Page:Olive Buds.pdf/116

Rh

I saw an open grave. A poor widow stood near it, with her little ones. Yet methought their own sufferings had set a deeper seal upon them, than sorrow for the dead.

Then I marvelled what it was, that made the father and mother not pity their children when they hungered, nor call them home, when they were in wickedness, and the friends forget their early love,—and the strong man fall down senseless,—and the young die before his time. And a voice answered,—"Intemperance hath done these evils,—and there is mourning throughout the land because of this."

So I returned sorrowing. And if God had given me a brother or a sister,—I