ne actually lived with us,--so
vivid are their images among the realities of the soul,--though the
grave should forever shut them from our communion. But this relation
of memory has peculiar propriety and efficacy when associated with a
Christian faith. If the dead live no more, what would memory be to us
but a spectre and a sting? Should we not then seek to repress those
tender recollections,--to close our eyes to those pale, sad visions of
departed love? Should we not invoke the glare and tumult of the world
to distract or absorb our thoughts? Would we not say, "Let it come, the
pleasure, the occupation of the hour, that we may think no more of the
dead, plucked from us forever,--let us drive thoughtlessly down this
swift current of life, since thought only harrows us,--let us drive
thoughtlessly down, enjoying all we can, until we too lie by the side
of those departed ones, like them to moulder in everlasting
unconsciousness." I don not say that this would always be the case
without religious hope, but it is a very natural condition of the
feelings in such circumstances,--it is the most humane alternative that
would then be left. At least, no one so well as the Christian can go
into the inner chambers of memory, feel the strength of its sad yet
blissful associations, and calmly invoke the communion of the dead.

I speak not now of what occurs in those first bitter days of grief, when
the heart's wound bleeds afresh at every touch,--when we are continually
surprised by the bleak fact that the loved one is actually dead. But I
speak of those after seasons, those Indian summers of the soul, in which
all the present desolation is blended with the bloom and enjoyment of
the past. Then do we find that the tie which binds us so tenderly to the
departed is a strong and fruitful one. We love, in those still retired
seasons, to call up the images of the dead, to let them hover around us,
as real, for the hour, as any living forms. We linger in that communion,
with a pleasing melancholy. We call up all that was lovely in their
character, all that was delightful in their earthly intercourse. They
live again for us, and we for them.

In this relation of memory, moreover, we realize the fact, that while
the departed were upon earth we enjoyed much with them. This is a truth
which in any estimate of our loss we should not overlook. Do we mourn
that the dead have been taken from us so soon? Are we not also thankful
that they were o