nces they exerted on him when present:
he must try, by all expedients, to forget them; think no more of
their virtues, their welcome voices and kindly deeds; wipe from
the tablets of his soul all fond records of their united happy
days; look not to the future, let the past be as though it had
never been, and absorb his thoughts and feelings in the turmoil of
the present. This is his only course; and even then, if true to
the holiest instincts of his soul, he will find the fatal
separation has lessened his being and impoverished his life,

"For this losing is true dying; This is lordly man's down lying,
This his slow but sure reclining, Star by star his world
resigning."

But to him who earnestly expects soon to be restored under fairer
auspices and in a deathless world to those from whom he parted as
he laid their crumbling bodies in the earth, the death of friends
will come as a message from the Great Father, a message solemn yet
kind, laden indeed with natural sadness yet brightened by sure
promise and followed by heavenly compensations. If his tears flow,
they flow not in scalding bitterness from the Marah fountain of
despair, but in chastened joy from the smitten rock of faith. So
far from endeavoring to forget the departed, he will cling to
their memories with redoubled tenderness, as a sacred trust and a
redeeming power. They will be more precious to him than ever,
stronger to purify and animate. Their saintly examples will
attract him as never before, and their celestial voices plead from
on high to win him to virtue and to heaven. The constant thought
of seeing them once more, and wafting in their arms through the
enchanted spaces of Paradise, will wield a sanctifying force over
his spirit. They will make the invisible sphere a peopled reality
to him, and draw him to God by the diffused bonds of a spiritual
acquaintance and an eternal love.

Since the result in which a man rests on this subject, believing
or disbelieving that he shall recognise his beloved ones the other
side of the grave, exerts a deep influence on him, in one case
disheartening, in the other uplifting, it is incumbent on us to
investigate the subject, try to get at the truth, clear it up, and
appreciate it as well as we can. It is a theme to interest us all.
Who has not endeared relatives, choice friends, freshly or long
ago removed from this earth into the unknown clime? In a little
while, as the ravaging reaper sweeps on his way, who wi