Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/336

 may lead parents to repine, and in sorrow to exclaim with Jacob, "Me have ye bereaved of my children." (Gen. xlii. 36.) Yet these consoling words of Jesus—"their angels do always behold the face of my Father in the heavens" (Matt. xviii. 10), are sufficient to suppress the sigh, and to give birth to the words of pious resignation—thy will be done! Departed infants look at all things around them from innocence, and on that account, are said to behold the face of the Father, whose face is nothing but the purest love and mercy.

To ask parents not to grieve at all for the loss of the child of their bosom, is to require of them what is stoical and unnatural; but while tears are flowing, remember that excessive grief seems to bespeak a distrust of the kindly dealings of providence. While you grieve for your own loss, do not forget their gain! for at the death of children,