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 Palmer, B. M. 1818-1902. 
 The broken home 
 
 i 
 
THE BROKEN HOME; 
 
 -OR— 
 
 Lessons in Sofpow, 
 
 — BY— 
 
 B. M. PALMER, Pastor, 
 
 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 NEW ORLEANS, LA. 
 
 SECOND EDITION— 1891. 
 
 E. S UPTON, 
 
 Religious Book Depository, 
 
 New Orleans, La. 
 
Entered, accoiding to Act of Congress, in the year 
 
 1890, by 
 
 E. S. UPTON, 
 
 In the office of the Libraian of Congress, at Wash* 
 
 ington. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 The following pages are committed to the Press, 
 after no little mental conflict. The •' stricken deer," 
 says Cowper, withdraws 
 
 ••To seek a tranquil death in distant shades :" 
 and so the mourner should hide his wound beneath 
 his mantle. But the Free-Masonry of those in sorrow 
 would pour the balm into other hearts which the 
 Spirit of Consolation may have given to each. 
 
 From the simple desire of comforting those who 
 mourn, this story of repeated bereavements is here 
 told. It is proper to add, that the conversations re- 
 ported in these sketches are copied verbatim from 
 notes taken at the time. They are recited without 
 enlargement or embellishment, that they may be the 
 more touching from their simplicity. Long-treasured 
 memories are now scattered upon the winds, with the 
 prayer that they may help to " bind up the broken- 
 hearted." The Author. 
 
" Oh, haunted soul, 
 Down whose dim corridors forever roll 
 The voices of the dead ; whose holy ground 
 Re-echoes, at the midnight hour, with sound 
 Of feet that long ago were laid to rest, 
 Yet trouble thee forever ! Lo, a guest 
 Is waiting at the gate ; and unto Him 
 Thou shalt bemoan thy Dead, and He will take 
 Sweet words and comfort thee. Thine eyes are dim, 
 But stretch thine hands to Him ; He will not break 
 The bruised reed." 
 
I. 
 
 " A little fondling thing, that to my breast 
 Clung always, either in quiet or unrest." 
 
 The morning was opening its eye in the 
 first gray streak upon the horizon, when a 
 faint cry issued from an upper chamber in 
 one of our Southern cities. Instantly the 
 hurried steps were arrested, of one pacing 
 uneasily to and fro in the hall beneath. It 
 was a cry which, when once heard, is never 
 forgotten ; the low, flat wail of a babe just 
 entering a world to which it is a stranger — 
 the symbol of pain, premonitory of all it 
 must suffer between the cradle and the 
 grave. It fell now, for the first time, upon 
 ears which had ached through the weary 
 night to catch the sound. The long sus- 
 pense was over ; and the deep sympathy 
 which had taken up into the soul the an- 
 guish that another felt in the body, gave 
 place to exultation when the great peril 
 
6 tHE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 was passed. The young father bowed 
 himself on the spot where he stood, and 
 poured out an over-charged heart in grate- 
 ful praise to Him who had softened the 
 curse to "woman, who, being deceived, 
 was in the transgression," by the gracious 
 "notwithstanding she shall be saved in 
 child-bearing, if they continue in faith and 
 charity and holiness with sobriety." 
 
 Solemn thoughts crowd together in the 
 first parental consciousness : thoughts that 
 deepen in significance afterward ; but never 
 so startling as when they rush upon the 
 soul in the first experience of the new re- 
 lation. Shall they be embalmed in speech ? 
 Thousands in the rehearsal will recall the 
 earliest flush of those emotions. 
 
 ' ' Little miniature of myself — bone and 
 flesh of my own substance — to whom I 
 stand, as the instrumental cause of thy being, 
 a secondary creator ! Claiming by equal 
 right the ancestral name, and wresting it 
 from me when I am low in death ! Soon 
 to be strong and tall as I — coming each 
 day more into the foreground, and pushing 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 7 
 
 me nearer to the edge over which I must 
 topple at the last ! Sole occupant then of 
 all my trusts ; the mysterious link that 
 binds me to the generations that follow, in 
 whom all my earthly immortality resides ; 
 and passing me on but as a figure in the 
 continuous succession ! And yet, in all this 
 formidable rivalry, I clasp this first-born to 
 my heart with not the least infusion of 
 jealousy. 
 
 * ' Little stranger, comest thou to solve 
 or to darken the mystery of marriage ? 
 Even at the fountain, the stream was parted 
 in two heads in the dualism of sex. Great 
 enigma of Nature, lying just at the begin- 
 ning : man's unity broken by the separate- 
 ness of woman — yet preserved in her de- 
 rivation from his side, ideally existing still 
 in him from whom she .was taken. The 
 complementary parts are reintegrated into 
 the whole by a mystical union which blends 
 the two spiritually into one. And now the 
 joint life issues in a birth : the child gathers 
 into itself the double being from which 
 it sprung, and diversity returns to the 
 
8 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 unity whence it emerged. Strange recon- 
 ciliation of Nature's contradictions — this 
 third, in whom the one and the two are 
 brought together again. Tiny infant as 
 thou art, thou dost yet interpret the sym- 
 bol of marriage to those who produced 
 thee. 
 
 " An immortal soul, with dormant 
 powers that by and by will compass the 
 universe ; now soaring to the cope-stone 
 of heaven, and measuring the stars ; now 
 turning the stone-leaves which beneath the 
 earth record the histories of countless 
 cycles. A soul which will at last strip off 
 the encumbrance of clay, and sweep with 
 exploring wing the vast eternity where 
 God makes His dwelling place. And I 
 must stoop beneath this wing and teach its 
 first flight, that will rise higher and higher 
 in the far forever. 
 
 " A soul, alas, born under the curse of 
 sin, through me the guilty channel. And 
 I must stand in the holy priesthood ap- 
 point d of God, between it and eternal 
 death. My soul must be in its soul's stead, 
 
Lessons in sorrow. 
 
 and feel for it the Law's penal frown. My 
 faith must lay her hand upon the covenant, 
 * I will be a God to thee and to thy seed 
 after thee ; ' and plead the force of that 
 great instrument with all the agony of 
 human intercession." 
 
 Such were the thoughts that, like rolling 
 waves, flooded the heart of the young pas- 
 tor ; who found in these new responsibilities 
 a divinity school, with richer teachings 
 than that which had trained and sent him 
 forth to his lifework. A grand theology 
 was forming itself out of these experiences ; 
 where every thought was turned into 
 prayer, and knowledge glided into wor- 
 ship. With muffled tread he ascended the 
 stairway ; and stood beside one who in the 
 shaded Hght was pale as the sheet on which 
 she lay. A new word was born upon his 
 lips, which softly whispered, " Mother, 
 we are three." 
 
 Two and twenty months rolled away, 
 and the boy grew. Ah ! there are proud 
 moments in every man's domestic life. It 
 is an epoch when before the altar he feels 
 
lO THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 the trust trembling upon his arm, of the 
 gentle being who dares with him to face 
 life's great uncertainty — a trust the 
 stronger, because it trembles. In rude 
 boyhood I once snared a dove. But when 
 it turned its soft eyes upward, and I felt 
 upon my palm the throb of its frightened 
 heart, I relented and cast it forth to the 
 freedom of its own wing again. It was 
 God's way of teaching gentleness, even 
 through a bird ; and the lesson went down 
 into the character which it helped to mould. 
 But this confiding heart, which beat against 
 my own in that hour of vows, fluttered with 
 no pulse of fear ; only with an awe over- 
 shadowing the supreme moment in which 
 the after years are wedged, and their dark 
 contingencies ; and it was the pride of 
 honest manhood that fixed the resolve, to 
 conquer life for her and to make its very 
 harshness smooth. 
 
 So, too, with a proud joy the father 
 tosses his first-born into the air, and re- 
 ceives him back screaming with delight, in 
 utter unconsciousness of any peril. This 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. II 
 
 strange commingling of robust mirth with 
 childhood's rollicking gaiety, are they not 
 threads woven into the family life every- 
 where ? And then the more thoughtful 
 pride with which a father bends over the 
 sleeping babe and casts its horoscope. 
 Life, short though it be, is it not filled with 
 mere repetitions ? We scarcely begin to 
 realize the prophecies of our own youth, 
 before we drop into the lives of our chil- 
 dren in dreamy anticipations of their future. 
 Thus during these twenty months pious 
 hopes were springing up in this young 
 father's musing. Through generations co- 
 eval with the history of the country, as far 
 back as the lineage could be traced, the 
 prophet's mantle had rested upon an honor- 
 able ancestry. From sire to son the oil of 
 consecration had been poured on those who, 
 as ambassadors of Christ, had besought 
 men to be reconciled unto God. Would 
 the blessed succession be continued in the 
 generations to come ? At the entrance of 
 his own calling, he looked through the 
 vista of years to the goal when he must lay 
 
12 THE BROKEN HOME) OR 
 
 it down ; and with the fervor of his own 
 consecration, he prayed that the family- 
 traditions might be preserved in this scion 
 of a priestly line. 
 
 Ah, ye who pray, know ye the mode in 
 which the answer is returned? "We 
 walk by faith, not by sight;" and it needs 
 a purged eye to read the faithfulness of 
 God in our bitter disappointments. Whilst 
 in visions of the future the young minister 
 was casting his robe of office upon the child 
 of his loins, an angel's wing touched the 
 babe and dropped into its cradle the call to 
 higher ministries beyond the stars. It was 
 seen in the earthly blight which shrivelled 
 up the little form, until the loose flesh 
 lapped over the thin bones like an unfitting 
 garment. The hunger of disease could 
 find nothing for its insatiate voracity, but 
 the juices of the body on which it fed ; and 
 the breathing skeleton lay at length upon 
 a pillow on the mother's lap. How old 
 the child grew in two short months, and 
 how tall its little limbs became ! Every 
 trace of infantile beauty was effaced, only 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 1$ 
 
 the golden curls floated over the pale: 
 brow ; and the brilliant eyes which strangers 
 in the street stooped to gaze upon, burned 
 now with a feverish lustre. Half closed in 
 the uneasy sleep of sickness, even death 
 itself could not seal them up. In his very 
 coffin they peered out from beneath the 
 soft lashes with what looked so much like 
 thoughtfulness, that a creeping came over 
 the observer; wondering whether pain, 
 could be a teacher, or if death could im-- 
 press what seemed so like the reflection of 
 knowledge. It is more than forty years 
 since then, and the frost of winter has 
 whitened the hairs upon that father's head ; 
 but across the stretch of all those years 
 two hazel eyes, bright as coals of Juniper, 
 still burn before his vision ; and the mem- 
 ory is fresh as yesterday of that oldish look, 
 coming out of eternity and resting upon 
 that dying infant. Ah ! who can tell how 
 the two worlds may overlap at the border 
 where they touch; or the way of "the 
 free Spirit " in His dealing with a soul 
 standing at the gates of Heaven ? The 
 
14 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 great mystery of death, howit swallows up 
 the lesser mysteries of life which are so 
 perplexing ! Reader, in that narrow hour 
 we shall touch them all ; and the great 
 revelation will come next after, in the light 
 of the Throne. 
 
 Hope and fear kept the scales evenly in 
 the balance, for a time ; but at length the 
 beam went down, and fear deepened into 
 anguish. As the grim certainty became 
 each day more sure, there was another 
 pacing to and fro in the little room where 
 the oil was beaten for the sanctuary ; and 
 solemn questions came up from beneath 
 the Judgment seat, and shook the heart of 
 him who felt that he was sponsor for his 
 child. 
 
 "This little soul which I had hoped to 
 lead through knowledge up to God, must 
 I not lead it still in another way, seeing 
 that He caHs for it from above ? Ah, 
 Saviour, if this be Thy voice saying as of 
 old, " of such is the kingdom of Heaven," 
 who am I that I should forbid ? If to be 
 taken into Thine arms is to be blessed 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 1 5 
 
 forever, then, like the Hebrew mothers, 
 let me bring this little one to Thee, 
 even in death, for the great benediction. 
 Oh, troubled heart, be still, and learn 
 that no selfishness can be in love ; 
 that He who loves his Master with- 
 holds nothing, when He has need of it ; 
 and he who loves his child will sink all 
 sense of loss in the everlasting gain to it, 
 of lying safe upon the bosom of the Shep- 
 herd." Thus the sharp struggle between 
 nature and grace was ended in the submis- 
 sion which said, " not my will, but thine, 
 be done. " It was the first lesson that came 
 out of the first sorrow. 
 
 Was this submission hard to learn ? Yet 
 it was implicitly contained in the full sur- 
 render of the soul to God in penitence and 
 faith, long before made. It was only the 
 bringing out, in special form, Avhat had in 
 principle been wrought within by the Spirit 
 of God. The life of the seed can only pass 
 into the life of "he plant, under the patient 
 discipline of nature ; and so the principial 
 virtue implanted in the new birth passes. 
 
i6 TilE BROKEN HOME; OK 
 
 only under the discipline of grace, into the 
 active experience of the believer. But if 
 this lesson was taught the father and the 
 Christian, there was another which entered 
 into the lifework of the pastor and teacher. 
 This child, could it suffer thus except 
 under the law of sin ? Could death seize 
 upon it, except it lay beneath the curse ? 
 No article of faith was more firmly held by 
 him than this, "By one man sin entered 
 into the world, and death by sin ; and so 
 • death passed upon all men, for that all 
 have sinned ; " and this, " Death reigned 
 from Adam to Moses, even over them 
 that had not sinned after the similitude of 
 Adam's transgression, which is the figure 
 of Him that was to come." It was, how- 
 ever, no cold abstraction lying in the black- 
 letter of a creed, but a living and fearful 
 responsibility which now rolled itself upon 
 the conscience. 
 
 Thus he soliloquized: "This suffering 
 infant is through me the heir of human 
 guilt, and derives from me a nature stained 
 with thfe defilement of sin. How, then, 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. tj 
 
 shall it appear before the God of dreadful 
 holiness? If through me it sustains this 
 relation to the law and the curse, docs it 
 sustain through me no relation to the grace 
 which shall work its deliverance from both ? 
 If bound through me a sinner in firm con- 
 nection with the first Adam, by whom is 
 * the judgment to condemnation ' — do I not 
 stand, as a believer, a link between it and 
 the second Adam, by whom is ' the free 
 gift unto justification ? ' Think, my soul, 
 of the solemn sponsorship which roots 
 itself in the parental relation. What did 
 it mean, when I gave this child to God in 
 the covenant of baptism ? When, on its 
 behalf, I confessed the sinful estate in which 
 it was born, and its need of redemption by 
 the blood of Christ? What did Jehovah 
 mean when He responded in the gracious 
 promise, ' I will be a God to thy seed after 
 thee ? ' What did it mean when, with the 
 water of consecration upon its brow, the 
 Lord placed the infant in my arms and 
 said, ' Nurse it for me and I will give thee 
 thy wages ? ' And when in the public 
 
1 8 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 assembly I vowed to train it in the nurture 
 and admonition of the Lord, as belongin^j 
 to Him and to Him alone? Was this an 
 idle ceremony of the Church, only the 
 dramatic form in which she chose to cast 
 her teaching? Or was it rather a true 
 covenant which the great and mighty God 
 made with me and with my house ; that in 
 like manner as by the law of nature the 
 curse descended through me upon my off- 
 spring, so by the law of grace the blessing 
 should entail, through the operation of my 
 faith, upon the children of my loins? " 
 
 In the opening of a minstry which God 
 designed to be long upon earth, this death 
 of his first-born let the young Pastor down 
 into the mysteries of that covenant which 
 he should afterward expound. But not 
 }-et did it crystallize in any form of doc- 
 trine. It lay upon his heart only as a tre- 
 mendous fact, that, in all these solemn 
 transactions of grace, he stood for his child ; 
 and that his faith must lay hold upon the 
 covenant in its behalf, and plead for its 
 salvation in some sort as he once pleaded 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. I9 
 
 for his own. Under these convictions it did 
 not suffice coolly to assume that infants, 
 dyings before they can discern between 
 good and evil, are saved from death eter- 
 nal by the simple necessity of the case. 
 This might be so ; or, better still, the early 
 removal of such before the possibility of 
 actual transgression may be the pledge of 
 their election through grace, and the pre 
 cise condition upon which their salvation 
 must turn. These traditional beliefs liad 
 long been cherished by him before whom 
 deeper views were now opening, and had 
 wrought themselves as firm convictions in 
 his soul. But something more than bare 
 opinion was needed to sustain one who 
 stood confronted by a double sponsorship 
 under the law of nature and of grace. By 
 the one, he became the channel through 
 which a corrupt nature was transmitted ; 
 by the other, he was solemnly constituted 
 the representative of his offspring in the 
 eternal covenant which pledged eternal 
 life to the faith which would accept its 
 provisions. The one transaction was as 
 
iO THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 real as the other; and while the spiritual 
 life was not conveyed through carnal 
 descent like the spiritual death, yet the 
 law of gract, which evermore demands 
 faith of its recipient, seems to require its 
 vicarious exercise for such as in the cove- 
 nant were dealt with by and through a 
 sponsor. To this father, at least, the bap- 
 tismal vow meant that, if it meant anything 
 at all. It became him now to put his soul 
 in the stead of his first-born. He must feel 
 the shame of that dishonor which sin had 
 cast upon it. He must take upon his con- 
 science the burden of its guilt, to confess 
 and bewail it before God. Having learned 
 for himself to rest upon the atonement of 
 Christ for pardon and eternal life, he must 
 now exercise this faith for the child, which 
 the child cannot exercise for itself He 
 must plead in its behalf the Divine promise 
 which, under the constitution of grace, he 
 had been appointed a sponsor to plead. 
 Unspeakably solemn was the trust, when 
 the reality of it came to be understood and 
 felt. More than the life of a generation 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 21 
 
 has passed, since he thus bowed himself 
 before God with an agony of wrestling 
 scarcely less than that with which he prayed 
 in the hour of his first conviction as a sin- 
 ner ; but all eternity will never efface the 
 impression then made upon his spirit, nor 
 undo the influence which it exerted upon 
 his whole Christian experience afterward. 
 Days were spent in wrestling intercession — 
 days which were darkened with awe under 
 a sense of this fearful trust ; until at length 
 a peace broke upon the soul, like the peace 
 which first lifted the burden of sin in his 
 own conversion. A blessed token was en- 
 joyed that his prayers had gone up as a 
 memorial before God ; and he sat beside 
 his dying boy with the strong comfort of 
 believing that the promise of the covenant 
 was assured to his seed forever. Other 
 children were born later, who lived to grow 
 up and confess Christ for themselves before 
 tlie world. But never from this moment 
 did a shade of doubt cloud his faith — that 
 He who had gathered so early the first- 
 fruits of his household into His garner, 
 
22 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 would gather the increase when that, too, 
 should be ripe. And this was the second 
 lesson, solemn yet gracious, which came 
 out of the first sorrow ; teaching what it 
 was to be a Christian father, standing be- 
 fore God the representative of his offspring. 
 Nineteen years bright with happiness and 
 love had chased far away the gloom of that 
 bereavement. Even the memory of it 
 grew faint, as it shaded off in the distance; 
 or when recalled, was recalled without a 
 pang for the richness of the blessing that 
 lay in it and had sanctified the years which 
 came after. It was destined to be brought 
 near again, by a relic which the grave itself 
 should yield. Nineteen years of sunshine, 
 and then the voice of weeping was heard 
 again. Another grave must be dug, to 
 receive the second-born. She was laid to 
 rest in a beautiful cemetery, upon the bank 
 of a stream whose gentle flow murmured a 
 soft and constant dirge over the sleepers 
 by its side. It was a new City of the 
 Dead, which taste and art sought to adorn : 
 vain tribute of love to those who heed it 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 23 
 
 not. " Let the two lie together," said the 
 parents as they wept : and we will carve 
 upon the marble of the one, 
 
 " The little angel smiled and slept ; " 
 
 and upon the marble of the other, 
 
 " She who, gentie as a saint, 
 Ne'er gave us pain." 
 
