SECTION II.

FALSE TESTS IN THE SELECTION OF A COMPANION FOR LIFE.

Before we advert to some of those biblical principles upon which parents and children should proceed in the marriage choice, we shall take a negative view of the subject, and mention some of those false principles and considerations which have in the present day gained a fearful ascendancy over the better judgment of many professed Christians.

In the matter of marriage, too many are influenced by the pomp and parade of the mere outward. The glitter of gold, the smile of beauty, and the array of titled distinction and circumstance, act like a charm upon the feelings and sentiments of many well-meaning parents and children. But it is not all gold that glitters. We must not think that those are happy in their marriage union, because they are obsequious in their attentions to each other, and live together in splendor, overloaded with fashionable congratulations. We cannot determine the character of a marriage from its pomp and pageantry. We rather determine the many unhappy matches from the false principles upon which the parties acted in making choice of each other. What are some of these? We answer—

1. The manner of paying addresses involves a false principle of procedure. These are either too long or too short, and paid in an improper spirit and manner. There are too much flirtation and romance connected with them. The religious element is not taken up and considered. They do not involve the true idea of preparation, but have an air of mere sentimentalism about them. The object in view is not fully seen. The most reprehensible motives and the most shocking thoughtlessness pervade them throughout. These addresses carry with them an air of trifling, a want of seriousness and frankness, which betrays the absence of all sense of responsibility, and of all proper views of the sacredness of marriage and of its momentous consequences both for time and for eternity.

2. The habit of match-making involves a false principle. This we see more fully among the higher classes of society. It is the work of designing and interested persons, who, for self-interest, intrude their unwelcome interposition. Its whole procedure implies that marriage is simply a legal matter, a piece of business policy, a domestic speculation. It strikes out the great law of mutual, moral love, and personal adaptation. It makes marriage artificial, and apprehends it as only a mechanical copartnership of interest and life. It is sinister in spirit, and selfish in the end. Many are prompted from motives of novelty to make matches among their friends. All their schemes tend to wrest from the parties interested all true judgment and dispassionate consideration. They are deceived by base misrepresentation, allured by over-wrought pictures of conjugal felicity, so that when the marriage is consummated, they soon find their golden dreams vanish away, and with them, their hopes and their happiness forever.

But there are not only personal match-makers, in the form of tyrannical fathers, sentimental mothers, amorous grandmothers, and obsequious friends; but also book match-makers, in the form of love-sick tales and poetry, containing Eugene-Aram adventures, and scrapes of languishing girls with titled swains running off, calculated to heat the youthful imagination, distort the pictures of fancy, giving to marriage the air of a romantic adventure, and throwing over it a gaudy drapery, leading the young into a world of dreams and nonentities, where all is but a bubble of variegated colors and fantastic forms, which explodes before them as soon as it is touched by the finger of reality and experience.

These are the most dangerous match-makers. Their sister companions in this evil are, the ball-room, the giddy dance and masquerade, the fashionable wine-cup and the costly apparel. Let me affectionately exhort the members of the Christian home to keep all these at a distance. Touch not, taste not, handle not! They will poison the spirit and the affections, and encircle you with a viper's coil from which there is no hope of escape. Here parents have a right, and it is their duty, to interfere. They can do so effectually by not allowing such filthy match-making intruders to pass the threshold of their homes. What can you expect out an unhappy marriage, if you permit your sons and daughters to spend their time in converse with love-sick tales and languishing swains? They will become love-sick, too, and long for marriage with one who is like the hero of their last-read romance. Perhaps they will not think their matrimonial debut sufficiently flavored with romantic essence, unless they run off with some self-constituted count, or at least with their papa's Irish groom!

3. We might advert, finally, to some of those false influences which are frequently brought to bear upon the children's choice of a companion for life. The term smitten is here significant and deserves our serious consideration. It carries in its pregnant meaning the evidence of a spurious feeling, and a false foundation of love and union. Be it remembered that there must always be something to smite one. We may be smitten by a scoundrel, or by something unworthy our affections. Empty titles and mustaches often smite the susceptible young. Sometimes the heart is smitten by a pretty face and form; and sometimes by a rod of gold. The simple fact that we are smitten is not enough; we should know who or what it is that smites us. When we are drawn to each other, it should be by a true cord, and by an influence which binds and cements for life. The influence of mere outward beauty is a false one. Those who are smitten by it, and drawn thus into a matrimonial union by an interest which is but skin-deep, and which may fade like the morning flower, are allured by a dazzling meteor, by a mere bubble, beautifully formed and colored, but empty within. It may dazzle the eye, but it blinds us to all its blemishes and inward infirmities. It is deceptive. Often beneath its gaudy veil there lies the viper, ready to poison all the sweets of home-life, and cause its victim to lament over his folly with bitter tears and heart-burning remorse. How soon may beauty fade; and what then, if it was the only basis of your marriage choice? The union which rested upon it must then be at least morally dissolved; and that which once flitted like an impersonated charm before your admiring eye, now becomes an object of disgust and a source of misery.

To fall in love, therefore, with mere outward beauty is, to dandle with a doll, to fawn upon a picture, to rest your hopes upon a plaything, to pursue a phantom which, as soon as you embrace it, may vanish into nothing. Look not to external beauty alone; but also to the ornaments of an inward spirit, of a noble mind, and an amiable and pious heart. "If," says the Rev. H. Harbaugh, "you will be foolish, follow the gilded butterfly of beauty, drive it a long chase; it will land you at last at some stagnant mud-pond of the highway."

Neither is impulsive passion a true basis of marriage. This is falling in love at first sight, which often proves to be a very dangerous and degrading fall,—a fall from the clouds to the clods, producing both humiliation and misery. It is indeed a fearful leap,—a leap without judgment or forethought; and, therefore, a leap in the dark. It is too precipitate, and shows the infatuation of the victim. Falling in love is not always falling in the embraces of domestic felicity. Such leaping is an act of intoxication. The drunkard, falling in the mire, often thinks that he is embracing his best friend, whereas it is but descending to fellowship with the swine. It is blind love, which is no love, but passion without reason. It is crazy, fitful, stormy, raising the feelings up to boiling point, and bringing the affections under the influence of the high-pressure system. Consequently it is raving, frothy, of a mushroom growth, making mere bubbles, and completing its work in an evaporation of all that it operated upon, passing away like the morning cloud and the early dew.

True love is very different. It is substantial, reasonable, moral, acting according to law, temperate in all things, keeping the heart from extremes, permanent, and based upon principle. Passion, without love, may keep you in a state of pleasurable intoxication until the knot is tied, when you will soon get sober again, only to see, however, your folly and to contemplate the height from which you have fallen, and then, with the recklessness of sullen despair, to pass over into the opposite extreme of stoical indifference and misery. All emotions are transient, and hence no proper standard of judgment in the serious matter of a marriage choice. The heart, unguided by the head, is, in its emotions, like the flaming meteor that passes in its rapid, fiery train across the heavens. It flames only for a time, and soon passes away, leaving the heavens in greater darkness than before.

Neither is wealth a true basis for the marriage choice. "The love of money is the root of all evil;" and when it is the primary desideratum in marriage, it acts like a canker-worm upon domestic peace and happiness. With too many in this day of money-making, marriage is but a pecuniary speculation, a mere gold and silver affair; and their match-making is but a money-making, that is, money makes the match. Many parents (but we don't call such Christians,) sacrifice their children upon the altar of mammon, and prostitute their earthly and eternal happiness to their love of filthy lucre.

Fatal mistake! Will money make your children happy? Is it for money you have them led to the bridal altar? Ah! that sordid dust may cover the grave of their fondest hopes and connubial felicity. Wed not your children to mere dollars and cents. The hand that holds a purse and shakes it before you for your child, may hold also a dagger for both the child and the parent. "Look not only for riches, lest thou be mated with misery." Wealth is good in its place, and we should not object to it, other things being equal. But it never was nor can be good as an inducement to marry. What a miserable policy it is, to make it the test of a proper match! "Do not make the metals of earth the cord of the marriage tie." They are too brittle in their nature to do so. They take to themselves wings and fly away. The fine gold becomes dim; their cords are like ropes of glass-sand,—

"Like the spider's most attenuated thread, They break at every breeze."

