CHAPTER IV.

CONSOLATION.

YES! Consolation. Yours, even yours is not a case that excludes all comfort. There is balm for the wounds of a widow's heart.

1. It may seem a strange and unlikely method of comforting you, to remind you of happiness for ever Яed, and scenes of enjoyment that have vanished like some bright vision; but is it not a comfort to retrace the history of your union, and to remember that you loved and were beloved; that you lived in harmony and peace with your departed husband; that you had his confidence and his heart, and he yours; that you travelled pleasantly together in this desert world, and made the journey a delightful one while it lasted? You have nothing but holy and happy reminiscences. Is not this better than the retrospect of an ill-assorted match, and the scenes of discord and strife which such unions bring with them? His picture, his chair, his dear name, if they form the most sorrowful, yet, at the same time, do they awaken the most sacred associations. His image, as it rises in the region of imagination, is no sullen spectre, cold, frowning, and

perturbed, and that looks upon you as if to upbraid you for the past; but it is a blessed shade, smiling, complacent, and calm, that still beams with the same affection with which it was wont to do: and you feel as if you had nothing to offer in the way of apology or atonement, for the purpose of propitiating and tranquillizing it. You still feel in mysterious and happy fellowship, though separated by the wide deep gulph of the grave. Extract comfort, then, from your very tears, for love has left a drop even in them. You were happy, and that should prevent you being retched now: you were his comfort on earth, and assisted him on his pilgrimage to heaven; where, perhaps, he is now thinking of you before the throne, and finding a place for your name in the song of his gratitude before the fountain of mercy.

2. Perhaps you were permitted to be with him in his mortal sickness, and to minister to his comfort, as long as he needed it and was capable of understanding your ministrations. "I am glad I am not a king," said a dying husband to an affectionate and devoted wife, who never left him night or day, till his spirit forsook its clay: "for then," continued he, "I should not be waited upon by you." How tender and how soothing are the attentions of a wife at all times; but oh what are they not in the chamber of sickness and death. Men who set little value on the kind offices of their wifes in the time of health and activity, have been glad to have them at their led-side, in the season of disease, and at the last hour: but how doubly

precious are such offices in death, to those who loved their wives, and prized their attentions in life. Such, afflicted woman, was, perhaps, your case. You were his constant attendant. You waited, watched and laboured, to the uttermost of your strength, to smooth the pillow of sickness, and the bed of death. The food, and the medicine were always most welcome from your gentle hand; he forgot his pains in your presence; and it was some mitigation of her sorrows, while as his ministering angel you occupied the post of observation, darker every hour, that you saw how much you contributed to his comfort. You heard the words of love and gratitude that fell from the sufferer's lips; you saw the looks and tears which spoke what words were too weak to utter; and taxed your energies almost boyond what nature could supply, to meet the necessities of one whose flickering lamp seemed to be kept from extinction, by your vigilance and tenderness.

Well, it is all over now. Affection has done its last, as well as its best, and its uttermost. Is it not consoling to you to think of all this?-Especially if you were enabled to minister to the comfort of the soul, as well as to the body, and by words of scripture promise, to drive away the gloomy thoughts and disturbing fears which lighted upon his spirit as he approached the dark valley. Perhaps it was reserved for that solemn hour, for your dying husband to disclose to you the state of his soul, and to express to vour more entire satisfaction, than you had felt before,

his sense of sin, his faith in Christ, and his hope of glory. How beautifully is this described in the life of Mrs. Graham, of New York. "He brought me, and my idol,” says that excellent woman, "out of a barren land, placed us under the breath of prayer, among a dear little society of methodists; he laid us upon their spirits, and when the messenger, death, was sent for my beloved, the breath of prayer ascended from his bedside, from their little meeting; and I believe from their families and closets. The God of mercy prepared their hearts to pray, and his ear to hear, and the answers did not tarry. Behold, my hnsband prayeth; confesses sin; applies to the Saviour; pleads for forgiveness for his sake; receives comfort; blesses God for Jesus Christ, and dies with these words upon his tongue, 'I hold fast by the Saviour.' Behold another wonder! the idolatress in an ecstasy of joy. She who never could realise a separation for one single minute during his life, now resigns her heart's treasure, with praise and thanksgiving. O the joy of that hour! its savour remains in my heart to this moment. For five days and nights, I had been little off my knees, it was my ordinary posture at his bed-side, and in all that time, I had but once requested his life. The Spirit helped my infirmities with groanings that could not be uttered, leading me to pray for that which God had determined to bestow; making intercession for my husband according to the will of God."

3. And this is intimately connected with another

source of consolation, I mean the consideration of the happiness of your departed sainted husband, where indeed there is satisfactory ground to believe he died in the Lord. "How does the reflection," says Mrs. Huntingdon, after she became a widow, "that our departed friends have reached the point which we must reach before we can be happy, sweeten and soothe the anguish of separation! Let us contemplate them in every supposable view, and the prospect is full of consolation. We cannot think of them as what they were, or what they are, without pleasure. They are the highly favoured of the Lord, who, having finished all that they had to do in this vale of tears, are admitted to the higher services of the upper temple. True, when we look at our loss, nature will feel." Be it so, that you are sorrowful, it is not, as regards your husband, a sorrow without hope. You have no grief on his account. Time was when you wept for him: you saw him burdened with care; exhausted by labour; perplexed with difficulties; sometimes humbled by a sense of his imperfections; and in his closing scenes, pale with sickness, racked with pain, till the tears glistened in his eye, and the groan escaped his breast; but he will suffer no more; the days of his mourning are ended; and he is floating on a fullness of joy in God's presence, and surrounded with pleasures for evermore at his right hand. Strive then so far to rise above your grief, as to rejoice with him, though he cannot weep with you You loved and tried to make him lappy upon earth, and smile.