The ceremonies and all the attendant memories of death should symbolize this faith. Instead of the "dark vault, there should be the green glades and the bright sunshine for the dead. Instead of a dark and narrow house, there should be the happy valley, the spreading landscape, the groves and trees, the smooth-flowing river, the merry peals of bells floating over hill and dale, and the melody of birds carolling their praises of life, not death. Instead of a year's mourn- ing, there should be some little mark of bereavement as a social token to one's neighborhood that we have a vacant chair in the household, and then the trappings of grief should give place to the ordinary work-day costume, the memento being still worn, as a forget-me-not for the absent one and a reminder to the wearer that a dear one who has gone up higher is now looking with the deepest interest and sympathy upon our life-work. Each anniversary of the beloved one's death should be kept as the birthday of his true life. Instead of selfishly repining that he has not shared our sufferings and sick- nesses, we ought rather to thank Heaven that the one we cherished more than our own life has been spared the bitter winds and raging tempest, and has been sleeping in the quiet haven of the heavenly rest while our raft of life has tossed and staggered on the stormy seas. As the world grows better, and we do not believe, in spite of all DEATH IX THE HOME. 369 the pessimists and moral dyspeptics, that it is growing worse, one of the signs of a noble and true manhood and womanhood will be the victory over the superstition about death and the calm acquiescence in it as a note in the divine harmony and a beneficent release from a service of labor and suffering too heavy for the invalid to bear. In the garden of the Lord, as the old divines are fond of calling the scene where spiritual flowers are grown and tended, there are works of hard toil, digging, uprooting and planting; but on the higher bank to which death carries us there is a sweeter gardening toil, which is indeed no toil at all, but a perpetual happiness. There are stray flowers of human thought and aspiration, scattered prayers and hopes which have been blown from the tree of life, which must be gathered up by hands etherealized by death and woven into immortal garlands that shall distil fragrance in the presence of God through the eternal Present of Eternity. May not dear baby's tiny fingers be twined about those scattered flowers, and the sweet lips that here could scarcely lisp " mamma " or " papa " have learned in that bright home the spirit of adoption, whereby it cries with full melodious note, "Abba, Father!" May not the gifted brother, of whom we were so proud, have graduated there in higher studies, painted grander scenes, or composed sublimer symphonies ? The patient wife, who toiled and sometimes wept in silent suffering during her brief companion- ship with a coarser though an honest mind, may be inspiring softer thoughts and holier feelings into the husband who walks with head bowed down and weary feet without her. The home of which I have written in this book would be, indeed, imperfect if with its nursery and parlors, its library and kitchen, it had not a minaret or observator>' touching the blue sky, from which we could take hold sometimes of the hands reached down to us from heaven.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

The ceremonies and all the attendant memories of death should symbolize this faith. Instead of the "dark vault, there should be the green glades and the bright sunshine for the dead. Instead of a dark and narrow house, there should be the happy valley, the spreading landscape, the groves and trees, the smooth-flowing river, the merry peals of bells floating over hill and dale, and the melody of birds carolling their praises of life, not death. Instead of a year's mourning, there should be some little mark of bereavement as a social token to one's neighborhood that we have a vacant chair in the household, and then the trappings of grief should give place to the ordinary work-day costume, the memento being still worn, as a forget-me-not for the absent one and a reminder to the wearer that a dear one who has gone up higher is now looking with the deepest interest and sympathy upon our life-work. Each anniversary of the beloved one's death should be kept as the birthday of his true life. Instead of selfishly repining that he has not shared our sufferings and sicknesses, we ought rather to thank Heaven that the one we cherished more than our own life has been spared the bitter winds and raging tempest, and has been sleeping in the quiet haven of the heavenly rest while our raft of life has tossed and staggered on the stormy seas. As the world grows better, and we do not believe, in spite of all DEATH IN THE HOME. 369 the pessimists and moral dyspeptics, that it is growing worse, one of the signs of a noble and true manhood and womanhood will be the victory over the superstition about death and the calm acquiescence in it as a note in the divine harmony and a beneficent release from a service of labor and suffering too heavy for the invalid to bear. In the garden of the Lord, as the old divines are fond of calling the scene where spiritual flowers are grown and tended, there are works of hard toil, digging, uprooting and planting; but on the higher bank to which death carries us there is a sweeter gardening toil, which is indeed no toil at all, but a perpetual happiness. There are stray flowers of human thought and aspiration, scattered prayers and hopes which have been blown from the tree of life, which must be gathered up by hands etherealized by death and woven into immortal garlands that shall distil fragrance in the presence of God through the eternal Present of Eternity. May not dear baby's tiny fingers be twined about those scattered flowers, and the sweet lips that here could scarcely lisp " mamma " or " papa " have learned in that bright home the spirit of adoption, whereby it cries with full melodious note, "Abba, Father!" May not the gifted brother, of whom we were so proud, have graduated there in higher studies, painted grander scenes, or composed sublimer symphonies ? The patient wife, who toiled and sometimes wept in silent suffering during her brief companionship with a coarser though an honest mind, may be inspiring softer thoughts and holier feelings into the husband who walks with head bowed down and weary feet without her. The home of which I have written in this book would be, indeed, imperfect if with its nursery and parlors, its library and kitchen, it had not a minaret or observator>' touching the blue sky, from which we could take hold sometimes of the hands reached down to us from heaven.

The hearthstone; or, Life at home