Rank also is a false standard of judgment in the forming of a marriage alliance. Many look only to position in society, make it everything, and think that acknowledged social distinction will compensate for the want of all other interests. While there should be a social adaptation of character, and while you should—

"Be joined to thy equal in rank, or the foot of pride will kick at thee,"

yet there is nothing to justify marrying a person because of his or her social position. The evils of this may be seen in the first classes of English society, where rank is mechanical, and where law forbids a trespass upon its bastard prerogatives; and as a consequence, relatives intermarry, until their descendants have degenerated into complete physical and mental imbecility. Such nepotism as this is replete with untold disaster both in the family and in the state. Too many in our democratic country ape this, look to rank, and are blind to all things else. The fruits of this are seen in that codfish aristocracy which floats with self-inflated importance upon the troubled waters of society, causing too many of the little fish to float after them, until they land themselves in the deep and muddy waters of domestic ruin.

SECTION III.

TRUE TESTS IN THE SELECTION OF A COMPANION FOR LIFE.

Having considered some of the false standards of judgment in the choice of a companion for life, we now revert to those true tests which are given us in the Word of God. There we have the institution and true idea of marriage, and the principles upon which we should proceed in making the marriage choice.

We are taught in the holy scriptures, the primary importance of judicious views of the nature and responsibilities of the marriage institution itself. We should apprehend it, not from its mere worldly standpoint, not as a simple legal alliance, not only as a scheme for temporal welfare and happiness, but as a divine institute, a religious alliance, involving moral responsibilities, and momentous consequences for eternity as well as for time, for soul as well as for body. We are commanded to look to its religious elements and duties; and to regard it with that solemnity of feeling which it truly demands. When the light of the bridal day throws upon the cheek its brightest colors, even then we should rejoice with trembling, and our joy and festivity should be only in the Lord.

"Joy, serious and sublime, Such as doth nerve the energies of prayer, Should swell the bosom, when a maiden's hand, Filled with life's dewy flowerets, girdeth on That harness which the ministry of death Alone unlooseth, but whose fearful power May stamp the sentence of eternity."

In the days of our forefathers, marriage was thus held sacred, as a divine institution, involving moral and religious duties and responsibilities; and their celebration of it was, therefore, a religious one. They realized its momentous import, and its bearing upon their future welfare. It was not, therefore, without heavings of deep moral emotion and the flow of tears as well as of joyful spirits, that they put the wedding garment on.

"There are smiles and tears in that gathering band, Where the heart is pledged with the trembling hand What trying thoughts in the bosom swell, As the bride bids parents and home farewell! Kneel down by the side of the tearful fair, And strengthen the perilous hour with prayer!"

True love in each, and reciprocated by each, must determine the marriage choice. The marriage of children should not be forced. Mutual love is the basis of a proper union, because marriage is a voluntary compact. When parents, therefore, force their children into an alliance, they usurp their undoubted natural and religious rights. Hence there should be no must, where there is no will, on the part of the child. That choice which is made upon any other than reciprocated affection, is an unreasonable and irreligious one. "Parents have no right," says Paley, "to urge their children upon marriage to which they are averse;" "add to this," says he, "that compulsion in marriage necessarily leads to prevarication; as the reluctant party promises an affection, which neither exists, nor is expected to take place." To proceed to marriage, therefore in the face of absolute dislike and revulsion, is irrational and sinful.

As true, mutual love is the basis of marriage, so also should it be a standard of our judgment in the marriage choice. Without it, neither beauty, wealth, nor rank will make home happy. True love should be such as is upheld in scripture. It is above mere passion. It never faileth. It is life-like and never dies out. It is an evergreen in the bosom of home. It has moral stamina, is regulated by moral law, has a moral end, contains moral principle, and rises superior to mere prudential considerations. It is more than mere feeling or emotion; it is not blind, but rational, and above deception, having its ground in our moral and religious nature. It extends to the whole person, to body, mind, and spirit, to the character as well as to the face and form. It is tempered with respect, yea, vitalized, purified, directed and elevated by true piety. Such love alone will survive the charms and allurements of novelty, the fascinations of sense, the ravages of disease and time, and will receive the sanction of heaven.

Mutual adaption of character and position is another scripture standard of judgment. Is that person suited for me? Will that character make my home happy? Could I be happy with such an one? Are we congenial in spirit, sentiment, principle, cultivation, education, morals and religion? Can we sympathize and work harmoniously together in mind and heart and will and taste? Are we complemental to each other? These are questions of far greater importance than the question of wealth, of beauty, or of rank.

Fitness of circumstances, means, and age should be also considered. Am I able to support a family? Can I discharge the duties of a household? Where there is ignorance of household duties, indolence, the want of any visible means of supporting a family, no trade, no education, no energy, and no prospects, there is no reason to think there can be a proper marriage. Thus, then, mutual love, adaptation of character, of means, of circumstances, of position, and of age, should be considered, in the formation of a marriage alliance.

But the standard of judgment to which the scriptures especially direct our attention is, that of religions equality, or spiritual adaptation. "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." The positive command here is, that Christians should marry only in the Lord. Here is a test in the selection of a companion for life, from which neither parents nor children should ever depart. It evidently forbids a matrimonial union with those who have no sympathy with religion. We should make more account of religious equality than of equality of rank and wealth. Is not true piety of more importance than education, affluence or social distinction? When husband and wife are unequally yoked together in soul and grace, their home must suffer spiritually as well as temporally. The performance of religious duties and the enjoyment of religious privileges, will be impossible. The unbeliever will discourage, oppose, and often ridicule, the pious efforts of the believer. Partiality will be produced, and godliness will decline; for, says Peter, unless we dwell as heirs together of the grace of life, our prayers will be hindered. The pious one cannot rule in such a home. Thus divided and striving with each other, their house must fall. Where one draws heavenward and the other hellward, opposite attractions will be presented, and the believer will find constant obstructions to growth in grace, to the discharge of parental duty, and to the cultivation of Christian graces in the heart. How can the unbeliever return, like David, to bless his household? How can he bring up his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Can he be the head of a Christian home? And, tell me, does the true Christian desire any other than a Christian home? "How can two walk together, except they be agreed?" And are you, then, in your marriage, agreed to walk with the unbeliever in the broad road of sin and death? You are not, if you are a true Christian!

We see, therefore, the importance of a rigid adherence to the scripture standard, "Be not unequally yoked, together with unbelievers." It is even desirable that husband and wife belong to the same branch of the church, that they may walk together on the sabbath to the house of God. There is indeed something repugnant to the feelings of a Christian to see the husband go in one direction to worship, and the wife in another. They cannot be thus divided, without serious injury to the religious interests of their family, as well as of their own souls. It is impossible for them to train up their children successfully when they are separated by denominational differences. It is a matter of very common observation that when persons thus divided, marry, the one or the other suffers in religious interest. From these and other considerations, we think it Is expedient to marry, if possible, within the pales of our own branch of the church. Then, being agreed, they can walk together with one mind and one purpose.

But how much more important that they be united in their pilgrim walk to eternity,—united In the Lord Jesus Christ, by a common life and faith and hope! We believe that Christians commit a sin when they violate this law of religious equality, and unite themselves in matrimony with those who pay no regard to religion. Who can estimate the peril of that home in which one of its members is walking in the narrow way to heaven, while the other one is traveling in the broad road to perdition! Whom, think you, will the children follow? Let the sad experience of a thousand homes respond. Let the blighted hopes and the unrequited affections of the pious wife, reply. Let those children whose infamy and wretchedness have broken the devout mother's heart, or brought the gray hairs of the pious father down with sorrow to the grave, speak forth the answer. It will show the importance of the scripture rule before us, and will declare the sin of violating that rule.

