And oh, how glorious will be this reward_The Christian Home As it is in the Sphere of Nature and the Church; Showing the Mission, Duties, Influences, Habits, and Responsibilities of Home, its Education, Government, and Discipline; with Hints on "Match Making," and the Relation of Parents to the Marriage Choice of their Children; together with a consideration of the Tests in the Selection of a Companion, Etc.

again in heaven, recognize each other there, and unite their harps and

voices in ascriptions of praise to God. There in that better home, where no

separations take place, no trials are endured, no sorrows felt, no tears

shed, they shall enjoy the complete fulfillment of divine promises. Heaven,

with its unfading treasures, with its golden streets, with its crowns of

glory, with its unspeakable joys, with its river of life, and with its

anthems of praise, will be their great recompense of the reward. How the

anticipation of this should stimulate Christian parents to increased

fidelity; oh, what a happy meeting will that be, when husband and wife,

parent and child, brother and sister, after many long years of separation,

shall great each other in that glorious world, and feel that parting grief

shall weep no more!

"Oh! when a mother meets on high,

The child she lost in infancy;

Hath she not then for pains and fears,

The day of woe, the watchful night,

For all her sorrows, all her tears,

An over-payment of delight?"

With these gracious promises of reward sounding in their ears, Christian

parents should never despair; neither should they doubt for a moment the

fidelity of God to all his promises. It is true that His promises are

conditional, and their fulfillment depends upon the parent's performance

of his part as the condition, yet to every duty he has attached a promise;

and wherever He has made a promise for us, he has given us the ability to

use the means of securing its fulfillment; and as soon as their conditions

are thus met, they become absolute. "Train up a child in the way he should

go." Here is the duty. "And when he grows old he will not depart from it."

Here is the promise. The condition is, that you discharge the duty. If you

do so, the promise becomes absolute, and shall with certainty be divinely

fulfilled in your child, though the time and manner of this fulfillment may

not meet your expectations.

But some may object to this position, and remind us that pious parents are

known to have ungodly children who died in their sins. They may refer us to

the case of Absalom, and to the sons of Eli. In reply we would state that

this is begging the question. It is here taken for granted that these pious

parents did fulfill the conditions attached to the above promises. This is

a mere assumption; for Absalom was not properly trained; and both he and

the sons of Levi, were ruined by the misguided fondness and extreme

indulgence of their parents. And thus also does the foolish partiality of

many pious parents prevent their fidelity to their children. We must not

think that all pious parents are faithful to their duty to their children.

The above objection, however, assumes this ground; and, therefore, it is

not valid. It is often said that the children of ministers and pious

parents are usually more wicked than other children. This is false. The

opposite is true. We admit, some have bad children; but it is the fault of

the parents; not because God does not fulfill His covenant promises to His

people. His people, in these instances, do not meet the conditions upon

which His promises are made absolute.

We must not suppose that because a divine promise exists detached from

expressed conditions, it will be fulfilled without the use of means. There

is a manifest compatibility between the absolute promises of God and the

use of the means in our power for their fulfillment. The promise to Paul in

the ship in which he was conveyed to Rome, that none of the passengers

should perish, was not incompatible with Paul's declaration, "except these

persons abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." Neither were the efforts of

the mother of Moses to save him, incompatible with the absolute promise of

God that "this babe shall be saved, and be the deliverer of Israel." What

she did to preserve his life was accompanied with an active, confiding

faith in the divine promise concerning him. And thus should faith in God's

promises stimulate Christian parents to zealous activity in the use of all

those means which secure their fulfillment.

The Christian home should ever keep in lively remembrance the solemn

promises made by her to God. In marriage, in holy baptism, she has made

vows unto God, and he says to her, pay thy vows. "When thou shalt vow a vow

unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it; for the Lord thy

God will surely require it of thee." These parental promises made to God

regard themselves and their children; and their faithful fulfillment brings

them within the glorious promise which God gave to Abraham; for, says Paul,

"If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the

promise:" Gal. iii., 29.

Christian parents: the promises of God shine forth as brilliantly now as

over they did upon the pages of sacred history. They are as bright for you

as they were for Abraham and Joshua, when they trembled in sublime

eloquence upon the lips of God. Let them, therefore, be not in vain. The

promises are unto you, and to your children. And you in turn have promised

God that you would bless your household, and be faithful to your children.

Hold, fast to these promises without wavering. Hang all your hopes upon

them. Cling to them with the wrestling spirit of Jacob. And remember that

you cannot shake off your vows and promises made to God. He will sorely

require it of thee. Therefore pay thy vows unto the Lord. God will reward

you for so doing. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed;

but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of

my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee:" Isaiah liv.,

10.

[Illustration: Rural Landscape.]

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE BEREAVEMENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN HOME.[A]

[Footnote A: In this chapter we have made free use of poetical quotations

for the benefit of the afflicted.]

"On, long ago

Those blessed days departed, we are reft,

And scattered like the leaves of some fair rose,

That fall off one by one upon the breeze,

Which bears them where it listeth. Never more

Can they be gathered and become a rose.

And we can be united never more

A family on earth!"

Bereavement involves the providential discipline of home. In almost every

household there have been sorrows and tears as well as joys and hopes. As

the Christian home is the depository of the highest interests and the

purest pleasures, so it is the scene of sad bereavements and of the darkest

trials. It may become as desolate as the home of Job. The Christian may,

like the aged tree, be stripped of his clusters, his branches, all his

summer glory, and sink down into a lonely and dreary existence. His home,

which once rang with glad voices, may become silent and sad and hopeless.

Those hearts which once beat with life and love, may become still and cold;

and all the earthly interests which clustered around his fireside may pass

away like the dream of an hour!

The members of home must separate. Theirs is but a probationary state.

Their household is but a tent,--a tabernacle in the flesh, and all that it

contains will pass away. The fondest ties will be broken; the brightest

hopes will fade; all its joys are transient; its interests meteoric, and

the fireside of cheerfulness will ere long become the scene of despondency.

Every swing of the pendulum of the clock tells that the time of its

probation is becoming shorter and shorter, and that its members are

approaching nearer and nearer the period of their separation.

"There is no union here of hearts,

That finds not here an end."

Alas! how soon this takes place! The joy of home would be perfect did not

the thought of a speedy separation intrude. No sooner than the voice of

childhood is changed, than separation begins to take place. Some separate

for another world; some are borne by the winds and waves to distant lands;

others enter the deep forests of the West, and are heard of no more;--

"Alas! the brother knows not now where fall the sister's tears!

One haply revels at the feast, while one may droop alone;

For broken is the household chain,--the bright fire quenched and gone!"

What melancholy feelings are awakened within at the sight of a deserted

home, in which loved ones once met and lived and loved; but from which they

have now wandered, each in the path pointed out by the guiding hand of

Providence. How beautifully does Mrs. Hemans portray this separation in the

following admirable lines!--

"They grew in beauty side by side,

They filled one home with glee;

Their graves are severed, far and wide,

By mount, and stream, and sea.

"The same fond mother bent at night

O'er each fair sleeping brow;

She had each folded flower in sight--

Where are those dreamers now?

"One midst the forests of the West

By a dark stream is laid;

The Indian knows his place of rest

Far in the cedar shade.

"The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,

He lies where pearls lie deep;

He was the loved of all, yet none

O'er his low bed may weep.

"One sleeps where southern vines are dress'd,

Above the noble slain;

He wrapped his colors round his breast,

On a blood-red field of Spain.

"And one--o'er her the myrtle showers,

Its leaves by soft winds fanned;

She faded midst Italian flowers--

The last of that fair band.

"And parted thus, they rest, who played

Beneath the same green tree;

Whose voices mingled as they prayed

Around one parent knee!"

It is thus in almost every household. The members may be divided into two

classes,--the present and the absent ones. Who may not say of his family--

"We are not all here!

Some are away--the dead ones dear,

Who thronged with us this ancient hearth,

And gave the hour of guiltless mirth.

Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,

Looked in and thinned our little band.

Some like a night-flash passed away,

And some sank lingering day by day,

The quiet graveyard--some lie there,--

We're not all here!"

The bereavements of home are diversified. The reverses of fortune

constitute an important class of family afflictions, causing the habits,

customs, social privileges and advantages of home to be broken up and

changed. Many a family, which, in former days, enjoyed all the pleasures

and privileges of wealth and social distinction, have now to struggle with

cruel poverty, and receive from the world, scorn and ridicule and dishonor.

But the greatest bereavement of home is, generally, death. They only, who

have lived in the house of mourning, know what the sad bereavements are

which death produces, and what deep and dark vacancies this last enemy

leaves in the stricken heart of home.

"The lips that used to bless you there,

Are silent with the dead."

To-day we may visit the family. What a lovely scene it presents! The

members are happy in each other's love, and each one resting his hopes upon

all the rest. No cares perplex them; no sorrows corrode them; no trials

distress them; no darkness overshadows them! What tender bonds unite them;

what hopes cluster around each heart; what a depth of reciprocated

affection we find in each bosom; and by what tender sympathy they are drawn

to each other!

