n the clouds
of heaven, with power and great glory.

As we commit a Christian friend to the earth, and as we visit his
resting place, let us think that now, the anticipation of the rising
from the dead is, to him, the great object of personal expectation and
hope. The time is not far distant, when, in heaven, we, in like manner,
shall be filled with that expectation, as we look down upon the places
where our bodies await the signal of the resurrection.

Let not the image of our friends, as sick and in pain, occupy our
thoughts. "For the former things are passed away." Their language, as
they call back to us, is, "As dying, and behold, we live."

We who have children and friends that sleep in Jesus, and who expect
ourselves to be, with them, and with one another, children of the
resurrection, will soon know each other in the presence of Christ. We
shall have become reunited in the presence of each other to our loved
and lost ones. The great question then will be, How did we fulfil God's
special and benevolent designs in our trials? If we revisit scenes of
deep affliction where death and the grave usurped their dread power over
us for a season, we shall remember our misery as waters that pass away.
In hope of this, we will patiently and joyfully labor and suffer. "The
night is far spent; the day is at hand."

* * * * *

On a pleasant morning in April, three months from the time of her
decease, the mortal part of the dear child whose name gives this book
its title, was removed from its temporary resting place in the city, to
her grave in the family cemetery. As the hands of her father, which
baptized her, laid her to rest in her sweet and peaceful bed, and the
simple stone, with her chosen "lilies of the valley and rose buds"
carved on it, was set up,--the gift of one whose consanguinity was made
by him the delicate ground of claim to do this touching and abiding act
of love,--it seemed as though, in some sense, there had already been
brought to pass the saying which is written, "Death is swallowed up in
victory."

But in the night, a gentle April shower fell; and as the thoughts were
carried by it, spellbound, from the chamber where she was born, to her
newly-made grave,--that night being the first of her sleeping there,--it
seemed very plain that, though Death had been conquered, the Grave still
kept possession of the field.--Christ "will be thy destruction," O
Grave, as he has been