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. 66 He has not grown old. They only who 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 have been? Rather let me say, what a glorious being is he now! Seven years there have been more and better than seventy times seven thousand years on earth. I know it. God help me to admit that it is better far, for him, for me, for all, that he should have spent them there than here. For what attainments must that soul have made that for these seven years past has been pursuing the career of heavenly study the mysteries of celestial learning and celestial love! I do not know whether he prefers to be with seraphs or cherubim the former are said to love and the latter to know the more. I think that he wanders with both, and finds congenial spirits in John and Paul. He has been seven years with them, and with the Saviour who took him to his arms from ours. Now he must be far advanced in knowledge and in holiness. With such companions, such instructors, how wise and good he must be! If he should come back to us, he could find no company with whom he would be at home. Within the last year, one whom he revered and loved, his aged grandsire, has gone to heaven. The child has welcomed him there: taken him by the hand, and led him to fountains of living waters, and charmed his ear with heavenly melodies, and become his teacher in the things of the kingdom. It must be brighter and sweeter now for both, that they can sit together in heavenly places, and speak of the wonders of earth and heaven, as they now appear to their opened eyes. Sixty years were between them when they were here together: there the child had seven years the start of his grandsire, and leads him upward to the sources of Infinite wisdom and love. I should be glad to see them there. I should have been glad to see them when they met in the streets of the New Jerusalem! to have heard the cry of joy from the child, as he flew into the patriarch's bosom, and hung on his breast, and kissed his brow with glory crowned. Well, we shall all be there soon. Thank God for that. A few more days of darkness and the morning cometh, the morning of eternal day. "Then let our songs abound, And every tear be dry; We 're marching through Immanuel's ground, This shall be the last time that we will keep the anniversary of our child's release from earth with mourning. Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory over death; not our own death only, for that is one of the least of trials; but over the death of those we love; causing us to triumph in tribulation; so that we can say, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. REV. SAMUEL IRENEUS PRIME. THE MOURNING MOTHER. O! WHO shall tell what fearful pangs Bereaved one! I may not chide Thy tears and bitter sobbing, Weep on! 't will cool that burning brow, To whom no hope is given, -- Snatched from the world, its sins and snares, Thy infant rests in heaven. BISHOP DOANE. |