“My body is weak, Mary, but my spirit is well instructed in resignation, and can calmly bear whatever new affliction God pleases to send.  You have called me changed since Alfred died, and sometimes too silent and sad.  I am changed and often silent, but not sad. My treasures are in heaven, and my communings are more with the spirits of my children in heaven than with the friends who are with me here.  And if this child dies, Mary,——­if he dies—­his death will prepare me for the duties of all the rest of my life.”

* * * * *

The beautiful boy passed away just as his little lips had learned to pronounce his mother’s name—­suddenly, unexpectedly to us all, and all yielded to our grief but Ellen.  We greatly feared his father would become insane.

But Ellen—­believe me, she was transformed from a child of sunshine to an angel and minister of light in darkness.  She sat by her husband as serene and collected as if her babe only slept; not a tear swept her cheek, not a tremulous word fell from her lips, as she soothed her stricken companion; her pale face wore no look of despair, and she directed every funeral preparation with as much composure as if her heart had not felt the awful wound.  The world called her heartless,—­but Christ must have owned her as one of his brightest jewels, almost a perfect disciple.  When she spoke, we felt as if some mysterious power from heaven was in our midst.  We thought as much of the saint-like fortitude and resignation of our feeble Ellen, and wept as much to witness her calmness and spiritual strength, as for the loss of our interesting little friend.

Our pastor called to offer gospel consolations to the sorrowing mother, but he wept as Ellen greeted him, saying, “God hath much love for us, Brother Ellis, for he chasteneth much.  Now, my only prayer is, that Henry may be led to perceive it and be at peace.  If you have words of comfort, go to him and still his troubled spirit.”

The aged came to console her, but went back to their dwellings feeling that she was as well instructed in the wisdom of heaven as the oldest servant among them.  The young and happy came to mingle tears of sympathy with her, but returned to dwell upon her words as upon communications from the spirit-land, rather than from a creature like themselves.  Her words found a way to the soul of the most thoughtless, fixing their minds upon heaven, and revealing the unseen glories of a better home, and the beauty of Christian faith in an earthly one.

She was a Christian mother.  When she put on Christ, she was “a new creature” She believed her first grief was almost a murmuring against heaven.  Surely we know she bore an equal love for all her children, but when her last one died, she loved God and her Saviour more, believing fully that God would not do her wrong,—­that he only sought the good of his creatures in his dispensations,—­that although they seemed grievous and inscrutable to them, he saw the end from the beginning, and chastized whom he loved.