11. _Secrecy in doing Good_.

"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." (Matt. vi. 3.)

Seneca (_On Benefits_, ii. 11): "_Let him who hath conferred a favour
hold his tongue_.... _In conferring a favour nothing should be more
avoided than pride_."

12. _God's impartial Goodness_.

"He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain
on the just and on the unjust." (Matt. v. 45.)

Seneca (_On Benefits_, i. 1): "_How many are unworthy of the light! and
yet the day dawns_."

Id. vii. 31: "_The gods begin to confer benefits on those who recognize
them not, they continue them to those who are thankless for them....
They distribute their blessings in impartial tenor through the nations
and peoples;... they sprinkle the earth with timely showers, they stir
the seas with wind, they mark out the seasons by the revolution of the
constellations, they temper the winter and summer by the intervention of
a gentler air_."

It would be a needless task to continue these parallels, because by
reading any treatise of Seneca a student might add to them by scores;
and they prove incontestably that, as far as moral illumination was
concerned, Seneca "was not far from the kingdom of heaven." They have
been collected by several writers; and all of these here adduced,
together with many others, may be found in the pages of Fleury,
Troplong, Aubertin, and others. Some authors, like M. Fleury, have
endeavoured to show that they can only be accounted for by the
supposition that Seneca had some acquaintance with the sacred writings.
M. Aubertin, on the other hand, has conclusively demonstrated that this
could not have been the case. Many words and expressions detached from
their context have been forced into a resemblance with the words of
Scripture, when the context wholly militates against its spirit; many
belong to that great common stock of moral truths which had been
elaborated by the conscientious labours of ancient philosophers; and
there is hardly one of the thoughts so eloquently enunciated which may
not be found even more nobly and more distinctly expressed in the
writings of Plato and of Cicero. In a subsequent chapter we shall show
that, in spite of them all, the divergences of Seneca from the spirit of
Christianity are at least as remarkable as the closest of his
resemblances; but it will be more convenient to do this when we have
also examined the doctrines of those two other great represent