The Dead Are The Living

In loving memory.

        I have seen one die-the delight of his friends, the pride of his kindred, the hope of his country: but he died! How beautiful was that offering upon the altar of death! The fire of genius kindled in his eye; the generous affections of youth mantled in his cheek; his foot was upon the threshold of life; his studies, his preparations for honored and useful life, were completed; his breast was filled with a thousand glowing, and noble, and never yet expressed aspirations; but he died! He died; while another, of a nature dull, coarse and unrefined, of habits low, base, and brutish, of a promise that had nothing in it but shame and misery-such an one, I say was suffered to encumber the earth. Could this be, if there were no other sphere for the gifted, the aspiring, and the approved, to act in? Can we believe that the energy just trained for action, the embryo thought just bursting into expression, the deep and earnest passion of a noble nature, just swelling into the expansion of every beautiful virtue, should never manifest its power, should never speak, should never unfold itself? Can we believe that all this should die; while meanness, corruption, sensuality, and every deformed and dishonored power should live? No, ye goodly and glorious ones! ye godlike in youthful virtue!-ye die not in vain: ye teach, ye assure us, that ye are gone to some world of nobler life and action.
       I have seen one die; she was beautiful; and beautiful were the ministries of life that were given her to fulfill. Angelic loveliness enrobed her; and a grace as if it were caught from heaven, breathed in every tone, hallowed every affection, shone in every action-invested, as a halo, her whole existence, and made it a light and blessing, a charm and a vision of gladness, to all around her: but she died! Friendship, and love, parental fondness, and infant weakness, stretched out their hand to save her; but they could not save her: and she died! What! did all that loveliness die? Is there no land of the blessed and the lovely ones, for such to live in? Forbid it, reason, religion!-bereaved affection, and undying love! forbid the thought! It cannot be that such die in God's counsel, who live even in frail human memory, forever!  Rev. Orville Dewey, D. D