"Look at the chrysalis, my love, An empty shell it lies; Now raise your wondering glance above, To where yon insect flies!" "O yes, mamma! how very gay "O, mother, now I know full well, If God that worm can change, And draw it from this broken cell, On golden wings to range, "How beautiful will brother be, When God shall give him wings, Above this dying world to flee, CAROLINE GILMAN. LOVE. GOD gives us love. Sometimes to love TENNYSON. EVA. DRY thy tears for holy Eva, In the better home of Eva All is light and peace with Eva; Weep no more for happy Eva, Care and pain and weariness, Lost in love so measureless. Gentle Eva, loving Eva, O for faith like thee, sweet Eva, JOHN G. WHITTIER. HEAVEN. WHY, day by day, this painful questioning? I know that it is well. I know that there (0 where ?) thou hast protectors, guardians, friends, If such be needed: angel companies Move round thee: mighty spirits lead thy thoughts To founts of knowledge which we never saw. Disturbs not nor divides. All this I know. ALFORD. SEVEN YEARS IN HEAVEN. HE has been there seven years! A week of years: Sabbaths all, and holy, happy days, have made up the years that glide away unmarked by change of scene or season, in that land where there is no night, no cold, but "sacred, high, eternal noon." Year after year rolls slowly away on earth, and lengthens the long interval over which we look, to the time when he was with us here. We have grown old since we saw him. But the memory of our first buried babe is as fresh and green as the grass was on his little grave when last we watered it with tears. "They only who He has not grown old. have lost a child in infancy are sure of a babe forever." They do not grow old in heaven. They grow in knowledge and holiness and happiness. But there is no succession of time in eternity. When we think of one having been "seven years in heaven," we think of the time that has past with us without him. He is conscious of no successive years in that world where there is no sun nor moon: nor stars, but in the crown of Him who is the light of heaven. Years belong to us; and they have been long and wearisome since he went to his Father's house on high. He was the light of our house, 66 Our a well-spring of pleasure;" a joy and solace; bright, beautiful, blessing and blest; and when he died, our hearts died with him, or lived only to bleed on year after year, each passing one being marked by this memorial, this returning anniversary of our dear child's death. hearts do live for they yearn after that buried boy with longing that no language can express; they bleed as if the wound was of yesterday; they ache when we think of him, (and when can we not think of him?) we mourn like Rachel, and the sorrow seems no lighter, no less, than it did seven years ago. I think it is a heavier sorrow, a sorer pain to bear. I have shed more tears for him this seventh year of grief, than in any former year of the seven. He would have been ten years old had he lived with us until now! He might have been as good in his youth, as he was lovely in his infancy; and then what a glorious being he would have been, now standing by my side as I write these words in sadness to his memory, or sitting here and reading of heaven, and talking to me of the world above the skies. What a glorious being, did I say, he would |
