17 



and joy as well might he be of his father's heart, is 

 nigh unto death. The faint breathings of a tired frame 

 announce that the last sleep is drawing near. With 

 kind looks to all, and with a firm faith in Christ, the 

 youthful pilgrim closes his eyes on the world. 



Household grief at such a time may not be inter- 

 meddled with ; but theirs is grief which loses not the 

 joy of Christian hope, and which looks away from earth 

 to Christ, resurrection, and glory. As the church bell, 

 which for two centuries has knelled the work of death 

 in that retired Puritan village,* struck on that sabbath 

 its thirty notes, all knew the meaning. Fathers, 

 mothers, young men, maidens, mingled their sympathies 

 and ejaculations ; not a few their tears. The venerable 

 pastor's heart thrilled with peculiar tenderness, for a very 

 dear one of his flock had panted away life by the side 

 of the spring blessed be God, of the living spring ! 



The young man, pale in death, was the eldest son. God 

 knows the swelling tides in the human heart. He im- 

 planted natural affection, sropy^v, the vehement indwellings 

 and outgoings of a father's soul. Parents of a mortal race, 

 ye receive your children for death ! The joy which wel- 

 comes them into the world has a kindred keenness of 



* The custom is still kept up, in many towns of New England, of 

 tolling the bell when a person dies. The number of strokes indicate 

 the age of the deceased. 



