in the words, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
It is a most wise, beautiful, and beneficent provision—one worthy of a Being of infinite love and mercy—to send us in our low estate such ministering angels as little children, with all their innocence and tenderness, their helpless dependence, their guileless simplicity, and their confiding love; and when they have entwined themselves closely around our hearts, then to remove them to a higher sphere, there to become to us a still more sure and constant medium of angelic influences. Having bound themselves to us by the strong cords of affection, when they are removed from earth to heaven, those everlasting cords remain, detaching our hearts from the things below, and gently drawing us to that upper world. And thus ten thousand golden chains are every year let down from the mansions of rest, to draw us upward to our heavenly home;—let down in mercy to the children of men, to bind more closely the heavens and the earth. The matchless love and wisdom here displayed, are such as no human tongue can utter, no pen of man record. Truly "the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." And although "clouds and darkness are round about Him, righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne" for ever. "How excellent is thy loving-kindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings."
