rward to
disturb his darling bequests!] 'and a fortune to leave behind me at
death, I would bequeath, after a virtuous education, (to effect
which nothing should be spared,) a very small amount to each,
merely sufficient to excite them to habits of industry and
frugality, and no more. As the poor man's friend, then, I recommend
to him to honor and respect the virtuous rich, and to lay these
observations to their heart and to store them up in their mind. And
to the rich, I would say, (if they own feelings, and worthy of
their regard,) 'Give them an occasional reflection.' Hoping
thereby, that the world may advance in happiness, in virtue, and
holiness.'

Lastly, the old man grows tender, sentimental, and poetic, He who for
forty years had never been seen or known to manifest a single emotion of
gentleness, of tender feeling or sentiment, of love of children, of
nature, or any domestic affection, in his last will desires to be held
in loving remembrance by the fresh young souls for whose benefit he
declares he has led his long career of toil, of self-sacrifice, and
devotion, to gain. The association of sweet flowers, sprinkled over a
green grave by the hands of innocent children, with the life and
character of one of the most intense, hard and severe devotees to Mammon
that ever lived, is a strange and incongruous one, but it was a picture
which appears to have been very distinctly sketched on the imagination
of John McBonogh, as will appear from the following clauses in his will:

'I request my executors (hereinafter named) to see that my funeral
is plain, made without parade, and with the least possible
expenses. And (I was near forgetting that) I have still one small
request to make, one little favor still to ask, and it shall be
the last: It is, that it may be permitted annually to the children
of the free schools (situate the nearest to the place of my
interment) to plant and water a few flowers around my grave. This
little act will have a double tendency: it will open their young
and susceptible hearts to gratitude and love to their divine
Creator for having raised up (as the humble instrument of his
bounty to them) a poor, frail worm of earth like me, and teach them
at the same time, what they are, whither they came, and whence they
must return.'

Such was John McDonogh's grand theory of philan