Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-11-11

man of deed and action. DR.. Ecob was
never disheartened by being most al
ways in a minority.
A brave and uncompromising fighter
of the wrong, a preacher of rare mys-
teal power, gentle personality, he
had marked and recognized ability
as poet, painter and preacher.
DR.. Ecob was an artist in feeling. in
the use of words and Of the brush.
His sermons were always filled with
word pictures of natural scenes and
phenomena painted with exquisite
fidelity and the deepest feeling. His
love of nature was an absorbing pas
sion. and he had the keenest sympathy
! with her various moods.
But few save his intimate friends
have been aware that his art instincts
| have found expression in any other
| form but word pictures. DR.. Ecob,
was, however, an artist of unusual
gifts with the brush and pigments
| He has painted many beautiful land
scapes which the public never has had
the pleasure of seeing. DIR. Ecob could
have secured an enviable degree of
|
sion. Artists of note have seen some
of his pictures and have declared them
to be creditable to the highest degree.
Some of his work has been worthy of a
degree of fame which it has not at
| tanned simply because he was working
| for recreation and the love Of II
| rather than for fame or profit.
Il have for many years belonged TO
| the minority in various righteous but
| unpopular demonstrating this time
! l have become quite hardened to the
slings and arrows of outrageous ma
| jorities' the words of Or. Ecob
| himself.
| He was merci!ess toward the drink
! evil over a pcriad of so years. His
! own words express it best: '"rhe poor
temperance reformers are bounded
everywhere they go, by If You destroy
the saloon. what will you put in the
/ place of it?' Nothing, gentlemen con
vatives,-absolutely nothing. If |
kill rattlesnake I am in no fever To
make his place good in the genera!
economy of nature. The saloon is just
/ as deadly in the moral world. Believe
me, my temperance reformers our sole
business is to kill that rattlesnake."
! The Doctor lived to see the begin
ming of the end of that snake.
| Those who knew DR. Ecob in the en-
vironment of his summer home on the
| farm at Gilbertsville, New York, knew
| him to be happiest close to nature.
He was always cutting away brush
and branches to enhance the view of
the valley below, and planting again
trees and shrubbery which has grown
up to beautify the place The scheme
of things around the old farm house
was always rustic,--never formal and
| trim.
! The following words Of DIR. Ecob
show how simply he found God in ma
turc: .
| IF we can hear the voice of God in
all sounds. see the sweep of His will
| mall motions. catch hints of His taste
in all beauty, follow the reach of HIS
imagination in all heights and dis
tances, and trace the delicate ministry
of His love in all the little graces and
utilities that spring and blossom about
| US as thick as the grass, we will tread
| Gods world with reverent feet, as If
| it were a temple"
| II, for one," he said, want to break
! loose from this ENHANCEMENT Of false
teaching cast upon the soul by goddess
| philosophers about forces and laws and
second causes, and step out untram-
meled into the presence of my Cod
| the living God. 1 want to DO able to
! pluck a flower and look up straight
| into the face of God and thank him for
His rare device, this work Of art fresh
from His shaping fingers.--The sense
! of beauty does not reside in the dirt.
Salts and gases do not plan and build
and paint. You have to account for a
| lily precisely as you have to account
| for the Sistine Chapel"
/ The temperament that loved nature
and painted it exquisitely could not be
other than poetic. More in his earlier
days than in later years. DR.. Ecob
wrote beautiful poetry. Poems from
his pen were published in many publ
cations. In the Criterion in 1890 APP
peared one which is a rare expression
Of his perception of the spirituality in
nature, and of his own simplicity
! NY Burial Place
A tree shall be my monument
An elm grown great and gnaried and
| old.
| It's mighty dome be DER me bert,
| Its roots my form enfold.
Then back to earth I shall not melt,
But. drawn into it's very blood,
Climbing throughout it's frame, be felt
In bole and branch and bud.
And when beneath the winter sky
| 1t wildly swings its empty arms;
And bitter winds go kissing by,
! And blindly drifting storms.
Safe folded in the conscious buds
Will keep watch upon the sun: =