And surely we need that faith--those of us at least who know what we have lost--in the face of such a catastrophe as was announced in this Abbey on this day week; which thrilled this congregation with the awful news--That one of the most gifted men in Europe; the most eloquent of all our preachers--the most energetic of all our prelates; the delight of so many of the most refined and cultivated; the comforter of so many pious souls, not only by his sermons, not only by his secret counsels, but by those exquisite Confirmation addresses, to have lost which is a spiritual loss incalculable--those Confirmation addresses which touched and ennobled the hearts alike of children and of parents, and made so many spirits, young and old, indebted to him from thenceforth for ever--That this man, with his enormous capacity and will for doing his duty like a valiant man, and doing each duty better than any of us his clergy had ever seen it done before--with his genius too, now so rare, and yet so needed, for governing his fellow-men--That he, in the fulness of his power, his health, his practical example, his practical success, should vanish in a moment: and that immense natural vitality, that organism of forces so various and so delicate, just as it was developing to perfection under long and careful self-education, should be lost for ever to this earth: leaving England, and her colonies, and indeed all Christendom, so much the poorer, so much the more weak; and inflicting--forget not that--a bitter pang on hundreds of loving hearts: and all by reason of the stumbling of a horse. And why? Our reason, our conscience, our moral sense; that, by virtue of which we are not brutes, but men, forces us to ask that question: even if no answer be found to it in earth or heaven. What was the important _why_ which lay hid behind that little how?--The means were so paltry: the effect was so vast--There must have been a final cause, a purpose, for that death: or the fact would be altogether hideous--a scribble without a meaning--a skeleton without a soul. Why did he die? "I became dumb and opened not my mouth; for it was Thy doing." So says the Burial psalm. So let us say likewise. "I became dumb:" not with rage, not with despair; but because it was Thy doing; and therefore it was done well. It was the deed, not of chance, not of necessity: for had it been, then those who loved him might have been excused had they cursed chance, cursed necessity, cursed the day in which they entered a universe so cruel, so capricious. Not so. For it was the deed of The Father, without whom a sparrow falls not to the ground; of The Son, who died upon the Cross in the utterness of His desire to save; of The Holy Ghost, who is the Lord and Giver of life to all created things.