Cure of an obsession.

— Mr. Dombre, president of the Spiritist Society of Marmande, sends us the following:

“With the help of the good Spirits, in five days we freed from a very violent and dangerous obsession a young girl of thirteen, in the complete power of an evil Spirit since the 8th of May last. Daily, at five o'clock in the afternoon, without missing a single day, she had terrible crises, pitiful to behold. This girl resides in an outlying district, and her parents, who regarded the illness as epilepsy, did not even speak of the case. Nevertheless, one of our members, who lives in the neighborhood, was informed, and a more attentive observation of the facts led him to recognize the true cause easily. Following the advice of our spiritual guides, we immediately set to work. On the 11th of this month, at eight o'clock in the evening, our meetings began with a view to evoking the Spirit, moralizing him, praying for the obsessor and for the victim, and exerting upon her a mental magnetization. The meetings took place every evening, and on Friday the 15th the girl suffered her last crisis. She is left with nothing but the weakness of convalescence, the consequence of such long and such violent convulsions, which manifests itself through sadness, languor, and tears, as had been announced to us. We were informed daily, through the communications of the good Spirits, of the various phases of the malady. “This cure, regarded in other times as a miracle by some and as sorcery by others, on account of which, according to opinion, we would have been canonized or burned, produced a certain sensation in the city.”

We congratulate our brothers of Marmande on the result they obtained in that circumstance, and we feel happy to see that they make use of the advice contained in the Review concerning analogous cases recently reported. Thus, they were able to convince themselves of the power of collective action, when directed by a sincere faith and an ardent charity. [Review of March 1864.]

THE OBSESSED YOUNG GIRL OF MARMANDE.

(Continuation.)

In the previous issue we reported the remarkable cure obtained, by means of prayer, by the Spiritists of Marmande, of an obsessed young girl of that city. A later letter confirms the result of the cure, now complete. The young girl's countenance, altered by eight months of torture, has recovered its freshness, its good appearance, and its serenity. Whatever the opinion one holds, whatever idea one forms of Spiritism, any person animated by a sincere love of neighbor must have rejoiced to see tranquility return to that family, and contentment replace affliction. It is regrettable that the parish priest did not judge it fitting to associate himself with that sentiment, and that the circumstance furnished him the text for a sermon little in keeping with the Gospel in one of his preachings. His words, spoken in public, belong to the domain of publicity. Had he limited himself to a loyal criticism of the doctrine according to his point of view, we would not speak of it; but we judge it our duty to refute the attacks directed against very respectable persons, whom he called mountebanks, on account of the fact above. He said: “So, then, the first bootblack who comes along could, if he is a medium, evoke a member of an honorable family, while no one of the family could do so? Do not believe in these absurdities, my brothers; this is trickery, this is foolishness. Indeed, what do you see at these meetings? Carpenters, cabinetmakers, what else do I know?… Some people asked me whether I had contributed to the girl's cure. No, I answered them; I have nothing to do with this; I am not a physician.” “I see in this,” he said to the relatives, “nothing but an organic affection within the province of Medicine,” adding that, had he judged that prayers might effect some relief, he would have made them long ago.

