meekness, a Man who never flinched when courage was required and never asserted himself simply to defend himself, who gave himself to a life of service and sacrifice and died not for the sake of those who loved him, but for those who hated him." As yet, however, his purpose in life was not formed. That was to come, not as a vague desire, not as a high emotional impulse, but as the result of study and thought. He was not content with his general and apparently unattainable ideal as an object. He sought something concrete, definite, practical; and by the time he was twenty-five he found it. From that time on he made it his single aim. He had discovered for himself that in the sayings, the deeds, and the character of the Man whom he had set before himself as his ideal there were embodied certain principles or laws of life. He believed that the observance of these principles, tha action in accordance with these laws, would solve every moral problem. So he set himself to study to know those principles or laws, and then in them for every question of conduct, whether individual or social, to find an answer.

In this way he made for himself an object of life that was practically attainable. The ideal which he still held to for himself and for the world might be far off; but the process of molding his life and helping to mold the life of the world about him in accord with the principles embodied in that ideal was something that he could engage in day by day, week by week, year by year. If success consists in the accomplishment of one's aim, my father's life was successful; for he had chosen an aim that could be reached and yet remain as an object of new endeavor. In substance, it was the same when he was eighty-six years old as when he was twenty-five; but in form it was as varied as the world in which he lived and as changing as history; and, being new with every new problem, it filled his life with interest and kept him youthful.

The world which he saw during his lifetime was indeed a changing world. It began for him as a world in which railways were still new and stagecoaches not yet unknown; it ended for him as a world of the airplane and the radio. In no other epoch of the world's history has any one man's lifetime encompassed such changes in the outward aspects of life. Much that was familiar to him in his age would have seemed to him as a child incredible magic; yet I never heard him talk very much about this wonderful transformation. What impressed him was the change, far more wonderful and interesting to him, in the moral and social experience and ideas of

n. He was born into a country which

accepted and maintained slavery; he saw the slaves set free. He was born into a country still divided against it self; he lived to see the Nation made one and indivisible. He saw the rise of industrialism and the formation of powerful corporations and powerful labor unions involving new problems of industrial justice hardly less serious than slavery itself. He saw great changes in education and in religious thinking. He saw new movements for international amity progressing until overturned by the most destructive of wars. After victory he saw new problems emerging. These and the like, rather than the necromancies of science and invention, were the changes in the world which impressed him, because they concerned those principles of life which it was his single object to study and apply. It was these principles that made him an advocate of liberty and union during the period of the Civil War and after. It was these principles that led him to urge for the ills of industrialism what he was the first to call Industrial Democracy. It was these principles that drew him to the schools and colleges of the land as a guide and counselor to students in the midst of a revolution in scientific and religious thought. It was these principles that gave him leadership in the cause of international justice alike in time of peace and time of war. It was these principles which in his latter days, when men have talked of a dissolving civilization, kept his mind clear and his spirit serene.

How he endeavored to apply the principles he found in the teachings, life, and character of Jesus to these social problems he recorded in his writing; but he did more than write about those principles. He had made them so much a part of himself that they governed him in all that he did.

I cannot remember his ever exhorting me or any of my brothers or sisters. It was enough for him to live with his children. Just before I was born he had moved to Cornwall-on-Hudson, where his home was to remain for the rest of his life, and where three of his children and five of his grandchildren were to be born. Here under the shadow of Storm King, on the edge of the Highlands of the Hudson, his children-in particular, the younger children-came to know him as I think few children know their father. Scarcely a week in the summer went by when my younger brother and I did not go two or three times with him for a swim in the river. Unathletic as he was, he taught us to be at home on or in the water. He took us camping with him on the borders of a lake in the near-by mountains. He went horseback riding with us over the roads of

Orange County. He was as companionable to us as any boy of our own age could be; he was as companionable to us as to men of his own age. One of his books which describes the way he thinks of God he entitled "The Great Companion;" but long before he put that book into words he had written it in characters of life in his children's experiences. There was a sort of equality in his comipanionship which was never lacking whomever he was with. Of course it could not be equality of age or experience or ability or authority. It was the sense of the recognition on his part that each of us had the right to his own individuality, to the expression of his own will, to the development of his own power. This feeling of equality which, I think, all his children had in his company did not interfere with their implicit recognition of his authority. Neither the brother who was my special comrade nor I can remember ever deliberately disobeying him, and when recently I asked my brother why we never disobeyed, he gave the only answer that I could give, "We never thought of it." Perhaps it was because we could not imagine him violating authority himself. In later life, when that same brother became a physician, my father not only accepted his medical advice implicitly, but, as few fathers could do, regarded his youngest son's instructions as commands to be obeyed.

