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The Golden Age for February 13, 1913.
HENRY GRADY’S MOTHER
The recent death of Mrs. Anne Gartrell
Grady, mother of Henry Grady who, when he
Winsome
Graces
That Lived
In Her
Famous Son.
eloquence on fire gave him at 39 more than a
continent of fame.
It is related that the last time the great
editor and orator visited his mother before his
untimely death, he said: 11 Mother, the plaud
its of the world do not satisfy the heart —they
do not stay me when temptations beset me
thick and fast. Nothing holds me like the
anchor of mother’s love and the altar to God
at mother’s knee. I want to be a boy again.
I want you to come and tuck the cover about
me and kiss me .good-night, as you used to do
when I was a boy.”
And the dear old heart went and put her boy
to bed, smoothing down the cover and imprint
ing on his brow of fame the priceless benedic
tion of a mother’s good-night kiss.
Next morning the great man went down to
the Sunday School at the First Methodist
Church, where he used to go as a boy, and had
the children sing for him, “ Shall We Gather
At the River?”
Burying his face in his hands he cried like
a child while the children sang. The next time
he saw his mother she came to his deathbed,
the sad price of his Boston triumph, and with
the memory of that song still in his heart, he
threw his arms around his weeping mother
and said: “Mother, my feet are in the water.”
Henry Grady’s mother-in-law, Mrs. William
King (“Aunt Susie” to so many thousands
through The Atlanta Constitution), said to the
Editor of The Golden Age: “Henry Grady was
the best man in his family that ever lived.”
What must have been the mother of such a
man?
AN EPOCH-MAKING GATHERING OF MEN.
(Continued from Page 1.)
find a wife we wanted her to be as near as
possible like the little Tennessee woman who
helped the heroic educator in his daily victo
ries.
Well, the Georgia man, at last, got that
very kind of wife, and John T. Henderson, Sec
retary of the Laymen’s Movement in the South
ern Baptist Convention is still a “living hero.”
So arduous was his work in preparation for
the Chattanooga Convention, working side by
side with Rev. E. E. George, another heroic
soul, that he broke down during the Conven
tion, and when he was able to return to the
platform, his brethren gave him an enthusiastic
welcome.
John T. Henderson must have felt repaid for
every ounce of energy spent when he witnessed
that wonderful tithing hour and heard National
Secretary J. Campbell White, the wise and
forceful, and that grand old war-horse, Dr..
J. B. Gambrell, declare it to be “the most
meaningful hour they had ever seen.”
In his address forecasting the purposes of
the Convention, Dr. Henderson said:
“Motives count for much —they are basic,,
directive, inspirational. The German poet
Goethe says they are the important thing in
life.
“While there is great diversity in taste, hab
its of thought, occupation and residence in this
company of men, it is to be hoped that only one
supreme motive is regnant in every soul
greater efficiency in promoting the Redeemer’s.
Kingdom. Other minor motives may have
played some part in bringing us here and right
ly so. Some were glad to have a little season
of recreation; some were glad, of opportunity
to come to Chattanooga and visit these scenes
of historic interest near by; others were in-
died, as John Temple Graves
said, was “literally loving a na
tion into peace,” naturally re
vives many sacred, tender mem
ories of that wonderful son of
the South whose patriotism in
carnate, and whose love and
Isma Dooly, the gifted society editor of The
Constitution, says:
Her Most Faithful Biographer.
Her wit and humor have become as famous
among the men and women who have called
her blessed in the home circle and circle of
friends as the inheritance from her made fa
mous her devoted son. Her conversation was
as bright and sparkling and joy-giving as her
eyes, and her kinsman and most faithful biog
rapher, Lucian Lamar Knight, who lived in
her home during his college life, has no more
interesting chapter than that which he devotes
to Mrs. Grady in the second volume of his
book, “Reminiscences of Famous Georgians.”
He not only gives her her place in history,
but makes her an illuminating charac
ter around which the writer of romance has
an inspiring theme. And today I bear for him
this message, the last he wrote of her:
“The fortitude displayed by Mrs. Grady in
ordeals of affliction has never been eclipsed
since the old martyrs died in the arena at
Rome. She has known many sorrows and
troubles; but in hours of darkness her calm
brow has always worn a band of starlight.
What I knew as the Grady home in Athens
was not the old-time mansion in which the
great orator was born, but an attractive little
red cottage of modern architecture, on Barber
street, where Mrs. Grady lived with her daugh
ter, Mattie. As I think of it now it smiles
upon me like an Indian summer. The subtle
fragrance of the vines on the little front veran
da —the ruddy glow of the broad, open fire
place—the sounds of familiar voices—these still
hold me captive; for the happiest of recollec
tions here cluster around the Grady home.
