THE ATLANTA MEMORIAL MEETING.

From the “Constitution,” December 21.

THE overflowing hearts of a sorrowing people found expression in words yesterday.

Memorial services to the memory of the dead Grady were held in DeGive’s Opera House, and for three hours eulogies were pronounced on his name.

Loving lips and dewy eyes told the sorrow of a bereaved people gathered to pay the last public tribute to their departed friend.

The service began at 11 o’clock, and continued until 2.

At half-past ten the various escorts assembled at the Chamber of Commerce. There they formed and marched to the Opera House in a body. General Clement A. Evans, D.D., and Rev. Dr. J. W. Lee, D.D., headed the procession. Following them were the speakers of the occasion, pallbearers, honorary escort and members of the Chi Phi Fraternity, headed by Mayor John T. Glenn.

At the Opera House the delegations were ranged on the stage. They were Dr. J. B. Hawthorne, Dr. H. C. Morrison, Dr. N.C. Barnett, General Clement A. Evans, Judge W. R. Hammond, Judge W. T. Newman, Mayor John T. Glenn, Hon. John Temple Graves, Prof. H. C. White, of Athens; Hon. Patrick Walsh, of Augusta; Julius L. Brown, W. A. Hemphill, Dr. J. W. Lee, Charles S. Northen, Louis Gholstin, T. L. Meador, B. B. Crew, Donald Bain, Hon. N. J. Hammond, Captain J. W. English, Governor Gordon, John C. Calhoun, of New York; Judge Howard Van Epps, Patrick Calhoun, Albert H. Cox, W. R. Joyner, C. A. Collier, John Colvin, Porter King, Captain Everett, S. M. Inman, Professor Bass, Major Jno. A. Fitten, Captain R. I. Lowry, L. J. Hill, W. H. Thompson, J. A. Wright, H. 346C. White, W. P. Hill, Arnold Broyles, and other members of the Chi Phi; W. J. Garrett, W. W. Boyd, W. L. Calhoun, Hon. T. H. Mustin, of Madison; R. D. Spalding, M. C. Kiser, J. J. Griffin, J. R. Wyly, H. B. Tompkins, L. B. Nelson, Charles Keith, Judge George Hillyer, Gus Long, Dr. Crawford, J. G. Oglesby, J. J. Spalding, John J. Falvey, Clark Howell, Jr., F. M. O’Bryan, C. A. Fouche, of Rome, and others.

The Opera House, inside and out, was draped in sable and white, and on the stage, forming a fragrant background, was a mass of beautiful flowers and floral pieces. In the center of the group was the lovely offering of the dead man’s associates and employés, standing out from a setting of palms and roses. To the right of this central piece was the crown from the people of Boston, and to the left the tribute from the Virginia Society.

To the front and at each side of the stage was a life-size crayon portrait of Mr. Grady, heavily draped, and resting on a gilded easel. Round the base of the easel were flowers and plants of delicate foliage, perfuming the air with their fragrant breath, and seeming to send sweet messages to the loved face above.

The galleries and boxes were all hung in mourning.

General Clement A. Evans opened the service with prayer, full of words of sweetness and comfort, and of grateful thanks for the good already accomplished by the one that is gone, even in so short a sojourn on the earth. General Evans prayed calmly and simply, concluding with the invocation of God’s blessing to those left behind, and an inspiration to those who were to speak of the departed soul.

Mayor Glenn, who presided over the service, then arose and announced the order of exercises. He said he was too sick of heart to attempt to offer a tribute to the memory of his dead friend, and contented himself with a few simple words of preface.

Judge W. R. Hammond was introduced, and read the 347following tribute of the Chi Phi Fraternity, of which Mr. Grady was one of the charter members at the State University:

THE CHI PHI MEMORIAL.

The following memorial and resolutions were prepared by a committee appointed by a number of members of the Chi Phi Fraternity, who assembled in Atlanta upon the announcement of the death of Henry W. Grady, who was a member of that Fraternity, and were read by Judge W. R. Hammond:

It is sad beyond the power of expression to be compelled to-day, and from this time henceforth, to speak of Henry W. Grady as dead. But it is with the profoundest pleasure that we take occasion to give utterance to our appreciation of his virtues, and bear testimony to those high qualities in him that marked him in many respects, not only as one of the leading men of his State and section, but as one of the foremost men of his times.

It is peculiarly appropriate that his club-mates of the Chi Phi Fraternity should perpetuate his memory, because he was one of its charter members at the State University, and always gave to it a place of unusual warmth in his affections, ever manifesting, in his attachment to its principles and to its members, that freshness of enthusiastic ardor which so strikingly characterized him in his college days. How well do we remember him—those of us who were accustomed to be with him in those days—as, with buoyant tread and sparkling eye and merry smile, he went out and came in amongst us, ever bearing in his frank, generous, hearty manner, the cheeriest good will to all, and the unmistakable evidence of malice and ill-will toward none. Easily and quickly did he win the hearts of all his club and college-mates, and it was their delight to do him honor whenever occasion permitted.

As it was then among the boys, so it was afterwards among men. He wore his heart upon his sleeve, and gave it to all without reserve. In some this characteristic would have been weakness, but in him it was a chief element of strength because of the very fact that he possessed it in such a marked and striking degree. Even those who were his enemies were won to him when they came into his presence, and had their dislikes charmed away by the magnetism of his manner and his open and unreserved frankness.

Henry Grady had eminent characteristics which made him great, and it is proper and right that we should place upon record our estimate 348of them, and cannot but be highly beneficial to us to thoughtfully consider some of them.

His mind was exceedingly subtle, and his perceptible powers unusually and remarkably keen. He comprehended at a glance, and discriminated as if by intuition. It was this, doubtless, that gave him that wonderful expressiveness of speech which so completely captivated all who ever heard him. He saw clearly—therefore he had power to make others see.

We all have within us at times vague and inexpressible thoughts, and we feel a desire for some one who can interpret them for us, and give utterance and expression to that which we cannot even put into the form of a suggestion. We feel the need of a Daniel who can tell us the dream, and then give us the interpretation of it. Who that has listened to the magic of Grady’s speech, or gathered the subtle thought from his well-chosen words, has not found in them the expression of that which seemed to lie slumbering in his own bosom, only to be awakened by the touch of his master hand! Such is the service which genius renders to humanity, and such did he render for us with a power that was almost matchless and unapproachable.

But, superb as were his mental gifts, it was not this alone, or even chiefly, that made him great and gave him power such as few ever possessed to attract men to him. There have been those who equaled if they did not surpass him here, but who yet have failed to impress themselves upon humanity with a tithe of the force exerted by him. It was his great heart that endeared him to us all and made us love him and rejoice in his success, with a feeling that knew no jealousy, and ever prompted us to bid him God-speed in his onward and upward career to the high destiny which seemed to await him.

True love is unmistakable in its manifestations. He who really and truly loves his fellows need not fear that they will fail to find it out. It will manifest itself, not in the arts and wiles of the demagogue, but in a thousand ways which need not be premeditated, and cannot be misjudged or misunderstood.

Grady loved humanity, and love with him was not weak sentimentality, but strong, over-mastering passion. He loved humanity, not in the abstract, but in the person of those members of it who came within reach of him. And this love to them was not a mere sentiment, but a real passion, to which he gave expression in his never-tiring acts of devotion and his ceaseless efforts to aid them in every way and by every means that lay in his power. It was thus that he grappled his friends to him with hoops of steel and held them in a grasp which nothing could loosen.

It was Grady’s strong emotional nature that gave wings to his words and carried them so deep into the hearts of his fellow men. Thought 349must have feeling back of it before it can have power to stir men’s blood and move them to action. The twain must be married together as one, and from their union springs a light and power which are potent factors in the redemption of humanity. In Grady they were united, and hence his words burnt their way into the souls of men. The magnificence of his thoughts, and the untold wealth of feeling which sprang from his great heart, were not to be resisted, and easily won and held the admiration and homage of his fellow men.

