Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-24
A MEMORIAL SERMON.
Talmage Pays an Eloquent Tribute
to the Dead Southern Editor.
BE DEFENDS THE SECULAR PRESS
And Says Its Editors Can be Christians and
Accomplish Good Work.
GLADSTONFS VIEWS ON CHRISTIANITY
rspEc1AL rELreRAM no ruR p1spAroH !

BROOKLYN, February 23.-The great
Academy of Music, its main floors and its
two galleries and platform and all ap-
prosches to the building were, as usual,
thronged at the preaching service Of the
Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, DID,, to-day.
Many hundreds of persons did not gain ad-
mittance.
The subject of DR.. Talmage's sermon was:
1.-THE Life and Death OF Henry W. Grady,
the Editor and Orator" He took for his
text Isaiah viii, 1: "Take thee great roll,
and write in it with a mans pen." The
preacher said:
To Issiah, with royal blood In his veins
and hsbitant of palaces, does this divine
order come. he is to take roll, a large
roll, and write on it with a pen, not an
angels pen, but mans pen. So GOD hon.
cred the pen and so he honored manuscript.
In our day the mightiest roll is the religious
and secular newspaper, and the mightiest
pen is the editors pen, whether for good or
evil. And God says now to every literary
man, and especially to every journalist:
Take thee great roll, and wlite in it with
a mans pen."
Within a few weeks one of the strongest.
most vivid and most brilliant of those pens
was laid down on the editorial desk in At
lants, never again to be resumed. l was
far away at the time. We had been sailing
up from the Mediterranean Sea, through the
Dardanelles, which region is unlike any,
thing ever saw for beauty. There is not
any other water scenery on earth where God
has done so many picturesque things with
islands. They are somewhat like the Thou
sand Islands of our American St. Lawrence,
but more like heaven. Indeed, we had Just
passed Patmos, the place from which John
had his apocalyptic vision. Constantinople
had seemed to come out to greet us, for your
approach 10 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, seems 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. could hardly believe the tidings,
for l had left on my study table at home
letters and telegrams from him, those letters
and kilograms having a warmth and genial
ity and wit such as be only could express.
The departure of no public man for many
years has so affected me. For days 1 walked
about as in a dream and 1 resolved that,
getting home, would, for the sake of his
bereaved household, and for the sake of his
bereaved profession, and for the sake of
what be had been to me and shall continue
to be as long as memory lasts, would speak
word in appreciation of him, the most
promising of Americans, and learn some of
the salient lessons of his departure.
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. Owls and bats never did
like the rising sun. But shall tell you
how he appeared to me, and 1 am glad that
1 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 mountain of japonicas |
aud Gala lilies heaped on a funeral |
casket. By a little black volume of 80
pages containing the eulogiums and
poems uttered and written at the demise of
Clay and Webster and Calhoun and Lin
colu and Sumner, the world tried to pay for
the 40 years of obloquy it had heaped upon
praise of a man while he lives l will keep
silent when he is dead. Myrtle and weep |
ing willow can never do what ought to have |
been done by amaranth and palm branch. |
No amount of "Dead March in SAUL |
rumbling from big organs at the Obsequies |
can atone for non-sppreciation of the man I,
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 q |
few years ago heard the command of my |
text: Take thee great roll, and write in |
1t with mans pen"
FATHER TO THE FATHERLESs.
His father dead, Henry W. Grady, a boy |
IA wears of age, took up the battle of life /
1t would require long chapter to record |
the names OF orphans who have come to the |
top. When God takes away the head Of the |
household be very often gives to some lad in
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 car |
penter's shop at Nazareth, and he is in SYM
pathy with all boys and all young men in
the struggle. You say: "Oh, if nv father |
had only lived 1 would have had better
education, and 1 would have had a more
promising start, and there are some wrinkles
on my brow that would not have been
there" But 1 have noticed that God makes
a special way for orphans. You would not
have been half the man you are If you 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 occupations and
professions, and there are many of them
who will tell you: "At 10, or II, or Is years
of age l started for myself; father was sick.
or father was dead" But somehow they
got through and got up. account for 1t
by the fact that there is a special dispense
tion of God for orphans All hail, the
and the motherlessl The Lord
Almighty will see you through. Early OBJ
stacles for Mr.. Grady were only the means
for development of his intellect and heart.
And loi when at 80 years of age he put
down his pen and closed his lips for the per-
petual silence, he had done a work which
many a man who lives on TO 60 and 20 and
so years never accomplishes. There is a
great deal Of senseless praise sf longevity,
as though it was a wonderful achievement
to live good while. All, nv friends, it is
not how long we live, but how we'll we
live and how usefully we live. A man who
lives to so years and accomplishes nothing
for God or humanity might better have
never lived at all. Mathusaleh lived 96s
years, and what did it amount to? In all
hose more than nine centuries he did not
anything which seemed worth
record. Paul lived only little more than
30. but how many Mathusalehs would ittake
10 make one Paul? Who would not rather
have Psul's 60 years than Mathusaleh's 969?
Robert McCheyne died at 30 years of age,
and John Summerfeld at q years of age,
but neither earth nor heaven will ever hear
r. ,,eaen1ra.e .&,-Il |