22. We also glory in tribulation; knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope. 23. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby. BY BEREAVEMENT THE SOUL MAY BE PURIFIED AS BY FIRE WHEREIN 1. To our friends and loved ones we shall give the most worthy honour and tribute, if we never say nor remember that they are dead, but contrariwise that they have lived; CONSISTS TRUE REVERENCE FOR THE DEAD 2. That hereby the brotherly force and flow of their action and work may be carried over the gulfs of death and made immortal in the true and healthy life which they worthily had and used. 3. The dead are not dead if we have loved them truly. In our own lives we give them immortality. 4. Let us arise and take up the work they have left unfinished, and preserve the treasures they have won, and round out the circuit of their being to the fulness of an ampler orbit in our own. TO MOURN OVERMUCH IS SELFISH 5. There is so much selfishness in grief; overwhelmed with a sense of loss, we are apt to think of nothing else. Rather with a noble resignation and thankfulness for what they have been to us should we consign our dear ones to the grave. Grief should be 6. Like Joy, majestic, equable, sedate, Strong to consume small troubles; to commend Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. 7. Grief, if we will permit it to do so, purges us of the last dregs of selfishness. Grief teaches us THE CLEANSING POWER OF GRIEF a more perfect patience, a more profound humility, a more complete renunciation. 8. Grief, if we will use it so, is the chisel, the keen edge of which carves lines of ineffaceable beauty on the statue of the soul. 9. When are the good so powerful to guide and quicken, as after death has withdrawn them from us? 10. Then we feel that the seal is set upon THE DEAD what was made perfect in their souls. THE MEMORY OF 11. They take their place like stars in a region of purity and peace. 12. But it is a sad weakness, after all, that the thought of a man's death hallows him anew to us; as if life were not sacred too- 13. As if it were comparatively a light thing to fail in love and reverence to the brother who has to climb the whole toilsome steep with us, and all our tears and tenderness were due to the one who is spared that hard journey. 14. O the anguish of that thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us. DUTY THE 15. Arise, be strong! Thou art not free, thou poor and sadly stricken one, to stand aside in idle woe, CONSOLER but thou shalt make for the departed a memorial in thy life. 16. The knowledge that something must be done calls. us away from brooding over our griefs, and forces us back into the active currents of our life. 17. Only the discharge of the duties of the heart can really console the heart. 18. The love thou canst no longer lavish on one, the many call for it. The cherishing care thou canst no longer bestow upon thy child, the neglected children of the poor appeal for it. 19. The sympathy thou canst no longer give thy friend, the friendless cry for it. In alleviating the misery of others, thine own misery will be alleviated, and in healing thou wilt find that there is cure. 20. It is not that we are singled out for a special judgment; when we give up our dead, we but enter into a common sorrow, a sorrow that visits the proudest and humblest, that has entered into unnumbered hearts before us and will enter into innumerable ones after us, a sorrow that should make the world one, and dissolve all other feelings into sympathy and love. CHAPTER LXIII I WILL LIFT MINE EYES UNTO THE HILLS 1. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight NATURE TEACHES Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart, 2. Go forth under the open sky, and list 3. 4. 5. To Nature's teachings. Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, For she can so inform That neither evil tongues. 6. Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb |