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CATHARINE.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"AGNES AND THE LITTLE KEY."
[Transcriber's Note: Nehemiah Adams]
THIRD THOUSAND.
BOSTON:
J.E. TILTON AND COMPANY.
LONDON. KNIGHT AND SON.
1859.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by J.E. TILTON
and Co., In the Clerk's Office of the District Comm. of the District of
Massachusetts.
PRINTED BY
GEORGE O. RAND & AVERY.
ELECTROTYPED AT THE
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.
TO THE
YOUNG LADIES OF MY CONGREGATION,
FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES Of
CATHARINE,
AND TO EVERY FATHER,
HAVING
A DAUGHTER IN HEAVEN,
These Pages
ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
CONTENTS.
I.
MORE THAN CONQUEROR, 9
II.
THE FEAR OF DEATH ALLEVIATED, 58
III.
THE SEARCH FOR THE DEPARTED, 89
IV.
THE SILENCE OF THE DEAD, 119
V.
THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY, 144
CATHARINE
I.
MORE THAN CONQUEROR.
Is that a death-bed where the Christian lies?
Yes,--but not his: 'Tis death itself there dies.
COLERIDGE.
She was not an infant--an unconscious subject of grace. But the Saviour
has led through a long sickness, and through death, a daughter of
nineteen years, and has made her, and those who loved and watched her,
say, We are more than conquerors. To speak of Him, and not to gratify
the fondness of parental love, to commend the Saviour of my child to
other hearts, and to obtain for Him the affections of those to whom He
is able and willing to be all which He was to her, is the sole object of
these pages. Listen, then, not to a parent's partial tale concerning
his child, nor concerning mental nor bodily suffering, but to the words
of one who has seen how the presence of Christ, and love to Him, can
fill the dying hours with the sweetest peace, and even beauty, and the
hearts of survivors with joy.
Wishing to dwell chiefly on the last scenes of this dear child's life,
the reader will not be delayed by any biographical sketch. Nine years
before her death, when she was between ten and eleven years of age, she
gave the clearest evidence that she was renewed by the Holy Spirit. We
had since that time been made happy by the growing power of Christian
principle in her conduct, the clearness and steadfastness of her faith,
her systematic endeavors to live a holy life, her deep regret when she
had erred, and her resolute efforts to improve in every part of her
character.
Through a long sickness, with consumption, for two years and three
months, she felt the soothing power of unfaltering Christian hope,
which was evidently derived from a very clear perception of the way to
be saved through Christ, and complete trust in the promises made to
simple faith in him.
He who gave me this child, and crowned my hopes and wishes by the
manifest signs of his love towards her, merits from me a tribute of
gratitude and praise to which I desire and expect that eternity itself
may bear witness. They who read the story, which I am about to relate,
of her last few days, and think what it must be for a father to see his
child made competent to meet so intelligently and deliberately, and to
overcome, the last enemy, and, in doing so, helping to sustain and to
comfort those who loved her, will perceive that it is a gift from God
whose value nothing can increase. Bereavement and separation take
nothing from it, but, on the contrary, they illustrate and enforce our
obligations. For since we must needs die, and are as water that is
spilled upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, such a death
as this amounts to positive happiness by the side of a contrasted
experience in the joyless, hopeless death of a child, or friend. But
without further preface, I proceed to the narrative.
* * * * *
Never before had it fallen to my lot to bear that message to one who was
sick, "The Master is come, and calleth for thee." In previous cases of
deep, personal interest, this has been unnecessary. But in the present
case there was a resolute purpose, and an expectation, of recovery, till
within a week of dissolution, and, on our part, a belief that life might
still be lengthened. Such cases involve nice questions of duty. Where
the patient has evidently made timely preparation to die, it is needless
to dispel that half illusion which seems to be one feature of
consumption--an illusion which is so thin that we feel persuaded the
patient sees through it, while, nevertheless, it serves all the purposes
of hope. To take away that hope where no beneficial end is to be
secured, is cruel. A mistaken, and somewhat morbid, sense of duty to
tell the whole truth, and a conscientious but unenlightened fear of
practising deception, sometimes lead friends to remove, from a sick
person, that power which hope gives in sustaining the sickness, in
prolonging comfort, and in helping the gradual descent into the grave.
When a sick person is resolute and hopeful, it is surprising to see how
many annoyances of sickness are prevented or easily borne, and how life,
and even cheerfulness, may be indefinitely extended. But when hope is
taken away, or, rather, when, instead of looking towards life with that
instinctive love of it which God has implanted, we turn from "the warm
precincts of the cheerful day," and look into the grave, it is affecting
to see how the disease takes advantage of it, and sufferings ensue which
would have been prevented by keeping up even the ambiguous thoughts of
recovery. Sick people have reflections and feelings which exert an
influence upon them beyond our discernment, and which frequently need
not our literal interpretations of symptoms, and our exhortations, to
make them more effectual. But where there is evidently no preparedness
for death, and the patient, we fear, is deceiving himself, no one who
has suitable views of Christian duty will fail to impress him with the
necessity of attending to the things which belong to his peace, even at
considerable risk of abridging life.