And does not, therefore, a terrible judgment accompany that indiscriminate matrimonial union with the unbelieving world, of which so many Christians, in the present day, are guilty? Parents encourage their pious children to marry unbelievers, though they are well aware that such unholy mixtures are expressly forbidden, and that spiritual harmony is essential to their happiness. "She is at liberty to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord!" Those who violate this cardinal law of marriage, must expect to suffer the penalties attached to it. History is the record of these. The disappointed hopes, and the miseries of unnumbered homes speak forth their execution. This great scripture law has its foundation in the very nature of marriage itself. If marriage involves the law of spiritual harmony; if, in the language of the Roman law, it is "the union of a man and woman, constituting an united habitual course of life, never to be separated;" if it is a partnership of the whole life,—a mutual sharing in all rights, human and divine; if they are one flesh,—one in all the elements of their moral being, as Christ and His church are one; if it is a mystery of man's being, antecedent to all human law; if, in a word, man and woman in marriage, are no more twain, but one flesh; and if the oneness of our nature is framed of the body, the soul, and the spirit, then is it not plain that when two persons marry, who possess no spiritual fitness for, or harmony with, each other, they violate the fundamental law of wedlock; and their marriage cannot meet the scripture conception of matrimonial union or oneness. There will be no adaptation of the whole nature for each other; they will not appreciate the sacred mysteriousness of marriage; instead of the moral and religious development of the spiritual nature, there will be the evolution of selfishness and sensuality as the leading motives of domestic life. We see, then, that the Christian cannot with impunity, violate the scripture law, "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers."

Shall the Christian parent and child disregard this prohibition of God? Will you ridicule this fundamental principle of Christian marriage? Will the children of God not hesitate to marry the children of the devil? Can these walk together, in domestic union and harmony? Can saint and sinner be of one mind, one spirit, one life, one hope, one interest? Can the children of the light and the children of darkness, opposite in character and in their apprehension of things, become flesh of each other's flesh, and by the force of their blended light and darkness shed, around their home-fireside the cheerfulness of a mutual love, of a common life and hope, and of a progressive spiritual work?

Parents! it is your right and duty to interfere when your children violate this law. Bring them up from infancy to respect it. In the parlor, train them to appreciate its religious importance. Show them that God will visit the iniquity of their departure from it, unto the third and fourth generation. You are stimulated to do so by the divine promise that when they grow old, they will not depart from it.

Such unequal matches are not made in heaven. "God's hand is over such matches, not in them." "What fellowship hath light with darkness?" If love, in Christian marriages, is holy and includes the religious element, then it is evident that the Christian alliance with, one between whom and himself there is no religious affinity whatever, is not only an outrage against the marriage institution, but also exposes his home to the curse of God, making it a Babel of confusion and of moral antipathies.

Both the old and the new testaments give explicit testimony to the law of spiritual harmony in marriage. Thus the law of Moses forbid the children of Israel to intermarry among heathen nations. "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son."—Deut. vii., 3. Abraham obeyed this law in the part he took in the marriage of his son Isaac, as recorded in the twenty-fourth, chapter of Genesis. His obedience was reproduced in Isaac and Rebecca, who manifested the same desire, and took the same care that Jacob should take a wife from among the covenant people of God. See twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis.

The evil consequences of the violation of this law may be seen in the history of Solomon,—i. Kings, chap. 11; also in the case mentioned in the 10th chap.; and in Nehemiah, chap. 13. Paul upholds this law when he exhorts the Corinthians to marry "only in the Lord." Reason itself advocates this law. The true Christian labors for heaven and walks in the path of the just; the unbelieving labor for earth, mind only the things of this world, and walk in the broad road to ruin. Can these now walk together, live in harmony, when so widely different in spirit, in their aims and pursuits? "What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters."

The primitive Christians developed this law in their families. They forbade marriage with Jews, Pagans, Mohammedans, and ungodly persons. With them, piety was the first desideratum in marriage. The sense of the Christian church has ever been against religious inequality in marriage. It has always been felt to be detrimental to personal piety and to the general interests of Christianity. It limits and neutralizes the influence of the church, brings overwhelming temptations to lukewarmness in family religion, and is, in a word, in almost every instance, the fruitful cause of spiritual declension wherever it is practiced.

Let me, then, exhort you to marry only in the Lord. Such an union will be blessed. Daughter of Zion! marry such a man as will, like David, return to bless his household. Son of the Christian home! marry no woman who has not in her heart the casket of piety. Make this your standard; and your home shall be a happy, as well as a holy home, and

"In the blissful vision, each shall share As much of glory as his soul can bear!"



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CHILDREN'S PATRIMONY.

"Give me enough, saith wisdom; for he feareth to ask for more; And that by the sweat of my brow, addeth stout-hearted independence; Give me enough, and not less; for want is leagued with the tempter; Poverty shall make a man desperate, and hurry him ruthless into crime; Give me enough, and not more, saving for the children of distress; Wealth oftentimes killeth, where want but hindereth the budding."

The children's patrimony is a vital subject. It involves the great question, what should Christian parents leave to their children as a true inheritance from the Christian home? We shall return but a very brief and general answer.

The idea of the home-inheritance is generally confined to the amount of wealth which descends from the parent to the child. And this is indeed too often the only inheritance of which children can boast. Many parents, who even claim to be Christians, enslave both themselves and their families, to secure for their offspring a large pecuniary patrimony. They prostitute every thing else to this. And hence it often happens that the greatest money-inheritance becomes the children's greatest curse, running them into all the wild and immoral excesses of prodigality; and ending in abject poverty, licentiousness, and disgrace; or perhaps making them like their deluded parents, penurious, covetous, and contracted in all their views and sentiments.

We think, therefore, that the children's patrimony should be more than gold and silver. This may pamper the body, but will afford no food for the mind and spirit. We do not mean by these remarks, that their patrimony should not include wealth. On the other hand, we believe that parents should make pecuniary provision for them, that they may not begin life totally destitute. But we mean, that when this is the only patrimony they receive, it often proves a curse, because it tends to destroy their sympathy with higher interests, exposes them to the uncertainties of wealth, and makes them dependent upon that alone. If it should elude their grasp, all is gone, and they become poor and helpless indeed.

What, therefore, besides wealth, should be the children's patrimony from the Christian home? We briefly answer.

1. A good character. This is more valuable than wealth; for a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. This character should be physical, intellectual, and moral. Give your children the boon of good health by a proper training to exercise and industry. Transmit to them the patrimony of good physical habits by educating their bodies, and developing their material existence according to the principles of natural law. Develop their intellectual faculties, and enrich them with, the treasures of knowledge. Give character to their minds as well as to their bodies; and they will be blessed with an intellectual dowry which cannot be taken from them, and which will bring them an adequate recompense. Give to your children the patrimony of good and just principles. Train the heart to good morals; fill it with the treasures of virtue, of truth, of justice and of honor. Give it moral stamina. Educate the moral sense of your children. Direct the unfolding powers of their conscience; in a word, develop their moral faculties, and supply them with appropriate nutriment; mould their will; cultivate their emotions; rule their desires and passions; and thus unfold their moral nature according to the rules of God's revealed law.

Such a character, involving a true and vigorous evolution of body, mind and spirit, is an effectual safeguard against the evils of prodigality, the disgrace of penuriousness, and the woes of vice and crime. Their property may burn down, and they may he robbed of their gold; but neither the flame nor the robber can deprive them of their character; their intellectual and moral worth, is beyond the power of man to destroy; no enemy can rob them of those virtues which a well-developed mind and heart afford; they will be to them a standing capital to enrich them in all that is essential to human happiness.

2. A good occupation is another patrimony which should descend to the children of a Christian home. Bring up your children to some useful employment by which they may be able to make a comfortable living; and you thereby give them hundreds, and, perhaps, thousands of dollars per year; you give them a boon which cannot he taken from them. Many parents, hoping to secure for their children a large pecuniary patrimony, will not permit them to learn either a trade or a profession; but let them grow up in indolence and ignorance, unable as well as unwilling, to be useful either to themselves or to others, living for no purpose, and unfit even to take care of what they leave. And when their wealth descends to them, they soon spend it all in a life of dissipation; so that in a few years they find themselves poor, and friendless, and ignorant of all means of a livelihood, without character, without home, without hope, a nuisance to society, a disgrace to their parents, a curse to themselves! But as we have already dwelt upon this subject in the chapter on the choice of pursuits, we shall not enlarge upon it here.

