F. Wagner had completed college, finished his law course, and was admitted to the bar. At this juncture, he evinced further proof of his sturdiness of character. He might have found

a berth in a firm of prosperous lawyers. He preferred to found a firm of his own. With Jeremiah Mahoney, aged twenty five years, he opened a law office.

It was an election year. Contemporaneously with the opening of this office, Wagner called at the political headquarters in his district. "I am interested in politics," he said, "and I would like to make a speech."

The district leader gave the shabby youth a sweeping survey, and replied: "Want to make a speech, do you? All right. Come around Thursday night and make one."

Robert F. Wagner departed, his heart beating high with hope and pride. Fortunately for both, he did not know that there was a dearth of volunteer speakers-that anyone who imagined he could was welcome to "make his speech."

On that particular night, young Wagner made his speech-and made a friend. Dan Sheehan heard him and walked home with him. He counseled him with fatherly earnestness. He sent him law "cases."

A long period of unfailing friendship followed, and Dan Sheehan has been rewarded. He is an attendant in the Supreme Court and rises with the rest when the rustle of a heavy black-silk robe announces His Honor Judge Wagner's approach.

Slowly, steadily Robert Wagner built a substantial law practice. Rapidly his star rose, and luminously it shone in the political sky. He was elected to the State assembly, then to the senate. When but midway in his twenties, he was made majority leader of the senate; and was scarcely in his thirties when he was elected lieutenant-governor of the Empire State. His party offered him the nomination for governor. Because his heart was elsewhere, he declined.

Two years ago, the desire of his heart was fulfilled. Recognition of his rank as a lawyer came when he was made Justice of the Supreme Court of New York.

For this he sacrificed the governorship of the chief State in the Union. For this he gave up a law practice that would have been worth $50,000 a year.

"Success should not be measured by money," he says. "The pendulum of enlightened public opinion is swinging slowly away from that standard. Success is making some contribution to the public for the benefit of posterity."

One of his ideals is free speech. "Don't arrest a picket for an interview with a nonstriker," he says in judicial language. "Let them talk about the principles involved. It is only by talking that they will reach an understanding. Nothing is ever gained by repression. That is what is the matter with Russia. It was repressed too long. It will right itself."

When tenants were battling with the czarism of landlords, they hailed Judge Wagner as a deliverer. In a case involving those issues, he delivered an opinion that is regarded by the tenants as their Magna Charta.

SAT

AID one of Judge Wagner's closest friends: "He has everything that a man should have."

"What should a man have?" I asked. The answer: "He has brains and integrity. He is a good fellow and he can be stern when it is necessary."

A good summary of a man!

To this might be added that he remembers his friends. The school examiner, who secured him freedom from the school room, told him that the office of school examiner should be made permanent. And it was Robert Wagner made it so.

Judge Wagner has the fine habit of gathering his friends about him. Jeremiah Mahoney, his partner of more than twenty years, practices beneath the same roof which shelters Judge Wagner's chambers. I have told you that Dan Sheehan, who doled him advice and sent him his first law cases, is one of his court attendants. And so is the brother who did all he could to aid him in acquiring an education.

This is the success recipe of the janitor's son who became a Supreme Court Judge: "Determination. Industry. Desire to contribute something for the public good and the benefit of posterity."

S poor as church mice," applies with especial nicety to ministers and their families-if we are to believe storybooks, the relief for indigent pastors committees, and the ministers themselves, corroborated by their wives and children.

A woman who was born in a Methodist parsonage, who lived in an almost annual succession of them, and finally went as a bride into still another, claims—and with perfect right, I thinkto know all about church mice.

"When I was twelve years old," she told me, "my father and mother and all of us eight children moved for the tenth time. I was so accustomed to that nomadic existence that it seemed the normal thing. I never lived in one house or one town long enough to make close friends or to become attached to the placewhich was, perhaps, fortunate and I grew to think of home as a continual tearing up, an uncomfortable shifting, and then a struggle to settle down in different quarters.”

In spite of her gray hair, the speaker was still a young woman with a whimsical smile, twinkling brown eyes, and a marcel wave. As she paused and smiled reminiscently, it was apparent that cramped manses, petty privations and a superfluity of prayer meetings had not destroyed her sense of humor.

a

"I

"Strange that I should choose another minister for a husband?" her eyes sparkled. "Perhaps it was-I dare say. And such a struggling young minister as he is, too. But I would have married Paul if he had been a pirate, or peddler, or a Confucianist. Almost any girl would marry 'the one man' regardless of his profession, and I was-and am-as ardently in love as a girl could be. I don't think that I ever stopped for

more than half a minute to consider what it would mean to be the wife of a six-hundreddollar-a-year parson, for I was so absorbed in the thought of what it would mean to be Paul's wife.

"My father was a typical minister-selfsacrificing, improvident, and visionary. He was the most impractical man I ever knew and the most absent-minded. When he had a little ready money it burned a hole in his pocket. He was continually being torn between charities, foreign missions, and shoes for his children-literally speaking.

