The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1890-03-06
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvtNE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
subject: "Hcnry W. Grady, the Ed
itor and Orator"

rexT; "TaJse thee a area, roll aud i0rtte
u, il 10Th mdas pea. "--lsaiah viii, |,
To Isaiah, with royal blood in his veins
and habitant OF palaces does this divine
order come. He is 10 take roll, large
roll, and write ON II with pen, not cn an-
gels psn, but a mans pen. So God honored
the pen and so lie honorei manuscript. In
sur day the mightisst 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; Wake
thee Il great roll, AMI write in it witha mans
pen"
Within few weeks one of the strongest
most vivid and most brilliant of those pens
was laid down ON the editorial desk in At.
lanta, never again to bs resumed. was far
away at the time. We had been sailing up
from the Mediterranean Sea, through the
Dardanelles, which region is unlike anything
ever saw for beauty. There is not any other
water scenery on earth whsrs God has done
so many picturesque things with islands.
They are somewhat like the Thousand Islands
of our American st. Lawrence, but more
like heaven. Indeed, we had Just passed
Patmos, the place from which John
had his apocslyptic vision. Con.
stantinople had seemed to come out to
greer us, for your approach to that city is diff.
ferent 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. l could hardly believe the tidingS,
for | had left on my study table at hons
letters and kilograms from him, those
letters and kilograms having warmth
and geniality and wit such as ne
only could express. The departure OF
no public man for many years has so affected
NE. For days walked about as in dream
and resolved that, getting home, would,
for the sake of his bereaved household, and
for the sake of his bereayed profession, and
for the sake Of what he had been to me and
shall continue to be as long as memory lasts,
would speak a word in appreciation OF
hini the most promising of Americans and
learn some of the salient lessons of his de-
parture.
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 ] am glad that
told him while he was in full health what |
thought of him. Memorial orations and
gravestone epitaphs are often mean enough,
for they say of man after he is dead that
which ought to have been said of him
while living. One garland for living
brow is worth more than a mount
ain of iaponicas and Gala lilies
heaped on funeral casket. By little black
volume OF fifty pages containing the eulo-
demise of Clay and Webster and Calhoun
and Lincoln and Sumner the world tried to
pay for the forty years of obloquy it heapei
upon those living giants. If | say nothing in
praise of man while he lives | will keep ST.
lent when he is dead. Myrtle and weeping
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 ct the obsequies can atone
for misrepresentation Of the man before he fell
on sleep. TIE 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 prophet in American
journalism and VINO only a few years ago
heard the command of my text. Take thee
a great roll, and write i'll it with q man 5
PEN"
His father dead, Henry w. Grady, boy
fourteen years OF age, took up the battle OF
life. 1t would require long chapter to re-
cord the names of orphans who nave coma
to the top. When God takes away the head
of the household He very often gives to some
lad in that household special qualification.
Christ remembers how that His own father
died early, leaving Him to support Himself
and His mother and His brothers in
the carpenters snop at Nazareth,
and He is in sympathy with
all boys and all young men in the struggle.
You say: "Oh, il my father had only lived |
would have had better education and
would have had a more promising start, and
there are sons wrinkles on my brow that
would not have been there But have no
ticed that God makes a special way for or
phans. You would not have been half the
man you are il you had not been obliged
from your early days to fight your own bat
ties. What other boys got out of Yale OF
Harvard you got in the University of Hard
Knocks. Go among successful merchants,
lawyers, physicians and men of all occupa.
tions and professions, and there are many OF
them who will tell you; "At ten. or twelve, or
fifteen years of age | started for myself;
father was sick, or father was dead "
But somehow they got through and
got up. l account for it by the fact that
there is a special dspensation of God for
orphans All hail, the fatherless and the
motherless The Lord Almighty will see
you through, Early obstacles for Mr.. Grady
were only the means for DEVELOPMENT of his
intellect and heart. And 10! when at thirty
nine years of age he put down his pen and
closed his lips for the perpetual silence he
had done work which many man wno
lives on to sixty and seventy and eighty
years never accomplishes. There is great
deal of senseless praise OF longevity, as
though it were wonderful achievement to
live good while. Alb, my friends 1t 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 nave never
lived at all. Methusaleh lived nine hundred
and sixty-nine years, and what did il
amount toy In all those more than Innt
centuries he did not accomplish anything
which seemed worth record. Paul lived
only little more than sixty, but how many
Methusaiehs would it take to make one Paul!
Who would not rather have Paurs sixty
years than Metnusalehs nine hundred and
sixty nine? Robert McCheyne died at thirty
years of age and John Summerfeld at
twenty-seven years of age, but neither earth
nor heaven will ever hear the end OF thell
usefulness. Longevity Why, an elephant
can beat you at That, for it lives hundred
and fifty and two hundred years. Gray
hairs are the blossoms Of the tree of life if
found in the way OF Righteousness, but the
lTOSlS VI Tue StcUHi usdtu IL ioulli Ill buc
way of sin.
One of our able New York journals last
spring printed a question and sent it to many
people and among others 90 myself: Car
the editor of a secular journal be Chris
tainY Some of the newspapers answered:
No. | answered Yes; AMI lest You may
not understand me ] say: Yes, again. Sum
mer before last, riding with Mr.. Grady from
religious meeting in Georgia on Sunday
night, he said To ME some things which / now
reveal for the first time because it is appro
! pirate now that reveal them. He expressed
his complete faith in the Gospel and ex-
pressed his establishment and his grief that
in our day SO many young men were re
jecting Christianity. From the earnest
ness and the tenderness and the cont
fiderce with which he spoke on these
things l concluded that when Henry
W Grady made public profession OF his faith
in Christ aud took his place at the holy conf
munon in the Methodist Church, he was
honest and truly Christian. That converse
ton that Sunday night first in the carriage
and then resumed in the hotel impressed me
in such way that when sim"ly heard o.
his departure without any OF the parulcu-
lars l concluded that he was ready TO go. l
warrant there was no fright i'll the last ext
gency, but that he found what is COM
monty called "the last enemy" good
friend, and from his home on earth ne
went to home in heaven. Yes, Mr..
Grady not only demonstrated that an editor