But alas! in an hour of supposed security, that loving group is broken up

by the intrusion of death, and some one or more carried from the bosom of

love to the cold and cheerless grave. The curfew-bell speaks the solemn

truth, and warns the members that "in the midst of life they are in death."

Where is the home that has not some memorial of departed ones,--a chair

empty, a vacant seat at the table,--garments laid by,--ashes of the dead

treasured up in the urn of memory! What sudden ravages does this ruthless

foe of life, often make in the family! The members are often taken away,

one by one in quick succession, until all of them are laid, side by side

beneath the green sod.

What a memorable epoch in the history of home is that, in which death finds

his first entrance within its sacred enclosures, and with ruthless hand

breaks the first link of a golden chain that creates its identity! We can

never forget that event. It may he the first-born in the radiant beauty of

youth, or the babe in the first bursting of life's budding loveliness, or a

father in the midst of his anxious cares, or the mother who gave light and

happiness to all around her. Whoever it is, the first death makes a breach

there which no subsequent bereavement can equal; new feelings are then

awakened; a new order of associations is then commenced; hopes and fears

are then aroused that never subside; and the mysterious web of family life

receives the hue of a new and darker thread.

What a sad bereavement is the death of the husband and father! Children!

there is the grave of your father! You have recently heard the clods of the

valley groan upon his coffin. The parent stem from which, you grew and to

which, you fondly clung, has been shattered by the lightning-stroke of

death, and its terrible shock is now felt in every fiber of the wrenched

and torn branches. Yours is now a widowed and an orphaned home. The

disconsolate members are left helpless and hopeless in the world; the

widowed mother sits by the dying embers of her lonely cottage, overwhelmed

with grief, and poor in everything but her children and her God. These

orphans are turned out upon the cold charities of an unfriendly world,

neglected and forlorn, having no one to care for them but a poor,

broken-hearted mother, whose deathless faith points them to the bright

spirit-world to which their sainted father has gone, where parting grief

shall weep no more.

But a greater bereavement even than this, is, the death of a wife and

mother. Ah! here is a bereavement which the child alone can fully feel.

When the mother is laid upon the cold bier, and sleeps among the dead, the

center of home-love and attraction is gone. What children are more desolate

and more to be pitied than the motherless ones? She, who fed them from her

gentle breast and sung sweet lullaby to soothe them into sleep,--she, who

taught them to kneel in prayer at her side, and ministered to all their

little wants, and sympathized with them in all their little troubles,--she

has now been torn from them, leaving them a smitten flock indeed, and the

light of her smile will never again be round their beds and paths. As the

shades of night close in upon that smitten home, and the chime of the bell

tells the hour in which the mother used to gather them around her for

prayer, and sing them to their rosy rest, with what a stricken heart does

the bereaved husband seek to perform this office of love in her stead; and

as he gathers them for the first time around him, how fully does he feel

that none can take a mother's place!

"My sheltering arms can clasp you all,

My poor deserted throng;

Cling as you used to cling to her

Who sings the angel's song.

Begin, sweet ones, the accustomed strain,

Come, warble loud and clear;

Alas, alas! you're weeping all,

You're sobbing in my ear;

Good night; go, say the prayer she taught,

Beside your little bed.

The lips that used to bless you there,

Are silent with the dead.

A father's hand your course may guide

Amid the storms of life,

His care protect those shrinking plants

That dread the storm of strife;

But who, upon your infant hearts,

Shall like that mother write?

Who touch the strings that rule the soul?

Dear smitten flock, good night!"

Who can forget a mother, or lose those impressions which her death made

upon our deeply stricken hearts? None,--not even the wretch who has

brutalized all the feelings of natural affection. The memory of a mother's

death is as fadeless as the deep impress of a mother's love upon our

hearts. As often as we resort to her grave we must leave behind the

tribute of our tears. Who can read the following beautiful lines of Cowper,

and--if the memory of a sainted mother is awakened by them,--not weep?

"My mother! When I learned that thou wast dead,

Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?

Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son,

Wretch even then, life's journey just begun!

Perhaps thou gay'st me, though unfelt, a kiss;

Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss--

Ah, that maternal smile! it answers--yes!

I heard the bell toll on the burial day,

I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,

And, turning from my nurs'ry window, drew

A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!

But was it such? It was. Where thou art gone.

Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.

May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,

The parting word shall pass my lips no more!"

The death of children is a great bereavement of home. Behold that little

blossom withered in its mother's arms! See those tears which flood her eyes

as she bends in her deep grief over the grave of her cherished babe! Go,

fond parents, to that little mound, and weep! It is well to do so; it is

well for thee in the twilight hour to steal around that hallowed spot, and

pay the tribute of memory to your little one, in flooding tears. There

beneath those blooming flowers which the hand of affection planted, it

sweetly sleeps. It bids adieu to all the scenes and cares of life. It just

began to taste the cup of life, and turned from its ingredients of

commingled joy and sorrow, to a more peaceful clime. Cold now is that

little heart which once beat its warm pulses so near to thine; hushed is

now that sweet voice that once breathed music to your soul. Like the

folding up of the rose, it passed away; that beautiful bud which bloomed

and cheered your heart, was transplanted ere the storm beat upon it:--

"Death found strange beauty on that polished brow,

And dashed it out--

There was a tint of rose

On cheek and lip. He touched the veins with ice,

And the rose faded.

Forth from those blue eyes

There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt

Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence

Alone may wear. With ruthless haste he bound

The silken fringes of those curtained lids

Forever.

There had been a murmuring sound,

With which the babe would claim its mother's ear,

Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set

His seal of silence.

But there beamed a smile

So fixed, so holy, from that cherub brow,

Death gazed--and left it there.

He dared not steal

The signet-ring of heaven!"

The death of such an infant is indeed a sore affliction, and causes the

bleeding heart of the parent to cry out, "Whose sorrow is like unto my

sorrow!" Unfeeling Death! that thou shouldst thus blight the fair flowers

and nip the unfolding buds of promise in the Christian home!

"Death! thou dread looser of the dearest tie,

Was there no aged and no sick one nigh?

No languid wretch who long'd, but long'd in vain,

For thy cold hand to cool his fiery pain?

And was the only victim thou couldst find,

An infant in its mother's arms reclined?"

Thus it is that death often turns from the sickly to the healthy, from the

decrepitude of age to the strong man in his prime, from the miserable

wretch who longs for the grave to the smiling babe upon its mother's

breast, and there in those "azure veins which steal like streams along a

field of snow," he pours his putrefying breath, and leaves within that

mother's arms nothing but loathsomeness and ruin! It was thus, bereaved

parents, that he came within your peaceful home, and threw a cruel mockery

over all your visions of delight, over all the joys and hopes and interests

of your fireside, personifying their wreck in the cold and ghastly corpse

of your child. All that is now left to you is, the memorials around you

that once the pride of your heart was there;--

"The nursery shows thy pictured wall,

Thy bat, thy bow,

Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball,

But where art thou?

A corner holds thine empty chair,

Thy playthings idly scattered there,

But speak to us of our despair!"

How sad and lonely especially is the mother who is called thus to weep the

loss of her departed infant. Oh, it is hard for her to give up that loved

one whose smile and childish glee were the light and the hope of her heart.

As she lays it in the cold, damp earth, and returns to her house of

mourning, and there contemplates its empty cradle, and that silent nursery,

once gladsome with its mirth, she feels the sinking weight of her

desolation. No light, no luxury, no friend, can fill the place of her lost

one.

And especially if this lost one be the first-born,--the first bud of

promise and of hope, how doubly painful is the bereavement. It makes our

home as dark and desolate as was the hour when Abraham with uplifted knife,

was about to send death to the throbbing heart of his beloved Isaac.

Nothing can supply the place of a first-born child; and home can never be

what it was when the sweet voice of that first-born child was heard. The

first green leaf of that household has faded; and though leaves may put

forth, and other buds of promise may unfold, and bright faces may light up

the home-hearth, and the sunshine of hope may play around the heart; but--

"They never can replace the bud our early fondness nurst,

They may be lovely and beloved, but not like thee--the first!"

Your heart continues lonely and desolate; its strings are broken; its

tenderest fibers wrenched; you continue to steal "beneath, the church-yard

tree, where the grass grows green and wild," and there weep over the grave

of your first maternal love; and like Rachael, refuse to be comforted

because he is not. Your grief is natural, and only those who have lost

their first-born can fully realize it:--

"Young mother! what can feeble friendship say,

To soothe the anguish of this mournful day?

They, they alone, whose hearts like thine have bled,

Know how the living sorrow for the dead;

I've felt it all,--alas! too well I know

How vain all earthly power to hush thy woe!

God cheer thee, childless mother! 'tis not given

For man to ward the blow that falls from heaven.

I've felt it all--as thou art feeling now;

Like thee, with stricken heart and aching brow,

I've sat and watched by dying beauty's bed,

And burning tears of hopeless anguish shed;

I've gazed upon the sweet, but pallid face,

And vainly tried some comfort there to trace;

I've listened to the short and struggling breath;

I've seen the cherub eye grow dim in death;

Like thee, I've veiled my head in speechless gloom,

And laid my first-born in the silent tomb!"

