E. H. Chapin

“ For who is prepared, at any time, to say that it was not better for the dear friend, and better for ourselves, that he should go, rather than stay;—better for the infant to die with flowers upon its breast, than to live and have thorns in its heart;—better to kiss the innocent lips that are still and cold, than to see the living lips that are scorched with guilty passion;—better to take our last look of a face while it is pleasant to remember—serene with thought, and faith, and many charities—than to see it toss in prolonged agony, and grow hideous with the wreck of intellect? ”

“ The saddest spectacle of all—sadder even than pain, and bereavement, and death—is a man void of hope. The most abject people is a hopeless people, in whose hearts the memories of the past, and the pulses of endeavor, and the courage of faith are dead, and who crouch by their own thresholds and the crumbling tombstones of their fathers, and take the tyrant's will, without an incentive, and without even a dream. The most intense form in which misery can express itself is in the phrase, "I have nothing to live for." ”

“ And what is life, and what is death, and what a thousand things that we touch, and experience, and think we know all about? O! as science, as nature opens upon us, we find mystery after mystery, and the demand upon the human soul if for faith, faith in high, yes, in spiritual realities; and this materialism that would shut us in to death and sense, that denies all spirit and all miracle, is shattered like a crystal sphere, and the soul rushes out into wide orbits and infinite revolutions, into life, and light, and power, that are of eternity,—that are of God! ”

“ The voice that calls us to unseen realities, that bids us prepare for the heavenly land, that says from heights of spiritual bliss and purity, "Come up hither;"—that voice that we loved so on earth, and gladly can we rise and follow it.
Behold, then, what a little child can perform for us through its death! It makes real and attractive to us that spiritual world to which it has gone, and calls our affections from earth to that true life which is the great end of our being, which is the object of all our discipline, our mingled joy and suffering, here upon this earth. ”

“ It has kindled within us a lively appreciation of the continued existence of those who have gone from us; taught us to feel that the thoughts, the love, the real life of the departed, all, in fact, that communed with us here below, still lives and acts. And our relations to them are relations which we bear, not to abstractions of memory, to phantoms of by-gone joy, but to spiritual intelligences, whose current of being flows on uninterrupted, with whose current of being our own mingles. I know not how it is with others, but to me there is inexpressible consolation in this thought. ”

“ There are times when justice is balked, and truth covered up, and freedom trampled down;—when we may well be tempted to ask, "What is the use of trying to work?"—when we may well inquire whether what-we are doing is work at all. And in such a case, or in any other, one is lifted up, and inspired, and enabled to do and to endure all things, when in steady vision he beholds the everliving God,—when all around the injustice, and conflict, and suffering of the world, he detects the Divine Presence, like a bright cloud overshadowing. ”

“ We have, even through our tears, admired that discipline which sometimes prepares the young to die; which, by sharp trials of anguish, and long days of weariness, weans them from that keen sense of mortal enjoyment which is so naturally theirs; which, through the attenuation of the body, illuminates the soul, and, as it steals the bloom from the cheek, kindles the lustre of faith in the eye, and makes even that young spirit look, unfaltering, across the dark river, and, putting aside its earthly loves and its reasonable expectations, exclaim, "Now I am ready!" ”

“ The humblest outpouring of human affection rebukes thy skepticism; the most narrow degree of human intellect prophesies beyond all this; the darkest heart, with that spark of eternal life, the yearning that moves beneath all its sensualities, and speaks for better, for more enduring things,—that rebukes thee; and in man's moral nature, in his heart and his mind, there is that which only can be satisfied, only can be explained by God and immortality. They alone, then, are rational, they alone have comprehensive vision, who walk by faith, and not by sight. ”

“ This is the religious view of life, and is wide apart from the philosophy that lets events happen as they will, as though we were in the setting of a heady current, and were borne along among other matters that now help us, now jar and wound us,-that happen without order and without object; all, like ourselves, driven along and taking things as they come. In the religious view, all things stream from God's throne, and whatever sky hangs over them, the infinite One is present; prosperity is the sunshine that he has sent, and Faith, as she weeps, beholds a bow in the clouds. ”

“ And hard indeed is it to see those who were worthy our love and our faith drop by our side, and leave us alone. This dear child, the blossom of so many hopes,—hard is it to see him die—to fold all our expectation in his little shroud, and lay it away forever. We thought it had been he who should have comforted and blessed us,—in whose life we could have retraced the cycle of our own happiest experience,—whose unfolding faculties would have been a renewal of our knowledge, and his manhood not merely the prop but the refreshing of our age. ”

