Hypocrisy

There ought to be on Earth two quite distinct camps: that of the men who do good openly and that of those who do evil openly. But no! Man is not frank even in evil: he affects virtue. Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy! powerful goddess, how many tyrants have you brought forth? how many idols have you caused to be worshiped? The heart of man is truly very strange, for it can beat when it is dead and love, in appearance, honor, virtue, truth, and charity! Daily man prostrates himself before these virtues and breaks his word, despising the poor man and the Christ. Every day he lies, every day he is a Tartuffe! How many men seem honest because appearance often deceives! Christ called them whited sepulchers, that is, full of rottenness within and clean without, shining in the sun. Man, in truth you resemble that dwelling of death; and, as long as your heart is dead, you will not be inspired by Jesus, that divine light which does not illuminate the exterior, but illuminates from within. Hypocrisy, understand well, is the vice of your epoch; and you wish to make yourselves great through hypocrisy! In the name of liberty, you aggrandize yourselves; in the name of morality, you brutalize yourselves; in the name of truth, you lie.

Lamennais. n Allan Kardec.

Paris. — Typ. H. CARION, rue Bonaparte, 64.

[1] [see: Lamennais.]