AT A BROTHER'S GRAVE.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 10, 1 July 1884, Page 14

AT A BROTHER'S GRAVE.

HON. ERON. C INGERSOLL, DIED AT WASHINGTON, JULY 2ND, 1876. BY COL. INGERSOLL. My Friends : I am going to do that which the dead often promised he would do for me. The loved and living brother, husband, father, -friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west. He had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point, but being weary for a moment he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar—a sunken ship. For, whether in mid-sea or among the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck must mark at last the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its very hour is rich with love, and every moment jewelled with a joy, will at its close, become a tragedy, as sad, and deep, and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. This brave and tender man in every _ storm of life was oak and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawnings of a grander day. He loved the beautiful, and was with colour, form and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak and with a willing hand gave alms; with loyal heart and with the purest mind he faithfully discharged all public trust. He was a worshipper of liberty and a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote the words: " For justice all place a temple, and all season summer." He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worshipper, humanity the only religion, and love the onlypriestT. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one for whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep to night beneath a wilderness of flowers. Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star, and listening love hears the rustle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, "lam better now." Let us believe in spite of doubts and dogmas and fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. And now, to you, who have been chosen from among the many men he loved to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech cannot contain our love. There was—there is—no gentler, stronger, manlier man.