Peregrinations of the soul

Like the blood, in tiny droplets That flows from the heart through our fine veins, Our life, emanating from the light of the Divinity, Gravitates toward the infinite in search of Eternity. Our globe is a place of trial and suffering; It is there that there are weeping and the gnashing of teeth; Hell is there, yes, and deliverance from it Is in proportion to the preceding evils. Thus each being who leaves a shadowy world, Rises more or less to another more ethereal one. According to whether it is then pure or less stained, Its being develops or finds another criterion. n None of the elect can reach that station Without having at last expiated their misdeeds, If, with remorse, prayer, and constant sorrow, A veil of good deeds does not cover their evils. The imperfect Spirit, or soul under punishment, Comes to take a new body, here, to suffer, To be reborn into a family by whose example then To purify itself in good, and to die anew. Its holy mission once ended, God soon transports it to celestial splendor, And, progressively, its soul is raised To the infinite home of the ocean of love. If in our march the end of the trial comes, Raised with love to the holy regions, We shall go in triumph, in new harmony, To make grow the legions of the elect.

For greater fortune and the height of grace, God will there reunite us with those who are dear to us; And united in the affection that sanctifies and binds, In His so pure heaven He will bless us.

In the good, in the beautiful, our manner of being at last changing, We shall raise ourselves to the sacred city, Where we shall see, attaining greater well-being, An endless treasure of lofty happiness.

Climbing the immense ladder of those worlds of light, Ever more purified and crossing the bounds, We shall end at the point of birth, To be reborn of love as radiant seraphim. And of a new race we shall be the first, The guardian angels of the men who are to come, Messengers of God, of the teachings with which we shall then Enrich the worlds of the future.

Such is, I believe, the true will of God, In the immense march of our Humanity;

Let us bow, brothers, His order is power; Let us sing: “Glory to God for all Eternity!” B. Joly, herbalist of Lyon.

Observation. – Searching well, meticulous critics may perhaps find some defects in these verses. We leave them that charge and consider only the idea, whose correctness, from the Spiritist point of view, no one can ignore. It is indeed the soul in its peregrinations to arrive, through purifying labor, at infinite happiness. One verse, however, seems to dominate this fragment, otherwise very orthodox, and we could not admit it; it is the one expressed in the quatrain of the epigraph: “Gravitates toward the infinite in search of eternity.” If by this the author means that the soul rises incessantly, it follows that it would never arrive at perfect happiness. Reason says that the soul, being a finite being, its ascension toward the absolute good must have a limit; that, having arrived at a certain point, it will not remain in perpetual contemplation, which, moreover, is little attractive and would be a perpetual uselessness, but it will have an incessant and blessed activity, as an auxiliary of the Divinity. [1] Erratum: No. 9, September 1862, Peregrinations of the soul, in the fourth verse of the second quatrain: Son être se dégage ou se trouve attiré.

read: atterré.

The following quatrain was omitted after the fourth: At the right time God permits pure souls To incarnate among us solely out of dedication; For they are His ministers, bringing us blessings, For to preach the law of love is their mission. This omission, which occurred during the printing, removes the meaning of the following stanza, which begins with: “Its holy mission,” etc., and which becomes the sixth. [Note: In the printed Review this Erratum was published in the last article of the month of November; we have transferred it here so that the reader may enjoy the stanza that was missing.] Allan Kardec.