y
was laid upon him, and he met it willingly. After Washington's
marvellous escape from death in his first campaign for the defence of
the colonies, the Rev. Samuel Davies, fourth president of Princeton
College, spoke of him in a sermon as "that heroic youth, Colonel
Washington, whom I can but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so
signal a manner for some important service to his country." It was a
prophetic voice, and Washington was not disobedient to the message.
Chosen to command the Army of the Revolution in 1775, he confessed to
his wife his deep reluctance to surrender the joys of home, acknowledged
publicly his feeling that he was not equal to the great trust committed
to him, and then, accepting it as thrown upon him "by a kind of
destiny," he gave himself body and soul to its fulfilment refusing all
pay beyond the mere discharge of his expenses, of which he kept a strict
account, and asking no other reward than the success of the cause which
he served.

"Ah, but he was a rich man," cries the carping critic; "he could afford
to do it." How many rich men to-day avail themselves of their
opportunity to indulge in this kind of extravagance, toiling
tremendously without a salary, neglecting their own estate for the
public benefit, seeing their property diminished without complaint, and
coming into serious financial embarrassment, even within sight of
bankruptcy, as Washington did, merely for the gratification of a desire
to serve the people? This is indeed a very singular and noble form of
luxury. But the wealth which makes it possible neither accounts for its
existence nor detracts from its glory. It is the fruit of a manhood
superior alike to riches and to poverty, willing to risk all, and to use
all, for the common good.

Was it in any sense a misfortune for the people of America, even the
poorest among them, that there was a man able to advance sixty-four
thousand dollars out of his own purse, with no other security but his
own faith in their cause, to pay his daily expenses while he was leading
their armies? This unsecured loan was one of the very things, I doubt
not, that helped to inspire general confidence. Even so the prophet
Jeremiah purchased a field in Anathoth, in the days when Judah was
captive unto Babylon, paying down the money, seventeen shekels of
silver, as a token of his faith that the land would some day be
delivered from the enemy and restored to peaceful and orderly
habitation.

Wa