| Home Making |
Chapter 7 |
Page 17 |
One of the chief elements of the sorrow when children or young person dies is the sore disappointment. Careers of great usefulness have been marked out for them, and without even entering upon them they are gone. They seem to have lived in vain, to have died without accomplishing any work in this world. So it appears until we think more deeply of it, and then we see that they have not been in this world in vain, though their stay was so brief. They have not done what we had planned for them to do, but they have accomplished the part in God’s great Plan which he had marked out for them.
Here is a little babe; it lies now in the coffin with a face beautiful as an angel’s smile. It lived but a few days or a few months. It merely opened its eyes upon the earth, and then, as if too pure for this world of sin, closed them again and went back to God. Did you say that it lived in vain, that it performed no work? Do you know how many blessings it brought down from heaven to that home when it came like a messenger from the fragrant garden of God, shook its robes and then fled away again? It only crept into the mother’s bosom for a brief season and was gone, but ever afterward her heart will be warmer, her life richer and deeper and her spirit gentler and sweeter. No one can tell what holy work a babe performs that stays only an hour in this world. It does not live in vain. It leaves touches of beauty on other souls which never shall fade out. It may accomplish more in that one short hour; leave greater blessings behind, than do others who live long full years. It may change the eternal destiny of one or more souls. Many a child dying leads an unsaved parent to the sacred feet of Christ. Certain it is that no true parent is ever just the same in character after clasping his own child in his arms. To have felt the warmth and thrill of a new love even for a few moments, though the object loved be withdrawn, leaves a permanent result in the life.
Page 17
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