" The memory that lingers around
the grave of our loved ones, is sad and tearful. The stricken heart heaves
with emotions too big for utterance, when we hear no more the sound of
their accustomed footsteps upon the threshold of our door. Oh, the cup of
bereavement is then bitter, its hour dark, and the pall of desolation hangs
heavily around our hearts and homes.
But this is only the dark side of bereavement. The eye which then weeps may
fail at the time to behold through its tears, the quickening, softening,
subduing and resuscitating power which dwells in the clouds of darkness and
of storm; and the heart, wounded and bleeding, too often fails to realize
the light and glory which loom up from the grave. But when we look upon the
cold, pale face of the dead, in the light of a hopeful resurrection; when
their silent forms move in the light of those saving influences which have
been exerted upon us, we learn the necessity of bereavement; the mournful
cypress will become more beautiful than the palm tree, and in view of its
saving power over us, we can say, "it is good for us that we have been
afflicted!"
"The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.
No traveler e'er reached that blest abode,
Who found not thorns and briers in his road.
For He who knew what human hearts would prove,
How slow to learn the dictates of His love;
That, hard by nature and of stubborn will,
A life of ease would make them, harder still;
Called for a cloud to darken all their years,
And said, 'Go, spend them in the vale of tears!'"
Who will not admit that it is an act of real kindness for God to remove
little children from this world, and at once take them as His own in
heaven? This is surely an act of His mercy, and for their benefit.
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