The Newtown bee., 1891-03-06
Immortality of Virtue.

Immortality OF Virtue.
San honest man is the noblest work
of Cod" So wrote the poet, long years
gone by and that assertion, once made,
will stand forever. No matter where
found. whether in the marts of trade,
the busy rounds of the work shop, the
plodding fields of the sons of toll, in the
quiet farm life, at the press, or in the
pulpit, in the lawyers office, or in the
halls of medicine, be he rich with this
worlds goods, or poor as Lazarus HIM
self, wherever he may be found, he
stands out before the world as the no.
blest work of his Maker and, when
Death takes away one on whom rests the
stamp of honesty. it is, in the truest sense
of the word, a loss. just such loss
has come to our little neighborhood
community. When the Death Angel
closed the eyes of Nelson B. Lake. on
Sunday, February l, and he passed from
us to the rest of Paradise, there went
one on whose brow might be written,
can honest man. Quiet and unobtru-
sive in his ways, undisturbed by the tu-
mults of men in their scramble for office,
for wealth or power, he passed the time
in the conscientious discharge of his
every day duties. 1t is only by daily
contact with such men as he, we learn
to appreciate their real worth. How
often are we led to feel, especially those
of US in the humber walks of life, that
we are of not much account and it mat
tiers not how soon we shuttle off this NOR
tai coil; and yet, if we are honest and
faithful in the discharge of Life's duties,
when we do drop out, our lives are held
in grateful remembrance by those
among whom we have had our daily in
tercourse. Can we not, most of us, re-
call, from among those who have cross
ed over the dark river, friends who were
true and honest in their Life work
And, as we think of them and cherish
their virtues, we cannot help feeling
their deaths to have been personal
loss; and how we miss the dear home
faces, and the familiar voices of loved
ones gone before!
Look where may, the wide earth DER,
Those lighted faces smile no more.
We tread the paths their feet have worn;
We sit beneath their orchard trees;
We hear like them, the hum of bees
Ard rustic of the bladed corn;
But in the sun they cast no shade;
No voice is heard, no sign is made:
No step is on the conscious floor
Yet love will dream, and faith will trust,
Since He, who knows our need, is just,
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress trees;
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!
So, when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall we not see them waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of their reckoning hand?'
When Abraham Lincoln was nom:nat-
ed for the presidency,he was at once be-
set by newspaper men who proposed to
prepare history of his life. Mr. Lin
cold deprecated the idea and, TO one of
them he said, "Why, it is a great piece
of folly to attempt to make anything
out of me or my early life."W can all be
condensed into single sentence you'll
find in Gray's Elegy:
TIE short and simple annals OF the poorl
That's my life, and that's all you or any
one else can make out of it, And yet
what a power that man became in after
years and, with the history of our coun-
try,the name of Honest Abe Lincoln will
be handed down with reverence to the
latest generations. We cannot all be-
come great, as the world estimates great
ness, but it is in the power of each one
of us to be good and, in all our doings,
to work with an honesty of purpose.-fJ.