From the “Philadelphia Ledger.”
The death of Henry W. Grady, which occurred almost at the dawning of this beneficent Christmas time, did not “eclipse the gayety of nations,” as it was long ago said the death of another illustrious person did, but it still casts a shadow over his native land—a shadow which falls heavily upon all those of his countrymen who knew, honored and loved the man.
Henry W. Grady was one of the youngest, the most brilliant, the best beloved of the young men of his country who, since the war of secession, won distinction in public life. Whether considered as a writer or an orator, his talents were extraordinary. His language was strong, refined, and, in its poetic warmth and elegance, singularly beautiful. But that which gave to it its greatest value and charm was the wisdom of the thought, the sincerity of the high conscience of which it was the expression. It was given to him as it is to so few—the ability to wed noble thoughts to noble words—to make the pen more convincing than the sword in argument, to make the tongue proclaim “the Veritas that lurks beneath the letter’s unprolific sheath.”
Henry W. Grady was, in the truest sense, an American; his love of country, his unselfish devotion to it, were unquestioned and unquestionable; but he sought to serve it best by best serving the South, which he so greatly loved and which so loved and honored him. It was the New South of human freedom, material progress—not the Old South of chattel slavery and material sluggishness—of which he was the representative, the prophet. It was the South of to-day, which has put off the bitternesses, defeats and animosities of the war; which has put on the sentient spirit of real union, of marvelous physical development, which advances day by day to wealth, dignity and greatness by gigantic strides. This was the South that he glorified with pen and tongue, and which he sought with earnest, zealous love to bring into closer, warmer fraternity with the North and the North with it.
The story of the shield which hung in the forest, and which, to the traveler coming from the North, seemed to be made of gold, and to the traveler journeying from the South, to be made of silver, is an old one. But it has its new significance in every great matter to which there are two sides, and which is looked at by those approaching it from different directions from their respective points of view. He saw but one side of the race question—the Southern side, and for that he strenuously contended only a few days before his death, in the very shadow of Faneuil Hall, or, as he finely said: “Here, within touch of Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill—where Webster thundered and Longfellow sang, Emerson thought and Channing preached—here, in the cradle of American letters and of American liberty.” It was in the house of his antagonists that he fought for the side which he thought good and just, and if in doing so he did not convince, he was listened to with respect and admiration.
That is a question not to be discussed here and now, and it is referred to only to show the courage of Mr. Grady in defence of his convictions, for they were convictions, and honest ones, and not mere political or sectional opinions. Apart from the race question, Mr. Grady was a man of peace, who, whether writing in his own influential journal in the South, or speaking in Boston, his tongue and voice were alike for peace, good will, unity of interest, thought and feeling. In his address of the 13th instant, at the Boston banquet, Mr. Grady said:
“A mighty duty, sir, a mighty inspiration impels every one of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whatever divides. We, sir, are Americans, and we stand for human liberty! The uplifting force of the American idea is under every throne on earth. France, Brazil—these are our victories. To redeem the earth from kingcraft and oppression, this is our mission! And we shall not fail. God has sown in our soil the seed of His millennial harvest, and He will not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until His full and perfect day has come. Our history, sir, has been a constant and expanding miracle from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown all the way—aye, even from the hour when, from the voiceless and trackless ocean, a new world rose to the sight of the inspired sailor. As we approach the fourth centennial of that stupendous day—when the Old World will come to marvel and to learn, amid our gathered treasures—let us resolve to crown the miracles of our 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.”
The fine expression of these lofty sentiments shows the eloquence of the man, but, better than that, they themselves show the broad and noble spirit of his patriotism. And the man that his countrymen so admired and honored is dead, his usefulness ended, his voice silent, his pen idle forever, and he so young. There are no accidents, said Charles Sumner, in the economy of Providence; nor are there. The death of Henry W. Grady, which seems so premature, is yet part of the inscrutable design the perfectness of which may not be questioned, and out of it good will come which is now hidden. He was of those great spirits of whom Lowell sang:
“We find in our dull road their shining track;
In every noble mood