Mr. Cardon, physician, who died in September of 1862.

— Mr. Cardon had spent a part of his life in the merchant navy, as physician aboard a whaler, and had acquired somewhat materialistic habits and ideas. Retired to the village of J…, he there practiced the modest profession of country doctor. For some time he had become certain that he was suffering from a hypertrophy of the heart and, knowing that such a disease is incurable, the thought of death plunged him into a somber melancholy from which nothing could distract him. About two months in advance, he predicted his end on a fixed day; when he saw himself near death, he gathered his family to bid them a last farewell. His wife, his mother, his three children, and other relatives were around his bed. At the moment when his wife tried to raise him, he collapsed, turned a livid blue, his eyes closed, and they gave him up for dead; his wife placed herself in front to hide the spectacle from the children. After a few minutes he opened his eyes; his face, illuminated so to speak, took on an expression of radiant beatitude, and he exclaimed: “Oh! my children, how beautiful it is! how sublime! Oh! death! what a blessing! what a sweet thing! I was dead and felt my soul rise very high; but God permitted me to return to tell you: Do not fear death; it is deliverance… I cannot describe to you the magnificence of what I saw and the impressions with which I felt penetrated! But you would not understand it… Oh! my children, conduct yourselves always in such a way as to merit that ineffable happiness, reserved for men of good; live according to charity; if you have something, give to those who lack what is necessary… Dear wife, I leave you in a position that is not happy; money is owed to us, but I beg you, do not torment those who owe us; if they are in difficulty, wait until they can pay, and for those who cannot, make the sacrifice: God will reward you. And you, my son, work to support your mother; be always an honest man and guard yourself from doing anything that might dishonor our family. Take this cross, which comes from my mother; do not part with it, and may it always remind you of my last counsels… My children, help and support one another; may good harmony reign among you; do not be vain, nor proud; forgive your enemies, if you wish God to forgive you.” Then, having brought the children close, he stretched out his hands toward them and added: “My children, I bless you.” And this time, his eyes closed forever; but his face kept an expression so imposing that, up until the moment he was buried, a numerous crowd came to contemplate him with admiration.

— These interesting details were transmitted to us by a friend of the family, leading us to think that an evocation could be instructive for all and, at the same time, for the Spirit.

Evocation.

Answer. – I am at your side.

We have been told of your last moments, which filled us with admiration. Would you have the kindness to describe, as best as possible, what you saw in the interval of what one might call your two deaths?

Answer. – Could you understand what I saw? I do not know, for I would not find expressions capable of making comprehensible what I saw during the few instants in which it was possible for me to leave my mortal remains.

Do you realize where you were? Is it far from Earth, on another planet, or in space?

Answer. – The Spirit does not know the value of distances, as you regard them. Carried I know not by what marvelous agent, I saw the splendor of a heaven such as only our dreams could achieve. This excursion through the infinite was made so rapidly that I cannot specify the instants spent by my Spirit.

Do you presently enjoy the happiness that you glimpsed?

Answer. – No; I would indeed like to be able to enjoy it, but God cannot thus reward me. Many times I revolted against the blessed thoughts dictated by the heart, and death seemed to me an injustice. An incredulous physician, I had acquired in the art of healing an aversion against the second nature, which is our intelligent, divine movement; the immortality of the soul was a fiction fit to seduce the less elevated natures; in spite of this, the void terrified me, for I cursed many times that mysterious agent that strikes always and always. Philosophy had led me astray, without giving me to understand the whole grandeur of the Eternal, who knows how to apportion pain and joy for the instruction of Humanity.

Upon your true death, did you soon recognize yourself?

Answer. – No; I recognized myself during the transition made by my Spirit to traverse ethereal places; but, after the real death, no; some days were necessary for my awakening.

God had granted me a grace. I will tell you its reason:

My initial incredulity no longer existed; before death I had already believed, since, after having scientifically probed the heavy matter that was making me waste away, I had found only divine reasons. They had inspired me, consoled me, and my courage was stronger than the pain. I blessed what I had cursed; the end seemed to me deliverance. The thought of God is great as the world! Oh! what supreme consolation in prayer, which gives ineffable tendernesses; it is the surest element of our immaterial nature; through it I understood, I believed firmly, sovereignly, and it is for this that God, seeing my blessed actions, saw fit to reward me before my incarnation ended.

Could one say that the first time you were dead?

Answer. – Yes and no. Having left the body, naturally the flesh was dying out; but the Spirit, on retaking possession of my earthly dwelling, made the life that had undergone a transition, a sleep, return to the body.

At that moment did you feel the bonds that bound you to the body?

Answer. – Without doubt. The Spirit has a bond difficult to untie, a last shudder of the flesh being necessary for it to return to its natural life.

How is it explained that, during your apparent death and in the course of a few minutes, your Spirit could detach itself instantaneously and without difficulty, whereas the real death was followed by a perturbation of some days? In the first case, the bonds between the soul and the body subsisting more than in the second, it seems that the detachment should have been slower; and it was the contrary that occurred. Answer. – Many times you have made the evocation of an incarnate Spirit and received real answers. I was in the situation of those Spirits. God was calling me and his servants had said to me: “Come…” I obeyed and thank God for the special grace that he deigned to grant me. I was able to see the infinitude of his grandeur and to realize it. I thank you for having permitted me, before the real death, to instruct my own, so that they may have good and just incarnations.

Whence came to you the beautiful and good words that, upon your return to life, you addressed to your family?

Answer. – They were the reflection of what I had seen and heard. The good Spirits inspired my voice and gave life to my face.

What impression do you judge that your revelation caused in those present and, especially, in your children?

Answer. – Extraordinary, profound; death does not lie, and children, however ungrateful they may be, bow before the departure of those who go. If one could probe their hearts beside a half-opened tomb, one would feel only the beating of true sentiments, deeply touched by the secret hand of the Spirits who dictate to all the thoughts: Tremble, if you are in doubt; death is the reparation, the justice of God; and I assure you of it, in spite of the incredulous, my friends and my family will believe in the words that my voice pronounced before dying. I was the interpreter of another world.

You said that you do not enjoy the happiness that you glimpsed. Are you unhappy?

Answer. – No, for I believed before dying, and this in soul and conscience. Pain presses in this world, but it rebuilds for the Spiritist future. Note that God knew how to take into account my prayers and my absolute belief in him; I am on the path of perfection and will reach the end that was permitted me to glimpse. Pray, my friends, for that invisible world that presides over your destinies; this fraternal exchange is charity; it is a powerful lever, which puts the Spirits of all worlds into communication.

Would you like to address a few words to your wife and your children?

Answer. – I beg all my own to believe in God, powerful, just, immutable; in prayer, which consoles and relieves; in charity, which is the purest act of human incarnation; let them remember that one can give little: the mite of the poor is the most meritorious before God, who knows that a poor man gives much in giving little. The rich man must give much and many times to merit as much as that one. The future is charity, benevolence in all actions; it is to believe that all Spirits are brothers, never prevailing oneself of all puerile vanities.

Beloved family, you will have harsh trials; but know how to bear them courageously, thinking that God sees you.

Always say this prayer:

God of love and goodness, who give all and always, grant us that strength which does not recoil before any suffering; make us good, meek, and charitable, small in fortune, great in heart; may our Spirit be Spiritist on Earth, the better to understand you and to love you.

May your name, O my God, emblem of liberty, be the consoling aim of all the oppressed, of all who have need to love, to forgive, and to believe.

Cardon.