336. Let us not forget that Spiritism has enemies interested in opposing it, and who view its success with anger : the most dangerous are not those who attack it openly, but those who act in the dark —those who caress with one hand and mangle with the other. These malevolent beings creep in wherever they hope to do harm ; as they know that union is strength, they endeavor to destroy by throwing in brands of discord. Who, then, can say that those who, in reunions, sow trouble and dissension, are not agents of those who are interested in disorder ? Certainly they are neither true nor good spiritists ; they can never do good, but they can do much harm. It may easily be seen that they have infinitely greater facilities to insinuate themselves into large reunions than into small committees, where all know each other ; under cover of their secret plots, they sow doubt, distrust, and disaffection; under an appearance of hypocritical interest, they criticise every thing, form conventicles and coteries, which soon break up the harmony of the whole : this is what they desire. To appeal to sentiments of charity and fraternity with such persons is like talking to persons willfully deaf, for their aim is precisely to destroy those sentiments, the greatest obstacles to their plots. This state of things, grievous in all societies, is still more so in those of spiritists, because, if they do not lead to a rupture, they cause a preoccupation incompatible with concen tration and attention.
