The servants.

— The case reported in the preceding issue, under the title The Cabin and the Drawing-Room (December 1862), reminds us of another, somewhat personal one. On a journey we made two years ago, we saw, in a family of high society, a very young servant whose refined and intelligent face impressed us by its air of distinction. Nothing in his manners denoted inferiority; his devotion to the service of his masters did not have that servile obsequiousness peculiar to persons of such condition. Returning to that family the following year, and no longer seeing the young man, we asked whether he had been dismissed. “No,” they replied; “he went to spend a few days in his homeland and died there. We greatly regretted it, for he was an excellent fellow and had feelings truly above his position. He was very attached to us, having given us proofs of the greatest devotion.”

Later the idea came to us of evoking the young man. Here is what he told us:

“In my last incarnation I was, as they say on Earth, of good family, though ruined by my father’s prodigality. I was orphaned and without resources while still very young. Mr. G… was my benefactor; he raised me as a son and gave me a good education, which made me very vain. In my last existence I wished to expiate my pride by being born in a servile condition, and here I found occasion to prove devotion to my benefactor. I even saved his life, without his ever suspecting it. It was at the same time a trial, of which I took advantage, for I had enough strength not to let myself be corrupted by contact with an almost always vicious milieu. Despite the bad examples, I remained pure, for which I give thanks to God for having been rewarded by the happiness I enjoy.”

Q. – In what circumstances did you save the life of Mr. G…?

Answer. – On a horseback ride, in which I followed him alone, I perceived a great tree falling beside him, without his seeing it. I warned him with a terrible cry; he recoiled abruptly, while the tree fell at his feet. Without the movement I provoked, he would have been crushed.

Observation. – The fact was related to Mr. G…, who remembered it perfectly.

Q. – Why did you die so young?

Answer. – God had judged my trial sufficient.

Q. – How were you able to profit from the trial, if you kept no memory of your preceding existence and of the cause that had motivated it?

Answer. – In my humble position, there remained in me an instinct of pride, which I had the good fortune to master. This made the trial very profitable, without which I would have had to begin it again. In its moments of freedom, my Spirit remembered, and, on awakening, there remained an intuitive desire to resist my tendencies, which I felt to be bad. Thus, I had more merit in struggling than if I had clearly recalled the past. The disturbing memory of my former position would have exalted my pride, whereas I had only to combat the impulses of the new position.

Q. – You received a brilliant education. What use was it to you in your last existence, since you did not recall the knowledge acquired?

Answer. That knowledge would have been useless, even an absurdity, in my new situation. It remained latent, and today I recover it. Nevertheless, it was not useless to me, for it developed my intelligence; instinctively I had a taste for elevated things, which inspired in me repugnance for the base and ignoble examples I had before my eyes. Without such an education I would have been no more than a simple servant.

Q. – Do the examples of domestics who devote themselves to their masters even to the point of abnegation have as their cause prior relations?

Answer. – Do not doubt it; it is, at least, the most common case. Sometimes such servants are members of the family or, like me, grateful beings who pay a debt of gratitude and whose devotion aids their progress. You do not know all the effects of the sympathies and antipathies that these prior relations produce in the world. No, death does not interrupt such relations, which often perpetuate themselves from one century to another.

Q. – Why are such examples of devotion among domestics so rare today?

Answer. – One must incriminate the spirit of egoism and pride of your century, developed by incredulity and by materialist ideas. True faith disappears through cupidity and the desire for gain and, with it, devotion. By leading men back to the sentiment of truth, Spiritism will cause the forgotten virtues to be reborn.

Observation. – Nothing better than this example to bring out the benefit of the forgetting of anterior existences. If Mr. G… had remembered who his young servant had been, he would have been greatly embarrassed and would not even have kept him in that condition, thus hindering the trial, which was profitable to them both.