It is not well to think of death,
unless we temper the thought with that of heroes who
despised it. Upon what ground, is of small account; if it
be only the bishop who was burned for his faith in the
antipodes, his memory lightens the heart and makes us walk
undisturbed among graves. And so the martyrs' monument is
a wholesome spot in the field of the dead; and as we look
upon it, a brave influence comes to us from the land of
those who have won their discharge, and in another phrase
of Patrick Walker's, got 'cleanly off the stage.'
*
It is not only our enemies, those desperate characters-it
is we ourselves who know not what we do;-thence springs the
glimmering hope that perhaps we do better than we think:
that to scramble through this random business with hands
reasonably clean, to have played the part of a man or woman
with some reasonable fulness, to have often resisted the
diabolic, and at the end to be still resisting it, is for
the poor human soldier to have done right well.
*
We are not content to pass away entirely from the scenes of
our delight; we would leave, if but in gratitude, a pillar
and a legend.
*
There are many spiritual eyes that seem to spy upon our
actions-eyes of the dead and the absent, whom we imagine to
behold us in our most private hours, and whom we fear and
scruple to offend: our witnesses and judges.
Pages:
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180