But the deep pathos of Grady’s heart, so often stirred into those grand utterances which made him famous, seems now to have been but the prophecy of the far deeper pathos of his untimely death. Oh how sad it was to see him lying there upon his bier mute and motionless, when but yesterday the nation hung upon his words, and men of all sections and political parties delighted to do him honor. Oh how strong in our breasts is the wish that he might have lived, not only for himself, his family and friends, but also for the sake of his country, and especially his beloved Southland, just beginning to feel the disenthrallment from her bonds, and to realize that one had arisen who seemed to have the power to place her before the Nation and the world in her rightful position, and claim for her that sympathy and forbearance which she so much needs in the solution of the great problem which has been thrust upon her.

But he is gone, and we can only mourn his loss, and indulge the hope that the good he has done may live after him, and that even the sad bereavement of his death may do much to help seal the truth of his last public utterance upon the hearts of the people of this great country, and ultimately bring them together as one in a union of fraternal fellowship and love.

Resolved, That in the death of our brother, Henry W. Grady, our Fraternity has lost one of its most honored and devoted members.

Resolved, That we tender to his bereaved family our sincere and heartfelt sympathy.

Resolved, That a copy of this memorial and resolutions be sent to his family.

Resolved, That the city papers be requested to publish these proceedings, and that a copy be sent to the national organ of the Chi Phi Fraternity.

J. W. Lee, }

J. T. White, }

B. H. Hill, }

Andrew Calhoun, } Committee.

W. H. Hill, }

Jack M. Slaton, }

W. R. Hammond, }

350Hon. Patrick Walsh was introduced by Mayor Glenn, and said:

ADDRESS OF HON. PATRICK WALSH.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Fellow-Citizens: We are here to pay a tribute to the worth and greatness of the departed—to him who did so much for the prosperity of the great and goodly city of Atlanta; to him who did so much for Georgia and the South, and to him who did so much for the restoration of peace and good will among the people of all sections of our common country.

The most gifted and useful public man of his day has passed away in the person of Henry W. Grady. I will refer briefly to him as an editor before he electrified the country, and won plaudits from his countrymen by the magic of his winsome eloquence.

I met him for the first time about twenty years ago at a meeting of the Georgia Press Association in the city of Augusta. Although he had not reached his majority, he was the proprietor and editor of the Rome Commercial, which was his first newspaper venture. He was then a striking and manly youth, and gave promise of a career of prominence and usefulness in the field of journalism. He moved from Rome to Atlanta and was engaged for a few years in editing the Herald, one of the brightest and most enterprising newspapers in the State. He acquired reputation as a correspondent during the period of reconstruction, and subsequently represented one of the leading journals of the North as its special representative in Florida during the memorable campaign of 1876, when the returning board of that State negatived the will of the people. Mr. Grady gave the country graphic and truthful pictures of the evils which the South endured. He strikingly depicted the wrongs imposed upon our people and exposed the usurpation of those placed in authority by the aid of the general Government. During that sad period of the South’s eventful history, he rendered signal service to the people, and the 351principles which he advocated, with a steadfast devotion and an exalted patriotism.

His reputation as a journalist is identified with the growth and prosperity of that great newspaper, in the upbuilding of which he took such a conspicuous part. The Constitution stands as a monument to his ability as an editor. His versatility as a writer was something phenomenal. There was no subject within the range of the press that he did not discuss with a grace and facility that were captivating and with a clearness and vigor that were convincing. His imagination glowed with luminous thoughts which were clothed in the diction of polished rhetoric. Without disparagement to the living or the dead, he won the first place in the ranks of Southern journalists.

I speak of Mr. Grady as an editor. Others will speak of him as an orator. Oratory was a natural gift with him. It was born in him. Where others struggle to win success, he, by reason of his genius, reached the mountain top, and from this great eminence spoke to the ear of the Nation and captured the hearts of the people. He achieved greatness by reason of his vigorous mentality, and his fame as an editor and as an orator is voiced by the sentiments of admiring but sorrowing friends in all sections of the Union. He has been stricken before his time. Already the first of his generation, if his life had been spared his opportunity for greatness would have broadened and given him in “the applause of listening senates” a field for the exercise of those great gifts with which he was so richly endowed. He died too soon for his people and for his country. But his name and his fame will be an example and an inspiration to practice and perpetuate the principles of government in the advocacy of which he yielded up his life.

“With charity for all and malice toward none,” he went about among his countrymen doing good. It was his mission to help the poor and to aid the deserving. Every good work received the support of his impulsive heart and noble soul. His last speech was an impassioned and eloquent 352plea for a peaceful solution of that great problem which the South and the South alone can solve. It was not to oppress, but to elevate the colored man—to enable both races to live in peace, and work out their mission in the regeneration of the South. What he so eloquently said in Boston represents the firm conviction of his Southern countrymen, and his death but emphasizes the truth and force of his position. The South is free and the intelligence and courage of her people will preserve her and her institutions for all time from hostile and inferior domination.

The South mourns the untimely death of Georgia’s brilliant son. The North deeply sympathizes with us in the death of him whose last public utterance so feelingly touched the patriotic heart of the people, and the response comes back from all sections of a re-united people and a restored Union. Few men have accomplished so much for the unification of public sentiment on questions of grave import, and there is no one who has accomplished more for the material development of his beloved South. He is dead, but his works will live after him. His name is enshrined in the hearts of his grateful countrymen, who are saddened and bowed down with unspeakable sorrow.

Henry W. Grady had the zeal of a martyr and valor of a patriot. If it be permitted to mortals who have put on immortality to look upon this world from their celestial home, the incense of praise which ascends from our stricken hearts will be grateful to the soul of Henry Grady. God has set his seal upon his silver tongue, and no more forever will his eloquent voice, stimulating his fellow-countrymen to deeds of noble enterprise, be heard on earth. Matchless the fertility of his mind, matchless the magic and power of his presentation, matchless his power of organization, matchless his power of accomplishment. Truly, indeed, can it be said of him, there is no man left to fill his place.

May his golden soul rest in the bosom of the God that gave it, is the humble but heartfelt prayer of one who 353admired and respected him living, and who mourns and reveres him dead.

ADDRESS OF HON. B. H. HILL.

I cannot speak in studied phrase of my dead friend. The few simple words I can trust my faltering lips to utter will come from a heart burdened with grief too deep for language to express. A grief whose crushing weight, outside of my own home circle, has taken away from life its brightest hopes and its highest inspiration.

In the summer of 1866 I first met Henry Grady, even then giving promise of marvelous gifts of mind and heart. From that summer evening, remembered now as though it were but yesterday, I have loved him with all a brother’s devotion and tenderness. During all these years there has been no shadow on our friendship and no secrets in our hearts. In prosperity he has rejoiced with me, and when sorrow and trouble came no voice was as cheering, no sympathy was as sweet as his. Only a year ago, when death came into my home and took the one little blossom that had bloomed in my heart as my own, he wrote to my mother words of tenderest comfort for her and of love for me—words that are inexpressibly precious to me now. Out of my life into the beautiful beyond have passed the two friends I loved best on earth—the chivalrous Gordon, the peerless Grady. God keep my friends and lead them gently through the meadow-lands where the river flows in song eternal. I know that near its crystal banks, where the birds sing sweetest and flowers bloom brightest, they have clasped hands in blessed and happy reunion. The love with which Henry Grady inspired his friends has never been surpassed by mortal man. Beautiful and touching have been the expressions of devotion that have come to his family. I believe that there are hundreds all over this State who would gladly take his place in yonder silent tomb, if by so doing they could restore him to the people who loved him and who need him so greatly. It is not his great genius, unrivaled as it was; not his fervent 354patriotism, unselfish as it was; not his wonderful eloquence, matchless as it was; not his public spirit, willing as it was—these are not the recollections that have moved the people as they have never been moved before.