Waiting, therefore, for medical discernment to signify when the last
possible effort to lengthen out the days of the sufferer had been made,
one morning I received the intimation that those days would, in all
probability, be but very few. After the physician had left the house,
and I had sought help and strength from God, I lost no time, but took my
place at the dear patient's side, to make the announcement.
God help those on whom he lays such duty. The hour had virtually come in
which father and child must part, and the father was to break that
message to his child. But how could mortal strength endure the effort?
Before I left my room for hers, there came to my mind these words--"But
now, thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed
thee, O Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee
by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will
be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when
thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall
the flame kindle upon thee." Trusting in that promise, I sat down, as it
were, over against the sepulchre, to prepare my child for her entrance
into it,--nay, for her departure into heaven.
The gradual arrival of the truth to her apprehension, through questions
which she began to ask, and my answers to them, finally led her to
inquire if I supposed she could not live long. I told her that the
physician thought that she was extremely weak, and that we must not be
surprised at any sudden event in her case. She said, without any change
of countenance, "Why, father, you surprise me; I thought that I might
get well; is it possible that I cannot live long? I have thought of
recovering much more than of dying... It seems a long space to pass over
between this and heaven, in so short a time. I wonder how I can so
suddenly obtain all the feelings which I need for such a change." These
expressions I wrote down immediately after the interview. I told her, in
reply, that she had been living at peace with God through his Son; that
it had hitherto been her duty to live, and to strive for it; but now God
had indicated his will concerning her, and she might be sure that God
will always give us feelings suited to every condition in which he sees
fit to place us.
On seeing her again towards evening, I found that the expression of her
sick face--the weary, exhausted look of one grappling with a stronger
power--had passed away, and, in exchange, there was peace, and even
happiness. She began herself to say, "When you told me this forenoon
that I could not live, it surprised me; but I have come to it now, and
it is all right. Every thing is settled. I have nothing to do--no fear,
no anxiety about any thing. More passages of Scripture and verses of
hymns have come to my mind to-day, than in all my sickness hitherto."
Wishes respecting some family arrangements were then expressed,
particularly with reference to the younger children, and these wishes
were uttered in about the same tone and manner as though we were parting
for a temporary absence from each other. The mother of my youngest child
had, at her death, given her in special charge to this daughter, and she
wished to live that she might educate her. She made the transfer of her
little trust with calmness, and then her "Good night" was uttered with a
gentle playfulness, like that of her early days.
Nor was her frame of mind an excitement, or a fictitious experience, to
end with sleep. The next forenoon she renewed the conversation. She
said, "In the night I awoke many times, and always with this thought--I
am not going to live. Instead of fear and dread, peace came with it.
Names of Christ flowed in upon my mind; and once I awoke with these
words in my thoughts--'And there shall be no night there.' Now I know
that I am to die, I feel less nervous. I have a calm, unruffled
feeling." She expressed some natural apprehensions, only, about the
possibility of dissolution not having occurred when we should suppose
that she was no more. I told her how kindly God had ordered it that we
do not all die together, but one by one, the survivors doing all that
the departed would desire--which satisfied her, and removed her only
fear.
She asked leave to make a request respecting her grave; that, if any
device were placed upon the stone, it might be of flowers, which had
been such a joy and consolation to her in her sickness. She named the
lily-of-the-valley and rose buds. "I love the white flowers," said she.
"If you think best, let them be represented in some simple way... One
great desire which I have had was to assort some leaves of flowers into
forms for you. As my bouquets fell to pieces; I gathered the best
petals, and leaves, and sprigs, and I have them in a book;" which, at
her request, I then reached for her. I turned the pages. The book was
full of beautiful relics from tokens of remembrance which kind friends
had sent to her, and among them were some curiously mottled, green and
rose-colored, petals, which she had designed for a wreath, on the first
page of the little herbarium, which it was her intention to prepare; and
then, with great hesitancy, and protesting their unworthiness, she
repeated these simple lines, which she had composed for an inscription
within the wreath. I wrote them down from her lips:
TO MY FATHER.
These flowers, which gave me such comfort and hope,
I pressed, in my sickness, for you;
Accept them, though faded; they never will droop;
And believe that my heart is there too.
They who showered these tokens of their regard upon her, will be
pleased to know that their gifts did not wholly perish, but that they
will constitute an abiding memorial of her friends, as well as of her.
"I know," she continued, "that I am a great sinner; but I also believe
that my sins are washed away by the blood of Christ." The way of
justification by faith was clear to her mind. She knew whom she
believed, and was persuaded that he was able to keep that which she had
committed to him against that day.
