They stand before the throne in white robes, with palms in their hands, and crowns of glory on their heads, crying-out, “Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb!” Tell me, does not this view dilate the parent’s heart, and make him thankful that he has a sainted child in heaven?  Weep for those you have with you, who live under the shades of a moral death, who have entered upon a thorny pilgrimage, and are exposed to the ravages of sin; oh, weep for them!—­

  “But never be a tear-drop given
  To those that rest in yon blue heaven.”

The sainted dead of your home are more blessed than the pilgrim living.  Weep not, then, that they are gone.  Their early departure was to them great gain.  Had they been spared to grow up to manhood, you then might have to take up the lamentation of David, “Would to God I had died for thee!” While they, in the culprit’s cell, or on the dying couch of the hopeless impenitent, would respond to you in tones of deepening woe,—­

  “Would I had died when young! 
  How many burning tears,
  And wasted hopes and severed ties,
  Had spared my after years!”

Would you, then, to gratify a parent’s heart, awake that little slumberer from its peaceful repose, and recall its happy spirit from its realms of glory?  There the light of heaven irradiates it; its visions are unclouded there; and from those battlements of uncreated glory it comes to thee on errands of love and mercy.  Would you, now, that this inhabitant of heaven should be degraded to earth again?  Would you remove him from those rivers of delight to this dry and thirsty land?  Would not this be cruel?

When, therefore, your babe is taken from you, regard it as a kind deed of your heavenly Father, and say, “even so it seemeth good in thy sight:” 

  “Pour not the voice of woe! 
    Shed not a burning tear
  When spirits from the cold earth go,
    Too bright to linger here! 
  Unsullied let them pass
    Into oblivion’s tomb—­
  Like snow-flakes melting in the sea
    When ripe with vestal bloom. 
  Then strew fresh flowers above the grave,
    And let the tall grass o’er it wave.”

But the death of little children is a great mercy, not only to themselves, but also to the living.  Those that remain behind are greatly benefited thereby.  It exerts a sanctifying, elevating and alluring influence over them.  As they pass in their bright pathway to heaven, they leave a blessing behind.  God takes them in goodness to us.  The interests of the parents are not different from, or opposed to, those of their offspring.  The happiness of the latter is that of the former.  If, therefore, their death is their blessing, it must be the parent’s blessing also.  “If love,” says Baxter, “teaches us to mourn with them that mourn, and rejoice with them that rejoice, then can we mourn for those of our children that are possessed of the highest everlasting happiness?”