If the priest does not believe in the efficacy of prayers in such a case, he did well not to make them. From this one may conclude that, as a conscientious man, had the parents come to ask him for masses for the young girl's cure, he would have refused payment, because, had he accepted it, he would have had himself paid for a thing he considered worthless. The Spiritists believe in the efficacy of prayer for the sick and in obsessions; they prayed, they cured, and they charged nothing; and more: had the parents been in want, they would have assisted them. He says: “They are charlatans and mountebanks.” Since when has one seen charlatans working for free? Did they make the sick girl wear amulets? Did they make cabalistic signs? Did they pronounce sacramental words, attributing to them an efficacious virtue? No, for Spiritism condemns every superstitious practice; they prayed with fervor, in communion of thought; were these prayers conjuring tricks? Apparently not; since they succeeded, it is because they were heard. That the priest should treat Spiritism and evocations as absurdities and foolishness is his right, if such is his opinion; it is no one's business. But when, in order to denigrate the Spiritist meetings, he says that one sees there only carpenters, cabinetmakers, etc., is this not to present those professions as degrading and those who exercise them as contemptible people? Then you forget, priest, that Jesus was a carpenter and that his apostles were all poor artisans or fishermen. Is it in keeping with the Gospel to cast down from the height of the pulpit disdain upon the class of workers whom Jesus willed to honor, by being born among them? Did you understand the import of your words when you said: “The first bootblack who comes along could, then, if he is a medium, evoke a member of an honorable family?” Do you then despise that poor bootblack when he cleans your shoes? Come now! Because his position is humble, you do not deem him worthy to evoke the soul of a noble personage? Do you then fear that this soul will be defiled when, for it, hands blackened by labor are raised to heaven? Do you then believe that God makes a difference between the soul of the rich and that of the poor? Did Jesus not say: Love your neighbor as yourself? Now, to love one's neighbor as oneself is to make no difference between oneself and one's neighbor; it is the consecration of the principle: All men are brothers, because they are children of God. Will God receive with more distinction the soul of the great than that of the lowly? that of the man for whom you perform a pompous service, paid for amply, than that of the unfortunate to whom you grant only the briefest prayers? You speak from an exclusively worldly point of view, and you forget that Jesus said: “My kingdom is not of this world; there the distinctions of Earth exist no more; there the last shall be the first, and the first shall be the last? When he said: “There are many dwellings in my Father's house,” does it mean that there is one for the rich and one for the proletarian? one for the master and another for the servant? No; but that there is one for the humble and another for the proud, for he said: “Let him who would be first in heaven be the servant of his brothers on Earth.” Then does it fall to those whom you call the profane to remind you of the Gospel? Priest, in any circumstance such words would be little charitable, above all in the temple of the Lord, where only words of peace and union among all the members of the great family ought to be preached. In the present state of society they are a piece of clumsiness, because they sow the leaven of antagonism. That you should have spoken such words in an age when servants, accustomed to humbling themselves, believed themselves an inferior race, because they had been told so, is understandable; but in today's France, in which every honest man has the right to lift up his head, be he plebeian or patrician, it is an anachronism. If, as is probable, there were carpenters in the audience, cabinetmakers and bootblacks, they must have been little moved by the sermon. As for the Spiritists, we know that they asked God to forgive the speaker his imprudent words, and that they themselves forgave him who said to them Raca. This is the advice we give to all our brothers.

[Review of June 1864.]

Complete account of the cure of the obsessed young girl of Marmande.

(See the issues of February and March 1864.)

Mr. Dombre, of Marmande, sent us the detailed account of this cure, of which we have already given knowledge to our readers. The details it contains are of the highest interest, from the twofold point of view of facts and of instruction. As will be seen, it is at once a course of theoretical and practical teaching, a guide for analogous cases, and a fertile source of observations for the study of the invisible world in general, in its relations with the visible world. I was warned — says Mr. Dombre in his report — by one of the members of our Spiritist society, of the violent crises which every afternoon, regularly, in the course of the last eight months, a certain Thérèse B… was suffering.

Accompanied by Mr. L…, a medium, I went, on the 11th of January last, at half past four in the afternoon, to a house neighboring that of the sick girl, in order to try to witness the crisis which, as it occurred every day, was to happen at five o'clock. There we found the young girl and her mother, conversing with the neighbors. The half hour soon passed. Suddenly, we saw the girl rise, open the door, cross the street, and enter her house, followed by her mother, who took her and laid her, fully dressed, on the bed. The convulsions began; the body writhed; the head tended to touch the heels; the chest heaved; in a word: it was distressing to see. As the medium and I entered the neighboring house, we asked the Spirit Louis David, the medium's spiritual guide, whether it was an obsession or a pathological case. The Spirit answered:

