James Grant
Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 23 June 1868, page 1
Death of James Grant
The subject of this article was killed near Alexandria, Campbell
County, Ky. on Monday, the 15th day of June 1868, by a fall from his horse.
Fled like a dream away,
But yesterday's mid life's amoral bloom;
Today pleasant June, as bright as May,
Shines round his lonely tomb.
If the spirits of the departed could be with us, then might we tell them how deep and ardent were our attachments for them. It is a lamentable fact that we often fail to express our affection for our friends and acquaintances until it is too late. Then it is that "ages of sorrow are felt by us in a moment." Little did we think on last Sabbath morn, when we saw his sparkling eyes at the Sabbath school, teaching his little class the road to peace and happiness, that ere the rising of another sun his eyes would be closed in death.
He was a member of the Baptist Church, having united with it some five years since, when but a youth of eighteen summers. He was a good servant in the vineyard of his Lord and he has now entered into the presence of his Redeemer 'mid cries of "well done thou good and faithful servant." He will be missed by the brethren of his church, his little class will miss him and they have suffered a loss irreparable, and his many friends and relatives will miss him. You will rise from the busy routine of your daily employment thinking that a kind voice called your name, the household name, that name that your loved one know you by and then with an inward shiver of mortal chill to remember that one voice will not, cannot ever, call your name again.
Oh, to think what he was but yesterday and now to know him no more so long as you shall live. No more! What vague, mysterious terrors in that sound! Though he be lost to us here on earth, it is his eternal gain. To wish him with us would be but to deprive him of that for which he lived. It seems but to love a flower, 'tis the first to fade away. Every day a jewel is stolen from some treasure of love. We4 might add, "I know not of the sunshine's waste, but all is dark since thou art gone."
He is now beckoning us on to that land where graves are never dug. His spirit is basking in the sunlight of eternal peace, that blessed land beyond the skies, in the presence of that Jesus of whom he used to sing. To reach him we must die. To sisters and brothers left behind I would say, prepare to meet the dead in that land of baptized spirits.
EWH Alexandria KY. June 19, 1868