As I stood behind the coffin of my little son the other day, with my
mind bent on anything but disputation, the officiating minister read, as
a part of his duty, the words, "If the dead rise not again, let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die." I cannot tell you how inexpressibly
they shocked me. Paul had neither wife nor child, or he must have known
that his alternative involved a blasphemy against all that was best and
noblest in human nature. I could have laughed with scorn. What! because
I am face to face with irreparable loss, because I have given back to
the source from whence it came, the cause of a great happiness, still
retaining through all my life the blessings which have sprung and will
spring from that cause, I am to renounce my manhood, and, howling,
grovel in bestiality? Why, the very apes know better, and if you
shoot their young the poor brutes grieve their grief out and do not
immediately seek distraction in a gorge.