throne, doubtless proceed from cherub-lips,
and they glow nearest to the bright vision of the face of unveiled glory.

"Calm on the bosom of thy God,
Young spirits! rest thee now!
Even while with us thy footsteps trod,
His seal was on thy brow."

They stand before the throne in white robes, with palms in their hands, and
crowns of glory on their heads, crying-out, "Salvation to our God, which
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb!" Tell me, does not this view
dilate the parent's heart, and make him thankful that he has a sainted
child in heaven? Weep for those you have with you, who live under the
shades of a moral death, who have entered upon a thorny pilgrimage, and
are exposed to the ravages of sin; oh, weep for them!--

"But never be a tear-drop given
To those that rest in yon blue heaven."

The sainted dead of your home are more blessed than the pilgrim living.
Weep not, then, that they are gone. Their early departure was to them great
gain. Had they been spared to grow up to manhood, you then might have to
take up the lamentation of David, "Would to God I had died for thee!" While
they, in the culprit's cell, or on the dying couch of the hopeless
impenitent, would respond to you in tones of deepening woe,--

"Would I had died when young!
How many burning tears,
And wasted hopes and severed ties,
Had spared my after years!"

Would you, then, to gratify a parent's heart, awake that little slumberer
from its peaceful repose, and recall its happy spirit from its realms of
glory? There the light of heaven irradiates it; its visions are unclouded
there; and from those battlements of uncreated glory it comes to thee on
errands of love and mercy. Would you, now, that this inhabitant of heaven
should be degraded to earth again? Would you remove him from those rivers
of delight to this dry and thirsty land? Would not this be cruel?

When, therefore, your babe is taken from you, regard it as a kind deed of
your heavenly Father, and say, "even so it seemeth good in thy sight:"

"Pour not the voice of woe!
Shed not a burning tear
When spirits from the cold earth go,
Too bright to linger here!
Unsullied let them pass
Into oblivion's tomb--
Like snow-flakes melting in the sea
When ripe with vestal bloom.
Then strew fresh flowers above the grave,
And let the tall grass o'er it wave."

But the death of little children is a great mercy, not only to themselve