In her whispering voice, which disease had for some time so nearly
hushed, she said, "I shall sing in heaven." Her voice had been the charm
of many a pleasant circle. But she added, "I shall no more sing--
'I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger;
I can tarry, I can tarry but a night.'"
And in a moment she added,--
"Of that country to which I am going,
My Redeemer, my Redeemer is the light."
"Some people," she said, "wish to die in order to get rid of pain. What
a motive! I am afraid that sometimes they get rid of it only to renew
it. There was--" And here she checked herself, saying, "But I will not
mention any name," a feeling of charitableness and tenderness coming
over her, as though she might be thought to have judged a dying person
harshly.
The day before she died, as I was spending the Sabbath forenoon by her,
she breathed out these words:--
"O, how soft that bed must be,
Made in sickness, Lord, by thee!
And that rest, how soft and sweet,
Where Jesus and the sufferer meet!"
In almost the same breath, she said, "O, see that beautiful
yellow,"--directing my attention to a sprig of acacia in a bunch of
flowers; all showing that her religious feelings were not raptures, but
flowed along upon a level with her natural delight at beautiful objects.
To illustrate this, I have mentioned several of the incidents already
related.
She spoke of a young friend, who has much that the world gives its
votaries to enhance her prospects in this life. I said, "Would you
exchange conditions with her?" "Not for ten thousand worlds," was her
energetic reply. "No!" she added; "I fear she has not chosen the good
part."
Sabbath afternoon, the mortal conflict was upon her. The restlessness of
death, the craving for some change of posture, the cold sweats, the
labored respiration, all had the effect merely to make her ask, "How
long do you think I must suffer?" That labored breathing tired her; she
wished that I could regulate it for her. "How long," said she, "will it
probably continue?"
I told her that heaven was a free gift at the last as well as at first;
that we could not pass within the gate at will, but must wait God's
time; that there were sufferings yet necessary to her complete
preparation for heaven, of which she would see the use hereafter, but
not now. This made her wholly quiet; and after that she rode at anchor
many hours, hard by the inner lighthouse, waiting for the Pilot.
The last words which she uttered to me, an hour before she died, were,
"I am going to get my crown." I wondered at her in my thoughts, (O, help
my unbelief!) to hear a dying sinner so confident. I said to myself, "O
woman, great is thy faith." She knew that her crown was a free gift,
purchased at infinite expense; a crown, instead of deserved chains,
under darkness. All unmerited, and more than forfeited, yet she spoke of
her crown, because she believed with a simple faith, taking Christ at
his word, and being willing to receive rewards and honors from him
without projecting her own sense of unworthiness to stay the
overflowings of infinite love and grace towards her. So that, in her own
esteem as undeserving as the chief of sinners, thinking as little as
possible of her own righteousness, and being among the last to claim any
thing of God, she could say with one who would not admit that any
sinner was chief above him, "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown
of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at
that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his
appearing."
Between two and three o'clock on Monday afternoon, January 19, she was
quietly receiving some food from the nurse, when suddenly she said, "The
room seems dark." She then made a surprising effort, such as she had
been incapable of for some time, and reached forward from her pillow,
saying, "Who is that at the door?" The nurse was with her alone, and at
her side, the family being at the table. Coming to her room, we found
that she was apparently sinking into a deep sleep, as though it were
only a sleep, profound and quiet.
I asked her if she knew me.
She made no answer.
I said, "You know Jesus." A smile played about her mouth. We rejoiced,
and wept for joy.
I then said, "If you know father, press my hand." She gave me no
sign--that smile being her last intelligent act.--And so she passed
within the veil.
I was able to relate all this from my pulpit the Sabbath after her
decease, not merely because the period of the greatest suffering under
bereavement had not come, but chiefly because the consolations of the
trying scene, and hopes full of immortality, had not lost their new
power. I was therefore like those who, on the first Christian Sabbath
morning, "departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy,
and did run to bring his disciples word."
It is intimated above that the greatest suffering at the death of a
friend does not occur immediately upon the event. It comes when the
world have forgotten that you have cause to weep; for when the eyes are
dry, the heart is often bleeding. There are hours,--no, they are more
concentrated than hours,--there are moments, when the thought of a lost
and loved one, who has perished out of your family circle, suspends all
interest in every thing else; when the memory of the departed floats
over you like a wandering perfume, and recollections come in throngs
with it, flooding the soul with grief. The name, of necessity or
accidentally spoken, sets all your soul ajar; and your sense of loss,
utter loss, for all time, brings more sorrow with it by far than the
parting scene.
* * * * *
She who was the sweet singer of my little Israel is no more. The child
whose sense of beauty made her the swiftest herald to me of every fair
discovery and new household joy, will never greet me again with her
surprises of gladness. She who, leaning upon my arm as we walked,
silently conveyed to me such a sense of evenness, firmness, dignity; she
whose child-like love was turning into the womanly affection for a
father; she who was complete in herself, as every good child is, not
suggesting to your thoughts what you would have a child be, but filling
out the orb of your ideal beauty, still partly in outline; her seat,
her place at the table, at prayers, at the piano, at church; the sight
of her going out and coming in; her tones of speech, her helpful spirit
and hands, and all the unfinished creations of her skill, every thing
that made her that which the growing associations with her name had
built up in our hearts,--all is gone, for this life; it is removed like
a tree; it is departed like a shepherd's tent.
