“ALMOST ready for the great event,” said Mr. Josiah Midland, portly and genial, to his wife Martha, as they stood on the porch of a two-story brick house, nearly completed. “I want the new house for you, Martha, and I want it also, I must confess, to show the people of Collinston that Josiah Midland has been a financial success. You know life has been a struggle since I left this town a boy, and worked my way on the railroad to a place of trust. Life is not an easy thing for the best of us, and where the one gains in the race, the many are so bound by the needs of every day that they can never rise above their surroundings. I kept good habits and saved my money. I owe that teaching to my hard-working mother.”

“Yes, you have been a great success,” said the thin and careworn wife, who had shared his struggles and did not possess his buoyant temperament to throw off the wear of daily life. “I almost dread to have a house-warming, for it will cost so much and bring no end of work. I should like to have the people see our beautiful home, but you know I cannot shine in society.”

Mrs. Midland looked up to her husband as the great factor in their worldly gains, and so he was; but he owed much to the economy and good sense of the quiet woman who was glad to be his helper.

“Oh, you will shine enough, Martha, so that I shall be proud of you! After the furniture is once in the house we will invite everybody—yes, everybody, rich and poor. It’s great folly for a man to make social distinctions for himself as soon as he has a few thousands. I want to have them all enjoy the house. It’s the handsomest house in the village, and they’ll all be glad to come. The caterer will provide the supper, and you’ll just have to shake hands with the guests and look pleased.”

“What do you think I had better wear, Josiah?”

“Oh, you must have a new dress for the occasion! I like garnet. Get a garnet silk with a good deal of velvet, and you’ll look handsome;” and Mr. Midland smiled in his big-hearted way that had won him friends from his boyhood.

The new moon had risen in the west, and the stars were coming out brightly, as if all nature even was glad at Mr. Midland’s success. As they left the house the church bell rang out.

“Let us go,” said Mr. Midland. “The minister told me the other day that an evangelist was coming here. I forgot all about it, but it might pay us to go and hear him once. Religion isn’t a thing of emotion to me, but I like to hear good preaching. I’ve never had any notion of joining a church myself, but I don’t know what the community would be without the churches. Property would go down pretty quickly.”

The minister, as was human, felt the blood quicken in his veins as the successful railroad-man and his wife entered. Not that they were more important than poor people, but he knew that money consecrated to good ends is a power almost unlimited. He could only silently pray that some word would be uttered which would touch Mr. Midland’s heart.

The young evangelist preached not an extraordinary sermon, but a simple talk upon the power of a good life—a life that came but once and was spent so quickly. Mr. Midland sat like one awakened out of sleep. True, he had made money; he had a good moral character; but he would go through life but once, and he was living entirely for himself. He had never realized what a wonderful gift from heaven this life is, with all its possibilities to help others, to make the poor comfortable, the sad happy, to remove the causes of crime and discontent. He seemed, all at once, to have made a voyage of discovery, and to have found a new land.

He said little on the way home, except to tell Martha that he felt strangely, and that she must go to bed and sleep, but he would sit up awhile and think. Mr. Midland did think long and carefully by the shaded lamp. He thought over his whole past experience. He had been prospered, and he owed all to a Higher Power. And after he had thought, he prayed.

In the morning he said: “Martha, I have given up the house-warming. I have decided to use the money to send a boy to college to become a preacher;” and then he added, “for a man who turns the life of another heavenward does the greatest work in the world, and I must help to do the greatest hereafter.”

Mrs. Midland looked confused for a minute, and then she said, half audibly, “I am very glad, Josiah.” After that night Mr. Midland’s face took on an expression that was noted till his death, years afterward. It was as though he had talked with the angels, and joined a new brotherhood. The genial man became more genial, more considerate, more self-controlled. It became literally true that, like his Master, “he went about doing good.” Without children of his own, he devoted his property to the giving of the Gospel to the people. He joined heartily, by voice and money, in all that elevated mankind. He built houses for the poor; he educated orphans; he held prayer-meetings in sparsely-settled districts; he labored for temperance; he became the idol and ideal man of the community. He carried out his plan of using the house-warming money to educate a young man for the ministry, and lived to see his gift return a thousand-fold interest.