The silent war,

— "The struggle awaits you, my dear children; that is why I invite you all to imitate the ancient combatants, that is, to gird your loins. The years to come are full of promises, but also of anxieties. I do not come to say: Tomorrow will be the day of battle! no, because the hour of combat is not yet fixed; but I come to warn you, so that you may be ready for any eventuality. Until now Spiritism has met only an easy and almost flowery road, because the insults and the mockeries directed at you have no serious scope and have remained without effect, whereas, henceforth, the attacks that will be directed against you will have a wholly different character: behold, the hour has come in which God is going to make an appeal to all devotions, in which He is going to judge His faithful servants, to give to each the portion he shall have deserved. They will not martyr you bodily, as in the first times of the Church; they will not raise murderous pyres, as in the Middle Ages, but they will torture you morally; they will lay snares, traps that are the more dangerous because they will use friendly hands; they will act in the shadow; you will receive blows without knowing whence they come, and you will be wounded full in the breast by the poisoned arrows of calumny. Nothing will be lacking to your sufferings; they will provoke defections in your ranks, and the so-called Spiritists, lost through pride and vanity, will avail themselves of their independence, exclaiming: "It is we who are on the right path!", so that your born adversaries may say: "See how united they are!" They will try to sow the tares among the groups, provoking the formation of dissident groups; they will co-opt your mediums to lead them into the wrong path or to divert them from the serious groups; they will employ intimidation for some, captation for others; they will exploit all weaknesses. Then, do not forget that some saw in Spiritism a role to play, and a leading role, who today experience more than one disillusionment in their ambition. They will be promised on one side what they could not find on the other. Then, finally, with money, so powerful in your backward century, will they not be able to find accomplices to perform unworthy comedies, aiming to cast discredit and ridicule upon the doctrine? "Such are the trials that await you, my children, but from which you will come out victorious, if you implore, from the depths of your heart, the succor of the Almighty. That is why I repeat it to you, with all my soul: my children, close ranks, remain alert, for it is your Golgotha that is rising; and if upon it you are not crucified in flesh and bone, you will be so in your interests, in your affections, in your honor!

"The hour is grave and solemn; away, then, with all the petty discussions, all the puerile preoccupations, all the idle questions, and all the vain pretensions of preeminence and self-love; occupy yourselves with the great interests that are in your hands and of which the Lord will demand an account from you. Unite, so that the enemy may find your ranks compact and closed; you have an unequivocal countersign, a touchstone with the aid of which you can recognize the true brothers, for this formula implies abnegation and devotion and sums up all the duties of the true Spiritist.

"Courage and perseverance, my children! think that God is watching you and judging you; remember also that your spiritual guides will not abandon you as long as they find you on the right path. Besides, all this war will last only a time and will turn against those who thought they were forging weapons against the doctrine. Triumph, and no longer the bloody holocaust, will radiate from the Spiritist Golgotha.

"Until later, my children; greetings to all.

Erastus, n disciple of Saint Paul, apostle."

— One of the maneuvers foreseen in the above communication, as we are informed, has just been carried out. We are written that a young woman, who had been taken just once to a meeting, left her family without reason and withdrew to the house of a stranger, from which she was conducted to an asylum for the insane, as one stricken with Spiritist madness, without the knowledge of her parents, who were only informed after the thing was done. At the end of twenty days, having obtained authorization to go see her, they reproached her for having left them. Then she confessed that she had been promised money to feign madness. Up to this moment the efforts to get her out have been fruitless.

If it is thus that they recruit the Spiritist madmen, the means is more dangerous for those who employ it than for Spiritism. To reduce oneself to such expedients to defend one's own cause is to furnish the most evident proof that one is exhausted of good reasons. We will say, then, to the Spiritists: When you see such things, rejoice, instead of being anxious, for they signal a triumph near at hand. Besides, another circumstance ought to be a motive of encouragement for you: it is that our ranks are increasing, not only in number, but also in moral strength; you already see more than one man of talent resolutely take up the defense of Spiritism and, with a vigorous hand, take up the gauntlet thrown down by our adversaries. Writings of irresistible logic daily show them that not all Spiritists are madmen. Our readers know the excellent refutation of the sermons of the reverend father Letierce, by a Spiritist of Metz. Here now is the no less interesting one, by the Spiritists of Villenave de Rions (Gironde), on the sermons of father Nicomède. The Vérité of Lyon is known for its profound articles; the issue of November 22, above all, deserves special attention. La Ruche of Bordeaux is enriched by new collaborators, as capable as they are zealous. In short, if the aggressors are numerous, the defenders are no less so. Thus, then, Spiritists, courage, confidence, and perseverance, for all is going well, as was foreseen. The following communication develops one of the phases of the grave question we have just treated and cannot fail to forewarn the Spiritists about the difficulties that are going to accumulate in this period.

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[see Erastus.]