Praise Them with Elation

As he sleeps the long sleep, we remember him and recognize him for what he was – a hero in a time of heroes.

Here be reminded that, we have heard it said that a man is known by the company he keeps. This might well be true. But for sure, human persons – those high creatures in God’s creation – are uniquely distinguished by the fact that they can speak.

And for sure, with speech comes that capacity to soar – as it were – on the wings of words.

And so, today we return from our journeys hither and yon with words culled from a speech delivered by Sir Arthur Foulkes, one of this land’s truly great rhetoricians.

Sir Arthur spoke well, true and good as he remembered one of his friends and a comrade in arms, Sir Clement T. Maynard.

With others, these two great men struggled in that dread season and in those powerful days when the cry around the world – from Ghana to Grenada, from Nigeria to Nassau – was to the effect that, we want to be free.

In that beautiful moment, Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed a dream about the coming of a day when human beings would be judged on the basis of character and not on pigmentation.

In that same moment, men like Milo Butler, Randol Fawkes, Lynden Pindling and others were embarked on that same freedom road.

Arthur Hanna joined them later.

And so today, those of us who yet live and breathe remember the time when giants such as these – inclusive of Sir Clement T. Maynard – walked the land and helped birth a nation – this Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

As Sir Arthur rightly notes, "We have come to mourn the loss of Clement Trevelyan Maynard but also to celebrate his life and service as one of the founders of our modern, stable, fully emancipated and democratic Commonwealth of The Bahamas.

"He served his country for three decades in the highest echelons of our Government and contributed mightily to our economic, social, political and constitutional development.

"I join with all Bahamians in expressing our gratitude for his long and excellent service to our country in the many ministerial portfolios he held with distinction over these years, including that of Minister of Tourism and Deputy Prime Minister…"

We too again express our gratitude and thanks to the Almighty for the life, witness and service of this great Bahamian man.

And as we today repeat, Clement T. Maynard lived a life that was suffused with that poetry that is to be found in lives that have been well-lived.

Clement Trevelyan Maynard lived one of these.

Indeed, we were so moved when we heard that he was dead, we knew that we could and should turn to Poetry itself in that dread moment.

And in verse sublime [as penned by Alfred Lord Tennyson] we were reminded of these words, "And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge: "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Tennyson goes on to declaim: "Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within Himself make pure! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of…"

And so today, we pray.

Indeed, when we first heard the news that Sir Clement T. Maynard was dead, we were left released of a sigh of heavenly relief; for the man that he was and for the service that he had rendered in helping found and build the modern Bahamas.

And for sure, we also unleashed a mighty sigh of relief when we heard the news that Sir Clement T. Maynard was dead; this time because we know that for this man-servant of God, it was just all right now.

That Clement Trevelyan Maynard was also a consummate family man also gives us pause as we remind ourselves of the power in his mighty wisdom to the effect that family matters.

And clearly, service to God and country also mattered.

And so we say again that, this good man and his wife, Lady Zoe Maynard are to be thanked and praised for their guide as mentors and pattern to all who would dare build family, provide for off-spring [sometimes working today as if this day was the last] and otherwise make of themselves productive citizens.

But more so than anything else that might be said, this great man’s death illuminates the fact that those men and women who helped birth this nation are finding the exit.

As they do – one after the other – we thank them, we praise them and for sure, we do so with elation.