How many Tears!

Tears are not always occasioned by the weakness of infancy, nor by the small sorrows of childhood; they have been shed in all periods of the world, and by all ages and conditions in society.

We may reasonably suppose that our first parents wept, when they found the divine image effaced from their souls, and that their grief broke forth afresh, when they saw developed the depravity of their first-born, and when they gazed, with bleeding hearts, on the murdered body of their beloved Abel. No doubt there was loud and bitter weeping, when the mighty flood rolled over the world of the ungodly. Even Noah, though saved himself, with his family, could not have looked on the scene about him, without intense emotion. And the cities of the plain, too, must have rung with the cries and lamentations of those, who in that fearful morning, were the victims of Divine wrath.

More than 2000 years, however, had the world been built and peopled, before distinct mention is made of shedding tears. The first case on record is that of a mother; and her tears were shed on account of her suffering child.(a) Subsequently, parents are found weeping over the sins of their children,(b) and these are bitter tears. Such did the pious David shed in great measure. Parents, too, have wept over fond hopes, crushed in the bud, and laid low in dust.(c)

Bereavements have drawn very deeply from the fountains of human tears. Husbands have wept over the departure of their companions,(d) and widows have wept.(e) Parents have wept over children dead; (f) and children have hung weeping over the bodies of their dying parents.(g) Friend has wept for friend,(h) the sister for the brother,(i) and the poor and the needy over the death of their benefactors.(j)

Worldly losses have occasioned tears. Esau wept for the loss of his father's blessing.(k) The Israelites wept in the wilderness for the delights and comforts of Egypt.(/)

The separation of friends on earth, has caused the unbidden tear to flow,(m) and they have wept again on meeting, after having been long divided.(n) Affection,(o) gratitude,(p) and intense joy,(q) have each in their turn been the cause of weeping.

There have been floods of tears shed in all ages on account

a. Gen. 21: 16.-b. 2 Sam. 15:30. 18: 33.-c. 2 Sam. 13: 36. 2 Sam. 12: 22. -d. Gen. 23: 2.-e. Job 27: 15.-f. 2 Sam. 13: 36. Luke 7: 13. 8: 52.-g. Gen. 50: 1.-h. 2 Sam. 3:32. 2 Kings 18: 14. John 11: 33.-i. John 11:31, 33.-j. Acts 9: 39.-k. Gen. 27: 38. Heb. 12: 27.-1. Numb. 11: 4. 18: 20.m. Ruth 1: 9.-n. Gen. 46: 29.-o. 1 Sam. 20: 41.-p. 1 Sam. 24: 16.-q. Gen. 46: 28.

of human guilt. Friends have wept for the sins of friends,(r) and prophets (s) and apostles (t) have wept for the sins of the people. David,(u) and Peter,(v) and all the redeemed, have shed for their own sins the tears of penitence and contrition. There have been those, too, who have wept over the desolations of Zion. Ezra,(w) and Nehemiah,(x) and Jeremiah,(y) have shed such tears, and they have been pleasing to the eye of Jehovah.

The Bible furnishes at least a hundred cases of weeping; but a noticeable fact occurs. In one instance only, are these the tears of infancy. It is said of Moses, when the ark was opened, in which he was exposed upon the Nile, “Behold the babe wept." No other infant is described as weeping. And yet every member of the human family must have experienced the sorrows of infancy, and have been made acquainted with the griefs and trials consequent to the periods of childhood and youth. Mature life has brought along with it occasions for weeping; and the accumulated cares and sorrows of old age have furnished abundantly the reasons for tears. Severe sickness, and threatened dissolution, too, may have drawn tears from eyes which in health were unaccustomed to weep. Who, that lives, will deny, that the world we inhabit is not justly styled a vale of tears!" It must be so, to have occasioned one of the inhabitants of the world of glory to weep while sojourning awhile below. Those were not causeless tears which the glorious Savior shed.

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But there is a world, where weeping is unknown. "It is a land of pure delight, and never-fading flowers," where no "wave of trouble shall ever roll." There "the inhabitants shall no more say, 'I am sick."" "For the Lord God shall wipe away all tears from all faces." "All sorrow and sighing shall flee away," and "there shall be no more death." And remember, too, dear reader, that there is a land of darkness, and the shadow of death, where sin reigns undisturbed, where the light of God's face never shines.

"In that lone land of deep despair, no Sabbath's light" will ever dawn, nor prayer for mercy be ever heard. It is a world of weeping and wailing, where is "gnashing of teeth," and the "guawing of the tongue" for pain. Weeping there will not continue for a night, and give place to joy in the morning, but "the wrath of God is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation ;" and those who drink of it "have no rest day nor night," but must weep on and wail on, and that for V.

ever.

r. 2 Sam. 19: 1.—s. 2 Kings 8: 11.-t. Phil. 3: 18.-u. Ps. 42: 8.-v. Matt. 26: 75.-w. Ezra 10: 1.—z. Neh. 1: 4.—y. Jer. 9:1. 13:17. Lam. 1:16.

Affecting story of Maternal Love.

