And can it be that death shall put the final seal of irretrievable ruin
on all this uncompleted effort? Can it be that the grave shall whelm all
this unuttered love in endless silence? Ah, what a wild waste of
precious treasure, what a mad destruction of fair designs, what an
utter failure, life would be if death must end all!

The very reasonableness of our nature, our sense of order, declare the
impotence of Death to create such a wreck. And most of all our deep
affections cry out against the conclusion of despair. They will not hear
of dissolution. They reach out their hands into the darkness. They
demand and they promise an unending fellowship, a deepening communion, a
more perfect satisfaction. Do you remember what Thackeray wrote? "If
love lives through all life, and survives through all sorrow; and
remains steadfast with us through all changes; and in all darkness of
spirit burns brightly; and if we die, deplores us forever, and still
loves us equally; and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the
faithful bosom, whence it passes with the pure soul beyond death, surely
it shall be immortal. Though we who remain are separated from it, is it
not ours in heaven? If we love still those whom we lose, can we
altogether lose those whom we love?"

To deny this instinct is to deny that which lies at the very root of our
life. If love perishes with death, then our affections are our worst
curses, the world is the cruellest torture-house, and "all things work
together for evil to those who love." Do you believe it? Is it possible?
Nay, all that is best and noblest and purest within us rejects such a
faith in Absolute Evil as the power that has created and rules the
world. In the presence of love we feel that we behold that which must
belong to a good God and therefore cannot die. Destruction cannot touch
it. The grave cannot hold it. Loving and being loved, we dare to stand