Now in all these bereavements of the Christian home we have developed the

wisdom and goodness of God; and the consideration of this we commend to the

bereaved as a great comfort. They are but the execution of God's merciful

design concerning the family. Pious parents can, therefore, bless the Lord

for these afflictions. It is often well for both you and your children that

bereavements come. They come often as the ministers of grace. The tendency

of home is to confine its supreme affections within itself, and not yield

them unto God. Parents often bestow upon their children all their love, and

live for them alone. Then God lays his rod upon them, takes their loved

ones to his own arms, to show them the folly of using them as abusing them.

If home had no such bereavements, eternity would be lost sight of; God

would not be obeyed; souls would be neglected; natural affection would

crush the higher incentives and restraints of faith; earthly interests

would push from our hearts all spiritual concerns; and our tent-home in

this vale of tears would be substituted for our heavenly home. We see,

therefore, the benevolent wisdom of God in ordaining bereavements to arrest

us from the control of unsanctified natural affection. When we see the

flowers of our household withered and strewn around us; when that which we

most tenderly loved and clung to, is taken from us in an unexpected hour,

we begin to see the futility of living for earthly interests alone; and we

turn from the lamented dead to be more faithful to the cherished and

dependent living.

Let us, therefore, remember that in all our afflictions God has some

merciful design, the execution of which will contribute to the temporal and

eternal welfare of our home. He designs either to correct us if we do

wrong, or to prevent us from doing wrong, or to test our Christian

fidelity, or to instruct us in the deep mysteries and meandering ways of

human life, and keep before us the true idea of our homes and lives as a

pilgrimage. Nothing, save supernatural agencies, so effectually removes the

moral film from our intellectual eye as the hand of bereavement. Death is a

great teacher. Sources of pensive reflection and spiritual communion are

opened, which none but death could unseal. A proper sense of the

spirit-world is developed; life appears in its naked reality; heaven gains

new attractions; eternity becomes a holier theme,--a more cheerful object

of thought; the true relation of this to the life to come, is realized; and

the presence of the world of the unseen enters more deeply into our moral

consciousness.

Though our loved ones are gone, they are still with us in spirit; yea, they

are ours still, in the best sense of possession; our relationship with them

is not destroyed, but hallowed. Though absent, they still live and love;

and they come thronging as ministering spirits to our hearts; they hover

near us, and commune with us. Though death may separate us from them, it

does not disunite us. Your departed children, though separated from you in

body, are still yours, are with you in spirit, and are members of your

family. They represent your household in heaven, and are a promise that you

will be there also. You are still their parents; you are still one

family,--one in spirit, in faith, in hope, in promise, in Christ. You still

dwell together in the fond memories of home, and in the bright

anticipation of a coming reunion in heaven. Oh, with this view of death

and with this hope of joining love's buried ones again, you can gather

those that yet remain, and talk to them of those you put, cold and

speechless, in their bed of clay; and while their bodies lie exposed to the

winter's storm or to the summer's heat, you can point the living to that

cheering promise which spans, as with an areole of glory, the graves of

buried love; you can tell them they shall meet their departed kindred in a

better home. Oh, clasp this promise to your aching heart; treasure it up as

a pearl of great price. Your departed children are not lost to you; and

their death to them is great gain. They are not lost, but only sent before.

"The Lord, has taken them away." With these views of death before you, and

with the moral instructions they afford, you cannot but feel that your

children, though absent from you in body, are with you in spirit,--are

still living with you in your household, and are among that spirit-throng

which ever press around you, to bear you up lest you dash your foot against

a stone. Such were the feelings of the Christian father, as expressed in

the following touching lines:--

"I cannot make him dead!

When passing by his bed,

So long watched over with parental care,

My spirit and my eye

Seek it inquiringly,

Before the thought comes that--he is not there!

"When at the day's calm close

Before we seek repose,

I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer,

Whate'er I may be saying,

I am, in spirit, praying

For our boy's spirit, though--he is not there!

"Not there? Where, then, is he?

The form I used to see

Was but the raiment that he used to wear.

The grave, that now doth press

Upon that cast-off dress,

Is but his wardrobe locked;--he is not there!

"He lives! In all the past

He lives; nor, to the last,

Of seeing him again will I despair;

In dreams I see him now,

And on his angel brow,

I see it written, 'Thou shalt see me there!'

"Yes, we all live to God!

Father, thy chastening rod

So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear,

That in the spirit-land,

Meeting at thy right hand,

'Twill he our heaven to find that--he is there!"

From this view of the educational principle involved in all our

bereavements, we may easily infer that God designs to benefit us by them.

There is an actual usefulness in all the bereavements of the Christian

home. They are but the discipline of a Father's hand and the ministration

of a Father's love. Though His face may wear a dark frown, or be hid

behind the tempest-cloud, and His rod may be laid heavily upon you, yet you

are not warranted to believe that no sweet is in the bitter cup you drink,

that no light shines behind the cloud, or that no good dwells in the

bursting storm around you. The present may indeed he dark; but the future

will be bright and laden with a Father's blessing. The smile will succeed

the frown; the balm will follow the rod. The good seed will be sown after

the deep furrows are made. "No chastening for the present seemeth joyous,

but grievous, yet it worketh out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of

glory to them that are exercised thereby." The memory that lingers around

the grave of our loved ones, is sad and tearful. The stricken heart heaves

with emotions too big for utterance, when we hear no more the sound of

their accustomed footsteps upon the threshold of our door. Oh, the cup of

bereavement is then bitter, its hour dark, and the pall of desolation hangs

heavily around our hearts and homes.

But this is only the dark side of bereavement. The eye which then weeps may

fail at the time to behold through its tears, the quickening, softening,

subduing and resuscitating power which dwells in the clouds of darkness and

of storm; and the heart, wounded and bleeding, too often fails to realize

the light and glory which loom up from the grave. But when we look upon the

cold, pale face of the dead, in the light of a hopeful resurrection; when

their silent forms move in the light of those saving influences which have

been exerted upon us, we learn the necessity of bereavement; the mournful

cypress will become more beautiful than the palm tree, and in view of its

saving power over us, we can say, "it is good for us that we have been

afflicted!"

"The path of sorrow, and that path alone,

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

No traveler e'er reached that blest abode,

Who found not thorns and briers in his road.

For He who knew what human hearts would prove,

How slow to learn the dictates of His love;

That, hard by nature and of stubborn will,

A life of ease would make them, harder still;

Called for a cloud to darken all their years,

And said, 'Go, spend them in the vale of tears!'"

Who will not admit that it is an act of real kindness for God to remove

little children from this world, and at once take them as His own in

heaven? This is surely an act of His mercy, and for their benefit. It

arrests them from the perils and tribulations of mature life; it makes

their pilgrimage through this vale of tears, of short duration; they escape

thereby the bitter cup of actual sin, and the mental and moral agonies of

death. It is well with them. How true are the following beautiful verses on

the death of children, from the pen of John. Q. Adams:--

"Sure, to the mansions of the blest

When infant innocence ascends,

Some angel brighter than the rest

The spotless spirit's flight attends.

On wings of ecstasy they rise,

Beyond where worlds material roll,

Till some fair sister of the skies,

Receives the unpolluted soul.

There at the Almighty Father's hand,

Nearest the throne of living light,

The choirs of infant seraphs stand,

And dazzling shine, where all are bright!"

Christ became a little child, that little children might receive the crown

of their age and be eternally saved. He took them in His arms, blessed

them, and said, "of such is the kingdom of heaven." And we are told that

"out of the mouths of babes and sucklings He has ordained strength." The

sweetest hosannas before His throne, doubtless proceed from cherub-lips,

and they glow nearest to the bright vision of the face of unveiled glory.

"Calm on the bosom of thy God,

Young spirits! rest thee now!

Even while with us thy footsteps trod,

His seal was on thy brow."

They stand before the throne in white robes, with palms in their hands, and

crowns of glory on their heads, crying-out, "Salvation to our God, which

sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb!" Tell me, does not this view

dilate the parent's heart, and make him thankful that he has a sainted

child in heaven? Weep for those you have with you, who live under the

shades of a moral death, who have entered upon a thorny pilgrimage, and

are exposed to the ravages of sin; oh, weep for them!--

"But never be a tear-drop given

To those that rest in yon blue heaven."

The sainted dead of your home are more blessed than the pilgrim living.

Weep not, then, that they are gone. Their early departure was to them great

gain. Had they been spared to grow up to manhood, you then might have to

take up the lamentation of David, "Would to God I had died for thee!" While

they, in the culprit's cell, or on the dying couch of the hopeless

impenitent, would respond to you in tones of deepening woe,--

"Would I had died when young!

How many burning tears,

And wasted hopes and severed ties,

Had spared my after years!"

Would you, then, to gratify a parent's heart, awake that little slumberer

from its peaceful repose, and recall its happy spirit from its realms of

glory? There the light of heaven irradiates it; its visions are unclouded

there; and from those battlements of uncreated glory it comes to thee on

errands of love and mercy. Would you, now, that this inhabitant of heaven

should be degraded to earth again? Would you remove him from those rivers

of delight to this dry and thirsty land? Would not this be cruel?

