How slow to learn the dictates of His love;
That, hard by nature and of stubborn will,
A life of ease would make them, harder still;
Called for a cloud to darken all their years,
And said, ’Go, spend them in the vale of tears!’"
Who will not admit that it is an act of real kindness for God to remove little children from this world, and at once take them as His own in heaven? This is surely an act of His mercy, and for their benefit. It arrests them from the perils and tribulations of mature life; it makes their pilgrimage through this vale of tears, of short duration; they escape thereby the bitter cup of actual sin, and the mental and moral agonies of death. It is well with them. How true are the following beautiful verses on the death of children, from the pen of John. Q. Adams:—
"Sure, to the mansions of the blest
When infant innocence ascends,
Some angel brighter than the rest
The spotless spirit’s flight attends.