New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-11-01
ALL eAMTS' DAY.

! ALL SAINTS DAY.
| This day is sacred to the dead. TIL
average mortal, busted with his cares and
his quarrels, his hopes and his disappoint
ments, seldom pauses to reflect that th'
cemeteries of the dead are more populoui
than the cities of the living. But as thu
generations of the past greatly outnumbe,
those who now live, move and have theil
being on this footstool of the Creator, sc
death to the dead is more than life to the
living; it is passage from the peristyle
into the temple; putting off of the gar.
ments of decay for the vestments of i'm.
mortality; an exchange of the finite fol
the infinite in hopes and aspirations and
possibilities.
The universal experience of those who
have lived out their three-score years and
ten is freighted with sad refrain Of the
preachers utterance-"AL is vanity r
Pain and pleasure in this world are so
closely allied that even the most joyous
can scarce determine for themselves
where the one commences and the other
ends. Give increased vibration to the
thrills OF rapture and it is intensified into
pang; remove the pang by an oblivious
antidote and the absence of pain is &C.
cepted as enjoyment. We are thus "such
stuff as dreams are made Of" We dream
that We are happy, but while dreaming
the shadow falls and unexpected burdens
bear US down, We regard with perhaps
q touch Of envy the prosperity of our
frlsnds, and ere the impression passes
away find that, through skeletons in
their closets which disturbed their peace,
they have rushed from the ills they have
to others that they know not of.
All experience in this world is calcu-
lated to convince the thinking mortal
that this is not his abiding place; that
time furnishes but prelude to the great
anthem of eternity; that while birth is
Genesis, it is death which unclasps the
great book of Revelations This was the
conclusion reched by the unaided reason
Of such men as Socrates and Plato. From
the border land they caught glimpses of
eternal truths and the life which now is
become glorifed to their minds as the
of life to come. But when,
IS in our case, we have cline upon line,
md precept upon precept," a living faith |
an find no hating place between the
hadows of the present and the glorious |
ealities of the future. Death opens the
,ates Of the celestial land, where pain and
orrow are but the recollections of q pro-
dictionary state, and even sin ceases for
ack Of fostering temptation.
If We put away our dead in faith, the
becomes holy ground. There
ests the corruption which blossoms into
ncorruption. Dust, once instinct with
II that is endearing and beautiful on
arth, speaks with prophetic voice from
1e dark tomb of that angelic beauty
hlch is fadeless and infinite as its own
ternal Source. The urn is a teacher
nd the worm preacher which every hu-
ian being would do well to heed.
hough none can tell how the dry earth
'bes itself with verdure, or how the
orm, through the chrysalis, expands into
'e butterfly, yet the organic miracles in
'lved are as familiar to the observing
re as is that Of our own growth from
e assimilation Of dead animal and
getable matter; nor is the change
om the temporal to the eternal life
ore marvellous to the spiritual sense
an are these changes to our earthly
nses. Whether the dry rod blossoms in
prophets hand, or On the peach tree,
'ich had stood chill and sapless during t
ong cold winter, it has equally mean
9 to which faith can cling, and which '
en- decay is incapable of whitening. =
Life and death in this world form parts j
constantly recurring circuit; but as il
Life of man is grander than that of c
tree, which finds nourishment in the t
'ay OF its own ancestors, so the death of n
n IS more grandly significant The Ii
'sonlng human being, responsive at p
'e to the logic of events and the diyin- p
which stirs within, feels that while he T
he perfection Of the animal he ia at te
same time the beginning of the angel. ell
'oet and seer have not unfrequently o.
letrated the veil which, to the mere IL
NAL eye, separates the visible from the b
lslble, and found in death the crystal &C
lions of a divine life, of which this sc
thly life is but faulty hint, and as ci
II visions have secured verifcation in hi
experience of the incarnate Master m
}, while removing the sting from death, da
ught Immortality to light, the common th
tai would be mad as the undeyout h;
osopher should he fail to accept in tn
the interior and supernal evidence m.
such authority presented. Man, the tn,
nal dies, but man, the spirit, is DEATH ms
as his Creator. va
Is Tor these reasons that even the sh,
OF the dead is sacred, and Golgotha
ground. If the little shoe. once TH
sec to the foot of some young i'm
tal' can awaken purifying thoughts in
rents mind and a 1ool, oe L: me