THE SLEEP IN JESUS. N° I. THE MORNING FLOWER PLUCKED. "The flower fadeth."-ISAIAH, XL. 7. sensitive mind can gaze upon a morning flower, glittering with dewdrops, and not feel that peculiar beauty and peculiar frailty are conjoined in those delicate petals. Attracted by its colours, pleased with its fragrance, charmed by its form or construction, we are led to seek a more personal enjoyment of it than can be furnished while it abides in the gay parterre, amidst a hundred other specimens of floral beauty; and therefore we pluck it, for the vase or for our bosom, that we may appropriate to ourselves whatever of fragrance or pleasure it can afford. Are we selfish in so doing? No; God strewed the earth with flowers of various forms, hues, and odours, for the enjoyment of man. He designed that we should use them; they are the prodigally scattered luxuries of His loving kindness, and we honour Him who made them, and who gave them to us, by turning our thoughts upon their variegated beauty, and rejoicing in the rich evidence they afford of the goodness and mercy of our covenant God. In the Bible, man is frequently compared to a flower, in respect to the frailty and brevity of his life. Job says, of him," He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down." The Psalmist declares, "As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth over it and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more." St. James writes, "Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich in that he is made low because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away." And St. Peter, compassing in his thought all mankind, exclaims, "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass: the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away." If such language may with perfect propriety be used of "all flesh," the old, the robust, the middle-aged, with what peculiar emphasis may we speak of infancy as the morning flower of human life: beautiful, fragrant, lovely, delicate; yet perhaps to endure but a little while, ere disease breaks it on its stem, or death plucks it for the grave! It requires but a very casual observation to convince us that a large part of those who are born of woman die in infancy. If we examine the bills of mortality of any city, or district, or nation, we shall be surprised at the vast number of deaths under the age of five years. Nearly one-fourth of the human race thus pass away in the early hours of life's morning. Scarcely a household but what contains a vacant cradle, or an empty crib; and from nearly every family death has gathered at least one morning flower. The grief which is thus occasioned, the loss thus experienced, the void thus created, are intensely painful; such as a bereaved parent only can understand. For, though these precious babes have been with us but a little season, though they are unable to talk with us, and join in our schemes and hopes; though they are objects of deep solicitude and watchful care; though they are unconscious of the relations which subsist between us, and return but imperfectly the love which is expended in their care and protection, yet these things only tend to enhance our love; and their helplessness, their frailty, their many little wants, and the unceasing care which they require, bind our hearts to the sweet innocents more closely, and cause the well springs of parental love to gush out with fuller and deeper flow. The plucking of these morning flowers is, therefore, intensely painful to the parent's heart. If it be the first babe, the one which first opened the fountain of parental love, the one in which the youthful pair first saw their blended image, whose advent brought sunlight and gladness, and awoke emotions of maternal tenderness and paternal care before unknown, oh, how desolating, heart-riving is the bereavement! The cooing voice, the little laugh, the infantile prattle, are hushed; and the chamber echoes no more to the clapping of its hands, or the patter of its tiny feet. The sunlight seems to have passed away; darkness has settled in its |