_Personal Friendships of Jesus_, J. R. MILLER.
"When our indignation is borne in submissive silence, we are apt to feel twinges of doubt afterwards as to our own generosity, if not justice; how much more when the object of our anger has gone into everlasting silence, and we have seen his face for the last time in the meekness of death."
"All about us move, these common days, those who would be strengthened and comforted by the good cheer that we could give. Let us not reserve all the flowers for coffin-lids. Let us not keep our alabaster boxes sealed and unbroken till our loved ones are dead. Let us show kindness when kindness will do good. It will make sorrow all the harder to bear if we have to say beside our dead, 'I might have brightened the way a little, if only I had been kinder.'"
_Personal Friendships of Jesus_, J. R. MILLER.
"I like not only to be loved, but to be told I am loved. The realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave."
"Oh! do not let us wait to be just or pitiful or demonstrative towards those we love until they or we are struck down by illness or threatened with death! Life is short, and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!"
"Too soon, too soon comes Death to show We love more deeply than we know! The rain that fell upon the height Too gently to be called delight, Within the dark vale reappears As a wild cataract of tears; And love in life should strive to see Sometimes what love in death would be!"
"Alas! how light a cause may move Dissension between hearts that love! Hearts that the world in vain had tried, And sorrow but more closely tied; That stood the storm when waves were rough, Yet in a sunny hour fall off, Like ships that have gone down at sea, When heaven was all tranquillity! A something, light as air--a look, A word unkind or wrongly taken-- Oh! love that tempests never shook, A breath, a touch like this has shaken; And ruder words will soon rush in To spread the breach that words begin; And eyes forget the gentle ray They wore in courtship's smiling day; And voices lose the tone that shed A tenderness round all they said; Till fast declining, one by one, The sweetnesses of love are gone, And hearts, so lately mingled, seem Like broken clouds--or like the stream That smiling left the mountain's brow, As though its waters ne'er could sever, Yet, ere it reach the plain below, Breaks into floods, that part for ever.