The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-03-12
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DlVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Henry W. Grady, the Ed
itor and Orator"

Text: "Tdke thee q great roll, and tUrite
IN it ,0ith q mans pen."-Isaiah viii, l.
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 it with pen. not an an.
gels pen, but mans pen. So God honored
Ehe 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 write init 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 be resumed. was far
away at the time. We had been sailing up
from the Mediterranean Sea, through the
Dardanelles, which region is unlike anything L
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 Thousand 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. Con-
stantinople had seemed to come out to
greet us, for your approach to that city Is diff
terent from any other city. Other cities as
you approach them seem to retire, but this
city, with it's 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 exhllaratlon,
was suddenly stunned with the tidings OF the
death of my intimate friend, Henry W..
Grady. could hardly believe the tidings
for I had left on my study table at home
letters and kilograms from him, those
letters and kilograms having a warmth
and geniality and a wit such as ne
only could express. The departure OF
no public man for many years has so affected
me. For days I walked about as in dream,
and resolved that, getting nome, 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 as memory lasts
would speak 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 shall tell you how
he appeared to me- and I am glad that l
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 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 mount
ain of japonicas and calla lilies
heaped on funeral casket. By little black
volume of fifty pages containing the euio-
gums 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 obloquy it heapsd
upon those living giants. If say nothing IN
praise Of man while he lives L 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 SauP' rumbling
from big organs at the obsequies can atone
for non-appreciationo of the man 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 few years ago
heard tile command of my text: Take thee
q great roll, and write III it with a mans
PEN"
His father dead Henry W. Grady, boy
fourteen years of age, took up the battle or
life. 1t would require long chapter to re-
cord the names of orphans who have come
to the top. When God takes away the head
Of ti.o 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 carpenter s shop at Nazareth,
and He is in sympathy with
all boys and all young men in the struggle:
You say: ''Oh, if my father had only lived
would have had better education and
would have had a more promising start and
there are some wrinkles on my brow that
would not have been there" But l have no.
ticed that God makes a special way for or
phans You would not have been half the
man You are if you had not been obliged
from your early days to fight your own bat
ties. What other boys got out of Yale or
Harvard you gotin 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 I started for myself;
father was sick, or father was dead. !"
But somehow they got through and
got up. I account for it by the fact that
there is a special dispensation of God for
orphans. All hail, the fatherless and the
motherless The Lord Almighty will SEQ
you through. Early obstacles for Mr.. Grady
we're 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, no
had done work which many man who
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 All, my friends, it IS not
how long We live; but how well we live and
how usefully we live. A man who lives to
eighty wears and accomplishes nothing for
God or humanity might better have never
lived at all. Methusaleh lived nine hundred
and sixty-nine years. and what did it
amount to: In all those more than nine
centuries he did not accomplish anything
which seemed worth record. Paul lived
only little more than sixty, but how many
Methusalehs would it take to make one Paul?
Who would not rather have Paufs sixty
years than Methusalehs nine hundred ana
sixty-nine? Robert McCheyne died at thirty
years of age and John Summerheld at
twenty-seven years Of age, but neither earth
nor heaven will ever hear the end OF their
usefulness. longevity Why, an elephant
can beat YOU at that, for it lives hundred
and fifty and two hundred years. Gray
hairs are tue blossoms of the tree OF hfe II
found in the way of Righteousness but the
frosts of the second death ii found Ill the
way of sin. -,
One of our able New York journals last
spring printed question and sent it to many
people and among others to myself: Can
the editor of a secular journal be Chris
tain" Some of the newspapers answered.:
No. answered.: Yes: and 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