Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-03-01
DR.. PALMAGE'S SERMON.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HENRY
w. GRADY.
The brooklyn Preacher Pays an
Eioaucnt Tribute 10 the Gifted
AufIf0r and JouPunlfsf.


order come He is to take roll, large
| roll, and write on 1t with pen, not an an
| gels pen, but a mans pen So God honored
the pen and SO He honored manuscript. Ii
| our day the mightiest roll is the religious ant
secular newspaper, and the mightiest pen il
the editors pen, whether for good or evil
| And God says now to every literary man
and especially to every journalist: TAX,
thee great roll, and write init with man.
pen
Within a few weeks one of the strongest
most vivid and most brilliant of those pen:
was laid down on the editorial desk in At
lanta, never again to be resumed. Twas fal
away at the time. We had been sailing uT
| from the Mediterranean Sea, through tht
Dardanelies, 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 tine Thousand Islands
of our American St Lawrence, but NOR,
like heavsn 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.
ferent from any other city. Other cities as
| you approach them seem 10 retire. but this
city, with its gittering minarets and
pinnacies, seems almost to step into the
water to greet you But my lauding 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 believe the tidings,
| for ] had left on my study table at home
| letters and kilograms from him, those
letters and kilograms having warmth
and geniality and wit such as he
only could express. The departure OF
opubtc man for many years has so affected
me For DAYS walked about as in a dream.
and resolved that, getting home, | would
| Tor the sake OF his bereave1 household, and
for the sake of his bereaved profession, and
| for the sake of wat 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
l 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 II aking enemies, some because he
defeated their projects and some because he
| ouLshone them. Owls and bats never did
like the rising sun But snail tell you how
ne appeared TO me, and | am glad that
told him while he was in full health what
| thought of him Memorial orations and
grayestone 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 a living
brow is worth more than a mount
ain of iaponicas and Gala lilies
neaped on funeral casket By little black
volume of fifty pages containing the eulo-
| 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 oboquy it heape1
upon those living giants. If | say nothing in
praise of man while he lives | will keep ST.
! 1
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 at the obSequles can atone
for non-appreciation 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
0ur friend who was a prophet in American
Journalism and VINO only few years ago
beard the command of my text: Take thee
great roll, and write IN 1t with mans
oen."
His father dead, Henry W. Grady, a boy
fourteen years of age, took up the battle of
life 1t would require a long chapter to re-
sord the names of orphans who have coma
DO the top When God takes away the head
1f the household He very often gives to some
lad in that household a special qualification.
Christ remembers how that His own father
lied early, leaving Him to support Himself
and His mother and His brothers in
The carpenters 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 a better education and |
would have had a more promising start and
there are sonic wrinkles on my brow that
would not have been there" But l have no.
iced that God makes a special way for or
ohans. You would not have been half the
nan you are if you had not been obliged
from your early days to fight your own bat
lies. What other boys got out of Yale or
Harvard you got in the University of Hard
Knocks. Go among successful merchants,
RwyeTs, physicians and men of all occupa-
lions and professions, and there are many of
hem who will tell you: AT ten. on twelve, or
1fteen years OF age | started for Myself
father was sick or father was dead"
But somehow they got through and
got up, 1 account for it by the fact that
there is a special dispensation of God for
orphans All hail the fatherless and the
motheressl 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
uad done a work which many a man who
lives on to sixty and seventy and eighty
years never accomplis'les. There is great
leal of senseless praise of longevity, as
though it were a wonderful achievement to
live a good while. All, my friends it is not
how long we live, but how well we live and
how usefully we live. A nan who lives to
eighty years and accomplishes nothing for
God or humanity might better have pever
lived at all Nethusaleh lived nine hundred
Id sixty-nine years, and what did il
mount to? In all those more than nine
IL Eln1 inn
which seemed worth record Paul lived
only a little more than sixty, but how many
Methusalehs would it take to make one Paul?
Who would not rather have Paurs sixty
years than Methusaleh's nine hundred and
sixty-nine? Robert McCheyne died at thirty
years of age and John Summertield mt
Gwenty-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 the blossoms OF tne tree of life if
found in the way OF Righteousness, but the
frosts of the second death if found in 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
taint" Some OF the newspapers answered:
No. I answered: Yes. and lest you may
not understand me 1 say: Yes, again. Ssccl-
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 astonishnent and his grief that
in our day so many young men were re-
jecting Christianity. From the earnest
ness and the tenderness and the con-
fidence with which he spoke on these
things l concluded that when Henry
W Grady made public profession OF his faith
in Christ and took his place at the holy com
munion 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 | simply heard OF
his departure without any of the particu
lars, concluded that he was ready to go.
warrant there was no fright in the last ext
gency, but that he found what is com
monty called ''the last enemy a gooc
friend, and from his home ON earth h,
went to a home in heaven. Yes, Mr.
GRADY not only demonstrated that an editoi
may be a Christian, but that very great in
tellect may be gospeized. His mental capa
city was so wonderful it was almost start
ling. have been with him in active CONVEX
Sation while at the same time he was dicta
oiilS 70 d stenoBfapher MS editorials for tbs
Atlanta Constitution. But that intellect wa.
not ashamed to bow to Christ Among hi
last dying utterances was a request for tbs
prayers of the churches in his behalf
There was That particular quality in him
that you do not find in more than one person
out of hundreds OF thousands-namelv. per.
sonal magnetism. People have tried to de
me that quality, and always failed, yet we
nave all felt its power There are some per.
sons who have only to enter room or ster
upon platform or into pulpit and you are
thrilled by their presence, and when they
speak your nature responds and you cannot