Example is the most powerful agent of propagation

I come this night, my friends, to speak to you for a few moments. At the last session I did not respond; I was occupied elsewhere. Our labors as Spirits are much more extensive than you can suppose, and the instruments of our thoughts are not always available. I still have some counsels to give you regarding the course you must follow before the public, with the aim of advancing the work to which I devoted my bodily life, and whose perfecting I follow in erraticity. What I recommend to you principally and above all is tolerance, affection, sympathy of one toward another and also toward the unbelievers.

When you see a blind man in the street, the first sentiment that imposes itself is compassion. Let it be so, too, toward your brothers whose eyes are veiled by the shadows of ignorance or of unbelief; pity them, instead of censuring them. Show, by your gentleness, your resignation in bearing the ills of this life, your humility amid the satisfactions, advantages, and joys that God sends you; show that there is in you a higher principle, a soul obedient to a law, to a truth that is also higher: Spiritism. The pamphlets, the newspapers, the books, the publications of every sort are powerful means of introducing the light everywhere, but the surest, the most intimate, and the most accessible to all is example in charity, gentleness, and love.

I thank the Society for helping the truly unfortunate who are indicated to it. Behold the good Spiritism, behold the true fraternity. To be brothers: it is to have the same interests, the same thoughts, the same heart!

Spiritists, you are all brothers in the most holy acceptation of the term. In asking that you love one another, I do but recall the divine word of him who, eighteen hundred years ago, brought to the Earth for the first time the germ of equality. Follow his law: it is yours; I have done nothing but make more palpable some of his teachings. An obscure workman of that master, of that higher Spirit emanated from the source of light, I have reflected that light as the firefly reflects the brightness of a star. But the star shines in the heavens and the firefly shines on the Earth, in the darkness. Such is the difference. Continue the traditions I left you on departing.

May the most perfect accord, the greatest sympathy, and the most singular abnegation reign within the Commission. I hope that it will know how to fulfill with honor, fidelity, and conscience the mandate entrusted to it.

Ah! when all men understand what the words love and charity enclose, there will no longer be on the Earth soldiers and enemies; there will be only brothers; there will no longer be irritated and savage glances; there will be only brows bowed toward God!

Until soon, dear friends, and thanks again, in the name of him who does not forget the cup of water and the widow’s mite.

Allan Kardec.