The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1879-08-08
Ill SUNDAY READ1EG.ft
The Believers Sympathy with the Tn.
believers Sorrow.

~. hytu DoDfinBorsOii Rusn over his
dead brother, and pronounced it 'ono
OF the most exquisite, sad, and motfrn-
ful addresses that had ever been deliver
edit was silly twaddle, and nothing
else ms destitute ofhuman scnsibility az
OF common sense .lss.. ur;,..'
How .swectly there a sanctifed sdirit
spake the truth in lover How Softly
must the persuasive accents Of this fol
lower of the Lamb lIave fallen upon Che
strained, panied ear of the bereft, inf
del and have recommended to him The
superior urbanity of Christianity I With
what a comprehensive courtesy this
amiable and sympathetic disciple of tho
Lord gathers into his generous appre-
ciation the Orthodox Clergyman and
the infdel lecturer, and distributes over
them both his delicate sweetness and
light. Verify, how good and how
pleasant thing il is to an infidel TO ex-
perience the tender mercies of Christ
ian!
Another Evangelical religious news
paper, the chief ecclesiastical month
piece of large denomination, Is per-
haps less impulslve and oracular but
more argumeniative and critical in its
sympathy. 1t begins:
"fhc old proverb is that deep grief
ls silent If not silent, it is usually
simple. The pressure of feeling is too
great to suggest or promote verbal
pyrotechnics. We suppose, therefore,
1t must be due to the very peculiar
mental characteristics Of Mr.. Robert G..
lngersoll that his speech last week over
the dead brother was SO extraordinary
IN Its rhetoric, as well as SO peculiar in
Its tone. It's incoherencies are very no.
ticeable." ~
! would not cast disrespect on the
old proverbs; but sometimes deep grief
is silent, and sometimes it is not. Job
in very deep grief was silent for seven
days and seven nights; but then he
gave it up, and cursed his day with
yigor and volubility which leave Mr..
lngersoll far in the rear. David de-
tlarcd that his tears had been his meat
day and night; but he voiced his grief
with freedom and force that yitaiized
IL Tor all the ages. But both these men
who, unless they were shedding croc-
diie tears, were in the very depths of
grief went up into the heavens, and
penetrated the abysmal earth, and
scoued the land, and vexed the sea for
their :" verbal pyrotechnics." SO that
we who are Orthodox must admit that
MIR. Ingersoll, sharing the peculiar
mental characteristics" of job and Da-
vid, is in very good company.
IL must, however, be noted, in pass
ing, that incoherency of utterance is lust
as common mark Of deep grief as is
silence. The incoherency of Shakes
pearc.s simulated grief is proverbially
one OF his most remarkable touches of
Nature. 1t was reserved forthe delica-
cy OF religious newspaper to hold up
the lncoherence of fresh and over.
whelming sorrow TO u cold and verbal
criticism.
Let us, however, since the incohcr-
ences have been noted, ourselves in
spect them: ef.t
"lfthe barqae which carries man and
MS fortunes iii the snnniest hour of all
the voyage dasbes against the unseen
ROCK anu sinks, how does IL hear the
pllloWs roar above o sunken ship'r'
But no one said that ii did hear the
Dillows roar. The word used is the in
iihitive, "to hear The barque may
dash against the unseen rock; but spar
or shore may save the man to hear the
Dillows roar above sunken ship. We
well know that the barque which car
ries man does strike and sink. We
hope the man reaches the other shore
in eternal safety; but that mystic land
eye bath not seen nor ear heard.
eff every life will, at its close. 'be-
come tragedy as sad and deep and dark
as can be woven of the warp and woof
of mystery and DEATH what 'grander
day can let tall its golden dawning'
upon the forehead of the man who
climbs the heights. and leaves 'all SUI
perstitiOns far below'?-
There Is no ''if' about it. We know
Salasl who docs not know p that every
life does, at lis close, become a tragedy
as dark as can be woven ofmystery and
death; for every life, without excep-
tlon, must end in death, and death is
The impenetrable mystery. Lives there
anywhere man so crude,- so rash as
will assert that death is not mystery
that the sundering of all earthly ties,
the farewell 10 all familiar scenes. the
absolute blank separation between lives
that have been in closest hourly asso-
ciation, is not a tragedy!
But, though this tragedy has met and
mastered all the dead, and awaits all
the living, the human race has never
been without hope. Patriots in all
ages, poets of all nations, seers and
thinkers since the world began, have
looked for ward to the time l1t
"Whcn shall all men g good a.t
he each mans rule, aud universal Peace
lLe like a shait OF light across the land,
And like lane Of beams athwarl the sea.
Through all the circle OF the golden year"
And for its golden dawning" il 10
given all lowlier souls So,
THAT unto him that works, and feels he works
The same grand year is ever at the door"
Is this an icOhereney9 lAl.9
"If every man in dying passes to ST.
lence and pathetic dust what star
does hope see,' aud the rustic of what
wing does it hear in the night of
death'!" rri &. clI al
But does not every man, In diving,
pass to silence aud dust? Whose voice
has ever come back to us? What eyes
so bright, what form SO fair, what heart
SO warm, what brain so strong that is
has resisted the crumbling touch of
death? -..-- ..,
To the first man it was denounced
for doom: "Dnst thou art and unto
dust shalt thou return" "All flesh
shall perish together" spake Elihu,
''and man shall turn again into dust"
"What profit is there in my blood, when
| go down 10 the pitT' cries David, re-
against fate. .'Shall the
dust praise thee!'' "All so unto one
place." walls the world-weary son of
David, king of Jerusalem, wisest of
men, to his own despair; ''all are ofthe
dust and all tura to dust again.'
What starr The aspiration, the hope,
the instinct of Immortality, whose star
has risen In the east ever since man be-
came living soul The STAR that shone
upon Job in his night OF death, when he
cried, in anguish and despair 81 have
made my bed in the darkness. have
said to corruption, Thou art my father,