“What would I not give,” said Charles Lamb, “to call my dear mother back to earth for a single day, to ask her pardon, upon my knees, for all those acts by which I grieved her gentle spirit!”
Many another sensitive heart has felt the same pain when standing by a parent’s grave, and has sighed in like manner for an opportunity to speak its penitence and its cries for pardon into the dead ear. But filial love blossoms out too late when it waits till the parental ear is beyond the reach of human cry. The time for the child to show his affection and gratitude is along the years, while the father and mother are living and treading earth’s paths. If he then strews thorns for their feet, what does it avail that he brings flowers for their burial? If he dishonors them by disobedience, by unkindness, by unworthy conduct, by sin, what does it avail that he sets up the costly monument over their graves, cutting in the white marble his praises of their virtues and their faithfulness?
The place for the flowers is along the hard paths of toil and care and burden bearing. The best monument for grateful affection to erect is a noble, beautiful life, a joy to the heart and an honor in the eyes of fond parental hope. Kindness to the living is better than bitter tears of penitence over the dead.
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