The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-06-24

4,UUu years.
Your father may be slumbering under
the tinl1ling of the bell of the Scotch
kirk. Your brother may have gone
down in the ship that foundered off Cape
Hatteras. Your little child may be sleep
ing on tho verge of the Towering west
ern prairie. Yet God will gather them
all up. however widely the dust may be
scattered. Nevertheless it is pleasant to
think that we will be buried together.
When my father died and we took him
out and put him down in the graveyard
of Somerville, it lid not seem SO sad to
leave him there, because right beside
him was my dear, good, old, beautiful
Christian mother, and it seemed as if
she said: 81 was tired, and came to bed
little early. am glad you have come;
it seems as of DID,"
Oh, it is a consolation to feel that when
men come and with solemn tread carry
you out to your resting place they will
open the gate through which some Of
your friends have already gone and
through which many Of your friends will
follow. Sleeping under the same roof,
at last sleeping under the same sod. The
a1tumnai leaves that drift across your
grave will drift across theirs, the bird
songs that drop on their n Aund will drop
on yours, and then in sSoarless winter
nights, when the wind comes bowling
through the gorge, you will be company
for each other. The child close up to
the bosom of its mother. The husband
and wife remarked; on their lips the
sacrament Of the dust.
Brothers and sisters who used in sport
to fling themselves on the grass now
again reclining side by side in the grave,
in fieoks of sunlight sitting through the
long, 1.-the willows. Then at the trump
ct Of the archangel to rise side by side,
shaking themselves from the dust of
ages. The faces that were CHASTITY and
fixed when you saw them last all ahush
with the light of interruption. The
father looking around on his children
and saying, "Come, come, my darlings;
this is the morning Of the resurrection"
Mrs. SigoGrney wrote beautifully with
the tears and blood Of her own broken
heart:
There wasa shaded chamber,
A silent watching band,
On a low couch a suffering child
Grasping her mothers hand.
But mid the gasp and struggle
With shuddering lips she cried,
"Mother, oh, dearest mother,
Bury me by your side.''
Only one wish she uttered
AS life was ebbfng fast,
sSleep by my side, dear mother,
And rise with me at last"
A CLOUD OF WITNESSES.
Oh, yes, we want to be buried togeth-
er. Sweet antelope Of everlasting resi-
dence in each others companionship.
When the wrecker went down into the
cabin of the lost steamer, he found the
mother and child in each others arms.
It was sad, but it was beautiful, and it
was appropriate. Together they went
down. Together they will rise. One on
earth. One in heaven. Is there not
something cheering in all this thought
and something to impress upon us the
idea that the departed are ours yet-ours
forever?
But console you again with the fact
of your present acquaintanceship and
communication with your departed
friends. I have no sympathy, I need not
say, with the ideas Of modern spiritual
ism, but what mean is the theory set
forth by the apostle when he says, eve
are surrounded by great cloud of wit
nesses." just as in the ancient amphi-
theater there were $4,000 or 100, 900 peo-
pie looking down from the galleries upon
the conlbatants in the center, SO, says
Paul, there is great host of your friends
in all the galleries of the sky looking
down upon our earthly struggles. It is
a sweet, a consoling, Scriptura1 idea
With wing Of angel, earth and heaven
are in constant communication.
Does not the Bible say, s4Are they not
sent forth as nlinistering spirits to those
who shall be heirs of salyation?" And
when ninistering spirits come down and
| see us, do they not take some message
back? It is impossible to realize, I know,
the idea that there is such rapid and per-
| petual intercommunication Of earth and
heaven, but it is a glorious reality. You
take a rail train, and the train is in full
AhOuLOds cll0 c11OuilCI DILL llOlA Ull0 W.
posite direction dashes past you SO
swiftly that you are startled. All the
way between here and heaven is filed
with the up trains and the down trains
spirits coming spirits going coming
going -conings going.
That friend of yours who died last
month-ao you not suppose he told all
the family news about you in the good
land to thefriends who are gone? Do you
not suppose that when there are hum
dreds Of opportunities every day for
them in heaven to hear from you that
they ask about you-that they know
your tears, yourtemptations, your strug-
giles, your victories? Aye, they do.
Perhaps during the last war you had
boy in the army, and you got pass,
and you went through the lines, and you
found him, and the regiment coming
from your neighborhood you knew most
of the boys there. One day you started
| for home. You said: "WelI. now. have