I cannot shed a tear, and I must find relief in writing, or I shall lose my senses. My noble, beautiful boy! My first-born son! And to think that my delicate little Una still lives, and that death has claimed that bright, glad creature who was the sunshine of our home!
But let me not forget my mercies. Let me not forget that I have a precious husband and two darling children, and my kind, sympathizing mother left to me. Let me not forget how many kind friends gathered about us in our sorrow. Above all let me remember God's loving-kindness and tender mercy. He has not left us to the bitterness of a grief that refuses and disdains to be comforted. We believe in Him, we love Him, we worship as we never did before. My dear Ernest has felt this sorrow to his heart's core. But he has not for one moment questioned the goodness or the love of our Father in thus taking from us the child who promised to be our greatest earthly joy. Our consent to God's will has drawn us together very closely, together we bear the yoke in our youth, together we pray and sing praises in the very midst of our tears "I was dumb with silence because Thou didst it."
SEPT. The old pain and cough have come back with the first cool nights of this month. Perhaps I am going to my darling—I do not know I am certainly very feeble. Consenting to suffer does not annul the suffering. Such a child could not go hence without rending and tearing its way out of the heart that loved it. This world is wholly changed to me and I walk in it like one in a dream. And dear Ernest is changed, too. He says little, and is all kindness and goodness to me, but I can see here is a wound that will never be healed. I am confined to my room now with nothing do but to think, think, think. I do not believe God has taken our child in mere displeasure, but cannot but feel that this affliction might not have been necessary if I had not so chafed and writhed and secretly repined at the way in which my home was invaded, and at our galling poverty. God has exchanged the one discipline for the other; and oh, how far more bitter is this cup!
Oct. 4.-My darling boy would have been six years old to-day. Ernest still keeps me shut up, but he rather urges my seeing a friend now and. People say very strange things in the way of consolation. I begin to think that a tender clasp of the hand is about all one can give to the afflicted. One says I must not grieve, because my child is better off in heaven. Yes, he is better off; I know it, I feel it; but I miss him none the less. Others say he might have grown up to be a bad man and broken my heart. Perhaps he might, but I cannot make myself believe that likely. One lady asked me if this affliction was not a rebuke of my idolatry of my darling; and another, if I had not been in a cold, worldly state, needing this severe blow on that account.
But I find no consolation or support in the remarks. My comfort is in my perfect faith in the goodness and love of my Father, my certainty that He had a reason in thus afflicting me that I should admire and adore if I knew what it was. And in the midst of my sorrow I have had and do have a delight in Him hitherto unknown, so that sometimes this room in which I am a prisoner seems like the very gate of heaven.
MAY.-A long winter in my room, and all sorts of painful remedies and appliances and deprivations. And now I am getting well, and drive out every day. Martha sends her carriage, and mother goes with me. Dear mother! How nearly perfect she is! I never saw a sweeter face, nor ever heard sweeter expressions of faith in God, and love to all about her than hers. She has been my tower strength all through these weary months; and she has shared my sorrow and made it her own.
I can see that dear Ernest's affliction and this prolonged anxiety about me have been a heavenly benediction to him I am sure that every mother whose sick child he visits will have a sympathy he could not have given while all our own little ones were alive and well. I thank God that He has thus increased my dear husband's usefulness as I think that He has mine also. How tenderly I already feel towards all suffering children, and how easy it will be now to be patient with them!
KEENE, N. H. JULY 12.-It is a year ago this day that the brightest sunshine faded out of our lives, and our beautiful boy was taken from us. I have been tempted to spend this anniversary in bitter tears and lamentations. For oh, this sorrow is not healed by time! I feel it more and more. But I begged God when I first awoke this morning not to let me so dishonor and grieve Him. I may suffer, I must suffer, He means it, He wills it, but let it be without repining, without gloomy despondency. The world is full of sorrow; it is not I alone who taste its bitter draughts, nor have I the only right to a sad countenance. Oh, for patience to bear on, cost what it may!
"Cheerfully and gratefully I lay myself and all that I am or own at the feet of Him who redeemed me with His precious blood, engaging to follow Him, bearing the cross He lays upon me." This is the least I can do, and I do it while my heart lies broken and bleeding at His feet.
My dear little Una has improved somewhat in health, but I am never free from anxiety about her. She is my milk-white lamb, my dove, my fragrant flower. One cannot look in her pure face without a sense of peace and rest. She is the sentinel who voluntarily guards my door when I am engaged at my devotions; she is my little comforter when I am sad, my companion and friend at all times. I talk to her of Christ, and always have done, just as I think of Him, and as if I expected sympathy from her in my love to Him. It was the same with my darling Ernest. If I required a little self-denial, I said cheerfully, "This is hard, but doing it for our best Friend sweetens it," and their alacrity was pleasant to see. Ernest threw his whole soul into whatever he did, and sometimes when engaged in play would hesitate a little when directed to do something else, such as carrying a message for me, and the like. But if I said, "If you do this cheerfully and pleasantly, my darling, you do it for Jesus, and that will make Him smile upon you," he would invariably yield at once.