THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 STEPHEN GREENE 
 MEMORIES OF HIS LIFE
 
 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 MEMORIES OF HIS LIFE 
 
 WITH 
 
 ADDRESSES, RESOLUTIONS AND OTHER 
 TRIBUTES OF AFFECTION 
 
 PRINTED FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION 
 1903
 
 In putting pen to paper the heart kept insisting that sen- 
 tences should fashion themselves in fraternal familiarity. It 
 is a little sketch ; but with these glimpses and suggestive hints, 
 supplemented as they are by memorial addresses and letters of 
 appreciation, it is hoped that the reader may easily fill out the 
 larger life. 
 
 BENJAMIN A. GREENE 
 Evanston, November, 1902 
 
 1232706
 
 ANCESTRAL LINE
 
 " God plants us where we grow"
 
 ANCESTRAL LINE 
 
 Providence, R. I., was founded by Roger Wil- 
 liams, in 1636. Three years later Richard Smith had 
 built a trading-post near the present village of Wick- 
 ford, R. I., and with the consent of the Indian 
 princes and people, improved a large tract of land. 
 Living in his family was John Greene, the first of 
 " the Quidnesset Greenes." Nothing is known 
 of his previous history. It is supposed that he 
 came with Smith from Gloucestershire, England. 
 There were two other men of the same name set- 
 tled in Rhode Island about this time, John Greene 
 of Newport, and a surgeon, John Greene, who set- 
 tled in Warwick, the first of the "Warwick Greenes," 
 to which family General Nathaniel Greene belonged. 
 With these two John Greene of Quidnesset probably 
 had no family relationship. 
 
 John, Benjamin, John, three generations, remained 
 in the original district; but Thomas, of the fourth 
 generation, in 1765 settled near what is now called 
 Shannock Mills. In this vicinity lived John, Allen, 
 Stephen, representing the fifth, sixth, and seventh 
 generations. They were all tillers of the soil ; but 
 Allen served in the army of the Revolutionary War, 
 and was a pensioner when he died, in 1 833. Stephen 
 married Susan Johnson, a school teacher of North
 
 io STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 Kingston, in 1815, and in 1816 moved to Killingly, 
 Conn., where he hired and managed a small farm for 
 a number of years. It was here that Alvin Greene, 
 father of the subject of this sketch, was born, Decem- 
 ber 12, 1820. As farming was meagerly remunera- 
 tive, it was decided, when the older children were 
 large enough to work in the cotton-mill, to move 
 to Lippitt, R. I.
 
 HEREDITY: EARLY TRAITS
 
 "Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she 
 that bare tbee shall rejoice" PROVERBS. 
 
 "Here and there a cotter 1 s babe is royal born by right 
 divine. ' ' TENNYSON. 
 
 "// has always been my greatest desire and earnest 
 prayer that all my boys may be earnest and working 
 Christians." MOTHER, 1 867. 
 
 " The entire man is to be found in the cradle of the 
 child." DE TOCQUEVILLE. 
 
 Aristippus, after shipwreck, saw a circle marked on 
 the beach, and said, "Let us be of good cheer; I see 
 mind."
 
 HEREDITY: EARLY TRAITS 
 
 Cotton manufacturing was beginning to attract 
 families away from the farms. Along the Pawtuxet 
 River a number of factory villages were rising. 
 This village life brought in new social conditions. 
 At first all the help was American. Better schools 
 began to prevail. Churches grew into more flour- 
 ishing organizations. 
 
 It was into this village life that father was intro- 
 duced when he was old enough to take a finishing 
 term of common school, and begin in the carding- 
 room to learn his trade. His father was an ordinary 
 working-man, robust in health except at the last; a 
 devout, intelligent Christian, a good talker in con- 
 ference meeting, and having the respect of all. His 
 mother was more ambitious; she had something 
 of the Roman make-up in her appearance, remain- 
 ing as straight as an arrow until her eighty -seventh 
 year, priding herself not a little on the additional 
 touch of culture which she received in her youth at 
 school, and in her girlhood shopping excursions to 
 Newport. 
 
 Father "topped cards" in company with "the 
 Knight boys," who afterward came to own a very 
 large share of the mill property of Rhode Island. 
 He had the devout spirit of his father, and the 
 
 13
 
 i 4 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 ambition of his mother, to make the most of himself. 
 He could not go further in school life, and long 
 hours in the mill prevented much study, but he 
 used his spare time in reading, and exercised his 
 gifts in the debating society and in the meetings 
 of the Baptist Church at Phenix, where he early 
 became a member. One of the deep pleasures of 
 his after years was recounting sermons he heard in 
 those early days, and giving particulars of memora- 
 ble debates, at the village store and in the hall. 
 
 May 2, 1 842, when he was overseer of the card- 
 ing-room at Harrisville, he married Maria Arnold, 
 the daughter of Hervy Arnold, a cabinet-maker. 
 She was a weaver in the mill, as were all her sisters. 
 I have now in my desk, for every-day use, a small 
 pair of scissors which she used over sixty years ago 
 in the weave-shop. That work would compare now 
 with stenography and typewriting. She had the 
 advantage of a private school at Lonsdale for a 
 short time. She was very conscientious, quiet, un- 
 demonstrative, practical, the incarnation of common 
 sense, profound in her religious feeling. She, also, 
 was a member of the Phenix Church. 
 
 When the new mill was to be started at Hope, 
 father was recommended by David Whitman, the 
 pioneer mill engineer of the times, as the best man 
 to have charge of the carding; and he began work 
 there in August, 1846. It was a beautiful stone 
 mill, a model of its kind. Everything was to be 
 first-class, and everything in its proper place. One
 
 HEREDITY: EARLY TRAITS 15 
 
 can easily imagine what impressions were made upon 
 this ambitious young man by promotion in the 
 midst of such fine conditions. He had come to be 
 a modest leader in outside circles as well. He was 
 superintendent of a Sunday school, held in a small 
 hall built over the trench near the main gate, and 
 also a teacher of a singing class. At this time he 
 took special pains to strengthen his lungs, often 
 stepping out in the air and inflating them to the 
 full. His mother had a cough for years. His three 
 brothers and only sister died with consumption. I 
 was born in Harrisville, November 6, 1845. Susan, 
 the next child, was born at Hope, February a, 1848, 
 and died June 30, 1850. Our home was half of the 
 small house, nearest the mill, in the lower row down 
 from the main street, very close to what was called 
 the " tub wheel," an extra wheel in the lower trench 
 to help eke out the power. The noise of it, as I 
 used to try to sleep afternoons on the parlor floor, 
 rumbles in my ears to-day. Grandfather and Grand- 
 mother Arnold, with their four unmarried daughters, 
 lived on the other side, in the cottage. Think of 
 the environment : The new mill ; leadership reach- 
 ing out into Sunday school and singing ; a good 
 start, suggesting financial possibilities ; domestic life 
 deepened by sorrow into richer tone and coloring. 
 Into this nest of a home Stephen came, Septem- 
 ber 27, 1851. 
 
 Every remembrance of him, as far back as my 
 memory goes, is that he was a bundle of life and
 
 16 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 " musical force." For before he could walk, while 
 creeping on the floor, he would " hum the airs " 
 which he had heard. This was a delightful discovery 
 to father who never wearied of coaxing him along 
 into greater proficiency. Well do I remember their 
 voices blending in that melody, newer then than 
 now, " Down in the cornfield, Hear that mournful 
 sound." A friend writes : " The first impression 
 of him I remember was hearing him sing, c I '11 awake 
 at dawn on the Sabbath Day,' before he could speak 
 plainly, but he carried the tune all right." 
 
 He was a leader from the start. While yet a little 
 fellow he would get Aunt Sally, who was indeed 
 proud to be a sort of a second mother, to tie in 
 front of him a round fig-box for a drum, and then, 
 with paper soldier-caps on, we would march ; and I am 
 told that I took my place in the rear, as though it was 
 foreordained, meekly following the " rub-a-dub-dub " 
 of the younger brother. 
 
 Stephen could not be over-petted, for two baby 
 brothers came in quick succession ; Albert was born 
 in April, 1853, and Alvin in June, 1854. In Septem- 
 ber of the latter year father leased a small mill in 
 North Scituate, at " The Island," about a mile from 
 what was called the " Four Corners." There we 
 removed, and grandfather's family too, for in these 
 first two places they were part and parcel of our 
 family life. It was here, in the early part of the 
 year 1856, that Aunt Emily taught him his let- 
 ters in one day. That summer he attended his first
 
 HEREDITY: EARLY TRAITS 17 
 
 school, taught by Caroline Hopkins, and learned to 
 spell words of four and five syllables. It was dur- 
 ing this first term that he spoke his first piece, with 
 such confidence and vivacity, with head so erect, 
 that it is remembered to this day by his aunts : 
 
 " 1 'm going to California, 
 As smart as any man, 
 To dig among the shining gold, 
 For I am sure I can." 
 
 The manufacturing enterprise had just got well 
 started when a disastrous fire, in September of that 
 year, burned the mill. The savings of years went 
 up in smoke; other years were mortgaged to pay 
 indebtedness. This was a crisis experience. Father 
 said he often had visions before that of one day 
 being a rich man; but when he came home from 
 a visit, and saw the acreage of burned cloth, and the 
 old wooden wheel turning in the midst of desola- 
 tion, he made up his mind his vision could never 
 be realized, and he would settle down and raise 
 a family of boys for after usefulness. 
 
 It is idle to conjecture what might have happened 
 if there had been no fire, and we had been anchored 
 in that quiet community by a little financial success. 
 Father was jostled out into the larger world, with 
 a corrected judgment, feeling the absolute need 
 of economy, and realizing that everything, except 
 that which is wrought into character, may take to 
 itself wings and fly away.
 
 i8 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 In October, 1856, we moved to Yarmouth, Maine. 
 The Libby Brothers, Portland, hired father as super- 
 intendent of a small mill, where they made cotton 
 yarn, wrapping-twine, and batting. Here, during 
 the next two summers, Stephen attended the dis- 
 trict school, and in the winter between, a private 
 school kept by Miss Bisbee over her father's store. 
 Another brother came into the home, Ray W., in 
 July, 1857. Soon after, also, Aunt Sarah Greene, 
 with Susie, our "cousin sister," came to be with us 
 for a while. Our home would not be what it was 
 with them left out; blessed helps both of them. 
 Church privileges were better than ever before. At 
 that time in Yarmouth there was a law that no chil- 
 dren under nine years could attend the district school 
 in the winter; so in the fall of 1858 father let Stephen 
 do what a little fellow could do in the yarn-room. 
 In his "Autobiography," to which I will refer later, 
 he says : " I had a very light job, working about 
 as I had a mind to, as I was quite young. This 
 was the first regular work I was ever put to, outside 
 of doing chores around the house." There surely 
 were chores to do in a family of five boys, where 
 most of the time there was no hired girl to help 
 the mother. Those were days of hard work and the 
 most rigid economy ; and yet, the sweets and the 
 joys and the hopes of a Christian home were never 
 absent ; " plain living and high thinking," as Words- 
 worth puts it.
 
 THE WHITE ROCK HOME: GROW- 
 ING TO MANHOOD
 
 " This book of the law shall not depart out of thy 
 mouth ; but tbou shall meditate therein day and night, 
 that tbou mayest observe to do according to all that is 
 written therein : for then tbou shall make thy way pros- 
 perous, and then tbou shall have good success." JOSHUA. 
 
 " The hues thai our to-morrows wear 
 
 Are by our yesterdays forecast ; 
 Our future takes into itself 
 
 The true impressions of our past." 
 
 " The choice young man's life is bound to be a life of 
 vision" PHILLIPS BROOKS. 
 
 ' T is hope that feeds ibe larger half of man." 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 " In conversation boldness now bears sway. 
 
 But know that nothing can so foolish be 
 As empty boldness ; therefore, first essay 
 To stuff thy mind with solid bravery ; 
 
 Then march on gallant : get substantial worth : 
 Boldness gilds finely, and will set it forth." 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT.
 
 THE WHITE ROCK HOME: GROWING 
 TO MANHOOD 
 
 Though friends were very pleasant in Yarmouth, 
 relatives and old home associations were distant in 
 Rhode Island, and it was with great delight that we 
 moved, January 1 1, 1 859,10 White Rock in that state. 
 Father had been hired as superintendent by Babcock 
 & Morse. This was a village with a brick cotton- 
 mill of ten thousand spindles. Directly across the 
 street was a brick store in the middle of a row of 
 twelve double wooden houses, exactly alike, and 
 well yarded in. At the entrance of the village there 
 were a neat-looking school building on one side, and 
 a large boarding-house on the other. An ideal 
 factory village. The broad street was soon after 
 lined with maple and elm. Each yard had room 
 for a little garden, and back of this rose a hill of 
 oak and chestnut. In front, across the well-kept 
 street, there were first, meadows to mow, and be- 
 yond, the sweep of the river. This little nook of a 
 place was about two miles distant from Westerly, 
 where were to be found churches, stores, post-office, 
 doctors, railway station, academy, and the head of 
 navigation on the Pawtuxet River. 
 
 The inhabitants were mostly American, with a 
 dash of typical Irish, English, and Scotch. This
 
 22 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 variety in the village, together with the odd speci- 
 mens dotting the fringe of its life, furnished ample 
 fund for story, joke, and hearty laugh. The larger 
 part were church-going people. There was a Sun- 
 day school in a vacant tenement at nine o'clock, and 
 we boys who were old enough would walk to 
 Westerly, with quite a little pilgrim band, to church. 
 Father and Uncle Hiram Arnold, who had 
 charge of the store and kept the books of the com- 
 pany, had the use of the company's two-seated 
 carriage. One of the younger boys would some- 
 times be tucked in by the side of mother. The 
 afternoons were usually spent at home. In summer 
 we were allowed to take a quiet stroll in the woods; 
 this was appreciated, especially when we had 
 worked in the mill all the week. In the evening 
 we had prayer-meeting maintained by those in the 
 village, unless, as was sometimes the case, Elder 
 Lewis, of the Minor Meeting House, came 
 down and preached late in the afternoon. We boys 
 remembered well Captain Pendleton, the mill 
 watchman, who used to come in late, set his lantern 
 down in the outer room, then take a back seat on 
 the north side. After the opening exercises he 
 would be the first to kneel in prayer. He began 
 very quietly, kept increasing in intensity of feeling 
 and loudness of tone until he very nearly lost his 
 breath; but he always convinced us boys that 
 he found and sheltered himself in the very heart of 
 God. Uncle Hiram was the usual leader. Father
 
 THE WHITE ROCK HOME 23 
 
 always took part. Their uniform sincerity, together 
 with the simple, genuine testimony of the humble 
 mill folk, brought to bear upon us boys a steady 
 pressure toward the kingdom. The singing for 
 these meetings was helped by a singing school held 
 in the village during winter evenings. Vocal music 
 was always one of the chief features of the social 
 gatherings of the place. 
 
 We moved into No. 12, the south side of the 
 house, just north of the store. The first two years 
 Stephen attended the district school. In the spring 
 of 1 86 1 he was placed in the spinning-room, as 
 father had adopted the plan that his boys should 
 work half the time. In 1862 Stephen again attended 
 the district school, and had James M. Collins for 
 teacher. He took care of the school-house, built 
 fires, and sometimes assisted in hearing the lower 
 classes recite. Young as he was, he took a leading 
 part in preparing for an exhibition, which netted 
 eight dollars. With this sum was purchased a Pro- 
 nouncing Gazetteer for the use of the school. In 
 April, 1863, he was again at work in the spinning- 
 room. It was in this year that Emma, our two- 
 year-old sister, died, in October a sorrow we boys 
 all felt. In September, 1864, he again returned to 
 the district school, then taught by Charlotte Maxson. 
 He also resumed taking care of the school-house. 
 At the close of the village term, as he found the 
 village school did not meet his needs he went to the 
 Westerly High School, a private institution, with
 
 24 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 A. J. Foster as principal, and occupying American 
 Hall on High Street. Every Westerly boy who 
 came under Principal Foster's instruction will carry 
 vivid remembrances of his unique, hearty, forceful 
 personality : he was lacking in order and neatness ; 
 he would burst now and then into spasmodic asser- 
 tion of authority, and then lapse into indulgent 
 familiarity; yet, blunt, without dignity and method, 
 uncouth, as he seemingly had to be, he was a great 
 inspiration to those who had a mind to learn, and a 
 heart to feel his inner largeness and sincerity. It 
 was not altogether in the routine instruction that he 
 gave; he was always running over with quaint 
 remarks ; he had an eye and an ear and a sensitive 
 soul for lessons that were flashing forth from every 
 page of the text-book, and from every nook and 
 cranny of daily life. He was a big boy-friend with 
 a streak of genius in him ; at heart devout, musical 
 to his finger tips. Stephen says : " I attended here 
 about a year, in the mean time taking up algebra, 
 natural philosophy, analysis of the English language, 
 book-keeping, in connection with other English 
 branches. After becoming acquainted with Mr. 
 Foster, I was always on very intimate terms with 
 him, and with all his peculiarities (and he had them), 
 I liked him, and considered him an excellent teacher. 
 On two or three occasions I accompanied him to 
 help survey some land, and thus learned a little of 
 the practical part of surveying." He was selected 
 to make the presentation speech when the school
 
 THE WHITE ROCK HOME 25 
 
 gave their teacher a silver pitcher, December 25, 
 1865. 
 
 It was while attending Foster's school that he 
 became a Christian. Let me continue to quote 
 Stephen's words : " The next winter, in January and 
 February of 1866, a religious interest commenced 
 in some of the churches of Westerly, and among 
 them the First Baptist Church, of which father, 
 mother, and brother Benjamin were members. I 
 attended some of the evening meetings that were 
 held there, and under the influence of these services 
 and of friends who talked to me, and I trust also 
 the work of the Holy Spirit on my heart, I was 
 led to realize my condition as a sinner, and was led 
 to give my heart to Jesus, and commenced to try to 
 live a life of piety." 
 
 Some of the friends he refers to were his school- 
 mates at Westerly. Those who have communicated 
 with me speak of Stephen as attractive, vivacious, 
 manly. "All the girls liked Stephen." "Among all 
 you boys he was spokesman." The assistant teacher 
 remembers now what " a pleasure it was to know 
 him, he was so frank and sincere." His religious 
 awakening was characterized, " not by haste, but by 
 deliberation of choice ; and his after life shows it was 
 governed by the choice." 
 
 He was baptized March 18, 1866, by Rev. Fred- 
 erick Dennison, the pastor, in the old canal, now filled 
 up, at the foot of the hill, as one goes from Wes- 
 terly to Stillmanville. In referring to the little meet-
 
 26 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 ings held in White Rock, just after joining the 
 church, Stephen writes a sentence which proved to 
 be a prophecy, fulfilling itself in more and more 
 splendid fruitfulness up to the last week of his life: 
 " These meetings I attended regularly, and generally 
 took some part. I formed a resolution soon after I 
 was converted to make it a matter of principle to 
 help sustain religious meetings of this character when- 
 ever it should be my privilege to attend them." 
 
 It may seem a gloomy eclipse of this bright life, 
 prospering in school, winning delightful friends, 
 dedicating his career to Christian fidelity and hope- 
 fulness, to record the fact that on the very next day 
 after he was baptized he again entered the mill to 
 work. It was always a hard experience the first 
 week. Cotton dust, oily atmosphere, the clatter of 
 machinery, and especially the confinement, had their 
 depressing, sometimes sickening, effect. But that 
 was the life in which we were brought up, and in 
 which the most of those we knew were living and 
 working. It is not to be supposed, however, that a 
 mill boy had no good times. There were pleasant 
 friendships inside factory walls. There were genu- 
 ine, intelligent people, who kept well informed upon 
 current events. While working in the spinning- 
 room as "doffer" and "spare hand" Stephen could 
 have a run out once in a while into the air and the 
 sunshine. Well do I remember what a treat it was 
 to be allowed to take the empty pail and go under 
 the trees in opening spring, when the leaves and the
 
 THE FIRST BAPTIST MEETING-HOUSE, WESTERLY, R. I.
 
 THE WHITE ROCK HOME 27 
 
 birds were just returning, walk along the path to the 
 old well-curb at the northeast corner of the store. 
 We did not rush. The empty pail one way, the 
 full pail the other, was our passport, and we got all 
 the enjoyment we could on the round trip. Some- 
 times the pail would hang at the well, catching the 
 last drops from the bucket, while we jumped the 
 fence, darted in at the back door, and got a bite of 
 whatever mother was cooking that was portable. 
 
 Swimming at "the sand bar" and at the "dam" 
 was the luxury in warm weather; while skating on 
 the trench and on the pond above was the exhila- 
 rating delight of winter. There were parties after 
 the mill hours, of Arcadian simplicity. There were 
 trips to " the Bridge," as Westerly used to be called, 
 to the stores, and entertainments; and now and 
 then a day off for an excursion to Watch Hill, or 
 Noyes Beach. And because White Rock was such 
 a beautiful place, not a few fine turnouts would find 
 their way thither. Schuyler Colfax, vice-president 
 during Lincoln's first term, honored the factory with 
 a visit. 
 
 Stephen was of a somewhat different build from 
 the rest of us boys. He had a differently shaped 
 head, lighter hair, straighter backbone. He took 
 after his Grandmother Greene in this last respect; 
 and he also had her liking for fine things and a ten- 
 dency to indulge in high ideas. When a little fellow 
 he would say he wanted to be a big man and have 
 lots of money, and do what he pleased with it.
 
 28 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 Father and mother in earlier days had a fear that 
 Stephen saw too large a vision. Even grandmother, 
 with us as one of the family, once took him to task 
 when he was indulging in roseate boyish dreams, 
 by saying, "You know, Stephen, that boys who 
 go in at the big end of the horn come out of the 
 little end." He replied in an instant, " No, I won't; 
 I '11 wiggle around and come out at the same end." 
 When he made his appearance in Westerly first as 
 a schoolboy, there were mischievous urchins who 
 saw only his large front teeth, and they called him 
 "Tombstones." This disturbed him, but did not 
 prevent him winning his way easily to the highest 
 esteem. He was considerably annoyed at the time, 
 and more highly amused afterward, at another ex- 
 perience in having titles hurled at him. I presume 
 his straightness and beautiful face provoked a less 
 favored boy to tease him. As it once happened he 
 wore a light-colored coat and hat, which suggested 
 the salutation, " White coat, white hat, white head, 
 white everything." 
 
 Grandmother Greene had a small sum of money 
 at interest in Providence Savings Bank. When her 
 annual dividend came she was sure to replenish her 
 store of snuff for herself alone, and stow away in 
 mysterious boxes a fresh purchase of candy and 
 figs, part of which would come to us boys in frugal 
 installments. There was no surplus pocket-money 
 in those days; but we always had enough, and had 
 it beforehand, so that we could buy our fire-crackers,
 
 THE WHITE ROCK HOME 29 
 
 and in the intervening days pack and smell the pow- 
 dery treasure, wishing for the " Fourth " to come. 
 
 In the house at that time there were quite a few 
 good volumes to awaken the curiosity of growing 
 boys: Peter Parley's "History of the World," 
 Rollin's "Ancient History," Seward's " Life of John 
 Quincy Adams," " Camp-Fires of the Revolution," 
 " The American Statesman," " The Christian Life " 
 by Peter Bain, some of Ripley's and some of Barnes's 
 " Notes," with other smaller books, and a well-worn 
 family Bible. For papers we had, from the very 
 first, "The Watchman," in its various transmuta- 
 tions, sometimes " The Christian Era," that grand- 
 mother might have one of Spurgeon's sermons to 
 read while we were all at church, the New York 
 " Semi- Weekly Tribune," " The Phrenological Jour- 
 nal " the last, in spite of all the criticisms that might 
 be launched against it, was a potent inspiration for 
 boys hungering for larger, nobler life amid closely 
 hemming-in environment. The biographical sketches 
 the crude attempts at moral and mental philoso- 
 phy, the health suggestions, the appeal to awaken- 
 ing manhood furnished an important educational 
 stimulus to the home atmosphere.
 
 A BREAK TOWARD THE 
 LARGER LIFE
 
 "My son, bear the instruction of thy father and for- 
 sake not the law of thy mother: for they shall be an 
 ornament of grace unto thy bead, and a chain about thy 
 neck." PROVERBS. 
 
 " My future deeds bestir themselves within me, ana 
 move grandly toward a consummation, as ships go down 
 the Thames." THOREAU. 
 
 ' ' He had rehearsed 
 
 The homely tale with such familiar power, 
 With such an active countenance, an eye 
 So busy, that the things of which be spake 
 Seemed present." WORDSWORTH.
 
 IF 
 A BREAK TOWARD THE LARGER LIFE 
 
 As I have said, in March, 1866, Stephen again 
 began work in the mill. But it was under changed 
 conditions. A year and a half at school had re- 
 enforced his native manliness so that he was given a 
 promotion. He was made "second hand "of the 
 spooling-room and dressing-room, under Archibald 
 McLellan, a Scotchman of the Scotch, who was 
 overseer. He also cleaned and varnished the har- 
 nesses for the looms ; he watched the mill at noon 
 and rang the bell to call the operatives in after din- 
 ner. He said himself, "The job was comparatively 
 an easy one," affording him considerable spare time. 
 A part of this time was given to practicing on a 
 melodeon, which father had bought the year pre- 
 vious especially for his use. 
 
