Role of the Paris Society.

Paris is the world's passenger terminal. All come to its port in search of an impression, of an idea.

When I was among you, I often asked myself why this great city, the meeting point of the entire world, did not possess a Spiritist gathering as numerous, as numerous as the vastest amphitheaters could hold.

At times I came to think that the Parisian Spiritists gave themselves too much to pleasures; I even thought that, for many, the Spiritist faith was an amateur's pleasure, a diversion among the many that Paris continually offers.

But far from you and yet so near, I see and understand better. Although seated on the banks of the Seine, Paris is everywhere; and, every day, its powerful head stirs the entire world. Like it, the central Spiritist Society makes its thought spring forth into the Universe. Its strength lies not in the circle where its sessions are held, but in all the countries where its dissertations are followed, everywhere it lays down law, with respect to its intelligent teachings. It is a sun, whose beneficent rays are reflected to infinity. For that very reason the Society cannot be an ordinary group; its points of view are predestined and its apostolate greater. It cannot confine itself to a small space, since the world is necessary to it, invasive as it is by nature. And, in fact, today it peacefully conquers great cities; tomorrow it will conquer kingdoms and later the entire world.

When a foreigner pays you a courtesy visit, receive him worthily, generously, so that he may carry away a great idea of Spiritism, this powerful weapon of civilization, which must smooth all paths, overcome all divergences and even all doubts. Give with prodigality, so that each one may receive that nourishment of the Spirit, which transforms everything in its mysterious passage, because the new belief is strong as God, great as He, charitable as all that emanates from the higher power, which wounds in order to console, offering toiling Humanity prayer and pain as means of progressing. Blessed be you, Society that I love, you who always give with benevolence; you who carry out an arduous task without looking at the stones that obstruct the passage. You have deserved much of God. You will not be and cannot be an ordinary center, but, I repeat, the beneficent fountain where suffering will always find the restoring balm.

Sanson.

(Former Member of the Society of Paris.)