But it was the great heart of the man beating in loving sympathy with suffering, touching with sweetest encouragement the lowly and struggling, carrying the sunshine of his own radiant life into so many unhappy lives, that now bow down the hearts of the people under the weight of a personal loss.

Henry Grady lived in an atmosphere of love. In him there was greatness—greatness unselfish—unconscious—gentle as the heart of a child. In him there was charity—charity white and still as the moonlight that shines into the shadows of night. In him there was heroism—the heroism of the knight that drew no sword, but waved in his hand, high above his white plumed brow, the sacred wand of peace, of love, of fraternity. In him there was patriotism, but a patriotism as pure and steadfast as a flame burning as a passion for the people he loved. As I contemplate this life through the years that I have known him so well, I feel as one who has seen the sun rise in the cloudless spring time, warming into beauty all the flowers of the earth, and winning into praise all the songsters of the air, at noonday, when all earth was rejoicing in its light and growing in its strength, suddenly fade away, leaving the land in darkness. Henry Grady was the great sun of the Southland, under whose fervid eloquence the cold heart of the North was melting into patience, confidence, justice, sympathy and love. It is no exaggeration to say that he was the great hope of the country.

The eyes of the South were looking toward him with hope. The ears of the North were listening to him with faith. Inscrutable, indeed, are the ways of a Providence that demanded a life so richly endowed, so potential for good. And yet it is the finite mind that would question either the mercy or wisdom of the Infinite. Our hero could not have died at a time when he was dearer to his people. 355His last brave, eloquent message will find its way, has found its way, to the hearts and consciences of his countrymen. His death is a sacrificial offering from whose altar rises even now the incense of perpetual peace and a perfect union of brotherly love. The lessons of his life will ripen with the passing years. Ages yet to come will compass the fullness of his fame and time will consecrate the patriotic martyrdom of his death. He sang like one inspired with the sacred memories of the past and the glorious hopes of the future. His works and his noble qualities will expand and multiply from his tomb as the sweet spice rushes from the broken alabaster vase. His name will become the synonym for friendship, charity, wisdom, eloquence, patriotism and love, wherever these virtues are known and treasured among men.

To use his own beautiful words, written of another: “Those who loved him best will find him always present. They will see him enthroned in every heart that kindles with sympathy to others. They will feel his kindly presence in the throb of every hand that clasps their hands in the universal kinship of grief. They will see his loving memory beaming from every eye as it falls on theirs.” So he shall live in Georgians and with Georgians forever and forever. On the monument which loving hands will erect to his memory let the inscription be written: “At all times and everywhere he gave his strength to the weak—his sympathy to the suffering—his life to his country and his heart to God.” Our hearts go out to-day in tenderest sympathy to the loved ones at home. Those alone who have had the privilege of entering the charmed circle can know the void left there.

To the mother who idolized this noble son—and he never forgot her, for did he not turn aside from questions of state to tell the Nation that her knees were the truest altar he had ever found, and her hands the fairest and strongest that had ever led him; to the sweet and loving sister, the companion of his boyhood; to the heart-broken wife always worthy of his love, devoted to him, ever dear to him; 356to the sweet and gentle daughter, the idol of his heart and household; to the noble and manly son—these were his jewels. And as we loved him so shall we love them. I have seen a picture with a shaft of light reaching from earth to heaven. Up the long, white rays, dazzling in glory and transcendent in beauty, an immortal soul is ascending to the illumined heights—ascending to meet its God. I think that if there ever was a soul borne upward upon rays of glory it was the beautiful soul of this friend we loved. The golden beams of this earthly glory shining into the pure light of heaven wove his radiant pathway to the stars. What an ascension for an immortal soul! Earth’s glory under his feet; Heaven’s glory upon his brow. So he, our immortal, becomes God’s immortal. Oh, thou bright, immortal spirit! Thou standeth this day in the presence of the angels. The King, in his beauty, hath greeted thee with the welcome: Well done, well done good and faithful servant; the great and good that have passed from earth are thy companions, and thy ears have heard music sweeter far than all earthly plaudits. Yet we miss thee; we mourn thee; through the rifted heavens we greet thee with grateful tears and undying love.

MR. JULIUS L. BROWN’S SPEECH.

Again we are assembled in the house of mourning. Our homes and public buildings are yet black with the symbols of our grief for him who went before.

“One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, so fast they follow.”

Two short weeks ago, while we were assembled in our capital covered with the insignia of grief, to do honor to the memory of one who had been our chief when the storm of war raged, we received a telegram, mingling his grief with ours, from him, then on his journey of duty to Boston, whose sad death we have met this day to mourn.

Jefferson Davis and Henry Grady are dead. To-day their souls commune, and we are left to weep. In their deaths the South has lost two of her noblest sons. One 357was gathered to his fathers full of years and rich in honor. He had served his country well. He had been the chosen leader of our people, when the storms of war were raging. He, as our representative, had been subjected to insults and to indignities by the Government he had honored, and in whose service he had spent the best years of his life. He passed away, and the sunset of his life was glorious and beautiful.

We have not yet put aside the sables of grief we wear for Jefferson Davis, and yet in two short weeks we have met to mourn the death of him whom we hold dearer; our townsman, our daily associate and friend.

Henry W. Grady has gone to his last home.

One was an old man, ready and waiting to be called. His day was over, his work was done, and he was waiting for his rest. His sun had risen, past its meridian in glory and was sinking in honor. For him the night in due time had come. The other, was a young man, full of hope and rich in promise. His sun had just arisen and it gave promise that before him was yet a glorious day.

One was the chosen representative of our people before the storms of war had swept over us. He was the representative of the South under its old system. The other was the acknowledged exponent of the South under its altered condition of affairs.

We weep for him to-day.

Of all the young men in America none had such power for good. None had the ear of the public so completely as he to be heard. None had so eloquent a tongue to produce conviction. None had so magnetic a bearing to induce followers. He was ambitious, yes, but for what? Not for the spoils of office, not for command of his fellow-man, not for himself, but for his people. Years ago when his friends all over Georgia urged him to allow his name to be presented for a post of honor in the counsels of the Nation he refused. His letter of declination was so strong, so patriotic, and so unselfish that it commanded the admiration of the world. I know that even far-off New Zealand 358published his words and did him honor. His eloquent speech in New York completed the structure of his national fame. From the night of its delivery the whole country ranked him among its foremost citizens. Even in down-trodden and oppressed Cuba his eloquent words were translated into the Spanish tongue and read with delight while I was there. The echoes of his last eloquent, matchless defense of the South yet linger in Faneuil Hall, and so long as its historic walls shall stand they will be classed with the best efforts of Everett and of Webster. His friends all over the country read his words, and wondered that he was so great. Ambitious; yes, ambitious to be able to present the cause of the South in such a manner as to produce conviction in the minds and in the hearts of its most ultra defamers, that our people now in good faith accept as final the construction placed upon the Constitution of this country by the victors, and that they are as absolutely loyal and devoted, as are the people of the North, to that Union against which his father had fought.

With no apologies for the past; with no recantation of the belief that they were patriots, without in any way casting reproach upon our dead, with a nature grand enough to admire Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, he had taken for his high mission on this earth, the task of reconciling the people of the sections. Until this great mission was accomplished, he had no time to devote to the narrow duties of a public office. Office, therefore, he did not seek. Office he would not have. There was but one office in this land great enough for him. Had he lived until his sun had reached its meridian splendor there would have been a complete reconciliation between the sections. Partisan malignity would not have sought to enact laws aimed at only a part of this grand country. Soon would there have been a complete union of hearts between those who had been engaged in fratricidal strife, which the most ultra partisanship could not have severed. Too young himself to be in the war, but the son of a gallant Confederate soldier, killed upon the field of battle, he, 359more than any one of older years, could by his chosen profession bear the messages of peace to the North, and by his mighty pen, by his eloquent tongue, by his melodious voice, and by his commanding presence could he procure a hearing from an audience of strangers and produce conviction. If it be true that,

The tongues of dying men

Enforce attention like deep harmony,

then his last words, uttered in behalf of his people, will not have been spoken in vain.

