THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
39 
limited is a holy spur that puts us to work. * 
* * Death is a noble task-master and keeps us 
busy. It is the inspiration of progress; musters out 
of service the disabled veterans, making room in the 
files for new life and fresh courage, and thus the 
banner of progress is borne forward. And then, 
how death consecrates life! What were this world 
without its memories! This winged figure, the 
mother of grief, carries poppies in her hand, but.she 
opens more eyes than she closes. It is only the tear- 
washed eyes that read the common-place text with 
inspiring accents. How hallowed is the place where 
the brave man once walked; sacred the chair where 
the patient one sat and talked; holy the book upon 
which are left the mind marks of a gentle spirit van- 
ished! With every death there comes into our life 
a new cabinet of sanctities. The old volume, the 
cane or cup, the picture, the empty chair, the fav- 
orite word, the happy haunt, these are the real 
shrines of humanity. # # # fundamental 
altars of the race. Worship begins here, aye, wor- 
ship ends here also. For these sanctities lead us on 
and up. From the baby shoes, sacred mementoes 
of holy mother’s grief, up to the shrines consecrated 
by pilgrim feet, the martyr places, the Bethlehem 
spots, up and up until the whole earth becomes a 
sacred mausoleum, consecrated by the blood of the 
martyrs, the lives of the heroes, the unnamed, but 
not on that account the unrecorded or unrecounted, 
triumphs of the humble workers for God. All the 
way from the earth- worm that makes the soil up 
through the pioneer who through pestilence and dan- 
ger subdues it, the patient hand that tills it in cheer- 
ful obscurity that the world may be fed, to the loyal 
legion who laid down their lives in the trenches that 
their country might be free, until at last we arrive 
at the ultimate shrine, the permanent beneath all 
this transient, the ever-lasting love, the undying 
principle, the all-pervading and all-adorable spirit. 
* * * Thus it is that death widens our hori- 
zon, gives us sympathies that are noble and hopes 
more inspiring than knowledge. 
Let us back again to our sculpture. For the 
artist has groped his way along beauty lines into 
thought too subtle for words. How silent, shy and 
elusive is this figure. The youth scarce can see the 
angel face. She speaks not; does not explain; does 
not justify; makes no promises; gives no assurances. 
And the figure is true to the fact. Death does not 
explain the riddle of being, but by her and through 
her we are willing to trust. Once we recognize the 
benignity of her form, we prefer her benevolent si- 
lence, the divine obscurity of her presence, to the 
garrulous assurances of assumed knowledge. * * 
* A God that is understood, an immortality 
that is already anticipated, described and outlined, 
is not the God of the devoutest soul, nor is it the im- 
mortality that touches life with the divinest awe and 
profoLindest peace. 
“Yes, this thought of death as a friend, this 
revelation through art, does charm every wave of 
being, and we find ourselves in league with the stars 
and in the confidences of the lilies. 
“There is something exquisitely comforting in 
this thought of death as a friend. It is the new 
thought. 
“One other interpreter of the new Easter thought, 
I want to mention, * # * — ^ collection 
from the masters of English verse, the bards of the 
soul, -Wordsworth, Browning, Emerson, Lowell, 
Tennyson, Whittier and others, — a rare collection 
of choice spirits summoned unwittingly to help in- 
terpret this relief of Mr. French, to lead us into the 
higher trust of Easter, a dear confiding in the meth- 
ods of God, a trustful shelter under the mantling of 
his law. Confidence, not curiosity, most becomes 
Easter. Patience, not petulance, is the becoming 
attitude of an immortal spirit. Let us then be 
worthy this great confidence. We will not fear nor 
run away. We will 
“Counsel not with flesh and blood; 
Loiter not for cloak or food; 
Right thou feelest, rush to do.” 
“Welcome, then, this thought of death as a 
friend. Surely science and reason are to-day con- 
spiring with art and religion to put down the last 
enemy, robbing death of its sting and the grave of 
its victory. Dear mother of Grief! Holy Angel of 
awe and trust! we will not dread thee; we will not 
flee thee, neither will we court thee nor fret thee 
with our idle impatience or imbecile curiosity, but 
will, nothing daunted, work out our tasks, chisel 
away, like the youth in French’s group, at the 
sphinx upon which it is given us to work, and then, 
when thou dost come, we witl not ungratefully re- 
monstrate but remember that thou will not separate 
us from the love of God, that ‘no evil can happen 
to a good man in life or in death,’ and that — ’’ 
“All hope, all memory, 
Have their deep springs in thee, 
And Love, that else might fade. 
By thee immortal made, 
Spurns at the grave, leaps to the welcoming skies, 
■ And burns a steadfast star to steadfast eyes.” 
The epidemic of “vandalism” in our cemeteries 
seems to be raging again, according to reports from 
different parts of the country, in some instances 
causing serious loss. Most drastic measures should 
be adopted in these cases; it is inexcusable, betok- 
ens morbid conditions, and the individuals display- 
ing the disease cannot be dealt with too rigorously 
to ensure beneficial results. 
