The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1888-05-17
THE TRIBI'TE OF REV. DIR. j. u. GAM
BRELL, EDITOR OF THE SOUTH
ERS BAPTIST RECORD.

just as we were going to press last
week the distressing news came that
Mr.. JOHN II. MARTIN. Editor of the
New MississipPlan, and Gen. Writ
Adams, postmaster at Jackson, had
killed each other. Later we were
called to the distressed family of Mr..
Martin to give them such comfort as
lay i'll our power.
Further than to say that the killing
grew primarily out of the shameful
mismanagcmcnt of our State penitcn-
tiary, infamcd by the tragedy of one
wear ago, we do not wish to discuss it.
The two men have gone with their
cause before the Judge of all the
earth. Let us silently and revcrcntly
leave Judgment with him whose
right it is to decide all issues between
his creatures.
With Gen. Adams, we had no ac-
quaintance. He was 80 years old, had
filled many positions of honor and
trust, and had Il large circlc.of friends
and relatives to mourn his death.
OF John II. Martin, We can speak
with the certainty of Il close acquaint
ange. The intimate friend of our
dead boy in life and his defender in
death: IL co-wOrker i'll the great cause
of prohibition and reform: an inmate
often of our home, we knew this
bright. earnest young man well and
loved him much as Il father loves a
son.
John Martin was the newspaper
genius of Mississippi. He had all the
H.. Il IN t,tl hnr En
chose to be: sarcastic as Geo. ID. Prem
tice, when that suited his purpose,
scathing in dcnunciatiOn. or terribly
and solcmnly earnest, just as occasion
demanded, he was prc-emmCntly II
newspaper writer. With all this, he
was as brave as he could be tender
and as tender as brave.
Such man will always be felt:
his friends will love him dearly, and
his enemies hate him bitterly.
OF hun we can say in all good con-
science that, taking all the men we
have known together, we have never
known one whose instincts went more
certainly to the right side of every
| question. In his nature he loved the
right and hated the wrong. And nev-
er did we know him to hesitate a sec
ond to join himself to the side of right,
as he saw it. Personal danger or
| personal interest made no figure with
him. II the right was weak and I'M
der foot of men, that only the more
stirred his nature. If the wrong, as
he felt it, had the support OF the
/ strong, he only the more attacked it,.
And John Martin was Singularly
free from the base passion of personal
! hatred. Few meu smiled more. In
| his bitterest controversies, those who
knew his inner life, can testify that he
felt no rancor. He looked on the
faults of men as things to be cured or
neutraiized; but for the men he felt
little or no animOsity.
I He was not without religious feel
| inGs-was a student OF tle scriptures,
but whether he took hold ON the Saw
/ ior, God knows. All bis affiliations
were with good people and every
/ where the good people loved him and
mourn his early death.
John Martin was truly il noble.
/ great young man, tOOyoung to have
/ brought his rare gifts fully under
discipline, but old enough at % to
+ give promise of career of singular
/ briiiiancy and usefulness. Never did
young man in Mississippi at his age
rise to Il more deserved distinction,
or to a wider fame.
He was not without faults. His
faults like his virtues were open to
/ the eyes of all, and they We're such as
belong to young men. lie struck
/ harder blows sometimes than an old
er man thought were needed; but his
faults We're but the eXaggeratiOns of
his virtues.
John Martin, bright, honest true
John, how we loved him almost as a
son, And how our heart melts in
sympathy for the parents and the
brothers! God comfort them, as only
( he can.
In the death of this striking Young
man the State has lost II worthy citi-
! zen, and the cause of reform an able
die, but he was wont to say, that,
when he fell, another, stronger than
himself, would take up the cause of
home protection and political purity
and carry it on to success.
Many will misunderstood him,
many win rejoice in his death, but
we offer this tribute to his worth as
we know it, just as noble, patriotic
men and pure women in Jackson, and
from the Capital to the quiet cemete-
ny al Brookhaven, brought their trib-
ute of tears and flowers to cover his
passiOnless dust.