If for any reason our brother has passed from our earthly cognizance, we cannot say that we have really lost him. It is true that we do not see him with our eyes or touch him with our hands, but we have a remembrance of him in the form of a mental picture down to the minutest details of how he looked and moved, and we also have a remembrance of his spiritual character. For the character—that sum of the abilities of those we love—remains with us after the physical form has passed away. We are affected by it just as we were when the loved one lived. We can feel the appeal that that character makes to us, its effect upon our thoughts and actions, as strongly as if the absent one stood beside us and claimed our attention. How, then, can we say he is lost? The dead whom we have loved hold us as securely as they did when they were living; it is only that we do not see how. It has come within the experience of many that the death of father, mother, or some dearly loved one has led to the awakening of some wayward or misguided one who seemed to be wasting all the opportunities of life. We know that it was not the mere death which worked this seeming miracle. That simply woke the dormant love in the one who had hitherto desired only his own way. As soon as he became conscious of his love for the beloved one who has passed out of his earthly life, he longed to be what his beloved would have had him be, and so he turned his attention to using the opportunities of life, to the end that he might grow and develop. Thus in death the loved one held the wayward friend even more securely than he ever had in life. We shall not fear death, even for those we love, when we have realized that it is but a passing from life to life—just as the falling leaves do not mean the annihilation of the life of the tree, but merely the end of one phase of that life. Somewhere, some time, that which was really our loved one will blossom again in the world’s experience, and even now is continuing to live through its influence upon our lives. “There is no death; what seems so is transition.” The bodily companionship with all that it implies, that we have lost: yet, if our beloved had gone to be Viceroy of India, we should miss him, but we should not put on mourning for that, nor “grieve” that we had lost his companionship. “But we could write and hear from him and so keep in touch with him.” True: it is then for your own loss that you mourn.