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!