 And so the pick-axe and the shovel threv/ 
 aside the earth which for many years had 
 pressed upon the bosom of the infant. 
 Only a few bones and the little skull. No, 
 wait a second ; and with trembling hand 
 the father clipped one little curl from which 
 the lustre had faded, but twining still 
 around the hollow temple. He placed it 
 on the palm of his hand, without a word, 
 before the eye of the mother. With a 
 smothered cry she fell upon his neck — 
 "It is our boy's ; I see it as long ago, the 
 soft lock that curled upon his temple." 
 ' ' Take it, mother ; it is to us the prophecy 
 of the Resurrection ; the grave has not the 
 power to destroy. " The old tears were 
 wept again ; but through them God made 
 the rainbow to shine. 
 
i4 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 The following lines, which may be found 
 in the Biography of Mr. Webster, are not 
 generally known. Beneath the rugged 
 versification lurks a genuine pathos ; show- 
 ing the great statesman not to have been 
 destitute of the sentiment which marks the 
 Poet: 
 
 •' My Son ! thou wast my lieart's delight, 
 Thy morn of life was gay and cheery ; 
 That morn has rushed to sudden night, 
 Thy father's hou<e is sad and dreary. 
 
 •■ I held thee on my knee, my Son, 
 And kissed thee laughing, kissed ihee weeping; 
 But ah, thy little day is done, 
 Thou'rt with thy angel sister sleeping. 
 
 " The staff on which my years should lean 
 Is broken, ere those years come o'er me; 
 My funeral rites thou shouldst have seen, 
 But thou art in the grave before me. 
 
 " Thou rear'st to me no filial stone, 
 
 No parent's grave with tears beholdest ; 
 
 Thou art my Ancestor, my Son, 
 
 And stand'st in Heaven's account the oldest. 
 
 •• On earth my lot was soonest cast, 
 Thy generation after mine ; 
 Thou hast thy predecessor past — 
 Earlier Eternity is thine. 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 2$ 
 
 " I should have set before thine eyes 
 
 The road to Heaven, and showed it clear ; 
 But thou untaught spring'st to the skies, 
 And leav'st thy teacher lingering here. 
 
 *• Sweet Seraph, I would learn of thee, 
 And hasten to partake thy bliss ; 
 And oh, to thy world welcome me. 
 As first I welcomed thee to this. 
 
 " Dear Angel, thou art safe in Heaven ; 
 No prayers for thee need more be made; 
 Oh, let thy prayers for those be given 
 Who oft have blessed thy infant head. 
 
 " My Father, I beheld thee born. 
 
 And led thy tottering steps with care ; 
 Before me risen to Heaven's bright morn, 
 My Son, my Father, guide me there." 
 
II. 
 
 *' Eut lying darkly between. 
 
 Winding down through the night, 
 Is the dim and unknown stream 
 That leads at last to the light." 
 
 Months elapsed before the voice of child- 
 hood broke the oppressive stillness. A 
 daughter was then clasped to the mother's 
 breast, who said: "This now shall com- 
 fort us for our first-born, whom the Lord 
 has taken." The cloud had drifted away 
 which threw the first shadow upon us, and 
 the sky was bright with the smile of God 
 for nineteen years. The little comforter 
 who crept first into our hearts, in due time 
 gave her sisterly welcome to others who 
 came after ; until a group of five daughters 
 chased away the gloom of the early death, 
 and the house rang again with gladness and 
 song. Almost the half of wedded life was 
 spent without a tear to moisten the eye, or a 
 
28 THE BROKEN HOME ; OI< 
 
 pang to pierce the heart. The infinitely 
 wise Father abov^e will educate us for 
 Heaven and Himself through joy as well 
 as sorrow. Under the double influence of 
 the sunshine and the rain the fruitful earth 
 will yield her increase to the husbandman. 
 But the smile and the tear, do they sim- 
 ply succeed each other ? Or is the one 
 the fountain from which the other flows ? 
 Is there a joy on earth, which does not 
 hide in its bosom the kindred grief that 
 shall presently flood the soul ? Within the 
 bloom, lies the blight of every flower — 
 within the life, lies hid the death of all who 
 make us happy. As, on the other hand, 
 
 *' The night is mother of the day, 
 And winter of the spring ; 
 And ever upon old decay 
 The greenest mosses spring." 
 
 The baby girl that dropped upon us in our 
 sadness, brought a blessing with her from 
 the skies ; and left a blessing, when she 
 went up again to weave a new tie for us 
 above. Her infancy was bright and full of 
 cheer, with those little endearments which 
 make a babe a sunbeam in the home. The 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. ig 
 
 development of mind came on apace, with 
 the usual pride in those precocious utter- 
 ances, which to fond parents are the proofs 
 of infantile genius. As education ad- 
 vanced, she disclosed a quick understand- 
 ing which gathered knowledge with ease ; 
 so that under a generous culture of eigh- 
 teen years she was fitted to adorn any 
 station in life. Her virtues were of the 
 quiet kind : gentle and unobtrusive in her 
 bearing she won the affection of all, while 
 her singleness and sincerity of character 
 secured their confidence and trust. She 
 was singularly free from all censoriousness 
 of spirit : never indulging in the sharpness 
 of personal criticism herself, it was thor- 
 oughly distasteful to her in others. She 
 was ever ready to palliate the faults which 
 drew forth the language of censure, setting 
 over against these the virtues of those who 
 were the subjects of animadversion. At 
 an early age she united with the Church of 
 God, and through her brief life " adorned 
 the doctrine of God her Saviour in all 
 things." She was one whose "faults 
 
30 THE BROKEN HOME; OK 
 
 leaned to virtue's side:" and the single 
 weakness of her character must be empha- 
 sized in order to explain what will follow 
 in this sketch of her dying hours. Her 
 diffidence and humility deepened into 
 timidity and self-distrust which, even in 
 her school-life, marred her happiness. She 
 was never satisfied with her preparations 
 for the class-room, often prolonging her 
 studies to extreme weariness of body and 
 mind. Like the steed whose mettle fails 
 only with expiring life, I have sometimes 
 feared that this continued friction wore 
 upon her delicate and susceptible nature ; 
 and that the strain of so much anxiety and 
 toil may have sapped the strength which 
 was needed to resist the insidious disease 
 that so soon attacked her frame. It will 
 be instructive at least to notice how natural 
 temperament often modifies our Christian 
 experience, giving a shape and color it 
 would not otherwise present. This outline 
 of her recognized traits will introduce to 
 the reader the record of her illness and 
 death. 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 3 I 
 
 In the month of I\Iay, 1862, we first 
 noticed a slight cough, which we attributed, 
 as usual, to a cold ; and hoped it would 
 wear ofif. It increased, however, instead 
 of diminishing, and was accompanied with 
 expectoration. She began to pine awa}', 
 and complained of lassitude. The civil 
 war which then convulsed the country, 
 had thrown us from our home ; but as soon 
 as we had found permanent quarters as 
 refugees, her lungs were sounded by a 
 skilful physician, who could detect only a 
 little dullness at the base of the right lung. 
 She continued to decline throughout the 
 winter, but was able to go about and ride 
 on horseback ; a kind of exercise which we 
 encouraged as peculiarly beneficial. To- 
 wards spring her appetite, always delicate, 
 became capricious ; and she began to look 
 emaciated. 
 
 Early in April, 1863, her mother took 
 her to the seaboard, hoping that a visit to 
 relatives, with change of scene and diet, 
 would rally her failing powers and rouse 
 her drooping spirits. Instead of this she 
 
32 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 declined so rapidly that we feared she 
 might not be able to return. In May, I 
 went for her, and was comforted by the 
 apparent ease with which she accomplished 
 the journey back. But her appetite was 
 completely gone ; she loathed food more 
 than physic. No delicacies tempted her 
 palate ; and she hung for weeks at this 
 point, wasted to a skeleton — getting no 
 better, and apparently no worse. 
 
 A certain service was laid upon me by 
 the Church which required my presence in 
 the Army of Tennessee, and I was in great 
 mental conflict as to my personal duty. 
 Though I had resigned all hope of her re- 
 covery, it seemed probable that she would 
 linger many months ; accordingly I resolved 
 to leave her with her mother and with God. 
 But how shall I describe the agony of that 
 parting ? She wept convulsively ; that 
 poor wasted frame shook with sobs upon 
 that dying bed ; and my heart was almost 
 as much broken as her own. She uttered 
 only one cry: " Father, you are going so 
 far, and I am so ill." Oh ! how the words 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 33 
 
 kept ringing in my ears amidst the drums 
 and cannon of the carrip ; and I could not 
 but ask myself daily, if duty did indeed 
 require me to be thus cruel to my dying 
 child. She evidently feared it was a final 
 separation ; which, thanks to God, it did 
 not prove to be. I took advantage of the 
 confusion of the retreat from Shelbyville, 
 to run home and look upon the pale face 
 once more. It was early morning when I 
 arrived, and she was still asleep. Awaking 
 in a few moments, she burst into tears and 
 exclaimed twice : " I knew he would come ; 
 I knew he would come ! " Just as a ray 
 of light illumines a dark room, so this one 
 sentence revealed to me the thoughts that 
 had been passing through her mind. It 
 was a word so full of love, so full of trust, 
 that I bowed over her and wept like a wo- 
 man. There was another cause for tears : 
 my eyes, not beguiled as were the eyes of 
 others by the gradual progress of the dis- 
 ease, detected at once the signature of the 
 tomb upon that smooth white brow ; and I 
 resolved instantly never to leave her until 
 
34 I'lIE BROKEN home; OK 
 
 she was yielded in the Saviour's arms. 
 This was on the fourth of July; and for 
 eleven days no presage of immediate death 
 was afforded. During the night of the 
 fifteenth violent pains, which had been re- 
 pressed by astringent remedies, returned 
 with all their former intensity ; but yielded 
 to external applications, and ceased alto- 
 gether about the hour of breakfast next 
 morning. It was the beginning of the end, 
 but we knew it not. During the forenoon 
 one slight cough brought up a mouthful of 
 phlegm, and was followed by fainting ar- 
 rested only upon the border of uncon- 
 sciousness. This occurred three times 
 during the day. I thought the fainting 
 only nervous ; the mother, with the truer 
 instinct of her sex, saw in it dissolution. 
 So it proved ; for at half-past ten that night 
 she was in Heaven. 
 
 Throughout her sickness I had been 
 averse to speaking with her on the subject 
 of death : partly from the confidence I felt 
 in her preparation for the great change — 
 partly from unwillingness to extinguish the 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 35 
 
 last spark of hope which, in one so feeble, 
 I feared might extinguish the last spark of 
 life — but mainly from an unmanly weak- 
 ness that sought to hide from sight a truth 
 so unwelcome. So much are we like the 
 ruined bankrupt, who has not the courage 
 to look his insolvency fairly in the face. 
 I have since deeply regretted this reticence ; 
 since longer and more frequent conversa- 
 tions might have contributed towards re- 
 moving the painful apprehensions which I 
 afterwards found to burden her mind. 
 
 On Sabbath afternoon, July 12th, under 
 a simple sense of duty, I first broke through 
 this reserve. Lying upon the bed by her 
 side, the following conversation took place : 
 
 *' My daughter, I would like to know 
 what you think of your case ; do you 
 think you will ever recover?" 
 
 ' ' No, father, I do not see how it is pos- 
 sible for me to get well." 
 
 " Do you feel then, F , that you are 
 
 prepared to die ?" 
 
 " Yes, father, I hope I am ready ; but I 
 feel so very unworthy." 
 
36 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 ' ' What is it, daughter, that makes you 
 feci so unworthy?" 
 
 "Oh, I have Hved so far below my 
 duty." 
 
 Supposing that she referred to neglect 
 of her accustomed devotions since her ex- 
 treme sickness, of which she had spoken 
 once before, I said : 
 
 * ' You are too weak now to attend to 
 these in form ; it is enough for you to lift 
 up your heart to God upon your bed." 
 
 " I do not mean that," she replied ; "I 
 know that God cares nothing for posture : 
 I refer to my whole Christian life since I 
 joined the Church ; I often fear that I made 
 a profession of religion prematurely : when 
 I was at school I was obliged to sit up late 
 at night, and was so sleepy that my pray- 
 ers were frequently a mere form." 
 
 I reminded her of Christ's apology for 
 His disciples, when they slept through 
 weakness in the Garden ; and said to her : 
 
 " Jesus is no hard taskmaster — could He 
 not make allowance for your infirmity, as 
 well as for that of Peter, James and John ?" 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 37 
 
 " Yes, father, I sometimes think of that : 
 but I look back on my whole Christian life, 
 and it is worth just nothing. I have often 
 feared that I may be deceived." 
 
 " Those," I replied, " who dread being 
 deceived seldom are so ; because it lies in 
 the nature of the delusion that it is not 
 
 even suspected. But, F , there is a 
 
 short cut out of this difficulty ; for we are 
 saved after all, not by our goodness, but 
 by Christ Jesus, in whom we believe." 
 
 ' ' Oh, yes, I know that ; and there is all 
 my hope," 
 
 " Do you feel then, my daughter, that 
 you place }^our whole trust in the Saviour 
 of sinners ?" 
 
 " Yes, I feel that my trust is in Christ 
 alone." 
 
 " Well, then, you are not afraid to 
 die?" 
 
 "No, not exactly ; but, father, it is a 
 fearful thing to die." 
 
 "So it is, my darling, to the impeni- 
 tent ; but to God's children it is but going 
 home." 
 
38 THE BROKEN HOME; Oli 
 
 " Yes, if we could only have but perfect 
 assurance that we are His children." 
 
 The above conversation was held just 
 
 five days before her death, and when there 
 
 was no symptom of its near approach. 
 
 She was apparently in the same condition 
 
 as during months previous. The next 
 
 clear intimation of her hope in Christ was 
 
 given in her first fainting spell, on the 
 
 day of her death. Construing it as the 
 
 approach of the last enemy, she exclaimed • 
 
 " Oh, mother, I am dying ! " 
 
 Her mother replied, with much agitation : 
 
 "Daughter, I believe you are; trust 
 
 your Saviour." 
 
 Unable to speak at the moment, her 
 mouth being filled with phlegm she had 
 just coughed up, she assented with a cheer- 
 ful energetic nod of the head, so familiar 
 to those who knew her well, Avhich she 
 frequently employed to indicate a hearty 
 and emphatic assent ; and as soon as she 
 could speak, added with great promptness 
 and earnestness, " I do, I do," and then 
 sank back exhausted. 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 39 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day, after 
 her third fainting spell, I was seated on the 
 bed by her, when she turned and said : 
 
 " Father, it is a frightful thing to die." 
 
 I answered : 
 
 "My daughter, you have twice said that 
 to me : what is there in death that seems 
 to you so fearful? " 
 
 "Oh, it is such a solemn thing to meet 
 God. But what I most dread is the pain 
 of dying." 
 
 It was a great relief to learn that the 
 cause of apprehension was only this ; and 
 I answered : 
 
 "You may dismiss, my darling, all 
 alarm on that score : I am well convinced, 
 from seeing many persons die, that in the 
 moment of death there is no consciousness 
 of pain." 
 
 I have since learned that the special 
 thought which haunted her was the fear of 
 strangling, from inability at the last to 
 expectorate. I continued : 
 
 * ' F , do you feel that you love 
 
 Jesus ?" 
 
40 • THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 She answered promptly : 
 
 "Yes, I know that I love Him." 
 
 "Do you know that you love Him, just 
 as you know that you love your mother 
 and me ?" 
 
 "Just in the same way," she replied. 
 
 " Well, then, if you love Him and He 
 loves you, can you not leave this matter 
 of your dying in His hands, without being 
 distressed ; just, for example, as you have 
 often left things to your mother and me, 
 and have given yourself no further concern, 
 simply because you confided both in our 
 wisdom and affection?" 
 
 She answered, "Yes." As she was 
 very feeble, I did not press the conversa- 
 tion further ; especially as I did not even 
 then suspect her end to be so near. 
 
 After tea I came into the room and 
 fixed her more comfortably upon the bed 
 and pillow. It was the last time any one 
 was called to dispose her poor emaciated 
 form ; and she lay in that position to the 
 end. 
 
 Presently she said ; 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 41 
 
 " Mother, turn on the gas and give more 
 hght." 
 
 I walked to the mantel and found a full 
 jet of flame already burning, and said : 
 
 "It cannot be any brighter, my daugh- 
 ter ; does it not seem bright to you ?" 
 
 "No, it appears to be getting dark,", 
 she replied. 
 
 One of the avenues of this world of 
 sense was closing its portal to her; and 
 this first discovered to us that she was 
 actually dying. I was startled, too, by the 
 fact that her voice, hitherto so weak as to 
 compel us to bend our ears to her lips, had 
 become strong ; and was heard with a 
 ringing sound over the room. It was an- 
 other harbinger of death. Her mother and 
 I drew close to her side, where one of her 
 sisters was faithfully fanning her. She 
 looked round and asked for another sister, 
 who was hidden behind her mother ; whom 
 she immediately addressed : 
 
 " Pray for me, M , that I may pass 
 
 gently away." 
 
 She then called for the two remaining 
 
42 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 sisters ; and seeing them both sobbing, 
 said : 
 
 ' ' You must not cry for me, when I am 
 gone ; for you know that I am obhged 
 to go." 
 
 She then called for her grandmother, 
 who was preparing some nourishment for 
 her during the night. As she delayed a 
 
 little, F became impatient. A second 
 
 message was sent to her, to leave every- 
 thing and come at once. Upon entering 
 the room she was startled at seeing us all 
 weeping around the bed. She asked : 
 
 "What is it you want of me, my 
 daughter ? " 
 
 "Nothing, grandmother, only to see 
 you once more ; as I am going very fast." 
 
 " Is Jesus very precious to you ?" asked 
 the grandmother. 
 
 "Oh, yes, He is very precious," was 
 the sweet reply. 
 
 One was bathing her hand with cologne : 
 she exclaimed, " How delightful ! " Turn- 
 ing to a servant who was bathing the other 
 hand across the bed, and alluding to the 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 43 
 
 recent death of an old family servant, 
 said : 
 
 " Maum Lucy did not go much before 
 me." 
 
 Her mother asked if she did not wish to 
 see a relative whom she named. She re- 
 plied : 
 
 ' " Yes, I have not seen him for several 
 days." 
 
 As he entered and came to her bedside, 
 she said: 
 
 "G , take warning; but you have 
 
 been warned before" — alluding to a 
 brother's death about a year before. 
 
 She was asked if she desired to send a 
 message to a kinswoman recently married, 
 and now absent : 
 
 " Yes, tell her I wish she was here; she 
 little dreams of this ; she is happy now — I 
 hope we will soon meet again." 
 
 Other messages were sent to absent 
 cousins, to whom she had always been 
 attached : 
 
 " Give R my love, and tell him — he 
 
 knows what I would say to him." 
 
44 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 Thinking she was growing weary, I 
 inquired : 
 
 "F , are you not tired talking?" 
 
 "Yes, but you know I did not com- 
 mence to talk soon ; " and added : 
 
 "I wish I could have seen the doctor 
 again ; give him my love." 
 
 It was asked : 
 
 " Would you like your grandfather to 
 pray for you?" 
 