 This was the year when I went away to Suffield 
 to school. A decision on my part to study for the 
 ministry was probably the only thing that made it 
 easy for such an outward path to be cut through. 
 In those days, however much we read and heard, 
 collegiate honors, M.D.'s, D.D.'s, and engineers with 
 incomes of ten thousand dollars a year were seem- 
 ingly no nearer than the presidency of the United 
 States, or the wonderful achievements of Aladdin. 
 It was a thing of growth ; but letters passing back 
 
 33
 
 34 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 and forth, between home and the outside larger 
 educational world, began at once to push the horizon 
 farther back. Stephen took the place in the class I 
 had to leave in the Sunday school. He also be- 
 came an active member in the White Rock Excelsior 
 Club, and I find, by consulting one of the very 
 first letters I received in my new school home, that 
 Stephen led in a debate on the negative of this 
 question, " Are short terms of political office de- 
 sirable?" This club was an outgrowth of a trio affair 
 begun by Ethan Wilcox, Charles Arnold, and my- 
 self as we lingered, after the store was closed, in the 
 boot and shoe corner, reading our several literary 
 productions to each other. Stephen was elected 
 librarian of the Sunday school, serving as such for 
 the next three years and adding at the last the office 
 of secretary and treasurer. In the summer of 1867 
 he took a few lessons on the church organ at Wes- 
 terly, and about this time he began to give lessons 
 on the melodeon. It will thus be seen that he was 
 in the midst of highest activity of village life. He 
 was bound to learn ; he was delighted to serve ; he 
 dared to lead. 
 
 Because of his maturing judgment, his push, 
 efficiency, and manly poise, father decided to offer 
 him, in September, 1867, when he was sixteen years 
 old, the opportunity of being overseer of the carding- 
 room. Stephen writes: "He did not attempt to 
 dictate in this matter, but placed the chance before 
 me, and left it for my decision." He took the
 
 THE LARGER LIFE 35 
 
 place, assuming charge only in part at first, knowing 
 it involved very much more care and confinement. 
 Father stood close by for a while, until he was ini- 
 tiated. The machinery was put in better condition, 
 the behavior of the help was very much improved, 
 and the room, which had been behind in its work, 
 after a while caught up and made a better showing. 
 But when the novelty wore off, the care and confine- 
 ment began to lay heavy siege at the heart of the 
 young overseer. He says: "I began to have a 
 dislike for it, some of which I never could get over; 
 and I inwardly wished I never had accepted it. 
 But for the sake of my reputation I never men- 
 tioned it then, and resolved to stay a reasonable time 
 and learn all I could." In October, 1868, having 
 given the work a fair trial, as he thought, he opened 
 his heart to his father. He wanted to be relieved 
 the next spring and find some other business. 
 Father's pride was involved, and moreover, he 
 wanted Stephen to stick to the position until he 
 gained a complete victory in the eyes of all, him- 
 self included. After a series of talks it was finally 
 agreed that he should remain until the summer of 
 1870, and in January of that year he should begin 
 to have both his board and wages, and so have a 
 start for schooling wherever he wished to go. 
 Stephen often said, in after years, that father's ad- 
 vice at that time was the very best thing. The 
 work then carried to victorious issue was at the basis 
 of all his after success in mill engineering.
 
 36 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 In his diary for 1869, when a boy seventeen 
 years old, he records the following : 
 
 RESOLUTIONS FOR THE PRESENT YEAR 
 
 1. I will regard my Christian character, duties, and 
 allegiance to Christ in all things my first and paramount 
 business. 
 
 2. 1 will make the common Christian duties, such as 
 secret prayer, reading scripture, taking part in meeting, 
 etc., a matter of principle, and perform them whether I 
 feel like it or not. 
 
 3. I will confess all the wrong I am conscious of 
 having done to any one, as I have opportunity ; and try to 
 make right all that any one has against me ; and take, as 
 my rule of action, in all the relations I sustain to my 
 fellow-creatures the Golden Rule of the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 4. I will obey all the laws of health so far as I under- 
 stand them, especially in regard to diet, bathing, strength- 
 ening the lungs, and will take all means to build up the 
 system generally. 
 
 5. I will have regular system or order in my course 
 of reading, and will, from time to time, form plans as to 
 the subject and amount in a given time, and then will 
 adhere to them as near as circumstances will admit. 
 
 6. I will confine myself, first, in religious reading (aside 
 from the Bible) to works that promote practical piety, rather 
 than on theology, and in other reading, to works on im- 
 provement or education, particularly the study of man in 
 all departments (except current news items, etc., such as 
 papers, magazines, etc.). 
 
 7. I will strive to be diligent and faithful in my secular
 
 THE LARGER LIFE 37 
 
 business, and try to acquire all the knowledge and skill 
 pertaining to it. 
 
 8. I will drop all bad or foolish habits formed ; strive 
 to bring my animal propensities in subjection to my higher 
 nature ; keep my affections pure, appetite unperverted ; not 
 engage in anything upon which I cannot consistently ask 
 the blessing of God ; and finally, in all things so to live 
 each day that I shall be forming a character God will 
 finally approve. 
 
 9. I will not attempt to keep the foregoing resolutions 
 in my own strength, but will ever look and pray for strength 
 to Him who has promised to give us all things we stand 
 in need of. 
 
 The question of what business to follow became 
 urgent, especially as he wished in the intervening 
 time to be preparing himself as he should be able. 
 A Mr. Ladd urged him, while on a visit to Provi- 
 dence, to become a civil engineer. The more he 
 learned about it, the more he became inclined to 
 that profession. In the summer of 1869 we two 
 made a trip to New York to see the sights. John 
 Taylor and Howard Morgan, former pupils in Fos- 
 ter's school, gave us welcome. The former, a 
 lawyer, gave us the use of a room at his boarding- 
 house in Brooklyn. The latter was a young physi- 
 cian then serving in a hospital on Blackwell's Island. 
 Among the many things down on my program was 
 to hear Beecher preach in his own pulpit, and on 
 Stephen's to visit 389 Broadway, Fowler & Wells, 
 and get a phrenological chart of his character, with a 
 view to helping in the choice of a pursuit. S. R.
 
 38 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 Wells examined him and gave him advice. The 
 thirteen pages, preserved as valued memento, lie be- 
 fore me as I write. It is remarkable how faithful was 
 the delineation, how true to after life the predictions 
 were. I quote a few sentences : " You like to have 
 your own way. It is just as natural for you to take 
 a position and maintain it as it is to breathe. You 
 have that spirit which seeks to lead rather than to 
 follow. You are frank, open, and free. You have 
 more generosity than economy. It is hard for you 
 to say no when appeals are made to your sympa- 
 thy. You are a good observer, quick to look into 
 new things. You remember distinctly that which 
 you see clearly. You will be methodical and sys- 
 tematic, having things in place. You are accurate 
 as an accountant. You have considerable love for 
 variety, and at times may seem to lack application. 
 You have taste and refinement. You can read 
 character well. You would make a good engineer, 
 a builder, an architect, or a designer." This exami- 
 nation so tallied with his own self-knowledge, so 
 confirmed his instinctive groping after a suitable 
 calling, that from this time his mind was made up; 
 his life work was to be "something in the line of 
 engineering or architecture, or at least planning and 
 constructing in some way." A little later, after 
 consulting with Professor Clarke as to the course of 
 civil engineering in Brown University, he decided 
 to brush up his common English studies, and with 
 my assistance, to make a beginning in geometry and
 
 THE LARGER LIFE 39 
 
 plane trigonometry and so be able to enter the sec- 
 ond year of that course in the autumn of 1870. 
 This clear, definite decision brought the beginning 
 of a great aim, hope, and joy into his life. 
 
 It was at this time that he began a more elabo- 
 rate diary. His first regular entry is under date of 
 January 4, 1870, but this is preceded by twenty- 
 four pages of what he calls "Autobiography, up to 
 January, 1870." These twenty-four pages are 
 written in a plain, correct hand, probably during the 
 month of December, as on the fly-leaf I see his name 
 and full address, with the date "November, 1869." 
 Here is the last sentence in the autobiography: "I 
 now began to feel in some degree that (though not 
 of age) I must fight my own battles ; and that the 
 key to my success or failure was in my own hands ; 
 and I believe I felt that, with God's blessing, I 
 would do what was in my power to make my life 
 what it should be." 
 
 It was not his purpose to write every day, but 
 " by retrospective glances " to keep a connected 
 account. "It shall be my aim," he says, "not only 
 to describe events accurately, but to write neatly and 
 correctly." For the next five months he gives, in 
 nine different entries, account of his daily life. He 
 is faithful to all duties, in mill, home, Sunday school, 
 meetings. He speaks of his interest in lectures 
 which he attended in Westerly. His mind evi- 
 dently was growing rapidly, taking wider ranges of 
 subjects, and what he received kindled his mind to
 
 40 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 such glow that he must speak of it to others. At 
 one time he came home surcharged with the mag- 
 netic oratory of the speaker, and gave such a full, 
 vivid, enthusiastic reproduction of the lecture, one 
 lady said, " There, it seems just as if I had heard 
 that lecture myself." This was a companion picture 
 to what might be seen at River Point when he went 
 there on a visit to Grandfather Arnold. The old 
 man would seat Stephen directly in front, start him 
 with questions, and then listen with rapt attention 
 and supreme delight to the panoramic flow of word- 
 picturing, delineated with snap-shot accuracy and 
 with ceaseless gusto to the last. 
 
 He sang for a while in the choir at Westerly, 
 and for a few Sundays, at short notice, played the 
 organ. This latter feat was performed with great 
 trepidation, but it shows the willingness and the 
 venture in him to try. There was considerable 
 laughing about the service of February yth. Elder 
 Dennison was called away suddenly and insisted on 
 my preaching for him. Ed Vose, the organist, was 
 absent and Stephen had to play. "It looks as 
 though the Greenes are running things." 
 
 In the first five months of 1870 he studied 
 evenings, mastering the first four books of geome- 
 try, and finishing with a review of the English 
 branches, then taking up plane trigonometry. He 
 recited to me when I happened to be at home. His 
 prospects took on good cheer when the report came 
 from President Caswell that a certain number of
 
 THE LARGER LIFE 41 
 
 young men who should take the course in civil engi- 
 neering would be entitled to state aid. He was 
 elected state beneficiary in Brown University June 
 1 5th, Samuel H. Cross, our state senator, having 
 presented his name. 
 
 This is the last entry in his diary as a factory 
 boy: "I commenced my c notice ' in the mill this 
 morning. I expect my time will be out the ninth 
 of July, two weeks from next Saturday night." This 
 was under date of June 28, 1870.
 
 COLLEGE LIFE ENTERED
 
 " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowl- 
 edge." PROVERBS. 
 
 " What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is 
 to the human sou/." ADDISON. 
 
 " A complete and generous education fits a man to per- 
 form justly, skillfully, an J magnanimously all the offices of 
 peace and war." MILTON. 
 
 " / must set the highest value on the personal inter- 
 course with teacher, from whom one learns how thought 
 works in independent beads. Whoever has come in contact 
 but once with one or several first-class men will find his 
 intellectual standard changed for life." HELMHOLTZ.
 
 COLLEGE LIFE ENTERED 
 
 Monday, July i ith, he makes these entries : " I 
 finished work in the mill Saturday night, and I feel 
 as if a great load had been lifted from me. Two 
 weeks ago to-day I went to Providence to attend 
 commencement exercises. Thursday forenoon I 
 entered my name, and was examined to enter the 
 university. I must confess that I had a little dread 
 of it before I went in, but, upon going through, I 
 found it was not as much as I had thought. I was 
 examined in mathematics by Professor Clarke, and in 
 English grammar and geography by Professor Ban- 
 croft." Before returning home that night he learned 
 that he had passed, and soon after he received his 
 certificate as state beneficiary. He continues, "Now 
 I'm all straight with reference to that and my enter- 
 ing the university. I feel very thankful that I have 
 been so prospered. I can enjoy my vacation better." 
 
 On the Fourth of July the village had a picnic on 
 the lot between our house and the store. Father 
 was at the head not only by virtue of being super- 
 intendent of the village, but because he was a past- 
 master in conducting a Rhode Island clam-bake. 
 One of his rare delights, oft repeated through many 
 years, was to go into all the particulars, as to size, 
 heat and position of stones, the lay of sea-weed, the 
 
 45
 
 46 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 heap of the clams, the adjuncts of potatoes and green 
 corn. His face and tone of voice would always reflect 
 the pride he felt in his achievements, while memory 
 of these succulent feasts down by the sounding sea 
 would always make our mouths water to have him 
 prove his skill once more. The Sunday school 
 marched in procession from the school-house. After 
 dinner Stephen read the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, and also acted as toast-master, while he him- 
 self, at the close, was called out as an extra, for the 
 people were proud of him, and rejoiced in his open- 
 ing prospects. 
 
 The early part of the summer was given to a 
 visit among relatives, the Hazzards in Putnam, the 
 Briggs in Grosvenordale, Connecticut; the Bennetts 
 and the Arnolds in Phenix and River Point. These 
 villages were the stamping-ground for the Greene 
 boys in their occasional visits. He also extended 
 his trip to Rocky Point and Newport, and when he 
 rounded up his tour in White Rock he had one of 
 those deathly sick times which periodically reminded 
 him that, though " The earth is the Lord's and the 
 fullness thereof," and he was one of the Lord's 
 favorite children, still there was a limit to his assimi- 
 lative capacity. During the month of August he 
 took up study again. He reviewed geometry, prac- 
 ticed draughting, and took lessons in penmanship. 
 
 Monday, September 5th, he made his last entry in 
 his diary as a boy at home. The bulk of his life 
 and activity hereafter will be out in the great world.
 
 COLLEGE LIFE ENTERED 47 
 
 Home, outside of vacations, will be a memory; and 
 to him it was such a hallowed one! He writes: 
 "To-morrow I expect to leave home for Providence. 
 I have lived here so long I have become attached to 
 the place; and of course it is not pleasant to part 
 with all my friends. But feeling it is for my best 
 interest to go, and expecting to be surrounded by 
 congenial friends, I look forward with some pleasure 
 to my departure." 
 
 September i9th. Under this date I find this 
 first sentence, written at Brown : " I have really 
 entered college. I came in two weeks ago to- 
 morrow, and the remainder of that week I was at 
 work with Benjamin fixing up our room. We had 
 it cleaned. J painted and we together papered it; 
 and now it looks quite cheerful and pleasant." That 
 was room No. 40, at the foot of the second flight 
 of stairs, in the south part of the old University 
 Hall. Bestor, my former chum at Suffield and for 
 two years in Brown, roomed next to us ; Dean across 
 the way, and Bennett and John Mason in the 
 Adoniram Judson room at the southeast corner of 
 that floor. He entered for a select course, sitting 
 with the sophomores, class of 1873, taking geometry 
 with the freshmen under Professor Clarke, trigo- 
 nometry with the sophomores under Professor 
 Greene, and French under Professor Hobigand. 
 He entered the second year's class in civil engineer- 
 ing. He says: "I like my studies very well; 
 although it seems a little hard for me to apply my-
 
 48 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 self closely. It is something I have not been used 
 to. I guess I shall soon get broken in. I take my 
 meals where Benjamin has been boarding for a year, 
 Mrs. Gould's, on North Main Street." 
 
 He began at once to go to the Central Baptist 
 Church with me. He joined Professor Clarke's Bible 
 class, and in October brought his letter of member- 
 ship. He attended the Tuesday evening prayer- 
 meeting, and in all ways identified himself with 
 the active force of the church. He liked " Mr. Bain- 
 bridge's preaching very much." In December he took 
 a class of boys. It soon grew to nine, and three 
 of them were baptized, became active workers, and 
 showed appreciation of their teacher by giving him 
 a fine flexible pocket Bible. On the last day of the 
 year he writes : " I have at times had my heart 
 warmed with love, but I feel a conscious lack of that 
 strong, relying faith which I ought to have. It is 
 my prayer that I may grow in grace, and be more 
 earnestly and more zealously engaged." 
 
 He joined D. U., and in commenting on it said: 
 " It is composed, I think, of some of the best men 
 in college." What a delightful fellowship, as I now 
 look back upon it : The Farnhams (E. P. and Seth), 
 O. P. Gifford and Robert Martin, Ed Miller, Blake, 
 O. P. Bestor, E. A. Herring, W. W. Landrum, Jack 
 McKinney, D. W. Hoyt, D. H. Taylor, L. S. Wood- 
 worth, W. V. Kellen, W. S. Liscomb, and others ; 
 with E. Benjamin Andrews and Will Peck to talk 
 about as carrying honors in the class of '70.
 
 COLLEGE LIFE ENTERED 49 
 
 He had the privilege of hearing such lecturers 
 as Gough, Beecher, and Wendell Phillips. These 
 were a great inspiration to him. When he got home 
 from hearing the oratorio of the " Creation " he says : 
 " It was the grandest thing I ever heard." He took 
 vocal lessons of one of the students, wishing to make 
 the most of his voice by knowing just how to use 
 it. A part of the music of our room, as I remem- 
 ber it now, was his refrain of " B. Two, Pa. Ah." 
 I see his face glowing like the morning sunrise, 
 his mouth wide open in his intense desire to con- 
 vert all breath into musical amplitude, while in his 
 looks there was a willing of the lowermost muscles 
 to put in their fundamental work. No half-way 
 business for him. Then, as in after life, it was 
 a habit to throw his whole soul into what he did. 
 When he sang, this wholeness began with the first 
 word. The last of the first year he joined the col- 
 lege chorus and enjoyed it intensely. It gave him 
 a touch of musical experience which was both culture 
 and enlargement. He was successful in his first year's 
 studies, getting the highest mark, 20, in all but 
 physiology. His face and voice, his ability and 
 conscientiousness, gave him right of way in many 
 a college experience. In debate he was not specially 
 active, probably because he had not the academic 
 training of his associates ; but he often spoke after- 
 wards of the help it gave him in thinking on his feet. 
 
 In the second year he took physics under Profes- 
 sor Blake, and chemistry with Professor Appleton.
 
 50 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 In connection with his engineering course, he secured 
 a position in the office of the city waterworks to make 
 tracing and do other work as called for. Professor 
 Clarke on this account excused him from drawing 
 in the college class. He was thus able to learn 
 and earn at the same time. This advantage helped 
 him to make up his mind to stay three years and 
 graduate in the B. P. course. He writes: "I natu- 
 rally want to go out this year and go into business, 
 but I feel it is my duty, as I have the opportunity, 
 to get as good a preparation as possible for my 
 future life. And not only do I need and want 
 the preparation I may gain in my studies here at 
 college, but I want to be prepared as a Christian 
 man for all my duties, both in the church with all 
 its work and outside of the church, and this leads 
 me to say that I have enjoyed more, I think, in the 
 Christian life during the last term than I have since 
 the revival when I was converted." This entry 
 was made January 18, 1872, and it was the last 
 in the book. There are a few loose slips of paper 
 with memoranda from which he evidently intended 
 to fill in and continue "a connected account"; but 
 college life, church and social fellowship were more 
 and more cumulative in their demands. 
 
 He loved companionship ; and there must come 
 in somewhere wit, joke, laughter; but any approach 
 to the low or the mean awakened his disgust. He 
 would never tire of reverting to a good thing, and 
 having a fresh explosion of laughter over it. One
 
 COLLEGE LIFE ENTERED 51 
 
 thing that pleased him immensely was a remark 
 of " Big Smith " who was struggling along through 
 college. When he managed, after prolonged econ- 
 omy, to get a new suit, he said, " Boys, I 'm bound 
 to dress well, if I don't lay up a cent." 
 
 During his first year in college he became acquaint- 
 ed with Mr. N. B. Schubarth, a civil engineer in the 
 city and a member of the Central Church. It was 
 natural that the two should become interested in 
 each other, because of their similar business tastes. 
 But there was something working deeper than busi- 
 ness instincts and ambition. Natalia, the daughter, 
 attended the evening services with her father ; and 
 very soon Stephen found his path was crossed by 
 a face, a voice, a soul, born, as he felt, to be the 
 queen of his heart. The process of enthronement 
 was not hasty ; but there was in it the steady, 
 increasing persistency of love, genuine, profound, 
 which gathered into itself the quintessence of all 
 that was best in him. It was in the summer of 1872 
 that the fateful letter was sent from his White Rock 
 home, and gained reply which sealed the mutual 
 pledge. In those days Aunt Sarah was a confidant 
 in many a long, frank talk. To show how impor- 
 tant steps were closely associated with religious spirit 
 and conviction, let me quote a sentence just here : 
 " While at home I performed an act which, with 
 the exception of my reception and profession by 
 faith in Jesus Christ, was perhaps one of the most 
 important events of my whole life. After prayer-
 
 52 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 fully and thoughtfully considering the matter I de- 
 cided to write." 
 
 This phase of his life brings up fresh to mind our 
 improvised quartette: "Cap" Landrum, Herring, 
 Stephen, myself. In the spring of 1 872 we four were 
 boarding at "Mother" Wickes', on Broad Street. 
 In leisure moments, when the inner man was filled, 
 it was natural for "Cap" to strike up "Sweet Belle 
 Mahone." Stephen was a close second. Herring 
 and I would follow as we could. Three of us were 
 far enough along in our elect preferences, and we 
 decided one night upon a round of serenade. Look- 
 ing back upon it now it seems incredible that we 
 dared to venture on such enterprise, but we did ; 
 Smith's Hill, the bottom and the top of it, and 
 Greenwich Street heard what we could do. In one 
 place, to give our voices vantage, we leaped a fence 
 and found ourselves ankle deep in mud. In those 
 days, late hours, a high jump, venturesome endeavor, 
 were counted as nothing, even though recitation 
 came very early next morning. 
 
 He returned to college in the autumn of 1872 
 with heart elate, with mind exultant. Three im- 
 portant choices the choice of religion, business, 
 affection were back of him, were in him, re-enfor- 
 cing with a triple motive power. Two years had 
 accustomed him to study. Success had added a 
 sense of victorious ability, and the senior year 
 opened with marvelous fascination. He took as- 
 tronomy and the calculus under Professor Greene,
 
 AT SEVEN. 
 
 AT SIXTEEN. 
 
 AT EIGHTEEN. 
 
 AT TWENTY-ONE.
 
 COLLEGE LIFE ENTERED 53 
 
 geology under Professor Appleton, political econ- 
 omy under Professor Diman, and philosophy under 
 that prince of teachers, President E. G. Robinson. 
 Finding his studies required more time he gave up 
 his position in the office of the city waterworks, but 
 was employed vacations with Mr. Schubarth. He 
 graduated a B. P., and with the honor of having 
 attained the rank of Phi Beta Kappa.
 
 FEELING HIS WAY INTO PLACE
 
 " Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving 
 the Lord'." PAUL. 
 
 " / will go forth 'mong men, not mailed in scorn 
 But in the armor of a pure intent. 
 Great duties lie before me and great aims." 
 
 " Man is no star, but a quick coal 
 
 Of mortal fire : 
 Who blows it not, nor doth control 
 
 A faint desire. 
 Lets bis own ashes choke bis soul. ' ' 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT. 
 
 ' Deeper, far deeper, than supply and demand are laws, 
 obligations, sacred as man's life itself. He that will learn 
 them, behold, Nature is on bis side. He shall yet work 
 and prosper with noble rewards." CARLYLE.
 
 VI 
 FEELING HIS WAY INTO PLACE 
 
 After a short vacation he began to work in the 
 architect and engineer's office of N. B. Schubarth, 
 No. 29 Weybossett Street. There he could at 
 once apply in part what he had been learning in a 
 general way and he would be in condition to enter 
 with more practical skill any special line when it 
 presented itself. 
 
 In this office he continued work about a year 
 and a half. While thus employed, on the eve of 
 December 15, 1874, he married Natalia L. Schu- 
 barth, in the beautiful home of the bride's parents, 
 on Smith's Hill, the pastor, Rev. W. F. Bainbridge, 
 officiating. The night outside was intensely cold. 
 The ordeal of the ceremonial, anticipated with such 
 exuberant delight, took wonted color from the bride- 
 groom's cheeks. The solemnity of the event, for 
 the moment, struck down deepest of all. In that 
 compact of wedded love he gave himself in his 
 entirety, gave all he was, and in after years, growing 
 to be more and more, and having more and more, 
 he still gave himself in his entirety. Love was the 
 central possession. He was willing to begin with 
 the best of the little means he could command, but 
 he was bound to make the little grow. 
 
 He was open-eyed to the advantages that would 
 57
 
 58 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 come from a combination of his practical experience 
 in cotton manufacturing with the scientific fit of a 
 collegiate course. So in April, 1875, wnen ne was 
 offered a position in the office of D. M. Thompson 
 & Co., mill architects and engineers, in Butler Ex- 
 change, he very gladly accepted. After some 
 months of working on mill plans Mr. Thompson 
 released him to go to Hills Grove, in the employ 
 of Thomas J. Hill, as superintendent of construc- 
 tion. Here he moved in the spring of 1876. Hav- 
 ing complete charge, seeing everything done from 
 the laying of the foundation to the placing of the 
 capstone, and from the setting of the engine to the 
 finishing course of the chimney, arranging machin- 
 ery, managing help of a different class from those 
 in White Rock carding-room, coming into frequent 
 contact with business men in various departments, 
 he had the best disciplinary drill. He tucked it all 
 away in his brain and marrow. He always was a 
 walking interrogation point. What he saw in me- 
 chanics and architecture became his mental posses- 
 sion forever after. He spent many a quiet evening 
 reading up on cotton manufacturing. 
 
 Before he went to Hills Grove he had been 
 elected assistant superintendent of the Central Bap- 
 tist Sunday school. He made it a practice to go to 
 the city school every Sunday, and with the help of 
 Fred Hartwell, started a Sunday school and a preach- 
 ing service in the village. Religious work was never 
 perfunctory, because it was an overflow; even the
 
 FEELING HIS WAY INTO PLACE 59 
 
 boys in the class he had given up perceived it, 
 and they came down to his village home to show 
 their appreciation ; among them was young Faunce, 
 now president of Brown University. 
 
 It was here that Edwin Farnham, the first son, was 
 born. What a deepening and hallowing of life come 
 to a Christian man with parental joys and cares. It 
 was also while he lived here that he with his brothers 
 first carried sacred dust from the old home to burial. 
 This time it was Grandmother Greene, who had lived 
 to be eighty-eight years old. Such combined expe- 
 riences give skillful mixture of color on life's palette, 
 from which the softer touches and the deeper, richer 
 shades are taken. 
 