I have deliberately disobeyed other authority, but not my father. I dare say I disobeyed him often thoughtlessly, but never with the intent of violating his will. I think that is due to the fact that his authority was never a form of selfwill. He never insisted on our obeying a command merely because the command was his. It never seemed to be a command to go and do, but always a command to come and follow. This made the exercise of his authority perfectly compatible with my father's habit of reasoning with his children, his encouragement of co-operation, his readiness to trust his children with responsibility, his spirit of liberty. This adjustment between authority and liberty became habitual in all his relations. The sharpest debates in which I have ever engaged have been those about the dinner table in my father's house or those in which I have engaged with my father when he and I were together alone. In 1893, upon my graduation from college, he took me on a trip to England and Scotland. That was the time of the controversy over Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, and no discussion in Parliament was more acute, though on certainly one occasion I think it was less parliamentary, than the arguments we had with each other on that sub

ject as we traveled. He was always ready, in fact, eager, to get my point of view; if he failed to get it, I felt that I was not clear about it in my own mind or that I was awkward in trying to express it. He enjoyed setting his mind to wrestle with another's; but I am not sure that he enjoyed the debate itself so much as the experience of finding it a means of reaching new aspects of the truth. It was with this consciousness of equality that I think he invariably faced an audience, and he invariably welcomed the proper opportunity to hear from his audience as well as to speak to them. To stand before hundreds of people, receive the fire of their questions, and to throw back his answers was to make companions of his hearers. He always preferred the method of co-operation over the method of authority whenever there was any fair choice between the two. Naturally, this spirit of exercising authority by means of co-operation, this habit of the practice of liberty and reason, which he believed in as a principle to be applied to all social questions and which he observed with relation to his children, marked his conduct of The Outlook. At the regular weekly edi

torial conference he used to preside, but not direct. What he called sometimes brotherhood, sometimes democracy. sometimes co-operation, was the govern ing spirit whenever he occupied the chair at the head of the table. On every important question before the conference he desired and usually asked specifically for the opinion of each editor in attendance; and the resulting editorial, even when he wrote it himself, was, so far as he could make it, the considered judgment of the whole staff. He was wont to say that democracy was no more the control of the minority by the majority than it was the control of the majority by the minority, but was rather the composite judgment of many minds, which was different from the judgment of any one or any group of the many. He never shunned the responsibility which his office as Editor-in-Chief placed upon him, but he conceived it chiefly as the responsibility for the choice of his associates. Having chosen to serve with them and over them, he trusted them with his reputation and, what was even more precious to him, The Outlook's influence. No exercise of authority in particular instances could begin to have the sober

ing effect of such a course. It was characteristic of this attitude of his that at the time when the country was on the verge of war with Germany he should write to me a letter which concluded with this sentence:

It is a great relief to me to feel no responsibility for the editorial utterance at such a time and throw it all off on my sons.

Having this respect for others, he made it his rule, which he invariably observed, never to judge their motives. He judged their deeds. When those deeds showed lack of consideration for those he loved or injustice to the defenseless, his anger could flame. He never was angry with his children for anything they did to him, but I have seen his anger at heedlessness of mine which brought new burdens to my mother. And his anger was always the anger of good will, never ill will. His mercy was but another aspect of his sense of justice, as his justice was but an aspect of his mercy. When he himself was abused or misrepresented, he never replied. If reply was needed, he depended on others to make the correction, but he never undertook to de

and preserve his own reputation. I have in my possession a letter which he wrote to me concerning an attack that a reader of The Outlook had made upon me for an opinion I had expressed. It was written in March of this year. My father wrote:

All my life I have made my enemies serve me. For I have assumed that prejudice is often more keen than friendship, and that a hostile critic will often discover a fault which a friend or even a judicially-minded reader will fail to observe.

infre

The natural product of such a life was poise, freedom from harassing worry, a peaceful mind. Anxiety not quently troubled him; but he never was anxious about the things which he could not help, and about the things that he could help he was anxious only concerning the rightness of his own judgment. And not even his anxiety was disturbing enough to shatter his sense of humor. He was more anxious, for instance, about the health of others than he was about his own. In the fall of 1919 he was anxious about me, as I can now see by re-reading his letters at the time, but he made his humor serve his concern, and he wrote to me the following letter: Thanksgiving Day 1920

My dear Ernest:
Can't you get from the office away
For a day,
Or more

Say four:

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sun

day

Then you'd be good for something Monday.

