Death is no stranger beneath this roof. He has borne away one after
another from this numerous household, and laid them down side by side
in the silent grave. And now his darts seem aimed at the two only ones
of that household, the mother and her daughter. The sons are married
and have families of their own, but the mother and this daughter live
alone in the home of her youth, the very place, perchance, where she
was brought a gay and expecting bride by that husband she is expecting
now to follow so soon to the spirit world. Could the pleasures or the
gaities of the world cast one cheering beam upon their lonely home? O,
no, the religion of Jesus alone can illuminate their benighted hearts,
and in "this light they see light," and feel prepared to go when the
summons comes.
Following the street, you pass the door of a daughter who is weeping
for the recent loss of a mother, who passes suddenly away without
a moment's warning, and a widow who mourns a husband, cut off by
lingering disease.
A few steps and we reach a cottage, where other parents were watching
over a little son of five years, who is wasting away with consumption.
His attenuated limbs bear his little frame but feebly, and he often
talks of death, for he has recently seen a little sister younger than
himself fall a prey to the fearful malady. A burning fever is raging
in his veins, and lights up his eye with unwonted brilliancy, as he
tossed restlessly from side to side upon his pillow.
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