Correspondence
Mr. Salgues’ letters from Angers
Mr. Salgues sent us his brochure Confusion in Satan’s Empire, announced in our previous issue and with that he added the following letter that we have the pleasure to publish with his authorization. Everyone will be able to, like ourselves, assess the feelings expressed there.
Angers, March 9th, 1865
“Dear Sir. and brother in God,
It is under the impression caused by the reading of the communications given by the Spirits of Mrs. Foulon and Mr. Demeure (Spiritist Review, March 1865) that I have the honor of writing to you to express all the pleasure that I found in them, and I can say the much interest frequently produced by your pen. I have just sent you a small brochure that I ask you to accept. To you and to all my readers it will be a very modest piece of work; but an eighty year old man that is going blind out of excessive work and studies, and for that reason incapable of reexamining the writings as I would like to, that old man must count on the indulgence of public opinion.
The Catholic adversaries of pneumatology feed the apostolic fanatics with the opinion that the Spirits are demons, that Satan is a reality, consequently harming the development of good doctrines, like the precious and so reassuring moral teachings of the supposed elves. It is useless that reasonable people deny them out of pure and persistent rejection. It is necessary to prove to the devil phobic with details and circumstances that they are mistaken and that the Christian hell is a myth. That is what led me to write this little book, without any intent of occupying the place of a writer.
As a subscriber to the Spiritist publications of Bordeaux I have just sent an exemplar of my book to each of their authors. Should I do differently with you Sir, whose books I read with great interest since their inception? You may think, however, that I do so timidly because I was an adversary of Spiritism, and not of the much honorable Spiritists. Not in absolute terms but for being dragged to it and for having to repeal a language that was attributed to me for having abused the subscription. I then blocked every criticism, wanting to be friends with everybody. I therefore only want to observe, approach, compare, wait and judge in the silence of my office. I still believe today that we are farm from knowing everything; that with respect to Spiritism as with Spiritualism there would be a place for discussion with the Spirits of certain issues of doctrine that I reserve to myself. With patience we shall all get to the same place, to the absolute happiness of the eternal life. I in fact see Spiritism making people happy everywhere. It is your glorious work and I do my best to stimulate as much as possible the study of the texts that are so spread out today, reassuring morality and religious feelings through a more rational path. Those that are enlightened should, with me, pray for God to give you long days in perfect health. I also believe that he manifested about me through three Spirits that, without having me thinking about it and in three different places, I was told that I would live a long life and that was already eight years ago. It may well be for the fact that I was always zealous and tireless on the propagation of the ideas since 1853 and that, despite my eyes that were greatly sacrificed, I have the strength, the energy, the physical promptness and attitude of a young man, and that my appearance does not reveal my age. Kindly accept, dear brother, my highest admiration and respect with my cordial greetings,”
Salgues
A second letter from Mr. Salgues, dated April 11th, 1865 contains the following passage:
“A journal to which I had sent a volume of my book made an announcement about it. I had to criticize the author for having called me a ruthless adversary of Spiritism. Given the impression caused by the data provided a short while ago to Victor Hennequin by a bad Spirit, I did fight, in good faith, the doctrine of the reincarnations, but after having acknowledged a large number of spiritualist inconsistences and since I detected certain details in Spiritism that did not captivated my trust, I limited myself to a detailed observation, patiently waiting for the day when, with a more perfect nature, I would be able to acknowledge the truth about our destinies after this material life. With respect to the facts and communications, for the moment I am satisfied with the certainty that there is a second life in the spiritual world.”
Our response
My dear Sir,
I received the letter that you kindly sent me with the brochure that followed for which I thank you so much. I have not had the time to read the book yet but I have no doubt that you gave our adversaries a lot to do. The issue of the devil is the last fighting horse that they hold back but that horse is weak and the rope that keeps all that afloat is worn out and will soon let that boat astray. I am glad, Sir, for the excellent and kind words addressed to me and for finding in your soul the hallmark of moderation and impartiality. I confess that I would be surprised if it were otherwise and that it makes me really happy to see that I was induced in error by false appearances. We may hold different opinions about certain points of the doctrine but it gives me satisfaction to attest that we are united by the principle that “There is no salvation but through charity.
Sincerely yours,
