Christ in Bereavement
f/Ph HRIST is with you — in the hour of bereavement. He, too, drank of this cup. He offers you not a heart unacquainted with your grief. He had much to do with death when on earth. He sympathized with its sorrow, awoke its slumbers, robbed it of its prey, became its Victim, and then its Victor. He has permitted this bereavement to visit you. Not without His will and His purpose of love, has He smitten you with this woe, visited you with this loss. Has your Heavenly Father written you a widow, an orphan, childless, friendless? Has He removed the joy of your heart, the light of your home, the hope of your family, the strong and beautiful staff upon which you leaned for support? Is your door darkened with the funeral that bears from its threshold all that was so fondly loved and precious? Oh, deem not yourself forsaken, desolate, and bereft! Christ was never nearer to you than now. The Christ who bedewed the turf of Lazarus’ grave with tears of bereaved affection for the dead, and of sacred sympathy with the living, is spiritually at this moment by your side. He offers you a heart touched with your grief, throbbing with a love that more than compensates for the affection now cold in death; an arm that shall be equal in its strength and support to your emergency; a shield that will encircle your person, your position, and your interests, infinitely more potent and safe than that which at one fell stroke God has laid low. Christ sensibly, manifestly with you now, oh wish not to displace Him by recalling the treasure from which you have parted. It is recorded of the amiable and pious Fenelon, that in the eulogy he pronounced over the Dauphin, I his illustrious pupil and friend, as the corpse shrouded with the pall was placed in the church before the pulpit, where,
“Lovely in death, the beauteous ruin lay!”
he uttered these words: “There lies the hope of his father! the delight of his court! the object of the nation’s joyful anticipation! But so convinced am I of his happy state, that, if the turning of a straw would bring him back, I would not turn that straw.” Weeping mourner! bereaved Christian! in the bright sunshine of hope which bathes the coffined remains of “one so dear,” read you this holy lesson of cheerful acquiescence with the will of your Father, and express your perfect satisfaction in the eternal happiness of the departed one now sweetly sleeping in Jesns, If the turning of a straw would recall him from the realms of glory, would you be willing to turn that straw? This new, deejDer, and darker sorrow shall brine: Jesus with it. Its ano:uish will be solaced by His love, its loneliness will be shared by His presence, its gloom will be brightened with His smile, its calamity will be sanctified by His grace, and all its new-born exigencies will be met by His boundless resources of wisdom, power, and love. ‘^Zo, / am with you always
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Christ is specially with His people in bereavement. In the sad hour when the heart is full of desolation, His voice is heard saying, “Let not your heart be troubled.” We may be despoiled of the heart’s richest treasures, and yet Jesus may fill it with His richest consolations.
“mother, I WANT TO SAY MY PRAYERS.”
A pious man, and a physician, said: “Yon will all remember that I was in this meeting a few days ago, and told you of my losing a little boy eight years old. Since I was last here, we have lost another still younger. The oldest was a child remarkable for his intelligence in the things of religion. He seemed to have a full comprehension of the way of salvation, through repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He had long expressed the hope that he might be a minister and a missionary of the Lord Jesus. To this work a father’s and a mother’s heart had consecrated our bright little boy, if it should please the Lord to spare him. But it was not so to be. In a most unexpected moment that child took his leave of us, rejoicing in the going, and soared away to be forever with Christ. For we could not doubt that the dear boy was a real Christian, made so by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
‘’The last child sickened with the same disease. His case was very painful, for he suffered intensely. It was evident very soon that death had marked him for his prey. We have always taught our children to pray, even before they could speak their words plainly. We have not been among those who believe that children can be saved otherwise than by the washing away of all corruption and moral defilement in the, blood of Christ. So we could teach them to pray in all sincerity, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ We could teach them that they must never expect to go to heaven by reason of their own innocence; but they must be saved by the blood of Christ. They must be sanctified by the Holy Spirit. They must be rendered meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. So we believed; so we prayed; so we taught our children to pray.
“When this little boy was in his death hour, he looked up, with a most wishful look, a pleading look, as if he feared he might be denied, and said:
“‘Mother! I want to say my prayers.’ She knew the heart of her little boy, and immediately answered:
“‘My dear child, you shall say your prayers.’
“‘Not here,’ said the little sufferer, ‘but on my knees.’
“He was lying on her lap. She raised him on his knees, when he clasped his arms around her neck, and laying his head upon her shoulder, poured out his heart in prayer to God. He was so week and feeble that he could only say a word at a time. At length his prayers were finished, and he unclasped his little arms and fell back upon her lap. A smile of heavenly sweetness stole over his face, he drew a few inspirations — slow — slower — and he was gone. Oh!” said the pious father; ‘^ the blood of Jesus, that cleanseth from all sin, never appeared so precious to me as it did then. I looked upon my dear little boy as one whom I might hope had been redeemed and saved through the merits of that blood.
“I want to urge all fathers and mothers here, to consecrate their young children to Jesus. Teach them, oh! teach them, to trust in Jesus Christ, to be saved by His blood.”