The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1854-07-20
DEATH OF CHILDREN.

There are few of the worlds sorrows III
which there is 80 little of selfshness, as IN the
tears which bereaved parents shed over the
lifeless forms of their offspring There Is
something very pitiable in the sight of the
sufferings and the death of little child,
pure, and harmless thing, struggling igno-
rautly with the great King of Terrors,
and breathing its last sigh from lips which
seemed only made to smile and prattle.-
Even to the mere spectator, this is sorrow
full and most mysterious spectacle, but, to the
parent, it is a grief, which no heart can form
any conception of but that which has been
similarly afflicted We do not say it is the
saddest and most desolating of human be-
reavements There are other ties which,
when snapped. leave sharper and more pro-
tracted agony deeper and more incurabie
| wound. But as the love of the parent for the
child is more disinterested than any otner
love, so is the grief for its loss more free than
any other from all dross of earth. The lnte-
rests of the parents are, in no way, promoted
| by the existence of the child often there Is
| no hope of its being able to add honor or IN
fuence to the parental stock often, in the
case of the very poor, it is only another little
| mouth to feed, when the labor of the parent
is scarcely able to supply his own necessl-
| ties. Yet, this makes no abatement in the
parental love; nay, parental love increases
with the sacrifices which it is called upon to
make. Nor does misconduct destroy this al
| lection. The heart-rending lamentations OF
| David upon the loss of hisrebellious son speak
| the feelings of the human heart in all nations
and in all conditions Oh my son Absolom;
my son my son Absolosa would God had
died for thee, oh Absolom, my son. my son +
The tears of the parent for the child, bitter
and poignant as they are, come from the only
fountain in the human heart, which has in it
no faint of earth or sin. Could angels weep
| over the mortality of man, they would shed
| such tears. Such sorrow is not only sacred,
| but divine. Nor is it matter of wonder that
it does not yield to the well-meant attempts
at consolation, which the symp .thies OF
friends and kindred suggest. Even the sooth-
ing voice of religion often fails to reconcile
Il
of such a woe. Not until Time drops his
balm into the painful wound can bereaved
parents begin to appreciate suggestions of
consolation either from earth or heaven
| Few there are who, until then, can honestly
say with the patriarch job that model of
pious resignation, as he gazed upon the desc
Iation of his hearth stone and the wreck of
his fortune: ''The Lord gave and the Lord
hath taken away blessed be the name Of the
Lord
Then, indeed, when Time has performed its
kindly Office, the heart, bent down by a
crushing grief begins to recover its elastici-
| ty, lifts itself up and looks heavenward, with
faith and hope. Then it can be thankful that
the being whose happiness it sought, is Sc
cured forever from the possibility of sorrows
like its own that its life is now an eternal
spring; that its skies glow in changeless beau.
ty. and its fresh buds of hope are never nipped
by the frost of disappointment. Then it
would not, if it could, call back its treasure
from the heavens, and place it again where
moths corrupt and thieves break through
and steal. Then, too, it begins to be acces-
sible to the voice of reason and Of philoso-
ply, as well as of religion, and to remember
that little children, innocent and beautiful as
they are, cannot always remain little children,
| even if the hand of Death never touches
them; that they must pass away and be chang
ed. either into those angels which always, in
spotless purity and joy look upon the face of
their Father in Heaven or into men and wo-
men, of the earth, earthly who have lost all
their childish innocence and simplicity, and
become too often sordid, struggling, sin
ming and sorrowing creatures Better far
better that the light cloud should fade away
with the morning breath, than travel through
the weary day, to gather in darkness and end