into dust! fragments only litter the floor of life. How full of heart-breaks is our earthly day I it is seldom difficult to die for ourselves, but to leave those who make life worth the living, to feel the treasures of our affection slip through our hand so eager and yet so impotent, this is the bitterness of death. Silent the young wife sits by her husband's side, — it is the better part of her which is soon to be shorn away ; the memory of youthful courtship comes back, hopeful and fragrant as a morning in May, when the apple-trees have also put their nuptial glory on: she brings again the bridal's throbbing joy, and re-collects the scattered bliss of all the following years. She looks on that forehead, once so fair, and full, and smooth, the throne of many a kiss, but roughened now, ploughed over and harrowed too with various pain. Their two right hands are clasped in private now, as once, when both were conscious, they were publicly made one ; but his drops from her, it is only the wife's palm that warmed the husband's hand. She is made a widow while the joy of her bridal and the scattered bliss of all the following years became new consecrate to her.
In hours like this what shall sustain our heart? Only the certainty that there is an Infinite Power, all-wise, all-good, that loves us, loves them, and if He change their countenance, it is only from the mortal into the immortal glory, brightening and brightening for ever. If this certainty does not wipe every tear from the eye of youth or age, it yet turns it into a telescopic glass wherewith they see the expanded souls of their dear ones. Therein the mother beholds the baby whom death painfully delivered of the flesh, now become a child in heaven, already blessed with power and virtue which quite surpass its living parents here. There the widowed heart of man or woman beholds the dearest transfigured into human glory, which mortal flesh could never put on, nor even wear upon the earth.
"Who would have thought my shrivelled heart
Could have received greenness? It was gone
Quite under ground, as flowers depart
To see their mother-root when they are blown—
Where they together,
All the hard weather,
Hid from the world, keep house unknown."
