e they now in
our eyes.

We value them not for their beauty or worth, but for the frequency
with which we have seen them touched or used by them; and our eye
runs over the collection, and perhaps lights most lovingly on the
homeliest thing which may have been oftenest touched or worn by
them.

It is a touching ceremony to divide among a circle of friends the
memorials of the lost. Each one comes inscribed--"_no more_;" and
yet each one, too, is a pledge of reunion. But there are invisible
relics of our lost ones more precious than the book, the pictures,
or the vase. Let us treasure them in our hearts. Let us bind to our
hearts the patience which they will never need again; the fortitude
in suffering which belonged only to this suffering state. Let us
take from their dying hand that submission under affliction which
they shall need no more in a world where affliction is unknown. Let
us collect in our thoughts all those cheerful and hopeful sayings
which they threw out from time to time as they walked with us, and
string them as a rosary to be daily counted over. Let us test our
own daily life by what must be their now perfected estimate; and as
they once walked with us on earth, let us walk with them in heaven.

We may learn at the grave of our lost ones how to live with the
living. It is a fearful thing to live so carelessly as we often do
with those dearest to us, who may at any moment be gone for ever.
The life we are living, the words we are now saying, will all be
lived over in memory over some future grave. One remarks that the
death of a child often makes parents tender and indulgent! Ah, it is
a lesson learned of bitter sorrow! If we would know how to measure
our work to living friends, let us see how we feel towards the dead.
If we have been neglectful, if we have spoken hasty and unkind
words, on which death has put his inevitable seal, what an anguish
is that! But our living friends may, ere we know, pass from us; we
may be to-day talking with those whose names to-morrow are to be
written among the dead; the familiar household object of to-day may
become sacred relics to-morrow. Let us walk softly; let us forbear
and love; none ever repented of too much love to a departed friend;
none ever regretted too much tenderness and indulgence, but many a
tear has been shed for too much harshness and severity. Let our
friends in heaven then teach us how to treat our friends on earth.
Thus by no vain fruitless sorr