In his death the South has lost its most eloquent advocate and its most powerful defender. America weeps for one of her noblest sons. Who is there to finish this work? God grant that there may rise some one to complete his mission!

He was a man full of impulse and a quick reader of the popular mind. Well do we all remember the time when the result of a presidential election became certainly known, how his heart, wild with joy at what he believed to be the beginning of better days for the South, organized a street procession and proceeded to the legislative halls of this State, and with his followers entered the house, and in his clear, ringing voice announced, “Mr. Speaker: A message from the American people,” and adjourned it. ’Tis said that history shows that there have been but two men who have ever adjourned a parliament without a vote, Oliver Cromwell and Henry Grady. One was an act of tyranny—the other the expression of the desire of every member of the house.

A citizen of Atlanta, he loved Georgia; a Georgian, he adored the South; a Southerner, he worshipped the whole Union. He was an American in the fullest sense of that term. There was no work of public or private charity among us which he did not aid by his tongue, his pen, his head or his purse, whether that work was to procure the pardon of an abandoned young girl confined in the chain-gang with criminals, or canvassing the streets of Atlanta 360through snow and ice, accompanied with a retinue of wagons and drays, to accumulate fuel and provisions to prevent our poor from freezing and from starving. It was in response to his appeals, more than to all else combined, that a home is now being erected within sight of the dome of yonder capitol for the aged and infirm veterans of the Lost Cause. It was to him more than to all others that our Piedmont Expositions, designed to show to the world the wealth of our undeveloped mineral, agricultural and other resources, were carried to a successful end. It was through his persuasive power that the Chautauqua Association, designed to more thoroughly educate our people, was established.

But in the limited time allotted to me, I cannot go into further details. If you seek his monuments, look around. They are in every home and every calling of life. In all that which has tended to develop the material resources of the country, to enrich his people, to encourage education and a love of the arts, to relieve suffering, to provide for the poor, and to make our people better and nobler, he devoted his life, unselfishly and without hope of other reward than the approval of his conscience.

He was a model citizen. As a member of society, he was welcomed to every fireside. He was the center of every group. His doors were open always to strangers. He was given to hospitality. He was the life, the soul of every enterprise with which he was connected. As a patriot, his heart was bowed down with grief that his countrymen should be estranged. As a humanitarian, his great heart wept at the suffering of the poor, and his voice was ever raised in behalf of the afflicted and oppressed. As a friend, he was devoted, unselfish and loyal. Now, that he is gone, we know how dear he was to us. We have awakened to the full appreciation of his great worth, and of the calamity which has befallen us.

Yesterday we stood by his tomb. No private citizen in this country ever had such a pageant. For miles the streets were lined with people. We saw the aged and the 361young, the rich and the poor, the white and the black, with eyes dimmed by tears, with hearts bowed down with sorrow at loss of him. They had left their homes upon our greatest festal day to pay him the homage of their tears. To each of them his loss was a personal sorrow.

I knew Henry W. Grady well, and I loved him. To me his death is a personal grief. He had been my friend for more than twenty-three years. Well do I remember the day I joined his class in our University. Well do I picture his friendly presence as he bade me welcome and invited me to his home. Well do I recall our meeting in our college societies. Our plans, our struggles, our defeats and our triumphs there. Since that time, I have sat with him around social boards. He has been time and again an honored and a welcomed guest in my house. I shall miss him there. We have been together in public enterprises, we have met in the busy marts of men. We have worked side by side, and we have differed upon questions of policy, but in all these differences he has been my friend. I loved him, and deplore his death.

We shall erect in this city a monument to commemorate his many virtues, and to hold him up as an example before the young and those who come after us; but however exalted that monument may be, and however near the skys it may reach, the greatest and best monument to us who knew him will be the memory of his many virtues which we shall always treasure in our hearts.

Sink, thou of nobler light.

The land will mourn thee in its darkening hour;

Its heavens grow gray at thy retiring power;

Thou stirring orb of mind, thou beacon power,

Be thy great memory still a guardian might,

When thou art gone from sight.

Judge Emory Speer was on the list of speakers to follow Mr. Brown, but did not reach the city in time to take part in the exercises.

362

SPEECH OF HON. ALBERT COX.

Twenty-three years ago, poor and painfully uncertain of even a broken part of education, but shortly from farm and camp and captivity, broken-hearted and distrusting all things, lonesome in a strange place, two companions met me at Athens and made me feel at home. One of them mourns to-day with me the death of the other.

I look across the many years as across a wide and misty river made up of many streams, and recall the sunny face, the glowing eye, the engaging smile, the warm hand formed; it seemed to assure a friend of love with its very clasp—the happy-hearted, the happy-making Henry Grady.

Treasured by his companions are traditions that his generous hands were helpful even then. It is known that his appeal to the “Great Old Commoner” kept a child of the State to the breast of its own Alma Mater. It is known that he led the relief corps of kindness to the aid of maimed veterans shivering in bitter winter at the old rock college. To suggest such deeds seemed natural to his heart, and to do them nobly seemed inherent to his hand.

His was the versatile genius of our class. Never fenced in to his text-books, apparently careless of mere curriculum, he roamed the fields of literature more than he tramped the turnpike of studies. Sparkling and popular, genial and beloved, his mind moved like a stream of poetry, cascading and flashing, banked in sweet flowers, and singing to sweet meadows made happy by its song.

His address as final orator of his society, fairly represents the mind of the man when launched. It was an exquisite fiction of ideal life. He painted in words an island of beauty; in the sweetness of his sentences the fragrance of flowers sweeter than nature’s own seemed to be wafted to rapt listeners; the loveliness of his creation stood out so vividly to the eye of intellect that no one view of any grace in statuary or beauty in picture of any artist would be remembered better. It was an island worthy to lay in the same sea with Tennyson’s Island of Avilion, where 363Knight and King Arthur was to rest his soul, and I would wish the soul of my class-mate the sweet and eternal rest of his own happy island, embowered in the beauties of his own sweet fancies forever, did I not believe that he has touched the pearl-strewn shore of a better and lovelier land than even this, or even that of which he dreamed; that he “rests in the balm-breathing gardens of God!”

Who would dream that such ideality of mind would be composed with such powers of business as he had? It is wonderful that the versatile course of his life, while adding to his breadth, did not lessen his depth. To but few, indeed, is it endowed to be both versatile and profound. His varied experience, like tributes, added to the brightness and to the breadth, and to the depth of his intellect, until before touching the sea it rolled in majestic splendor, wide and clear as the Potomac, deep and burden-bearing as the Ohio. He had great opportunities. He worked and won them. Starting without them, he created them by deserving them. That great journal, through whose columns he and his associates have done so much to rebuild the fortunes and hopes of our people, did not make Henry Grady. The Lord made him. But his bereaved associates there did all that men can do in the moulding of other men. They recognized him for what he was and for what he could become. They participated in the glorious work, They surrendered him, and he surrendered himself to his country. The first duty of the Southern patriot—a national duty also—was to recuperate this section. In that duty, no man out of office, perhaps no man at all, has labored with more credit and with better result than Henry W. Grady. For the complete reconciliation of the sections of this Union every patriot ought to strive and every Christian ought to pray. Sectional jealousies and angers are the only enemies of the Union, and those who claim to place the preservation of the Union above all other duties, ought to be the foremost forwarders of the fraternity of the American people. They who love the Union should help to heal its wounds.

364Strange spectacle! Noble culmination of a noble life! From the midst of those charged with hate toward the Union, Henry W. Grady went forth a minister to plead for love to all its parts.

“Blessed is the peacemaker.”

His voice was for that peace in our country made perpetual by justice to all and respect for the sacred things of earth. His voice was for building an American temple of peace, not upon the quicksands of comparative power, subject to the shift from one section to the other, but upon the everlasting foundations of right to all, respect to all, liberties and liberality to all!

