tion>William Elliot Griffis
Charles Carleton Coffin: War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066211462
Table of Contents
Preface
Among the million or more readers of "Carleton's" books, are some who will enjoy knowing about him as boy and man. Between condensed autobiography and biography, we have here, let us hope, a binocular, which will yield to the eye a stereoscopic picture, having the solidity and relief of ordinary vision.
Two facts may make one preface. Mrs. Coffin requested me, in a letter dated May 10, 1896, to outline the life and work of her late husband. "Because," said she, "you write in a condensed way that would please Mr. Coffin, and because you could see into Mr. Coffin's motives of life."
With such leisure and ability as one in the active pastorate, who preaches steadily to "town and gown" in a university town, could command, I have cut a cameo rather than chiselled a bust or statue. Many good friends, especially Dr. Edmund Carleton and Rev. H. A. Bridgman, have helped me. To them I herewith return warm thanks.
W. E. G.
Ithaca, N. Y., May 24, 1898.
Charles Carleton Coffin
INTRODUCTION.
Charles Carleton Coffin had a face that helped one to believe in God. His whole life was an evidence of Christianity. His was a genial, sunny soul that cheered you. He was an originator and an organizer of happiness. He had no ambition to be rich. His investments were in giving others a start and helping them to win success and joy. He was a soldier of the pen and a knight of truth. He began the good warfare in boyhood. He laid down armor and weapons only on the day that he changed his world. His was a long and beautiful life, worth both the living and the telling. He loved both fact and truth so well that one need write only realities about him. He cared little for flattery, so we shall not flatter him. His own works praise him in the gates.
He
