What bliss is born of sorrow!

'Tis never sent in vain

The heavenly surgeon maims to save,
He gives no useless pain.

Our God, to call us homeward,
His only Son sent down :

And now, still more to tempt our hearts,
Has taken up our own.

THOMAS WARD

EPITAPH ON FOUR INFANTS.

BOLD infidelity! turn pale and die;
Beneath this stone, four infants' ashes lie;
Say, are they lost, or saved?

If death's by sin, they sinned, because they're

here;

If heaven's by works, in heaven they can't ap

pear.

Reason, ah! how depraved!

Revere the sacred page, the knot 's untied; They died, for Adam sinned:- they live, for Jesus died.

REV. R. ROBINSON.

CHILDREN TAKEN IN MERCY.

Ir may be your affliction is the loss of children. Weil, have you not read such a message sent to a godly man, as that in 1 Samuel 2: 33 ? "The son of thine whom I shall not cut off shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart." It is possible that, if thy child had lived, it might have made thee the father of a fool, or (that I may speak to the sex that is most unable to bear this trial) the mother of a shame. It is a very ordinary thing for one living child to occasion more trouble than ten dead ones. However, your spiritual interests may be exceedingly injured by the temporal delights which you desire; you may rue what you wish, because it may be an idol, which will render your souls like the "barren heath in the wilderness before the Lord." It was the very direful calamity of the ancient Israelites, in Psalm 106: 15. "The Lord gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls." A lean soul, a wretched soul, a soul pining away in its iniquities, is oftentimes the effect of those fine things which we dote upon. It is a blasted soul that sets up a creature in the room, on the throne of the great God, that gives unto a crea

ture those affections and cares which are due unto the great God alone. Such idolatry the soul is too frequently by prosperity seduced into. We are told, in Proverbs 1: 32: "The prosperity of fools destroys them;" many a fool is thus destroyed. O fearful case! A full table and a lean soul! A high title and a lean soul! A numerous posterity and a soul even like the kine in Pharaoh's dream! Madness is in our hearts if we tremble not at this; soul calamities are sore calamities.

-

Let not then the death of your children cause any inconsolable grief. The loss of children, did I say nay, let me recall so harsh a word. The children we count lost, are not so. The death of our children is not the loss of our children. They are not lost, but given back; they are not lost, but sent before.

COTTON MATHER.

AN INFANT'S DEATH.

"BE-rather than be called-a child of God,"
Death whispered. With assenting nod,
Its head upon its mother's breast,
The baby bowed without demur;
Of the kingdom of the blest
Possessor-not inheritor.

COLERIDGE.

LOVE STRONG IN DEATH.

THE brother of two sisters

Drew painfully his breath;

And a strange fear came o'er him,
For love was strong in death.
The fire of fatal fever

Burned darkly on his cheek;

And often to his mother

He spake, or tried to speak.

He said, "The quiet moonlight, Beneath the shadowed hill, Seemed dreaming of good angels, While all the woods were still:

I felt as if from slumber

I never could awake:

Oh, mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!

"A cold, dead weight is on me,-
A heavy weight, like lead;
My hands and feet seem sinking
Quite through my little bed!
I am so tired and weary,

With weariness I ache:
Oh, mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!

"Some little token give me,
That I may kiss in sleep,
To make me feel I'm near you,
And bless you, though I weep.
My sisters say I'm better-

But, then, their heads they shake:
Oh, mother, give me something
To cherish for your sake!

"Why can't I see the poplars,
Why can't I see the hill,
Where, dreaming of good angels,
The moonbeams lay so still?
Why can't I see you, mother?
I surely am awake:

Oh, haste, and give me something
To cherish for your sake!"

The little bosom heaves not:

The fire hath left his cheek:

The one chord is it broken?

The strong chord - could it break?

Ah, yes! the loving spirit

Hath winged its flight away!

The mother and two sisters

Look down on lifeless clay.

EBENEZER ELLIOTT.