PREFATORY. A Preface is among the non-essentials of a Book; and is least likely of any part thereof to be examined by the majority of readers, especially in this fast age of our world's history, when almost every thing goes, as it were, by steam, and "Young America is so eager to rush hurriedly through books, that are cursorily glanced over, as well as through other tasks hastily performed. But though a Preface is not a fundamental feature to a new volume claiming public or private attention, any more than the beauty of the engravings, the tint of the paper, the clearness of the type, and the color of the binding, it may nevertheless in some cases fulfil valuable purposes, relieving the author's brain and heart, furnishing a channel for apologies and explanations, calling attention to important particulars, and serving as a guide to certain classes; and when most of the work is embodied in Poetry, providing a pleasant relief to those who are more fond of the practicalities of Prose. No apology is needed for the appearance in print of the remainder of this volume; as it is only the redeeming of a pledge, made years since, when a somewhat similar work issued from the Press. But the Editor and Compiler is constrained to acknowledge, that amid the multiplicity of other labors, he had well-nigh forgotten his conditional promise, until his attention was directed thereto by the special Providence of God in the removal of another of the "Olive Plants" that had begun to blossom "round about his table," one whose tarry at our "home, sweet home," was so very, very brief, that he now feels "as if an angel, going by, had merely glanced within, and left its smile in passing." Then and since, the language of his heart has been, "O give me tears for others' woe, It was once said, by a bereaved parent, that no minister could be qualified and competent to officiate at the burial of children who had not been called to bury a child of his own. There are noble "exceptions," however; as, for instance, in the case of Dr. Kirk, who sees "more of heaven in a child's face than any where else on earth," and who, at the Funeral of Flora, in the Lynnfield Parsonage, after she had joined her twin sisters in glory, adapted himself with remarkable fitness to the exigencies of the occasion; yet it is true as a "general rule." Therefore, while the blessed household of heaven is being enriched by contributions from the broken households of earth, and "Millions of infant souls compose parental hearts may also be enriched instead of impoverished by the transplantation of their Buds of Promise from perishable gardens to an immortal Paradise, and they be empowered to accomplish vastly more for God and man than they otherwise could have done. "When our little child died!" has oftentimes been the beginning of real usefulness in this world, and the laying up of durable possessions in the next. The weak and helpless babe is mighty in death, having a strong hold upon at least two hearts, drawing them, thereafter, it may be, Christward and heavenward. In this view the infant of a few days-that goes from a mother's arms to the arms of the Savior-is of unspeakably more intrinsic value than myriads of material globes like this of ours. Hence the advent and exit of such a deathless being are no trivial matters. Not long ago my eye fell on the startling item that in four Nothern cities of our Union the number of deaths in one year amounted to 43,432, and that of these 24,767 were children under five years of age. The account stated that the latter, outnumbering by thousands the adults who had deceased, " perished during the year." We should prefer to say that they died, or rather that they began to live. "Not lost, but gone before." 'Moreover, it is not the will of my Father, who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." My former work was titled, “The Early Dead," my present work, which I choose to style a "Second Series," is much more appropriately titled, "THE EARLY SAVED," thereby directing the thoughts of survivors, not so much to the Grave, the Tomb, and the Cemetary, as the Celestial State, where none of the inhabitants ever say, "I am sick," where death never enters, and where all is life and immortality. his A Hindoo woman once said to a missionary of the cross, "Truly your Bible was written by a woman." Why? "Because it says so many kind things for woman. Our Shasters never refer to us but in reproach." And so the Holy Scriptures must have been written or dictated by a Parent, containing as it does so many kind words about children. How full of precious promises are its sacred pages. The Infinite Father of us all knows the heart of an earthly parent, and loves to work therein to the glory of grace in Jesus Christ. He infuses into stricken souls a divine polarity, and then mercifully transfers the object of fond affection to the skies, that "where the treasure is, there the heart may be also." Oh, little pattering feet! leading the upward way, how many, through rude and stormy scenes, are following close after you to the Land of endless Repose," where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Oh, prattling tongue! never able, perchance, to articulate the words of human speech, and now motionless in death's embrace, with what melting pathos, eloquence and impressiveness, not born of mortal lips, you preach to us and ours. "When the archangel's trump shall blow, Had been as short as thine." Little children perform a blessed mission to survivors, particularly parents, by their early death. At their advent into the world, and during their brief sojourn among us, they unseal within the heart a warmly gushing and never ebbing tide of genuine love. When first taken away our homes are dark and silent. But by the temporal affliction an eternal good is wrought out for the trusting soul, as variously expressed and illustrated in preceding portions of this volume, portions which have already been blessed to the consolation and encouragement, not only of him who prepared the same for the Press, while weighed down with a new sorrow; but also for one of the printers thereof, in the very act of setting up the types, amid the pressure of a fresh disappointment and peculiar affliction; and which, it is hoped may prove "words in season" to thousands of readers. In the language, slightly altered, of Chapin, when speaking of the "Mission of Little Children,” by their death we learn that Life is not a holiday, or workday merely, but a discipline, that God conducts the discipline in infinite wisdom and benevolence, mingles the draught, and infuses many drops of bitterness therein. Yes, when they die our children have a mission for us. Through their very departure they accomplish, perhaps, more than they could in their lives. Do our affections sink back into our hearts, become absorbed and forgotten? O, no! They reach out after the little ones more tenderly and clingingly than aforetime; they follow them into the higher spheres of the spiritual world, where, though translated beyond our sight, they are no less ours than formerly. Thus are we brought into closer contact with that other world, thus is it made a great and vivid reality unto us, possibly for the first time. We have talked of it, we have believed in it;-but now that our dead have gone thither, we have, as it were, entered it ourselves. Its mysterious atmosphere is around us, chords of fond affection draw us towards it, the faces of our departed loved ones look out from it, and it is indeed a reality. Though solid arguments and powerful appeals may not operate to break any of the numerous tendrils of affection binding us to earth, or loosen their grasp on things transitory and perishing, the small hand of a missing child can do it. The voice that calls us to unseen realities, that summons us to "work while the day lasts," that bids us prepare for the glories of the heavenly Land, that says from the heights of spirit bliss and purity, “Come up hither!" that voice, O that voice is the same which we loved so on earth, and |