BE PERFECT.

Characteristics of perfection. — The man of good.

— The good Spiritists.

— Parable of the seed.

— INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SPIRITS: Duty.

— Virtue. — The superiors and the inferiors.

— Man in the world.

— Caring for the body and the Spirit.

Characteristics of perfection.

Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you and pray for those who persecute and slander you; — for, if you love only those who love you, what reward will you have for it? Do not the publicans do the same?

— If you greet only your brethren, what do you do more than others? Do not the pagans do the same? — Be, therefore, you, perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Saint Matthew, chapter V, vv. 44, 46 to 48.)

Since God possesses infinite perfection in all things, this proposition: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is,” taken literally, would presuppose the possibility of attaining absolute perfection.

If it were given to the creature to be as perfect as the Creator, it would become equal to Him, which is inadmissible.

But the men to whom Jesus spoke would not understand this nuance, which is why he limited himself to presenting them a model and telling them to strive to attain it.

Those words, therefore, must be understood in the sense of relative perfection, that of which Humanity is capable and which brings it closest to the Divinity.

In what does this perfection consist? Jesus says it: “In loving our enemies, in doing good to those who hate us, in praying for those who persecute us.”

He shows in this way that the essence of perfection is charity in its widest acceptation, because it implies the practice of all the other virtues.

Indeed, if one observes the results of all the vices and even of the simple defects, one will recognize that there is none which does not more or less alter the sentiment of charity, because all have their principle in selfishness and in pride, which are its negation; 8 and this because everything that overexcites the sentiment of personality destroys, or at least weakens, the elements of true charity, which are: benevolence, indulgence, abnegation, and devotion.

Since love of one's neighbor, carried even to the love of enemies, cannot ally itself with any defect contrary to charity, that love is therefore always an indication of greater or lesser moral superiority, whence it follows that the degree of perfection is in direct proportion to its extent; it was for this reason that Jesus, after having given his disciples the rules of charity in what it has of most sublime, said to them: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The man of good.

The true man of good is he who fulfills the law of justice, of love, and of charity, in its greatest purity.

If he questions his conscience about his own acts, he will ask himself whether he has violated that law, whether he has not done evil, whether he has done all the good he could, whether he has voluntarily despised some occasion of being useful, whether anyone has any complaint against him; in short, whether he has done to others all that he would wish to be done to himself.

He places his faith in God, in His goodness, in His justice, and in His wisdom; he knows that without His permission nothing happens, and he submits to His will in all things.

He has faith in the future, which is why he places spiritual goods above temporal goods.

He knows that all the vicissitudes of life, all the sorrows, all the disappointments are trials or expiations, and he accepts them without murmuring.

Possessed of the sentiment of charity and of love for one's neighbor, he does good for the sake of good, without expecting any payment; he repays evil with good, he takes up the defense of the weak against the strong, and he always sacrifices his interests to justice.

He finds satisfaction in the benefits he spreads, in the services he renders, in making others happy, in the tears he wipes away, in the consolations he lavishes upon the afflicted.

His first impulse is to think of others before thinking of himself, to care for the interests of others before his own interest.

The egoist, on the contrary, calculates the gains and the losses arising from every generous action.

The man of good is good, humane, and benevolent toward all, without distinction of races or of beliefs, because in all men he sees his brothers.

He respects in others all sincere convictions and casts no anathema upon those who do not think as he does.

In all circumstances he takes charity for his guide, holding it as certain that he who harms another with malevolent words, who wounds with his pride and his disdain the sensitivity of someone, who does not recoil from the idea of causing a suffering, a vexation, however slight, when he can avoid it, fails in the duty of loving one's neighbor and does not deserve the clemency of the Lord.

He nourishes neither hatred, nor rancor, nor desire of vengeance; after the example of Jesus, he forgives and forgets offenses and remembers only the benefits, knowing that he will be forgiven according as he shall have forgiven.

He is indulgent toward the weaknesses of others, because he knows that he too needs indulgence, and he keeps present this sentence of the Christ: Let him cast the first stone who finds himself without sin.

He never takes pleasure in searching out the defects of others, nor, still less, in making them evident. If he sees himself obliged to do so, he always seeks the good that may attenuate the evil.

He studies his own imperfections and works incessantly at combating them.

He employs every effort to be able to say, the next day, that he carries within himself something better than the day before.

He does not seek to give value to his spirit, nor to his talents, at the expense of others; on the contrary, he takes advantage of every occasion to bring out what may be profitable to others.

