What a comfort does this view of the pious dead afford the pious living.  We commend it now to you.  What consolation to the bereaved parents is the assurance that all infants are saved!  This gives them “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”  Your infant has gone to heaven; for “of such is the kingdom of heaven.”  Zuinlius was perhaps the first who proclaimed salvation for all who died in infancy.  He based this doctrine, so comforting to the afflicted parent, upon the atonement of Christ for all; and he believed that Christ made provision for infants in this general atonement or redemption of human nature.  This is the general belief now.  Calvin declared that “God adopts infants and washes them in the blood of his son,” and that “they are regarded by Christ as among His flock.”  Dr. Junkin says, “It is not inconsistent with any doctrine of the bible, that the souls of deceased infants go to heaven.”  Newton says, “I hope you are both well reconciled to the death of your child.  Indeed, I cannot be sorry for the death of infants.  How many storms do they escape!  Nor can I doubt, in my private judgment, that they are included in the election of grace.”  This is the opinion, too, of all evangelical branches of the Christian church.  If so, you have here a source of great consolation.

  “Though it he hard to bid thy heart divide,
  And lay the gem of all thy love aside—­
  Faith tells thee, and it tells thee not in vain,
  That thou shalt meet thy infant yet again.”

What, oh, what, if you had not the assurance of the salvation of all infants?  What if your faith would tell you that all children who die before they can exercise faith would he lost or annihilated!  Then indeed you might well refuse to be comforted because they are not.  But your child is not lost,—­but only removed to a better home:—­

       “A treasure but removed,
  A bright bird parted for a clearer day—­
       Yours still in heaven!”

And yours to meet there!  The hope of a glorious reunion with, departed friends in heaven, lifts the afflicted Christian into regions of happiness never before enjoyed.  And as he contemplates their better state, and, muses over the trials and sorrows of his pilgrim land, he longs to pass over the stream which divides that happy home from this.  He is grateful to God that heaven has thus become doubly attractive by his bereavement, and that he can look forward with fond anticipation, to the time when he shall there become reunited with those who have gone before.

                             “Oh!  I could weep
  With very gratitude that thou art saved—­
  Thy soul forever saved.  What though my heart
  Should bleed at every pore—­still thou art blessed. 
  There is an hour, my precious innocent,
  When we shall meet again!  Oh! may we meet
  To separate no more.  Yes!  I can smile,
  And sing with gratitude, and weep with joy,
  Even while my heart is breaking!”