| Show ALABASTER BOXES during a conversation in the news editorial room about relieving the distressed tres Bed which occurred a day or two ago a gentleman who participated took from hla his pocket book a c card ard which he said he had carried for years and on which were printed the following words by an unknown author OIN fend Wend Pr fiade you any alabaster boxes of jove and tenderness to break over the coffina of your friends when they are dead please dont wait break them slow now speak kind words while their ears coa can hear them and while their hearts ea I 1 ts can be thrilled and made happier liet us not criticism criticise critic ise tse others until we vii faithfully performed our own y the wha flowers YOU yon meant to send r their coffins send to their hoheb before their eyes are closed forever say your kind words to living people I 1 it if my friends have any alabaster boxes laid away full of fragrant perfumes of sympathy and affection which they intend to break over my body I 1 would rather they would bring them out in my weary and troubled hours and open them that I 1 may be refreshed and cheered while I 1 need them I 1 would rather father have a plain coffin a funeral without a eulogy and an unmarked grave than to live without the sympathy and friendship of those around mn me let us anoint our friends beforehand for their burial let us cheer the burdened spirits now flowers on the coffin cast no fragrance backward over lifes weary way in the midst of the rush for money and for power and for other forms of self aggrandizement which so pre emi bently characterizes the closing years of the nineteenth century such sentiments as these bear a refreshing sweetness like that of a cool and fragrant breeze sweeping over a desert it is a good thing to carry in the pocket book along with ones bank notes a card on which they are printed it is well to speak kindly of the dead but it is better to speak kindly to the living there is a probability that the dead have a means of ascertaining in what tone we talk of them but there is a certainty that the living will be cheered if we will talk to them the age is sordid and its tendencies are selfish heartless and merciless it if our spiritual natures are to escape its contamination we must cultivate love and sympathy for our kind and the virtue of charity which more nearly than any other is the essence of christianity |
