(1859)
It was a very sad day, and every heart in the house felt the deepest grief;
for the youngest child, a boy of four years old, the joy and hope of his
parents, was dead. Two daughters, the elder of whom was going to be
confirmed, still remained: they were both good, charming girls; but the lost
child always seems the dearest; and when it is youngest, and a son, it makes
the trial still more heavy. The sisters mourned as young hearts can mourn,
and were especially grieved at the sight of their parents’ sorrow. The
father’s heart was bowed down, but the mother sunk completely under the
deep grief. Day and night she had attended to the sick child, nursing and
carrying it in her bosom, as a part of herself. She could not realize the fact
that the child was dead, and must be laid in a coffin to rest in the ground.
She thought God could not take her darling little one from her; and when it
did happen notwithstanding her hopes and her belief, and there could be no
more doubt on the subject, she said in her feverish agony, “God does not
know it. He has hard-hearted ministering spirits on earth, who do according
to their own will, and heed not a mother’s prayers.” Thus in her great grief
she fell away from her faith in God, and dark thoughts arose in her mind
respecting death and a future state. She tried to believe that man was but
dust, and that with his life all existence ended. But these doubts were no
support to her, nothing on which she could rest, and she sunk into the
fathomless depths of despair. In her darkest hours she ceased to weep, and
thought not of the young daughters who were still left to her. The tears of
her husband fell on her forehead, but she took no notice of him; her
thoughts were with her dead child; her whole existence seemed wrapped up
in the remembrances of the little one and of every innocent word it had
uttered.
The day of the little child’s funeral came. For nights previously the
mother had not slept, but in the morning twilight of this day she sunk from
