Tombstone of Mr. Allan Kardec.

At the meeting of the Society of Paris that immediately followed the funeral rites of Mr. Allan Kardec, the Spiritists present, members of the Society and others, expressed the unanimous opinion that a monument, witness to the sympathy and the gratitude of Spiritists in general, be erected to honor the memory of the coordinator of our philosophy. A great number of our adherents in the provinces and abroad associated themselves with this thought. But the examination of this proposition had necessarily to be delayed, because it was fitting, first, to verify whether Mr. Allan Kardec had made arrangements in this respect and what those arrangements were. Everything having been thoroughly examined, nothing more opposing the study of the question, the commission, after mature reflection, settled, save modification, upon a decision which, allowing the legitimate longing of the Spiritists to be satisfied, seems to it to harmonize best with the well-known character of our beloved president.

It is quite evident to us, as to all who knew him, that Mr. Allan Kardec, as a Spirit, takes no interest whatsoever in a manifestation of this kind, but here the man effaces himself before the head of the Doctrine, for it is the dignity, I will say more, the duty of those whom he consoled and enlightened, that the place where his mortal remains rest be consecrated by an imperishable monument.

Whatever the name by which it was designated, it is beyond doubt for all who have studied the question a little and for our very adversaries, that the Spiritist Doctrine existed throughout all antiquity, and this is quite natural, since it rests on the laws of Nature, as ancient as the world; but it is also quite evident that, of all the ancient beliefs, it is still the druidism practiced by our ancestors, the Gauls, that comes closest to our present philosophy. For this reason, it was in the funerary monuments that cover the soil of ancient Brittany that the commission recognized the most perfect expression of the character of the man and of the work that it was a matter of symbolizing. The man was simplicity incarnate; and if the Doctrine is, itself, simple like all that is true, it is as indestructible as the eternal laws on which it rests.

The monument would be composed, then, of two upright stones of rough granite, surmounted by a third, resting somewhat obliquely upon the first two, in a word, of a dolmen. On the lower face of the upper stone there would be engraved simply the name of Allan Kardec, with this epigraph: Every effect has a cause; every intelligent effect has an intelligent cause; the power of the intelligent cause is in proportion to the magnitude of the effect. This proposition, received with unanimous signs of assent from the members of the Society of Paris, seemed to us that it ought to be brought to the knowledge of our readers.

The monument being not only the representation of the sentiments of the Society of Paris, but of Spiritists in general, each one ought to be put in a position to appreciate it and to contribute to it. [Virtual visit to the cemetery of Père-Lachaise.]

[A. DESLIENS.]