When, therefore, your babe is taken from you, regard it as a kind deed of

your heavenly Father, and say, "even so it seemeth good in thy sight:"

"Pour not the voice of woe!

Shed not a burning tear

When spirits from the cold earth go,

Too bright to linger here!

Unsullied let them pass

Into oblivion's tomb--

Like snow-flakes melting in the sea

When ripe with vestal bloom.

Then strew fresh flowers above the grave,

And let the tall grass o'er it wave."

But the death of little children is a great mercy, not only to themselves,

but also to the living. Those that remain behind are greatly benefited

thereby. It exerts a sanctifying, elevating and alluring influence over

them. As they pass in their bright pathway to heaven, they leave a blessing

behind. God takes them in goodness to us. The interests of the parents are

not different from, or opposed to, those of their offspring. The happiness

of the latter is that of the former. If, therefore, their death is their

blessing, it must be the parent's blessing also. "If love," says Baxter,

"teaches us to mourn with them that mourn, and rejoice with them that

rejoice, then can we mourn for those of our children that are possessed of

the highest everlasting happiness?"

It is true, their sweet faces, unfurrowed by guilt or shame, we shall

never more gaze upon; the sound of their happy lullaby we shall never again

hear. They are gone now to the spirit-land. But a parent's care and

solicitude are also gone. All alarm for their safety is gone; and you now

rejoice in the assurance that they have gone to a higher and happier home;

and can joyfully exclaim now with Leigh Richmond, "My child is a saint in

glory!" His infant powers, so speedily paralyzed by the ruthless hand of

death, are now expanding themselves amidst the untold glories of the

heavenly world, and are enlisted now in ministering to his pilgrim kindred

on earth.

It is true, your children were a source of great joy to you here.

Insensibly did they entwine themselves around your heart, and with all the

wild ecstasy of maternal love, you embraced them, as they attached

themselves, like the slender vine, to you. They were indeed, the life and

light of your home, and the deepest joy of your heart. But if they had

lived, might they not also have been a source of the deepest sorrow and

misery? Might they not have drawn your souls from God and heaven, causing

you to live alone for them, and bringing eventually your gray hairs down

with sorrow to the grave?

But you have watched at their dying couch, and seen them die; and in that

death you have also seen the departure of all such fears and dangers. They

are now transplanted to a more congenial clime, where they will bloom

forever in unfading loveliness, and from which they will come on errands

of ministering love to your household:--

"They come, on the wings of the morning they come,

Impatient to lead some poor wanderer home;

Some pilgrim to snatch from his stormy abode,

And lay him to rest in the arms of his God!"

One of the greatest blessings which the death of our pious kindred confers

upon their bereaved friends is, that they hold a saving communion with

them, and are ministering spirits sent to minister salvation and

consolation unto them.

"The saints on earth, and all the dead,

But one communion make."

They constitute our guardian angels; they witness our Christian race; they

commune with our spirits; they link us to the spirit-world; they impress us

with its deep mysteries; they stimulate our religious life, and bear us up

lest we dash our feet against the pebble which lies in our pathway to the

mansions of the blest. The mother who bends in the deep anguish of her

soul, over the little grave in which her infant slumbers, has in heaven a

cherub spirit to minister to her. And oh, could the veil which wraps the

spirit-world from our view, be now removed, and we permitted to catch a

glimpse of the heavenly scene there displayed, we should doubtless behold

on the threshold of that better home, an innumerable host witnessing with,

intensity of interest, the scenes of human life; and no doubt to you,

bereaved friend, the most conspicuous among that celestial throng, would be

the sainted form of that dear one whose grave you often adorn with the warm

tribute of memory's gushing tears. And oh, could you understand the

relation in which that sainted one stands to you, you would doubtless be

conscious that over and about you it hovers from day to day as your

guardian spirit, watching all the details of your life, soothing the

anguish of your troubled heart, and ministering unto you in holy things!

"The spirits of the loved and departed

Are with us; and they tell us of the sky,

A rest for the bereaved and broken-hearted,

A house not made with hands, a home on high!

They have gone from us, and the grave is strong!

Yet in night's silent watches they are near;

Their voices linger round us, as the song

Of the sweet skylark lingers on the ear."

The whole dispensation of grace is like the ladder set up on earth, whose

top reached heaven, and upon which Jacob saw the angels ascending; and

descending. As the Christian pilgrim in his spiritual progression mounts

each round of this ladder, he finds himself in the midst of a spirit-throng

ascending and descending on errands of love and mercy to him; yea, the

canopy of the sky seems lined with so great a cloud, of witnesses and

ministering spirits; and among them we behold our sainted friends bidding

us climb on to their lofty abodes; they beckon us to themselves; their

voices animate us, as they steal down upon our spirits in solemn and

beautiful cadence.

"Hark! heard ye not a sound

Sweeter than wild-bird's note, or minstrel's lay!

I know that music well, for night and day

I hear it echoing round.

"It is the tuneful chime

Of spirit-voices!--'tis my infant band

Calling the mourner from this darkened land

To joy's unclouded clime.

"My beautiful, my blest!

I see them there, by the great Spirit's throne;

With winning words, and fond beseeching tone,

They woo me to my rest!"

Weeping mother! that little babe, whose spirit has been borne by angels to

heaven, where it now glows in visions of loveliness around God's throne,

comes often as a ministering spirit to thee, whispers peace and hope to thy

disconsolate heart, and with its tiny hands bears thee up in thy dark and

troubled path! And my dear bereaved young friend! that mother, who nursed

you on her knee, who taught your infant lips to lisp the name of Jesus, and

amid whose prayers you have grown up to maturity,--that sainted mother over

whose grave you have often wept in bitter anguish, hovers over you now with

all the passionate fondness of a mother's love, guides and impresses you,

attends you in all your walks, takes charge of you in all your steps;

soothes you in your sorrows; and when burning with fever on the sick bed,

fans you with angel wing and breath, and warms your chilled nerves with an

angel's heart!

Now when we regard the departed of our homes in this light, shall we not

admit that the death of those who go to heaven is a blessing, not only to

them, but to those they leave behind! And especially when we remember that

they return to us in spirit to minister to our wants even unto the smallest

details of life, that they are our guardian angels, are with, us wherever

we go, to warn and deliver us from temptation and clanger, to urge us in

the path of duty, to smooth our pillow when thrown upon beds of

languishing, and then, when the vital spark has fled, to convey us to the

paradise of God,--oh, when we remember this, we say, shall we not rather

bless God that He has afflicted us? Though our hearts may be lonely, yet

with this view of the departed ones of our home, we can feel that we are,

nevertheless, not alone.

"I am not quite alone. Around me glide

Unnumbered beings of the unseen world;--

And one dear spirit hovering by my side,

Hath o'er my form its snow-white wings unfurled,

It is a token that when death is nigh,

It then will wait to hear my soul on high!"

What afflicted heart will not respond with deep and grateful emotion, to

the following beautiful address of a bereaved pilgrim to his sainted loved

ones in heaven:--

"Gone!--have ye all then gone,--

The good, the beautiful, the kind, the dear?

Passed to your glorious rest so swiftly on,

And left me weeping here?

"I gaze on your bright track;

I hear your lessening voices as they go;

Have ye no sign, no solace to fling back

To those who toil below?

"Oh! from that land of love,

Look ye not sometimes on this world of wo?

Think ye not, dear ones, in brighter bowers above,

Of those you left below?

"Surely ye note us here,

Though not as we appear to mortal view,

And can we still, with all our stains, be dear

To spirits pure as you?

"Is it a fair, fond thought,

That you may still our friends and guardians be;

And heaven's high ministry by you be wrought

With objects low as we?

"May we not secretly hope,

That you around our path and bed may dwell?

And shall not all, our blessings brighter drop

From hands we loved so well?

"Shall we not feel you near

In hours of danger, solitude, and pain,

Cheering the darkness, drying off the tear

And turning loss to gain?

"Shall not your gentle voice

Break on temptation's dark and sullen mood,

Subdue our erring will, o'errule our choice,

And win from ill to good?

"Oh, yes! to us, to us,

A portion of your converse still be given!

Struggling affection still would hold us thus,

Nor yield you all to heaven!

"Lead our faint steps to God;

Be with us while the desert here we roam;

Teach us to tread the path which you have trod,

To find with you our home!"

What a comfort does this view of the pious dead afford the pious living. We

commend it now to you. What consolation to the bereaved parents is the

assurance that all infants are saved! This gives them "beauty for ashes,

the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of

heaviness." Your infant has gone to heaven; for "of such is the kingdom of

heaven." Zuinlius was perhaps the first who proclaimed salvation for all

who died in infancy. He based this doctrine, so comforting to the afflicted

parent, upon the atonement of Christ for all; and he believed that Christ

made provision for infants in this general atonement or redemption of human

nature. This is the general belief now. Calvin declared that "God adopts

infants and washes them in the blood of his son," and that "they are

regarded by Christ as among His flock." Dr. Junkin says, "It is not

inconsistent with any doctrine of the bible, that the souls of deceased

infants go to heaven." Newton says, "I hope you are both well reconciled to

the death of your child. Indeed, I cannot be sorry for the death of

infants. How many storms do they escape! Nor can I doubt, in my private

judgment, that they are included in the election of grace." This is the

opinion, too, of all evangelical branches of the Christian church. If so,

you have here a source of great consolation.

