I remark, finally, that the dead speak to us in those religious suggestions--those consolations, invitations, and hopes--which the bereaved spirit indulges. Our meditations, concerning them naturally draw us more closely to these spiritual realities which lie beyond the grave, and beget in us those holier sentiments which we need. That such is the tendency of these recollections experience assures us. They open for us a new order of thought; they bring us in contact with the loftiest but most neglected truths. Even the hardest heart feels this influence. It is softened by the stroke of bereavement and, for the time being, a chastening influence falls upon it, and it always thinks of the dead with tenderness and awe. They speak to our affections with an irresistible influence; they soothe our turbulent passions with their mild and holy calmness; they rebuke us in their spiritual majesty for our sensuality and our sin. They have departed, but they are not silent. Though dead, they speak to us. Sweet and sanctifying is their communion with us. They utter words of warning, too, and speak to us by the silent eloquence of example. By this they bid us imitate all that was good in their lives, all that is dear to remember. By this, too, they tell us that we are passing swiftly from the earth, and hastening to join their number. A little while ago, and they were as we are;--a little while hence, and we shall be as they. Our work, like theirs, will be left behind to speak for us. How important, then, that we consider what work we do! They assure us that nothing is perpetual here. They bid us not fasten our affections upon earth. In long procession they pass us by, with solemn voices telling of their love and hatred, their interests and cares, their work and device;--all abandoned now and passed away, as little worth as the dust that blows across their graves. Upon all that was theirs, upon every memorial of them, broods a melancholy dimness and silence. They recede more and more from the associations of the living. New tides of life roll through the cities of their habitation, and upon the foot-worn pavements of their traffic other feet are busy. Their lovely labor, or their stately pomp, is forgotten. No one weeps or cares for them. Their solicitous monuments are unheeded. The companions of their youth have rejoined them. The young, who scarcely remembered them, are giving way to another generation. The places that knew them know them no longer. "This, this," their solemn voices preach to us, "is the changeableness of earth, and the emptiness of its pursuits!" They urge us to seek the noblest end, the unfailing treasure. They bid us to find our hope and our rest, our only constant joy in Him, who alone, amid this mutability and decay, is permanent,--in God!