"Imagine buying shoes for eight romping youngsters, seven of them boys, on-" she hesitated and laughed-"will you believe me when I say that father received the munificent sum of forty-two dollars a month until I was almost fifteen, and I was third from the youngest of his brood?

"Many ministers, right in our own State, were getting much more than that, but they had city churches with rich congregations. We always lived in little towns, some of them hamlets of a few hundred people. And father eked out his salary by driving miles every Sunday afternoon, and sometimes during the week, to preach in rural churches where farmers and their families came from miles around to hear the old-fashioned gospel that he expounded.

"Father was the distinctly hell-fire and brimstone preacher of a by-gone day. He could frighten the devout and superstitious half out of

their wits. At home, he was the mildest and sweetest of men; but, in the pulpit, he became a thunderous prophet.

"I can see him now in his one good black coat-which mother pressed and cherished until it literally fell to pieces and had to be replaced from her

Robert F. Wagner departed, his heart beating high with hope and pride. Fortunately for both, he did not know that there was a dearth of volunteer speakers-that anyone who imagined he could was welcome to "make his speech."

On that particular night, young Wagner made his speech-and made a friend. Dan Sheehan heard him and walked home with him. He counseled him with fatherly earnestness. He sent him law "cases."

A long period of unfailing friendship followed, and Dan Sheehan has been rewarded. He is an attendant in the Supreme Court and rises with the rest when the rustle of a heavy black-silk robe announces His Honor Judge Wagner's approach.

Slowly, steadily Robert Wagner built a substantial law practice. Rapidly his star rose, and luminously it shone in the political sky. He was elected to the State assembly, then to the senate. When but midway in his twenties, he was made majority leader of the senate; and was scarcely in his thirties when he was elected lieutenant-governor of the Empire State. His party offered him the nomination for governor. Because his heart was elsewhere, he declined.

Two years ago, the desire of his heart was fulfilled. Recognition of his rank as a lawyer came when he was made Justice of the Supreme Court of New York.

For this he sacrificed the governorship of the chief State in the Union. For this he gave up a law practice that would have been worth $50,000 a year.

"Success should not be measured by money," he says. "The pendulum of enlightened public opinion is swinging slowly away from that standard. Success is making some contribution to the public for the benefit of posterity."

One of his ideals is free speech. "Don't arrest a picket for an interview with a nonstriker," he says in judicial language. "Let them talk about the principles involved. It is only by talking that they will reach an understanding. Nothing is ever gained by repression. That is what is the matter with Russia. It was repressed too long. It will right itself."

When tenants were battling with the czarism of landlords, they hailed Judge Wagner as a deliverer. In a case involving those issues, he delivered an opinion that is regarded by the tenants as their Magna Charta.

SAT

AID one of Judge Wagner's closest friends: "He has everything that a man should have."

"What should a man have?" I asked. The answer: "He has brains and integrity. He is a good fellow and he can be stern when it is necessary."

A good summary of a man!

To this might be added that he remembers his friends. The school examiner, who secured him freedom from the school room, told him that the office of school examiner should be made permanent. And it was Robert Wagner made it so.

Judge Wagner has the fine habit of gathering his friends about him. Jeremiah Mahoney, his partner of more than twenty years, practices beneath the same roof which shelters Judge Wagner's chambers. I have told you that Dan Sheehan, who doled him advice and sent him his first law cases, is one of his court attendants. And so is the brother who did all he could to aid him in acquiring an education.

This is the success recipe of the janitor's son who became a Supreme Court Judge: "Determination. Industry. Desire to contribute something for the public good and the benefit of posterity."

A

S poor as church mice," applies with especial nicety to ministers and their families-if we are to believe storybooks, the relief for indigent pastors committees, and the ministers themselves, corroborated by their wives and children.

A woman who was born in a Methodist parsonage, who lived in an almost annual succession of them, and finally went as a bride into still another, claims—and with perfect right, I think— to know all about church mice.

"When I was twelve years old," she told me, "my father and mother and all of us eight children moved for the tenth time. I was so accustomed to that nomadic existence that it seemed the normal thing. I never lived in one house or one town long enough to make close friends or to become attached to the place— which was, perhaps, fortunate and I grew to think of home as a continual tearing up, an uncomfortable shifting, and then a struggle to settle down in different quarters."

In spite of her gray hair, the speaker was still a young woman with a whimsical smile, twinkling brown eyes, and a marcel wave. As she paused and smiled reminiscently, it was apparent that cramped manses, petty privations and a superfluity of prayer meetings had not destroyed her sense of humor.

"Strange that I should choose another minister for a husband?" her eyes sparkled. "Perhaps it was-I dare say. And such a struggling young minister as he is, too.

more than half a minute to consider what it would mean to be the wife of a six-hundreddollar-a-year parson, for I was so absorbed in the thought of what it would mean to be Paul's wife.

"My father was a typical minister-selfsacrificing, improvident, and visionary. He was the most impractical man I ever knew and the most absent-minded. When he had a little ready money it burned a hole in his pocket. He was continually being torn between charities, foreign missions, and shoes for his children-literally speaking.

