THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SPIRITISM

Allan Kardec

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6. Benevolence towards one's fellow-creatures, which is the result of loving your neighbour, manifests itself in the form of affability and mildness. However, it is not always a good thing to trust in appearance. Education and worldliness can give Man a thin veneer of these qualities. There are many whose feigned good-nature is nothing more than an exterior mask, like beautiful clothes hiding interior deformities! The world is full of such people with a smile on their lips but poison in their hearts; who are mild as long as nothing irritates them, but who bite at the least provocation; those whose tongues are made of gold when speaking face to face, but change into a poisoned dart when speaking from behind.

Still in the category of those showing benign countenance, there are those domestic tyrants who make their families and subordinates suffer the weight of their pride and despotism. As if they are trying to get even for any constraints possibly imposed upon them while away from home. Not daring to use their authority on strangers who would call them to order, they want to at least be feared by those who cannot resist them. They are proud to be able to say "I give the orders here and am obeyed." But they never think that they could also add, "And I am detested."

It is not enough for milk and honey to flow from the lips. If the heart is never associated with these sentiments then there is only hypocrisy. Those whose affability and mildness are not mere pretence are never belied, for they are always the same whether in society or in privacy. Besides, they know that although it is possible to deceive Man, no one can deceive God. - LAZARUS (Paris, 1861).

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