The Spiritist review — Journal of psychological studies — 1858

Be good and charitable, this is the key placed in your hands. The whole eternal happiness is contained in this statement: “Love one another”. The soul cannot rise to the spiritual regions unless through dedication to their neighbor; it cannot find happiness and consolation but in the ecstasy of charity. Be good, help thy brothers, and put aside this horrible ulcer of selfishness. Once this duty has been accomplished it shall open to you the paths of eternal happiness. As a matter of fact, who among you has not felt the heart beat and intimate joy expanding by the practice of one single act of charity? You should not think but in that kind of happiness provided by a good deed, with what you shall always be in the path of spiritual progress. There is no lack of examples. It is only the will power that is rare.

See the crowd of good men whose devoted memory history remembers. I can name by the thousands those whose moral had no other objective but to improve your globe. Hasn’t Christ told you everything that concerns the virtues of charity and love? Why His Divine teachings are left aside? Why are the ears covered to His Divine words and the heart closed to all his sooth teachings?

I wish the reading of the Gospel were done with more personal interest. But that book is abandoned; it is transformed into empty expressions and dead words; that remarkable code is forgotten. All your evils come from the voluntary abandonment allowed to its summary of the Divine laws. Thus, read those pages of fire from Jesus’ devotement and meditate about them. I feel ashamed myself for daring to promise you an essay about charity when I think that in that book you will find all teachings that should take you to the celestial regions.

Strong men, get ready; weak men, have by weapons your kindness and your faith; have more persuasion, more constancy in the propagation of your new doctrine. We only came to bring you encouragement; it is only to stimulate the zeal and virtues that God allows us to manifest to you. But, if you want, you won’t need anything but God’s help and your own will power. The spiritist manifestations were made but to the closed eyes and indocile hearts. There are men among you that must execute missions of love and charity: listen to them and exalt their voices; make their merits shine and you will be exalted by the disinterest and by the living faith that shall impregnate you.

Too extensive and detailed should be the advices given to you about the widening of the circle of charity; about the inclusion of all the unfortunate in this circle whose miseries are ignored; about every pain which should be sought after in their own refuge to console them in the name of this Divine virtue, charity. I see with satisfaction the number of prominent and powerful men that help in the search for that progress, which shall unite all human classes: the fortunate and the disgraced. Strange thing! All the unfortunate extend their hands and help one another in their own misery. Why do the happy ones take so long to hear the voices of the unfortunate? Why is it necessary a powerful earthly hand to promote the charitable missions? Why don’t they respond with more zeal to those appeals? Why do they allow misery, as if with pleasure, blemishing the image of humanity?

Charity is the fundamental virtue that must sustain the whole edifice of the earthly virtues. Without it there is no other. Without charity, there is no faith or hope. Without charity, there is no hope of a better fate or moral interest to guide us. Without charity, there is no faith since faith is a pure light beam that enlightens a charitable soul. It is its decisive consequence.

When you allow your heart open to the first supplicating miserable whose hand reaches out to you; when you extend your hand not asking if that misery is true or if that fate has a vice by cause; when you let the whole justice in God’s hands; when you pass to the Creator the punishment of all false miseries; finally when you practice charity by the pleasure it provides, without questioning its utility, then you shall be the children that God will love and embrace.

Charity is the eternal anchor of salvation in all globes; it is the purest emanation of the Creator; it is His own virtue passed on to the creatures. How can you ignore such a supreme benevolence? With that thought, who would be the sufficiently perverse heart to suppress and repel that Divine feeling? Who would be the sufficiently evil child to rebel against such a sweet touch of charity?

I dare not mention what I have done as the spirits also have the modesty of their work. However I think that the work I have initiated is one of those that should contribute a lot to alleviate your neighbors. I frequently see spirits requesting the mission to continue my work; I see my kind and dear sisters in their devout and divine ministry; I see them practicing the virtues that I recommend to you, finding the true joy provided by their existence of devotement and sacrifices. It is a great happiness to me to see how much dignified their character is; how much appreciated and protected their mission is. Good men, men of good and strong will, unite to continue the work of amplifying the propagation of charity. You shall find the reward of such a virtue through its own exercise. There isn’t a spiritual happiness that cannot be provided by that, in this existence already. Be united; love one another, according to the precepts of Christ.

Amen.