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been a good pastor as well as a great preacher,
and large congregations have attended his ministry.
His Eloquence in the Pulpit.
He has a magnificent physique and stands six
feet, four inches, in height. This gives him a com
manding presence and secures attention before he
utters a word. I heard him preach the annual
sermon before the Southern Baptist Convention in
1895 at Washington. His text was, “Thou shalt
call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people
from their sins.” I have listened to some of the
greatest speakers of America, but none has come so
near my ideal of what Demosthenic oratory
should be as did James Boardman Hawthorne that
day when he was picturing the purpose of the
Christ.
I have heard some men whose words were like
the silvery ripplings of the woodland brook, others
who spoke with the sublimeness of the ocean storm,
still others like the tender mother to her troubled
child, and yet others like unto Judah earnestly
pleading for the return of Benjamin to his father.
Dr. Hawthorne has the power of all these, ami yec
a power all his own. His words “convince the
judgment, kindle the imagination, move the feelings
and give a powerful impulse to the will.’’
On the Platform.
Dr. Hawthorne is as great on the platform as in
the pulpit, and has spoken often in many parts of
the country. He has an address upon “The
World's Great Orators,” among whom he should
be included. In an address delivered before the
Boston Social Union on October 19, IS9B, he de
clared that whether the men who followed the vic
torious flag of the union did or did not contemplate
such a result, the truth is that the triumphs which
they achieved brought to the white race of the
South a deliverance immeasurably greater than
that which came to the enslaved negroes. The
slave system of labor prevented any multiplication or
diversity of industries. “But,” he continued, “now
our mountains are giving up their coal, iron, mar
ble and minerals of every kind; every neighbor
hood is making use of her exhaustless supplies of
water power; the people are dotting with sails and
steamers the magnificent harbors along our whole
seacoast; and every element of wealth and prog
ress is at our doors. ' ’
The Southern Baptist Convention will meet in
Richmond this year on Dr. Hawthorne's seventieth
birthday. He will address the convention that day
upon “Some things on which it behooves the Bap
tists of this generation to put supreme emphasis.”
On account of ill health he has recently resigned
his church in Richmond, the resignation to take
effect July 1. Ere long he will hie away to Virgin
ia’s blue mountains, which have been his summer
haunt almost without intermission for more than
a score of years. Thousands are hoping that health
will soon again be flushing his cheek and that for
many years he will be spared to our Southland
which loves him so well.
H *
Reb. J. ft. Hawthorne on Oratory.
I have felt the enchantment of the divinest music;
I have listened to the grand organ —that thousand
throated king of instruments —in the hands of a
master; I have heard its voice in a miserere when it
was so plaintive and human I imagined that a lost
soul was imprisoned and wailing amid its wilder
ness of pipes; and then, as it rolled up the jubi
lant thunders of some great hallelujah chorus, 1
fancied myself surrounded by the trumpets and
voices of Heaven. But while under the spell of
some impassioned, dazzling and masterful orator, I
have experienced emotions in comparison with which
the profoundest sensations excited by music should
never be mentioned.
It was the genius of her orators more than the
discipline and valor of her armies that shaped the
fortunes of ancient Greece. It was the burning
words of Demosthenes that fired the Athenian heart
and called the Athenian populace into the field
to resist the encroachments of the Macedonian ty
rant. It was the eloquence of Martin Luther, in
spired by a love of truth, freedom and God, that
rendered possible the great reformation of the six
teenth century. For the great boon of American
independence we are indebted not more to the
The Golden Age for May 16, 1907.
sword of Washington than to the magical eloquence
of Otis, Adams and Henry. Through the magnet
ism of these men, “Liberty or death,” became the
slogan of the colonists everywhere, from Massachu
setts to Georgia. In the great National Democratic
Convention of 18G0, assembled in the city of
Charleston, S. C., the electrifying eloquence of one
speech, from the lips of William L. Yancy, cre
ated the movement which culminated in the seces
sion of the Southern States from the Federal
Union, and the bloodiest war of the nineteenth
century.
In every age the pulpit has illustrated the mighty
power of eloquence. Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed
preacher of old Antioch, was so armed with this
weapon that he felt perfectly secure in provoking
the displeasure of a licentious priesthood, and in
publicly denouncing the emperor and the empress.
I could speak of the impetuous and resistless Sav
onarola. the lightning-like strokes of Latimer and
Knox, the polished phrases of Massillon, the serene
majesty of Chalmers and Robert Hall, the cyclonic
power of Whitefield, and the soaring fancy of Bos
suet, whom Lamertine called “the eagle of elo
quence. ’ ’ More than once it was my privilege to
hear that prince of the American pulpit, the late
Richard Fuller. Sooner could I paint the light
ning’s glare than the brilliancy of his eye, when
his Christ-loving soul was filled with holy fiie.
Easier could I reproduce the music of a golden
harp, by an artist’s fingers touched, than the tones
with which he bewitched the ears and hearts of his
auditors. I have seen him and heard him when he
seemed to be almost transfigured. I have felt the
contagion that swept over his vast congregations.
I have seen that grand old magician at his best.
In every fiber of my being I have felt his subjugat
ing and transforming power; but I would not at
tempt to describe him.
