PDF version - Geae

would have done under similar circumstances. We can construct, little by little, upon this model, an ideal
which will be reflected in all our actions. The most humble man can make himself a sublime character in this
way. The work is slow and difficult, but centuries are given us for it. We must often concentrate our thoughts,
and bring them back to the ideal. We must meditate upon it each day at a chosen hour, preferably the morning,
when all is peaceful about us. 'The hour divine,' when nature, rested and refreshed, awakens in the rays of the
dawn. In those matinal hours the soul, by prayer and meditation, lifts itself more easily to the great heights
from which we can see and comprehend that all life is united to something grand and eternal, and that we
inhabit a world where invisible powers live and work with us. In the simplest life, in the most modest task, in
the most effaced existence, there is always a profound side - and ideal storeroom containing sources of
possible beauty. Each soul can, by its thoughts, create a spiritual atmosphere as beautiful, as resplendent as
that of any enchanted realm; and in the meanest dwelling, the most miserable lodging, there are windows
opening towards God and infinity.
***
In our social relations we must constantly recall this: all men are travelers on the march, occupying
diverse places on the ladder of evolution, which we are all climbing. Therefore we must demand and expect
nothing which does not pertain to their degree of advancement. To each fellow traveler we owe tolerance,
good will and even pardon, for those who seek to injure or wound us are merely delayed souls, insufficiently
developed. God asks of no man aught that he has not acquired by slow, painful labor. We have not the right to
ask more. Have we not been like these unawakened souls in former lives? If each one of us could read in his
past what he had been, and what he had done, we would be more indulgent toward the faults of humanity. Let
us be severe for ourselves and tolerant toward others - instruct, enlighten, and guide them gently. That is what
the law of solidarity commands.
So we must bear all things with patience and serenity: whatever are the acts of other toward us, we
must hold no animosity, no resentment, but use the painful experience for our moral education. No misfortune
could come to us if by our anterior lives we had not paved the way to adversity. This is what we must often say
to ourselves, and in this way we arrive at the acceptance of all trials without bitterness, considering them a
reparation for the past. They prove a means of self-possession, and produce that absolute confidence in the
future which gives force, quietude, and inner satisfaction, enabling us to keep serene in the midst of the hardest
vicissitudes.
When age comes, illusions and vain hopes fall like dead leaves; but the eternal truths shine with
greater brilliancy, like stars in winter skies over the leafless trees in our gardens.
It matters little then if it has enriched our souls with one virtue, and with a little moral beauty. The
lives of obscurity and torment are sometimes the most fertile; while those which are brilliant with successes
chain us to formidable responsibilities. Happiness is not in exterior things, but in ourselves. The wise man
creates in himself an assured refuge, a sacred place, a profound retreat, where the discords of the outer world
cannot enter. Each soul carries in itself its lights or its shadows, its Paradise or its Hell, but let us remember
that nothing is irreparable: the situation of the most inferior spirit is but one point, almost imperceptible, in the
immensity of his destiny.
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