And all this, too, is saved. It survives, or I would not, I could not,
write thus. There comes to my sorrowing heart some such message as the
sons of Jacob brought to their father, when they said, "Joseph is yet
alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt."
Jesus of Nazareth has been in my dwelling, and has done a great work of
healing. He has saved my child; saved her to be a happy spirit; forever
saved her for himself, to employ her powers of mind and heart in his
blissful service; saved her for the joyful welcome and embraces of her
mother, and of a second mother, who laid deep and strong foundations in
her character for goodness and knowledge. He has saved her for me,
through all eternity. She will be my sweet singer again; she will have
in store for me all the wonderful discoveries which her intense love of
beauty will have made her treasure up, to impart, when the child
becomes, as it were, parent, for a little while, to the soul of the
parent in heaven, new-born. I said to her, a day or two before she died,
"Those mothers will show you things in heaven; for we read, '_And he
shewed me_ a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding
out of the throne of God and the Lamb.'"
But John mistook this heavenly saint for an angel, so glorious was his
appearance, and he fell down to worship him, but was told, "See thou do
it not; for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets,
and of them which keep the sayings of this book." Then what will she
herself be, when these eyes behold her again? And what will she have
treasured up to tell me? she, who always brought rare things for me from
the woods and the shore, surpassing those of her companions. If He who
redeemed her, and has presented her faultless before the presence of his
glory with exceeding joy, will bestow that nurture and culture upon her
which are implied in leading her to living fountains of waters, what
will she be? and how good it will seem that she left earth so early,
since it was the will of God, to enter upon such a career of bliss!
A few years ago, I appropriated a wedding gift from a friend to the
purchase of a guitar for her, as a birthday gift in her early sickness.
To assist her in learning to play upon it, I first gained some knowledge
of the instrument. We kept it in its case in my study; and sometimes, on
coming home, and feeling in the mood of it, I wished to handle it, and
instead of unlocking the case to see if the instrument were there, I
would knock upon it; and straightway what turbulence of harmonies rang
from all the strings. Now, it is so with every thing connected with her
memory; every thing associated with her, even though outwardly sombre
and dreary, like those black cases for musical instruments, being
appealed to, or accidentally encountered, sings of her still, with a
troubled and a pathetic, pleasing music.
In her very early childhood, she and two of the children were sick with
a children's epidemic. The crisis had passed; an anxious day with regard
to one of the children had been followed by entire relief from our
fears. As we sat at table that evening, we heard music from the chambers
of the sick children; we opened the door and listened. This daughter was
singing, and the chorus of her little school song was, "All are here,
all are here." She did not think of the signification which those words
had to our hearts. It was one of those household pleasures which have so
much of heaven in them. I can sometimes hear her singing to me now,
from those upper skies, in the name of the four who have gone there from
my dwelling, "All are here, all are here." She bequeathed her guitar,
but her voice and hand now join with "the voice of harpers harping with
their harps."
We sometimes think that they miss great good who depart from us in early
years; that one who has arrived at the entrance to the world's great
feast must be sadly disappointed to be led away, never to go in. Now, it
is true that we must not shrink from the battle of life; we must take
upon ourselves, if God ordains it, the great jeopardy of disappointment
and sorrow, and the chance of life's joys; we must each stand in his
lot; we must send children forth into the harvest of the earth for
sheaves, and whether they faint and die under their load, or deck
themselves with garlands,--still, let them be laborers together with
God, and let us not seek exemption for them. But if God ordains their
early translation to heaven, what can earth afford them in the way of
pleasure, granting the cup to be full and unalloyed, to be compared with
fulness of joy? Fair maidens in heaven,--and O, how many of them has
consumption gathered in!--fair maidens there are like the white flowers,
which are sacred to peculiar times and scenes. How goodly must be their
array! What a perpetual spring tide of vivacious joy and delight do they
create in heaven. It is pleasant to have a child among them.
It has been my privilege to see, in this child, an example of true
preparation for death, which begins before the expectation of dying
brings the least discredit, or breath of suspicion, upon our motives in
attending to the subject of religion. Preparation for death consists in
justification by faith, extending its influence into the whole
character, to bring us under the rule of Christ. The fruit of this is
friendship with God, the confidence of love, knowing whom we have
believed, with the persuasion of our having committed to him an infinite
trust, and that he will keep it with covenant faithfulness. So when
death comes and knocks at the door, it is true the heart beats quicker,
as it is apt to do whoever knocks there; for, to give up one's hold on
life, to turn and look eternal things full in the face, to think of
meeting God, and of having your endless condition fixed, summons the
whole of natural and acquired fortitude; and only they who have an
unseen arm to lean upon at such a time, endure in that trial. Then past
experience comes in with her powerful aid: "I have fought a good fight;"
"the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps;" "remember, O
Lord, how I have walked before thee." Thus there is something to make
you feel that your justification, by free grace, has the evidence
afforded by its fruits; and the preparation to die may be likened to
that of which the Saviour speaks when he says, "He that is washed
needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." I have seen
it, have watched it, have studied it, in the dying scenes of this child.
