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Good Morning You may have heard this week of an international research project where hundreds of "lost" wallets containing great and small amounts of money were placed in locations where they could easily be found. The results of such an expensive experiment- carried out across 40 countries- have been fascinating to read. This week's edition of the Science magazine reveals that the more money there was contained in a lost wallet- the more likely they were to be returned to the owner and handed back! The research team said that they were genuinely surprised by the results. Last year after taking a seat on a train, I saw a wallet on the floor. After hesitating as to whether to hand it in or do my own investigation, I discovered the wallet belonged to a Cambridge student. So I tracked him down with the help of the university. When he met me the next day to take grateful possession of his student ID and cash cards, the exchange involved genuine gratitude on his part and a rather strange sense of satisfaction on mine. It reminded me of those various parables about lost sheep, coins and sons. The whole point of them, according to the NT scholar I H Marshall, is the happiness in heaven that results. Indeed, in Luke's Gospel, when the poverty-stricken woman finds the expensive coin that she thought she had lost, she has a party with her neighbours who share her delight. The lost wallet research highlights two unexpected results. First, in the battle between honesty and self-interest we have an aversion to any suggestion that we have done wrong: that we might even be considered a thief. And secondly, although the results varied from country to country, civic honesty is still alive and well. As well as those New Testament lost and found parables it's in the Old Testament wisdom literature that this battle between honesty and self-interest is so often the focus. And I agree with the theologian Thomas K Johnson's observation that the books of the bible combine to present us with "a rich complexity" of approaches to the communication of a moral code. And this code has been mainly formed and fashioned by communities for the greater good over many centuries. It's easy to be despondent about a perceived decline in what one might refer to as neighbourliness but the lost wallet research certainly suggests to me that there are still heartening levels of altruism in society today and that we should not lose heart but indeed rejoice that the spirit of civic honesty is not lost.