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I wish I could have dwelt on every heroic martyr and patient saint whose name is inscribed in this holy calendar.

But,

perhaps, by the blessing of God, the few I have considered may

"remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time."

The study of such records is the real communion of saints. The sacred page is the only pure picture gallery-apostolic portraits are alone admissible into our churches.

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CHAPTER I.

THE SPEAKING DEAD.

"Thus though oft depressed and lonely,

All my fears are laid aside,

If I but remember only

Such as these have lived and died."

"Abel being dead yet speaketh."- HEBREWS 11: 4.

ABEL "being dead yet speaketh;" that is, Abel, removed in his bodily presence, yet through several channels, or in some family or society, speaks and acts, and influences those who now live. The common and the popular notion is, that death is the end of man as far as this world is concerned; that the grave which conceals the bulk of man's form covers and keeps within its chambers all man's influence; and that the instant he has ceased to breathe on earth, he has ceased to act. It is not so; this is a popular mistake. It is true of Cain, and of Abel, and of every man, that being dead they yet speak. We die, but leave an influence behind us that survives; the echoes of our words are evermore repeated, and reflected along the ages. A man has two immortalities. One immortality he leaves behind him, and it walks the earth and still represents him. Another immortality he carries with him to a loftier sphere, the presence and the glory of God.

If this be so, it may be asked, what are the media through which man thus acts upon those that come after him? It is

not by the epitaph written upon his tombstone by weeping affection, frequently the least true expression of his character. Nor is it by the newspaper paragraph, which has been put in as it has been penned by relatives, and is, therefore, not a severe and faithful rescript of what he was. It is what man was that lives and acts after him. What he said sounds along the years like voices amid the mountain gorges; and what he did is repeated after him in ever-multiplying and never-ceasing reverberations. It is true of every man that he "being dead yet speaketh;" assuredly he has left behind him influences for good or for evil that will never exhaustthemselves. The sphere in which he acts may be small, or it may be great. That is not the real question. It may be his fireside, or it may be a kingdom; a village, or a great nation; it may be a parish, or broad Europe; a race, or all mankind: but act he does, ceaselessly and forever. Whether the sphere he fills with posthumous influence be narrow or large, it continues. His friends, his family, his successors in office, his relatives, are all receptive of an influence, a moral influence, which he has transmitted and bequeathed to mankind; either a blessing which will repeat itself in showers of benedictions, or a curse which will multiply itself in crashes of ever-accumulating evils. Let us feel most deeply this great fact, that we can neither live nor die neutral.

There are two great defects in the practical conception of this truth among mankind. One thinks, I am so insignificant that it does not matter what I do; and another thinks, I am so important that the whole world is beholding me. Both of these make equally great mistakes; every man should feel that, however small, or however great, neutral, uninfluential upon mankind, it is impossible that he can be. Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends and designs it or not. He may be a blot radiating his dark influence outward to the very cir

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