To the workers

I come to you, my friends, to you who are the tried and the proletarians of suffering. I come to greet you, brave and worthy workers, in the name of charity and of love. You are the beloved of Jesus, of whom I was a friend. Rest in the Spiritist belief, as I rested in the bosom of the divine envoy. Workers, you are the elect on the dolorous way of trial, where you march with bleeding feet and a disheartened heart. Brothers, hope! Every suffering brings with it its wage; every laborious day has its night of repose. Believe in the future, which will be your reward, and do not seek oblivion, which is impious. Oblivion, my friends, is selfish and brutal intoxication; it is hunger for your children and weeping for your wives. Oblivion is a cowardice. What would you think of a worker who, on the pretext of slight fatigue, abandoned the workshop and cravenly interrupted the day's task begun? My friends, life is the day's labor of eternity; carry out its toil bravely; do not dream of an impossible repose; do not advance the hour of the clock of time; everything comes at the right hour: the reward of courage and the blessing upon the moved heart, which entrusts itself to eternal justice. Be Spiritists: you will become strong and patient, because you will learn that trials are a sure guarantee of progress and that they will open to you the entrance to the blessed mansions, where you will bless the sufferings that will have opened to you their access.

To all of you, workers and friends, my blessings. I attend your gatherings, because you are the beloved of him who was, John, the Evangelist. n Allan Kardec.

[1]

[see Saint John the Evangelist.]

Paris. – Typ. of COSSON ET Ce, rue du Four-Saint-Germain, 43.