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The sun that bids us rest is waking
our brethren ‘neath the western sky,
and hour by hour fresh lips are making
thy wondrous doings heard on high.

So be it, Lord; thy throne shall never
like earth’s proud empires pass away;
thy kingdom stands, and grows for ever,
till all thy creatures hold thy sway.

GONE FROM MY SIGHT: THE PARABLE OF IMMORTALITY

Natasha Bochenek

I am standing upon the sea shore.
A ship, at my side, spreads her white sails to the moving breeze
and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of
white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle
with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, ‘There, she is gone.’
Gone where?
Gone from our sight. That is all.

She is just as large in mast, hull, and spar as she was when she
left our sides, and she is just as able to bear her load to her
destined port.
Her diminished size is in us, not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, ‘There, she is gone,’
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready
to take up the glad shout,
‘Here she comes!’

Reverend Luther F Beecher [1813-1903]

DEAR BETTY

David Selman