LA H-S O jV VALEN TINE. 



issues of The Christian Union, from the editor-in- 

 chief to the compositor who set its type or the er- 

 rand-boy in the office, who did not do his work bet- 

 ter for Mr. Valentine's influence. He was the 

 ozone in the atmosphere which we all breathed." 



"* * * Himself a large capitalist, his interest was 

 in the world's wage-earners. A man of cultured 

 tastes, his interest was in mission enterprises. 

 * * * Never had Hebrew prophet more absolute 

 courage of his convictions, more of that clear vision 

 which only a great righteousness confers. His in- 

 tellectual perception of truth was clear and pene- 

 trating ; but 'the restless disregard of his own in- 

 terests with \\ hich he loooked at questions was more 

 than an intellectual quality.' Yet this passion for 

 truth never made him a partisan or a partialist. 

 He could never have become the advocate of an 

 "ism." He was always hopeful; not because he 

 did not see lions in the way, but because he had too 

 great a courage to be daunted by them. Never 

 man more than Mr. Valentine believed that "one 

 with God is a majority ." The greater the difficulty, 

 the more eager he was to meet and overcome it. 

 He would ask prudence how he should conquer a 

 great wrong, but never whether he should give it 

 battle. 



" He was not a theologian nor an ecclesiastic. 

 The party contentions which have absorbed so much 

 of the life of the Church had for him no interest- 

 The controversies between Calvinism and Arminian- 

 ism, Episcopacy and Congregationalism, Old The- 

 ology and New Theology, Andover and Princeton, 

 did not concern him. But there was one battle to 

 which his spirit always summoned his associates 

 with a new courage and a new hopefulness. It was 

 the battle for freedom. Whatever muzzled the 

 mouth or manacled the hands of man was his per- 

 sonal foe. And he carried into the long campaign 

 for other men's freedom the same indomitable energy 

 and the same invincible courage with which he 

 would have fought to death any and every attempt 

 to put upon him a manacle or a muzzle." 



" He held everything in trust," writes Hamilton 

 W. Mabie in the same paper ; "he administered his 

 possessions of every sort as if others had a para- 

 mount claim on him. For himself he asked for 

 nothing but freedom and facility for work. His 

 generosities were so varied and so constant that they 

 merge into one continual act of giving ; and his gifts 



always had something of himself in them. His 

 largeness of aim in acquiring and his delicacy and 

 open-handednessin bestowing, disclose his ingrained 

 idealism ; he was a poet even in business, and he 

 showed that broad, generous and noble views are 

 consistent with great commercial success. H e 

 would have scorned success on any other terms. 

 He was always striving for the universal principle 

 in everything he undertook, for he believed that 

 hfe was harmonious and that success lay in getting 

 at the heart of things. Strike high enough and 

 success must come, was the lesson of his whole ac- 

 tive life. He allied himself with the best things ; 

 he was proud of his connection with a great publish- 

 ing house whose imprint has become one of the 

 stamps of good literature ; of his association with a 

 journal which strove above all other rewards to se- 

 cure the influence which comes of courage, inde- 

 pendence, and deep-hearted faith in God and man; 

 of his alliance with intelligent and progressive agri- 

 culture, of the identification of his name with su- 

 preme quality in manufacture." 



As is well known to our readers, he, last year, 

 became a large owner in and president of The Rural 

 Publishing Company, concerning the future of 

 which he was very enthusiastic — and it is the inten- 

 tion of those he left in its management that the 

 company shall go on in the lines which he inspired, 

 and thus insure, in so far as may be, the great suc- 

 cess which he anticipated. Their ambition is that 

 the company towards which he contributed so much 

 shall achieve his high ideals. 



' ' Could he have chosen the place of his last illness 

 and death," says The Rural New- Yorker, " Mr. Val- 

 entine would certainly have chosen to lay down his 

 life on Houghton Farm among the scenes he loved 

 so well. Leaving his winter home in the city ap" 

 parently a well man, for a visit to the farm (to en- 

 joy the incoming of spring where its advent was 

 most delightful) in advance of the annual family 

 migration, he was immediately stricken with the 

 disease which in three short weeks ended his life. 

 Nature seemed to recognize that this staunch lover 

 of hers had come home to die, and put on her 

 brightest, softest colors to sooth his last hours, and 

 on the day when the simple and appropriate funeral 

 service were held the trees in bloom seemed pyra- 

 mids of flowers built in honor of Lawson Valen- 

 tine." 