He does not become vain over his wealth, nor over his personal advantages, knowing that all that has been given to him may be taken from him.

He uses, but does not abuse, the goods that are granted to him, because he knows that it is a deposit of which he will have to render account, and that the most harmful employment he can give it is to apply it to the satisfaction of his passions.

If the social order has placed under his command other men, he treats them with goodness and benevolence, because they are his equals before God; he uses his authority to raise their morale and not to crush them with his pride. He avoids everything that may make more painful the subordinate position in which they find themselves.

The subordinate, for his part, understands the duties of the position he occupies and strives to fulfill them conscientiously. (Chap. XVII, no. 9)

Finally, the man of good respects all the rights that the laws of Nature give to his fellow men, just as he wishes his own to be respected.

Not all the qualities that distinguish the man of good are thus enumerated; but he who strives to possess those we have just mentioned finds himself on the path that leads to all the others.

The good Spiritists.

Well understood, but above all well felt, Spiritism leads to the results set forth above, which characterize the true Spiritist, like the true Christian, since the one is the same as the other.

Spiritism institutes no new morality; it merely facilitates for men the understanding and the practice of that of the Christ, providing an unshakable and enlightened faith to those who doubt or waver.

Many, however, of those who believe in the facts of the manifestations do not grasp their consequences, nor their moral scope, or, if they do grasp them, do not apply them to themselves. To what is this to be attributed? To some lack of clarity in the Doctrine? No, for it contains neither allegories nor figures that may give rise to false interpretations. Clarity is of its very essence, and it is whence all its strength comes, because it makes it go straight to the intelligence. It has nothing mysterious about it, and its initiates are not in possession of any secret hidden from the common people.

Will it then be necessary, in order to understand it, to have an intelligence out of the ordinary? No, so much so that there are men of notorious capacity who do not understand it, while common intelligences, even youths barely out of adolescence, grasp, with admirable precision, its most delicate nuances.

This comes from the fact that the part, so to speak, material of the science requires only eyes that observe, while the essential part demands a certain degree of sensibility, which may be called the maturity of the moral sense, a maturity that is independent of age and of the degree of instruction, because it is peculiar to the development, in a special sense, of the incarnate Spirit.

In some, the bonds of matter are still too tenacious to allow the Spirit to detach itself from the things of the Earth; the mist that envelops them takes away their vision of the infinite, from which it results that they do not easily break with their inclinations, nor with their habits, not perceiving that there is anything better than that with which they are endowed; 7 they have belief in the Spirits as a simple fact, but one which modifies nothing, or very little, of their instinctive tendencies; in a word: they discern no more than a ray of light, insufficient to guide them and to provide them with a vigorous aspiration capable of overcoming their inclinations.

They cling more to the phenomena than to the morality, which appears to them stale and monotonous; 9 they ask the Spirits to initiate them incessantly into new mysteries, without seeking to know whether they have already become worthy of penetrating the arcana of the Creator.

These are the imperfect Spiritists, some of whom stop halfway or draw away from their brothers in belief, because they recoil before the obligation to reform themselves, or else they keep their sympathies for those who share their weaknesses or their prejudices. Nevertheless, the acceptance of the principle of the doctrine is a first step that will make the second easier for them, in another existence.

He who can be, with reason, qualified as a true and sincere Spiritist finds himself in a superior degree of moral advancement; the Spirit, which in him dominates matter more completely, gives him a clearer perception of the future; the principles of the Doctrine make vibrate in him fibers that in others remain inert; in sum: he is touched in his heart, whereby his faith becomes unshakable.

The one is like a musician whom a few chords suffice to move, while the other hears only sounds.

The true Spiritist is recognized by his moral transformation and by the efforts he employs to subdue his bad inclinations; 14 while the one contents himself with his limited horizon, the other, who grasps something better, strives to detach himself from it and always succeeds, if his will is firm. Parable of the seed.

On that same day, having gone out of the house, Jesus sat down at the edge of the sea; — around him a great multitude of people soon gathered; whereupon he entered a boat, where he sat down, all the people remaining on the shore; — he then said many things in parables, speaking to them thus:

He who sows went out to sow; — and as he sowed, a part of the seed fell along the way, and the birds of the sky came and ate it.

Another part fell on rocky places where there was not much soil; the seeds soon sprouted, because the soil where they had fallen lacked depth. — But when the sun rose, it scorched them, and, as they had no roots, they dried up.

