Bereavement

ONE-HALF of the families of the earth sit at this time in dumb amazement at the afflictive providences of God. Bereavement for the most part is inexplicable. Why is the husband taken in mid-life before the children are educated and reared? Why does the mother go away into eternity at the time she is most needed here? Why must the young man die at the close of a collegiate course that was intended to fit him for great usefulness? Why not let us all die of old ae after our work is fully done and life has no more attractions?

A few months a°:o there were united in the bonds of marriage two of my friends. Amid a great throng of congratulating people they started life. A bright home was set up. God was in the dwelling. Business prospects opened. Friends without number gathered around him in the world and in the church. But on the way home from the store his foot slips, and without consciousness enough to grasp in farewell the hand that he had on the 20th of June taken in pledge, he goes away from the earth for ever. Men of the world, explain that! Human philosophy, solve this riddle!

I have just returned from a scene just as inexplicable. My sister, in mid-life, with a large family of children in every possible need of her council and tenderness, and holding the responsible position of a pastor’s wife, is called heavenward from as fine a sphere of usefulness as any one could possibly hold.

What her life was you may judge from her dying experiences. She said in her last moments, “It is nothing for a Christian to die. One minute here, and the next with Jesus. Oh what a religion we have! We do immediately pass into glory. Some say that dying people have doubts, but they do not. How can they doubt with such a precious Jesus? I see him now! He encloses my children in his arms of love, and they will all be saved. It was a tremendous struggle to give them up, but I know that they will all be saved. I am crossing the river, but I do not fear. I will shut up my eyes now and go to sleep and wake up in glory! Good-bye /”

Her life had been in harmony with all she said. She sang more than any person I ever knew. She was always singing. I remember in my boyhood days of sometimes getting tired of this perpetual music, and of saying to her, “Mary, do stop singing!” but she would not stop. She never will stop.

Why was such a Christian sister and wife and mother transported? Strike a light, if you can, over this mystery. Analyze, dissect, philosophize, a thousand years, and you cannot by any human device open one shutter. But in the gospel the sun rises. Light gradually breaks in as the morning looks through the cracks of the door and the lattice — not full day, but a promise of high noon.

Heaven must be populated. There is not so much room on the Western prairies and table-lands for more settlers as there is room in the upper country for more people. Heaven has only one want, and that is of greater population. It is sparsely inhabited yet, as compared with its future citizenship. The crowns are not half taken, nor the robes half worn.

Heaven is like a house in which a levee is to be held at ten o’clock. At nine o’clock the rooms are all ablaze with lights, and the servants, gloved and vestured, are waiting to open the doors. The rooms of our Father’s house are illumined, and the chamberlains are ready, and the table is spread. A few have entered, but heaven is not yet fully begun. They have only sung the opening piece.

Now, how shall God fill up his house except by subtracting from this world? The continent of heaven is to be peopled from the surrounding islands. If so, I can understand why God should take our young brother rather than some of his comrades not half so useful, and my sister rather than a thousand women who are of no Christian service.

Why, in almost all cases it is the loveliest one of the family that is transported. Heaven wants the best. Why should not the great capital of the universe have the pick of everything? The halfand-half Christians will get into glory, but they need be kept here a good while yet for polishing. Those who are ready God takes. The earlier inhabitants of a place make the greatest impression upon its future character, and so heaven ought to have the best first.

Besides that, if there were a shipwreck, and you went out with a life-boat, and you find some of your friends clinging to the hulk, you would be apt to take them ashore first. God seems to set his especial love on some; and when he finds them shivering amid this world’s temptations and sorrows, he first lifts them out of the breakers.

Oh, weep not for the Christian dead! If they go through long sickness, in which there is opportunity for parting admonition, thank God for that. But if by sudden transition, and they have not a moment of consciousness, thank God that they escape the exhaustion of sickness, and that from the health of earth they stepped into the health of heaven. Long not for the last words that were not spoken.

If the life has been right, the death cannot be wrong. If the banquet has been rich, it matters not how the lights are turned out at the close. So many of our friends have gone over the stream we shall all want to go there too. Heaven is getting to me to be a very matter-of-fact heaven. Our friends going in forget to shut the door after them. From the cold snow-bank of the grave I pluck this crocus: Those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.