 "Yes;" but as he was about to begin 
 she interposed : 
 
 ' ' I want to say one thing more : Mother, 
 when you get back to our old home, give 
 my love to every one who cares for me, 
 and to the servants, too." 
 
 Turning then to her grandfather, and 
 placing her hand in his, she said : 
 
 " You may pray now, grandfather ; and 
 pray that I may pass gently away." 
 
 He offered a very touching prayer on 
 her behalf; after which she turned to me 
 and said : 
 
 "Father, I hope I shall not be disap- 
 pointed; no, not disappointed — you know 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 45 
 
 what I mean ; you know I was always a 
 timid child." 
 
 " I think, daughter, I know what you 
 mean : there is no danger of your being 
 disappointed ; the Saviour will fulfil all His 
 promises to you." 
 
 Looking tenderly upon us, she said : 
 
 "I hope we shall all soon meet again." 
 
 After a little, raising her arms with an 
 emphatic gesture, she cried : 
 
 " Mother, I declare I am getting right 
 deaf!" 
 
 Another avenue was closing, of the 
 poor world she was rapidly leaving. From 
 this time she was silent, except that upon 
 her groaning twice her mother asked : 
 
 " What is the matter, F , does any 
 
 place hurt you ?" 
 
 "Nothing, mother; only sinking, sink- 
 ing, sinking away" — accompanying the 
 utterance with a gradual lowering of the 
 hand three times in the air. She then be- 
 came somewhat delirious, holding imagin- 
 ary conversations with absent persons. 
 In this delirium she appeared distressed. 
 
46 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 and whined aloud as a child about to cry. 
 I called aloud to her, making myself heard 
 with difficulty by the dull cold ear of death : 
 
 * ' F , my daughter, what troubles 
 
 you ? " 
 
 Rousing to consciousness, she turned her 
 eyes upon me, and said simply : 
 
 "Father, Father;" but with an inflec- 
 tion of tone I cannot indicate on paper, 
 and which I can never forget — so full of 
 love and trust, as though she would still 
 lean upon me while going down into the 
 Dark Valley. It was the last sound from 
 her blessed lips. She sank into silence — a 
 silence only to be broken as her clear 
 silvery voice rang out amidst the praises 
 of the Upper Temple. Her respiration 
 became quicker, her pulse more thread- 
 like — one short spasm passed over her 
 frame — she gently raised her elbow as 
 though she would fly, and the tragic scene 
 was closed ! The poor wasted body was 
 with us ; the rejoicing spirit was with the 
 harpers, veiling itself before the glories of 
 the Throne. 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 4/ 
 
 The story is almost told. One day and 
 night we watched by the dust so precious 
 in our eyes ; and on the 19th of July, 1863, 
 we laid her down by the side of her infant 
 brother, to sleep until the trumpet's call, 
 -T^^ut the agony of turning away and leaving 
 her alone — leaving her alone whom we had 
 so tenderly cherished, that no wind of 
 heaven blew roughly upon her, this, O 
 God ! is known only to Thee and to us. 
 But we have exceeding comfort in this loss. 
 We have no misgivings as to her eternal 
 happiness. She had afforded while in life 
 and health the most abundant evidence of 
 a change of heart ; and during her long ill- 
 ness, as she often said, "this world was 
 dead to her." The apprehension of death 
 which she expressed arose from constitu- 
 tional timidity ; which was sunk at last in 
 a calm, clear trust in her Redeemer — ex- 
 cept as she dreaded its physical pangs, 
 which, thanks to God, she was mercifully 
 spared. 
 
 Besides all this, she has left behind a 
 most precious memory. I cannot say of 
 
48 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 her all that I could, lest I should be deemed 
 extravagant ; or, at least, lie open to the 
 suspicion that, as death throws a halo over 
 the departed, I am under the spell of a fond 
 and delusive affection. Yet I have said of 
 her, long before this sad bereavement, 
 since she was twelve years of age I could 
 find nothing in her to amend. Watching 
 over her with a parent's anxiety to mould 
 her character aright, there was nothing to 
 correct. She has left a memory in which 
 there is nothing we would desire changed : 
 as we travel over it in thought, every spot is 
 green and lovely to the eye. I had learned 
 to reverence her. The attributes which 
 she displayed were so beautiful that I, who 
 sought to shape and guide her aright, was 
 often reproved by a virtue superior to my 
 own. Strange that we did not see through 
 all those years that God was secretly edu- 
 cating her for Himself; and when she was 
 ripe, she was plucked to be with Him. 
 Her memory is a sweet and awful thing to 
 us : we think of her not as dead, but as 
 translated to be with Christ. Our lovely 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 
 
 49 
 
 flower bloomed awhile on its earthly stem, 
 and then 
 
 •• She was exhaled — her Creator drew 
 Her spirit, as the sun the morning dew." 
 
 The lesson taught in this second sorrow 
 is the special grace reserved for a dying 
 hour ; which will subdue the fears of the 
 most timid and enable them to depart in 
 peace, if not in triumph. Many reasons 
 can be assigned for this dread of death, 
 styled by the Apostle "the last enemy." 
 There is the natural instinct of life, which 
 we share with the beasts of the field ; a 
 wholesome protection against the madness 
 of despair which so often rushes its victim 
 on to the guilt of suicide. There is, again, 
 the awfulness of death as the penalty of 
 the broken Law. How unnatural the 
 separation of the soul and body, is shown 
 when the spirit lingers in its tenement of 
 clay and escapes reluctantly at last with 
 the gurgling breath. Is it possible, again, 
 to shake off the ties of life from which the 
 soul has through years been drawing the 
 
50 tHE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 sweetness of earthly bliss, and not feel the 
 pain ? Add to these our ignorance as to 
 the details of a Future State, disabling even 
 the imagination from transporting us to its 
 scenes and pursuits. Finally, bring before 
 the mind the pangs of dissolution, exag- 
 gerated often to the senses through the 
 spasms of the body as it stretches to its 
 death stature. Aggregate all these terrors 
 in one single conception, and the wonder 
 will be, not that death is an object of 
 dread, but that Christian hope should be 
 strong enough to overcome it at the last. 
 The history just recited is only one of 
 many, going to show that with the most 
 sensitive and shrinking of mortals this fear 
 is quelled at the moment of passing into 
 the presence of our King. It is a grace 
 reserved for this precise moment, guaran- 
 teed only then as the experience which is 
 needed ; and is possibly connected with 
 the last acts of the Holy Ghost in com- 
 pleting the believer's sanctification. It has 
 been said that the dying never weep ; cer- 
 tainly the composure is beyond the power 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 5 1 
 
 of nature, with which the dying saint yields 
 up all the companionships of life, and sun- 
 ders the dearest bonds of lov^e. Ah, who 
 can tell what new joys swell the bosom of 
 the Christian the moment his feet touch 
 the stones of the Covenant, as he follows 
 the Ark "in the swelling of Jordan 1 " 
 
 The following lines depict the fierceness 
 of the conflict between fear and faith, in 
 many a timid Christian's breast : 
 
 " The way is dark, my Father ! Cloud on cloud 
 Is gathering thickly o'er my head, and loud 
 The thunders roar above me. See, I stand 
 Like one bewildered ! Father, take my hand, 
 And through the gloom 
 Lead safely home 
 Thy child ! 
 
 " The day goes fast, my Father ! and the night 
 Is drawing darkly down. My faithless sight 
 Sees ghostly visions. Fears, a spectral band, 
 Encompass me. O Father ! take my hand, 
 And from the night 
 Lead up to light 
 Thy child! 
 
52 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 " The throng is great, my Father ! Many a. doubt 
 And fear and danger compass me about ; 
 And foes oppress me sore. I cannot stand 
 Or go alone. O Father ! take my hand, 
 And through the throng 
 
 ' Lead safe along 
 
 [ Thy child ! 
 
 •' The cross is heavy, Father ! I have borne 
 It long, and still do bear it. Let my worn 
 And fainting spirit rise to that blest land 
 Where crowns are given. Father ! take my hand ; 
 And, reaching down, 
 Lead to the crown 
 Thy child ! " 
 
III. 
 
 " I hear a voice you cannot hear, 
 Which says, I must not stay , 
 I see a hand you cannot ?ee. 
 Which beckons me away." 
 
 Our fourth daughter was from birth sin- 
 gularly attractive in appearance, possessing 
 features whose beauty time might improve, 
 but could never diminish. Her eyes were 
 of a dark brown color, large and full of 
 lustre, yet liquid and soft. In this feature, 
 as well as in a clear brunette complexion, 
 she resembled her only brother, the first- 
 born and the early taken of our little flock ; 
 except that in his there was a pensiveness 
 of expression, as though it might be the 
 shadow of premature thought ; and which 
 even after death still looked forth from the 
 half closed lids, like a sort of revelation 
 from the upper world haunting the memory 
 through long years, and not wholly ban- 
 
54 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 ished yet. Her hair deepening into the 
 darkest shade this side of black, and fine 
 as silk, curled in ringlets around her in- 
 fant neck ; growing afterwards into long 
 and graceful tresses that were gathered in 
 braids and folds around her head, after the 
 fashion of the time. In stature she was a 
 little above the medium height. Her only 
 defect was a narrowness of the chest — a 
 prognostic to the jealous love that watched 
 her growth of the fatal disease, which, 
 alas ! was soon to hurry her to the grave. 
 With gentle sloping shoulders and tapering 
 waist, her figure was complete in symmetry. 
 Over her person was diffused an air of 
 quiet dignity and ease, rendering her wo- 
 manhood as full of grace as her infancy 
 was of beauty ; while in those dark eyes, 
 soft as those of a gazelle, lay the deep look 
 so full of soul — the pledge of affection 
 which would never deceive, and of char- 
 acter which would never betray. Alas, 
 that the beautiful should ever die ! But 
 God will be served with what we value 
 most; and we will not be envious of Him, 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 55 
 
 who has plucked from our garden the flower 
 whose fragrance was so pleasing to us. 
 
 An incident of her infant life, which had 
 almost faded from remembrance, looms up 
 since her death \\ith a weird and almost 
 prophetic significance. When ten months 
 old, it became necessary to break a slow 
 fever by the use of quinine. Through a 
 mistake wholly unaccountable, morphine 
 was administered ; the effect of which be- 
 came soon too obvious. It was a hot day 
 in Jul}', on the Saturday preceding the 
 communion Sabbath. Pulpit preparation 
 and everything else were thrown aside as 
 the little babe, pale and pulseless as though 
 chiselled from Parian marble, lay upon the 
 mother's knee in a slate of coma. Five 
 h.ours of ceaseless labor were spent by a 
 skilful ph)-sician before the first sign of 
 conscious life appeared ; followed through 
 six otlier distressing hours, by the fierce 
 battle against the fatal slumber which, un- 
 resisted, must scon wrap the little form in 
 the folds of that sleep which knows no 
 waking It was a day of unspeakable an- 
 
56 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 guish, remembered like some horrible 
 dream which once froze the heart with 
 terror. The mother rushed from chamber 
 to chamber in the frenzy of grief, at having 
 adm.inistered with her own loving hand the 
 dread potion : the father bowed the knee 
 in prayer and the vow that, if a merciful 
 God would but spare the child long enough 
 to break the connection with this tragical 
 accident, and so lift the self-accusing bur- 
 den from the mother's heart, he would at 
 any moment resign the child to Him who 
 should grant so gracious a reprieve. The 
 prayer was heard, and after eighteen years 
 the moment came to redeem the vow. 
 
 " Be still, my soul, each groan suppress : 
 The child to thee in prayer twice given 
 Thy home with so much love to bless, 
 A solemn vow had pledged to Heaven.' 
 
 The sequel of this incident is as mys- 
 terious as the story is affecting. When the 
 child thus wonderfully spared grew old 
 enough to talk, her baby accents lisped 
 continually of another world. I will give 
 it in the childish words which, though long 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 57 
 
 since uttered, are graven on the memory 
 as with the point of a diamond. 
 
 "When I went to Heaven." she used 
 to say, ' ' I saw a big white gate with a 
 man standing just inside. Before it was a 
 pool of water with a board across it ; and 
 the man said, ' Come in, Sissy, but don't 
 fall in.' But I fell in ; and he took me out 
 into a room where there were a great many 
 glory-children, and dressed me in white 
 with wings like theirs. Then he took me 
 to see God. I saw a big red pillow, with 
 five black dots, that God rests on. And, 
 mother, there were two gold rocking chairs 
 for you and father, and five little ones for 
 us children. And, Mauma (her nurse), 
 there was a beautiful white satin dress for 
 you ; it felt so smooth ; just put your hand 
 on your hair, it felt just like that. I 
 wanted to bring it to you ; but when 1 
 went to take it, it just slipped away. And 
 now 1 spend every Sunday in Heaven, 
 with God. He puts a ladder down for me 
 every Saturday evening, and I go up and 
 come home on Monday." 
 
58 THE BROKEN HOME; O.v 
 
 Strange words these, for a lisping babe 
 of only three summers. Can Philosophy 
 explain them ? Was it but an infant's 
 dream ? But whence the ideas out of 
 which its details were woven ? She was 
 too young to have gathered much out of 
 St. John's Revelation, as that portion of 
 God's word might happen to be read at 
 morning and evening worship. Even the 
 superstition of servants could scarcely have 
 impressed the imagination that had not 
 wakened in its earliest dawn as yet. Month 
 by month the same story was repeated, 
 always with reluctance, which yielded only 
 to the pressure of entreaties — and with such 
 seeming reverence as made the hearer 
 solemn, too. Did it hold any connection 
 with the trance of two years before ? Was 
 there an overlapping of the two worlds 
 across the border of thread, upon which 
 for so many hours the little spirit was 
 balancing ? Had she then a vision, the 
 reminiscence of which came dimly baci< 
 upon the dawning intellect — straining itself 
 through earthly images given by the 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. $5 
 
 senses, and made somewhat grotesque by 
 the unnatural commingling ? Who can 
 tell ? It is enough that the keeper of the 
 gate has at last let her in — that she walks 
 with him in white — that she looks with 
 the " pure in heart" upon the face of the 
 King ; and may God in holy covenant 
 grant, that we may all sit in the golden 
 chairs which her infant eye saw placed for 
 father and mother and the other five. 
 
 The years rolled on — years of careful 
 parental training and years of physical and 
 mental growth — some of them years of 
 frightful civil w^ar, which laid the cares of 
 age upon the heart of youth and made 
 even children men. At length she stood 
 before us in the maturity of early woman- 
 hood, the pride and joy of those by whom 
 she was tenderly loved. But it is only 
 since she left us that we begin to put 
 things together, and better understand a 
 character which was before somewhat a 
 puzzle to explain. With the style of 
 beauty which fascinates in youth and be- 
 comes queenly when rounded into the 
 
6o THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 proportions of age, it lay upon her as the 
 sunbeam lies upon the unconscious flower. 
 The thought could not be put in her from 
 without ; and every chance note of admira- 
 tion glanced off, leaving no more trace 
 than of the arrow through the air. The 
 sceptre of maidenly conquest and rule lay 
 untouched at her feet. The ambition of 
 youth and beauty to assert the power of 
 both, slumbered in her heart. It was not 
 so much indifference, as a total uncon- 
 sciousness of its presence. Would a sense 
 of its power have broken upon her at last ? 
 Who knows ? But she carried up to God 
 a heart in its virgin freshness, which the 
 voice of flattery had never been able to soil. 
 There was another paradox in her char- 
 acter. Thrown into the bosom of a large 
 society, and commingling with persons of 
 every class, she was indisposed to be drawn 
 into any of its eddies. Beyond two or 
 three cherished friendships, no amount of 
 kindly force could push her out to take her 
 place as a woman in the world. Her love 
 was concentrated upon her home ; and the 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 6 1 
 
 ties of sister and daughter were all the 
 bonds on earth she cared to recognize. 
 Even in this narrow sphere her love was 
 unobtrusive. Averse from the caresses of 
 others, and tendering no endearments from 
 herself, it was felt as one feels the light — 
 by an ever genial presence. It was only 
 in the occasional emergencies breaking up 
 the routine of family life, that the crust of 
 reserve gave way and revealed the pas- 
 sionate depths to which that quiet silent 
 love did reach. The same individuality 
 was as clearly defined in the intellectual, 
 as in the emotional sphere. So far from 
 merely reflecting the influences which bore 
 upon her, a trenchant criticism would often 
 betray the independence of her own ob- 
 servations of life. And these, though 
 never obtruded, were not kept under the 
 same seal of secretiveness with utterances 
 that might savor of sentiment. In a word, 
 few persons so young were more self-con- 
 tained ; which, perhaps, gives the key to 
 all that seemed so surprising in the dying 
 experience presently to be recorded. 
 
^2 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 How early one so reticent began to be 
 interested in the subject of personal re- 
 ligion, perhaps even she herself could not 
 have told. Certainly it would not betray 
 itself to others by any transient emotion, 
 which she was able so perfectly to control. 
 It would not escape through any utterance 
 of the lips, until conviction had pretty well 
 ripened into fixed religious principle. She 
 was one to fight the battle out alone, until 
 the time should come to declare the issue. 
 The first disclosure was made to the sister 
 next above her in age. L}'ing across the 
 bed, the two talked together of a sudden 
 death which had recently occurred : 
 
 " As for myself, " said K , " I would 
 
 rather die from consumption than from any 
 other disease." 
 
 Her sister, in surprise, exclaimed : 
 
 "Why, K !" 
 
 " Yes," was the response, "because it 
 is a lingering disease, and more free from 
 pain than most others." 
 
 "Perhaps so," replied the sister, "to 
 the invalid herself, but not to friends who 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 63 
 
 watch around the bed." 
 
 "That is true," was the answer; and 
 the subject was dropped — but not until the 
 faithful sister sought to bear it down in a 
 close application to the conscience. As 
 might have been expected, however, the 
 appeal was received in respectful silence, 
 but the silence of complete reserve. Soon 
 after a little note was pinned on the table 
 cushion, reading after this tenor : 
 
 " Dear G , I wish you would talk 
 
 with me on a certain subject ; you know 
 what I mean." 
 
 Even a crumpled note must bear the 
 impress of her character : a direct brevity 
 that would waste no words, and the use of 
 an enigma to veil, if not to suppress, all 
 sentiment. The germinating seed was now 
 ready to burst through the soil, and come 
 to the light and air. The requested inter- 
 view revealed the fact of a soul that had 
 passed through its travail, and was resting 
 quietly upon the peace of the Gospel. In 
 October, 1869, she united with the Church 
 of God upon the profession of her faith and 
 
64 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 hope ; and sat the next Sabbath at the 
 Supper of the Lamb. 
 