3. True religion is another inheritance which should descend to the children of the Christian home. This is an undefiled and imperishable treasure, which does not become worthless at the grave, but which will continue to increase in preciousness as long as the ages of eternity shall roll on. If through the parent's pious agency, the child comes into possession of this invaluable blessing, there is given to him more than earthly treasure, more than pecuniary competency, more than a good name, or a fair reputation, or a high social position in this life; he receives a title to and personal meetness for, the undefiled and imperishable inheritance of heaven, composed of glittering crowns of glory, of unspeakable joys, and sweet communion with all the loved and cherished there. Thus the fruits of a parent's labor for the salvation of his children constitute an infinitely more valuable patrimony than all the accumulated fruits of his industry in behalf of wealth. All the wealth, and rank, and reputation which may descend from parent to child, can not supersede the necessity of a spiritual patrimony. It is only, as we have seen in a former chapter, when you minister to the spiritual wants of your children and tinge all their thoughts and feelings with a sense of eternity; when your home is made a spiritual nursery; and you work for their eternal benefit, and thereby secure for them the fulfillment of those blessed promises which God has given concerning the children of believing parents, that you leave them a patrimony worthy the Christian home. Such a spiritual patrimony it is within the power of all Christian parents to bestow. And without its enjoyment by your children, you fail to minister unto them as a faithful steward of God. You may minister to their bodies and minds; you may amass for them a fortune; you may give them an education; you may establish them in the most lucrative business; you may fit them for an honorable and responsible position; you may leave them the heritage of social and political influence; and you may caress them with all the passionate fondness of the parental heart and hand; yet, without the heritage of true piety,—of the true piety of the parent reproduced, in the heart and character of the child, all will be worse than vain, yea, a curse to both the parent and the children.

Having thus briefly pointed out some of the essential features of the children's patrimony, as physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, we shall now advert to the principles upon which parents should proceed in the distribution of their property to their children.

They should not give them more than a competency. That they should lay by something for them is conceded by all. This is both a right and a duty. It is included in the obligation to provide for them; and he who does it not "hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel." Natural affection, as well as supernatural faith, stimulates the parent to provide thus for his offspring.

But this does not demand a great fortune; but a simple competency, that is, just enough to meet their immediate wants and emergencies when they enter the world and begin business-life. This competence should correspond with the social position they occupied under the parental roof. It should not go beyond this; it should be just enough to meet the social and financial exigencies of the child. It should be measured also by the peculiar necessities of the child, by his health, abilities and circumstances. "A parent is justified," says Paley in his Moral and Political Philosophy, "in making a difference between his children according as they stand in greater or less need of the assistance of his fortune, in consequence of the difference of their age or sex, or of the situations in which they are placed, or the various success which they have met with."

Now the law of competence does not demand, yea, it forbids, more than a sufficiency to meet these peculiar exigencies of the child. Those parents who seek for more, become parsimonious, unfaithful to the moral interests of their household, and indifferent to all legitimate objects of charity and benevolence. These are indeed but the necessary fruits of unfaithfulness to this law; for the course of God's providence indicates the impossibility of our faithfulness to the duty of Christian beneficence, and at the same time lay up for our children more than a sufficiency. We find indeed, that in almost every instance in which parents have transcended the limits of competence, and thus raised their children above the necessity of doing anything themselves for a subsistence, God has cursed the act, and the canker of His displeasure has consumed this ill-saved property. That curse we see often in the prodigality and dissipation of the children. They walk in the slippery paths of sin, kneel at the altar of Mammon, fare sumptuously every day, as prodigal in spending their fortune as their parents were penurious in amassing it, until at last they come to want, rush into crime, and end their unhappy life in the state's prison, or upon the gibbet.

We see, therefore, that when parents give their children more than what they actually need, they place in their possession the instruments with which, they ruin themselves. History shows that the most wealthy men started out in the world with barely enough, and some, with, nothing; and that generally those who started with an independent fortune ended with less than they started, and many closed their earthly career in abject poverty and misery. Besides, the man who made his fortune knows how to keep and expend it; and in point of happiness derived from property, "there is no comparison between a fortune which, a man acquires by well applied industry, or by a series of success in his business, and one found in his possession or received from another." Let, therefore, the property you leave your children be just enough to meet the exigencies of their situations, and no more; for

"Wealth hath never given happiness, but often hastened misery; Enough hath never caused misery, but often quickened happiness; Enough is less than thy thought, O pampered creature of society, And he that hath more than enough, is a thief of the rights of his brother!"

Parents should be impartial in the distribution of their patrimony among their children. They should never give one more than another unless for very plausible and Christian reasons, such as bad health, peculiar circumstances, of want, &c. They should have no pets, no favorites among them; and care more for one than for another, or indulge one more than another. Neither should they withhold a dowry, from a child as a punishment, unless his crime and character are of such an execrable nature as to warrant the assurance that its bestowment would but enhance his misery. Then indeed, it would be a blessing to withhold it. "A child's vices may be of that sort," says Paley in his Philosophy, "and his vicious habits so incorrigible, as to afford much the same reason for believing that he will waste or misemploy the fortune put into his power, as if he were mad or idiotish, in which, case a parent may treat him as a madman, or an idiot; that is, may deem it sufficient to provide for his support by an annuity equal to his wants and innocent enjoyments, and which he may be restrained from alienating. This seems to be the only case in which a disinherison, nearly absolute, is justifiable."

Neither should parents be capricious in the distribution of their property among their children. They have no right to withhold a dowry from children because they have married against their will, no more than they have a right, for this reason, to disown, them. This would be distributing their property upon the principle of revenge or reward. No parent has a right to indulge a preference founded on such an unreasonable and criminal feeling as revenge. Neither has he a right to distribute his property from considerations of age, sex, merit, or situation. The idea of giving all to the eldest son to perpetuate family wealth, and distinction; or of giving; all to the sons, and withholding from the daughters; or of giving to those children only who were more obsequious in their adherence to their parent's tyrannical requisitions,—is unreasonable, unchristian, and against the generous dictates of natural affection.

From this whole subject we may infer the infatuation of those parents who toil as the slave in the galley, to amass a large fortune for their children. To accomplish this object they become drudges all their life. They rise early and retire late, deny themselves even the ordinary comforts of life, expend all the time and strength of their manhood, make slaves of their wives and children, and live retired from all society, in order to lay up a fortune for their offspring. To this end they make all things subordinate and subservient; and, indeed, they so greatly neglect their children as to deprive them of even the capacity of enjoying intellectually or morally the patrimony they thus secure for them. They bring them up in gross ignorance of every thing save work: and money. They teach them close-fisted parsimony, and prepare them to lead a life as servile and infatuated as their own. Miserable delusion! "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

"O cursed lust of gold! when for thy sake The fool throws up his interest in both worlds; First starved in this, then damned in that to come!"



CHAPTER XXV.

THE PROMISES OF THE CHRISTIAN HOME.

"The promise is unto you, and to your children."

ACTS II., 39.

"Parent who plantedst in the joy of love, Yet hast not gather'd fruit,—save rankling thorns, Or Sodom's bitter apples,—hast thou read Heaven's promise to the seeker? Thou may'st bring Those o'er whose cradle thou didst watch with pride, And lay them at thy Savior's feet, for lo! His shadow falling on the wayward soul, May give it holy health. And when thou kneel'st Low at the pavement of sweet Mercy's gate, Beseeching for thine erring ones, unfold The passport of the King,—'Ask, and receive! Knock,—and it shall be opened!"'

The promises of the Christian home may be divided into two kinds, viz.: Those which God has given to the family; and those which Christian parents have made to God.

God has not only laid His requisitions upon the Christian home, but given his promises. Every command is accompanied with a promise. These promises give color to all the hopes of home.

When the dark cloud of tribulation overhangs the parent's heart; when the overwhelming storm of misfortune rages around his habitation, uprooting his hopes and demolishing his interests; when the ruthless hand of death tears from his embrace the wife of his bosom and the children of his love;—even in hours of bereavement like these, the promises of God dispel the gloom, and surround his home and his heart with the sunshine of peace and joy.

His promises extend to both the parents and their offspring. "Unto you, and unto your children," "I will pour my spirit on thy seed, and my blessing on thine offspring; and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourses. One shall say, I am the Lord's; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel." His promises extend to children's children; and whatever they may be for the parent, they are "visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."

Now these divine promises are of two kinds,—the promise of punishment, and the promise of reward. He promises to punish the unfaithful parent, and to reward the faithful parent. He also promises to visit both the evil and the good of the parents upon their children. Such is the constitution of the family, and such are the vital relations which the members sustain to each other, that by the law of natural and moral reproduction, the child is either blessed or cursed in the parent. What the parent does will run out in its legitimate consequences to the child, either as a malediction or as a benediction.

We have divine promises to punish the unfaithful members of the Christian home. If the parent becomes guilty of iniquity, it will be visited upon the children from generation to generation. There is no consideration which should more effectually restrain parents from unfaithfulness than this. Let them become selfish, sensual, indolent, and dissipated, and soon these elements of iniquity will be transmitted to their offspring. What the parent sows, the child will reap. If the former sow to the flesh, the latter shall of the flesh reap corruption. Thus, whatsoever the parent sows in the child he shall reap from the child. The promised curse of the parent's wickedness is deposited in the child so far as that wickedness affected the child's character. This is all based upon the great principle that the promises are unto you, and to your children.

But while this great principle is ominous of terror to the ungodly, it is a pleasing theme to the pious and faithful. Home is a stewardship; and if faithful to its high and holy vocation, it has a good reward for its labor of love. "If ye sow to the spirit ye shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." This promise of reward is "to you and to your children." "Many souls shall be given for its hire." Their children shall reap the reward of the faithfulness of the parents. Of them it shall be said, "this is the seed which the Lord hath blessed." Faithful parents have thus a glorious recompense of reward. God shall reward thee openly. Make your household a true nursery for the soul; and He will give thee thy wages. The blessing of the Most High will descend like dew upon you and your children. And when they grow up to manhood, He will make them His agents in rewarding you. They will honor and comfort you in your declining years. They will not depart from the ways of the Lord in which you trained them. Though they may be in a distant land,—far from you and the cherished home of their childhood, yet they will obey your admonitions, gratefully remember your kindness; and their grateful obedience and remembrance will be your great reward from them. They will rise up and call you blessed.

"Though we dwell apart, Thy loving words are with me evermore,— Thy precious loving words. Thy hand, and heart. And earnest soul of love, are here impressed, For me, a dear memorial through all time. Mother! I cannot recompense thy love, But thy reward is sure, for thou hast done Thy duty perfectly, and we rise up And call thee blessed; and the Lord shall give Thy pious cares and labors rich reward."

And when you descend to the grave and are gathered to your fathers, the assurance of fidelity to your home-trust, the prospect of meeting your children in heaven, and all the brilliant hopes that loom up before you, full of the light and glory of the eternal world, will furnish you a great recompense of reward.

Parents can rely upon these promises of God with the full assurance of faith; for His promises are yea and amen. Let them but lay hold upon the promises, and act upon the conditions of their fulfillment, and then leave the rest to God. Abraham and Joshua, and David, acted upon this principle in their families. Let the members of the Christian home do the same, and the blessing of God will rest upon them.

God promises to reward parents in this life. We find their fulfillment in the peace, the hopes, the interests, and the pleasures of the faithful household. The members are happy in each other's love, in each other's virtue, in each other's worth, in each other's hopes, in each other's interests, in each other's confidence, in each other's piety, in each other's fidelity, in each other's happiness. Thus God shall reward thee openly. He has never said to the seed of Jacob seek ye me in vain. "Verily there is a reward for the righteous." "This is the seed which the Lord hath blessed."

The promised reward of faithful parents may be seen in their children. They are in the true Christian home a precious heritage from the Lord. Thus a parent's faithfulness was rewarded in the piety of Baxter, and Doddridge, and Watts. What a rich reward did Elkanah and Hannah receive by their training up Samuel! And were not Lois and Eunice rewarded for their faithfulness to young Timothy? What a glorious reward the mother of John Q. Adams received from God, in that great and good man! God blessed her fidelity, by making him worthy of such a mother. He himself was conscious that he was his mother's reward, as may be seen from the following anecdote of him. Governor Briggs of Massachusetts, after reading with great interest the letters of John Q. Adam's mother, one day went over to his seat in Congress, and said to him:

"Mr. Adams, I have found out who made you!"

"What do you mean?" said he.

"I have been reading the letters of your mother," was the reply.

With a flashing eye and glowing face, he started, and in his peculiar manner, said: "Yes, Briggs, all that is good in me, I owe to my mother!"

But God promises to reward faithful parents in the life to come. Their great reward is in heaven. The departure of every pious member of their home but increases the heavenly reward. The little child that dies in its mother's arms, and is borne up to the God who gave it, but increases by its sainted presence there, her joyful anticipations of the eternal reward.

"And when, by father's lonely bed, You place me in the ground, And his green turf, with daisies spread, Has also wrapt me round; Rejoice to think, to you 'tis given, To have a ransomed child in heaven!"

And oh, how glorious will be this reward when all the members shall meet again in heaven, recognize each other there, and unite their harps and voices in ascriptions of praise to God. There in that better home, where no separations take place, no trials are endured, no sorrows felt, no tears shed, they shall enjoy the complete fulfillment of divine promises. Heaven, with its unfading treasures, with its golden streets, with its crowns of glory, with its unspeakable joys, with its river of life, and with its anthems of praise, will be their great recompense of the reward. How the anticipation of this should stimulate Christian parents to increased fidelity; oh, what a happy meeting will that be, when husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, after many long years of separation, shall great each other in that glorious world, and feel that parting grief shall weep no more!

"Oh! when a mother meets on high, The child she lost in infancy; Hath she not then for pains and fears, The day of woe, the watchful night, For all her sorrows, all her tears, An over-payment of delight?"

With these gracious promises of reward sounding in their ears, Christian parents should never despair; neither should they doubt for a moment the fidelity of God to all his promises. It is true that His promises are conditional, and their fulfillment depends upon the parent's performance of his part as the condition, yet to every duty he has attached a promise; and wherever He has made a promise for us, he has given us the ability to use the means of securing its fulfillment; and as soon as their conditions are thus met, they become absolute. "Train up a child in the way he should go." Here is the duty. "And when he grows old he will not depart from it." Here is the promise. The condition is, that you discharge the duty. If you do so, the promise becomes absolute, and shall with certainty be divinely fulfilled in your child, though the time and manner of this fulfillment may not meet your expectations.

But some may object to this position, and remind us that pious parents are known to have ungodly children who died in their sins. They may refer us to the case of Absalom, and to the sons of Eli. In reply we would state that this is begging the question. It is here taken for granted that these pious parents did fulfill the conditions attached to the above promises. This is a mere assumption; for Absalom was not properly trained; and both he and the sons of Levi, were ruined by the misguided fondness and extreme indulgence of their parents. And thus also does the foolish partiality of many pious parents prevent their fidelity to their children. We must not think that all pious parents are faithful to their duty to their children. The above objection, however, assumes this ground; and, therefore, it is not valid. It is often said that the children of ministers and pious parents are usually more wicked than other children. This is false. The opposite is true. We admit, some have bad children; but it is the fault of the parents; not because God does not fulfill His covenant promises to His people. His people, in these instances, do not meet the conditions upon which His promises are made absolute.

We must not suppose that because a divine promise exists detached from expressed conditions, it will be fulfilled without the use of means. There is a manifest compatibility between the absolute promises of God and the use of the means in our power for their fulfillment. The promise to Paul in the ship in which he was conveyed to Rome, that none of the passengers should perish, was not incompatible with Paul's declaration, "except these persons abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." Neither were the efforts of the mother of Moses to save him, incompatible with the absolute promise of God that "this babe shall be saved, and be the deliverer of Israel." What she did to preserve his life was accompanied with an active, confiding faith in the divine promise concerning him. And thus should faith in God's promises stimulate Christian parents to zealous activity in the use of all those means which secure their fulfillment.

The Christian home should ever keep in lively remembrance the solemn promises made by her to God. In marriage, in holy baptism, she has made vows unto God, and he says to her, pay thy vows. "When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it; for the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee." These parental promises made to God regard themselves and their children; and their faithful fulfillment brings them within the glorious promise which God gave to Abraham; for, says Paul, "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise:" Gal. iii., 29.

