Aaron Martin Crane (1839-1914), spent his early life on a farm in his native town of Glover, Vermont. The public schools, an academy, and the Newbury Seminary - attended but for a term gave Mr. Crane an excellent basis on which to build such an education as equalled, practically, what is afforded by a college curriculum. Snatches of leisure, we may well believe, were diligently devoted to the pursuit of his chosen studies. At all events, his writings and conversation proved his comprehensive knowledge of language, science, and literature.

His was a life of vicissitude. From 1862 to 1865, he served in the war of that period, entering as a private in a Vermont cavalry company, and becoming successively, lieutenant and captain. The same year in which he left the army, he became editor of a Republican paper in Westchester, Va., and continued it till 1869, when he was appointed Internal Revenue assessor, which office he held till it was abolished by law in 1873. He used often to say that he never liked the work because "it was hunting the bad." Later, he became special agent in charge at St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, San Francisco, etc., till 1884.

A varied life is often the outcome of vacillating purpose, fickleness of choice, love of adventure, or repeated failure to find the true vocation, honestly and earnestly sought for. In other cases, it is the result of a nature denied by circumstance the pursuance of its bent, and taking up conscientiously and industriously, a work which, congenial or distasteful, is seemingly thrust upon one by the kind hand of Providence. This was the case with Mr. Crane. He did what it appeared to him he was bound to do at the given time, believing, no doubt, that the Ruling, the Overruling Will would make all these various situations preparatives to the ultimate end that he longed to compass. Indeed, but for his many-sided life, his breadth and depth of experience with men of multifarious conditions and opinions and character, he could not have so well understood human nature, in all its diversity, or the manifold needs of humanity. Nor, indeed, would he have attained that self-knowledge which renders men useful to their fellows in proportion to the amount of it they possess.

Mr. Crane's physique harmonized with his spiritual power, and a certain lofty magnetism of presence aided in impressing his hearers, when he taught or lectured, and was no small factor in his remarkable work as a healer. His facial expression, his voice, his whole manner, assured those whom he neared, whether in his classes, in the lecture-room, or at the bedside of the sick, that he was what he seemed to be; that he had fully tested the Divine Power for himself, before seeking its influence on others. One felt sure of his illimitable faith and his whole-souled sincerity.

In 1906, appeared Mr. Crane's first book, "Right and Wrong Thinking, and Their Results." This work met with great favor; and in 1911 the twelfth edition was issued, and it has been translated into several languages: these two facts alone are a more telling criticism of its value than pages of laudatory comment.

The same simplicity of diction, cogent reasoning, and strength of thought that mark the first work characterize the second also, "A Search after Ultimate Truth," published in 1910.

Mr. Crane had profound sympathy with sufferers; it was his delight to help them healthward; and his Heaven-derived gift made him marvellously successful in doing so. Yet, as much as he rejoiced in healing a sick humanity, he felt that his highest service was the exposition of Truth, as he had found it. It is a singular coincidence that Aaron has teacher for one of its meanings; and Mr. Crane felt that his highest vocation was reached when he taught what he believed, either by word of mouth in his classes and lectures, or by means of the printed page.