DEATH OF MRS. ROBINSON.
It was sad and sudden news that was imparted to the people of this vicinity, last Sunday, that Mrs. Millie J. Robinson had died that day at 12 o'clock M. She had been ill for several months, and it was thought probable by her friends that she would never recover, but they did not anticipate that the end was so near. The Robinson family had moved their household goods into a house near the residence of Mrs. E.C. Sharp, sister of the deceased, and things were being put in place. Mr. Robinson was expected home on Sunday and they thought to have the house home-like on his return. But on Friday night Mrs. Robinson was taken with a bad spell and rapidly grew worse, until on Sunday she died, surrounded by loving relatives and friends, The husband arrived from Terrytown, where he is agent for the Milwaukee railroad, on the Sunday morning train.

The deceased was a native of Iowa, being born in Iowa County September 4, 1861. In 1878 she moved with her parents to Audubon. She made her home with her sister, Mrs. E.C. Sharp, for several years prior to her marriage with Mr. Robinson, which happy union occurred May 4, 1884. About eight months ago symptoms of diabetes was discovered, and she had been under treatment for that disease since that time. She leaves parents, husband, daughter, sisters and numerous other relatives and friends to mourn her death. Mrs. Robinson was a woman of loving disposition and the entire family was as affectionate as it is possible for relatives to be. The greater portion of her married life was spent in Gray, where her husband acted as agent for the Northwestern railroad, but last fall Mr. Robinson resigned that position so that he could move his family to Manning where his wife could be more in the company of her mother and sister.

The funeral services were held from the Presbyterian Church, Rev. A.W. Thompson officiating and the sermon was so good that we publish it in full. He chose for his text Job 30:23 "For I know Thou wilt bring me to death."

Job was fully satisfied in his own mind that he would die. And so are you and I as truly satisfied in our own mind that we are to die as was this patriarch of old, "For I know Thou wilt bring me to death."

We may say that there is uncertainty in other things around us, but when we come to speak of death, we speak of it with certainty. However strong, healthy, beautiful, exalted one may be, the life, the breath, will leave the body. Now alive and moving and breathing, a few moments after - dead. The pulse stopped; the blood silent in the veins and arteries; the heart has ceased to throb. Strange isn't it? Has it ever occurred to you that there was cruelty on the part of God to call us into being just for a little while as it would seem, giving us just enough time to experience what life is and then stop it? Is it really worth living? Does it pay to live - a few years at most, and then die, to close our eyes completely to this world?

Life is a mystery; death is a mystery, two of the greatest mysteries of which we can think. The one who loves mysteries does not have to go very far to find them; he does not need to search for mysteries in the life beyond this, in order to find them. There is enough in this human organism of ours to keep one's inquiries on a stretch for a whole life time.

The most learned men who have made the organism of man a life-study have said that there are many things in man that are simply unknowable. There are problems to solve found within this body of ours which no one has ever solved, or can solve until there has been a graduation in a higher department of knowledge. There are certain things which are simply unknowable. One of these is the breath of life; another, what is death? Death is no less a mystery than that life is a mystery.

It would be altogether useless on an occasion like this to take the time in trying to prove that we all must die, since you know as well as I do that we all must die, "For I know that Thou wilt, bring me to death."

I wish to speak mainly of the tendency of the life which we now live toward death, toward the thing which we call death. Among the first things that we learn, so soon as we begin to know that we have life, that we have an existence, is, that we are to die. "Dying thou shalt die," was about the first knowledge which Adam and Eve had after they had eaten of the fruit, of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Let us think awhile on this strange thing we call life and its opposite death. Look around you at any time you choose and you see things that simply exist, but they do not live. They haven't any breath; they haven't any motion of their own; they are inactive - such as a piece of wood, a piece of rock and a shovelful of earth. These things cannot die; it is only the things that live that die.

Again, where there is life there is motion. This is true from the smallest insect that moves in and through the earth, air and water up to the beings that move nearest the throne of God. Every thing that has life shows it by certain outward signs we call motion. Soon you who are now seated will rise, move about and pass out at yonder door. In other words, you and I exist; we have a being; there is that about us called life which is not said of the objects which we see around us.

Why do we live? Why do we breathe? Why are you and I different from the cause of this separation their hearts were filled with sorrow; their hearts were troubled. But it was when in trouble; it was when sorrow was on their hearts, caused by the thought of separation, that He spoke those comforting words to his disciples. He assured them that it was true that He was to go away from them; He would come to death; He would be laid away from their sight; but "I will pray the Father and He shall give you another comforter, that He may abide with you forever, for He shall dwell with you and shall be in you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance."

There is a comfort in sorrow, when Christ is our friend. There is comfort in affliction when Christ is near. What the sorrowing most want is sympathy

"We share our mutual woes
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other moves
The sympathizing tear."

There is one who sympathizes more deeply, more truly, more really, than any earthly friend. It is He who stood at the grave of Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary. He spoke comforting words to those sorrowing hearts, when He told them of the resurrection, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." Surely the gospel of Christ can give comfort to sorrowing hearts

"When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined In heart,
And hope to meet again."

Whilst there is a mystery about, death, a strangeness about it, although there is a sadness in connection with death, although it gives us pain, yet when we are joined to the religion of Christ, there is comfort mingled with sorrow.

There is a mystery about death yet not to believe that there is a future life, because we do not understand its mysteries, carries with it, in effect, a denial that there is even a present life, since the life we now live is full of inexplainable things.

Is it not better to live a life, that will give comfort in our own death and when death calls away those whose cheering presence we will deeply miss? Is it not better to live in the blessed hope of immortality, since "time hurries past us, like the breeze?" None of us have any time to lose, "as the days are going by," and as one by one is going. Be ready then to depart. Be ready then to go when summoned to go; be ye also ready, for in such an hour as you think not the Son of Man cometh, "For I know that Thou wilt bring me to death."

Mrs. Robinson received a telegram Sunday from her son, John, agent at Manning Iowa, stating that his wife, Millie, died that day at noon, April 22, 1888. Her disease was diabetes.

She leaves a little girl three years old. Miss Anna started Sunday night to assist and comfort her brother in his bereavement.

Millie was born September 4, 1861, and is buried in the Manning Cemetery.