"Nor dare to sorrow with increase of grief
When they who go before
Go furnished, or because their span was brief.
For doubt not but that in the worlds above
There must be other offices of love,
That other tasks and ministries there are,
Since it is promised that His servants there
Shall serve him still. Therefore be strong, be strong,
Ye that remain, nor fruitlessly revolve,
Darkling, the riddles which ye cannot solve,
But do the works that unto you belong."


Here is the magnificent prospect of hope for those who mourn: that
the Incarnation of our Lord is still working itself out in all its
beneficent purposes. By the power of the Holy Ghost, in the Church
expectant as in the Church militant, the answer to the constant prayer,
"Thy Kingdom come," is being ceaselessly given; and the fulness thereof
will be realised in the Church triumphant. The saints on earth and those
in Paradise are equally in the hands of the Lord, though the latter have
clearer vision and nearer sense of the fact than the former. By some
this is used as an argument against the practice of prayer for the
departed, but surely this thought of the unity of the whole body leads
in exactly the opposite direction. No argument can be adduced against
this most ancient and primitive custom, observed by the Jews long before
the coming of Christ, but what equally applies to any petition for an
absent friend still on earth. In each case they are in the keeping of
Him Who knows best and will do right, yet for those still here we pray,
believing that in His own way God will take account of our prayers and
knit them up into His own dealings, so that they become part of His