Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1890 — HIS TRIBUTE TO A FRIEND. [ARTICLE]

HIS TRIBUTE TO A FRIEND.

Dr. Talmage’s Memorial Sermon on. The Late Henry W. Grady. His Memory Entwined With a Garland From the Vintage of Love —The Casket of Friendship Wreathed With Beautiful Flowers From the Garden of Thought At toe Tabernacle in Brooklyn last Sunday morning, Rev. T. De Witt Talmage delivered a “Memorial on too Life and Death of Henry W. Grady the Editor and Orator.” He took for his text Isaiah viii, 1: “Take thee a great roll and write in it with a man’s pen.” The preacher said: To Isaiah, with royal blood in bis veins and a habitant of palaces, does this divine order come. He is to take a roll, a large roll, and write on it with a pen, not an angel’s pen, but a man’s pen. So God henored the pen and so honored manuscript. In oar day the mightiest roll is the religious and secular newspaper, and the mightiest pen is the editor’s pen, whether for good or eviL And God says now to every literary man, and especially to every journalist: “Take thee a great roll and write in it with a man’s pen.”

Vi ithin a few weeks one of the strongest, most vivid and most brilliant of those pens was laid down on the editorial desk in Atlanta, never again to be resumed. I was far away at the time. We had been sailing up from the Mediterranean sea, through the Dardanells, which region is unlike anything I ever saw for beauty. There is not any other water Venery on earth where God has done so many picturesque things with islands. They are somewhat like the Thousand Islands of our American St. Lawrence, but more Uka heaven. Indeed, we had just passed Patinos, tne place from which John had his apocalyptic vision. Constantinople had seemed to come out to greet us, for your approach to that city is different from any other city. Other cities as you approach them seem to retire, but this city with its glittering minarets and pinnacles, seetns almost to step into the water to greet you. But my landing there, that would have been to me an exhilaration, was suddenly stunned With the tidings of the death of my intimate friend, Henry W. Grady. I could hardly believe the tidings, for I had left on my study table at homo letters and telegrams from him, those letters and telegrams having a warmth and geniality and a wit such as he only could express. The departure of no public man for many years has so affected me. For days I walked about as in a dream, and I resolved that, getting home, I would, for the sake of his bereaved household, and for the sake of his bereaved profession, and for the sake of what he had been to me and shall continue to be as long as memory lasts, I would speak a word in appreciation of him, the most promising of Americans, and learn some of the salient lessons of his departure.

