The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1897-11-12

or the death or some renowned pubic
man, and we say we pity them, we are
sorry for them, their "glory is de-
parted" Believe it not, my brethren,
assent not to it. True the visible mani
festation of the life is gone indeed, the
face lights up no more with love, the
mind and heart reveal themselves no
more with spoken word, but the man,
the person, the real one whom you knew
and loved lives still, the glory is not de-
parted, only the outward evidence Of the
life has passed away. The person lives
on in memory and in influence, and
more, in actual existence and in char.
acter.
Yonder tree stripped of its
leaves and all signs of life
gone, is not dead, its life has not ceased,
it continues, it lives through the winter
in spite of falling leaves, of descending
sap; so with man. The life blood may
cease to flow, the body may be laid to
rest, but this is only the appearance of
death, it is not the cessation Of life. The
man, the soul, lives on and
THE REAL GLORY OF THE MAN
is not in these external things which we
Can plainly see, but in his character, In
his unseen existence, In the secret ex-
periences of the soul, in the personality
and not the manifestation of it, the will
and not the hand that does the will, the
love and not the feet that 60 upon the
errand of mercy, the person that makes
the face dear and not the face of itself,
the real man not the physical form.
When one or all of these outward things
fade away and pass from sight the glory
of the man is not really departed. But
the glory Is departed ia very truth when
| there is a moral fall, spiritual wreck,
the entrance of some grevious sin, the
loss of virtue, and decline from grace.
o, then indeed, the glory is departed.
One Of the greatest statesmen this
country has ever seen, and certainly it's
greatest orator, died victim to intem-
perance. And Whittier's poem, ''Icha-
bod" deals Justly and charitably with
him:
"Let not the land once proud OF him,
Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
Dishonored brow.
But let his humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.
OF all we loved and honored, naught,
Save power remains,-
A fallen angels pride OF thought
Still strong in chains.
All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has fed.
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is deadi"
| So with the man once honored respect
ed, esteemed, who afterwards goes down
! to his grave dishonored and disgraced ;
and the man once trusted, who by his
betrayal of his friends, forfeits all conf
dence and ends his days In shame.
or the autumn Of their lives it is in
deed true that ''the glory is departed"
They are not like the still living tree
strong in vigor Of life and stripped for
the battle, but like our other trees
ONCE GRACEFUL, ONCE BEAUTIFUL WITH
( ABUNDANCE OF FOLIAGE
but now their glory gone indeed, and
there has come not only the cessation Of
the manifestation of life, but Of life it.
self; the autumn OF those trees il indeed
the departure Of glory, there is no awak-
ening, no longer any beauty, they are
beyond recall. A subtle, secret enemy
has ttacked the vital parts, disease has
eaten away the source OF life, as ain I'M
dermines and destroys the character, the
real glory of the man.
There Is yet another autumn lesson Of
the trees. The time is sure to come,
steadily. inevitably, irresiatibly, when
the outward beauty and glory and use
fulness OF life will fade away and disap-
pear. Napoleon, once warrior OF ma