BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL.

Forgive, so that God may forgive you. — Reconciliation with adversaries.

— The sacrifice most pleasing to God.

— The mote and the beam in the eye.

— Judge not, that you be not judged. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

— INSTRUCTIONS OF THE SPIRITS: Forgiveness of offenses.

— Indulgence.

— Is it permitted to reprove others;

to note the imperfections of others;

to divulge the evil of others?

Forgive, so that God may forgive you.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

(Saint Matthew, chapter V, v. 7.)

If you forgive men the faults they commit against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your sins; — but, if you do not forgive men when they have offended you, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your sins. (Saint Matthew, chapter VI, vv. 14 and 15.)

If your brother has sinned against you, go and make him feel the fault in private, alone with him; if he heeds you, you will have gained your brother. — Then, approaching him, Peter said to him: Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother, when he has sinned against me? Up to seven times? — Jesus answered him:

I do not tell you that you forgive up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven times. (Saint Matthew, chapter XVIII, vv. 15, 21 and 22.)

Mercy is the complement of gentleness, for he who is not merciful cannot be gentle and peaceable; 2 it consists in the forgetting and the forgiveness of offenses.

Hatred and rancor denote a soul without elevation or grandeur; 4 the forgetting of offenses is proper to the elevated soul, which hovers above the blows that may be dealt against it; 5 the one is always anxious, of somber susceptibility and full of gall; the other is calm, all meekness and charity.

Woe to him who says: I will never forgive. Such a one, if he is not condemned by men, will be so by God.

By what right could he claim the forgiveness of his own faults, if he does not forgive those of others?

Jesus teaches us that mercy must have no limits, when he says that each one forgive his brother, not seven times, but seventy times seven times.

There are, however, two very different ways of forgiving: 10 one, great, noble, truly generous, without hidden thought, which avoids, with delicacy, wounding the self-love and the susceptibility of the adversary, even when the latter can have no justification; 11 the second is that in which the offended one, or he who believes himself to be so, imposes upon the other humiliating conditions and makes him feel the weight of a forgiveness that irritates instead of soothing; if he extends his hand to the offender, he does so not with benevolence, but with ostentation, in order to be able to say to everyone: see how generous I am! In such circumstances, a sincere reconciliation on both sides is impossible. No, there is no generosity there; there is only a way of satisfying pride.

In every dispute, he who shows himself most conciliatory, who demonstrates the most disinterestedness, charity and true grandeur of soul, will always win the sympathy of impartial persons. Reconciliation with adversaries.

Reconcile yourself as quickly as possible with your adversary, while you are with him on the way, lest he deliver you to the judge, the judge deliver you to the officer of justice, and you be cast into prison.

— I tell you, in truth, that you shall not come out from there, until you have paid the last farthing. (Saint Matthew, chapter V, vv. 25 and 26.)

In the practice of forgiveness, as, in general, in that of good, there is not only a moral effect: there is also a material effect.

Death, as we know, does not deliver us from our enemies; 3 vengeful Spirits often pursue, with their hatred, beyond the tomb, those against whom they hold rancor; whence follows the falsity of the proverb that says: "With the animal dead, the venom is dead," when applied to man.

The evil Spirit waits for the other one toward whom he bears ill will to be bound to his body and, thus, less free, in order more easily to torment him, to wound him in his interests, or in his dearest affections.

In this fact lies the cause of the majority of cases of obsession, above all of those that present a certain gravity, such as those of subjugation and possession.

The obsessed and the possessed are, then, almost always victims of a vengeance, the motive of which is found in a prior existence, and to which the one who suffers it gave occasion by his conduct. God permits it to punish them for the evil that they in their turn committed, or, if such did not occur, because they failed in indulgence and charity, not forgiving.

It is important, consequently, from the point of view of future tranquillity, that each one repair, as soon as possible, the wrongs he may have caused his neighbor, that he forgive his enemies, in order that, before death comes to him, every motive of dissension, every well-founded cause of later animosity, may be erased.

In this way, from an enemy fierce in this world one can make a friend in the other; at the least, he who acts thus puts good right on his side, and God does not consent that he who has forgiven suffer any vengeance.

