CHAPTER VIII.

TOTAL WRECK OF EARTHLY HAPPINESS

STRUGGLE

FOR LIFE TO LABOR FOR GOD-VICTORY NOT TO

BE WON IN SOLITUDE
THE SOUTH.

WINTER SOJOURN IN

"I have done at length with dreaming; henceforth, O thou soul of mine!
Thou must take up sword and gauntlet, waging warfare most divine.
Life is struggle, combat, victory! wherefore have I slumbered on,
With my forces all unmarshaled, with my weapons all undrawn?

O how many a glorious record had the angels of me kept
Had I done instead of rested, had I warred instead of wept!
Yet, my soul, look not behind thee! Thou hast work to do at last.
Let the brave toil of the present overarch the crumbled past.
Build thy great acts high and higher, build them on the conquered sod,
Where thy weakness first fell bleeding and thy prayers arose to God."

No one save those who have loved and lost a wife so lovely and so devoted, and a child so endearing and attractive, can measure the depth of suffering caused by this double bereavement. Nor could it even then be sounded except by a nature kindred to his; not surely by those whose hearts are ever ready to bud and blossom anew after the blighting of their first flowers, for his love, like the aloe, could bloom

on earth but once. There was a depth, a spirituality in his affection that followed its loved ones even unto heaven, giving consolation in the midst of suffering by glimpses of future enjoyment in another and a better state of being.

The "dear Willie" whose infantile charms he so touchingly describes in his journal was a child well fitted to rouse his father from his protracted sorrow. He was beautiful to look upon, singularly engaging in his ways, and gave early tokens of mental precocity, so attractive to parental pride. It was the father's greatest pleasure to endeavor to imprint on its opening mind some idea of the mother it had lost ere it knew her. He would take his boy in his arms, stand before the portrait of his beloved wife, and talk to him of his "dear mamma," teaching him to call the picture by that endearing name over and over again, so that the word might be always associated in his memory with her image. This may in some measure account for the incident given in the journal, as related by the nurse. But what do we know of the mysteries of the spirit, even of childhood? Things stranger than this have been witnessed at the death-bed. And the following strikingly similar case has since been met with in a religious paper:

"A little girl," says the writer, "in a family of my acquaintance, a lovely and precious child, lost her mother at an age too early to fix the loved features in her remembrance. She was as frail as beautiful, and as the bud of her heart unfolded, it seemed as if it was, by that mother's prayers, to turn instinctively heavenward. The sweet, conscientious, prayer-loving child was the idol of the bereaved family. She would lie upon the lap of the friend who took a mother's care of her, and winding a wasted arm about her neck, would say, 'Now tell me about mamma; and when the oft-told tale had been repeated, would softly ask, 'Take me into the parlor ; I want to see mamma.'

"The request was never refused, and the affectionate child would lie for hours contentedly gazing on her mother's portrait. But

'Pale and wan she grew, and weakly,

Bearing all her pain so meekly

That to them she still grew dearer

As the trial hour drew nearer.'

"The hour came at last, and the weeping neighbors assembled to see the little one die. The dew of death was already in the flower as its life was going down. The little chest heaved faintly, spasmodically.

"Do you know me darling?' sobbed close to her ear the voice that was dearest, but it awoke no

answer.

"All at once a brightness, as if from the upper world, burst over the child's colorless countenance. The eyelids flashed open, the lips parted, the wan cuddling hands flew up in the last impulsive effort, as she looked piercingly into the far above; 'Mamma!' she cried with surprise and transport in her tone, and passed with that breath into her mother's bosom. If I had never believed in the ministration of departed ones before, I could not doubt it now.

"Peace I leave with you,' said the wisest Spirit that ever passed from earth to heaven. Let us be at peace amid the spirit mysteries and questionings on which our eyes shall soon open in the light of eternity."

Like this child, little Willie had only known his mother from her pictured resemblance; like her, he had often looked on it with the eager glance of inquiring infancy, and he too had learned to call this his "dear mamma." The Bible tells us of the ministering spirits who minister to the heirs of salvation; then surely we should not turn with incredulity from attested incidents such as these. There is a consola

tion so sweet in the thought that departing spirits, in the painful struggle of the body's mortal agony, should be permitted to see through their mental vision the bright celestial messengers waiting to bear them to heaven, that the heart will cling to it in faith, even though the sceptical reason should coldly doubt its truth. This little incident attending the last hours of little Willie, shed a soothing balm upon the sorrowing hearts of those that loved him. And how abundant the consolation to his bereaved father, who says: "He thought he saw his mother. May it not be so? Was not his mother's spirit watching over her babe, waiting to convoy his spirit home to God?"

Another touching incident in the short life of this dear child is still remembered. It is not recorded by his father, for it may not have been told him, for fear of adding to his distress. During his last sickness he was taken out to ride every day, lying on a pillow. The last morning that he was thus borne in the arms of his nurse to the carriage he looked up, and seeing the branches of the trees waving to and fro in the breeze, he lisped out in faint, sweet tones, "Trees, 'Illy! by-by!" and lifting his little wasted hand from the pillow waved to them an answering "by