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An old drummer entered a town in the West a number of years ago, and began to drum to crowd that gathered. Among others came an old man with his fife. They proposed to play together. The old fifer began, but in a moment the drummer dropped his sticks, looked at the fifer, lifted the wolf skin cap he wore, and gazed intently into the old man’s face. “John, didn’t you play that at Lundy’s Lane that day, as the sun was going down?” And the fife dropped with the drum sticks, and the two old soldiers were in each other’s arms. Time had scarred them from head to foot. At first they did not recognize each other, but the music revealed the one to the other. That martial air they had played together in the storm of battle, and it unlocked the chamber of memory.
May it not be so in heaven? In the changes produced by long separation, one in heaven and the other on earth, two friends may not at first know each other. But some word spoken, or some song sung, or some touching of the keys of memory, will cause all the sweet past to live once more, and they will clasp again in all the old love’s warmth.