The study is the source of sweet and noble pleasures; it frees us from common worries and makes us forget the evils of life. The book is a sincere friend who puts on good looks the same in happy days as in bad luck. We speak of the serious, useful book that instructs, comforts and reanimates, and not of the frivolous book that distracts and often demoralizes. Not enough penetrated into the true character of the good book. It is like a voice that speaks to us through time and tells us about the labors, struggles and discoveries of those who preceded us on the path of life, and who for our benefit smoothed their harshness.

Isn't one of the few joys of this world to be able to communicate through thought with the great Spirits of all centuries and countries? They put in their books the best of their minds and hearts. They lead us by the hand through the labyrinths of history, guide us into the lofty regions of science, art and literature. In contact with these works, which constitute the most precious goods of humanity, we feel engranded by these sacred archives, we consider ourselves satisfied to belong to the races that supply us such geniuses. The splendor of his thought extends over our souls, comforts them and exalts them.

Let us choose good books and get used to living among them, in constant relationship with the chosen spirits. Let us carefully reject the unclean books, written to flatter low passions. Let us beware of that relaxed literature, fruit of sensualism, which leaves behind corruption and immorality.

Most men pretend to love the study, and object that they lack time to devote to it. However, many of them devote entire evenings to games and idle conversations. It is also argued that books are expensive when more money is spent on futile and tasteless pleasures than would be needed to make a rich collection of works. Moreover, the study of nature, the most effective and comforting of all, costs nothing.

The human science is fallible and variable. Nature is not. It is never denied. In the hours of uncertainty and discouragement, let us turn and he will rock us in his bosom. He will speak to us a simple and sweet language, in which the truth will appear without artifice or disfigurement. But that gentle language very few know how to hear and understand. Man carries with him, even in the depths of loneliness, his passions and inner agitations, whose rumours cover up the intimate teaching of Nature. To discern the immanent revelation within things it is necessary to impose silence on the chimeras of the world, those turbulent opinions that disturb our societies; it is necessary to collect, make peace in and around itself. Then all the echoes of public life are silent; the soul enters into itself, regains the feeling of Nature and eternal laws and communicates with the supreme Reason.

The study of earthly Nature elevates and strengthens thought, but what to say about the vision of the heavens?

When, in the calm night, the starry vault lights up and the parade of stars begins; when from the star nuclei and the nebulae lost in the depths of the spaces the trembling and diffuse clarity descends to us, a mysterious influence envelops us, a deeply religious feeling invades us. How the idle worries disappear in that hour! ! How penetrates us, how overwhelms us and makes us bend our knees the feeling of the immeasurable! What mute adoration rises from our heart!

The earth is drifting -fragile skiff- through the fields of immensity. Boga, swept away by the mighty Sun. Everywhere, around it, there are immense depths that cannot be probed without experiencing vertigo. Everywhere too, at enormous distances, there are worlds and more worlds, floating islands waved by the waves of the ether. The gaze refuses to count them, but our Spirit regards them with respect and love. His subtle rays attract him. Huge Jupiter, and you, Saturn, surrounded by a luminous strip and crowned with nine golden moons; gigantic suns of multiform lights, innumerable spheres: we greet you from the bottom of the spaces... Worlds that shine above our heads, are you still hiding... We would like to know you, what villages, what strange cities, what civilizations spread over your surface... A secret intuition tells us that happiness resides in you, sought in vain on Earth.

But why doubt and fear? These worlds are our heritage. We are destined to walk through them and inhabit them. We will visit these star archipelagos and penetrate their mysteries. Our career, our impulses, our progress will never have a end if we know how to adjust our will to the divine laws and conquer with our actions the fullness of life, in possession of the heavenly pleasures inherent to it.

León Denis – The Straight Path ┃ Spiritist concept of moral law