Honor and emulate the virtues and the faith of your forefathers—who, learned, were never wise above a knowledge of God and His gospel—who, great, were never exalted above an humble trust in God and His mercy!
Let me sum up what I have sought to say in this hurried address. Your Republic—on the glory of which depends all that men hold dear—is menaced with great dangers. Against these dangers defend her, as you would defend the most precious concerns of your own life. Against the dangers of centralizing all political powers, put the approved and imperishable principle of local self-government. Between the rich and the poor now drifting into separate camps, build up the great middle class that, neither drunk with wealth, nor embittered by poverty, shall lift up the suffering and control the strong. To the jangling of races and creeds that threaten the courts of men and the temples of God, oppose the home and the citizen—a homogeneous and honest people—and the simple faith that sustained your fathers and mothers in their stainless lives and led them serene and smiling into the valley of the shadow.
Let it be understood in my parting words to you that I am no pessimist as to this Republic. I always bet on sunshine in America. I know that my country has reached the point of perilous greatness, and that strange forces not to be measured or comprehended are hurrying her to heights that dazzle and blind all mortal eyes—but I know that beyond the uttermost glory is enthroned the Lord God Almighty, and that when the hour of her trial has come He will lift up His everlasting gates and bend down above her in mercy and in love. For with her He has surely lodged the ark of His covenant with the sons of men. Emerson wisely said, “Our whole history looks like the last effort by Divine Providence in behalf of the human race.” And the Republic will endure. Centralism will be checked, and liberty saved—plutocracy overthrown and equality restored. The struggle for human rights never goes backward among English-speaking peoples. Our brothers across the sea have fought from despotism to liberty, and in the wisdom of local self-government have planted colonies around the world. This very day Mr. Gladstone, the wisest man that has lived since your Jefferson died—with the light of another world beating in his face until he seems to have caught the wisdom of the Infinite and towers half human and half divine from his eminence—this man, turning away from the traditions of his life, begs his countrymen to strip the crown of its last usurped authority, and lodge it with the people, where it belongs. The trend of the times is with us. The world moves steadily from gloom to brightness. And bending down humbly as Elisha did, and praying that my eyes shall be made to see, I catch the vision of this Republic—its mighty forces in balance, and its unspeakable glory falling on all its children—chief among the federation of English-speaking people—plenty streaming from its borders, and light from its mountain tops—working out its mission under God’s approving eye, until the dark continents are opened—and the highways of earth established, and the shadows lifted—and the jargon of the nations stilled and the perplexities of Babel straightened—and under one language, one liberty, and one God, all the nations of the world hearkening to the American drum-beat and girding up their loins, shall march amid the breaking of the millennial dawn into the paths of righteousness and of peace!
THE FARMER AND THE CITIES.
MR. Grady’s Speech at Elberton, Georgia, in June, 1889.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:—For the first time in my life I address an audience in the open air. And as I stand here in this beautiful morning, so shot through and through with sunshine that the very air is as molten gold to the touch—under these trees in whose trunks the rains and suns of years are compacted, and on whose leaves God has laid His whispering music—here in His majestic temple, with the brightness of His smile breaking all about us—standing above the soil instinct with the touch of His life-giving hand, and full of His promise and His miracle—and looking up to the clouds through which His thunders roll, and His lightnings cut their way, and beyond that to the dazzling glory of the sun, and yet beyond to the unspeakable splendor of the universe, flashing and paling until the separate stars are but as mist in the skies—even to the uplifted jasper gates through which His everlasting glory streams, my mind falls back abashed, and I realize how paltry is human speech, and how idle are the thoughts of men!
Another thought oppresses me. In front of me sit several thousand people. Over there, in smelling distance, where we can almost hear the lisping of the mop as it caresses the barbecued lamb or the pottering of the skewered pig as he leisurely turns from fat to crackling, is being prepared a dinner that I verily believe covers more provisions than were issued to all the soldiers of Lee’s army, God bless them, in their last campaign. And I shudder when I think that I, a single, unarmed, defenseless man, is all that stands between this crowd and that dinner. Here then, awed by God’s majesty, and menaced by man’s appetite, I am tempted to leave this platform and yield to the boyish impulses that always stir in my heart amid such scenes, and revert to the days of boyhood when about the hills of Athens I chased the pacing coon, or twisted the unwary rabbit, or shot my ramrod at all manner of birds and beasts—and at night went home to look up into a pair of gentle eyes and take on my tired face the benediction of a mother’s kiss and feel on my weary head a pair of loving hands, now wrinkled and trembling, but, blessed be God, fairer to me yet than the hands of mortal women, and stronger yet to lead me than the hands of mortal man, as they laid a mother’s blessing there, while bending at her knees I made my best confession of faith and worshiped at the truest altar I have yet found in this world. I had rather go out and lay down on the ground and hug the grass to my breast and mind me of the time when I builded boyish ambitions on the wooded hills of Athens, than do aught else to-day. But I recall the story of Uncle Remus, who when his favorite hero, Brer Rabbit, was sorely pressed by that arch villain, Brer Fox, said:
“An’ Brer Rabbit den he climb’d a tree.” “But,” said the little boy, “Uncle Remus, a rabbit can’t climb a tree.”