It has been said that Mr. Girard was charitable.  I am not now going to controvert this.  I hope he was.  I hope he has found his reward.  It has also been asked, “Cannot Mr. Girard be allowed to have his own will, to devise his property according to his own desire?” Certainly he can, in any legal devise, and the law will sustain him therein.  But it is not for him to overturn the law of the land.  The law cannot be altered to please Mr. Girard.  He found that out, I believe, in two or three instances in his lifetime.  Nor can the law be altered on account of the magnitude and munificence of the bounty.  What is the value of that bounty, however great or munificent, which touches the very foundations of human society, which touches the very foundations of Christian charity, which touches the very foundations of public law, and the Constitution, and the whole welfare of the state?

And now, let me ask, What is, in contemplation of law, “a charity”?  The word has various significations.  In the larger and broader sense, it means the kindly exercise of the social affections, all the good feelings which man entertains towards man.  Charity is love.  This is that charity of which St. Paul speaks, that charity which covereth the sins of men, “that suffereth all things, hopeth all things.”  In a more popular sense, charity is alms-giving or active benevolence.

But the question for your honors to decide here is, What is a charity, or a charitable use, in contemplation of law?  To answer this inquiry, we are generally referred to the objects enumerated in the 43d of Elizabeth.  The objects enumerated in that statute, and others analogous to them, are charities in the sense of equitable jurisprudence.

There is no doubt that a school of learning is a charity.  It is one of those mentioned in the statutes.  Such a school of learning as was contemplated by the statutes of Elizabeth is a charity; and all such have borne that name and character to this day.  I mean to confine myself to that description of charity, the statute charity, and to apply it to this case alone.

The devise before us proposes to establish, as its main object, a school of learning, a college.  There are provisions, of course, for lodging, clothing, and feeding the pupils, but all this is subsidiary.  The great object is the instruction of the young; although it proposes to give the children better food and clothes and lodging, and proposes that the system of education shall be somewhat better than that which is usually provided for the poor and destitute in our public institutions generally.