urs so long? In our grief over unfulfilled expectation,
do we cherish no gratitude for actual good? So much bliss has God
mingled in our cup of existence that the might have withheld. He lent it
to us thus far; why complain, rather, that he did not intrust us with it
longer? O! these fond recollections, this concentrated happiness of past
hours which we call up with tears, remind us that so much good we have
actually experienced.

In close connection with this thought is the fact, that, by some
delicate process of refinement, we remember of the dead only what was
good. In the relation of memory we see them in their best manifestation,
we live over the hours of our past intercourse. Though in extraordinary
instances it may be true that "the evil which men do lives after them,"
yet even in regard to the illustrious dead, their imperfections are
overlooked, and more justice is done to their virtues than in their own
time. Much more is this the case with those around whom our affections
cling more closely. The communion of memory, far more than that of life,
is unalloyed by sharp interruptions, or by any stain. That communion
now, though saddened, is tender, and without reproach.

And even if we remember that while they lived our relations with them
were all beautiful, shall we not believe that when they were taken away
their earthly mission for us was fulfilled? Was not their departure as
essential a work of the divine beneficence as their bestowal? Who knows
but if they had overstayed the appointed hour, our relations with them
might have changed?--some new element of discontent and unhappiness
been introduced, which would have entirely altered the character of
our recollections? At least, to repeat what I have just suggested,
what Christian doubts that their taking away--this change from living
communion to the communion of memory--was for an end as wise and kind as
were all the love and intercourse so long vouchsafed to us?

Vital, the, for the Christian, is this relation which we have with the
dead by memory. We linger upon it, and find in it a strange and
sweet attraction, and is not much of this because, though we may be
unconscious of it, the current of faith subtilely intermingles with
our grief, and gives its tone to our communion? We cannot consider the
departed as lost to us forever. The suggestion of rupture holds a latent
suggestion of reunion. The hues of memory are colored by the reflection
of hope. Religi