How beautiful, calm, and peaceful is sleep!  Often, when I have laid my head upon my pillow happy and healthful, I have asked myself, to what shall I awaken?  What changes may come ere again my head shall press this pillow?  Ah, little do we know what a day may unfold to us!  We know not to what we shall awaken; what joy or sorrow.  I do not know when I was awakened to more painful intelligence, than when aroused one morning from pleasant dreams by the voice of a neighbor, saying that Mary Ellen, the only daughter of a near neighbor, was dying.  She was a beautiful little girl, about three years of age, unlike most other children.  She was more serious and thoughtful; and many predicted that her friends would not have her long.  She would often ask strange questions about heaven and her heavenly Father; and many of her expressions were very beautiful.

One day she asked permission of her mother to go and gather her some flowers.  Her mother gave her permission, but requested her not to go out of the field.  After searching in vain for flowers, she returned with some clover leaves and blades of grass.  “Mother,” said she, “I could find you no flowers, but here are some spires of grass and clover leaves.  Say that they are some pretty, mother.  God made them.”  Often, when she woke in the morning, she would ask her mother if it was the Sabbath day.  If told it was, “Then,” she would say, “we will read the Bible and keep the day holy.”  Her mother always strove to render the Sabbath interesting to her, and to have her spend it in a profitable manner.  Nor did she fail; for little Mary Ellen was always happy when the Sabbath morning came.  The interest she took in the reading of the Scriptures, in explanations given of the plates in the Bible, and the accuracy with which she would remember all that was told her, were truly pleasing.  Her kind and affectionate disposition, her love for all that was pure and holy, and her readiness to forgive and excuse all that she saw wrong in others, made her beloved by all who knew her.  If she saw children at play on the Sabbath, or roaming about, she would notice it, and speak of it as being very wrong, and it would appear to wound her feelings; yet she would try to excuse them.  “It may be,” she would say, “that they do not know that it is the holy Sabbath day.  Perhaps no one has told them.”  She could not bear to think of any one doing wrong intentionally.

Whenever she heard her little associates make use of any language that she was not quite sure was right, she would ask her mother if it was wrong to speak thus; and if wrong, she would say, “Then, I will never speak so, and I shall be your own dear little girl, and my heavenly Father will love me.”  We often ask children whom they love best.  Such was the question often put to Mary Ellen.  She would always say, “I love my heavenly Father best, and my dear father and mother next.”  Her first and best affections were freely given to her Maker, not from a sense of duty alone did it seem, but from a heart overflowing with love and gratitude; and never, at the hour of retiring, would she forget to kneel and offer up her evening prayer.  Thus she lived.