Hers was not the experience of the sinner, pulled suddenly from the
waves by a hand which he had for a long time, nay, always, spurned; but
her dying was an arrival at the end of a voyage, the coming home of a
good child to long-expecting hearts and arms. We said one to another
around her dying bed,--yes, we had composure to say, as we watched that
parting scene, that fading cloud, that sinking gale, that dying wave,
that shutting eye of day,--"Think of such a poor, helpless, dying
creature, if, in the sense intended by those words, she should 'fall
into the hands of the living God.'" And we glorified God in her. Never
did I see and feel more deeply, by contrast, the folly of trusting to a
death-bed repentance, to repair the errors of a wasted life. It is a
deliberate attempt at fraud upon the Most High; it is folly; for the
risk is fearful, and could we obtain salvation, how mercenarily!--and
what a memorial would it be in heaven of loss, instead of being "a crown
of righteousness!" They who are all their lifetime ignorant, being
unfortunately deprived of opportunity for religious instruction, may
with wonder and joy accept the surprising news of pardon, through
Christ, on a dying bed, and soar to the same heights with apostles in
their praises of redeeming love. But if we hear of salvation by Christ
all our life long, and know our duty, but prefer the pleasures of sin
for a season, and think that in the swellings of Jordan we shall find
peace and safety, our conduct deserves all the opprobrious names which
are heaped upon it by inspired tongues and pens. We who are parents must
teach our children that religion does not consist merely in being
pardoned, and, if pardoned, no matter whether early or late; but that it
is the first, the constant, the all-pervading rule of life, God and his
service the chief end of man, and that the pleasures of religion are the
sweetest pleasures, hallowing all others which are innocent, and leading
us to reject those, and only those, which would be unsuitable or
injurious, even if religious custom did not forbid them. We must know
this, and practise upon it, ourselves; else, how can we expect the
children to believe it?
The exceeding relief which a timely preparation for death by an early
consecration of herself to God, imparted to this child and to us, was
felt in this, that she and we had no distressing thoughts at her total
inability, for a long time, to join in prayer with others, or to be
conversed with in any way that excited much feeling. The diseased
throat, where, as we all know, our emotions, even in health and
strength, make such interference with our comfort, prevented her from
joining in any religious exercises, because she would then be liable to
the excitement of feelings which, in the way just intimated, would have
injured her. With such affections of the bronchial passages, efforts of
mind which are not spontaneous are sometimes agony. Connected endeavors
to follow conversation and prayer were impossible, and she told me, on
saying this, that she took great comfort from a remark, in a book,
addressed to a sick person--"Do not think, but pray." She prayed much
herself; her thoughts, too, were prayers, in certain cases. Now, in that
weakened condition, what could she have done, and what would have been
her father's feelings, had she not, in health and strength, arrived at
such a state of religious knowledge and experience as to remove anxiety
for her spiritual welfare, and to make us feel that she had Christ in
her, the hope of glory? When the cry was made, "Behold, the bridegroom
cometh," she arose and trimmed her lamp, and had oil in her vessel with
her lamp. Wealth could not purchase the relief and satisfaction which
this gave to her friends;--so truly is religion called the "pearl of
great price;" so literally true are the Saviour's words, "But one thing
is needful." It is the greatest blessing which a young person can bestow
on Christian parents, to be a Christian; and what its value is to
surviving parents, ask those who sorrow as they that have no hope. When
a young Christian comes to die, he testifies that he lost nothing, but
gained every thing, with eternal life, by being a Christian in his early
years. I can imagine what this child would say to one and another of her
young friends who may read these pages, and how she would seek to
persuade them, as the first great duty of their existence, and for their
best good here, and for their everlasting peace, to choose the good
part, which will never be taken away from them.
Her funeral was a scene from which many went away rejoicing in God; and
not a few date new progress in the Christian life from it, by means of
the new and striking illustration which they there had of the Saviour's
power and love. The Choir struck the key note of heaven in their opening
strains, by chanting, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive
power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and
blessing." They gave us, too, her favorite song, by which she was
remembered in several circles, at home and abroad, before she was sick,
and the words of which, now, seem to have had a prophetic meaning from
her lips:--
"I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger;
I can tarry, I can tarry but a night;"--
which was sung at the funeral with a sweetness which added much to the
associations with it in our minds; and in the closing hymn, how strange
it seemed, at a funeral, to hear the singers, though by our own request
and though in accordance with all which had passed, bid us
"Proclaim abroad his name,
Tell of his matchless fame,
What wonders done!
