A TRUE GENTLEMAN.
A FEW years ago, a fashionably-dressed young man took his seat at a table of the Girard House, Philadelphia. There was an air of self-conscious superiority in the youth, which attracted general attention. He read the menu with smothered disgust, gave his orders with a tone of lofty condescension, and when his neighbor civilly handed him the pepper-box, he stared at him for his presumption as though he had tendered him an insult.
In short, a person of the blood could not have regarded a mob of surfs with more arrogant hauteur than did this lad the respectable travelers about him.
Presently a tall, powerfully-built old man entered the room, and seated himself at one of the larger tables. He was plainly dressed, his language was markedly simple. He entered into conversation with his neighbor, who happened to be a poor tradesman, and occasionally during his dinner exchanged ideas with a little lady of five summers who sat beside him. The colored servants spoke to him as to an old friend.
"How is your rheumatism, John!" he said to one, and remembered that another had lately lost his son.
"Who is that old-fashioned gentleman?" asked a curious traveler of the steward.
"Oh, that is Judge Jere Black, the greatest jurist in the country!" was the enthusiastic reply.
"And the young aristocrat? He surely is somebody of note."
"He is a drummer who sells fancy soaps. "Judge Jeremiah Black, who died last summer was noted and feared in public life for the massive force of his intellect. "Every blow kills!" said a listener to one of his arguments. On the other side, an old farmer neighbor wrote of him: "We shall never have another man as pure, kindly, and simple among us."
The boys who read this can find much to study in the massive nature of this old man, with his powerful brain, his simple, direct manner, and his unfaltering childlike faith in God. With his last breath, taking his aged wife by the hand, he said, "Lord, take care of Mary," and so died.
Youth's Companion.