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Where is the home that has not some memorial of departed ones,--a chair
empty, a vacant seat at the table,--garments laid by,--ashes of the dead
treasured up in the urn of memory! What sudden ravages does this ruthless
foe of life, often make in the family! The members are often taken away,
one by one in quick succession, until all of them are laid, side by side
beneath the green sod.
What a memorable epoch in the history of home is that, in which death finds
his first entrance within its sacred enclosures, and with ruthless hand
breaks the first link of a golden chain that creates its identity! We can
never forget that event. It may he the first-born in the radiant beauty of
youth, or the babe in the first bursting of life's budding loveliness, or a
father in the midst of his anxious cares, or the mother who gave light and
happiness to all around her. Whoever it is, the first death makes a breach
there which no subsequent bereavement can equal; new feelings are then
awakened; a new order of associations is then commenced; hopes and fears
are then aroused that never subside; and the mysterious web of family life
receives the hue of a new and darker thread.
What a sad bereavement is the death of the husband and father! Children!
there is the grave of your father! You have recently heard the clods of the
valley groan upon his coffin. The parent stem from which, you grew and to
which, you fondly clung, has been shattered by the lightning-stroke of
death, and its terrible shock is now felt in every fiber of the wrenched
and torn branches.
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