are to derive advantage from this bequest, free from the excitement which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce; my desire is, that all the instructors and teachers in the College shall take pains to instil into the minds of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that, on their entrance into active life, they may, from inclination and habit, evince benevolence toward their fellow-creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer.”

When Mr. Duane had written this passage at Girard’s dictation, a conversation occurred between them, which revealed, perhaps, one of the old gentleman’s reasons for inserting it.  “What do you think of that?” asked Girard.  Mr. Duane, being unprepared to comment upon such an unexpected injunction, replied, after a long pause, “I can only say now, Mr. Girard, that I think it will make a great sensation.”  Girard then said, “I can tell you something else it will do,—­it will please the Quakers.”  He gave another proof of his regard for the Quakers by naming three of them as the executors of his will; the whole number of the executors being five.

In February, 1830, the will was executed, and deposited in Mr. Girard’s iron safe.  None but the two men who had drawn the will, and the three men who witnessed the signing of it, were aware of its existence; and none but Girard and Mr. Duane had the least knowledge of its contents.  There never was such a keeper of his own secrets as Girard, and never a more faithful keeper of other men’s secrets than Mr. Duane.  And here we have another illustration of the old man’s character.  He had just signed a will of unexampled liberality to the public; and the sum which he gave the able and devoted lawyer for his three weeks’ labor in drawing it was three hundred dollars!

Girard lived nearly two years longer, always devoted to business, and still investing his gains with care.  An accident in the street gave a shock to his constitution, from which he never fully recovered; and in December, 1831, when he was nearly eighty-two years of age, an attack of influenza terminated his life.  True to his principles, he refused to be cupped, or to take drugs into his system, though both were prescribed by a physician whom he respected.

Death having dissolved the powerful spell of a presence which few men had been able to resist, it was to be seen how far his will would be obeyed, now that he was no longer able personally to enforce it.  The old man lay dead in his house in Water Street.  While the public out of doors were curious enough to learn what he had done with his money, there was a smaller number within the house, the kindred of the deceased, in whom this curiosity raged like a mania.  They invaded the cellars of the house, and, bringing up bottles of the old man’s choice wine, kept