Inside the gates

Front matter

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Preface

HE author is indebted to a little dying girl, not much over half a dozen years old, for the title of this book. The little sufferer was nearing the gates of the Celestial City; her weeping father sat by her bedside, holding the hand of his dear child in his own, while his face was wet with tears. In a moment of ease, for she was a great sufferer, she looked up into that tearful face and said : ' ' Papa, do n't cry; I '11 be just inside the gates when you come."

What could have been said more touchingly beautiful than that? How full of cheer! How full of comfort!

What stronger chain is there

6 PREFACE.

to bind the heart of a stricken parent about the gates of heaven than the knowledge that a dear child is inside those gates? *

For the subject-matter of this book, he is indebted to a sad, and yet joyful, experience. He knows what it is to be "joyful in tribulation." He writes about what he has felt, as well as thought.

He and his companion have gone away four times from the new-made grave of a sweet child. And in this hard discipline they have learned that in the most bewildering gloom a star may yet shine out of the heavens to guide us on the voyage of life, and that the blackest cloud which ever hangs over mortal sky has a silver lining to the eye of faith. They have mourned in their Gethsemane, and they have rejoiced on their Olivet.

There are those whose eyes may fall on these lines, whose dear children stand at the gates of "home, sweet home, ,, or who come tripping over the pavement to meet them when they return from places of toil or pleasure, who

PREFACE. 7

have not been called to pass through the sorrows of bereavement. Still, they may read this book, and be possibly all the better prepared for the affliction when it does come.

The author has not forgotten that there are other gates than those of the heavenly world to be thought of. The Home> the Sunday-school, and the Churchy are sacred inclosures. Here are gates to be garlanded with beauty, and guarded with care.

There are many homes in this world where loving mothers preserve with religious care the little "playthings" which the baby left, and cherish sweet memories of the dear ones "gone on before." To all such these pages offer instruction and comfort, w T ith w r hat success the reader must be the judge.

Hoping, then, that what he has written may serve in some degree to brighten the pathway of others, and make them stronger to bear up under the burdens of life; and that it may, though it be in a small way, call more attention to the child and its moral culture; and with a

8 PREFACE.

sincere and earnest desire that both writer and

reader may become in heavenliness n asa little

child," — he sends this volume forth upon its

mission.

THE AUTHOR.

Jackson, Michigan, 1875.

Contents

I. Short and Simple Annals, II. The Empty Crib, .

III. Sympathy, True and False,

IV. Child-Life, .

II

HAVE had no experience in life which has caused me a deeper sorrow of heart than the death of a dear I thought, when I came home S from the grave the first time, that the most expressive symbol of my loss was the little empty crib which stood in the corner of the room.

On beginning that very interesting chapter in our lives, housekeeping, one of the requisites was a crib. People can have in their own homes what boarders, whose chief study is to economize space, must generally be denied. Now that we had gone to housekeeping, the little two-year-old must have a crib.

Then I happened to be in just that condition wherein it was necessary for me to husband my

3 33 i it pecuniary resources, which at best were not very abundant; and hence, wherever it was possible, I used my hands, and whatever ingenuity I possessed, to construct articles for household use. Every well-furnished house, I thought, should have a crib. Mine must have one.

I am not ashamed here to put on record the fact that I could not afford to buy a crib such as I had seen at the furniture-shops, however desirable such an elegant article might be. Honest poverty is not to be despised. There is no other school where one learns so much, and so fast. It is really good to be poor. I think one of the chief mistakes we make, and one of the greatest barriers in the way of universal happiness, lies in thinking that the money we possess is our own, and that they who have much of it are most happy.

The discipline needed to ripen us into the better life often comes in the form of deprivations. The study of our means and our necessities; that is to say, the enumeration of what we want, or what we really must have — for our wants usually outnumber our actual necessities and the ability we possess of supplying them — is just such a study as humanity needs to develop the better traits.

In our journeys we often pass by many tidylooking houses, where all the surroundings indicate poverty, but not always degradation. Some people are poor and low, others are poor and high. We must distinguish between these two classes. I refer to houses where every thing shows that there is the study of economy and neatness. There is the snowy curtain in the window, the pretty bed of flowers at the front door, the whitewashed fence, and many other things which go to indicate that those within are possessed of refined tastes and good traits of character.

