high glory of a martyr's crown.

Of Walter, and Henderson, and Sir Reginald Power--for Power has
succeeded only too early to his father's title and estates--I need say
no more. Their days from youth to maturity were linked together by a
natural progress in all things charitable, and great, and good. They
did not belie their early promise. The breeze of a happy life bore them
gently onward, and they cast no anchor in its widening stream. They
were brave and manly and honourable boys, and they grew up into
high-minded and honourable men.

I do not wish you to suppose that they had not their own bitter trials
to suffer, or that they were exempt in any degree from our common
sorrows. In that turbulent and restless period of life when the
passions are strong and the heart wild and wilful and full of pride,
while, at the same time, the judgment is often weak and the thoughts are
immature and crude, they had (as we all have) to purchase wholesome
experience at the price of suffering; to remember with shame some
follies, and mourn over some mistakes. In saying this, I only say that
they were not faultless; which of us is? But, at the same time, I may
fairly say that we do not often meet with nobler or manlier boys and
youths than these; that the errors which they committed they humbly
endeavoured by patience and carefulness to amend; that they used their
talents well and wisely, striving to live in love and charity with all
around them; that above all they kept the fear of God before their eyes
and never lost the freshness and geniality of early years, but kept "The
young lamb's heart amid the fall grown flocks;"--kept the heart of
boyhood taken up and purified in the powers of manhood. And this is the
reason why the eye that sees them loves them, and the tongue that speaks
of them blesses them. And when the end comes to them which comes to
all; when--as though a child should trample out the sparks from a piece
of paper--death comes upon them and tramples out for ever their joys and
sorrows, their hopes and fears--then, sure I am, that those who mourn
for them, that those who cherish their memory and regret their loss,
will neither be insincere nor few, and that they themselves will meet
calmly and gladly that Great Shadow, waiting and looking with sure
though humble hope to a better and less transient life; to a sinless and
unstained world; to the meeting with long lost friends; to the rest
which remaineth for the P