Anonymous benefactors.

The following fact was related by the Patrie of last April:

“The owner of a house on the Rue du Cherche-Midi had allowed the day before yesterday that the tenant move out without settling the account, by means of an acknowledgment of the debt. But while they were loading the furniture the owner changed his mind and wished to be paid before the removal of the furniture. The tenant was in despair, his wife wept, and two children of tender age imitated their mother. A gentleman, decorated with the Legion of Honor, was passing at that moment through that street. He stopped. Touched by that desolating spectacle, he approached the unfortunate debtor and, having informed himself of the sum owed for the rent, handed him two banknotes and disappeared, accompanied by the blessings of that family, which he was saving from despair.” In the month of July, the newspaper L'Opinion du Midi, of Nîmes, related another case of the same kind:

“A fact has just occurred as strange, by the mystery with which it was carried out, as it is touching by its purpose and by the delicacy of its author's conduct.

“Three days ago we announced that a violent fire had consumed almost completely the shop and workshops of Mr. Marteau, a cabinetmaker in Nîmes. We recounted the grief of this unfortunate man in the presence of a disaster that consummated his ruin, for the insurance he had taken out was infinitely inferior to the value of the merchandise destroyed.

“We learned today that three carts, containing wood of various qualities and instruments of work, were brought before Mr. Marteau's house and unloaded in his workshops, half-devoured by the flames.

“The man responsible for driving the carts answered the questions of which he was the object by alleging the ignorance in which he found himself regarding the name of the donor, whose will he was executing. He maintained that he did not know the person who had commissioned him to transport the wood and the tools to Mr. Marteau's house, and that he knew nothing beyond that commission. He withdrew after having unloaded the three vehicles.

“Joy and happiness replaced in Mr. Marteau the dejection from which it had been impossible to draw him since the day of the fire.

“May the generous unknown one, who so nobly came to the aid of a misfortune that, without him, might perhaps have been irreparable, receive here the thanks and the blessings of a family which, as of today, owes to him the sweetest consolations and, perhaps, will soon come to owe to him its prosperity.”

The heart is reassured when we read similar facts which, from time to time, come to provide the counterpart to the accounts of crimes and vile deeds that the newspapers print in their columns. Facts such as those related above prove that virtue is not entirely banished from the Earth, as certain pessimists think. Without doubt evil still dominates in it, but when one looks into the shadow, one perceives that, beneath the weeds, there are more violets, that is, a greater number of good souls than one thinks. If they appear at such widely spaced intervals, it is because true virtue does not put itself in evidence, because it is humble; it contents itself with the pleasures of the heart and the approval of the conscience, whereas vice manifests itself affrontingly, in full light; it makes noise, because it is proud. Pride and humility are the two poles of the human heart: one attracts all good; the other, all evil; one has calm; the other, tempest; the conscience is the compass that indicates the route leading to each of them. The anonymous benefactor, just like the one who does not wait for death to give to those who have nothing, is, incontestably, the type of the man of good par excellence; he is the personification of modest virtue, that which does not seek the applause of men. To do good without ostentation is an incontestable sign of great moral superiority, because there is need of a living faith in God and in the future, a detachment from present life and an identification with future life, in order to await the approval of God, as well as to renounce the satisfaction afforded by the present testimony of men. The one favored blesses from the heart the generous and unknown hand that succored him, and that blessing rises to heaven much more than the applause of the multitude. He who takes more account of the suffrage of men than of the approval of God shows that he has more faith in men than in God and that present life has more value than future life. If he says the contrary, he acts as if he did not believe what he says. Among these, how many do a favor only with the hope that the one favored will come to proclaim the benefit from the rooftops! who in full light give a great sum, but in obscurity would not give a single coin! This is why Jesus said: “Those who do good with ostentation have already received their reward.” Indeed, to him who seeks his glorification on Earth, God owes nothing; it only remains for him to receive the price of his pride. What relation does this have with Spiritism? certain critics will perhaps ask; how many more amusing cases could you not tell than this tiresome moral? (Jugement de la morale spirite, by Mr. Figuier, vol. IV, p. 369). It has a relation insofar as Spiritism, giving unshakeable faith in the goodness of God and in future life, thanks to it the men who do good for the sake of good will be less rare than they are today; the newspapers will have fewer crimes and suicides to record and more acts of the nature of those that gave rise to these reflections.