434 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



nor tolerate and excuse their weaknesses, by reason of our own im- 

 perfect vision. 



Like the objects mentioned, our fellows must be seen in per- 

 spective to be truly seen. When a friend removes from us in this 

 life we quickly minimize the traits in his character that annoyed us 

 when intercourse with him was frequent or constant, but we do not 

 forget them. He is not yet far enough removed to reveal his true 

 perspective ; he must enter "the valley of the shadow" before we 

 can get the perspective that reveals him as he was really. It is 

 commonly said that "death glorifies." I prefer to believe that death 

 reveals ! Distance does not glorify the landscape nor the painted 

 picture — its glory is there all the time; distance merely reveals its 

 glory to the eye. 



Now, what higher tribute can we pay to the virtues of our 

 brothers who so recently left us than to say that they were as good, 

 as useful, as beneficial to the world, as nearly perfect as we are now 

 thinking they were ? Whatever estimate you may be putting upon 

 them at this moment they deserved as richly when they were with 

 us as they do now, but the estimate that was qualified then is un- 

 qualified now, because we see them now in the perspective that 

 death only can create. 



Here, then, is an example of death's goodness, kindness and 

 the wisdom of its ordering. When contemplated in its true light 

 it becomes a great teacher, a tremendous civilizing force, a promoter 

 of human sympathy, of patience and of toleration. It is death only 

 that teaches us that truly good men and women can and do live on 

 earth, for as we see them through death's perspective so they were 

 when here. Are our departed brothers good, true, generous, brave, 

 honest and in all things worthy, as we contemplate them at this mo- 

 ment? If so, then we know that such men can and do live on earth, 

 always have and always will. Death is the only teacher of this great, 

 soul-uplifting philosophy. Then how can death be called man's 

 direct foe? 



A celebrated agnostic said that in one respect he could improve 

 upon this world if he were allowed to make one ; he would make 

 "good health catching instead of disease.'^ But he would have been 

 a very unwise world-builder. His witty aphorism implied that he 

 would have no disease nor death in his world, forgetful of the great 

 and vital fact that if there were no disease to excite the apprehen- 

 sion of those who love the diseased one, if there were no pain to 

 arouse sympathy, no fear of death visiting the family circle except 

 to remove very aged members of it, there would be wanting those 

 characteristics of our nature, aflrection, sympathy, charity, all the at- 

 tributes that "make man but little lower than the angels," and under 

 the operation of such a lack in our social economy the world would 

 speedily lapse into barbarism. 



With this conception of death, are we justified in regarding it 

 man's greatest enemy and in clothing it in the drapery of gloom. 



