chamber, taking to her bed, chiefly, for a full year refusing to be comforted—­had she dwelt more upon that touching “farewell” to her, receiving it as a beam of light and love from the spirit land, inviting her to the contemplation of heavenly themes.  Had she rather considered her departed companion as favored in this early call to glory,—­had she considered the passage in Isaiah 57:1, “The righteous are taken away from the evil.”—­why did she not meekly and penitently reflect, that as God does not willingly afflict, he must have had some special design in this severe chastisement upon her.  Had her mind been open to conviction—­had she been bowed down under a sense of sin—­would she not have inquired whether the blessed Saviour, perceiving the lurking danger there was to this young couple, from a disposition to find their heaven upon earth, to seek their chief happiness in each other, had not with the voice of love and tender compassion said to her husband, “The Master hath need of thee, come up hither.”  Had her heart been right with God, as she contemplated her departed friend in his new-born zeal to honor and glorify his Redeemer, flying on swift wings to perform Heaven’s mandates, would she not resolve, by the grace of God, to emulate him in his greater efforts to save lost souls, for whom Christ died?  Were not the same motives set before her, by his death, to seek a new and holy life?  Was not the same grace—­the same strength proffered to her, which, if accepted and improved aright, would have enabled her to deny herself—­to take up her cross and to follow Jesus whithersoever he might see fit to lead her?

But, alas, this was in nowise her happy experience.  On the contrary, she turned away from the consolations proffered to her in God’s blessed Word, and by his Holy Spirit, and in the teachings of that last touching “farewell.”

May we not suppose that her husband, on finding himself liberated from the trappings of earth, from sin and temptation, as his thoughts would naturally revert to the friends he had left behind—­finding his chosen, bosom friend, a mere clod of clay, sunk down in a state of hopeless misery and sorrow, at his loss, having no sympathy with him in his new and blessed abode, and in his more exalted employments and purer enjoyments, would he not rather bless God, more ardently, that he was so quickly removed from such chilling, blighting earth-born influences as she might have exerted over him?

Oh, that this youthful mourner might now hear that voice of God to his chosen people, “Ye have compassed this mountain long enough—­turn you northward.”  God grant that the past time of her life may suffice that she has “wrought the will of the flesh.”  We most earnestly commend to her prayerful contemplation the last words of our blessed Saviour to his disciples, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”  I go to prepare a place for you—­just such a mansion—­such a place as each ransomed soul, by improving the discipline of God—­by holy and self-denying efforts in this life, to do his will, is fitted to fill, and enjoy.