Shout through hell's dark profound,
Let the whole earth resound,
Till the high heavens rebound,
The victory's won;"--
and to hear them, as they cried one to another, saying,--
"All hail the glorious day,
When, through the heavenly way,
Lo, He shall come;
While they who pierced him wail;
His promise shall not fail;
Saints, see your King prevail;
Come, dear Lord, come."
For those ministrations of love and tenderness in the last, sad offices
to the dead, which no wealth could buy, repeated now by some of the same
hands several times in my dwelling, there are no words of gratitude
adequate to the great debt of love. The mothers of my church, who met
weekly with her mother for prayer, remembered her child, and provided
nurses for her, to her own unspeakable comfort and our great relief.
Friends and strangers, touched with her protracted sickness, poured
blessings around her couch; fruits, in their season, and when out of
their season, of what almost unearthly beauty! and flowers which, with
the fruits, made that sick room seem like the garden which the Lord
planted in Eden. Such have been the alleviations of pain and suffering,
the comforts, and even the pleasures, and above all the rich spiritual
consolations and joys, and the more than conquering faith of the dying
hour,--such a union in all this of Jesus and his friends,--that I have
made the case of the ruler of the synagogue mine, of whom, as he went to
his afflicted house, it is said, "And Jesus arose and followed him, and
so did his disciples." They will go wherever Jesus leads the way; and he
will lead the way wherever there is a lamb to be folded in his bosom.
There were not wanting those who lent me their sepulchre, in the city,
for a season--a kindness always peculiar and affecting, but also needful
in this instance, because of the great snows which made the roads to
Mount Auburn impassable for several days. Nor can I forget that, when
Saturday evening closed upon us, words and tokens of kindness came from
the younger members of my congregation, who had provided for the last
earthly things which the precious dust of their young friend required;
and so they seemed to bid me rest from all care and thoughtfulness, upon
the "Sabbath day, according to the commandment." All which should
increase my feelings of sympathy and kindness for the sick, and
especially for the sick poor, whose rooms, and whose dying hours, and
whose griefs, are oftentimes in such contrast to those into which divine
and human loving kindness seem striving to pour their abundant
consolations. As the family retired from the dying scene, and were
weeping together, a father came to my door, in that great snow-storm, to
say that his son, the young man, not a member of my congregation, whom I
had several times visited, was near his end, and would like to see me.
Stranger comparatively though he was, and impassable as the streets were
by any vehicle, and almost by foot passengers, my gratitude for the
sweet and peaceful end of my own dear child, and for her undoubted
admission to the realms of bliss, was such, that, within an hour or two,
I forced my way to a distant part of the city, to assist another
departing spirit for its flight. This heart has no more fortitude, nor
has it less of natural affection and sensibility, than ordinarily falls
to the lot of men; hence those consolations must have been great, that
support and strength equal to the day, that hope concerning my child an
anchor sure and steadfast, which enabled me thus to go from her clay,
just cold, to aid a passing spirit in obtaining like precious faith with
hers, and the same inheritance. My motive in thus lifting a little of
the veil, or in placing a light behind the transparency, of my private
feelings, I trust will be seen to be, that I may comfort others with the
comfort wherewith I was comforted of God.
But there awaits me a blessing, with a joy, surpassing all that has gone
before. "My daughter is even now dead; but come and lay thy hand upon
her, and she shall live." From her grave, which was soon made by the
side of kindred dust, Jesus will raise her up at the last day; her voice
will come to that body; her youthful beauty will be reestablished by
her likeness to Christ's own glorious body; she will lean upon my arm
again; the separation and absence will enhance the joy of meeting; we
shall say, How like a hand-breadth was the separation! We shall see
reasons full of wisdom and love for the sickness and the early death. We
shall part no more. All this has more than once made me say, and sing,--
"O, for this love, let rocks and hills
Their lasting silence break,
And all harmonious human tongues
The Saviour's praises speak."
Young friend, you will need him as the great Physician, the Friend in
sorrow, the Forerunner in the dark passages of life, the Conqueror of
death, the Lord our Righteousness, and, all endearing names in one,
Immanuel, God with us.
Parents, you will need him for your children. Children, you will need
him when father and mother, one or both, have forsaken you, or, if
alive, can only make you feel how little their fond love can do for you.
When the name of _father_, cannot rouse you, nor your cold hand return
the pressure of your father's hand, you will need a nearer, dearer
friend, in the person of Him who loved you, and gave himself for you.
It has been one of the richest joys of my pastoral life, that I have
sent to her mother in heaven her child, whom God had prepared for so
early a departure out of this world. This ministry of reconciliation has
been blessed to the salvation of my child. It should make me love the
children of my pastoral charge more than ever, seek to gather them into
the fold of Christ, that whole families, each like a constellation, may
rise together in the firmament of heaven; and, in the mean time, that
the members of every household, as they desert us one by one, may call
back to us, and say, for the departed, "All are here."
