river of death with as much confidence as infant Moses was laid into the
Ark of the Nile, knowing that soon from the royal palace a shining One
would come to fetch it.

"In an island of the sea, among strangers, almost unattended, death came to
a beloved son; and though I remember the darkness that dropped on the
household when the black-sealed letter was opened, I remember also the
utterances of Christian submission.

"Another bearing his own name, just on the threshold of manhood, his heart
beating high with hope, falls into the dust; but above the cries of early
widowhood and the desolation of that dark day, I hear the patriarch's
prayer, commending children, and children's children, to the Divine
sympathy.

"But a deeper shadow fell across the old home-stead. The 'Golden Wedding'
had been celebrated nine years before. My mother looked up, pushed back
her spectacles, and said, 'Just think of it, father! We have been together
fifty-nine years!' The twain stood together like two trees of the forest
with interlocked branches. Their affections had taken deep root together
in many a kindred grave. Side by side in life's great battle, they had
fought the good fight and won the day. But death comes to unjoint this
alliance. God will not any longer let her suffer mortal ailments. The
reward of righteousness is ready, and it must be paid. But what a tearing
apart! What rending up! What will the aged man do without this other to
lean on? Who can so well understand how to sympathize and counsel? What
voice so cheering as hers, to conduct him down the steep of old age? 'Oh'
said she in her last moments, 'father, if you and I could only be together,
how pleasant it would be!' But the hush of death came down one autumnal
afternoon, and for the first time in all my life, on my arrival at home, I