the silent sermon of the months. xi: november: the sermon of the dead

Irish Jesuit Province

The Silent Sermon of the Months. XI: November: The Sermon of the DeadAuthor(s): Joseph GuinanSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 45, No. 533 (Nov., 1917), pp. 681-685Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20504920 .

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THE IRISH MAONTHLY NOVEMBER 1917

THE SILENT SERMON OF THE MONTHS

X1.-NOVEMBER-THE SERMON OF THE DEAD.

HE dark days of winter have come again, and with T hem the inevitable feeling of sadness that is ever

associated with the wane of tihe year. Morning breaks tardily with cold, rawish, star-like light, while night falls suddenly with lowering, angry brow and damp, chilling breath. The most we can hope for now is an occasional

smile from the south, or a passing glimpse of the deep

cerulean blue through the rents in the ragged, murky cloud

banks that will henceforth shroud the heavens with their funeral Pall. The dour, sullen north shows that dark scowl w ne ]ow so well, that ominous, forbidding frown that wilt seldom relax for many and many a day, while

the sun's rays give a wan, cheerless comfort, which, like

the works of the " Angel of Laodicea," is neither cold

nor hot, buit lukewarm.

Indeed, the signs of gloomy winter are evident on all

hands. The mild-eyed cattle low complainingly, as if reproaching the unfriendly elements, while they vainly seek for shielter behind the bare, leafless hedge-rows; and

the sheep coddle themselves in their warm blankets lee

ward of the hillocks and dream of days that were. The

clamorous cry of the wild-geese is heard on high, as they wing their figured flight to their savage haunts in bog and

fen, rejoicing apparently in being the messengers of evil. The pleasant summer migrants that know no winter are replaced by the wild, lonely, winter visitants that know no summer. The gregarious birds congregate in flocks for society and protection, as if mindful of the warning of the

Preacher, " woe to him that is alone."

Although they are perpetually quarrelling over their food they seem to be united by the common bond of their

'II



682 THE IRISII MONTHLY

forlorn fortunes, cheerfully waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for

something to turn up, and, like his admirable helpmeet, determined never, never to desert one another in the crisis.

Jt would be well for individuals and nations if they could fraternise with some such interested altruiism anid ag,ree to differ so amicably.

Fittingly has November been chosen by the Clhurch as the month of the dead, the dear dead gone before, for

everything in Nature is now eloquent of dissolution and decay. Just as February heralded her re-birtlh and April proclaimed her rejuveneseence, so surely does wild, bleak November sing her death-knell. Sickly and languishing during October, she quietly passes away with the frosts of Novemnber, and will be laid out in lher winding sheet of

snow in Decemnber. For the serious-minded the year's last signs of anima

tion are a pathetic spectacle, a scene suggestive of solemn

thought. You notice it in the brave attempts of the late Autumn flowers to keep up sonme little show of lingering beauty, as if to prove that as yet " Death's pale flag is

not advanced there." The many-coloured, richly-tinted dhalias flaunt their loveliness to-day, and to-morrow's sun kills them, as it were, with kindness in the act of thawing the icy breath of night on their corollas. The gaudy sun

flower, which, like the eagle, has long gazed unflinchingly on the blinding glare of the noon-day glory, at last droops and can no longer turn her enamoured eye on the luminary

that has so fondly nursed her into regal grandeur. Even the hardy white chrysanthemum, the flower that blooms fair but scentless in the midst of desolation, fades under

Winter's Gorgon frown and dies like her sisters. The sap in the tree shrinks back to its mysterious hidden

source, arresting its growth and vigour, and reducing its abounding life to the slow, sluggish ebb of age. The once beautiful leaves, the pride and glory of June, lie festering in the mire, or perhaps scud before the blast into nooks and crannies, where they eddy and rustle with a rattling noise, like that of the dry bones in the Prophet's vision. The gloom of death hangs over everything; the arches of the wood have the damp heavy atmosphere of the vault; the streams run dark and sullen; the fields have the leprous



THE SILENT SERMON OF THIE MIONTIIS 6S3

appearance of disease. The beasts experiencing the general depression roam disconsolately; the birds seem to have forgotten their songs; the butterflies are gone; the bees are at home inebriated with nectar; the humming wings of the happy insects are folded in sleep, or death. Thus, Nature relapses into her annual state of coma, her Winter trance of suspended animation, waiting for the touch of Spring's magician's wand to wake her again into life.

The labourer in the fields, the true student and child of Nature, feels somehow that it would be an irreverence to break into the songs with which he was wont to enliven the hay-making, or the reaping. He delves sadly and silently in the puddled potato ridge with as little heart for merriment as if he were a grave-digger.

