d, with whom do live the spirits of them
that depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful,
after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and
felicity; WE give thee hearty thanks that it hath pleased thee to deliver
this our sister out of the miseries of this sinful world; beseeching thee,
that it may please thee of thy gracious goodness shortly to accomplish the
number of thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom." * *

In what world was I living when a man (calling himself a man of God) could
stand up publicly and give God "hearty thanks" that he had taken away my
sister? But, young child, understand--taken her away from the miseries of
this sinful world. Oh yes! I hear what you say; I understand _that_; but
that makes no difference at all. She being gone, this world doubtless (as
you say) is a world of unhappiness. But for me _ubi Caesar, ibi
Roma_--where my sister was, there was paradise; no matter whether in
heaven above, or on the earth beneath. And he had taken her away, cruel
priest! of his "_great_ mercy?" I did not presume, child though I was, to
think rebelliously against _that_. The reason was not any hypocritical or
canting submission where my heart yielded none, but because already my
deep musing intellect had perceived a mystery and a labyrinth in the
economies of this world. God, I saw, moved not as _we_ moved--walked not
as _we_ walked--thought not as _we_ think. Still I saw no mercy to myself,
a poor frail dependent creature--torn away so suddenly from the prop on
which altogether it depended. Oh yes! perhaps there was; and many years
after I came to suspect it. Nevertheless it was a benignity that pointed
far a-head; such as by a child could not have been perceived, because then
the great arch had not come round; could not have been recognized if it
_had_ come round; could not have been valued if it had even been dimly
recognized.

Finally, as the closing prayer in the whole service stood, this--which I
acknowledged then, and now acknowledge, as equally beautiful and
consolatory; for in this was no harsh peremptory challenge to the
infirmities of human grief as to a thing not meriting notice in a
religious rite. On the contrary, there was a gracious condescension from
the great apostle to grief, as to a passion that he might perhaps himself
have participated.

"Oh, merciful God! the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the
resurrection and the life, in whom w