brighter place to live in, as all of you have done. Yes, as all of you
are now doing for me. I am leaving the world with a better opinion of it
than I ever held in life. God hid the sun from me when I was a little
child. Margaret Brice," he said, "if I had had such a mother as you, I
would have been softened then. I thank God that He sent you when He did."

The widow bowed her head, and a tear fell upon his pillow.

"I have done nothing," she murmured, "nothing."

"So shall they answer at the last whom He has chosen," said the Judge. "I
was sick, and ye visited me. He has promised to remember those who do
that. Hold up your head, my daughter. God has been good to you. He has
given you a son whom all men may look in the face, of whom you need never
be ashamed. Stephen," said the Judge, "come here."

Stephen made his way to the bedside, but because of the moisture in his
eyes he saw but dimly the gaunt face. And yet he shrank back in awe at
the change in it. So must all of the martyrs have looked when the fire of
the faggots licked their feet. So must John Bunyan have stared through
his prison bars at the sky.

"Stephen," he said, "you have been faithful in a few things. So shall you
be made ruler over many things. The little I have I leave to you, and the
chief of this is an untarnished name. I know that you will be true to it
because I have tried your strength. Listen carefully to what I have to
say, for I have thought over it long. In the days gone by our fathers
worked for the good of the people, and they had no thought of gain. A
time is coming when we shall need that blood and that bone in this
Republic. Wealth not yet dreamed of will flow out of this land, and the
waters of it will rot all save the pure, and corrupt all save the
incorruptible. Half-tried men wilt go down before that flood. You and
those like you will remember how your fathers governed,--strongly,
sternly, justly. It was so that they governed themselves.

"Be vigilant. Serve your city, serve your state, but above all serve your
country."

He paused to catch his breath, which was coming painfully now, and
reached out his bony hand to seek Stephen's. "I was harsh with you at
first, my son," he went on. "I wished to try you. And when I had tried
you I wished your mind to open, to keep pace with the growth of this
nation. I sent you to see Abraham Lincoln that you might be born again
--in the West. You were born again. I saw it when you came back-