The reverses of fortune
constitute an important class of family afflictions, causing the habits,
customs, social privileges and advantages of home to be broken up and
changed. Many a family, which, in former days, enjoyed all the pleasures
and privileges of wealth and social distinction, have now to struggle with
cruel poverty, and receive from the world, scorn and ridicule and dishonor.
But the greatest bereavement of home is, generally, death. They only, who
have lived in the house of mourning, know what the sad bereavements are
which death produces, and what deep and dark vacancies this last enemy
leaves in the stricken heart of home.
"The lips that used to bless you there,
Are silent with the dead."
To-day we may visit the family. What a lovely scene it presents! The
members are happy in each other's love, and each one resting his hopes upon
all the rest. No cares perplex them; no sorrows corrode them; no trials
distress them; no darkness overshadows them! What tender bonds unite them;
what hopes cluster around each heart; what a depth of reciprocated
affection we find in each bosom; and by what tender sympathy they are drawn
to each other!
But alas! in an hour of supposed security, that loving group is broken up
by the intrusion of death, and some one or more carried from the bosom of
love to the cold and cheerless grave. The curfew-bell speaks the solemn
truth, and warns the members that "in the midst of life they are in death.
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