The inhuman baker.

— A correspondence from Crefled (Rhenish Prussia), dated January 25, 1862, inserted in the Constitutionnel of February 4, contains the following fact:

“A poor widow, mother of three children, enters a bakery and insistently asks that a loaf of bread be sold to her on credit. As the baker refused, the widow reduces her request to half a loaf and, finally, to a single pound of bread, merely for her famished children. The baker still refuses, leaves the spot, and goes to the back of the bakery. Believing herself unseen, the woman takes possession of a loaf and goes out. But the theft, immediately discovered, is denounced to the police.

“An officer goes to the widow's house and surprises her cutting the bread into pieces to give to her children. She does not deny the theft, but excuses herself on the grounds of need. Although censuring the baker's cruelty, the officer insists that she accompany him to the police station.

“The widow asks only a few moments to change her clothes and enters the room; as she delayed, the officer, losing patience, decides to open the door: the unfortunate woman lay on the floor, bathed in blood. With the very knife with which she had just cut the bread for her children, she had put an end to her days.”

— The notice having been read at the session of the Society of February 14, 1862, the evocation of this unfortunate woman was proposed, when she herself came to manifest spontaneously, according to the communication that follows. It often happens that the Spirits of whom we speak reveal themselves in this manner. It is incontestable that they are attracted by thought, which is a kind of tacit evocation. They know that we are occupied with them and they come; then they communicate, if the occasion seems opportune to them or if they find the medium that suits them. In accordance with this, it is understood that there is no need to have a medium, nor even to be a Spiritist, to attract the Spirits with whom we are concerned. “God was good to the poor deluded woman, and I come to thank you for the sympathy you were good enough to show me. Unhappily, in the face of the misery and hunger of my poor little children, I forgot myself and I failed. Then I said to myself: since you are powerless to feed your children and the baker refuses bread to those who cannot pay; since you have neither money nor work, die! for, when you are no longer with them, help will come to them. Indeed, today public charity has adopted these poor orphans. God forgave me, because He saw my reason waver and my poignant despair. I was the innocent victim of a wicked society, very ill-regulated. Ah! give thanks to God for having caused you to be born in this beautiful region of France, where charity goes seeking out and relieving all miseries. “Pray for me, so that soon I may repair the fault I committed, not out of cowardice, but out of maternal love. How good your protecting Spirits are! They console me, they fortify me, they encourage me, and they say that my sacrifice was not displeasing to the great Spirit who, under the eye and the hand of God, presides over the destinies of Humanity.”

POOR MARY.

(Medium: Mr. d'Ambel.)

After this communication, the Spirit of Lamennais made the following appreciation concerning the fact in question:

“This unfortunate woman is one of the victims of your world, of your laws, and of your society. God judges souls, but He also judges the times and the circumstances; He judges things done under compulsion and despair; He judges the substance and not the form. And I dare to affirm: this unfortunate woman died not from crime, but from modesty, from fear of shame. For where human justice is inexorable, judging and condemning material facts, divine justice ascertains the depths of the heart and the state of the conscience. It would be desirable that in certain privileged natures there were developed a gift that would be very useful, not for the tribunals, but for the advancement of some persons: this gift is a kind of somnambulism of thought, which often discovers hidden things, but which man, accustomed to the current of life, neglects and weakens through his lack of faith. It is certain that a medium of this kind, examining this poor woman, would have said: This woman is blessed by God because she is unhappy, and this man is accursed because he refused her bread. O God! when, then, will all Thy gifts be recognized and put into practice? In the eyes of Thy justice, he who refused the bread will be punished, inasmuch as Christ said: ‘He who gives bread to his neighbor, gives it to Me Myself.’ Lamennais. n (Medium: Mr. A. Didier.)

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[v. Lamennais.]