As it is healthful and needful
for young children to cry away their pains and aches, so the stricken
and pained soul finds relief in pouring itself out in oversweeping
grief.
The storm swept by and subsided, and Bart, kneeling by the coffin of
his brother, in the simple humility of a child, opened his heart
to the pitying eye of the Great Father. His lips did not move, but
steadily and reverently he turned to that sweet nearness of love and
compassion. Finally he asked that every unworthy thought, passion,
folly, or pride, might be exorcised from his heart and nature; and
then, holding himself in this steady and now sweet contemplation and
silent communion, a great calm came into his uplifted soul, and he
slept. And, as he passed from first slumber to oblivious and profound
sleep, there floated, through a celestial atmosphere, a radiant cloud,
on which was reclining a form of light and beauty. He thought it must
be his departed brother, but it turned fully towards him, and the face
was the face of Julia, with sweetest and tenderest compassion and love
in her eyes; and he slept profoundly.
In the full light of the early morning, the elder brother stole into
the room, to be startled and awed by the pale faces of his dead and
his sleeping brothers, now so near each other, and never before so
much alike. How kingly the one in death! How beautiful the other in
sleep! And while he held his tears in the marvellous presence, his
pale, sweet mother came in, and placed her hand silently in his,
and gazed; and then the young boys, with their bare feet; and so the
silent, the sleeping, and the dead, were once more together.
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