 The last sad chapter of this story alone 
 remains. In the Autumn of 1870 a hard 
 bronchial cough became the precursor of 
 the insidious disease which does its work 
 so surely, sapping a frail constitution from 
 beneath. With obstinate defiance it re- 
 sisted the highest medical skill. No pal- 
 liatives soothed it ; all attempts at cure it 
 simply mocked. Travel was advised ; and 
 the summer months of 1871 were spent in 
 an extended tour through the North and 
 Canada. Not the first indication of im- 
 provement was perceived, and we knew 
 just how it must end. But none dreamed 
 how soon that end would come. With 
 waning strength, indeed, still the fatigues 
 of travel were borne with comparative 
 comfort till the faces of the party were 
 turned homeward. With effort the journey 
 was continued ; and about the middle of 
 September we reached a place that seemed 
 like home, in the house of the grand- 
 mothet. Here the whole system gave 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 6$ 
 
 way, and she became alarmingly ill. Three 
 weeks of careful nursing were required be- 
 fore the case yielded to medical treatment. 
 She was now entirely prostrate, her strength 
 reduced to the feebleness of infancy. It 
 was a gracious reprieve, suspending the 
 issue long enough to renew the journey to 
 our own abode. Borne in the arms and 
 reclining on beds extemporized in the cars, 
 we succeeded by easy stages in reaching 
 home, on the 6th of October. She was 
 borne in the arms to her chamber, from 
 which she was carried in exactly three 
 weeks to the tomb. There was no reason 
 in the nature of her disease, proverbially 
 so lingering, for this early termination, 
 except the unconquerable loathing of all 
 food — which, undoubtedly, was a feature 
 of the malady itself. Her case was in this 
 respect precisely similar to that of her sis- 
 ter, whose death has already been recorded ; 
 who, in the same degree, turned with dis- 
 gust from every solicitation of the appetite. 
 Though distinctly admonished that the pre- 
 servation of life depended upon enriching 
 
66 TKE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 the blood, which nutrition alone could 
 effect ; and notwithstanding that she sum- 
 moned all the energies of her will to over- 
 come this unnatural repugnance, every 
 effort failed. Delicacies of every descrip- 
 tion and food that would have tempted an 
 epicure, lay untouched at her side ; and it 
 was evident that she must die of sheer 
 inanition, as much as from the disease 
 itself. The jealous apprehensions of her 
 faithful mother were the first to realize the 
 fact, and with almost prophetic instinct 
 assigned the limit beyond which her en- 
 durance could not pass. She died within 
 the period thus by anticipation fixed. 
 This mother, too, was the first to break 
 the reserve hitherto maintained, and 
 sounded the first warning to the dying 
 child. 
 
 It fell in the gentlest form of suggestion, 
 and spoke of the disappointment we all felt 
 that the cough got no better, and expressed 
 the fear that she would never recover. 
 She was also asked if she would like her 
 father to. pray with and fpr her ; to which 
 
tESSONS IN SORROW. 6^ 
 
 a cordial assent was given. From this time 
 onward family worship was held morning 
 and evening in her chamber ; and the poor 
 sufferer was borne upon the faith of all our 
 hearts to the Mercy-seat above. In the 
 evening of the same day the warning was 
 enforced by her sister G , who gene- 
 rally watched with her when the family 
 was at meals, and embraced those oppor- 
 tunities for confidential conversations. She 
 said : 
 
 " K , you do not know how it pains 
 
 us to see you so sick and weak : do you 
 know how sick you are?" 
 
 *' No," was the reply, " not if it is what 
 the doctor calls it : in one respect I am 
 worse, I cannot eat." 
 
 " I am afraid you are very sick," replied 
 the sister; "if it should be. God's will to 
 take you, would you be alarmed?" 
 
 " No," was the steady response. 
 
 G then resumed : 
 
 "After all, death is nothing to a her 
 liever." 
 
 The conversation glanced from this direct 
 
68 THE BROKEN HOME ; OK 
 
 application, and they spoke of a friend 
 who had recently died of the same disease, 
 and generally of how terrible it was to die 
 if unprepared to meet God. 
 
 "I think," said the sufferer, 'that 
 dreadful weakness that comes just before 
 death, must be ?.'vvful." 
 
 " It is not ::ivvays so," was the reply ; 
 
 " in sister F 's case, for instance, how 
 
 strong she became before she died ! " 
 
 These suggestive and preliminary con- 
 t^ersations prepared the way for a more 
 definite announcement of her critical con- 
 dition on the following Monday, October 
 23d. The stern duty was laid upon the 
 father to cut away all ground of hope from 
 his darling child, and to open to her the 
 certainty of her approaching doom. Would 
 she be able to bear it ? Evidently she had 
 rallied to hope upon the supposition that 
 her disease was not incurable. With the 
 extinction of all hope, would not an imme- 
 diate collapse ensue ? And what if terro»- 
 and alarm should seize her spirit, and his 
 words hasten the dreaded catastrophe ? 
 
Lessons in sorrow. 6g 
 
 Thoughts hke these flitted througli his 
 mind, hke birds of evil omen. It was as 
 though the patriarchal Abraham must hft 
 the sacrificial knife over the beloved Isaac 
 again. Yet the poor girl must not be suf- 
 fered to make the dreadful plunge wholly 
 in the dark. The highest Christian love 
 pleaded that she might at least be allowed 
 to "gather up her feet in her bed " ere 
 she left us. Breaking his ground ca-utious- 
 ly, he asked : 
 
 "K , do you know how sick you 
 
 really are ? and do you not think sometimes 
 that it is impossible for you to recover?" 
 
 " No, I do not think that I am so very 
 sick ; if I could only eat, that is my 
 trouble." 
 
 "But, my daughter, do }-ou not see 
 that this is a part of your disease, and the 
 worst part of it, too?" 
 
 She was silent, and he continued : 
 
 "My darling, it is best you jiiould kn^w 
 the whole truth about, yourself; it is now 
 certain that you have consumption ; hith- 
 erto your lungs have been in what the 
 
70 THE BROKEN HOME ; CR 
 
 doctors call a state of consolidation or 
 hardening ; now they arc beginnini; to 
 break down, and will go entirely in llic 
 course of time. You may linger as n\any 
 do, or you may be taken away at almost 
 any moment. Tell nic, daughter, does 
 this .'ilarm you ? Are you afraid to die?" 
 
 With a superb courage, without the 
 n'olsLenir.g of an eye or the quivering of a 
 muscle, she heard her doom ; and folding 
 her luinds on her breast, simply said : 
 
 " I am ready." 
 
 " Is your hope fixed simply upon Christ 
 as your Redeemer, my child?" 
 
 "Yes, I have nothing else to trust to 
 but that," was the reply which closed 
 the interview. It would have been com- 
 forting to have drawn her out in the details 
 of Christian experience, but in compassion 
 it was spared. Even this brief conversa- 
 tion was at the expense of much suffering 
 from unutterable exhaustion and the inces- 
 sant cough which speaking only irritated 
 and increased. In the evening of the same 
 day she repeated to a younger sister the 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 7 1 
 
 substance of what had been said about her 
 physical condition, and added : 
 
 " But I am so weak that I cannot talk. 
 Father is going to have prayer with me." 
 
 A little later she inquired when a certain 
 lady was to be married, alluding to an en- 
 gagement which would take her father 
 from home. 
 
 " On the i6th oi November," was the 
 answer ; but father will not go now, as you 
 are so sick." 
 
 She rejoined ; 
 
 "It maybe all over with me before then," 
 
 G exclaimed : 
 
 "K , how can you talk about it so 
 
 calmly?" 
 
 " Well," she replied, " I don't want to 
 be frightened about it, when the time 
 comes; and I hope I won't." 
 
 ' ' No, you will not be, " the sister added, 
 " God will give you strength for it ; don't 
 you remember how sister dreaded it, and 
 how calm she was when the time came ?" 
 
 With a sudden lighting up of the coun- 
 tenance, the dying girl exclaimed : 
 
72 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 "Oh! she will be there to meet me, 
 won't she?" 
 
 On Tuesday, October 24tli, the doctor 
 
 paid a long visit ; and called G out on 
 
 leaving, to warn her against sleeping witV 
 the patient ; as she was jusi in that condi 
 tion to communicate the disease. That 
 night K^ said to her sister : 
 
 " What did the doctor call you out for ? 
 Was it to say that my lungs were affected ?" 
 
 "Yes, K , he did." 
 
 " Well, he need not have minded Scty- 
 ing that before me ; I am not surprised." 
 
 She then inquired about her sister's case, 
 who had died : 
 
 " Did sister cough and spit, as I do?" 
 
 " Yes, just the same." 
 
 " Then I think I ought to have a pallet 
 all to myself. I always thought my left 
 
 side affected ; and asked if 
 
 ever I had anything the matter with my 
 kmgs, would it be the left one, and he said 
 \'es. Now I understand why sister never 
 would sleep with her lace towards us." 
 
 After awhile she inquired whether it wa? 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 73 
 
 her sister's right or left lung that wa.s af- 
 fected, and was told it was her right lung. 
 
 On Wednesday, October 25th, a note 
 was read to her from a kind Christian 
 friend, expressing sympathy with her suf- 
 ferings, and asking her to tell her mother 
 or any one else for him, whether the Sa- 
 viour was precious to her. At the close 
 
 she simply said : " Tell him yes." G 
 
 then asked if she would not send a message 
 to her Sabbath-school class ; as one from 
 her now would do more good than a thoi:- 
 sand from herself. She replied : 
 
 "Yes, but make a message ibr me — ;. 
 can't." 
 
 " Shall I tell them, then, that the >'oving 
 die as well as the old, and let your case be 
 a warning to them?" 
 
 " Yes," was the answer, " let this be a 
 warning to them not to put off preparing 
 for death ; for they may be in too much 
 pain, or else too weak." 
 
 On Thursday, October 26th, about three 
 in the afternoon, she had a sinking spell, 
 so that we thought her dying. When she 
 
74 THE BROKEN HOME; OK 
 
 had a I'ttle revived, her father said, 
 
 "K , you are very weak." She 
 
 nodded assent, being too feeble to speak. 
 " Is the Saviour very precious to you, my 
 child ?" To which assent was given in the 
 same way as before. She appeared to rally 
 from this prostration, and grew bighter 
 with the advancing day, but coughing in- 
 cessantly and unable to bring up the 
 phlegm from her throat. 
 
 As evening deepened into night, by a 
 sort of common understanding and without 
 conference, the entire family remained up ; 
 no one thought of disrobing for sleep. The 
 unexpressed fear lay like a shadow upon 
 every face, that the hour of her departure 
 was at hand. The instinctive prophecy 
 was fulfilled : those beautiful eyes never 
 again greeted the rising sun. About two 
 o'clock in the morning of Friday, October 
 27th, the final change was indicated by a 
 degree of nervousness which led to the re- 
 quest that her limbs might be rubbed. 
 When this had been continued some time 
 she arrested it, saying, ' ' I think I will go 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 75 
 
 to sleep now; I would like to, if I could." 
 We sat around in silence, vainly hoping 
 that she might enjoy even a refreshing 
 doze. As this was wooed in vain, her 
 father said : 
 
 "Daughter, is the Saviour near you?" 
 
 To which she answered in almost a 
 deprecatory tone : 
 
 " Yes, sir ; but I am — too weak — to say 
 — a thing." 
 
 All joined in chorus : 
 
 "We know it, don't talk." 
 
 An hour or two later, thinking the ser- 
 vants would feel hurt if not allov/ed to 
 come in and look once more upon the 
 living face, at the mother's request tJiey 
 were wakened and invited in, if they so 
 desired. They all gathered at the sum- 
 mons, and the melancholy group stood 
 weeping around the bed. Her eye ranged 
 around the circle, resting in turn upon 
 each. The father spake : 
 
 "You see, K , we are all here." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Remaining quiet for some time, she was 
 
76 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 seized with another sinking spell, and cried : 
 "Brandy — quick — something to eat.''" A 
 little piece of cracker was handed to her, 
 which she began to eat with an impatient 
 haste that smote our hearts with Its mock- 
 ery. The poor girl who had turned for 
 weeks from food as the object of supreme 
 disgust, now in the last battle for life was 
 munching almost ravenously a piece of dry 
 bread to fend off the awful weakness she 
 had so much dreaded as the precursor of 
 death. Reviving a little from the stimulus 
 administered, broken words fell from her 
 lips, but in a voice too faint to be caught 
 She then endeavored to turn upon het side, 
 but could not without assistance. " It i:i 
 so hard to sleep ; I think I will sleep first 
 and eat afterwards." The icy touch was 
 upon her limbs. Gathering the coverlet up 
 to her neck, a slight sign of aberratioi; 
 manifested itself in the cry, ' ' Take this 
 cold cup away." Placing her hand at the 
 same time into her bosom, she said, ' ' I 
 am almost asleep now." Ah, yes, but it 
 was the sleep from which none ever wake 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 7/ 
 
 until the Resurrection morn. Presently 
 raising her finger and pointing it towards 
 the window, she exclaimed: "There!" 
 Who can tell the import of that typical 
 gesture ? As the curtain rolls up before 
 the dying, do they see aught beyond — 
 catching glimpses of the Spirit world to 
 which the eye of sense is closed ? Soon 
 after, her face lighted up with a strange 
 radiance, and the words ' ' Welcome, wel- 
 come, " fell twice upon the ear. Her sis- 
 ter bending over her asked : ' ' Did you 
 
 say welcome, K ?" To which she 
 
 answered: "Yes, welcome!" Ah! was 
 this the greeting of a ransomed spirit to 
 the shining ones she saw upon the banks 
 of the cold river she was crossing, waiting 
 to convey her home ? The mysteries of a 
 dying hour are known only to those who 
 are passing through them, and the secret 
 is too precious to be breathed into mortal 
 ears. Once more it was asked of her, 
 " Is Jesus very near to you now? " and 
 the head bowed in quiet assent. The eyes 
 began to wear that stony look where specu- 
 
75 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 lation is lost. Thefather moved his fingers 
 rapidly before them, and they did not 
 wink. He bowed over her — "Do you 
 
 know me, K ^?" One slight movement 
 
 showed that consciousness, though fading 
 fast, was not quite gone. To test this 
 further, he asked the mother to put the 
 same question. She hesitated an instant, 
 saying, " Do not disturb her, she is almost 
 
 gone ; " but yielded at length. " K , 
 
 do you know mother ? " But in that brief 
 instant the curtain had fallen; the senses 
 were closed against all approach ; and 
 gently as an infant falls to sleep on its 
 mother's breast, she, our darling, fell 
 asleep in Jesus. Just as the morning light] 
 was pencilling the horizon, and the early, 
 dawn was waking up a sleeping world, she 
 awoke Avhere there is no more niglit, in 
 the world of everlasting day. 
 
 In comparing this experience with that 
 of the preceding sketch, the impression is 
 deepened as to the influence of natural 
 disposition upon the religious life. In th^ 
 
LESSON'S IM SORROW. "jC} 
 
 the elder sister, Divine Grace had to con- 
 tend with timidity and self-distrust ; which 
 were overcome only at the last moment, 
 and then without any marked sign of tri- 
 umph. In the present case, a nature more 
 self-reliant afforded an easier conquest of 
 the fear of death. No small portion of our 
 discomfort arises from not taking into ac- 
 count our constitutional temperament, in 
 the attempt to analyze our Christian state. 
 All Christian experience cannot be run in 
 the same mould. The elements may be 
 the same, but the combinations will vary ; 
 and the forces to be overcome will be dif- 
 ferent. In the de\'elopment of the spiritual 
 life the Holy Ghost may be expected to 
 recognize the original traits which stamp 
 on each believer an individuality of his 
 own. Upon the preservation of this indi- 
 viduality depends largely the value of the 
 testimony, which each shall deliver to the 
 glory of the grace that each may have en- 
 joyed. It may be that the blending of 
 these different experiences, like the 
 different chords in music, shall constitute 
 
8o THE BROKEN HOME ; OR . 
 
 the harmony of song forever heard in the 
 Upper Temple. 
 
 Even this does not exhaust the lesson 
 taught in these two sketches. There is the 
 exhibition of the Divine Sovereignty in 
 shaping the whole character and life, from 
 the cradle to the grave, for uses known 
 only to Himself in the eternal world. The 
 natural traits themselves, the discipline 
 of Providence under which these are de- 
 veloped, and the operations of grace by 
 which these in turn are modified — all are 
 of one piece in the Divine plan. The 
 blending of these factors in the one result 
 was designed from the beginning. In the 
 lives protracted through three and four- 
 score years, the web is too complex for us 
 to distinguish the lines where these various 
 influences meet and blend. But in these 
 early deaths the process is more easily 
 traced. Why, for example, should this 
 young girl be endowed with rare personal 
 charms, without the ambition even to ap- 
 pear in society, unless the Lord was thus 
 removing, a snare from her feet, and pre- 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 8 1 
 
 paring her for the early sacrifice to which 
 she was called ? How assuring the truth 
 that we and our times are all in His hands, 
 from life's dawn to its close ! 
 
 But the special lesson taught in this 
 bereavement, is the mystery that lies in 
 life and in death. Whence come these 
 shadows upon our earthly path, from the 
 realities of the Upper World ? And whence 
 these glimpses of the Heavenly State, which 
 sometimes shed its radiance upon the face 
 of the dying saint ? Undoubtedly we must 
 abide solely by the teachings of the in- 
 spired Word ; and in deference to its reserve 
 on all these points, we must repress the 
 vain imaginings which we are prone to 
 indulge. But with God and Heaven in 
 immediate prospect, and with the Holy 
 Ghost within the soul preparing it for the 
 early enjoyment of both, is it strange that 
 a foretaste should be afforded of that 
 spiritual world to which it is akin ? 
 
 The lines herewith appended seem to 
 harmonize with the sketch given above : 
 
82 THE BROKEN HOME; Ok 
 
 '< It lies around us like a cloud, 
 A world we do not see ; 
 Yet the sweet closing of an eye 
 May bring us there to be. 
 
 " Its gentle breezes fan our cheek ; 
 Amid our worldly cares. 
 Its gentle voices whisper love, 
 And mingle with our prayers. 
 
 '•Sweet hearts around us throb and beat, 
 Sweet helping hands are stirred, 
 And palpitates the veil between 
 With breathings almost heard. 
 
 «' The silence — awful, sweet and calm — 
 They have no power to break ; 
 For mortal words are not for them 
 To utter or partake. 
 
 ♦• So thin, so soft, so sweet they glide. 
 So near to press they seem — 
 They seem to lull us to our rest. 
 And melt into our dream. 
 
 •• And in the hush of rest they bring 
 'Tis easy now to see, 
 How lovely, and how sweet a pa<:s. 
 The hour of death may be. 
 
 •• To close the eye, and clo?e the ear. 
 Wrapped in a trance of bliss, 
 And gently dream in loving arms 
 To swoon to that — from this." 
 
IV. 
 
 •• My Father, say, must this pet lamb be given ? 
 Oh, Thou hast many such, dear Lord in Heaven, 
 And a soft voice said, • Nobly hast thou striven ; 
 But — peace, be still.' " 
 
 Within fifteen months we were called to 
 the surrender of another, the youngest of 
 our fold, who had just passed her seven- 
 teenth birthday. From early infancy she 
 was characterized by unusual gentleness of 
 disposition, which became more conspicu- 
 ous as her character was developed. ,There 
 was little occasion for parental discipline ; 
 and never except for trivial faults arising 
 only from the general imperfection of hu- 
 man nature. The severest punishment was 
 withholding from her the manifestations of 
 love, upon which her young heart was ac- 
 customed to feed. Her manner was self- 
 contained and quiet ; so that whilst affec- 
 tionate and confiding, she was not obtru- 
 
84 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 sively demonstrative. Her love for others 
 was displayed rather in a thoughtful con- 
 sideration for their convenience and com- 
 fort ; and the sacrifice of her own inclina- 
 tions was so constant that it seemed to be 
 the prompting of an instinct. Her love 
 for her mother mounted into worship ; and 
 the quiet, simple expression of it was often 
 touching in its pathos. 
 