Oh, what a cause he had! If successful, unfolded glories of the Union of future times; the sweet and swelling harmonies of the ever-increasing choir of free and happy States; the grand ideals of the venerable fathers all realized, and every bloom of American hope fruited in happiness, in love, in liberty, in enduring peace!

And if unsuccessful! If he and those to come must plead in vain for the unity as well as union of the country, then the dread doubt whether all peace is to be only preparation for deadly grapplings; the dread doubt whether, as in England and Scotland, these feuds are to harry our homes and our hearts for hundreds of years!

What a cause! and, thank God, what an advocate! It would seem that our own Southern sun had warmed and sweetened him for the work. He exactly fitted the culmination and mission of his life. His noble soul propelled his thoughts. His eloquence rushed from mountain-side fountains, pure and bold and free. His reasoning was so blended with appeal that the one took the shape of stating truths in sequence, and his appeal seemed responsive to the heart-beats of his listeners.

Thus the cause, the advocate and the occasion met, and once more in New England a Southern man was applauded as an American patriot. With the triple levers of his great soul and mind and tongue he moved two mighty sections, with all their weights of passions of victory and passions 365of defeat, with all their weights of misconceptions and misjudgments. With his hands he moved these mighty bodies nearer each to the heart of the other—nearer to that true Union for which the real heart of this country, in every part of it, beats with the pulses of a devoted love, never entirely to be stilled.

Oh, how nobly he must have been inspired as he felt the “rock-ribbed and iron-bound” prejudice of New England quiver to the touch of his magic hand; and as her snow began to melt under the warmth of his great heart, surely he was the sunshine of this great land!

But, oh, the grief of it—the bitter, bitter grief of it! Just as we knew how noble and great he was, he sank below the horizon of life, never to rise again!

I shall always recall him as dying like that lad from Lombardy, pictured by Browning. I shall think that the South, decked like a queen in all her jewels of glory and of love, came to his dying couch and said:

“Thou art a Lombard, my brother! Happy art thou,” she cried,

And smiled like Italy on him. He dreamed in her face and died!

ADDRESS OF WALTER B. HILL, OF MACON, GA.

Love was the law of Henry Grady’s life. His splendid eminence among his fellows teaches once again that “he who follows love’s behest far exceedeth all the rest.” Its strongest throbs beat in the inner circle of the home; but in widening waves they expand first into friendship, then into public spirit, then into patriotism, then into philanthropy. When it rises above these forms of human affection in the incense of worship—we give it once more the sacred name of love, which it bore at its fireside shrine. From Henry Grady’s heart, that first and best and truest and most of all was the home-fond heart, there flowed out in all the prodigality of his generous soul, and yet with the perfect adjustment of due degree, all those currents of feeling which bear so many names and yet are one. And as 366he loved, so is he mourned—from the hearth of a desolated home to the borders of a mighty nation.

What was he to his friends? I dare not answer except to muffle my own heart in borrowed words—the words of Carlyle over the bier of the gifted Edward Irving—“His was the bravest, freest, brotherliest human soul mine ever came in contact with.”

What was he to Atlanta? More than any other man, he built this city which he rightly loved as he loved no other. Although the feudal independence of the old Southern life was distinctly promotive of individualism—yet it was reserved for this young leader—but one remove from that past generation, to give to our common country the finest and most conspicuous type which American citizenship has yet produced of that high civil virtue—public spirit. It is a virtue untaught in the schools—a grace and a duty not preached from the pulpit: and yet, as I study its manifestations in this marvelous man whose suggestion and sagacity planted the cornucopias of plenty amid industrial desolation and agricultural poverty—to me it seems far more in touch with the brotherhood of man and the helpfulness of Christ than the benevolence which so often degrades the recipient and the zeal which burns so fiercely for the conversion of opinions. If the Church does not claim it as the fruit of religion, the State may be proud to own it as the patriotism of peace.

What was he to Georgia? We naturally think of the material progress which he inspired throughout the State, and all due emphasis has been accorded to it. But we must not forget the other forms of progress to which he was devoted. What a many-sided man he was! He spent himself to the utmost of his wonderful resources in behalf of the intellectual culture of the State—in the earnest but sweet-spirited championship of that moral issue which he declared was “the most hopeful experiment ever undertaken in any American city,” in that magnificent tribute to the value of her young men, which Atlanta has “writ large” in the stately Association Building. And thus he, 367whose pen seemed like the touch of Midas turning to the gold of material wealth every interest to which it pointed, he teaches also that imperative lesson of our needy time—that to know and to be are greater things than to get and to have.

What was he to the South? Let the laureate answer:

The voice of any people is the sword—

The sword that guards them or the sword that beats them down.

More than any other public man, he was the voice of his people. His eloquence in magnetic speech, and that new art his genius had created—the oratory of the editorial!—along with the voices in literature of Joel Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson Page and Harry Stillwell Edwards, have conquered a hearing at the North. In glowing utterance and moving story, they have set forth the true and tender pictures of the old Southern life, the sincere and single-hearted heroism of the Confederate soldier, the cordial but self-respecting loyalty of the South of to-day to the restored Union. They have brought it to pass that in the contemporary fiction of English-speaking peoples the favorite scene is amid the old plantations, and the popular hero is the boy that wore the gray. By these subtle forces of genius, results have been achieved which no forensic advocacy or party zeal could ever have accomplished. Old verdicts of condemnation and prejudice have been reversed; and in their stead, comprehension has come, patience is coming, confidence will come.

For the sole but sufficient reason that the whole truth demands it, I ought to say, that from what seemed to me some of the implications of his public utterances I had urged upon him my own dissent; and his letter in reply, permitting me to differ without a discount in his sincere esteem, is now, more than ever, one of the treasures of my life.

His work for his people could not have been so adequately done had office crowned his worth. His advocacy would then have seemed professional and political. Public 368station would have put limitations on him—would have narrowed his audience. A rare lesson of his life is here—a lesson needed especially among us whose habit has been to associate official distinction too exclusively with public service. The people are greater than Senate or Congress. The official in Washington can speak only to his party. But the audiences which Grady and his generous eulogist, Depew, commands show that a man uncrowned with public office can be great in public life, and perhaps thereby do a greater work.

What was he to the Nation? Compelled by the limitations of the hour to answer in one word, I choose this: He it was who first taught the rising generation of the South to bind the name of Lincoln with that of Washington “as a sign upon their hand and a frontlet on their brow.”

We stand face to face with a great mystery. It is the tragedy of early death, like that of Arthur Henry Hallam, which wrung from the sweetest singer of our time the noblest poem of sorrow, a poem whose pages have been for three days past luminous to me with new and richer meaning. Accepting the evidence of consciousness in its report of the hopes and aspirations of the human soul, there can be but two rational hypotheses for this mystery of an unfinished life. One has been phrased by Renan in words like this: “There is at the heart of the universe, an infinite fiend who has filled the hearts of his creatures with delusions, in order that in awful mockery he may witness the discomfiture of their despair.” The other theory has been phrased by Martineau in words like these: “The universe, which includes and folds us round, is the life-dwelling of an eternal mind and an infinite love; and every aspiration is but a prophecy of the reality in that overarching scene where one incompleteness is rounded out in the greatness of God.” I need not tell you which of these faiths Henry Grady accepted, or I accept. I envy not the man who can think that there are in this universe any shadows dark enough to quench his sunny spirit. I 369believe (turning to his picture, on the stage) oh friend of mine! that I shall look again into that love-lit eye—that I shall clasp once more thy generous hand!

A poet sings of the echoes of the bugle from cliff and scar as contrasted with the impact of human influence:

Oh, love, they die on your rich sky,

They faint on hill and field and river;

Our echoes roll from soul to soul

And grow forever and forever!

In all gratitude we can say that we are happier because he lived; in all humility that we are better because his life touched ours. And because this is true our children and our fellow men shall be made happier and better; and so the echoes of his soul, reduplicated in ten thousand hearts, shall abide, a gladdening and beneficent force—

Until the stars grow old,

And the suns grow cold,

And the leaves of the judgment book unfold!