The general decay of vegetation and the almost total cessation of growth, at this season, strikingly remind us of the gradual decline and final break-up of the vital forces in the human frame. However sound and vigorous it

mnay hiave been, it fails and fades, like the vegetable or

the flower, in the winter of life, the tissues of the body

mildly wasting away in the same manner as those of the

plant. Disease, so long kept at bay, insidiously enters at some little unguarded gate, begins at once,to sap and mine

the stronghold of lhealth, and, in the end, brings the most

robuist constituition to ruin. Tlhuis, day by day, the old famiiliar faces are disappear

ing. The well-known figure of the village street, that somehow seemed part and parcel of the scene, the parish

worthy, whose genial presence at the Sunday congregation had come to be regarded as indispensable to and inseparable

from the occasion; the old neighbours, old friends, old acquaintances, whom we looked on as quasi-immortal, the dear ones of the family circle who had grown into our lives

-all, sooner or later, pass away into the land of shadows.

They have quietly floated away with the ebb into the great ocean of Time, their few little years adding but a

few little waves to the mighty tide that ever goes surging

and booming on toward the eternal shore. The eyes that have seen them slhall see tlhem no more; neither shall their place any more behold them."

They were once full of life and energy, exulting in the



684 THE IRISIH MONTHLY

pride of youth and strength, actively concerned in the varying phases of the world's passing show-and where are they now? Hidden away under those little mounds in some dank, dismal old graveyard, not yet quite forgotten, perhaps, but well on the way to utter oblivion. A few years hence, and the idle sightseer will with difficulty decipher the names on their monuments which the moss and fungus will have crept over and wonder who they

where, while the night winds sighing through the ancient yew, or keening in the crannies of the mouldering ruin, will be their only mourners then.

Ah ! the dead are dead, and the living are living and

very prone to forget them. The stern exigencies of life demand that private grief be subordinated to public neces sity; and so we must keep on in the same old groove and many do so sadly and broken-heartedly enough. The permanent way of human affairs must be kept clear, and the dead van that holds the idolised lost one must be side tracked to make room for the gay saloon of the living.

The world, flippantly disregarding the sermon of the preacher, will look on life as a feast, on which no ghostly presence must intrude-except, indeed, it be of the panto mime species that may serve to amuse it. In a meta phorical sense it is habitually guilty and not ashamed of the heartless and savage profanation of dancing on a tombstone.

There are those, however, who are cast in Nature's finer mould, exquisitely strung as a lyre, delicate as the sensitive plant, in whose hearts there is an inner sanctuary,

where the loved and lost ones are shrined for ever and forgotten never. They smile for convention sake to hide the unbidden tear, and are prosaically business-like because thev must, but all the while they are listening in their hearts to a voice that is still and looking for the love-light in eyes that are dim.

These are they for whom that saying of the poet has the sad riing of truth-" Few know so many friends alive as dead." For one, even in life's prime-and how much

more so for one inclining toward its setting -what a goodly company the dear departed would muster, whom we hope to meet in the better blessed land. Just try to pass them in rapid review, those of them, at least, whom we remember best. The father, the strong, patient toiler



TI-IE SILENT SERMON OF THE MIONTHS 685

and breadwinner, who manfully bore the burden of the day and the heats; the fond, devoted, unselfish mother, the angel of the homne; the noble-hearted brother, the sweet gentle sister; the husband, brave, good and true; the wife, so helpful, loving and loveable; the darling idol ised daughter, the noble boy, the only son, cut off in early

youth; the clherishied relatives, the pleasant, genial com panions; the life-long friends-all, all are gone, and, ah! we rrmiss them sorely.

But, cheer t, olh, sad heart, for there will be a reunion,

and such a reuinion as earth caIn show no counterpart of. It will be a poor accidenta-l part of the celestial bliss we

hope for, no doubt; yet, to ouir humnan way of thinking,

sturely a ineeting like this will more than make amends for the tears and the heart-ache of the parting. Heaven

will not deprive us of earth's liveliest joy, the smniling faces of those we loved, buit, on the contrary, will but intensify it. The happy circle of the friends we had lost

shall widen into the smiling circele of the cirele of the

new friends we shall have found until the glad welcome

realises the universal smile-" un riso dell' universo "

of Dante's Paradiso. JoSiE1PH GUINAN.

' TIMUIT.''

Ever, forever mny eyes and ears

Are com-ipassed with a host of praise

I-leartening like wine: The wild bird piping, in forest ways, The child witlh thle mnysteries divine, The waves and linketd sands

Ceashingr adoring, hands

Chime with the spheres.

And standing among my spirit peers

Of earth-bonid free, I would sing our song That never dies, A rising river. My lips and ears

Are touched with the coal of sacrifice, I wait God's voice in me

then fails my lealty

MsIutely to tears. GEORGE NOBLE PLUNKETT.



the silent sermon of the months. xi: november: the sermon of the dead

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