A RESPLENDENT RECORD.
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.