Well, to return. I set to work at making a crib. I always could plan in mechanical matters better than I could execute. I would not care to show my work, but I can state the manner of procedure. The tools I used consisted of a saw, hammer, and auger. Taking the little one by the hand, I went to the barn, one bright, beautiful Autumn morning, to make a crib. It was an era in the dear child's life, a real galaday. She was going to have a crib all her own, and papa was going to make it — a crib by a stretch of terms, by the way. She was as much interested in the work as I was, and knew nearly as well how to proceed as I did. I sawed off four blocks of wood, each about a foot in length, into the ends of which I bored holes and put castors. Then I nailed on strips, for ends, sides, and bottom, and the crib was complete, with the most trifling outlay of time and money. When it was done I felt that my ingenuity had triumphed over my impecuniosity. The crib was put to its place, and the little darling of my house was as delighted with it as if she had come into the ownership of the most beautiful and costly piece of furniture in the world. For eighteen happy months, night by night, she sweetly slumbered in it, by my own bedside,

" Tended and watched by angels, bending o'er, Waiting to bear her to that far-off shore."

I have looked back to that morning's work a thousand times, as to one of the most pleasant hours of my life. Making the "crib" yielded far more pleasure to father and child than if some one had presented us one much finer.

Sleeping by my bedside, the dear child would sometimes become wakeful during the long nights. Some noise would disturb her slumbers, or something in her dreams would affright her. Then she would call to me. I laid down with the care of her on my mind; it was my choice to do so. The first sound of that little voice would generally arouse me. She usually said, "Papa, hold my hand." Then I would reach out and take her little hand in my own, and in a few moments she would fall asleep again. Some way, she felt secure with her hand in mine.

Now, is there not here a lesson for us all? Are we not all children of a common Heavenly Father? Are there not times when we are fearful and distrustful? Earth has many a long, dark night of sorrow, many a disturbing trial, many an enemy. Let us not forget our Father, w T ho will take our hand in his. Can aught harm us if he protects? Can we in the darkness say and feel that we are safe, in the storm feel that no evil shall come nigh unto us? Is it not written, "He shall hide me in his pavilion, in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me?" O happy, trusting love, that can say, always, "My Father," and then lean on Him for support !

That little, homely crib of ours, which would not have brought three shillings in any secondhand furniture-shop, was still valuable to us bebecause of its associations, and we preserved it a long time for the dear child's sake. The sight of that crib would call forth our tears. I sometimes thought we did wrong in giving way to our feelings so much. But what are these emotions for? Then, again, would-be comforters would tell us not to grieve, for the child was better off than when it was living in the flesh, and that we could go to it by and by. All this may have been well-meant advice and consolation, which in the abstract was entirely true; but it utterly failed to make any impression on our minds.

Before death came to our home, I had often been called upon,, as a pastor, to comfort others in their sorrows; and I too had given just such advice, to those who stood weeping by the coffins of their loved ones, as others were now giving to us. But when the sorrow touched me, I found how far short I had come in my efforts to impart consolation. I felt like going straightway to every poor, sorrowing mother whose child had died, to confess my fault, to unsay nearly all I had said, to bid them weep; for I found tears to be a relief to a wounded soul.

" Tears yet are ours, whene'r misfortunes press; And though our weeping fails to give redress, Long as their fruits the changing seasons bring, Those bitter drops will flow from sorrow's spring."

God intended us to weep. Even "Jesus wept." It is said of the great Edmund Burke, that when he lost his only son his grief was appalling. He would sit in that unnatural calmness of despair which was even more terrific than the display of the wildest passion. Then a burst of frenzy would come over him, and he would rush into the room where lay the form of his child, and call in accents of fearful anguish for the hope of his age and the comfort of his declining and now joyless years.

There is an old saying, ''Little griefs speak; great griefs are dumb," which I can hardly indorse. In my opinion, it is a matter of temperament. Great griefs do speak. But, then, I know one's sorrows may become so great that there comes over the soul the "calmness of despair;" then tears are impossible. I have heard a broken-hearted mother say, "O, if I could only weep !" Such grief endangers health, and life itself. Here is mystery, an explanation of which would show us that we are fitted by this hard discipline the better to serve others. There are just two things in human life to be especially mindful of, — love to God and love to man. In such service we realize the highest perfection of our own being.

