ext is
overwhelmingly dramatic. Oh, that is a cord that is not snapped,
though pulled on by many decades! Though when the little child expired
the parents may not have been more than twenty-five years of age, and
now they are seventy-five, yet the vision of the cradle, and the
childish face, and the first utterances of the infantile lips are
fresh to-day, in spite of the passage of a half century. Joseph was as
fresh in Jacob's memory as ever, though at seventeen years of age the
boy had disappeared from the old homestead. I found in our family
record the story of an infant that had died fifty years before, and I
said to my parents: "What is this record, and what does it mean?"
Their chief answer was a long deep sigh. It was yet to them

A VERY TENDER SORROW.

What does that all mean? Why, it means our children departed are ours
yet, and that cord of attachment reaching across the years will hold
us until it brings us together in the palace, as Jacob and Joseph were
brought together. That is one thing that makes old people die happy.
They realize it is reunion with those from whom they have long been
separated.

I am often asked as pastor--and every pastor is asked the
question--"Will my children be

CHILDREN IN HEAVEN,

and forever children?" Well, there was no doubt a great change in
Joseph from the time Jacob lost him, and the time when Jacob found
him--between the boy seventeen years of age and the man in midlife,
his forehead developed with a great business estate; but Jacob was
glad to get back Joseph anyhow, and it did not make much difference to
the old man whether the boy looked older, or looked younger. And it
will be enough joy for that parent if he can get back that son, that
daughter, at the gate of heaven, whether the departed loved one shall
come a cherub or in full-grown angelhood. There must be a change
wrought by that celestial climate and by those supernal years, but it
will only be from loveliness to more loveliness, and from health to
more radiant health. O parent, as you think of the darling panting and
white in membranous croup, I want you to know it will be gloriously
bettered in that land where there has never been a death and where all
the inhabitants will live on in the great future as long as God!
Joseph was Joseph notwithstanding the palace, and your child will be
your child notwithstanding all the raining splendors of everlasting
noon. What

A THRILLING VISIT

was that of t