ugh wasted by disease. He was tenacious of life, and
lingered long in the embrace of the pale messenger, although the eye
was dim and the wrist pulseless.

The father, mother, sister, and brother, and grandmother, sat watching
the quivering flame that would rally for a few moments, then wane
again. Near by sat the nurse, bearing upon her lap the little twin
sister, who had her birth at the same hour with him, and who, like him
too, was passing away.

How soon they wearied of life, those frail, gentle ones, and the angel
came to bear them to a brighter, holier world, where the purity of
their sinless spirits should remain untarnished by the blight and
pollutions of earth.

We watched till the sun went down in the western sky, dim and shadowy,
enshrined long before his setting by a yellow autumnal haze, that cast
a melancholy subduing shade over the face of decaying nature that hung
out her fading flowers and withered leaves, as a token of the sad
change that was passing in her realm, while the evening breeze, as it
swayed the branches of the trees, bearing many a leaf to the ground,
and drifting them before his melancholy breath, seemed sighing a sad
requiem over departed glory.

Such a scene, at such an hour, spoke forcibly of the varied changes
and uncertainties of life, and as we looked upon the marble paleness
of the dear children, and compared them with the withering flowers
beneath the window, we felt that human life is but a flower that
perisheth.

In this instance, the worm had sapped the bud ere the brighter tints
were developed. As we stood in that chamber of death, we felt that God
was present, that He who had given life was about to take it back to
reign with Him, and though the deep fountains of grief were stirred,
there came a "still, small voice," heard through the silence of
that lone room, "Be still, and know that I am God," and we bowed in
submission to the Divine will.

The mist broke from the face of the sun, and his last setting beams
looked forth clear and bright upon the earth, tinging the fleecy
clouds with gold and purple, and they looked like gorgeous piles
of molten gold, over hung with crimson purple curtains, forming a
sumptuous canopy to decorate the heavens.

Even so with the babe, life's feeble taper seemed to revive and emit a
brilliant glare for a moment, the lips parted, the eyes wandered from
object to object, and seemed to survey all the room contained, gazing
most earnestly