This confirmation of what the priest had said, inspired the young man with a fixed determination. It was Staszic who had placed him at college, and supplied him with the means of continuing there. Now, he would reject his gifts--he would not accept benefits from a man who could look unmoved at his own sister's tears. The learned minister, seeing his favorite pupil enter, did not desist from his occupation, but, continuing to write, said to him: "Well, Adolphe, what can I do for you to-day? If you want books, take them out of my library; or instruments--order them, and send me the bill. Speak to me freely, and tell me if you want any thing." "On the contrary, sir, I come to thank you for your past kindness, and to say that I must in future decline receiving your gifts." "You are, then, become rich?" "I am as poor as ever." "And your college?" "I must leave it." "Impossible!" cried Staszic, standing up, and fixing his penetrating eyes on his visitor. "You are the most promising of all our pupils--it must not be!" In vain the young student tried to conceal the motive of his conduct; Staszic insisted on knowing it. "You wish," said Adolphe, "to heap favors on me, at the expense of your suffering family." The powerful minister could not conceal his emotion. His eyes filled with tears, and he pressed the young man's hand warmly, as he said: "Dear boy, always take heed to this counsel--'JUDGE NOTHING BEFORE THE TIME.' Ere the end of life arrives, the purest virtue may be soiled by vice, and the bitterest calumny proved to be unfounded. My conduct is, in truth, an enigma, which I can not now solve--it is the secret of my life." Seeing the young man still hesitate, he added: "Keep an account of the money I give you, consider it as a loan; and when some day, through labor and study, you find yourself rich, pay the debt by educating a poor, deserving student. As to me, wait for my death, before you judge my life." During fifty years Stanislas Staszic allowed malice to blacken his actions. He knew the time would come when all Poland would do him justice. On the 20th of January, 1826, thirty thousand mourning Poles flocked around his bier, and sought to touch the pall, as though it were some holy, precious relic. The Russian army could not comprehend the reason of the homage thus paid by the people of Warsaw to this illustrious man. His last testament fully explained the reason of his apparent avarice. His vast estates were divided into five hundred portions, each to become the property of a free peasant--his former serf. A school, on an admirable plan and very extended scale, was to be established for the instruction of the peasants' children in different trades. A reserved fund was provided for the succor of the sick and aged. A small yearly tax, to be paid by the liberated serfs, was destined for purchasing, by degrees, the freedom of their neighbors, condemned, as they had been, to hard and thankless toil.