THE TENANTLESS LITTLE BED. My little one, my sweet one, "T is smooth indeed, but rest no more Thy small, pale features there. My little one, my sweet one, Thou canst not come to me, But nearer draws the numbered hour And thou, perchance, with seraph smile May'st come the first to welcome me HE SLEPT. They said he died; it seems to me -- That, after hours of pain and strife, He slept, one even, peacefully, And woke to everlasting life. TO AN INFANT IN HEAVEN. THOU bright and star-like spirit! I see mid heaven's seraphic host- My grief is quenched in wonder, Our hopes of thee were lofty, The little weeper, tearless, The sinner, snatched from sin; The babe, to more than manhood grown, Ere childhood did begin. And I, thy earthly teacher, Would blush thy powers to see; Thou art to me a parent now, And I a child to thee! What bliss is born of sorrow! The heavenly surgeon maims to save, Our God, to call us homeward, And now, still more to tempt our hearts, THOMAS WARD EPITAPH ON FOUR INFANTS. BOLD infidelity! turn pale and die; If death's by sin, they sinned, because they're here; If heaven's by works, in heaven they can't ap pear. Reason, ah! how depraved! Revere the sacred page, the knot's untied; They died, for Adam sinned:—they live, for Jesus died. REV. R. ROBINSON. CHILDREN TAKEN IN MERCY. IT may be your affliction is the loss of children. Weil, have you not read such a message sent to a godly man, as that in 1 Samuel 2: 33 ? "The son of thine whom I shall not cut off shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart." It is possible that, if thy child had lived, it might have made thee the father of a fool, or (that I may speak to the sex that is most unable to bear this trial) the mother of a shame. It is a very ordinary thing for one living child to occasion more trouble than ten dead ones. However, your spiritual interests may be exceedingly injured by the temporal delights which you desire; you may rue what you wish, because it may be an idol, which will render your souls like the "barren heath in the wilderness before the Lord." It was the very direful calamity of the ancient Israelites, in Psalm 106: 15. "The Lord gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls." A lean soul, a wretched soul, a soul pining away in its iniquities, is oftentimes the effect of those fine things which we dote upon. It is a blasted soul that sets up a creature in the room, on the throne of the great God, that gives unto a crea ture those affections and cares which are due unto the great God alone. Such idolatry the soul is too frequently by prosperity seduced into. We are told, in Proverbs 1: 32: "The prosperity of fools destroys them;" many a fool is thus destroyed. O fearful case! A full table and a lean soul! A high title and a lean soul! A numerous posterity and a soul even like the kine in Pharaoh's dream! Madness is in our hearts if we tremble not at this; soul calamities are sore calamities. Let not then the death of your children cause any inconsolable grief. The loss of children, did I say nay, let me recall so harsh a word. The children we count lost, are not so. The death of our children is not the loss of our children. They are not lost, but given back; they are not lost, but sent before. COTTON MATHER. AN INFANT'S DEATH. "BE-rather than be called-a child of God," Possessor- not inheritor. COLERIDGE. |