 In November, 1879, he returned to Providence 
 and entered the office of A. D. Lockwood & Co., 
 No. 65 Westminster Street. This was a coveted 
 relationship. Mr. Lockwood had come to be recog- 
 nized as the leading mill engineer, taking the place 
 made vacant by the death of David Whitman. The 
 name of the latter was an honored one in father's 
 estimation. To be associated with any one in the 
 line of his operation would be most desirable. Ste- 
 phen began at the draughting-board in the back 
 office with high hopes and a dogged determination 
 to do the very best he could. This was the chance 
 he had been looking for. To make himself essential 
 to that office by strictest fidelity and by all the superb 
 excellence he could command was his ambition. 
 
 Think for a moment of his personality. It is
 
 60 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 now nine years since he was overseer. His life had 
 been enriched by collegiate training and fellow- 
 ship with the best. He had the experience gained 
 in two offices and from directing the construction 
 of a first-class mill. He felt the responsibility of 
 home life, hallowed by the added care of parentage. 
 His growing worth and efficiency placed him high 
 in office in one of the chief churches of the city. 
 His face then was what it was afterward, a radiant 
 index of ability and aspiration. His manner and 
 bearing were pledge that he would make a way 
 for himself. 
 
 It was evident that Mr. Lockwood took kindly 
 to the new-comer. An occasional stroll would find 
 him standing at Stephen's board in friendly chat. 
 In such interchange genial souls detect each other's 
 worth. The jealousy of the draughtsman over him 
 was speedily awakened, and that made the next year 
 the most humiliating of his life. He was unpleasantly 
 interfered with, shoved off into a corner, made to feel 
 the thumb-pressure of a " boss," who was afraid 
 of what might happen. Well do I remember our 
 conversation in those days. He was in his Egypt 
 experience. Sometimes it was like trying to make 
 bricks without straw. Shall he not burst out in 
 protest? It was galling. Forces surged back and 
 forth in his soul turning it into a battle-field. He 
 gained a victory ; he was silent. He swallowed indig- 
 nity and persevered. He endured the grinding and 
 kept at the drawing-board. How my heart ached
 
 FEELING HIS WAY INTO PLACE 61 
 
 for him as he vented his indignation to me in pri- 
 vate ; how it gloried in him to see the stuff he was 
 made of. 
 
 There are good business men whose eyes are like 
 God's, seeing when unseen. The eyes of his em- 
 ployer ferreted out the exact situation. One day 
 he called Stephen into the front office, told him 
 he knew what was going on, advised him to keep 
 faithfully at his task, promising he would soon hear 
 from him. At an early day he was given independent 
 work, and somewhat later, March i, 1882, he was 
 taken into the firm, while the man who tried to hinder 
 him was allowed all the space there was in the out- 
 side world. 
 
 All the while he had held to the religion of his 
 boyhood. It was not simply grit ; it was grit mingled 
 with grace. It was fidelity to principle; it was am- 
 bition weighted with conscientiousness. "The Right 
 and Noble Thing"; that was the key -motto he 
 adopted.
 
 HIS PLACE FOUND: "LOCKWOOD, 
 GREENE & CO."
 
 " Seest tbou a man diligent in bis business? He shall 
 stand before kings : be shall not stand before mean men." 
 PROVERBS. 
 
 " There is nothing like dreams to create the future. 
 Utopia to-day, flesh and blood to-morrow ." 
 
 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 " All building shows man either as gathering or gov- 
 erning : and the secrets of bis success are bis knowing 
 what to gather and bow to rule." RUSKIN. 
 
 " // is easy in the world to live after the world* s 
 opinion : it is easy in solitude to live after our own, but 
 the great man is be who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps 
 with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." 
 EMERSON.
 
 VII 
 
 HIS PLACE FOUND: "LOCKWOOD, 
 GREENE fcf CO." 
 
 The firm consisted of Amos D. Lockwood, J. 
 W. Danielson, and Stephen Greene. An ideal situa- 
 tion. The mature, the successful manufacturer and 
 mill engineer recognized the promise of the younger 
 man. Worth had pushed its way into his big heart, 
 and from the beginning he gave it companionship 
 without reserve and leadership with ever-increasing 
 confidence. Stephen had the profoundest respect 
 for Mr. Lockwood. He thought of him not only 
 as a man of acknowledged understanding among all 
 mill authorities, but as having back of all this a man- 
 hood he could love for its integrity and its ethical 
 solidity. It was largeness not content with big 
 business schemes, but such as found delight in push- 
 ing out a wide horizon all around. 
 
 All that the older partner knew was resource 
 for the younger, and the latter brought, in addi- 
 tion to youthful zest and latest scientific training, 
 an innate passion for accuracy of accounts, order- 
 liness, and system in work and records. The 
 first year he made an extended tour through the 
 South, visiting mills in which the firm were inter- 
 ested. This was understood to be his special phase 
 of the work; so he would relieve Mr. Lockwood 
 
 65
 
 66 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 of most of the traveling necessary in that kind of 
 business. 
 
 I have before me a letter written November 21, 
 1882, from Charleston, South Carolina, speaking of 
 Charlotte, Spartanburg, Piedmont, Pelzer, New- 
 berry. He is expecting that afternoon to go to 
 Augusta, Georgia, and requests me to send my 
 reply to Memphis, as a letter from home is very wel- 
 come. It was a custom with us to have corre- 
 spondence quicken when he was on a trip. He had 
 something to write about,and also an occasional leisure 
 half-hour on the train or in the hotel, and he wanted 
 to keep in touch with home friends. Letters to his 
 own home were re-enforced by frequent telegrams 
 when quick intelligence was desired. A postscript 
 to this letter shows his heart : " I ought to have 
 added an expression of my gratitude that my little 
 Harold is safely over the worst of the scarlet fever. 
 I was in great anxiety when I heard of it first. 
 How my sympathy goes out to Fred and Mary 
 (Hartwell) in the loss of their little Johnnie." He 
 never had to build a bridge to get into sympathy 
 with some one. 
 
 He enjoyed these trips South as they gave him 
 a chance to study his own business and its possi- 
 bilities on a larger scale. They also multiplied de- 
 lightful companionship and gave him first-hand 
 information in great variety. There is nothing like 
 travel, meeting typical humanity under varied con- 
 ditions, to give finishing touches to culture, to en-
 
 HIS PLACE FOUND 67 
 
 courage breadth of view and balance of judgment. 
 He invariably sought out churches to attend wher- 
 ever he went, however tiresome his journeying. He 
 was the kind of a Christian that could be rested at 
 the end of the week's work nowhere so well as in a 
 spirited, spiritual service. Near the end of his first 
 trip he writes from Louisville, Kentucky: "I am 
 heartily longing for home. My trip has been 
 pleasant in many respects, but there's no place like 
 home. I shall gladly exchange first-class hotel fare 
 and Pullman cars for my quiet home on Pine Street." 
 
 In this initial run through the South there may 
 be found an epitome of all the rest. Friendships 
 kept multiplying and enriching, information was ever 
 accumulating, while hunger for home-coming grew 
 keener and keener. There was one feature of these 
 excursions into the Sunny South which every friend 
 of his will remember. He always brought home at 
 least one side-splitting story. It would not come 
 first ; but we knew he had it in reserve. Before he 
 began, his face would glow and wreathe itself into a 
 smile. After a little hitch in his chair, a clearing of 
 throat with a little laugh, perhaps a slap on the knee, 
 he would proceed to reproduce it, and never once 
 would it lose its cumulative interest, its sure march to 
 the explosive climacteric. He believed it was good 
 for both liver and soul to laugh with gusto. 
 
 This combination of age and youth, of a mas- 
 terly adviser at headquarters and a magnetic pusher 
 in the field, was successful from the start, and con-
 
 68 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 tinued to grow with promise until Mr. Lockwood's 
 sudden death, in the spring of 1884. This was a 
 terrible blow. They had been together long enough 
 for Stephen not only to work in harmony with his 
 ideas and methods, but to respect and love him as a 
 son. Most fortunate was it for the young partner 
 that the Lockwood family continued the advantages 
 of the senior partner's esteem. Mr. J. W. Daniel- 
 son, son-in-law of Mr. Lockwood, continued in the 
 firm as adviser ; he brought with him all the plans 
 of a long-established business and the good will of 
 the family. 
 
 From this time the business was virtually in the 
 hands of the young mill engineer, and he was to 
 prove whether it was to continue to grow or dwindle 
 and collapse. His treatment from first to last, on the 
 part of both Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Danielson, was 
 magnanimous in the extreme. Stephen never tired 
 giving witness to this fact ; and he also never tired of 
 putting in his best, early and late, at home and 
 abroad, to keep the firm name an honored one. 
 
 These seven years, 1879-86, were eventful in 
 his career. He forged to the front. He demon- 
 strated business ability of the masterly sort. His 
 power to make friends and keep them in the midst 
 of sharp competition was phenomenal. He began 
 to be talked about as the typical enterprising young 
 business man. He loved recognition, and was proud 
 of the friends he was making, but this never took 
 from him the shadow of a shade of his regard and
 
 HIS PLACE FOUND 69 
 
 sympathy for the common man and his interest in 
 religion. Indeed, the more he succeeded in business 
 the more he rejoiced that he could bring this increase 
 of ability, means, and reputation to re-enforce what 
 he could do for the church. 
 
 In 1877 he had been elected to succeed that 
 prince among Sunday school superintendents, James 
 Boyce, and he continued in that position till his 
 removal to Newburyport. He was ideal in that 
 office. The children all loved him ; for he was the 
 incarnation of vivacity, geniality, and hopefulness. 
 As he walked about briskly through the gathering 
 throng, his smile, his voice, his presence, were mag- 
 netic. And when he stood in front of the school to 
 open it, with singing-book in hand, the boys and the 
 girls looked upon him as a sort of personal morning 
 sunrise ; the day was just beginning, the landscape 
 was flooded with light. He was his own chorister. 
 When he opened wide his mouth, threw back his 
 fine head with a toss of vocal emphasis, and the 
 nobility of his face deepened the mellowness of his 
 voice, every one felt that it was time for a chorus of 
 song. His was the early, liquid note of the robin ; 
 all songsters that had music in their throat felt like 
 falling into line. 
 
 What a delight such a young man is to a pastor. 
 And what a help it is for such a man to have the 
 shaping influence, the encouragement and inspiration 
 of such pastors as Benjamin O. True and Richard 
 Montague. What providential joinings in those
 
 7 o STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 days ! Both these men had a royal appreciation of 
 their Sunday school leader. They both encouraged 
 him to the utmost in using his elect powers, native 
 and acquired. He was chosen deacon of the church, 
 and was called out into city and convention work. 
 In November, 1885, he was honored by election to 
 the presidency of the Rhode Island Baptist Social 
 Union. Undoubtedly the superb way in which he 
 presided over the meetings of that year gave him 
 that extended reputation which made it seem the 
 natural thing for promotion to follow wherever he 
 went afterward. 
 
 He was not anxious for office. He never pulled 
 a wire to get one. He was anxious to serve ; sponta- 
 neous in his willingness, painstaking to the minutest 
 detail, he proved himself so helpful, so aggressively 
 energetic and suggestive in outlining of plan and 
 procedure, that thought of him found itself nestling 
 in many a heart at the same time. There was a 
 demand for him always preceding his entrance upon 
 office. This desire to serve led him to invite stu- 
 dents to his home to dinner, where he might not 
 only give the hospitality of food, but beam upon 
 them, and breathe into them the inspiration which 
 meant so much to him in former years. 
 
 After all, home was the center, the holy of holies, 
 in his earthly life. To grow and prosper meant, 
 with every heart-beat, his home should prosper, 
 too. Refinements and delicacies were added to sub- 
 stantial things. His vow at the marriage altar was
 
 HIS PLACE FOUND 71 
 
 ever a golden clasp. The children that came brought, 
 each of them, additional hallowing : Stephen Harold, 
 April 27, 1880, and Everett Arnold, May 14, 1885. 
 When the father entered the house, he would look 
 for the youngest, and after a kiss for his wife, 
 say to the little one in his arms, as he often heard 
 his own father say, " Now, up straight as a pickerel," 
 and the little tow head would touch or come near the 
 ceiling. There were shouts and laughter when he 
 came home. 
 
 And as his own home became more precious to 
 him he saw and realized in the reflection of its bless- 
 ing what his own early home had been, and he 
 began to show that larger and ever larger appre- 
 ciation in adult years, which not only helps to form 
 a halo around the old homestead, but makes the fire 
 burn brighter on the hearthstone. It was on Thanks- 
 giving Day, 1883, we had our first large family 
 reunion at Granite Farm. Parents, children, grand- 
 children, Aunt Sally, Aunt Sarah, and Susie, all then 
 alive and well, made up as happy a family group 
 as ever found shelter under the old roof-tree; and 
 Stephen was then, as always, the center of attraction. 
 He was the abounding, overflowing one ; the leader 
 in talk and story-telling; the one to break out in song 
 and get all the rest to join. It was then that I read 
 a half-hour of jingling rhymes, recounting the family 
 sojourn from Harrisville to Westerly; and the mill 
 engineer's pocket-book, not plethoric, but beginning 
 to bulge just a little, footed the bill of the printing.
 
 NEWBURYPORT: VICTORY WRESTED 
 FROM DEFEAT
 
 "Possessions vanish and opinions change, 
 
 But, by the storm of circumstance unshaken, 
 
 And subject neither to eclipse nor wane, 
 
 Duty exists" WORDSWORTH. 
 
 "How soon a smile of God can change the world! 
 
 how work 
 
 Grows play, adversity a winning fight." 
 
 BROWNING. 
 
 *'A determined man, by bis very attitude and the 
 tone of his voice, puts a stop to defeat and begins to con- 
 quer." EMERSON.
 
 VIII 
 
 NEWBURYPORT: VICTORY WRESTED 
 FROM DEFEAT 
 
 Stephen had a longing to be a little more closely 
 identified with the actual manufacturing process. In 
 spite of his success in pushing the work into larger 
 area and winning new clientage, he reasoned that 
 there would be ebb as well as flow in the building 
 enterprise. At times, looking ahead, there seemed 
 to be considerable venture called for. If he could only 
 become treasurer of some concern, that, he thought, 
 would be an arrangement which would bring in 
 a steadying element, while he could still continue 
 to direct the engineering plans of the office. Such an 
 opening seemed to offer just what he desired. The 
 Ocean Mills property was for sale in Newbury- 
 port, Massachusetts. A company was formed, made 
 up of friends and business acquaintances who had con- 
 fidence in his ability, and incorporated under the 
 name of the Whitefield Mills. Among the principal 
 stockholders was Mr. Seth M. Milliken, a commis- 
 sion merchant of New York, whose friendship, advice, 
 financial support at this time and in after years were 
 of inestimable value. It was a part of Stephen's capi- 
 tal that he could win his way to the confidence of the 
 strongest and most successful. That his capital was 
 not inflated is proved by the uniform treatment which 
 
 75
 
 76 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 they were willing to accord him in a long series 
 of years. 
 
 In November, 1886, he moved his family to New- 
 buryport, occupying the large Papanti mansion on 
 Broad Street. In these ample quarters, with a mill 
 close at hand to bring up into fine working order, 
 and an engineering office through which he could 
 feel out into the great manufacturing world, he was 
 happy and hopeful. He concluded that now he was 
 on a good, solid basis. Early and late he gave 
 his best thought to the renovation and starting 
 up of the mills. He expected to be successful 
 right there within the old walls. 
 
 What a pleasure it was for him to show the citizens 
 of the town that he had come to be one of them in 
 everything good. His genial manner, his business 
 and social standing, gave him swift access to all 
 hearts. His reputation preceded him. But, any- 
 way, it would not take over a week of days, including 
 one Sunday, for him to locate himself as a moral force, 
 so that the town might know just where to find him. 
 He used to laughingly tell of a ride he took with 
 Patrick, a coachman left over from the family whose 
 house he occupied. It seemed a delight for the driver 
 to go by the large houses and the fine church build- 
 ings and speak of leading families and elegant con- 
 gregations. By and by they happened to pass the 
 less pretentious Baptist edifice, and Stephen said, 
 "Well, Patrick, here's where I expect to go to 
 church." After a few seconds of thought, the Irish
 
 VICTORY WRESTED FROM DEFEAT 77 
 
 shrewdness, which Stephen was so fond of putting 
 to the test, made reply, " There 's a very fine con- 
 gregation goes there." 
 
 The many and spacious rooms of this house made 
 him think of a family reunion, and the first Thanks- 
 giving Day we were all there in the most delightful 
 fellowship, waking echoes of song and laughter in 
 the high ceilings. 
 
 Rev. E. E. Thomas was finishing his pastorate at 
 the time, and after a year of waiting Rev. L. A. Pope, 
 a persona] friend and college mate, was selected as 
 his successor. In Pope's large heartedness, flaming 
 zeal, and practical efficiency Stephen took great de- 
 light. Whether there was a pastor or not he could 
 be counted on for constant and generous support in 
 presence, in testimony, in singing, and for leadership 
 in any necessary benevolent enterprise. Wherever 
 there was a pastor, to him he was loyal " to the core." 
 His home was open for committees, socials, enter- 
 tainments. 
 
 There was a social, literary atmosphere in the 
 place which he very much enjoyed. He became 
 a member of the Tuesday Evening Club, which 
 James Parton, the author, regularly attended. His 
 various trips through the South enabled him to pre- 
 sent interesting papers not only in the line of his 
 own business, but as giving expression to his some- 
 what modified views of the social and political situ- 
 ation. He never changed from his early New England 
 convictions, so far as ethical fundamentals were con-
 
 78 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 cerned, but he learned by the fireside of Southern 
 homes to look through eyes that were a little more 
 charitable in specific judgments. 
 
 The Whitefield Mills were not a success. When 
 Stephen began to realize the possibilities that were 
 dimly looming in the distance, he was troubled in 
 his soul beyond the power of words. On that topic 
 he was silent at first. He fought the battle over 
 and over in his mind. He had gone into the enter- 
 prise with sanguine expectations, shared by men 
 of much larger experience in manufacturing. He 
 had expended considerable money in absolutely 
 necessary improvements. He had worked hard 
 and put into it his very best judgment. He had 
 done the whole of what he could with the means 
 at his disposal. It was still a patched -up mill. 
 The bulk of its machinery was old. There were 
 old adjustments that would inevitably militate against 
 the highest efficiency, and there were no dividends to 
 pass around. He thought not simply of his own 
 ambition. He thought of friends who had made 
 investment there on his account. He remembered 
 the flattering words sounded abroad in Providence. 
 His business reputation was at stake. 
 
 He found himself at his third Egyptian expe- 
 rience. Out of the first his father helped him when 
 he was a discouraged overseer; he yielded to pa- 
 ternal judgment, gained a victory over himself, and 
 laid foundation for after mastery. Out of the sec- 
 ond Mr. Lockwood led him with the assurance that
 
 VICTORY WRESTED FROM DEFEAT 79 
 
 his intrinsic worth was noted well, adding the promise 
 if he would continue faithful right where he was a 
 way of deliverance would open. How shall he get 
 out of the third? He knew the gloom out of which 
 this sentence has its birth, "It is always darkest just 
 before day." How shall he get out? The success 
 of the Southern mills, the growing demand for 
 Northern resource these thoughts were in his mind, 
 rubbing against the thought of his failure to succeed. 
 Right there at the friction point flashed the sug- 
 gestion, providential, if you please, Why not box up 
 this machinery, load freight trains, and make this 
 part and parcel of a new plant in the Southland? 
 There were others who agreed with the suggestion. 
 There were still others who looked upon it as an 
 out and out confession of failure, and more than 
 that, they thought the promise in the moving was 
 less radiant than in staying. But when the matter 
 was thought out and decided upon, optimism once 
 more enthroned itself in Stephen's life, and its right 
 to the throne from that time forever after never 
 came in question. 
 
 Looking back upon that crisis, in connection 
 with all that went before and all that has followed 
 since, we may be inclined to underestimate the storm 
 and stress of mind through which he passed. Some 
 one may say, Oh, he knew that he could pull 
 through. He did know it, but only at the end of 
 tussle of thought, wide sweep of vision, heart to 
 heart conference with those who were willing to bear
 
 8o STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 and share, and in the midst of it his knees were 
 often bended in petition that God would add his 
 blessing. I quote from the " Textile World": "At 
 the time when Northern manufacturers had not fully 
 appreciated the importance of Southern competition 
 in certain lines of goods, Mr. Greene recognized the 
 advantages possessed by the South, and became sat- 
 isfied that machinery employed on the class of goods 
 made at Whitefield Mills could be operated to bet- 
 ter advantage in the South. Acting on the strength 
 of this conviction the machinery of the Whitefield 
 Mills was moved bodily to the South and set up in 
 the Spartan Mill. This was, we believe, the pioneer 
 act in the removal of a complete Northern cotton 
 mill to the South. The subsequent success of the 
 Spartan Mill made the original investment in the 
 old Ocean Mill plant a satisfactory one." 
 
 Victory was wrested from defeat. His father 
 was jostled out of a little mill privilege, twelve miles 
 from a railroad, and the same to-day, out into the 
 great world. So Providence, with a hand somewhat 
 rough like that, pushed Stephen from his office of 
 treasurer of the Whitefield Mills, but in doing so 
 opened the way for him to establish his headquarters 
 as mill engineer and architect in the very heart of 
 Boston, where at that time centered, to a large ex- 
 tent, the cotton manufacturing interests of the coun- 
 try. Before, he became rightly placed in the firm, 
 now the firm is advantageously placed in the right 
 city.
 
 BOSTON: SETTLING INTO ASSURED 
 PROSPERITY
 
 "His gifts, 
 Are they net still, in some degree, rewards 
 
 Of service?" 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " / have bad a beautiful day so beautiful that labor, 
 joy, striving, attaining, are one." GOETHE. 
 
 " The Lord shall guide tbee continually, and satisfy 
 thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones ; and thou 
 shalt be like a watered garden and like a spring of water 
 whose waters fail not." ISAIAH.
 
 IX 
 
 BOSTON: SETTLING INTO ASSURED 
 PROSPERITY 
 
 In January, 1890, he took possession of his new 
 Boston office, occupying a suite of rooms on the 
 upper floor in the tower of the Rialto Building. At 
 this time he became sole proprietor. There was ven- 
 ture in binding himself to such a rental. He spoke 
 of it in that way freely; and yet there was an under- 
 tow of growing conviction that his time had come 
 for boldness and for claiming his share of the world's 
 well-earned successes. He decided to establish him- 
 self in a center accessible to coveted clients, and to 
 have rooms in which he would not be ashamed to 
 greet the greatest among them. He was " up in 
 the world," for a visitor had to climb an additional 
 winding flight after he had gone as far as the elevator 
 would take him ; but it was quiet and airy when 
 one got there, and the finely polished plate, with the 
 firm name in bold letters, encouraged any one with 
 good taste to take that extra old-fashioned way of 
 getting upstairs. 
 
 He began here with an office force of six em- 
 ployees. Here he adopted stenography and the type- 
 writer to facilitate attending to what had grown to 
 be laborious correspondence. Work began to come 
 to him in a larger way in response to his announce- 
 
 83
 
 84 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 ments and his own magnetic personal conferences. 
 The success of the Spartanburg project brought him 
 into notice in the South. Without stopping to note 
 the stages in the process, it may be said that not only 
 was he employed as engineer and architect for many 
 of the finest enterprises of the South, but he was 
 also held in such confidence that Northern capi- 
 talists were inclined to make large investments. He 
 grew to be a middleman between the two sections, 
 trusted, honored, and beloved in both, as testimo- 
 nials, to be produced later, will show. " The ex- 
 tent of business may be realized when it is known 
 that Lockwood, Greene & Co. have built mills in 
 the South alone aggregating, in wholly new con- 
 structions or enlargements to existing plants, about 
 two million spindles, or nearly one-third the present 
 spindle capacity of the South." In New England 
 many large mills were completely reorganized, e. g., 
 those of the Pepperell Manufacturing Company and 
 Chicopee Manufacturing Company and the Andros- 
 coggin Mills. The best example of a woolen mill 
 is the Washington Mills at Lawrence, though be- 
 longing to an earlier date. 
 
 One of the interesting features of his success is 
 the way in which he gradually branched out from 
 making plans for cotton mills to the planning for 
 construction of other works. He designed bleach- 
 eries, dye-works, and print-works, among the largest 
 concerns of the kind in the country, at Lewiston, 
 Maine; at Pawtucket, Rhode Island; at Norwich,
 
 SETTLING INTO PROSPERITY 85 
 
 Connecticut; at Lodi and at Rockaway, New Jersey. 
 There was also the designing of such plants as 
 Crompton & Knowles Loom Works ; Plymouth 
 Cordage Company, the largest in the world ; Saco 
 and Pettee Machine Shops ; the Atlas Tack Co.'s 
 factory; Ginn & Co., publishing plant; the Ameri- 
 can Optical Co.'s new buildings. Indeed, during 
 the last year of his life he had in the office work 
 for one new cotton mill in the North and two only 
 in the South. He was reaching out in a cosmo- 
 politan way to all work which required heavy mill 
 construction. Not every year was a good year to 
 build a cotton factory. 
 
 He remained in the Rialto Building nine years 
 and a half. Crowded for space, he had the floor 
 above fitted for a draughting-room, but even that 
 was not sufficient to keep up with the business, and 
 in June, 1 900, he rented the entire sixth floor of a 
 newly renovated building at No. 93 Federal Street. 
 This he arranged with consummate skill and pains- 
 taking method and care with a view to convenience 
 and swift efFective pushing of a large volume of 
 work. It would be hard to find an office suite that 
 gave a better impression of the solid and the elegant. 
 When I saw him at last, in the inner private office, 
 sitting at the mahogany desk with a great pile of 
 correspondence before him, a smile on his face at 
 my entrance, a poise in all his bearing that indicated 
 sense of mastery, my heart said, with brotherly pride 
 and admiration, his dream of years is realized.
 
