M. Kardec and his followers represented the " Spiritists "

or Re-incarnationists — M. Pierart leading the ranks of the opposing faction most commonly called Spiritualists.
In respect to the question of testimony, it must be re- membered that M. Kardec derived his communications chiefly from those writing and trance mediums who might have proved the most susceptible to his influence, and is said to have persistently banished from his circles, not only Mr. Home, M. Bredif, and other physical mediums, but all those who did not endorse his favourite dogma through their communications.
Says the author of Nineteenth Century Miracles: It
must not be supposed that the schism which divided the two leaders of French Spiritualism was confined to the immediate sphere of action in which they moved. Scat- tered sympathisers with the writings of Allan Kardec, may be found all over the Continent of Europe, and in small numbers in America also. Few people who read works put forward with authoritative pretentions have the faculty of thoroughly digesting what they read, hence, when M. Kardec's books were translated into the English language, and it became the publisher's interest to aid in their circulation, they found more readers than thinkers, and their plausible style attracted more admiration than sincere conviction. In France, no doubt M. Kardec's personal influence, and strong phychological power, admir- ably fitted him for a propagandist, and when we remember how readily any doctrines eloquently advocated will command adherents, especially among restless and excitable natures, we need be at no loss to discover why M. Kardec's writings have become so popular and his opinions so generally accepted by his readers. Little or no spiritual literature was disseminated in the French language when Allan Kardec's works were first published. He possessed that indomitable energy and psychological influence in which his much harassed rival Pierart was wanting. Thus in a measure, the field of Continental spiritual propagandism was his own, nor did he fail to make use of his great op- portunities.
'■The successes achieved by Kardec's journal, La Revue Spirite, communicated a wave of influence also, which propagated journals of a similar character all over the country. Thus in 1864, there were no less than ten spirit- ualistic periodicals published in France, under fhe following titles : La Revue Spirite, La Revue Spiritualiste, and L'Ave- nir, Paris ; four Spiritist journals published in Bordeaux, which, in 1865, became merged into L' Union Spirite Borde- laise ; La Medium Evangelique, Toulouse ; L'Echo a" outre Tombe, Marseilles ; and La Verite, Lyons. The editors of these journals are said to have been all followers of Allan Kardec, with the exception of M. Pierart, editor of La Revue Spiritualiste."
It must be remarked that the doctrines of the Re-incar- nationists, although defended with great ability by their propagandists, who included many of the most capable minds of France, were not suffered to pass without severe castigation on the part of their English neighbours ; and it becomes necessary to note how the French spiritual schism was received on the other side of the Channel. In the London Spiritual Magazine of 1865, the editor, in com- menting on the ominous silence of the Spirite journals concerning Dr. Maldigny's opera of Swedenborg says : —
" It is worthy of note that the journals of the Kardec school, so far as we have seen them, do not take the least notice of this opera. The Avenir of Paris, which appears weekly, but greatly wants facts, has not a word to say about
it It is greatly to be regretted that the main obj ect
of the Kardecian journals seems to be, not the demon- stration of the constantly recurring facts of Spiritualism, but the deification of Kardec's doctrine of Re-incarnation.
" To this doctrine — which has nothing to do with Spirit- ualism, even if it had a leg of reason or fact to stand on — all the strength, and almost all the space of these journals is devoted.
" These are the things which give the enemies of Spirit- ualism a real handle against it, and bring it into contempt with sober minds. Re-incarnation is a doctrine which cuts up by the roots all individual identity in the future existence. It desolates utterly that dearest yearning of the human heart for reunion with its loved ones in a per- manent world. If some are to go back into fresh physical bodies, and bear new names, and new natures, if they are
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to become respectively Tom Styles, Ned Snooks, and a score of other people, who shall ever hope to meet again with his friends, wife, children, brothers and sisters ? When he enters the spirit-world and enquires for them, he will have to learn that they are already gone back to earth, and are somebody else, the sons and daughters of other people, and will have to become over and over the kindred of a dozen other families in succession ! Surely, no such most cheerless crochet could bewitch the intellects of any people, except under the most especial bedevilment of the most sarcastic and mischievous of devils."
