last the end of each and all; and every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jewelled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.

This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of a grander day. He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, and with a willing hand gave alms; with loyal heart, and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts. He was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: "For justice all places a temple, and all seasons summer." He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy, and were every one for whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers.

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, "I am better now." Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas and tears and fears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. And now to you who have been chosen from among the many men he loved to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no gentler, stronger manlier man.

FUNERAL ORATION FOR THE PRINCE OF CONDÉ.*

BY JAMES BENIGNÉ BOSSUET.

[From the French.]

Peroration.

COME, ye people, come now-or rather ye Princes and Lords, ye judges of the earth, and ye who open to man the portals of heaven; and more than all others, ye Princes and Princesses, nobles descended from a long line of kings, lights of France, but to-day in gloom, and covered with your grief as with a cloud, come and see how little remains of a birth so august, a grandeur so high, a glory so dazzling. Look around on all sides, and see all that magnificence and devotion can do to honor so great a hero titles and inscriptions, vain signs of that which is no more; shadows which weep around a tomb, fragile images of a grief which time sweeps away with everything else; columns which appear as if they would bear to heaven the magnificent evidence of our emptiness; nothing, indeed, is wanting in all these honors but the one to whom they are rendered! Weep then over these feeble remains of human life; weep over that mournful immortality we give to heroes. But draw near especially ye who run, with such ardor, the career of glory, intrepid and warrior spirits! Who was more worthy to command you, and in whom did ye find command more honorable? Mourn then that great Captain, and weeping, say," Here is the man that led us through all hazards, under whom were formed so many renowned captains, raised by his example to the highest honors of war; his shadow might yet gain battles, and lo! in his silence, his very name animates us, and at the same time warns us that to find, at death, some rest from our toils, and not arrive unprepared at our eternal dwelling, we must, with an earthly king, yet serve the King of Heaven.” Serve then that immortal and ever-merciful King, who will value a sigh or a cup of cold water, given in His name, more than all others will value the shedding of your blood. And begin to

* Delivered before Louis XIV., of France.

reckon the time of your useful services from the day on which you gave yourselves to so beneficent a Master. Will not ye too come, ye whom he honored by making you his friends? To whatever extent you enjoyed his confidence, come all of you, and surround this tomb. Mingle your prayers with your tears; and while admiring, in so great a prince, a friendship so excellent, an intercourse so sweet, preserve the remembrance of a hero whose goodness equalled his courage. Thus may he ever prove your cherished instructor; thus may you profit by his virtues; and may his death, which you deplore, serve you at once for consolation and example. For myself, if permitted, after all others, to render the last offices at this tomb, O prince, the worthy subject of our praises and regrets, thou wilt live forever in my memory. There will thy image be traced, but not with that bold aspect which promises victory. No, I would see in you nothing which death can efface. You will have in that image only immortal traits. I shall behold you such as you were in your last hours under the hand of God, when His glory began to dawn upon you. There shall I see you more triumphant than at Fribourg and at Rocroy; and ravished by so glorious a triumph, I shall give thanks in the beautiful words of the well-beloved disciple, "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Enjoy, O prince, this victory, enjoy it forever, through the everlasting efficacy of that sacrifice.* Accept these last efforts of a voice once familiar to you. With you these discourses shall end. Instead of deploring the death of others, great prince, I would henceforth learn from you to render my own holy; happy, if reminded by these white locks of the account which I must give of my ministry; I reserve for the flock which I have to feed with the word of life, the remnants of a voice which falters, and an ardor which is fading away.

*The sacrifice of the mass, which concluded the funeral ceremony.

FUNERAL ORATION ON LOUIS THE GREAT.

BY JEAN BAPTISTE MASSILLON.

[From the French.]

Peroration.

RETURN then to the bosom of thy God, whence thou didst come, O heroic and Christian soul! Your heart is already where your treasure is. Break these feeble ties of mortality, which prolong your desires and retard your hope; the day of our grief is the day of your glory and your triumph. May the guardian angels of France go before you to conduct you with pomp upon the throne which is appointed unto you in the heavens at the side of your ancestors, the royal saints Charlemagne and Saint Louis. Go and meet Theresa, Louis, and Adelaide, who await you, and with them, in your immortal sojourn, dry the tears which you have shed over their ashes. And if, as we hope, the sanctity and uprightness of your intentions have made good before God that which during the course of so long a reign was wanting in the merit of your works and the integrity of your justice, then, from the heights of your celestial domain, watch over a kingdom which you leave in affliction, over an infant king who has not had the leisure to grow and ripen under your eyes and example, and secure the end of the evils which overwhelm us, and of the crimes which seem to multiply with our disasters.

And Thou, great God, from the height of heaven, cast down thine eyes of pity upon this desolate monarchy, where the glory of thy name is better known than among other nations, where faith is as old as the crown, and where it has ever been upon the throne as pure as the very blood of our kings that occupied it. Defend us from the troubles and dissensions unto which Thou dost nearly always deliver the infancy of kings. Leave to us the consolation of at least peaceably bewailing our misfortunes and losses. Extend the wings of thy protecting care over the precious child that Thou hast put at the head of thy people-that august offspring of so many kings, that innocent victim, the only one saved from the

blows of Thy wrath and from the extinction of the royal race. Give unto him a docile heart to receive the instructions which must be sustained by good example; that piety, compassion, humanity, and many other virtues, which influenced his education, may be felt throughout the whole course of his reign. Be Thou his God and his Father, to teach him to be the father of his subjects; and lead us altogether unto a blessed immortality.