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182

O, STAY THOSE TEARS.

O, STAY THOSE TEARS.

ANDREWS NORTON.

O, STAY thy tears! for they are blest
Whose days are past, whose toil is done:
Here midnight care disturbs our rest,
Here sorrow dims the noonday sun.

For laboring virtue's anxious toil,
For patient sorrow's stifled sigh,
For faith that marks the conqueror's spoil,
Heaven grants the recompense- to die.

How blest are they whose transient years
Pass like an evening meteor's flight!
Not dark with guilt, nor dim with tears;
Whose course is short, unclouded, bright.

How cheerless were our lengthened way,
Did Heaven's own light not break the gloom,
Stream downward from eternal day,

And cast a glory round the tomb!

Then stay thy tears; the blest above
Have hailed a spirit's heavenly birth,

Sung a new song of joy and love;

And why should anguish reign on earth?

A CONSOLATORY LETTER.

MRS. ISABELLA GRAHAM.

When the Christian suffers the loss of a near and dear friend, who, to his knowledge, has given no reasonable evidence of a hope in Christ, his case seems almost beyond the reach of consolation; and, while feeling the bitterness of his twofold affliction, he is ready to exclaim, "My stroke is heavier than my groaning." The following letter, to a sadlybereaved mother, from the pen of Mrs. Isabella Graham, is given for those suffering under such deep heart grief.

THERE are cases to which God alone can speak; afflictions which he alone can console. Such are those under which the sufferer is commanded to be "still and know that he is God." He never leaves his people in any case, but sometimes shuts them up from human aid. Their grief is too great to be consoled by human tongue or pen. Such I have experienced. I lost my only son; I neither know when nor where; and, for any thing I know, in a state of rebellion against God. Here, at my heart, it lies still: who can speak to me of it? Neither can I reason upon it. Aaron held his peace. Old Eli said, "It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth good in his sight." Samuel, in his turn, had his heart wrung by his ungodly son. David lamented over his beloved Absalom; but it availed him nothing. Job's sons and daughters were all cut off in one day; he himself lay in deep, sore, bodily affliction; his friends sat seven

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A CONSOLATORY LETTER.

days and seven nights without opening their mouths, because they saw his affliction was very great; and if they spoke, it was to aggravate it; and when God himself spoke, he gave him no reason for his dealings, but charged him with folly and madness. "Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it." Then he laid his hand on his mouth, confessed himself vile, and became dumb before God; abhorring himself, and repenting in dust and ashes, instead of the splendid catalogue of virtues enumerated in chapter twentynine, and complaints in chapter ten, which I make not the least doubt were true, as far as human virtue can reach; but if God charge "even his angels with folly," shall man, corrupt, self-destroyed man, plead merit before God?

But, my dear friend, I do not find in all God's Bible any thing requiring us to acquiesce in the final destruction of any for whom we have prayed, pleaded, and committed to him; least of all our offspring, whom he has commanded us to train up for him. "Children are God's heritage." I do not say he has given us any promise for the obstinately wicked; but when cut off, he only requires us to be still, to hold our peace. I do not think he takes hope from us. God has set limits to our faith for others; our faith must not rest in opposition to his threatenings. We must believe that "the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all that forget God;" but he has set no bounds. to his own mercy; in that glorious plan of redemption, by which he substitutes his own Son in the stead of sinners, he has made provision for the chief of

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sinners, and can now be just and consistent while ho justifies the ungodly who believe in Jesus. Short was the time between the thief's petition and the promise of salvation; nay, the petition was the earnest of it. The same was the case with the jailer; I think, too, the publican had the earnest in his petition. Now, instead of laboring to bring my mind to acquiesce in the condemnation of my child, on the supposition of its being for God's glory, I try to be still, as he has commanded; not to follow my child to the yet invisible world; but turning my eyes to that character which God has revealed of himself—to the plan of redemption to the sovereignty of God in the execution of that plan—to his names of grace, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin," while he adds, "and that will by no means clear the guilty," I meet it with his own declaration, "He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." I read also that "mercy rejoiceth against judgment," and many other like Scriptures, which, although I dare not ground a belief of his salvation on them, afford one ray of hope after another, that God may have made him a monument of mercy to the glory of his grace.

Thus God himself consoles his own praying people, while man ought to be very cautious, if not silent, where the Scriptures are silent, as it respects the final state of another, whose heart we cannot know, nor what God may have wrought in it. God hath set bounds to our faith, which can nowhere find solid

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GOD A REFUGE IN TRIALS.

ground to fix upon but on his own written promise. Yet, as I said above, he has set no bounds to his own mercy, and he has made provision for its boundless flow, as far as he shall please to extend it, through the atonement and merits of his own Son, "who is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him." Now, my dear friend, you have my ideas of our situation; if they be correct, I pray that our compassionate Father may comfort you by them; if otherwise, may he pardon what is amiss, and lead you and myself to such consolation as he himself will own as the work of his Spirit, and save us from the enemy of our own spirit.

GOD A REFUGE IN TRIALS.

BEDDOME.

My times of sorrow and of joy,
Great God, are in thy hand;
My choicest comforts come from thee,
And go at thy command.

If thou shouldst take them all away,
Yet would I not repine;

Before they were possessed by me
They were entirely thine.

Nor would I drop a murmuring word,
Though all the world were gone,

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