Sad Memories, and a Blessed Hope
By C. H. Bliss
It is not always pleasant to look backward. It often brings feelings of sadness and tears of regret. The old house, perhaps vacated; the enchanting voice of the one who so often sang you to sleep with sweet hymns, now silent in death; the boys and girls with whom you played, scattered abroad over the earth, and many sleeping the sleep of death; the opportunities gone, which, if rightly improved, would have lightened the burdens of many whom you loved,—these bring painful thoughts to memory's door. Not long ago I visited my old home where I laughed, and played, and worked nearly fifty years ago. The hills and valleys and the creek seemed as natural as ever; but the house was vacated, and was falling into decay. The porches were rotting down, the windows were broken, and the doors stood ajar. I looked through these openings into each room. There in that room grandfather and grandmother died. In that middle room mother passed away, after weeks of severe suffering. In that other room my brother, with whom I associated till manhood, was laid out in the sleep of death. In that large middle room we often had gatherings of young people, when we sang and played and enjoyed life as only young people can. As my eyes filled with tears at these memories, I turned away. All about the old home was a silence as of the grave. Then I returned to the village one-half mile away, and stood for a half-hour on the corner of a main street, and of the crowd passing by, scarcely a single face did I recognize. Once I knew every resident.11Then I thought of these words:— “Like leaves on trees, the race of men
are found—
Now green in youth, now withered on
the ground;
Thus generations in their course decay,
So flourish these when those have
passed away.”
But there is a brighter side to all this. Soon there will be a grand reunion of those who live and those who have passed on before. “The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.” How precious are these promises! and how joyful the thought that that day will soon be here!