THE NEED FOR CHARITY ACCORDING TO SAINT PAUL (The Gospel According to Spiritism, Chapter 15. - WITHOUT CHARITY THERE IS NO SALVATION; item 6)

         6. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, l am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity it profited me nothing. Charity suffered long and is kind, charity vaunted not itself, is not puffed up, do not behave itself unseemly, skeet not her own, is not easily provoked, think no evil, rejoiced not in iniquity, but rejoiced in the truth; bear all things, believeth all things, hoped all things, endured all things. And now abided faith, hope, charity these three; but the greatest of these is charity (SAINT PAUL, I Corinthians, 13:1-7 & 13).

         7. This is the way in which Saint Paul understood this great truth, which said: 'When I have learned the language of the Angels: "When I have the gift of prophecy, which I can penetrate all the mysteries; When I have all the faith that is possible, even to the point of transporting mountains, if l do not have charity, then lam nothing. Within the three virtues: faith, hope and charity, the most superior of these is charity." In this manner and without any possible doubt, Paul places charity above even faith. This is because charity is within the reach of everybody, from the ignorant to the wise person, from rich to poor people; it is also quite independent of any particular beliefs.

         He does even more: he defines true charity by showing it as being not only beneficence, but also a collective of all the qualities of the heart, in terms of goodness and benevolence towards all of our fellow beings.