The Press., 1891-04-16

that which 1t has created. It Is 1ncOn- ceivable to him that so much which touched in life and touched in death ali the better feelings of our natures could be at the mercy of wild, material forces; that the thoughts and loves and aspira- tions of the years could be obliterated by the baleful issues of feeting second The very grief that must have way is the spirits own and all-sufacient vindicator The inspiration of an unsullied memoryis the spirits own and all-suflcient vindica- tor. The budding promises crowding thick upon each other are the spirits own and aI-sufficient vindicator. Not for us to picture in detail the life we cannot see, nor for us to penetrate the depths of un- fathomable being; but, oh! the future must be very good just because the past has been so good, the future must be very full of fruition just because the past has been so full of promise. Is 1t possible to conceive of more complete demonstra- | tion of wisdom' and of love than that l which comes to us in dear, pure, sweet, and holy life? And shall we doubt the
 wisdom and the love which have once been 80 manifested to us? Speculation
 may assert itself in our hours of leisure j;
 but what magic power has the heart in
 the crucial moments of life to drive all doubt away!
 'No chamber of pain but has some hidden door
 That promises release
 No solitude so drear but yields it's store, | Of thought and inward peace.
 No night so wild but brings the constant sun
 With love and power untold;
 | No time so dark but through it's wool there run
 Some blessed threads of gold.
 O Light Divine we need no fuller test That all is ordered we'll.
 l We know enough to trust that all Is best Where love and wisdom dwell." ! Come, sacred memories come, fond
 hopes! come, heavenly inspirations of goodness we have known and still know 1!
 teach us to trust as little children in the
 goodness we cannot see, teach us to sub- ordinate more and more the heart bangs
 to the heart exultations, the ineffaceable
 grief to the eternal joy. In more subtle
 ways than we have ever known, still let
 the sunshine stream in, still let us feel
 that around us all is beauty, that above ns all is blue.
 But, if the Silence speaks of the eternal
 mystery and the Eternal Goodness, 1t has
 also another voice which I cannot fail to
 hear. It speaks of the essential spiritual. ity of life, of the indestructibility of char. acter. The last time stood in this place
 said in words which were soon to be em
 phasized to me with weight of which could not have dreamed: ''As the years roll by with seemingly increasing speed as the dear ones of the heart vanish II
 increasing procession from mortal vision
 do we not look little more to the heav
 enly and little less to the earthly treas
 ures It seems so to me. It seems as il
 every grave which has opened for some beloved comrade, some honored citizen
 some trusted counsellor, some dear one who once centred all of life and love ten derly in us, or some dear one in whom we have centered life and love, has a voice
 saying, Look in, look on, look up. The greatest things in all the world are not
 houses and lands and the products which
 we buy and sell the greatest things in all
 the world are the imperishable things, the
 thoughts, the sympathies, the loves.
 These know no space, no time. These bind us in invisible chains to each other
 here; they bind us in invisible chains tc ) each other there." With what force these words come back to me now! The form so dear to us, the color of tho cheek, the serene penetrating depth o1 the eye-these derive all their dear prec. iousness, though perhaps we do not al
 ways fully realize it-from that which
 they contain and expEess. Millions oi spiritual beings walk the earth, ,"-beings who at theirbest carry about them an at mosphere freighted with divine sympa l thies and longings. We read of one such he was man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and the ages give way to { sense of inexpressible nearness. In hours of gloom, messages of love such as indi
 cate the sense of share in our sorrow
 come to us, and somehow finite and inf
 nite arms seem about us. And, most O
 all, as we slowly, very slowly, regain pos session of ourselves, the presence whicl at first we thought all gone seems to hoy CT over us, seems to whisper in our ears and to put it's arms in the old way about our neck. In the holy hush the intellect stands still, and the heart in undisputet sway says, Always and forever one. Tht love is still ours, the inspiration Is stil ours, because these were and are of those heavenly treasures which no accident O time can touch. There is not a precioui thought, there is not & heartpang, con corning 8 true and beautiful life, whicl does not say amid the wreck of matter The real still lives and still loves. It fl what is excellent which makes the hear : of 8 dear one 8 shrine to which we com, as if in worship, and every noble qualit. : which seems to succumb to death repeat anew the eternal anthem:
  "What is excellent,
 : As God lives is permanent"
 Thou art not gone, being gone havinl
 been, thou still must be. Whatsoever o good has passed from out thy life to bles
 us and make our lives more rich and fai
 shall still come and abide with us, a sanc
 tifying influence, if only we keep our ma
 lures open to its touch.
 An! this suggests that over every ne,