Thus ended that busy life, which began in poverty, and which had yielded its possessor a fortune of ten millions of dollars. Surely, if wealth and the power it wields be the real crown of life, Stephen Girard must be accorded high rank among the mighty men who win magnificent victories over the adverse circumstances of an obscure birth. He sought riches, not as a miser who gloats with low delight over his glittering gold, but as a man ambitious to make his name imperishable. His ambition was satisfied. His ten millions, invested as directed in his will, which is itself a marvel of worldly wisdom, is accomplishing his life-long desire. So far as human foresight can perceive, Girard College will keep the name of this wonderful man before the eyes of men through the coming ages.
Nevertheless, we count this victor over the mighty obstacles which stand between a penniless cabin-boy and the ownership of millions a vanquished man. Bringing his life into the "light of the glory of God which shines from the face of Jesus Christ," we are compelled to pronounce it a miserable failure. We do not find either Christian faith or Christian morality in it. As to faith, he had none; for he was an atheist, and gloried in his disbelief of all revealed truth. As to morality, his biographer informs us that he was an unchaste, profane, passionate, arbitrary, ungenerous, unloving man. His apparent philanthropy was so veined with selfishness that it was rarely ever exhibited except under conditions which secured publicity. And even the college which perpetuates his name proclaims, by its prohibition of religious instruction, his hatred of "the only name given under heaven among men whereby we can be saved." It is true that his will enjoins instruction in morals; but it is heathen, not Christian, morality that he intended; and, if the letter and spirit of his remarkable will were strictly carried out, the graduates of Girard College would leave its walls as ill instructed in the principles of genuine morality as were the disciples of Socrates or the followers of Confucius. The only roots on which pure morals can grow are faith in our heavenly Father and his divine Son, and love which is born of that precious faith. That faith is forbidden to be taught, and its divinely ordained teachers are prohibited entrance within the walls his unsanctified ambition built. Happily for the orphan boys who congregate there, the spirit of that antichristian will can not be executed in this Christian country. Its letter is no doubt respected; but the ethics of the institution are not those of Voltaire, Rousseau, or Confucius, but of Jesus, whose life is the only "light of men." Hence, while his college may perpetuate his name, it will never cause mankind to love his character, nor to hope that he is one of that exalted host which ascended to heaven through much tribulation, and after washing their robes in the blood of the Lamb.--DR. WISE, in "Victors Vanquished," Cranston & Stowe, Cincinnati.
XXIV.
DISAPPOINTMENTS.
PLEASURE AFTER PAIN--PAIN AFTER PLEASURE.
Our illusions commence in the cradle, and end only in the grave. We have all great expectations. Our ducks are ever to be geese, our geese swans; and we can not bear the truth when it comes upon us. Hence our disappointments; hence Solomon cried out that all was vanity, that he had tried every thing, each pleasure, each beauty, and found it very empty. People, he writes, should be taught by my example; they can not go beyond me--"What can he do that comes after the king?"
It is very doubtful whether, to an untried or a young man, the warnings of Solomon, or the outpourings of that griefful prophet whose name now passes for a lamentation, have done much good. Hope balances caution, and "springs eternal in the human breast." The old man fails, but the young constantly fancies he shall succeed. "Solomon," he cries, "did not know every thing;" but in a few years his own disappointments tell him how true the king's words are, and he cherishes the experience he has bought. But experience does not serve him in every case; it has been said that it is simply like the stern-lights of a ship, which lighten the path she has passed over, but not that which she is about to traverse. To know one's self is the hardest lesson we can learn. Few of us ever realize our true position; few see that they are like Bunyan's hero in the midst of Vanity Fair, and that all about them are snares, illusions, painted shows, real troubles, and true miseries, many trials and few enjoyments.
Perhaps the bitterest feelings in our life are those which we experience, when boys and girls, at the failures of our friendships and our loves. We have heard of false friends; we have read of deceit in books; but we know nothing about it, and we hardly believe what we hear. Our friend is to be true as steel. He is always to like us, and we him. He is a second Damon, we a Pythias. We remember the fond old stories of celebrated friendships; how one shared his fortune, another gave his life. Our friend is just of that sort; he is noble, true, grand, heroic. Of course, he is wonderfully generous. We talk of him; he will praise us. The whole people around, who laugh at the sudden warmth, we regard as old fogies, who do not understand life half as well as we do. But by and by our friend vanishes; the image which we thought was gold we find made of mere clay. We grow melancholy; we are fond of reading Byron's poetry; the sun is not nearly so bright nor the sky so blue as it used to be. We sing, with the noble poet--