BLESSED ARE THE MEEK AND THE PEACEMAKERS.

Insults and violence. — INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SPIRITS:

Affability and gentleness.

— Patience.

— Obedience and resignation.

— Anger.

Insults and violence.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the Earth. (Saint Matthew, chapter V, v. 4.)

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.

(Idem.

v. 9.)

You know that it was said to the ancients: You shall not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall deserve condemnation by the judgment. — But I say to you that whosoever shall put himself in anger against his brother shall deserve to be condemned in the judgment; that he who shall say to his brother: Raca, shall deserve to be condemned by the council; and that he who shall say to him: You are a fool, shall deserve to be condemned to the fire of hell. (Idem, vv. 21 and 22.)

By these maxims, Jesus makes a law of meekness, of moderation, of gentleness, of affability, and of patience; 2 he therefore condemns violence, anger, and even every discourteous expression that anyone might use toward his fellow men.

Raca, among the Hebrews, was a disdainful term that meant a man worth nothing, and it was pronounced while spitting and turning the head to the side.

He goes even further, for he threatens with the fire of hell him who shall say to his brother: You are a fool.

It becomes evident that here, as in all circumstances, the intention aggravates or mitigates the fault; 6 but how can a single word take on such gravity that it deserves so severe a reproof?

It is because every offensive word expresses a sentiment contrary to the law of love and charity that must preside over the relations among men and maintain concord and union among them; 8 it is because it constitutes a blow struck against reciprocal benevolence and fraternity; 9 it is because it sustains hatred and animosity; 10 it is, finally, because, after humility toward God, charity toward one's neighbor is the first law of every Christian.

But what did Jesus mean by these words: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the Earth,” having recommended to men that they renounce the goods of this world and having promised them those of Heaven?

While he awaits the goods of Heaven, man has need of those of the Earth in order to live. Only, what he recommends to him is that he not attach more importance to the latter than to the former.

By those words he meant that until now the goods of the Earth are monopolized by the violent, to the detriment of those who are meek and peaceful; that these latter often lack what is necessary, while others have the superfluous. He promises that justice will be done to them, on the Earth as in Heaven, for they shall be called children of God.

When Humanity submits to the law of love and of charity, there will cease to be selfishness; the weak and the peaceful will no longer be exploited, nor crushed by the strong and the violent.

Such will be the condition of the Earth when, according to the law of progress and the promise of Jesus, it shall have become a happy world, by the effect of the removal of the wicked. INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SPIRITS.

Affability and gentleness.

Benevolence toward one's fellow men, fruit of love for one's neighbor, produces affability and gentleness, which are its forms of manifestation.

Nevertheless, one must not always trust in appearances. Education and the frequenting of the world can give man the veneer of these qualities.

How many there are whose feigned good nature is nothing but a mask for the exterior, a garment whose exquisite cut conceals the inner deformities!

The world is full of these creatures who have a smile on their lips and poison in their heart; who are gentle so long as nothing vexes them, but who bite at the least contrariety; whose tongue, of gold when they speak to your face, turns into a venomous dart when they are behind your back.

To this class also belong those men of benign exterior who, domestic tyrants, make their families and their subordinates suffer the weight of their pride and despotism, as though wishing to avenge themselves for the constraint that, outside the home, they impose upon themselves. Not daring to use authority toward strangers, who would call them to order, they think that at least they must make themselves feared by those who cannot resist them. They take vanity in being able to say: “Here I command and I am obeyed,” without its occurring to them that they could add: “And I am detested.”

It is not enough that milk and honey flow from the lips. If the heart is in no way associated with it, there is only hypocrisy.

He whose affability and gentleness are not feigned never belies himself: he is the same, both in society and in private; 8 such a one, moreover, knows that if, by appearances, one may succeed in deceiving men, no one deceives God. — (LAZARUS. Paris, 1861.)

Patience.

Pain is a blessing that God sends to his elect; do not be distressed, then, when you suffer; rather, bless almighty God who, through pain, in this world, has marked you for glory in Heaven.

Be patient. Patience too is a charity, and you must practice the law of charity taught by the Christ, the envoy of God.

The charity that consists in alms given to the poor is the easiest of all; 4 there is another, however, much more painful and, consequently, much more meritorious: that of forgiving those whom God has placed in our path to be the instruments of our suffering and to put our patience to the test.

Life is difficult, I well know. It is composed of a thousand trifles, which are so many pinpricks, but which end up wounding. If, however, we consider the duties that are imposed upon us, the consolations and compensations that, on the other hand, we receive, we shall recognize that the blessings are far more numerous than the pains.

The burden seems less heavy when one looks upward than when one bends the brow toward the earth.

Courage, friends! You have in the Christ your model. He suffered more than any of you and had nothing for which to do penance, whereas you have to expiate your past and to fortify yourselves for the future.

Be patient, then, be Christians. That word sums up everything. — (A FRIENDLY SPIRIT. Le Havre, 1862.)

