I was now a philanthropist, and I will say (which I think I may do without shame, the merit being less attributable to me than to that worthy deceased personage whose body I inhabited), that a truer, purer, or more zealous one never walked the earth. I should fill a book as big as a family Bible, were I to record all the good things I did or attempted, while a tenant in Zachariah Longstraw's body. All my feelings and desires were swallowed up in one great passion of philanthropy; universal benevolence was the maxim I engraved upon my heart; I had no thought but to relieve the distresses, meliorate the condition, and advance the happiness of my species. My generosity extended equally to individuals and communities; I toiled alike in the service of the beggar and the million, putting bread into the mouth of the one, and infusing moral principles into the breasts of the others. In a word, I was, as I have called myself already, a philanthropist; and if my virtue was somewhat excessive in degree, it proceeded from the sincerest promptings of spirit. 6. CHAPTER VI. AN INCONVENIENCE OF BEING IN ANOTHER MAN'S BODY, WHEN CALLED UPON TO GIVE EVIDENCE AS TO ONE'S OWN EXIT. It may be supposed that the treatment I (for, of a verity, I myself came in for some share of the hard usage that killed the true Zachariah) had received from the base and brutal John Smith, must have cooled my regard for him, if it did not affect my feelings of philanthropy in general. I confess that I did regard that personage with sentiments of disgust and indignation; but, nevertheless, I was very loath to appear against him when summoned (as I was, soon after leaving my sick-bed) to give evidence on the charges preferred against him. These were two in number, and afforded matter for as many separate endictments. In the first--and, verily, I was startled when I heard it--John Smith was charged with the murder of Abram Skinner; in the second, with an assault, with intent to kill, upon myself--that is, my second self, Zachariah Longstraw--and also with robbery. Now, if the reader will reflect a moment upon the relation in which I stood to these charges, he will allow that the necessity of testifying on them reduced me to a quandary. In the first place, I knew very well that Mr. John Smith, rogue and assassin as he was, had _not_ killed Abram Skinner, but that I had finished that unhappy gentleman myself; and I knew also, in the second, that my admitting this fact would, without doing Mr. John Smith any good, produce a decided inconvenience to myself:--not that there was any fear I should be arraigned for murder, but because nobody would believe me. I remembered how my telling the truth to my friend John Darling, the deputy attorney, in regard to my first transformation, had caused him to believe me mad; and I foresaw that telling the truth on the present occasion would reduce me to the same predicament, and perhaps the Friends' mad-house into the bargain.