But a short time ago death with rude and sudden hand snatched from
me my only child, the son of my heart; a son grown to splendid young
manhood; a son who loved me, reverenced me, believed as I believe, a
member of my own Church, baptized by my own hand in early days: a
son on whom I hoped to lean in peace if the shadows should deepen
round me ere my Lord might come. And in the going of that beloved
son of mine the light of day has seemed at times to fail, the stars
of heaven have grown so dim and far away I think of them often as
tears of distant eyes that pity me. There are moments when I crave
him as a hungry man does food and as a thirsty man in desert ways
yearns for a draught of limpid waters. I have a hurt here in the
heart of me no medicine of earth can cure; but because I know when
the Lord comes this son of mine shall rise and I shall meet him and
the old glad life renew in larger, richer, fuller measure; and
because I know there is only the sound of the trump between me and
that longed-for hour; that the door of heaven is always ajar and my
Lord may come at any moment and bring us to the hand clasp and the
love embrace again, I bear my hurt, I rest in the Lord and preach
this blessed hope to other hearts that ache--the Coming of Him who
is the resurrection and the life and whose last earthward utterance
to His Church is:
"Behold, I come quickly."