Whig and tribune. [volume] (Jackson, Tenn.) 1870-1877, 1872-02-10
The variety OF Death.

A fine idea, expressed in fine Ian
guage, is in the opening phrases oi
Rev. Hugh Thompson's eulogy oi
the late Bishop Kemper, delivered
at the Episcopal Convention of Mil
waukee. The speaker said:
AS no two lives have ever been a.
like on earth, so no two deaths have
been. There is a vast variety in
mems dying as in their living.
There are deaths that, apart from
all regret and SORROWS, impress us
with a painful sense of discord.
They come before the work is done.
The story is broken off. The drama
has no close. The music jars into
sudden discord, and ends. We stand
about the grave, and from the earth
ly side there is blank sense of in
completeness. We are cheated by a
promise that was never filled. There
is another confusion amid the many
confusions of this lower world, an
other discoHtent With its npparent
lack OF purpose.
Such are always the deaths of
children and the very young. With
no vision of another world, where
the great God of all worlds has
work and uses, these deaths. seem
utterly unreasonable.
And we may add to these the
deaths in opening manhood, just
when the hand has gained its
strength, when to the young man,
with promise of noble results, and
high in courage. hope and principle,
death comes and ends the story be-
fore the first page is written, takes
the tools away and suspends the Ia
bors before the first blow is struck.
And besides these, the deaths that
come in middle life, when tied tO
| family and friends, aud social duties,
the centre of a thousand interests,
with his work all about him unfin.
ished, a work he is doing well by al
! mems judgement, q work which he
| thinks none but he can do so well
or it may not be done at all, deatl
| summons a man in the midst of his
highest uses and most splendid sue
cesses, and all is broken off in the
midst and left fragmentary and chao
tic. To the deepest sense of los!
| there is added this further strain up
on the intellect, to bear a loss that
from this side, seems needless anC
irrational. These deaths may coml
suddenly, by slow decay or by tn,
accident, as we call it, of a mOmen
but they are none the less to Ourrea
son shock, and a contradiction t
our sense of fitness. We call then
"untimely DEATH" unreasonable il
doing so, but that we are taught b,
faith, and not by sight.
Again, there are deaths that com
upon us with the sense Of q compile
ted harmony; death that end live
as sunset ends the day; death whel
the work is done, when the story i
all told, when the long full day
| travel is finished. Youth prepare,
for the work in a faithful prentice
hood; mandood did the work Iik
a master. Patiently, as the year
passed, the appointed duty was ful
filed, the prescribed burden borne
And now, at last, all finished, dealt
comes TO summon the laborer to hi
rest.
They are deaths to thank God 70
these deaths that end a long an,
fruitful life with a perfect close
They come with calmness of sum
mer sunsets, that end the day. wit
the dreamy regret of the India
summer that ends the year. The
seem to belong to the other world
to be visitatiOns of Gods eterna
order here among the Uncertaintie
and confusions OF time.