Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1860-09-28
Rev. w. e. Lords Address.

of the funeral of q. q. Eastman, q
notice of whose death we published
last week:
Again, my friends, are we brought
face to face with death. No tender inn
mature blossom of childhood lies, to-day,
blasted before our eyes; no full. Tipened
golden sheaf of age, is cut by the reap
er's sickle. Our sorrow is not the short,
sharp grief that attends the untimely
dropping of the flower, nor the placid
and serene melancholy that comes with
autumnal ingathering of the perfect and
mellow fruit. AT the point from which
we now look upon it, there is nothing to
soften its fearfulness. 1t has taken a
strong man in the midst of his years /;
one who has passed the perils of youth,
whom previous discipline and toll, and ex-
periences, had prepared for wider ca
reer and a higher usefulness, whose heart
had lost none of its buoyancy, and yet
flowed with deeper currents, whose step
had lost none of its spring, and yet plan
ted itself more firmly; one, who had be-
gun to stretch himself into wider social
relations, and to sustain greater respon-
sibilities one whose connexions were
becoming more vital, attachments more
comprehensive, and position among them
who bear the burdens and prosecute the
objects of society more prominent and
defined; one who had ceased to be busy
with the pastimes of life, had come to be
concerned in the highest degree, with the
best public and social interests one who
lived not alone but had gathered around
him those who depended upon his care,
who were subject to his authority and
waited upon him for instruction and guild
auce the nucleus of his friends, the
center and head of family, and bound
up in all those interests which excite the
feelings, or enlist the activity and pas
sions of men. We stand, to-day, in pre-
sence of death in his most terrible form
when he has assaulted the very citadel Of
life, and demolished its strongest hold
when he has overthrown vigorous man,
hood, and buried under its broken ruins
an entire system of domestic and social
order and dependence. The strong stat
has been wrenched from many hands
and the beautiful rod has been torn from
the grasp of those of whom it was boil
the support and the defence. The SUI
has not waited for his setting, but at hi
meridian transit has gone into total anc
: perpetual eclipse. At least, howeve
bright may be his remote and invisibl,
side, his earthly side is eclipsed and darl
forever.
All, there is something unutterably
strange in this dark valley Of the SHADOW
of death in which the weak and tn
: strong, the young and the old, alike pas
from our sight, and leave US only memo
ries of love, or hopes of faith WheI
our friends have gone thither, it matter
not what glorious change has passed upo
them, or what blessed abode they inhabi
yet we are left to indulge emotions ths
= can have no utterance to bear still
love that cannot grasp the hand of its OF
ject, and to cherish recollection, imagini
lions and sentiments, that have no Wis
bic form to encircle. And if it were n,
for the sustaining and blessed infuene
of religion, the solid comforts which Go
= grants to submissive faith and an uncon
planning love, these events, these separa
z. tons that bereave US of so many sympi
thies, and so many joys, would be tC
much for us,-too heavy to be born
II we could all go together there woul
be less evil in it. If we could be gathe
10 ed in like corn or wheat, in crowdt
Q. shocks, fully ripe, it would be easy-b
this separate dropping off, this departir
one by one, this isolated drifting fro
= earthly anchorage, out into the unknov
deep of eternity, this leaving widow,
d and orphaned earth to enter into chill
n less, widowed future-who can deny til
it is fearful thing, and most painful n
to those who go, but TO those who a
left. Even the love of God cannot ia
away all its bitterness, though it may e
- tract its sting. Christ felt the cup to
re- bitter. He trembled that he should
nd more see the towers of the city ov
at which he had wept. He mourned to |
adieu to the family that he loved.
in sorrowed at the grave of one whom I
e. power could call back from the du
We though the tie was of friendship and
y of home; and if his soul melted at dea
,er may not we too, feel, however ma
IN stray and faint CLEANS of hope are thro