Almost 400 years ago, the Reverend John Donne, the Dean of London's St. Paul's Cathedral, reflected upon the millions of people who had died in Europe during the plague several centuries earlier. Every time someone died, a church bell was rung. In a written Meditation, Donne declared that:

"The church is catholic, universal, so

are all her actions; all that she does

belongs to all. ***[W]hen she

buries a man, that action concerns

me: all mankind is of one author,

and is one volume; when one man

dies, one chapter is not torn out of

the book, but translated into a

better language. ***God's

hand is in every transaction, and

his hand shall bind up all our

scattered leaves again for that

library where every book shall

lie open one to the other."

In his famous poem of the same theme, Donne wrote that:

"No man is an island, entire

of itself; every man is a piece

of the continent, a part of the

main. ***any man's

death diminishes me, because

I am involved in mankind.

[T]herefore never send to know

for whom the bell tolls;

it tolls for thee."

As we have already recognized, the members of the Class of 1963 have been involved in mankind in a wide variety of ways and for over 40 years. We are not a group of individual islands, but rather, a very special brotherhood which is a part of the larger continent. The death of every Classmate affects us all. But, we can be certain that God's hand shall one day bind up all our scattered leaves.

Today, we honor the memory and the life's work of each departed Classmate by a reading of his name and the tolling of bells. The reading will be done by Felix Degolian and Chuck Stone.