DEAD LITTLE ONES.

"The harp of heaven

Had lacked its least, but not its meanest string,
Had children not been taught to play upon it."

BEREAVED mother! take comfort in the thought that your little ones are safe in the heavenly home. A father once said, "I have had six children; and I bless God that they are all either with Christ, or in Christ, and my mind is now at rest concerning them. My desire was that they should have served Christ on earth; but if God will choose to have them rather serve him in heaven, I have nothing to object to it."

Mother! listen! Two dear children were one day seen very ill in the same room; the oldest of the two was heard frequently attempting to teach the younger one to pronounce the word "Hallelujah!" but without success; the dear little one died before he could repeat it. When his brother was told of his death, he was silent for a moment, and then looking up at his mother, said, “Johnny can say 'Hallelujah' now, mother!" In a few hours the two little brothers were united in heaven, singing "Hallelujah!" together. Mothers! many of your

little ones could not sing the praises of their Redeemer, while resting in your arms, but they have been taught the music of the upper temple now, and they sing among the celestial choristers!

DEATH'S GENTLEST STROKE.

THE Soul of the cherub child, that dies on its mother's breast, wings its way to heaven, unconscious of the joys it might share here, as well as of the many, many miseries of which it might be partaker. This can hardly be called death. It is but the calm, soft ebbing of the gentle tide of life, to flow no more in the troubled ocean of existence; it is but the removal of a fair creat"too pure for earthly stay," -to make one of that bright band of cherubim which encompasses in glory and in joy the throne of the living God.

ure,

THEY only truly mourn the dead, who endeavor so to live as to insure a reunion in heaven.

THE CHANGELING.

I HAD a little daughter,
And she was given to me
To lead me gently backward
To the Heavenly Father's knee,
That I, by the force of nature,
Might in some dim wise divine
The depth of His infinite patience
To this wayward soul of mine.

I knew not how others saw her,
But to me she was wholly fair,
And the light of the heaven she came from
Still lingered and gleamed in her hair;
For it was as wavy and golden,

And as many changes took,
As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples
On the yellow bed of a brook.

To what can I liken her smiling
Upon me, her kneeling lover?
How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,
And dimpled her wholly over,
Till her outstretched hands smiled also,

And I almost seemed to see

The very heart of her mother

Sending sun through her veins to me!

She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth,
And it hardly seemed a day,
When a troop of wandering angels
Stole my little daughter away ;
Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari
But loosed the hampering strings,
And when they had opened her cage door,
My little bird used her wings.

And they have left in her stead a changeling,

A little angel child,

That seems like her bud in full blossom,

And smiles as she never smiled: When I wake in the morning, I see it

Where she always used to lie,

And I feel as weak as a violet
Alone 'neath the awful sky.

As weak, yet as trustful also;
For the whole year long I see
All the wonders of faithful nature
Still worked for the love of me;
Winds wander, and dews drip earthward,
Rain falls, suns rise and set,

Earth whirls, and all but to prosper
A poor little violet.

This child is not mine as the first was,

I cannot sing it to rest,

I cannot lift it up fatherly

And bliss it upon my breast;

Yet it lies in my little one's cradle,
And sits in my little one's chair,

And the light of the heaven she's gone to
Transfigures its golden hair.

J. R. LOWELL.

NO BITTER TEARS FOR THEE.

No bitter tears for thee be shed,
Blossom of being! seen and gone!
With flowers alone we strew thy bed,
O, ever dear, departed one!
Whose all of life, a rosy ray,
Blushed into dawn, and passed away.

O! had'st thou still on earth remained,
Vision of beauty! fair as brief!
How soon thy brightness had been stained
With passion or with grief!

Now, not a sullying breath can rise,
To dim thy glory in the skies.