The Press., 1891-04-16
IN MEMORY OF FEAR c. PRES
 TON, DIED MARCH z3d, 1891.
A SELECTION.

floating upon the wings of Silence. In greatest affiiction, we stand on the borders of the Silent Land, welcoming, oh :! SO gladly, the coming, striving, oh so wist- fully and longingly, to follow the dear de- parting guest. Solemn, awful, majestic, eternal Silence, since it breaks our hearts and crushes our hopes and takes the sun shine from out our lives. Kind, winsome, divine Silence, since 1t is sooner or later the home of all that makes life precious and beautiful and fair. Q. sl.. Unto the Silent Land! , -. ... An! who shall lead us thither? Clouds in the evening sky more darkly 4 , gather, y
 And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the 4 - strand. ES
 Who leads us with gentle hand Thither, oh, thither,
 Into the Silent Land?
 Unto the Silent Land! To you, ye boundless regions Of all perfection Tender morning visions Of beauteous souls!, The futures pledge and band! Who in 1ife's duties sweet doth stand, Shall bear hope's tender blossoms Into the Silent Land!
 70 Land! O Land!
 For all the broken-hearted E The mildest herald by our fate allotted Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand
 l To lead us with gentle hand To the land of the dear departed, Into the Silent Land"
 No hand material is discernible as we gaze longingly into those misty deeps; no dear, familiar voice articulate falls like music on our ears as we stand listening at those heavenly portals; but there are spiritual hands which beckon, there are soul messages which come in ways as quick as thought and sure as love.
 Inarticulate Voices out of the Silence, what do they say to us who so miss their familiar tones and the enrapturing inspiration of their earth-life song? | First, in order of time, they speak, do they not, of the mystery of life. Not of the mystery of death, as an isolated fact, but of the mystery of life, and of death as part of life. How it is that the baby comes 'out of the everywhere into i the here" we do not know. How 1t is that the baby grows from more to more, through the winsome ways of childhood, through the innocent charms of pure maid enhood and guileless youthhood, to the even greater charms of budding woman hood, we do not know. Why it is that some die young and others live to good old age we do not know. Why 1t is that often those go whom the world seems most to need we do not know. The great plan is too deep, too broad, too high, too far-reaching for our finite comprehension. "A marvel seems the universe, l A miracle our life and death; l A mystery which cannot pierce l Around, above, beneath"
 A mystery,-how the rivulets find their way, how the stars through painless spaces ride, how mind responds to mind, and heart to heart, how both seem to participate in the ever beginning and nev- CT ending work of creation. The more one knows of it, the more one thinks oi it, the more one is touched in the holy oi holies of his life by it, the more does he bow his very soul in reverence and awe, the more does he become impressed with the greatness of that meaning which he does not comprehend. Struggle, suffer. ing, martyrdom, say to him, "Be still, and know that am God" In vain men may talk of law: whence came law In vain preach of cause and effect whence the decree which marries cause and effect ! No world of conflicting powers this Al the last it is F. ."
 "One God, one law, one element,
 And one far-off divine event,
 To which the whole creation moves"
 From that immortal unity come all things
 to that immortal unity tend all things, in that immortal unity live all things. How in the infinite that which to the finite seems discord becomes concord, that which seems cruelty becomes kindness
 that which seems antagonism becomes
 harmony, we do not know: it is part oi the impenetrable mystery. And the rev.
 erent soul can only say when the tender. est cords are snapped, in language which
 the thought of a German poet suggests q Dear heart, thou cam'st with gentle step
 thou hast gone, leaving the gentle i'm
 presss of thy footprints upon earth land
 From whence and whither? We know
 only out of Gods hand into Gods hand The same power which gave has taken, , the same power which has always pre- sided over our lives and the lives of al
 who are near and dear to us presides ovel , them still Our life dream has been dis
 turbed, shadow has fallen upon oul
 hearts; but it is the same universe whicl
 showed us the vision and flooded us witt
 the sunshine. The question why it is al
 it is, how it is as it is, we answer, witl
 Carlyle, s'Sense knows not, faith know,
 not. only that, it is through mystery tt
 mystery, from God and to God .'' -A's1'-'
 But what is the nature of the power un
 der which all this life of joy and of sor
 row, of purest happiness and of mos direful suffering, is ordered? Never 7 dear friends, did the thought of the Etern 5 al Goodness seem to me such Rock Q :. Ages as now. When one has held in tn
 arms of his love nature which was tn j. light; when one has seen heaven in an ir : expressibly dear faces when one has e1 x perienced the high and growing compar tionship of . fresh, beautiful, unfolding religious soul l,-he has learned somethin | of that goodness. It is inconceivable 1