In the January number for 1866, a still stronger article on this subject appears from the pen of Wm. Howitt, who writes the following fearless words of protest against the doctrine of Re-incarnation :
" In the Avenir of November 2nd, M. Pezzani thinks he has silenced M. Pierart, by asserting that without Re- incarnation all is chaos and injustice in God's creation : ' In this world there are rich and poor, oppressed and oppressors, and without Re-incarnation, God's justice could not be vindicated.' That is to say, in M. Pezzani's conception, God has not room in the infinite future to punish and redress every wrong, without sending back souls again and again into the flesh. M. Pezzani's idea, and that of his brother Re-incarnationists is, that the best way to get from Paris to London is to travel any number of times from Paris to Calais and back again. We English, that the only way is to go on to London at once. ... As to M. Pezzani's notions of God's injustice without Re- incarnation, if souls were re-incarnated a score of times, injustice between man and man, riches and poverty, oppression and wrong, all the enigmas of social inequality would remain just then as now.
" In noticing these movements in the Spiritist camp in France, we should be doing a great injustice if we did not refer to the zealous, eloquent, and unremitting exertions of M. Pierart in the Revue Spiritualists, to expose and lesist the errors of the Spirite to which we have alluded. The doctrine of Re-incarnation, M. Pierart has persistently resisted and denounced as at once false, unfounded on any evidence, and most pernicious to the character of Spirit- ualism."
Allan Kardec died on March 31st, 1869.
Notwithstanding the fact that the experimental method of receiving communications through physical mediumship was not in favour with M. Allan Kardec and his followers, there is an abundant amount of phenomena of all kinds recorded in M. Pierart' s excellent journal, La Revue Spirit- ualist e, also in many other European journals devoted to the subject. From this we are about to select such facts of a representative character as will give a general view of French Spiritualism in the nineteenth century.
The celebrated " Cure D'Ars," the founder of the D'Ars " Providence," and many other noble works of charity, Jean Baptiste Vianney, was born in the vicinity of Lyons, in 1786, in a humble sphere of life. His natural capacity was by no means remarkable, and at school he was only remembered as a somewhat dull scholar. Circumstances having opened up the way for his becoming a priest, al- though he had only Latin enough to say mass, and no learning beyond the routine of his profession, yet his amiable nature and unaffected piety won him friends wherever he went. After some changes of fortune and the rejection of two good offers of rich positions, which in his ■extreme humility he did not deem himself fit for, he accepted the pastoral charge of the little agricultural village of D'Ars, now in the arrondisement of Trevoux.
Very soon his reputation for beneficence drew round him a much larger circle of poor dependents than he could provide for, and then it was that he commenced his extra-
ordinary life of faith, supplicating in fervent prayer for whatever means were necessary to carry out his divine mission of blessing to his unfortunate fellow creatures. In this way the sphere of his benevolence, and the wonder- ful results of the means he employed to maintain it, reached proportions that could scarcely be credited.
But now a still more wonderful thing was tc happen in the enchanted region of D'Ars. Persons afflicted with disease began to experience sudden cures whilst praying before the altar, or making confessions to the Cure. The fame of this new miracle soon spread abroad, until the Abbe Monnin declares that upwards of 20,000 persons an- nually came from Germany, Italy, Belgium, and all parts of France, and even from England, and that in less than six years this number increased to an average of 80,000. Diseases of every kind that had been pronounced incurable, were dissipated at once. The indefatibagle Cure gave himself up to the work, heart and soul. His church stood open day and night, and the immense crowds that sur- rounded it, were obliged to wait for hours and sometimes days, to reach the good healer. No one was allowed to take precedence of the rest, except in cases of extreme poverty or extreme suffering. Princes, nobles, and great ladies, often drove up as near as they could to the church in grand carriages, and manifested the utmost astonishment when informed that notwithstanding their rank, they could not be admitted except in turn. The Cure only permitted himself to take four hours sleep, namely from eleven to three, and when he came to the confessional again, the church and all the approaches to it were crowded with those who had waited all night to secure their places. Omnibuses were established to convey patients from Lyons to D'Ars, and the Saone was covered with boats full of anxious pilgrims.
There can be no doubt that the first well marked impulse which experimental spiritualism received through the invocatory processes of the circle, in France, as in many other countries of Europe, was due to the visits of Mr.