1

a) - Affability and mildness

b) - Patience
source: The Gospel according to Spiritism,., IX: 6 & 7

AFFABILITY AND MILDNESS

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).

PATIENCE
7. Pain is a blessing sent by God to all His elected; so when you suffer do not allow yourself to become
afflicted; rather bless the Omnipotent Who, through the pain of this world, has chosen you to receive glory in
Heaven.
Be patient, because this is also a charity; everyone should practice the law of charity as taught by Christ,
Who is God's Envoy. Charity given to the poor in the form of a]ms is the easiest of all. However, there is another
kind of charity which is much more laborious and so consequently offers higher merit. That is to forgive all those
placed in your pathway by God to act as instruments for your suffering and to test your patience.
We know full well that life is difficult, being composed of so many apparently useless, insignificant and
valueless things which act as repeated pinpricks and end up hurting us. However, if on the one hand we observe
with care the duties imposed upon us, and on the other recognize the consolations and compensations received,
then we must admit that the blessings are far more numerous than the pains. When our eyes are raised up to
Heaven our burdens appear to be less heavy than when our brow is bowed down to the earth.
Courage, my friends! Christ is your model. He suffered far more than any of you and had nothing to offer
penitence for, whereas we must atone for our past and thereby fortify ourselves for the future. So be patient; be
Christians! This word summarizes everything. - A Friendly Spirit (Havre, 1862).

CONSIDERATIONS:
Jesus suggested: 'Be perfect', 2 which means to say in reality, that we try to make an effort for perfection,
for progress and spiritual evolution, and our interior transformation for goodness, because what interests, it is not
the value that the others give to us, but the value which the spirit in us has; not to seem to be a person of
goodness, but to be really a person of goodness and transformed, of moral character and to be peaceful in our
living.
A Christian is a peaceful person, as he receives from Jesus the representation of peace, for the reason that
Jesus said: 'My peace I give you', 3 we are heirs of that peace, since we know that we are not of this world,
because if we were, we would only think about the material life, and we would not have basic hope of the spiritual
life of the future of our soul, as that would interest us little, because only from the matter without the spiritual
1
Study given at the Centro Espírita, Joana d’Arc, on 02/ 09/ 2008.
2
Matthew, 5: 48.
3
John, 14: 27.

1
interest we would live, we would live blindly in the matter, from the matter, for the matter until death comes to
fetch us.
But, this is not a Spiritists case, since being a Spiritist or a Christian is the same thing, 4 being agreed that
the spiritist moral is the one of Christ Jesus and the model of our life is obviously also Jesus.
The difference of us being Spiritists, it is because we accept reincarnation, the spiritual graduation, as well
as the graduation of the worlds in its multiplicity, etc.
Spiritism also accepts the evolution of the spirit which ascends from degree to degree, while many think
differently.
Now, if it were for us to continue in the same graduation, Jesus would not have suggested: 'be perfect' 5
We know that, the religious institutions believe that we are lost, and that we need salvation; that salvation
Spiritism suggests, that it is due to ignorance; thence the need to leave an inferior state for a superior state,
through effort and merit, because it is: 'to each one according to their works', 'the father won't pay for the
children's sins.' 6
But it is said: why they ask from us affability and mildness, benevolence to the fellow creatures, when there
is so much cruelty in the world, and nowadays it is in fashion the television to show a lot of cruelties, which there
was in the world, such as: religious Inquisition, political tortures, prisoners' tortures in the second world war etc.
Where is the love that Jesus taught! What will happen to the men who made or make others to suffer!
Difficult to understand and how to understand!
Well, each one will answer for himself, Jesus said that: 'there will be many that will receive many lashes and
many that will receive few lashes', 7 it is in accordance with the law of causes and effects, everyone be good or
bad do answer by the law of causes and effects.
Jesus spoke that: 'the measure that one gives is the measure that will be given to him.' 8
It is not that God is as a watchman observing us and noting down the details of our life, although we may
say:' God is watching', not necessarily, because everything which happens is registered in our conscience or
perispírit and it is not forgotten. Nowadays we already have as understanding a little on that enigma, watching
how a computer records in a CD some data, and passed the time of forgetfulness the CD shows all the details of
the recording.
The reason why of men to react in cruelty or of bad pleasure, some to the others instead of to love each
other; the Spiritist doctrine advances us, saying that selfishness and pride are the blemishes of the world, which
do contribute to the greed, to the intolerance, to the envy, to selfishness in multiform, for hate, for revenge, for
many evils in which ambition leads to, etc.

