children of my pastoral charge more than ever, seek to gather them into
the fold of Christ, that whole families, each like a constellation, may
rise together in the firmament of heaven; and, in the mean time, that
the members of every household, as they desert us one by one, may call
back to us, and say, for the departed, "All are here."

God takes a family here and there, in a circle of acquaintances and
friends, and greatly afflicts them; and thus he teaches others. As we
look, therefore, upon the afflicted, we ought to say,--

"For us they languish, and for us they die;
And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain?"

God is the same when he takes away the child, as when he laid that gift
in our hands. Perhaps, indeed, the removal is really a greater exercise
of love than the gift. It must seem good and acceptable in the sight of
God, if, when we are bereaved, we employ ourselves occasionally in
rehearsing before him the circumstances in his past goodness, which, at
the time, made it exceedingly sweet and precious. Our debt of obligation
for it is not yet fully paid; nor is it diminished at all by the removal
of the blessing. Instead of abandoning ourselves to grief, we do well if
we commune with God more frequently respecting his signal acts of favor
in connection with the lost blessing.

But the memory of lost joys is always apt to depress the mind
inordinately. We question whether it is really better to have

"loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."