SPEECH OF JUDGE HOWARD VAN EPPS.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The lightning brought this message to Atlanta:

“Henry Grady spends Christmas in heaven.”

Who doubts it? What creature whom the Creator has loved enough to suffer him to hold a Christian’s faith will question that he is at this moment in company with the good and great and virtuous who have preceded him? I looked upon his face, the pitifulness of death sealed upon it, and as I turned away with swimming eyes, I saw hidden in a mass of flowers that loving hands had placed by his side, these words:

O, stainless gentleman!

True man, true hero, true philanthropist!

Thy name was “Great Heart,” honor was thy shield,

Thy golden motto, “Duty without fear!”

And the fragrant breath around him seemed vocal with triumphant voices, singing, “Reward without stint!” In 370Athens, the home of his boyhood, a few months ago, he said, “I am going to Sunday-school. I want to feel that I am a boy again.” When seated there the children sang, “Shall we gather at the river?” and he sank his face in both his hands, and tears flooded through his fingers. O, “Great Heart,” we know that when your eyes closed upon the weariness of the terrestrial, they opened fearless upon the glories of the celestial. I fancy Mr. Hill sought him without delay, fixing upon him the earnest, penetrating glance we know so well, but out of which the pained seriousness has been washed away forever, exclaiming, “Why, Henry! You? And so soon! Welcome home to our Father’s house!” Judge Lochrane has doubtless already repaired to his side and regaled him with a bit of celestial humor that set the seraphs ashout with laughter. Perhaps he has encountered by this time Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Davis with arms interlocked, their differences all adjusted, in wider wisdom, and has been startled to hear them say: “We were but just now speaking of you and of the future destiny of the American Republic. Mr. Lincoln had just remarked that the United States were on the threshold of a more cordial understanding and a closer union than ever before, and Mr. Davis has just quoted your prophetic invocation: ‘Let us resolve to crown the miracles of the past with the spectacle of a Republic compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of love—loving from the Lakes to the Gulf—the wounds of war healed in every heart as on every hill—serene and resplendent at the summit of human achievement and earthly glory—blazing out the path, and making clear the way, up which all the nations of the earth must come in God’s appointed time!’”

Oh, that he who alone knew how to describe “a perfect Christmas day,” could come back to his beloved Atlanta and make it all clear to us—the recognitions, the employments, the conversations, the blessedness of the redeemed. What sort of goblet of immortal nectar—of commingled “musk of yellow grain, of flavor of ripening fruits, fragrance of strawberries, exquisite odor of violets, aroma of 371all seasons” of the celestial year, did the angels brew out of the material of yesterday to pledge the never-ending fellowships of Heaven in? What sort of hug of odorous shine did Henry get armsful of yesterday, when he flung his hands wide apart in the presence of that Being whom he was wont to call always in his reverent speech “the Lord God Almighty.”

Oh, well enough for Henry! but for us only the pain of it all, the bitter pain. I look abroad and Atlanta’s business men seem grown suddenly older. The cry of the newsboys—“Paper, sir?”—is almost a sob. I went late at night into the Constitution building and the editors’ faces were graver than they should be, and the composing-room was heavy with suggestions of widowhood and orphanage.

I went into a store Christmas eve (for Henry would not have the children neglected) and the merchant couldn’t find anything he sought for, and said, apologetically, “I haven’t had any sense to-day.” The pity of it! We are bereft. Our city is desolate. We had some great public enterprises in view, that is, Henry had, and we were going to follow him, and overwork him, as usual.

We are disheartened—almost discouraged. Atlanta is so young and fiery, almost fierce in her civic energy, and pulls so hard on the reins. Who will drive for us now?

We will see more clearly after a little, when our grief is calmer, but now as we see it through our tears, the face and body of the times are out of joint.

I do not care, in this place and under present limitations, to speak of his kittenish boyhood; of his idyllic home-life; of his rollicsome and irresistible humor; of his sympathy and prodigality of self-sacrifice; of his boundless love to his fellow men; of his ability as a writer and super-eminence as an orator; of his pride in Atlanta and services in aid of her material progress; of his patriotic devotion to the South and to the Union. I want to ask indulgence to say one thing, which, as I believe, were he here to prescribe my course and dictate my utterances, he would have me say. I want to say to noble men of all parties, north and 372east and west, speaking here from Grady’s bier, that the South is no more hostile to the Union than is New England, and that her love, and sympathy, and desire to help the dependent class in her midst is deeper, if possible, than the treason of political agitators who seek to foment race prejudice to secure party supremacy. “We pledge our lives, our property, and our sacred honor,” that we will bring wisdom and humanity to the solution of the grave problem in government which confronts us, and that we “will carry in honor and peace to the end.” We repeat again and again, in our sadness, with the sacredness of our grief for his loss around us, the plea of Georgia’s son, for patience, for confidence, for sympathy, for loyalty to the Republic, devoid of suspicion and estrangement, against any section.

We send greeting to generous New England. They loved him and we love them for it. We have even forgiven them for being Republicans. We throw his knightly and Christian gauntlet at their feet. We challenge her business men, in the name of our champion of the doctrine of the brotherhood of men and of Americans, to the national glory-fields of the future—to fraternal love that will forgive errors of judgment seven times, and seventy times seven; and to a patriotic pride in and devotion to every foot of the soil of our magnificent Republic, that will brook no suspicions and no wrath in all her borders except when directed against a foreign enemy.

Professor White’s address was delivered under very trying conditions. He had been suffering from a severe headache all morning and, in fact, he has been unwell for several days past. During his speech he suffered painfully, and immediately at its conclusion he was so much overcome as to be almost completely prostrated. He was led from the stage to the office of Judge Will Haight, where he remained until he recovered, leaving for home later in the afternoon.

The address was delivered with pathos and emotion, 373and that part which bore on his close relations with the dead man touched a responsive chord in every heart in the vast audience that sat in listening attention to the words of love.

REMARKS OF PROF. H. C. WHITE.

My friends—companions in a common grief: My heart is yet too full of sorrow’s bitterness to frame in fitting terms the tribute I would wish to pay the gracious memory of our beloved dead. Save she who bears my name, he whom we buried yesterday was my dearest friend on earth. Our friendship, born of close companionship amid academic groves where we together caught the inspirations that come to wakening intellects, and nursed the high resolves that budding youth projects as guides along the future pathway of the man, was nourished as we grew to man’s estate, and in these latter years so closely knit by constant intercourse, reciprocal respect each for the other’s judgment, wishes and desires, and mutual confidences of hopes and fears, of sacred interests and fond ambitions, that when he died a great and fervent glow seemed gone from out of my life, and desolation laid its icy touch upon my heart.

In recognition of these sacred ties that closely bound our lives, I am bidden here to-day to join my grief to yours and say a word of him who was as dear to me as man may be to man.

How can I speak at Henry Grady’s funeral! What may I say that others have not said; that will not, in our history, be written; for a Nation mourns him and a continent deplores his untimely taking off, as the passing of the brightest hope that cheered the future of our common country’s rehabilitated life.

That he was worthy all the homage cultured men may pay to genius, talent, intellect, and wit, his works and reputation that survive beyond the grave will abundantly attest. That he was worthy all the plaudits honest men accord to truth and justness, integrity and honor, none dare stand here and interpose the faintest shadow of a 374doubt. That he was worthy all the sacred tears that gentle women and blessed little children may not refrain from showering on his grave as tribute to his tenderness, his gentleness, his abounding love for all things human, we, who knew him best, who shared the golden flood of sunshine his personality evoked and the sweetest, softest harmonies of the music of his life, we come, a cloud of witnesses, to testify.

