The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1890-05-16
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE's SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: Henry w. Grady, the Ed
itor and Orator"


in 10 Nth a mGl,'s peh."--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 pen. but mans pen. So God hOnOred
the pen and 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 great roll, and write init witha man 5
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 l
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 heaven. Indeed, we had Just passed
Patmos, the place from which John
had his apOcalyptic vision. Con-
staEtinople 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 to retire, but this
city, with its glittering minarets and
pinnacles, 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
I Grady could hardly believe the tidings
/ for l had left on my study table at home
! letters and kilograms from him, those
/ letters and kilograms having a warmth
and geniality and a wit such as he
only could express The departure Of
l opuhlic man for many years has so affected
me. For days walked about as in a dream
I and resolved that, getting home [ would.
I for the sake OF his bereaved household. and
! Tor 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.
1 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 because he
defeated their projects and some because he
outshone them. Owls and bats never did
like the rising sun. But l shall tell you how
he appeared to me, and l 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 d 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 Gala lilies
heaped on a 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 obloquy it heaped
upon those living giants. Ii | say nothing in
# a la
lent when he is dead. Myrtle and weeping
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-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
our friend, who was a prophet in American
journalism and who only few years ago
heard the command Of my text: Take thee
4 great roll, and write IN it with mans
pen.n
His father dead, Henry ". Grady, n boy
ourteen years Of age took up the battle of
lie. 1t would require long chapter to re-
ord the names of orphans vino have come
the top. When God takes away the head
( the household he very often gives TO some
al in that household a special qualification
,hrist remembers how that His own father
led early, leaving Him to support Himself
nd His mother and His brothers in
he carpenters shop at Nazareth,
md He is in sympathy with
Ii boys and all young men in the struggle.
You say: ''Oh, il my father had only lived !
would have had a better education and I
would have had more promising start, and !
here are some wrinkles on my brow that
sould have been there But l have no.
iced that God makes Il special way for or !
Won would moi hazra haau half rhe
an you are if YOU had not been obliged /
ON your early days to fight your own bat I
IS What other boys got out of Yale or /
award you got in the University of Hard 1
.SslOcks. Go among successful merchants, ]
Zers physicians and men of all occupa-
lS1u, ahrofessions, and there are many Of 4
Ia wifi, All tell you: AT ten. or twelve, or /
~ " - - age 1 started for myself; /
When he arose nor father was dead, /
got through and /
Town all his limbs liAby the fact that
read was weary with 49, 5a 81 e 1Dd t tRs
o anxiously, his hanthisyyr r' vii GIs See
leavy and lazy, and refusmaesg-t Of his /
Isual service. IS pen and
e. q silence, he ;
All, he dared not sing a an, man a,, Who
Time passed away sAere is a great
ediously, so that he co. achievement ;5,ia1si to
ndure the day. ssy a 6rsn %s It IS a n9i
ad been thinking , A Rfa who bot5 liyss f to
nd had coma b might better have never
ethusaleh lived nine hundred
he man who, wears ari what lid it
,-ani,,,, "a n all those AoI- han nine
0Aiia III did not accomplish anything
as the wea- worth record; Paul lived
ssSir witlEOuid it take 10 make one Paul?
ID not rather have Paurs sixty
AID, chen Methusaleh's nine hundred and
= Robert McCheyne died at thirty
ack a8f age and John Symmetrical at
.bich f-seven years Of age, but neither earth
11Aaven will ever hear the end of their
uiet1ness. longevity Why, an elephant
beat you at that, for it lives hundred
4 fifty and two hundred years. Gray
srs are the blossoms Of the tres of life If
ayInd IN the way of Righteousness, but the
,rosts Of the second death if found IN the
ay of sin.
One of our able New York journals last
bring printed question and sent it to many
,eople and among others to myself: Can
ne editor of secular journal be Chris
fainF' Some of the newspapers answered:
No. I answered: Yes; and lest You may
net understand me l say: Yes. again. Sum
uer before last, riding with MIR. Grady from
q religious meeting in Georgia on Sunday
light, he said to me some things which now
-evCal for the first time because it is appro-
riate now that l reveal them He expressed
MS complete faith in the Gospel and ex-
lressed his establishment and his grief that
our day so many young men were re-
Getting Christianity. From the earnest
less and the tenderness and the con-
idence with which he spoke On these
hings l concluded that when Henry
r. Grady made public profession of his faith
n Christ and took his place at the holy COM
munion in the Methodist Church, he was
honest and truly Christian. That conversa-
ton that Sunday night, first in the carriage
and then resumed in the hotel, impressed me
in such a way that when | simply haPrJ Ct
his departure without any OF The particd-
airs, l concluded that he was ready to 60 l
warrant there was no fright in the last ext
gency, but that he found what is com
monty called ''the last enemy a good
friend, and from his home on earth he
went 10 home in heaven. Yes, Mr.
Grady not only demonstrated that an editor
nay be Christian but that a very great in
-ellect may be gospeized. His mental capa-
.ity was so wonderful it was almost start
ing. L have been with him in active CONVEX
alton while at the same time he was dicta-
ing 90 a stenographer his editorials for the
Atlanta Constitution But that intellect was
lot ashamed to bow 10 Christ Amouo his