Well, then, is it for us to listen to the voices of the dead. By so doing, we are better fitted for life, and for death. From that audience we go purified and strengthened into the varied discipline of our mortal state. We are willing to stay, knowing that the dead are so near us, and that our communion with them may be so intimate. We are willing to go, seeing that we shall not be widely separated from those we leave behind. We will toil in our lot while God pleases, and when he summons us we will calmly depart. When the silver cord becomes untwined, and the golden bond broken,--when the wheel of action stands still in the exhausted cistern of our life,--may we lie down in the light of that faith which makes so beautiful the face of the dying Christian, and has converted death's ghastly silence to a peaceful sleep; may we rise to a holier and more visible communion, in the land without a sin and without a tear; where the dead shall be closer to us than in this life; where not the partition of a shadow, or a doubt, shall come between. MYSTERY AND FAITH "For we walk by faith, not by sight." II Corinthians v. 7. It needs only common experience, and but little of that, to convince us that this life is full of mystery, and at every step we take demands of us faith. For at every step we take we literally walk by faith; in every work we do we must have confidence in something which is not by sight, in something which is not yet demonstrated. Skepticism carried to its ultimate consequences is the negation of everything. It closes up the issues of all knowledge, and sunders every ligament that binds us to practical life. We must have faith in something or we stand on no promises; we can predicate nothing. It may be said that in the experience of the past we have a guide for the future; but then, must we not have faith in experience? Do we not trust something which is not yet demonstrated when we say "This cause which produced that effect yesterday will produce a similar effect today or tomorrow?" How do we know--positively know, that it will produce that effect, and what are the grounds of our knowledge? This boasted "cause and effect," this "experience," what right have we to rely upon it for one moment of the future? Not for that moment has it demonstrated anything;--it demonstrated for the time being, and the time being only; and our confidence that it will do so again is faith, not sight--faith in cause and effect, faith in experience, but faith after all. Hume, the philosopher, has illustrated the positions which have now been taken. "As to past experience," says he, "it can be allowed to give direct and certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise period of time which fell under its cognizance; but why this experience should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for aught we know may be only in appearance similar; this is the main question on which I would insist.