A roof tile.

As a man passes along the street and a roof tile falls at his feet, he says: “What luck! One step more and I would have been dead.” In general this is the only thanks he addresses to God. Yet this same man, a short time later, falls ill and dies in bed. Why, then, was he preserved from the tile, only to die, like everyone else, a few days afterward? It was chance — the unbeliever will say — as he himself said: What luck! Of what use was it to him to escape death in the first accident, if he succumbed to the second? In any case, if luck favored him, the favor did not last long.

To this question the Spiritist answers: At every instant you escape accidents that, as the saying goes, leave you one step from death. Do you not see in this a warning from heaven to prove to you that your life hangs by a thread, that you are never certain of living tomorrow and that, thus, you must always be prepared to depart? But what do you do when you must undertake a long journey? You make your preparations, you settle your affairs, you provide yourself with provisions and with the things necessary for the road; you rid yourself of everything that might hinder and delay the march. If you know the country to which you are going, if you have friends and acquaintances there, you set out without fear, certain of being well received. Otherwise, you study the map of the region and you procure letters of recommendation. Suppose you were obliged to undertake that journey from one moment to the next, that you had no time to make preparations, whereas if you had been forewarned far enough in advance, you would have arranged everything for your comfort and your leisure. Well then! every day you are exposed to undertaking the greatest, the most important of journeys, the one you must inevitably make; and yet you think of it no more than if you were to live forever on Earth! In His goodness, God watches over you, warning you by numerous accidents, which you escape, and you have for Him only this expression: What luck!

Spiritists! Do you know what preparations you must make for that great journey, which has for you consequences far more important than all those you undertake on Earth? For upon the manner in which it is accomplished depends your future happiness. The map that will make known to you the country into which you are about to enter is the initiation into the mysteries of the future life. By it the country will not be a novelty for you. Your provisions are the good deeds you have performed and that will serve you as passport and as letters of recommendation. As for the friends you will find there, you know them. It is of evil sentiments that you must rid yourselves, for unhappy is he whom death surprises with hatred in his heart, like one who falls into the water with a stone tied to his neck, being dragged to the depths. The affairs you must put in order are forgiveness to those who have offended you; the wrongs committed against your neighbor, which you must hasten to repair, in order to win forgiveness, for wrongs are debts, of which forgiveness is the acquittance. Hasten, then, for the hour of departure may sound from one moment to the next and not give you time for reflection. Verily I say unto you: the tile that falls at your feet is the sign that warns you to be always ready to depart at the first call, so as not to be taken by surprise.

The Spirit of Truth. n [1]

[v.

Spirit of Truth.]