Message

Virtue

"Virtue, at its highest level, combines all the essential qualities that make up a good person: generosity, charitableness, industriousness, temperance, and modesty. Unfortunately, on earth these virtues are nearly always accompanied by moral flaws in other areas that tarnish or deaden them. This is why people who bask in the praises of their own virtues aren’t really virtuous- they lack one of highest qualities, modesty. At the same time, they reveal one of the worst flaws, haughtiness. True virtue doesn’t make a show of itself, and when it is divined, it moves quietly offstage. Saint Vincent de Paul was virtuous. The dignified priest of Ars was virtuous. So are a good many other people the world doesn’t know about- but they are known to God. None of these good people are aware of the fact that they are virtuous. Rather, they’re carried along by their saintly inspirations. They practice goodness with abandonment and complete forgetfulness of self.
Children, it is to virtue, understood and practiced correctly, that I call you. Dedicate yourselves wholeheartedly to it- it’s truly a Christian and Spiritist ideal. Further rid your hearts of pride, vanity, and self-seeking: These mar the otherwise beautiful qualities in you. Do not be like people who set themselves up as models, the ones who blow their own horns to anyone who’ll listen about all the good qualities they have. Their showy kind of virtue almost always covers a mass of little defects and sheer meanness.
In principle, people who praise themselves and erect statues to their own virtues cancel out any merit they might actually have had. And what about those whose only goal is appearing to be what they are not? Of course, when individuals do good, they may have a natural feeling of satisfaction in their hearts. Yet the moment that satisfaction comes out into the open for the purpose of gaining praise, it deteriorates into love for the self above all others.
To all of you whom the rays of the Spiritist faith have reinvigorated and who know just how far from perfection humanity is, I say: Never give yourselves up to this weakness. Virtue is a blessing and I desire it for all sincere Spiritists. But take this as a warning: It’s better to have fewer virtues and be modest than have many and be proud. It was through blind pride that various societies lost themselves through the ages. By becoming more humble they’ll one day redeem themselves."