seemed to have departed, when I have almost involuntary whispered to myself, 'Surely there is not music enough in life.' And again I have been the witness of joys that seemed all too holy to be of mortal birth, when I have felt that the melodious harmony of heaven was reflected on earth in strains of sweetest music.
"My young friends, standing at the threshold of that portion of existence which yields the holiest emotions as well as the keenest afflictions, permit me as one who has experienced both its purest joys and its sacred sorrows, to assure you that in the storm as in the sunshine, God's love is over all, and you will find that not alone in the spring-time of love, when the sunny future opens in unclounded beauty before you, but in the waning summer and the chilling autumn, amid blossoming hopes and the blight of disappointments, the green tree of affection which you have planted in your hearts will put forth new verdure, and like the orange scent of these rooms, will make your souls redolent with heavenly perfume. Life is not all poetry, and in those stern prose moments which will come to you as they come to us all, may the music song of this hour, like the grand old anthem which was chanted at creation's birth, float over you as a prophetic inspiration of the future haven which shall witness the consummation of more than wedded bliss.
"Pardon me for this trespass upon the evening's festivities, and permit me to introduce you to these assembled guests as Mr. and Mrs. Livingston."
There were not many dry eyes when he closed his
