Los Angeles herald., 1908-01-26

bier slowly through the streets TO the mousse OIL
mourning.
The crowd grows larger we pass along. A
confused hum of voices is heard, and scores crowd
around us, to get view of the dead Oh, curl
osity! what mixed dish dost thou prepare for
thine own consumption! The living and the
dead, the happy and the miserable, the great,
the mean, the rich, the poor; on these thy rapa,
cious appetite doth ever feed-yet still art thou
crying, give, g1ve!
Bear the body on-slowly, slowly! Rob mol
the widowed of the few moments of peace which
yet remain, ere she must know the sickening
news Her sad heart may break, and she sink
into the grave 1t will be but the fall of one
dead leaf from the tree of human existence. The
tree will still bloom on; and other leaves will
flourish, needless of their sisters loss. Yet Their.
are voids in the hearts of some which can never
be filled. There is a vacant place upon one
branch which must remain untenanted till the
blasts of death shall sweep each remaining leaf
from its place, and Time shall bring a new gen.
Grafton of leaves to decorate the tree of human
life
Death with his long, bony finger, beckons the
young and beautiful to the silent land Con-
sumption seizes upon her. Slowly, as melts the
summer cloud in the clear ether which
rounds it, fades she into Heaven. Do you mar.
that hollow cough slight at first, but gradually
increasing, till that fragile form writhes in agony
at its now frequent visitings? Then the bloom
leaves her cheek, and a deepening sallowness
overshades it. Oh! reader have you not
the rose, when frost hath chilled it, pang at
first, then sickening, and then dropping its faded
petals upon the hard ground one by one. as
though it greved to part with them-ti at last
the stem, shorn of its beauty, stood the only
mourner, bending over the dead and withered
leaves?
You perceive her wasting away, day after day
you hear her cough; but you cannot believe
that the seeds of death are being sown in that
frame. Hope, the deceiver, tells "1atterng
tale'; and you fond heart believe it. OH does
she not look too beautiful to die? Yet remember
that the fairest flowers are the most feetng. That
bright flush upon the cheek fills your heart with
joy. That eye, which thrilled you with its
beams, grows brighter every day. Beauty in
creases upon her, until you almost fear to be in
her presence she seems like spirit of Heaven
All! tits beauty ripening for the tomb That
bright bloom upon the cheek is the hectic flush!
Know you what gives that eye its angelic lustre.
Tis the hidden fever that courses through her
frame! She knows not herself that the hand of
death is on her, but feels her early strength re-
turning.
But sudden re-action-nought can revive her
Hope leaves you. You gaze into her dark eyes,
beaming with love upon you, and you know that
their fire will be quenched. Oh, that such
lustre should soon be lost in death!
She dies. Perhaps when passing through the
gloomy shadow of death her hand was in your
own, and her eyes, ere they closed earthly
things, met yours and you saw them gradually
dimming in death. You speak to her-she does
not answer. Her hand grows strangely cold in
yours; and as you press it, it like ice to
your fingers. A gasp and all is over! Why do
you start in agony? She has long since ceased
to feel pain. Oh, as the arrow of death strikes
the form of who is loved in life, its pangs
are less felt by the victim than by those friends
who stand by the bed sde watching the frail taper
of life Pickering in its socket
And now you close with your hands those eyes
whose greatest joy seemed to be in rejecting your
image; now, how dull. how heavy!
She was a Christian. Look up can you see
that band of angels sent from Heaven to bear her