Excerpt from The Life of Jesse W. Fell

There are few men in any generation who see their lives in relation to the accomplishment of that generation. Few realize, altho all profess to believe, that appraisal of worth must be according to the proportion of a man's part in the advance of his day; and that all honors and distinctions fall away from men when they stand before the bar of years, to be judged in the stark light of truth as to character and service. All men acknowledge this true, but the men are rare indeed who apply it to their own lives, and make it the basis of their individual schedule of values. Many men assert the immortal ity of the soul, but few can conceive themselves in any scheme of time which transcends the limits of their own lives; or con tent themselves to labor without reward, because they believe that in the fulness of time all souls must find full compensation.

In writing the story of a man whose part in the life of his generation might in itself bring him some meed of remem brance, I am nevertheless most anxious that his rare quality of indifference to such rewards as men might give, of steadfastness to ideals not generally held in his day, of faith in ultimate things, should stand out as the true reason for his being brought as fully as possible before men. Here was one who steadily ignored or refused honor and fame, who despised no quiet and unrecognized labor, who was not turned aside from his steady aim by the pressure of circumstance; in short, whose belief in the future was interpreted in all the doings of his busy life. This is the sufficient reason for writing a life of Jesse W. Fell.

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