16. “The mysterious beings who thus respond to the first call of the heretical and the impious as readily as to that of the faithful, of the criminal as of the innocent, are neither envoys of God nor apostles of truth and salvation, but are the tools of error and of Hell.”
Thus, according to the Church, God does not permit good spirits to approach the heretical, the impious, and the criminal, to win them back from their error and to save them from everlasting perdition! God only sends to them “the tools of Hell,” to drag them down and yet more deeply into the mire of damnation! Furthermore, God sends only the most degraded and malicious of beings to the innocent, to pervert them! But are there, then, among the “Angels,” who are the privileged favorites of the Creator, none who are compassionate enough to come to the assistance of the souls thus being drawn to perdition? What is the use of the brilliant qualities with which they are endowed, if those qualities serve only to secure their own personal enjoyment? Can they really be as good as they are declared to be, if, while immersed in the delights of contemplation, they see all these souls on the road to Hell without hastening to lead them into the road to salvation? Are they not, rather, like the wealthy egotist who, possessing all the elements of physical comfort in abundance, leaves the beggar to die of starvation, without pity, at his door? And is not such a doctrine the exaltation of selfishness into a virtue, and a placing of it, as such, at the very feet of the Eternal?
You are astonished that good spirits should come to seek out the “heretical” and the “impious;” but, if so, you must have forgotten the saying of Christ: – “It is not they who are whole that need the physician, but they who are sick.” Your point of view, then, is no higher than that of the Pharisees of his day? And you, yourselves, if a repentant criminal solicited your assistance, would you refuse to aid him in returning into the path of virtue?
Good spirits only do what is done by the ministers of religion and by all good men and women, who go to the victims of impiety to move them with the eloquence of truth and kindness. Instead of anathematizing the communications from beyond the grave, you should gratefully recognize the channels thus opened by the Providence of the Almighty and should admire this new evidence of God’s infinite power and God’s inexhaustible goodness!