Another part fell among thornbushes, and these, growing, smothered them.

Another, finally, fell on good soil and produced fruits, some seeds yielding a hundredfold, others sixty, and others thirty.

Let him who has ears to hear, hear. (Saint Matthew, chapter XIII, vv. 1 to 9.)

Listen, then, you, to the parable of the sower.

Whoever listens to the word of the kingdom and does not give it attention, the malign spirit comes and takes away what had been sown in his heart. This is he who received the seed along the way.

He who receives the seed amid the stones is he who listens to the word and who receives it with joy in the first moment; — but, having no roots in him, it lasts only some time; when reverses and persecutions come on account of the word, he draws therefrom a motive of scandal and of fall.

He who receives the seed among thornbushes is he who hears the word; but in whom, soon, the cares of this century and the illusion of riches smother that word and make it fruitless.

But he who receives the seed in good soil is he who listens to the word, who gives it attention is he in whom it produces fruits, yielding a hundred, or sixty, or thirty for one. (Saint Matthew, chapter XIII, vv. 18 to 23.)

The parable of the sower expresses perfectly the nuances existing in the manner in which the teachings of the Gospel are utilized.

How many persons there are, indeed, for whom it is no more than a dead letter and who, like the seed fallen upon gravel, yield no fruit!

No less just an application does it find in the different Spiritist categories.

Are there not symbolized in it those who attend only to the material phenomena and draw no consequence from them, because in them they see nothing more than curious facts?

Those who concern themselves only with the brilliant side of the communications of the Spirits, in which they take interest only when these satisfy their imagination, and who, after having heard them, remain as cold and indifferent as they were?

Those who recognize the counsels as very good and admire them, but to be applied to others and not to themselves?

Those, finally, for whom these instructions are like the seed that falls on good soil and yields fruit? INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SPIRITS.

Duty.

Duty is the moral obligation of the creature toward itself, first, and then toward others.

Duty is the law of life; we come upon it in the most minute particulars, as in the most elevated acts.

I wish here to speak only of moral duty and not of the duty that the professions impose.

In the order of the sentiments, duty is very difficult to fulfill, because it finds itself in antagonism with the attractions of interest and of the heart; its victories have no witnesses, and its defeats are not subject to repression.

The intimate duty of man is left to his free will; the goad of conscience, guardian of inner probity, warns and sustains him; but, many times, it shows itself powerless before the sophisms of passion.

Faithfully observed, the duty of the heart elevates man; how, however, is it to be determined with exactness? Where does it begin? where does it end?

Duty begins, for each of you, exactly at the point where you threaten the happiness or the tranquility of your neighbor; it ends at the limit which you do not wish anyone to overstep with respect to you.

God created all men equal in pain; small or great, ignorant or instructed, all suffer from the same causes, so that each may judge in sound conscience the evil he can do. With respect to good, infinitely varied in its expressions, the criterion is not the same.

Equality in the face of pain is a sublime providence of God, who wills that all His children, instructed by common experience, may not practice evil, alleging ignorance of its effects.

Duty is the practical summary of all moral speculations; it is a bravery of the soul that confronts the anguishes of the struggle; it is austere and gentle; ready to bend to the most diverse complications, it remains inflexible before their temptations.

The man who fulfills his duty loves God more than the creatures and loves the creatures more than himself; he is at once judge and slave in his own cause.

Duty is the most beautiful laurel of reason; it descends from her as the son from his mother.

Man must love duty, not because it preserves life from evils, evils from which Humanity cannot subtract itself, but because it confers upon the soul the vigor necessary to its development.

Duty grows and radiates under a more elevated form, in each of the superior stages of Humanity; 15 the moral obligation of the creature toward God never ceases; it must reflect the virtues of the Eternal, who does not accept imperfect sketches, because He wills that the beauty of His work shine before His own eyes. — (LAZARUS. Paris, 1863.)

Virtue.

Virtue, in the highest degree, is the assemblage of all the essential qualities that constitute the man of good.

To be good, charitable, laborious, sober, modest, are qualities of the virtuous man.

Unfortunately, almost always there accompany them small moral infirmities that disfigure and attenuate them.

He is not virtuous who makes ostentation of his virtue, for he lacks the principal quality: modesty, and he has the vice that is most opposed to it: pride.

Virtue, truly worthy of that name, does not like to display itself; it is divined, but it conceals itself in obscurity and flees the admiration of the masses.

