New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1890-03-05
TO HENRY w. GRADY
An Eloquent Memorial Ser
mon Preached by DR..
Talmage.
He Reviews the Life Of the
Great Orator and
Editor.

Editor.
The subject of DR.. Talmage's sermon was
t'The Life and Death OF Henry w. Grady, the
Editor and Orator" He took for his text
Isaiah viii, /: Take thee a great roll, and
write in it with mans PEN" The preacher
said:
To Isaiah with royal blood in his veins and
q habitant of palaces, does this devine order
come. He is to take a roll, great roll, and
write on it with pen, not an angels pen, but
a mans pen. So God honorcd the pen, and
so he honored manuscript In our day the
mightiest roll is in the religious and secular
newspaper, and the mightiest pen is the ed-
tor'spen, whether for good or evil. And God
says now to every literary man, and especial
~ to every journalist: Take great roll
and write in it with mans PEN.
Within u few weeks one of the strongest,
most vivid and most brilliant of those pens
was laid down on the editorial desk in At
1anta, never again to be resumed. / was far
away at the time. We had been sailing up
from the Mediterranean sea, through the
Dardaneles, 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 somewhat like the Thousand ISL
ands of our American St. Lawrence. but
morelike 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 your APP
proach to that city is different from any
other city, Other cities as you approach
them seem to retire, but this city, with its
sglttering minarets and pinnaces, seem al
most 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. could hardly be-
aieve the tidings, for had left on my study
table at home letters and kilograms from
him, those letters and kilograms having q
warmth and geniality and wit such as he
public man for SO many years has so affected
me- For days walked ABOUT as in dream,
and resolved that, getting home, l would
for the sake of his bereaved household, and
Sor 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 word in appreciation of him.
the most promising of Americans and learn
some of the salient lessons OIL departure
have no doubt that he had enemies for
no man canlive such an active life as he lived
or be go far in advance of his time without
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 ] thought of him.
Memorial oratons and gravestone epitaphs
are often neon enough. for they say of a
man after he is dead that which ought to
have been said Of him while living. One gar
aand for living brow is worth more than
monument ofjaponicas and callalilies heaped
ION a funeral casket BY little black volume
of50 pages containing the eulogiums and
poems uttered and written at the demise of
Clay and Webster and Calhoun and Lincoln
40 years of obloquy it heaped upon those
living giants If say nothing in praise of q
man while he lives will keep silent when he
Is dead: Myrtle and weeping willow can new
er do what ought to have been done by anna
ranth and palm branch. No amount of
dead March in Saul" rumbling from big
organs at the obseques can atone for non
appreciation of the man before he fell Cd
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 prophet in American
Journalism and who only a few years ago
heard the command Of my text: "Take thee
a great roll, and write in it with q mans
PEN
His father dead, Henry w. Grady, a bow IA
years of age, took up the battle OF life. 1t
would require a long chapter to record the
IN sanes. of orphans who have come to the top.
When God takes away the head of the house
hold he very often gives to some lad in that
S'household a special qualification. 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 Nazareth and he is in sympathy with
all boys and all young men in the struggle
fafh ho1 DyI1,
L would have a 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 noticed
that God makes a special way Tor orphans.
You would not have been half the man you
are if you had not been obliged from your
early days to fight your own BATTLES. What
other boys got out of Yale and Harvard you
got in the University of. Hard Knocks Go
among successful merchants, lawyers. ply
sicans and men of all occupations and pro-
LESSONS, and there are many of them who
will tell you: 'At 10, or IL, or Is years of
age started for myself; father was sick, or
father was dead" But somehow they got
through and got up. account for it by the
Gact that there is special dispensation of
God for orphans. All hail, the fatherless
and motherless! The Lord Almighty will
Grady were only the means for development
ofhis intellect and heart, And lol when at
80 years OF age he put down his pen and
closed his lips for the perpetual silence. He
had done work which many man who lives
on to 60 and 70 and so years never accom-
plishes. There ia a great deal of senseless
praise oflongevity, as though it were won
derful achievement to live a good while. All.
/ any friends, it is not how long weliye, but how
we'll We live and how usefully we live A man
who lives to 80 years and accomplishes moth
sne for God or humanity might better have
never lived at ALL Methusaleh lived 969
years, and what did it amount to? In all
those more than nine centuries he didnot &C.
scomplish anything that seemed worth record.
Paul lived only little more than 60, but
how many Methusalehs would it take to
make enc Paul? Who would not rather
have Pauls 60 years than Methusaleh's 969?
Robert McCheyne died ut 30 years of age
and John Summerfeld at % years OF age
but neither earth nor heaven will ever heal
athe end of their usefulness Longevity
Why, IN elephant can beat you at that, for
lit lives $50 and 200 years Gray hairs are
the blossoms of the tree of Ii e if found in the
way Of righteousness, but the frosts of the
second death if found in the way of sin.
One of sour able .NewYork journals last
spring printed question and senti it to m,Lny
people, and among others to myself Gar