As this address expresses intimately its author’s philosophy of life and death, we append the following extracts:
We have been told by a world-famous student and philosopher that self-sacrifice is the surest means of securing happiness and repose, that life is only of value through devotion to what is true and good. But in turning aside at this hour from other claims upon my time and attention to consider briefly the power of personality in life, as exemplified in the career of a good man, it is not so much the spirit of self-sacrifice as it is the feeling of inadequacy that enters into my task. It is friendship that interrogates me; it is frankness that will respond. It is a pleasure to lay a wreath, however simple, upon the grave of one to whose noble example and beneficent influence I am largely indebted for any humane endeavor or philanthropic spirit that has found expression in my life....
On Sunday afternoons it was his custom to go into the country to preach, and on many of these occasions it was my privilege to accompany him. He talked and thought a great deal about the happiness of others. He always seemed to be looking for a soul that he could cheer by loving and thoughtful words. He knew that no man could live unto God except by living at the same time unto his fellows.... So this man’s good works follow him and will be reflected and multiplied in the lives of others to the end of time....
It is wonderful how indestructibly the good grows and propagates itself, even among weedy entanglements. Evil things perish, but the good goes on forever. Music heard from afar is all harmony; the discordant notes perish by the way and never reach the ear of the listener....
If men are changed by events and environment, they are changed much more, either for good or ill, by their fellow-men. This is the alchemy of influence. We, all of us, are apt to minimize our power or influence, arguing to ourselves that what we may say or do is not noticed or observed, and is therefore of little moment or consequence. There was never a greater error.
For every good deed of ours the world will be better always. And perhaps on no day does a man walk the street cheerfully without meeting some other person who is brightened by his face, and who unconsciously to himself catches from that look an ineffable something—an inspiration that gives him new courage and saves him from a wrong action. Usefulness, after all, is nobler than fame—so noble, indeed, that man should not demand a higher reward for his labors under the sun than the consciousness of having done his neighbor some form of service.
Every person who has lived in the past, who lives in the present or may hereafter come into being, either has exerted or will exert some influence for the good or ill of his fellows. Even in inanimate nature this seems to be the law of existence. The glacier, that had its beginning when the earth was new, carries in its icy grasp objects which today tell the story of its course as plainly as if by written or spoken word. The tree standing by the wayside, barren of either flower or fruit and seemingly useless, may have a beneficent office. Some tired and lonely traveler, discouraged and disheartened, resting beneath its shade, may be lured back to a life of usefulness and happiness by the song of a bird in its branches. And so it is too in the animal kingdom. The beasts of the field and the fowls of the air in divers ways make their impress upon nature and upon all life.
“When our souls shall leave this dwelling,
The glory of one fair and virtuous action
Is above all the ’scutcheons of our tomb.”