The Empty Crib: A Memorial of Little Georgie

A FTER the death of our dear boy, a very large number of tender and beautiful letters of condolence reached us from all parts of the land. As it was quite impossible for us to reply to all these kind letters, it occurred to us that the most fitting response would be to prepare a brief sketch of our child, and of the touching circumstances of his death, and to send it to those whose words of sympathy have been so grateful. Many of these letters contained words of precious consolation that are as well calculated to comfort other bereaved parents as they lO THE EMPTY CRIB,

were to comfort us in our first great sorrow. Such passages from them as could be printed, without any violation of delicacy, have been wrought in with the following brief narrative. Both the narrative and the succeeding articles are published simply and solely with the hope that they may be a solace and a blessing to some hearts in the great Household of the Sorrowing,

This is the largest household in the world. There is hardly a dwelling “in which there is not one dead.” In almost every home there are stored away, among its most cherished treasures, a little photograph, or a box of toys, a torn kite, a halfvvorn cap, or a pair of tiny shoes. They all tell a story too deep for tears.

Into such homes I have been called, like other pastors, a thousand times. I have sat down beside the afflicted fathers and mothers in my flock, and tried to comfort them. I have read to them the heavenly messages of consolation, and knelt beside them as they rocked and trembled under the tempest of their agony. But how often have these mothers said to me, “Ah! my pastor, there is one thing in this world that you never can understand until you have felt it for yourself, — and that is the sensations of a parent over his or her own child as it lies in the first awful silence of death. You must go through all this for yourself, and then you can realize what it is we suffer, and what it is that our smitten souls most need.” After hearing such things, we have come back to our happy home and said, “Oh! if those lessons are to be learned only by having the little crib emptied in this house, may the Hand that takes the treasure be the same Hand that can open our eyes to see the infinite blessedness of a sanctified sorrow!”

Three years ago, in a half-playful description of “A New Home” (in the New York “Evangelist”) I wrote, “What sorrows this home hath in store for us, God only knoweth. Perhaps in yonder nursery a little crib may grow deeper until it deepens into a grave. Father, not as we will, but as Thou wilt.” The prophecy is fulfilled. And I trust that it will not be an indelicate exposure of private griefs if a father’s heart utters, at such a time, a few words to the large and ever enlarging circle of those who mourn beside a deserted cradle, or in a silent nursery. As one of old has said, “these pages, if thou be a father, thou wilt pardon me; if nocht, then reserve thy censure till thou be a father.”

/^UR little Georgie and his twin- brother Theodore came to us on the ninth of July, 1863. The double gift of’ our heavenly Father to us called forth peculiar joy; and from that birth-hour until that chill, dark Sabbath night in which they were parted, they never gave us one moment’s pain or displeasure. They never cost us any but tears of thankfulness. The twofold care, even in earliest infancy, was a twofold delight.

They were both consecrated to God in baptism a few months after; on the day of the service I preached on the Mission of children as the instructors of their parents (” He set a little child in the midst of them”). The sermon closed with a quotation of the following pathetic lines: —

“I shall miss him when the flowers come,

In the garden where he plaj’ed; I shall miss him more by the fireside

When the flowers have all decayed. I shall see his toys and his empty chair,

And the horse he used to ride; And they will speak, with a silent speech,

Of the little boy that died.

We shall all go home to our Father’s house, —

To our Father’s house in the skies, Where the hope of our soul shall have no blight,

And our love no broken ties; We shall roam on the banks of the River of Peace,

And bathe in its blissful tide; And one of the joys of our heaven shall be

The little boy that died.”

Some of our congregation expressed their surprise at the allusion to the death of children and the quotation of such lines, and thought them ominous.

For nearly five years God spared our noble boys to be the sunlight of our dwelling. “I almost envy you those rarely beautiful and lovely twins,” wrote the Rev. Dr. P, of New York. Usually the first inquiry of our visitors was to “see the boys; “and many an one has said to us since, “Georgie was far the most beautiful boy I ever saw.” “Give me one of these,” our brother Newman Hall used to say at our fireside, “for I have none in my nest at home.” Those who recall the little fellows, as they were led by their faithful German nurse Gesine through the streets of Brooklyn, or in the park at Saratoga, will remember the peculiar loveliness of Georgie’s countenance. It was a face to dream about. His photographs (which are skilfully engraved for this volume), give no adequate idea of the flood of joyous light that seemed to beam from his large lustrous eyes and bewitching mouth and golden hair. There was a fine vein of poetry in his nature. Among the first words which he ever uttered were “moon” and “‘tar,” as he gazed with infant glee at the heavens, from his nursery window. At three years of age, when riding with our friends at Cedar Cottage, his constant exclamation was, “Oh! see the beautiful clouds! “One day when he came in from the garden, he said, “Mama, I’ve been to see where the strawberries are sleeping. There is a mystery about twin-life that affords a constant study to the parent. Sometimes the resemblance, both in features and in character, is so striking as to make each one the shadow of the other. The only marked likeness between our twin-lads was in the tint of their fair complexion, and of their hair. Georgie, though the most delicate at his birth, became much the larger, and possessed the most keenly sensitive nerves, and the liveliest exuberance of spirits. Neither his feet nor his tongue could move fast enough to keep up with his ardent temperament. It was quite in character with him, that one of the first prayers he ever uttered was in these summary words: “O God, please to make Georgie a good little boy, right awayf’’ A sweet archness of expression played over his countenance, while he was making his droli speeches or practising his roguish fun, that was quite inimitable. As he was playing horse rather violently in his mother’s room, she corrected him several times without his making any answer; at length he said,” Mama, doo know that horses never talk.^^

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