the stream of Girard's wealth. He deemed this a lucky accident, no
doubt; and smothered his sympathies for the sufferers in the
satisfaction he felt over the addition of fifty thousand dollars to his
growing estate. It stimulated, if it did not beget, the dream of his
life, the passion which possessed his soul, which was to acquire wealth
by which his _name_ might be kept before the world forever. "My _deeds_
must be my life. When I am dead my _actions_ must speak for me," he said
to an acquaintance one day, and thus gave expression to his plan of
life. There was nothing intrinsically noble in it. If the means he
finally adopted bore a philanthropic stamp on their face, his motive was
purely personal, and therefore low and selfish. What he toiled for was a
name that would never die. He was shrewd enough to perceive that this
end could be most surely gained by linking it with the philanthropic
spirit of the Christianity which he detested. And hence arose his idea
of founding Girard College.

Shortly after plucking the golden fruit which fell into his hands from
the St. Domingo insurrection Girard enlarged his business by building
several splendid ships and entering into the China and India trade. His
operations in this line were managed with a spirit that indicated a true
mercantile genius, and contributed greatly to the enlargement of his
fortune.

He made these ships the visible expressions of his thoughts on religion
and philosophy by naming them, after his favorite authors, the
_Montesquieu_, the _Helvetius_, the _Voltaire_, and the _Rousseau_. He
thus defiantly assured the world that he was not only a skeptic, but
that he also gloried in that by no means creditable fact.

Girard's life was filled with enigmas. He really loved no living soul.
He had no sympathies. He would not part with his money to save agent,
servant, neighbor, or relation from death. Nevertheless, when the yellow
fever spread dismay, desolation, and death throughout Philadelphia, in
1793, sweeping one-sixth of its population into the grave in about sixty
days, he devoted himself to nursing the sick in the hospital with a
self-sacrificing zeal which knew no bounds, and which excited universal
admiration and praise. His biographer accounts for this conduct,
repeated on two subsequent visitations of that terrible fever, by
supposing that he was naturally benevolent, but that his early trials
had sealed up the fountains of his human feeling. A grea