I've been told

And learned of old

That for a cold

The best

Cure is rest

Stay in bed

When your head
Feels like lead

And you cough
Fit to joggle it off.
Drop your work
Learn how to shirk
"Twill be no loss.
Your boss.

Is it any wonder that a man who can write of his anxiety for others in this way looked forward to his own departure from this world with placidity? All that he dreaded as old age advanced was the pain that might accompany the losing of his physical vitality. Among the papers that he left after his death is the following memorandum, which came into the possession of one of my sisters shortly after my father's eightyfifth birthday:

Old Age. Some Reflections-Frag

mentary.

As I grow older current themes interest me less, and I feel less capable of dealing with them. Partly because I cannot complete them; partly be

I study less, reflect more; retire more within myself. Gradually my hold on this life lessens, my anticipation of the future life grows more vital. Can I not say that my delights are fewer, my contentment greater; my pleasures fewer, my happiness, if not greater, at least more uniform? I used to take care of others; I am gradually learning to let others take care of me. LYMAN ABBOTT.

Even in his last few hours his fragmentary and sometimes scarcely audible conversations with his children were turned with pleasantries. He was thoughtful for those whom he was about to leave, but he was not looking back. As he had been throughout his life, he was still standing in the bow of the boat.

As I stood beside his bed and told him how much he had meant to his children and grandchildren, he smiled and said, in a voice that hesitated for weakness but not for any search for words:

"I want for them the object and purpose in life that I have had. 'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.' I have fought a good fight-though I have had defeats. I have finished my coursefinished my course-though I have sometimes faltered and turned aside. And I have kept the faith-in spite of doubts and perplexities-such doubts and perplexities as every one must have who rests his faith on things that are invisible." ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT.

P

ROBABLY the first time the name

of Lyman Abbott became known to me was over forty years ago. I had read something about the synoptic Gospels, was ingenuously surprised to learn that there was such a discussion, and sent some question to the query column of the "Illustrated Christian Weekly." I was soon again surprised to find my inquiry honored by being taken as a text for a long editorial signed Lyman Abbott. What impressed me then was what later, when I came to work with and under Dr. Abbott, impressed me in all Dr. Abbott's writing, the clarity and simplicity of style and the fairness to those with whose views he did not agree. This was admirably

expressed in an article about Dr. Abbott written many years ago for the "World's Work" by his associate Hamilton Mabie, when he said: "He is a born truth-lover and truth-seeker, with remarkable working power, remarkable faculty of assimilation, and a natural gift of clear, persuasive statement." And I particularly like a phrase used in this same article, "So engrossed is he in what lies before him that he carries no luggage of selfconsciousness or self-satisfaction."

Few literary workers can accomplish more in a given time and make less fuss about it than could Dr. Abbott. When he was at his desk, he worked smoothly, steadily, and rapidly, without the slightest nervousness or sign of excitement. I have heard many stenographers say that he was the best possible giver of dictation because he did not hurry nor hesitate. When one looks at the long list of books he wrote and recalls the vast number of editorials, reviews, addresses, and sermons he prepared, one might suppose him a slave of work. Not a bit of it; he was a slave to nothing. He was an incomparable manager of his time and effort. He once said that in his work he had two governing principles: "First, not to do anything himself which he could get any one else to do; second, to take his rest as a preparation to his work, and not as a restorative after it." The first clause must be taken semi-playfully, though he certainly did know how to utilize assistance; the second is eminently characteristic.

Serenity, tranquility, courtesy, fairmindedness-those were the qualities that have impressed me during the thirty-five years and more I have watched Dr. Abbott at work and heard him discussing public questions and policies in editorial conferences. I never -never once-knew him to lose his temper, and I doubt very much whether any one else did. Indignation at things that were wrong, disapproval of measures injurious to the country, he had, but personal antagonism or hatred of individuals was not in his nature. Twice I have heard him say, in effect, "Do not let that man's name ever appear in the paper," but in both cases the man was guilty of personal moral delinquency against home and family, and was at the same time posing as a leader or teacher.

Many people have called Lyman Abbott a prophet. It would be an interesting study to compare his early utterances with the actual advance of the world toward liberalism in religion, industrial relations, and political progressiveness, and to see how closely his quiet, intellectual exposition of truth and justice long ago hit marks since reached and passed. Thus he was one of the first to use the phrase "industrial democ

I kept my appointment, and we sat together for an hour or more in the dining-room of the Union League Club. I think some of the passers-by must have wondered at the length of that talk between a schoolboy and Lyman Abbott.

