Litchfield enquirer., 1840-11-26
From thc Prouidence Journal.

IMMORTALITY AND THE GRAVE.
 We had little boy that was advancing towards his fourth year. He was our only son he had nothing of tho boisterous happi- ness of childhood about him; hut seemed to live in . tranquil enjoyment of the delights that na ature h0d scattered at his feet; and he grew in the breeze and the sunshine, a crea- ture of pure and gentle elements. He had few affections, but they were unusually strong. Two beings he loved with on inc tense passion his mother, and kind and single hearted man, who delighted to have my little boy by his side when he weedcd his garden, who culled for him the brightest rosebuds, and who would hold him for hours in his arms, to look at swallows as they dip ped their rapid wings into the clear and sic lent stream that flowed by my cottage. If ever two human beings were entirely happy, 1t was this honest man and my poor child, as they wandered about from the rising to the setting of the sun, exchanging those most in- nocent thoughts which the rough touch of worldly feelings will in moment destroy but which rest upon the untainted soul like bloom upon the ripening fruit. The boy gradually sickencd there was languor in his eyes which told of growing disease i; there was a torpor in his movements which spoke of fceblencss and pain. The spring came, but he did not float upon its gales like the butterfly. While the crocus leaped out upon the earth to proclaim the approaching hours of renovation, the work of decay was begun in the sapplng whose blossoms and fruit shoue so richly in my dreams. l saw him once more enjoy the sunshinc-but it was in his nurses arms.
 The crisis quickly approached. sat by his bed for two days and nights, regardless of every thing in the world but my sick boy. The wrestling with death of a firm mind and q mature body must be fearful but who can gaze without shuddering upon tho agonies of infancy? Who can see the burning fever pass over the trembling lips of childhood, like the hurricane sweeping over the lily, without shrinking from the sight of this con- test between weakness and power look ed out for moment from tho chamber of suffering, upon the face of the bright and tranquil world--whcnsI turned again to my boy, the hand of love was closing his eyes.
 now knew, for the first time, what it is to have death about our hearths. The excite inert of hope and fear in moment passes away and the contest between feeling and reason begins, with its alternation of passion and listlessn,ss. It is some time before the image of death gets possession of the mind. We sleep. perchance, amidst feverish dream of gloomy and indistinct remember ances--ihe object of our grief, il may be. has seemed to ns present, in health and anima- tion-we wake in n struggle between the shadowy andthe real world-and we require an effort of the intellect to believe that the being we have loved is no more than clod offhe valley. "...
 followed my boy to- tho grave. looked down into the deep. deep resting place they had prepared for my child. At that mo- ment q gleam of sunshine suddenly burst upon the scene. ! thought of the dim mor- ming of death. and the "day spring" of im- mortality; and turned for comfort unto Him who said. " Suffer little children to como unio me, and forbid them not. .'''''