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_From the “Sandersville Herald and Georgian.”_
THE usual joyous season of Christmas tide has been saddened by funeral
dirges over the loss of Georgia’s gifted son. Since the death of the
eloquent and lamented Ben Hill, the loss of no man has aroused deeper
sorrow than Henry W. Grady. Greater demonstrations of grief with all the
emblems of mourning were perhaps never before exhibited in Georgia.
Memorial services were held not only in Atlanta, the city of his home,
but throughout the State, voicing the great love of the people and their
deep sense of the magnitude of his loss. More touching, beautiful
eulogies and panegyrics have perhaps never been pronounced over the bier
of any man.
The intensity of the admiration for Henry Grady grew out of the fact
that his grand powers were all dedicated to the interests of humanity.
His magic pen, that charmed while it instructed, that delighted while it
moved, was laid under contribution to the good of his fellows. Eager for
the development of his State and her resources, he traversed the
lowlands of the South, and depicted her vast possibilities in the
cultivation of fruits, melons, etc., that have added so much to her
material wealth. Turning to the rock-ribbed mountains and hills of North
Georgia he pointed out the vast treasures of iron ore, marble and coal,
but waiting the hand of industry. In all sections he portrayed their
resources, their fields for manufacturers, the importance and value of
increased railroad transportation—in fact, leaving nothing undone that
seemed to promise good and prosperity to his people.
The sunny heart which he always carried into his labors was his chief
charm. The playful yet ardent spirit which he always had he seemed
happily to be able to impart to others. Indeed, he seemed to be a
gatherer of sunbeams, his blithe spirit seemed to sing,
Let us gather up the sunbeams
Lying all around our path,
Let us keep the wheat and roses,
Casting out the thorns and chaff.
The sweet, pacific tone of his mind gave him a wonderful influence over
the masses. More than once when disturbing questions were agitating the
city, and party and personal feeling ran high, has he by his
conciliatory spirit and harmless pleasantry quelled the boisterous
multitude. This spirit was ever fruitful of methods and concessions by
which all could harmonize. It was the cropping out of these broad,
liberal views in the fields of national patriotism that arrested the
attention of other sections of the Union, and gave rise to calls for
Grady to address the people at the meeting of the Historical Society in
New York over two years ago. The eloquent utterances of the young
orator, as he painted the Confederate soldier returning from the war,
ragged, shoeless and penniless, fired the Northern heart with a sympathy
for the South it had never known before.
From this time his fame as an orator was established, and he was at once
ranked among the greatest living orators of the day.
Thoughtful men of the North, recognizing the race problem as one of the
coming momentous issues of the future, were eager to hear the broad
views and patriotic suggestions of this great pacificator. An invitation
was there extended by the Merchants’ Association of Boston to address
them at Faneuil Hall. The address seemed to call forth all his capacious
powers, and is styled the crowning masterpiece of his life. As he
graphically sketched the happy results of the sun shining upon a land
with all differences harmonized, with all aspirations purified by the
limpid fount of patriotism, he sketched a panorama of loveliness and
beauty and promise that enraptured his hearers. And as the notes of the
dying swan thrill with new melody, so the last utterances of the dying
statesman will have now a new charm for those who loved him.
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