IN MEMORIAM.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 293, 11 December 1899, Page 2

IN MEMORIAM.

In the Unitarian Church last nig-ht Mr McCready delivered an "In Memoriam" address for the first chairman of' Committee of t!he newly organised church: — There is no face that seems so changeful as the face of the angel we name "Death." It varies with the varying mood of man—with the message it brings also, and the being to whom it comes. When that angel bends down to the little child and kisses the lips that are fading, we may deem it a cruel or a tender face as we may have eyes to see. But if we w^ere very wise, we should behold a face of love and gentleness more beautiful than -the face of the rgother who clung to her little child and shivered at the angel she learnt to love. Or when it comes to the strong man in the full tide of his activity stopping him suddenly and smiting" him down to the ground at a blow and crushing in his fall house and home few of us can resist the natural shrinking of the soul.'1 from a rjresenee that seems to bring" only the blackness of darkness on all around. Or when it comes to the new traveller —to some young spirit burning with life and enthusiasm, full of generous aspirations that help and bless the world which scorns them —when the young head is laid low.with a swift destruction and the brave young heart is hushed with the silenced voice and the triumphal march of the gallant life is suddenly ended in the grave, then again we veil the face and cannot bear to look upon one of the greatest of human mysteries; and the face of the angel of death in that hour is not a face that we can look upon and love. But when that angel comes to the aged, who has slowly measured out the length of a prolonged and finished life; when with gentle hand and fingers that are al-' most seen the aged pilgrim is led down step by step into the valley of Ihe shadows; when the feeble feet linger and delay, and the door is visibly opened before all onjo_okmg eyes; when life's sunset is lengthened out and the fading light not hasting to be gone, is tinted with all the hues that sunset knows; when to borrow a touching illustration from the Book of Job, the corn is not smitten in the green blade or the unripe ear, but gathered in harvest time full of days and full of completed life, then a.ll seems altered to the quiet eye. We ha.ye hardly any room, we have really no room for lamentation, and we can almost lay down the dead with triumphant songs. Then indeed we feel that we give to earth no more than is its due, and for once it is to us a. kindly mother receiving her own in peace. For truly considered what wo call death is as natural, ay! and as beautiful as life apart from the accidents of it. These indeed arc often full of terror and when the death angel rides on the tempest or steals upon the unwary, we ca.nnot but be dismayed. Thus much we may well allow to natural emotion in presence of the accidents the circumstances and the accompaniments of death; but beyond this we are to allow nothing; beyond this apart from this we can only stand by the glorious truth justified by reason, even as it is approved by faith, that death itself is as natural and as beautiful as life—and that the death of the aged is only a kind of promotion by seniority to fuller life. "Even to your old ago I ami He," says the beautiful verse in Isaiah xlvi. 4. Ho is the God then of age, and it also is parr, of the blessed order of the Father's house. "And even "to hoar hairs will I carry you," it adds; a rich suggestion It is God who leads you hithereven to the end. All then is of God and in God. , Doubtless friends during tins evening you have all had in mind one who lately and very suddenly passed into the dim unknown, where standeth God behind the shadows keeping watch above his own, our beloved friend, Mr Shawcross, by whose death the Unitarian Church has suffered a severe loss, as you all know he was one of . our first members, and the Chairman of our first Church Committee. Though gone his influence for good is still with us, and we must not mourn as those without hope.