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Book Fourth - Hopes and consolations
Chapter I - Earthly joys and sorrows
937 Are not the disappointments that are caused by ingratitude, and by the fragility of earthly friendships, also a source of bitterness of the human heart?
"Yes; but we teach you to feel pity for the ungrateful, and for faithless friends. Their unkindness will do more harm to themselves than to you. Ingratitude comes of selfishness, and he who is selfish will meet, sooner or later, with hearts as hard as his own has been. Think of all those who have done more good than you have done, who are more worthful than you are, and whose kindness has been repaid with ingratitude. Remember that Jesus himself, during his life, was scoffed at, despised, and treated as a knave and an impostor. And do not be surprised that you should be treated in the same way. Let the consciousness of the good you have done be your recompense in your present life, and do not trouble yourself about those to whom you have done it. Ingratitude serves to test your persistence in doing good. It will be counted to you hereafter, and those who have been ungrateful of your kindness will be punished. And all the more severely, the greater has been their ingratitude."
938. May not the disappointments caused by ingratitude harden the heart and render it close to feelings?
"It would be wrong to let them do so, for the generous man is always glad to have done good. He knows that, if this good be forgotten in earthly life, it will be recalled in the other, and then the ungrateful will feel shame and remorse."
- But this knowledge will not prevent him from being acutely pained by ingratitude in the present life. Might not this pain lead him to think that he would be happier if he possessed less sensibility ?
"If he preferred a selfish happiness, yes. But that sort of happiness is a very pitiable one. Let such a man try to understand that the ungrateful friends, who desert him, are unworthy of his friendship, and that he has been mistaken in his estimate of them. So, there is no need of regreting their loss. Their place will by and by be filled by others who are better able to understand him. You should pity those from whom you have received ill-treatment that you have not deserved, for a heavy retribution will overtake them. Do not pain yourselves by their misconduct; this will place you above them."
Nature has implanted in man the need of loving, and being loved. One of the greatest enjoyments allowed to him upon the earth is the meeting with hearts that sympathise with his own. This sympathy gives him a foretaste of the happiness that awaits him in the world of perfected spirits, where all is love and kindness. A happiness that is refused to the selfish.
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Unshakable faith is only that which can meet reason face to face in every Human epoch. (Allan Kardec)
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