The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1917-12-03
TRIBUTE IS PAID
TO DR.. WV. SAL7ER'
Veteran Pastor of coneregationalists
Honored by Memorial Recently
Dedicated to
Him.
A PIONEER CHURCHMAN
CongreqationaIism In Iowa and IN
This District Fiourished
With Him as the
Center.

Whenever Congregationalism Is
mentioned in Iowa, the name oil Or.
William Salter of Burlington comes
to mind. This veteran pastor Of the
Congregational faith was present at
the dedication of the First Cnngreea-
| tional church Of KeolSuk, and was
familiar figure in the church here as
elsewhere in Iowa. The following
from the Hawk-Eye will be Of inter
est to Congregationalists here, ana
throughout this district:
At the dedication of the William
Salter Memorial Home at the state
university, at Iowa City, DR.. Naboth
Osborne gave the address, as follows:
There are some subjects that reflect
honor on the man who deals with
them. Such is their dignity and their
meaning and their worth that they
shine in their own beauty and are
mirrored in every true word that may
be spoken of them. There are some
characters that ennoble those with
whom they dwell. Strength and
beauty, grace and honor are so at
tractively compounded in them that
those who live with and love them be
come assimilated to them.
Such is the character of the man Of
While he lived he was the soul Of
modesty, yet he left his ineffacable
mark on every institution that is Of
permanent value in the city which
was his home The church in which
for over half century he preached
is monument to DR.. Salter, the
strength of its enduring stone Is SYM
bolic of the 2ermanence with which
he built his life into the kingdom Of
God. In the library which he helped
to found, and OF which for many
years he was the president of the
board, there hangs an excellent por
trait OF him, but those who knew
him and his tastes find In the careful
collection Of books which he there
made better portrait of his mind.
Near his home is public school
named in his honor, but for years the
known efficiency of our entire school
system depended largely on the care
and sense of responsibility with which
he undertook the duty of school trus-
tee. Here is prophet not without
honor in his own country.
Dr. Salter was pioneer, he links
us to another generation. In early
life he viewed our state as land
of promise. Before the state was
formed, before it became the ter
ritory of Iowa, in those long gone
days when 1t was still comprised in
the territory of Wisconsin he came to
do his share in its development. 9th
ers came to invest their money; he
came to invest his life. He was CT
the heroic stock who pioneer all
over the world. They clear the fields,
we enjoy the fruits. They SOW the
seed, we reap the harvest. They lay
the foundations, we build and live In
the house. Few were the villages
and fewer the towns in the territory
when this cultured young graduate of
New York. University and Andover
Theological seminary came to spy out
the land. yet he lived to see his city
grow into one of the important cities
in the state. Small was the prospect
of any immediate success in building
up strong and self-supporting
church when, as a home missionary,
succeeded after a few years in build
ing up one of the strong churches In
the state. Poor were the churches
he came to serve. yet ne brought
with him an intellectual and moral
and spiritual equipment that were
equal to the demands now made by
larger and more prosperous churches.
To churches that were SO poor that
they could not maintain themselves
he gave as freely Of his character
and culture as il they were the great
est churches in the land.
1t is fitting that in this city of cul-
ture and learning, at the very heart
of the educational life Of our state, a
building should be erected to his
memory. For not only was he inter
ested in religion, that lighting Of the
mind. without which no intelligent
and informed religion can endure.
The band Of scholarly young men with
whom he was ordained at Denmark
pledged themselves each to organize
an Independent church and together
to found college. Within Zen days
of that ordination he had written in
his diary that in his Judgment that
neck Of land made by a loop in the
Des Moines river where keOsauqua
now stands was favorable place for
such college. That location was
not chosen, but the stately buildings.
the democratic spirit the scholarly
atmosphere and the christian char
ncter Of Grinnell college are another
monument to the vision, the culture
and the faith of these young home
missionaries from Andover. Their
work was less spectacular but on the
same plane with that of those Jesuit
pioneers whom Parkman so justly
and so honorably praises.
DR.. Salter was student and a
scholar. From the beginning he had
serious views of life. He believed in
God as the source of all truth and
through the truth he learned he en-
deavored to interpret the mind Of
God He never posed as a philisoph-
er, literary man, or man of sci
ence; he never posed as historian.
1t was not in him to pose; yet in his
contributions to the journal of the
State Historical society. in his His
tory of Iowa. and in his life of Grimes
that heroic statesman, who took his