And especially if this lost one be the first-born,—­the first bud of promise and of hope, how doubly painful is the bereavement.  It makes our home as dark and desolate as was the hour when Abraham with uplifted knife, was about to send death to the throbbing heart of his beloved Isaac.  Nothing can supply the place of a first-born child; and home can never be what it was when the sweet voice of that first-born child was heard.  The first green leaf of that household has faded; and though leaves may put forth, and other buds of promise may unfold, and bright faces may light up the home-hearth, and the sunshine of hope may play around the heart; but—­

  “They never can replace the bud our early fondness nurst,
  They may be lovely and beloved, but not like thee—­the first!”

Your heart continues lonely and desolate; its strings are broken; its tenderest fibers wrenched; you continue to steal “beneath, the church-yard tree, where the grass grows green and wild,” and there weep over the grave of your first maternal love; and like Rachael, refuse to be comforted because he is not.  Your grief is natural, and only those who have lost their first-born can fully realize it:—­

  “Young mother! what can feeble friendship say,
  To soothe the anguish of this mournful day? 
  They, they alone, whose hearts like thine have bled,
  Know how the living sorrow for the dead;
  I’ve felt it all,—­alas! too well I know
  How vain all earthly power to hush thy woe! 
  God cheer thee, childless mother! ’tis not given
  For man to ward the blow that falls from heaven. 
  I’ve felt it all—­as thou art feeling now;
  Like thee, with stricken heart and aching brow,
  I’ve sat and watched by dying beauty’s bed,
  And burning tears of hopeless anguish shed;
  I’ve gazed upon the sweet, but pallid face,
  And vainly tried some comfort there to trace;
  I’ve listened to the short and struggling breath;
  I’ve seen the cherub eye grow dim in death;
  Like thee, I’ve veiled my head in speechless gloom,
  And laid my first-born in the silent tomb!”

Now in all these bereavements of the Christian home we have developed the wisdom and goodness of God; and the consideration of this we commend to the bereaved as a great comfort.  They are but the execution of God’s merciful design concerning the family.  Pious parents can, therefore, bless the Lord for these afflictions.  It is often well for both you and your children that bereavements come.  They come often as the ministers of grace.  The tendency of home is to confine its supreme affections within itself, and not yield them unto God.  Parents often bestow upon their children all their love, and live for them alone.  Then God lays his rod upon them, takes their loved ones to his own arms, to show them the folly of using them as abusing them.  If home had no such bereavements, eternity would be lost sight of; God would not be obeyed; souls would