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_From the “Madison Madisonian.”_
IT is almost impossible to realize that Henry Grady is dead; that the
eager, restless hands are stilled, and the great heart pulseless
forevermore. The soul turned sick at the tidings, and a wave of anguish
choked all utterance save lamentation alone. His people mourn his
passing with one mighty voice, and like Rachel weeping in the
wilderness, refuse to be comforted.
It seems a grief too heavy to be borne, and as lasting as the
everlasting hills; but when time shall have laid its soothing hand upon
our woe, there will succeed a sensation of exultance and exaltation, the
natural consequence of a contemplation and appreciation of the briefness
and brilliancy of his course, and the proportions and perfection of his
handiwork.
To few men has it been given to live as Grady lived; to still less to
die as Grady died, in the flush flood-tide of achievement, laying down
sword and buckler, the victory won, and bowing farewell while yet the
thunder-gust of plaudits shook the arena like a storm. He flamed like a
meteor athwart the night and vanished in focal mid-zenith, leaving the
illimitable void unstarred by an equal, whose rippling radiance,
flashing in splendor from its myriad facets, might gladden our
sublimated vision.
And what of good he accomplished, all his claim to renown, and the sole
and simple cause of endearing him to mankind, rested upon one trait
alone, one Christ-like attribute and actuating motive. He held but one
creed and preached but one gospel—the gospel of love. “Little children,
love one another,” said, now nearly a score of centuries since, the
carpenter of Nazareth, and with this text—this first and greatest and
most divine of all the commandments—for a wizard’s wand, our modern
Merlin unlocked hearts and insured the hearty clasping of palms from one
end to the other of this broad land.
What more resplendent record could man attain? What prouder fame be
shouted down the ages?
His epitaph is written in the hearts of his people. His memory is
enshrined in the love of a nation.
Let us leave him to repose.
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