Bereavement

I did not doubt a moment, when I saw the black edge, that your darling - was gone. Be assured of my unfeigned sympathy. It is a world for death, but death is gain in Christ. The Lord has left you other objects to occupy your affections, but I have always seen and felt that the first taken, and her the first-born too, tells more on us than any. Up to now life, so to speak, had been working, and the fruit of life growing up in these dear objects of affection. But now death comes and says Yes, but I am here in the world; and it is more or less written on all that are left. But it is a mercy that God has left all your recollections of dear little - pleasant, and that you step from these into heaven to Christ with her. I do not think that there is more feeling in the sorrow than in sympathy with it - a different kind there is, of course: but the Lord's sense of death at the tomb of Lazarus was deeper far, I believe, than Martha and Mary's, tempered with divine sustainment of life, but feeling what death was more than they did - not exactly the loss of Lazarus, that was their sorrow, but all that death meant for the human heart, and as God saw it in love. So your little one is gone, but is gone to Christ, and He is the resurrection and the life. Wonderful that He, such in this world, Master of death, steps then into death Himself for us! But oh, how perfect in all things He was! I recommend you and Mrs. - to Him. He makes up every loss, and in Him we lose nothing. He had a better right, and a blessed right, to - than even you had, so He has taken her to Himself. We cannot say a word, save that that is what it is; and He has taken her before the fresh buds of divine goodness were soiled or sullied in her. May the gracious Lord turn it all to blessing to you. Since my affections were linked up with these little ones, but there is better than what passes away.
Affectionately yours in the Lord.
1881.

Bereavement
Thank you much for your note. The prospect of the death of your dear mother gave me a peculiar feeling of rest and peace in the Lord. I felt it well, as it were, that one who had gone through many storms and trials, and known and served Him through them, should be at rest with Him; and that rest and His love seemed exceeding sweet to me. It is not that I do not feel what an object and link and center of affection has been lost to you all, and your dear mother was so eminently calculated to be so; but the world is made for that, and whatever new ties and new affections come in, they never after all, though occupying while the mind is busy, destroy in the secret of the soul the consciousness that some are lost for man, as water spilled upon the ground that cannot be gathered up again here. There is one tie that never breaks, and that your dear mother has now sweeter and more intimate enjoyment of than heretofore and, freed from all hindrance, what her heart desired. It is all well, and far better. I had thought of running down, but on pondering it before the Lord, I have relinquished it. My place is rather in service, fulfilling as a hireling my day until I am called away too. Could I have been useful to your dear mother living; or if she had not been surrounded with love and honor from her own and the saints now she is gone, I would have gone twice as far; but that I know she will be in far better hands than mine, and that the dear saints at Hereford will surround her grave with all that could soothe those who are in sorrow around it. Give my kindest love, I beg you, to all your family.... Peace be with you all, and much of His blessed presence in committing the body of your dear and valued mother to the care of Him who will produce it in glory and beauty in that day. I had thought she might yet have been a blessing among the dear saints at -, but the Lord had a shorter and therefore happier path to rest for her, and it is all well, for we are not at the end yet...
Ever, beloved brother,
Affectionately yours in unfeigned sympathy, and I pray you to say so to all, for indeed there were few I valued as I did her who is gone.
[Exeter, June 20th, 1848.]