by its sufferings. So does the martyr
speak, in the truth which triumphs by his sacrifice. So does the great
man speak, in his life and deeds, glowing on the storied page, so does
the good man speak, in the character and influence which he leaves
behind him. The voices of the dead come to us from their works, from
their results and these are all around us.

But I remark, in the second place, that the dead speak to us in memory
and association. If their voices may be constantly heard in their works,
we do not always heed them; neither have we that care and attachment for
the great congregation of the departed which will at any time call them
up vividly before us. But in that congregation there are those whom we
have known intimately and fondly, whom we cherished with our best love,
who lay close to our bosoms. And these speak to us in a more private and
peculiar manner,--in mementos that flash upon us the whole person of the
departed, every physical and spiritual lineament--in consecrated hours
of recollection that upon up all the train of the past, and re-twine its
broken ties around our hearts, and make its endearments present still.
Then, then, though dead, they speak to us. It needs not the vocal
utterance, nor the living presence, but the mood that transforms the
scene and the hour supplies these. That face that has slept so long
in the grave, now bending upon us, pale and silent, but affectionate
still,--that more vivid recollection of every feature, tone, and
movement, that brings before us the departed just as we knew them in the
full flush of life and health,--that soft and consecrating spell which
falls upon us, drawing in all our thoughts from the present, arresting,
as it were, the current of our being, and turning it back and holding it
still as the flood of actual life rushes by us,--while in that trance
of soul the beings of the past are shadowed--old friends, old days, old
scenes recur, familiar looks beam close upon us, familiar words reecho
in our ears, and we are closed up and absorbed with the by-gone, until
tears dissolve the film from our eyes, and some shock of the actual
wakes us from our reverie;--all these, I say make the dead to commune
with us as really as though in bodily form they should come out from
the chambers of their mysterious silence, and speak to us. And if life
consists in experiences, and not mere physical relations,--and if love
and communion belong to that experience, though they