God takes a family here and there, in a circle of acquaintances and
friends, and greatly afflicts them; and thus he teaches others. As we
look, therefore, upon the afflicted, we ought to say,--
"For us they languish, and for us they die;
And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain?"
God is the same when he takes away the child, as when he laid that gift
in our hands. Perhaps, indeed, the removal is really a greater exercise
of love than the gift. It must seem good and acceptable in the sight of
God, if, when we are bereaved, we employ ourselves occasionally in
rehearsing before him the circumstances in his past goodness, which, at
the time, made it exceedingly sweet and precious. Our debt of obligation
for it is not yet fully paid; nor is it diminished at all by the removal
of the blessing. Instead of abandoning ourselves to grief, we do well if
we commune with God more frequently respecting his signal acts of favor
in connection with the lost blessing.
But the memory of lost joys is always apt to depress the mind
inordinately. We question whether it is really better to have
"loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
Taking a future life into the account, surely no doubt can remain as to
that question; but one who has really loved, will not be long in coming
to the same conclusion, irrespective of the future. Must God abstain
from making us exceedingly happy, because, forsooth, we shall be so
unhappy when, in the exercise of the same goodness and wisdom which
dictated the gift, he sees it best to take it away? If we love him more
than we love his gifts, then the removal of them will make us love him
more than ever.
"Though now He frowns, I'll praise the Almighty's name,
And bless the source whence past enjoyments came."
We often hear it said, that every thing which happens to us is for our
good, even in this world.--Many things happen to men, even to
Christians, which are plainly not for their good in this life, though
all things will, eventually, work together for good to them that love
God. Some things, then, even here, are intended to be life-long sorrows
and trials. Their object is reproof and constant admonition. We need
another state of existence to explain the present. If that future state
does not prove that earthly discipline has had its designed effect, the
sorrows of this life show that God can bear to see us suffer, even when
he foresees that no good will result to the sufferer. For while men
suffer excruciatingly under bereavements, these sufferings often fail to
make them better. God foresees all this. Hence God is able to look upon
suffering which he sees will not be for the good of the afflicted.
If, now, his design in our trials (which pierced his heart before they
reached ours) is utterly frustrated by our sins, the question will
arise, whether the God who can bear to see us suffer for our good,
which, nevertheless, he foresees will not be effected, will not be able
to see us suffer as the fruit of our sins, and of our resistance to his
designs. One who has endured much mental suffering cannot have failed to
see, that God's parental relation to us is not analogous to that of
parent and child among men. It terminates in the relations of governor
and of judge; being, indeed, from the first, included in those
relations. This is not so in our earthly relationship. God sees men
suffer as no earthly parent could; he inflicts pain as no earthly parent
should. All is for our profit; but if that object fails through our
perverseness, we are instructed, by our experience, that if God can look
on mental anguish and not relieve it, because he seeks an ulterior good,
the punishment of sin, the natural and just consequences of disobedience
to the great laws of the universe, may be, in their extended impression,
another ulterior good, which will warrant the same mental sufferings
after death, and forever.
Could I be permitted, therefore, I would take by the hand every bereaved
father whom so great an affliction as the death of a child has not
succeeded in bringing into a state of preparation for heaven, and kindly
ask how he expects to bear a final and endless separation. "If thou hast
run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou
contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou
trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of
Jordan?" God describes to his ancient people one of the great sorrows
which will happen to them, if they forsake him, in their separations, by
captivity, from their children: "Thy sons and thy daughters shall be
given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with
longing, for them all the day long; and there shall be no might in thy
hand." Pains of absence, sudden convulsions of feeling at the remembered
looks, form, words, and motions of a loved one, sometimes are as when
men feel the earth quaking under them; and then, again, they entirely
prostrate us, for the moment, like a tornado. Homesickness in a foreign
land,--an ocean stretching between us and the objects of our love--is
an admonition to us with respect to future, endless separations. The
hopeless death of a child has sometimes had the effect to change the
long-established faith of a parent with regard to future retribution;
all the acknowledged principles of interpretation, all the results of
meditation and prayer, the theory of the divine government which has
been built up in the soul, till it became identified with personal
consciousness, the whole analogy of faith,--all, have been swept away by
the overmastering power of parental love for one who, when he died, left
his friends to sorrow as they that have no hope. Now, supposing a parent
to fail of heaven, and to retain his instinctive parental feelings, the
endless separation between him and his family will be a source of sorrow
which needs only to be kept up, by an ever-living memory, to constitute
all which is pictured in the boldest metaphors of inspired tongues and
pens. A father in disgrace, or under ignominy, suffers intensely when
he sees or thinks of his children, provided his natural sensibilities
are not destroyed. A father punished, hereafter, by his Redeemer and
Judge, a father banished from the company of heaven, knowing that his
family are there, and that if his influence had had its full effect,
they would all have perished with him,--or a father with a part of his
children with him in perdition, the wife and mother with one or more of
the children in heaven,--is a picture of woe which nothing but timely
repentance and faith in Christ may prevent from being a reality in the
experience of some who read these lines. Can it be true, as Bishop Hall
says, that "to be happy is not so sweet a state as it is miserable to
have been happy"? O man, if you have a child in heaven, think that,
among the sweet influences of divine love, there probably is no more
powerful motive to draw your affections towards God, than that glimpse
which you sometimes seem to have of this child's face, on which heaven
has traced its lineaments of peace and bliss; or that sudden whisper of
a gentle, child-like voice, now and then heard by the ear of fancy,
persuading you to be a Christian. Do not let the world, or shame, or
procrastination, lead you to resist such efforts of almighty love to
save you. He who has had a child saved by Christ, and will not be
himself a Christian,--what more can God do to save him?