He was truly great if earthly greatness may be measured by the lofty aspirations men conceive for bettering their fellow men’s estate, or by the success with which they realize ideals. His ambition was of the sort that makes men kings—not petty officers—and led him to aim to teach a mighty Nation how best its glorious destiny might be achieved. His ample view looked far beyond the narrow policies of strife and selfishness and partisan contentions that mark the statesmanship of lesser men, and counseled the broader, more effective lines of peace and love, of patience and forbearance. Had he but lived who may doubt but that his counsels would have prevailed? This city, which he loved so well and which he builded, stands, in its fair proportions, the peer of any on the earth in good and equitable government, the prosperous home of happy, cultured freemen, as a type of what he wished his neighbors and his fellow-countrymen might strive to make themselves in contrast with their fellow men; worthy to stand among the bravest and the best. Its massive walls stand witness to his energy, his skill and his success.

He was wise, and thousands came to him for counsel. The University—his loved and loving Alma Mater—whose smiles had brightened the endeavors of his youth, called him to her councils in his maturer years, and to-day she sits upon her classic hills, a Niobe, in tears and clad in mourning for him—chiefest among her brilliant sons; foremost among her guardians and advisers.

He was good; and for all the thousand chords of human emotions he played upon with facile pen and tongue of matchless eloquence, he ever held a heart in tender sympathy 375with childhood’s innocence, the mother’s love, the lover’s passion, the maiden’s modesty, the sinner’s penitence and the Christian’s faith.

One consolation comes to us, his sorrowing friends to-day. Around his bier no fierce contentions wage unseemly strife for offices left vacant by his death. He held no place that may be filled by gift of man. He filled no office within the power of governments or peoples to bestow. He served the public but was no public servant. He was a private citizen and occupied a unique position in the commonwealth, exalted beyond the meed of patronage, won by virtue of his individual qualities and held at pleasure of his genius and by the grace of God.

Full well I know that, in God’s providence, no one man’s death may halt the march of time to ultimate events or change the increasing purpose that through the ages runs, but this I do believe, that this man’s death has slowed the dial of our country’s progress to full fruition of its happiness, prosperity, and peace. To those of us who stand in history midway between a national life our fathers founded and wrecked in throes of revolution and of war, and another in the future, bright with fair promises but ill-defined as yet in form, with darkling clouds casting grim shadows across the lines along which it must be achieved, he was our chosen leader and our trusted champion. No one of us will be tardy in acknowledgment that he stood head and shoulders above us all and towered at the very front. That time will bring a successor in the leadership we reverently pray and confidently hope, but meanwhile our generation is camped in bivouac by the path of history awaiting the birth and training of another chief.

Of all his usefulness to nation, state and town; of all that he contributed to the glory of our country’s history—the brave defense of its unsullied past; the wise direction of its present purposes; the high ideals of its future progress—of these, others with equal knowledge, may speak with greater eloquence than I. I come especially to pay a simple tribute (time and occasion serve for nothing more) 376to the man himself—my boyhood’s, manhood’s companion, friend and lover. When on the day he died I nursed my selfish grief within the sacred precincts of a home which he had often beautified and rendered joyous by his presence; in the city of his birth, among the lanes his boyish feet had trod; amid scenes where his genius had first been plumed to flight; where he had felt the first touch of manhood’s aspirations and ambitions; where he had pressed his maiden suit of sacred love; where his dead hero-father lay at rest, and where the monumental shaft is reared to the base of which it was his ardent hope that he might bring his son to anoint him with the glories and the graces of a hero race—I thought no other’s sorrow could be as keen as mine. But lo! my neighbors shared an universal grief and draped their homes with sable tokens of their mourning hearts; the very children in the streets stopped in their Christmas play and spoke in whispers as in the presence of a dread calamity; and here, I find myself but one among a multitude to whom that great and noble heart had given of its gracious bounty and drawn them to himself by bonds of everlasting love that caused their tears to flow as freely as my own, in tribute to the sweetness, gentleness, magnetic joyousness of him that we have lost.

He was the very embodiment of love. A loving man; a man most lovable. Affection for his fellows welled from out his heart and overwhelmed in copious flood all brought within its touch. His love inspired counter-love in men of all degree. The aged marked his coming with a brightening smile; the young fell down and worshiped him. Unselfishness, the chiefest virtue men may claim—it carries all the others in its train—was possessed by him in unsurpassed degree. His generosity passed quick and far beyond the lines marked out by charity and overflowed the limits fixed by prudence. In fine, the gentler graces all were his:

His gentleness, his tenderness, his fair courtesy,

Were like a ring of virtues ’bout him set,

And God-like charity the center where all met.

377Science and religion alike declare that force is indestructible. Some catch from one and some the other the inspiration that gives them faith and blessed hope that that great thing we call the Soul may live and work beyond that accident which we call Death, which comes with all the terrors of unfathomable mystery to free the fretting spirit from its carnal chains.

He had no special knowledge—nor cared for none—of scientific theory or philosophic speculation, but he had gained from deep religious thought—not technical theology perhaps, but true religion, the same that taught him to “visit the widows and fatherless in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world”—he had gained from this a deep, abiding conviction in a life beyond the grave. That this was true I know; for often we have talked of these great mysteries and, closeted together, have weighed the doubts the increasing knowledge of the centuries has brought, and I have never known a man whose convictions were as firm, and who, frankly and squarely meeting every doubt, retained unshaken faith with all his heart, soul and mind.

He held it truth with him who sings,

To one clear harp in divers tones,

That men must rise on stepping-stones

Of their dead selves to higher things.

How far this faith held him in loyalty to churchly creed—the necessary corollary of such faith as his—others are more competent than I to tell.

Great Spirit—that which was loose but yesterday from mortal tenement we sadly laid to rest—thy sorrowing friends send after thee, along the shimmering lines that guide thy flight from earth to glory, this fervent prayer—tempering our agony and comforting our desolation—that God, in His infinite wisdom, may count thy faith deserving such reward in Heaven as we would measure to thy works on earth.

God rest thee, princely gentlemen! God keep thee, peerless friend!

378When Mr. Graves was introduced, the audience broke into applause. His fame as an orator, and his intimate friendship with Mr. Grady were known, and his eloquent tribute to his dead friend moved the hearts of his hearers as they had seldom by words been moved before. Upon being introduced by Mayor Glenn, Mr. Graves said:

SPEECH OF HON. JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES.

I am one among the thousands who loved him, and I stand with the millions who lament his death.

I loved him in the promise of his glowing youth, when, across my boyish vision he walked with winning grace, from easy effort to success. I loved him in the flush of splendid manhood when a Nation hung upon his words—and now, with the dross of human friendship smitten in my soul—I love him best of all as he lies yonder under the December skies, with face as tranquil and with smile as sweet as patrial ever wore.

In this sweet and solemn hour all the rare and kindly adjectives that blossomed in the shining pathway of his pen, seem to have come from every quarter of the continent to lay themselves in loving tribute at their master’s feet; but rich as the music that they bring, all the cadences of our eulogy

Sigh for the touch of a vanished hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still.

And here to-day, within this hall glorified by the echoes of his eloquence, standing to answer the impulse of my heart in the roll-call of his friends, and stricken with my emptiness of words, I know that, when the finger of God touched his eyelids into sleep, there gathered a silence upon the only lips that could weave the sunbright story of his days, or mete sufficient eulogy to the incomparable richness of his life.

I agree with Patrick Collins that he was the most brilliant son of this Republic. If the annals of these times are 379told with truth, they will give him place as the phenomenon of his period, the Admirable Crichton of the age in which he lived. No eloquence has equaled his since Sargent Prentiss faded from the earth. No pen has plowed such noble furrow in his country’s fallow fields since the wrist of Horace Greeley rested; no age of the Republic has witnessed such marvelous conjunction of a magical pen with the velvet splendor of a mellow tongue, and although the warlike rival of these wondrous forces never rose within his life, it is writ of all his living, that the noble fires of his genius were lighted in his boyhood from the gleam that died upon his father’s sword.