Christian parents: the promises of God shine forth as brilliantly now as over they did upon the pages of sacred history. They are as bright for you as they were for Abraham and Joshua, when they trembled in sublime eloquence upon the lips of God. Let them, therefore, be not in vain. The promises are unto you, and to your children. And you in turn have promised God that you would bless your household, and be faithful to your children. Hold, fast to these promises without wavering. Hang all your hopes upon them. Cling to them with the wrestling spirit of Jacob. And remember that you cannot shake off your vows and promises made to God. He will sorely require it of thee. Therefore pay thy vows unto the Lord. God will reward you for so doing. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee:" Isaiah liv., 10.



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE BEREAVEMENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN HOME.[A]

[Footnote A: In this chapter we have made free use of poetical quotations for the benefit of the afflicted.]

"On, long ago Those blessed days departed, we are reft, And scattered like the leaves of some fair rose, That fall off one by one upon the breeze, Which bears them where it listeth. Never more Can they be gathered and become a rose. And we can be united never more A family on earth!"

Bereavement involves the providential discipline of home. In almost every household there have been sorrows and tears as well as joys and hopes. As the Christian home is the depository of the highest interests and the purest pleasures, so it is the scene of sad bereavements and of the darkest trials. It may become as desolate as the home of Job. The Christian may, like the aged tree, be stripped of his clusters, his branches, all his summer glory, and sink down into a lonely and dreary existence. His home, which once rang with glad voices, may become silent and sad and hopeless. Those hearts which once beat with life and love, may become still and cold; and all the earthly interests which clustered around his fireside may pass away like the dream of an hour!

The members of home must separate. Theirs is but a probationary state. Their household is but a tent,—a tabernacle in the flesh, and all that it contains will pass away. The fondest ties will be broken; the brightest hopes will fade; all its joys are transient; its interests meteoric, and the fireside of cheerfulness will ere long become the scene of despondency. Every swing of the pendulum of the clock tells that the time of its probation is becoming shorter and shorter, and that its members are approaching nearer and nearer the period of their separation.

"There is no union here of hearts, That finds not here an end."

Alas! how soon this takes place! The joy of home would be perfect did not the thought of a speedy separation intrude. No sooner than the voice of childhood is changed, than separation begins to take place. Some separate for another world; some are borne by the winds and waves to distant lands; others enter the deep forests of the West, and are heard of no more;—

"Alas! the brother knows not now where fall the sister's tears! One haply revels at the feast, while one may droop alone; For broken is the household chain,—the bright fire quenched and gone!"

What melancholy feelings are awakened within at the sight of a deserted home, in which loved ones once met and lived and loved; but from which they have now wandered, each in the path pointed out by the guiding hand of Providence. How beautifully does Mrs. Hemans portray this separation in the following admirable lines!—

"They grew in beauty side by side, They filled one home with glee; Their graves are severed, far and wide, By mount, and stream, and sea.

"The same fond mother bent at night O'er each fair sleeping brow; She had each folded flower in sight— Where are those dreamers now?

"One midst the forests of the West By a dark stream is laid; The Indian knows his place of rest Far in the cedar shade.

"The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one, He lies where pearls lie deep; He was the loved of all, yet none O'er his low bed may weep.

"One sleeps where southern vines are dress'd, Above the noble slain; He wrapped his colors round his breast, On a blood-red field of Spain.

"And one—o'er her the myrtle showers, Its leaves by soft winds fanned; She faded midst Italian flowers— The last of that fair band.

"And parted thus, they rest, who played Beneath the same green tree; Whose voices mingled as they prayed Around one parent knee!"

It is thus in almost every household. The members may be divided into two classes,—the present and the absent ones. Who may not say of his family—

"We are not all here! Some are away—the dead ones dear, Who thronged with us this ancient hearth, And gave the hour of guiltless mirth. Fate, with a stern, relentless hand, Looked in and thinned our little band. Some like a night-flash passed away, And some sank lingering day by day, The quiet graveyard—some lie there,— We're not all here!"

The bereavements of home are diversified. 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." Where is the home that has not some memorial of departed ones,—a chair empty, a vacant seat at the table,—garments laid by,—ashes of the dead treasured up in the urn of memory! What sudden ravages does this ruthless foe of life, often make in the family! The members are often taken away, one by one in quick succession, until all of them are laid, side by side beneath the green sod.

What a memorable epoch in the history of home is that, in which death finds his first entrance within its sacred enclosures, and with ruthless hand breaks the first link of a golden chain that creates its identity! We can never forget that event. It may he the first-born in the radiant beauty of youth, or the babe in the first bursting of life's budding loveliness, or a father in the midst of his anxious cares, or the mother who gave light and happiness to all around her. Whoever it is, the first death makes a breach there which no subsequent bereavement can equal; new feelings are then awakened; a new order of associations is then commenced; hopes and fears are then aroused that never subside; and the mysterious web of family life receives the hue of a new and darker thread.

What a sad bereavement is the death of the husband and father! Children! there is the grave of your father! You have recently heard the clods of the valley groan upon his coffin. The parent stem from which, you grew and to which, you fondly clung, has been shattered by the lightning-stroke of death, and its terrible shock is now felt in every fiber of the wrenched and torn branches. Yours is now a widowed and an orphaned home. The disconsolate members are left helpless and hopeless in the world; the widowed mother sits by the dying embers of her lonely cottage, overwhelmed with grief, and poor in everything but her children and her God. These orphans are turned out upon the cold charities of an unfriendly world, neglected and forlorn, having no one to care for them but a poor, broken-hearted mother, whose deathless faith points them to the bright spirit-world to which their sainted father has gone, where parting grief shall weep no more.

But a greater bereavement even than this, is, the death of a wife and mother. Ah! here is a bereavement which the child alone can fully feel. When the mother is laid upon the cold bier, and sleeps among the dead, the center of home-love and attraction is gone. What children are more desolate and more to be pitied than the motherless ones? She, who fed them from her gentle breast and sung sweet lullaby to soothe them into sleep,—she, who taught them to kneel in prayer at her side, and ministered to all their little wants, and sympathized with them in all their little troubles,—she has now been torn from them, leaving them a smitten flock indeed, and the light of her smile will never again be round their beds and paths. As the shades of night close in upon that smitten home, and the chime of the bell tells the hour in which the mother used to gather them around her for prayer, and sing them to their rosy rest, with what a stricken heart does the bereaved husband seek to perform this office of love in her stead; and as he gathers them for the first time around him, how fully does he feel that none can take a mother's place!

"My sheltering arms can clasp you all, My poor deserted throng; Cling as you used to cling to her Who sings the angel's song. Begin, sweet ones, the accustomed strain, Come, warble loud and clear; Alas, alas! you're weeping all, You're sobbing in my ear; Good night; go, say the prayer she taught, Beside your little bed. The lips that used to bless you there, Are silent with the dead. A father's hand your course may guide Amid the storms of life, His care protect those shrinking plants That dread the storm of strife; But who, upon your infant hearts, Shall like that mother write? Who touch the strings that rule the soul? Dear smitten flock, good night!"

Who can forget a mother, or lose those impressions which her death made upon our deeply stricken hearts? None,—not even the wretch who has brutalized all the feelings of natural affection. The memory of a mother's death is as fadeless as the deep impress of a mother's love upon our hearts. As often as we resort to her grave we must leave behind the tribute of our tears. Who can read the following beautiful lines of Cowper, and—if the memory of a sainted mother is awakened by them,—not weep?

"My mother! When I learned that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then, life's journey just begun! Perhaps thou gay'st me, though unfelt, a kiss; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss— Ah, that maternal smile! it answers—yes! I heard the bell toll on the burial day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, And, turning from my nurs'ry window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! But was it such? It was. Where thou art gone. Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The parting word shall pass my lips no more!"

