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servant. This public servant was Ida Lewis, who for fifty years was
the official keeper of the Lime Rock lighthouse in Narragansett Bay.
She had been known for more than fifty years for her early and later
often-repeated heroism as a life-saver. And now she was at last on her
death-bed. She has since died. I know nothing of her career but what
public reports have told. So far as her duty required her at her post,
{191} she kept her light burning through all the nights and the storms
of those many years. She saved, in all, upon various occasions,
eighteen lives of those who were in danger from wreck. Her occupation
thus had its perils. It had, what must have been much harder to
endure, its steady call upon daily fidelity. It was, on the whole, an
obscure and humble occupation; although by chance, as well as by
reason of her skill and devotion, this particular lighthouse keeper
was privileged to become in a sense famous. But certainly it could
have been no part of her original plan to pursue a famous career. When
we seek public prominence we do not select the calling of the
lighthouse keeper. I do not know how she came to find this calling.
She may not even have chosen it. But she certainly chose how to live
her life when she had found it. What it means for the world to have
such lives lived, a very little thought will show us. What spirit is
needed to live such lives as they should be lived, we seldom consider,
until such a public servant, dying with the fruits of her years to
some extent known to the public, reminds us of our debt and of her
devotion.

The newspaper in which I read of this case, in commenting upon its
significance, also reported (I do not know how accurately), this
incident, of which some of you may know more than I do. I quote the
words: [Footnote: _Boston Evening Transcript,_ October 23, 1911.]

"Forty-one years ago, Daniel Williams, keeper of {192} the light at
Little Traverse Bay, in Lake Michigan, went out in a boat for the
rescue of a ship's crew in distress, and did not come back alive.
For three days the storm continued. But his sorrowing widow did not
forget other lives, and each night climbed the winding stairs and
trimmed the lamp. This duty she discharged until the government
learned the situation, when it authorised her to continue. And she
is still at her post."

Lighthouse keepers are not the only people who live thus. There are
countless lights kept alive in homes w