The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-01-04

q
ana 0nere is no escape. We musu ~.
move, but we must oil keep together Il
ls only when the rear guard comes ul
that the vanguard can go on.
stephen Girard must have understood
this. He took under his charge the pro
gress OF those who needed his aid know
ing that If they were added to the list Of
good citizens, to the catalogue Of moral
enterprising and useful men that there
was just SO much added not to their hap
piness only, bat to the welfare of the race
to which he belonged. For his orphans
the vanguard need not wait. Your
| founder also understood what education
| was. Moet men brought up as he was or
shlpboard and on shore with few books
and fewer studies if they cared for learn
ing at all would have had for learning
an uncouth reverence such as the savage
has for his idol, a reverence for the fan
cled msgnificence of the unknown. This
would have led him to establish a univer-
stty devoted to out of the way learning
beyond his ken or to link his name to
glories to which he could not aspire. But
the man who named his vessels after the
great French authors of his age and who
read their works himself knew from them
and from his own laborious and SUCCESS
full life that learning was not all of edu-
cation and so gave his orphans an en-.
trance into q practical world with such
learning as left the whole field of learning
before them if they wanted it with power
to make fortunes besides.
1t is strange to watch the growth into
fame and respect and reverence of Stephen
Girard as his plan of comforting bene'
faction upon the city and the people
VIII 1m he loved has slowly unfolded itself
before their gaze. The generation In
which he lives can. seldom understand the
really great man. We live for today and
he lives for day after today. He takes
on the century in which he lives and q
hundred years after he has passed away.
The man Of mediocrity must make his
hay. under the shine of the present sun
and so must clasp every hand be can
touch and make us think he loves us all.
But the greatest merchant of his time
with the noblest ambition of them all
was so resolute in his pursuit of wealth
andsso coldly determined in all his en-
deavors. that he seems to have uncovered
to few or to none the generous purpose of
hissheart. What hessaid to the man was
soaunworthySto writeshis first biography
but who was forced to bless when he had
gone forth to curse is the secret of his
career. "My actions must makess my
life," he said and of his life not one
moment was wasted. "Faots and things
rather than words and signs" were the
warp and wool of his existence. No won
be the teaching for those objects OF his
bounty into whose faces he was never to
look
The vast wealth which Girard had was
of itself alone evidence of greatness. /
have not forgotten the epitaph of Col.
CHARTERS, who died rich ands infamous.
that you could see what Good thought of
riches by the people he gave them to. For
tunes may be made and lost. Fortunes
may be inherited These things mean
nothing. But the fortune which has
given us all our surroundings tonight
was made and firmly held in hand of
eighty years. That meant greatness. But
when the dead hand opens and pours the
rich bloom of a preparation for life over
5000 boys in the half century which has
gone and thousands in the centuries to
come that means more than greatness.
Mr.. Girard gave more than his money.
He,put into his enterprise hissown power
full brain, and, like the ships he sent to
sea, long after his death the adventure
came home laden not with the results of
his capital alone but of his forethought
and his genius. He builded for SO many
years that the stars will be cold before his
work is finished.
We envious people who cannot be
wealthy any more than we can add O
cubit to our stature avenge ourselves by
thinking and proclaiIning that pursuit of
wealth Is sordid and stiles the nobler
sentiments of the soul. Whether this be
SO or not If whoever makes to grow two
blades of grass where but one grew be-
fore is benefactor of his race. he also is
a benefao.or who makes two ships sail
the sea where but one encountered its
storms before. However sordid the owner
may be this is a benefit OF which he can
not deprive tho world.
That men who have achieved great
riches are not always shut out by their
riches from the nobler emotions Stephen
Girard was himself most illustrious ex-
ample. A hundred years ago this city
was under the black horror of a plague
So terrible was the fear that fell upon the
city that the tenderest of domestic ties,
the love of husband for wife and Of
parents for children seemed obliterated.
Even gold lost it's power in the multi
tudinous presence of impending death.
There was no refuge even in the hospital
which, reeking with disease, was hell
out of which there was no redemption.
Neither money nor affection could buy
service Fear was on every soul.''
Girard was then in the prime of life, 40
years old, in health and strength, already
rich and with future as secure as ever
falls to human lot OF his own accord
rs volunteer he took charge of the in
terror Of the deadly hospital and for two
long and weary months stood face to face
with death.
A poet himself has sung in vain of
what makes the little songs inger in our
hearts for ages while epics perish and
tragedies pass out of sight. Why this is
SO we shallsnever know by reason alone
Way down in the heart there is tender
ness for human self sacrifice, which
makes it seem loftier than the love Of
glory; for it reveals the eternal possibility
of the human soul. Wars and sieges pass
awayaalnd great intellectual efforts cease
to stir our hearts but the man who sacri.
fees himself for his fellow lives forever.
We forget the war in which was the siege
of Zutphen and almost the city itself, but
we shall never forget the death of Sir
Philip Sidney. Scholars only read the
work of his life but all mankind honors
him in the story of his death.
The great war of the Crimea in our own
day, with its generals and marshals and
its bands of storming soldiery, has almost
passed from our memories, but the time
will never come when the Charge of
Balaclava will cease to stir the heart or
pass from story or from song.
1T happened to Stephen Girard. mariner
and merchant, seeking after wealth and
finding it, whose ships covered every sea
whose intellect penetrated. as your treas
urer's books Will show, hundred years
- LL.E 30 1.-~I4