— “Poor child! Indeed, she finds herself under a fatal influence, even a very dangerous one; come to her aid. Obstinate and evil, this Spirit will resist for a long time. Avoid, as much as possible, that she be treated with medications, which would harm her organism. The cause is wholly moral. Try to evoke this Spirit; moralize him with delicacy: we will assist you. Let all the sincere souls you know gather to pray and to combat the most pernicious influence of this malevolent Spirit. Poor little victim of jealousy!” Louis David. n Q. — By what name shall we call this Spirit?

A. — Jules.

I evoked him immediately. The Spirit presented himself in a violent manner, insulting us, tearing the paper, and refusing to answer certain questions. While we were engaged with the Spirit, Mr. B…, a physician, who had come to examine the crisis, came up to us and said with a certain astonishment: “It is singular! Suddenly the girl has stopped writhing; now she is motionless on the bed, fully stretched out.” — “This does not astonish me,” I said to him, “because the obsessing Spirit is here with us at this moment.” I urged Mr. B… to return to the sick girl, and we continued to question the Spirit, who, at a given moment, answered no more. The medium's guide informed us that he had gone to continue his work, recommending that we no longer evoke him during the crises, in the girl's interest, because, returning to her with greater rage, he tortured her more intensely. At that same instant the physician came in and informed us that the crisis was beginning again stronger than ever. I had him read the warning that had just been given to us, and we were struck by the coincidences, which could leave no doubt as to the cause of the affliction. From that night on, and under the recommendation of the good Spirits who assist us in the Spiritist works, we gathered every evening, until the complete cure.

— On that same 11th of January, we received the following communication from the protecting Spirit of our group:

“Vigilant guardian of unhappy childhood, I come to associate myself with your works, to unite mine with your efforts to free this young girl from the cruel claws of an evil Spirit. The remedy is in your hands; watch, evoke, and pray without ever tiring, until the complete cure.”

Little Cárita. n This Spirit, who takes the name of Little Cárita, is that of a young girl I knew, who died in the flower of age and who, from the most tender infancy, had given proofs of great angelic nature and of rare goodness.

The evocation of the obsessing Spirit earned us only the coarsest and most obscene insults, which it is useless to repeat. Our exhortations and our prayers glanced off him, but did not produce the desired effect.

“Friends, do not lose heart; he believes himself strong because he sees you vexed by his coarse language. Avoid preaching morals to him at this moment. Converse with him familiarly and in a friendly tone, for thus you will win his confidence, and later you will be able to return to speaking seriously with him. Friends, perseverance.”

Your Guides.

In keeping with the recommendation, we became affable in our questions, to which he answered in the same tone.

The next day, the 12th of January, the crisis was as long and violent as those of the preceding days; it lasted about an hour and a half. The girl raised herself on the bed, repelled the Spirit forcefully, and said to him: “Be gone! Be gone!” The sick girl's room was full of people. Some of us were near the bed to observe attentively the phases of the crisis. At the evening meeting we received the following communication:

“My friends, I exhort you to follow, as you have been doing, step by step, this obsession which, for you, is a new fact. Your observations will be of great usefulness, for similar cases, in which you will have to intervene, may multiply.

“I believe that this obsession, at first entirely physical, will be followed by some moral obsession, but without danger. Soon you will see moments of joy amid the tortures exercised by this evil Spirit. You will recognize them by the presence and the hand of the good Spirits. If the tortures still last, you will note, after the crisis, the complete paralysis of the body and, after that paralysis, a serene joy and an ecstasy that will soften the pain of the obsession. “Observe carefully. Other symptoms will manifest themselves, and in them you will find new material for study.

“The Lord said to his angels: Go bear my word to the children of men. We struck the earth with the rod, and it engenders prodigies. Bow down, children: it is the omnipotence of the Eternal that is manifesting itself to you.

