| Things to Live For |
Chapter 19 |
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Nor do we lose altogether the influence upon us of those who have passed from us. True, we hear no more the whisper of warning, the loving counsel, the chiding when we have done wrong, the urgent, inspiriting word when our courage has failed us, the commendation when we have done well. Yet, in a sense, the influence on us of our friends who have gone is still very potent. Many a son has been saved from ruin by the memory of a mother’s pale face, speaking without words its loving entreaty and its earnest warning. Many persons are urged to high endeavors and to noble attainments and achievements by the thoughts of their dear ones dwelling deep in the holy peace and joy of God. A mother who for a year had had a precious little child in heaven said that she had never known such a year of calm, restful peace. She believed in the actual existence of her darling in the blessedness of heaven, and the realizing of this had kept her own heart in quiet confidence amid all life’s cares and trials. Even her sorrow she had forgotten; it had been swallowed up, like the night’s darkness in the morning’s glory, by the triumphant assurance that her little one was living with Christ. These thoughts are well expressed in the same poem from which quotation has already been made:–
“And oft when alone, and oft in the throng,
Or when evil allures us, or sin draweth nigh,
A whisper comes gently, ‘Nay, do not the wrong,’
And we feel that our weakness is pitied on high.
“We toil at our tasks in the burden and heat
Of life’s passionate noon. They are folded in peace.
It is well. We rejoice that their heaven is sweet,
And one day for us all the bitter will cease.”
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