When Jesus recommends that we reconcile ourselves as soon as possible with our adversary, it is not only with the aim of appeasing the discords of our present existence; it is, principally, that they may not be perpetuated in future existences. You shall not come out from there, from the prison, until you have paid to the last penny, that is, until you have completely satisfied the justice of God. The sacrifice most pleasing to God.

If, therefore, when you go to lay your offering on the altar, you remember that your brother has anything against you, — leave your gift at the altar and go, first, to reconcile yourself with your brother;

then, afterward, return to offer it. (Saint Matthew, chapter V, vv. 23 and 24.)

When he says: "Go and reconcile yourself with your brother, before you lay your offering on the altar," Jesus teaches that the sacrifice most pleasing to the Lord is that which man makes of his own resentment; 2 that, before presenting himself to be forgiven by him, man must have forgiven and repaired the wrong he has done to any of his brothers. Only then will his offering be well received, because it will come from a heart purged of any and every evil thought.

He materialized the precept, because the Jews offered material sacrifices; it behooved him to conform his words to the usages still in vogue.

The Christian does not offer material gifts, since he has spiritualized the sacrifice. By this, however, the precept gains still more force.

He offers his soul to God, and that soul must be purified; 6 entering the temple of the Lord, he must leave outside every sentiment of hatred and of animosity, every evil thought against his brother. Only then will the angels carry his prayer to the feet of the Eternal.

Here is what Jesus teaches by these words: Leave your offering at the altar and go first to reconcile yourself with your brother, if you wish to be pleasing to the Lord. The mote and the beam in the eye.

How is it that you see a mote in your brother's eye, when you do not see a beam in your own eye? — Or, how is it that you say to your brother:

Let me take a mote out of your eye, you who have in yours a beam? — Hypocrites, take first the beam out of your own eye, and then, afterward, see how you may take the mote out of your brother's eye. (Saint Matthew, chapter VII, vv. 3 to 5.)

One of the follies of Humanity consists in our seeing the evil of others before seeing the evil that is in us.

To judge oneself, it would be necessary that man could see his interior in a mirror, could, in a certain manner, transport himself outside himself, consider himself as another person and ask: What would I think, if I saw someone do what I do?

Incontestably, it is pride that induces man to dissimulate, from himself, his own defects, both moral and physical.

Such folly is essentially contrary to charity, for true charity is modest, simple and indulgent; 5 proud charity is a contradiction, since these two sentiments neutralize one another.

Indeed, how could a man, presumptuous enough to believe in the importance of his personality and in the supremacy of his qualities, possess at the same time abnegation enough to bring out in another the good that would eclipse him, instead of the evil that would exalt him?

For this very reason, because it is the father of many vices, pride is also the negation of many virtues; 8 it is found at the base and as the motive of almost all human actions.

This is the reason why Jesus strove so much to combat it, as the principal obstacle to progress. Judge not, that you be not judged. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

Judge not, so that you be not judged; — for you shall be judged according as you have judged others, and the same measure that you have used toward others shall be used with you. (Saint Matthew, chapter VII, vv. 1 and 2.)

Then, the scribes and the Pharisees brought him a woman who had been caught in adultery and, setting her on her feet in the midst of the people, — said to Jesus: Master, this woman has just been caught in adultery; now, Moses, by the law, ordains that adulteresses be stoned. What is your opinion on this? — They said this to tempt him and to have something of which to accuse him. Jesus, however, stooping down, began to write on the ground with his finger. — As they continued to question him, he rose up and said: Let him among you who is without sin cast the first stone. — Then, stooping down again, he continued to write on the ground. — As for those who questioned him, hearing him speak in that manner, they withdrew, one after another, the elders departing first; Jesus remained, then, alone with the woman, placed in the midst of the square. Then, rising up, Jesus asked her: Woman, where are those who accused you? Has no one condemned you? — She answered: No, Lord.

Jesus said to her: Neither will I condemn you. Go, and in the future do not sin again. (Saint John, chapter VIII, vv. 3 to 11.)

"Let him who is free of sin cast the first stone at her," said Jesus. This sentence makes indulgence a duty for us, because there is no one who does not himself need indulgence.

It teaches us that we must not judge others with more severity than we judge ourselves, 3 nor condemn in another that of which we absolve ourselves.

