The Forrest City times., 1890-03-01
HIS TRIBUTE TO A FRIEND.
Dr. Talmage's Memorial Sermon on The
 Late Henry W. Grady.
His Memory Entwined With Garland From the Vintage of Love The Casket of Friend ship Wrsathed With Beautiful Flowers From the Garden of Thought
Special to the Kansas City Times.

eAp WEvStnco Wlbu oeautiul kAoWefs
 From tho Garden of Thought
 Special to the Kansas City Times
 At tho Tabernacle in Brooklyn last Sunday morning, Rev. T. De Witt Talmage delivered . "Memorial on the Life and Death of Henry W. Grady the Editor and Orator" He took for his text Isaiah viii, l: Take thee a great roll and write in it with mans pen" The preacher said;
 To Isaiah, with royal blood in his veins and habitant of palaces, does this divine order come. He IS to take a roll, a large roll, and write on it with pen, not an an- gels pen, but mans pen. So God hon ored the pen and so honored manuscript. In our day the mightiest roll is the religious and secular newspaper, and the mighticst pen is the editors pen, whether for good or evil. And God says now to every liter ary man, and especially to every journal ist Take thee great roll and write <n 1t with mans pen"
 Within few weeks one of the stron gest most vivid and most brilliant of those pens was laid down on the editorial desk in At lanta, never again to be resumed. l was far away at the time. We had been sail ing up from the Mediterranean sea, through the Dardanells, which region is unlike anything l ever saw for beauty Ihero Is not any other water scenery on earth where God has done so many picturesque things with islands They arc somewhat like the Thousand Is lands of our American St Lawrence, but more like heaven. Indeed we had just passed Patmos, the place from which John had his apocalyptic vision. Constan- tinople 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 piunacles, seems almost to step into the water to greet you But my landing there, that would have been to me ap exhiiaration, was suddenly stunned with the tidings of the death of my intimate friend, Henry W. Grady. could hardly believe the tidings, for had left on my study table Ut home letters and telegrams from him, those letters and telegrams having a warmth and geniality and wit such us he only could express The departure of no pubic man for many years has so affected mo. For days walked about as in a dream, and resolved that getting home, 1 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 memory lasts, would speak a word in appreciation of him, 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 l shall tell you how he appeared to me, and l an glad that tod him while ho was in full health what thought of him Memorial orations and eravestone eptaphs 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 mountain of 1aponicas and cala lilies heaped on a fun cral casket By a little black volume of fifty pages containing the culogiums 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 oboquy heap cd upon those living giants If I say nothing in praise of man while he lives l will keep silent 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 SauP' rumbling from big organs at the obsequics can atone for non appreciation os the man before he fell on sleep. The hearse cannot do what ought to have been done by chariot Butthere are important things that need to be said about our friend, who was a prophet in Amaican journalism and who only a few years ago heard the command of my text: Take thee n great roll and write in 1t with a mans pen.n
 His father dead, Henry w. Grady, n boy fourteen years Of age, took up the bat tie of life It would require n long chapter to record the names of orphans who have come to the top. N hen God takes away the head of the household he very often gives to some lad in that household spec ial qualification, Christ remembers how that his own father died early. leaving him to support himself and his mother and his brothers in the carpenters shop at Naxa. reth, and he is in sympathy with all boys in the struggle You say "Oh, if my fath- CT had only lived l would have had a better education and 1 would have had more promising start and there arc some wrinkles on my brow that would not have been there" But have noticed that God makes special way for orphans. You would not have been half the man you arc If you had not been obliged from your early days 10 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 arc 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 some how they got through and got up ac- count for 1t by the fact that there is u speci. al dispensation of God for orphans All hail, the fathcrless and the motherless The Lord Almighty will sec you through. Early obstacles for Mir Grady were only the means for development of his intellect and heart And lol when at thirty nine years of age he put down his pen and clos ca ms lips for the perpetual silence, he had done work which many man who lives on to sixty and seventy and eighty years never accomplish es. There is great deal Of senseless praise of longevity, as if 1t were a wonderful achievement to live n good while An my friends, it Is not how long we live but how well we live and how usefulv we live A man who lives to eighty years and accom- plishes nothing for God or humanity might better have never lived atall Methusaleh lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and what did it amount tol In all those moro than nlne centuries he did not accom- plish anything which seemed worth record. "uh hNcu ouly Ittlo moro than sixty, but how many Methusalchs would 1t take to make one Paull Who would not rather have Panrs sixty years than Methussleh's nine hundred and sixty. ninei Robert McCheyne died at thirty years of Jge and John Summerfield at twenty seven years of age. but neither earth nor heaven will over hear the end of their usefulness. Longevity Why, an elephant can bear yan at that for It lives hundred and fifty sna two hundred years Gray hairs arc tho blossoms of tho tree of life II found in the way If righteousness, but the frosts of the secono death if found in the way of sin
 One of our able New York Journals last spring printed question and sent rt 10 many people among others to myself; Can tho editor of secular iournai be a Christ. iAn~ Some of the newspapers answered, No answered, Yes, and lest you may not understand me say, Yes, again. Sum. mer before last, riuing with Mir Grady gall.