Ever, after death had invaded my home, I said to the bereaved and stricken ones around me, Weep, for in tears the spirit finds solace. After a baptism of tears the heart comes nearer its reconciliation. Tears shed at the grave in some sense become a fresh tribute of love. When people become in the highest sense refined and cultivated in their feelings, they are more susceptible to sorrow, and more capable of true joy. There are heights of pleasure to whose bright summits the barbarian never comes, never can come. All genuine pleasure is spiritual, and implies high moral development. Jesus said, (t Man shall not live by bread alone." The sources of the truest life are not the material things which surround us. Then, welcome a spiritual cultivation that, while it makes us subjects of deeper woe, also elevates us to a companionship with angels. The savage mother can not mourn for her dead babe as the morally developed Christian mother mourns for hers.

% " Dearly bought, the hidden treasure

Finer feelings can bestow ; Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure Thrill the deepest notes of woe."

If the Christian heart feels a deeper grief, its consolation is also greater. The Christian's hope comes in to assuage the troubled spirit.

As my second child gasped his last breath, and the spirit had fled, the mother bent over his little tender form, and gave full vent to her feelings. Up to this moment they were in part suppressed. While there was life there was hope. Now that all was over, and the dear eyes were closed forever on this world, there was no feeling of that heart but what had its foundation in sorrow.. She wanted to caress the little body once more, ere it grew stiff and cold. She craved, as a last act, the privilege of pressing the dear babe to her breast just one more time. It was an instinct of a motherly heart. Every tender emotion of that heart w r as stirred. The foundation of her whole being was shaken. Just then a well-meaning and really kind-hearted woman, one who had never lost a child, who never had one to lose, appointed herself mistress of ceremonies, and, being of strong will and equally strong arm, almost by force tore that bereaved and stricken mother from the lifeless form of her child, and bore her away to another room, vehemently exhorting her all the time not to weep and give way to her feelings; that it was wrong; that the indulgence of such grief was not the way to be resigned to the will of God. I say it was a well-meant effort to do a kind act; but if heart-instincts mean any thing, and surely they do, God has not endowed this human nature with such susceptibilities only to be crushed out. Then, the meant kindness was really an unkindness. The poor woman made a mistake, that was all. But that mother, to this day, has not forgotten that hour, and never will she forget it while her memory is enthroned upon its seat.

Ever after death had come to my home, and by a bitter experience, I had been made to understand what the word bereavement meant, I said to those who came to me for consolation, It is your right to weep, your duty to feel. The Father does not expect you to go through all this without feeling. As the plowshare breaks up the hardened soil for seed-time and harvest^ so God's providential chastisements prepare the hearts of his children for a glorious spiritual fruitage. "No chastisement for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.' ' (Hebrews xii, II.) Through death He bringeth life, out of darkness he causes the beautiful light to stream. He has our whole existence in view, for eternity as well as time. He may make us unhappy . now, in order to make us happy in the future. These griefs are a discipline which shall bring us nearer our Father. Some one has said, "The rod of affliction is a branch cut from the tree of life." The difficulty with us is, we are too earthly. If God had not interposed, we should not have thought of him or the heaven he has prepared for us.

So I say the deaths of our children may be a bitter grief to us ; but they become the burnished links of gold which bind our poor hearts about the throne of Infinite Love. With such views, I have gone to the sobbing mother, every fiber of whose body was quivering with suppressed emotion, and I have said to her, Weep, mother, you will find relief in tears. God has as surely constructed the heart for feeling as for pulsating, the eye for weeping as for seeing, else why does universal humanity weep when great sorrows come upon it? Why have all men located the emotions in the heart, I mean the fleshly heart? Such a universal sentiment is not without a foundation in the nature of things, and the heart does sometimes break literally. As the brain is the seat of intelligence, so the heart is the seat of the moral feelings.

