THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
MAY 3o 
426 
LAWSON VALENTINE’S CHARACTER 
Faith, Hope, Love. 
Funeral termon delivered by Dr. Lyman 
Abbott, at Uoughton Farm, May 8. 
It is not easy for any friend of Lawson 
Valentine to control himself so as to speak 
of him to those who knew and loved him, 
and those that loved him loved him very 
much indeed. I remember, shortly after 
I first became acquainted with him, one 
of his oldest and most familiar friends 
asking me the question, “ Do you under¬ 
stand Lawson Valentine ?” I said, “No, 
I do not think I do,” and this friend said, 
“I don’t think you ever will; he will al¬ 
ways be giving you some new surprises.” 
I did not understand him ; be always was 
giving me some new surprises; so, in 
speaking ot him to-day (and I think I may 
depart from my usual custom in speaking 
of him), if I shall seem to you to fail to in¬ 
terpret him (and I shall fail to interpret 
him), I can only say that I shall try to 
speak of what I saw in him, for each one 
of you has seen something in him that I 
did not see. It is not easy to draw a line 
between genius and talent, but I think, 
broadly speaking, we may say that talent 
is specific and genius temperamental. A 
man may have talent for composition, or 
drawing, or music, but a man that has 
genius, impresses everything he touches 
If ever 1 have known a man who was, 
in the highest and best sense of tte 
word, a genius, that man was Lawton 
Valentine, and everything he touched he 
impressed with his wonderful and striking 
personality, and whether it was experimen¬ 
tal farming, or landscape gardening, or 
manufacturing, or journalism, or what¬ 
ever it was, it was peculiar, it was original, 
it was vital. I believe that if he had cho¬ 
sen so to shape his life, and had received 
the proper education in each particular 
line, he would have made his mark as a 
writer, a lecturer, a landscape gardener, a 
publisher, an artist, as he did as a manu¬ 
facturer and as a business man. His life 
was too large to be compassed in the three 
score years of a lifetime. There was 
too much in him to receive its own full 
fruition in so short a time. Tnere were 
too many seeds in his fruitful nature to 
get their fruitage in life’s short summer. 
But his genius showed itself not only in 
that which he did, but in the influence 
which he exerted. He was preeminently 
an inspirational man, and those of us who 
came in contact with him felt the force and 
power of his inspiration. I have known 
other men who perhaps possessed in larger 
degree than he did the power of impressing 
themselves upon others, but I have never 
known a man who possessed the power of 
drawing the best out of men that he did. 
Other men may have produced more, but 
he made you produce yourself; he drew 
out of you all there was in you; he inspired 
you so that you made more of yourself 
than you ever could have done, had you not 
known him. I shall only repeat in my own 
experience what you would all say, tach in 
his own life, if I should say that I am far, 
far better as a writer, a3 a journalist, and 
as a preacher because I have known Law- 
son Valentine. As I look back along the 
years I can see that when, about 15 years 
ago, I became acquainted with him my life 
entered on a new effort, a larger sphere; I 
came into a new atmosphere. He gave me, 
1 can hardly say what, I might almost say 
that he gave me myself, and as the spring 
influence to day draws out of the earth all 
the different plants and flowers, giving 
each its own peculiar life, so out of every 
soul he drew its own peculiar life, and we 
were each, in our own sphere and place in 
life, better and stronger and richer and 
fuller and more individual because he had 
toucaed us. 
All genius has its moral Inspiration. A 
great, deep purpose must always underlie 
genius; it may be a bad purpose, or it may 
be a good one, but It must be a deep pur¬ 
pose to be genius. The genius may be 
inspired by ambition or by covetousne s; it 
may be inspired by pride; but it must be 
inspired by some great moral or, if you 
will, immoral motive. Mere intellectuality 
is not genius, unless it is matched with a 
great motive power. I am sure that we 
shall all agree here to day that the motive 
power of Lawson Valentine’s genius was 
love. 
