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But if there is one thing that most typified Harry Luce, it was his deep and abiding interest in religion. Luce was a religious man in the best sense of that word, without a trace of pietism or holier-than-thouism. A Presbyterian, he served on the board of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church and was active in a campaign to raise $50 million for the church. He also served as a director of the Union Theological Seminary, where he endowed a chair. But his interest in religion was not primarily institutional. Well versed in theology, he was comfortable with the works and ideas of Teilhard de Chardin, Bonhoeffer, Barth, Kung and Tillich. One of his closest friends was Jesuit John Courtney Murray, and he frequently attended Mass, where he was fascinated by the changes in the liturgy and delighted to find Martin Luther's A Mighty Fortress Is Our God in the Catholic hymnal. He liked good singing and good preaching.
Luce was interested in the quest for the historical Jesus. To him, God was a phenomenon to be prodded and investigated as well as prayed to, and nothing fascinated him more than theological speculation and debate. A woman seated next to him at a dinner was once startled when Luce turned and inquired: "What do you think of the resurrection of the body?" His deep interest in religion early gave TIME's Religion section a theological dimension when most of the press was concerned about Saturday church notices.
Not as Great. Luce resigned his title of Editor in Chief in 1964 and became Editorial Chairman. He spent more time at his home in Phoenix, maintained a less hectic schedule, traveled more. But he continued to send a stream of letters, memos and clippings to New York. He made several speeches a year (he always wrote his own), continued to help the Presbyterian drive, and accompanied a group of business leaders on a TIME-sponsored trip to Eastern Europe last fall.
Some years ago, when asked about the cultural shock of adjusting to the U.S. after 14 years in China, Luce said: "I was never disillusioned with or by America, but I was from my earliest manhood dissatisfied with America.
America was not being as great and as good as I knew she could be, as I believed with every nerve and fiber God himself had intended her to be." It was largely his desire to see his country as great as it should be that drove Harry Luce, by his rights, to want to explain it to itself and to others. Perhaps he succeeded a little.
When his good friend John Foster Dulles died, Luce went to Arlington Cemetery and watched as the coffin was lowered. "Then," he later wrote, "people started home, walking in the sunlight and gentle breeze of a May day. The hours had been hours of reverence—and serenity. The last enemy is Death, but Death seems tangibly serene when it can be said of a man: he ran the course, he kept the faith." So, whatever his triumphs and failures, did Henry Robinson Luce.
* It is part of the introduction to a soon-to-be-published paperback series based on year-to-year excerpts from TIME.