In contrast to the exclusivist religions which have taken as a precept "outside the Church there is no salvation", as if their purely human point of view could decide the fate of Beings in the future life, Allan Kardec places these words at the head of his works: "Outside charity, there is no salvation". The spirits teach us, in fact, that charity is the virtue par excellence; it alone gives the key to the higher heavens.

"Men are to be loved," they repeat, in agreement with Christ, who summed up in these words all the commandments of the moral law. But men are not lovable,’ it will be objected. Too much evil is harboured in them, and charity is too difficult to be practised.

If we judge them thus, is it but because we take pleasure in considering only the bad aspects of their characters, their faults, their passions and weaknesses, forgetting too often that we ourselves are not exempt from them, and that if they have need of charity we have no less need of indulgence?

However, it is not only evil that reigns in this world. There is also good in man, nobility and virtues. There is, above all, suffering. If we want to be charitable, and we must be, both in our own interest and in the interest of the social order, let us not be obstinate in our judgments of our fellow men in what may lead to slander and denigration, but let us see in man above all a companion in suffering, a brother in arms in the struggle of life. Who is there who does not hide a wound in the depths of his soul? Who does not bear the burden of sorrows and bitterness? If we place ourselves in this point of view to consider our neighbour, our benevolence will be changed at once into sympathy.

One often hears them complaining against the coarseness and the brutal passions of the working classes, against the greed and the demands of some of the working people. Is enough thought given to the bad examples which have surrounded them since childhood? The necessities of life, the imperative needs of every day impose on them a rude and absorbing task. They have no time, no opportunity to occupy themselves with their intelligence. The sweetness of study and the joys of art are unknown to them. What do they know of moral laws, of their destiny, of the springs of the Universe? Few consoling rays glide through this darkness. For them, the fierce struggle against necessity is of every moment. Lack of work, sickness and black misery threaten and harass them incessantly. What character would not sour in the midst of so many evils? To bear them with resignation requires a true stoicism, a strength of soul which is all the more admirable because it is instinctive rather than reasoned.

Instead of casting stones at these unfortunates, let us hasten to alleviate their ills, to wipe away their tears, to work with all our might to bring about on earth a more equitable distribution of material goods and of the treasures of thought. We do not know what a good word, a demonstration of interest, a cordial handshake, can do for these sore souls. The vices of the poor outrage us, and yet what an apology there is at the bottom of their misery! Let us not pretend to ignore his virtues, which are all the more astonishing because they flourish in the mire.

How many dark self-sacrifices there are among the humble! How many heroic and tenacious struggles against adversity! Let us think of the countless families vegetating without support and without help; of so many children deprived of necessities, of all those beings who shiver with cold at the bottom of dark and damp dens or in desolate garrets; what a role for the woman of the people, for the mother of the family in such surroundings, when winter falls upon the earth, when the hearth is without fire, the table without food, and on the frozen bed rags replace the blanket, sold or pawned to buy bread! His sacrifice, is it not of every moment, How his poor heart is broken in the presence of the sorrows of his own! Shouldn't the opulent idler be ashamed to flaunt his wealth in the midst of so much suffering? What a crushing responsibility for him, if in the bosom of his abundance he forgets those who are overwhelmed by need!

Undoubtedly, much mire and many disgusting things are to be found in the scenes of the lives of the weak. Complaints and blasphemies, drunkenness and pimping, heartless children and gutless parents: all the uglinesses are mingled in them; but beneath this repulsive exterior there is always the suffering human soul, the sister soul of ours, always worthy of interest and affection.

It would subtract it from the mire of the sewer, clear it up, make it climb, step by step up the ladder of rehabilitation, what a great task! Everything is purified by the fire of charity. It is the fire that burned the Christs, the Vincent de Pauls and all those who, in their immense love for the weak and the downcast, found the principle of their sublime self-denial.

It is the same for those who have the faculty of loving and suffering intensely. Pain is for them like an initiation into the art of consoling and soothing others. They know how to rise above their own evils, to see only the evils of their fellow men, and to seek remedy for them. Hence the great examples given by these chosen souls who, in the depths of their heartbreak and painful agony, still find the secret of healing the wounds of those who have been overcome by life.

The charity has other forms than solicitude for the unfortunate. Material or beneficent charity can be applied to a certain number of fellow human beings in the form of help, support or encouragement. Moral charity must be extended to all those who participate in our life in this world. It does not consist in alms, but in a benevolence which should embrace all men, from the most virtuous to the most criminal, and govern our relations with them. This charity can be practised by all, however modest our condition may be.