“ The mother nurturing her child in tenderness, watching over it with untiring love! O! that is affection stronger than any of this earth. It has a power, a beauty, a holiness like no other sentiment. When that child has grown to maturity, and has gone out from her in profligacy and in scorn; when the world has denounced him, and justice sets its price upon his head, and lovers and companions fall off from him in utter loathing-we do not ask, we know, there is one heart that cannot reject him. No sin of his can paralyze the chord that vibrates there for him. ”

“ When the silver cord becomes untwined, and the golden bond broken,—when the wheel of action stands still in the exhausted cistern of our life,—may we lie down in the light of that faith which makes so beautiful the face of the dying Christian, and has converted death's ghastly silence to a peaceful sleep; may we rise to a holier and more visible communion, in the land without a sin and without a tear; where the dead shall be closer to us than in this life; where not the partition of a shadow, or a doubt, shall come between.
MYSTERY AND FAITH "For we walk by faith, not by sight." ”

“ Am I ready to be alone? And what report will my soul make in that hour of solitude? If I do wrong, if I cleave to evil rather than the good, what shall I do when I am alone, and yet not alone, but with the Father? But if I do right, if I trust in Him, and daily walk with Him, what crown of human honor, what store of wealth, what residuum of earthly pleasure, can compare with the glad consciousness that wherever I rest or wander, in every season and circumstance, in the solitary hours of life, and the loneliness of death, God is verily with me? ”

“ Who, that has communed with the work of such a spirit, has not felt in every line that thrilled his soul, in every wondrous lineament that stamped itself upon his memory forever, that the dead can speak, yes, that they have voices which speak most truly, most emphatically when they are dead? So does Industry speak, in its noble monuments, its precious fruits! So does Maternal Affection speak, in a chord that vibrates in the hardest heart, in the pure and better sentiment of after-years. So does Patriotism speak, in the soil liberated and enriched by its sufferings. ”

“ From this point of view, there is an ambiguity in nature,—a duality in every object, which we cannot solve. The throne of infinite light and love casts over the face of creation an inexplicable shadow. If we were made merely to be happy, why this hostility all around us? Why these sharp oppositions of pain and difficulty? Why these writhing nerves, these aching hearts, and over-laden eyes? Why the chill of disappointment, the shudder of remorse, the crush and blight of hope? Why athwart the horizon flicker so many shapes of misery and sin? ”

“ Surely, however broad the view we take of the universe, a real woe, a veritable experience of suffering, amidst this boundless benificence, reaching as deep as the heart's core, is this old and common sorrow;—the sorrow of woman for her babes, and of man for his helpmate, and of age for its prop, and of the son for the mother that bore him, and of the heart for the hearts that once beat in sympathy, and of the eyes that hide vacancies with tears. ”

“ But O! my friends, when our childhood has passed by, and we go out to drink the mingled cup of life, and cares come crowding upon us, and hopes are crushed, and doubts wrestle with us, and sorrow burdens our spirits, then we need a deeper faith, and look up for a stronger Father. A kind word will not stifle our grief then. We cannot go to sleep upon our mother's arms, and forget it all. There is no charm to hold our spirits within the walls of this home, the earth. Our thoughts crave more than this. Our souls reach out over the grave, and cry for something after! ”

“ But O! when that deep, holy calmness has fallen upon a soul that has been tossed by sorrow, and that has shrunk from death,—when the brow has come up smooth and radiant from the shadow of mourning,—when that soul is ready for the issue, not because it has always felt around it the girdle of Omnipotence, but because, through weakness and suffering, it has risen and worked out an unfaltering trust, and taken hold of the hand of God by the effort of faith,—then it is, I say, that resignation if beautiful and holy,—then do we wonder and admire. ”

“ How soon the fountains of affection are unsealed and the mystery of human love takes possession of the hear! But the tides of that love are controlled by no calculation, are fettered by no proprieties, but flow artlessly and freely.
Humanity soon runs into deceit, and the sincerest man wears a mask. We cannot trust our most familiar friends, to the whole extent. We all retain something in our inmost hearts that nobody knows but we and God. The world bids us be shrewd and politic. We walk in a mart of selfishness. Eyes stare upon us, and we are afraid of them. ”

