Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/249

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230 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS finances; she sheltered and protected from petty cares; and she made it possible for that mighty intellect to give itself without reserve, without restraint or hindrance, to the work to which she was called. An * Organized Providence ^ she cer- tainly was, and a necessary complement to Miss Willard 's in- most nature and life.

    • The * divinity that shapes our ends* ordained for Miss

Gordon a mission that an angel might well envy, and so long as the' name of Frances E. Willard lives in the minds of men and women and upon the pages of history . . . so long will the name of Anna Gordon be linked with hers ; and as a new Damon and Pythias, or better still, a new David and Jonathan, they will take their place among the immortal few who have proven that earthly friendship may be a flower of heaven's own planting, and that the greatest privilege which can come to a mortal life is that of loving faithful ministry.*' When Mrs. Lillian M. N. Stevens succeeded Miss Willard as president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Miss Gordon became vice-president at large. Valiantly, and with profound eflSdency, she stood by Lillian M. N. Stevens. With an unfaltering, unwavering fidelity she met the duties of close counsellor and coadjutor. Her fidelity and her loyalty to Mrs. Stevens during their years of close companionship was abounding in the spirit of love that **vaunteth not it- self." Upon the death of Lillian M. N. Stevens, April 19, 1914, Miss Gordon became the president of the National Woman 's Christian Temperance Union. Miss Gordon has been so closely allied with the work in this country and as honorary secretary of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union since its organization, that she is probably more familiar with the plan and purposes of the temperance leaders of the world to-day than any other per- son. While she has varied talents, and has given unreserved- ly of her ability to the work of philanthropy as expressed in the Woman 's Christian Temperance Union, her life has had a fullness and richness enjoyed by few. Her outlook is so broad that from her early years she real- ized, as few of the world's great characters have done, the