The last judgment

The messiahs of Spiritism: Saint Joseph. — Fénelon.

— Baluze.

— Lacordaire.

— The marked Spirits: Anonymous. — Saint Louis.

— Lamennais.

— Future of Spiritism: Erasto. — Montaigne.

— The stars shall fall from Heaven: Dupuch, bishop of Algiers.

— The dead shall come forth from the tombs: John the Evangelist.

— The Last Judgment: Erasto.

— Clélie Duplantier.

THE LAST JUDGMENT.

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Jesus will come upon the clouds to judge the living and the dead. Yes, God will send him, as he sends him every day, to render this sovereign justice in the immense plains of the ether. Ah! when Saint James was cast down from the top of the tower of the temple of Jerusalem, by the pontiffs and Pharisees, for having announced to the assembled people this truth taught by Christ and his apostles, remember that at this word of the just man the multitude prostrated itself, exclaiming: Glory to Jesus, son of God, in the highest of the heavens! He will come upon the clouds to pronounce his fearful sentences: is this not to tell you, O Spiritists, that he comes perpetually to receive the souls of those who enter into erraticity? Pass to my right, says the shepherd to his sheep, you who have acted well, according to the views of my Father, pass to my right and ascend to him; as for you, who let yourselves be dominated by earthly passions, pass to my left; you are condemned. Yes, you are condemned to begin again the road already traveled, in a new earthly existence, until you have had your fill of matter and iniquities, and until, at last, you have cast out the impure one that dominates you. Yes, you are condemned; go and return to the hell of human life, while your brothers on my right go to cast themselves into the higher spheres, from which the passions of the Earth are excluded, until the day when they enter into the kingdom of my Father, through a greater purification. Yes, Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead. The living: the just, those on his right; the dead: the impure, those on his left; and when the wings of the just sprout forth, matter will still take hold of the impure. And this until they emerge victorious from the combats against impurity and at last divest themselves, forever, of their human chrysalises. O Spiritists! you see that your doctrine is the only one that consoles, the only one that gives hope, not condemning to eternal damnation the unfortunate ones who behaved badly during a few minutes of eternity; the only one, in short, that presides over the true end of the Earth through the gradual elevation of the Spirits. Progress, then, divesting yourselves of the old man, in order to enter the region of the Spirits beloved of God.

Erasto. n Paris,

Society in general, or rather, the assembly of beings, both incarnate and disincarnate, that compose the floating population of a world, in a word, Humanity, is nothing but a great collective child which, like every being endowed with life, passes through all the phases that succeed one another in each individual, from birth to the most advanced age; and just as the development of the individual is accompanied by certain physical and intellectual disturbances, which occur more particularly at certain periods of life, Humanity has its growing pains, its moral and intellectual disturbances. It is at one of those great epochs which end one period and begin another that you are given to be present. Partaking at the same time of the things of the past and of those of the future, of the systems that are being annihilated and of the truths that are being established, take care, my friends, to place yourselves on the side of solidity, of progression, and of logic, if you do not wish to be carried away aimlessly; and abandon the palaces sumptuous in appearance, but unsteady at the base, which will soon bury beneath their ruins the unfortunate ones foolish enough not to wish to leave them, despite the warnings of every nature that are lavished upon them. All brows are growing somber, and the apparent calm you enjoy serves only to accumulate a greater number of destructive elements.

Sometimes the storm that destroys the fruit of a year's toil is preceded by messengers that allow one to take the necessary precautions to avoid, as much as possible, the devastation. This time it will not be so. The laden sky will seem to grow bright; the clouds will flee; then, suddenly, all the furies, long repressed, will be unleashed with an unheard-of violence. Woe to those who shall not have prepared a shelter! woe to the braggarts who confront the danger with unarmed hands and bared breast! woe to those who defy the danger with the cup in hand! What terrible disappointment awaits them! Before the cup they hold reaches their lips they will be struck! To work, then, Spiritists, and do not forget that you must be all prudence and all foresight. You have a shield, know how to use it; a plank of salvation: do not scorn it.

Clélie Duplantier. n Paris,

[1] [v.

Thomas Erasto.]

[2] [v.

Clélie Duplantier.]