It is no ordinary occasion that calls us together. That was no
ordinary light that went out in the gray mists of early dawn. It
was no ordinary life that has so suddenly and so strangely come
down to its close. To those of us who were University students
with him, who knew his University career, the story of his
splendid accomplishments has more than ordinary significance,
and the heart-breaking tragedy of his sudden taking off a
profound meaning.
We had a personal sympathy in every stride of his struggling
manhood: we carried a personal pride to every wonderful
achievement of his growing genius: we hailed with fraternal joy
every popular triumph of his intellectual prowess; we joined in
every glad shout that told how victoriously his unselfish love
was commanding sway over the American heart; and when he is
stricken down we bow our heads in sorrow, as only those can who
know the sources from which he drew the inspirations of his
life.
He came from the University of Georgia in those palmy days from
’66 to ’72, when Lipscomb and Mell and W. L. Brown and Waddell
and Rutherford and Charbonnier and Jones and Smead—names that
some of us will teach our boys to pronounce tenderly and
reverently—were at their greatest and best. In this company
gathered here are those who know the meaning and the moulding
power of great character builders like these. The great soul of
the venerable Chancellor Lipscomb, that grand arch priest of
higher learning, made its impress on the soul of the young man
at Athens. Some of us can trace that impress, and the impress of
the University of those days, through all his after life down to
that Boston speech, aye, even to the delirium of that last
sickness, when his thought was for others rather than of
himself.
Moulded to be generous, broad-minded, tolerant, unselfish,
magnanimous, aspiring, noble, who may tell us what climax this
divinely gifted, sunny soul might not have reached if his rich
and kingly life might have been spared to his race. The
education that he received was an evolution of the best and most
royal in manhood. It was fashioned on this pattern—the germ
thoughts of his life took root in his home and branched out to
his friends, overshadowed this city, sent their far-reaching and
strengthening arms over every portion of his State, and then
towered grandly above his section. Yea, and had began to bear
fruit for the healing of the nation, when alas, alas, an
inscrutable Providence cuts him down. But, thank God, that
matchless tongue, now silent forever, was not hushed till, above
Atlanta, above Georgia, above the South, above the whole
country, the undying eloquence of that Boston speech rose in
majestic waves over city, state, section and country, and sent
the far-thrilling echoes into the eternal depths of our common
humanity. There it is—from his home, through the university
life, through the splendid work in his editorial chair, on the
rostrum, in every forward movement of his soul to that last
grand plea to the national heart, and down into the delirium of
the death chamber, it is the evolution of the noblest and the
best. The heart that made the sunniest home in Atlanta warmed
everything it touched, from the son of the Puritan on Plymouth
Rock, to the grey-haired old freedman that goes with tottering
step and slow to join old master and old missus behind the
sunset hills.
The University has sent out many sons who have honored her in
filling large places in the history of our State and country.
Hill and Stephens and Toombs, the Cobbs, and Jacksons, and
Lumpkins, and Crawfords, and Gordons, and a long line of
immortal names, have illustrated her worth in the professions,
in the field, and in the forum. Of the many bright and
brightening names of her younger sons, the name of Grady easily
led all the rest, and now that he is gone, the almost universal
cry is, who among those that are left is great enough to fill
his place. In the words of one who had much to do in moulding
his intellectual life: “Ulysses is away on his wandering and
there is none left in Ithaca strong enough to bend his bow.”
_Resolved_, That in the death of Henry W. Grady the Alumni of
the University of Georgia have lost from their ranks a man who
illustrated the best that comes from University education.
_Resolved_, That his career furnishes to our young men a shining
example of one who, choosing his life-work, loved it with an
unwavering love, believed in it with an unalterable and tireless
devotion and reached success and eminence before he had rounded
two-score years.
_Resolved_, That we recognize and commend the unselfish and
generous love of our brother for his own race and for the human
race—a love that was so warm and genial that it won men to him
as if by magic. Here was the motive power that developed and
drove his great brain. Here was the “open sesame” that unlocked
for him those treasure-houses of grand thoughts for humanity
that are forever barred to cold-hearted and self-seeking men.
_Resolved_, That we very tenderly and lovingly commend to our
Heavenly Father the loved ones about his own hearthstone. We
cannot understand this blow, but we bow in submission to the
Judge of all the earth, who will do right.
_Resolved_, That copies of this preamble and resolutions be
furnished to his family, and to the Macon and Atlanta papers for
publication.
G. R. GLENN, }
W. B. HILL, } _Committee_.
WASHINGTON DESSAU, }
These resolutions were also unanimously adopted.
* * * * *
Mr. John T. Boifeuillet, representing the press of Macon, spoke as
follows: