| Week-Day Religion |
Chapter 16 |
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It is fitting, too, that kind words should be spoken even when the ear cannot hear them or the heart be warmed and thrilled by them. There is no richer tribute to a human life than the sincere witness of sorrowing friends around the coffin and the grave. It is natural that many a tender sleeping memory should be awakened at the touch of death. It is natural that when we have lost our friends all the sealed vases of affection should be broken open to anoint them for the last time. It is well that even death has power to stop the tongue of detraction, to subdue enmities, jealousies and emulations, to reveal the hitherto unappreciated beauties and excellences of a man’s character, to cover with the veil of charity his blemishes and faults, and to thaw out the tender thoughts, the laggard gratitude and the long slumbering kindly feelings in the hearts of his neighbors and friends.
But meantime there is a great host of weary men and women toiling through life toward the grave who sorely need just now the cheering words and helpful ministries which we can give. The incense is gathering to scatter about their coffins, but why should it not be scattered in their paths today? The kind words are lying in men’s hearts unexpressed, and trembling on their tongues unvoiced, which will be spoken by and by when these weary ones are sleeping, but why should they not be spoken now, when they are needed so much, and when their accents would be so pleasing and grateful?
Many a good man goes through life plain, plodding, living obscurely, yet living a true, honest, Christian life, making many a self denial to serve others, doing many a quiet kindness to his neighbors and friends, who scarcely ever hears a word of thanks or cheer or generous commendation. He may hear many criticisms and many expressions of disparagement, but no approving words come to his ears. If his friends have pleasant things to say about him, they manage so to speak them that he will not hear them. Perhaps they are not uttered at all. Those he loves and toils for may be grateful, but their gratitude lies in their hearts like fruit buds in the branches in February. The vases filled with kindly appreciation are kept sealed. The flowers are not cut from the stem.
You stand by his coffin, and there are enough kind things said there to have brightened every hour of his life if they had been said at the right time. There are enough flowers piled upon his casket to have kept his chamber filled with fragrance through all his years if they had only been wisely scattered in daily clusters. How his heavy heart would have leaped and thanked God if he could have heard some of the expressions of affection and approval in the midst of life’s painful strifes, and when staggering under its burdens, which are now wasted on ears that hear them not! How much happier his life would have been, and how much more useful, if he had known, amid his disappointments and anxieties, that he had so many generous friends who held him so dear! But, poor man! He had to die that the appreciation might express itself. Then the gentle words spoken over his cold form he could not hear. The flowers sent and strewn on his coffin had no fragrance for him. The love blossomed out too late.
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