The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1890-03-13
DR.. TALMAGB'S SERMON,
TuEIIFE AND DEATH OF HENRY
w. GRADY.
The Brooklyn Preacher Paws an
oquent Tribute to the Gifted
Author and Journalist.

Author anu JOurhaliSt.
TENT: "Take the, n great roll. and ,prite
an it rith n 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 a roll, large
roll. and write on it with a pen, not an an
gels pan but mans pen. So God houored
the pen aul 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 a great roll, and write il it 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
DarianelleS, which region is unlike anything
ever saw for beauty. There is not any other
water scenery on earth where God has done
50 many picturesque things with islands.
They are somewhat like the Thousand Islands
of our American st. Lawrence, but more
like heav II. Indeed, we had just passed
Patmos, the place from which John
hai his apocalyptic vision. Con-
stantinople had seemed to come out to
ferent from any other city. Other cities as
you approach them seem to retire, but this
city, WITH its glitteriug minarets and
pinnaces, seems almost to step into the
water to greet yoa. But my landing there,
that would have been to me an exhilaratlon,
was suddenly stunned with tae tidings of the
death of my intimate friend, Henry w.
Grady. could hardly believe the tidlngs,
for l had left on nv study table at home
Iaff those
letters and kilograms having warmth
and geniality and Wit Such as ne
only could express. The departure o.
no public man for many years has so affected
me. For daysI walked about as in dream,
and resolved tlat, getting home. | would;
for the sake o. his bsreavei 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 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 man can live such an active hte as ne
lived or be so far in advance OF his time
without making enemies, some because he
defeated their projects and some because ne
cutsnone them. Owls and bats never did
like the rising SUM- But | SHALL tell you how
b, appeared to me, and l am glad that
tcld him while he was in full health wnat
Thought of him. Memorial oratlons and
gravestonc epitaphs are often mean enough,
TOR they say of a man after he IS dead that
which ought to have been said OF him
while living One garland for living
brow is worth more than a mount
ain of japonicas and calla lilies
teap.d on funeral casket. By a little black
volume of fifty pages containing the euio-
gums and poems uttered and written at tine
dennis, of Clay and Webster and Calhoun
and Lincoln and Sumner, the world tried to
pay for the forty years of obloquy it heapei
upon those living giants If say nothing in
praise ef man while he lives I will keep 81
lent when he is dead Myrtle and weeping
willow can never do what ought to have ossn
done by amaranth and palm branch. No
amount of Dead March in Saul rumbllng
from big organs at the obsequies can atone
for non-appreciation of the man before ne felt
on sleep. the hearSe cannot do what ought
10 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 the command Of my text: lake thee
a great roll, and write in it with mans
pen"
His father dead, Henry ". Grady, a boy
fourteen years Of age, toox up the oattie OF
life. 1t would require a long chapter to re-
roi l.he names of orphans who have come
TO toe top. When God takes away the head
Of the household He very often gives to some
lad in that household special quallhcatidp:
Christ remembers how that His own tatN4
lied early, leaving Him to support Himself
and His mother and His brothers in
.na the eagsntsfs Hs IS shop synpathy ap 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 more promising start, and
there are some wrinkles on my brow that
would not have been there" But 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 got in 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. OF twelve or
Rfteen years of age started for myself;
father was SICK, or father was dead
But somehow they got through and
poS %. 1 account for It by the fact that
Isr, is a special dispensation of God for
o-rhans All hail, the fataerless and the
motherless The Lord Almighty will see
you through. Early obstacles for Mr.. Grady
were only the means for development of his
nine years of age he put down his pen and
closed his lips for the perpetual silence, he
had done work which many a man who
lives on to sixty and seventy and eighty
years never accomplisfes. There is great
deal of Senseless PRISE Of longevity, as
though it were wonderful achievement to
live good while. Alb, 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 years and accomplishes nothing for
God or humanity might better have never
lived at oil. Methusaleh lived nine hundred
and si3ty- y-nine' years, and what did it
$50 to?' Intall those more than nine
he did not accomplish anything
Aned worth record. Paul lived
4 more than sixty, t;:t low many
~ bs would it take to make one Paul?
4 not rather have Paurs SIXTY
fMaGnusalehs nine hundred and
yshine? 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 the blossoms of the tree of life if
found in the way Of Righteousness, but the
frosts OF the second death ii found in the
way Of sin.
One of our able New York journals last
spring printed question and sent it to many