"Though it he hard to bid thy heart divide,

And lay the gem of all thy love aside--

Faith tells thee, and it tells thee not in vain,

That thou shalt meet thy infant yet again."

What, oh, what, if you had not the assurance of the salvation of all

infants? What if your faith would tell you that all children who die before

they can exercise faith would he lost or annihilated! Then indeed you might

well refuse to be comforted because they are not. But your child is not

lost,--but only removed to a better home:--

"A treasure but removed,

A bright bird parted for a clearer day--

Yours still in heaven!"

And yours to meet there! The hope of a glorious reunion with, departed

friends in heaven, lifts the afflicted Christian into regions of happiness

never before enjoyed. And as he contemplates their better state, and, muses

over the trials and sorrows of his pilgrim land, he longs to pass over the

stream which divides that happy home from this. He is grateful to God that

heaven has thus become doubly attractive by his bereavement, and that he

can look forward with fond anticipation, to the time when he shall there

become reunited with those who have gone before.

"Oh! I could weep

With very gratitude that thou art saved--

Thy soul forever saved. What though my heart

Should bleed at every pore--still thou art blessed.

There is an hour, my precious innocent,

When we shall meet again! Oh! may we meet

To separate no more. Yes! I can smile,

And sing with gratitude, and weep with joy,

Even while my heart is breaking!"

We infer from the whole subject, that we should not murmur against God when

afflicted, however great our bereavements may he. This does not, of course,

forbid godly sorrow and tears. It is not inconsistent to weep; neither does

sorrow for the dead, as such, imply a murmuring spirit. Christ himself

invited to tears when he wept over the grave of his friend Lazarus. It is

meet that we pay our tribute to departed kindred, in falling tears. These

are not selfish; neither is the sorrow they express, a sin, nor an evidence

of filial distrust, or of reluctant submission to the will of God. The

unfeeling stoic may regard it such; but he outrages the generous impulses

of humanity. Undefiled religion does not aim to cancel natural affection.

Our piety, if genuine, will not make us guilty of crimes against nature,

and prompt us to bend with apathy over the grave of buried, love. The

mother of Jesus wept her pungent woes beneath the Cross; and the Marys

dropt the tear of sorrowing love and memory at the mouth of his sepulchre.

And shall we refuse the tribute of sorrow to the memory of those dear ones

who sleep beneath the sod? To do so would, but unchristianize the deep

grief which bereavement awakens, and which true piety sanctifies; it would

unhumanize the very constitution of home itself. To be Christians, must the

unnumbered memories of life be all without a tear? When we walk in the

family grave-yard, and think of the loved who slumber there; when we open

the family bible, and read, there the names of those who have gone before

us, say, shall this awaken no slumbering grief, invite no warm, gushing

tears, and not bear us back to scenes of tenderness and love?

Ah, no! The gospel encourages godly sorrow over the dead. We are permitted

to sorrow, only not as those who have no hope, as not being cast down, and

as not being disquieted within us. Such godly sorrow is refreshing, and the

tears it sheds are a balm to the wounded spirit. They refine our

sentiments, and beget longings after a better country. The memory of

bereaved affection is grief. In traversing the past, our thoughts glide

along a procession of dear events arrested by the tomb; and we become sad

and weep. But this is not inconsistent with a confiding faith in God, nor

with a meek: resignation to His afflicting providence. Faith was not

designed to overpower a visible privation. When death enters our home we

should feel pungently, though we have the faith of an angel, and weep

before the smile of God. The evidences of faith, and the brilliant

idealities of hope will hush the voice of murmur, and incite us to kiss the

rod that is laid upon us.

It is, therefore, a Christian privilege to weep over the death of our

departed kindred, yea, who can stifle the anguish of the heart when the

tender flowers of home sink into the waxen form of death? when the

flickering flame of infant life burns lower and weaker; when the

death-glazed eye is closed, and the little bosom heaves no more, and that

lovely form becomes cold as the grave, what parental heart can then remain

unmoved, and what eye can then forbid a tear? Not even the assurance of

infant salvation and the hope of reunion in heaven, can prevent sorrow for

the dead.

"To think his child is blest above,

To pray their parting grief,

These, these may soothe, but death alone,

Can heal a father's grief."

But this grief should never amount to dissatisfaction with God. Though it

is right to weep, it is wrong to murmur. Many parents murmuringly mourn

the loss of their children, and in wrestling with God to spare them, betray

the want of a true submission to His will. It is sinful to murmur at the

decrees of God. We have seen that they are wise, and all designed for our

good. Methinks if your dying babe could respond to your murmuring sighs and

tears around its crib, it would thus reprove you:--

"Nay, mother, fix not thus on me

That streaming eye,

And clasp not thus my freezing hand;

For I must die.

To Him ye gave the opening bud,

The early bloom;

Then grieve not that the ripened fruit

He gathers home."

But we should not only refrain from murmuring, but meekly submit to the

providential afflictions of our home. We should remember that all the

adversities of life are from the Lord, and that when death invades our

household, and crushes the fond hopes of our hearts, it is for some wise

and good purpose. Though we may not understand it here, where we look

through a glass darkly; but eternity will reveal it. Though the dying of a

child is like tearing a limb from us; but remember God demands it.

Surrender it to Him, therefore, with Christian resignation. He does not

demand it without a cause. It may offend thee, though it be a right hand or

a right eye. Let the branch be cut off. At the resurrection you shall see

it again. Give it up willingly; for it is the Lord's will that you should.

Have the meek submission, to exclaim, "Not my will, but Thine be done!"

Whatever may be your pleas to the contrary, they are all selfish; when, you

come to look at your bereavement, with the candid, discerning eye of faith,

you cannot murmur; but will bend under the stroke with silent tears and

with grateful submission. Faith in God, the hope of reunion in heaven, and

true Christian love for the object taken from us, will effectually quell

every uprising of complaint in our hearts:--

"My stricken heart to Jesus yields

Love's deep devotion now,

Adores and blesses--while it bleeds--

His hand that strikes the blow.

Then fare thee well--a little while

Life's troubled dream is past;

And I shall meet with thee, my child,

In life--in bliss, at last!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE MEMORIES OF HOME.[A]

[Footnote A: In this, as in the preceding chapter, we have introduced

poetry, for the same reason.]

"The home of my youth stands in silence and sadness:

None that tasted its simple enjoyments are there,

No longer its walls ring with glee and with gladness

No strain of blithe melody breaks on the ear.

* * * * *

"Why, memory, cling thus to life's jocund morning?

Why point to its treasures exhausted too soon?

Or tell that the buds of the heart at the dawning,

Were destined to wither and perish at noon?

"On the past sadly musing, oh pause not a moment;

Could we live o'er again but one bright sunny day;

'Twere better than ages of present enjoyment,

In the memory of scenes that have long passed away.

"But time ne'er retraces the footsteps he measures;

In fancy alone with the past we can dwell;

Then take my last blessing, loved scene of young pleasures;

Dear home of my childhood--forever farewell!"

CHIEF JUSTICE GIBSON.

The bereavements of home fill up the urn of memory with its most hallowed

treasures. Though these memories of the household have an alloy of sorrow

and are the product of its adversities, yet there is no pleasure so

delicate, so pure, so painful, so much longed after, as that which they

afford. They bring to our hearts the purest essence of the past, and cause

us to live it over again. They come over us like the "breath of the sweet

south breathing over a bed of violets." When we revert to the happy scenes

of our childhood, we live amid them in spirit again, and remembrance swells

with many a proof of recollected love; sweet ideals of all that lived under

the parental roof spring up within us, and pass before us in visions of

delight; the home of the past becomes the home of the present. The things

of that home are spiritualized and changed into the thoughts of home; we

enjoy them again; and we live our life over again with those we loved the

most.

"Why in age

Do we revert so fondly to the walks

Of childhood, but that there the soul discerns

The dear memorial footsteps, unimpaired,

Of her own native vigor; thence can hear

Reverberations, and a choral song

Commingling with the incense that ascends,

Undaunted, towards the imperishable heavens,

From her own lonely altar?"

The memories of home are both pleasing and painful. When we leave the

parental home for some distant land, how many pleasing recollections sweep

over our spirits then. Even when tossed to and fro upon the angry wave,

far from our native land.

"There comes a fond memory

Of home o'er the deep."

The memory of departed worth is a kind of compensation for the loss we

sustain. The pious mother's recollection of her sainted husband or child

becomes the soother of her grief, and casts a pleasing light along her

pathway, and awakens a new joy in her widowed heart. Pious memories, when

they reflect the hope of reunion in heaven, are like the radiant sky

studded with brilliant stars, each shining through the clouds which move

along the verge of the horizon. They sweep as gently over the troubled

heart as the summer zephyr over the blushing rose, touching all the chords

of holy feeling, making them vibrate sadly sweet, in blended tones, too

sweet to last.

