During all this decade Dr. Abbott had carried on his editorial work and
the management of his paper. He had dared to make some remarkable
changes. To the great dissatisfaction of many of his readers, he had
changed the name of his paper--that well-known, loved and appropriate
name, _The Christian Union_--to _The Outlook_. Even the name _Christian
Union_ was a magnificent property in itself, and the doctor had to
answer a great many complaints and listen to prophecies of disaster, but
it did not seem to worry him. There was an improvement in form and dress
made at the same time, and the smaller page with wider columns was
accepted cheerfully. It was a conspicuous and very welcome visitor in
the household, and soon had an enhanced popularity. This ran for only a
year or so, when another change was made to magazine form, with a neat
greenish-gray cover, resembling more the old-fashioned almanac than
anything else. This, many of the subscribers thought, was a fatal
innovation, but it took only a few short weeks to convince them that the
new size was more convenient to read, to carry, and to preserve; and so
all the changes came to be acknowledged as advance movements in keeping
with the times.
In my intercourse with Dr. Abbott during these ten years I saw that he
was under great strain from his many duties. His two sermons a week, his
editorial duties, and his lecture engagements were more than any man
could keep up with, even had he the physique of an athlete. I learned
that his ambition was to reach the great people more extensively than
was possible through the pulpit. He told me long before he resigned that
he wanted to stop preaching and try to make _The Outlook_ more nearly
what it ought to be by giving it his best work. His sons were developing
good business ability, and he wanted to leave them an established
business. The fact that the increased growth and influence of his paper
has placed it as the very first in its line is evidence that his head
was level, for is not _The Outlook_ the paper above all others that
voices public sentiment on all the important issues of the times? In all
the improvements and continued elements of success he has been
peculiarly aided by the discriminating taste and literary talent of his
associate editor, Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, and by the intelligent
enterprise and judgment of his publisher, Mr. William B. Rowland; yet,
after all, _The Outlook_ is Lyman Abbott.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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