The Spiritist Criterion.

This journal, which a year ago was published in Madrid, under the title of El criterio, a fortnightly scientific review, has just resumed its first title, which had been forbidden to it under the preceding Spanish government. The director announces it in the following terms, in a supplement to No. 17:

“With the immense joy of triumph, deserved not by our feeble forces, but by the generosity of our cause, today we address ourselves to our constant protectors, to the friends who, in misfortune, encouraged and sustained us.

“The intolerance of the previous government had forbidden us the exercise of the most fruitful of liberties: that of study, when one day, sad because of disappointment, happy because it was the first of the struggle, we wished to publish the Criterio espiritista. See the response that was given to us by the ministerial secretary:

“Madrid, July 17, 1867.

“Government of the province; press section — After having examined the first number of the journal of which you are the editor and director, I saw that, by its special character, its tendencies, and the philosophical school it seeks to develop, it must be understood as falling under the second paragraph of article 52 of the law in force concerning the press. I warn you that it is not possible for me to authorize the said number, nor the following ones, if, beforehand, they are not examined and approved by the ecclesiastical censorship. God keep you, etc.” “On the following August 10 we received the telegram of which we transcribe the copy below:

“Madrid, August 6, 1867.

“These documents will not remain for the greater glory of their authors, whose names we abstain from giving to publicity, out of a matter of good manners. Today we are able to come to light, and the Criterio cientifico is replaced by the Criterio espiritista. The directorship is installed in the Calle del Arco de Santa Maria, No. 25, room 2; it is there that the adherents who wish to take part in the Spanish Spiritist Society, founded in 1865, and which had to suspend its sessions for the same reasons that had prevented the publication of the journal, may address themselves.” The regulation of the Society, which we have before our eyes, is conceived in an excellent spirit, and we can but applaud the provisions it contains. It places itself under the protection of the Spirit of Socrates, and its object is clearly defined in the first two articles:

“1st A private circle is constituted, under the denomination of the Spanish Spiritist Society, whose object is the study of Spiritism, principally in what concerns morality and the knowledge of the invisible world or of the Spirits; 2nd The Society may not, in any case, occupy itself with political questions, nor with religious discussions or controversies, which would tend to give it the character of a sect.” These provisions are of a nature to reassure those who might impute disruptive tendencies to the Society. At the moment of a revolution that has just broken the fetters placed upon the liberty to think, to speak, and to write, in which the emancipated masses are generally tempted to overstep the limits of moderation, neither the Society nor its organ thinks of taking advantage of it to depart from the exclusively moral and philosophical object of the Doctrine. Not only does it forbid itself politics, but even religious controversies, out of a spirit of tolerance and of respect for the conscience of each one. The director of the journal even abstains from stigmatizing, through publicity, the names of the signatories of the decrees that forbade his journal, so as not to deliver them to public animosity. It is that Spiritism, well understood, is everywhere the same: a guarantee of order and of moderation. It does not live on scandal; it has too much the sentiment of its dignity and sees things from too high, to lower itself to the personalities that always reveal pettiness of spirit, and never ally themselves with nobility of heart. The first number of the Criterio espiritista contains the following articles:

Introduction, by Alverico Perón. — The day of the dead, communication signed by Socrates, obtained at the Society of Seville. — The mediumistic faculty. — The Bible, communication signed by Socrates. — Session of magnetism. — The eternal halves, communication of Socrates. — Letter from a Spiritist. — Letter to Mr. Alverico Perón, by Allan Kardec, and communication of Saint Louis on the new situation of Spiritism in Spain. — Spiritist Review of Paris. We urge with insistence our Spiritist brothers of Spain to sustain with all their forces this organ of their belief. By the wisdom and prudence of its editing, it cannot fail to serve our cause usefully. It will be a bond that will establish relations among the adherents disseminated in different points of Spain. The director, Mr. Alverico Perón, is not a newcomer in our ranks; his efforts for the propagation of the Doctrine date from the year 1858, and we recall with pleasure the Formula del Espiritismo, which he was good enough to dedicate to us.