and conditions, in order to make them understand that they are all brothers. Mr. Déjou occupies himself with this zealously and will bring his whole group, which is numerous.

Your devoted and dedicated, C. Rey.

— An equally flattering invitation was sent to us from Bordeaux:

My dear Mr. Kardec, The last number of your Review announces that the Spiritist Society of Paris takes its vacation from August 15 to October 1. May we hope that, in this interval, you will honor the Bordeaux Spiritists with your presence? We should all be very happy. The most fervent adherents of the doctrine, whose number increases daily, wish to organize a Society, which would be dependent on that of Paris, for the supervision of the works. We have drawn up a document, modeled on the Parisian Society, and submit it to your appreciation. Besides the principal Society, there will be groups of ten to twelve persons in various points of the city, destined principally for the workers, where, from time to time, members of the Society will attend to give the necessary advice. All our spiritual guides are in agreement on this point, that is, that Bordeaux must have a society of studies, for the city will be the center of the propagation of Spiritism throughout the South. We await you, confident and happy, for the memorable day of the inauguration, judging that you will be pleased with our zeal and manner of working. We are ready to submit ourselves to the wise counsels of your experience. Come, then, to see us at work: by the work the workman is known.

Your well-devoted servant, A. Sabò.