In the village of Careggi, whether it was that due precaution had not been taken, or that the disease was of a particularly malignant nature, one after another, first the young and then the old, of a whole family dropped off. A woman who lived on the opposite side of the way, the wife of a laborer and mother of two little boys, felt herself attacked by a fever in the night; in the morning it greatly increased, and in the evening the fatal tumor appeared. This was in the absence of her husband, who went to work at a distance, and only returned on Saturday nights, bringing home the scanty means of subsistence for the family for the week. Terrified by the example of the neighboring family, moved by the fondest love for her children, and determined not to communicate the disease to them, she formed the heroic resolution of leaving her children and going elsewhere to die. Locking them into the room, and sacrificing to their safety even the last and sole comfort of a parting embrace, off she ran, down stairs, carrying with her the sheets and coverlets, that she might leave no means of contagion. She then shut the door with a sigh, and went away; but the biggest one hearing the door sbut, went to the window, and seeing her running in that manner, cried out, "Good-by, mother," in a voice so tender that she involuntarily stopped. Good-by, mother," repeated the youngest child, stretching his little hand out of the window; and thus was the poor afflicted mother compelled for a time to endure the dreadful conflict between the yearnings which called her back, and the piety and solicitude which urged her on. At length the latter conquered, and amid a flood of tears and the farewells of her children, who knew not the fatal cause and import of those tears, she reached the house of those who were to bury her. She recommended her husband and children to them, and in two days she was no more! Surely nothing can equal the heart of a mother. How pathetic the expression of a poor woman on hearing her parish priest relating the story of Abraham's offering his son Isaae as a sacrifice. "Ah! God never could have required such a sacrifice of a mother!"

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Friends.

"Choose them with great care, but their number must be small. Have no friend who does not fear God, who is not wholly governed by the truths of religion. They should be a little older than yourself. To friends like these, open your

heart without reserve, and keep nothing secret from them except the secrets of others."-Fenelon.

VOL. VII.

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Infant Baptism a Blessing to the Parent. MR. BULLARD,-I know you think much of the salutary influences of household consecration. Whether you, as a parent, have been placed in such circumstances, as the most fully to test the value of this divine institution, I do not know. Yet, I may presume that some, at least, of the many parents who read the Visiter, have; and that, from the comfort it has yielded them in the hour when a baptized child was taken away, they can say that infant consecration is an ordinance of unspeakable value, as it encourages the parent to pray, and to trust in God. In reading an article in a late number of the Visiter, the thought was suggested to my mind, that one item of my own experience on this subject, might afford some satisfaction to those parents, who, in the providence of God, have been placed in circumstances similar to my own; and, perhaps, might also lead other parents to think more of that ordinance, which God so blesses to strengthen the faith of his children.

It is now about two years since God took from me, by death, a beloved child. She was very dear to my heart, -for only a few months before I had been called to lay her precious mother in the grave. And she was of such an age, she could remember many things a pious mother had taught her; and, with many tears, would speak of her, and on her knees pray that God would make her good as her mother was, and when she died take her to heaven. When I first felt that it was very doubtful whether she recovered from the disease that was upon her, I was overwhelmed in sorrow. It seemed as though I should sink under the great and unexpected trial. I had for many months felt more than usual anxiety for her conversion to God. And now, when I saw that to human view her days would be soon numbered, much as I had desired her life, and much as I still could wish it; yet, my greatest concern was, that she might be a child of God, and be prepared for heaven. It was this solicitude, not so much that she might be spared to me, as that she might be saved, that rolled upon me a burden that was almost insupportable. And it does

appear to me, I could not have endured the agony of those trying days, had not God sustained me, by helping me to rely on that blessed covenant, he has established with believers and their children. When I remembered that in the arms of maternal love and faith, the child had been carried to the baptismal font, and in the name of the three that bear record in heaven, there had been placed upon it the seal of covenant blessings, and these blessings I was permitted to plead for the dying child, I was comforted and encouraged. From the moment that I felt that by faith I could take hold of that covenant, I was willing God should do as he pleased with the child, and I felt a persuasion so strong as to be almost a matter of assurance to me, that God would be glorified, not in leaving the child for ever to blaspheme his holy name; but in taking her to heaven, there evermore to love, adore and praise. As I now look back to those days of deep affliction, it seems as though I should have sunk under it, had it not been for the promise, "I will be a God to thee and to thy seed." The fact that she was a baptized child,-that she was within the pale of the everlasting covenant,sustained me in those deep waters, and encouraged me to plead with stronger faith for her salvation unto eternal glory. Whether she is indeed in heaven, it is not necessary I should now know; it is enough that the will of God is done. But I had such faith in pleading for covenant blessings, that I could but feel that the blood of Christ availed for her. And when I laid her in the grave, at the age of five and a half years, by the side of her who gave her birth, I seemed to hear her,instead of the last audible words she spoke on earth, "Father, pray,"-saying, "Father, praise."

S. W. S.

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Taunton Trinitarian Sabbath School.

The present number of teachers and scholars, connected with the Rev. Mr. Maltby's Sabbath school, is 390. Of the scholars, twenty have become hopefully pious during the past year.

"Our Sabbath school," says the pastor in his report,