 Her constitution was always delicate, 
 rendering her education necessarily irregu. 
 lar. The tenderness of her eyes prevented 
 her for weeks together from opening a 
 book, making her dependent largely on 
 oral instruction. In this way she acquired 
 a complete knowledge of English grammar ; 
 and could analyze the most complex pas- 
 sage in poetry, without having traced with 
 the eye a single rule of syntax. She thus 
 acquired a remarkable power of concentra- 
 tion and abstraction, which was of incal- 
 culable advantage in her later education. 
 Up to the moment the hand of disease 
 arrested her studies, her lessons were 
 learned by simply hearing them read ; and 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW, 85 
 
 were recited with such accuracy as secured 
 a high grade of scholarship in her ckiss. 
 Her mind was not rapid in its movement, 
 but her retention of knowledge was per- 
 fect ; and her habitual thoughtfulness in- 
 corporated it with the substance of her 
 intellectual being. She gave the promise 
 of ripening into a woman of solid attain- 
 ments, notwithstanding the disadvantages 
 under which she labored ; for thoughtful- 
 ness was equally with her an intellectual 
 and a moral trait. 
 
 She always seemed to me, to be one of 
 those children who are sanctified from the 
 birth. Her whole life was so conspicu- 
 ously ruled by principle, and her affections 
 were so determined by conscience, that we 
 never felt anxiety about her spiritual state. 
 Her connection with the church was formed, 
 however, at an early period — on the 7th of 
 June, 187 1, when fifteen and a half years 
 old. It has never been our habit to press 
 the subject of joining the church upon our 
 children at an early age. Our aim has 
 been to bring a quiet and constant influ- 
 
86 THE BROKEN HOME; OK 
 
 ence to bear upon them ; and then to wait for 
 the spontaneous development of reHgious 
 feeHng under the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 One Sabbath, a Httle before the date men- 
 tioned above, I happened to be alone with 
 her while returning from church : thinking 
 it a good opportunity to sound her upon 
 the subject, I said : 
 
 " M , I do not talk much with you 
 
 about religion ; but you must not suppose 
 this springs from indifference. I often 
 think of it, and pray for your conversion. 
 You are no longer a child, and fully under- 
 stand your duty and the way of salvation 
 by Jesus Christ ; and it would make your 
 mother and myself very happy to know 
 that you had fully accepted Him in your 
 heart." 
 
 I was not wholly taken by surprise, 
 though scarcely expecting the answer to 
 be so full and satisfactory : 
 
 "Father, I have long desired to unite 
 with the church, for I do love and trust 
 my Saviour." 
 
 Upon being questioned how far back 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 8/ 
 
 these religious feelings could be traced, it 
 turned out — as I have anticipated in this 
 narrative — that she could assign no period 
 for their commencement. She had never 
 known the time when her heart did not 
 turn to God as her Portion, and to Jesus 
 as her Redeemer. Like Lydia, the Lord 
 had "opened her heart," and she had 
 been drawn by a single thread of love into 
 the Kingdom. Not a shadow of doubt 
 rested upon her mind, or upon ours ; and 
 she went down into the Valley of the 
 Shadow of Death without one quiver of 
 fear ; for to love and to trust were wrought 
 into her whole being, and she had no con- 
 ception of anything else. 
 
 I approach now the record of her fatal 
 illness, which lasted altogether but a single 
 year. She was taken down with pneu- 
 monia on the 3d of February, 1872. The 
 attack was severe, and blisters were freely 
 applied to relieve the pain ; but it yielded 
 under treatment. Though exceedingly 
 delicate, she seemed so far recovered that 
 her school duties were resumed. Our 
 
88 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 apprehensions were too easily allayed, the 
 disease was by no means conquered. One 
 morning after breakfast she complained of 
 tightness across her chest, adding that she 
 had felt it for several days ; but did not 
 speak of it, hoping it would wear away. 
 She was immediately examined by her 
 
 brother-in-law, who said, ' ' M , lay 
 
 down your books and go to }'our cham- 
 ber ; " and she succumbed at once under 
 another attack of pneumonia. From this 
 also she rallied, so as to move about her 
 chamber as an invalid. The conviction 
 was, however, lodged in her mind, that 
 the struggle with disease was to end in 
 death. Its grasp was so tenacious, it 
 would scarcely leave without depositing 
 the germ which must end in dissolution. 
 On the first of May, as she retired to bed, 
 she exclaimed : 
 
 " Well, here I am on the first of May, 
 and I will be here on the first day of June, 
 and then of July ; and so on to November, 
 when I will drop off! " 
 
 In this prediction, however, she was 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 89 
 
 mistaken. Before November the traces 
 of pneumonia had disappeared ; but the 
 evidence was only too certain of that 
 wasting consumption which had carried off 
 her two sisters before her eyes. We had 
 come to know its signs too well to be our- 
 selves deceived by any false hopes for her. 
 It was as yet in its early stage ; and though 
 unquestionably doomed, in that beautiful 
 Autumnal month she was able to take easy 
 walks with her sisters in the streets, and 
 several rides with us in the open country 
 beyond the paved and dusty city. Her 
 testimony was constantly repeated that this 
 was only a respite, and with it an unques- 
 tioning submission to the Divine will : 
 
 "Though I am better, yet we do not 
 know how it will end ; we do not know 
 what is best for us — may be if I should get 
 well, in after life I might regret I had not 
 died at this time." 
 
 In one of her short walks a funeral pro- 
 cession passed by. It threw a shade over her 
 heart as she said in her simple way : "What 
 little difference it makes in the world," 
 
9© THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 Ah ! this thought of being forgotten b}'- 
 the Hving, is it not one of the pangs of the 
 dying ? Does it not throw a deeper gloom 
 over the darkness of the grave ? In the 
 anticipation of it, Kirk White speaks 
 mournfully thus : 
 
 •• I shall sink 
 As sinks a stranger in the crowded streets 
 Of busy London ; some short bustle's caused, 
 A few inquiries, and the crowds close in — 
 And all's forgotten." 
 
 Our darling F paused once, like 
 
 this young sister, an invalid in her evening 
 walk, as a funeral passed — and half-gaily, 
 half-sadly, said : 
 
 ". So will my funeral pass ; and one will 
 say, ' Whose funeral is that ? ' the answer 
 
 will be, ' F P 's ; ' and then there 
 
 will be a shaking of the head, ' Poor girl ! 
 she is dead then ; ' and they will pass on 
 and forget." 
 
 Ah ! my child, there are hearts in which 
 \-ou cannot be forgotten. The tomb stones 
 bear the names of four, who once made 
 this home so happy ; but the lasting marble 
 will not preserve the imperishable memory, 
 
Lessons in sorrow. 91 
 
 like these living hearts that feel each day 
 tiie pain of parting afresh. This must last 
 till the sting is plucked away in the joyful 
 meeting above. 
 
 During the illness of this dear child the 
 conversations were chiefly conducted by 
 her older sister, who was her constant 
 companion. This duty was devolved 
 upon her in the belief that the expression 
 of her feelings would be more free and full 
 to the sister with whom she w^as on such 
 easy terms, than to ourselves. From 
 notes carefully kept at the time, the fol- 
 lowing statement was compiled : 
 
 My first conversation with her (says 
 
 G ) were on the 3d of August. I 
 
 began by saying : 
 
 ' ' M , you do 'not know what a les- 
 son in patience you are to me all the time; 
 do you never feel impatient ?" 
 
 " No," was the reply. 
 
 "It requires more faith," I continued, 
 "to die young than old; don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 "Yes," was the reply; "I thought 
 
92 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 after K 's death, that it did not make 
 
 any difference how soon it came ; but then 
 I was in perfect health, and this makes a 
 great difference. I suppose I ought not to 
 give up all hope ; but there were a great 
 many ' ifs ' in the way, and I know I have 
 not improved since then." 
 
 The last allusion was to a remark made 
 some time before by the physician, that if 
 this and that could be brought about, she 
 might still get well. The conversation 
 between the two sisters is resumed : 
 
 " Well, M , how do you feel about 
 
 it? Are you willing to have it end either 
 way?" 
 
 " Yes, I hope I am," was the answer. 
 
 On the first of September, continues her 
 sister, I was telling her about the Commu- 
 nion season just passed, and from that ^\'% 
 got to speaking about the Resurrection. 
 
 '* Don't you suppose," she asked, "that 
 the spirits recognize each other before they 
 get their bodies ?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly," answered the sister. 
 
 " It all seems so strange, sometimes I 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 93 
 
 get completely lost when I think about 
 death. Here we live on from day to day, 
 and to think of it all coming to an end — 
 nothing more — it is so strange." 
 
 September 5 th — 
 
 "You do not know," she said to her 
 sister, ' ' how I shuddered to-day when the 
 doctor remarked that I might live ten 
 years in this condition. I would a great 
 deal rather die. Life has no enjoyment to 
 one in my condition : then, too, I would 
 be a burden to all around me." 
 
 *' You will never be a burden," was the 
 reply; "you are so patient and cheerful 
 that it is a pleasure to wait on you ; never 
 feel that way about it." 
 
 Resuming her thoughts, she said : 
 
 " What might not happen in ten years ! 
 Why, mother might die, and father, too. 
 They say my lung is hardening, it has not 
 begun to soften yet. I never expect to 
 get well ; sometimes when I am a little 
 better, I hope ; and then I feel may be I 
 ought not to want to get well-^I do not 
 know what is best" 
 
94 THE BROKEN HOME ; Ofe 
 
 "Yes," her sister replied, "death is 
 not the worst thing that can happen. I 
 would rather be in my grave than have to 
 bear what some women do." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," she rejoined, "I think 
 about it all the time. I know it has got to 
 be borne; it may be nearer now than I 
 think." 
 
 ' ' Well, M , how do you feel about 
 
 it? Do you shrink from death ?" 
 
 " No, I do not feel afraid to die." 
 
 " Having seen our sisters go so calmly, " 
 it was suggested, * ' makes us dread it 
 less." 
 
 " Yes, it does make a great difference ;" 
 and then she added : 
 
 "I am so glad it is I, and not you or 
 
 sister M : you both have ties that I 
 
 have not." 
 
 "But, M , in a little while you 
 
 would have had the same ties." 
 
 "Ah, yes, but that is all in the fu- 
 ture," 
 
 September 7th she opened the conver- 
 sation with her sister : 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 95 
 
 " Brother J examined me yester- 
 day — I asked him to do it : I want to know- 
 how my lung is going-. He says if I liad 
 a strong constitution I might Hve a long 
 time ; but I know he does not think as the 
 doctor does," 
 
 She referred to K 's death about a 
 
 year ago, in that indefinite way pecuHar to 
 her — avoiding the mention of her name : 
 
 •'That night I wondered who would be 
 the next to go ; and then I thought it was 
 
 eight years since sister F died, and 
 
 that is a long time. It may be eight years 
 before another is taken. I can't help filling 
 up when I think of leaving you all." 
 
 October 2d — 
 
 To-day she said she was done with life, 
 and hoped she was ready to die : she 
 thought she was, and hoped she would 
 feel so when the time came. She then 
 exacted of me (continues the sister) the 
 promise that I would tell her when the 
 doctor gave up all hope of her recovery ; 
 saying she did not wish the fact to be kept 
 from her. 
 
g6 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 On the 2oth of November she came 
 down stairs for the last time. As she re- 
 tired to bed that night, she said to her 
 mother: " I am here now for good." 
 
 On Christmas day, her sister M 
 
 gave birth to a babe, and the invahd was 
 assisted out of bed, and with much effort 
 tottered to her sister's chamber. When 
 the little infant was placed in her arms, she 
 said, " I never expected to hold this baby;" 
 Upon returning to her own bed, the little 
 stranger was carried and laid at her side 
 that she might look at him. After this 
 she never left her couch, and spoke but 
 little. It may be mentioned here, that, 
 solely with a view to her gratification, the 
 infant was baptized on the 12th of January 
 in her chamber — the last solemn rite of the 
 Church in which she participated. 
 January 30th, 1873 — 
 
 At night she called for her mother, and 
 said : 
 
 " I only wanted to say to you that I 
 think it will be all over before morning." 
 
 "Well, M , do you still feel that 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 97 
 
 same sweet trust that you are going right 
 to the Saviour ?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am," was the answer. 
 " And you will not be there alone, my 
 daughter." 
 
 "No, no," answered she, "there are 
 three there already." 
 
 " Have you any request to make, my 
 darling? " 
 
 "No; you can keep the coffin open 
 until the hour of the funeral, and then 
 close it." 
 
 M , the elder sister, exclaimed : 
 
 "Oh, M , don't talk about that!" 
 
 She turned and asked : 
 
 " What was it you asked me to tell you 
 about, sister G ?" 
 
 "About what, M ?" not recallino; 
 
 what she referred to. 
 
 " You asked me long ago to tell you 
 something when I was dying." 
 
 " O, yes," she replied; "if sister and 
 K should come to meet you." 
 
 The following morning her mother said, 
 ^'Well, daughter, you did not leave us 
 
98 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 last night as you thought you would ; " 
 to which her only answer was, "No, 
 ma'am." 
 
 January 31st — 
 
 She lay with her eyes closed, only open- 
 ing them when addressed, or to fix them 
 on her mother, whom she loved with an 
 affection approaching idolatry. So com- 
 pletely was she withdrawn from earth that 
 a fire directly across the street, with all the 
 noise and confusion of the engines at play, 
 did not attract her notice. During this 
 long illness she manifested no desire to 
 converse with her mother on the subject of 
 her departure. The great pang in dying 
 was the separation from her which it in- 
 volved ; and she turned from its contem- 
 plation as too painful. With her father 
 she was less reserved ; but he was so satis- 
 fied of her preparation for the great change, 
 that he was indisposed to vex her weakness 
 \\ith frccjuent conx'ersations. Still these 
 were occasionally held from the beginning 
 of her sickness till its close, always result- 
 ing in the unvarying statement of her 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 99 
 
 assured and peaceful hope in the Redeemer, 
 whom she embraced as " all her salvation 
 and her desire." There was nothing for 
 her, as for us, but to wait quietly the exe- 
 cution of God's resistless and holy will. 
 Alas ! we knew not the severity of the test 
 to M'hich this submission was to be sub- 
 jected. 
 
 February ist, 1873 — 
 
 As the day was rising- to its noon, it 
 became apparent that the shadows of the 
 Valley were darkening about her. At 
 two in the afternoon, a weeping group 
 was gathered around her bed ; there was 
 but a single prayer left to be breathed on 
 her behalf — it was for a gentle release. 
 
 •"Oh," cried the mother, "if she could 
 only be spared the agony of suffocation ! " 
 
 " She lies peacefully," replied the father, 
 "in a few moments she will be at rest 
 forever." 
 
 Just then she turned her head upon the 
 pillow. The movement was fatal — a single 
 cough — the child was strangling ! ! ! The 
 father leaped upon the bed and raised the 
 
lOO THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 skeleton frame in his arms : only a single 
 cry of distress from those bloodless lips — 
 one despairing look at each of the watch- 
 ing circle — one feeble clutch of the thin 
 fingers at the neck of her dress — and all 
 was over ! " Oh, my God ! " burst from 
 the mother's breaking heart, as the child 
 expired in the father's arms. 
 
 Oh, Death, was there no mercy in thy 
 pitiless bosom, that at the last, like a beast 
 of prey, thou must leap upon that wasted 
 form ; and with ruffian violence wrench 
 away the young life which she was yielding 
 so gently up to God ! 
 
 Be still, my soul ! It is the most solemn 
 lesson Providence has ever taught thee of 
 THE AWFULNESS OF SIN. She, the gentlest 
 of them all, whom the Lord sanctified even 
 from the womb ; who never by word or 
 sign betrayed the patience which possessed 
 her soul — the most like an angel of all this 
 sinning race : because the Lord loved her 
 and showed how fondly He had placed her 
 in His bosom — just because of this, in His 
 dreadful sovereignty, He chose to stamp 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW, lOI 
 
 upon this gentle one the seal of His hatred 
 of sin, when reduced even to the least. 
 
 Thou art our martyr, M ! God 
 
 called thee to honor Him by a life of sweet 
 obedience from the cradle ; and then to 
 bear the seal of His consuming holiness in 
 the agony of Death. 
 
 Blessed witness for thy God, in living 
 and in dying ! Thou art now beneath the 
 Throne, where all the martyrs are ; and 
 the memory of thee is to us a constant call 
 from Heaven. 
 
 •' We stood beside the river, 
 
 Whence all our souls must go ; 
 
 Bearing a loved one in our arms, 
 
 Our hearts repeating the alarms 
 
 That came across the river ; 
 
 And saw the sun decline in mist, 
 
 That rose until her brow it kissed. 
 
 And left it cold as snow. 
 •* Watching beside the river, 
 
 With every ebb and flow, 
 
 Fond hopes within our hearts would spring, 
 
 Until another warning ring 
 
 Came o'er the fearful river. 
 
 We saw the flush, the brightness fade, 
 
 The loving lips looked grieved and sad, 
 
 The white hands whiter grow. 
 
102 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 " Standing by the river, 
 We closed the weary eyes, 
 In Jesus' arms we laid her down, 
 A lovely jewel for His crown. 
 He bore her through the river, 
 And clothed her in a robe so white, 
 Too beautiful for mortal sight, 
 And took her to the skies." 
 
V. 
 
 " O, one after one they flew away, 
 Far up to the heavenly blue, 
 To the better country, the apper day, 
 And — I wish I was going, too." 
 
 The cup of sorrow was not yet full. 
 During two and thirty years, four of the 
 six whom the Lord had given to us were 
 taken hence ; and now one of the two left 
 must be surrendered to Him, whose claim 
 was more perfect than our own. The 
 daughter who was introduced in the pre- 
 ceding sketch, as leading her younger 
 sister sweetly down into the dark Vailey, 
 is now called to descend herself into its 
 deepest gloom. The following is the 
 record of her illness and death. 
 
 From early childhood she gave indica- 
 tions of a decided character, which did not 
 fail to be fulfilled in after years. Her dis- 
 tinguishing trait, at this early period, was 
 the almost entire absence of selfishness 
 
I04 THE BROKEN HOME) OR 
 
 and wilfulness. Her submission to parental 
 authority was prompt and easy ; and there 
 was, in her youthful sports, such a sur- 
 render of her own preferences and tastes 
 to those of her companions, as filled us 
 with surprise. This spirit of self-abnegation 
 marked her whole career in life ; which, in 
 later years, might have been ascribed to 
 an instinctive prudence and discretion — or 
 else to the influence of a careful Christian 
 training. But it was an original trait ex- 
 hibited with as much clearness and power 
 in childhood as in mature years ; and it 
 stood in such marked contrast with the 
 usual self-will and waywardness of the 
 young, as sometimes to suggest the thought 
 of God's special grace as its source. The 
 disclosure of her religious experience, when 
 brought into the Kingdom, convinced us, 
 however, that it was a natural, though 
 unusual, trait ; and that she could not be 
 classed with her sister, whose decease has 
 just been presented, as one renewed from 
 the beginning. It made us feel that God 
 had committed to our care a very precious 
 
Lessons in sorrow. 105 
 
 child, who, under judicious management, 
 would certainly expand into a noble wo- 
 man. What rendered this self-denying 
 and yielding temper the more remarkable, 
 was a positiveness of character, which dis- 
 criminated her gentleness from a -negative 
 easiness that can be turned and moulded 
 by the stronger will of those around her. 
 I desire to emphasize this co-ordinate and 
 qualifying trait, as it early arrested my 
 attention and made her an object of study. 
 There is, perhaps, no better term by which 
 to describe it, than the general one em- 
 ployed above. The word positiveness, 
 va'^ue as it may appear, expresses the idea 
 of an all-pervading quality that gave tone 
 and depth to her character, without impair- 
 ing its softness. It never degenerated into 
 wilfulness or stubbornness, but assumed 
 the form of a quiet and amiable decision. 
 I shall have to signalize two occasions, at 
 least, on which this trait was conspicu- 
 ously revealed ; but from the first it ran 
 like a scarlet thread through her entire 
 history. 
 
