The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1882-12-01

true qualities of head and heart Something
beneath mere form and appearance endears
them to us, and binds them to our hearts by
indissoluble ties.
Happy, and cheerful under the overhang-
ing shadow of life. Hopeful, courageous,
brave, even when the sharp sword of suffer-
ing threatened her life. Heroic in the trial
that brought her to deaths door. These
prove her unconquerable hope and unfailing
strength. Bright, sunny, with gaze fixed
upon the fair side of life, she was affection
ate, companionable, and dear to her friends.
None will be more missed than she.
There are qualities still locked away in the
silence and sacredness of home, which can
not be unveiled. The tenderer relations of
life which bind those of kindred ties 80 close
ly together. God only knows the cords by
which human hearts are knit in bonds which
death itself cannot sever.
| All, in the memory which will be left of us
each, it will be those nameless virtues too
deep, too subtle, for words to describe, that
will endear us most to those who remain
little deeds, kindness, looks, tones of voice,
all that wonderful magnetism of life which
moves and sways with irresistible influence,
and which after all make up the great emo
tional power of life.
1
long after we, ourselves, have passed away.
Happy for those who can cherish so joyous
and sacred memory of friends. Death it
self cannot wholly bereave those who hold in
their grasp so rich a possession.
But memory is not more precious than
hope. The past cannot give us more com
fort than the future, for those whom we
lovingly entrust to the great hereafter. If
memory has its treasure, yet hope has its
broad bow of promise. God in his infinite
compassion and love has not darkened this
hour with its sorrow, until he first placed on
the one side of it the treasured memory of
the past, and on the other the bright promise
of the future. To that future we now trust
ingly and confidently lift our eyes. We more
than hope, we believe. 1t is our supreme
comfort at this hour to believe that she has
found Heaven; that the pleasant things of
which she spoke have been seen in reality.
There is no consolation but that.
The Bible tells us in images of the most
beautiful things, of a life that is painless,
fearless, and sorrowless of a life without
WEAKNESS, suffering, or death. While we
mourn, she weeps not; while we struggle,
she struggles not: while we weary, she
wearies not while we. waste and die, she
knows no more the power of death; pain
less, deathless being, now in her beautiful
home
/ have stood on mountain at night fall,
above the clouds. Beneath were valleys and
lakes-a beautiful landscape to one who
could see it. But the night was coming on
and the clouds rolled up and hid all the
scenery below. Suddenly, when we had al
most despaired of his coming, the sun burst
up through and rolled away the clouds,
brushing their tops as he did SO with the
full sweep of his rays. When 10 far away
and in the distance below lay the landscape
so soft and warm, so luminous with color
and beauty that it seemed very Eden in
contrast with the bold and awful peak where
on we stood.
So may we not believe that Heaven APP
peared to her at the close of her brief day of
life. God rolled the clouds away from her
eyes and she saw what now we cannot see,
while the clouds lie SO thick upon our mortal
vision, hiding from us the wonders and
secrets of that beautiful world.
A single word to those who most deeply
mourn:
When Napoleon bore his Austrian bride
from her childhood's home to his palace in
France; after she had started on the Journey,
he caused every article contained in the
rooms which she had occupied to be conveyed
in advance of her and placed in the palace to
which she was going, that on her arrival the
things which she should see might have the
familiar look of home, and make her less
regretful of the scenes which she had left
behind. So God, in transferring us from
earth to Heaven, takes the things which we
love most and carries them ahead, that
Heaven may seem like home to us when we
reach there. In His own wonderful way He
endears Heaven to us, and weans US from
our homes on earth. We're it not for this,
our human hearts would break in parting
from these earthly scenes. The treasure in
Heaven weans us from the treasure on earth.
The old home here will be the emptier, but
the new home yonder will be the richer and
the dearer.
May / speak word to one to whom |
know life was pleasant in its full promise,
and possession of the tenderest love of earth.
beautiful thought comes to brighten and
hallow this hour; the immortality of love
that cannot die Aside from revelation there
is no proof of the eternal hereafter so strong
as the yearning, longing look of the human
face. Nothing so pleads for immortality as
that. In the beautiful Greek story of Ion
and his Clemanthe, as they part she asks if
they shall meet again. To which he replies,
Il have asked that dreadful question of the
hills that look eternal, of the clear streams
that flow forever, of the stars among whose
fields of azure my raised spirit hath walked
in glory-all were dumb. But while / gaze
upon thy living face, 1 feel that there is
something i'll the love that mantles through
its beauty that cannot wholly perish We
shall meet again, Clemanthe.'
And now brief farewell, wife, daughter,
sister, companion, friend.
"Calm on the bosom of thy God
Fair spirit rest thee now;
Fen while with US thy footsteps trod,
His seal was on thy brow.
Dust to its narrow house beneath,
Soul to its place on high:
They that have seen thy look in death,
No more may fear to die