The death of children is a great bereavement of home. Behold that little blossom withered in its mother's arms! See those tears which flood her eyes as she bends in her deep grief over the grave of her cherished babe! Go, fond parents, to that little mound, and weep! It is well to do so; it is well for thee in the twilight hour to steal around that hallowed spot, and pay the tribute of memory to your little one, in flooding tears. There beneath those blooming flowers which the hand of affection planted, it sweetly sleeps. It bids adieu to all the scenes and cares of life. It just began to taste the cup of life, and turned from its ingredients of commingled joy and sorrow, to a more peaceful clime. Cold now is that little heart which once beat its warm pulses so near to thine; hushed is now that sweet voice that once breathed music to your soul. Like the folding up of the rose, it passed away; that beautiful bud which bloomed and cheered your heart, was transplanted ere the storm beat upon it:—

"Death found strange beauty on that polished brow, And dashed it out— There was a tint of rose On cheek and lip. He touched the veins with ice, And the rose faded. Forth from those blue eyes There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence Alone may wear. With ruthless haste he bound The silken fringes of those curtained lids Forever. There had been a murmuring sound, With which the babe would claim its mother's ear, Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set His seal of silence. But there beamed a smile So fixed, so holy, from that cherub brow, Death gazed—and left it there. He dared not steal The signet-ring of heaven!"

The death of such an infant is indeed a sore affliction, and causes the bleeding heart of the parent to cry out, "Whose sorrow is like unto my sorrow!" Unfeeling Death! that thou shouldst thus blight the fair flowers and nip the unfolding buds of promise in the Christian home!

"Death! thou dread looser of the dearest tie, Was there no aged and no sick one nigh? No languid wretch who long'd, but long'd in vain, For thy cold hand to cool his fiery pain? And was the only victim thou couldst find, An infant in its mother's arms reclined?"

Thus it is that death often turns from the sickly to the healthy, from the decrepitude of age to the strong man in his prime, from the miserable wretch who longs for the grave to the smiling babe upon its mother's breast, and there in those "azure veins which steal like streams along a field of snow," he pours his putrefying breath, and leaves within that mother's arms nothing but loathsomeness and ruin! It was thus, bereaved parents, that he came within your peaceful home, and threw a cruel mockery over all your visions of delight, over all the joys and hopes and interests of your fireside, personifying their wreck in the cold and ghastly corpse of your child. All that is now left to you is, the memorials around you that once the pride of your heart was there;—

"The nursery shows thy pictured wall, Thy bat, thy bow, Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball, But where art thou? A corner holds thine empty chair, Thy playthings idly scattered there, But speak to us of our despair!"

How sad and lonely especially is the mother who is called thus to weep the loss of her departed infant. Oh, it is hard for her to give up that loved one whose smile and childish glee were the light and the hope of her heart. As she lays it in the cold, damp earth, and returns to her house of mourning, and there contemplates its empty cradle, and that silent nursery, once gladsome with its mirth, she feels the sinking weight of her desolation. No light, no luxury, no friend, can fill the place of her lost one.

And especially if this lost one be the first-born,—the first bud of promise and of hope, how doubly painful is the bereavement. It makes our home as dark and desolate as was the hour when Abraham with uplifted knife, was about to send death to the throbbing heart of his beloved Isaac. Nothing can supply the place of a first-born child; and home can never be what it was when the sweet voice of that first-born child was heard. The first green leaf of that household has faded; and though leaves may put forth, and other buds of promise may unfold, and bright faces may light up the home-hearth, and the sunshine of hope may play around the heart; but—

"They never can replace the bud our early fondness nurst, They may be lovely and beloved, but not like thee—the first!"

Your heart continues lonely and desolate; its strings are broken; its tenderest fibers wrenched; you continue to steal "beneath, the church-yard tree, where the grass grows green and wild," and there weep over the grave of your first maternal love; and like Rachael, refuse to be comforted because he is not. Your grief is natural, and only those who have lost their first-born can fully realize it:—

"Young mother! what can feeble friendship say, To soothe the anguish of this mournful day? They, they alone, whose hearts like thine have bled, Know how the living sorrow for the dead; I've felt it all,—alas! too well I know How vain all earthly power to hush thy woe! God cheer thee, childless mother! 'tis not given For man to ward the blow that falls from heaven. I've felt it all—as thou art feeling now; Like thee, with stricken heart and aching brow, I've sat and watched by dying beauty's bed, And burning tears of hopeless anguish shed; I've gazed upon the sweet, but pallid face, And vainly tried some comfort there to trace; I've listened to the short and struggling breath; I've seen the cherub eye grow dim in death; Like thee, I've veiled my head in speechless gloom, And laid my first-born in the silent tomb!"

Now in all these bereavements of the Christian home we have developed the wisdom and goodness of God; and the consideration of this we commend to the bereaved as a great comfort. They are but the execution of God's merciful design concerning the family. Pious parents can, therefore, bless the Lord for these afflictions. It is often well for both you and your children that bereavements come. They come often as the ministers of grace. The tendency of home is to confine its supreme affections within itself, and not yield them unto God. Parents often bestow upon their children all their love, and live for them alone. Then God lays his rod upon them, takes their loved ones to his own arms, to show them the folly of using them as abusing them. If home had no such bereavements, eternity would be lost sight of; God would not be obeyed; souls would be neglected; natural affection would crush the higher incentives and restraints of faith; earthly interests would push from our hearts all spiritual concerns; and our tent-home in this vale of tears would be substituted for our heavenly home. We see, therefore, the benevolent wisdom of God in ordaining bereavements to arrest us from the control of unsanctified natural affection. When we see the flowers of our household withered and strewn around us; when that which we most tenderly loved and clung to, is taken from us in an unexpected hour, we begin to see the futility of living for earthly interests alone; and we turn from the lamented dead to be more faithful to the cherished and dependent living.

Let us, therefore, remember that in all our afflictions God has some merciful design, the execution of which will contribute to the temporal and eternal welfare of our home. He designs either to correct us if we do wrong, or to prevent us from doing wrong, or to test our Christian fidelity, or to instruct us in the deep mysteries and meandering ways of human life, and keep before us the true idea of our homes and lives as a pilgrimage. Nothing, save supernatural agencies, so effectually removes the moral film from our intellectual eye as the hand of bereavement. Death is a great teacher. Sources of pensive reflection and spiritual communion are opened, which none but death could unseal. A proper sense of the spirit-world is developed; life appears in its naked reality; heaven gains new attractions; eternity becomes a holier theme,—a more cheerful object of thought; the true relation of this to the life to come, is realized; and the presence of the world of the unseen enters more deeply into our moral consciousness.

Though our loved ones are gone, they are still with us in spirit; yea, they are ours still, in the best sense of possession; our relationship with them is not destroyed, but hallowed. Though absent, they still live and love; and they come thronging as ministering spirits to our hearts; they hover near us, and commune with us. Though death may separate us from them, it does not disunite us. Your departed children, though separated from you in body, are still yours, are with you in spirit, and are members of your family. They represent your household in heaven, and are a promise that you will be there also. You are still their parents; you are still one family,—one in spirit, in faith, in hope, in promise, in Christ. You still dwell together in the fond memories of home, and in the bright anticipation of a coming reunion in heaven. Oh, with this view of death and with this hope of joining love's buried ones again, you can gather those that yet remain, and talk to them of those you put, cold and speechless, in their bed of clay; and while their bodies lie exposed to the winter's storm or to the summer's heat, you can point the living to that cheering promise which spans, as with an areole of glory, the graves of buried love; you can tell them they shall meet their departed kindred in a better home. Oh, clasp this promise to your aching heart; treasure it up as a pearl of great price. Your departed children are not lost to you; and their death to them is great gain. They are not lost, but only sent before. "The Lord, has taken them away." With these views of death before you, and with the moral instructions they afford, you cannot but feel that your children, though absent from you in body, are with you in spirit,—are still living with you in your household, and are among that spirit-throng which ever press around you, to bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone. Such were the feelings of the Christian father, as expressed in the following touching lines:—

"I cannot make him dead! When passing by his bed, So long watched over with parental care, My spirit and my eye Seek it inquiringly, Before the thought comes that—he is not there!

"When at the day's calm close Before we seek repose, I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer, Whate'er I may be saying, I am, in spirit, praying For our boy's spirit, though—he is not there!

