Virtue

In  its highest expression, virtue encompasses all the essential qualities that comprise the good person. To be good, charitable, hard-working, reasonable and modest are the qualities of  a  virtuous individual. Unfortunately,  they  are frequently accompanied by small moral ills that tarnish and weaken them. Those who parade their virtues are not virtuous, since they lack the principal quality, which is modesty, and display the vice most contrary to it, which is pride. A virtue truly worthy of its name does not like to show itself off; one might divine it, but it hides itself in obscurity and flees from the admiration of the masses. St. Vincent de Paul was virtuous; the praiseworthy priest of Ars was virtuous, and many others little known to the world but known to God. All these individuals were unaware that they were virtuous; they allowed themselves  to be carried along by the stream of their saintly inspirations and practiced the good with complete disinterestedness and self-forgetfulness.

It is to virtue thus understood and practiced that I invite you, my children; it is to this truly Christian and truly Spiritist virtue that I advise you to devote yourselves. But keep from your hearts the thoughts of pride, vanity and self-centeredness, which always tarnish the most beautiful qualities. Do not imitate those who set themselves up as models, and who extol their own qualities before all who are complacent enough to listen. This virtue of ostentation often hides a multitude of small turpitudes and hateful weaknesses.

In principle, individuals who exalt themselves, who erect a statue to their own virtue, annul by this very act any real merit they might have. However, what can I say about those whose whole worth is to appear to be what they are not? I want to believe that individuals who practice the good feel an inner satisfaction at the bottom of their heart, but whenever such satisfaction is exteriorized in order to receive praise, it degenerates into self-centeredness.

O all of you whom the Spiritist faith has warmed with its rays, and who know how far humans are from perfection, do not yield to such folly! Virtue is a grace that I desire for all sincere Spiritists, but I will say to them: Better to have less virtue with modesty than more with pride, for it is through pride that successive humanities have been lost, and it is through humility that they will some day be redeemed.

François-Nicholas-Madeleine (Paris, 1863)