 86 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 His success was due in great part to his person- 
 ality. Over and above the knowledge of funda- 
 mentals and details, as technical equipment, he saw 
 clearly, spoke with directness and frank lucidity. A 
 contractor said, "One word from Stephen Greene was 
 worth hours of discussion with other men." Another, 
 "It was one-third engineering and two-thirds knowing 
 how to approach the trade." A man who had been 
 his strong financial backer for years said, " Stephen 
 Greene carried more assets in his face than any man 
 I ever knew. If you can tell me of another such 
 man I will go a good way to see him. I should 
 like to know if I must correct my impressions in 
 this matter." His face, a true index of his character, 
 had much to do with his advancement. The face 
 won attention, the character and ability behind the 
 face then had a chance to put in their work. But 
 here is a feature which must not be left unnoticed. 
 In a letter written to me in November, 1899, ^ e 
 says : " My business next year will be limited only 
 by my strength and the capacity of my office to 
 carry it on. I am grateful for the privilege. I pray 
 for strength and wisdom to walk in the fear of God in 
 my business." 
 
 He knew not only how to approach the trade, 
 but how to treat those whom he employed. For 
 every one who honestly tried to do his tasks well 
 he had a feeling in which brotherhood nestled close 
 to the relationship of employer. To his entire force 
 he was accustomed to give an annual dinner and
 
 SETTLING INTO PROSPERITY 87 
 
 entertainment of some kind, and all who knew him 
 know it was the best. His show of good will was 
 not perfunctory or an annual thing. He put it into 
 his "good morning" every day. And to those to 
 whom he was especially indebted, because of their 
 superior skill, long service, and growing usefulness, 
 he had other substantial ways of showing his appre- 
 ciation. His aim was to make every client a friend, 
 as that was the best advertisement, and to retain in 
 his employ all excellent workers. He knew this 
 secret to perfection. 
 
 But let me reach back and bring up into close 
 fellowship with all this business side of his career 
 the manifold phases of the other side: that touching 
 home, church, friendship, educational, and benevolent 
 activity. This latter side inspired the professional. 
 In actual life they were not walled apart. He was 
 always an entire man. Excellence at every point 
 contributed to the richness of the whole. His religion 
 got into his business ; his business made itself felt in 
 his religion. 
 
 For three months after moving his office to Bos- 
 ton his home was continued in Newburyport. That 
 was too far away. Where shall he locate ? To the 
 problem he gave thorough study. He wanted to 
 fix upon a location that would be right for years. 
 Nearness to business, quiet church privileges, school 
 advantages; all these were factors. He fixed upon 
 Newton Centre, and in April, 1 890, moved to a house 
 on Gibbs Street. And when fairlv settled there I never
 
 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 heard him once give utterance to a shadow of regret. 
 He fitted into the environment as a plant indigenous 
 to the soil. Home always had a profound and tender 
 meaning. He wanted his home to be as comfortable, 
 as cheerful, as loving, as hospitable, as sacred a spot 
 as he could possibly make it. 
 
 He wanted the best schools near by and a live 
 church. L. C. Barnes was a pastor after his own 
 heart. Many a time on a Monday morning have 
 I listened to his account of the day before some- 
 thing in the line of practical religion which, you 
 may be sure, did not lose anything in the recital. 
 His office to me was often converted into a sounding- 
 board, reproducing, in resonant echo, the good things 
 of meetings South as well as North. The good things 
 of the Sunday before were sure to be rehearsed with 
 enthusiastic emphasis. He loved to work with a re- 
 ligious leader who had zeal and common sense. 
 Virtually the church was an annex to his home. 
 He no more thought of staying away from the 
 services than from the dining-room. 
 
 He soon became Sunday school superintendent, 
 and was also elected deacon. He was always enthusi- 
 astic in the beneficence of the church. As superin- 
 tendent he led the school into special interest in 
 the Bethel work, and if there happened to be no 
 pastor it seemed the most natural thing in the world 
 for him to step out in front of the congregation, 
 give his own generous pledge, and say, " Come, 
 brethren, let us do a noble thing for the Missionary
 
 SETTLING INTO PROSPERITY 89 
 
 Union " or " the Home Mission Society "; and the 
 pledges were sure to come in such amounts as to 
 make the secretaries' hearts rejoice. He understood 
 he had a power, as layman, which ministers cannot 
 have. It was at this time that he was beginning 
 to get on to a financial basis where he could do 
 what it was in his heart to do. Heretofore it was 
 largely laying foundation ; but all along even, it was 
 not so much what he could actually give in dollars 
 and cents, he could make himself into a key and 
 unlock the hearts and pocket-books of richer men. 
 He found delightful fellowship among his neigh- 
 bors, and became an active member of the Neigh- 
 bors' Club. 
 
 The year 1892 was an eventful one. On May id 
 we all went to Thompson, Connecticut, to celebrate 
 the golden wedding of father and mother. It was 
 a double golden wedding, for Uncle Hiram and his 
 wife were married at the same time. Stephen, then 
 as usual, was in the center of things. His old home 
 love was fed with that event. Again I read rhymes. 
 He had suggested, and he led off in placing gold 
 coin in the hands of mother, thought of whom in 
 after years, especially when she was infirm, always 
 breathed tenderness into his voice and moistened his 
 eyes into brilliancy which all could easily interpret. 
 
 That summer he and his wife, with Mr. Denny 
 and family, went to Europe. It was a reach out 
 into the larger world. It was rest and recreation, 
 but it was also an opportunity to study some of the
 
 9 o STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 great manufactories of Old England. He coveted 
 travel not simply as recreation, but to push the hori- 
 zon of his life farther back. 
 
 It had been the desire of his heart some time to 
 have a home of his own. It was in this same year 
 that he began to build on Centre Street, where the 
 home now stands. The family moved into it in 
 May, 1893. Fortunately, a little while afterward, 
 Commonwealth Boulevard was opened, and he found 
 part of his estate fronting on that central thorough- 
 fare. He loved the best well enough to give him- 
 self repeated congratulation on what turned out to 
 be a better location than even he had anticipated. 
 In this house Frederick Hartwell was born Novem- 
 ber jd of that same year. Every baby brought 
 rejuvenescence to the paternal heart. He loved to 
 have his boys about him ; and when they were so 
 comfortably housed in such a community, why need 
 the question come up so very early as to whether 
 the two older boys should fit for college there or go 
 away from home ? Here came in the forward look 
 he was always taking, " What will be the best in 
 the end?" 
 
 He consulted not simply temporary pleasure or 
 comfort. He felt that the boys would gain some- 
 thing in personal independence and resource in a 
 good academy; and so Edwin and Harold had their 
 preparation for Brown at Worcester. Did the father 
 live in his boys ? Let those answer who used to know 
 him, who knew what he did for them, how feelingly
 
 SETTLING INTO PROSPERITY 91 
 
 and now and then with what pride he would speak 
 of them. 
 
 What was he to me, when it became so easy to 
 run into his office for a little chat ! His heart was 
 swift to come near my heart. " There was no other 
 phrase to express it "; " The soul of Stephen was 
 knit with the soul of Benjamin." There are few 
 things better for a minister than to have a brother 
 who, some people thought, might also be a minister, 
 but who remained a layman, and did more good than 
 two or three ordained men. Here is one of his 
 refrains I shall never forget: " Ben, let yourself out." 
 For a preacher to drop into such a brother's office 
 is to "connect with the central." Here are the lines 
 he once quoted to me with the emphasis of a prophet : 
 
 " It may not be my way ; 
 It may not be thy way; 
 But yet, in His own way, 
 The Lord will provide." 
 
 And he believed it in every fibre of his being. 
 
 Optimistic talk in his office, in some respects, 
 was like a shower-bath on an October morning, the 
 dawn of a radiant day. He gave tonic, not "taffy." 
 Older than he, at first I did a little counseling. I 
 said: "Do not become a business machine. Keep 
 in touch with what home and church gave you, and 
 college life. If success comes, be a William E. 
 Dodge kind of a man ; strengthen and lengthen and 
 widen the foundations of religion, education, benefi-
 
 92 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 cence." I did not have to argue, urge. I found him 
 already cherishing such high aims. I stood on New- 
 ton Hill, the day after he was buried, looked about 
 me, and thanked God I saw his aims in part fulfilled. 
 
 As time went on and brought its changes, life's 
 deeper levels came to view. Our companionships 
 became greater, richer with experience. The national 
 Baptist Anniversaries had almost a halo because we 
 two could room together, or near each other, and 
 reopen the hallowed conferences of brother hearts. 
 What precious talks ! Whatever room we were in, 
 it was the anteroom of heaven. He would say, " O 
 Ben, think of it ! a few years ago we were in the 
 little village, hemmed up in a corner. Think of 
 what God has wrought." We knelt. We thanked 
 God. As he rose from his knees he began to plan 
 what he would do for others in more prosperous 
 days. And now, these past five years, since we have 
 been a thousand miles apart, we have learned anew 
 the art of letter-writing. For me to put his name 
 at the head of a sheet of paper invited a deep inte- 
 rior set of mental and emotional processes to begin 
 their work. I can truly say that to think of him and 
 write drew out the best my soul could find within itself. 
 
 His occasional visits, when on his way home 
 from the South, visits preceded by telegram, made 
 tense by their brevity, were something like the ap- 
 parition under the oak at Mamre. The following 
 is an extract from a letter written to him after such 
 a visit in April, 1899. I gi ve it because it belongs
 
 SETTLING INTO PROSPERITY 93 
 
 to one of a few he sorted out as giving special joy: 
 " Your visit was like riding up to a corner, country 
 village store, where the post-office is kept, out of the 
 shadowed road, in from the country farm, up to the 
 lighted corner. How bright the light! How merry 
 and jovial the voices of men and maidens waiting 
 for the mail. In a little while every bit of stuff is 
 given out. Conversation dies away in the distance. 
 The shutters slam to their places. The key clicks 
 in the lock. Dull footsteps are heard rinding their 
 way from the store level to home level. A little 
 light lingers a bit upstairs, then that is put out. 
 The once lighted corner stands out under a dark 
 sky. All is still save now and then the stamp of the 
 horse in the barn and a lonely bark of the dog at 
 intervals. Just so. It makes a difference whether 
 faces are turned toward you and you yourself are in 
 the light, or whether, presto, backs are seen retreat- 
 ing and the lights go out. It is not exactly black 
 midnight, but we missed you, as we always do when 
 we must separate." 
 
 What a delight it was for him to take his broth- 
 ers, his old-time college friends, like E. P. Farnham, 
 Robert Martin, particularly some acquaintance in 
 the midst of a struggle, to the Exchange Club or to 
 Young's. There was furnished a repast which some- 
 times almost seemed let down from above, such a 
 rich feast it was of good food and royal fellowship 
 which made the soul surer of fulfilling heaven-set 
 tasks.
 
 94 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 Of course such a person was in demand, in spe- 
 cial meetings, social functions, conventions, com- 
 mittee work. He was on important committees of 
 the Boston Baptist Social Union, and became its 
 president for the year 1 893. He was always prompt, 
 clear headed, fair in ruling, genial in manner. He 
 considered the business of a presiding officer to pre- 
 side. With a few well chosen words he presented 
 speakers and business. He did not stand in the 
 way, he was more like transparent plate-glass. For 
 three years, beginning in 1897, he was the president 
 of the American Baptist Home Mission Society. 
 When his name is mentioned to-day among Baptist 
 leaders from the Atlantic to the Pacific, men think 
 and speak spontaneously of the nearness of his ap- 
 proach to the ideal in that situation. 
 
 During the period of his presidency of the Home 
 Mission Society, at its meeting held in Detroit, he 
 devoted his opening address to certain features of 
 work which demanded closer co-ordination of the 
 several denominational missionary organizations. 
 His love for the work as a whole, his business in- 
 stinct for comprehensive and economic methods 
 prompted the address. He was the antipodes of a 
 revolutionist. His whole object was to conserve 
 the best and make it better. He was also voicing a 
 growing sentiment. His candid presentation of the 
 matter led to the appointment of a representative 
 committee and, as well, to widespread discussion. 
 He was elected chairman of the committee, and gave
 
 SETTLING INTO PROSPERITY 95 
 
 to the work as he always did, the best that was in 
 him. He spared neither time, labor, nor expense. 
 The meeting at Springfield the following year was a 
 disappointment and a severe tax on his already 
 overworked nervous system. There was the same 
 genial equipoise and calm lucidity of statement, but 
 they had to be paid for in the quintessence of vital- 
 ity. A vision of his face will, to the minds of some, 
 hover over all future discussions of this subject. 
 
 The work he did for Newton Theological Institu- 
 tion will probably stand first outside of his business 
 enterprises. Moving into close proximity, and be- 
 ing a man of practical affairs, especially in planning 
 and construction, he was laid hold of with expecta- 
 tion at an opportune time. Every man living who 
 was his associate for the last eight years will say he 
 met that expectation and more. It fell into line 
 with the ambition of his life to be useful to the cause 
 of Christ in an educational way. He had brothers 
 in the ministry, he had among his college mates 
 bosom companions who were ministers. His pas- 
 tors had been such as to keep his early love alive : 
 B. O. True, Richard Montague, L. A. Pope, L. C. 
 Barnes, E. Y. Mullins, E. D. Burr. He himself 
 had been thought of as a possible preacher. Like 
 some other laymen of that stamp, what he did for 
 theological education was the choice spontaneity of 
 his soul. 
 
 In 1896 mother died. Through the gateway of 
 Granite Farm we boys again carried sacred dust to
 
 96 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 its resting-place. I never think of her and him 
 together but there comes to my mind a picture of 
 the red, wide, easy couch which he, with tenderest 
 thought, selected for comfort in her infirmity. In 
 1898 brother Albert died. Every thought of him 
 to-day leads in an instant's flash to Stephen's quick 
 advice and generous aid which made the venture of 
 a Southern climate possible. It was these losses 
 that helped deepen life's seriousness, and made family 
 relationships take on a more hallowed tone. In a 
 letter written to me after all was over, he said: "The 
 memory of his conscientious work will be an inspi- 
 ration to me as long as I live. We must close up 
 the ranks and in our sympathy and feeling come, if 
 possible, a little nearer together for the balance of 
 the time that is left to us four." 
 
 In the summer vacation, 1900, we four brothers 
 agreed to meet in Providence and take a trip we 
 long had planned. We wanted once more to see 
 the scenes of boyhood. We took cars to Phenix 
 and there found horses in waiting. We saw the 
 hilltop, where the old Baptist meeting-house used 
 to stand. Then we went to Lippitt where father 
 first "topped cards," to the mill at Harrisville 
 where he became overseer, to the house where I was 
 born. At Hope, Stephen begged the privilege of 
 entering the cottage where he first saw light. How 
 he towered and how his face shone in the small, low- 
 ceiling room. The mother and the children then
 
 SETTLING INTO PROSPERITY 97 
 
 living there who received his silver will remember 
 that vision of a perfect gentleman to their dying day. 
 Then we rode seven miles to the Island, North 
 Scituate ; saw the white school-house where he spoke 
 his first piece, the drear-looking house where he 
 lived forty-five years before, and the hole in the 
 ground where the old water-wheel mournfully turned 
 after the fire. What a day of flooding memories, 
 suggestive contrasts, and fraternal fellowship. 
 
 Little did we know that that was the last time we 
 four brothers would ride in happy companionship. 
 Why should it be? Every friend who saw us 
 remarked upon the solid health apparent. And 
 certainly to look at Stephen's face, to note the 
 firmness of his tread, to hear the resonance and 
 rollick thrill in the tone of his voice one would say, 
 health, victorious life for years to come. A few 
 weeks later as one saw him, at East Alton, leading 
 a service of song on Sunday afternoon one would 
 repeat the verdict with emphasis. I see him now. 
 He has just returned from church, leading a goodly 
 company, partly by invitation and largely by con- 
 tagion of geniality, to his summer home near by. 
 The organ is rolled out on the veranda. Chairs are 
 brought out, some from Louis Pope's, next door. 
 There, overlooking Lake Winnepesaukee and the 
 encircling mountains, his towering form, his radiant 
 face, his musical, jubilant voice, led the company, 
 and at the close when we sang
 
 98 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 " I love thy rocks and rills, 
 Thy woods and templed hills; 
 My heart with rapture thrills 
 Like that above," 
 
 he seemed almost transfigured. He was a Christian, 
 he was a patriot, he was a singer, and standing there 
 in his own home among his friends, in that beautiful 
 region, singing "America," he spontaneously lifted 
 himself to an ecstasy of grateful exultation.
 
 THE LAST YEAR OF WORK
 
 " Whatever any one does or says, I must be good; 
 just as if the emerald were always saying this: What- 
 ever any one does or says, I must be an emerald and 
 keep my color." MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
 "As once be found himself among his toys, so now he 
 plays a part in colossal systems, and bis growth is declared 
 in bis ambition, bis companions, and bis performances. 
 He looks like a piece of luck, but is a piece of causa- 
 tion" EMERSON. 
 
 "He could afford to suffer 
 
 With those whom be saw suffer. Hence it came 
 That in our best experience be was rich, 
 And in the wisdom of our daily life" 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 THE LAST YEAR OF WORK 
 
 The last year of work opened auspiciously; but 
 there was deep down in his feelings a growing sense 
 that limitations of strength were now and then 
 touched. It was vague, not definite enough for 
 a conviction, certainly not serious enough to awaken 
 apprehension. His good wife detected his need, and 
 besought him to throw up a number of outside duties 
 and cares ; but he would so quickly rally from fatigue, 
 his native buoyancy would so soon assert itself, and 
 his heart was so wrapped up in the many good 
 causes that he would push on, promising himself, 
 in the near future, a good, long vacation. In his 
 letters he admitted that dark, damp days and the 
 approach of winter had more of an effect upon him 
 than in former years. He sought in one way and 
 another to keep in bodily trim. Here is what he 
 wrote me a few months previous: "I'm getting 
 a little extravagant. You will think so when I tell 
 you that I have bought a new saddle-horse, and 
 he is a beauty a Kentucky horse with all the 
 gaits, and some of them as easy as a cradle. I am 
 going to try to have my liver shaken up periodically 
 and get rid of sick headaches, and all other ills that 
 my flesh is heir to." But the old story repeated 
 itself in his case. Many a day the horse would
 
 102 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 stand in the barn unused, while the master was 
 wearing himself out with overwork. 
 
 In April, 1 901, he writes : " I am as busy as ever, 
 rushing from morning until night with committee 
 meetings, commission meetings, and all sorts of meet- 
 ings outside of business in the office." But he adds : 
 "Our plans are maturing slowly; we hope to sail 
 July 3d for Liverpool and spend our time largely 
 in England. We hope to get two or three weeks 
 in London, and the rest of the time making stops 
 of several days in some quiet centers where we are 
 in easy reach of interesting localities." Two outside 
 things he especially desires faithfully to attend to 
 before he departs, Newton endowment, commission 
 on co-ordination. Both of these received his heart's 
 blood. And in the midst of all this final rush came 
 father's fatal illness. At first we knew not how the 
 case would turn, but with June's advance it was 
 made sure that the end was drawing near. This 
 brought an added wrench to Stephen's heart. All 
 plans for the tour had been made and berths engaged. 
 Doctor and friends insisted that it was necessary that 
 he should go. As often as he could he hurried down 
 to Westerly for a brief stay ; he did everything a son 
 could do; not then only, he had been doing it all 
 along. What troubled him beyond expression was 
 to have the appearance of starting off for Europe 
 and father dying in the old home. That question, 
 however, settled itself. Father had his desire granted 
 June 27th. Panting for breath gave way to the
 
 THE LAST YEAR OF WORK 103 
 
 easy breath of a child. Granite Farm gave way to 
 heaven. 
 
 The last time I saw Stephen was that Saturday 
 afternoon after the funeral. We said our farewell 
 at the station, expecting to meet each other at the 
 steamer in Boston on the following Wednesday. 
 The losing of a train in Providence, the unprece- 
 dented heat of the day, combined to keep me 
 from that looked-for privilege. It was one of the 
 sorest disappointments of my life. When I afterward 
 he?,rd of his walking up and down the wharf amid the 
 throng, and anxiously scanning the crowd from the 
 steamer's deck to catch a view of my face my heart 
 was sick. I have said many a time since, " O, that 
 I had got there, if only in time to wave my hand 
 to him in the distance, and let him know once more 
 I loved him." 
 
 All his family, with the exception of Harold, 
 went with him on this tour. Mr. Fred Hartwell, 
 a long-time friend, and his family were also in the 
 company. In the main, he carried out his program. 
 However, in a letter written in London, August I9th, 
 he says : " I was practically laid aside for a week in 
 Buxton and Malvern, and felt miserable and very 
 weak; I realize that I acted wisely in taking the 
 rest, and I am sure I stopped none too soon. I trust 
 the trip will do us all good, and that I shall return 
 with renewed strength ready for the tasks that await 
 me." The letter ends in this way : " We leave here 
 September id, and go up through cathedral towns
 
 104 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 to Edinburgh. Then a little stay in Scotland, and 
 wind up in the English lake regions, and sail Septem- 
 ber 26th on the 'New England.' The second day of 
 the voyage I will reach my fiftieth birthday. My ! 
 that seems old, but I do not feel old. Do you? " 
 
 Friends who met him in England after that week 
 of illness, among them Dr. L. A. Crandall and wife 
 of Chicago, judged from his looks, animation, and 
 eagerness for a tramp that he must be in the best 
 of health ; but there was trouble lurking of a subtle 
 form. 
 
 Here are a last few words in his " Notes, Sum- 
 mer 1901," a little book giving a condensed account 
 of the three months' experiences : " Harold and Lil- 
 lian met us at the steamer, also Mr. Harris. Oscar 
 drove in, and we rode home in our own carriage, 
 arriving at Newton Centre about 11:45. Glad to 
 get home." The underlining is his own.
 
 FINAL HOME-COMING
 
 "Alas! Hoiv short life and bow long art. I feel 
 as if I bad just begun to understand bow to write, and 
 the probability is I have very nearly done writing. ' ' 
 
 MACAULAY. 
 
 " Life's rate well run, 
 Life's work well done. 
 Life's crown well won, 
 Now comes rest. 1 ' 
 
 " So, dearest, now thy brows are cold, 
 
 I know tbee, what tbou art, and know 
 Thy likeness to the wise below, 
 Thy kindred with the great of old. ' ' 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 " / say the tomb, which on the dead is shut, 
 
 Opens the heavenly ball ; 
 And what we here for end of all things put 
 Is the first step ef all." 
 
 VICTOR HUGO.
 
 XI 
 FINAL HOME-COMING 
 
 Everybody was glad to have him return. Friends 
 had sent flowers for every room downstairs. There 
 was a beautiful basket of fruit ; an immense basket 
 of green corn came from a business friend who 
 remembered with what lavish hand Stephen had 
 been wont to send out garden gifts ; cards and 
 notes of welcome in profusion ; while that day, and 
 through the week, callers continued to shower them 
 with their greetings. But probably that which 
 touched him in the tenderest spot was this : in 
 a few minutes after his arrival he went up with his 
 wife to see the new desk which he had ordered. 
 There it was in its beauty and largeness, while above 
 it hung, for the first time to his vision, the speaking 
 portrait of mother, brought from Granite Farm. He 
 sat down, rolled back the top, and there he saw 
 spread before him this statement: 
 
 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 
 RESOLUTION PASSED OCTOBER, 1901 
 
 This church learned with anxious hearts of the illness 
 of our esteemed and loved brother Stephen Greene, during 
 his absence this summer in England, and now, rejoicing 
 in the knowledge that he is soon coming again to us in 
 renewed health and strength, extends by formal vote its 
 
 107
 
 io8 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 cordial welcome to him and his household to their home 
 and church, and express hereby the cordial love and appre- 
 ciation in which he and his are held by all in its membership. 
 The clerk is hereby instructed to communicate this 
 vote'to Brother Greene upon his arrival at home. 
 
 F. H. HOVEY, Clerk. 
 
 He turned to his wife and said, "Why, do see 
 this ! I never knew the church to do anything like 
 it before. Most people have to wait until they are 
 dead and gone before appreciation is shown, but it 
 has come to me in my lifetime." The members 
 that passed that vote have rejoiced ever since that 
 they did it and gave him joy. 
 
 He was somewhat wearied with the voyage and 
 thought he would start in easily in business. He 
 caught cold, however, and was kept at home for 
 days together. I quote from a letter written me 
 October joth: "It seems a little ridiculous to take 
 about a month to get over a three months' rest. I 
 suppose, however, the real significance of the whole 
 matter is, that while I thought I was thoroughly 
 rested and completely well when I came home, my 
 general health and vigor was not up to the standard, 
 and when this little distemper got hold of me it got 
 a pretty severe grip. The chief feature seemed to 
 be that it affected my lung and heart action so that 
 when I went upstairs or walked any distance it made 
 me puff like a porpoise." He consulted specialists 
 and tried to conform to every wise suggestion. They 
 pronounced him subject to no organic disease. He
 
 FINAL HOME-COMING 109 
 
 took rides in the carriage and on horseback. He 
 wanted something to do, so he planned for the Sun- 
 day school, had the teachers invited to a conference 
 and refreshments, worked on a program for a 
 Christmas entertainment. The last Sunday, Novem- 
 ber 3d, he attended church and took charge of the 
 Sunday school. That day also he gave a Bible to 
 his youngest son, Hartwell, and wrote his name in it. 
 
 On the morning of November 6th the crisis 
 came. He had on two or three occasions suffered 
 from dizziness, but this proved to be the last. The 
 nerves that govern the action of the heart lost con- 
 trol. During the day and far into the night his 
 mind was perfectly clear. In addition to his own 
 physician, Dr. Sylvester, his beloved brother Ray, 
 a physician in Worcester, was a great comfort to 
 him. They did all that love and skill could do. 
 When Ray asked in the late evening, " How is your 
 courage?" he looked up and said, with rallying 
 vigor in the midst of his rapid breathing, " Good, if 
 there's any chance." At last, early on Thursday 
 morning, November 7, 1901, life left its earthly 
 tenement quietly, instantly, as the flame of a candle 
 goes out when smitten with a breath. 
 
 The day before, November 6th, was my birth- 
 day. I had been saying, sometimes in my heart, 
 sometimes with my lips, " O, if he were here, as he 
 was two years ago." Then I comforted myself: "'A 
 thousand miles away, but the old love is still there. 
 Did I not have a letter from him last week, one
 
 no STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 that could come from his heart alone? There are 
 times ahead." I had not the least idea he was in so 
 critical a condition. That night the branches were 
 swaying in fierce winds. The leaves that could not 
 rest were whirling and whirling under the window. 
 Afterward, as I thought back, it seemed almost as 
 though they did their best to keep me awake till the 
 message came, but I fell asleep thinking the day had 
 come to a finish and all was well. Just before mid- 
 night I learned as never before the truth there is in 
 the statement, " Thou knowest not what a day may 
 bring forth." O, those midnight hours, a thousand 
 miles from his bedside! 
 
 The next morning after the second message 
 came, entering upon the journey, my heart kept 
 saying, "The East is in eclipse." The radiance of 
 his face had meant so much in all home-coming. 
 Whether cloud or sunshine hung over the speeding 
 train it mattered not, he was at the journey's end. 
 This time it was cloud all the way, but once while 
 the train was winding through a valley in the gloom 
 I looked up and saw a distant hilltop gleaming. 
 Something seemed to say, "You are here in the 
 shadow, he is there in the light." 
 
 But in spite of telegrams, as I approached old 
 scenes, it seemed as though he must be in them. 
 He was not at the station or the doorstep. Instead, 
 a group of faces inside were waiting to be comforted. 
 I went in and waited with them. All the immediate 
 family were there, and precious ones at such season
 
 FINAL HOME-COMING in 
 
 had begun to come. It was indeed a house of 
 mourning, but also of precious memories, Christian 
 hope, and bravery. The suddenness of the issue, 
 however, gave a stunning blow. We seemed some- 
 times to be in a daze. We could not help feeling 
 that we must see his form coming down the stairway. 
 But there on the piano, just as he left it, was "Songs 
 of Praise" open at the I44th page. Our attention 
 was called to it. On Tuesday night, the second 
 before his departure, he played through all the 
 stanzas of the hymn, " O, for a closer walk with 
 God," humming the lines in low voice. Such re- 
 citals as these would bring us to ourselves in sad 
 reality. 
 
 Saturday, November 9th, was the day of burial. 
 The sky was leaden. While the chimes of the 
 church filled the chill air with the melody of familiar 
 sacred strains, between 1:30 and 2 o'clock, a large 
 company of sorrowing friends were gathering; busi- 
 ness men from all parts of New England, from the 
 South and the West; educators from the leading 
 
 o 
 
 Baptist schools of New England ; officers of many 
 corporations of which he was director, and of social 
 organizations to which he belonged ; the entire Sun- 
 day school of the First Baptist Church, together 
 with all the officers of the church, and many mem- 
 bers ; friends and acquaintances in Newton Centre 
 and vicinity. 
 
 The funeral service was simple and impressive ; 
 not a word of eulogy, but the Scripture selections,
 
 in STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 freshly chosen and feelingly read by the pastor, Rev. 
 E. D. Burr, kept falling into silent, sobbing hearts 
 with marvelous suggestiveness and comfort. In the 
 reading of the most luminous passages there was no 
 suggestion of jarring contrast, but rather of beautiful 
 fulfillment. The selections sung were those in which 
 his soul had often found sweet comfort, " Lead, 
 Kindly Light," " One Sweetly Solemn Thought," 
 " Abide with Me." During the prayer of his 
 classmate, Rev. E. P. Farnham, we all felt the 
 mighty load under which he staggered, and through 
 the victory that gave him calm, we found our souls 
 quieted in eternal hope. 
 
 We leave the church and the larger throng. 
 Those nearest the beloved go with the precious 
 form to burial. As we enter Newton Cemetery, 
 just as the clouds begin to weep, we see walking by 
 our side a company of fifty of the office employees, 
 and as we recognize among them faces we had seen 
 associated with him in his strength, another deep 
 wave overwhelmed us. We reach our journey's end. 
 The fresh turned soil is covered with boughs. Ex- 
 quisite flowers are in overflowing abundance ; but 
 nothing can hide the one great fact that brought us 
 here. We bow our heads and hear again the words 
 of Scripture and immortal hope. 'Mid falling tears 
 and falling rain we turn our faces toward homes that 
 will forever after be different from what they were 
 when his living face brought light.
 
 NOVEMBER WINTER JUNE
 
 " / sat stone still, Itt time run over me." 
 
 " Let us leave God alone. 
 Why should I doubt be will explain in time 
 What I feel now but fail to find the words. ' ' 
 
 BROWNING. 
 
 " Whatever way my days decline, 
 
 I felt and feel, though left alone, 
 His being working in mine own, 
 The footsteps of bis life in mine." 
 
 TENNYSON.
 
 XII 
 NOVEMBER WINTER JUNE 
 
 After this stretch of time I stand again on sacred 
 soil. Then it was near the edge of winter. The 
 clouds dropped tears as we stood that afternoon 
 massed in circle round the open grave. It was cold 
 and drear. Words of comfort and of hope were 
 read, and we did mount in faith with that spirit in 
 us which has wings ; but our human hearts which 
 had responded so many years to this form and face 
 felt the suffocation of the burial. That night the 
 cold, which chilled the tender flowers, the large floral 
 guard standing sentinel, we could not help but feel, 
 as we thought of him out there under the roses. 
 
 Now, it is June again. Winter has passed with 
 its frost, and storms of snow and wind, and its long 
 nights. Through all those days and nights our hearts 
 have lived, recovering equipoise, gaining for our 
 affection something of the serenity our judgment 
 always felt. All through the winter, what an after- 
 math of testimonial, the country over ! 
 
 Here I stand, in June, at his grave ; it is the 
 spot of his own selection the year before, side by 
 side with that of Vinal, whom he loved ; a gentle 
 slope of green, looking to north and west, and catch- 
 ing the last rays of the setting sun. No noise of 
 traffic reaches here. There is the quiet rustle of elm 
 
 "5
 
 n6 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 and maple, now and then the musical note of a bird 
 and the flash of a wing. In front, on the mirror 
 surface of still water, spanned by a rustic bridge, 
 insects are spinning their ephemeral career, minia- 
 ture object lesson of life's swift passage ; back a 
 little, up the slope, is a circle of plants resplendent 
 in bloom, flowers not cut when tears are falling, but 
 still alive, growing more beautiful out of the peren- 
 nial life and love of God ; there is evergreen to 
 speak of immortality; and in the midst of all, two 
 beautiful, white-robed trees of stately birch, which 
 seem to bring the angel message : " He is not buried 
 here. His body rests from labor, it is true, and the 
 place is dear; but he lives, he lives the life on high." 
 Standing there in the sunlight and quiet by the 
 little mound, memory doing its magic work, the 
 heart says, " Yes ; his climax wish and prayer have 
 found fulfillment, completest answer." This was his 
 wish and prayer, as voiced in these stanzas quoted at 
 the close of his address at Detroit : 
 
 THE JOY OF LIVING 
 
 " O, give me the joy of living, 
 
 And some glorious work to do: 
 A spirit of thanksgiving, 
 
 With loyal heart and true; 
 Some pathway to make brighter, 
 
 Where tired feet now stray; 
 Some burden to make lighter 
 While *t is day.
 
 NOVEMBER WINTER JUNE 117 
 
 " O, give me the joy of living, 
 
 In the world where God lives, too; 
 And the blessed power of giving, 
 
 Where men have so much to do; 
 Let me strive where men are striving, 
 
 And help them up the steep; 
 May the trees I plant be thriving 
 While I sleep. 
 
 " On the fields of the Master gleaning, 
 May my heart and hands be strong; 
 Let me know life's deepest meaning, 
 
 Let me sing life's sweetest song; 
 With some faithful heart to love me, 
 
 Let me nobly do my best; 
 And at last, with heaven above me, 
 Let me rest."
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES
 
 "All is over and done ; 
 Render thanks to the Giver." 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 "He bad a face like a benediction" 
 
 CERVANTES. 
 
 "It must oft fall out 
 That one whose labor perfects any tvort, 
 Shall rise from it with eyes so worn that be 
 Of all men least can measure the extent 
 Of what he has accomplished. ' ' 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 XIII 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 On Tuesday evening, November 19, 1901, a me- 
 morial service was held in the First Baptist Church 
 in Newton Centre. It was largely attended by repre- 
 sentative people from near and far. The five ad- 
 dresses of the evening are here given very nearly in 
 full, together with a communication intended for the 
 service; also an address given at the Boston Baptist 
 Social Union, and still another delivered before the 
 alumni of the Newton Theological Institution : 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE NOBLEST 
 MANHOOD 
 
 ADDRESS BY REV. EVERETT D. BURR 
 
 Pastor of Newton Centre Baptist Church 
 
 We do honor to-night to a noble life, which has been 
 spelling out the mysteries of God and translating the love 
 of God. His beautiful soul suggested God as the shining 
 in the still waters at night makes us instantly aware that a 
 star is above us. We do not need to look at it, we know 
 it is there. So good, so pure, so self-sacrificing, his aim 
 and spirit were so in harmony with eternal life he seemed 
 to bring eternity with him and make time seem a part of it. 
 
 We know righteousness to be immutable and sovereign, 
 because we have had so superb an illustration of righteous- 
 ness. He did not need to contend for his faith, his life 
 
 121
 
 122 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 interpreted and unfolded his faith. He saw God in the 
 Scriptures and read and copied his law into that stainless 
 life of his which sunned and shamed us all. He saw God 
 in suns and storms, in clouds and sunsets, on mountain and 
 sea, in woodland and meadow; in the days of spring, full of 
 bloom and beauty; in the autumn, rich with haze and mist; 
 his life was a song; he gave the flower and fruit of his life 
 to the world. In the words of Thoreau, "His goodness 
 was not a transitory act, but a constant superfluity, of which 
 he was unconscious." He imparted his courage, and not 
 his despair, his health and help, not his pain. His help- 
 fulness was exhaled like a fragrance. Christ was to him 
 the interpreter of nature as of the Scriptures and of life. 
 
 Stephen Greene lived with Christ. He journeyed with 
 Christ in ministering to the poor and blessing the chil- 
 dren; went with Christ into the mountain to pray; sat with 
 the eager multitudes and heard Christ preach; marveled 
 with the hushed throng at his miracles. He made Christ's 
 tireless zeal to do good and be kind his great ideal. He 
 marked Christ's unflagging energy to relieve the widow's 
 need and soothe the orphan's grief. He saw Christ's in- 
 finite majesty under pressure of undeserved abuse; he saw 
 in turn the tender compassion, the considerate charity, the 
 undisturbed meekness, the clear devotion to truth, the 
 bending obedience of his powerful will. He watched the 
 measureless repose of power and the grandeur of Christ's 
 single-hearted fidelity to purpose. Each grace and each 
 beauty of that faultless presence of Christ came more and 
 more frequently into view. 
 
 The beloved well-known form of his Master passed 
 often before our brother's eyes. He grew alert to catch 
 signs of the coming of Christ. His loving heart watched
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 123 
 
 for that coming more than they that watch for the morn- 
 ing. With the maturing years he saw his Master ever 
 clearer, ever nearer, until beholding the glory of the Lord 
 he was changed into the same image, from glory to glory. 
 The wish and the yearning became a prayer "Oh, that I 
 might be like Thee!" That prayer had a continuous 
 answer. We saw him grow in grace and in the knowledge 
 of God. We noticed his increasing Christliness. He 
 was always inspired with highest hope, fired by purest 
 honor. With self subdued, he grasped with swerveless 
 poise the wave-beat helm of will. Our beloved was a son 
 of God. It had not yet appeared what he should be, but 
 we know now that the vision is complete, he is like Christ 
 for he has seen him as he is. He has come unto the per- 
 fect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ. 
 
 Such a character is matured in the Christian faith j such 
 a life is lived in the Christian church. The proof of Chris- 
 tianity is a Christian. The demonstration of the power of 
 Christ's church as a birthplace of manhood is such a life, 
 which found its help in the sanctuary and was strength- 
 ened out of Zion. 
 
 Stephen Greene's life reads like the Eighty-seventh 
 Psalm: 
 
 " His foundation is in the holy mountains. The Lord 
 loveth the gates of Zion. The Lord shall count, when he 
 writeth up the people, that this man was born there. All 
 my springs are in thee," 
 
 His manhood was like the church in which he had his 
 birth, to which he gave his untiring service. It is a cathe- 
 dral of character into which we have come to-night. Here 
 is the long nave of holy volition, where he found the will
 
 124 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 of God. Here purposes were formed, decisions made, 
 choices determined, aims selected, intentions fixed. He 
 loved the will of God ; it was the strength of his life. 
 Yonder the transept where thought matured, where ideals 
 appeared, and aspirations were awakened, where mind was 
 broadened, convictions established, hopes aroused, reason 
 enthroned. Again and counter to it another transept, of 
 the heart, where sentiment was refined, sympathies were 
 deepened, charity enlarged, love purified. Above all,beyond 
 all, illuminating all, the chancel, where the man of God with 
 uplifted face held immediate converse with the Lord, where 
 law was revealed, righteousness expounded, and conscience 
 found her throne ; the inner sanctuary of soul, where dwells 
 the high altar, the Shekinah, the Cherubim, and the Ark 
 of the Covenant, the presence chamber of the King. 
 
 Beside the greater building, yet integral parts of the 
 larger whole, there were chapels for philanthropy, for educa- 
 tion, for missions, for civic service ; and through all there 
 glowed the light of the divine presence ; in all was heard 
 the rhythm of hopeful song and the hushed murmur of 
 fervent prayer. 
 
 Stephen Greene was himself a temple of God, by his 
 manifold ministries giving the life of God to the world. 
 The last church service he attended was the communion 
 of the Lord's body. That service was a fitting consum- 
 mation of the life which was itself one sweet communion, 
 one holy sacrament. 
 
 In the memories of that last hour, the sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper will have a new meaning to us all, as we 
 say with him:
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 125 
 
 " Thy cup, O Christ, I take with trembling hand, 
 Remembering Thee, whose blessed life it gave 
 In self-abasing love a world to save : 
 Save me, O Christ, though meritless I stand. 
 
 Thy cup, O Christ, I take, and pledge again 
 
 My life's best wine, sun-mellowed by thy grace, 
 
 And trodden in the purple press of pain, 
 Too poor a vintage on thy board to place. 
 
 "Thy cup, O Christ, I take, and humbly pour 
 
 My mingled love and thine the world to bless ; 
 O miracle that my unworthiness 
 Thy worth transmutes into a priceless store ! 
 
 Thy cup, O Christ, I take for that great feast 
 Of lite, thy deathless love shall one day spread ; 
 
 And drink the Eucharist of pain surceased, 
 
 And see Thee, King, with victory garlanded." 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MAN 
 MR. J. W. DANIELSON 
 
 Of Providence, Rhode Island 
 
 Stephen Greene has been my intimate friend for nearly 
 twenty years. We have been together often; have traveled 
 many thousand miles together. He was a dear friend and 
 a true man. There are many mourners throughout this 
 land to-day. Many business men knew Mr. Greene as 
 an upright business man, and had great affection for him 
 because of his noble qualities and his sincere life. On 
 that sad Saturday afternoon in this room were many busi- 
 ness men. I saw quite a number of them afterwards, and 
 they gave evidence that they were sincere mourners on 
 account of the death of this noble man. One man who
 
 126 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 was in sorrow and could hardly express himself, said, " It is 
 a great loss to the business community. It is a great 
 loss to me, for whenever he visited me I felt that I was 
 a better man. His influence was something wonderful." 
 
 Mr. Greene, after the death of Mr. Lockwood, my 
 father-in-law, desired that the name of the latter might 
 be continued in the firm. Mr. Lockwood's family gladly 
 consented that there should be no change, showing their 
 respect for Mr. Greene in their willingness that Mr. Lock- 
 wood's name should be used after his death as it was 
 before. 
 
 The more one thinks of the success of Mr. Greene 
 as a mill architect and engineer since the death of his 
 partner, Mr. Lockwood, in 1884, the more remarkable it 
 seems. Small at first, the business steadily increased until 
 it reached such large proportions that it was of itself a suffi- 
 cient tax upon his strength without the burdens which he 
 so willingly accepted in other directions. The field of his 
 labors reached from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and 
 the work done by him was enormous. This he under- 
 took not entirely for his own personal gain, but because 
 he was especially interested in improving the condition 
 of the poorer people of the Southern States, where so large 
 a part of the results of his labors are to be found in scat- 
 tered manufacturing villages. It is safe to say that the 
 number of persons in the South alone directly benefited 
 through these efforts would, if gathered together, make 
 a city larger than the present city of Providence, with 
 its 175,000 inhabitants. Many of these industrial enter- 
 prises will long remain as monuments to Mr. Greene's 
 wisdom as a philanthropist, as well as to his sagacity as 
 a business man, and he was able to accomplish so much
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 127 
 
 because of his great business capacity, culture, and ability 
 to deal with men. 
 
 Mr. Greene's personality was remarkably strong and 
 effective. He drew men to himself by his cordial and 
 courteous manner, and he retained the confidence of his 
 clients and business friends by his unquestioned honesty 
 and faithfulness. He was often called upon to arbitrate 
 in the settlement of differences between contracting parties, 
 and his decisions were uniformly just. 
 
 During the last few years great changes have taken 
 place in textile machinery and the development of power. 
 Mr. Greene was a progressive man, and readily accepted 
 what seemed to him to have merit, not rejecting any- 
 thing because it was new, nor accepting it because it was 
 new, but carefully investigated and proved its worth. In 
 Mr. Greene's death, the business community has lost a man 
 of proved ability in his profession, a man of strictest integ- 
 rity, and above all, a Christian gentleman. 
 
 THE FRIEND OF EDUCATION 
 PRESIDENT NATHAN E. WOOD, D.D., 
 
 President of Newton Theological Institution 
 
 I think if Stephen Greene could speak to us to-night he 
 would silence all of us and bid us not to exhibit those deeds 
 of his and those influences of his which he thought only 
 God and himself knew. And yet it is not possible to re- 
 strain us, for his death is a personal loss to everyone of us. 
 A gentleman on the street here yesterday, with whom he 
 had only a slight business relation, said, "I have lost the 
 best friend I had." I think there are multitudes of men 
 who would say the same thing, not that they were neces-
 
 128 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 sarily intimately related to him in business or in social 
 ways, but because they felt that somehow they knew a 
 man who was a genuine man and who could be counted 
 on in time of need. 
 
 There is a notion that a man's success depends upon 
 the singleness of his aim, and that in order to have intensity 
 of life and to have success in life one must go along very 
 narrow lines. Surely Mr. Greene was an illustration of 
 the falsity of that idea. I never thought of him as a pro- 
 jectile although he went straight as an arrow to the mark. 
 I thought of him rather as a sun giving out light and heat 
 and drawing men to himself and giving a sense of geniality 
 and strength and courage and help to all about him. 
 
 He had a multitude of interests; possibly no one of us 
 could speak from experience with him of all his varied in- 
 terests. I have been associated with him in the work in 
 city missions. I have been associated with him officially 
 in the work connected with state missions, with the 
 work of home missions, and I have often had consultations 
 with him in regard to the work of foreign missions. You 
 know his deep interest in Sunday schools. I know his 
 deep interest in education. Indeed, I do not know of 
 any good work in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ for the 
 helping of men that did not appeal intensely to Stephen 
 Greene. His heart went out to every good work, and not 
 only did his heart go out, but he put himself into it. I am 
 not to speak of those other spheres of his activity, but sim- 
 ply of him as a friend of education. 
 
 There are four sorts of men interested in education, 
 possibly more, but surely four. There are the men who 
 are critical. They are interested in education theoretically. 
 They feel a deep concern in the schools of the town, in
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 129 
 
 the academy, the college, and the seminary, but all the while 
 their interest stops with criticism, suggesting how this 
 might be different, or how men who are concerned in 
 management might do differently, and feel that their work 
 in life is done as a friend of education in the critical aspects 
 of their duty toward education. 
 
 There are also men who are theoretically interested in 
 education. They believe in it, they believe in the culture 
 which it brings into the community and into the individual 
 life, but they do not bring any of their time or their business 
 sagacity or their money or influence to the positive and 
 direct upbuilding of the schools of learning. 
 
 Then there are the conservative friends of education. 
 I have often thought that many trustees of schools I have 
 known many first and last felt that their whole duty was 
 done when they put brakes on educational enterprises. 
 Stephen Greene always wanted to put on steam. He was 
 saying always, "Let us do something. Let us bring some- 
 thing to pass, not merely conserve and nurture and hold 
 the little we have, but let us do something." How 
 many times I have heard him say that. I can hear his 
 voice now as I speak, saying in boards of trustees, "Let us 
 bring something to pass. Are we going to do something? 
 Do something." I think that was a favorite expression 
 of his, and it was eminently characteristic of his life. 
 
 Then there is a fourth class of friends of education 
 the intelligent class. I think he belonged to that, and by 
 intelligence I mean a man who looks broadly, sees the 
 faults, sees the excellence, sees the value, sees the power, 
 and puts himself as Christ's friend and as the friend of 
 education into the pushing forward of educational enter- 
 prises and the establishing of them on firm basis.
 
 i 3 o STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 It was in the year 1893, ^ think, at the annual meeting 
 of the trustees in June of that year that Mr. Greene be- 
 came a trustee of the Newton Theological Institution. 
 There is a history connected with it. I do not know all 
 the details of it, but I know some of it. It so chanced 
 that both he and I came into this region about the same 
 time, and the instant I saw him I felt that I had met 
 a man, and I said to him, "You ought to settle with me. 
 You ought to come where you can be my helper." 
 Laughingly I said it. He said, "No, I have a work to do. 
 I am going to Newton Centre." I did not know clearly 
 what that work was when he said it, but I now think, and 
 I have reason to think, that he had fixed his eye upon this 
 institution of learning on the hill, that he had become in- 
 terested in it in various ways, possibly through his brother, 
 who was an alumnus, or through his own broad, Christian 
 intelligence, of the value of this sort of a school, but at 
 any rate I think he had fixed his mind upon it. So, in 
 June, 1893, ne became a trustee, and it was in the fol- 
 lowing December you find him appointed on a building 
 committee. That was characteristic of Stephen Greene. 
 Only a few months. He soon became the chairman of it, 
 because it was his right to be the chairman. It was in the 
 following spring, in March, I think, that he became the 
 chairman of it, and it was in August of the year 1894 that 
 the contract for the Hills Library was let, and more due to 
 Stephen Greene perhaps than to any other man is it that 
 we have that beautiful library building on the hill. 
 
 But another characteristic came out in that enterprise. 
 When he began to study the situation for a library he be- 
 gan to see other necessities, and he said, "Let us do a large 
 thing. Why should we do a small thing?" and so straight-
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 131 
 
 way he began to study the heating apparatus on the hill, 
 and he said, "Let us have a power plant," and it was only 
 from August to October until that matter took form and 
 shape in his heart and mind and he persuaded the trustees 
 to let him contract for a heating plant. 
 
 But he was not content. It was only a little later that 
 he was made chairman of the committee for the rebuilding 
 of Farwell Hall, and he pushed that through in 1898, and 
 he said, "Not only must we have this, but we must have a 
 new chapel," and he became chairman of the building 
 committee to push that through, and the new chapel is a 
 monument of his patient industry and skill. 
 
 And in the year 1900, just passed, he was the chairman 
 of the building committee for the president's house, and for 
 that beautiful little well-house we have on the hill, the 
 chairman of the committee on buildings and grounds, and 
 took the lead in plans and arrangements for renovating and 
 beautifying the hill. Indeed, I used to think sometimes, 
 especially as I came to know in these last years of his life, 
 that he ate and drank and lived and slept with the Newton 
 Theological Institution, he carried it so upon his heart, 
 and I cannot yet think but he will come up on the hill as 
 I have seen him so many times to look over the improve- 
 ments and see how we are getting on up there. There 
 are trustees and trustees, but this was a trustee who be- 
 lieved in education to the extent of putting his heart and 
 his brain and his consecrated life and his energy and his 
 money into it. How many times I have seen him in our 
 boards of conference when the way seemed hedged and 
 there were difficulties, and always men to put on brakes 
 and to speak discouragingly, and say, "We can't do this," 
 how many times I have seen him rise with that magnificent
 
 132 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 Christian optimism of his and say, "Brethren, we can do 
 it. We will do it." 1 hardly know who is to take his 
 place. His optimism was not all of nature. It was largely 
 because he believed in God, and that these enterprises were 
 the enterprises of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and be- 
 lieving that, he believed that they could not fail and that 
 the man who was linked with them in Christ's name should 
 carry them through to success. 
 
 His interest in these later years widened, as you might 
 guess it would, and he became profoundly interested in 
 Brown University and was a trustee. He became in- 
 terested in the Worcester Academy and was an official 
 member of that institution, and to be an official member or 
 an institution of learning was something more than official- 
 ness with Stephen Greene. It meant that he gave it his 
 thought and his time and his money. Whatever he under- 
 took to do he did with his might. 
 
