The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
It is creditable to our humanity that at the grave animosities are
buried, and those who speak of the dead remember their virtues and pass
over their frailties.
Death is a mighty mediator. There all the flames of rage are
extinguished, hatred is appeased, and angelic pity, like a weeping
sister, bends with gentle and close embrace over the funeral urn.
The reconciling grave swallows distinction first that made us foes;
there all lie down in peace together.
To the grave, "the world's sweet inn from pain and wearisome turmoil,"
we are all hastening. Earth's highest station and meanest place ends in
the common receptacle to which we shall all be taken. Dark and gloomy
indeed would be the grave without a hope in a personal immortality, a
belief that the soul survives the body, and that to this immortal part
the tomb is the gate to heaven. When one feels like Theodore Parker when
he said:
When this stiffened body goes down to the tomb, sad, silent, and
remorseless, I feel there is no death for the man. That clod which
yonder dust shall cover is not my brother. The dust goes to its
place; man to his own.
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