Mr. Leclerc.

— The Spiritist Society of Paris has just suffered a new loss in the person of Mr. Charles-Julien Leclerc, a former mechanic, fifty-seven years of age, who died suddenly of an attack of fulminant apoplexy, on December 2, at the moment when he was entering the opera. He had lived a long time in Brazil, and it was there that he gathered the first notions of Spiritism, for which he had been prepared by the doctrine of Fourrier, of which he was a zealous partisan. Returning to France, after having won a position of independence by his work, he devoted himself to the cause of Spiritism, whose elevated humanitarian and moralizing reach for the working class he had easily glimpsed. He was a man of good, esteemed and lamented by all who knew him, a Spiritist of heart, striving to put into practice, for the benefit of his moral advancement, the teachings of the doctrine—one of those men who honor the belief they profess.

— At the request of the family, we made at the tomb the prayer for the souls that have just left the Earth (The Gospel According to Spiritism), followed by the following words:

“Dear Mr. Leclerc, you are an example of the uncertainty of life, for two days before your death you were among us, with nothing letting us foresee a departure so sudden. These are divine warnings, that we may always be ready to render account of the use we have made of the time we spent on Earth. God calls us at the moment when we least expect it. May His name be blessed for having spared you the anguish and the sufferings that sometimes accompany the work of separation.

“You have gone to rejoin the colleagues who preceded you and who, doubtless, came to receive you at the threshold of the new life; but that life, with which you were identified, must in no way surprise you; you entered into it as into a known country, and we do not doubt that you there enjoy the happiness reserved for men of good, for those who have practiced the laws of the Lord.

“Your colleagues of the Spiritist Society of Paris are honored to have counted you in their ranks, and your memory will always be dear to them. Through my voice they offer you the expression of their very sincere sentiments, of the sympathy you knew how to win. If anything softens our regret at this separation, it is the thought that you are happy as you deserved, and the hope that you will not fail to come and take part in our labors.

“May the Lord, dear brother, pour out upon you the treasures of His infinite goodness. We ask Him to grant you the grace of watching over your children and of directing them in the path of good that you had followed.”

— Promptly freed, as we supposed, Mr. Leclerc was able to manifest himself at the Society, in the session that followed his burial. Consequently, there was no interruption in his presence, since he had attended the preceding session. Beyond the sentiment of affection that bound us to him, this communication was bound to have its instructive side; it would be interesting to know the sensations that accompany this kind of death.

Nothing that may shed light on the various phases of this passage, which everyone must traverse, could be indifferent. Here is the communication:

(Society of Paris, December 7, 1866. – Medium: Mr. Desliens.)

I can, at last, in my turn, come to this table! Although my death is recent, I have already been seized with impatience more than once; but I could not hasten the march of time. I also owed you thanks for the promptness in surrounding my mortal remains and for the sympathetic thoughts you lavished upon my Spirit. Oh! master, thank you for your benevolence, for the profound emotion you felt in welcoming my beloved son. How ungrateful I would be if I did not preserve for you an eternal gratitude!

My God, thank you! my wishes are realized. This world, which I knew only through the communications of the Spirits, today I can appreciate its beauty. In a certain measure, I experienced the same emotions on arriving here, but infinitely more vivid than those I felt on landing for the first time on the lands of America. I knew that country only by the account of travelers, and I was far from forming an idea of its luxuriant productions. It was the same here. How different this world is from ours! Each face is the exact reproduction of the intimate sentiments; no lying physiognomy; hypocrisy impossible; the thought reveals itself entirely to the gaze, benevolent or malevolent, according to the nature of the Spirit. Well then! Here I am still punished for my principal fault, the one I combated with so much labor on Earth, and which I had succeeded in dominating in part; the impatience I had to see myself among you disturbed me to such a point that I no longer know how to express my ideas with lucidity, although this matter that once dragged me so to anger no longer exists! But, come, I must calm myself.

Oh! I was much surprised by this unexpected end! I did not fear death and, for a long time, regarded it as the end of the trial; but that death so unforeseen did not fail to cause me a profound shock… What a blow for my poor wife!… How quickly mourning succeeded pleasure! I felt a true satisfaction in hearing good music, but I did not think I would so soon be in contact with the great voice of the infinite… How fragile life is!… A blood corpuscle coagulates, the circulation of the blood loses its regularity, and all is finished!… I would have wished to live a few more years, to see my children all set on their way, but God decided otherwise. May His will be done! At the moment when death struck me, I received as it were a blow with a cudgel on the head; a crushing weight bore me down; suddenly I felt myself free, relieved. I hovered above my remains; I considered with astonishment the tears of my own, and, at last, I realized what had happened to me. I recognized myself promptly. I saw my second son hasten in, summoned by the telegraph. Ah! I did indeed try to console them; I breathed upon them my best thoughts, and I saw, with a certain happiness, some refractory brains little by little inclined toward the side of the belief that made all my strength in these last years, to which I owed such good moments. If I conquered the old man a little, to whom do I owe it, if not to our dear teaching, to the reiterated counsels of my guides? And yet, I blushed—Spirit though I was—at still letting myself be dominated by that accursed defect: impatience. For this I am punished, because I was eager to communicate and to recount to you a thousand details, which I am obliged to postpone. Oh! I shall be patient, but with regret. I am so happy here that it costs me to leave you. Meanwhile, good friends are near me and they themselves united to welcome me: Sanson, Baluze, Sonnez, the merry Sonnez, whose satirical verve I so loved, then Jobard, the brave Costeau, and so many others. Last of all Madame Dozon; then a poor wretch, much to be pitied, and whose repentance touches me. Pray for him, as for all those who let themselves be dominated by the trial. Soon I shall return to converse anew, and rest assured, I shall be no less assiduous at our dear gatherings, as a Spirit, than I was when incarnate.

Leclerc.