"Here a deeper and serener charm

To all is given,

And blessed memories of the faithful dead

O'er wood and vale, and meadow-stream have shed

The holy hues of heaven."

How indelibly does memory paint the image of a departed child upon the

mother's heart! No flight of years; no distance from the grave in which he

slumbers, can erase the image. It will be ever fresh, and, with awakening

power, mingle with her tears and glow in her fondest hopes. Though time and

distance and vicissitudes may calm her troubled heart, and cause her to

settle down into tranquility of feeling; but these can never destroy the

tenacity and vividness of her memory. Even then those objects to which it

fondly clings, become the theme of her holiest and her happiest thoughts;

and she retains them with a passionate ardor, exceeded only by that with

which she clung to the living child. Her greatest pleasure is, to retire

from the busy cares of the world, to some solitude where she may sit among

flowers that remind her of the one that withered in her arms, and meditate

upon him who slumbers beneath the clods of the valley. Oh, these are sweet

and precious moments to her; and the tears which are then drawn from the

deep well-springs of reminiscence, are sacred to him with whom she in

spirit there communes. There with, rapture she remembers

"All his winning ways,

His pretty, playful smiles,

His joy, his ecstasy,

His tricks, his mimicry,

And all his little wiles;

Oh! these are recollections

Round mothers' hearts that cling--

That mingle with the tears

And smiles of after years,

With oft awakening!"

Memory links together the loved, ones of home though they be widely

separated from each other, some on earth, and some in eternity. There is a

mystic chain which binds them together, and brings them in spirit near to

each other and infuses, as it were, with electric power, a realizing sense

of each other, while their past life under the same roof, "like shadows

o'er them sweep." In the light of memory their faded forms are vividly

brought back to view; they see each other as when they rambled over their

childhood haunts; and the echo of their playful mirth comes booming back in

deep reverberations through their souls. In this respect the memory of the

dead is a pleasure so deep and delicate, and withal so melancholy, yea, so

painful, that the heart shrinks from its intensity. This we experience when

we ramble through the family graveyard, and bring within the sweep of

recollection our past communion with the loved who slumber there. There is

a mysterious feeling awakened in our hearts,--a feeling of peculiar

melancholy, which, combines two opposite emotions,--that of pleasure and

that of pain. These seem to embrace each other, and their union in our

hearts affords us a strange enjoyment. We enjoy the pain; the agony

awakened by the remembrance of those who lie beneath the sod is pleasing to

us. It is a bitter cup we love to drink; we love to keep open the wounds

there inflicted. The sadness we then feel we dearly cherish; and we linger

around these tombs as if bound to them by some mystic chord we could not

break; we are loth to leave a spot in which are accumulated the fondest

associations of early life. Would the mother, if she could, forget the

child that slumbers beneath the flower-crowned sod of the family cemetery?

"Where," in the beautiful language of Irving, "is the child, that would

willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to

lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom

he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he

most loved and he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of

its portals, would accept consolation that was to be bought by

forgetfulness? And when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the

gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive

agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away

into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness,

who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes

throw a passing cloud even over the bright hour of gayety, yet who would

exchange it even for the song of pleasure or the burst of revelry? No;

there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song; there is a recollection

of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living!" How

passionately we cling to those memories of a sainted mother, which crowd in

rapid succession upon our minds!

"Weep not for her! Her memory is the shrine

Of pleasing thoughts, soft as the scent of flowers,

Calm as on windless eve the sun's decline,

Sweet as the song of birds among the bowers."

What a purifying and restraining influence does the memory of a pious

parent's love, exert upon the wayward child! When he bends in mournful

recollection over the grave of a sainted mother, how must every

heart-string break, and with what remorse he reviews his past life of

wickedness and filial disobedience. The memory of that mother's love and

kindness to him, haunts him in all his revels, and draws him back, as if by

magnetic force, from scenes of riot and of ruin. Can he think of that

mother's prayers and teachings and tears of solicitude, and not feel

deeply, and often savingly, his own guilt and ingratitude? If there is a

memory of home-life which allures him to heaven, it is the recollection of

her love and pious efforts to save him.

The child who lives in exile from his country and his home, is soothed in

the midst of his cares and disappointments, by the stirring imagery of his

far-distant friends and home. And oh, if he has been unfaithful to the

ministrations of that home; if he has trodden under foot the proffered love

of his parents, and repulsed all the overtures of their pious solicitude,

will not the memory of their anguish haunt his soul, and plough deep

furrows of remorse in his conscience? The sense of past filial ingratitude,

and the recollection of a parent's injured love and disappointed hope,

constitute one of the most powerful incentives to repentance and

reformation. It was thus with the prodigal son. As soon as he came to

himself, he remembered the dear home of his youth, the kind love of his

father, and his own unworthiness and ingratitude; and this brought him to

repentance and to the resolution to return to his father, confess his sin,

and seek pardon. How many now, in thus looking back upon the home of their

childhood, do not remember their abuse of parental love and kindness!

"Oh! in our stern manhood, when no ray

Of earlier sunshine glimmers on our way;

When girt with sin and sorrow, and the toil

Of cares, which tear the bosom that they soil;

Oh! if there be in retrospection's chain

One link that knits us with young dreams again--

One thought so sweet we scarcely dare to muse

On all the hoarded raptures it reviews;

Which seems each instant, in its backward range,

The heart to soften, and its ties to change,

And every spring untouched for years to move,

It is--the memory of a mother's love!"

We see, therefore, that there are painful, as well as pleasant, memories of

home. When the absent disobedient child remembers how he abused the

privileges of the parental home, and brought the gray hairs of his parents

down with sorrow to the grave, and turned that household into a desolation;

when

"Pensive memory lingers o'er

Those scenes to be enjoyed no more,

Those scenes regretted ever,"

how dark and painful must be the shadows which then sweep over his penitent

spirit! "If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul or

a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a

husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole

happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if

thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged the spirit that generously

confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited

pang to that true heart that now lies cold and still beneath thy feet; then

be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle

action, will come thronging back upon thy memory; then be sure that thou

wilt lie down sorrowing and penitent on the grave!"

If we would avoid the agony of declining age, let us be faithful to our

childhood-home. What must be the anguish of that wretch who has brought

infamy upon it; how painful must be every recollection of it, when in the

distance of years and of space, from its scenes and its loved ones, his

remembrance hails them with its burning tear.

"I am far from the home that gave me birth,

A blight is on my name;

It only brings to my father's hearth

The memory of shame;

Yet, oh! do they think of me to-day,

The loved ones lingering there;

Do they think of the outcast far away,

And breathe for me a prayer?

That early home I shall see no more,

And I wish not there to go,

For the happy past may nought restore--

The future is but woe.

But 'twould be a balm to my heavy heart

Upon its dreary way,

If I could think I have a part

In the prayers of home to-day!"

Every thing within the memory of home will question our hearts whether we

have been faithful to her parental ministry. Every cherished association;

every remembered object, and even the old scenes and objects around the

homestead, will challenge our faithfulness. The trees under whose shade we

frolicked and of whose fruit we ate; the streams that meandered through the

meadow; the hills and groves over which we gamboled in the sunny days of

childhood; the old oaken bucket and the old ancestral walls that yet stand

as monuments of the past,--these will all question your fidelity to the

training you received in their midst; and oh, if they assume, in the courts

of memory, the attitude of witnesses against you; if nursery recollections

speak of forgotten prayers and abandoned habits, what a deep and painful

sense of guilt and ingratitude will this testimony develop in your bosom,

and

"Darken'd and troubled you'll come at last,

To the home of your boyish glee."

How precious are the mementoes of home! Memory needs such auxiliaries. That

lock of silken hair which the mother holds with tearful contemplation, and

wears as a precious relic, near her heart, what recollections of the

buried one it awakens within her!

"Thou bringest fond memories of a gentle girl,

Like passing spirits in a summer night!

Oh, precious curl!"

And that picture of a departed mother which the orphan child presses with

holy reverence to her bosom! As she gazes upon those familiar features, and

reads in them a mother's love and kindness, what scenes of home-life rise

upon the troubled thought, and what echoes of love come through the lapse

of years from the old homestead, touching all the fires of her soul, and

causing them to thrill with plaintive sadness and with painful joy. What

mementoes of a sad, yet pleasing memory are found in the chamber of

bereavement, where death has done his work; the empty chair; the garments

laid by; playthings idly scattered there;--these are pictures upon which

the eye of memory rests with pensive meditation. And our letters from home!

What sweet recollections they awaken as we read line after line; and what

volumes of love they contain from those dear ones who now moulder in the

narrow vaults of death! Oh, how miserable must he be who has no

recollections of home, who is not able to revert to the scenes of

childhood, and amid whose cherished memories of life, the image of a mother

does not glow!

Let us lay the foundation of a joyful, grateful memory. Let us be faithful

to home, that when we leave it, and when the members of it leave us, we

may delight in all the memories which loom up from the scenes of home-life:

"Oh, friends regretted, scenes forever dear,

Remembrance hails you with her burning tear!

