THE writer once met with a widowed mother who was mourning the death of her only child. Her little boy had been her only comfort, the only thing that had clung to her in her desolation; and now she was alone — utterly alone, for she knew not the Lord. And as she looked vainly around for the sunbeam that had played on her desolate home, the memory of what had been and could never be again broke her heart! But her heart was broken only that the “balm of Gilead” might reach its inmost depths. She had lost her earthly joy only that she might have “a joy forever.”
He who raised the widow’s son to life, who wept at the grave of Lazarus, who anticipated and hushed to rest a father’s anguish (Luke 7:1111And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people. (Luke 7:11); John 11:3535Jesus wept. (John 11:35); Mark 5:35, 3935While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further? (Mark 5:35)
39And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. (Mark 5:39)), had wounded but to heal eternally. When, about twelve months after her never-to-be-forgotten loss, she lay down to die, her last words to the writer were, ―
“You were right. You told me that the Lord had taken my child to himself, to draw my thoughts heavenward; and I have found it so. You told me that, unless washed in the blood of Christ, I could never see my little lamb again, unless indeed it was ‘afar off’ as Balaam said he should see the Lord, or as Dives saw Lazarus. And the terrible thought drove me to the sinner’s only Refuge. Now I am saved, saved by the blood of Christ, saved by grace. The Lord took my little one to draw me to HIMSELF, and I am going home to HIM, and to her, never to part again.”
“Can a mother forget her sucking child?” Yet if memory lives in eternity (and who can doubt it?) how fearfully will it aggravate the doom of the lost, to recall the image of a little one “nourished and brought up,” and parted from, at an early grave forever!
Is the reader a mother? Is she ignorant of Christ? Does the memory of a little one who clung to her with all the guileless love of childhood, still dwell within her heart? and would she see that loving face and form again? “There is none other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” “He that believeth not is condemned already.”