“But then, 'tis a most unchristian and uncharitable mistake in those, that think it unlawful to commemorate the dead, and to celebrate their memories: whereas there is no one thing does so much uphold and keep up the honour and interest of religion amongst the multitude, as the due observance of those Anniversaries which the Church has, upon this account, scattered throughout the whole course of the year, would do: and indeed to our neglect of this in a great part the present decay of religion may rationally be imputed. “Thus in this age of our's what Pliny saith of his, _Postquam desimus facere laudanda, laudari quoque ineptum putamus._ Since people have left off doing things that are praiseworthy, they look upon praise itself as a silly thing. “And possibly the generality of hearers themselves are not free from this fault; who peradventure may fancy their own life upbraided, when they hear another's commended. “But that the servants of God, which depart this life in his faith and fear, may and must be praised, I shall endeavour to make good upon these three grounds. “_In common justice to the deceased themselves._ Ordinary civility teaches us to speak well of the dead. _Nec quicquam sanctius habet reverentia superstitum, quàm ut amissos venerabiliter recordetur,_ says Ausonius, and makes this the ground of the Parentalia, which had been ever since Numa's time. “_Praise_, however it may become the living, is a just debt to the deserts of the dead, who are now got clear out of the reach of envy; which, if it have anything of the generous in it, will scorn, vulture-like, to prey upon carcass. “Besides, Christianity lays a greater obligation upon us; _The Communion of Saints_ is a _Tenet_ of our faith. Now, as we ought not _pray_ to or for them, so we may and must _praise_ them. “This is the least we can do in return for those great offices, they did the Church Militant, while they were with us, and now do, they are with God; nor have we any other probable way of communicating with them. “The Philosopher in his Morals makes it a question, whether the dead are in any way concerned in what befals them or their posterity after their decease; and whether those honours and reproaches, which survivors cast upon them, reach them or no? and he concludes it after a long debate in the affirmative; not so, he says, as to alter their state, but, _συμβάλλεσθαί τι_, to contribute somewhat to it. “Tully, though not absolutely persuaded of an immortal soul, as speaking doubtfully and variously of it, yet is constant to this, that he takes a good name and a reputation, we leave behind us, to be a kind of immortality. “But there is more in it than so. Our remembrance of the Saints may be a means to improve their bliss, and heighten their rewards to all eternity. Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, hath his bosom thus daily enlarged for new comers.