"Imagine buying shoes for eight romping youngsters, seven of them boys, on-” she hesitated and laughed-"will you believe me when I say that father received the munificent sum of forty-two dollars a month until I was almost fifteen. and I was third from the youngest of his brood?

"Many ministers, right in our own State, were getting much more than that, but they had city churches with rich congregations. We always lived in little towns, some of them hamlets of a few hundred people. And father eked out his salary by driving miles every Sunday afternoon, and sometimes during the week, to preach in rural churches where farmers and their families came from miles around to hear the old-fashioned gospel that he expounded.

"Father was the distinctly hell-fire and brimstone preacher of a by-gone day. He could frighten the devout and superstitious half out of

their wits. At home, he was the mildest and sweetest of men; but, in the pulpit, he became a thunderous prophet.

"I can see him now in his one good black coat-which mother pressed and cherished until it literally fell to pieces and had to be replaced from her

hard-accumulated savings-his face crimson, his eyes flashing from beneath beetling brows, and his deep voice ringing through the church: 'Save yourselves! Save yourselves from eternal fire! Cast out the devil! Hark not to the voice of the tempter, but lift up your eyes! For an hour and a half at a time he would exhort his congregations. And sometimes his impassioned utterances at the yearly revival meetings would bring a flock of weeping, pallid, and frenzied folk to kneel as penitents and believers at his feet. He was considered a Heaven-inspired orator in those days of tempestuous religion. My mother, in her shabby cape and bonnet, would regard him with warm, prideful eyes, while the boys stolidly listened with the outward patience that comes to the growing offspring of ministers.

"We were moved about from town to town, never advancing, never more prosperous. That is the tragedy of the minister who is growing old without having won signal success." A look of sadness crossed her face. "He is sent on, ever more discouraged, ever more pitiful.

"My father and mother, struggling to feed and clothe us, yearned to send my brothers to college. But there was no money. Our only heritage was plenty of pluck and an ambition to make something of ourselves. And so, one by one, the boys left home and worked their way through the State university.

"I was seventeen, just out of high school, helping mother with the housework and the two younger lads, singing in the choir, working in the Sunday-school, the missionary society, the ladies' sewing circle, and eager to go to normal school so that I could teach, when a real event occurred to change my whole life.

"I was elected one of three delegates from our church to a Sunday-school convention at F., forty miles away.

"Excited! It was like a trip to New York City for me! F. was a city compared to our little town. It had thirty thousand inhabitants, a street car, three department stores, numerous ice-cream parlors and a hotel five stories high.

"Romance and adventure no longer existed in Sunday-school conventions for my father and mother, but they could understand my exquisite thrill over those three days in F. Mother, likewise, could understand about clothes. We worked for days preparing for the trip. And we sponged, pressed, sewed, and fussed, as women will, over the wardrobe that was to go with me.

fear lest my new, black-kid shoes wouldn't show to best advantage.

"I was inclined to be vain of my feet," she whispered to me with a deprecating dimple twitching the corner of her mouth.

"I had a new blouse of white challie to wear with the gray skirt, and a new blue silk dress for evenings, when there was to be a reception and a musical for the delegates. I was in ecstasy, for I had never owned two brand-new dresses and a blouse at once. I have often wondered since what sacrifices they represented to my mother.

"The day came with a downpour of rain, and I embarked clad in an old slicker, hat, and galoshes. It was the beginning of the Great Adventure. "When we reached F., 1 found that I was to be separated from Dr. Burdick and his wife, our two other delegates, and I was carried off by a brisk old lady to her big house where at least a dozen other Sunday-school workers were her guests. It was late afternoon, and I was led immediately into the parlor where the others were gathered about a grate fire. Never had I felt so young, so confused, as when I faced that battery of eyes. Someone helped me remove my streaming coat, another took my bedraggled hat, and my unsightly galoshes disappeared. I sank into a chair and, when the conversation was resumed, tried to regain my composure.

"MTD

IDST the chattering, I suddenly noticed a deeper, compelling voice. I looked up involuntarily and met a pair of keen blue eyes that held my gaze. Their owner was a tall young fellow with thick fair hair and a charming smile. Gradually the others fell silent to listen to him. The charm of his personality seemed to hold the little audience as much as what he was saying. He was Paul-brilliant, enthusiastic, and rather threadbare. When I went upstairs, later, with the woman who was to share my room, I asked his name. She told me that he was the Reverend Paul Winthrop, of W.

"I determined to wear my blue dress down to supper. I was guilty of wondering if he admired dark eyes and hair. Half an hour later, I slipped downstairs at the sound of the bell and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible; but to my consternation-and inner delight-young Mr. Winthrop sat next to me and, presently, his boyish friendliness broke down my reserve and we talked with growing interest. Afterward, at the church where the reception was held, Mr. Winthrop stayed at my side. I was in a haze of joy all evening, very conscious of my handsome escort and awed by his evident attraction to me. I felt very humble and, at the same time, exalted. I had never known a man like him. The boys at