I came a few moments ago out of the 
room that he occupied in the annex, and 
there I saw the motto which he had placed 
upon the wall and which so represented 
one phase of his life, “Nothing is trouble¬ 
some that we do willingly.” And all he did 
was done willingly; love was the law of 
his life ; it illustrated that matchless phrase 
of Dr. Hopkins, “Love as a law and the 
law of love.” What a friend said to me 
yesterday I repeat here: “ He was the most 
generous man I ever knew, not merely in 
the giving of money, but in that harder ser¬ 
vice, personal toil; personal lab jr in the 
giving of that which was particularly hard 
to give, taking up burdens which were bur¬ 
dens to him, burdens of details, burdens 
which were vexatious and harassing, in 
order that he might relieve others. His 
life was a life of service to others. He did 
not count money as how to be made, but 
how to be used. He made it and was pros¬ 
perous, but money was in his hands as a 
tool, and the question was always, ‘ How 
can this tool be made to render the best ser¬ 
vice ? ’ ” 
I knew him, of course, most intimately 
in his relations to the Christian Union. 
He entered those relations in a missionary 
spirit, and always the question with him 
was: “How can the paper be made to 
carry the greatest light and hope and cheer 
and strength to hearts and homes all over 
the land t ” His love was not merely a 
great, strong principle, but it was a per¬ 
sonal love. He looked upon men and women 
as men and women. All that rare skill of 
his, shown in little contrivances for the 
convenience of others, was a witness of his 
personal thoughtfulness. Whether he was 
planning rural improvements on the farm 
or whether he was contriving the gymnas¬ 
tic apparatus and conveniences for his em¬ 
ployees in the city, or whether he was de¬ 
vising how to provide the compositors of 
the paper with light, airy and well venti 
lated quarters, or whether he was laying 
out good and large schemes for the better 
accommodation of the editorial workers on 
the various journals with which he was 
identified and interested, wherever his life 
lay there was this witness and testimony 
to his personal interest. It would have 
been as impossible for him to think of those 
who worked for him as though they were 
without hearts and brains as it seems for 
some other people to think of them as hav¬ 
ing hearts and brain3. When once he had 
formed any kind of attachment for another, 
when he had entered into any personal re¬ 
lations with another, it really seamed as 
though nothing that other could do would 
suffice to break the bond of attachment. 
He had what I may call, if you will not 
misunderstand me, a pride of love, and when 
he entered upon one of his loved undertak¬ 
ings it seemed as though nothing could 
Induce him to leave it. I am sure that I am 
speaking within bounds when I say that I 
have never known a man who, in his per¬ 
sonal relations, so illustrated what I would 
call redemptive love as he did. I have never 
known a man who so illustrated the power 
of love, to hold on in spite of everything, 
seeking reclamation and restoration and 
reestablishment, and such a man as that is 
doomed often to disappointment, and he 
had disappointments, but no disappoint¬ 
ment could daunt him; he would not be 
discouraged ; his faith in man was as abso¬ 
lute as his faith in God, and I really be¬ 
lieve that he thought there was no man 
with whom he came “ in touch ” so lost 
that adequate patience, adequate skill, 
adequate genius could not have helped to- 
towards true manhood. 
Perhaps some others of us have thought, 
as he did, that the better land has many 
that can never fail, but there are not many 
of us who aet on that faith in this life as he 
did. He had a love that suffereth long, 
and is kind ; that trusteth all things, that 
hopeth all things, that endureth all things. 
I do not think he was wont to examine him¬ 
self ; I doubt whether he could have given 
an account of his own religious experience. 
I shall not try to give an account for him. 
He certainly was not accustomed to speak 
of it even to his intimate friends, but it was 
a deep, deep reality with him. His faith 
in man, his faith in God, his faith in a God 
that redeemeth man, and his faith in the 
For the Brides of June 
•71 
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