Spiritist Dissertations
Key to heavens
Society of Montreuil-Sur-Mer, January 5th, 1865
When we consider that everything comes from God and returns to God it is then impossible not to see that in all things in the divine creation the links that unite them also subject them to a work of general progress, and at the same time to an individual progress. Also, one cannot ignore the fact that the law of solidarity that results from all that does not force us to useless sacrifices of all kinds to one another. In addition, God has shown us the first primordial application of the established principles. It is the solidarity found in those principles that lead us to sympathize with other people’s sufferings, to have compassion and to alleviate them. That is not all. The prophets and the divine Messiah Jesus Christ gave us the example of a second application of the principle of solidarity, initially presented through the symbolic religious ceremonies and more frequently by the authority of their teachings, that is the love to thy neighbor; later on, establishing the practice of charity as a strictly necessary duty, the very expression of solidarity. Charity is the act of our submission to the law of God; it is the sign of our moral greatness; the key to heavens. That is the charity that I want to talk to you about. I will discuss only the material side for a simple reason: it is the aspect that interest people the least.
Neither the Christians nor the Spiritists denied the principle or the law of solidarity but tried to subtract its consequences and for that invoked a thousand pretexts. I will mention a few.
Things of the soul or heart, they say, have an infinitely superior price than the material ones, hence the consolation of sufferings through words or wise advices is infinitely worthier than material help. You are right, ladies and gentlemen, if the suffering that you mention has a moral cause; if its reason is in a ulcer of the heart; but if it is hunger, cold or a disease; if, in a word, are provoked by material causes, will your words of wisdom be enough to minimize them? Allow me to doubt. When God placed you on this Earth, if he had forgotten to provide you with the food to your body, would you have found its equivalent in the spiritual support that you are given? But God is not a man. God is eternal wisdom and infinite goodness. He gave you a body of mud but provided the needs of that body by fertilizing the fields and fecundating Earth’s treasures; God added the material help that your body claims to the spiritual nourishment addressed to your soul.
Since then and perhaps because selfishness deprived the poor from his earthly inheritance, how dare you consider yourself good with him? Just because human justice excluded him from the number of those entitled to temporary wealth, wouldn’t your charity find a more equitable justice to offer him? A renowned thinker of this century was not afraid of expressing himself like this, in his memorable profession of faith: “Each bee is entitled to the portion of honey necessary to its own subsistence, and if there are some people that go without the necessary, it means that justice and charity have vanished from your circle.”
However excessive this language may sound to you it still contains a great truth, a truth that may be incomprehensible to many among you, but evident to us, Spirits that are touched by the effects, who see the whole and the causes that produce them.
Ah, someone says, nobody is sorrier than I am for the tough deprivation of the true poor, of the one whose work is insufficient to maintain his family, despite the fatigue, and incapable of joy and happiness; but I considered to be a case of conscience to encourage, through blind liberalities, laziness or misconduct. In fact, I consider charity indispensable to the salvation of man; however, the impossibility of finding the true needs among so many others that are simulated, seem to justify my abstention.
The impossibility of finding the true needs, my friend, is your justification. Notice, however, my friend, that such justification shall never be sanctioned by your conscience and I do not wish any other proof other than your confession, because from the right that the poor has to your elms – and you acknowledge that right – it follows that it is your duty to find him. Do you look for him? The impossibility stops you. It is obvious! Charity has no limits, it is infinite like God from whom it comes, and it sees no impossibility! Yes, something stops you: it is selfishness and God that probes reason and heart will easily find that out under the fallacious pretexts with what you hide it. You can deceive the world, you can momentarily deceive your conscience, but you will never deceive God. In a hundred of years, in a thousand of years you will come back to Earth; you will certainly live here deprived from your current lavishness, bending to the weight of need. I tell you that you will then feel the neglect of the rich, the indifference that you had yourself shown in the past towards the poor. They say that nobility obliges; solidarity obliges even more. The one that breaches that law loses its benefits. The one that fed their selfish nature will suffer, in turn, the neglect of selfishness. Listen to these words by Rousseau:
“As for myself, I know that the poor are my brothers and that I cannot, without an inexcusable hardness, refuse the little support that they ask me. In the majority they are tramps, I agree; but I know well the toughness of life to be able to ignore the many disgraces that an honest man may find in his fate. I how could I be certain that the unknown person that begs for my assistance in the name of God is not an honest man, soon to perish in his misery, and that my refusal will lead to despair? When the elms that you give is not a real help to them, at least it is the witness that you sympathize with their misery, it is a mitigation of the rigidity of the refusal, a kind of salutation that is made.”