Hl6 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 This combination of qualities made up 
 an interesting problem, which I was never 
 able fully to resolve. If constitutionally 
 unselfish, ever postponing her own enjoy- 
 ment to that of others, it was not due to 
 any deficiency of will ; which any one 
 could discern lying back, and hidden like 
 the spinal column in the human body. 
 Those familiar with her in later life recog- 
 nized her as a person of assured convic- 
 tions and great tenacity of purpose. She 
 never was, either as child or woman, an 
 easy-going facile person. However in- 
 clined modestly to defer to others whom 
 she considered intelligent and wise, she 
 framed her own independent judgments, 
 and did not hold them lightly in her grasp. 
 This amiable independence of thought and 
 character, was one of the points of resem- 
 blance to her mother ; whose quiet deci- 
 sion of mind and temper has made her so 
 invaluable a counsellor, a helpful as well as 
 a loving companion to me. 
 
 When about thirteen and a half years 
 old, the subject of this sketch, with her 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. lO/ 
 
 sister just above her in age, united with 
 the church. I was not surpised when she 
 announced to me her interest on the sub- 
 ject of personal rehgion. I looked for her 
 to ghde into the communion of the church, 
 as soon as mature enough to take in the 
 import of such a step. I was not prepared, - 
 however, for the revelation which she 
 actually made. With her characteristic 
 decision she took me one evening into the 
 piazza, sa}'ing, " Father, I want to talk 
 with you alone." She then disclosed a 
 struggle in her little bosom, to which I 
 listened with unbounded astonishment. 
 This immature girl, who I thought had 
 only to wake to full self-knowledge in order 
 to find herself within the Kingdom, had 
 been battling for weeks with almost every 
 form of skepticism and infidelity. She had 
 never read a line in any book which sug- 
 gested these difficulties. She had never 
 talked with any one infected with these 
 notions : her intercourse had been exclu- 
 sively with persons who reverenced and 
 loved the Bible. And then, these matters 
 
I08 THE BROKEN HOME; OK 
 
 seemed so far beyond and above her years. 
 How came this child to be agitated with 
 doubts about the being and personahty of 
 God — about the immortahty of the soul — 
 whether death was not the final sleep — 
 whether all religion was not a mere super- 
 stition — the Bible a fiction — Jesus Christ 
 an impostor — Eternity, the Judgment, 
 Heaven and Hell, mere crazy dreams such 
 as come into the mind of some half-frenzied 
 poet ? The battle was well-nigh fought, 
 when she uncovered the secret to me ; and 
 perhaps all that was needed to complete 
 the victory, was just to tell the story of 
 her temptations. But as I listened, I felt 
 that the Devil could teach a child much 
 that was beyond her years. It was, at 
 least, intensely interesting, as an instance 
 of precocious thought, to follow her men- 
 tal processes as she developed these va- 
 rious speculations, and formed her own 
 independent refutation of them. The re- 
 sult was that she settled down into an in- 
 telligent belief in Christianity, which was 
 never afterwards shaken by a solitary doubt. 
 
LESSONS XN SORROW. IO9 
 
 The next important step in her history 
 was her marriage in May, 1873 ; which 
 took place at a time of great domestic 
 sorrow, being only three months after the 
 
 sad death of our martyr, M , already 
 
 recorded. It afforded opportunity, how- 
 ever, for displaj'ing the universal esteem 
 and love in which she was held. Ihe 
 church in which the marriage was solemn- 
 ized, was elaborately and exquisitely fes- 
 tooned and decorated with flowers by a 
 multitude of loving hands ; and a grateful 
 surprise was furnished us by those who 
 combined to make the occasion one of 
 gladness, and to show the appreciation in 
 which this dear child was held — giving us 
 more pleasure in the memory of it, now 
 that she has passed into the Paradise above 
 where the flowers bloom and never fade. 
 
 On the 29th of June, 1874, she gave 
 birth to her little babe, left to us a legacy 
 of love. From this sickness she never 
 rallied, and the fatal disease was soon de- 
 veloped which took her away. Her health 
 had not been previously robust. For two 
 
no THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 or three years she had been troubled with 
 a bronchial affection, which, united with 
 dyspeptic symptoms, had often excited 
 apprehension that she might be called 
 eventually to follow her sisters, whose de- 
 cline had been indicated by similar local 
 disorders. Through the remainder of that 
 year the disease seemed to be held at bay. 
 Her appetite was sustained, the food easily 
 digested, and daily rides into the open 
 country were enjoyed. But these appear- 
 ances were deceptive, and the fatal con- 
 sumption was secretly sapping the system 
 within. From the 4th to the 26th of 
 January, 1875, I was separated from her, 
 being called to a distance in the perform- 
 ance of certain ecclesiastical duties. Upon 
 my return it was only too manifest that 
 her case was hopeless, and that her de- 
 parture could not long be postponed. It 
 became now an imperative duty to break 
 through the reserve hitherto maintained, 
 and as gently as possible to intimate the 
 change that was inevitable. So long as a 
 particle of hope remained of even possible 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. tU 
 
 recovery, we had been careful to sustain 
 her spirits by cheerful anticipation of tlie 
 future. Confronted now by tlie certain t\' 
 of death, Christian faithfulness required 
 that she should not be taken una\\-ares. 
 
 January 29th, 1875 — 
 
 On this morning I determined to know 
 the worst from her physician, A\'ho said that 
 she had evidently lost ground, but might 
 rally again with a favorable turn in the 
 weather ; but that there was no chance for 
 her recovery. Upon going up to her 
 chamber, I found that she had drawn out 
 of him a similar opinion. 
 
 "I have at last," she said, "gotten 
 from the doctor a candid statement of my 
 case." 
 
 I mentioned frankly what he had just 
 said to me; but went on to speak hopefully 
 of what might take place in her favor even 
 yet. About five o'clock in the afternoon 
 of the same da)', after she had undressed. 
 I lifted her gently from the chair in which 
 she had been sitting and bore her to the 
 bed. As soon as she was composed from 
 
112 THE BROKEN HOME; Ok 
 
 the slight fatigue, I sat beside her and 
 embraced the opportunity to speak with 
 her alone. Indeed, she opened the con- 
 versation : 
 
 " I find it impossible on a sick bed to 
 keep up any regularity in my prayers." 
 
 "Of course," I replied, " that cannot 
 be helped ; but prayer does not consist in 
 the use of words and forms. Our sweet- 
 est prayers are often mere ejaculations, 
 sometimes not expressed at all. but only 
 the lifting up of a thought or desire. Be- 
 sides, prayer is the constant posture of the 
 soul before God, in which sense we are 
 said to ' pray always.' " 
 
 " Yes, that is so ; and we can thus * pray 
 without ceasing.' Whenever I wake in 
 the night, I breathe silently my prayer to 
 God." Then she added, after a little pause : 
 
 *' I am so thankful that I was not left 
 to put off the great matter of my salvation 
 till this time of sickness and weakness. 
 That is a thing already done, and some- 
 how I have not a cloud or shadow of doubt 
 as to my .interest in Christ." 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. II3 
 
 " It is a great thing to be grateful for," 
 I answered, " that God should put a check 
 upon Satan, and not allow him to tempt 
 you with any doubts or fears." 
 
 " I know," she rejoined, " that I am a 
 sinner ; but I feel that I am forgiven and 
 accepted." 
 
 " Yes, my daughter, and we know that 
 the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin ; 
 and this blood has been already shed ; we 
 have only to rely on it and escape from 
 the curse." 
 
 "I had a great struggle," she said, 
 " when the doctor pronounced that I was 
 bound to go like my sisters. Though I 
 fcit ni}' hope revive a little later, yet I 
 knew how uncertain it was, and that the 
 least thing might set me back." 
 
 " Well, G , we must put all that 
 
 right into God's hands, and let Him dis- 
 pose of you as He will — knowing that it 
 will be ordered aright and in love." 
 
 "Yes," she replied, and repc.itcd th.e 
 lines : 
 
 " Sweet to lie pas'^ive in His hands, 
 And know no will but His." 
 
i 14 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 Here the conversation was abruptly- 
 terminated by some one coming in. The 
 struggle to which she referred took place 
 at least three months before her decease. 
 Her statement was more full to her mother 
 than to myself. To her she mentioned 
 that the conflict was long protracted, be- 
 fore she could entertain the prospect of 
 death with composure and acquiescence. 
 The instinct of life is strong within us all, 
 and it was not feeble in her ; and as she 
 looked upon her husband and babe she 
 felt that life had many and great attrac- 
 tions for her. Resignation, then, with her 
 had not the faintest trace of fanaticism. 
 Her reason and her heart appreciated the 
 sweetness of life to one who lay in the 
 bosom of the tenderest relations ; and it 
 was not easy, at once and forever, to re- 
 sign the hope of being restored to those 
 whom she passionately loved. Yet sharp 
 as the conflict was, it was in keeping with 
 her perfect unselfishness to lock it up in 
 the secrecy of her own breast." 
 
 ' ' The world would not have tempted 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 11$ 
 
 me," she said to her mother, "to reveal 
 what was passing in my mind ; for it would 
 have added so much to your distress to 
 know how I was struggling against my 
 fate." 
 
 The conflict ended in complete victory. 
 The love of life itself was laid a sacrifice 
 upon the altar of obedience ; and with 
 characteristic decision it was laid there 
 never to be taken up any more. From 
 that moment her resignation was perfect ; 
 and she remained in a state of restful sub- 
 mission to her Heavenly Father's will, till 
 the scene was closed. Indeed, her only 
 strong desire was that the end might not 
 be long postponed. 
 
 " I do not want mother to be broken 
 down by constant and painful nursing," 
 she said ; " I wish her to be spared to you 
 all and to my child." 
 
 It was one of the forms in which her 
 spirit of entire self-abnegation found utter- 
 ance. 
 
 February ist, 1875. — In a conversation 
 with her mother^ she remarked : 
 
1 1(5 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 •'I do not think that I can Hve till 
 Spring, for I am getting so weak. In case 
 I should sink suddenly and be too feeble 
 to speak, I wish you all to understand that 
 I hope I am entirely ready to go — quite 
 ready and willing to depart." 
 
 "I often think," her mother replied, 
 " of the happy meeting between you and 
 your sisters in Heaven ; and do you know 
 I am sure your influence and example had 
 much to do in preparing them for that 
 happy world where you will soon join 
 them." 
 
 "Mother, do you really think so?" 
 she inquired in a lively tone. 
 
 ' ' Yes, I am perfectly sure of it, my 
 daughter." 
 
 "Oh, mother, I am so glad you have 
 told me of it." 
 
 More than these she will meet upon the 
 mount of God, whom she has persuaded 
 to the Saviour's feet. Several of her Sab- 
 bath-school scholars acknowledge her influ- 
 ence in leading them to Christ ; and the last 
 act of Christian faithfulness was her sending;- 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. II7 
 
 for others during her ilhiess, to entreat 
 them to accept the salvation now so 
 precious to herself. I believe they will be 
 given as her crown. 
 
 February 4th. — She expressed to-day 
 some apprehension lest her husband's 
 faith should be shaken by her death. 
 
 " He has such confidence in the effi- 
 cacy of prayer, and knows how many and 
 fervent have been the petitions for my re- 
 covery — when he finds it abortive, I fear 
 he may swing to the other extreme and 
 doubt the value of all prayer." 
 
 "That effect will be temporary," I 
 replied, "even if it should be realized at 
 all. He will soon recover upon the true 
 view that for all contingent blessings, in 
 reference to which God's will cannot ante- 
 cedently be known, our petitions must 
 necessarily be conditioned upon a wisdom 
 that is higher than our own." "Poor 
 fellow," she added, "I do feel so sorry 
 for him, "and wish he could be spared 
 the suffering he must undergo." 
 
 " In view of your increasing feebleness," 
 
Il8 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 I said, " had you not better make all your 
 wishes known, and dispose of all your 
 little effects, before you become too weak 
 to talk or even to think much ?" 
 
 " Yes, I am doing that." 
 
 " Have you any directions to give about 
 your babe ?" 
 
 " No ; Mr. has promised to give 
 
 her up entirely to mother ; I feel no con- 
 cern about her ; as long as you live, you 
 will take care of her as your own." 
 
 February 6th. — On this day her vener- 
 able grandfather, who had been with us 
 three months, expressed great sorrow at 
 the necessity of his departure ; and offered 
 to make this bend to our wishes if we de- 
 sired him to remain. This last suggestion 
 startled her, as implying our expectation 
 of her immediate release. 
 
 "No," I replied; "if that were so, 
 your grandfather would not leave. On 
 the contrary, you may linger a good while ; 
 and his plans are so cast that he cannot 
 well remain longer with us. We cannot 
 tell anything about your case; you may 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 1 19 
 
 rally and go for months, or you may take 
 a sudden turn and go off quickly. " 
 
 " Oh, I should be sorry to linger in this 
 emaciated condition ; I would only suffer 
 with bedsores in the warm weather." 
 
 "That is not likely," was my answer; 
 "my impression is that you will be with 
 us but a short time now." 
 
 "That is my own view," was her re- 
 sponse. 
 
 February 7th, Sabbath. — On this day 
 her symptoms were increasingly bad, with 
 swollen extremities and other troubles. I 
 asked " if she still enjoyed peace of mind, 
 and was conscious of a quiet, steady trust 
 in the Redeemer." 
 
 "Yes," was the cheerful reply, "per- 
 fect peace of mind ; the only thing I dread 
 is the physical pain of dying. I cannot 
 
 help remembering M 's last struggle, 
 
 and dread it for myself." 
 
 " Her case was exceptional," I an- 
 swered ; "it does not occur often ; for in 
 all the death-bed scenes I have witnessed, 
 hers is the only one of the kind I ever saw. 
 
120 THE BROKEN HOME; OR, 
 
 The probabilities are that you will be spared 
 her experience. At any rate, leave that 
 to God and accept ail that He ordains." 
 
 " Yes," she replied, " for it will be very 
 short, if it should occur." 
 
 Referring to her prevailing peace of 
 mind, I inquired "whether she could dis- 
 tinguish between this and the listlessness 
 arising from weakness and exhaustion ?" 
 
 " I am sometimes too weak even to 
 think ; but at other moments lam stronger, 
 especially during the hours of night ; and 
 then my peace is greatest, as I pour out 
 my heart before God. But pray constantly 
 for me," she added. 
 
 I could only reply : 
 
 " There is not an hour of the day that 1 
 do not pray for you, my darling," 
 
 February 9th, Tuesday. — Her weakness 
 prevented her from speaking, except to 
 indicate her wants. It also provoked the 
 dreadful cough which racked her frame, 
 so that conversation was almost precluded, 
 though so much desired on both sides. 
 But wishing to know her spiritual state as 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 121 
 
 the case went on, I again inquired : ' 'G , 
 
 are you still in the sweet and trustful frame 
 of which }-ou have before spoken, having no 
 dread of the chanfje that is awaitinfr vou ?" 
 
 " Yes, " she replied, "strangely so; I 
 have alwa}'s recoiled from the thought of 
 dying ; and when I saw my sisters so calm, 
 I wondered how it was possible and 
 thought I could not be like them in their 
 situation. But I ieel entire willingness to 
 go — only," she added, "it will be so 
 dreadlul-dreary to \'Ou all when I am 
 gone, though I say it." 
 
 " Ah ! \-ou must not think of us, my 
 child ; God k-nows the house will be dark 
 and chill enough, when )"ou are gone; but 
 the great concern with you is lO be ready 
 ior that stupendous change." 
 
 " Indeed it is," she replied ; "death is 
 solemn enough when it meets you in the 
 streets, or read about it as happening to 
 oihers ; but it is another thing when it sits 
 clown before you on the bed, and }Ou 
 must look at it face to lace, day after day, 
 ior yourself." 
 
122 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 ' ' What a blessed grace is given you, 
 then, my child, if you can do so ; and with 
 air that it imports, feel that for you the 
 sting of death- is taken away." 
 
 "Yes," she rejoined, "and it is all of 
 grace." 
 
 February nth, Thursday. — Another 
 snatch of conversation : 
 
 "One thing is strange to me," she said, 
 " 1 have not been able to read my Bible 
 much of late, yet its passages come up to 
 vne with so much freshness and power — 
 frequently when I wake out of sleep, at 
 night, this is the case." 
 
 ■'There is nothing strange in it," I an- 
 swered, "since one of the ways in which 
 the Holy Spirit performs His office as 
 Comforter, is by bringing to our remem- 
 brance whatsoever Christ has said." 
 
 "Yes," she rejoined, "and that is ex- 
 actly what the Saviour promised to His 
 disciples." 
 
 After a pause she added : 
 
 " One thing has greatly Gomforted me : 
 I thought that when I should be dying, the 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 12$ 
 
 uppermost feeling would be the anticipa- 
 tion of meeting my sisters in Heaven. But 
 that is quite in the background ; the great 
 joy is the thought of being with my 
 Saviour." 
 
 After this she only said : 
 
 " There is so much I would like to say 
 
 to you all ; but I cannot talk, because of 
 
 this great weakness and this awful cough, 
 
 which begins as soon as I open my lips." 
 
 "And that prevents us from saying 
 much to you, my child ; for you cannot 
 help answering back, and so we are all 
 shut up together." 
 
 February I2th, Friday. — After break- 
 fast her linen was changed, and her bed 
 prepared, as she reclined for a few mo- 
 ments upon the lounge. Happening to 
 enter the room just then, I exclaimed : 
 
 " How comfortable you look ! It must 
 be a relief to change your position." 
 
 " Oh, no," was the response, " I must 
 get back as soon as I can." 
 
 She was replaced in bed in the sitting 
 posture she had preferred for the week 
 
124 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 past, propped up with pillows. I did not 
 apprehend the case ; for seeing her, as I 
 supposed, comfortable as usual, I left the 
 house to execute an arrangement pre- 
 viously made with her — that I should go 
 to the cemetery and look at the tomb in 
 which she was soon to be placed, the care 
 of which we had been compelled for some 
 time to neglect. Thence I proceeded to 
 the postofhce for letters, so as to avoid any 
 further absence during the day. Upon 
 entering the house, I was startled by a 
 sudden call over the banisters to hurry up- 
 stairs. She had missed me and called for 
 me. When I entered the room, a glance 
 revealed that her feet were already in the 
 cold river. 
 
 " Speak to her," said the mother, "and 
 see if she will recognise you." 
 
 " Not for the world/' I answered. 
 
 She was in a gentle sleep, with her head 
 resting one side on her pillow. A half- 
 hour's watching and then the sleep deep- 
 ened into that which knows no waking. 
 At half-past ii o'clock a. m., without the 
 
Lessons in sorrow. 125 
 
 quivering of a muscle or the heaving of a 
 sigh, her patient spirit had joined the wor- 
 shipers on high. Our last prayer was 
 heard ; and the last dread that threw a 
 shade over her dying hour, was spared to 
 us and to her. 
 
 February 14, 1875, Sabbath. — On the 
 afternoon of a beautiful Sabbath the largest 
 cortege I have ever seen at a private fune- 
 ral, followed her remains to their last rest- 
 ing place ; and a whole community 
 mourned for one whom so many loved, 
 as we put her to sleep by the side of the 
 sisters whom she had followed to the 
 skies. 
 
 Sitting down in the twilight in our dis- 
 mantled home, we thought of the " Man- 
 sion " above, already furnished with the 
 household waiting to greet us on the 
 threshold when we, too, shall be called. 
 
 " These border-lands are calm and still, 
 And solemn are their silent shades ; 
 And my heart welcomes them, until 
 The light of life's long evening fades. 
 
