One of our able New York journals last spring printed a question and
sent it to many people, and, among others, to myself: “Can the editor of
a secular journal be a Christian?” Some of the newspapers answered no. I
answered yes; and, lest you may not understand me, I say yes again.
Summer before last, riding with Mr. Grady from a religious meeting in
Georgia on Sunday night, he said to me some things which I now reveal
for the first time, because it is appropriate now that I reveal them. He
expressed his complete faith in the gospel, and expressed his
astonishment and his grief that in our day so many young men were
rejecting Christianity. From the earnestness and the tenderness and the
confidence with which he spoke on these things I concluded that when
Henry W. Grady made public profession of his faith in Christ, and took
his place at the holy communion in the Methodist Church, he was honestly
and truly Christian. That conversation that Sunday night, first in the
carriage and then resumed in the hotel, impressed me in such a way that
when I simply heard of his departure, without any of the particulars, I
concluded that he was ready to go. I warrant there was no fright in the
last exigency, but that he found what is commonly called “the last
enemy” a good friend, and from his home on earth he went to a home in
heaven. Yes, Mr. Grady not only demonstrated that an editor may be a
Christian, but that a very great intellect may be gospelized. His mental
capacity was so wonderful it was almost startling. I have been with him
in active conversation while at the same time he was dictating to a
stenographer editorials for the Atlanta _Constitution_. But that
intellect was not ashamed to bow to Christ. Among his last dying
utterances was a request for the prayers of the churches in his behalf.
There was that particular quality in him that you do not find in more
than one person out of hundreds of thousands—namely, personal magnetism.
People have tried to define that quality, and always failed, yet we have
all felt its power. There are some persons who have only to enter a room
or step upon a platform or into a pulpit, and you are thrilled by their
presence, and when they speak your nature responds and you cannot help
it. What is the peculiar influence with which such a magnetic person
takes hold of social groups and audiences? Without attempting to define
this, which is indefinable, I will say it seems to correspond to the
waves of air set in motion by the voice or the movements of the body.
Just like that atmospheric vibration is the moral or spiritual vibration
which rolls out from the soul of what we call a magnetic person. As
there may be a cord or rope binding bodies together, there may be an
invisible cord binding souls. A magnetic man throws it over others as a
hunter throws a lasso. Mr. Grady was surcharged with this influence, and
it was employed for patriotism and Christianity and elevated purposes.