The armchair of the ancestors.

We have been told that in the home of a writer-poet of great renown, there is a custom that will appear bizarre to anyone who is not a Spiritist. At the family table there is always an empty armchair; that armchair is closed with a padlock and no one sits in it: it is the place of the ancestors, of the forefathers, and of the friends who have left this world; it is there as a respectful testimony of affection, a pious remembrance, an appeal to their presence, and to tell them that they live always in the spirit of the survivors.

The person who related the fact to us, as coming from a good source, added: "The Spiritists reject, and with reason, purely formal things; but if there is one that they can adopt without derogating from their principles, this is without doubt the one."

Surely here is a thought that would never spring up in the brain of a materialist; not only does it attest to the spiritualist idea, but it is eminently Spiritist and does not at all surprise us on the part of a man who, without openly raising the banner of Spiritism, has often affirmed his belief in the fundamental truths that derive from it.

There is in that usage something touching, patriarchal, and that commands respect. Indeed, who would dare to ridicule it? It is not one of those sterile formulas that say nothing to the soul: it is the expression of a sentiment that proceeds from the heart, the sensible sign of the bond that unites those present to those absent. That chair, apparently empty, but which thought occupies, is a whole profession of faith, and more, a whole teaching, as much for the great as for the small. For the children, it is an eloquent lesson, though mute, that cannot fail to produce salutary impressions. Those who are brought up in these ideas will never be unbelievers, because, later on, reason will come to confirm the beliefs with which they will have been cradled. The idea of the presence, around them, of their forefathers or of venerated persons, will be for them a more powerful check than the fear of the devil.