The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1859

Spontaneous communication from Mr. Nélo, medium Read at the Society on January 14th, 1859

You don’t know the secret that children hide in their innocence; you don’t know what they are or what they were or what they will be- come. Nevertheless, you love them; you cherish them as if they were a part of you and in such a way that the mother’s love for her children is considered to be the greatest love that one person can devote to another. Where does this kind affection come from, this tender benevolence that even strangers feel towards a child?

Do you know the answer? No. This is what I will explain to you.

Children are the beings that God sends into new existences. God gives them the looks of total innocence so that they cannot complain of excessive severity. Even in a naturally malicious child the defects are covered by the unconsciousness of their acts. Such innocence is not a sign of real superiority with respect to what they were before; No: it is the image of what they should be; and if they are not, they will be the ones to blame.

But it was not to their benefit only that God gave them such looks. It was also – and above all – for their parents, whose love is necessary to their weakness, since such love would be substantially debilitated be- fore an impertinent and intractable character, whereas by supposing that their children are good and sweet, the parents give them all the affection, surrounding them with the most delicate attention. However, when the children no longer require such protection, the assistance given to them for fifteen or twenty years, their character is then revealed in its fullest: it remains good if they were good, but it is always patched by the nuances that were hidden in the first infancy. Know this that God’s paths are al- ways the best and that the explanation can be easy understood as long as one bears a pure heart.

In fact, imagine that the spirits of the children born from you may come from a world where completely different habits were acquired. How would you like to have such a creature around you, with passions that are completely different from yours, with inclinations, with tastes totally opposed to yours? Would you like to have them joining your ranks in a different way, different from the one that God wished, that is through the winnow of childhood?

It is here that all thoughts, all characters, all varieties of beings come to blend, engineered by that multitude of worlds where the creatures im- prove. And you yourselves, after death, will face another kind of infancy, among new brothers and sisters. In your new non-Earthly existence you ignore the habits, the customs, culture and the relationships in this world new to you. With difficulty you will handle a language that you are not used to speak, a language even more lively than your current thought. Infancy has another utility. The spirits only get into the corporeal life for their improvement, their betterment; the weakness of childhood makes them flexible, accessible to the advices of experience, from those in charge of their advancement. It is in that period that their character may be re- formed, by the repression of their bad inclinations. Such is the duty that God has conferred the parents with, a sacred mission for which they will respond.

Thus, childhood is not only useful; it is necessary and indispensable, but also a natural consequence of the laws established by God, laws that govern the Universe!

OBSERVATION: We call the readers’ attention to this remarkable dissertation whose elevated philosophical reach is comprehensible. What can be more beautiful, more grandiose than this solidarity that there is among the worlds? What can be more convenient to give us an idea about God’s majesty and benevolence? Humanity grows by such thoughts, whereas it is diminished if reduced to the petty proportions of our tran- sient life and to the boundaries of our world, imperceptible among other worlds.