**********

Let us see the XV chapter of the Gospel According to Spiritism,

item, 3
3. “All the moral teaching of Christ resumes itself in the need for charity and humility, that is to say, in the tw
virtues which are contrary to selfishness and pride.
In all of His teaching Jesus indicates these two virtues as being the ones which lead to eternal happiness.
He said that the poor in spirit, that is to say the humble, were blessed because the Kingdom of Heaven would be
theirs:
Blessed are those who have pure hearts; Blessed are the gentle and the peacemakers; Blessed are the
merciful. He also taught the need to love one's neighbour as oneself, to do unto others as we would have them do
unto us, to love our enemies, to forgive all offences if we wish to receive forgiveness, to do good without
ostentation and to judge ourselves before we judge others.
So then charity and humility are the two things which Jesus never ceased to recommend and for which He
stands as an example. He also never ceased to combat pride and selfishness. Nor did He limit Himself to the
mere recommending of charity, but put it in very clear and explicit terms as being the only condition for future
happiness.

4
The Gospel according to Spiritism, 5: 10.
5
Matthew, 5: 48.
6
Deuteronomy, 24: 16.
7
Luke, 12: 47, 48.
8
Matthew, 7: 20.

2
 With respect to the description given by Jesus of the Final Judgment, we must separate, as in many other
cases, that which is only form or allegory. The people to whom Jesus spoke, being still unable to understand
totally spiritual questions, made it necessary for Him to offer them material images which would both shock and
impress.
Therefore in order for them to better understand what was being said to them, Jesus was obliged to keep
closely to the form of the ideas of those times, always reserving for the future the real interpretation of His words
and the points which at that time were unable to be clearly explained.
But alongside the accessory or figurative parts of this explanation, there is one dominant feature: that of the
happiness reserved for the just and the unhappiness awaiting those who are evil.
What then are the considerations of sentence according to that supreme judgment? On what has the
indictment been based? Does the judge perhaps ask if the person under interrogation has fulfilled this or that
formality, if they have more or less observed this or that external practice?
No, he will ask but one question: if charity has been practiced; and then make the pronouncement: "Go to
the right all who have helped their brothers and sisters. Go to the left all those who have been unyielding." Is it
said, by any chance, what is the orthodoxy of their faith? Is any distinction made between those who believe in
this or that manner?
No, because Jesus places the Samaritan, considered by some to be a heretic, who practiced love towards
his fellow creature above any orthodoxy which lacks charity.
So do not consider charity to be merely one of the conditions for salvation. But instead, consider it to be the
only condition. If there were others to be met, then Jesus would have mentioned them.
Since He put charity in first place, it is because it implicitly embraces all the other virtues such as humility,
kindness, benevolence, indulgence, justice, etc., and also because it is the absolute negation of pride and
selfishness.”

*********
The understanding of the spiritual life modifies the man, in the understanding that his future life is spiritual;
yes, dies the man, but his life continues, and the way he lived or that he is living influences in his spiritual future,
because our works do follow us.
For our understanding and future warning, Jesus explained: 'there was a rich man who lived selfishly and
he ignored a poor, who begged to his door, both died and the rich suffered the consequences in the spiritual life,
of a life badly lived." 9
Yes, let us live to the best we can, because this life demands very much from us for our survival in which
this world requests, such as: to look after the body, our feeding, our clothing well covered and sheltered from the
changes of seasons and difficult environments.
However, let us live in agreement, with the notion, that we are spirits, that we are here in this world
temporarily, and that morally we are responsible one to another, therefore already from long ago comes: 'do not
steal, do not kill'; 10 and, obviously, not to do to the neighbor that which we do not want others to do to us, living in
peace and love, because 'without charity there is no salvation.'
They asked Jesus, What to do to gain eternal life; Jesus answered that it is: 'to love God above all things
and the neighbor as himself.' Certainly that means that each one is responsible for himself.
However, as it is complicated the future life for fear to have to face that future, that beyond, because of so
many in this world preaching, 'the heaven and the hell' and above all the hell is more preached with many colors
and brushstrokes, to that the people in general are terrified and conditioned in those fears, which makes them up
to today their not liking religion very much, we know about that; and also that the fear of the future produces the
fear of death.

