The Spirits’ Teachings

The last shall be first

The workers of the last hour have a right to their wages, but their willingness has to have put them at the disposal of the master who was to hire them, and their tardiness must not have been the result of laziness or ill will. They have a right to their wages because, since daybreak, they had been waiting impatiently for someone who would finally call them to work: they were hard- working; they only lacked work.

However, if they had refused work at each hour of the day; if they had said, “Let us be patient; repose is pleasing; when the last hour sounds, it will be time to think about today’s  wages; what need is there for us to inconvenience ourselves for a master whom we neither know nor respect? The later the better!” These, my friends, would not have received the wages of work, but that of laziness.

What would have become of these workers if, instead of only remaining idle, they had used the hours of the day meant for labor to commit blameworthy acts; if they had blasphemed God by spilling the blood of their brothers and sisters, by causing problems among families, by ruining those who trusted them, by abusing the innocent, or by indulging in all the ignominies of humanity? What would have become of them? Would it be enough for them to have said at the last hour: “Sir, we have used our time badly. Use us until the end of the day so that we may do a little – although it will be very little of our part – but give us the wages of a worker of good will? No, no! The master would have said to them, “I do not have any work for you right now. You have squandered your time. You have forgotten what you have learned and you no longer know how to work in my vineyard. Therefore, begin to learn once more, and when you are more willing, come to me and I will open my vast field to you, where you will be able to work at all hours of the day.”

Good Spiritists, my dearly beloved, you are all workers of the last hour. The one who says, “I began work at daybreak and I will finish only at nightfall” would be very proud. You all came when you were called – some a little earlier, some a little later – to the incarnation whose shackles you bear; however, for how many centuries has the Lord been calling you to his vineyard, without your wanting to enter it! Now is the time for you to receive your wages; employ the time you have remaining well, and never forget that your existence, no matter how long it may seem to you, is only a fleeting instant in the immensity of time comprising eternity for you.

Constantin, A Protector Spirit (Bordeaux, 1863)