I remembered
the day when I could have said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

"They rest in Jesus, and are blest,
How sweet their slumbers are."

But the happy day was gone, and I was dumb in the presence of the
mourners.

7. I was called, on another occasion, to visit a friend, a brother
skeptic, who was sick and likely to die. I had often visited him when he
was well, and we had managed, on those occasions, to interest or amuse
each other; but now we were helpless. Both were in sorrow, and neither
could console his brother. And there we were, looking mournfully on each
other in the face of death, speechless and comfortless. I am horrified
when I think of the dreadful position in which I was placed on those
solemn occasions. It seemed to me as if I had been enchanted all those
dreary days by some malignant demon, and made the sport of his infernal
cruelty. My friend, like myself, had been a Christian in his earlier
days, and had rejoiced in the assurance of God's love and favor, and in
hopes of future and eternal blessedness; and now he was passing away in
utter cheerlessness and hopelessness. He died, and I followed his
remains to the grave. I spoke; but I had no great comforting truths with
which to cheer the sad hearts of his weeping kindred. I looked down,
with his disconsolate widow, and his sorrowing children, into the dark
cold vault, but could say not a single word of a better life. We
sorrowed as those who have no hope.

8. While I was in Nebraska my mother died. Like my father, who had died
some years before, she had been a Christian from her early days; a very
happy one; and she continued a Christian to the last. She was one of the
most affectionate and devoted mothers that ever lived. She had eleven
children. The eldest one died when he was twenty-one, after having spent
a number of years, young as he was, as an able and useful minister of
Christ. He died a happy death. The remaining ten were all permitted to
grow up to manhood and womanhood, and my mother had the happiness at one
time, an unspeakable happiness to her, to see them all, with one
exception, devoted to the service of God, and several of them engaged
as preachers of the Gospel. They were joyful days to her when she could
get them all together, as she sometimes did, to sing with her the sweet
hymns of praise and gratitude, of hope and rapture, which had cheered
her so often during the years of her pilgrimage. And now she was go