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Show I Dorothy Dix. Talks - OUR LOVED AND LOST imj It Is the custom to speak of our I deod as those whom wc have lost, j -; People will tell you with broken I J voices of friends whom they have lost through death. A stricken-faced I woman will go suddenly white as she 1 Gpeak3 of the husband she lost on the I battlefield in France, or through some dreadful disease. A mother will mourn the babe she lost on whose gravo the grass has been green for I thirty years. I But we make no greater mistake than when wc think of tho dead as the lost. It is life, not death, that I robs us of our beloved. Death seals them to us forever and forever, beyond be-yond all possibility of loss. IB There arc no friends closer to U3 1 than our dead friends. We may see H their faces no more, but our souls I are In constant communion with them and they are the friends whoso lovo I and loyalty wo nover question. 1 t Does somo piece of good fortune j ' come our way? Our first thought is I If only John and Mary were alive how they would rejoice in our suc- I, cess. Wo wee how their eyes would shine with Joy in our joy. Wo hear jL-i their hearty congratulations that have In ihcm no spice oX malice or envy, as those of our living friends so often Does mlsfortuno lay our heads in frihe dustV "Ah," we cry, "If only John Sand Mary were here to sorrow with HhiH in our grief, to bind up our wounds 'iu the healing ointment of their sym-foathy! sym-foathy! We should not weep alone if I Bpnly death had spared the friends on Kyhom wc could count without fail." 1,1 B- uv ,V'"S Friends I . V Do we need help? We call tho i T.oll of our living friends with doubt. ;. '-' flit is to tho memory of tho dead that ' BE-'0 u,rn w'th certainty. Wo should ' fl"ot- nave asked of John in vain. Mary 'A i Mwould not have withheld the helping i K&nd. Wo should not even have had to ask them for assistance, for their love would have devined our want. Nothing can como between us and our dead friends. Their hearts are Jtnlt to ours with a bond that stretches from time to eternity, and that nothing noth-ing can break. Tho friends whom wc have lost are those from whom wc arc separated separat-ed by indifference, by treachery, by self-seeking, or greed, or some unworthy un-worthy act that has killed our lovo for thorn, and made them far more dead to us than if they were buried in the grave. Tho friends whom we have lost is the one who poisoned our little moment mo-ment of triumph by some potty jeal- - - w . . u i. g m. v j tvok is tho one who callously passed (by when our hearts wort wrung witn ; grief, or who turned his back upon us when we cried to him for help in our need. Ulnny Farther Away Tho friend whom wc have lost is the one who forgot old times, and old ties, and old favors when he 'made money or achieved some place of power, for the man or woman who move from Poverty Flat to Easy street are often farther away from us than the distance between the two worlds. The friends whom wo lose arc those who show the yellow streak under the stress of life who turn traitor; who prove dishonest,' and who shatter our ideals of them. Those whom we have once loved and honored and can no longer love and honor we have indeed in-deed lost though they still be living, but the noble dead we never lose. They aro part and parcel of our lives until the very end. No ono would underestimate the misfortune of the wifo- whoso husband is taken from her by death. To bo bereft of tho strong arm that sustained sus-tained her, and the tenderness and love that enfolded her is truly a sorrow's sor-row's crown of sorrow to a woman. Cannot Lose Him But tho woman who has known a good man's love and faith, and who can count over tlo happy days of her Ufo with him, and livo in the blessed memory of tho joys sho has known, can never really loso her husband, hus-band, even though ho has passed beyond be-yond the veil. Though unseen, ho abides ever with her. His wisdom still guides her. His presenco hovers about her fireside, and sho has only to send her thoughts after him Into the far country to which ho has voyaged, voy-aged, to .summon him back, and to hear onco more tho caress of his voice, to see the love light In his eyes, I and to know that dead or alive he Is' still hers. The woman who loses her husband j Is the wife whoso husband tires of hor, who ceases to care for her, and whoso heart strays off after another Tho woman who has lost her husband is the fat, grizzled, commonplace old wife who sits alone of eights, eating her soul out in impotent jealously, as. ner husband philanders with gills young enough to be nor granddaughters, granddaugh-ters, and spends on them tho money she slaved In tho early days of her wifehood to help him make. Sho is a million times more to be pitied than the widow who weeps; above the coffin of a faithful husband because she his lost both husband and her respect for him. She has not even a memory to console hor. And the mother whose children grow up to bo selfish and cruel and neglectful, who show her that they consider her a burden and that she is unwclcomo in their homes aro not these moro truly lost to hor than tho dead babes whose clinging arms she can always feel about her neck and whoso warm little mouths arc forovcr In memory clinging to her breast? Many and many a time tho only child a mother ha3 left to hor Is tho ono that lies in tho little mound in tho churchyard, Happy those who aro only separated separ-ated from their loved ones by death, for thoy shall never loso them. Dorothy Dlx'a articles wll! appear In this paper overy Monday, Wednesday Wednes-day and Friday. |