The Owosso times., 1897-06-11

ory of father gone out and family
left Has that severed interest? Has
that blighted sympathy? Then who-
ever 1t be, whatever it be, wherever it
be- that which these children have not
laid away in the grave is not alive but
dead. If death doth not end all these
who were his are his yet these in whom
he was, he is yet interested; these in
whose best success he was, he is still
Interested Their efforts, their attain
ments intensity or weaken the meaning
of his life beyond death.
Now go q step beyond this. What is
thus true of wife of two score years,
what is thus true of the children, so
near to his life and dear to his af-
fections, is, in measure, true of us all
who had any place in his life. And
when l say any place in his life, l mean
that which expressed his life.
This relates TO you who were his
brothers of the mystic tie, you who
were in sympathy with him in political
ideals, you who were of this community
in which were his interests, of this
church congregation, whittier he came
for years a worshipper of God.
No man can speak of these relations
in terms of quantity, but in terms of
quality; it is in these relations that we
see mems lives because into them men
have put their lives. When taken out
from these relations our dead must yet
retain their interest in that for which
these relations stand.
1t is true that very much which alb
serbs our attention, which occupies oul
time in life belongs simply to the acci-
dents, Lis merely incidental. We may
mistake it for the permanent, for the
substance. | canEot believe that the
world beyond has any interest in the
ritual of The Order of Odd Fellows, but
in those fundamental principles of
friendship, love truth, it must have
interest, and so far as that which we
call 'the work of the Order" embodies
and expresses these-there may be
an interest.
cannot believe the world beyond has
any special interest In party names or
party policies, but so far as these names
seek to embrace, embosom, express
some eternal truth there may be an in
terest even in these.
But we see men in these varied rela-
tions, and we understand them as we
see them in these relations as these in
turn relate them to life's eternal princi-
pies, as by the vision of these principles,
as by the struggle of these principles
for mastery in men we come to see the
man, that is the life. That is why we
have memorial hours, we want to see
life in its essential quality.
The curiosity even of a transient
throng around memorial hours and
symbols; the element of curiosity as to
what one will say and how about de-
parted, even in the minds of those clos
est, rests in this craving desire to see
and grasp, not as a term of quantity,
but Of quality, that word life.
But all this means, that we think of
under the term ''sympathism" belongs
to both worlds, else has no meaning in
this, if the soul be immortal. Because
life can be put into life here among our
selves, it can be put into life there from
here, and here from there. We need
the dead, the dead us.
Then, is not all life religion9 In
the Latin Roman sense of merely bind
ing back, restraining, curbing, no, all
life is not religion, nor is all religion
life. Very much life is irreligious and
very. much religion is atrophy and
death.
But in the broad sense which makes
religion to be the outreaching of man for
the broadest, the upreaching of man for
the highest, the effort of man at ex-
pressing the best. When you talk of a
mans life you talk of his religion, you
talk not of restraints but expressions.
think this afternoon of Mr.. Geo. M.
Dewey, whether | see him or not. each
of you must decide for himself. AS
see him so l shall show him.
Continued on page 81