Matthews, in his book on “Oratory and Ora
tors,” says: “A speaker can be eloquent only when
he is reinforced by great events. He must have a
crisis and an excited audience to start with. His
powder will not explode unless it falls upon a
heated surface." That may be true of the aver
age speaker, but not of one who is endowed with
the highest quality of oratorical genius. He can
be eloquent even when there is nothing in the oc
casion to help him. He can master any discourage
ment, and transform the commonest occasion into
one of supreme importance. Such an orator was
Henry W. Grady.
In any correct classification of orators, Grady
must stand in the school to which Sargent S.
Prentiss belonged. The powers most conspicuous
in him were imagination and passion. His imagery
was not so orderly and stately as Webster’s and
Burke's, but more abundant, original, lifelike and
inspiring. Behind his prodigal fancy there was a
nature of wonderful sensibility, a great heart re
sponsive to the calls of every just occasion, and pas
sions that sometimes clothed his brow with thunder
and sometimes with angelic beauty and bright
ness. Grady was pre-eminently original. He made
me see some things as I had never seen them in
the light of any other man’s words. He struck
cords in my soul that had never responded to any
other man’s touch. He opened new trumpet-stops
in the grand organ of human passion. He gave
voice to pent up feelings in the bosom of humanity
which hitherto had found no adequate medium of
expression. The fire that touched his miracle-work
ing tongue was that divine charity which thinketh
no evil and seeketh not its own. He premeditated
no wrong to any man, nor withheld from the ser
vice of humanity any gift with which his Maker
had endowed him. On the day when the dead,
small and great, stand before God and the leaves of
the Judgment Book unfold, many a child of poverty
and suffering will point to Henry W. Grady and
say, “I was hungry and he fed me, naked, and he
clothed me, homeless, and he gave me shelter.”
How heroically the patriotic soul of this man
struggled to lift the vexatious and distracting race
problem from the realm of partisan politics! With
what matchless pathos he pleaded for patience and
brotherly kindness in dealing with this problem!
How wisely he used his bewitching eloquence in get
ting the North and South to shake hands in token
of restored confidence and fellowship! His banquet
speeches in New York and Boston are destined to
live as long as patriotism has any place in the
world’s literature.
The people of Atlanta will never forget Grady’s
espousal of the cause of prohibition, and how his
magnificent oratory magnified the importance of
the conquest. As he stood before the multitude
pleading for temperance, we felt that the angels
of God had come down to encamp about us. Our
virtue-loving wives and daughters gazed upon him
is a heaven-anointed leader and deliverer. They
imagined that the white-robed millions in glory
were standing upon the everlasting hills to watch
the fortunes of a cause championed by this match
less advocate. Through him they hoped to blot
an era of oppression out and lead a blessed free
dom in.
Oh, Grady! Grady! Child of genius, patriot,
philanthropist, Christian! There shall rise a higher
monument to commemorate thy worth than that
which stands in yonder highway. When the com
monwealth which gave thee birth has fully recover
ed from all the wounds of war; when the old South
has become indeed a new South in every element
of strength and happiness; when the growing spirit
of fraternity, which thou didst foster, has con
sumed the Jast relic of sectional hate; when this
American Republic has reached that era of unri
valed glory which appeared to thee in a vision
of the night; and when over all shall wave in re
splendent beauty the white ensign of Temperance,
Purity and Brotherhood —then shall be reared a
monument worthy of thy virtues, thy deeds, thy
genius and thy fame.
* •?
Rebibal at Meridian 'Female College.
It is now three weeks since the close of the re
vival services in our college during which God was
so manifest. We rejoice to report that in this in
tervening time, He has been no less present in
strengthening and uplifting grace. The Lord of
hosts is yet with us, and His praise is upon the
lips of many who once were strangers to grace
ami to God. Truly, according to His tender mer
cies and loving kindness, hath He dealt with us.
We lift up grateful hearts to Him—the Divine Au
thor of good!
Some phases of the revival were particularly
noticeable. It is quite the usual thing when re
porting such meetings to speak of the guidance of
the Holy Spirit in the minutiae as a very matter
of course affair. In the present case this state
ment was literally true, as was cogently evidenced
by the diversity of operation of the Spirit in the
meetings.
There was not a hint of monotony in the order
of the services. On the contrary, Divine guidance
brought refreshing variety and song, testimony, and
prayer, exhortation ami teaching gave place to
each other easily and naturally as the occasion
demanded. The answering to written questions
bearing upon the Christian life was a feature of
interest ami a source of edification to all.
Perhaps it might be well said that the keynote
of the revival was thoroughness. The changed
lives of the recent converts confirm the opinion that
Pie decisions were not superficial, but that souls
were transformed through the power of Christ.
The method of conducting the meeting was con
ducive to such work as this. There was no ex
citement, but instead, a quiet earnestness of de
liberation which moved steadily toward irrevoc
able decisions.
Probably the one quality of the meeting in which
we most rejoice was its gift of continuance. In
stead of ceasing with the release of the evangelist,
the work went on with increased manifestation of
the Spirit. At the first chapel service following
the close of the meeting, the altar was filled and
many who had hitherto resisted, were happily con
verted. On the day after others found Jesus in
the upper room meeting or in the quiet places of
secret prayer.
And in the Meridian Male College as well as
our own, thus the revival has continued until the
number of students who are without Christ has
been reduced to a very few. Many of these have
made requests for prayer, and we are looking for
ward with faith to their conversion.
Meridian, Miss. A Teacher.
