The Opelousas courier., 1890-05-03
DIR. TALMAGE
THE BR00kLYN DIvINE,S sUrDAy
SERMON.
eooJect;-Henry W. Grady, the Editor
and Orator.

"SA" QSNs Isaiah Will. l.
10 Isaiah, with royal blood in his vein
a ~ q AaoaeahG OF palaces, does this divine
oFuef come. He is to take a roll a Iarye
rel, and write o n it with a pen, not an an
gers pen, but a mans pen. SO God honorer
the pen and SO He honorsd manuscrint T,
our day the mightiest roll is the religious anC
secular newspaper, and the mightiest nan i
lne edltors pen, whether for good or evil
Ana zoo says now to every literary man
ana especially to every journalist: i'Tak,
thee a great roll, and write in It with q mani,
pen.n
Within a few weeks one Of the STRONGEST
most vivid and most brilliant of those men.
was lald down on the editorial desk in At
ianta, never again to be resumed. Twas faI
away at the time. We had been sailing M
from the Mediterranean Sea, through tn,
Dardaneiles, which region is unlike anything
ever saw for beauty. There issnot any othel
water scenery on earth where God has done
So many picturesque things with islands
They are somewhat like the Thousand Island,
OF our American st. Lawrence. but NOR,
IKE heaven. Indeed, we had lust passed
Fatmos; the place from which Johr
nad his apocalyptic vision. Con
stantsnople had seemed to come out tc
greet us, for your approach to that city is diff.
1erent from any other city. Other cities as
you approach them seem to retire, but this
Guy, with its glttering minarets and
plnnacles, seems almost 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. I could hardly believe the tidings,
Tor l had left on my study table at home
letters and kilograms from him, those
and geniality and a wit such as he
only could express. The departure of
no public man for many years has so affected
me. For daysI walked about as in a 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 of what he had been to me and
shall continue to be as long as memory lasts,
l 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 mar 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 I shall tell you how
he appeared TO me, n ] ann glad that I
told him while he was in full health what I
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 q living
brow is worth more than a mount
ain of japonicas and Gala lilies
heaped on a funeral casket. BY a little black
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 heaped
upon those living giants. II / say nothing in
praise of q man while he lives / will keep ST.
lent when he is dead. Myrtle and weeping
willow can never 10 what ought to have been
done by amaranth and palm branch. No
amount of Dead March in Saul" rumbling
from big organs at the obsequies can atone
for non-appreciation Of the man before he fell
on sleep. The hearse cannot do what ought
TO have been lone 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: t'Take thee
a great roll, and write in it with q mans
penn
His father dead, Henry W. Grady, a boy
fourteen yearsof age. took up the battle Of
life. 1t would require a long chapter to re-
cord the names of orphans who have come
TO the top. When God takes away the head
Of the household He very often gives to some
lad in that household a special qualification.
Christ remembers how that His own father
and His mother and His brothers in
the carpenters shop mt Nazareth,
and He is in sympathy with
all boys and all young men in the struggI.
You say. tOh, il my father had only lived !
would have had q better education and ]
would nave had q more promising start, and
there are some wrinkles on my brow that
would not have been there" But I have no
ticed that God makes a special way for or
phans. You would not have been haliathe
man you are if you had not been obliged
from your early days to fight your W 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-
lions and professions, and there are many OF
them who will tell you: "Atten. or twelve, or
father was sick, or father was dead
But somehow they got through and
got up. I account for e by the fact that
there is a special dispensation of God for
orphans. An hail, the fatherless and the
motherlessi The Lord Almighty will see
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
G1OS6u uS npS lUE bLC pt1 p014as 6ApoASC5 80
had lone a work which many o man WHO
lives on to sixty and seventy and eighty
years never accomplishes. There IS great
deal OF senseless praise OF longevity, o.
though il were q wonderful achievement to
live a good while. All, my friends, 1t Is not
how long we live, but how well we I'VE ana
how usefu1ly we live. A ma VINO lives to
God or humanity might better have never
lived at all. Methusaleh lived nine hundred
and s~ixty-nine years. and what did it
amount TOT. In all those more than nine
centuries he did not accomplish anything
which seemed worth record. Paui hved
only a little more than sixty, but how many
Methusaiehs would it take TO make one Panlf
VINO would not rather have Paul's sixty
years than Methusaleh's nine hundred and
sixty-nineg Robert McCheyne died at thirty
years OF age and John Summarized at
f-wenty-seven years Of age, but neither earth
MOI, heaven viii ever hear the end OF their
usefulness. longevity Why, an elephant
can beat you at that, for 1t lives q nanareo
and fifty and two hundred years. tray
hairs are the blossoms of the tree OF ME IL
found in the way of Righteousness, o tne
frosts of the second death II Round N tn0
way of sin.
One of our able New York journals last
suring printed q question and sent it TO many
ueople and among others to myself: aCan
the editor OF q secular journal be Q CnTis-
tainfa Some Of the newspapers answered:
No. answered: Yes: and lest you maj
rot understand me I say: Yes, again. SHYa'
mer before last. riding with Mr. Grady from
) religious nesting in Georgia on SUNDAY
nighfshe said to me some things which now
reveal for the first time because II 10 appro,
uriata now that I reveal them. He expressed
lis complete faith In the Gospel and cx.
Dresssd his astonishment and his grief thai
In cur day SO many young men were r.
iecting Christianity. From tne earnest
i,ess and the tenderness and the CON
idercg with which he spoke on taess
things I concluded that whan HENRY
W Grady made public profession Of bis falth
In Christ and took his place ss the holy CON.