f the chair, the table, and the bed; this vanishing of
the familiar face into darkness; this passage from communion to
memory; this diminishing of love's orb into narrower phases,--into a
crescent,--into a shadow. Surely, however broad the view we take of the
universe, a real woe, a veritable experience of suffering, amidst this
boundless benificence, reaching as deep as the heart's core, is this old
and common sorrow;--the sorrow of woman for her babes, and of man for
his helpmate, and of age for its prop, and of the son for the mother
that bore him, and of the heart for the hearts that once beat in
sympathy, and of the eyes that hide vacancies with tears. When these
old stakes are wrenched from their sockets, and these intimate cords are
snapped, one begins to feel his own tent shake and flap in the wind that
comes from eternity, and to realize that there is no abiding tabernacle
here.

But ought we really to wish that these relations might remain unbroken,
and to murmur because it is not so? We shall be able to answer this
question in the negative, I think,--however hard it may be to do
so,--when we consider, in the first place, that this breaking up and
separation are inevitable. For we may be assured that whatever in the
system of things is inevitable is beneficent. The dissolution of these
bonds comes by the same law as that which ordains them; and we may be
sure that the one--though it plays out of sight, and is swallowed up in
mystery--is as wise and tender in its purpose as the other. It is very
consoling to recognize the Hand that gave in the Hand that takes a
friend, and to know that he is borne away in the bosom of Infinite
Gentleness, as he was brought here. It is the privilege of angels, and
of a faith that brings us near the angels, to always behold the face of
our Father in Heaven; and so we shall not desire the abrogation of this
law of dissolution and separation. We shall strengthen ourselves to
contemplate the fact that the countenances we love must change, and the
ties that are closest to our hearts will break; and we shall feel that
it ought to be, because it must be,--because it is an inevitability in
that grand and bounteous scheme in which stars rise and set, and life
and death play into each other.

But, even within the circle of our own knowledge, there is that which
may reconcile us to these separations, and prevent the vain wish of
building perpetual tabernacles for our human love. For who i