 There are certain names that we speak very familiarly 
 on the hill. There is not any day from the time the term 
 opens in September until it closes in June when certain 
 names are not spoken over and over again. Colby Hall, 
 in honor of a noble man, a member of this church; Farwell, 
 Farwell Hall, spoken so many times in honor of that man 
 so long ago, who, much like Stephen Greene, gave his love 
 and his time and his money for the institution on the hill; 
 the Hills Library, Sturtevant Hall; those names are spoken 
 by professors and students constantly in our daily inter- 
 course. I wish some friend of Stephen Greene would put 
 upon that hill a building that in all the years to come 
 should be known as Greene Hall, that we might speak his 
 name as we speak these other names.
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 133 
 
 THE MISSIONARY IDEAL 
 REV. E. P. FARNHAM, 
 
 Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Salem, Massachusetts 
 
 I have been asked to speak of Stephen Greene as a fellow- 
 helper of the truth in Christian missions. 
 
 First of all, we must be sure that we know the spirit 
 of the man, else we shall do him or his associates, or some 
 special phase of the great cause of missions, serious injustice. 
 Beyond a doubt, Stephen Greene was cast in a large mold. 
 His was a broad, generous nature, a great, sympathetic heart, 
 a wide vision, judicial mind. 
 
 One of the leading cotton-mill manufacturers of New Eng- 
 land said to me, with moist eyes, on the day of Mr. Greene's 
 departure from us, " You will understand me, Mr. Farnham, 
 there are many good men. Mr. Greene was a good man, 
 but he was more than that ; he was a big man. He had 
 such a broad, tolerant mind. There were few like him. 
 We trusted him absolutely in everything." 
 
 One of the most extensive contractors and builders in 
 this vicinity, one who has had close business relations with 
 Mr. Greene for years, said to me the other day, " In the 
 different relationships of mill architect and mill contractor 
 there has never been any controversy between us. It was 
 understood that in carrying out the designs of his office 
 in mill construction Mr. Greene would never be satisfied 
 with anything less than what was right, and that he would 
 never take advantage." 
 
 In seeking to furnish accurate estimate of the character 
 of the man, of the spirit that ruled him, I may be per- 
 mitted to give my personal tribute. I have known Stephen 
 Greene as intimately and confidingly as an own brother
 
 I 3 4 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 for thirty-one years. In the college class-room, in the 
 quest for a true woman's heart, in the reciprocal minis- 
 tries of true love, in a beautiful home life for more than 
 a quarter of a century, in the long years of industrious 
 and patient plodding with the goal of life far beyond his 
 reach, but evermore in clear perspective, in heroic self- 
 denial, and under limitations that chafed but never embit- 
 tered him, in the widening spheres of opportunity and 
 increasing power and acknowledged triumph, when rich 
 harvests from previous toil were garnered, and honors were 
 cast thick upon him, I have seen him endure with an almost 
 supernatural patience and poise blows and burdens that 
 would have crushed a less manly soul. But through the 
 years I have never known him to indulge in narrow views 
 of men or things, whether the problem submitted to him 
 pertained to the kingdoms of earth or heaven. 
 
 Stephen Greene was not built in sections with fire- 
 proof partitions shutting in or shutting out any function 
 of his great soul. His whole being seemed to be illumined 
 with clear light and to be permeated with genial warmth. 
 He was delighted with a certain characterization found in 
 Virgil, and if I mistake not, sent it as a daily reminder 
 to two boys in whom he was greatly interested, who were 
 at the time his attention was called to it pursuing courses 
 of study at Worcester Academy. This was it, " Totus in illis "; 
 the whole man in these things. That was Stephen Greene. 
 The whole man in whatever claimed his attention, whether 
 it was a white head of celery in his garden or a cotton-mill 
 in Maine or in South Carolina, a class of boys in the 
 Sunday school or a theological seminary on Newton Hill, 
 looking out on the needs of a whole world, a mission station 
 to be manned and supported in the North End of Boston or in
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 135 
 
 North Dakota or western China, or may be an important 
 annual meeting to be attended and presided over at Rochester 
 or Detroit or San Francisco, you had your whole man for 
 service in whatever service summoned Stephen Greene. 
 That was his relationship to world-wide missions. Whatever 
 there was in him was yours. He took his whole mind and 
 heart with him to his tasks. 
 
 I shall never forget a conversation at his office a few days 
 before the annual meetings were to be held at San Francisco, 
 where he was expected to preside ; it was positively the most 
 trying season of the year for him to leave his business engage- 
 ments; new work was pressing upon him, demands were 
 arising for his presence in different parts of the country; 
 I said to him, "You ought not to bear this strain. You 
 must not think of going to San Francisco to be absent 
 ten or twelve days." His response was, " I shall go. I am 
 not the man to accept the honor of such an appointment 
 as this and then shirk its chief duty." At the last hour 
 it was impossible for him, I think, to break away from 
 his engagements, but he fully intended and planned to make 
 the sacrifice. 
 
 It is true he was president for three years of our Ameri- 
 can Baptist Home Mission Society, but he was never known 
 as a home mission or a foreign mission society man. He 
 was larger than both these designations. He protested 
 against the use of them. Missions at home and in foreign 
 parts expressed to his mind a more just and desired mean- 
 ing. He could have presided with equal grace and with 
 equal heartiness at a home mission meeting in the morn- 
 ing, at a foreign mission in the afternoon, and have made 
 addresses on state missions and city missions in the even- 
 ing of the same day, and then have attended an after-
 
 136 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 meeting that he might come in personal touch with some 
 soul who was honestly seeking to know Jesus Christ. 
 If I mistake not, this was the spirit of the man; this was 
 the measure of our brother's relationship to all missionary 
 and to all Christian enterprises. He was a devout and 
 loyal steward of Almighty God, seeking faithfully to give 
 the net profit of his life to the ushering in of the divine 
 kingdom on the round globe. In all truly Christian instru- 
 mentalities he discovered intelligent and co-operative means 
 to a common end. He did not need to be aroused by his 
 pastor every Sunday morning to these potent facts. Stephen 
 Greene was as great an inspiration to his pastor as any pastor 
 could be to Stephen Greene. What an alert mind, and 
 what a great, sympathetic heart. 
 
 "High nature, amorous of the good, 
 But touched with no ascetic gloom, 
 And passion pure in snowy bloom 
 Through all the years of April blood, 
 And manhood fused with female grace. 
 In such a sort the child would twine 
 A trustful hand unasked in thine, 
 And find his comfort in thy face." 
 
 He had a perfect vision to see that the boy who was 
 converted in his Sunday school to-day, in swiftly succeed- 
 ing weeks and years might be pursuing courses of study 
 at Worcester Academy and Brown University and Newton 
 Theological Institution, that he might be ordained in Massa- 
 chusetts to preach the gospel, and in a few months receive 
 an appointment as a colporteur or home missionary in 
 Mexico or Oklahoma, and the following year be sent out 
 by our Missionary Union to reveal Jesus Christ to men 
 in western China; and I verily believe that if that same
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 137 
 
 young man had foolishly decided to study theology in the 
 remote districts of Pennsylvania or New York, Mr. Greene 
 would have maintained his Christian equilibrium without 
 a struggle. 
 
 These complications did not trouble him. He looked 
 down upon them from a serene height, and he saw through 
 them. He knew from divine inspiration that the field is the 
 world, and that all human forces properly allied with each 
 other are allied also in a divine co-partnership. 
 
 In his early Christian life he had appropriated the great 
 Apostle's definition of the true missionary spirit. I would 
 not wonder at all if Deacon Alvin Greene and that true 
 Christian mother, Maria Greene, who have welcomed him 
 now to the heavenly home, godly parents of five noble 
 boys who have grown to manhood, I would not wonder 
 at all if these parents were responsible for the interpretation 
 to all these boys of the New Testament doctrine of world- 
 wide missions. As we have been put in trust with the 
 gospel, so we speak; as we have been ministered unto, 
 so will we minister; as we have received the gospel, so will 
 we give the gospel to earth's remotest bounds. 
 
 He could not be persuaded to attach unequal and partial 
 values to divinely appointed and accredited methods of 
 leading men into the knowledge and service of the Son of 
 God. It was his nature to yield generous appreciation to 
 whatever agency God had appointed for the promotion of 
 his cause. With an alert mind, with keen business apti- 
 tude, developed by years of patient business training and 
 achievement as he came into a fuller knowledge of church 
 and mission work, it was inevitable that he should deplore 
 needless waste of efficiency and power in the complication 
 of agencies and the overlapping offerees employed. Hence
 
 138 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 his eager service in attempting to simplify methods and 
 agencies. 
 
 It is needful at this point to utter but the briefest word, 
 and yet I am sure that word will be welcomed. His labor 
 in these matters and only those who stood nearest to him 
 can know what a draft it made upon his overtaxed vitality 
 his labor was simply the expression of his unselfish and 
 ingenuous nature applying well-attested business principles 
 to great spiritual problems. 
 
 It need not have been a surprise to any one that he 
 refused utterly to employ diplomacy and artfulness in engi- 
 neering through any favorite scheme to a triumphant issue. 
 There were at least three reasons why he did not and 
 could not. He had no favorite scheme to engineer through. 
 He had no personal ambitions or ends to gain. He felt 
 not the slightest demand upon him for the use of diplomacy 
 in these matters. If measures that commended themselves 
 to his business judgment and to his world-wide interest in 
 the conquest of this world for Jesus Christ could not be 
 accepted on their face value Stephen Greene was done. 
 He was simple and great-minded enough to desire the 
 practical unification of all Christian forces among us for 
 the redemption of this world unto God. In all this he 
 desired not one thing for himself. His only wish was to 
 see the best methods inaugurated to secure the best ends. 
 
 I have said nothing of Mr. Greene as a generous giver 
 to the cause of missions or to Christian causes; it has been 
 implied. I am sure his ideals of Christian stewardship 
 were applied to all his resources, material and spiritual. 
 He gave as he loved, gladly and freely and increasingly, 
 with increasing ability. 
 
 We are tempted to say that he made one serious mis-
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 139 
 
 take, that he burned out his life all too swiftly, and that he 
 ought not to have assumed so many burdens. If this be 
 true then his brethren ought to have shared more manfully 
 his burdens with him. We ought not to have permitted 
 such a heavy load to be put upon one pair of shoulders and 
 upon one brave heart. 
 
 Are we really wishing now to build a worthy memorial 
 to the character and influence of this man of God? May 
 I tell you what I think it ought to be ? and the carrying out 
 of the suggestion of President Wood will only be one 
 expression of it; not a shaft of marble certainly, nor even 
 of enduring granite from his early Rhode Island home, not 
 a series of resolutions though framed in choicest language 
 and engrossed in gold, but this rather, and the pastors who 
 loved him and the laymen who loved him can help build it 
 together, the memorial in our individual lives and in the 
 lives of our children of such ideals as he cherished, to be 
 more intimately and faithfully cherished by us. 
 
 If we would honor him truly, let us vie together to 
 advance the manifold interests he so dearly loved. Let us 
 carry on to completion the equipment and endowment of 
 these truly beneficent institutions of learning. Let us seek 
 to make every one of our churches and Sunday schools 
 broadly and enthusiastically missionary in the deepest sense. 
 Let us each seek to be more ideal stewards of Jesus Christ, 
 thus perpetuating in the earth the personal power and effi- 
 ciency of one whom so many of us love to call our ideal 
 layman. 
 
 His stay with us and his going from us will be truly 
 memorialized, if as brethren, as sons of God, and joint 
 heirs with Jesus Christ, we come into closer touch with 
 each other, and let this old world know that henceforth it
 
 i 4 o STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 is our chief concern, as it was his, to reveal the Son of 
 God to the sons of men, and to establish the kingdom of 
 righteousness and peace in the earth. 
 Such a man was Stephen Greene. 
 
 REV. EVERETT D. BURR 
 
 A telegram received to-day from one whose voice should 
 be heard, reads after this wise: " The soul of Jonathan was 
 knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as 
 his own soul. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the 
 battle! Oh, Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. 
 I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan." Signed 
 by Dr. Benjamin A. Greene, of Evanston, Illinois. 
 
 A BAPTIST OF THE NEW ERA 
 W. H. P. FAUNCE, D. D., 
 
 President of Brown University 
 
 Twenty-five years ago this month I stumbled as a college 
 freshman into the Bible class of Stephen Greene in the Cen- 
 tral Baptist Church in Providence. That bright blue eye, 
 that mellow voice, that winning smile, that strong hand- 
 grasp, drew me then, and in all the years since, we have 
 walked together. 
 
 What sort of period have these twenty-five years been, 
 and what has been his contribution to them ? Have they 
 been like all the other quarter-centuries of the world's 
 history, or are we right when we say that in these years 
 the world has been transfigured industrially, socially, educa- 
 tionally, religiously ? 
 
 The difference between David's harp of solemn sound
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 141 
 
 and Beethoven's spinet is not so great as the difference 
 between the spinet and the modern organ. A metropolitan 
 journal of highest character has recently celebrated its one 
 hundredth anniversary, and the editor quietly states that 
 the difference between the first issue and the last is hardly 
 greater than the difference between the issue of twenty 
 years ago and that of to-day. 
 
 The human advance from the ships of the Phoenicians 
 to the " Great Eastern" is not so great as the advance from 
 the "Great Eastern" to the " Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse." 
 The progress from the chariot of Nero to the English stage- 
 coach is not so great as the progress from the stage-coach 
 to the Empire State Express. The college of two hundred 
 years ago was essentially the same thing as the college of 
 twenty years ago. The college of twenty years ago has 
 small resemblance to the college of to-day. 
 
 The views of life and death and eternity and human 
 duty shared by John Milton are the same as those of Presi- 
 dent Finney. The distance from Milton, or even from 
 Dante to Finney, is less than the distance from Finney to 
 Henry Drummond. This is the period in which Stephen 
 Greene has lived. 
 
 Now, the question that is asked concerning every man 
 in our generation who has passed into the unseen the 
 question which will be asked a few years from now it 
 may be a few days from now of each one of us, will 
 be, What was his attitude toward the sweep and tendency 
 of his time ? As he saw these swift changes coming like 
 waves of the sea, following one another when the tide 
 sweeps up the coast, did he shrink and cower before them, 
 as if every wave was a foe let loose by the arch fiend, or 
 did he see Him who sitteth on the flood as king forever?
 
 i 4 2 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 You all know the answer if we ask that question of 
 Stephen Greene. He possessed the perfect love that 
 casteth out fear. He never dreaded the age in which he 
 lived; he loved it; he shared it; he interpreted and guided 
 it. Whoever talked with him for half an hour, for five 
 minutes, knew that he had found the central peace, that 
 that life so full of perplexities and complexities and enter- 
 prises and interests and problems was a life whose center 
 was at rest, and on whose head had settled eternal sunshine. 
 
 That is a pitiful phrase in Ecclesiastes which describes 
 old age: "They shall be afraid of that which is high, 
 and fears shall be in the way." When we are afraid 
 of that which is high we are old men, whether we be 
 seventy or seventeen. When fears are in the way of trustees 
 and churches, when fears are in the way of missions and 
 education, we are old men, all of us, and ought to leave the 
 stage. Fears never held back Stephen Greene. He loved 
 that which was high; his voice was the bugle call as he 
 scaled the heights and called on us to follow. He never 
 ceased to grow intellectually; his mind never crystallized 
 into that fatal fixity which is holding back the church 
 of God to-day more than anything else. His mind never 
 ceased to expand sympathetically. 
 
 Whenever he came to Providence he would come to us 
 and say, " Have you got any promising young men in your 
 graduating class? I want to know them; I have good 
 places for some of them," and he picked out year after 
 year those bright young men and took them with him 
 and made them believe what he believed of possibility and 
 opportunity. Then one great cause after another was laid 
 upon his heart; one great appeal after another of human 
 cry and human need was laid upon that great heart until
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 143 
 
 at last it ceased to beat. He believed that Christianity, 
 the oldest of all things in the world in its motive, is the 
 newest of all things in its method. 
 
 I have thought of what Mr. Stead says of James Russell 
 Lowell, " He taught me how to hitch on the newest philan- 
 thropy to the old, old story of Calvary." Stephen Greene 
 hitched on the newest method, the latest philanthropic 
 educational device; I will not say he hitched it on, I will 
 say he made it to blossom out of the old, old story of Cal- 
 vary. And the secret of it all, what was it? I believe 
 the secret of it all was his unswerving devotion to Jesus 
 Christ, our Lord. When a man has anchored himself to 
 Jesus Christ, he can then be prepared for the vicissitude 
 and complexity of all our modern life. 
 
 If we make self pre-eminent our life is pagan; if we 
 make some ancient creed or liturgy pre-eminent our life 
 is but half Christian. In all things He must have the 
 pre-eminence, the Son of Mary, Son of God, the fulness 
 of the Father in whom dwelt the divine bodily. He had the 
 pre-eminence in the life of Stephen Greene. That is the 
 secret of the fixity of its motive and the versatility of its 
 method. 
 
 Dear friends, I know we are better for having sat here 
 together to-night. May that voice not cease to summon 
 us onward and upward ; may that message of sympathy with 
 one's own era of faith in the modern working of ancient 
 Providence come home to our hearts and our lives, and 
 then some day, 
 
 "Love will dream and faith will trust, 
 Since He who knows our need is just, 
 That somehow, somewhere, meet we must."
 
 144 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 A FRIEND OF THE SOUTH 
 REV. HENRY L. MOREHOUSE, D.D., 
 
 Field Secretary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society 
 
 On Sunday night, in the city of Atlanta, at the closing 
 service of the celebration of the twentieth anniversary 
 of Spellman Seminary, in the large and beautiful chapel 
 of Rockefeller Hall, furnished and adorned by Rev. William 
 Howe, whom you all know, a large concourse of people, 
 consisting of the faculty, members, trustees of the insti- 
 tution, visiting friends, students, and others, by formal vote 
 expressed their sorrow at the loss of Mr. Stephen Greene, 
 a member of the board of trustees of that institution, and 
 authorized me to express to his kindred and household 
 their sympathy in their great bereavement. 
 
 Similar expression I bear from the American Baptist 
 Home Mission Society, whose vice-president he was for 
 three years, whose president he was for three years, whose 
 memorable address at Detroit marked perhaps an era in 
 the organized activities of our denominational work. 
 
 In confirmation of what has been said here concerning 
 the estimation in which he was held in the South, I may 
 say that on my trip to Atlanta a week ago, picking up 
 casually a newspaper of North Carolina, I was gratified 
 to find an extended notice of Mr. Greene, and a public 
 expression through its columns of the sorrow which had 
 come to the Southland because one of its captains of indus- 
 try, and one of its men in highest esteem, had passed so sud- 
 denly and unexpectedly away. 
 
 Wide is the sorrow felt by the loss of this our loved 
 brother. In the high northern latitudes after sunset there 
 is a long afterglow. Though the light of this life has gone
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 145 
 
 out, we live in its afterglow now. Oh, how many suns 
 have set in New England in our denominational life ! 
 Only the other day I was looking over the list of men 
 whom I had known during twenty-two years, and my 
 heart almost stood still as I recounted those whom I had 
 known, but whom I know no more on earth. Stephen Greene 
 was one of the noblest of them all. He was high-minded ; 
 he was broad-minded ; he was far-sighted; he condescended 
 to men of low estate; a most gracious man, gracious in 
 that kindly gleam of his eye, gracious in the beautiful 
 play of his features, gracious in the very tones of his 
 voice, gracious in the cadence of his utterance, gracious 
 in the grasp of his hand, gracious in manner, gracious in 
 his intercourse, full of grace and truth, a thorough Christian 
 gentleman. We see him no more. 
 
 I am reminded at this moment of the lines with which 
 he closed his address at Detroit, in 1900, on the joy of living. 
 I think he experienced the joy of living and the joy of giving, 
 having drank in the spirit of his Master, so that of him 
 we can truly say, as your own poet Whittier has said in 
 these memorial verses concerning a departed friend, 
 
 "With us was one who, kind and true, 
 Life's noblest purpose understood; 
 Who like his blessed Master knew 
 r The joy of doing good." 
 
 COMMUNICATION FROM LEMUEL C. BARNES, D. D., 
 
 Pastor of the Fourth Avenue Baptist Church, Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 God's ways are not our ways. The demands of feel- 
 ing and the requirements of duty often conflict. A critical 
 juncture in the welfare of a number of inquiring souls 
 prevents me from yielding to the clamors of my heart to
 
 146 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 be with you at this time in the place hallowed by the 
 familiar presence of Stephen Greene, and to join my voice 
 with yours in tributes of loving memory. He was so dear 
 and intimate in fellowship that I feel sure of what he would 
 say. Feelings, however deep and imperious, must yield to 
 the dictates of plain, homely duty. 
 
 He knows. He, too, was not his own. He was a 
 minister; one of his great services to the cause he loved 
 was the demonstration of the universal priesthood of 
 believers. His work in the world for Christ, and he did 
 no work which was not for Christ, rises in greatness before 
 our minds here in Newton, and in this room where so many 
 men are graduated into the Christian ministry. His life 
 makes clear the fact that the sacred calling is not profes- 
 sional or confined to a profession. No minister in our 
 whole denomination could live a life more unmistakably, 
 heart and soul, devoted to the interests of the kingdom 
 of God. None could do a work more effective for the 
 advancement of the kingdom. He was a sympathetic and 
 unsurpassed friend of ministers, so-called, because he felt, 
 in its deep realities, the same vocation. He stands in the 
 front rank of the first-century and the twentieth-century 
 ideal of "holy orders," as contrasted with that of the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 "No monkish garb he wears, no beads he tells, 
 
 Nor is immured in walls remote from strife ; 
 But from his heart deep mercy ever wells ; 
 He looks humanely forth on human life. 
 
 "No mediaeval mystery, no crowned 
 
 Dim figure halo-ringed, uncanny bright ; 
 A modern saint ! a man who treads earth's ground 
 And ministers to men with all his might."
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 147 
 
 Another unique impression he has left upon us all, that 
 of a certain divine largeness of soul. Most men, however 
 good, are not large enough to combine the opposite poles 
 of goodness in one round sphere of character. They are 
 emphatically this or emphatically that, but not grandly 
 both. In God alone are the antitheses of goodness perfectly 
 blended. But in this respect'Stephen Greene was an unusu- 
 ally godlike man. By birth, training, and affection he was 
 a New Englandcr of New Englanders; but men of the 
 West felt that he was decidedly of their own type of 
 manhood. In the South, too, he evoked a warm sense 
 of brotherhood. He was devoted in a marked way to the 
 established institutions of life, domestic, social, educational, 
 religious; yet he was eager for improvements, and wher- 
 ever possible, thorough-going reconstruction. 
 
 Far beyond most men, he was careful and considerate 
 of the opinions of others, going to the utmost in consulting 
 them and deferring to them; at the same time he had no 
 lack in independence of judgment or in personal initiative. 
 His life was not only touched, it was controlled by tender 
 sentiment and fine feeling; at the same time he possessed 
 and exercised hard, business sense, issuing in effective prac- 
 tical measures. He was conspicuous in loyalty to his home 
 church, and at the same time foremost in devotion to fields 
 farther away. Among these farther fields, again, he was 
 filled with holy indignation at those who were so small as 
 to be enthusiastic only in home missions or only in foreign 
 missions, or only in some one organization for advancing 
 the cause. 
 
 The comprehensive spirit that built up a great business 
 by co-ordinating forces in widely separated states and reor- 
 ganizing old industries on twentieth-century lines, could not
 
 148 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 fail to question our right to conduct the sacred business of 
 home and foreign missions by methods installed early in 
 the nineteenth century. He was no visionary enthusiast 
 wandering too far ahead of his age to co-operate with its 
 forces. Rather he was the keen-eyed seer, discerning the 
 signs of the times, bravely announcing the needs of the 
 hour, ready to give unstintedly of precious time and more 
 precious vitality, to bring our missionary methods abreast 
 with the rapidly unfolding providence of God, and into 
 such co-ordination that the word of the Lord may most 
 efficiently run, and be glorified around the whole earth, till 
 the will of God be indeed done on earth as it is in heaven. 
 A life of such divine scope as that of Stephen Greene 
 lifts and enlarges all our lives and sends them heavenward. 
 He was, 
 
 "One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, 
 
 Never doubted clouds would break, 
 
 Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
 Sleep to wake." 
 
 And so 
 
 "At noonday, in the bustle of man's work-time," 
 he could 
 
 "Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
 Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
 * Strive and thrive ! ' cry 'Speed, fight on, fare ever 
 There as here !'"
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 149 
 
 THE BOSTON BAPTIST SOCIAL UNION 
 
 At the meeting held December 2, 1901, there, 
 was placed by every plate a folded leaf, on the front 
 page of which was printed: 
 
 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 BORN SEPTEMBER 27, 1851 
 
 DIED NOVEMBER 7, 1901 
 
 On the inner third page was a fine portrait, while 
 on the second page were these lines, written for the 
 occasion by a dear friend, Stephen Moore: 
 
 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 "We loved him well; and who that saw that face 
 So full of buoyant hope and honor bright, 
 So radiant every line with heavenly light 
 That told of inward purity and grace, 
 Aye, who that saw could fairly fail to trace 
 The subtle shining of a spirit rare, 
 So filled with generous thought for others' care 
 That nothing vain or vulgar found a place! 
 
 "We loved him well; but he, best of us all, 
 
 And most beloved, has heard the voice of One 
 Who loved him more than we, and One whose call 
 
 He ever heeded. Spake his Lord, ' Well done, 
 Thou faithful servant. Rest where cares surcease 
 Forever^ in thy Father's House of Peace.' ' 
 
 Henry F. Kendall, an intimate companion and 
 beloved co-laborer in more than one sphere, gave the 
 Memorial Address, which was in part as follows :
 
 i 5 o STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 Our hearts refused to credit the report that one so strong, 
 so full of vigor, so replete with energy, holding, apparently, 
 the promise of many years of usefulness and activity, could 
 have stopped in the midst of life's race; no, not that, 
 could have so soon finished life's race, and entered into 
 his reward. 
 
