Page:Saints or Spirits, Agnes Repplier, 1920.pdf/1



CXI.

SAINTS OR SPIRITS?

HE great wave of Spiritism which is threatening the sanity of the world is based on a common, though by no means universal, desire to enter into some form of communion with the dead, to receive assurance of their survival, of their welfare, of the conservation of their human affections. There are men who do not feel this desire. There are men who love the light and who have no fear of the darkness; but to whom all borderlands are inexpressively repellant. David wept in the dust while his child lay dying, but bathed and dined when his child lay dead. The veil had fallen between them. "I shall go to him; but he shall not return to me." It is a clear-cut issue. Yet David's love for his sons was so strong that it dimmed his wisdom, and undermined his justice. It is in the mouth of Ulysses, whose affections were—to say the least—under admirable control, that Tennyson puts a sentiment so familiar to himself, a longing for the sight and sound of the dead:

What provision has the Catholic Church made to rest the