Before we denounce a fault in someone, let us see whether the same reproach cannot be made to us.

The reproof leveled at the conduct of another may obey two motives: to repress the evil, or to discredit the person whose acts are criticized. This latter purpose never has any excuse, for, in that case, then, there is only slander and malice. The first may be praiseworthy and even constitutes, on certain occasions, a duty, because a good is to result from it, and because, were it not so, evil would never be repressed in society.

Is it not, moreover, incumbent on man to aid the progress of his fellow? It is important, then, that this principle not be taken in an absolute sense: "Judge not, if you do not wish to be judged," for the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

It is not possible that Jesus prohibited the denouncing of evil, since he himself gave us the example, having done it, even, in energetic terms. What he meant to signify is that the authority to censure is in direct ratio to the moral authority of him who censures; 8 to become guilty of that which one condemns in another is to abdicate that authority, is to deprive oneself of the right of repression.

The intimate conscience, moreover, denies respect and voluntary submission to him who, invested with some power, violates the laws and the principles with the application of which he is charged.

In the eyes of God, only one legitimate authority exists: that which rests on the example it gives of good. This is what, likewise, stands out from the words of Jesus. INSTRUCTIONS OF THE SPIRITS.

Forgiveness of offenses.

How many times shall I forgive my brother? You shall forgive him, not seven times, but seventy times seven times. Here you have one of the teachings of Jesus that should most strike your intelligence and speak most loudly to your heart.

Compare these words of mercy with the prayer so simple, so concise and so great in its aspirations, that he taught his disciples, and the same thought will always present itself to you. He, the just one par excellence, answers Peter: you shall forgive, but without limit; you shall forgive each offense as many times as it is done to you; 3 you shall teach your brothers that forgetting of oneself, which makes a creature invulnerable to attack, to bad behavior and to insults; 4 you shall be gentle and humble of heart, without measuring your meekness; 5 you shall do, in short, what you wish that the heavenly Father do for you. Does he not forgive you frequently? Does he by chance count the times that his forgiveness descends to erase your faults?

Lend, then, an ear to this answer of Jesus and, like Peter, apply it to yourselves. Forgive, use indulgence, be charitable, generous, lavish even of your love.

Give, and the Lord will restore to you; forgive, and the Lord will forgive you; bow down, and the Lord will raise you up; humble yourselves, and the Lord will make you sit at his right hand.

Go, my well-beloved, study and comment on these words that I address to you on behalf of him who, from the heights of the celestial splendors, has you always under his gaze and pursues with love the thankless task he began eighteen centuries ago.

Forgive your brothers, as you need to be forgiven. If their acts have personally harmed you, one more motive you have to be indulgent, for the merit of forgiveness is proportioned to the gravity of the evil; 10 you would have no merit in overlooking the wrongs of your brothers, if they were no more than mere scratches.

Spiritists, never forget that, both by words and by acts, the forgiveness of injuries must not be an empty term. Since you call yourselves Spiritists, be such. Forget the evil that may have been done to you and think only of one thing: of the good that you can do.

He who has set out upon that path must not turn away from it, even in thought, since you are responsible for your thoughts, all of which God knows.

Take care, therefore, to purge them of every sentiment of rancor. God knows what lingers in the depths of the heart of each of his children. Happy, then, is he who can every night fall asleep, saying: I have nothing against my neighbor. — (SIMEON. Bordeaux, 1862.)

To forgive enemies is to ask forgiveness for oneself; 2 to forgive friends is to give them a proof of friendship; 3 to forgive offenses is to show oneself better than one was. Forgive, then, my friends, so that God may forgive you, for, if you are hard, demanding, inflexible, if you use rigor even for a slight offense, how can you wish that God forget that each day you have greater need of indulgence?

Oh! woe to him who says: "I will never forgive," for he pronounces his own condemnation.

Who knows, moreover, whether, descending into the depths of yourselves, you will not recognize that you were the aggressor? Who knows whether, in that quarrel that begins with a pinprick and ends in a rupture, you were not the one who struck the first blow, whether some injurious word did not escape you, whether you did not act with all the necessary moderation?

Without doubt, your adversary did wrong in showing himself excessively susceptible; all the more reason for you to be indulgent and not to make yourselves deserving of the invective you hurled at him.

