One of the earliest recollections of our boyhood home, was the weekly coming to our house of the Sabbath Recorder, at the editorial head of which stood the names, "Geo. B. Utter, and Thomas B. Brown," names now spoken no more save in memory. To our childish imagination, separated as we were much of the time from Sabbath-keepers and well out upon the frontiers where we never saw the representative men of our denomination, those two names stood for grand, noble, wise and godly men. Subsequent years of intimate acquaintance with both did not dim, but rather brightened the picture thus made.
In 1844, at the age of twenty-five years, Bro. Utter was one of the company of brethren who established the Sabbath Recorder. In the meantime he had graduated from the Oneida Institute at Whitesboro, N. Y., and from the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, had spent some time in Europe collecting a Sabbath library and doing some other literary and denominational work, and had learned the printer's trade in the office of the Protestant Sentinel, a paper which was the forerunner of the Sabbath Recorder.
In some capacity, much of the time as editor and proprietor, he continued his relations to this paper until it was transferred to the American Sabbath Tract Society, its present owners and managers, in 1872. Thus nearly thirty years of his life, from early youth until after the full prime of manhood's strength, were given to this paper. Since leaving this work he has still continued to edit and manage a weekly paper, in connection with an important printing establishment at Westerly, R. I.
These fifty years of life devoted to this one branch of business illustrate the motto he often quoted to younger men, "Have some one business which shall be the business of your life, and stick to it." The success which he made of his work is a good illustration of the wisdom of his motto.
But such a singleness of purpose, tenaciously held, is not inconsistent with broad sympathies, and the performance of much good work along other lines and in other departments of life. Of this fact, Brother Utter's life has been a good example. Fifty years ago he aided in organizing the Seventh-day Baptist Missionary Society, which he has served as Secretary, of which he was treasurer for more than 20 years, and of whose Board of Managers he was a member at the time of his death. In all those relations he was an earnest and efficient worker, a wise and safe counselor, and a warm friend of the cause and those engaged in it.
Also in a more personal and private way, our brother found time for much service that will be remembered with gratitude by those who were the objects of it, while life shall last. In social life he was courteous and hospitable in a marked degree, as all who had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance will bear witness.
His religious life, though quiet and undemonstrative, was characterized by profound reverence, deep conviction, and often by very tender feeling. The extreme self control which he always maintained, not infrequently lead those who were not intimate with him to suppose that he was cold and unsympathetic; those who knew him best, however, do not need to be told that such was not the case.
The personal form, once so familiar among us, will be seen no more, but the influence of such a life is imperishable; and from its quiet, steady, deep, and earnest purposes and motives our younger men may learn lessons and gather inspirations of incalculable worth to them. - Lewis A. Platts, Editor
