"BABY is dead!" How many hearts have throbbed with anguish, and eyes
overflowed with tears at the utterance of these thrilling words! A
tender bud is intrusted to a rejoicing family. Very precious does it
become to them. With what ecstatic joy do they note the first dawn
of intelligence as it beams from the starry eyes! How merry their
own hearts now, as they listen to the shouts of childish glee as
they burst from the coral lips! Ay, very, very dear is this little
one, and their cup of bliss seems full without alloy; when suddenly
the relentless destroyer enters their happy home, and sets his seal
on that snowy brow, so like a lily's leaf, in its pure beauty.
Disease fastens itself upon the loved one, and, like a tender bud
nipped by the untimely frost, it withers, droops, and dies. Then
come the fearful words, "Baby is dead!" With what a crushing weight
do they fall on the ears of that mourning family! How reluctantly do
their bruised hearts acknowledge the sad truth! But stern reality
avers it so, and the spectre Grief claims them for its own, as they
gaze upon the pale face of the little sleeper.
Ah! the light of those bright eyes is for ever quenched, and the
lids are closed tranquilly over them; the rose tint has fled from
the round cheeks; the ruby lips are colourless, and the youthful
heart has ceased its throbbings.
Yes, "Baby is dead," and silently they prepare it for the cheerless
tomb. The golden tresses they so oft have wound lovingly over their
fingers, are gently smoothed for the last time, while one fairy curl
is severed and placed next the mother's heart; oft will she gaze
upon it, as the months of her sorrow come and go, and weep over the
memory of her departed treasure.
Sadly the little form is robed in the tiny shroud, and the dimpled
hands crossed sweetly over the pulseless bosom. Gently he is placed
in the coffin--it is a harder bed than he was wont to rest on, but
he will feel it not. With unutterable anguish they follow him to the
dark, cold grave; strange hands lower him into its gloomy depths,
and the clods fall heavily upon the coffin. Each one seems to sink
with laden weight into their hearts. It is filled up now, and the
green turf covers the late smiling cherub, and the mourners turn
sadly away. Oh! how dark the world seems now, which was so full of
sunshine a little while ago! How desolate their once joyous house!
"Baby is dead--our idol is gone," is the language of their hearts.
Yes, stricken ones, your sunbeam is gone; but where? You have buried
the beauteous casket beneath the green sods of the valley; but the
precious jewel it contained is beaming brightly in the coronal of
God.
Your treasure is taken from your love-encircling arms, but it is
sweetly pillowed on the bosom of that kind Saviour who said, "Suffer
little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is
the kingdom of heaven."
The bud is nipped from its parent stem in the springtime of its
existence; but it hath been transplanted to a milder clime, where
the rough blasts and chilling storms of mortality cannot harm, and
where, watered by the soft dew of Divine love, its tiny leaves will
expand and bloom with unfading lustre!
Had this bud of life, over whom your souls yearned with such
unutterable fondness, been spared to you, you know not how your
bright anticipations might have been darkened. When it came to
thread life's strange, wild paths, mildew and blight might have
settled on the pure spirit, and guilty, desolating passions scathed
the guileless heart.
Then weep not, mourning ones, but rather rejoice that He, who doeth
all things well, hath summoned it, in its pristine purity, to a
haven of innocence, where contamination nor decay cannot defile or
enter. And when you miss the childish prattle or silvery laugh which
fell so sweetly on your ears, think of the baby that is dead to you,
as a rejoicing angel among angelic hosts that throng the "land of
the blest." Baby is dead to earth, but is living in Paradise!
"Then mourn not, though the loved one go
Early from this world of woe;
Upon yon bright and blissful shore
You soon shall meet to part no more,
'Mid amaranthine flowers to roam,
Where sin and death can never come."