e
distinction between right and wrong?"

"But isn't it a compromising distinction," my wife asked, "to take his
money without his name? The president knows that it is money fraudulently
got, that really belongs to somebody else; and the gambler would feel
that if the president takes it, he cannot think very disapprovingly of
the manner in which it was acquired. I think it would be more honest and
straightforward to take his name with the money."

"The public effect of connecting the gambler's name with the college
would be debasing," said Morgan; "but, on the contrary, is every charity
or educational institution bound to scrutinize the source of every
benefaction? Isn't it better that money, however acquired, should be used
for 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 w