Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1874-04-22
Loved Ones in the other Life
BY FRANCIS POWER couBE.

There are problem. which sometimes
cloud the hopes Of renewed Affections in an-
other world How, for example, are We 60
reconcile the conflicting claims Of relative.
and friends whom we have loved, each su-
premely in his turn, but who now await Us
together in the land Of the los.2' Sup
posing there has been no failure Of ilolity,
only, as the years flowed on. the love Of the
parent, over whose grave the grass has
many times sprung aud withered, has been
replaced $50 far as one affection ever re-
places another, which is but httlc) by the
love Of child and, as friends have Drilled
away, new attachments have caught the
tondrils Of our hearts, aud when the wife
or husband Of youth has long f the earth,
we have formed new ties no less sacred and
near 1t is part Of ,u, bel,icieut order
Of things that such transitions should take
place and looking back over life, it is i'm
possible, without ruthless violence to our.
selves, to 1--WE the preference to one over
the other, or to be willing TO renounce ono
for the other 1.-THE love Of youth be more
vehement, that ofmiddle life is more strong
sweet as were the affections Of youth, still
more tender and grave and noble are the
friendships Of age. But, how is it possible
for US to renew simultaneously these rcla-
tons, which followed each other success
iyely2 This is the old Sadduccun question
under a more refined form, aud the later
doubt, as well as the earlier, seems to have
sprung out of the same inveterate propen.
sity for transferring the limitations aud
negations as well as the afiirmatons Of ,his
life to a higher sphere. Why is it we can.
not love nog many friends with equal in.
tensity2 1t is only because we are 50 lin.
tied, our time and thoughts are so bounded
land what is far worse) our hearts are so
cold aud narrow, that, even when we recog-
nize that A, Il and g are all deserving Of
our u,termost love we must needs make one
supreme, and give the others only the resi-.
due Of our tenderness and remembrance.
This is the true rationale of the limits Of
love on earth and those who treat them as
If they were in themselves good and desir-
able things, aud who would prefer to give
or receive only narrow aud exclusive
affection, have hardly yet learned the real
sense Of unselfsh attachment.
THAT love for me, from which there doth not
spring
True love Tor all, {. hut worthless thing"
But in a state of existence in which we
should be altogether noble, larger, wider.
hearted, and pressed on no logger by the
endless claims which break up our present
time into fragments, could we not also love
more than we do now? Relieved from fears
Of wretched jealousies, with tie G. les OF
Immortality before us, aud wit the whole
scope Of our natures widenod, Ahat should
hinder but that we should be able in the
same happy hearts to hold at once the love
Of all whom we have ever loved truly on
carthage, aud of new friends found in
heaven Even conjugdl love- fitting and
inevitable as it is that there should be ex.
clusiveness in it now, may be as tender
hereafter, though no longer passionate when
the wife meets again the husband whom in
dying she prayed should find another to
love him as well She will not be less gen.
erous there than here nor will the bitter
thought that affection given to another is
robbed from ourselves prevail more in such
connections hereafter than il does now in
happy households where the children love
the parents the more because they love each
and ali, and where the fathers and mother.
hearts have widened with every child borr
to their arms.