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Mourning. 
“It is not death to die— 
To leave this weary road, 
And, *■mid the brotherhood on high, 
To be at home with God.” 
— Bethune. 
S OU, perhaps, grieve at having borne to the grave one whom you loved, 
and because you hear his voice no more. He was living, and lo! he 
is dead. 
But do you grieve for the seed which you have sown in the ground ? 
If a man were ignorant enough to mourn for the grain which was sown in 
the field, which was put in the earth and buried beneath the broken sod; 
and if this man said to himself: “Why do we bury this grain which was 
with so much trouble reaped, threshed, and gathered into the barn % We 
saw it, and its beauty caused us joy; now, it has disappeared from our 
eyes!”—if he mourned like this, would we not say to him: “Do not 
grieve; for that grain is certainly no longer in the barn, nor in your hands; 
but, later, we shall come to visit this field, and you shall rejoice to see; the 
richness of the harvest, where you lament the barrenness of the soil. The 
grain harvest is seen every year; that of the human race, only once—at the 
end of ages/' 
The seed, the insentient seed, 
Buried beneath the earth, 
Starts from its dusty bed. 
Responsive to the breath of sprang. 
And covers mead and mountain, 
Fields and forests, with its life. 
Myriads of creatures, too, that lay 
As dead as dust on every inch of ground, 
Touched by the vernal day, 
Spring from their little graves, and sport 
On beauteous wings in fields of sunny air. 
Shall this be so ? Shall plants and worms 
