And when late night has come, and the household is quiet, you call up in
the darkness of your chamber that other night of grief which followed
upon the death of Charlie. That was the boy's vision of death; and this
is the youthful vision. Yet essentially there is but little difference.
Death levels the capacities of the living as it levels the strength of
its victims. It is as grand to the man as to the boy, its teachings are
as deep for age as for infancy.
You may learn its manner, and estimate its approaches; but when it
comes, it comes always with the same awful front that it wore to your
boyhood. Reason and Revelation may point to rich issues that unfold from
its very darkness; yet all these are no more to your bodily sense, and
no more to your enlightened hope, than those foreshadowings of peace
which rest like a halo on the spirit of the child as he prays in
guileless tones--OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN!
It is a holy and a placid grief that comes over you,--not crushing, but
bringing to life from the grave of boyhood all its better and nobler
instincts. In their light your wild plans of youth look sadly misshapen
and in the impulse of the hour you abandon them; holy resolutions beam
again upon your soul like sunlight, your purposes seem bathed in
goodness.
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