a good purpose than a bad one?"

"That is a question," I said, "that is a vital one in our present
situation, and the sophistry of it puzzles the public. What would you
say to this case? A man notoriously dishonest, but within the law, and
very rich, offered a princely endowment to a college very much in need
of it. The sum would have enabled it to do a great work in education.
But it was intimated that the man would expect, after a while, to be
made one of the trustees. His object, of course, was social position."

"I suppose, of course," Margaret replied, "that the college couldn't
afford that. It would look like bribery."

"Wouldn't he be satisfied with an LL.D.?" Morgan asked.

"I don't see," my wife said, "any difference between the two cases
stated and that of the stock gambler, whose unscrupulous operations have
ruined thousands of people, who founds a theological seminary with the
gains of his slippery transactions. By accepting his seminary the public
condones his conduct. Another man, with the same shaky reputation,
endows a college. Do you think that religion and education are benefited
in the long-run by this? It seems to me that the public is gradually
losing its power of discrimination between the value of honesty and
dishonesty. Real respect is gone when the public sees that a man is able
to buy it."

This was a hot speech for my wife to make. For a moment Margaret flamed
up under it with her old-time indignation. I could see it in her eyes,
and then she turned red and confused, and at length said:

"But wouldn't you have rich men do good with their money?"

"Yes, dear, but I would not have them think they can blot out by their
liberality the condemnation of the means by which many of them make
money. That is what they are doing, and the public is getting used to
it."

"Well," said Margaret, with some warmth, "I don't know that they are any
worse than the stingy saints who have made their money by saving, and
act as if they expected to carry it with them."

"Saints or sinners, it does not make much difference to me," now put
in Mrs. Fletcher, who was evidently considering the question from a
practical point of view, "what a man professes, if he founds a hospital
for indigent women out of the dividends that I never received."

Morgan laughed. "Don't you think, Mrs. Fletcher, that it is a good sign
of the times, that so many people who make money rapidly are disposed to
use it philanthropically?"