Obedience and resignation.

The doctrine of Jesus teaches, in all its points, obedience and resignation, two virtues that are companions of gentleness and very active, even though men wrongly confuse them with the negation of sentiment and of will.

Obedience is the consent of reason; 3 resignation is the consent of the heart, 4 both active forces, inasmuch as they carry the burden of trials that senseless revolt lets fall.

The pusillanimous cannot be resigned, just as the proud and the selfish cannot be obedient.

Jesus was the incarnation of these virtues that material Antiquity despised.

He came at the moment when Roman society was perishing in the failings of corruption. He came to make the triumphs of sacrifice and of carnal renunciation shine forth in the bosom of a debased Humanity.

Each epoch is thus marked with the stamp of the virtue or the vice that is to save it or ruin it.

The virtue of your generation is intellectual activity; its vice is moral indifference.

I say only activity, because genius rises suddenly and discovers, by itself alone, horizons that the multitude will see only later, whereas activity is the union of the efforts of all to attain an end less brilliant, but which proves the intellectual elevation of an epoch.

Submit to the impulse that we come to give to your spirits; obey the great law of progress, which is the watchword of your generation.

Woe to the lazy spirit, woe to him who closes his understanding! Woe to him! for we, who are the guides of Humanity on the march, shall apply the lash to him and shall subdue his rebellious will, by means of the double action of the bit and the spur; 13 all proud resistance will, sooner or later, have to be overcome. Blessed, however, are the meek, for they will lend a docile ear to the teachings. — (LAZARUS. Paris, 1863.) Anger.

Pride induces you to judge yourselves more than you are; 2 to not endure a comparison that may lower you; to consider yourselves, on the contrary, so far above your brothers, whether in spirit, or in social position, or even in personal advantages, 3 that the slightest parallel irritates and annoys you; what happens then? You give yourselves over to anger.

Search out the origin of these fits of passing madness that make you resemble the brute, causing you to lose your composure and your reason; search, and almost always you will come upon wounded pride.

What is it that makes you, the wrathful, repel the most considered counsels, if not pride wounded by a contradiction?

Even the impatiences, which arise from contrarieties that are often childish, stem from the importance that each one attaches to his own personality, before which he holds that all must bend.

In his frenzy, the wrathful man hurls himself at everything: at brute nature, at inanimate objects, breaking them because they do not obey him. Ah! if in those moments he could observe himself in cold blood, either he would be afraid of himself, or he would find himself quite ridiculous! Let him imagine what impression he will produce on others. Were it only out of the respect he owes himself, it behooves him to strive to overcome an inclination that makes him an object of pity.

If he considered that anger remedies nothing, that it impairs his health and even compromises his life, he would recognize that he himself is its first victim; 9 but another consideration, above all, ought to restrain him, that of his making unhappy all those who surround him. If he has a heart, will it not be a cause of remorse to him to make suffer the beings he most loves? And what mortal regret if, in a fit of fury, he were to commit an act that he would have to deplore his whole life!

In short, anger does not exclude certain qualities of the heart, but it prevents much good from being done and can lead to the doing of much evil. This should suffice to induce man to strive to master it.

The Spiritist, moreover, is urged to this by another motive: that anger is contrary to Christian charity and humility. — (A PROTECTING SPIRIT. Bordeaux, 1863.)

According to the utterly false idea that it is not possible for him to reform his own nature, man judges himself excused from employing efforts to correct himself of the defects in which he willingly takes pleasure, or that would require much perseverance to be extirpated; 2 it is thus, for example, that the individual prone to becoming angry almost always excuses himself by his temperament.

Instead of confessing himself guilty, he casts the blame on his organism, thereby accusing God of his own faults.

This is still a consequence of the pride that is found mingled in all his imperfections.

Undoubtedly, there are temperaments that lend themselves more than others to violent acts, just as there are more supple muscles that lend themselves better to acts of strength. Do not believe, however, that therein lies the primordial cause of anger, and persuade yourselves that a peaceful Spirit, even in a bilious body, will always be peaceful, and that a violent Spirit, even in a lymphatic body, will not be gentle; only, the violence will take on another character. Not having at its disposal an organism apt to second its violence, the anger will become concentrated, whereas in the other case it will be expansive.

The body does not give anger to him who has none of it, just as it does not give the other vices. All virtues and all vices are inherent in the Spirit. Were it not so, where would the merit and the responsibility be?

The deformed man cannot make himself straight, because the Spirit cannot act upon this; but he can modify what belongs to the Spirit, when he wills it with firm will.

Does not experience show you, Spiritists, how far the power of the will is capable of going, by the truly miraculous transformations that take place before your eyes? Be convinced, then, that man does not remain vicious except because he wishes to remain vicious; that he who wishes to correct himself can always do so. Otherwise, the law of progress would not exist for man. — (HAHNEMANN. Paris, 1863.)