Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1906-01-18
In Memory OfMy Grandfather, W. j. Knott
RY ESTHER MAY KNOTT.


tion from me at this time. perhaps, will
be somewhat of surprise to you, but
whenever my mind turns back 10 the
days when | associated with that most
magnificent man, who was my dear
earthly friend and whose tongue is now
dumb in death and whose voice can no
longer reverberate its gentle whispers
this is a part Of my nature that teaches
me that earth's distinctions are so small
humanity so mortal. How impossible
it is to feel that my grandfather has
passed to sphere where his affection
for us has chilled, when without any
motive, but the most sincere affection
for him, we cherished his memory, hon
or him in his rave, AMI follow him with
wishes for his happiness that only God
can grant.
Just before he passed behind the veil
and entered into the realm of an I'M
known world, took his hand and 1t
felt TO me as if the chill OF death was
upon it. He, indeed, was about to en-
bark on long voyage, a voyage which.
sooner or later, under the Divine edict,
we shall all take over the shoreless sea
from which there is no returning.
He passed beyond the boundaries of
the universe forever. We shall never
see him again on earth. His memory
remains. He was beloved by all. He
was open as the day, and candid, gener-
Gus. sffectionate in his private relations,
bold and monstrative, eager and ag-
gressive. His impetuous nature saw no
middle ground.
His work is finished. He sleeps tran
gully in the beautiful city of the dead
in Elmwood Cemetery. The right to
live is, in human estimation, the most
sacred, the most inviolable, the most
inalirnable. The JOY of living in such
splendid and luminous day as this is
inconceivable. To exist is eXultation.
To live forever, is our sublimest hope.
Annihilation, extinction and eternal
death are the forebodings of despair.
To know, to love, TO achieve. to tri-
umph. TO confer happiness, TO alleviate
misery, is rapture. The greatest crime
and the severrst penalty known to hu-
man law is the sacrifice and forfeiture
of life. And vet we are all under SEN
tence OF death. Other events may 1r
NAV not occur. Other conditions may
or may not exist. We may be rich or
poor; we may be learned or ignorant ;
We may be happy or wretched; but we
all must d-. The verdict has been pro-
nouuced by the memorable decree of an
omnIpOtent tribunal. Without trial or
opportunity FIR defense; with no knowl-
edge Of the accusation without being
confronted with the witnesses against
us, we have been summoned TO the bar
of life and condemned 20 death.
There is 10 writ of error nor review.
There is neither eXculpation nor appeal.
All must be rei quished. Beauty and
deformity, good and evil, virtue and
wee share the same relentless fate.
The tender mother cries passionately
for mercy for her first born, but there
is no clemency. The craven felon sui
Ienly prays for u moment in which TO
be aneled, ut there is no reprieve. The
soul helplesSly heats its wings against
the bars, shudd, RS and disappears.
The prescription extends alike to the
individual aud the type. Nations die
and races expire. Humanity itself is
destined TO extinction sooner or later.
1t is the instruction of science, that the
energy of the earth will De expended,
and IL will become incapable of support
ing life. a group of feeble and pallid
survivors in some sheltered valley in
the tropics will behold the sun sink be-
low the horizon and the pitiless stars
glitter in the midnight sky. The last
man will perish and the sun Will rise
upon the earth without an inhabitan1.
Its atmosphere, its seas, its light and
heat will vanish, and the planet VIII
be an idle cinder uselessly spinning In
its .rbiJ.
There is little doubt with the disap-
pearance Of man from the earth all
traces of his existence will be lost. The
palaces, towers and temples he has
reared, the institutions that he has
established, the cities he has builded,
the books he has written, the creeds he
has constructed, the philosophers he has
formu ated all science, art, literature
and knowledge will be obliterated and
engufed in empty and vacant oblivion.
The great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shalldissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant
faded,
Leave not track behind.
There is an intelligence so vast and
enduring that the flaming interval be-
tween the birth and death Of universeS
is nc more than the flash OF tire-fiies
above the meadows of summer coloS'
sal power by which these stupendous
OrbS are launched in the abyss, like bub-
bles blown by child in the morning
sun, and whose sense of justice and rea-
L. l,ec ial hn
Immutable statute, that are the law of
being to the creatures He has made,
and which compel them to declare that
if the only object of creation is de-
struction, if infinity is the theater of an
uninterrupted series of irreparable ca
lamities, if the final cause of life is
death, then time is an inexplicable
tragedy, end eternity an illogical and
indefensible catastrophe.
No, this obsequy is for the quick and
not for the dead. 1t is not an inconsOl-
able lamentatiCn. 1t is a strain OF tri-
umph. 1t is an affirmation TO those
who survive. that as our departed faith
err, conten plating at the close OF his
life the monument of good deeds he had
erected, more enduring than brass and
loftier than the pyramids Of kings,
might exclaim with the Roman poet,
mon omni mortar" so, turning to the
silent and unknown future, he could
rely with just and reasonable confidence
upon that most impressive and mo-
mentous assurance ever delivered to
the human race, He that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall
he live and whosoever liveth and be.
lieveth in me shall never die.