Drooping she bends o'er pensive fancy's urn,

To trace the hours which never can return;

Yet with retrospection loves to dwell,

And soothe the sorrows of her last farewell!"

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE ANTITYPE OF THE CHRISTIAN HOME.

"Oh, talk to me of heaven! I love

To hear about my home above;

For there doth many a loved one dwell

In light and joy ineffable.

"O! tell me how they shine and sing,

While every harp rings echoing,

And every glad and tearless eye

Beams like the bright sun gloriously.

"Tell me of that victorious palm,

Each hand in glory beareth;

Tell me of that celestial calm,

Each face in glory weareth!"

The Christian home on earth is but a type of his better home in heaven. The

pious members feel the force of this. Every thing within their earthly

homes reminds them of that happy country which lies beyond the Jordan.

Besides, they behold the impress of change upon every aspect of their home.

All that is near and dear to them there is passing away. It is but the

shadow of better things to come. And as the type bears some resemblance to

that which it typifies, we may understand both by considering the relation

they sustain to each other. We may gain a new view of the Christian home by

looking at it in the light of its typical relation to heaven; and we have a

transporting view of our heavenly home when we contemplate it as the

antitype of our home on earth.

The Christian home on earth is a tent-home, a tabernacle adapted to the

pilgrim-life of God's people, set up in a dreary wilderness, designed to

subserve the purposes of a few years, as a preparation for a better home.

The Christian, amid all his domestic enjoyments, does not realize that his

home is his rest, but that it is only a probationary state, the foretaste

and anticipation of the rest that remaineth for the people of God. It is

but the emblem,--the shadow of his eternal home; and it is, therefore,

unsatisfying; it does not meet all the wants of our nature; there is a

yearning after a better state; the purest happiness it affords proceeds

from the hopes and longings it begets, and the interests it is transferring

to eternity, laying up, as it were, treasures in a better home. Our home

here, develops our wants, inflames our desires, excites our expectations,

educates, and points us to the realities of which it is an emblem; but it

does not fully satisfy our desires, it only increases their intensity. The

pilgrim soul of the child of God pines and frets amid all

"Her sylvan scenes, and hill and dale

And liquid lapse of murmuring streams."

These afford him no satisfaction; they only develop in him the saving sense

of earth's insufficiency; all the scenes of this wilderness state are but

those of thorns, and desert heath, and barren sands; and he cries out in

the midst of his happy home,--"This is not your rest!" Our tent-home may

include every earthly cup, and all the riches and honors of the world, yet

it satisfies not, and the Christian turns from it all to rest and expatiate

in a life to come. Every home here is baptized with tears and scarred with

graves. Its poverty is a burden, its riches are snares, its friends are

taken from us; broken hearts agonized there; restlessness is tossed to and

fro there; and disappointment reigns in every member there. Hence in our

wilderness-home we hunger and thirst, and pine for something more

satisfying. We turn from the shadow to the reality; and realizing the

insufficiency of home as a mere type, we turn with anxious hope to that

which it typifies--our heavenly home.

Heaven is the antitype of the Christian home. There the latter reaches its

consummation, and reaps the rich harvest of its great reward. The Father;

the Mother of us all; our Brethren; our inheritance; our all sufficiency

are there. Yea, all that is included in the dear name of home, is treasured

up there, for the child of God. In that better land he finds the reality of

his home on earth; the latter is but the prophecy of the former:--

"There is my house and portion fair,

My treasure and my heart are there,

And my abiding home."

That better home is radiant with light and love. There you shall not see

through a glass darkly, but shall behold all things face to face. You shall

not merely know in part, but even as you are known. There you shall realize

in all its fulness what you dimly taste here. We have a hunger here which

is not fully satisfied till in heaven we pluck the fruits of the tree of

life. We have a thirst here which is not fully quenched till in heaven we

drink of the waters of the river of life which flows fast by the throne of

God. In our tent-home here, we eat and drink, but hunger and thirst again;

we are healed, but we sicken again; we live in the light of truth, but

darkness and clouds intervene; we are comforted by the spirit and by

friends; but we sorrow and weep again.

But in heaven "sighing grief shall weep no more;" and we "shall hunger no

more, neither shall we thirst any more; and we shall not say I am sick;

and there shall be no night, nor sorrow, nor tears, nor sighing, nor death;

for the former things are passed away." Love will then be perfect; there

will be no heart-burnings and disappointments there. There you shall enjoy

the honey without the sting, and the rose without the thorn. "Earth hath no

sorrows that heaven cannot heal." All care and toil, and tears, and

orphanage, and widowhood, shall drop and disappear at the threshold of

heaven. If our tent-home stirs up within us imperishable joys, by the power

of anticipation and foretaste, what joy will not that better land afford?

If the promise is so cheering, what must the fulfillment be! If the pursuit

is so inspiring, what must the possession be! If our home on Tabor, where

we have but a distant view of home-life, affords us so much happiness, what

must our home on the eternal throne of God be? There your intercourse with

the loved ones of earth will not be clogged by pain and infirmities. Your

society there will be the most endearing, and with "a great multitude which

no man could number, of all nations, and kindred, and people, and tongues,

standing before the throne, clothed with white robes, and palms in their

hands." You shall there hold fellowship with the fathers of a thousand

generations, with the patriarchs, and prophets, and apostles, and martyrs,

and reformers, and the "innumerable company of angels." With these you

shall engage in the most delightful avocation. There will be no indolence

there, as we often find in earthly homes; but all will be continually

engaged. "They serve Him day and night in His temple." There will be one

unbroken worship, which will afford you rapturous delight. You shall be

presented, before God's glory, with exceeding joy; for "in His presence is

fullness of joy, and at His right hand are pleasures for evermore." These

joys will be eternal,--forever and ever. That better home will never be

dissolved, cannot be shaken, and your crown of glory there is a crown which

fadeth not away.

But this happiness and glory of heaven are not only eternal but

progressive,--ever increasing. There is nothing stationary there with the

saints; but their powers will ever expand and their glory increase. New

songs will be ever bursting in new strains from the celestial choir; new

discoveries and fresh exclamations of praise and gratitude will he

continually made. Here on earth they were "by nature the children of wrath,

even as others;" they had their tribulations and often murmured at God's

dealings with them. But there in that heavenly home they will understand

the reason for all this. The deep mysteries of the Christian life are now

revealed, and they see that a father's chastisements are the work of a

father's love, and worketh out for them that are exercised thereby, an

"exceeding and eternal weight of glory." They now see that while in their

tent-home they lived in the center of a grand system of natural,

providential and spiritual things, all of which were working in beautiful

harmony together for "the good of them that loved God and were the called

according to His purpose;" and with rapturous gratitude they cry out,

"Marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are all thy

ways, O thou King of Saints!"

Here, too, they will fully realize the wisdom of the Christian home and

life; they will now see how wise it was for them as a family, to serve the

Lord. In their earthly home, they "knew whom they believed, and were

persuaded that he was able to keep that which they committed unto Him

against that day." They did this in the midst of fiery trials. They were

unknown. The world, hated and despised them as she did their divine Master.

But they persevered unto the end; and now they "shine forth as the sun in

the kingdom of their Father." We shall not there, as we do here, eat the

bread of care and drink the waters of bitterness. Here thunders spend their

echoes and lightnings gleam in fierce wrath around our homes. There such

sounds and storms never come.

"No sickness there,

No weary wasting of the frame away;

No fearful shrinking from the midnight air;

No dread of summer's bright and fervid ray.

"No hidden grief,

No wild and cheerless vision of despair;

No vain petition for a swift relief,

No tearful eye, no broken hearts are there

"Care has no home

Within that realm of ceaseless praise and song;

Its tossing billows break and melt in foam,

Far from the mansions of the spirit-throng.

"The storm's black wing

Is never spread athwart celestial skies;

Its wailings blend not with the voice of spring,

As some too tender floweret fades and dies."

Christ is the great center of heaven's glory and attraction. "Whom have I

in heaven but thee?" It would not be heaven if He were absent. Its harps

would become unstrung, and its voices would lose their tune. When eternity

dawns upon our disembodied spirits, and the heavenly home appears in view,

with its golden streets, and living temples, and crowns, and thrones, and

joys, bursting on our sight; while seraphim and cherubim, and angels, and

the sainted spirits of departed friends--our parents and children, and

kindred, bend over its threshold to hail our entrance with songs and shouts

of everlasting joy,--oh, what a glorious heritage will this be! But all

this will fade into insignificance before the Lamb on the throne. He will

absorb all interest; and will be all and in all to its unfading treasures.

Oh, there is much in that celestial home to allure us there. Its "fields

arrayed in living green, and rivers of delight." Its blood-washed throng,

its crowns and peace, the angelic choir, our friends and

relations,--perhaps a father and a mother, perhaps a husband or wife,

perhaps a brother or a sister, or a child,--a lovely babe;--all these make

heaven dear, and draw us there. They beckon us to themselves; they are

waiting for us now, and on the glowing pinions of love they come thronging

as ministering spirits, to our hearts.

