ILD IN THE GRAVE

It was a very sad day, and every heart in the house felt the
deepest grief; for the youngest child, a boy of four years old, the
joy and hope of his parents, was dead. Two daughters, the elder of
whom was going to be confirmed, still remained: they were both good,
charming girls; but the lost child always seems the dearest; and
when it is youngest, and a son, it makes the trial still more heavy.
The sisters mourned as young hearts can mourn, and were especially
grieved at the sight of their parents' sorrow. The father's heart
was bowed down, but the mother sunk completely under the deep grief.
Day and night she had attended to the sick child, nursing and carrying
it in her bosom, as a part of herself. She could not realize the
fact that the child was dead, and must be laid in a coffin to rest
in the ground. She thought God could not take her darling little one
from her; and when it did happen notwithstanding her hopes and her
belief, and there could be no more doubt on the subject, she said in
her feverish agony, "God does not know it. He has hard-hearted
ministering spirits on earth, who do according to their own will,
and heed not a mother's prayers." Thus in her great grief she fell
away from her faith in God, and dark thoughts arose in her mind
respecting death and a future state. She tried to believe that man was
but dust, and that with his life all existence ended. But these doubts
were no support to her, nothing on which she could rest, and she
sunk into the fathomless depths of despair. In her darkest hours she
ceased to weep, and thought not of the young daughters who were
still left to her. The tears of her husband fell on her forehead,
but she took no notice of him; her thoughts were with her dead
child; her whole existence seemed wrapped up in the remembrances of
the little one and of every innocent word it had uttered.

The day of the little child's funeral came. For nights
previously the mother had not slept, but in the morning twilight of
this day she sunk from weariness into a deep sleep; in the mean time
the coffin was carried into a distant room, and there nailed down,
that she might not hear the blows of the hammer. When she awoke, and
wanted to see her child, the husband, with tears, said, "We have
closed the coffin; it was necessary to do so."

"When God is so hard to me, how can I expect men to be better?"
she said with groans and tears.

The coffin was carried to the grave,