I have no doubt that he had enemies, for no man can live such an active life as he lived or be so far in advance of his time without making enemies, some because he defeated their projects and some because he outshone them. O wls and bats never did like the rising sun. But I shall tell you how he appeared to me, and 1 am glad that I told him while he was in full health what I thought of him. Memorial orations and gravestone epitaphs are often mean enough, for they say of a man after he is dead that which ought to have been said of him while living. One garland for a living brow is worth more than a mountain of japonicas and call a lilies heaped on a funeral casket. By a little black volume of fifty pages containing the eulogiums and poems uttered and written at the demise of Clay and Webster and Calhoun and Lincoln and Sumner, the world tried to pay for the forty years of obloquy heaped upon those living giants. If I say nothing in praise of a man while he lives I will keep silent when he is dead. Myrtle and weeping willow can never do what ought to have been dona by amaranth and palm branch. No amount of “Dead March in Saul” rumbling from big organs at the obsequies can atone for non-appreciation of the man before he fell on sleep. The hearse cannot do what ought to have been done by chariot. But there are important things that need to be said about our friend, who was a prophet in American journalism and who only a few years ago heard the command of my text: “Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen.” His father dead, Henry W. Grady, a boy fourteen years of age, took up the battle of life. It would require a long chapter to record the names of orphans who have come to the top. VV hen God takes away the head of the household he very often gives to some lad iu that household a special qualification. Christ remembers how that his own father died early, leaving him to support himself and his mother and his brothers in the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth, and he is iD sympathy with all hoys in the struggle. You say: “Oh, if my father had only lived I would have had a better education and I would have had a more promising start, and there are some wrinkles on my brow that would not have been there.” But I have noticed that God makes a special way for orphans. You would not have been half the man you are if yea had not been obliged from your early days to fight your own battles. What other boys got out of Yale or Harvard you got in the University of Hard Knocks. Go among successful merchants, lawyers, physicians and men of all occupation and professions,and there are many of them who will tell you: “At ten, or twelve; or fifteen years of age I started for., myself; father was sick, or father was dead.” But somehow they got through and got up. I account for it by the fact that there is a special dispensation of God for orphans. All hail, the fatherless and the motherless! The Lord Almighty will see you through. Early obstacles for Mr. Grady wore only the means for development of his intellect and heart And lot when at.,thirty-nine years of age he put down his pen and cios ed his lips for the perpetual silence, be had done a work which many a man who lives on to sixty and seventy and eighty years never accomplishes. There iB a great deal of senseless praise of longevity, as if it were a wonderful achievement to live a good while. Ah, my friends, it Is not how long we live, but how. well we live and how usefully we live. A man who lives to eighty years and accomplishes nothing for God or humanity might better have never lived at all. Methusaleh [iyed nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and what did it amount tot In ail those more than nine centuries ho did not accomplish anything which seemed worth record. Paul lived only a litile more than sixty, but how many Methusalehs would it take to make one Pauli 11 ho would not r.ither nave Paul’s sixty years than Alethusalch’s nine hundred and sixtyninol Robert McCheyue ylied at thirty years of age and John Summerfleld at twenty seven years of ago,’ but neither earth nor heaven will ever hear the end of their usefulness. Longevity! Why, an elephant can beat you at that, for it lives a hundred and fifty and two hundred years. Gray hairs are the blossoms of tho Jreo of fire IT found irt the way of righteousness, but the frosts of the second death if found in the way of sin, .

•'' * One of our able New York journals last spring printed a question and sent it to .many people among others to myself: “Can the editor of a secular journal be a Christian!” Some of the newspapers answered, No. I answered, Yds; and last vou may not understand me I say, Yes, again. Sommer before last, riding With Mr. Grady from a religious meeting in Georgia on Sunday night, be said to me some things which 1 now reveal for the first time because it is appropriate now that I reveal them. Be expressed his complete faith in the Gospel ahd expressed his astonishment and his grief that in our day so many young men were rejecting Christianity. From the earnestness and toe tenderness and the confidence with which he spoke on these things I concluded that when Henry VV. Grady made public professions of his. faith in Christ and took his place at toe holy communion in the Methodist church, he was honest and truly Christian. The conversation that Sunday night, first in toe carriage and then resumed in the hotel, impressed me in such a way that when I simply heard of his departure without any of the particulars,- I concluded that he was ready to go. I warrant there was no fright in the last exigency, but that he found what is commonly called “the last enemy” a good friend, and from his home on earth he went to a home in heaven. Yes, Mr. Grady not only demon strated that an editor may be a Christian, but that a very great intellect may be gospelized. His mental capacity was so wonderful it was almost startling. I have been with him in active conversation while at the same time he was dictating to a stenographer editorials for The Atlanta Constitution. But that intellect was not