*******

9
Luke, 16: 19-31.
10
Exodus, XX.

3
 Let us see in the book 'Heaven and Hell', Part first, - chapter, II.
Item, 3:
Fear of Death
3. – “In proportion as man arrives at a true comprehension of the future state, his fear of death diminishes;
but as, at the same time, he also comprehends more clearly the uses of the earthly life, he awaits its ending
calmly, without impatience or regret. The certainty of a future life gives another direction to the thoughts, another
aim to his activities.
Before acquiring this certainly he labored only for the things of the present life; having acquired this certainly
he labors for the life to come, yet without neglecting the duties and interests of his present life, because he knows
that the character of his future life will be decided by the use he will have made of his present existence.
The certainty of again meeting the friends whom he has lost by death, of preserving the relationships he
has formed upon the earth, of not losing the fruit of any effort, of continuing, for ever, to grow in intelligence and in
goodness, gives him patience to await the appointed term of this earthly sojourn, and courage to bear, un
murmuring, the momentary fatigues and disappointments of terrestrial life.
The solidarity which he sees to exist between spirits and men show him the union which ought to exist
between all people of the earth; thus, he perceives the true basis of human fraternity and the true aim of charity in
the present and in the future.

**********

Certainly the fear of death helps man to brake their bad

tendencies, and to try to be better person, however in Allan Kardec's
book, 'Heaven and Hell', - Part first - Chaper, II - Item, 10, says:
Why Spiritists are not afraid of death
10. - “ The spiritist doctrine of life changes entirely our views of the future. The life to come is no longer
a hypothesis, but a fact; the state of the soul, after death, is no longer a matter of theory, but a result of
observation.
The veil is lifted, and the spirit-world appears to us in all its activity and reality. It is not men who have
discord that world, through some ingenuous conception of their imagination; it is the inhabitants of that world who
come, in their own persons, to describe to us the state of being in which they find themselves.
We see them at every degree of spirit-life, in every phase of happiness or of unhappiness; we contemplate
all the incidents of the life beyond the grave. It is this knowledge of the nature and details of the life in the spirit-
world that enables the Spiritists to contemplate death with calmness and gives serenity to his last moments upon
the earth.
What sustains him is not a mere hope, but a certainty, he knows that the future life is only a continuation of
his present life, but under more favorable conditions, and he looks forward to it with as much confidence as that
with which he looks forward to a new sunrise after a dark and stormy night.
This confidence of the spiritist is a result of the facts that he has witnessed, and of the accordance of those
facts with reason, with the justice and goodness of God, and with the deepest inspirations of the human mind.
For the spiritist, the soul is not an abstraction for he knows, that it possesses an ethereal body which makes
of of it a real and definite being, susceptible of being conceived of as such by our thought, and this knowledge
suffices, of itself, to fix our ideas in regard to its individuality, aptitudes and perceptions.
Our remembrance of those who are dear to us repose, henceforth, on something real; we no longer
represent them to ourselves as so many fugitive flames, offering nothing of their former personality to our thought;
on the contrary, we see them under a concrete form which shows them to belong to the category of living beings.
Moreover, instead of regarding them as being lost to view, as formerly, in the depths of space, the spiritist knows
that they are beside us and around us; for he has learned that the corporeal world and the spiritual world are in
close and perpetual connection.

4
 Doubt, in relation to the future life, being no longer possible to him, he has no longer any reason to be afraid
of death; he beholds its approach with perfect equanimity; for he knows that the dissolution of his fleshly body will
be for him a deliverance, the opening of a door through which he will pass, not into the yawning abyss of
annihilation, but into a higher and happier state of existence.”

