Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it causes you to forget the grief of others. You are not the only sufferer in the world, nor is there any thing very peculiar in your afflictions. Thousands have experienced similar troubles, losses, bereavements. Some have parted with more than husband and father--have lost all at once, and are left to tread the dreary earth alone. You are doubtless acquainted with many with whom you would not now exchange conditions. And can you be so selfish as to forget all griefs but your own? Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it makes you indifferent to the public welfare. Poor old Eli was less afflicted by the death of his two sons than by the loss of the ark of the Lord, because with that was so intimately connected the prosperity of his people, the object dearest to his heart. A Spartan mother, who had five sons in the battle, stood at the gate of the city when a messenger came with tidings. "How prospers the fight?" she inquired. "Thy five sons are slain," answered the messenger. "I did not ask after my sons," replied the patriotic woman, "but how prospers the fight?" "We have won the day," said the other, "and Sparta is safe." "Then let us be thankful to the gods," exclaimed the inquirer, "for our continued freedom." Her private griefs were swallowed up in her concern for the public good. Your sorrow is excessive, and therefore sinful, when it disqualifies you for the duties of your position. "Nothing in nature, much less conscious being, Was e'er created solely for itself." You live for others. Your friends have claims upon you. Your families and fellow-citizens require your beneficent activities. You cannot cast off this responsibility. It is written in your inmost nature. It is interwoven with the very constitution of human society. Wherefore the noble faculty of speech, the high prerogative of reason, the sweet flow of domestic sympathies, and the congregation of men in communities, with statutes and civil compacts, and distinctions of rank and office? All these indicate your duty to the human brotherhood; and if you grieve so as to unfit yourselves for that duty, you defeat the end of the divine benevolence.