CHAPTER XXVI.

The bereavements of home.—­Separation.  Bereavements Diversified.  Reverses of Fortune.  Death.  First Death.  Of Husband and Father.  Of a Wife and Mother.  Of Children.  Of the Infant.  Of the First-Born.  Wisdom and Goodness of God in Bereavements.  Discipline.  Moral Instruction.  The Dead and Living still Together.  Benefit.  Death of Little Children is a Kindness to them.  Why.  Why Christ became a Little Child.  We should not wish them Back.  Their Death is a Benefit to the Living.  Communion of Saints.  Ministering Spirits.  The Spirit-World.  A Ministering Child.  A Ministering Mother.  Infant Salvation.  Zuinlius.  Calvin.  Dr. Junkin.  Newton.  The Hope of Re-union in Heaven.  We should not murmur against God.  This does not forbid Godly Sorrow and Tears.  Meekly Submit.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The memories of home.—­Chief Justice Gibson.  Relation of Memory to
Bereavement.  Memories are Pleasing and Painful.  Pleasing and Pious
Memories.  A Mother’s Recollection.  The Pleasures of Remembering the Pious
Dead.  Irving.  The Saving Influence of Memory.  Painful Memories.  Critical
Power of Memory.  Mementoes of Home.  Pictures.  Memorials.  Letters from Home. 
Seek Pleasing Memories.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The antitype of the christian home.—­Typical Relation between Home and Heaven.  The Christian’s Tent-Home in its Relation to Heaven.  The Antitypical Character of Heaven.  A Comparative View of our Earthly and our Heavenly Home.  Christ the Center of Heaven’s Joy and Attraction.  Union between Home and Heaven.  A Conscious Union of the Members in Heaven.  Family Recognition and Love in Heaven.  Family Greeting and Joy in Heaven.  Longings after Heaven.  Conclusion.

CHAPTER I.

What is the christian home?

Section I.

Home in the sphere of nature.

  “My home! the spirit of its love is breathing
    In every wind that plays across my track,
  From its white walls the very tendrils wreathing
    Seem with soft links to draw the wanderer back. 
  There am I loved—­there prayed for!—­there my mother
    Sits by the hearth with meekly thoughtful eye,
  There my young sisters watch to greet their brother;
    Soon their glad footsteps down the path will fly! 
  And what is home? and where, but with the loving?”

Home!  That name touches every fibre of the soul, and strikes every chord of the human heart as with angelic fingers.  Nothing but death can break its spell.  What tender associations are linked with home!  What pleasing images and deep emotions it awakens!  It calls up the fondest memories of life, and opens in our nature the purest, deepest, richest gush of consecrated thought and feeling.