Not in anger did he take the life that was dearer to him than his own. Was the burden of his sins lying heavily against his heart? Who shall tell his agony when he saw the blood flow! Who shall say how his soul was wrung with grief as the reproachful face of his much-loved child was turned towards him in death!
The wild deer flew past, but he saw them not. The serpent glided by as it did in Paradise, but its stealthy motion was unobserved. The sweet song-birds raised their notes to the sky, but they all fell unheeded on the ear of the father who had taken the life of his son.
Raising the form of the boy in his arms, he bore it carefully to the shore, and casting it where the current hurried impetuously on, the dead boy was borne along to share the lot of many who will rest in their ocean grave, till the land and the sea shall alike give up their dead.
When I reflect on the tradition of the Sioux, that once only has human life been offered in sacrifice, and then a father took the life of his son—when in the quiet night I mind me of those whose destiny seems now to be in our power for good or evil, I remember that when the world was new, Abraham, in holy faith, yet with a breaking heart, led his much-loved child—the child of hope and promise, to sacrifice his life in obedience to the command of God. Can you not see his lip quiver and his cheek turn pale as he lays him on the altar? Can you not hear the throbbings of his heart as he binds him to the wood?
Abraham's son was spared, but I mind me of another sacrifice, where God spared not his own Son, but yielded him, the pure and sinless, a sacrifice for the guilt of all.
A LULLABY.
BY MRS. MARY EASTMAN.