He said little of the sketches which had called forth his letter. He said much of the work which remained then and still remains for me to do. He talked of the various fields of literature and journalism; of those who had succeeded therein, and of the education which I must secure before I could even hope to make a beginning. The harder the task which he pictured, the greater was the incentive which he gave. I have fulfilled few of the plans which he laid before me, but the memory of that

hour of his companionship I shall never forget.

There have been times when it has been hard for me to accept all the implications and corollaries of the faith which moved his being, for no philosopher or leader has been able to explain to me the reason for some of the suffering and grief to which the human race is heir. If there remain to me certain doubts which were not doubts to Lyman Abbott, of one thing I know I am sure. The faith that was his flowered into a life which was the highest spiritual manifestation of our time. That is why those of us who knew him, labored with him, and loved him find that our sorrow at his passing is strangely akin to exaltation. HAROLD TROWBRIDGE PULSIFER.

I

IN celebration of his seventieth birthday, Dr. Lyman Abbott's colleagues prepared for private circulation a miniature edition of The Outlook bearing the date of December 18, 1905. As editor-in-chief pro tempore, the Associate Editor, the late Hamilton W. Mabie, wrote as the leading editorial the following allegory based on an ancient Greek ceremonial. Though Dr. Abbott's name is not mentioned, it is he whom Mr. Mabie saw as the bearer of light. Now for the first time is published this affectionate tribute from an associate who, though younger, was the first to finish the race. THE EDITORS.

ST

LENDER in figure, quick in action, swift in motion, they who saw him draw apart from the throng knew that he was one of those whom the gods send to bear the torch in the race, and to pass on the sacred fire. There was about him the air of one who already understood and accepted his destiny, and whose training had been accomplished before he entered the lists. Predestined by the fear and love of the gods which his fathers had felt and cherished for many generations, he bore the stamp of that ancestral piety which, reverently guarding the fire on many altars for generations, passes into the spirit of those who come after a certain clearness of vision, and into their blood a certain lustral cleanness. Upon such there lingers the purity of temples and mysterious impressions of meetings with the gods face to face in solitary places. He who comes to the race thus predestined comes with the sure vision, the buoyant energy, the swift feet, of those who are already trained and shaped for their part.

When such a runner appears in the

He

line, there is always a torch ready to his hand, and the goal which another has reached becomes his starting-point. takes his place so quietly among the runners that few are aware that another has entered the lists, and that the light, which has shone about the feet of men in the long dark years when the fathers were groping for the way, has been seized by one who will carry it swift and far into the surrounding darkness.

He cared little for possessions and less for praise; for there was but one thought in his mind and one passion in his heart-to run without ceasing, not only with the light but toward it; for the race is for the night only, and the torch-bearers know that they face the morning and are its forerunners. He gave up what other men prize that he might help them see where lie the real prizes and lead the way to them. There was no burst of applause, no casting of flowers in the way, no procession from the temple, when he took the light in his hand; the consecration was in his spirit, not in any form of ceremony. He was thinking neither of those who cheer nor of those who deride, but of the goal where faces now hidden by darkness gather in the light, and voices now silent welcome, not with shouts for the victor, but with joy in his running and the passing of the fire into the shadows that cover the years that are to come. So they crown not the runner but the race, and honor not the bearer but the torch; and they who have run well and faithfully are glad, for they too have found that the joy lies not in any greeting from another, but in driving back the night.

What doubts were his in the blackness of the valleys, what delight when the

way ran along the edges of the hills and far off there was a faint prophecy of the dawn; what weariness was his when the road was strewn with stones that cut the feet and the air lay murky and oppressive about it, what sudden delight when it climbed the hill and the pressure of every step made him aware that he was ascending to the heights where the stars shine in unclouded splendor; what loneliness was his in places where no light glimmered through the gloom, what warmth of spirit when points of fire here and there brought the companionship of other runners-who shall know these things until the gods make all hidden things plain? And in that day when the light lies on the face of all things, who will remember the perils and hardships of the way by which he came to peace? The road is but a path to the temple, and when the smell of the garlands is in the air, and the song of praise floats above the worshipers, and the gods are no longer hidden afar, who will think how he came in the joy of the race run, and the light passed on, and the vision of the gods making the place radiant, not with hope, but with peace and rest?