Eternal hope - 1892 Author:Frederic William Farrar Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON II. IS LIKE WORTH LIVING?1 Ts. Ixxix. 14. ' So we that arc Thy people, and sheep of Thy pasture, will give Thee thanks for ever ; and will always... more » be shewing forth Thy praise, from generation to generation." As the first day of this month was the grand festival of All Saints, so in past centuries the second of November was set apart in honour of " All Souls." The motives which led to its abolition were doubtless adequate at the time, but yet we may be allowed to regret its abandonment. Undoubtedly there was a certain grandeur, a certain catholicity, a certain triumphant faith, a certainindomitable hope in that ancient commemoration of the departed.1 It was the feast of All Souls. It is true that it was originally intended only for the faithful departed; for the souls in purgatory. But in the title of the day at any rate there was no exception made. On that day men might think, if they would, of all the souls, of all the innocent little ones that have passed away like a breath of vernal air since time began; of all the souls which the great, and the wise, and the aged, have sighed forth in pain and weariness after long and noble lives; of all the souls of the wild races of hunters and fishermen in the boundless prairies or the icy floes; of all the souls that have passed, worn and heavy- laden, from the roaring city-streets; of all the souls of those whose life has ebbed away in the red tide of unnumbered battles, or whose bodies have been dropped into the troubled waves unknelled, uncoffined, and, save to their God, unknown ; of allthe souls even of the guilty, and of the foolish, and of the miserable, and of those who have rushed by wild self-murder into their Maker's presence. All Souls' Day was a day of supplication for, of commemoration of, all these. For the...« less