Excerpt from Glen K. Shurtleff Memorial: Entered Association Work at Utica, 1883, Denver, 1889, Cleveland, 1893; Born November 21, 1860; Died January 5, 1909

Mr. Shurtleff was born in Watkins Glen, New York, November 21, 1860. Of the forty - eight years of his life, thirty years he was in contention with himself, suffering from an infirmity which he said was never absent one day perhaps in all those years, and which culminated at last in his death, to our great loss and surprise. Few knew what had been his contention; he did not speak of it.

His was a model rounding out of a Young Men's Christian Association life. In the three divisions of his life, the physical, the spiritual, and the mental, he gave his strength and his vigor. In the physical, he had not that on which to build that provided a long life for him, care for it as he might. Aftertwenty-five years rounded out in the Association work, he was ripened to the harvest on January 5, when he went to his reward, and took with him the sheaves of many a life influenced by his own. He fought this hard fight, and it has reminded some of us of Paul of old, for nearly his last words were, I have fought hard and long; I have done my best. He had fought a good fight and he had finished his course.

Our ideal of a perfect man may not differ very much among ourselves as we think of him today. But when we see a perfect man developed, and find so much of beauty and of character, we can but stop and make record. And so we do. My experience was a personal one with him for all the fifteen years that he was with us, and I never knew a character that carried so much force, so much sweetness and so much strength, not only for itself but for another, as I found in him. First and foremost, he was always a Christian man, and he believed that when Christianity was at the basis and Christ was the one on whom it was built, all other mat ters would fall' in line in due proportion. He believed in a few things tremendously as fundamental, and he endeavored to make others believe the same. He talked and walked and lived with God, and, like Abou Ben Adhem, he loved God because he loved his fellow man so well. His life was a flowing river-not only a well - deep and full. He looked for the best in men, and gave men his best. His life was an inspiration, his memory is a benediction. Not always perfect, he made no claim to that; he felt the limitations of his life, and his life was a pattern in conquering limitations, as it might be to any of us. He-always sought for those who knew more than he, and seldom found them. I have in this record combined the ideas of the workers in our Association building, the chief ones, and I think this is the combined expression.

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