“ Nay, do we not begin to consider how through our temporal affection an eternal good is wrought out for us? Do we begin to realize that in our souls we have derived profit from it already? Do we not begin to learn that life is not a holiday or a workday only, but a discipline,—that God conducts that discipline in infinite wisdom and benevolence,—mingles the draught, and, when he sees fit, infuses bitterness? Not that constant sweet would not please us better, but that our discipline, which is of more importance than our indulgence, will be more effectual thereby. ”

“ Everything has its mission. I speak not now of the office which each part of the great universe discharges. I speak not of the relation between these parts,—that beautiful ordinance by which the whole is linked together in one common life, by which the greatest is dependent upon the least, and the least shares in the benefactions of the greatest. In this sense, everything has, strictly, its mission. But I speak of the influence, the instruction, which everything has, or may have, for the soul of man. The flower, and the star, the grass of the field, the outspread ocean, are full of lessons ”

“ To such a soul things do come as they will, and it hardens under them,-they do come as they will, but it sees not, cares not, why they come. No thought goes up beyond the cloud to God,-no strength is born that shall make life's trials lighter,-no love and faith that will seek the Father's hand in the darkest hour, and shed an enduring light over the thorny path of affliction, and upon the bosom of the grave. ”

“ When we have labored long in the light of hope, and lo! It goes out in darkness, and the blast of disappointment rushes upon us, can we help being sad? Can the mother prevent weeping when she kisses the lips of her infant that shall prattle to her no more; when she presses its tiny hand, so cold and still,-the little hand that has rested upon her bosom and twined in her hair; and even when it is so sweet and beautiful that she could strain it to her heart forever, it is laid away in the envious concealment of the grave? ”

“ And now, as one who is strong and ready, he says calmly to Peter, "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Truly, a battle has been fought, and a victory won, here; but we should not be the better for it, were it not for that very process of suffering in which that battle was waged, and from which that victory was wrung. Now, when we sorrow, we know who also sorrowed; we remember whose agony the still heavens looked upon with all their starry eyes,—whose tears moistened the bosom of the bare earth,—whose cry of anguish pierced the gloom of night. ”

“ And yet we speak of long life! Why, when the light that wraps us now shall be changed for the light that is just leaping from that distant star, where in the gray bosom of the past shall we be? Sunken, forgotten, crumbled to imperceptible atoms; the ashes of generations-the dust of empires-heaped over us! And when we compare those wide estimates to that divine eternity that evolves and limits all things, how does our individual existence on the earth dwindle and vanish!—a heart-throb in the pulses of the universal life,—a quivering leaf in the forest of being,—"a tale that is told"! ”

“ It would not have us deny the good that is in the universe. Nay, I apprehend that sorrow itself is a testimony to that good,—is the anguish and shrinking of the severed ties that have bound us to it; that it clings closest in hearts of the widest and most various sympathies; that only souls which have loved much and enjoyed much can feel its intensity or know its discipline. In the language of another, "Sorrow is not an independent state of mind, standing unconnected with all others...It is the effect, and, under the present conditions of our being, the inevitable effect, of strong affections. ”

“ Can the child fail to lament, when the father, the mother,-the being who nurtured him in infancy, who pillowed his head in sickness, who prayed for him with tears on his sinful wandering, who ever rejoiced in his joy and wept in his sorrows,-can he fail to weep when that venerable form lies all enshrouded, and the door closes upon it, and the homestead is vacant, and the link that bound him to childhood is in the grave? Say, can we check the gush of sorrow at any of life's sharp trials and losses? ”

“ He is thus not merely a teacher, but a pattern for us. In all our trials he not only enables us to endure and to triumph, but draws us close to himself by the affinity of his own experience. We see, too, how the best men, men of the clearest faith, may still look upon death with a shudder, and shrink from the dark and narrow valley; not because they fear death as such, but because of the agony of dissolution, the rupture of all familiar ties, and the solemn mystery of the last change. ”

“ No other spirit can fully comprehend our woe, or enter into our desolation. No human eye can pierce to our sorrows; no sympathy can share them. Alone we must realize their sharp suggestions, their painful memories, their brood of sad and solemn thoughts. The mother bending over her dead child;—O! what solitude is like that?—where such absolute loneliness as that which possesses her soul, when she takes the final look of that little pale face crowned with flowers and sleeping in its last chamber, with the silent voice of the dead uttering its last good night? ”