Let us admit that, in a given circumstance, you were really offended: who will say that you did not envenom things by means of reprisals and that you did not cause to degenerate into a serious quarrel what could easily have fallen into oblivion? If it depended on you to prevent the consequences of the matter and you did not prevent them, you are guilty.

Let us admit, finally, that you recognize yourselves deserving of no reproach: show yourselves clement, and by this you will only make your merit grow.

But there are two very different ways of forgiving: there is the forgiveness of the lips and the forgiveness of the heart.

Many persons say, with reference to their adversary: "I forgive him," but, inwardly, they rejoice at the evil that befalls him, remarking that he has what he deserves.

How many do not say: "I forgive" and add: "but I will never reconcile; I do not want to see him again in all my life." Is that forgiveness, according to the Gospel?

No; true forgiveness, Christian forgiveness, is that which casts a veil over the past; that is the only one that will be counted to you, since God is not satisfied with appearances. He probes the recesses of the heart and the most secret thoughts. No one imposes upon him by means of vain words and pretenses.

The complete and absolute forgetting of offenses is peculiar to great souls; rancor is always a sign of baseness and of inferiority.

Do not forget that true forgiveness is recognized much more by acts than by words. — (PAUL, apostle. Lyon, 1861.) Indulgence.

Spiritists, we wish to speak to you today of indulgence, a sentiment sweet and fraternal which every man must nourish toward his brothers, but of which very few make use.

Indulgence does not see the defects of others, or, if it sees them, avoids speaking of them, divulging them; 3 on the contrary, it conceals them, so that they may become known to it alone, and, if malevolence discovers them, it always has an excuse ready for them, an excuse plausible, serious, not of those that, with the appearance of attenuating the fault, only make it more evident with perfidious intention.

Indulgence never occupies itself with the evil acts of others, unless it be to render a service; but, even in this case, it takes care to attenuate them as much as possible.

It makes no shocking observations, has no reproaches on its lips; only counsel, and, most often, veiled.

When you criticize, what consequence is to be drawn from your words? That you would not have done what you reprove, since you are censuring; that you are worth more than the guilty one.

O men! when will you judge your own hearts, your own thoughts, your own acts, without occupying yourselves with what your brothers do? When will you have severe glances only upon yourselves?

Be, then, severe toward yourselves, indulgent toward others.

Remember him who judges in last instance, who sees the intimate thoughts of every heart and who, consequently, often excuses the faults you censure, or condemns what you overlook, because he knows the motive of all acts, 10 and that you, who cry out in loud voices: anathema! have, perhaps, committed graver faults.

Be indulgent, my friends, for indulgence attracts, soothes, raises up, whereas rigor discourages, drives away and irritates. (JOSEPH, protecting Spirit. Bordeaux, 1863.)

Be indulgent toward the faults of others, whatever they may be; 2 judge with severity only your own actions, and the Lord will use indulgence toward you, as you have used indulgence toward others.

Sustain the strong: encourage them to perseverance; 4 strengthen the weak, showing them the goodness of God, who takes into account the least repentance; show to all the angel of penitence extending his white wings over the faults of men and thus veiling them from the gaze of him who cannot tolerate what is impure.

Understand all of you the infinite mercy of your Father and never forget to say to him, by thoughts, but, above all, by acts: "Forgive us our offenses, as we forgive those who have offended us." Understand well the value of these sublime words, in which not only the letter is admirable, but principally the teaching it clothes.

What is it that you ask of the Lord, when you implore for yourselves his forgiveness? Is it solely the forgetting of your offenses? A forgetting that would leave you in nothingness, for, if God limited himself to forgetting your faults, He would not punish, it is true, but neither would He reward.

The reward cannot constitute a prize for the good that was not done, nor, still less, for the evil that has been committed, though that evil were forgotten.

In asking him to forgive your deviations, what you ask of him is the favor of his graces, so as not to relapse into them, it is the strength you need to set out upon other paths, those of submission and of love, on which you will be able to join to repentance the reparation.

When you forgive your brothers, do not content yourselves with extending the veil of forgetting over their faults, for, most often, too transparent is that veil for your gaze. Bring to them simultaneously, with forgiveness, love; 10 do for them what you would ask your heavenly Father to do for you.

