A Gracious Removal
“The righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace 1 They shall rest in their beds.” — Isa. lvii. 1, 2.
How this thought reconciles to earth’s saddest separations I The early (what we are apt to think the too early) graves of our “loved and lost,” have saved them much sorrow, much suffering, much sin! “Who can tell what may have been brooding in a dark horizon? The fairest vessel — the life freighted with greatest promise — might have made shipwreck on this world’s treacherous sea. My God knows what was best. If He plucked His lily soon, it was to save it some rough blast. If He early folded His lamb, it was to save it having its fleece soiled with earthly corruption
If the port of glorj was soon entered, it was because He foresaw threatening tempests that screened from our limited vision — ‘’ So He brought them to the haven where they woula be!”
Yes! the quiet haven I The storms of life are over! That shore is undisturbed by one murmuring wave. “He shall enter” (he has entered) “into peace T the rest which” remaineih /” Did the ransomed dead, at the hour of their departure, sink into blank oblivion — inherit everlasting silence, sad indeed would be the pang of separation. But, “Weep not, she is not dead, but sleepethy Yea I weep not! She is not dead, but liveth I At the very moment earth’s tears are falling, the spirit is sunning in the realms of everlasting day, safely boused, safely Home 1 The body “rests in its hedP The grave is ita couch of repose! We bid it the long” good night” in the joyfal expectancy of a glorious re-union at the waking-time of immortality — that “morning without clouds,” whose” sun shall no more go down I’’
Child of sorrow I mourning over the withdrawal of some beloved object of earthly affection. Dry thy tears. An early death his been an early crown I The tie sundered here links thee to the throne of God. Thou hast a brother, a sister, a child, in Heaven I Thou art the relative of a ransomed saint! We are proud when we hear of our friends bemg advanced’’^ in this world. What are the world’s noblest promotions in comparison with that of the believer at death, when he graduates from grace to glory? when he exchanges the pilgrim warfare for the eternal rest?
Often, in thine hours of sadness, contrast the certainty o present bliss, with the possibilities of a suffering, sorrowing, ^mnmg future — the joys in possession, with the evils which might have been in reversion. Thou mayest now, like the Shunammite of old, be gazing with tearful eye on some withered blossom, but when the question is put, “Is it well with thee f Is it well with thy husband? Is it well luith the child?” in the elevating confidence that they have “entered into peace.” and are “resting in their beds,” be it thine joyfully to ansTver.