Bereavement involves the providential discipline of home.  In almost every household there have been sorrows and tears as well as joys and hopes.  As the Christian home is the depository of the highest interests and the purest pleasures, so it is the scene of sad bereavements and of the darkest trials.  It may become as desolate as the home of Job.  The Christian may, like the aged tree, be stripped of his clusters, his branches, all his summer glory, and sink down into a lonely and dreary existence.  His home, which once rang with glad voices, may become silent and sad and hopeless.  Those hearts which once beat with life and love, may become still and cold; and all the earthly interests which clustered around his fireside may pass away like the dream of an hour!

The members of home must separate.  Theirs is but a probationary state.  Their household is but a tent,—­a tabernacle in the flesh, and all that it contains will pass away.  The fondest ties will be broken; the brightest hopes will fade; all its joys are transient; its interests meteoric, and the fireside of cheerfulness will ere long become the scene of despondency.  Every swing of the pendulum of the clock tells that the time of its probation is becoming shorter and shorter, and that its members are approaching nearer and nearer the period of their separation.

  “There is no union here of hearts,
  That finds not here an end.”

Alas! how soon this takes place!  The joy of home would be perfect did not the thought of a speedy separation intrude.  No sooner than the voice of childhood is changed, than separation begins to take place.  Some separate for another world; some are borne by the winds and waves to distant lands; others enter the deep forests of the West, and are heard of no more;—­

  “Alas! the brother knows not now where fall the sister’s tears! 
  One haply revels at the feast, while one may droop alone;
  For broken is the household chain,—­the bright fire quenched and gone!”

What melancholy feelings are awakened within at the sight of a deserted home, in which loved ones once met and lived and loved; but from which they have now wandered, each in the path pointed out by the guiding hand of Providence.  How beautifully does Mrs. Hemans portray this separation in the following admirable lines!—­

  “They grew in beauty side by side,
    They filled one home with glee;
  Their graves are severed, far and wide,
    By mount, and stream, and sea.

“The same fond mother bent at night
    O’er each fair sleeping brow;
  She had each folded flower in sight—­
    Where are those dreamers now?

  “One midst the forests of the West
    By a dark stream is laid;
  The Indian knows his place of rest
    Far in the cedar shade.

  “The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,
    He lies where pearls lie deep;
  He was the loved of all, yet none
    O’er his low bed may weep.