I have said to the mother, Go, when the freshness and beauty of Spring come, when the buds are bursting into leaves, when the grass is green beneath your tread; go, when the sweet flowers are opening their petals and exhaling their fragrance, filling all the air with their delicate aroma; go to the little grave where your darling sleeps; plant flowers, train the myrtle, and bedew the little mound with your warm, fresh tears; and in this service of love you will be soothed, your spirit will be calmed; you will have been in communion with the angels. They will come to you, as they came to Jesus, and "minister unto you."

I looked at the empty crib and wept; but I reasoned as well. My grief seemed too great to bear; but then I thought of the empty cribs in thousands of other homes in every land; and dear as were my children to me, to us, they were no dearer than other people's children were to them. I could see the brightness or the beauty of my own child as I might not see it in others ; as others might not see it in mine. Every father should think his own the dearest in the world. Our children are sweeter to us, simply because they are ours. It is right for us to feel thus, and to act upon it as a principle. All men admire such a love, and such an expression of the tender affection. The Father has thus wisely thrown around the child this protective shield of love.

As I gazed on the empty crib, I thought of this great brotherhood of sorrow. How we do come together on this plane! The world sometimes seems very cold and formal; but then let some great calamity overtake us, and it will wake up the love of human hearts all around us. People whom we did not know will come and speak tenderly to us, and proffer their services with a heartiness which we can feel. One after another came to me, of whose deep personal griefs I knew nothing, and could not know, until I had walked in the same hard road myself. And thus I learned to think more about them, and feel more for them.

I used often to wonder why Mrs. B — always wore mourning, and why her face always had such a weary expression. She looked as though she had never smiled. Her features, which were naturally fine, had the semblance of a clay or iron cast, as if her face w T as never made to wear a smile. She did smile sometimes, poor woman! but it was the result of effort, and not the spontaneous outgushing of a glad and cheerful heart. I knew she had met with the loss of one or more children. Always, when I went there, she talked about them, and showed me their pictures. It seemed to do her good to tell over the story. I tried to comfort her by telling her that they were better off, and that she must look on the bright side, and live to meet them in heaven. But the Father prepared

me to do Mrs. B and others good, by

afflicting me in the same w r ay. Then I could go to her as I never did before; for we had a common sorrow. Just over in the cemetery were three little mounds in one lot, and near them one little grave in another lot. One day we met there, and in my heart I said, Poor,

afflicted Mrs. B , I do pity you ! I thought

it was no wonder that she looked sad and weary and disconsolate. There were her three little graves against my one; for up to that day my crib had only been emptied once — hers, three times. I had kissed my dying child, and sadly parted with it; she had kissed and parted with her three. I said, No wonder she wears the mourning garment, when all the birds of her nest have flown away to a new clime. If in my home the disappearance of one little form, the absence of two little pattering feet, should make the home, otherwise bright and cheerful, so unbearably dull and quiet, how must it seem in her home, from which three have been taken? Our homes from which children have been taken are

" Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled. You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will ; But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."

I said to her : The frost which nips the foliage of the mulberry-tree does not kill the silk-worm cradled in its leaves. So death may blight our homes, without destroying us. You have lost, I have lost; but there is good in it all. Let us arise from the earth, where we sit in our sorrow, and behold the day of God. Let us be learners in this school, where Jesus teaches to look through the grave out into the blissful regions of immortality.

" What God intended as a blessing and a boon We have received as such ; and we can say A solemn, yet a joyful, thing is life, Which, being full of duties, is for us Of gladness full, and full of lofty hopes."

There, too, was Mr. S , whose son was a

hopeless maniac, roaming the streets, at times raving w T ild — the dread of the household, the terror of the community. In his childhood he was unusually bright and promising. His early boyhood was really brilliant. The hopes of a whole family were centered in him. Even in his ravings, there was at times an effort at reason. It was like the sun struggling through the rifted clouds ; but, alas ! these clouds would not open, and the sun would stay hidden behind their thick masses. That father would often say, "O, if he had only died when he was a child, and I could remember him always as he was then!" But that flower had withered; that cup was dashed into fragments. The only prospect was for poor G to be one of those unhappybeings who are destined to run at large, dreaded alike by young and old, against whom the asylum is closed because the case is incurable. Had he died in infancy, leaving behind him an empty crib, that fond father and mother would have mourned; but now they bewail a heavier affliction.

