Page:For Remembrance (ed. Repplier) 084.jpg

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the order is bright with such names, not less lovely is the chaplet we could weave this hour out of the names of the children of Eden Hall. They are of the living and of the dead,—of nuns, of wives, of mothers, of saints! Daughters who gladden the fireside and bring God's light across the hearthstone; wives who, in sharing life's burden, glorify it by faith and patience; mothers whose hands blessed their children while they lived, and whose memories bless their children's children to the second and third generations; devoted nuns of every order, whether of teaching or of ministering, of heroic expiation or of perpetual adoration. For fifty-three years Eden has sent them forth to do the work of Christ, and after three and fifty years their names are laid by Christ's angels, as a garland of beauty on the brow of their Alma Mater. Numerous, but not countless,—for they are all counted,—are those who have passed to God,—religious and children; and the Church's sweetest prayer shall to-morrow repeat: "Requiescant in corde Jesu!" They rest in God, and therefore they live to us. We invoke their presence, and we know that to our tenderest blessing on them, respond their holiest blessings on us.

Ladies, yesterday was a day of thanksgivings. To-day there is an hour for memories. And, while you, who are at once the guests and the daughters of Eden, are looking back with love, we, the children to whom life is still a mystery, are looking onward with hope. We give to you the message that Eden has put into our hand, but its meaning is clearer to you than to us: "Children of the Sacred Heart, this is forever your home! Children of Eden, its word is always Welcome; never Farewell!"



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