Is It Well with the Child?

“And she answered, It is well.” — 2 Kings iv. 26.

7’ES: all is well, though from thy longing JL gaze,

The darling of thy heart hath passed away! The anxious eye of fond maternal love No more shall rest upon his cherub-face; No more the joyous laugh, the prattling tones Of infant mirth, shall greet thy listening ear. The little lips, so often prest to thine, No more in beaming loveliness shall smile, And from the empty rib there comes no sound.

The above lines — never before published — were written by a beloved relative of our child, and have an appropriateness that calls for their insertion.

No gentle breathing from the slumbering one, To tell thy child is there.

Oh, what a sense Of anguished loneliness comes o’er the heart As oft thine eyes upon the garments fall, Wrought with such pride for him!

Can it be well, That ne’er again the absent father’s arms Shall clasp the beauteous boy; that fancy’s

eye Shall trace no more upon his smiling face, The faint resemblance of the cherished dead; That the fair picture hope’s bright pencil

drew. In richest coloring, is washed out in tears? Yes: all is well! Oh, lift thine eyes above 1 What can a mother’s fondest wishes ask, For her lost darling, like the bliss of heaven?

And thou must go to him! May the same

robe That made him spotless in the sight of

Heaven, — The costly robe a dying Saviour wrought, — Be cast around thee too! And when the ties That bind ye now to earth are torn and rent,

May every little voice that mingled here

In sweet communion ‘round your happy

hearth, Unite to swell the ceaseless choir of heaven!

Zanesville, August, 1S41. S. W. C.