my pulpit the Sabbath after her
decease, not merely because the period of the greatest suffering under
bereavement had not come, but chiefly because the consolations of the
trying scene, and hopes full of immortality, had not lost their new
power. I was therefore like those who, on the first Christian Sabbath
morning, "departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy,
and did run to bring his disciples word."

It is intimated above that the greatest suffering at the death of a
friend does not occur immediately upon the event. It comes when the
world have forgotten that you have cause to weep; for when the eyes are
dry, the heart is often bleeding. There are hours,--no, they are more
concentrated than hours,--there are moments, when the thought of a lost
and loved one, who has perished out of your family circle, suspends all
interest in every thing else; when the memory of the departed floats
over you like a wandering perfume, and recollections come in throngs
with it, flooding the soul with grief. The name, of necessity or
accidentally spoken, sets all your soul ajar; and your sense of loss,
utter loss, for all time, brings more sorrow with it by far than the
parting scene.

* * * * *

She who was the sweet singer of my little Israel is no more. The child
whose sense of beauty made her the swiftest herald to me of every fair
discovery and new household joy, will never greet me again with her
surprises of gladness. She who, leaning upon my arm as we walked,
silently conveyed to me such a sense of evenness, firmness, dignity; she
whose child-like love was turning into the womanly affection for a
father; she who was complete in herself, as every good child is, not
suggesting to your thoughts what you would have a child be, but filling
out the orb of your ideal beauty, still partly in outline; her seat,
her place at the table, at prayers, at the piano, at church; the sight
of her going out and coming in; her tones of speech, her helpful spirit
and hands, and all the unfinished creations of her skill, every thing
that made her that which the growing associations with her name had
built up in our hearts,--all is gone, for this life; it is removed like
a tree; it is departed like a shepherd's tent.

And all this, too, is saved. It survives, or I would not, I could not,
write thus. There comes to my sorrowing heart some such message as the
sons of Jacob brought to their father, when