Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1855-03-06

"Let her alone" said Elisha, "her soul is bitter
hath not told met!
She lifts her face, pale, and working with an
guish, and murmurs, "Did desire a son Of my
Lord! did not say, do not deceive me!'
ne promise had seemed to her, as TO every
daughter OF Israel it must,) such blessing, such
a boon, that she dared not ask nor think it, and
when spoken, she had said, trembling aMock rne
not with such hope, only to crush me BY non
fuhlment" But nOw-now that hnpe has been
changed TO frution-after she had become the
| proud mother of her beautiful and noble boy--to
zee him in q moment blasted as by lightning, this
! was an agony too deep for words. And whole
| volumes Of plantiye argument are condensed in
the few syllables wrung from her. "Did ask a
son!" Was not resigned to my lot! Had not
become submissive TO the will of God to live
ehildless! Was it not offered me unsoughtl-
Were not mothers omnpotent warnings all a.
reused to life within me, and for whats omock
me? To lsy me low with an utter oyerthrow!-
To make more irretr.eyable the wreck and ruin
off my hearts best hopesl Did not forebode it!
more than words could utter, was in those few
words choked with sobs. The prophet felt the
appeal. 1t went to his heart. Handing his staff
to Gehazi he babe him fly without stopping by
the way, and stay that staff on the chids face"
But that mother rose not, nor relaxed her hold
GAS the Lord veth, and as thy soul lveth, will
not leave thee."
She came with all the energies of her being
strung up to one purpose She would bring that
man OF God face to face with the dead Let him |
look upon that smitten flower. Let him gaze up |
on that precious vase, given but to be shattered
10 DEATH
The intensity of a mothers energy prevailed. |
The omniPotence of that anguish swept with full
current every obstacle from its path The pro-
Phet rose and hastened with her. They reached
the mansion. The child is not awaked," said
Gshazi, who had yainly fulfilled his mission.
And Elisha stood alone in that little room with
the dead He looked upon the smitten fower.-
He gazed on the quenced lamp, the vase over
thrown. And with heart full of agony be bow
ed himself to the earth, and prayed to Jehovah,
God of Israel. Then, as he had often heard Eli
jah described having done in similar case, he
stretched himself upon the corpse, mouth to mouth
eye TO eye, hand to hand in strange, mysteri-
GUS enersizing Why this vital contact between
the living and the dead! Must there be process,
power, in aid of that unhoused spirit TO assist it
in re- incarnaton! Was that lowering soul IN
able as it were, to force its enterance again Ito
the cold castle of life, and resume its own sover-
eighty therel And must the vital conditions for
such reunion be in part supplied from the life
giving organism of the man Of God? Three times
with earnest prayer between, he repeated this
wonderful process-"and the child's flesh Waxed
warm" "The child snsezed seven times, and
opened hse eyes"
Gehazi was summoned. "Cal now this SIM
nemite," said the prophet, pale and ghastly from
excess ofeffect and emotion. "Take up thy son!''
he said to the woman. And in utter sence-so
great was the revulsion Of feeing,-she fell at
ais fact, and then, lifting her son, went out.
Should this Hebrew mother thus agonize for
he life of her child! Was it well for her thus
to fight her way to the object, in
'pte ofall obstacles, end that objec, the resur-
ection of her child to a life of mortality! What |
hen of a life of Immortality! What are the
earnings that Christians mothers might feel for :
he resurrection to Immortality of souls dead in G
responses and sins! All, if they loved the eter-
la life of those dea,h-smitten souls as this mo-
her loved, would they not clasp the feet, not of
elisha, but of JEsUs-the Resurrection and the 1
ife-until he said, "Thy son yeth:'
To this they need only to share the sympathies c
f that higher world whence salvation comes
There are warnings there over the loved and the
ost, that earthly bosoms know not There is a
upPliant bereaved there, whose omnipotent yearn-
ngs the heart of God alone can understand, even
Jerusalem above, the Mother of US ALL
GREY.