to the heart.

I went back to the house, and took out my Bible and read to the mother
the fourteenth chapter of John. Then I prayed with her and endeavored
to comfort her. When the day for the funeral arrived I attended it. I
had not been to the cemetery for a good many years; I had thought my
time was too precious, as it was some miles away. I found the father
was still drunk. I had got a lot in the strangers' field for little
Adelaide. As we were laying the coffin in the grave another funeral
procession came up, and the corpse was going to be laid near by.
Adelaide's mother said, as we were covering up the coffin: "Mr. Moody,
it is very hard to lay her away among strangers. I have been moving
about a good deal, and have lived among strangers, and I have never
had a burying-lot. It is very hard to place my firstborn among
strangers." I said to myself that it would be pretty hard to have to
bury my child in the strangers' field. I had got into full sympathy
with the poor mother by this time.

Next Sabbath I told the children in the Sunday-school what had taken
place. I suggested that we should buy a Sunday-school lot, and when
any of the children attending the school died, they would not be laid
in the strangers' field, but would be put in our own lot. Before we
could get the title made out, a mother came and wanted to know if her
little girl who had just died could be buried in the lot. I told her I
would give permission. I went to the funeral, and as we were lowering
the little coffin I asked what was the name. She said it was Emma.
That was the name of my own little girl, and I could not help but weep
as I thought of how I would feel if it were my own Emma. Do you tell
me I could not sympathize with that bereaved mother? Very soon
afterward, another mother came and wished to have her dead child
buried in our lot. She told me his name was Willie. At that time that
was the name of my only boy, and I thought how it would be with me if
it were my Willie who was dead. So the first children buried there
bore the names of my two children. I tried to put myself in the places
of these sorrowing mothers, and then it was easy for me to sympathize
with them in their grief, and point them to Him who "shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes."

About the first thing I did when I returned to Chicago nine years ago,
was to drive up to and see our children's lot. I thought it would
last a good many years, but it was about full,