MARSHALL FIELD 
 
 f!^ 
 
 JOHN ARCHIBALD MORISON 
 
LAWRENCE J. GUTTER 
 
 Collecrion of Chicogoono 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 AT CHICAGO 
 
 The University Library 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive 
 
 in 2010 witli funding from 
 
 CARLI: Consortium of Academic and Researcli Libraries in Illinois 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/marshallfieldOOmori 
 
TO 
 
 MRS. MARSHALL FIELD 
 
 "Know ye not that there is a prince and 
 a great man fallen 
 
 First Presbyterian Church, Chicago, lUinois 
 January 21, 1906 
 

 c5 
 
 ^ An Appreciation 
 
 o When Edmund Burke died, Canning declared, 
 
 2 "there is but one event, but it is the event of the 
 
 ^l. world, 'Burke is dead." 
 
 ^ These terse words are singularly appropriate to 
 
 2 the sad circumstances of the past week from whatever 
 standpoint we view them — 
 
 Whether as members of this Church, which for 
 long years was the spiritual home of Marshall Field, 
 or as citizens of this mighty city of Chicago, whose 
 
 ^ , energy and influence is felt throughout the world, 
 . or as members of that world-wide confederation of 
 humanity dwelling in many different lands, yet bound 
 together by bonds Divinely forged and sealed — with 
 all to-day there is one thought that is uppermost in 
 mind and heart, Marshall Field is dead. 
 
 ^'-^ It is a time to mourn: 
 
 r^ Sorrow has melted the walls that divide class 
 
 from class in city and nation, and everywhere is 
 heard the voice of the mourner, whispering with 
 broken accents of grief, saying, " We know that there 
 is a prince and a great man fallen this day." The 
 pulpit of this church, in which for so many years 
 
 
Marshall Field worshipped, and whose interests as a 
 trustee he so long promoted, may not be silent at 
 this time with regard to his princely life. 
 
 Yet, how difficult it is to speak! Sorrow fills 
 the heart and seems to have paralyzed the power of 
 thought and drowned the fountains of utterance with 
 grief s solemn tides. 
 
 We gather as it were in the darkness beside the 
 margin of that vast mysterious sea over which his 
 spirit has gone. We gaze across its dark waters 
 whose secrets awe our hearts with solemn mystery. 
 We cannot discern the other shore whither his pure 
 spirit has passed, and from him no word comes back 
 to tell us 
 
 "Whether at all they be, 
 Whether as bond or free, 
 Or whether they, too, as we, 
 Or by what way they have sped. 
 
 With us is the darkness and a sense of loss — 
 The sagacious man, 
 The captain of industry, 
 The generous philanthropist. 
 The loyal and distinguished friend, 
 has gone, to return no more. 
 
It is dark, indeed; yet this darkness here and 
 there is driven back by those hghts, never to be 
 extinguished, which his own hands had kept trimmed 
 and burning. Brightest among those shining lamps 
 burns the hght of his hdehty to duty. 
 
 The long roll of earth s heroes, whose loyalty to 
 duty has lifted up their statues in the temple of fame, 
 contains no more conspicuous impressive name than 
 that of Marshall Field. With him the sense of duty 
 was imperial. 
 
 The greatest German thinker of the last century, 
 Immanuel Kant, used frequently to say that there 
 were two things which filled him with ever increasing 
 wonder and awe the more he contemplated them — 
 the starry heavens above and moral law within. He 
 examined that moral law, that voice which seems to 
 speak with authority the meaning of the words ought 
 and ought not, and as he examined it he came to the 
 conclusion that it spoke with the voice of God, and 
 he said that he was prepared, dispensing with all other 
 arguments, to rest the proof of God, His existence. 
 His truth. His power upon that one authoritative fact 
 in every man's consciousness that we call duty. 
 
 Marshall Field saw his duty and did it, quickly 
 and surely, unostentatiously and successfully. 
 
The courage, perseverance, and skill with which 
 he attacked and conquered the herculean tasks of his 
 life sprang Irom nothing else than the principle and 
 conviction of duty. 
 
 The sense ot duty rose with him every morning, 
 companioned with him throughout his busiest day 
 and guarded his slumbers at night. 
 
 It was co-extensive with the action of his intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 Like a shadow it followed him wherever he 
 went, nor did it leave him at death but passed with 
 him unto the land beyond where duty receives its 
 benediction and its reward. In this lofty conception 
 of duty we behold the key to the character and 
 career of our late foremost citizen. 
 
 Well may we all, and more especially the young, 
 bring our unread volumes of destiny and learn what 
 our duty is by the light that streams upon their 
 pages from his shining example. 
 
 As has been so well said of him by Mr. 
 McCutcheon: "A man who by legitimate means 
 builds up a great fortune, in the acquirement of which 
 he has never lost the confidence and trust of his 
 fellow men; whose business triumph has not been 
 by means of financial trickery or the evasion of his 
 
country's laws: about whose fortune (unlike many 
 other great American fortunes) there has never been 
 a suspicion of taint. 
 
 A man whose name is synonymous with business 
 honor and integrity; whose faith in Chicago ever 
 has been steadfast and true, whose life will be a 
 beacon hght to guide future generations to honorable 
 success.' 
 
 We may lay his mortal remains to rest in mother 
 earth, and over them we may plant the cypress and 
 weeping willow watered by a nation s tears, but 
 above these symbols of sorrow shall there burn with 
 undimmed lustre and imperishable glory that star of 
 duty by which he was guided, and the following of 
 which will bring honor and success to the faithful 
 and courageous of our land and city. 
 
 As we thus read hfes possibilities by the light 
 that keeps vigil over his tomb, our grief is in a 
 measure assuaged, and we realize as never before 
 how poor this world would be without the mausoleums 
 of her mighty dead. 
 
 The distinguished men who with toil of head and 
 heart and hands have pressed forward and upward 
 through the long gorge of time and have won the 
 far light beyond. 
 
Who have outstripped us in the race and have 
 found the lofty crags of duty close upon the table 
 lands of God. 
 
 It may be said of him as it has been of Lincoln, 
 "The more the man as he was is known, the more 
 completely an insight is obtained into his true char- 
 acter, the more his private and public life is studied, 
 the more carefully his acts are weighed, the higher 
 will he rise in the estimation of all whose esteem 
 is desirable. 
 
 Coming years will detract naught from him. He 
 has passed into history. 
 
 There's no lover of honesty and integrity, no 
 admirer of firmness and resolution, no sympathizer 
 with conscientious conviction, no friend of man need 
 fear to leave — 
 
 Marshall Field. 
 
 We long shall miss thee as we go our ways. 
 
 The home will miss thee from its broken band. 
 Full many a tear will tell thy sober praise 
 
 And all good works will miss thy helping hand. 
 
 And yet — Good-bye — Good-bye — thou faithful soul 
 From toil and trouble thou hast earned release. 
 
 Thy weary feet are resting at the goal 
 The pain of living ended in God s peace. 
 
v. 
 
 sat> 
 
 ^'