 To those who knew our brother no words of mine 
 are needed to present his image. Memory holds enshrined 
 the bright, smiling countenance, the hearty welcome, the 
 cordial grasp of the hand, the spirit of fellowship and love 
 which he bore with him. He gained men's confidence 
 because he was so thoroughly in earnest, so clear and 
 decided in his views, and yet so courteous and generous 
 in his treatment of all who might differ from him as to the 
 truth or as to the wisdom of any proposed action. 
 
 We might almost believe that Stephen Greene was 
 a minister, and so he was; a preacher, and so he was; 
 a man of God, and so he was; but with all this and in all 
 this Stephen Greene was pre-eminently a business man. 
 
 In the school of experience he had been operative, 
 overseer, treasurer, and owner. He knew both the practice 
 and the theory of his profession. He could decide wisely 
 what would benefit and improve the work to be done, 
 or simplify its processes. He knew all the phases of the 
 work of his mills, and this was soon recognized by his 
 clients, and his advice and services were increasingly sought 
 for. Many of the plants designed by him refused to part with 
 him upon the completion of the mills, and retained him as pro- 
 fessional adviser, director, or stockholder, that they might 
 profit by his special abilities. 
 
 His unswerving justice, honesty, and the absolute fair- 
 ness of his relations with those employed in building and
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 151 
 
 equipping the plants erected under his care were such as 
 to secure the confidence of both owner and contractor, 
 and his name stands unquestioned for a synonym of busi- 
 ness integrity and honorable dealing. No one after meet- 
 ing him had any doubt where Lockwood, Greene & Co. 
 stood as professional advisers, or thought that anything 
 but merit could commend itself to their attention. 
 
 That such a man should succeed was a foregone con- 
 clusion, and that his success gave him great delight no one 
 will question, for success meant to him a trusteeship by 
 divine appointment, and he accepted it as God given. 
 He held all that he had in trust for the Giver, and dis- 
 tributed liberally to all who had need. Generous in all 
 the relations of life, he was markedly so to any causes 
 which affected the growth of his Master's Kingdom. 
 
 If he was as a business man the embodiment of all 
 that a Christian should be, he was as a Christian, and 
 herein I believe was the secret of his great usefulness, 
 all that a business man should be. He believed that no 
 man ought to render a less efficient service to Christ than 
 he did to his business; that the church work, Bible school 
 work, institutional work, and philanthropic work should be 
 as carefully managed, as skillfully planned, as thoroughly 
 prepared for, and as intelligently executed as the building 
 of a cotton-mill, or the developing of a new industry. 
 He threw himself into all that he did with his whole 
 soul, and spent himself without stint to serve the cause 
 he represented. He had tact and a nice discrimination 
 of the fitness of things. 
 
 In the personal relations of life he has left many mourn- 
 ing friends, who sorrow like the Christians at Ephesus that 
 they shall " see his face no more." Into the family circle
 
 i 5 2 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 we may not intrude, save to refer with tenderest sympathy 
 to the wife of his youth, and to wish added likeness to him 
 to the noble sons who were his delight and whose life- 
 training was his high aim. 
 
 We mourn what seems an untimely end, but how fitting 
 his last days. Active and full of usefulness to the end ; 
 a three months' rest and communion with his loved ones, 
 and without lingering or suffering, entrance to the joys 
 of his Master, leaving not an unfinished but a completed 
 work and a grateful memory. 
 
 Stephen Greene is no longer with us; but because he 
 has lived many will bless God, some will walk with God 
 hereafter, and some of us will henceforth have higher 
 standards of Christian living, and will be grateful all our 
 days that we were permitted to know and love him. 
 
 The following address was delivered before the 
 alumni of the Newton Theological Institution at 
 their mid-year meeting December 9, 1901, at the 
 Brunswick, Boston : 
 
 STEPHEN GREENE, TRUSTEE 
 BY REV. C. A. REESE 
 
 The Newton Institution has been fortunate since its 
 founding in having as trustees many good and able men. 
 Some of the most loyal and useful trustees who ever served 
 upon its board are living to-day. They are doing more for 
 Newton than the public and more than we, the alumni, know. 
 
 Among these, until within a few days, stood Stephen 
 Greene. His trusteeship was just eight and one-half years 
 in length. Though it is a brief time compared with the 
 forty or fifty years which measure the terms of some others
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 153 
 
 in that office, yet Mr. Greene will always justly be awarded 
 a place among Newton's most efficient friends. 
 
 In the perspective behind the chair in Newton's coun- 
 cil chamber which he recently left vacant we see Stephen 
 Greene, the healthful, active, sportive boy, the mill-worker, 
 the overseer in the mill, the genial, conscientious student, 
 the industrious, well-equipped, prayerful young business 
 man, happily settled in his domestic and professional rela- 
 tions, the full-grown, far-seeing mill-architect and engineer, 
 the friend of manufacturers and capitalists, the lay-worker 
 in churches, Sunday schools, missionary and benevolent 
 circles. 
 
 He inherited rare gifts. His disposition was kind and 
 affectionate. There was far more sunshine than cloud in 
 his face. His smile was the index of a sane and happy 
 soul. His judgment was sound, his perception in the 
 realms within which he worked quick and accurate, his 
 intellectual powers above the average, his moral instincts 
 strong, and as true to the right as the needle to the pole, 
 his conscience regnant over the whole man. 
 
 Stephen Greene was the embodiment of three great 
 personal advantages. 
 
 The advantage of a combination of strong faculties 
 was his. We can think of other men who are as genial 
 as he, or as earnest and painstaking, or as intellectually 
 bright, or as devout, or as sensible, or as hopeful, or as 
 practical, or as much in love with the ideal as he, but it 
 is difficult to find one who combines in himself all of these 
 qualities in as high degree and keeps them in as harmonious 
 and equal action and reaction upon one another. This 
 liberal, all-around equipment made him the rare man that 
 he was.
 
 i 5 4 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 He had the advantage of being a doer. He did not 
 care for any theory which could not be put into practice. 
 In an exceptional measure he loved work, and did things. 
 He did not believe in the religious cant of expecting the 
 divine blessing upon idleness. He wanted things to be 
 accomplished, and accomplished in a manner to do honor 
 to the work itself. He could not do a task in a poor 
 manner. He had a horror of permitting things to go by 
 default. No one ever heard him say that a thing could 
 not be done which ought to be done, nor heard him advise 
 taking backward steps. Mr. Greene was ready to do his 
 own part, and the part of another man in addition. 
 
 He possessed the advantage of thorough integrity of 
 soul. The Psalmist who drew the picture of a man that 
 "hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up 
 his soul unto vanity, and hath not sworn deceitfully," 
 would recognize his ideal in Stephen Greene. Open him- 
 self as the blue vault of heaven, he loved righteousness and 
 hated iniquity. The conduct of his business, no less than 
 his daily personal and religious life, revealed the genuine, 
 refined gold of character. 
 
 They are mistaken who think Mr. Greene could only 
 fill the role of a pleasant, good-natured man. He was 
 capable of indignant feeling and expression, of electric 
 force and flash, when, in his view, truth and justice were 
 jeopardized. All of the superb force of his will, of his 
 rich inward and outward manhood, would then defend the 
 cause of right. It was such uprightness which gave him 
 the confidence of his associates and of his clients. 
 
 One business man, a millionaire, said : " They say there 
 is nothing in the world as timid as a million dollars, except 
 a second million dollars. Now, a million dollars would go
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 155 
 
 into his office and talk with him and look into his face, and 
 leave itself there for him to expend, and it would get a 
 second million to do the same." 
 
 Mr. Greene came to live in Newton Centre in 1890. 
 He was then in the full strength of his manhood. He 
 brought to Newton's aid his magnificent manhood, his 
 special training, his ability to plan safely, largely, success- 
 fully, in the use of material things, his almost magic influence 
 upon his fellow-men. It followed with logical certainty 
 that he would have an important part in the work which 
 needed to be done for the institution. 
 
 He was elected trustee May 17, 1893. A short time 
 thereafter he was made a member of the committee on a 
 library building, for it is recorded that on February 16, 
 1894, the committee reported "through Stephen Greene." 
 The committee also recommended the repairing of Colby 
 Hall. The idea of a new library building had been before 
 the trustees for a year or more, but Mr. Greene's con- 
 structive genius revealed itself in this report, and the 
 meeting at that time voted to build the library and repair 
 Colby Hall at an expense of $65,000. 
 
 He was elected a member of the executive committee 
 of the board of trustees, May 16, 1894; a member of the 
 committee on buildings and grounds, May 21, 1894. He re- 
 ported progress in constructing the library building, Septem- 
 ber 24, 1894. He presented to the executive committee, 
 October 9, 1894, a proposition concerning the building 
 of a central heating plant. The trustees in meeting, 
 October 29, 1894, approved the plan, and authorized 
 the building committee to proceed to build the same, and 
 appropriated for it $10,000. That economical scientific 
 plant upon the hill was the result of this action a great
 
 156 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 practical advantage to the institution but the building 
 of it, with its furnaces and engines and tall chimney, 
 was only a by-play to this skillful engineer. 
 
 The dedication of the Hills Library took place in 
 July, 1895. Its thorough workmanship, its fire-proof con- 
 struction, its convenient stack-room, its large and light and 
 beautiful reading-room, its simple lines and elegance, speak 
 in a great degree of Mr. Greene's ideas of usefulness, 
 solidity, and grace. 
 
 The building committee reported June 10, 1896, through 
 its chairman, Stephen Greene, with reference to Colby Hall. 
 It was voted that the building committee should make im- 
 provements necessary in their judgment. In March, 1896, 
 he was put upon a committee to secure the service of a 
 financial secretary. In February, 1897, he delivered to the 
 chairman of the executive committee, in the name of the 
 building committee, the keys of Colby Hall, thoroughly 
 renovated, and of the chapel which had been constructed 
 out of the part of Colby Hall previously occupied by the 
 library. 
 
 In January, 1898, Mr. Greene was made chairman 
 of the endowment committee. At the annual meeting 
 of the trustees in 1898, the committee of which he was 
 chairman was authorized to proceed with the reconstruc- 
 tion of Farwell Hall. The furnishing of Farwell Hall, 
 in such a comfortable and uniform manner as it is, was 
 his own idea. In June, 1899, the trustees voted to build 
 a house for the president, and Mr. Greene was appointed, 
 with another trustee, to execute the will of the trustees. 
 
 Then, as a sequence of these improvements, the com- 
 mittee was authorized to construct waterworks for the 
 institution; and they have been built upon a scientific
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 157 
 
 and at the same time an artistic plan. These services were 
 not all by any means. Being a resident of Newton Centre, 
 he was given many other responsibilities for Newton. He 
 assisted in laying out the streets of the city relative to the 
 institution's real estate; he visited the assessors when neces- 
 sary ; he represented the trustees frequently in adjusting rela- 
 tions with the professors ; he was the loyal advocate of the 
 institution in his church. 
 
 It would be unjust to overlook the valuable assistance 
 which members with him of these committees rendered 
 to the institution. He was so constituted that others 
 loved to be associated with him in manifold works. He 
 knew his own limitations in certain directions, and willingly 
 followed the judgment of others in their special departments. 
 They in their turn trusted his scientific knowledge, his wide 
 observation of men, were moved by the inspiration of his 
 clear vision and winning voice, and loyally followed him. 
 He was always generous in his recognition of aid from 
 associates. 
 
 It was his privilege, within a few short years, to take 
 an important part in the transformation of the material 
 side of the institution. While he was chairman of the 
 endowment committee, the trustees and friends of the insti- 
 tution added $300,000 to the endowment funds. 
 
 But his interest was not as great in the material and 
 financial improvement of the institution as in the intel- 
 lectual and spiritual advancement of it. It grieved him 
 that the students did not show, by an increased attendance 
 at daily chapel, a greater appreciation of " the best room " 
 of all the institution. He at one time said to me that, 
 while he loved Brown University, and was interested in 
 Worcester Academy, he was determined to give the most
 
 158 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 of his strength and life to the Newton Institution, for it was 
 fundamental to the cause of Christ in all its interests. He 
 was penetrative enough, devout enough to see and to believe 
 with all his earnest soul that an educated ministry is the first 
 requisite to every department of the Kingdom of God. 
 
 For himself he did not seek or desire any other religious 
 beliefs than those which he learned at his mother's knee, 
 and from his father's life, and in his parents' church ; but 
 for the coming ministry he coveted the liberty of full inves- 
 tigation under devout and scholarly teachers, and for the 
 boys and girls in academies and colleges he wished pastors 
 and preachers to whom they may gladly listen. 
 
 This life exemplified what Stephen Greene believed 
 a trustee of Newton should be. When he was contem- 
 plating removing his home from Newbur port to some 
 suburb of Boston, his pastor advised him to go to New- 
 ton Centre, for, said he, the church believes in the con- 
 version of children and your children will be converted, 
 and in ten years you will give away five times as much 
 money as you will in any other church home. 
 
 This remarkable advice was followed, and the prediction 
 was verified. In giving, Mr. Greene probably surpassed the 
 prophecy. But we now see more clearly than we saw while 
 he was living that he was giving to the Newton Institution 
 more than his money, or his time, or his service, or strength. 
 He was giving much of his reserve vitality, much of his 
 very life, to Newton; nay, not to Newton, but to his 
 Lord through Newton, whose Newton is. 
 
 His intimate friends sometimes said to him that the 
 chimney of the heating plant on Newton Hill would be his 
 monument. He received the humorous remark in the 
 spirit in which it was made. That chimney is 100 feet
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 159 
 
 high. The Bunker Hill monument is 221 feet high. 
 There are more than a dozen chimneys which he designed 
 2OO feet high ; there are two others which he constructed 
 250 feet high. 
 
 If his wish had been for a material memorial, he has 
 many of that kind. He did not desire such a thing, though 
 I believe his friends will see to it that there shall be a special 
 memorial to him upon the hill which he so dearly loved. 
 He asked for no visible monument, no laudatory epitaph, but 
 it was the deepest, strongest, most consuming desire of his 
 noble heart to discharge every duty as a trustee of Newton 
 Institution, and all other responsibilities, according to the 
 standard of an intelligent Christian man, and of personal 
 honor and fidelity to the trust committed to him by his 
 fellow-men and by his God.
 
 RESOLUTIONS, LETTERS, AND 
 OTHER TRIBUTES
 
 "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, 
 and favour is better than silver and gold"- PROVERBS. 
 
 "The friends of the world are oft 
 Confederacies in vice or leagues of pleasure: 
 Ours has severest virtue for its basis, 
 And such a friendship ends not but with fife." 
 
 ADDISON.
 
 XIV 
 
 RESOLUTIONS, LETTERS, AND 
 OTHER TRIBUTES 
 
 From the large mass of material in hand a selec- 
 tion has been made with a view to give, so far as 
 possible, distinct phases of his life-work, relation- 
 ships, and influence: 
 
 THE PACOLET MANUFACTURING COMPANY 
 
 At a meeting of the board of directors of the Pacolet 
 Manufacturing Company, this day held at the company's 
 office, in the city of Spartanburg, S. C., the following 
 resolutions were unanimously adopted: 
 
 41 Whereas, it has pleased Almighty God to remove 
 from his sphere of usefulness Stephen Greene, leaving a 
 vacancy on the board of directors of the Pacolet Manu- 
 facturing Company, it is meet and proper that we should 
 pay tribute to his memory, and give expression to our sense 
 of the great loss sustained. 
 
 "Mr. Greene had been connected with the Pacolet 
 Manufacturing Company from the inception of the enter- 
 prise, in 1882. He designed the first mill built by the 
 company, and has been a director since 1884. 
 
 "Our deceased friend was essentially a doer of things; 
 he stood as a leader in his profession, and mills in many 
 states stand as monuments to his genius. 
 
 "The work and brains of such men as Stephen Greene 
 have transformed the South from an agricultural com- 
 
 163
 
 164 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 munity into the great cotton manufacturing district that it 
 now is, and to him the South owes a debt of gratitude. 
 
 "Mr. Greene was to be admired not only for his skill 
 in his chosen profession, but he was esteemed for his worth 
 and value as a man, and loved for all that makes life worth 
 living, for he was all that is best expressed in the word 
 4 a Christian.' 
 
 " Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the company has 
 lost an active member, a strong counselor, and wise direc- 
 tor, and that the directors each feel that a good man, 
 courteous associate, and personal friend has been taken 
 from them. 
 
 41 Be it further resolved, that a copy of these resolu- 
 tions be forwarded to the bereaved family of our departed 
 associate, as a mark of respect and tribute to his worth and 
 integrity, as an expression of our esteem for him. 
 
 " Be it further resolved, that these resolutions be spread 
 upon the minutes, and that a page be dedicated to his 
 memory. 
 
 " JOHN H. MONTGOMERY, President. 
 " SPARTANBURG, S. C., March 26, 1902." 
 
 D. A. TOMPKINS 
 
 If it were feasible I should not hesitate to travel the 
 whole distance from here to Newton to show my apprecia- 
 tion of the distinguished services that Mr. Greene rendered 
 to the whole country in the development of our resources, 
 and in enriching the people by the contributions to the 
 general welfare, of a broad knowledge, an excellent judg- 
 ment, indomitable energy, and capability in his profession. 
 
 He was a man who, seeing opportunities for the better- 
 ment of the people of any section, was zealous to show the
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 165 
 
 way, and lend a helping hand without prejudice. Here in 
 the South he has formed friendships and partnerships which 
 have gone far to create and foster common interests between 
 the people of the North and South, which have done more 
 towards softening asperities and removing prejudices than 
 could have been done in any other way. These beneficent 
 results of his work will continue to live and continue to 
 grow. They will not be lost by his death, but their influ- 
 ence for good will be greater as time passes, and be 
 appreciated by the next generation better perhaps than 
 by this one. 
 
 I am impelled to take the liberty to send this tribute of 
 my personal high regard for the man and the engineer. 
 
 D. A. TOMPKINS. 
 CHARLOTTE, N. C., November 16, 1901. 
 
 GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 
 
 In the decease of Mr. Stephen Greene we sincerely 
 feel that the community has lost one of its most esteemed 
 citizens, and the profession one of its valued and progressive 
 members. He had the ability to originate as well as a 
 desire to adopt whatever would best contribute to the devel- 
 opment of his art. Professionally and personally he inspired 
 us with the most profound respect and admiration, and we 
 wish to take this opportunity to express to you our keen 
 appreciation of the great loss experienced, both by us per- 
 sonally and the whole engineering profession, by his death. 
 GENERAL ELECTRIC Co., 
 
 J. R. McKEE, 
 
 Gen'l Mgr. Power and Mining Dept. 
 NEW YORK OFFICE, November u, 1901.
 
 166 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 FLYNT BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION COMPANY 
 
 We received with great surprise and sincere regrets the 
 sad announcement of the death of Mr. Stephen Greene. 
 We are saddened beyond expression, and sincerely sympa- 
 thize with you and your associates in the great loss you have 
 sustained. Our acquaintance and business dealings with 
 Mr. Greene, which extended over a period of fifteen years, 
 were certainly most pleasant. Though carrying the cares 
 and anxieties of a very busy life, he was ever the kindest 
 of critics, the soundest of advisers, and one who appre- 
 ciated every honest effort. We all consider his death a 
 personal loss, but we realize that it has been a privilege to 
 know a man so strong, so upright, so large-minded, and so 
 noble in every way. 
 
 FLYNT BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION Co., 
 
 A. T. WING, President. 
 PALMER, MASS., November 13, 1901. 
 
 CHARLES HAMLIN 
 
 No one had a higher esteem for Mr. Greene than myself. 
 His sweet, pure character, and high order of ability in his 
 profession, all make his death a public loss. I have never 
 met any man in business upon whom I could always rely 
 with more confidence for his integrity, sound judgment, and 
 real genius as a mill architect than Mr. Greene. 
 
 Please extend my sincere sympathy to his son, who, I 
 am glad to learn, will step into his father's place, and whom 
 I will gladly remember in that relation. 
 
 CHAS. HAMLIN. 
 BANGOR, November 16, 1901.
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 167 
 
 GAINESVILLE COTTON MILLS 
 
 The following extract from the report of the 
 president of the Gainesville Cotton Mills, made to 
 the stockholders, at the annual meeting, held in 
 Spartanburg, S. C., November 26, 1901, was, on 
 motion, ordered to be sent to the family of Mr. 
 Greene : 
 
 " It becomes our sad duty to chronicle the death of one 
 of our directors, Mr. Stephen Greene, at Newton Centre, 
 Mass., November 7, 1901. In his death the company has 
 sustained a distinct loss. Wise in counsel, clear and far- 
 seeing in judgment, approachable for advice, loyal to the 
 affairs intrusted to his keeping, Mr. Greene was indeed a 
 valuable acquisition to any board. His grasp of difficult 
 problems, his attention to details, and his capacity for work 
 were remarkable. To the entire corporation his death is 
 a great misfortune, but to those who were privileged to be 
 in close touch with the man, it is a personal bereavement." 
 
 ABBEVILLE COTTON MILLS 
 
 RESOLUTIONS IN MEMORY OF MR. STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 At a meeting of the local directors of the Abbe- 
 ville Cotton Mills, the following preamble and reso- 
 lutions were unanimously adopted : 
 
 " Whereas, the intelligence has been received of the 
 unexpected death of Mr. Stephen Greene of Boston, who 
 has been identified with the Abbeville Cotton Mills from 
 its earliest inception, first as architect and subsequently 
 as one of the board of directors; and, 
 
 " Whereas, his associates on said board in the city
 
 168 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 of Abbeville desire to give expression to their sense of the 
 severe loss sustained by his death, it is 
 
 " Resolved, that in the death of Mr. Stephen Greene 
 the Abbeville Cotton Mills has been deprived of one of its 
 staunchest friends, and the Mills erected under his super- 
 vision bear lasting testimony to his skill as architect. 
 
 " Resolved, that in his intercourse with us we ever 
 found him a high-toned, genial, and cultured gentleman, 
 and though coming to us an entire stranger he soon won 
 our highest personal esteem and affectionate regards, and 
 we feel that we have personally lost a friend, one who 
 by identifying himself with the Abbeville Cotton Mills 
 contributed largely to the successful erection of the mill 
 buildings, which have no superior in the state. 
 
 " Resolved, that we hereby tender to the family of Mr. 
 Stephen Greene the expression of our warmest sympathy 
 in their heavy bereavement, with the assurance his name 
 will be held in affectionate remembrance by us all who 
 have been so pleasantly associated with him for some 
 years. 
 
 "Resolved, that the secretary of this board do forward 
 to the family of Mr. Stephen Greene a copy of the pre- 
 amble and resolutions, and that a page in the minute book 
 be dedicated to his memory, and that these resolutions be 
 recorded in the minutes, and that the county papers be 
 requested to publish the same. 
 
 "\VM. H. PARKER, Secretary." 
 
 JOHN C. GARY 
 
 A stranger in a strange land, Stephen Greene came to us 
 at a time when the people of his country and our own knew 
 comparatively little of each other. He came as a friend
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 169 
 
 in his young manhood bearing the evidences of a true, 
 honest nature. We received him as such; we trusted him; 
 we honored him; and later we loved him. He reciprocated 
 the feeling, and thus was woven a cord which death alone 
 could sever in twain. He abided with us as a friend, 
 a builder of both enterprises and characters. He died 
 in the prime of manhood, and before his work with us 
 was finished. The zenith of his usefulness had not been 
 reached. He had not reaped the full harvest of his talents 
 and energies, monuments of which stand in almost every 
 Southern state, as enduring as time itself. 
 
 But while his life was largely devoted to business, 
 Mr. Greene was not a stranger to the homes and social 
 life of those who knew him. His kind, genial nature, 
 warm heart, and Christian graces endeared him to all. 
 His forgiving and charitable disposition, his candor and 
 high sense of justice, commanded the admiration of all 
 who came in contact with him. His devotion to religion 
 and his exemplary Christian deportment on all occasions 
 and under all circumstances marked his life as one pre- 
 eminently worthy of emulation. 
 
 While we recognize the ability of the home circle and 
 nearest friends to know the deceased best, and to judge 
 of his virtues by that home life and daily acquaintance 
 which reveal the true character and motives of human 
 kind, we of the South, co-workers and intimate friends 
 of Mr. Greene, bear to them the testimony of his upright 
 noble life spent from time to time with us, and of the per- 
 sonal sorrow we feel at his untimely death. 
 
 To-day we mourn his death with Eastern friends, in all 
 our hearts tenderest love and deepest sympathy. Our tears 
 mingle with theirs in sincere feeling, as we offer our tribute
 
 1 70 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 to the worth and character of our mutual friend, whose 
 memory and virtues we all wish to commemorate. 
 
 While in his native land rests all that is mortal of Stephen 
 Greene, marked by the memorial shaft, in our hearts the 
 broken column is erected, ever to remind us that in our 
 industrial building and in our spiritual house one of our 
 principal supports and truest friends has fallen. 
 
 JOHN C. GARY. 
 LOCKHART, S. C., November 16, 1901. 
 
 YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, BOSTON 
 
 At a meeting of the Boston Young Women's 
 Christian Association, held Monday, December 2d, 
 it was voted : 
 
 "That in the death of Mr. Stephen Greene, the 
 Y. W. C. A. has lost an able and generous friend, and 
 that the sympathy of the association be extended to the 
 sorrowing family. 
 
 " SUSAN H. BRONSON, Secretary Pro Tern" 
 
 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN NEWTON 
 
 MINUTE ADOPTED NOVEMBER 22, I 90 I 
 
 With inexpressible grief and in humble submission to 
 the inscrutable wisdom and holy will of God, the First 
 Baptist Church in Newton records the death of our brother 
 Stephen Greene. 
 