Friends, watch and pray; we are near you and near the bed of sufferings, to dry the tears.”

Little Cárita.

— Evoked, the Spirit Jules was less intractable than the day before; in truth, we answered his jests with others, which pleased him. Before he left us, we had him promise to be less harsh toward his victim. “I will try to moderate myself,” he said; and as, for our part, we promised to pray for him, he answered us: “I accept, though I do not know the value of this merchandise.” Q. (To the Spirit). Since you do not know prayer, would you like to know it and to write one dictated by me?

Answer. — I would like that very much.

Dictated by us, the Spirit wrote the following prayer: “O my God! I promise to open my soul to repentance; cause to penetrate into my heart a ray of love for my brothers, the only thing that can purify me, and, as a guarantee of this desire, here I make the promise of… (The end of the sentence was: Ceasing my obsession; but the Spirit did not write these last three words). He added: Halt! You would commit me without warning me. Beware! I do not like traps. You go too fast.” And as we wished to know the origin of his jealousy and his vengeance, he continued: “Never speak to me again of the girl; you would only drive me away from you. The crisis of the 13th lasted no more than half an hour; the struggle with the Spirit was followed by smiles of happiness, of ecstasy, and tears of joy; with her eyes wide open and joining her two hands, the girl raised herself on the bed and gazed at heaven, as in a charming picture. Little Cárita's predictions were fulfilled in every point.

In the evocation that took place in the evening, as on the preceding days, the Spirit Jules showed himself more affable, more submissive, and again promised to moderate his attacks against the girl, whose story he never would tell; he even promised to pray.

The medium's guide said to us: “Do not trust too much in his words; they may be sincere, but he could be wishing to deceive you in order to rid himself of you. Stay on guard. Take his promises into account; if, later, you have to reproach him, do so with gentleness, so that he feels the good sentiments you have toward him.

Louis David.

On the 14th the crisis was as short as the day before and even less lively. It was likewise followed by ecstasy and manifestations of joy. The tears that ran down the girl's cheeks caused in those present an emotion they could not conceal.

Gathered at eight o'clock in the evening, as was customary, we first received the following communication:

“As you must have noticed, a perceptible improvement was effected today in the girl. We must say that our presence influences the Spirit considerably; we remind him of yesterday's promise. The young girl drew new knowledge in the ecstasy and tried to repel the obsessor's attacks. In the evocation of Jules, use no subterfuges; avoid the details that weary one another; be frank and benevolent with him, and you will win him over sooner. As we were able to note in this last crisis, he took a great step forward.” Little Cárita.

— Evocation of Jules.

Answer. — Here I am, gentlemen.

Q. — What are your dispositions today?

Answer. — They are good.

Q. — Did you feel the effect of our prayers?

Answer. — Not much.

Q. — Forgive your victim and you will feel a satisfaction you do not know;

it is what we feel in the forgiveness of injuries.

Answer. — With me it is all the contrary. I found satisfaction in the vengeance of an injury. This I call paying debts.

Q. — But the sentiment of hatred you preserve in your soul is a disagreeable sentiment that is far from giving you tranquility.

Answer. — If I told you that it is attachment, would you believe me?

Q. — We would believe you. Nevertheless, have the goodness to explain how you reconcile that attachment with the vengeance you practice. What was the Spirit of that child to you in another existence, and what did she do to you to merit such severity?

Answer. — It is useless for you to ask me. I have already told you: do not speak to me of that girl.

Q. — Well then! let us speak of it no more. But we must congratulate you on the change effected in you; we are happy about it.

Answer. — I make progress in your school… What will the others say?… They will jeer and protest at me: Ah! you are turning hermit!

Q. — What does their mockery matter to you, if you have the praises of the good Spirits?

Answer. — It is true.

Q. — Come! To prove to the evil Spirits, your former companions, that you break completely with them, you ought to forgive completely, from today on; show yourself generous and good, leaving absolutely the young girl in whom we take an interest.