Replace the anger that defiles with the love that purifies.

Preach, by example, that active, indefatigable charity that Jesus taught you; preach it, as he did during all the time he was on Earth, visible to corporeal eyes, and as he still preaches it ceaselessly, since he became visible only to the eyes of the Spirit.

Follow that divine model; walk in his footsteps; they will lead you to the refuge where you will find rest after the struggle. Like him, carry all of you your crosses and climb painfully, but with courage, your calvary, at the summit of which is glorification. — (JOHN, bishop of Bordeaux. 1862.)

Dear friends, be severe toward yourselves, indulgent toward the weaknesses of others. This is a practice of holy charity, which very few persons observe.

You all have evil inclinations to overcome, defects to correct, habits to modify; you all have a more or less heavy burden to cast off, in order to be able to climb the summit of the mountain of progress. Why, then, must you show yourselves so clear-sighted with respect to your neighbor and so blind with respect to yourselves? When will you cease to perceive, in the eyes of your brothers, the tiny mote that troubles them, without attending to the beam that, in your own eyes, blinds you, making you go from fall to fall?

Believe in your brothers, the Spirits. Every man, proud enough to judge himself superior, in virtue and merit, to his incarnate brothers, is foolish and guilty: God will chastise him on the day of his justice.

The true character of charity is modesty and humility, which consist in each one's seeing only superficially the defects of others and striving to make prevail what there is in him of good and virtuous, for, though the human heart be an abyss of corruption, there is always, in some of its most hidden folds, the germ of good sentiments, a living spark of the spiritual essence.

Spiritism! consoling and blessed doctrine! happy are those who know you and draw profit from the salutary teachings of the Spirits of the Lord! For these, the path is illumined, along which they can read these words that indicate to them the means of reaching the end of the journey: practical charity, charity of the heart, charity toward one's neighbor, as toward oneself; 6 in a word: charity toward all and love of God above all things, 7 because love of God sums up all duties and because it is impossible truly to love God without practicing charity, of which he made a law for all creatures. — (DUFÊTRE, bishop of Nevers. Bordeaux.) [Is it permitted to reprove others?]

No one being perfect, does it follow that no one has the right to reprove his neighbor?

Certainly that is not the conclusion to be drawn, for each of you must work for the progress of all and, above all, of those whose guardianship has been entrusted to you. But, for that very reason, you must do it with moderation, for a useful end, and not, as most often happens, for the pleasure of denigrating. In this latter case, the reproof is a malice; in the first, it is a duty that charity commands be fulfilled with all possible care.

Moreover, the censure that someone makes to another he must at the same time direct to himself, seeking to know whether he has not deserved it. — (SAINT LOUIS. Paris, 1860.) [To note the imperfections of others.]

Is it reprehensible to note the imperfections of others, when no profit can result from it for them, provided they are not divulged?

Everything depends on the intention; 2 certainly, no one is forbidden to see the evil, when it exists. It would even be unbecoming to see everywhere only the good. Such an illusion would prejudice progress.

The error lies in causing the observation to redound to the detriment of one's neighbor, discrediting him, needlessly, in general opinion.

Equally reprehensible would it be for someone to do it merely to give vent to a sentiment of malevolence and to the satisfaction of catching others in fault.

It is entirely the contrary when, extending a veil over the evil, so that the public may not see it, he who notes the defects of his neighbor does it for his own personal profit, that is, to exercise himself in avoiding what he reproves in others.

This observation, in sum, is it not profitable to the moralist? How would he depict human defects, if he did not study the models? — (SAINT LOUIS. Paris, 1860.) [To divulge the evil of others.]

Are there cases in which it is fitting that the evil of others be unveiled?

This question is very delicate and, to resolve it, it becomes necessary to appeal to charity rightly understood.

If the imperfections of a person harm only that person, there will never be any usefulness in divulging them; 3 if, however, they can bring harm to third parties, one must attend by preference to the interest of the greater number.

According to the circumstances, to unmask hypocrisy and falsehood may constitute a duty, for it is better that one man fall than that many come to be his victims. In such a case, one must weigh the sum of the advantages and the disadvantages. — (SAINT LOUIS. Paris, 1860.)