The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-03-07
TALMAGE ON GRADY.
The Great Preacher Eulogizes the
Great Editor.
Wonderful Achievements of q Brief Life
The Responsibilities of Newspaper Men
The Example OF q Christian
Life.

The subject of a recent sermon
preached at Brooklyn BY Rev. T. De
Witt Talmage was: 1.-THE Life and
Death of Henry W. Grady. the Editor
and Orator" He took for his text
Isaiah viii. 1: Take thee great roll
and write in it with a mans pen" The
preacher said:
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 angels pen, but a mans
pen. So God honored the pen and so
honored manuscript. In our day the
mightiest roll is the religious and secu-
lar newspaper, and the mightiest pen is
the editors pen, whether for good or
| evil. And God says now to every lit
erary man, and especially to every
journalist: Take thee great roll and
write in it with mans pen"
Within few weeks one of the strong
est, most vivid and most brilliant of
those pens was laid down on the editorial
desk in Atlanta. never again to be re-
sumed. l was far away at the time. We
had been sailing up from the Mediter-
rauean sea, through the Dardanelles,
which region is unlike any thing / 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 something 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. Constantinople had seemed to
come out to greet US, for our approach to
that city is different from any other city
Other cities as you approach them seem
| to retire, but this city with its glitter
ing minarets and pinnacles, seems al
most to step into the water TO greet you.
But my landing there. that would
have been to me an exhilara ton, was
! suddenly stunned with the tidings of
the death of my intimate friend, Henry
W. Grady. I could hardly believe 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 many years has so
affected me. For days l walked about
as in dream, and / resolved that, get
ting home, would. for the sake of his
bereayed household. and for the sake of
ais bereaved profession. and for the
II L.
shall continue to be as long as memory
lasts, would speak word in apprecia-
ton of him. the most promising of
Americans, and learn some of the salient
lessons of mis- departure.
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 be-
cause 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 l thought of
him. Memorial orations and gravestone
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 mountain
of japonicas and Gala lilies heaped
on a funeral casket. By a little
black volume of fifty pages containing
the eulogiums and poems uttered and
written at the demise of Clay and Web
ster and Calhoun and Lincoln and Sum-
ner the world tried to pay for the forty
years of obloquy heaped upon those iv-
ing giants If L say nothing in praise
Of a man while he lives 1 will keep ST.
len, when he is dead. Myrtle and weep
ing 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
obsequies can atone for non-apprecia-
ton of the man before he fell asleep.
The hearse can not do what ought to
have been done by chariot
But there are important things that
was prophet in American journalism
and who only few years ago heard the
command Of my text: Take thee a
great roll and write in it with mans
penn His father dead. Henry w. Grady,
boy Of fourteen years Of age, took up
the battle of life. 1t would require q
long chapter to record 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 specific qualif-
cation. Christ remembers how that His
own father died early, leaving him to
support himself and His mother and His
brothers in the carpenters shop at Naza-
reth, and He is in sympathy with all
boys in the struggle. You say: 20, il
my father had only lived I would have
had more promising start, and there
are some wrinkles on my brow that
would not have been there" But 1
have noticed that God makes special
way for orphans You would not have
been half the man you are If you had
otsbeen obliged from your early days
to fight your own battles. What other
boys got out Of Yale or Harvard you got
in the university of hard knocks. Go
among the successful merchants, law
yers, physicians and men of all occupa-
ton and professions, and there are
many of them who will tell you: "At
ten, or twelve or fifteen years of age
started for myself; father was sick, or
father was dead" But somehow they
got through ard got up. / account for
it by the fact that there is a special
dispensation Of God for orphans. All
hail the fatherless and the motherless!