I have loved to follow, and I love to follow now the pathway of that diamond pen as it flashed like an inspiration over every phase of life in Georgia. It touched the sick body of a desolate and despairing agriculture with the impulse of a better method, and the farmer, catching the glow of promise in his words, left off sighing and went to singing in his fields, until at last the better day has come, and as the sunshine melts into his harvests with the tender rain, the heart of humanity is glad in his hope and the glow on his fields seems the smile of the Lord. Its brave point went with cheerful prophecy and engaging manliness into the ranks of toil, until the workman at his anvil felt the dignity of labor pulse the somber routine of the hours, and the curse of Adam softening in the faith of silver sentences, became the blessing and the comfort of his days. Into the era of practical politics it dashed with the grace of an earlier chivalry, and in an age of pushing and unseemly scramble, it woke the spirit of a loftier sentiment, while around the glow of splendid narrative and the charm of entrancing plea there grew a goodlier company of youth, linked to the Republic’s nobler legends and holding fast that generous loyalty which builds the highest bulwark of the State.

First of all the instruments which fitted his genius to expression was this radiant pen. Long after it had blazed his way to eminence and usefulness, he waked the power 380of that surpassing oratory which has bettered all the sentiment of his country and enriched the ripe vocabulary of the world. Nothing in the history of human speech will equal the stately steppings of his eloquence into glory. In a single night he caught the heart of the country into its warm embrace, and leaped from a banquet revelry into national fame. It is, at last, the crowning evidence of his genius, that he held to the end, unbroken, the high fame so easily won, and sweeping from triumph unto triumph, with not one leaf of his laurels withered by time or staled by circumstance, died on yesterday—the foremost orator of all the world.

It is marvelous, past all telling how he caught the heart of the country in the fervid glow of his own! All the forces of our statesmanship have not prevailed for union like the ringing speeches of this bright, magnetic man. His eloquence was the electric current over which the positive and negative poles of American sentiment were rushing to a warm embrace. It was the transparent medium through which the bleared eyes of sections were learning to see each other clearer and to love each other better. He was melting bitterness in the warmth of his patrial sympathies, sections were being linked in the logic of his liquid sentences, and when he died he was literally loving a Nation into peace.

Fit and dramatic climax to a glorious mission, that he should have lived to carry the South’s last and greatest message to the center of the Nation’s culture, and then, with the gracious answer to his transcendent service locked in his loyal heart, come home to die among the people he had served! Fitter still, that, as he walked in final triumph through the streets of his beloved city, he should have caught upon his kingly head that wreath of Southern roses—richer jewels than Victoria wears—plucked by the hands of Georgia women, borne by the hands of Georgia men, and flung about him with a loving tenderness that crowned him for his burial, that, in the unspeakable fragrance of Georgia’s full and sweet approval, 381he might “draw the drapery of his couch about him, and lie down to pleasant dreams.”

If I should seek to touch the core of all his greatness, I would lay my hand upon his heart. I should speak of his humanity—his almost inspired sympathies, his sweet philanthropy and the noble heartfulness that ran like a silver current through his life. His heart was the furnace where he fashioned all his glowing speech. Love was the current that sent his golden sentences pulsing through the world, and in the honest throb of human sympathies he found the anchor that held him steadfast to all things great and true. He was the incarnate triumph of a heartful man.

I thank God, as I stand above my buried friend, that there is not one ignoble memory in all the shining pathway of his fame! In all the glorious gifts that God Almighty gave him, not one was ever bent to willing service in unworthy cause. He lived to make the world about him better. With all his splendid might he helped to build a happier, heartier and more wholesome sentiment among his kind. And in fondness, mixed with reverence, I believe that the Christ of Calvary, who died for men, has found a welcome sweet for one who fleshed within his person the golden spirit of the New Commandment and spent his powers in glorious living for his race.

O brilliant and incomparable Grady! We lay for a season thy precious dust beneath the soil that bore and cherished thee, but we fling back against all our brightening skies the thoughtless speech that calls thee dead! God reigns and his purpose lives, and although these brave lips are silent here, the seeds sown in this incarnate eloquence will sprinkle patriots through the years to come, and perpetuate thy living in a race of nobler men!

But all our words are empty, and they mock the air. If we would speak the eulogy that fills this day, let us build within this city that he loved, a monument tall as his services, and noble as the place he filled. Let every Georgian lend a hand, and as it rises to confront in majesty 382his darkened home, let the widow who weeps there be told that every stone that makes it has been sawn from the solid prosperity that he builded, and that the light which plays upon its summit is, in afterglow, the sunshine that he brought into the world.

And for the rest—silence. The sweetest thing about his funeral was that no sound broke the stillness, save the reading of the Scriptures and the melody of music. No fire that can be kindled upon the altar of speech can relume the radiant spark that perished yesterday. No blaze born in all our eulogy can burn beside the sunlight of his useful life. After all there is nothing grander than such living.

I have seen the light that gleamed at midnight from the headlight of some giant engine rushing onward through the darkness, heedless of opposition, fearless of danger, and I thought it was grand. I have seen the light come over the eastern hills in glory, driving the lazy darkness like mist before a sea-born gale, till leaf and tree, and blade of grass glittered in the myriad diamonds of the morning ray; and I thought it was grand.

I have seen the light that leaped at midnight athwart the storm-swept sky, shivering over chaotic clouds, mid howling winds, till cloud and darkness and the shadow-haunted earth flashed into mid-day splendor, and I knew it was grand. But the grandest thing, next to the radiance that flows from the Almighty Throne, is the light of a noble and beautiful life, wrapping itself in benediction ’round the destinies of men, and finding its home in the blessed bosom of the Everlasting God!

SPEECH OF GOVERNOR GORDON.

Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens: The news of Henry Grady’s death reached me at a quiet country retreat in a distant section of the State. The grief of that rural community, as deep and sincere as the shock produced by his death was great and unexpected, told more feelingly and eloquently than any words of mine possibly can, the universality 383of the love and admiration of all her people for Georgia’s peerless son.

It is no exaggeration to say that the humblest and the highest, the poorest and richest—all classes, colors and creeds, with an unspeakable sorrow, mourn his death as a public calamity. It is no exaggeration to say that no man lives who can take his place. It is no extravagant eulogy to declare that scarcely any half-dozen men, by their combined efforts, can fill in all departments the places which he filled in his laborious and glorious life.

His wonderful intellect, enabling him, without apparent effort, to master the most difficult and obtuse public questions, and to treat them with matchless grace and power; his versatile genius, which made him at once the leader in great social reforms, as well as in gigantic industrial movements—that genius which made him at once the eloquent advocate, the logical expounder, the wise organizer, the vigorous executive—all these rich and unrivaled endowments, justify in claiming for him a place among the greatest and most gifted of this or any age.

But splendid as were his intellectual abilities, it is the boundless generosity of his nature, his sweet and loving spirit, his considerate and tender charity, exhaustless as a fountain of living waters, refreshing and making happy all hearts around him, these are the characteristics on which I love most to dwell. It is no wonder that his splendid genius attracted the gaze and challenged the homage of the continent. It is perhaps even a less wonder that a man with such boundless sympathies for his fellow men and so prodigal with his own time and talent and money in the service of the public, should be so universally and tenderly loved.

The career of Henry Grady is more than unique. It constitutes a new chapter in human experience. No private citizen in the whole eventful history of this Republic ever wore a chaplet so fadeless or linked his name so surely with deathless immortality. His name as a journalist and orator, his brilliant and useful life, his final crowning 384triumph, especially the circumstances of martyrdom surrounding his death, making it like that of the giant of holy writ, as we trust, more potential than ever in intellectual prowess of magic of the living man—all these will conspire not more surely to carry his fame to posterity, than will his deeds of charity and ready responses to those who needed his effective help, serve to endear to our hearts and memories, as long as life shall last, the memory of Henry W. Grady.

Governor Gordon’s tribute was the last of the sad occasion.

At its conclusion Dr. H. C. Morrison pronounced the benediction, and the curtain was drawn on the final public exercises of the most memorable funeral service the South has ever known.

But the memory of the loved and illustrious dead will linger long with his bereaved people.

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