Michigan historical collections. [Vol. 17]

120

ANNUAL MEETING, 1890.

As a citizen, lawyer and official he was a fitting example of. every
virtue to the young men of this city and county.
Hon. Eugene Pringle was the next speaker. He said he had known
Judge Gridley forty years. His supreme love of justice led him to
hesitate in executing the rigor of the law. It was not his timidity, but
his extraordinary love of justice which induced it. He was crowned
with the virtue of ever seeking for the right. He was above the corrupting influences of strategy and never calculated upon a legal victory
achieved by illegal instruments. His mind was as great as his body;
he was not nervously active, but did his duty firmly, slowly and surely,
and with as unerring precision as was the work of the mills of the
Gods. A profound, astute lawyer, a good citizen, a good man.
Thomas E. Barkworth paid tribute to the sterling qualities of his
elder brother. To him his death was a personal bereavement, for he
had learnod to love him as a friend, a counselor, a mentor. Political
differences were made subsurvient to the great glowing heart of the
man in his honest, open candor, while malice and revenge had no
refuge in his bosom. The strife and struggle, the toil and turmoil of
a lawyer's life bred asperities if not inculcating pessimistic ideas of the
world; with Judge Gridley every factor was made to do reverence to
the ultimate triumph of right, mercy and kindness. He was useful to
all in that he elevated the practice and profession, gave tone and
character to our chosen pursuit. The beauty of his singularly sweet
and pure life was not marred in death, for he died as he had lived:
"with malice toward none and charity for all."
Prosecuting Attorney Parkinson paid a touching, delicate tribute to
the worth of deceased. His words were fittingly chosen and seemed
pregnant with heartfelt meaning. His intimacy with the dead judge
had not been close during his lifetime, but had been sufficiently close
as to permit glimpses of the loftiness of his character, his erudition,
clearness and profundity of his learning. His life bore the charm of
sweet purity, the jewel of consistency, and the tone of christian rectitude. It was the exponent of all that was good, kindly and true, and
no words of his could add to the general veneration and respect entertained toward his memory by the members of the bar. He was an
itegral member of our social and judicial fabric-an honored pillar in
its structure. He was measured by his innate qualities of usefulness
and greatness. Hfis magnanimity was as genuinely unselfish as his
great heart was free from guile. The tribute we pay over his corpse
today it the only tribute I should desire to be said above my own,
when my brethern are called upon to perform that last office for me