Saint Vincent de Paul was virtuous; virtuous were the worthy curate of Ars and many others almost unknown to the world, but known to God. All these men of good were ignorant that they were virtuous; they let themselves go at the prompting of their holy inspirations and practiced good with complete disinterest and entire forgetfulness of themselves.

To virtue thus understood and practiced is what I invite you, my children; to that virtue truly Christian and truly Spiritist is what I exhort you to consecrate yourselves. Drive away, however, from your hearts all that is pride, vanity, self-love, which always disfigure the most beautiful qualities.

Do not imitate the man who presents himself as a model and himself trumpets his qualities to all complacent ears. The virtue that thus displays itself often hides an immensity of small basenesses and of hateful cowardices.

In principle, the man who exalts himself, who raises a statue to his own virtue, annuls, by that simple fact, all the real merit he may have.

Meanwhile, what shall I say of him whose only worth consists in appearing what he is not? I admit willingly that the man who practices good experiences an intimate satisfaction in his heart; but, as soon as such satisfaction is externalized, in order to harvest praises, it degenerates into self-love.

O you all whom the Spiritist faith has warmed with its rays, and who know how far from perfection man is, never stumble upon such a reef. Virtue is a grace that I wish for all sincere Spiritists.

Yet I will say to them: A little virtue with modesty is worth more than much with pride.

It is through pride that the Humanities have successively been lost; it is through humility that one day they shall be redeemed. — (FRANÇOIS-NICOLAS MADELEINE. Paris, 1863.) The superiors and the inferiors.

Authority, as much as wealth, is a delegation of which he who finds himself invested with it will have to render account; do not think that it is conferred upon him to provide him the vain pleasure of commanding; nor, as the majority of the potentates of the Earth suppose, as a right, a property.

God, moreover, proves to them constantly that it is neither the one nor the other thing, since He withdraws it from them when it pleases Him. If it were a privilege inherent in their personalities, it would be inalienable.

To no one does it belong to say that a thing belongs to him, when it can be taken from him without his consent.

God confers authority by way of mission, or of trial, when He understands it, and withdraws it when He judges it convenient.

Whoever is the depositary of authority, whatever its extent, from that of the master over his servant to that of the sovereign over his people, must not forget that he has souls in his charge; that he will answer for the good or bad direction he gives to his subordinates, and that upon him will fall the faults that these commit, the vices to which they are dragged in consequence of that direction or of the bad examples, in the same way that he will harvest the fruits of the solicitude he employs to lead them to good.

Every man has on the Earth a mission, great or small; whatever it may be, it is always given to him for good; to falsify it in its principle is, therefore, to fail in its accomplishment.

Just as He asks the rich man: What have you done with the wealth which in your hands should have been a fount spreading fecundity around you, so too will God inquire of him who disposes of some authority: What use did you make of that authority? What evils did you avoid? What progress did you facilitate? If I gave you subordinates, it was not so that you might make them slaves of your will, nor docile instruments of your caprices or of your cupidity; I made you strong and entrusted to you those who were weak, so that you might support them and help them rise to my bosom.

The superior who finds himself penetrated by the words of the Christ despises none of those who are submitted to him, because he knows that social distinctions do not prevail in the sight of God.

Spiritism teaches him that, if they obey him today, perhaps they have already given him orders, or may give them to him later, and that he will then be treated according as he shall have treated them, when he exercised authority over them.

But, if the superior has duties to fulfill, the inferior, on his side, also has them, and no less sacred. If he is a Spiritist, his conscience will tell him still more imperiously that he cannot consider himself dispensed from fulfilling them, not even when his chief fails to give fulfillment to those that fall to him, since he knows very well that it is not lawful to repay evil with evil and that the faults of some do not justify those of others.

If his position brings him sufferings, he will recognize that without doubt he deserved them, because, probably, he abused in former times the authority he had, it falling to him, therefore, to experience in his turn what he had made others suffer.

If he sees himself forced to bear that position, because he finds no better one, Spiritism teaches him to resign himself, this constituting a trial for his humility, necessary to his advancement.

His belief orients his conduct and induces him to proceed as he would wish his subordinates to proceed toward him, were he the chief.

For this very reason, he shows himself more scrupulous in the fulfillment of his obligations, for he understands that all negligence in the work that is determined for him redounds to the prejudice of him who remunerates him and to whom he owes his time and his efforts; in a word: he is solicited by the sentiment of duty, arising from his faith, and by the certainty that every departure from the straight path implies a debt that, sooner or later, he will have to pay. — (FRANÇOIS-NICOLAS MADELEINE, Cardinal MORLOT. Paris, 1863.) Man in the world.

