Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-09-20
I'm Memoriam.

There were lew dry eyes at the ODSe-
ouies at DR.. w. J. Chichester's new
home yesterday afternoon, when the
earthly remains of his beloved wife were
being closed to the view of her large
circle Of newly-acquired friends. The
bride of three months ago was there sur
rounded by those who had welcomed
her, full of bloom and promise and radiant
with the joys of a new life, to her
distant Pacific home. She had come
like Ruth, to follow her Boaz where love
and duty called. She had come, full OF
the instructive fires of duty, to do all
that had been allotted to her. A pure
child, matured in the responsibilities OF
her new womanhood, she had taken
upon herself the great duties pertain
ing to practical Christian life
Hardly had she stepped upon the
threshold of those duties, and with
the surroundings of devoted husband
and friends who loved her for her self
evident tenderness of heart and manifest
beauties of disposition, than the all-visit-
ing destroyer, Death, came to her in mex
orable guise. She laid herself down be-
fore his awful terrors in that peace ful and
Quiet submission which our American
poet likens to he who, with smile
and beam of eye, wraps his mantle
around him and lies down to pleasant
| dreams.
To this fair, but gone-from-us being,
| past, but with us, assembled the stricken
| friends Yesterday afternoon. Around her
untenanted form they dropped the hot
tears OF sorrow. Above her lifeless case
eloquent ministers discoursed of her vir.
tues and the sad fate that had SO soon
taken from Israel shining mark. Be-
side her wept those to whom she was, in
the flesh, stranger, but to
whom her sad taking-off had
made natures wells .c'erflow their fearful
streams. The old were stricken with
grief that youth so full OF promise had
been cut down before the ear was ripe
the middle-aged had sorrow in their
eye that one on whom so much depended
had prematurely gone; the young, with
embittered thought, wondered why she
so loved, SO ambitious, in the
springtime of her womanhood, should
be selected for that keen darts envious
fight, which ends all here. But
amongst that sorrow-stricken and fearful
throng there went up the crying and
availing prayer for the one SO prostrate
so detected, so lost in the misery of the
hour, that he must have felt like Jere
miah when he said: "Why is my pair
perpetual and my wound incurable
which refuseth to be healed?" But
there is cure in the Word. Deep, SHARP
and lancinating is the affiiction o.
his present wound. Dark is now the
day, and full of hopelessness his woes
are to him. But he has always taught
consolation to others-has always fell
like the poet, that to him who has moi
berefts himself of hope ''the darkest houl
is just before the day" His prayer now
may be, "Remove thy stroke away from
me; am consumed by thine hand
But when the darkness Of his present
allliction shall be lighted by far-linger
ing star of hope, he will say
''Thou which hast showed me grea,
and sore troubles shalt quicken me
again, and shall bring me up again from
the depths OF the dark" To him, the
sorrow-stricken who is yet with us
in the flesh, he sent out the word o1
consolation, that what comes we mus,
bear, that manhood and Christianity
1 both inculcate if we meet thorns we
must suffer like men, and if it be roses
that touch us with the beauty of thei.
fragrance we shall be glad that we may
know that life's pathway cannot always
be strewn with thorns. MEMO.
| Mrs. w. J. Chichester was the daugh
ter of Mr.. Edward L. Wilson, one Of The
artists of the Century" and the author
of the late series OF illustrated papers il
that magazine on Palestine. Mrs. Chi
chester has travelled in many lands with
her father, and arrived here in the latter
part of June with her husband, to whom
she had been married the last day o.
May preceding.