126 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 " I heard them spoken of with dread, 
 As fearful and unquiet places ; 
 Shades, where the living and the dead 
 Look sadly in each other's faces. 
 
 " But since Thy hand hath led me here, 
 And I have seen the border-land ; 
 Seen the dark river flowing near, 
 Stood on its brink, as now I stand — 
 
 •' There has been nothing to alarm 
 
 My trembling soul ; how could I fear 
 While thus encircled with Thine arm ? 
 I never felt Thee half so near. 
 
 " They say the waves are dark and deep, 
 That faith has perished in the river ; 
 They speak of death with fear, and weep 
 Shall my soul perish ? Never ! never ! 
 
 " And since I first was brought so near 
 The stream that flows to the Dead Sea, 
 I think that it grows more clear 
 And shallow than it used to be. 
 
 «' I cannot see the golden gate 
 
 Unfolding yet to welcome me ; 
 I cannot yet anticipate 
 The joy of Heaven's jubilee — 
 
 " But I will calmly watch and pray, 
 Until I hear my Saviour's voice 
 Calling my happy soul away, 
 To see His glory and rejoice." 
 
VI. 
 
 •' But there is more than I can see, 
 And what I see, 1 leave unsaid, 
 Nor speak it, knowing Death has made 
 His darkness beautiful with thee." 
 
 "Your mother is ill — come to her at 
 once." Such was the rasping message 
 delivered one crisp November morning, 
 forty years ago. Ah ! we have but one 
 mother on earth ; who can replace her in 
 our thought? She who bore us in the 
 walls of her flesh, in the strange commu- 
 nity of a dual life : she who nourished 
 us. in feeble infancy, from her own 
 substance : she whose smile woke us 
 to the first response of lo\'e : she 
 whose constant sympathy assuaged the 
 sorrows of childliood, and whose guardian 
 providence shielded from the snares ot 
 opening manhood : she to whom was paid 
 the homage of youthful hearts, mounting 
 
128 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR, 
 
 to such lower worship as may be given to 
 a mortal : such was the mother who, in 
 nature's extremity, craved the presence of 
 her son. 
 
 Through the life of a generation she had 
 filled the responsible position of a Chris- 
 tian pastor's wife, for which she was emi- 
 nently fitted both by nature and by grace. 
 Possessing a vigorous intellect, enlarged 
 by generous culture, she found opportunity 
 even amidst domestic cares for its continual 
 improvement. The habit of early rising 
 gave her an hour before the day began its 
 busy hum ; and through the long working 
 hours she would snatch brief intervals for 
 reading. Some solid book was always on 
 her table, and some subject always on her 
 mind for study and conversation. Thus 
 she became the companion of her husband, 
 sharing his thoughts and pursuits ; and the 
 transient clergyman who passed a night 
 beneath her roof, never failed to carry 
 away a deep impression of her intelligence 
 and worth. 
 
 For the office of a mother she was sin- 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 12g 
 
 gularly qualified. Always the teacher of 
 her young children, she had the rare 
 faculty of letting herself down into their 
 minds, and of feeling a real sympathy with 
 all their emotions. So entire was the as- 
 cendancy she thereby acquired, that her 
 sons, in all the rudeness of boyhood, never 
 knew the time when they would not cheer- 
 fully exchange the sports and playmates 
 of the field for the quiet conversation of 
 their mother at her work-table. Mingling 
 gentleness with decision, she was able to 
 add guidance to discipline. Seizing those 
 moments when they yielded themselves 
 without prejudice to her influence, her 
 speech distilled upon them as dew upon 
 the mown grass. She never sermonized ; 
 but dropping occasional remarks with little 
 apparent design, furnished them with 
 maxims suited to all conditions in life. 
 Let not the reader regard these as mere 
 common-places uttered to fill a period. 
 Who that looks back upon the critical pas- 
 sages ©f his life, will not bless God for the 
 gift of a pious mother — feeling that her 
 
130 THE BROKEN HOME ; OK, 
 
 hand has phicked him from ruin. There 
 are seasons of recklessness in youth when 
 we can place our profane feet upon every- 
 thing save a mother's love ; and a mother's 
 love has often quenched the fire which 
 authority and force would have fanned into 
 a consuming flame. This pious mother 
 met with a pious mother's reward. Of 
 her eight children, four preceded her to 
 the world of bliss ; four wept around her 
 grave ; but these four trust in their mother's 
 God, and the two sons preach that Jesus 
 in whom they believe, and whom their 
 mother confessed on her dying bed. 
 
 This much is written, not as the record 
 of a long and holy life, but as preparing 
 for the sketch of an unusual experience in 
 her last moments. After years spent in 
 close communion with God we would 
 naturally expect an end of peace, if not of 
 joy; but rarely on earth is a departing 
 saint permitted to leave such a testimony, 
 lighting up the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death with such a shining from the, "upper 
 day." ' 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. I3I 
 
 In the commencement of her sickness 
 her hope was for one day greatly obscured ; 
 and she called to her husband and children 
 to pray that Christ would reveal Himself 
 to her faith, and that she might enjoy the 
 fullest assurance of her acceptance with 
 God. As may be anticipated, she came 
 out of the cloud, saying : 
 
 "I feel that your prayers have been 
 heard ; I am delivered from darkness and 
 see and feel Jesus to be my Saviour." 
 
 From this moment she rejoiced in an 
 unclouded assurance of hope to the end. 
 As she lay often apparently asleep, her 
 frequent exclamations, "Wonderful love!" 
 "Precious salvation!" evinced that her 
 soul was absorbed in adoring views of 
 God's love and mercy in Christ. More 
 than once, speaking of Christ as a com- 
 plete Saviour, she exclaimed : 
 
 "What a wretched religion the Uni- 
 tarian has — he has no God for his Saviour." 
 
 On one occasion a portion of the Eighty- 
 ninth Psalm was read to her ; she responded 
 with animation to the verses which set 
 
132 THE BROKEN HOME; dR 
 
 forth the perpetuity of God's covenant 
 with His people, and to the person who 
 prayed she remarked : 
 
 " I love to hear you pray, because you 
 dwell so much upon God's covenant — that 
 is my hope," 
 
 To this she several times referred, re- 
 joicing that God's love was spontaneous, 
 and that His favor was not doled out ac- 
 cording to the measure of our poor ser- 
 vices. When asked if death was at all 
 terrible, she replied : 
 
 " Not so now, but it may be otherwise 
 at the last ; pray for special grace in that 
 trying moment." 
 
 On the Sabbath preceding her death, 
 she said to one of her sons who had 
 preached : 
 
 ' ' I wish I could have heard you to-day ; 
 you preached on the believer's future like- 
 ness to Christ in Heaven." 
 
 He replied: "Mother, you will soon 
 know that mystery fully." 
 
 "Oh, it is a sweet promise," washer 
 Tmrnediate response. 
 
LfeSSONS IN SORROW. I33 
 
 In the evening' of this Sabbath, the 
 family alone being- with her, she asked for 
 a hymn to be sung ; the words, " Come, 
 Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove," were 
 chosen ; it must have been a foretaste of 
 Heaven to her, for at the end of each line 
 she would exclaim, lifting her hands : 
 
 " Oh, how sweet ! " 
 
 The last sad day came at length, and 
 gloom settled upon every face. She was 
 told, "You are very low, very near to 
 death ;" her calm reply betrayed no sur- 
 prise : 
 
 "I suppose the doctor has done his 
 best ; I shall soon be at rest ; how sweet it 
 will be ! " 
 
 A few directions were given to her 
 daughters, and she assumed the posture 
 of one waiting to depart. As the day 
 rolled on, she seemed impatient to be 
 gone: "Come, Lord Jesus," " Why de- 
 layeth His chariot?" and such like expres- 
 sions, indicated how her spirit panted after 
 rest. She was asked : 
 
 " Why are you anxious to die ?'' 
 
134 THE BROKEN HOJIE ; OR 
 
 "It is better to be in Heaven." 
 
 " Why do you wish to be in Heaven ?" 
 
 " Because it is a place of holiness ; that 
 is the chief attraction. " 
 
 As the night was closing in, shiC said : 
 
 " I thought all day the time was about 
 fixed for me to go." 
 
 Being asked wdiat she thought then, her 
 reply was : 
 
 " God acts like a Sovereign in His own 
 way. 
 
 She was reminded that there is an ap- 
 pointed time for man upon the earth. 
 
 "Yes," was the answer, "and that 
 bound none shall pass." 
 
 Being asked if she felt that all was w^ell 
 with her, she replied : 
 
 " Yes, I am very sure." 
 
 From this moment she sank into what 
 appeared to us a state of delirium, failing 
 to recognise any one around her or to re- 
 spond intelligently to anything said to her. 
 During the hours she remained in this con- 
 dition,, many painful efforts were made to 
 recall her to us — her husband especially 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 1 35 
 
 took her hand in his and sought a recog- 
 nition, but in vain. Various questions 
 were put, which sliowed that all intercourse 
 with this world was barred ; she knew 
 neither face nor voice of those she loved 
 most on earth. Appeal after appeal was 
 made to mdmor\- and to every other faculty, 
 for one sign of remembrance ; until these 
 fruitless attempts were abandoned, and a 
 gloomy sihnce settled upon all within that 
 chamber of death. Then followed a scene 
 such as the writer has never witnessed be- 
 fore or since ; which so completely changed 
 his views concerning the gloom of the be- 
 liever's death, that the recital may perhaps 
 be profitable to others. Happening to be 
 lying across the bed with his head very 
 near to hers, without any motive of which 
 he was conscious moving him to the act, 
 he whispered softly in her ear the words 
 of Paul, "There is, therefore, now no 
 condemnation to them which are in Christ 
 Jesus ; " when, to the amazement of all 
 present, she took the passage out of his 
 mouth, adding the remaining words — "who 
 
136 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 walk not after the flesh, but after the 
 ■Spirit." It would be impossible for any 
 description to convey the impression pro- 
 duced by this incident ; one must have 
 been able to contrast it with the vain efforts 
 made through successive hours to win one 
 token of earthly recognition, to know what 
 it imported to this sad company. The 
 husband was seated upon a trunk in the 
 corner of the room ; when suddenly ap- 
 proaching the bed, he exclaimed: "This 
 is wonderful — try her with another verse. " 
 These words were whispered in her ear in 
 the softest possible tone, "God is our 
 refuge and strength ; " when again she 
 took up the inspired words and finished 
 them — " a very present help in trouble." 
 Again it was whispered to her, ' ' I have 
 loved thee with an everlasting love ; " to 
 which she instantly rejoined, "and with 
 loving-kindness have I drawn thee." 
 Desiring of testing how far she was alive 
 to spiritual things, while dead to those of 
 earth, that involved and complex passage 
 in Job was cited — "I know that my Re- 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 1 37 
 
 deemer liveth ;" when to the wonder of all 
 present the whole context was, after a mo- 
 ment's pause, correctly repeated: "And 
 that he shall stand at the latter day upon 
 the earth ; and though after my skin worms 
 destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I 
 see God ; whom I shall see for myself, and 
 mine eyes shall behold, and not another." 
 Penetrated with awe and weeping for joy, 
 only one more utterance was solicited as 
 the expression of her personal faith and 
 hope : the words of Paul were begun — " I 
 know whom I have believed;" her dying 
 lips concluded the testimony of an assured 
 believer, by instantly adding — "and am 
 persuaded that he is able to keep that 
 which I have committed unto him against 
 that day." 
 
 Here, then, is a soul in such a state as 
 to be utterly inaccessible to impressions 
 from the material world, while perfectly 
 open to those from the spiritual. Neither 
 the tendercst domestic ties, nor the asso 
 ciations of a long life, have power to recall 
 her to earth ; whilst the sacred language 
 
I3B THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 of the Scriptures ri-vets her attention, and 
 commands the homage both of mind and 
 heart. There is but one solution of the 
 case possible ; and with the admission of 
 this, the entire mystery disappears. In 
 this d\-ing- hour the Hoi}' Ghost was finish- 
 ing the work of grace, completing the like- 
 ness of the saint to her blessed Head, and 
 fitting her for immediate entrance into the 
 Avorld of glory. She was, therefore, ab- 
 sorbed in spiritual themes ; and the lan- 
 guage of the Bible was recognised, because 
 it coincided with the current of thought 
 and feeling which was then indulged. 
 What seemed to those around her couch 
 to be delirium, was simply seclusion from 
 the world in which they moved ; so that 
 nothing which human affection could sug- 
 gest, gained the attention for a moment. 
 Does not this explanation of the case go 
 far to unravel the mysterious incidents of 
 many a dying experience ? Those seraphic 
 smiles playing over the face, like the sheet- 
 lightning which sports upon a summer 
 cloud— ^those typical gestures pointing as 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 1 39 
 
 to some real presence, which the eye is 
 unable to discern — the joyful recognition 
 of beautiful spirits, who seem to beckon 
 the departing- soul towards the glory that 
 is be}'ond : all these things so often recur- 
 ring, and throwing such awe upon sur- 
 viving friends as pregnant hints of the 
 Eternity at other times so far away — may 
 they not be only the natural expressions 
 of spiritual desires and affections, wrought 
 in the heart by the Holy Spirit in the hour 
 when His work is finished on the human 
 soul ? May they not be simply the reflec- 
 tion of the grace that is wrought within 
 the believer, when he is " made meet to 
 be partaker of the inheritance of the saints 
 in light?" And may it not be lawful to 
 conclude that these cases, which seem to 
 us so rare, are but t}-pes of all the rest ? 
 And that while God will not suffer the 
 secrets of the eternal world to be betrayed 
 by any, He allows these hints to be given 
 of the luxury in dying in every case \\here 
 the likeness to Christ is completed, and 
 the last look of faith is taken of Him 
 
140 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 whom the soul loveth ? 
 
 This, then, was the lesson coming out 
 of a great filial sorrow, the blessedness of 
 death to the people of God. Says the 
 Apostle, "The sting of death is sin;" 
 but if the guilt of sin is cancelled, and its 
 pollution cleansed, and its being destroyed, 
 and its very presence remov^ed, what then 
 becomes of the sting ? There surely is a 
 last act of faith before it is swallowed up 
 tn sight — a last tear of penitence, in which 
 the stain is washed away — a last touch of 
 the Spirit, in which indwelling sin is for- 
 ever removed and the transfiguration into 
 the Redeemer's image is rendered com- 
 plete. Can imagination conceive, or lan- 
 guage describe, the joy of such an expe- 
 rience ? The process may be shut up 
 within an instant, just as the spirit is being 
 released from its battered tenement of clay ; 
 or it may be drawn through hours of deep- 
 ening sanctification, in which the believer 
 shall be closeted alone with the blessed 
 Comforter. In either case, the believer 
 shall spring from earth to Heaven with the 
 
! LESSONS IN SORROW. I4I 
 
 shout of perfect joy, in the possession of a 
 perfected holiness. Whatever the pangs 
 of dissolution may appear to be, they are 
 only the storm which ruffles the surface of 
 the sea, but cannot disturb the calm of the 
 unfathomed depths beneath. 
 
 There is no more fitting 'close of this 
 sketch than Pope's free translation of 
 Hadrian's celebrated Latin hymn : 
 
 •« Vital spark of heavenly flame, 
 Quit, O quit this mortal frame ; 
 Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying, 
 O the pain, tne bliss ot dying! 
 Cease, fond nature, cease tby strife, 
 And let me languish into life. 
 
 «♦ Hark ! they whisper, angels say, 
 •Sister spirit, come away.' 
 What is this absorbs me quite, 
 Steals my senses, shuts my sight ; 
 Drowns my spirit, draws my breath? 
 Tell me, my soul, can this be death? 
 
 «« The world recedes, it disappears ; 
 Heaven opens on my eyes— my ears 
 Wilh sounds seraphic ring; 
 Lend, lend your wings, I mount, I fly; 
 O Giave, where is thy victory? 
 Q Death, where is thy sting ? " 
 
VII. 
 
 •• Gone home ! Gone home! The door through which 
 she vanished 
 Closed with ajar, and left us here alone. 
 We stand without in tears, forlorn and banished, 
 Longing to follow where one loved has gone." 
 
 Five times "the waters of a full cup 
 had been wrung out " to these stricken 
 parents ; and five times they had said; each 
 to the other : * ' God is merciful — you at 
 least are spared." The supreme sorrow 
 had not yet been felt, until it should be 
 written: "He sitteth alone and keepeth 
 silence, because he hath borne it upon him. " 
 
 Through a ministry of many years it had 
 been his office to comfort the bereaved, 
 and to say, "a Father of the fatherless, 
 and a Judge of the widows, is God in His 
 holy habitation." Yet the shadow of one 
 grief sent ever the chill to his heart, with 
 the wonder how it could be endured. It 
 was the sharp blade cleaving through the 
 
144 THE BROREN HOME ; OR 
 
 "dual unity" of marriage, with but the 
 one-half left to live and mourn. As quaintly 
 but impressively described in a private 
 letter, " there is no stroke so disorganizing 
 — it is breaking the hub of the wheel and 
 leaving the surrounding circle disabled and 
 dislocated." This was the lesson to be 
 learned in the final sorrow, liozv one could 
 be slain and live. 
 
 . The Scriptures speak with unutterable 
 tenderness of "the wife of thy youth," 
 and of " the wife of thy covenant ; " yet 
 romantic as may be the love which greets 
 the bride, it is not the holy thing into 
 which it grows through the consecration 
 of the after years. The bloom of youth 
 may have faded forever ; instead of which 
 may be the frost of age and the furrows of 
 care. But how these speak of a long min- 
 istry of love — of common joys and sorrows, 
 with which a " stranger intermeddleth 
 not " — of mutual burdens borne, and mu- 
 tual counsels given — of that hidden fellow- 
 ship in which both took retreat from the 
 burning trials and fretting discords of 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW, I45 
 
 earth ! In the Hght of such memories, 
 how beautilully transfiijured becomes tlie 
 time-scarred brow, and the face with its 
 seams of faithful and loving service ! 
 Though the arms may tremble in the 
 patriarchal embrace in which the fervor of 
 earthly passion has cooled, there remains 
 the grateful remembrance of life-long sym- 
 pathy, of mutual dependence and care. 
 
 " The heart knoweth his own bitterness" 
 when the web of these associations is 
 rudely torn by the hand of Death, This 
 is the bereavement now to be recorded. It 
 came with appalling suddenr.ess at the last, 
 A severe illness continuing through a sum- 
 mer and necessitating travel, had yielded 
 to medical treatment ; and a year's delight- 
 ful convalescence gave promise of ultimate 
 recovery. Alas, that disease should thus 
 slumber in the frame, with the seeds of 
 death planted in its members ! The sus- 
 pended blow came with crushing effect, 
 after this brief reprieve. At first it was 
 regarded as the recurrence of the old dis- 
 order — shifting its disguise as it was baffled 
 
146 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 by the physician's skill ; until, after a 
 night's discomposure, the heart ceased to 
 beat, and she was gone ! Without a sus- 
 picion of immediate danger, she had time 
 only to say, " I believe I am dying," and 
 within a moment came that far-off look 
 which fills the beholder with awe, as it 
 gazes beyond things present into the deep 
 unseen. Not a word of farewell could be 
 spoken ; as 
 
 " Closer, closer her steps 
 
 Come to the dark abysm ; 
 Closer, death to her lips 
 
 Presses the awful chrism." 
 
