And just a week afterwards Dr. Noad received a second letter, surmounted by a neat drawing, and describing at great length experiments that the Professor had since made in order to place the matter beyond doubt. And it was not merely for friends and brother _savants_ that he would take trouble. Old volumes of the _Mechanics' Magazine_ bear testimony to the way in which he was asked questions by people in all parts of the kingdom, and that he was accustomed to give painstaking answers to such letters. "Do to others as you would wish them to do to you," was a precept often on his lips. But I have heard that he was sometimes charged with transgressing it himself, inasmuch as he took an amount of trouble for other people which he would have been greatly distressed if they had taken for him. His charities were very numerous,--not to beggars; for them he had the Mendicity Society's tickets,--but to those whose need he knew. The porter of the Royal Institution has shown me, among his treasured memorials, a large number of forms for post-office orders, for sums varying from 5_s._ to 5_l._, which Faraday was in the habit of sending in that way to different recipients of his thoughtful bounty. Two or three instances have come to my knowledge of his having given more considerable sums of money--say 20_l._--to persons who he thought would be benefited by them. In some instances the gift was called a loan, but he lent "not expecting again," and entered into the spirit of the injunction, "When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." This principle was in fact stated in one of his letters to a friend: "As a case of distress I shall be very happy to help you as far as my means allow me in such cases; but then I never let my name go to such acts, and very rarely even the initials of my name." His contributions to the general funds of his Church were kept equally secret. From all these circumstances, therefore, it is impossible to gauge the amount of his charitable gifts; but when it is remembered that for many years his income from different sources must have been 1,000_l._ or 1,200_l._, that he and Mrs. Faraday lived in a simple manner--comfortably, it is true, but not luxuriously--and that his whole income was disposed of in some way, there can be little doubt that his gifts amounted to several hundred pounds per annum. But it was not in monetary gifts alone that his kindness to the distressed was shown. Time was spent as freely as money; and an engrossing scientific research would not be allowed to stand in the way of his succouring the sorrowful. Many persons have told me of his self-denying deeds on behalf of those who were ill, and of his encouraging words. He had indeed a heart ever ready to sympathize. Thus meeting once in the neighbourhood of Hampton Court an old friend who had retired there invalided and was being drawn about in a Bath chair, he is said to have burst into tears.