TO A BEREAVED FATHER. I CANNOT, I dare not say, weep not. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus, and surely, he allows you to weep; surely, there is a “needs be" that you feel a heaviness under such a trial. But O, let hope and joy mitigate your heaviness. I know not how this, or a former trial, shall work for your good, but it is enough that God knows. He that said, "All things shall work together for good to them that love God," excepts not from this promise the sorest trial. You devoted your son to God; you cannot doubt that he accepted the surrender. If he has been hid in the chamber of the grave from the evil of sin, and from the evil of suffering, let not your eye be evil, when God is good. What you chiefly wished for him, and prayed on his behalf, was spiritual and heavenly blessings. If the greatest thing you wished for is accomplished, at the season and in the manner Infinite Wisdom saw best, refuse not to be comforted; you know not what work and joy have been waiting for him in that world, where God's "servants shall serve him." Should you sorrow immoderately when you have such ground of hope that he, and his other parent, are rejoicing in what you lament? I know that nature will feel; and I believe suppressing its emotions in such cases is not profitable, either to soul or body; but, I trust, though you mourn, God will keep you from murmuring, and that you shall have to glory in your tribulation and infirmity, while the power of Christ is manifested thereby. ERSKINE. THE DEATH LULLABY. SLEEP, baby, sleep ! In quiet sleep. Sleep, baby, sleep! Sweetly thine eye is closing, Sleep, angel baby, sleep! Not in thy cradle bed Shall rest thy little head, THE ALPINE SHEEP. AFTER our child's untroubled breath And friends came round with us to weep This story of the Alpine sheep Was told to us by one we love : "They, in the valley's sheltering care, Soon crop the meadow's tender prime, And when the sod grows brown and bare, The shepherd strives to make them climb, "To airy shelves of pastures green, That hang along the mountain's side, Where grass and flowers together lean, And down through mist the sunbeams slide. "But naught can tempt the timid things That steep and rugged path to try, Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings, And seared below the pastures lie, "Till in his arms their lambs he takes, Along the dizzy verge to go, Then, heedless of the lifts and breaks, "And in those pastures lifted fair, More dewy soft than lowland mead, The shepherd drops his tender care, And sheep and lambs together feed." This parable, by nature breathed, A blissful vision through the night Holding our little lamb asleep; MRS. MARIA LOWELL. THE DEATH OF A DAUGHTER. THE Sweetest voice is hushed, That foot is on my heart, It mangles every part, And lays me desolate; The pain of more than death is mine, How drear the household hearth! There is no light on earth, To dissipate the gloom. Before we prized them, joys are fled, · Away beyond the tomb, Sweet spirit, thou art flown, And blighting is unknown; My faith would trace thine upward way, |