News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1903-03-25

Gordon rose, and Marsh held out his
hand.
"I'll have the business attended to
Mt once, and-and-I'll be down to Hope
House some time this week.
"Thank you. We shall be glad to
see you" Gordon spoke gravely, and
after shaking hands he went out. AS
he went down the stairs he had a mo-
mentary tinge of remOrse at the thought
of having done Marsh some injustice
or of having accepted the gift of the
property churlishly and in an ungra-
cious spirit.
But as he came back to the scene of
the fire he said to himself: rs it a case
for ELUSIVE thanks that this rich man
takes a fraction Of the wealth that be-
longs to God and reluctantly lets hu-
mainly get some pleasure out Of it?
He broke a dozen distinct ordinances
relating to tenement house cOnstruc-
ton when he ordered No. 81 built. He
put up a deathtrap and received money
| for its use He cowardly absented
himself from a knowledge Of the hui
and when a disaster fell directly trace
able to his criminal greed he ran away
from the horrors for which his own
hand was responsible. Was it. there
fore, in order that he, John Gordon,
and Hope House and the public should
| fall down at the feet of this man with
etfusiye and eXtravagant praise for
/ n tn1 inn IN, L,
| mendOuS wrong?
Yet that is what the public, through
press and pulpit, did when it was
/ known what Mr.. Marsh had done. His
act was lauded as "a most noble eX-
hibition of philanthropy" "a splendid
example to Others" fine gift outright
to Hope House-NIr. Philo II. Marsh
donates $4,000 worth of valuable
property Mr.. Marsh's minister men,
toned the gift from the pulpit and
took occasion to use the incident to
illustrate the growing habit on the part
of rich men to give sums of money for
philanthropic causes. At what time
had that pulpit ever spoken out against
the lawless greed which characterized
this philanthropist when he allowed
his business methods to sink to the
level of barter in flesh and blood be-
cause other men did the same and the
breaking of ordinances was counted
trivial thing simply because everybody
did it? Is it not time that the pulpit
said something in condemnation of
wicked and un-ChriStian ways of MAX
ing money before it says much more
in praise of those who give what they
have never rightly earned? A philan-
throp1st is not one who gives money to
humanity that he has obtained by
Wrongin9 humanity. Such a man is
SIMPLY hlghWayman giving up q part
of the plumber he has iniquitously stol-
en-.
When Gordon reached Hope House,
he found waiting for him a note from
Archie PenrOse's aunt, Mrs. Constance
Penrose
Mr.. Penrose was a society young
man who had no visible means of sup
port aside from the money his father,
recently deceased, had left him. Archie
Penrose had never made a cent of
money by a stroke of labor of any
kind, but that was nothing against
him in the eyes of fond mothers with
manageable daughters. There were
thousands of women in the city who
would have counted themselves or their
daughters as specially favored if
Archie Penrose had come into the
house as a sutton. 1t made no differ
ence that his reputation had suffered
III various ways. He had money, he
was of distinguished family, his man.
nerS were regarded as elegant, and he
had an aunt who gave the most select
receptions and entertainments in the
city. In the sight of any man or wom-
an of right definitions of manhood this
young figurehead of an aristocratic
family was simply one of the ciphers
of civilization. He made nothing that
added to humanity's comfort or knowl-
edge. He contributed absolutely not
one grain Of helpfulness or comfort or
hope to a suffering, struggling, needy
world. He lived to get all the pleasure
he could himself, much if not all of it
gained with total disregard for any
one elses pleasure, and yet he moved
through what is called the best society,
courted, admired, fawned on, eagerly
invited out to an endless round of So
cial functions which a certain class of
rich people in America make the most
important business of their lives.
Mrs. Constance Penrose was a person
of more value than her distinguished
nephew. She was rich, but not given
over altogether TO society and its shall
low enthusiasms. There were other
things in which she was genuinely in
terested, and among them was the ca
reer of John Gordon. She had known
him as boy, had watched him through
his college course and his trip abroad,
and, being a woman of very decided
and individual opinions, she had more
than once expressed her interest in the
experiment Gordon was making More
than once she had compared him to
her nephew, to that young mans great
disadvantage.
The note which Gordon found at
Hope House was an invitation to an
evening at the Penrose mansion in