And now our much lamented friend has gone to give account. Suddenly the
facile and potent pen is laid down and the eloquent tongue is silent.
What? Is there no safeguard against fatal disease? The impersonation of
stout health was Mr. Grady. What compactness of muscle! What ruddy
complexion! What flashing eye! Standing with him in a group of twenty or
thirty persons at Piedmont, he looked the healthiest, as his spirits
were the blithest. Shall we never feel again the hearty grasp of his
hand or be magnetized with his eloquence? Men of the great roll, men of
the pen, men of wit, men of power, if our friend had to go when the call
came, so must you when your call comes. When God asks you what have you
done with your pen, or your eloquence, or your wealth, or your social
position, will you be able to give satisfactory answer? What have we
been writing all these years? If mirth, has it been innocent mirth, or
that which tears and stings and lacerates? From our pen have there come
forth productions healthy or poisonous! In the last great day, when the
warrior must give account of what he has done with his sword, and the
merchant what he has done with his yard stick, and the mason what he has
done with his trowel, and the artist what he has done with his pencil,
we shall have to give account of what we have done with our pen. There
are gold pens and diamond pens, and pens of exquisite manufacture, and
every few weeks I see some new kind of pen, each said to be better than
the other; but in the great day of our arraignment before the Judge of
the quick and dead, that will be the most beautiful pen, whether gold or
steel or quill, which never wrote a profane or unclean or cruel word, or
which from the day it was carved or split at the nib, dropped from its
point kindness and encouragement, and help and gratitude to God and
benediction for man.
May God comfort that torn up Southern home, and all the homes of this
country, and of all the world, which have been swept by this plague of
influenza, which has deepened sometimes into pneumonia and sometimes
into typhus, and the victims of which are counted by the ten thousand,
Satan, who is the “prince of the power of the air,” has been poisoning
the atmosphere in all nations. Though it is the first time in our
remembrance, he has done the same thing before. In 1696 the unwholesome
air of Cairo, Egypt, destroyed the life of ten thousand in one day, and
in Constantinople in 1714 three hundred thousand people died of it. I am
glad that by the better sanitation of our cities and wider understanding
of hygienic laws and the greater skill of physicians these Apollyonic
assaults upon the human race are being resisted, but pestilential
atmosphere is still abroad. Hardly a family here but has felt its
lighter or heavier touch. Some of the best of my flock fell under its
power and many homes here represented have been crushed. The fact is the
biggest failure in the universe is this world, if there be no heaven
beyond. But there is, and the friends who have gone there are many, and
very dear. Oh, tearful eyes, look up to the hills crimsoning with
eternal morn! That reunion kiss will more than make up for the parting
kiss, and the welcome will obliterate the good-by. “The Lamb which is in
the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water and
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Till then, O departed
loved ones, promise us that you will remember us, as we promise to
remember you. And some of you gone up from this city by the sea, and
others from under southern skies and others from the homes of the more
rigorous North and some from the cabins on great western farms, we shall
meet again when our pen has written its last word and our arm has done
its last day’s work and our lips have spoken their last adieu.
And now, thou great and magnificent soul of editor and orator! under
brighter skies we shall meet again. From God thou camest, and to God
thou hast returned. Not broken down, but ascended. Not collapsed, but
irradiated. Enthroned one! Coroneted one! Sceptered one! Emparadised
one! Hail and farewell!
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