The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1901-06-04
FUNERAL OF MRS. s. r. MILLER.

FONEnAl Ot Mis-. s. Il.
Services Largely Attended at the M.
e. Church.
The funeral services for the late
Mrs. Annie r. Miller were held at the
Methodist Episcopal church yesterday
afternoon. Previous to .-1e church
services a short passage O. scripture
and prayer with on,y the immediate
relatives &C the home.
The church was filled with the for
mer friends, neighbors and a%cquain-
tances who had learned to respect the
sterling worth OF the departed. Many
beautiful floral offerings banked the
casket.
Messrs. Giluly, Settler, Bayerd and
Hassler rendered lie music, which
was peculiarly fitting to the occasion.
Rev. Stuli, in substance, said:
I'VE admire the beauty of the flow
Ell, for .t seems to us to De the one
thing in nature that God has made
perfect.
"And so today you and l think of
the life tnat once animated the silent
form before us and we think Of Gods
saying that that life was made perfect
through su4.ering.
THE question is often asked, why,
if Goo is good, does He so afflict us?'
The mother, bending over her suffer
ing child, asks, Can God be good and
allow sucn pain and torture?
"The young wife as she stands wit
Messing the suffering of that one to
whom her life is bound, out of the
dumbness of her agony hardens her
heart toward Iod, for il seems to her
that there can be no love where there
is so much of misery.
The young mar or woman, gazing
upon the ravages of time as the years
number themselves and feeling the
love grow stronger, asks, when the
infirmities of years fasten upon the
frail form, ian it be love that permits
such suffering to assail the helpless
ness of years?'
Can God be all that He is represent
ed to be and yet allow such suffering?
1T is nOt strange looking upon what
to all human sight seems to be sorrow
and affection, one cannot feel that
such a blow, such suffering. was from
One who is all love.
Yet it is true, and to make the
truth clearer, take the love that you
bear your W child. He meets with
an accident or is the victim of dis
ease. Heroic remedy lay in the skill
OF the surgeon. It means suffering
for the chila as the keen knife shall
lacerate the tender flesh. You would
be willing to lie down upon hat table
and nave the pain and loss if you
might spare the child. But the child
must bear it. for it shall save him
from ueath or years of future an
guish. An so you stand by and watch
and your heart sickens and your whole
frame trembles as you feel the pain
your child suffers. Can you under
stand that? If so, then listen as God
speaks to you, like as a father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pittieth them
that fear Him.
And then if we murmur at the dis
tress again comes the word: "Ye have
forgotten the exhortation that speaks
unto you as unto children. My son,
despise not thou the Christening of
the Lord nor faint when thou art re-
buhed of Him, for whom the Lord low
eth He c~hasteneth.' ~
"You remember the story of Michael
Angelo and the discarded piece of
marble. When asked his purpose, he
said: intend to- set at liberty a
captive +.
$50 the thought OF the text this
afternoon. Made perfect through suf-
fering.
But another thought comes to me
as | stand before your revered dead.
The place that the mother holds in
the world is n that no one may
takes. 1t matters not how close the
tie that binds us to father, sister,
brother, friend, there is that in the
love of the mo.ner mat is greater than
all others. How ner love watches us
and guards and cares for us even in
earliest infancy to the years when the
form is becoming lent and the hairs
whitened under .le loads and cares of
the life that we live. Beginning at a
time when we were unconscious of
it's intensity, it has continued, grow
ing stronger and stronger as the years
have increased and even though we
have gone out from under the old
home roof, yet wherever we may be
in the world, there is a heart throb-
hing and life awaiting and a love
Strengthening where mother is. Oh,
the love of a mother! What a price
less boon to us when tempted, tried,
forsaken, even degraded. Mother be-
lieves in us still, and even though we
may have done her love sore despite,
she still continues to love to the end.
And now, mother has gone before
to that land that claims the good OF
earth. Even as in tenderest infancy,
she was willing to go before to save
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