A sentiment of piety must always animate the hearts of those who gather under the sight of the Lord and implore the assistance of the good Spirits.

Purify, then, your hearts; do not consent that there linger in them any worldly or futile thought; elevate your spirit toward those whom you call, so that, finding in you the necessary dispositions, they may cast in profusion the seed that must germinate in your souls and yield fruits of charity and justice.

Do not think, however, that, in exhorting you incessantly to prayer and to mental evocation, we intend that you live a mystic life, that keeps you outside the laws of the society where you are condemned to live. No; live with the men of your epoch, as men ought to live; sacrifice to the necessities, even to the frivolities of the day, but sacrifice with a sentiment of purity that may sanctify them.

You are called to be in contact with spirits of different natures, of opposite characters: do not shock any of those with whom you find yourselves.

Be jovial, be happy, but let your joviality be that which comes from a clean conscience, let your happiness be that of the heir of Heaven who counts the days remaining until he enters into the possession of his inheritance.

Virtue does not consist in your assuming a severe and lugubrious aspect, in your repelling the pleasures that your human conditions permit you; it suffices that you refer all the acts of your life to the Creator who gave it to you; it suffices that, when you begin or finish a work, you elevate your thought to that Creator and ask Him, in a rapture of the soul, either His protection that you may obtain success, or His blessing upon it, if you have concluded it.

In all that you do, go back up to the Source of all things, so that none of your actions may fail to be purified and sanctified by the remembrance of God.

Perfection lies wholly, as the Christ said, in the practice of absolute charity;

but the duties of charity reach all social positions, from the least to the greatest.

No charity would the man have to practice who lived isolated; only in contact with his fellow men, in the most arduous struggles, does he find occasion to practice it.

He, then, who isolates himself voluntarily deprives himself of the most powerful means of perfecting himself; having to think only of himself, his life is that of an egoist. (chapter V, no. 26.)

Do not imagine, therefore, that, in order to live in constant communication with us, in order to live under the sight of the Lord, it is necessary that you scourge yourselves and cover yourselves with ashes. No, no, once more we say to you. Be happy, according to the necessities of Humanity; but let there never enter into your happiness a thought or an act that may offend it, or cause the countenance of those who love and direct you to be veiled.

God is love, and those who love in a holy manner He blesses. — (A PROTECTING SPIRIT. Bordeaux, 1863.) Caring for the body and the Spirit.

Will moral perfection consist in the maceration of the body? To resolve this question, I will rely on elementary principles and will begin by demonstrating the necessity of caring for the body which, according to the alternations of health and of infirmity, influences in a very important manner the soul, which it behooves us to consider captive of the flesh. In order that this prisoner may live, expand, and even come to conceive the illusions of liberty, the body must be sound, disposed, strong.

Let us make a comparison: Behold, both find themselves in perfect state; what must they do to maintain the equilibrium between their aptitudes and their needs, so different? Inevitable seems the struggle between the two, and difficult to find the secret of how they may reach equilibrium.

Two systems confront each other: that of the ascetics, which has for its basis the annihilation of the body, and that of the materialists, which is based on the lowering of the soul. Two acts of violence almost as senseless the one as the other. Alongside these two great parties swarms the numerous tribe of the indifferent who, without conviction and without passion, are lukewarm in loving and sparing in enjoying.

Where, then, is wisdom? Where, then, is the science of living? Nowhere; and the great problem would remain without solution, if Spiritism did not come to the aid of the seekers, demonstrating to them the relations that exist between the body and the soul and telling them that, since they find themselves in mutual dependence, it is important to care for both.

Love, then, your soul, but care equally for your body, the instrument of the former. To neglect the needs that Nature herself indicates is to neglect the law of God.

Do not chastise the body for the faults that your free will induced it to commit and for which it is as responsible as the badly directed horse for the accidents it causes.

Will you, perchance, be more perfect if, in martyring the body, you become no less egoistic, nor less proud, and more charitable toward your neighbor? No, perfection does not lie in that; it lies wholly in the reforms through which you make your Spirit pass. Bend it, submit it, humble it, mortify it: that is the means of making it docile to the will of God and the only one of attaining perfection. — (GEORGE, Protecting Spirit. Paris, 1863.)