are weeping over empty cradles and tenantless little beds. These little missed ones - O, how they are missed! - are, we believe, chosen lambs, gathered into the fold of the Good Shepherd; beauteous buds, and sweet, half-opened blossoms, transplanted from our chilling atmosphere into "those everlasting gardens, Where angels walk, and seraphs are the wardens; " precious family jewels, rescued from a mean casket and an unsafe custody, and set as living stars in a crown of immortal beauty; glimmering germs of unschooled intelligence, expanded in a day by a heavenly magic into angel profundity, and perchance transformed into ministering spirits, to watch over the weary steps of their earthly guides, and to teach those who were once their teachers : "How changed, dear friend, are thy part and thy child's! He bends over thy cradle now, or holds His warning finger out to be thy guide; It is to minister such tender consolations as these to parents of children "passed into the skies," that the following collection of thoughts, suggested by the death of the young, has been made. May the soothing words of sympathy, the sweet and precious consolations, and the wise and gentle counsels, which are scattered over these pages, distil like heavenly dew upon many a bleeding heart, and help to allay those griefs with which the stranger may not intermeddle. |