| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 10 |
Page 8 |
Ofttimes, indeed, the death of one in the circle is a divine voice calling the living to new duty. Thus, when a father dies, the mother is ordained to double responsibility. If there is a son of thoughtful age, his duty is not bitter grieving, but prompt taking up of the work that has fallen from the father’s dead hands. When our friends are taken from us, our bereavement is a call, not to sad weeping, but to new duty.
“It bids us to do the work that they laid down–
Take up the song where they broke off the strain;
So journey till we reach the heavenly town
Where are laid up our treasures and our crown,
And our lost loved ones will be found again.”
Sometimes it is care only that is laid down when death comes, as when a mother puts her baby away into the grave; no work drops out of the little hands for the mother to take up. But may we not then say that, since god has emptied her hands of the care and duty which had filled the, He has some other work for them to do? He has set them free from their own tasks, that with their trained skill and their enriched sympathies they may serve others.
In a sick room there was a little rose bush in a pot in a window. There was only one rose on the bush, and its face was turned full toward the light. This fact was noticed and spoken of, when one said that the rose would look no other way but toward the light. Experiments had been made with it; it had been turned away from the window, its face toward the shadow of the interior, but in a little time it would resume its old position. With wonderful persistence it refused to face the darkness, and insisted on ever looking toward the light.
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