voice of his holy, healing words at some love feast long ago gone by.
You will again sit with him by the "old home hearthstone" as it used
to be when father and mother were living, and all the brothers and
sisters together in the room, and hear him talk and sing, and read and
pray. And will not this exercise of the mind and heart be pleasant?
Will it not be profitable? Will it not serve to refresh your love to
Christ and the Brotherhood? May it not rekindle in your heart a flame
of that first and tender love which shone so brightly when first you
saw the Lord? You then could sweetly sing:

"Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow thee."

Since that time many cares and toils and afflictions and bereavements,
perhaps, have caused you to sigh in mournful memory:

"What peaceful hours I then enjoyed!"

and the heart-sobs sadly echo:

"But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill."

In such seasons of sadness and despondency it is helpful to the heart
to hold communion with the great and the good through the medium of
their writings. Men who leave such comforting testimony behind them
are a blessing to all within the circle of their influence while
living, and when dead they continue to speak. Their words are felt and
blessed on both banks of the "River of Time" as it flows down through
the ages.