And there, too, was the C famiily. A

beloved son had gone from home, they knew not whither. Perhaps he had sickened and died in some distant city; or, having gone to sea, he may by shipwreck or accident have gone to his final rest beneath old ocean's billows; or he may have met his fate by the hand of a midnight assassin, or died a languishing death in some foreign prison. His fate they never could know; and so, in agony of spirit, they wended their dreary way through unbroken years of suspense. Ah, I could look upon my empty crib, and feel sure that my child was safe "inside the gates;" I could go to my one little grave, and then to my two, and then to my three, and now four. I could plant flowers there, while I looked forward to the meeting-time which is sure to come by and by. I could call up their pretty ways, and their loving caresses. I could think of them, not as lost to me, but saved for me; for I know where they are.

As I thought more about my empty crib, and came into closer sympathy with those who had been called upon to pass through these dark waters, I found myself becoming more fully reconciled to my loss. I settled down into the full conviction that it was all right and best ; for it had taken place under the eye of my Heavenly Father, "who doeth all things well. ,, I had nothing to remember of my dear children that was not pleasant, nothing to fear for them in the future.

A precious and comforting feeling of ownership in my children cheers me greatly. I can say they are mine yet; and mine they will be forever. I shall endeavor to show, in a subsequent chapter, how the child will grow in heaven; but, notwithstanding that, nothing can ever change the fact that these bright spirits in heaven were mine, in a very special sense. I was their earthly parent. You were once the father or mother of a little suffering mortal — now, of a glorified spirit before the throne of God.

My crib stood empty ; for the child had gone where there is no night, where they do not sleep. That little crib not only signified the absent child, but it led the thoughts up to the heavenly home, where she had gone,

" Far beyond the reach of mortal ken. No eye hath seen it, nor hath human pen Portrayed the glories of that world above, Whose very atmosphere is love. There Christians, who in union dwelt on earth, Heirs of its mansions by celestial birth, In blest society shall meet and blend."

We are going home — the tender ones have gone on before us. They have reached the gates, which have opened to let them in, and they are safe.

iijm|m% t Irt^ m& %nh$*

" That loss is common, would not make My own less bitter — rather, more ; Too common. Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.

This truth came borne with bier and pall ; I felt it when I sorrowed most : 'T is better to have loved and lost,

Than never to have loved at all."

!C No radiant pearl, which crested fortune wears ; No gem, that twinkling hangs from beauty's ears; Not the bright stars, which night's blue arch adorn, Nor rising sun, that gilds the vernal morn, — Shine with such luster as the tear that flows Down virtue's manly cheek for others' woes."

III

HEN all was over with my dear children, and the grave had shut them forever from my sight, I tried to feel reconciled. I felt that it was my £? duty to be resigned. But I questioned myself on this wise : What is resignation ? Is it to be indifferent? Is it to be in some way hardened? Does it mean that I am not to love the dear ones any more? Then I remembered that the intellect is one thing, and the heart quite another. I knew intellectually that my children were gone from me, beyond my powers of recall. I might complain about it, and wish it were otherwise; but the great and sorrowful reality could not be changed. A mother who once lost her child said to her pastor, "I can not, I will not, have it so."

A

"Yes; but what are you going to do about it?" said he. Now, his answer might seem harsh; but he felt that an appeal to her judgment was necessary. We must be reasonable in our griefs. I think there may be such a condition as mental resignation to the death of a child, while the heart yearns after and still clings to the object of its love. This I sought to feel in my own heart. My judgment assured me that there was some good in it all. God, who knows what is best for his children, had sent this sorrow on me and mine. My heart and mind were weighed down under the mighty burden of a great loss. Then I prayed to my Father to help me to endure the sorrow and the disappointment, to subdue the longing for the little clinging arms that death had unloosed, and the sweet voice and the patter of little feet that would never more make music in my home. Very soon I came to the realization of a great fact, namely : that my life was being molded by an intelligent will, rather than by a blind power in nature which had in it no pity. Looking up to God, and praying to be made obedient, enabled me to look forward to the time when I should be made "perfect through suffering."