Real sorrow is no more expressed by the correctness of a mourning attire and the despair written on a face than true religious fervour is expressed by the grimaces that are made at prayer-time.

Just as we are told in the Gospel to look cheerful and not to frown and make faces when we pray, just so, I believe, those who have gone before us would advise us not to advertise the sorrow we feel at their loss, but keep it in restraint, and not surround ourselves, and especially not compel those who are living with us to be surrounded, with gloom.

The outward signs of sorrow are often exaggerated and not uncommonly nothing but acts of selfishness. The memory of the departed is better respected by control over the most sincere sorrow, and children, young ones especially, who cannot at their age realize the loss they have sustained, have a right to expect to be brought up in that cheerfulness which is the very keynote of the education of children.

The real heroine is the woman who leaves her grief in her private apartments and appears smiling and cheerful before her children. The best way to serve the dead is to live for the living. There is no courage in the display of sorrow; there is heroism in the control of it.

Great hearts understand this so well that many of them, like the late Henry Ward Beecher, desire in their wills that none of their relatives should wear mourning at their death. There is a great difference between being in mourning and being in black, and I often suspect that the more in black a person is the less in mourning he or she is.

To be able to attend minutely to all the details of a most correct mourning attire almost shows signs of recovery from the depth of the sorrow.

But even when our sorrow is deeply felt and perfectly sincere is it not an act of selfishness on our part to impose it, to intrude it, on others—even on our nearest relatives?

I admire the Quaker who, quietly, without attracting the attention of anyone at table, silently says grace before taking his meal.

How favourably he compares with the host who invites every one of his guests to bend their heads, and to listen to him while he delivers a long recital of all the favours he has received from a merciful God, and of all the favours he expects to receive in the future!

The first is a Christian, the second a conceited Pharisee. There is as much selfishness in an exaggerated display of sorrow as there is in any act that is indulged in in order to more or less command admiration.

The truly brave and courageous people are modest in their countenance; the truly religious are tolerant and forgiving; the truly great are forbearing, simple, and unaffected; the truly sorrowful remember that their griefs are personal; before strangers they are natural and even cheerful, and before their children they are careful to appear with cheerful and smiling faces.

After all, the greatest virtue, the greatest act of unselfishness, is self-control. Sorrow gives man the best opportunity for the display of this virtue.