ical
University, to give it its full legal entitlements. It consisted in a
faculty of six, including Dr. Hargrave, and in two meager and modest,
almost mean "halls," and two hundred acres of land. There were at that
time just under four hundred students, all but about fifty working their
way through. So poor was the college that it was kept going only by
efforts, the success of which seemed miraculous interventions of
Providence. They were so regarded by Dr. Hargrave, and the stubbornest
infidel must have conceded that he was not unjustified.

As Hargrave, tall and spare, his strong features illumined by life-long
unselfish service to his fellow-men, came into Hiram Ranger's presence,
Hiram shrank and grew gray as his hair. Hargrave might have been the
officer come to lead him forth to execution.

"If you had not sent for me, Mr. Ranger," he began, after the greetings,
"I should have come of my own accord within a day or two. Latterly God
has been strongly moving me to lay before you the claims of my boys--of
the college."

This was to Hiram direct confirmation of his own convictions. He tried to
force his lips to say so, but they would not move.

"You and Mrs. Ranger," Hargrave went on, "have had a long life, full of
the consciousness of useful work well done. Your industry, your fitness
for the just use of God's treasure, has been demonstrated, and He has
made you stewards of much of it. And now approaches the final test, the
greatest test, of your fitness to do His work. In His name, my old
friend, what are you going to do with His treasure?"

Hiram Ranger's face lighted up. The peace that was entering his soul lay
upon the tragedy of his mental and physical suffering soft and serene
and sweet as moonlight beautifying a ruin. "That's why I sent for you,
Mark," he said.

"Hiram, are you going to leave your wealth so that it may continue to do
good in the world? Or, are you going to leave it so that it may tempt
your children to vanity and selfishness, to lives of idleness and folly,
to bring up their children to be even less useful to mankind than they,
even more out of sympathy with the ideals which God has implanted? All of
those ideals are attainable only through shoulder-to-shoulder work such
as you have done all your life."

"God help me!" muttered Hiram. The sweat was beading his forehead and his
hands were clasped and wrenching each at the other, typical of the two
forces contending in final battle with