Staunton Vindicator

HENRY W. GRADY.

Hardly had the glowing eloquence of Georgia's orator at Boston reached the ears of the people, before the lips that uttered it were cold in death. The enthusiastic crowd that at Atlanta waited his return home to welcome him after his triumph, could only stand mutely by, as the orator, already stricken by death was carried to the carriage, from the windows of which he was to see its streets for the last time. But a few hours elapsed and the end came.

It is a brief three years since he rose on the horizon of the South, but with a brilliancy that soon spread over the horizon of the Nation. As Jefferson Davis who had led the South with great brain and heart in one direction, was sinking in his grave, this man, who with equal gifts and the greater one of magnetic oratory, whose chosen work was to lead her in her new path, was rising in fame. But Fate whose decrees are inscrutable, ordained that the flowers on the one grave should not wither before the other grave was opened. It is a bereavement to the Nation and especially to the South.

As Mr. Davis was specially fitted for the leader of a third of a century ago, so was Henry W. Grady peculiarly fitted for the leader in this day. A mind so broad, a heart so tender, a soul so chivalric, a tongue so eloquent, as have been stilled with the pulses of his young life, will be hard to find again. So loyal to the memories of the past—no snarling devotion, but a proud, exultant loyalty. So filled with buoyant faith in the National life for the future.

Faith in the American Union and the South as a part of it. In him the South has lost its chief spokesman and the Nation a true patriot.