IT is strange what a change is wrought in one hour by death. The
moment our friend is gone from us for ever, what sacredness invests
him! Everything he ever said or did seems to return to us clothed in
new significance. A thousand yearnings rise, of things we would fain
say to him--of questions unanswered, and now unanswerable. All he
wore or touched, or looked upon familiarly, becomes sacred as
relics. Yesterday these were homely articles, to be tossed to and
fro, handled lightly, given away thoughtlessly--to-day we touch them
softly, our tears drop on them; death has laid his hand on them, and
they have become holy in our eyes. Those are sad hours when one has
passed from our doors never to return, and we go back to set the
place in order. There the room, so familiar, the homely belongings
of their daily life, each one seems to say to us in its turn,
"Neither shall their place know them any more." Clear the shelf now
of vials and cups, and prescriptions; open the windows; step no more
carefully; there is no one now to be cared for--no one to be
nursed--no one to be awakened.
Ah! why does this bring a secret pang with it when we know that they
are where none shall any more say, "I am sick!" Could only one
flutter of their immortal garments be visible in such moments; could
their face, glorious with the light of heaven, once smile on the
deserted room, it might be better. One needs to lose friends to
understand one's self truly. The death of a friend teaches things
within that we never knew before. We may have expected it, prepared
for it, it may have been hourly expected for weeks; yet when it
comes, it falls on us suddenly, and reveals in us emotions we could
not dream. The opening of those heavenly gate for them startles and
flutters our souls with strange mysterious thrills, unfelt before.
The glimpse of glories, the sweep of voices, all startle and dazzle
us, and the soul for many a day aches and longs with untold
longings.
We divide among ourselves the possessions of our lost ones. Each
well-known thing comes to us with an almost supernatural power. The
book we once read with them, the old Bible, the familiar hymn; then
perhaps little pet articles of fancy, made dear to them by some
peculiar taste, the picture, the vase!--how costly are they now in
our eyes.
We value them not for their beauty or worth, but for the frequency
with which we have seen them touched or used by them; and our eye
runs over the collection, and perhaps lights most lovingly on the
homeliest thing which may have been oftenest touched or worn by
them.
It is a touching ceremony to divide among a circle of friends the
memorials of the lost. Each one comes inscribed--"_no more_;" and
yet each one, too, is a pledge of reunion. But there are invisible
relics of our lost ones more precious than the book, the pictures,
or the vase. Let us treasure them in our hearts. Let us bind to our
hearts the patience which they will never need again; the fortitude
in suffering which belonged only to this suffering state. Let us
take from their dying hand that submission under affliction which
they shall need no more in a world where affliction is unknown. Let
us collect in our thoughts all those cheerful and hopeful sayings
which they threw out from time to time as they walked with us, and
string them as a rosary to be daily counted over. Let us test our
own daily life by what must be their now perfected estimate; and as
they once walked with us on earth, let us walk with them in heaven.
We may learn at the grave of our lost ones how to live with the
living. It is a fearful thing to live so carelessly as we often do
with those dearest to us, who may at any moment be gone for ever.
The life we are living, the words we are now saying, will all be
lived over in memory over some future grave. One remarks that the
death of a child often makes parents tender and indulgent! Ah, it is
a lesson learned of bitter sorrow! If we would know how to measure
our work to living friends, let us see how we feel towards the dead.
If we have been neglectful, if we have spoken hasty and unkind
words, on which death has put his inevitable seal, what an anguish
is that! But our living friends may, ere we know, pass from us; we
may be to-day talking with those whose names to-morrow are to be
written among the dead; the familiar household object of to-day may
become sacred relics to-morrow. Let us walk softly; let us forbear
and love; none ever repented of too much love to a departed friend;
none ever regretted too much tenderness and indulgence, but many a
tear has been shed for too much harshness and severity. Let our
friends in heaven then teach us how to treat our friends on earth.
Thus by no vain fruitless sorrow, but by a deeper self-knowledge, a
tenderer and more sacred estimate of life, may our heavenly friends
prove to us ministering spirits.
The triumphant apostle says to the Christian, "All things are
yours--Life and Death." Let us not lose either; let us make _Death_
our own; in a richer, deeper, and more solemn earnestness of life.
So those souls which have gone from our ark, and seemed lost over
the gloomy ocean of the unknown, shall return to us, bearing the
olive-leaves of Paradise.