ashamed to bow to Christ. Among his last dying utterances was the request for the prayers of the churches in his behalf. There was that particular quality in him that you do not find in more than one person out of hundreds of thousands—namely, personal magnetism. People have tried to define that quality, and always failed, yet we have all felt its power. There are some persons who have only to enter a room or step upon a platform or into a pulpit and you are thrilled by their presence, and when they speak your nature responds and you cannot help it W hat is the peculiar influence with which such a magnetic person takes hold of social groups and audiences! Without attempting to define this, which is indefinable, I will say it seems to correspond to the waves of air set in motion by toe voice or toe movements of the body. Just like that atmospheric vibration isHhe"moral or spiritual'vibration which rolls out from the soul of what we call a magnetic person. As there may be a cord or rope binding bodies together, there may be an invisible cord binding souls. A magnetic man throws it over others as a hunter throws a lasso. Mr. Grady was surcharged with this influence, and it was employed, for patriotism and Chistianity and elevated purposes. And then look at the opportunites of journalism. I praise the pulpit and magnify my office, but I state a fact which you all know when I say that where the pulpit touches one person the press touches five hundred. The vast majority of people do not go to church, but all intelligent people read the newspapers. While, therefore, the responsibility of the ministers is great, the responsibility of editors and reporters is greater. Come, brother journalists, and get your ordination, not by the laying on of human hands, but by toe laying on of the hands of toe Almighty. To you is committed the precious reputation of men and the more precious reputation of women. Spread before our children an elevated literature. Make siu appear disgusting and virtue admirable. Believe gcod rather than evil. While you show up the hypocrisies church, show up the stupendous hypocrisies outside the church. Be not, as some of you are, the mere echoes of public opinion; make public opinion. Let the great roll on which you write with a man’s pen be a message of ligfit and liberty and kindness and an awakening of moral power. But who is sufficient for these things! Not one of you without divine help. But get that influence and the editors and reporters can go up and take this world for God and the truth. The mightiest opportunity in all the world for usefulness to-day is open before editors and reporters and publishers, whether of knowledge on foot, as in the book, or Knowledge on thß wing, as in the newspaper. I pray God, men of the newspaper press, whether you hear or read this sermon, that you may rise up to your full opportunity and that you may be divine-

Someone might say to me: “Howcan you talk thus of the newspaper press, when you yourself have sometimes been unfairly treated and misrepresented? I answer that in the opportunity the nowspuper press of this country and other countri es have given me week by week to preach the Gospel to the nations, I am put under so much obligation that I defy all editors and reporters, the world over, to write anything that shall call forth from me one word of bitter retort from now till the day of my death. My opinion is, that Ml reformers and religious teachers, instead of spending so much time and energy in denouncing the press, had better spend more time in thanking them for what they have done for the world’s intelligence and declaring their magnificent opportunity and urging their employment of it all for beneficent and righteous purposes. Again, 1 remark that Henry VV. Grady stood for Christian patriotism irrespective of political spoils. He declined all official reward. He could have been governor of Georgia, but refused it. He could have been senator of the United States, but declined it He remained plain Mr. Grady. Nearly all the other orators of the political arena, as soon as the elections are over, go to Washington, or Albany, or Harrisburg, or Atlanta, to get in city or state or national office reward for their services, and not getting what they want spend the rest of the time of that administration in pouting about the management of public affairs or cursing Harrison or Whan the great political campaigns were Over Mr. Grady went home to his. newspaper. He demonstrated that it is possible to toil for principles which he thought to be right, simply because they were right, Christian patriotism is too rare a commodity in this country. Surely the joy of living under such free institutioas as those established here ought to be enough reward for political fidelity. Among all the great writers that stood at the last presidential election on democratic and republican platforms, you cannot recall in your mind ten who were not themselves looking for remunerative appoiulmente. Aye, you ean count them all on the fingers of one hand. The most illustrious specimen of that style of man for the last ten years was Henry W. Grady. Again Mr. Grady stood for the new south and was just what we want to meet three other men, one to speak for the new north, another for the new east and another for tbo now west. The bravest speech mane for the la*-t quarter of a century was that made by Mr. Grady at the New England d nner in New York about two or three y<t ago. I sat with him that eveuiqg ami know something of his anxieties, for he was to tread on dangerous ground god might by some misspoken word have

l’ ' v . antagonized forever both sect Joss- His speech was a victory that thrilled Ml of ns who heard him and all who read him. That speech, great for wisdom, great for kindness, great for pacification, great for bravery, wilt go down to toe generations with Vvebeter’s speech at Bunker Hill, William Wirt’s speech at the arraignment of Aaron Barr, Edmund Burke’s speech on Warren Hastings, Robert Emmet’s speech for bis own vindication. _ Who will in conspicuous action represent the new north as he did the new south! Wno shall come forth for too new east and who for toe new we3t? Let old political issues be hurried, let old grudges die. Let new theories be launched. With the coming in of a new nation at the gates of Castle Garden every year, and the wheat bin and corn crib of our land enlarged with every harvest, and a vast multitude of our population still plunged in illiteracy to be educated, and moral questions abroad involving toe very existence of our republic, let the old political platforms that are worm eaten be dropped and platforms that shall be made of two planks, the ene the Ten Commandments and the other the Sermon on the Mount, lifted for alt of us to stand on. But there is a lot of old politicians ''rumbling ail around the sky who don’t want a new south, a new north, a new east or a new west They have some old war speeches that they prepared in 181, that in all our autumnal elections they feel called upon to inflict upon the country. They growl louder and louder in proportion as they are pushed back further and further and the Henry W. Gradys come to the front. But the mandate, I think, ha 3 gone forth from the throne of God that a now American na-

tion shall take the place of the old and the new has been baptized for God and liberty and justice and peace and morality and religion. Aud now our much lamented friend has gone to give account Suddenly the facile and potent pen is laid down and the eloquent tongue is silent What! Is there no safeguard against fatal disease! The impersonation of stout health was Mr. Grady. What compactness of muscle! \\ hat ruddy complexion! What flashing eye! Standing with him in a group of twenty or thirty persons at Piedmont he looked the healthiest as his spirits were the brighest. Shall we never feel again the hearty grasp of his hand or be magnetized with his eloquence! Men of the great roll, men of the pen, men of writ men of power, if our friend had to go when the call came, so must yon when have you done with your pen or your eloquence or your wealth or your social position, will you be able to give satisfactory answer! What have we been writing all these years! If mirth, has it been innocent mirth, or that which tears and slings and lacerates? From our pen have there come forth productions healthy or poisonous! In the last great day when the warrior must give account of what he has done with his sword, and the merchant what he has done with his yard stick, and the mason what he has done with his trowel, and the artist what he baa done with his peneil, we shall have to give account of what we have done with our pen. There are gold pens and diamond pens and pens of exquisite manufacture, and every few weeks I , see some new kind of pen, each said ; to be better than the other; but in the great day of our arraignment before the Judge of quick and dead that will be the most beautiful pen, whether gold or steel or t quill, which never wrote a profane or un- ! clean or cruel word, or which from the day | it was carved, or split at the nib. dropped j from its point kindness and encouragement and help and gratitude to God and benediction for man. May God comfort that torn up southern home aud all the homes of this country and of all the world which have been swept by this plague of influenza, which haa deepen- | ed sometimes into pneumonia and some l times into typhus aud the victims of which j are counted by the ten thousand! Sa- [ tan, who is the “Prince of the Power of thej Air,” has been poisoning the atmos- : pbere in all nations. Though it ii tb* first time in our rememberance, he has done the same thing before. In 169; the unwholesome air of Cairo, Egypt destroyed the life of ten thousand in one day, and in Constantinople in 1714 three hundred ibousund people died of it I am glad that by the better sanitation of our cities and wider understanding of bygienio laws and the greater skill of physicians

race are being resisted, but pestilential atmosphere is still abroad. Hardly a < family here but has felt its lighter or heavier touch. Some of the best of my flock fell under its power and many homes here represented have been crushed. The fact is the biggest failure in the universe is this world if there be no heaven beyond. But there is, and the friends who have gone there are many and very dear. O tearful eyes, look up to the hills crimsoning with eternal moral That reunion kiss will, more than make up for the parting kiss, and the welcome will obliterate thi good-by. “The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water and God shall wipe away ail tears from their eyes.” Till then, O departed loved ones, promise us that you will remember us, as we promise to remember you. And some of you gone up from this city by the sea and others from under southern sides and others from the homes of the more rigorous north and some from the cabins on great western farms, we shall meet again when our pen has written its last word and our arm has done its last day’s work and our lips have spoken the last adieu. And now, thou great and magnificent soul of editor and orator 1 under brighter skies we shall meet again. From God thou earnest, and to God thou hast returned. Not broken down, but ascended. Not collapsed, but irradiated. Enthroned one) Coroneted one! Sceptered one! Empuradised onel Bail and farewell!