 Uniting with our church by letter in 1890, he enthroned 
 himself in the confidence and love of all the membership. 
 He was chosen deacon, and twice chosen superintendent 
 of the Bible school. He was serving in these high offices 
 at the time of his death. Like the officer of the early
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 171 
 
 church whose name he bore, Stephen Greene was a man of 
 honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom; a man full 
 of faith and power, he wrought splendidly among the people. 
 
 For eleven years he worked among us. We knew his 
 conversation, his manner of life, his purpose, his patience 
 of hope. His charity was out of a pure heart, his faith 
 unfeigned. He lived a righteous and godly life, blameless, 
 vigilant, patient, apt to teach, faithful in all things. He 
 was an example to believers, in word, in conversation, in 
 love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. As a man of God he 
 followed after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, 
 meekness. 
 
 He fought the good fight of faith, laid hold on eternal 
 life. He was not high-minded, nor did he trust in uncer- 
 tain riches, but in the living God who gave him all things 
 richly to enjoy. He did good, was rich in good works, 
 ready to distribute, willing to communicate. 
 
 Strong in the grace which was in Christ Jesus, he 
 endured hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. He 
 was a vessel unto honor, sanctified, meet for the Master's 
 use, prepared unto every good work. He continued in the 
 things which he had learned, and had been assured of, 
 knowing of whom he had learned them. A lover of God's 
 word, he found it profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for 
 correction, for instruction in righteousness. 
 
 Instant in season, out of season, in all things showing 
 himself a pattern of good works, rejoicing in hope, patient 
 in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. As he abounded 
 in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in 
 all diligence, and in his love for us, he abounded in the grace 
 of giving also. 
 
 So he lived and labored among us until the end. He
 
 172 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 presided over the sessions of the Bible school for the last 
 time upon Sunday, November 3d. The last church service 
 which he attended was the ordinance of the Lord's Supper 
 upon the afternoon of the same day. 
 
 He was granted an abundant entrance into the presence 
 of his Lord, Thursday morning, November 7, 1901. 
 
 The memory of the just is blessed. 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, NEWTON THEOLOGICAL 
 INSTITUTION 
 
 The executive committee of the Newton Theological 
 Institution, representing the trustees, and in their behalf, 
 have heard with profound sorrow of the death of Mr. 
 Stephen Greene, who passed away in the early morning 
 of November 7th; and they would put upon record their 
 tribute of esteem and affection. 
 
 He has been a most useful aud valuable man in his 
 relation to the institution, as he has been in connection 
 with so many other noble causes of denominational and 
 religious work. He was chairman of the endowment com- 
 mittee and of the committee on buildings and grounds. 
 He had successfully carried through one effort to increase 
 the endowment of the institution, and was deeply engaged 
 in the one now in progress. 
 
 The new buildings of late years, and the improvements 
 on Farwell Hall, are the almost direct results of his skill 
 and energy and devotion. All this has been done with 
 such a spirit of devotion and cheerfulness as to move all 
 interested to a feeling of gratitude for such a tireless and 
 willing helper and counselor. 
 
 It is no wonder our president, Mr. William A. Munroe, 
 was moved to say, very tenderly, that he felt he has largely
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 173 
 
 given his life to us and for us, and that he felt him to be 
 such a realization of Paul's grace of charity as was seen 
 in scarcely any other man whom he had ever known. 
 
 He was a man of great courage and confidence, and had 
 the rare tact of inspiring others with something like his own 
 great spirit of hope. His death seems an irreparable loss to 
 the institution. He took to his heart all the interests of its 
 endowment and progress. His gifts have been laid upon 
 its altar. His faith has been inwrought into its life. Its 
 growth has been one of his cherished dreams. 
 
 N. E. WOOD, 
 C. H. SPALDING, 
 R. O. FULLER. 
 BOSTON, November 8, 1901. 
 
 AMERICAN BAPTIST HOME MISSION SOCIETY 
 
 The executive board of the American Baptist Home 
 Mission Society is filled with profound sorrow over the 
 sudden death of Stephen Greene, Esq., of Newton Centre, 
 Mass., who for three years was vice-president of the society, 
 and for three years thereafter, until 1900, was its president, 
 fulfilling the duties of this position with rare grace and 
 ability. By his lively interest in the society's affairs, as 
 well as by the marked excellences of his manly Christian 
 character, he won for himself a large place in the love and 
 respect of the society and of his brethren at large. While 
 we cannot interpret the inscrutable Providence which has 
 transferred him in the prime of his power from this to a 
 higher sphere, we find consolation and inspiration in his 
 noble record of Christian service, which in many ways has 
 contributed largely to the advancement of our denomina- 
 tional interests, and to the establishment of the kingdom
 
 174 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 of Christ in the world. To the members of his family, 
 and to his kindred, the society, through this board, extends 
 its heartfelt sympathy in their great bereavement. 
 NEW YORK, November n, 1901. 
 
 BOARD OF TRUSTEES, SPELMAN SEMINARY 
 
 MRS. STEPHEN GREENE: 
 
 Dear Madame In the great bereavement which has 
 come to you in the loss of your husband, you undoubtedly 
 find some consolation in the many expressions received of 
 appreciation of his noble character and his Christian ser- 
 vice. Permit me to add thereto, as president of the board of 
 trustees of Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, Ga., an expression 
 of the regard in which he was held by representatives of 
 that institution, and of their sympathy with you in your 
 sorrow. It was adopted on Sunday evening, November 
 i jth, at the close of a series of meetings commemorating the 
 twentieth anniversary of the institution, and is as follows : 
 
 " The faculty, members of the board of trustees, and 
 friends of Spelman Seminary, gathered at the observance 
 of the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the insti- 
 tution, deeply mourn the loss by death of Stephen Greene, 
 Esq., of Newton Centre, Mass., a warm friend of the 
 seminary, a member of its board of trustees, and late 
 president of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, 
 and held in highest esteem by all ; and we extend our heart- 
 felt sympathy to his bereaved family and relatives in their 
 great sorrow, praying Divine consolation and strength may 
 be theirs abundantly in this hour of trial." 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 H. L. MOREHOUSE, Field Secretary. 
 NEW YORK, November 21, 1901.
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 175 
 ALVAH HOVEY 
 
 Formerly President of the Newton Theological Institution 
 
 MY DEAR MRS. GREENE: 
 
 My heart and my thoughts have been with you all the 
 day. I should have ventured to call had I not been sure 
 that no words of mine could diminish the sorrow you feel at 
 the loss of your noble husband. 
 
 He was to me an ideal man and Christian. I do not 
 remember a single word or act in my intercourse with him 
 for many years that did not commend him to my heart as a 
 brother indeed; "An Israelite in whom there was no guile." 
 How can we give him up? How can we do without his 
 royal cheer and helpfulness? He ought to have lived a 
 hundred years, and to have had the strength of a dozen 
 men ! So I am inclined to say. Yet our Lord was only 
 a young man when his hour came. He had already "fin- 
 ished" his work. Let us humbly trust his wisdom and 
 love ! " God is his own interpreter, and he will make 
 
 it plain." 
 
 Most truly your friend in sorrow, 
 
 ALVAH HOVEY. 
 NEWTON CENTRE, November 7, 1901. 
 
 CHARLES RUFUS BROWN 
 
 Professor in the Newton Theological Institution 
 
 MY DEAR MRS. GREENE: 
 
 I know that you will not consider it an intrusion, if I 
 tell you that I have just come from a little service on the 
 hill, appointed in memory of your dear husband. Professor 
 Anderson prayed, President Wood spoke of Mr. Greene in 
 his relation to the institution, Professor English in the
 
 176 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 wider relation of the kingdom, and I, brokenly, of his influ- 
 ence in the home, church, and community. Bowed down 
 with our sense of loss, we can yet rise from it all, and from 
 your deeper grief, and with you we can contemplate the 
 glory of the consecrated Christian manhood at its best. I 
 am glad that the same Christian hope is yours and ours. 
 From the depth of sorrow, we look to our Saviour with open 
 face, rejoiced that we may turn over to him one so nearly 
 like himself. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 CHARLES RUFUS BROWN. 
 NEWTON CENTRE, MASS., November 9, 1901. 
 
 W. W. LANDRUM 
 
 Pastor First Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia 
 
 MY DEAR MRS. GREENE: 
 
 My heart seemed to stand still with a sudden shock 
 when I learned only yesterday that your noble husband 
 had departed to his heavenly reward. 
 
 Receive a brother's sympathy and prayer. Words are 
 weak mediums of expression for what I feel; but I beg 
 to say that I have never known a character more lovable 
 or freer from faults than that of Stephen Greene. His church 
 and community, and the Baptist brotherhood throughout 
 America have sustained a grievous loss by his translation 
 to the church above. 
 
 May the Lord have you and yours in his tender care 
 and keeping. Cordially and truly yours, 
 
 W. W. LANDRUM. 
 ATLANTA, GEORGIA, November 12, 1901.
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 177 
 
 JOHN H. MONTGOMERY 
 DEAR MRS. GREENE: 
 
 I have wanted to write you in addition to what I have 
 already written the office to add with your many friends 
 my testimony of real, heartfelt sympathy. The death of no 
 one outside of my own family shocked me more, or has 
 recurred oftener to my mind in the same space of time 
 than that of Mr. Greene. 
 
 He was one I had never associated with death; but as 
 living dispensing influence and doing good. My acquaint- 
 ance with him commenced nearly twenty years ago, and 
 during that time I never saw a single act unworthy of a Chris- 
 tian gentleman of the highest type. He was one who lived 
 his religion at home and from home; in prosperity and 
 adversity always the same. The world is better that he 
 lived in it; his noble character and example will live on 
 well worthy imitation of all who knew him. 
 
 In him I had a real friend, and I do and shall sorely 
 miss him; but the all-wise God of the universe doeth all 
 things well. You and I and all others must meekly bow 
 to the will of Him who made us. 
 
 My wife joins me in sympathy for you in this your 
 saddest bereavement. May God help you and your boys 
 to bear it. Very truly yours, 
 
 JOHN H. MONTGOMERY. 
 SPARTANBURG, S. C., November 30, 1901. 
 
 R. S. MACARTHUR 
 
 Pastor Calvary Baptist Church, New York 
 
 MY DEAR MRS. GREENE: 
 
 I learned with equal surprise and sorrow of the death 
 of your noble husband. His death is a loss to every denom-
 
 i 7 8 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 inational interest, and to every good cause in every part of the 
 country. I have no words adequate to express the sorrow 
 which I feel. He was one of the gentlest, truest, and alto- 
 gether most genuine of men I ever knew. My acquaintance 
 with him began when your residence was in Rhode Island, 
 and the riper it became the more honored and beloved did 
 he become in my judgment and affection. Both at your 
 table in your home and at my table in my home he was 
 the genial gentleman, the noble Christian, and the loving 
 brother. 
 
 The loss to you and your children is simply irreparable. 
 My wife and I have not ceased to think of and pray for you 
 since we learned of your bereavement. We commend you 
 to the God of all comfort, and pray that He may graciously 
 guide you and yours, and give you grace according to His 
 promise in our common Lord. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 R. S. MACARTHUR. 
 NEW YORK, December 2, 1901. 
 
 GEORGE E. MERRILL 
 
 President Colgate University, Hamilton, New York 
 
 Stephen Greene was a wonder to me. How could he 
 be what he was; how could he do so much? Neighbors in 
 Newton, thrown together in the work of the Newton Theo- 
 logical Seminary, and having many common interests in 
 the life around us, we were frequently together, and often 
 for long consultations upon important matters. I was 
 always impressed by his wisdom, by his common sense. 
 When his judgment was against mine, I was accustomed 
 to review my position very carefully; when it was with 
 mine, I felt very strong indeed. In all practical affairs
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 179 
 
 he was most efficient, and I could feel sure that his quick 
 appreciation of advantages to be gained or lost by any pro- 
 posed course would save us, as it often did, from serious 
 error. In all his great work, too, he was cheerful. 
 
 His face was an inspiration, his form was an encourage- 
 ment. If you saw him walk you said, " There is a man alert 
 and strong." And never was this impression belied by any 
 weakness in counsel. His thought was accurate, his advice 
 was good, his leadership was inspiring. Many things were 
 brought to pass largely through his enterprise and persist- 
 ence, where weaker men would have been discouraged. 
 
 GEORGE E. MERRILL. 
 HAMILTON, NEW YORK., December 8, 1901. 
 
 As CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMISSION ON CO-ORDINATION 
 
 It was most natural that in the organization of the 
 Commission on Co-ordination Mr. Stephen Greene should 
 be made chairman. He had rare personal qualifications for 
 the position, and his address at Detroit, as president of the 
 Home Mission Society, had led to the appointment of the 
 commission. The place was not without its difficulties; 
 we did not all see eye to eye. Some felt that many radical 
 changes ought to be made; others favored some slight modi- 
 fications of existing policy; still others were persuaded that 
 the thing to do was to do nothing. The sessions were 
 long and trying, and the discussion sometimes became 
 exceedingly earnest. With a man less wise and concil- 
 iatory in the chair, serious friction might easily have de- 
 veloped. With rare skill Mr. Greene guided the deliberations 
 over sand-bars and around dangerous reefs, by his example 
 provoking all members of the commission to urbanity and 
 kindliness in speech and action.
 
 i8o STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 Mr. Greene illustrated the beauty of speaking the truth 
 in love. He held decided opinions upon the questions under 
 discussion, and expressed his views with perfect frankness. 
 His was the point of view of the Christian business man. 
 He saw no reason why the business of the kingdom should 
 not be conducted with the same careful attention to economy 
 in administration that characterizes great secular enterprises. 
 The very best methods were none too good for the work 
 of the world's redemption. He said what was in his heart, 
 and spoke with a clearness which left no doubt as to his 
 meaning; but his speech contained no indictment of the 
 honesty of his brethren who differed with him, and was 
 free from all suspicion of bitterness. 
 
 It is not easy to put into words the charm of his person- 
 ality. In his presence the world seemed brighter, the Chris- 
 tian life more real and valuable; and, involuntarily, we 
 became possessed with an increased hopefulness. He was 
 so vital that he imparted vitality; so sunny of face and heart 
 that despondency and gloom fled from his presence. The 
 commission has passed into history; but its members will 
 never forget the manly man whose presence was a bene- 
 diction, and whose memory we love. 
 
 L. A. CRANDALL, 
 Pastor of Memorial Baptist Church, Chicago. 
 
 EDWARD JUDSON 
 
 Pastor of Memorial Baptist Church, New York 
 
 His genial and disinterested personality left a very definite 
 impression on my mind. I have seldom met a man who 
 seemed so devoted to the comfort and happiness of others; 
 and when I think how deeply I feel his loss, who knew him
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 181 
 
 only a little, I can form some idea of the depth of sorrow 
 through which those are passing who were closely related 
 to that generous nature. 
 
 EDWARD JUDSON. 
 
 My remembrance of him is that of a June day, full 
 of fragrance, light, song. 
 
 O. P. GlFFORD, D. D. 
 
 My home is directly across the street from his earthly 
 home; and we have communed together in these years 
 of his residence here in great intimacy and enjoyment. 
 A great grief has plowed its way into our hearts by his 
 sudden and unexpected going There must be a lov- 
 ing Ruler of human destinies who has inspired one of His 
 sons to live such a stainless, useful, devoted life as that 
 of Stephen Greene, and we will not complain, though 
 tears will fall, that the Master has said, " Come up higher." 
 With sincerest sympathy and in undying affection for Saint 
 Stephen, as I call him, I am, yours fraternally, 
 
 W. E. HUNTINGTON, 
 
 Dean of Boston University. 
 
 I am still trying to get my mind to accept the stern fact 
 that my friend and brother, the princely Christian man, 
 the noble character and denominational leader, is dead. 
 He was too vital and real and forceful for us easily to accept 
 the fact. Yet, who so ready for any call as he ? I never 
 knew him to turn away from God's call for anything. 
 I am sure he was equally ready when the final sum- 
 mons came. E. Y. MULLINS, 
 
 President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
 
 182 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 FROM THE WATCHMAN, BOSTON 
 
 The following editorial appeared in "The Watch- 
 man " of Boston, Mass., November 14, 1901 : 
 
 Occasionally, but very rarely, we meet a man in whose 
 personality there seems to be enshrined a ray of light from 
 other spheres. That is the impression Stephen Greene 
 made on many men. An acquaintance and friendship 
 dating back to college days, extending over more than 
 a quarter of a century, may distort our perception of his 
 rare qualities, but we are inclined to think that this long 
 association would reveal defects and limitations that we 
 do not find in our memory of him. Always he gave the 
 impression of light and peace that sprang from a fountain 
 in his inner life. Mr. Greene was one of the most success- 
 ful professional and business men that Boston has recently 
 produced. Without any capital but his own character and 
 education, he had risen to a foremost position as an architect 
 for great industrial concerns. He had the insight to discern 
 the tendencies of economical changes, and he had the 
 courage of his convictions. 
 
 Mr. Greene had a unique capacity of inspiring con- 
 fidence in his simple, direct statements. Men felt intui- 
 tively that there was a wholesome personality and a sound 
 character behind them. His outline of the possibilities 
 of a situation made them probabilities, and his sanguine fore- 
 cast was so governed by experience and good judgment that 
 his advice was always worth following. Great corporations 
 came to understand this, and the plans of Stephen Greene 
 came to be adopted with the minimum of discussion. 
 
 He carried these same qualities into his distinctively 
 Christian activities. In the churches at Providence, New-
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 183 
 
 buryport and Newton Centre, of which he was successively 
 a member, his perception of conditions and possibilities, 
 his optimistic outlook, his genial temperament, his open- 
 handed liberality, and his serene confidence in the triumph 
 of spiritual forces made him a power of the first order. 
 A church with one man in it like Stephen Greene would 
 always be influential in its community. 
 
 He was a rare man and we thank God for him. As we 
 recall that tall and manly form, that bright and inspiring 
 countenance, that hopeful tone, and remember all that he 
 accomplished and purposed to do, and realize that he had 
 barely turned fifty, we cannot understand his death; but 
 there are no unfinished pillars in God's temple. 
 
 FROM THE STANDARD, CHICAGO 
 
 The word came without warning to his friends and his 
 brother in Chicago that he had been taken dangerously ill 
 on November 6th; and before the morning he had passed 
 away. Although Mr. Greene had found it necessary during 
 the past year to lessen somewhat the strain of his large and 
 engrossing business by a vacation trip in Europe, he seemed 
 the picture of health. His fine physique seemed to have 
 survived unharmed the wear and tear of thirty years of busy 
 and often exhausting labor at his profession, and at the age 
 of fifty he doubtless looked forward to another twenty years 
 of life in which to enjoy the fruits of his success. The 
 wife, the two boys just entering manhood, the younger sons, 
 seemed to need him more than ever before. His many 
 friends needed him. The denominational and educational 
 interests with which he was connected needed his wise 
 counsel and patient assistance. But he is gone.
 
 1 84 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 When he made his home at Newton Centre, he became 
 at once a leader in the life of the First Church there, as he 
 had been in Providence and Newburyport. The pastors of 
 that church during his residence there Dr. L. C. Barnes, 
 the late Richard Montague, Dr. E. Y. Mullins, and Rev. 
 E. D. Burr looked to him for encouragement and prac- 
 tical assistance in every good work. Particularly in the 
 Sunday school was his sunny smile, his rich, musical voice, 
 his persistent optimism, attractive. Everybody liked Mr. 
 Greene. Children were fond of him. The trustees and 
 faculty of the Newton Theological Institution found in 
 him a wise counselor and a generous giver. In all plans 
 for the material improvement of the buildings and grounds 
 on " the hill " his expert knowledge was freely given. The 
 students often found encouragement and help in his hos- 
 pitable home. More than one young man will remember 
 all his life the handshake and the cheery greeting of this 
 Christian gentleman bestowed though he knew it not 
 in some critical hour of perplexity or depression. He was 
 so manly that any unmanly impulse to shirk or to deceive 
 or to grumble seemed impossible in his presence. 
 
 Beyond the circle of the church and the city his worth 
 soon became known, and the larger denominational enter- 
 prises profited by his advice and assistance. He was elected 
 president of the American Baptist Home Mission Society 
 in 1897 at Pittsburg, and presided at the anniversaries in 
 Rochester and Detroit. At Detroit he uttered radical words, 
 appealing for a better understanding and co-operation among 
 all denominational forces a cutting through of avenues, a 
 rounding off of corners, a straightening out of the map in 
 order that short cuts and easy roads might be made possible 
 in doing the work of the denomination. And he was, as
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 185 
 
 our readers will remember, a leading spirit among laymen 
 in the movement for co-ordination, presenting last spring at 
 Springfield the report of the committee recommending vari- 
 ous specific changes in the missionary methods of the socie- 
 ties to bring them more completely into harmony. In 
 rendering this service he encountered differences of opinion 
 and criticisms which must have been most distasteful to 
 a man so genial and fond of good feeling as he ; but he 
 kept steadfastly to his course, believing it to be for the best 
 good of all that changes should be made. Time alone can 
 show the full result of his faithful performance of this 
 somewhat unpleasant task. 
 
 Mr. Greene's home life has been peculiarly happy. He 
 was married, in 1874, to Miss Natalia Schubarth of Provi- 
 dence, who with four sons survive him. His brother, Dr. 
 Benjamin A. Greene, formerly of Lynn, now pastor in 
 Evanston, 111., is deeply bereaved by the crushing shock 
 of this sudden bereavement, and to him, as to all the rela- 
 tives, we extend heartfelt sympathy. 
 
 FROM THE EXAMINER, NEW YORK 
 
 Considered from several points of view, the life of Mr. 
 Greene was seen to be one of rare Christian symmetry and 
 broad activities. From the South, where he had become 
 well known as one of its " captains of industry " in its 
 cotton manufactures, testimonials of the esteem in which 
 he was held were received ; and Spelman Seminary, of which 
 he was a trustee, at the commemoration of its twentieth anni- 
 versary sent its message of sorrow and sympathy. The loss 
 of high-minded, broad-minded, public -spirited men like 
 Mr. Greene leaves a vacancy not easily filled. Not merely 
 New England but the whole country feels his loss. He
 
 186 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 will be greatly missed also in our denominational affairs, 
 in missions at home and abroad, and in educational enter- 
 prises, which were substantially promoted by his forceful- 
 ness and his contagious enthusiasm. Verily, at the meridian 
 of his powers, when but fifty years of age, a prince in Israel 
 has fallen. 
 
 FROM THE NEWTON CIRCUIT 
 
 In "The Newton Circuit" of November 8th 
 appeared the following: 
 
 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 Entered into rest November 7, 1901 
 An Appreciation 
 
 He had such abundant life it is impossible to think 
 of him as dead. He was such a great shaft of golden 
 light one could not think of the shadows, least of all 
 the shadow of death. It was the noonday of his career; 
 he was seeing the fulfillment of early hopes in enlarged 
 opportunities of usefulness. The full-orbed splendor of mid- 
 day has no suggestion in it of night. We thought we should 
 long enjoy the sunshine of his presence. He was so great 
 the longer years seemed necessary to afford him adequate 
 expression. He was so good it seemed as though a good 
 God must enjoy leaving him in the world he was endeavor- 
 ing to save. He was so generous he seemed to claim an 
 unending day in which to bestow the best gifts of his love. 
 His heart-beat was an echo of the pulse of a greater love. 
 "What a beautiful morning," some one said this morning, 
 and another answered, " How could it be anything else with 
 his radiant life above the stars? " 
 
 He was a man of unusual mind sensitive, alert,
 
 RESOLUTIONS AND LETTERS 187 
 
 of quick perception. Everything that was worthy of a wel- 
 come found recognition in his thought. His native gifts 
 were splendidly trained in school and college, disciplined 
 in the curriculum of life, perfected in the experience 
 of maturer years. 
 
 His mastery of his special science did not disqualify 
 him for the appreciation of worth in other lines of study. 
 His intellectual sympathies were remarkable. Mr. Greene 
 was a helpful spirit in every enterprise with which he 
 had to do. Every one who knew him felt his friendli- 
 ness. As gentle as a woman, he cared for a friend who 
 was sick; strong with exhaustless love, he included the 
 widest reaches of the kingdom of God in his sympathetic 
 interest. 
 
 He had an inviolate conscience. As his mind welcomed 
 only that which was white and high, his heart loved only 
 what was good and pure, his conscience could approve 
 only what was true and right. 
 
 That which was unwise or questionable should never 
 be done; but what was essentially and absolutely right 
 should be done, could be done, indeed must be done; and 
 the great, good man could riot understand why any one 
 should ever hesitate to undertake the right, even if it 
 involved difficulty or cost or both. 
 
 His conscience was imperial and regnant in every rela- 
 tion of life. He was one mill architect who would never 
 accept inducements to recommend a particular machine 
 for a mill he was building. He studied the interests of his 
 clients, and considered their confidence his most sacred 
 trust. Everything that went into the mill must stand 
 upon its essential merits. Makers of machinery would 
 have paid generously for a first place on the list of Lock-
 
 i88 STEPHEN GREENE 
 
 wood, Greene & Co., but they could get there only by mak- 
 ing the best machine. He could have enriched himself in 
 thousands, if in his business career he had allowed him- 
 self to do the things which an ordinary business custom 
 approves. 
 
 He was a moral vertebrate. His executive force was 
 always at the maximum because he was in the right. He 
 could concentrate his powers upon every task because 
 none were wasted in the friction of adjustment. He had 
 a divine enthusiasm because of a triumphant faith. He 
 believed God; the right would surely prevail. His optimism 
 was unconquerable. He believed the best to be always pos- 
 sible, and sought to make it actual. He is not dead; such 
 a man can never die: "He that doeth the will of God 
 abideth forever." 
 
 EVERETT D. BURR, 
 Pastor First Baptist Church, Newton Centre.
 
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 LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL.
 
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