“Weep with those that Weep.”
By Lucinda B. Kendall
TRULY my heart responds, I can weep with them, for the fountains of the deep of my heart too, have been stirred. While sorrow and affliction have rolled heavily over me for a few months that are past and gone, and while for a time I felt almost paralyzed with the blows that have fallen upon me, yet truly I can say, the Lord doeth all things well. I have been called to part with the two remaining sisters I had left me on earth, and our hearts were knit together like the hearts of David and Jonathan. Truly it was like severing limb from limb, and I sensibly feel the wound; but there is hope in their end that they will come again from the land of the enemy. Yes, blessed be the name of the Lord, the Life-giver is coming, and death will not hold its victims much longer.199 O what shouts of victory will rend the air when the house of death is thrown open, and the saints of all ages come up glorified, to die no more forever! The grave has lost its terrors, death has lost its sting. Our Saviour has sweetened the last resting-place of the saints, and given us a pledge of their blessed resurrection a little way in the future. Look up, lone brother and sister; your children shall soon come to their own border; and although your heart may be torn by sorrow and suffering they feel not your woe. They sweetly rest. They feel not the sorrows of earth. This is a source of joy to me when I am passing through deep anguish of spirit, I think the loved ones know it not. They are hid away from the awful time of trouble that is before us. Perhaps the Lord saw that they had suffered enough; and although myself and an aged father are all that remain of a family of eight members, yet I do not wish one of them back to suffer here with me in this dark world. Although I could not say it for a while after my last sister died, (dear sister Phillips,) yet truly I would not even wish for her sweet company, mixed up as it must be with her sufferings and tears. But I look forward a little in the future when, if faithful, I shall hail her with joy, safe in our Father's home. O, dear friends, bend under the afflicting stroke; kiss the hand that afflicts, and though we may not know why things are so now, yet we shall know hereafter, and Jesus will comfort your sorrowing hearts. Yours in hope of seeing the saints soon gathered to their long sought rest. Roxbury, Vt., April 22d, 1859.