At last the plague was stayed; and Girard and Helm
returned to their ordinary occupations.
The visitors of the poor in Philadelphia placed the following minute on
their books: "Stephen Girard and Peter Helm, members of the committee,
commiserating the calamitous state to which the sick may probably be
reduced for want of suitable persons to superintend the hospital,
voluntarily offered their services for that benevolent employment, and
excited a surprise and satisfaction that can be better conceived than
expressed."
The results of Stephen Girard's industry and economy may be seen in
Philadelphia--in the beautiful dwelling houses, row after row,--but more
than all, in the magnificent marble edifice of Girard College. He left
the greater part of his fortune for public purposes,--principally to
erect and maintain a public library and a large orphanage. It might have
been in regard to his own desolate condition, when cast an orphan
amongst strangers and foreigners, that he devised his splendid charity
for poor, forlorn, and fatherless children. One of the rooms in the
college is singularly furnished. "Girard had directed that a suitable
room was to be set apart for the preservation of his books and papers;
but from excess of pious care, or dread of the next-of kin, all the
plain homely man's effects were shovelled into this room.
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