The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1890-03-06
TO HENRY W. GRAL
An Eloquent Memorial Ser
mon Preached by DR..
Talmage.
He Reviews the Life of the
Great Orator and
Editor.

Isaiah viii, 1: Take thee a great roll, and
write in it with mans pen" The preacher
said:
To Isaiah, with royal blood in his veins and
a bsbitant of palaces, does this devine order
come. He is to take roll, great roll, and
write on it with pen, not an angels pen, but
a mans pen. So God honorcd the pen, and
so he honored manuscript. In our day the
mightiest roll is in the religious and secular
nawspapor, and the nIIgtuIesG pea is sifv ,Sai-
tors pen, whetherfor good or evil. And God
says now to every literary man, and especial
ly to every journalist: Take a great roll
and write in IL with q 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 /
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 Isl
ands 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 ap-
proach to that city ia different from any
other city. Other cities as you approach
them seem to retire, but this city, with it's
glittering minarets and pinnacles, seem al
most 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 be-
lieve the tidings, for had left on my study
table at home letters and kilograms from
him, those letters and kilograms having a
warmth and geniality and wit such as he
only could express. The departure of no
public man for SO many years has SO affected
me. 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 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 departure.
have no doubt that he had enemies. for
no man can live such an active life as he lived
OF be go 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 q
man after he is dead that which ought to
have been said of him while living One gar
land for living brow is worth more than q
monument of japonicas and Gala lilies heaped
on funeral casket. By little black volume
of so pages containing the eulogiums and
Il poems uttered and written at the demise oi
Lev and Weheter and Calhoun and Lincoln
X Sumner, the world tired to pay for the
years of obloquy it heaped upon thoss
4 r
man while he lives / viii keep silent when he
is dead. Myrtle and weeping willow can neV-
er do what ought to have been done by anna
ranth and palm branch. No amount of
Dead March in Saul'' rumbling from big
organs aJ the obsequies can atone for nom
appreciation of the man before he fell oD
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 a few years ago
heard the command of my text: "Take thee
a great roll, and write in it with a mans
pen."
His father dead, Henry W. Grady, a boy Ia
years of age, took up the hattie 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 house
hold he very often gives to some lad in that
household a special qualification. Christ
Temem D6FS now Ills OWN 1aIner uleQ
early, leaving him to support himself and
his -Sgother and his brothers in the carpenter's
shop aft Nazareth, and he is in nsympathy with
all boys and alfSyagng men in the struggle.
You say: "Oh, If my father had only lived
would have better education and w0gId
have had a more promising start, and there
are some wrinkles on my brow that would
not have been there" But / 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 and Harvard you
got in the University of Hard Knocks. Go
among successful merchants, lawyers. ply
sicans and men of all occupations and pro-
fessions, and there are many of them who
will tell you: AT 10, or 12, or 15 years of
age started for myself father was sick, or
father was dead" But somehow they got
through and got up. l account for 1t by the
fact that there is special dispensation
God for orphans. All hail, the fatherless
and motherlessl The Lord Almighty will
see you through. Early obstacles tor 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 perpetual silence. He
had done a work which many man who lives
on to 60 and 70 and so years never accom-.
plishes. There ia q great deal of senseless
W
derful achievement to live good while. All
| my friends, it is not how long welive, but how
well we live and how usesully we live. man
who lives to 80 years and aecomplshes moth
| ing for God or humanity might better have
never lived at all. Methusaleh livel 96s
| years, and what did it amount to? In al
| those more than nine centuries he did not &c
complish anything that seemed worth record
! Paul lived only a little more than so, hui
| how many Methusalehs would it take to
make one, Paul? Who would not rather
have Paufs go years than Methusaleh's $685.
Robert McCheyne died at 80 years of age
| and John Summerfield at 20 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, fol
| it lives $50 and 400 years. Gray hairs arr
the blossoms of the tree ofli if found in tn,
way of righteousness, but the frosts of the
second death If found in the way ofsin.
One of our able NewYork Journals last
spring printed question and sent it to many
/ people, and among Others to myself Scar
the editor of q secular journal be o Chris
tian?" Some of the Newspapers answered
/ No. answered, Yes; and lest you may not
understand me say, Yes. again. Summer
before last riding with Mr.. Grady from q
| religious meeting in Georgia one Sunday
night, he said to me some things which
now reveal for the first time. because it is ap
| propriate now that reveal them. He ex
pressed his complete faith in the Gospel, ant
expressed his astonishment and his grief that
in our day 30 many young men were reject
ing Christianity. From the earnestness ans
the tenderness and the confidence with whicl
he spoke on these things. / concluded tha
when Henry w. Grady made public profes
sion ofhis faith in Christ and took his plac
at the holy communion in the Methods
Church, he was honestly and truly Christian
That conversation that Sunday night, frs
in the carriage and then resumed in the no
tel. impressed me in such way that when
simply heard of his departure without any o
the particulars, concluded that he was read,
to CO.. warrant there was no fright in tn
last exigency, but that he found what is com
monty called "the last enemy good friend
and from his home on earth he went to
home in heaven. Yes. Mr.. Grady not 0nl,