Answer. — Impossible, my dear sir. This cannot happen so suddenly. Let me rid myself little by little of what is a necessity to me. Do you know what you would risk if I ceased suddenly? to see me return all at once. Meanwhile, I will promise you one thing: it is to spare the girl and to torture her tomorrow less than today. But I impose a condition: that of not being brought here by force; I want to come freely at your call, and, if I break my word, I consent to lose this favor. I must tell you that such a change in me is due to that radiant figure who is there, near you, and whom I also see beside the girl's bed, every day, at the moment of the struggle. I feel myself touched, even without wishing it; without this, you and the saints would have had difficulties for some days. (The Spirit was referring to Little Cárita).

Q. — So she is beautiful?

Answer. — Oh! yes, very beautiful!

Q. — But she is not alone near you during the struggles?

Answer. — Oh! no! There are others: the old ones of the body, the friends. They never smile; but now I mock them a great deal.

Observation. – The questioner surely meant to speak of the other good Spirits, but Jules was alluding to the evil Spirits, his companions.

Q. — Come! Before you leave us, we promise this night to make a prayer for you.

Answer. — I ask for ten; say them from the heart, and tomorrow you will be pleased with me.

Q. — Well then! let them be ten. And since you are in such good dispositions, would you like to write by heart a prayer in three words, dictated by me?

Answer. — Willingly.

The Spirit wrote: “O my God, give me the strength to forgive.”

— On the 15th of January the crisis came, as always, at five o'clock in the afternoon, but lasted only a quarter of an hour. The struggle was weak and followed by ecstasy, smiles, and tears, which expressed joy and happiness.

At the evening meeting, Little Cárita gave us the following communication:

“My dear protégés, as we had foreseen, the Spiritist phenomenon that takes place before your eyes is modifying itself, improving day by day, losing its character of gravity. First of all, a piece of advice: Let it be for you a subject of study, from the point of view of physical tortures, and of moral studies. In the eyes of the world make no outward signs; say no useless words. What does it matter to you what they will say? Leave discussion to the idle. Let the practical objective, that is, the liberation of this girl and the improvement of the Spirit who obsesses her, be the element of your intimate and serious conversations; do not speak of cure aloud; ask it of God in recollection and in prayer. “This obsession — I feel happy to say it — is coming to an end. The Spirit Jules has improved perceptibly. I too, with all my power, have acted upon the girl's Spirit, so that these two natures so opposed might become more compatible with each other. The combination of fluids will offer no more any real danger in relation to the organism; the shock that this young body felt at the fluidic contact is perceptibly disappearing. Your work is not finished; the prayer of all should always precede and follow the evocation.” Little Cárita.

— After the evocation of Jules and the prayer, in which he is qualified as an evil Spirit, he says:

“Here I am! In the name of justice, I ask the reform of certain words of your prayer. I have reformed my acts; reform the qualifications you give me.”

Q. — You are right; we will err no more. Did you come today without constraint?

Answer. — Yes, I came freely; I fulfilled my promises.

Q. — Now that you are calm and with good sentiments, do you consent to confide to us the motives of your severity toward that girl?

Answer. — Please, leave the past. When the affliction is cauterized, why stir up the wound? Ah! I feel that man must become better. I have a horror of my past and I face the future with hope. When a mouth of an angel says to you: Vengeance is a torture for him who exercises it; love is happiness for him who lavishes it, then, [so that] that leaven which sours and dries the heart be extinguished: one must love. Are you astonished at my words? They are not my creation; they were taught to me, and I take pleasure in repeating them to you. Ah! how happy you would be if, even for a minute, you could perceive this good angel, radiant as the sun, gentle as the refreshing dew that falls in fine droplets upon a plant scorched by the fire of day! As you see, I have no difficulty in speaking: I drink at the source. “A quick glance at my vagabond life:

“Born in the bosom of misery, bound to vice, early I tasted the coarse loves of life. I sucked in with the milk the poisoned potion offered me by all the passions. I wandered without faith, without law, without honor. When one must live at random, everything is good. The peasant's hen, like the lord's mutton, served us for a meal. Pillage was my occupation, when no doubt chance, for I do not believe that Providence concerns itself with such scoundrels, took me and equipped me. Proud of the beaten garment that replaced my rags, and furnished with a halberd, I joined a band of… evil companions, living at the expense of a cowardly lord who, in his turn, distinguished himself by his stature above his companions. But what did it matter to us, the source from which money and provisions flowed into our hands! I will not enter into details about the facts that are personal to me: they are evil, horrible, and unworthy of being told. Do you understand that, raised in such a school, one can become a man of good? “Separated by death, the band went to re-establish itself in the world of the Spirits. Far from avoiding the occasions of doing evil, we sought them out. In my wandering walks, I found a victim to make, and I made one. The rest you already know.

“Pray also for the band, gentlemen, please! Often you are astonished that one region should contain more evildoers than another. It is very simple. Not wishing to separate, they cast themselves upon a region like a cloud of locusts: to the wolves, the forests; to the doves, the dovecotes.

“I lived this earthly existence in the time of Louis XIII. My last experience took place under the Empire. I was a guerrilla; the blunderbuss and the conical hat adorned with ribbons pleased me greatly. I loved danger, theft, and risky deeds. A sad taste, you will say; but what to do otherwise? I was accustomed to living in bands. You must be astonished at this sudden change: it is the work of an angel. “I promise you nothing for tomorrow. You shall judge me by my acts. A prayer, please; in my turn, I will make one:

“Little angel, open your wings, take flight to the throne of the Lord; ask him for my forgiveness, placing at his feet my repentance.”

Jules.

Q. — Since you are on such a good path, ask God for the poor girl…

Answer. — I cannot… it would be a mockery or a cruelty for the executioner to embrace his victim.

The next day, the 16th of January, the girl had no crisis, but only a gastric discomfort. In our eyes, the liberation had been effected.

— At eight o'clock in the evening, answering our call, the Spirit Jules gave the following communication:

“My friends, permit me this name. I, the obsessing Spirit, cunning and perverse; I who, but a few days ago, rotted in evil and took pleasure in it, am going, with the help of the angel, to preach morals to you. I myself am surprised at this change; I ask myself whether it is really I who speak.

“I thought that every sentiment had been extinguished in my soul; but one fiber still vibrated; the angel divined it and touched it; I begin to see and to feel. Evil causes me horror. I cast my eyes upon my past and saw only crimes. A gentle voice said to me: Wait; contemplate the joy and the happiness of the good Spirits; purify yourself; forgive, instead of avenging yourself; love, instead of hating. I too will love you, if you are willing to love, if you become better. I feel myself moved. Now I understand the happiness that men will experience when they know how to practice charity. “Young girl, (he was addressing his victim, present at the session) you, whom I had chosen for my prey, as the vulture chooses the gentle dove, pray for me, and may the name of the reprobate be erased from your memory. I have received the baptism of love from the hands of the Lord, and now I put on the garment of innocence. Poor girl, I wish that your prayers, directed to the Lord on my behalf, may soon free me from the remorse that will accompany me like an expiation justly merited. “My friends, have the goodness to continue, also, your prayers for my miserable companions, who persecute me with their malicious envy, because I escape them. Yesterday still I asked myself what they would say of me; today I say to them: I have conquered; my past is forgiven, for I knew how to repent. Do as I have done, wage the battle against the evil that holds you captive in that place of torments and of despair; come out of it victorious. If, like yours, my criminal hand was soaked in blood, it will bring you the holy water of prayer that washes the stigmata of the reprobate. My God, forgiveness! “Thank you, my friends, for the good you have done me. I will ask to remain near you, from today on, to attend your meetings. I need to drink at the pure source, counsels for living a new existence, which I will beg of God, when I have suffered the expiation of my infamous past, which my conscience reproaches.”