Others may pass it by unnoticed. For them
it may mean little or much, but for me it will
always wear in memory the peerless bloom of
the Lancastrian rose; for, whenever I am worn
and tired, I need only to wander back along
the old paths, mount the steps and lift the latch
fluenced by the prospect of meeting and greet
ing friends and of enjoying the fellowship of
the saints; some came to hear the strong ad
dresses on vital topics of the Kingdom. These
and other motives made their appeal, but the
dominant motive was our anxiety to see some
effective plans devised to enlist our great host
in the Lord’s w'ork.
“Selfish and mercenary motives should have
no place here. This meeting has been the ob
ject of most importunate prayer and the holi
est motives should prompt us all.
“While hundreds of thousands and perhaps
millions of money are represented here, we did
not come to raise great collections, and none
will be tolerated. The different phases of the
missionary enterprise are to be strongly pre
sented, but this movement advocates that the
giving of money should be an act of worship
in the home Church. The attack here is to
be on the head and heart and not on the pock
et-book. Some specific features should be
stressed.
“We are here for information. We need
knowledge of the gratifying achievements of
the past, the open doors that bid us enter, the
urgent cry of need that comes from every quar
ter, ‘My people are destroyed for lack of
knowledge.’ The indifference of many is due
to the ignorance of many.
“We need enlarged vision; many of us are
provincial; ‘we can not see afar off;’ our in
terest is oftentimes bounded by the corporate
limits of our own town. We need to be lifted
up and out of ourselves until the needs of the
world will break upon our vision.
“We are here to formulate' a Scriptural
modus operand! that will appeal to us all and
.guarantee concert of action.
“For a Quickened Leadership.”
i“We are here in the interest of a quickened
of the Grady home, where, once within this
haven of rest, the air brightens, the shadows
lift, the heart grows young, and the siren sings
again.”
Her life was one which blended sunshine and
shadow —the sunshine of her spirit ever rising
with heroic light, when the shadows in grief
came to deprive her of the loving husband in
her young womanhood; and then to take from
her in her twilight of life the son whose match
less eloquence found its tenderest expression
in tribute to her.
Grady’s Tribute to His Mother.
No speech of serious moment was ever made
by him without some reference to his mother,
most memorable of these being his speech in
Boston on the race problem, when in part he
said:
“The love we feel for that race you can
neither measure nor comprehend. As I attest
it here, the spirit of my old black mammy from
her home up there looks down to bless, and
through the tumult of this night steals the
sweet music of her croonings as thirty years
ago she held me in her black arms and led me
smiling into sleep.
“The scene vanishes as I speak, and I catch
a vision of an old Southern home with its lofty
pillars and its white pigeons fluttering down
through the golden air. I see women with
strained and anxious faces, and children alert,
yet helpless. I see night come down with its
dangers and its apprehensions, and in a big
homely room I feel on my tired brow the touch
of loving hands, now worn and wrinkled, but
fairer to me yet than the hands of mortal wo
men and stronger yet to lead me than the hands
of mortal man; and as they lay a mother’s
blessing there, while at her knees —the truest
altar I have ever known —I thanked God that
she is safe in her sanctuary because her slaves,
sentinel in the silent cabin or guard at the
chamber door, put a black man’s loyalty be
tween her and danger.”
and an effective leadership; the uninterested
hosts are not here, do not care to be here; in
deed, many of them do not know that we are
here. Christian men who are leaders in busi
ness, politics, professional and social life must
become leaders in the Kingdom of God. These
men fired with a burning passion need to re
turn from this meeting to arouse the latent en
ergies of the hosts back at home. Our supreme
need is effective leadership. If two or more
capable laymen in each of our 836 district as
sociations will set their hearts and hands to the
task they can greatly enrich their own lives
and transform their associations. This has been
tested. They can promote piety, intelligence
and Scriptural method in every Church. Lead
ership is the key; the masses are in a hypnotic
state. They are not aggressive, do not take the
initiative.
“We are here to learn the duty of giving
God the pre-eminence in all things; most busi
ness men make their religion a side-line. Such
conception leads to self-denial and sacrifice for
His name’s sake. ‘Let this mind be in you
which was also in Christ Jesus.’
“We are here to learn that the man who re
mains by the staff may display as much hero
ism as the man who goes out to battle; that
the man who holds the ropes renders as vital
service as the man that goes down into the well.
“Finally, we are here not only for enlarged
conception, but for enlarged plans. If we
are indeed men, let us put away childish
things. Conditions indicate that God would go
out of the retail business and enter the whole
sale. We must learn to assign missions a place
in the list of giant industries. William T. El
lis rightly says that this, ‘the biggest work in
the world, should be done in the biggest man
ner in the world, and by the biggest men in
the world.’ ”
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