It is a son of Genève, ladies and gentlemen, that speaks of fate; it is a philosopher fed by the dry sources of the eighteenth century, fearing to miss an honest man among the unknown that reach out to him, giving to all. He gives to all because they are all his brothers: he knows that! Do you know less than he did gentlemen? I cannot believe that.
But how much should you give, or better saying, what is the part of your possessions that belongs to you and the one that belongs to the poor? You part, ladies and gentlemen, is the necessary and nothing beyond the necessary, and you must not exaggerate. It is useless to prevail from your position, the responsibilities that follow from that, the luxurious obligations that it entitles. All that is related to the world and if you want to live for the world you will not advance but with the world; you will not move faster than the world.
In vain still you will allege, in order to justify your habits of slackness, a work which is not performed by the poor, and which, practiced at home and by you, makes you a beneficiary of greater ease; In vain will you alleviate this, because every man is bound to work, either for himself or for others, because the carelessness of his neighbor would not absolve him of the abandonment in which he would have abandoned you.
From your patrimony, as from your work, you are not allowed to take in your benefit but what is necessary to you. The rest is to the poor. That is the law. I don’t deny the fact that in certain cases and under certain circumstances this law involves temperament; however, before the divine light and truth there is none of that.
How about family? Are we done just because we help those that we call poor? No, evidently not gentlemen, because as soon as you acknowledge the need to deprive yourself in favor of the poor it is time to establish a hierarchy. Well, your women and your children are you first poor; they are the ones to deserve your first elms. Take care of the future of your children; make sure you help to prepare calm and tranquil days for them amidst this vale of tears; even leave a small inheritance that allows them to continue your good work: that is legitimate. However, do not teach them to live egoistically and to look at things that belong to everyone as if they were theirs. Before and after them, the authors of your days, those that fed and kept you, those that protected your first steps and guided your adolescence, your father and your mother, have the right to your solicitude. Then come the souls that God gave you as your bloody brothers; then your heartily friends; finally, every poor, starting from the most miserable ones.
I saw them, I give you temperaments, establish a hierarchy according to your instincts. Avoid, nonetheless, to favor too much ones with the exclusion of others. It is through the equitable partition of your benefits that you will show your wisdom, and it is still through that equitable partition that you shall obey God’s law with respect to your brothers, that is the law of solidarity.
Lamennais says that “justice is life; charity is also life but a more beautiful and sweet life”. Yes, charity is a beautiful and sweet life, it is the life of the saints, it is the key to heavens.
Lacordaire
Faith
Spiritist Group of Douai, June 7th, 1865
Plain faith on Earth is searching for a place to dwell and a heart to enlighten. Where will it go? To begin with it will penetrate and take over the soul of the primitive man; it will place a temporary veil onto reason that begins to develop, vacillating in the darkness of the spirit. It will lead mankind through the ages of simplicity and become the master of revelations. However, since reason is not matured enough to distinguish between true and false and judge what comes from God, it will lead humanity out of the right path, hand and hand and with a veil on the eyes. There have been many detours, since that is the flagship of a blind faith with its meaning and utility.
The virtue disappears when the soul, presenting that it can see with its own eyes, keeps the faith away and only marches with reason that helps to erase false beliefs that were adopted without examination. Reason is good for that. But people find many mysteries and obscure truths in their path, getting confused when attempting to unveil them. Their judgment cannot follow it; they are in a hurry, but any progression is gradual. The faith that was repelled is no longer there, as with reason that they wanted to surpass. They then do like the fearful butterfly, burning the wings in the light and getting lost in impossible deviations. That is the origin of the bad philosophy that sought too much and replaced nothing.
It was time for transformation. Man was no longer the blind believer or the believe that rationalize belief; it was a universal crisis represented by the chrysalis. Clarity shines when sought in darkness and many deviated souls find the light, faded by so many useless deviations, then returning as guides and eternal leaders. Faith and reason make us move forward, and their combined beams of light prevent us from getting lost once again. Faith is then founded on the solid basis of reason that in turn is helped by inspiration.
It is your chance, friends. Follow the path. God is at the end.
Demeure