But what are all these attractions of that spirit-home, compared with Jesus

there as the crowning glory of them all! other things are stars and

streamlets. He is the central sun,--the source of all. Take Him away, and

all the brightness and the glory of that heavenly world would become

shrouded in darkness and desolation.

There is a living union between the Christian's home on earth, and his home

in heaven. Christ represents our nature and advocates our cause there. The

saints on earth and the inhabitants of heaven "but one communion make." The

latter minister to the former. "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent

to minister unto them who shall be the heirs of salvation?"

"Oh! a mother's spirit hung

O'er her last pledge of earthly love,

And, while attending angel's sung,

Welcom'd her dear one home above.

"Gentle babe, I come for thee:

I did come to bear thee home,

Far from mortal agony;

Come, then, gentle infant, come.

"Yes; while o'er thy mouldering dust

Falls the tear of earthly love,

Thou shalt live amidst the just,

Brighter life in heaven above."

Every thing good in our earthly home has its echo in heaven, and sweeps

like the breath of God over the harps of the blessed. When the pious mother

kneels with her child in prayer to God, it sends a thrill of new ecstasy

into the bosom of the redeemed around His throne. When the child gives its

heart to Christ, each harp bursts forth with a new anthem of joy at the

prospect of that accession to their happy band. And oh, what unspeakable

joy must thrill the bosom of a sainted mother when the news of her child's

conversion reaches her there!--

... "A new harp is strung, and a new song is given

To the breezes that float o'er the gardens of heaven."

And there, too, sainted relations continually warn the impenitent members

of the tent-home. "Though dead they yet speak." "Turn ye, turn ye; for why

will ye die?" "The spirit and the bride say, come!" Oh, regard those solemn

admonitions which come to you from the spirit-world! With unearthly

eloquence they urge you to "lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so

easily beset you, and run the race set before you, looking unto Jesus, the

author and finisher of your faith." And oh, if you, in obedience to these

angelic persuasives to piety, yield yourself unto the Lord, all the arches

of that eternal home will reverberate with the sound of jubilee over your

salvation, until its echo from harp to harp shall be borne up to the throne

of God.

And as there is a living union of the Christian's home on earth and in

heaven, so also will there be a conscious union and recognition of the

members of the Christian home, when they enter that better land. When the

tent-home is broken up, and its members take their place and enter upon

their joys in the heavenly home, they will recognize each other, and

exchange congratulations. The bonds of natural affection which bound them

together here will bind them also there. They will possess the same

home-feeling and sympathy; they will love each other as members of the same

household; the parents will know and love their children as parents; and

the children will feel towards their parents as children. Thus in the clear

light of that blessed land we shall see and know our kindred, and shall be

recognized, and known by them. All family ties will be re-knit; all

home-relationships will be restored; all the links of affection will be

renewed. The babe that withered in your arms like a frost-stricken flower

in winter, will come forth clad in redemption robes, to embrace you there;

and one of your joys will be a conscious reunion with him:--

"We shall go home to our Father's house:

To our Father's house in the skies,

Where the hope of our souls shall have no blight,

Our love no broken ties;

We shall roam on the banks of the river of peace,

And bathe in its blissful tide;

And one of the joys of our heaven shall be,

The little boy that died!"

And that sainted mother of yours shall greet you there. In your earth-home,

you and she were united in faith and love and hope; and in the morning of

the resurrection you shall ascend together from the family grave-yard; and

together bow in grateful adoration before the throne of God.

And oh, what a glorious meeting in heaven that will be, when all the

members of the Christian household shall unitedly surround the marriage

supper of the Lamb! It will be joyful beyond conception. There they "shall

meet at Jesus' feet,--shall meet to part no more!" No one is absent. Bright

faces will meet there; bounding hearts will meet there; and on the banks of

the river of life they will walk hand in hand, as they did unitedly in this

vale of tears. "There is hereafter to be no separation in that family. No

one is to lie down on a bed of pain. No one to wander away into temptation.

No one to sink into the arms of death. Never in heaven is that family to

move along the slow procession, clad in the habiliments of woe, to consign

one of its members to the tomb!"--REV. A. BARNES.

If heaven is our better home, where the members of Christian families meet

to part no more; if dreams cannot picture a world so fair; and if eye has

not seen, nor ear heard, nor human heart conceived, the felicity of its

peaceful inhabitants, then we should greatly rejoice that our pious kindred

have been taken there, and that we are blessed with the hope of reunion

with them in that heavenly home:--

... "If to Christ, with faith sincere,

Your babe at death was given,

The kindred tie that bound you here,

Though rent apart with many a tear,

Shall be renewed in heaven!"

In our tent-home, we should cultivate spiritual longings after heaven, and

live in the true hope and assurance of entering there. The soul of the

Christian, conscious of the emptiness of all things here, rests and

expatiates in a life to come. In proportion to his preparation for it, and

his nearness to it, will be the depth of his aspirations and the assurance

of his hope. The widowed mother, who feels that part of her household is in

heaven and that soon she will join them there, yearns with all the pining

of home-sickness, for departure to the promised land, which is far better.

"When shall my labors have an end,

In joy and peace and thee!"

Even these hopes and longings after reunion with the departed in heaven,

afford her joy, and open in her panting spirit a foretaste of unearthly

bliss. To her aspiring faith all things look heavenward. The stars of the

sky, and the flowers of the field smile their blessings upon her; and she

welcomes death to break off her chains, to draw the bolts and bars, and

open the prison doors of her house of clay, that her home-sick spirit may

go up to that happier land where her possessions lie:--

"Let me go! my heart is fainting

'Neath its weight of sin and fears,

And my wakeful eyes are failing

With these ever-falling tears!

For the morning I am sighing,

While I earth's long vigils keep;

Here the loved are ever dying,

And the loving live to weep!

"Let me go! I fain would follow,

Where I know their steps have passed--

Far beyond life's heaving billows,

Finding home and heaven at last!

While my exiled heart is pining

To behold my Father's face,

They, in His own brightness shining,

Beckon me to that blest place!

"Let me go! I hear them calling,

'Ho! thou weary one,--come home!'

Words which on mine ears are falling,

Wheresoever my footsteps roam,

I can catch the far-off murmurs

Of life's river, sweet and low,

Calling, from earth's bitter waters,

Unto me--O let me go!"

Gentle reader! seek that better land. Let your home be a preparation for,

and a pilgrimage to, a home in heaven. You are now in the wilderness beset

on every side by enemies. Go forward! You are now in the deep vale,--in the

low retreats of pilgrim life. "Friend, go up higher!" "Be thou faithful

unto death, and you shall receive a crown of life." Be patient in

tribulation. The storms that swell around your pilgrim home will soon

subside, and a cloudless sky will burst upon you; the winter gloom and

desolation will soon pass away; and "sweet fields arrayed in living green

and rivers of delight," will spread out themselves before your enraptured

vision. Remember that "the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to

be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." In a few years at

most the conflict shall end, and sighing grief shall weep no more; the

wormwood and the gall will be exchanged for the cup of salvation; the armor

and the battle-field will be exchanged for the white garment, the crown and

the throne. Soon your typical homestead shall be exchanged for your

antitypical home; and we shall unite in the home-song of everlasting

joy,--the song of, "unto Him that loved us and washed us in His own blood,

to Him be praise and glory and dominion forever!"

Let the hope of soon entering that happy home, stimulate you to increased

ardor in the cause of your Master. Methinks, some who will read these

pages, have snow-white locks and wrinkled brows and faded cheeks; and these

tell you that soon your pilgrim journey will be ended, your tent-home

dissolved, and your staff laid aside; and oh, if you have made God the

strength of your heart and your portion forever, you shall welcome death

with joy; yea, you will now be anxious to lay aside these garments of toil

and conflict, and soar away to that better country, where the wicked cease

from troubling, and the weary are at rest. With holy pantings after God you

will say, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"

"Let me go! my feet are weary,

In the desert where I roam.

Let me go! the way is dreary--

Let the wanderer go home!

I am weary of the darkness

Of these lonely, failing streams--

Let me go where founts are flashing

In the light of heaven's beams!

"Let me go! my soul is thirsting

For those waters, bright, and clear,

From the fount of glory bursting--

Ah! why keep the pilgrim here?

Let me go! O, who would linger,

Fainting, fearing, and athirst,

When before us lies a region

Where undying pleasures burst?"

We have now enumerated some of the elements of the Christian home--its

constitution, its ministry, its trials, its joys, and its relation to a

better home in heaven. But we have not exhausted this interesting subject;

we have given but a very general and imperfect sketch. If this our first

effort will contribute to the salvation of one soul, we shall be

compensated; and should our encouragement justify it, we may continue the

effort, in the preparation of a work on the historical development of the

Christian home.

The Christian Home As it is in the Sphere of Nature and the Church; Showing the Mission, Duties, Influences, Habits, and Responsibilities of Home, its Education, Government, and Discipline; with Hints on "Match Making," and the Relation of Parents to the Marriage Choice of their Children; together with a consideration of the Tests in the Selection of a Companion, Etc. · 第 32 / 32 章

And oh, how glorious will be this reward when all the members shall meet