And so with them the night wore away, the long dark night of suffering to the babe, and watchful anxiety to the parents.  But the angel of death that had hovered so long over the darling babe, unfurled his sable pinions and flew away in search of another victim, and he is spared yet a little longer.

Pursuing the way a little farther in another direction, you find another weary watcher by the midnight lamp.  An aged woman, who has lived her three score years and ten, sits bolstered up in her chair, toiling for her little remaining sum of existence, which nature seems unwilling to relinquish, although subsisting now upon borrowed time.  From an adjoining room comes a frequent hollow cough, and the sunken eye and emaciated frame of the poor girl betray the secret foe, lurking in the hidden springs of life.

Death is no stranger beneath this roof.  He has borne away one after another from this numerous household, and laid them down side by side in the silent grave.  And now his darts seem aimed at the two only ones of that household, the mother and her daughter.  The sons are married and have families of their own, but the mother and this daughter live alone in the home of her youth, the very place, perchance, where she was brought a gay and expecting bride by that husband she is expecting now to follow so soon to the spirit world.  Could the pleasures or the gaities of the world cast one cheering beam upon their lonely home?  O, no, the religion of Jesus alone can illuminate their benighted hearts, and in “this light they see light,” and feel prepared to go when the summons comes.

Following the street, you pass the door of a daughter who is weeping for the recent loss of a mother, who passes suddenly away without a moment’s warning, and a widow who mourns a husband, cut off by lingering disease.

A few steps and we reach a cottage, where other parents were watching over a little son of five years, who is wasting away with consumption.  His attenuated limbs bear his little frame but feebly, and he often talks of death, for he has recently seen a little sister younger than himself fall a prey to the fearful malady.  A burning fever is raging in his veins, and lights up his eye with unwonted brilliancy, as he tossed restlessly from side to side upon his pillow.  His silken hair of beautiful brown is brushed smoothly back from his high, marble forehead, while gentle hands apply the cooling bath, to still if possible, its tumultuous throbbings, and he murmurs of sweet sister and of heaven.  Soft words of love are whispered in his ear, and he is told of the Lamb of God that bids little children to come unto him.

And thought not these weary watchers of that lonely night, of the revellers in that distant hall?  Methinks their hearts went up in fervent prayer to God that he would spare them yet a little longer, for there were immortal souls there, for whom he labored and prayed, who entered the sanctuary and heard the word of God as it fell from his lips, Sabbath after Sabbath, and he felt sensibly that the midnight revel would not prepare the heart to seek God, or make the necessary preparation for death.  Towards morning the eyes of the little sufferer closed in uneasy slumber, and the parents too, were refreshed by a short interval of sleep.