The breaking up of our homes is one of the mysteries of God's
providence. The last thing, perhaps, which we might suppose would be
allowed, is, the removal of a mother from a family of young children.
This being so frequent, we cease to wonder at any other dispensations;
we conclude that separations are to be made, regardless of any and every
seeming necessity and endearment. "Sirs, I perceive that this voyage
will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but
also of our lives." The conviction is forced upon us that there is
another world, for which we must make all our calculations. "There is a
better world," said the distinguished William Wirt, after the death of
his daughter, in 1831,--"there is a better world, of which I have
thought too little. To that world she has gone, and thither my
affections have followed her. This was Heaven's design. I see and feel
it as distinctly as if an angel had revealed it. I often imagine that I
can see her beckoning me to the happy world to which she has gone. She
was my companion, my office companion, my librarian, my clerk. My papers
now bear her indorsement. She pursued her studies in my office, by my
side, sat with me, walked with me, was my inexpressibly sweet and
inseparable companion,--never left me but to go and sit with her mother.
We knew all her intelligence, all her pure and delicate sensibility, the
quickness and power of her perceptions, her seraphic love. She was all
love, and loved all God's creation, even the animals, trees, and plants.
She loved her God and Saviour with an angel's love, and died like a
saint."[A]
[Footnote A: Kennedy's Life of William Wirt--letter to Judge Carr.]
About the same time, he writes to his wife,--
"I want only my blessed Saviour's assurance of pardon and acceptance to
be at peace. I wish to find no rest short of rest in him,--Let us both
look up to that heaven--where our Saviour dwells, and from which he is
showing us the attractive face of our blessed and happy child, and
bidding us prepare to come to her, since she can no more visibly come to
us. I have no taste now for worldly business. I go to it reluctantly. I
would keep company only with my Saviour and his holy book. I dread the
world, the strife, and contention, and emulation of the bar; yet I will
do my duty--this is part of my religion."
In December, 1833, another daughter died; but he writes,--
"I look upon life as a drama, bearing the same sort, though not the
same degree, of relation to eternity, as an hour spent at the theatre,
and the fictions there exhibited ... do to the whole of real life. Nor
is there any thing in this passing pageant worth the sorrow that we
lavish on it. Now, when my children or friends leave me, or when I shall
be called to leave them, I consider it as merely parting for the present
visit, to meet under happier circumstances, when we shall part no
more."[B]
[Footnote B: Kennedy's Life of William Wirt--letter to Judge Cabell.]
* * * * *
"All my children," said the venerable John Eliot, of Roxbury, "are
either with Christ or in Christ." Happy, happy man! The little ones,
blighted soon by the touch of death, surely are with Christ; "for of
such is the kingdom of God." The cherub boy, and the blooming, broken
flower, the young daughter,--the young man in his strength, the young
maiden in her beauty,--are there. As we commune together, in the pages
which follow, on themes touching this subject, God grant that every one
who has not yet gladdened the heart of parent, and pastor, nay, of that
infinite Friend, our Saviour, by the surrender of the heart to God, and
every father and mother who is yet unprepared to join the growing circle
of the family in heaven,--('how grows in Paradise their store!')--may,
as we reach the last page, find that with cords of a man, with bands of
love, He who made Pleiades, and Arcturus and his sons, has united them
in eternal fellowship with their departed loved ones, through faith in
Christ. This, while it hallows the remainder of life with the rich,
mellowed beauty of the changing leaf, and ripening grain, and shortening
days, lays the foundation of that perfect happiness for which our homes
are intended to prepare us; their joys alluring, their separations
pointing, us to heaven.
II.
THE FEAR OF DEATH ALLEVIATED.
Yea, and moreover this full well know I:
He that's at any time afraid to die
Is in weak case, and (whatsoe'er he saith)
Hath but a wavering and a feeble faith.
GEORGE WITHER.