The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-02-24
REV. ON GRADY.
take THEE A GREAT ROLL. AND
WRITE IN IT WITd a MANS PEN"

! itor-Th9 preacher Believes in Pra is @
While Men Live.
| BooKLYN, Feb. 23.-The great Academy
Of Music, lis main floors and its two gal
leries and platform and all approaches to
the building we're, as usual, thronged at the
preaching services of the Rev. I. Dewitt
Talmage, DID,. to-day. Many hundreds Of
persons did not gain admittance.
The subject of DR.. Talmag ge's sermon was:
''The Life and Death of Henry w. Grady.
the Editor and Orator." He took for his
text Isaiah viii L: ''Take thee great roll,
and write in it with a mans pen.H The
preacher said;
To Isaiah, with royal blood in his veins,
and habitant Of palaces, does this divine
order come. He is to take roll, large
roll, and write on 1t with a pen, not an
| angels pen. but mans pen. So God hon.
ored the pen and so he honored manuscript.
In our day the mightiest roll Is the relig-
ious and secular newspaper, and the might
lest pen is the editors pen, whether for
good or evil. And God says now to every
Ii erary man, and especially to every jour
nalist: Take thee great roll and write in
1t with mans pen."
Within few wesks one of the strongest.
most vivid and most brilliant of those pc s
was laid down on the editorial desk in
Atlanta, never again TO be resumed. | was
far away at the Time. We had been sailing
| up from the Medi ,erranean sea, through tAe
| 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 is ands. They are somewhat like the
Thousand Islands of our American st. Law
renee, but more like heaven. Ildeed, we had
| just passed PatmOs, the place from which
John had his apocalyptic vision Constau-
| tlnople had seemed 10 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 lis CITY
with its gitterin9 n1inarets and pinnacies,
seems almost to step into the water to greet
you. But my landing there that would
have been to me an exhilaration, was sud-
denly 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 at home
| letters and telegrams from him. those
letters and kilograms having warmth and
| geniality aad a wit such as he only could
express. Tne departure of no public man
| for many years has SO affected me. For
| days walked about as In dream, and
resolved that, getting home, l would, for
| the sake Of his bereaved household and for
the sake Of his bereaved profession, and for
the sake Sf what be had been to me and
snall conCl ue to be as long as memory
lasts, would speak word in appreciation
OF him, t e most promising of Americans,
a d 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 80 far in advance of his time
without making enemies, some because be
defeated their projects and some because he
| outshone them. Owls and bats never did
like the rising sun. Bu5 l shall tell you
how b. appeared to me, and am glad that
| told him while he was in full health what
l thought of him. Memorial orations and
| gravestone epitaphs are often mean enoug
! for they say OF man after he is dead that
which ought to have been said OF him
while living. One garland for a liv-
| Ing brow is worth more than mountain of
| japonicas and Gala lilies heaped on
| fu eral casket. By little black volume of
| fifty pages contai ing the eulogiums and
poems uttered and written at the demise of
| Clay and Webster, and Calhoun and Lin
| coin, and Sumner, the world tried TO paw
| for the forty years of oDoquy it heaped
upon those living giants II I say nothing
| Ia praise of man while he lives 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
| SauP' rumbling from big organs at the obse-
| quies can atone for non-appreciation Of the
| man before he fell asleep. The hearse can lot
do what ought to have been done by chariot
| But there are important things th tt need to
be said about our friend, who was prophet
in American Journalism, and who only
| few years ago heard tue command of my
| text: Take thee great roll and write in
| it with q mans % n
His father dead, Henry W. Grady. a boy
| fourteen years OF age, took up the battle OF
life. 1t would require long chapter to
record the names of or hans wlo have come
to the top. When God takes away the
head of the house lold he 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 mother and his brothers
in the carpenters shop at Naz lreth, and he
is in sympathy with all boys and all young
meni the struggle. You say:"O, if my father
had only lived l would have had better
education and would have had more
promisi g start, and there are some wrinkles
on my brow that would not have been
there.n But have noticed that God makes
a special way for orpha s. You wo Id 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 bows got out
Of Yaieor Harvard you gotin the University
of Hard KNOCKS. Go among successful mer-
chants, lawyers, physicians and me
of all occupations and professions, and
there are many of them who will tell you:
"At 10, or l2, or Is years OF age I started
for myself; father was sick, or father was
dead" But somehow they got through
and got up. account for it by the fact
that there is a special dispensation of God
for orphans. All hail, the fatherless and
motberlessl The Lord Almighty will see
you through. Early obstacles for Mr.. Grady
we're only the means for development OF
his intellect and heart Aud lol when
at 80 years Of age he put down his pen
ld closed his lips for the perpetual
silence, he had done work which may
man who lives on to sixty, seventy, and
eighty years never accomplishes. There is
great deal Of senseless praise Of longevity.
as though it we're wonderful Achievements
to live good while. All, my friends, it is
not how long we live, bu how well we live
and how usefully we live. A man-w
lives to eighty years and accomplishes moth
ing for God or humanity might better have
never lived at all. Methusaeh lived nins
hundred and sixty nine years, and
what did it amount tol In all those more
than nine centuries be did not accomplisd
anything hicn seemed worth record.
Paul lived only a little more than
sixty, but how many Methuselehs would it