History of A Footman

A noble family once employed a young footman whose face, bearing, intelligence, and quiet devotion seemed far above his position. The next year he died suddenly after going home to visit family. Later, when called, he explained the reason for that humble life.

The medium’s hand begins writing...

FootmanIn the life before the one in which you knew me, I belonged to a very good family. But my father ruined us with his extravagance, and I was left an orphan while still young and completely destitute. One of my father's friends took me in, raised me as his son, and gave me an excellent education, and I became a little too proud of it.

FootmanThat friend is now reborn as Mr. de G., in whose service you saw me. I had decided to atone for my former pride by being born into a servile condition. That choice also gave me the chance to show gratitude to the one who had been my benefactor in my previous life. I even had the happiness of saving his life.

FootmanThis humble life was very useful to me. I had enough strength of character not to be corrupted by surroundings that are almost always bad, and I thank God that I thus earned the happiness I now enjoy.

AllanHow did you save Mr. de G.'s life?

FootmanOne day he was riding alone. I was following a little behind. I saw a large tree about to fall beside him, and he did not notice it. I shouted with all my strength. He quickly turned his horse toward me, and the tree fell across the road in the exact place where he would have been. If I had not called him back, he would have been crushed.

AllanWhy did you die so young?

FootmanMy trial had reached its appointed end.

AllanWhat benefit could you gain from that trial, since you had no memory of why you had taken it on?

FootmanEven in my humble condition I felt pride rising in me, and I was thankfully able to master it. That made the trial truly useful. Otherwise I would have had to begin again. In moments of freedom, my spirit remembered the past. On waking, what remained was only an instinctive desire to resist a feeling I sensed was wrong.

FootmanThat struggle against an evil tendency was more effective than if I had kept a clear memory of the past. The memory of my former life would have fed my pride and interfered with my duties. Instead, I only had to fight the bad tendencies connected with my new position.

AllanYou had received an excellent education. What use was it in your last life, since you did not remember it?

FootmanIn my new position that knowledge would not only have been useless, it would have gotten in my way. So it was left hidden for a time. But now I remember it all again. Even hidden, it still helped me, because it developed my intelligence and gave me a taste for higher things. That made me pull back from the base examples around me. Without that earlier education, I would have been nothing more than a common lackey.

AllanServants sometimes show a devotion to their masters that reaches self-sacrifice. Is that always connected to relations from earlier lives?

FootmanIn almost all cases, yes. Such servants may once have belonged to the same family as their employers, or, like me, may be repaying a debt of gratitude. And in every case, that devotion helps their own progress. You hardly suspect how closely the sympathies and antipathies of your present life are tied to the relationships of former lives. No, death does not break those ties. They often continue from century to century.

AllanWhy are such examples of devotion rarer today?

FootmanBecause the spirit of your age is selfishness and pride, strengthened by unbelief and materialism. Faith in goodness is being driven out by greed for gain, and with it goes the capacity for devotion. Spiritism, by bringing people back to true belief, will rekindle the virtues that are dying out.

The case was offered as a clear example of why forgetting past lives can be helpful. If master and servant had remembered the earlier bond, the useful trial for both would likely have been impossible.