Part 24 (2/2)

If the apparitions of the souls of the dead were things in nature and of their own choice, there would be few persons who would not come back to visit the things or the persons which have been dear to them during this life. St. Augustine says it of his mother, St.

Monica,[343] who had so tender and constant an affection for him, and who, while she lived, followed him and sought him by sea and land.

The bad rich man would not have failed, either, to come in person to his brethren and relations to inform them of the wretched condition in which he found himself in h.e.l.l. It is a pure favor of the mercy or the power of G.o.d, and which he grants to very few persons, to make their appearance after death; for which reason we should be very much on our guard against all that is said, and all that we find written on the subject in books.

Footnotes:

[328] Matt. vi. 16. Mark vi. 43.

[329] Acts xii. 13, 14.

[330] Luke xxi. 14, 15.

[331] Luke ix. 32.

[332] Matt. xxvii. 34.

[333] 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, ad finem.

[334] Augustin de Diversis Quaest. ad Simplicium, Quaest. cxi.

[335] Acts xxvi. 17.

[336] Macc. x. 29.

[337] 2 Macc. x. 29.

[338] 1 Macc. xi. 1.

[339] Deut. xviii. 11.

[340] Gen. xix. 11.

[341] 2 Kings vi. 19.

[342] Luke xxvi. 16.

[343] Aug. de Cura gerenda pro Mortuis, c. xiii.

CHAPTER XL.

APPARITIONS OF SPIRITS PROVED FROM HISTORY.

St. Augustine[344] acknowledges that the dead have often appeared to the living, have revealed to them the spot where their body remained unburied, and have shown them that where they wished to be interred.

He says, moreover, that a noise was often heard in churches where the dead were inhumed, and that dead persons have been seen often to enter the houses wherein they dwelt before their decease.

<script>