The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 1, July 1897 - April, 1898 Page: 188
334 p. : ill., ports., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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188 Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
Yet it is strangely and remarkably true that, amid the equal
distribution of attractions to life and memorials of death, men are
prone, with a perversity nearly amounting to madness, to reject or
postpone all considerations of the latter. While we know that the
dazzling visions and alluring pleasures of time are but transient-
that they must end at the dark valley and shadow which connects
it with endless futurity - it is wonderful that we fasten all our
thoughts, affections and cares about them, with ligatures than can
not be dissevered until rudely broken, and with energies exhausted,
and spirits broken down in their pursuit, leave to
" * * * a day, an hour,
The vast concerns of an Eternal scene."
In the impressive language of the Masonic burial service, "not-
withstanding the various mementoes of mortality with which we
daily meet-notwithstanding death has established his empire over
all the works of nature, yet through some unaccountable infatua-
tion we forget that we are born to die." But if there be a future-
and who, that feels the spontaneous throbbings of immortality in
the soul which God has breathed into him, can doubt it?-if there
be a future, we shall have no ground to complain that this import-
ant and serious change came upon us without previous warning.
No; we shall rather reproach ourselves with our inexcusable neglect
of the many admonitions which were given us, for they hang thick
upon every column that supports this vestibule of Eternity. We
are reminded that we must die by every tree that falls, and every
blade of grass that dies -- by the desolate cities, ruined palaces,
fallen columns, overgrown gardens, and broken-down walls, which
make up the pages of history-by the ten thousand monuments
which overlay the bones of Earth's renowned ones, and herald
what they were, or "what they should have been"-by the ten
thousand times ten thousand more unmarked graves, to whose oc-
cupants the "tribes that tread the earth" "are but a handful"-by
the "pestilence that walketh in darkness," from before which our
brother-men fall, as grass before the reaper's scythe-by the pale
forehead, the wan cheek, the sunken eye, the hectic cough and
stooped form of our fellow-beings who walk among us. We are
to-day most forcibly reminded of it by the absence from among
us of our distinguished fellow-citizen, our friend, our neighbor, our
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 1, July 1897 - April, 1898, periodical, 1897/1898; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101009/m1/210/?rotate=270: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.