Adjutant Booth tells the following touching story of a burial in France. The ten men of the firing party were there, and when the chaplain had read the service over the dead, the rifles of the firing party were discharged into the air, then the arms were reversed and the “Last Post” was sounded. No sooner had the sounds died away than we heard the cry of a woman. Such a wail I have seldom heard before; it seemed to chill our very souls. “Am I too late? Where is he?” she cried. I had seen grief, but never so distracted and uncontrolled. Kneeling down in the mud, she clasped the coffin containing all that was left of her husband, and in her frenzy called to him, “Oh! my darling, come back to me! How can I live forever alone?” I knelt beside her, and, taking her hand, talked to her of the hope beyond the grave, but she almost seemed past human comfort.
God’s love shines over all the sorrows of the world, and there is a land where partings are unknown, and where there is no death, and where all tears are wiped away.