True charity is patient and indulgent. It does not humiliate or scorn anyone; it is tolerant, and if it tries to dissuade it is with gentleness, without doing violence to acquired ideas.

However, this virtue is in short supply. A certain amount of selfishness leads us rather to observe and criticise the faults of others, while we remain blind to our own. When we have so many faults in ourselves, we willingly exercise our shrewdness in bringing out the faults of our fellow men. So true moral superiority does not exist without charity and modesty. We have no right to condemn in others the faults we are apt to commit, and even if our moral elevation had emancipated us from them for ever, we must not forget that there was a time when we were torn between passion and vice.

There are few men who do not have bad habits to correct and unpleasant inclinations to reform. Let us remember that we shall be judged by the same standard by which we have judged our fellow men. The opinions we form of them are almost always a reflection of our own nature. Let us be more ready to excuse than to condemn.

There is nothing more fatal to the future of the soul than evil talk, what that incessant maledictiveness which feeds most gatherings. The echo of our words resounds in the life to come; the smoke of our evil thoughts forms like a thick cloud in which the Spirit is shrouded and obscured. Let us guard against those criticisms, those malicious appraisals, those mocking words which poison the future. Let us flee from slander like a plague; let us hold on our lips every bitter phrase that is ready to escape from them. Herein lies our happiness.

The charitable man does good in the shadows; he conceals his good deeds, while the vain proclaims how little he does. "Let the left hand ignore what the right hand gives", said Jesus. "Who does good with ostentation has already received his reward".

To give in secret, to be indifferent to the praises of men is to show true elevation of character, is to place oneself above the judgments of a passing world and to seek justification for one's actions in the life that never ends.

Under these conditions, ingratitude and injustice cannot reach the charitable man. He does good because it is his duty and without expectation of advantage. He does not seek rewards; he leaves to the eternal law the care of making the consequences of his actions to be deduced, or rather, he does not even think about it. He is generous without calculation. In order to favour others, he knows how to deprive himself, penetrated by the idea that there is no merit in giving what is superfluous. That is why the poor man's alms, the widow's money, the piece of bread broken with his unfortunate companion are more valuable than the largesse of the rich man. The poor man, in his lack of necessities, can even help those who are poorer than himself.

There are a thousand ways to make ourselves useful, to come to the aid of our brothers and sisters. Gold does not exhaust all tears, nor does it heal all wounds. There are evils for which a sincere friendship, an ardent sympathy, an outpouring of the soul will do more than all the riches.

Let us be generous to those who have succumbed in the struggle against their passions and have been carried away by evil; let us be generous to sinners, criminals, and the hard-hearted. Do we know through what phases their souls have passed, and how many temptations they must have endured, before they fainted? Did they possess that knowledge of the higher laws which helps in the hours of peril? Ignorant, insecure, agitated by external temptations, were they able to resist and to overcome? Responsibility is proportionate to knowledge; more is asked of him who possesses the truth. Let us be merciful to the humble, to the weak, to the afflicted and to all those who bleed from wounds of soul or body. Let us seek the environments where sorrows abound, where hearts are broken, where existences are consumed in despair and oblivion. Let us descend into those very abysses of misery, in order to bring to them the consolations that revive, the good words that comfort and the exhortations that enliven, in order to make that sun of the unfortunate shine with hope. Let us strive to pluck out some victim, to purify him, to save him from evil, to open for him the righteous path. Only by self-sacrifice and affection will we bridge the gap, prevent social cataclysms, extinguish the hatred that lurks in the hearts of the disinherited.

Everything that man does for his brother is recorded in the great fluidic book whose pages unfold through space, luminous pages in which our deeds, our feelings and our ideas are inscribed. And these debts will be paid back to us at length in future existences. Nothing is lost or forgotten. The ties that bind souls through the ages are woven with the good deeds of the past. Eternal wisdom has arranged everything for the good of Beings. The good deeds done on Earth are for their author a source of infinite enjoyment in the future.

The perfection of man can be summed up in two words: charity and truth. Charity is the virtue par excellence; it is of divine essence. It shines in all worlds and comforts souls like a glance, like a smile of the Eternal. It surpasses in results knowledge and genius. These do not manifest themselves without some pride. They are recognised and sometimes unknown; but charity, always sweet and beneficent, softens the hardest hearts and disarms the most perverse spirits by flooding them with love.

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