One of these gentlemen, while walking with him over the sloping sides of
a hill overlooking the city, said: "Mr. Garfield, I have a proposition
to make to you."

The student listened with interest.

"There is a vacancy in one of our public schools. We want an experienced
teacher, and I am sure you will suit us. I offer you the place, with a
salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. What do you say?"

The young man's heart beat for a moment with repressible excitement. It
was a strong temptation. He was offered, deducting vacations, about one
hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, while heretofore his highest
wages had been but eighteen dollars per month and board. Moreover, he
could marry at once the young lady to whom he had been for years
engaged.

He considered the offer a moment, and this was his answer:

"You are not Satan and I am not Jesus, but we are upon the mountain, and
you have tempted me powerfully. I think I must say, 'Get thee behind
me!' I am poor, and the salary would soon pay my debts and place me in a
position of independence; but there are two objections. I could not
accomplish my resolution to complete a college course, and should be
crippled intellectually for life. Then, my roots are all fixed in Ohio,
where people know me and I know them, and this transplanting might not
succeed as well in the long run as to go back home and work for smaller
pay."

So the young man decided adversely, and it looks as if his decision was