"Not there? Where, then, is he? The form I used to see Was but the raiment that he used to wear. The grave, that now doth press Upon that cast-off dress, Is but his wardrobe locked;—he is not there!

"He lives! In all the past He lives; nor, to the last, Of seeing him again will I despair; In dreams I see him now, And on his angel brow, I see it written, 'Thou shalt see me there!'

"Yes, we all live to God! Father, thy chastening rod So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear, That in the spirit-land, Meeting at thy right hand, 'Twill he our heaven to find that—he is there!"

From this view of the educational principle involved in all our bereavements, we may easily infer that God designs to benefit us by them. There is an actual usefulness in all the bereavements of the Christian home. They are but the discipline of a Father's hand and the ministration of a Father's love. Though His face may wear a dark frown, or be hid behind the tempest-cloud, and His rod may be laid heavily upon you, yet you are not warranted to believe that no sweet is in the bitter cup you drink, that no light shines behind the cloud, or that no good dwells in the bursting storm around you. The present may indeed he dark; but the future will be bright and laden with a Father's blessing. The smile will succeed the frown; the balm will follow the rod. The good seed will be sown after the deep furrows are made. "No chastening for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous, yet it worketh out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory to them that are exercised thereby." 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. It arrests them from the perils and tribulations of mature life; it makes their pilgrimage through this vale of tears, of short duration; they escape thereby the bitter cup of actual sin, and the mental and moral agonies of death. It is well with them. How true are the following beautiful verses on the death of children, from the pen of John. Q. Adams:—

"Sure, to the mansions of the blest When infant innocence ascends, Some angel brighter than the rest The spotless spirit's flight attends. On wings of ecstasy they rise, Beyond where worlds material roll, Till some fair sister of the skies, Receives the unpolluted soul. There at the Almighty Father's hand, Nearest the throne of living light, The choirs of infant seraphs stand, And dazzling shine, where all are bright!"

Christ became a little child, that little children might receive the crown of their age and be eternally saved. He took them in His arms, blessed them, and said, "of such is the kingdom of heaven." And we are told that "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings He has ordained strength." The sweetest hosannas before His throne, doubtless proceed from cherub-lips, and they glow nearest to the bright vision of the face of unveiled glory.

"Calm on the bosom of thy God, Young spirits! rest thee now! Even while with us thy footsteps trod, His seal was on thy brow."

They stand before the throne in white robes, with palms in their hands, and crowns of glory on their heads, crying-out, "Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb!" Tell me, does not this view dilate the parent's heart, and make him thankful that he has a sainted child in heaven? Weep for those you have with you, who live under the shades of a moral death, who have entered upon a thorny pilgrimage, and are exposed to the ravages of sin; oh, weep for them!—

"But never be a tear-drop given To those that rest in yon blue heaven."

The sainted dead of your home are more blessed than the pilgrim living. Weep not, then, that they are gone. Their early departure was to them great gain. Had they been spared to grow up to manhood, you then might have to take up the lamentation of David, "Would to God I had died for thee!" While they, in the culprit's cell, or on the dying couch of the hopeless impenitent, would respond to you in tones of deepening woe,—

"Would I had died when young! How many burning tears, And wasted hopes and severed ties, Had spared my after years!"

Would you, then, to gratify a parent's heart, awake that little slumberer from its peaceful repose, and recall its happy spirit from its realms of glory? There the light of heaven irradiates it; its visions are unclouded there; and from those battlements of uncreated glory it comes to thee on errands of love and mercy. Would you, now, that this inhabitant of heaven should be degraded to earth again? Would you remove him from those rivers of delight to this dry and thirsty land? Would not this be cruel?

When, therefore, your babe is taken from you, regard it as a kind deed of your heavenly Father, and say, "even so it seemeth good in thy sight:"

"Pour not the voice of woe! Shed not a burning tear When spirits from the cold earth go, Too bright to linger here! Unsullied let them pass Into oblivion's tomb— Like snow-flakes melting in the sea When ripe with vestal bloom. Then strew fresh flowers above the grave, And let the tall grass o'er it wave."

But the death of little children is a great mercy, not only to themselves, but also to the living. Those that remain behind are greatly benefited thereby. It exerts a sanctifying, elevating and alluring influence over them. As they pass in their bright pathway to heaven, they leave a blessing behind. God takes them in goodness to us. The interests of the parents are not different from, or opposed to, those of their offspring. The happiness of the latter is that of the former. If, therefore, their death is their blessing, it must be the parent's blessing also. "If love," says Baxter, "teaches us to mourn with them that mourn, and rejoice with them that rejoice, then can we mourn for those of our children that are possessed of the highest everlasting happiness?"

It is true, their sweet faces, unfurrowed by guilt or shame, we shall never more gaze upon; the sound of their happy lullaby we shall never again hear. They are gone now to the spirit-land. But a parent's care and solicitude are also gone. All alarm for their safety is gone; and you now rejoice in the assurance that they have gone to a higher and happier home; and can joyfully exclaim now with Leigh Richmond, "My child is a saint in glory!" His infant powers, so speedily paralyzed by the ruthless hand of death, are now expanding themselves amidst the untold glories of the heavenly world, and are enlisted now in ministering to his pilgrim kindred on earth.

It is true, your children were a source of great joy to you here. Insensibly did they entwine themselves around your heart, and with all the wild ecstasy of maternal love, you embraced them, as they attached themselves, like the slender vine, to you. They were indeed, the life and light of your home, and the deepest joy of your heart. But if they had lived, might they not also have been a source of the deepest sorrow and misery? Might they not have drawn your souls from God and heaven, causing you to live alone for them, and bringing eventually your gray hairs down with sorrow to the grave?

But you have watched at their dying couch, and seen them die; and in that death you have also seen the departure of all such fears and dangers. They are now transplanted to a more congenial clime, where they will bloom forever in unfading loveliness, and from which they will come on errands of ministering love to your household:—

"They come, on the wings of the morning they come, Impatient to lead some poor wanderer home; Some pilgrim to snatch from his stormy abode, And lay him to rest in the arms of his God!"

One of the greatest blessings which the death of our pious kindred confers upon their bereaved friends is, that they hold a saving communion with them, and are ministering spirits sent to minister salvation and consolation unto them.

"The saints on earth, and all the dead, But one communion make."

They constitute our guardian angels; they witness our Christian race; they commune with our spirits; they link us to the spirit-world; they impress us with its deep mysteries; they stimulate our religious life, and bear us up lest we dash our feet against the pebble which lies in our pathway to the mansions of the blest. The mother who bends in the deep anguish of her soul, over the little grave in which her infant slumbers, has in heaven a cherub spirit to minister to her. And oh, could the veil which wraps the spirit-world from our view, be now removed, and we permitted to catch a glimpse of the heavenly scene there displayed, we should doubtless behold on the threshold of that better home, an innumerable host witnessing with, intensity of interest, the scenes of human life; and no doubt to you, bereaved friend, the most conspicuous among that celestial throng, would be the sainted form of that dear one whose grave you often adorn with the warm tribute of memory's gushing tears. And oh, could you understand the relation in which that sainted one stands to you, you would doubtless be conscious that over and about you it hovers from day to day as your guardian spirit, watching all the details of your life, soothing the anguish of your troubled heart, and ministering unto you in holy things!

"The spirits of the loved and departed Are with us; and they tell us of the sky, A rest for the bereaved and broken-hearted, A house not made with hands, a home on high! They have gone from us, and the grave is strong! Yet in night's silent watches they are near; Their voices linger round us, as the song Of the sweet skylark lingers on the ear."

The whole dispensation of grace is like the ladder set up on earth, whose top reached heaven, and upon which Jacob saw the angels ascending; and descending. As the Christian pilgrim in his spiritual progression mounts each round of this ladder, he finds himself in the midst of a spirit-throng ascending and descending on errands of love and mercy to him; yea, the canopy of the sky seems lined with so great a cloud, of witnesses and ministering spirits; and among them we behold our sainted friends bidding us climb on to their lofty abodes; they beckon us to themselves; their voices animate us, as they steal down upon our spirits in solemn and beautiful cadence.

"Hark! heard ye not a sound Sweeter than wild-bird's note, or minstrel's lay! I know that music well, for night and day I hear it echoing round.