**********
The fear of dying, is more for the stranger's fear, however the Spiritist Doctrine has no doubt at all about the
continuation of life, in a natural way in sequence.
Also all of religions point, that the soul does not die with the body, but survives it, only that the Spiritist
Doctrine, instructs us that really the spirit not only survives the death of the body, as it pre-exists to his
incarnation, emphasizing that reincarnation is necessary to the evolution and progress of the Spirit.
Being it so one wonders: 'How can a Spirit which is immortal live in harmony in his Universe between two
Worlds: The material and the spiritual!'
Yes, a lot it depends on himself, his happy integration, be it in the material world, be it in the spiritual world;
so that for him to live together in harmony with all the beings in the two worlds he needs a key, and for best, he
needs a master-key, therewith, to enter in all of the Churches, Spiritual Centers, Temples, Spiritual Congregations
or the equivalent in the two worlds; being revealed that that key is: 'love'
Talking about love; the water be in whatever country, it is always water - .there is no Brazilian water nor
water of this or of that country, because water is water, it is the water that refreshes, it is the water that quenches
the thirst, it is the water that washes, water is life, so is love. 11
Of the same way the fluids that we passed each other, are of the same essence, and the fluids of the
mediums are similar to any other, only that they receive the influences of the faith or of the spiritual medium's will,
as well as it receives the influences of each oneself, because we are all more or less mediums, although there is
a vast variety, 12 so is love.
In love a mother passes to her children that love fluid and affection, the son also passes for his mother that
same fluid of affection and love, which is increased when he asks for help from the beyond. 13
Love is life, and, as Jesus was the greatest example of love, He said: 'I am the way the truth and the life' 14
Yes, love is life, and constant of that Jesus said: 'Love one another as I have loved you', 15 here is the key!
'Master-Key', should we say, because with love the whole Universe opens up, and in love is our salvation,
because as Allan Kardec says:' without charity there is no salvation.' 16
Well then, we already have the key, and for best still, we do already have the master-key, which is love.
Will we use it?
Be it so!, For little that we may love, we are using it, and if we do not love the key becomes rusty, and if
that happens, only the love oil which comes from God can remove the rust from it, and for that we have to pray
and to expose our hearts to God with honesty.
Let us live then, saving everything in life, but let us not save the love some for the others, in that we should
be extravagant and we have a good incentive: 'it is giving that it is received.' 17
Oh, what faith and hope the spiritist must have, praised be God!
Affability, mildness and patience are imbued in love, One does wonder?
Yes! They are virtues pertinent to love, and from virtue to virtue our love completes itself relatively
The Sun is huge but it makes a small flower to sprout.
God is infinite in love, but He makes to sprout our tiny love!

May God be with us, as formerly, today and always.

11
The Mediums’ book, IX: 131.
12
The Mediums’ Book, XV, 159-177.
13
The Mediums’ book, XIV: 176/2
14
John, 14: 6.
15
John, 15: 12.
16
The Gospel according to Spiritism, 15: 10
17
Luke, 6: 38. - Matthew, 13: 12; 28, 29.

5
 Jesus suggested: 'Be perfect', 18 which means to say in
reality,19
That we try to make an effort for perfection,
For progress and spiritual evolution,
And our interior transformation for goodness,
Because what interests, it is not the value that the others
give to us,
But the value which the spirit in us has; not to seem to be
a person of goodness,
But to be really a person of goodness and transformed,
Of moral character and to be peaceful in our living.
A Christian is a peaceful person,
As he receives from Jesus the representation of peace,
For the reason that Jesus said: 'My peace I give you', 20
We are heirs of that peace, since we know that we are not
of this world,
Because if we were, we would only think about the
material life,
And we would not have basic hope of the spiritual life of
the future of our soul,
As that would interest us little,

18
Matthew, 5: 48.
19
Extract fom the study ‘Afabilidae e a doçura’ given at the Centro Espirits, Joana d’Arc,
situated at Rua Capitão Salustiano, São João de Meriti, Rio de Janeiro, on 02/ 09/ 2008.
20
John, 14: 27.

6
Because only from the matter without the spiritual interest
we would live,
We would live blindly in the matter, from the matter, for
the matter until death comes to fetch us.
But, this is not a Spiritists case,
Since being a Spiritist or a Christian is the same thing, 21
Being agreed that the spiritist moral is the one of Christ
Jesus,
And the model of our life is obviously also Jesus.

21
The Gospel according to Spiritism, 5: 10.