Mrs. Dozon — Mr. Fornier-Duplan — Mr. D'Ambel.

Spiritism has just lost one of its most fervent adherents in the person of Mrs. Dozon, widow of Mr. Henri Dozon, author of several works on Spiritism, who died on August 1, 1865. She passed away in Passy, on November 22, 1866.

Mrs. Dozon, stricken with an incurable organic illness, had for a long time been in a state of extreme weakness and suffering, and each day saw death drawing nearer; she faced it with the serenity of a pure soul, one who has the awareness of having done only good, and was deeply convinced that it was nothing but the passage from a life of trials to a better life, at the threshold of which she was going to find, to receive her, her dear husband and those she had loved. Her expectations did not deceive her; the spiritual life, into which she was initiated, fulfilled all her hopes and more still. There she gathers the fruits of her faith, of her devotion, of her charity toward those who did her harm, of her resignation in suffering, and of the courage with which she upheld her beliefs against those who made a crime of them. Though her body was weakened, the Spirit had retained all its vigor, all its lucidity to the last moment. She died in full enjoyment of her mental faculties, like someone setting out on a journey, carrying no trace of bitterness against those of whom she had had reasons to complain. Her detachment was rapid and the disturbance of short duration; thus she was able to manifest herself even before the burial. Her death and her awakening were those of a Spiritist at heart, who strove to put into practice the precepts of the Doctrine. Her only apprehension was being buried alive, and this thought pursued her until the end. “It seems to me,” she said, “that I see myself in the grave and that I am suffocating beneath the earth, which I hear falling upon me.” After her death she explained this fear, saying that, in her previous existence, she had been killed in this way and that the terrible impression her Spirit had felt had reawakened at the moment of dying again.

No Spiritist prayer was made ostensibly at her tomb, so as not to offend certain susceptibilities, but the Spiritist Society of Paris, of which she had been a member, gathered at the place of its sessions, after the funeral ceremony, to renew to her the testimony of its sympathies.

Spiritism saw another of its representatives depart, in the person of Mr. Fornier-Duplan, a former merchant, who died in Rochefort-sur-Mer, on October 22, 1866. Mr. Fornier-Duplan had long been a sincere and devoted adherent, understanding the true purpose of the Doctrine, whose teachings he strove to put into practice. He was a man of good, loved and esteemed by all who knew him, one of those whom Spiritism is honored to count in its ranks. In him the unfortunate lose a support. He had drawn from his beliefs the remedy against doubt about the future, courage in the trials of life, and the calm of his final moments. Like Mrs. Dozon and so many others, he departed full of confidence in God, without fear of the unknown, because he knew where he was going and his conscience gave him the hope of being welcomed there with sympathy by the good Spirits. His hope, too, was not deceived, and the communications he gave prove that there he occupies the place reserved for men of good. A death that surprised us as much as it grieved us was that of Mr.

d'Ambel, former director of the newspaper Avenir, who died on November 17,

His funeral rites took place in the church of Notre-Dame de Lorette, his parish. n The malevolence of the newspapers that spoke of him revealed itself, in this circumstance, in a lamentable manner, by their affectation in emphasizing, exaggerating, poisoning, as if they took pleasure in turning the iron in the wound, all that this death could have of painful, without consideration for the susceptibilities of the family, forgetting even the respect that is owed to the dead, whatever their opinions and their beliefs in life may have been. These same newspapers would have denounced the scandal and the profanation against whoever might have spoken in this manner of one of their own. But we have seen, by the citation we made above, regarding the death of Mr. Pagès, that not even the tomb is respected by certain adversaries of Spiritism. [Regarding Mr. Pagès see: Review of the press concerning Spiritism.]

Nevertheless, impartial men will render to the Spiritists the justice of recognizing that these never departed from respect, from propriety, and from the laws of charity, upon the death of those who had been their greatest enemies, and who had attacked them without the least consideration. They content themselves with praying for them.

We saw with pleasure the newspaper le Pays, of November 25, although in an article little sympathetic to the Doctrine, respond with energy to this lack of consideration on the part of some confreres and censure, as it deserves, the mingling of publicity in the intimate affairs of the family. The Siècle of November 19 had also reported the event with all the desirable propriety. We will add that the deceased leaves no children and that his widow has withdrawn to her family.

[1] Translator's note: Despite having acted as a medium in the Spiritist Society of Paris, the funeral rites of Mr. d'Ambel took place in a Catholic temple. As can be inferred from several passages of the Spiritist Review, Allan Kardec believed that one could be perfectly Spiritist without renouncing Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish beliefs, and he even advised that no one abandon their religious faith to embrace Spiritism. Perhaps, for this reason, the Spirit Emmanuel answered (The Consoler, question 353): “Spiritism cannot maintain the pretension of exterminating the other beliefs, fragments of the truth that its doctrine represents, but rather of working to transform them, raising their ancient conceptions to the radiance of the immortalist truth.”