I read this
morning of a poor washerwoman, whose house was burned, and all her children
consumed, while she was away working for her bread. I read the other day of
a blind man whose only son was drowned in his very presence, while he could
do nothing to help him. I was visiting yesterday that poor dress-maker whom
you know. She has by toil and pains been educating a fine and dutiful son.
He is smitten down with hopeless disease, while her idiot child, who can
do nobody any good, is spared. Ah, this mourning veil has indeed opened my
eyes; but it has taught me to add all the sorrows of the world to my own;
and can I believe in God's love?"
"Daughter," said the old man, "I am not ignorant of these things. I have
buried seven children; I have buried my wife; and God has laid on me in my
time reproach, and controversy, and contempt. Each cross seemed, at the
time, heavier than the others. Each in its day seemed to be what I least
could bear; and I would have cried, '_Anything but this!_' And yet, now
when I look back, I cannot see one of these sorrows that has not been made
a joy to me.
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