 The curtain had fallen suddenly between 
 the two worlds — she in that, and we in 
 this. Oh, how the heart has ached to 
 speak that unspoken word to her — and to 
 hear it spoken back across that mysterious 
 border ! But the law of Faith cannot be 
 broken for a momentary indulgence : 
 *' Blessed are they that have not seen, and 
 yet have believed." Alas, there are many 
 
 " Who to the verge have followed those they love, 
 And on the insuperable threshold stand, 
 With cherished names its speechless calm reprove. 
 And stretch in the abyss their ungrasped hand." 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. I47 
 
 Death has the strange power of sanctify- 
 ing all whom he may touch ; they become 
 to us as the angels of God. The memory 
 of them crystallizes into a living form un- 
 substantial and pure as the light, which 
 glides into the soul and abides a sweet and 
 solemn presence there. Yet partial as the 
 hand may be which draws this portrait, it 
 shall be a faithful likeness still. 
 
 The attention of a stranger would be 
 arrested by the air of repose diffused over 
 her person. It was characteristic of her 
 girlhood, so far removed from the giddiness 
 of the young coquette. It was not the 
 sedateness of the matron, into which it may 
 have later grown ; still less was it the slug- 
 gishness of a stagnant mind. Few enjoyed 
 more than she the humorous side of life, 
 or whose sensibilities responded more 
 quickly to all that was gracious and tender. 
 It was not inertness, nor could it be termed 
 even sobriety ; for there was a glow in her 
 manner which won to her side the young 
 as well as the old. The word "repose" 
 alone describes it — and it made her so 
 
148 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 restful to others. Whatever cares might 
 oppress, or passions disturb, to come into 
 her presence was to come into the region 
 of calm. It was like a breeze from the sea 
 which took the fever from the brow. And 
 so we learned to lean upon her, whose 
 magic touch could soothe our ruffled tem- 
 pers into quietness like her own. This 
 above all others is the home-attribute, 
 which makes it the haven of rest to the 
 weary. It is this peacefulness throwing 
 its grateful shade between us and the 
 scorching sun, that makes 
 
 •• Domestic happiness the only bliss 
 Of Paradise that has survived the fall." 
 
 Hers was the repose of a deep, calm na- 
 ture that lay beneath, suggestive not of 
 weakness but of strength. It was the re- 
 pose of the sea, with the wind rippling and 
 the sunbeam dancing upon it, as it rested 
 upon the quiet depths below. Hers was 
 the calmness of a self-contained nature — 
 not indifferent to anything around it, nor 
 shallow enough to be agitated thereby ; 
 but drawing up from unseen depths a 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 1 49 
 
 Strength to be calm amidst earthly storms. 
 A masterly will held her at anchor amidst 
 the drifting tides. Her convictions of truth 
 and duty were unalterable, for they were 
 rooted in the foundations of her own being. 
 This resulted from the independence which 
 would take no opinions upon trust, but 
 cast them into the mould of her own 
 thought — and for which she was always 
 prepared to render a reason. Her opinions 
 ripened thus into convictions, and these 
 into principles which became to her the 
 rule of conduct. But in this there was no 
 offensive self-assertion. Her independence 
 never degenerated into dogmatism, nor her 
 will into wilfulness. Her convictions were 
 for herself, to be the guide of her own 
 actions. 
 
 In the calm of a nature thus self-poised 
 there lay a quiet force, which went forth 
 with a silent yet magnetic control of all 
 with whom she came in contact. Its pres- 
 sure was like that of the atmosphere, so 
 equal on every side as scarcely to be re- 
 cognised. Like the forces in the material 
 
150 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 world, it was the more irrestible from the 
 silence with which it moved. It overcame 
 before its presence was suspected, and its 
 gentleness disarmed opposition. There 
 was no circle in which this quiet supremacy 
 was not gained. In her household it was 
 an influence pervading every department 
 of service, with a sort of omnipresence 
 which dispensed with the necessity of per- 
 sonal inspection anywhere. It was an 
 ascendancy from force of character, so 
 restful in its quietness that all leaned upon 
 it in the hour of trial. It was the queenly 
 trait in her career, that rose with the 
 emergencies which called it forth. In the 
 deep sorrows through which she passed, 
 her calm submission was an angel's strength 
 to all around her ; whilst in each, she 
 mounted to a higher trust in Him who 
 was preparing her for the eternal rest. 
 
 The virtues, as well as the vices, grow 
 together in the cluster. It will occasion 
 no surprise that transparent honesty 
 marked the character just depicted. Her 
 truthfulness was so punctilious, that it 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 151 
 
 stumbled even over the social courtesies 
 in which the slightest prevarication was 
 implied. And the strategy was sometimes 
 amusing, which substituted a judicious 
 silence for the conventionalisms in which 
 the charge of falsehood can be evaded only 
 by construing them as unmeaning. This 
 sincerity was, however, accompanied with 
 such grace of manner as never to seem 
 harsh or brusque ; whilst it had the advan- 
 tage of securing that measure of confidence 
 which is accorded only to perfect honesty 
 of mind and heart. She was thus the 
 truest of the true ; and so carried her heart 
 in her hand, that her speech was ever the 
 echo of her thought. 
 
 She possessed in unusual degree the 
 womanly instinct of penetrating the char- 
 acter of those with whom she was suddenly 
 brought in contact. In using this term, 
 instinct, no metaphysical analysis is de- 
 signed. If it be a process of reasoning, 
 its method is too subtle and rapid to be 
 easily traced ; and it seems to move with 
 the certaintv of an instinct. But whether 
 
152 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 reason or instinct, it is a kindly gift of 
 Providence for woman's protection amid 
 the snares of life. Unless a false glare has 
 captured her fancy, this penetrating insight 
 into others seldom deceives ; and after the 
 great peril of marriage is passed, and the 
 instinct is evoked for the benefit of her 
 household, it becomes the faithful sentinel 
 whose timely warning it is safe to heed. 
 This gift of, not second, but first sight 
 must of course be supplemented by a sound 
 judgment, in order to form a judicious 
 counsellor ; and when to both is added the 
 discretion which tells when to be silent 
 and when to speak, all the elements are 
 combined which made the subject of this 
 sketch the most trustworthy of friends. 
 Her perceptions were so clear that her 
 judgment of men had seldom to be revised ; 
 and her prudence was so consummate, that 
 in no instance was the confidence reposed 
 in her ever betrayed. 
 
 The modesty of nature prompts us to 
 throw a veil of reserve over the feelings 
 which- are sacred. It is not easy, for 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 1 53 
 
 example, to speak to others of the domestic 
 affections ; and it must be a fit occasion 
 that justifies the revelation. Hence the 
 difficulty of tracing another's religious 
 histor}', which must, to a large extent, 
 remain a secret between the soul and God. 
 Certainly with those constitutionally re- 
 serv'ed, the inner life can only be discov- 
 ered as it is revealed in the outward char- 
 acter and walk. It is thus we are forced 
 to estimate the piety of her to whom this 
 tribute of love is paid. Her spiritual 
 exercises must be interpreted to us through 
 
 '•Those thousand decencies that daily flowed 
 From all her words and actions." 
 
 Her habit was to spend the early morn- 
 ing hour in devotion, before others of the 
 household were awake — a habit dating 
 back to the period of her marriage at an 
 early age. Thus she entered upon the 
 duties of the day fresh from communion 
 with God, and her face shining like that of 
 Moses when he came down from the 
 Mount. 
 
 The successive bereavements through 
 
154 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 which she passed, already detailed, purified 
 her spirit and lent new attractions to the 
 eternal home in which her children were 
 gathered. The sadness of her heart was 
 not allowed, however, to throw its gloom 
 over the house in which a younger genera- 
 tion of grandchildren were growing up 
 around her. Life must, at least, be kept 
 free from bitterness for them, who should 
 in their time have sorrows of their own. 
 Yet it was easy to see that in lonely and 
 pensive hours her communings were with 
 another world, and that she was ripening 
 for her own translation. A gracious inti- 
 mation of this was afforded in the severe 
 illness previously mentioned, better under- 
 stood by her than by us who were so un- 
 willing to look to the end ; and in the year's 
 subsequent reprieve her watchfuhiess was 
 not for an instant remitted. Expressions 
 dropped daily from her lips, the signifi- 
 cance of which we failed to recognise ; and 
 a hundred little actions have since been 
 recalled, which showed her departure 
 always before her mind. Though the 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. I55 
 
 summons came suddenly at the last, our 
 surprise was not hers. With her lamp 
 trimmed, and waiting for the coming of 
 her Lord, she was ready to enter in ano 
 sit at the Marriage Feast. 
 
 •' To her it was not more than the sudden lifting of a 
 
 latch. 
 Nought but a step into the open air out of a tent 
 Already luminous with light that shines through 
 
 its transparent folds." 
 
 The following extract from a memorial 
 paper adopted by an Association of .Chris- 
 tian Ladies over which she presided, will 
 show how she was embalmed in their affec- 
 tions : 
 
 " Nearly twenty years ago quite a num- 
 ber of us organized ourselves together for 
 the purpose of benevolent and Christian 
 labors ; and she by whose vacant seat we 
 now stand to-day with such sorrowful hearts, 
 was chosen from among us to be our guide, 
 our counsellor and our leader — and we 
 called her President. 
 
 " ]\Iany of us were just entering upon 
 life's morning, the future all glorious be- 
 
15^ THE BROKEN HOME ; OR 
 
 fore us, with the rainbow of hope undimmed 
 by sorrow's touch. Others were already 
 bearing the heat and burden of the day, 
 and were oft-times weary with the load of 
 care. And, again, there were those whose 
 eyes were turned to the brighter and more 
 perfect day, but whose feet were oft-times 
 tottering and very feeble. But to one and 
 all, of every age, our President was a day- 
 spring of joy — ever rejoicing with those 
 that did rejoice, and weeping with those 
 that wept. In sorrow and in trial she ever 
 strengthened by her counsel, and cheered 
 by her sympathy, herself bearing a part of 
 our burden. As a Society, we sometimes 
 halted by the way ; or like a streamlet 
 with rippled, ruffled surface, made murmur 
 as we moved ; until with one common im- 
 pulse we would throw all the trouble over 
 on the broad, calm, deep nature — whose 
 serious depth we then, alas ! but partially 
 understood ; but now has come the full 
 knowledge of its power and of our great 
 loss, .We know her as she was — strong, 
 yet gentle ; firm, but tender ; a true Chris- 
 
Lessons in sorrow. 157 
 
 tian, with every womanly virtue. * * * 
 In her beautiful womanhood, during all 
 these years she went in and out among us, 
 always looked for, always welcomed, ever 
 at her post, until the dawning of that day 
 when it was said, ' she sleeps ; ' and from 
 that sleep we may not awaken her. But 
 there is a forward looking, and an upward ; 
 and may we not pray that her mantle cover 
 us ; and that with united and renewed 
 strength we follow on where she would 
 have led — even as she would now say to 
 us, ' Come up higher.'" 
 
 «« 'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels 
 Reveal themselves to you ; they sit all day 
 Beside you, and lie down at night by you. 
 Who care not for their presence — muse or sleep — 
 And all at once they leave you and you know them." 
 
 But what a sarcasm it is upon the wis-. 
 dom of man, that his treasures should be 
 known only through their loss! (^The 
 separation came after the sweet possession 
 of seven and forty years, and left us bank- 
 rupt. It was a sorrow wholly by itself. 
 
158 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 What is to be done with a love which 
 belongs only to one, when that one is 
 gone and cannot take it up ? It cannot 
 perish, for it has become part of our own 
 being. What shall we do with a lost love, 
 which wanders like a ghost through all the 
 chambers of the soul, only to feel how 
 empty they are ? There may be those 
 about us who are very dear ; but this love 
 cannot be divided among them, for it is 
 incapable of distribution. What remains 
 but to send it upward, until it finds her to 
 whom it belongs by right of concentration 
 for more than forty years. In the un- 
 selfishness of love we wish her joy in her 
 immortal ascension, willing ourselves to 
 take the loss that hers may be the ever- 
 lastmg^amj 
 
 The richest grace, does it not lie in the 
 heaviest sorrow? Was it not in "the 
 burning fiery furnace " the three Hebrew 
 children saw " the form of the fourth, like 
 the Son of God," walking in the midst of 
 the fire ? It was when " Moses drew near 
 to the thick darkness where God was," 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. I 59 
 
 that he spake with Him face to face and 
 heard His voice. And liow often it is in 
 "the thick darkness" Jehovah reveals Him- 
 self as the Comforter of His people ! The 
 cloud which settles down upon a desolate 
 home, He graciously fills with His own 
 presence: we find it to be " secret of His 
 Tabernacle," the " pavilion " in which He 
 " will show His Covenant." The Divine 
 love breaks through the gloom, as once it 
 burst through the terrors of Sinai and the 
 darkness of Calvary. It is not what we would 
 liave chosen ; but in this dark cloud we 
 learn that it is best sometimes to be alone 
 with Him. The earthly lights are put out, 
 that no earthly love may come in between 
 Him and us. It is the miracle of love — 
 this stringing of the harp to a greater 
 tension, that the praise may hereafter rise 
 to liigher and sweeter notes before the 
 Throne, when we shall carry the memories 
 of earth to Heaven and pour them into 
 song forever. May it be the finishing les- 
 son of the one great sorrow near the end 
 of life — how thrpugh the few remaining 
 
l6o THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 days to be " quiet as a child that is weaned 
 of his mother;" and to know the sufficiency 
 of the Divine fuhiess, before it becomes 
 the joy and the portion of Heaven ! 
 
 MIZPAH — Genesis xxxi. 4g. 
 
 " We never used the word, while thou and I 
 
 Walked close together in life's working way; 
 There was no need for it, when hand and eye 
 Might meet content and faithful every day. 
 
 " Put now with anguish from a stricken heart, 
 
 Mizpah I cry ; the Lord keep watch between 
 Thy life and mine, that death has riven apart ; 
 
 Thy life beyond the awful veil unseen. 
 And my poor broken being, which must glide 
 
 Through ways familiar to us both, till death 
 Shall of a surety lead me to thy side, 
 
 Beyond the chance and change of mortal breath. 
 Mizpah ! Yea, Lord, in all my bitter pain 
 I trust God keepeth watch betwixt us twain. 
 
 •* Thy lips are dumb from which I used to he^r 
 
 Strong words of counsel, tender woris of praise ; 
 But I must go my way, without the cheer 
 
 And sunshine of thy presence, all my days. 
 But God keep watch my ways and days upon, 
 
 On all I do, on all I bear, ior thee ; 
 My work is left me, though my mate is gone ; 
 
 A solemn trust has been bequeathed to me. 
 I take the task thy languid hand laid down 
 
 That wintry morning, for mine own alway ; 
 And may the Giver of both Cross and Crown 
 
 Pronounce me faithful on our meeting day. 
 Mizpah ! i j word gives comfort to my pain ; 
 I know God keepeth watch betwixt us twain." 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. l6l 
 
 The following lines are here appended ; 
 which first appeared anonymously, many 
 years ago, in Blackwood's Magazine. 
 They are singularly appropriate at the 
 close of all these sketches: 
 
 '•The veil has dropped. Her spirit now 
 Intense with life, hath soared above; 
 And dwelleth where the seraphs bow, 
 And sing their holy hymns of love. 
 The seed hath sprung into a tree ; 
 The flower hath burst its bud, the immortal soul is 
 free. 
 
 ♦' Oh, death is full of life. Naught dies 
 But that which should. Earth takes its own. 
 That the eternal may arise 
 And dwell by the eternal throne. 
 
 Depth is the full outshining light 
 
 Of that unending morn, which knows no night. 
 
 '• Death can but take his own. The earth 
 Can only ask what she did give ; 
 Then let the Heaven-born mind have birth. 
 That it eternally may live. 
 
 Oh, let it cast its outer frame, 
 
 And rise a living soul to Him from whom it came. 
 
1 62 THE BROKEN HOME; OR 
 
 " Gaze on that form. Nay, lift thine eye 
 And gaze above. She is not here ; 
 She hath arisen to worlds on high, 
 And dwelleth in a purer sphere. 
 This frame of dust she hath laid down. 
 To gain a robe of light and a celestial crown. 
 
 " The veil has dropped. Her inward eye 
 Has seen the mysteries of God ; 
 And onward through the star-paved sky 
 Mid Heaven's bright glory she has trod : 
 
 Angels are guiding her along. 
 
 While her sweet voice unites in their triumphal song.' 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 Nothing is needed to complete the pre- 
 ceding story but this additional note. 
 
 Of the eight who once gathered within 
 this now broken home, two alone remain 
 under the shadow of a common grief. 
 One elder sister is spared, who watched 
 beside the couch and closed the eyes of 
 the other four that have gone up to. sit in 
 the "golden chairs" — spared to a sweet 
 ministry of love during a mother's failing 
 years^ — still longer spared to assuage a 
 father's loneliness and grief. 
 
 The house is not cheerless even in its sor. 
 row. The voices of a younger generation 
 resound within its chambers — so full of 
 hope that they make a future even for the 
 old. Better than all, the light of that love 
 which says, " I have chosen thee in the 
 furnace of affliction," breaks through the 
 gloom ; and, like a star, guides those who 
 
164 THE BROKEN HOME; OK 
 
 weep to Him upon the Throne who shall 
 wipe away the tears. 
 
 " Blessed be God, even the Father of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mer- 
 cies, and the God of all comfort ; who 
 comforteth us in all our tribulation, that 
 we may be able to comfort them which are 
 in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith 
 we ourselves are comforted of God." 
 
 " After this I beheld, and lo, a great 
 multitude, which no man could number, 
 of all nations, and kindreds, and people, 
 and tongues, stood before the Throne, and 
 before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, 
 and palms in their hands. * ^ * And one 
 of the Elders answered, saying unto me. 
 What are these which are arrayed in white 
 robes? and whence came they? And I 
 said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And 
 he said to me, These are they which came 
 out of great tribulation, and have washed 
 their robes, and made them white in the 
 blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they 
 before the throne of God, and serve Him 
 day and night in His temple : and He that 
 
LESSONS IN SORROW. 1 65 
 
 sitteth on the Throne shall feed them. 
 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst 
 an\" more ; neither shall the sun light on 
 them, nor an)- heat. For the Lamb which 
 is in the midst of the Throne .shall feed 
 them, and shall lead them unto living 
 fountains of waters ; and God shall wipe 
 away all tears from their eyes." 
 
 " O, city of the jasper wall, 
 
 And of the pearly gate ! 
 For thee, amid the storms of life. 
 
 Our weary spirits wait. 
 We long to walk the streets of gold 
 
 No mortal feet have trod ; 
 We long to worship at the shrine. 
 
 The temple of our God ! 
 O home of bliss ! O land of light ! 
 Where falleth neither shade nor blight — 
 Of every land the biightest, best — 
 When shall we there find peace and rest ? 
 
 •' O city where they need no light 
 
 Of sun, or moon or star, 
 Could we with eye of faith but see 
 
 How bright thy mansions are. 
 How soon our doubts would fly away ! 
 
 How strong our trust would grow, 
 , Until our hearts should lean no more 
 
 On trifles here below ! 
 O home of bliss! O land of light! 
 Where falleih neither shade nor blight — 
 Of every land the brightest, best — 
 When shall we there find peace and rest ? 
 
l66 THE BROKEN HOME ; OR, 
 
 '* O city where the shining gates 
 
 Shut out all grief and sin, 
 Well may we yearn amidst earth's strile 
 
 Thy holy peace to win ! 
 Yet must we meekly bear the cross. 
 
 Nor seek to lay it down 
 Until our Father brings us home 
 
 And gives the promised crown. 
 O home of bliss ! O land of light ! 
 Where falleth neither shade nor blight — 
 Of every land the brightest, best — 
 Soon shall we there find peace and rest."