Jules.

On the 17th of January, in keeping with Jules's promise, the girl felt no malaise of the stomach. Little Cárita announced that she would suffer a moral trial, at five o'clock in the afternoon, for some days, or during sleep, a trial that would have nothing painful for her and whose only symptoms would be smiles and gentle tears, which indeed happened, for two days. In the following days there was the most complete absence of the slightest sign of crisis. We did not on that account cease to observe the girl and to pray.

— On the 18th of February Little Cárita dictated to us the following instruction:

“My good friends, banish all fear; the obsession is finished and well finished; an order of things strange to you, but which will soon seem natural to you, is perhaps the consequence of this obsession, but not the work of Jules. Some explanations are here necessary as teaching.

“Today, when you know the doctrine, obsession or the subjugation of the material being presents itself to you not as a supernatural phenomenon, but simply with a character different from organic diseases.

“The Spirit who subjugates penetrates the perispirit of the being upon whom he wishes to act. The perispirit of the obsessed receives, as a kind of envelope, the fluidic body of the strange Spirit, and, by this means, is reached in his whole being; the material body experiences the pressure exercised upon it in an indirect manner.

“It causes astonishment that the soul can act physically upon animate matter. Yet it is the author of all these facts. It has for its attributes intelligence and will; by its will it directs, and the perispirit, of semimaterial nature, is the instrument of which it makes use.

“The physical affliction is apparent, but the fluidic combination, which your senses cannot grasp, conceals an infinite number of mysteries, which will reveal themselves with the progress of the doctrine, considered from the scientific point of view.

“When the Spirit abandons his victim, his will no longer acts upon the body, but the impression that the perispirit received from the strange fluid with which it was charged does not vanish at once and continues still for some time to influence the organism. In the case of your young sick girl: sadnesses, tears, languors, insomnias, vague disturbances, such are the effects that may be produced in consequence of this liberation; but, set your minds at ease, you, the girl, and her family, for these consequences will represent no danger for her. “Duty calls me, in a special manner, to bring to a good conclusion the work I have begun with you. Now it is necessary to act upon the very Spirit of the girl, by a gentle and salutary moralizing influence.

“As for you, my friends, continue to pray and to observe attentively all these phenomena; study without cease; the field is open and it is vast. Make all things known and understood, and little by little the Spiritist ideas will insinuate themselves into the spirit of your brothers, whom the appearance of the doctrine found incredulous or indifferent.” Little Cárita.

Observation. – We owe a just tribute of praise to our brothers of Marmande for the tact, prudence, and enlightened devotion of which they gave proof in that circumstance. By this resounding success God rewarded their faith, their perseverance, and their disinterestedness: moral, since they sought no satisfaction for self-love; the same would not have occurred had pride dimmed their good action. God withdraws his gifts from whoever does not use them with humility; under the empire of pride, the most eminent mediumistic faculties become perverted, are altered, and are extinguished, because the good Spirits withdraw their concurrence. The deceptions, the disappointments, the real misfortunes from this life onward are often the consequence of the deviation of the faculty from its providential objective. We could cite more than one unhappy example among mediums who aroused the finest hopes. In this respect, we could never penetrate ourselves too deeply with the instructions contained in the Imitation of the Gospel, nos. 285, 326 and following, 333, 392 and following. n We commend to the prayers of all good Spiritists the obsessing Spirit Jules, cited above, in order to strengthen him in his good resolutions and to make him understand what is gained by doing good. [See the case of the young Valentine Laurent in the Review of January 1865: New cure of an obsessed young girl of Marmande.]

[1]

[v.

Louis David.]

[2] [v.

Little Cárita.]

[3] [Citations redirected to the corresponding passages of the Gospel.]